"He wrote concerning the lad's pecuniary matters, Christine. Young
Donald will need gude guiding; and he is my sister Jessie's only
bairn--blood is thicker than water, ye'll allow that--and Donald is o'
gentle blood. I'm no saying that's everything; but it is gude to come
o' a gude kind."

"The McFarlanes have aye been for the pope and the Stuarts," said
James, a little scornfully. "They were 'out' in the '79'; and they
would pin the white cockade on to-morrow, if there was ever a Stuart
to bid them do it."

"Maybe they would, James. Hielandmen hae a way o' sticking to auld
friends. There's Camerons I wadna go bail for, if Prince Charlie could
come again; but let that flea stick to the wa'. And the McFarlanes
arena exactly papist noo; the twa last generations hae been
'Piscopals--that's ane step ony way towards the truth. Luther mayna be
John Knox, but they'll win up to him some time, dootless they will."

"How old is young McFarlane?" asked James.

"He is turned twenty--a braw lad, his father says. I hae ne'er seen
him, but he's Jessie's bairn, and my heart gaes out to meet him."

"Why did you not tell me on Saturday, father? I could have spoken for
Maggie Maclean to help me put the house in order."

"I didna get the letter till the evening post. It was most as good as
Sabbath then. Housecleaning is an unco temptation to women-folk, so I
keepit the news till the Sabbath sun was weel set."

During this conversation James Blackie's heart had become heavy with
some sad presentiment of trouble, such as arise very naturally in
similar circumstances. As a poet says,

"Ah, no! it is not all delusion,
That strange intelligence of sorrow
Searching the tranquil heart's seclusion,
Making us quail before the morrow.
'Tis the farewell of happiness departing,
The sudden tremor of a soul at rest;
The wraith of coming grief upstarting
Within the watchful breast."

He listened to David Cameron's reminiscences of his bonnie sister
Jessie, and of the love match she had made with the great Highland
chieftain, with an ill-disguised impatience. He had a Lowlander's
scorn for the thriftless, fighting, freebooting traditions of the
Northern clans and a Calvinist's dislike to the Stuarts and the
Stuarts' faith; so that David's unusual emotion was exceedingly and,
perhaps, unreasonably irritating to him. He could not bear to hear him
speak with trembling voice and gleaming eyes of the grand mountains
and