wn
of Queensferry. Andrew never forgot this fact, and the stern, just,
uncompromising spirit of the old Protester still lived in him. He was
a man well-to-do in the world, and his comfortable stone house was one
of the best known in the vale of Glenmora.

People who live amid grand scenery are not generally sensitive to it,
but Andrew was. The adoring spirit in which he stood one autumn
evening at his own door was a very common mood with him. He looked
over the moors carpeted with golden brown, and the hills covered with
sheep and cattle, at the towering crags, more like clouds at sunset
than things of solid land, at the children among the heather picking
bilberries, at the deep, clear, purple mist that filled the valley,
not hindering the view, but giving everything a strangely solemn
aspect, and his face relaxed into something very like a smile as he
said, "It is the wark o' my Father's hand, and praised be his name."

He stood at his own open door looking at these things, and inside his
wife Mysie was laying the supper-board with haver bread and cheese and
milk. A bright fire blazed on the wide hearth, and half a dozen
sheep-dogs spread out their white breasts to the heat. Great settles
of carved oak, bedded deep with fleeces of long wool, were on the
sides of the fireplace, and from every wall racks of spotless deal,
filled with crockery and pewter, reflected the shifting blaze.

Suddenly he stepped out and looked anxiously towards the horizon on
all sides. "Mysie, woman," said he, "there is a storm coming up from
old Solway; I maun e'en gae and fauld the ewes wi' their young
lammies. Come awa', Keeper and Sandy."

The dogs selected rose at once and followed Andrew with right
good-will. Mysie watched them a moment; but the great clouds of mist
rolling down from the mountains soon hid the stalwart figure in its
bonnet and plaid from view, and gave to the dogs' fitful barks a
distant, muffled sound. So she went in and sat down upon the settle,
folding her hands listlessly on her lap, and letting the smile fall
from her face as a mask might fall. Oh, what a sad face it was then!

She sat thus in a very trance of sorrow until the tears dropped
heavily and slowly down, and her lips began to move in broken
supplications. Evidently these brought her the comfort she sought, for
erelong she rose, saying softly to herself, "The lost bit o' siller
was found, and the strayed sheep was come up wi', and the prodigal won
ham