e."

Then he turned angrily to the dominie.

"You are aye bringing me ill tidings. Am I to blame if death comes?"

"Am I my brother's keeper? It's an auld question, laird. The first
murderer of a' asked it. I'm bound to say you are to blame. When you
gie fever an invite to your cotters' homes, you darena lay the blame
on the Almighty. You should hae built as Mr. Selwyn advised."

"Dominie, be quiet. I'm no a bairn, to be hectored o'er in this way.
Say what I must do and I'll do it--anything in reason--only Helen.
I'll no hae her leave the Keep; that's as sure as deathe. Sit down,
Helen. Send a' the wine and dainties you like to, but don't you stir a
foot o'er the threshold."

His anger was, in its way, as authoritative as the dominie's. Helen
did as she was bid, more especially as Tallisker in this seconded the
laird.

"There is naething she could do in the village that some old crone
could not do better."

It was a bitterly annoying interruption to Crawford's pleasant dreams
and plans. He got up and went over to the works. He found things very
bad there. Three more of the men had left sick, and there was an
unusual depression in the village. The next day the tidings were
worse. He foresaw that he would have to work the men half time, and
there had never been so many large and peremptory orders on hand. It
was all very unfortunate to him.

Tallisker's self-reproaches were his own; he resented them, even while
he acknowledged their truth. He wished he had built as Selwyn advised;
he wished Tallisker had urged him more. It was not likely he would
have listened to any urging, but it soothed him to think he would. And
he greatly aggravated the dominie's trouble by saying,

"Why did ye na mak me do right, Tallisker? You should hae been mair
determined wi' me, dominie."

During the next six weeks the dominie's efforts were almost
superhuman. He saw every cottage whitewashed; he was nurse and doctor
and cook. The laird saw him carrying wailing babies and holding raving
men in his strong arms. He watched over the sick till the last ray of
hope fled; he buried them tenderly when all was over. The splendor of
the man's humanity had never shown itself until it stood erect and
feared not, while the pestilence that walked in darkness and the
destruction that wasted at noon-day dogged his every step.

The laird, too, tried to do his duty. Plenty of people are willing to
play the Samaritan without the oil and the twopenc