hatred."

He set down the bottle, and pushed one of the brimming glasses across the
table. "I should like to make trial of my strength," he said, with, a
laugh. "Come! I did you a service to-day; in your turn do me a pleasure."

MacLean dragged a chair to the table, and sat down. "I will drink with
you," he said, "and forget for an hour. A man grows tired--It is Burgundy,
is it not? Old Borlum and I emptied a bottle between us, the day he went
as hostage to Wills; since then I have not tasted wine. 'Tis a pretty
color."

Haward lifted his glass. "I drink to your future. Freedom, better days, a
stake in a virgin land, friendship with a sometime foe." He bowed to his
guest and drank.

"In my country," answered MacLean, "where we would do most honor, we drink
not to life, but to death. _Crioch onarach!_ Like a gentleman may you
die." He drank, and sighed with pleasure.

"The King!" said Haward. There was a china bowl, filled with red anemones,
upon the table. MacLean drew it toward him, and, pressing aside the mass
of bloom, passed his glass over the water in the bowl. "The King! with all
my heart," he said imperturbably.

Haward poured more wine. "I have toasted at the Kit-Kat many a piece of
brocade and lace less fair than yon bit of Quaker gray that cost you a
broken head. Shall we drink to Mistress Truelove Taberer?"

By now the Burgundy had warmed the heart and loosened the tongue of the
man who had not tasted wine since the surrender of Preston. "It is but a
mile from the store to her father's house," he said. "Sometimes on
Sundays I go up the creek upon the Fair View side, and when I am over
against the house I holloa. Ephraim comes, in his boat and rows me across,
and I stay for an hour. They are strange folk, the Quakers. In her sight
and in that of her people I am as good a man as you. 'Friend Angus
MacLean,' 'Friend Marmaduke Haward,'--world's wealth and world's rank
quite beside the question."

He drank, and commended the wine. Haward struck a silver bell, and bade
Juba bring another bottle.

"When do you come again to the house at Fair View?" asked the storekeeper.

"Very shortly. It is a lonely place, where ghosts bear me company. I hope
that now and then, when I ask it, and when the duties of your day are
ended, you will come help me exorcise them. You shall find welcome and
good wine." He spoke very courteously, and if he saw the humor of the
situation his smile betrayed him not.

MacLean took