ed mainly of history, theology, and Burns's
poems. He was never known to miss his class-meeting, and travelled
eight miles each way to keep his pulpit appointments on Sundays. He
sometimes entertained his family and the young folk that visited them
by relating his experiences with the smugglers, but his greatest
pleasure was in holding religious meetings in one or other of the
fishers' cottages. In this he was gratuitously aided by Jimmy Stone,
who entered into his work with energy, zeal, and oftentimes amazing
resource. Jimmy had developed a form of religious mania, insisting on
the theory that he was, as a preacher, a direct descendant of the
Apostles. This assumption severely taxed the Christian virtues of the
little society. Turnbull, who had a keen sense of humour, viewed the
new situation with intense amusement, and always excused the foibles
of his old convert up to the time of leaving the district to end his
own eventful career within easy reach of his family, who were all
grown-up and doing well. Jimmy did not long survive him, but he lived
long enough to see the passing away of that spiritual wave that had
changed his whole life.

Many years after, an ugly incident broke the spell of monotony in the
village. A hideous-looking creature came to it and addressed himself
to a fisherman. His voice was that of a drunkard. He was dirty, his
eyes were bleared, and the cunning, shifty look betokened a long life
of vicious habits. He wished to know when Mrs. Clarkson died, where
all her relations that lived round about her were, to whom the estates
were sold, and whom the money they realized went to; what had become
of Turnbull and his family, and how long was it since the smugglers
were driven off the coast? These questions were only meagrely
answered, as the man he inquired of belonged to another generation,
and there were only very few left who knew anything of the period or
the people that he desired information about. The following day the
body of a man, supposed to be a tramp, was found in a barn. He had
left evidence of his identity, and when it was discovered that the
stranger was Stephen Lawrence, Mrs. Clarkson's nephew, the once flashy
young gentleman who controlled her estates, and who had been sent
abroad when grave suspicion rested upon him of being seriously
involved in pecuniary defalcations, it created a fresh sensation, and
revived all the old stories of bygone days. He had come to die within
the shado