happy in Edinburg, but it was far sweeter
to come to the dear old friends that loved him. He seemed as if he had
never before felt how dear they were, and how indispensable to his
happiness.

"You are quite sure, Malcolm, that nobody knows we are coming? I wished
to go down at once to the Manse, and surprise them all."

'Ye'll easy do that, my lord, for there's naebody in sight but Sandy the
ferryman, wha little kens it's the earl himsel he's kepit waiting sae
lang."

"And how's a' wi' ye, Sandy?" said Lord Cairnforth, cheerily, when the
old man was rowing him across. "All well at home--at the Castle, the
Manse, and the clachan"?

"Ou ay, my lord. Except maybe the minister. He's no weel. He's
missing Miss Helen sair."

"Missing Miss Helen!" echoed the earl, turning pale.

"Ay, my lord. She gaed awa--it's just twa days sin syne. She was
sair vexed to leave Cairnforth and the minister."

"Leave her father?"

"A man maun leave father and mither, and cleave unto his wife--the
scripture says it. And a woman maun just do the like for her man, ye
ken. Miss Helen's awa to France, or some sic place, wi' her husband,
Captain Bruce."

The earl was sitting in the stern of the ferry-boat alone, no one being
near him but Sandy, and Malcolm, who had taken the second oar. To old
Sandy's communication he replied not a word--asked not a single
question more--and was lifted out at the end of the five-minutes'
passage just as usual. But the two men, though they also said nothing,
remembered the expression of his face to their dying day.

"Take me home, Malcolm; I will go to the Manse another time. Carry me
in your arms--the quickest way."

Malcolm lifted his master, and carried him, just as in the days when the
earl was a child, through the pleasant woods of Cairnforth, up to the
Castle door.

Nobody had expected them, and there was nothing ready.

"It's no matter--no matter," feebly said the earl, and allowed
himself to be placed in an arm-chair by the fire in the housekeeper's
room. There he sat passive.

"Will I bring the minister?" whispered Malcolm, respectfully. "Maybe
ye wad like to see him, my lord."

"No, no."

"His lordship's no weel please," said the housekeeper to Mrs. Campbell,
when the earl leant his head back, and seemed to be sleeping. "Is it
about the captain's marriage: Did he no ken?"

"Ne'er a word o't"

"That was great lack o'respect on the part o' Captain Bruce, and he sic