in the
supper, and resumed his seat in the corner when the book was brought
out for worship. The iron lamp, with its wick of rush-pith, which hung
against the side of the chimney, was lighted, and John sat down to read.
But as his eyes and the print, too, had grown a little dim with years,
the lamp was not enough, and he asked for a 'fir-can'le.' A splint of
fir dug from the peat-bog was handed to him. He lighted it at the lamp,
and held it in his hand over the page. Its clear resinous flame enabled
him to read a short psalm. Then they sang a most wailful tune, and John
prayed. If I were to give the prayer as he uttered it, I might make my
reader laugh, therefore I abstain, assuring him only that, although full
of long words--amongst the rest, aspiration and ravishment--the prayer
of the cheerful, joke-loving cottar contained evidence of a degree of
religious development rare, I doubt, amongst bishops.

When Robert left the cottage, he found the sky partly clouded and the
air cold. The nearest way home was across the barley-stubble of the
day's reaping, which lay under a little hill covered with various
species of the pine. His own soul, after the restful day he had spent,
and under the reaction from the new excitement of the stories he had
been reading, was like a quiet, moonless night. The thought of his
mother came back upon him, and her written words, 'O Lord, my heart is
very sore'; and the thought of his father followed that, and he limped
slowly home, laden with mournfulness. As he reached the middle of the
field, the wind was suddenly there with a low sough from out of the
north-west. The heads of barley in the sheaves leaned away with a soft
rustling from before it; and Robert felt for the first time the sadness
of a harvest-field. Then the wind swept away to the pine-covered hill,
and raised a rushing and a wailing amongst its thin-clad branches, and
to the ear of Robert the trees were singing over again in their night
solitudes the air sung by the cottar's family. When he looked to the
north-west, whence the wind came, he saw nothing but a pale cleft in the
sky. The meaning, the music of the night awoke in his soul; he forgot
his lame foot, and the weight of Mr. Lammie's great boots, ran home and
up the stair to his own room, seized his violin with eager haste, nor
laid it down again till he could draw from it, at will, a sound like the
moaning of the wind over the stubble-field. Then he knew that he could
pl