hands crossed behind his
powerful back, that which he looked upon was the very image of the
insignificant.

"Her and me were never cut out for one another," he remarked at last.
"It was a daft-like marriage." And then, with a most unusual gentleness
of tone, "Puir bitch," said he, "puir bitch!" Then suddenly: "Where's
Erchie?"

Kirstie had decoyed him to her room and given him "a jeely-piece."

"Ye have some kind of gumption, too," observed the judge, and considered
his housekeeper grimly. "When all's said," he added, "I micht have done
waur--I micht have been marriet upon a skirling Jezebel like you!"

"There's naebody thinking of you, Hermiston!" cried the offended woman.
"We think of her that's out of her sorrows. And could _she_ have done
waur? Tell me that, Hermiston--tell me that before her clay-cauld corp!"

"Weel, there's some of them gey an' ill to please," observed his
lordship.

CHAPTER II

FATHER AND SON

My Lord Justice-Clerk was known to many; the man Adam Weir perhaps to
none. He had nothing to explain or to conceal; he sufficed wholly and
silently to himself; and that part of our nature which goes out (too
often with false coin) to acquire glory or love, seemed in him to be
omitted. He did not try to be loved, he did not care to be; it is
probable the very thought of it was a stranger to his mind. He was an
admired lawyer, a highly unpopular judge; and he looked down upon those
who were his inferiors in either distinction, who were lawyers of less
grasp or judges not so much detested. In all the rest of his days and
doings, not one trace of vanity appeared; and he went on through life
with a mechanical movement, as of the unconscious, that was almost
august.

He saw little of his son. In the childish maladies with which the boy
was troubled, he would make daily inquiries and daily pay him a visit,
entering the sick-room with a facetious and appalling countenance,
letting off a few perfunctory jests, and going again swiftly, to the
patient's relief. Once, a Court holiday falling opportunely, my lord had
his carriage, and drove the child himself to Hermiston, the customary
place of convalescence. It is conceivable he had been more than usually
anxious, for that journey always remained in Archie's memory as a thing
apart, his father having related to him from beginning to end, and with
much detail, three authentic murder cases. Archie went the usual round
of other Edinburgh boys, the Hig