is sense of the
greatness of Lord Hermiston's spirit struck more home; and along with it
that of his own impotence, who had struck--and perhaps basely struck--at
his own father, and not reached so far as to have even nettled him.

"I place myself in your hands without reserve," he said.

"That's the first sensible word I've had of ye the night," said
Hermiston. "I can tell ye, that would have been the end of it, the one
way or the other; but it's better ye should come there yourself, than
what I would have had to hirstle ye. Weel, by my way of it--and my way
is the best--there's just the one thing it's possible that ye might be
with decency, and that's a laird. Ye'll be out of hairm's way at the
least of it. If ye have to rowt, ye can rowt amang the kye; and the
maist feck of the caapital punishment ye're like to come across'll be
guddling trouts. Now, I'm for no idle lairdies; every man has to work,
if it's only at peddling ballants; to work, or to be wheeped, or to be
haangit. If I set ye down at Hermiston, I'll have to see you work that
place the way it has never been workit yet; ye must ken about the sheep
like a herd; ye must be my grieve there, and I'll see that I gain by ye.
Is that understood?"

"I will do my best," said Archie.

"Well, then, I'll send Kirstie word the morn, and ye can go yourself the
day after," said Hermiston. "And just try to be less of an eediot!" he
concluded, with a freezing smile, and turned immediately to the papers
on his desk.

CHAPTER IV

OPINIONS OF THE BENCH

Late the same night, after a disordered walk, Archie was admitted into
Lord Glenalmond's dining-room, where he sat, with a book upon his knee,
beside three frugal coals of fire. In his robes upon the Bench,
Glenalmond had a certain air of burliness: plucked of these, it was a
may-pole of a man that rose unsteadily from his chair to give his
visitor welcome. Archie had suffered much in the last days, he had
suffered again that evening; his face was white and drawn, his eyes wild
and dark. But Lord Glenalmond greeted him without the least mark of
surprise or curiosity.

"Come in, come in," said he. "Come in and take a seat. Carstairs" (to
his servant), "make up the fire, and then you can bring a bit of
supper," and again to Archie, with a very trivial accent: "I was half
expecting you," he added.

"No supper," said Archie. "It is impossible that I should eat."

"Not impossible," said the tall old man, laying