like a listener in the Plain of Sinai. They
expected Gilian home from Aberdeen. They say the harvest everywhere is
good."

Alexander asked no further and presently they parted for the night.
The laird of Glenfernie looked from his chamber window, and he looked
toward White Farm. It was dark, clear night, and all the autumn stars
shone like worlds of hope.

The next morning he mounted his horse and went off to Black Hill. He
would get this matter of Ian straight. It was early when he rode, and
he came to Black Hill to find Mr. Touris and his sister yet at the
breakfast-table. Mrs. Alison, who might have been up hours, sat over
against a dour-looking master of the house who sipped his tea and
crumbled his toast and had few good words for anything. But he was
glad and said that he was glad to see Glenfernie.

"Now, maybe, we'll have some light on Ian's doings!"

"I came for light to you, sir."

"Do you mean that he hasn't written you?"

"Only a line that I found waiting for me. It says, simply, that he
leaves Black Hill for a while."

"Well, you won't get light from me! My light's darkness. The women
found in his room a memorandum of ships and two addresses, one a house
in Amsterdam, and one, if you please, in Paris--_Faubourg
Saint-Germain!_"

"Do you mean that he left without explanation or good-by?"

Mrs. Alison spoke. "No, Archibald does not mean that. One evening Ian
outdid himself in bonniness and golden talk. Then as we took our
candles he told us that the wander-fever had him and that he would be
riding to Edinburgh. Archibald protested, but he daffed it by. So the
next day he went, and he may be in Edinburgh. It would seem nothing,
if these Highland chiefs were not his kin and if there wasn't this
round and round rumor of the Pretender and the French army! There may
be nothing--he may be riding back almost to-morrow!"

But Mr. Touris would not shake the black dog from his shoulders.
"He'll bring trouble yet--was born the sort to do it!"

Alexander defended him.

"Oh, you're his friend--sworn for thick and thin! As for Alison, she'd
find a good word for the fiend from hell!--not that my sister's son is
anything of that," said the Scotchman. "But he'll bring trouble to
warm, canny, king-and-kirk-abiding folk! He's an Indian macaw in a
dove-cote."

They rose from table. Out on the terrace they walked up and down in
the soft, bright morning light. Mr. Touris seemed to wish company; he
clung to Glenf