dow, he saw that Alexander had taken his geometry out through
the great rent in the wall. Book and student perched beneath the
pine-tree, in a crook made by rock and brown root, overhanging the
autumn world. Strickland at his own desk dipped quill into ink-well
and continued a letter to a friend in England. The minutes went by.
From the courtyard came a subdued, cheerful household clack and
murmur, voices of men and maids, with once Mrs. Jardine's genial,
vigorous tones, and once the laird's deep bell note, calling to his
dogs. On the western side fell only the sough of the breeze in the
pine.

Jamie ceased the clocklike motion of his body to and fro over the
difficult lesson. "I never understood just what were the Erinnys,
sir?"

"The Erinnys?" Strickland laid down the pen and turned in his chair.
"I'll have to think a moment, to get it straight for you, Jamie....
The Erinnys are the Fates as avengers. They are the vengeance-demanding
part of ourselves objectified, supernaturalized, and named. Of old,
where injury was done, the Erinnys were at hand to pull the roof down
upon the head of the injurer. Their office was to provide unerringly
sword for sword, bitter cup for bitter cup. They never forgot, they
always avenged, though sometimes they took years to do it. They
esteemed themselves, and were esteemed, essential to the moral order.
They are the dark and bitter extreme of justice, given power by the
imagination.... Do you think that you know the chapter now?"

Jamie achieved his recitation, and then was set to mathematics. The
tutor's quill drove on across the page. He looked up.

"Mr. Touris has come to Black Hill?"

Jamie and Alice worshiped interruptions.

"He has twenty carriers bringing fine things all the time--"

"Mother is going to take me when she goes to see Mrs. Alison, his
sister--"

"He is going to spend money and make friends--"

"Mother says Mrs. Alison was most bonny when she was young, but
England may have spoiled her--"

"The minister told the laird that Mr. Touris put fifty pounds in the
plate--"

Strickland held up his hand, and the scholars, sighing, returned to
work. _Buzz, buzz!_ went the bees outside the window. The sun climbed
high. Alexander shut his geometry and came through the break in the
wall and across the span of green to the school-room.

"That's done, Mr. Strickland."

Strickland looked at the paper that his eldest pupil put before him.
"Yes, that is correct. Do y