o the
steel-dark water. "I'm coming!" He gained to his fellow, caught him
ere he sank the third time.

Dragged from the Kelpie's Pool, Ian lay upon the moor. Alexander,
bringing with haste the clothes from the stone above, knelt beside
him, rubbed and kneaded the life into him. He opened his eyes.

"Alexander--!"

Alexander rubbed with vigor. "I'm here. Eh, lad, but you gave me a
fright!"

In another five minutes he sat up. "I'm--I'm all right now. Let's get
our things on and go."

They dressed, Alexander helping Ian. The blood came slowly back into
the latter's cheek; he walked, but he shivered yet.

"Let's go get Mother Binning's coffee!" said Alexander. "Come, I'll
put my arm about you so." They went thus up the moor and across, and
then down to the trees, the stream, and the glen. "There's the smoke
from her chimney! You may have both cups and lie by the fire till
you're warm. Mercy me! how lonely the cave would have been if you had
drowned!"

They got down to the flowing water.

"I'm all right now!" said Ian. He released himself, but before he did
so he turned in Alexander's arm, put his own arm around the other's
neck, and kissed him. "You saved my life. Let's be friends forever!"

"That's what we are," said Alexander, "friends forever."

"You've proved it to me; one day I'll prove it to you!"

"We don't need proofs. We just know that we like each other, and
that's all there is about it!"

"Yes, it's that way," said Ian, and so they came to Mother Binning's
cot, the fire, and the coffee.

CHAPTER VII

Upon a quiet, gray December afternoon, nine years and more from the
June day when he had fished in the glen and Mother Binning had told
him of her vision of the Jacobite gathering at Braemar, English
Strickland, walking for exercise to the village and back, found
himself overtaken by Mr. M'Nab, the minister who in his white manse
dwelt by the white kirk on the top of the windy hill. This was, by
every earthly canon, a good man, but a stern and unsupple. He had not
been long in this parish, and he was sweeping with a strong, new
besom. The old minister, to his mind, had been Erastian and lax, weak
in doctrine and in discipline of the fold. Mr. M'Nab meant not to be
weak. He loathed sin and would compel the sinner also to loathe it.
Now he came up, tall and darkly clad, and in his Calvinistic hand his
Bible.

"Gude day, sir!"

"Good day, Mr. M'Nab!" The two went on side by side. The day w