on at Glenfernie
House. They said that you had good offers elsewhere--much better than
with a Scots laird."

"I promised Mrs. Jardine that I would stay."

"While the laird lived?"

"No, not just that--though I think that she would have liked me to do
so. But so long as the laird would keep Jamie with him at home."

"What will he do now--Jamie?"

"He has set his heart on the army. He's strong of body, with a kind of
big, happy-go-luckiness--"

A horseman came up behind them. It proved to be Robin Greenlaw, of
Littlefarm. He checked his gray and exchanged greetings with the
minister and the tutor. "How does the laird find himself the day?" he
asked Strickland.

"No better, I think, Mr. Greenlaw."

"I'm sorry. It's the end, I jalouse! Is Mr. Alexander come?"

"We look for him to-morrow."

"The land and the folk'll be blithe to see him--if it was not for the
occasion of his coming! If there's aught a body can do for any at
Glenfernie--?"

"Every one has been as good as gold, Greenlaw. But you know there's
not much at the last that can be done--"

"No. We all pass, and they that bide can but make the dirge. But I'll
be obliged if you'll say to Mr. Alexander that if there _is_ aught--"
He gathered up the reins. "It will be snowing presently. I always
thought that I'd like to part on a day like this, gray and quiet, with
all the color and the shouting lifted elsewhere." He was gone,
trotting before them on his big horse.

Strickland and the minister looked after him. "There's one to be liked
no little!" said Strickland.

But Mr. M'Nab's answering tone was wintry yet. "He makes mair songs
than he listens to sermons! Jarvis Barrow, that's a strong witness,
should have had another sort of great-nephew! And so he that will be
laird comes home to-morrow? It's little that he has been at home of
late years."

"Yes, little."

The manse with the kirk beyond rose before them, drawn against the
pallid sky. "A wanderer to and fro in the earth, and I doubt
not--though we do not hear much of it--an eater of husks!--Will you
not come in, Mr. Strickland?"

"Another time, Mr. M'Nab. I've an errand in the village.--Touching
Alexander Jardine. I suppose that the whole sense-bound world might be
called by a world farther on an eater of husks. But I know naught to
justify any especial application of the phrase to him. I know, indeed,
a good deal quite to the contrary. You are, it seems to me, something
less than charitable