compassion the dominie would come in of a Sunday or a
Friday evening, leaving for an hour or two the books he was so fond of
that he must have a little one in his pocket to feel the touch of when
he could not be studying the pages. Seated in the Cornal's chair, he had
a welcome almost blithe. For he was a man of great urbanity, sobered by
thought upon the complexities of life, but yet with sparkling courage.

He found the brothers now contemptuous of the boy who showed no sign
of adaptability or desire for that gallant career that had been theirs.
These, indeed, were the cold days for Gilian in a household indifferent
to him save Miss Mary, who grew fonder every day, doting upon him like a
lover for a score of reasons, but most of all because he was that rarity
the perpetual child, and she must be loving somewhere.

"I have not seen the lad at school for a week now," Brooks said,
compelled at last by long truancies.

"So?" said the Cornal, showing no interest "It is not my affair. John
must look after his own recruit, who seems an uncommon tardy one, Mr.
Brooks--an uncommon tardy."

"But I get small satisfaction from the Captain."

"I daresay, I daresay; would you wonder at that in our Jock? He's my
brother, but some way there is wanting in him the stuff of Jamie and
of Dugald. Even in his throes upon his latter bed Dugald could see what
Jock could never see--the doom in this lad's countenance. As for me, I
was done with the fellow after the trick he played us in his story of
the wreck on Ealan Dubh. I blame him, in a way, for my brother Dugald's
stroke."

The dominie looked in a startled remonstrance. "I would not blame him
for that, Cornal," he said: "that was what the Sheriff calls _damnum
fatale_. Upon my word, though Gilian has been something of a heart-break
to myself, I must say you give him but scant justice among you here."

"I can see in him but youth wasted, and the prodigal of that is
spendthrift indeed."

"I would not just say wasted," protested the dominie. "There's the
makings of a fine man in him if we give him but a shove in the right
direction. He baffles me to comprehend, and yet"--this a little
shamefacedly--"and yet I've brought him to my evening prayers. I
would like guidance on the laddie. With him it's a spoon made or a horn
spoiled. Sometimes I feel I have in him fine stuff and pliable, and I'll
be trying to fathom how best to work it, but my experience has always
been with more common