metal, and I am feared, I'm feared, we may be
botching him."

"That was done for us in the making of him," said the Cornal.

"I would not say that either, Cornal," said the dominie firmly. "But I'm
wae to see him brought up on no special plan. The Captain seems to have
given up his notion of the army for him."

"You can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink.
What's to be made of him? Here's he sixteen or thereabouts, and just a
bairn over lesson-books at every chance."

Brooks smiled wistfully. "It is not the lesson-books, Cornal, not the
lesson-books exactly. I wish it was, but books of any kind--come now,
Cornal, you can hardly expect me to condemn them in the hands of youth,"
He fondled the little Horace in his pocket as a man in company may
squeeze his wife's hand. "They made my bread and butter, did the books,
for fifty years, and Gilian will get no harm there. The lightest of
novelles and the thinnest of ballants have something precious for a lad
of his kind."

The Cornal made no response; the issue was too trivial to keep him from
his meditation. His chin sunk upon his chest as it would not have done
had the dominie kept to the commoner channels of his gossip, that was
generally on universal history, philosophy of a rough and ready rural
kind, and theology handled with a freedom that would have seriously
alarmed Dr. Colin if he could have heard his Session Clerk in the
operation.

"Eh? Are you hearing me, Cornal?" he pressed, eager to compel something
for the youth whose days were being wasted.

"Speak to Miss Mary," was all the Cornal would say. "I have nothing to
do with him, and John's heedless now, for he knows his plan for the army
is useless."

The dominie shook his head. "Man!" he cried. "I cannot even tell of his
truancy there, for her heart's wrapped up in the youth. When she speaks
to me about him her face is lighted up like a day in spring, and I dare
not say cheep to shatter her illusion."

Gilian, alas! knew how little these old men now cared for him. The
Cornal had long since ceased his stories; the Paymaster, coming in from
his meridian in the Sergeant More, would pass him on the stair with as
little notice as if he were a stranger in the street. Miss Mary was his
only link between his dreams, his books, and the common life of the day,
and it was she who at last made the move that sent him back to Ladyfield
to learn with Cameron the shepherd--still there in the intere