g couple were just emerging from the heavenly operation, still
somewhat under the celestial chloroform, when Ronald M'Gregor admonished
them. His admonition was after a fashion almost ministerial, for Ronald
had once culled himself from out the common herd as meant for a
minister, and had abandoned his pursuit only when he found that he had
every qualification except the gifts.

"Ye maun bear in mind," he said, "that ye're nae mair twa, but ae flesh;
an' ye'll bide wi' ane anither till deith shall ye pairt--that is, gin
ye're spared."

Meantime, this friendly pen must record this news of Angus, that the
very morning he left St. Cuthbert's manse he entered upon his
apprentice term in the great iron manufactory of which Mr. Blake was the
head and the propelling power; for behind every engine is the ingenuity,
not of many men, but of one.

And leaving him there to ply his fortune and to confront that unseen
antagonist against whom every ambitious man plays move and move about, I
betake myself again to the records of St. Cuthbert's.

Yet I find it hard to dismiss the lad, for his is a besetting face, and
besides, it stubbornly appears above the main current of all the story I
have yet to tell.

My fortunes with these strange Scotch folk must be recorded, and chief
among my handiwork I think of Geordie Lorimer. For he was a typical
Scot, and supremely so in this, that he could be both very religious and
very bad. Of which the remarkable thing lies here, that he was both of
these at one and the self-same time.

Now, although I am an Irishman, and boast the most romantic blood of
time, yet must I frankly admit that few countrymen of mine have such
facility. Many of them there are who could be religious, and more who
could be bad, with spontaneous ease, but few there be who know how to be
both at once. But Geordie did. He was a profligate, but a pious
profligate; a terror he was, but he was a holy terror. Mind you well, I
do not mean to impugn Geordie's sincerity in the last appeal; not for
one moment, for I believe implicitly that Geordie, in the very heart of
him, meant to do well. Indeed, I will go further, and say that in his
very soul he wished to be closer to God; for he could not well help that
wish--it was his inseparable heritage from a saintly father, long a
beloved elder in St. Cuthbert's, whose sacred suit of "blacks" Geordie
had inherited, himself wearing them to the sacrament till the session
denied him his