hers, who was wiser
and stronger and better than the sons of most mothers, lay a fair
future. "The world was all before him where to choose." He would only
be the stronger for the weight of the burden which had fallen so early
on his young shoulders. In time he would forget his dream, outlive his
disappointment, and be not the worse, but the better for the discipline.
He would go his way and serve his Master, and win honour among good
men. "And I'll bide at home and hear of him whiles, and be content,"
said the anxious, happy mother, with tears in her loving eyes.

In the meantime John was on the sands, facing the wind, which drowned
his voice as he sang:

"Will I like a fule, quo' he,
For a haughty hizzie dee?"

But it was not the wind which silenced his song, for Allison Bain was no
"haughty hizzie" of the sort, "Who frown to lead a lover on," but a sad
and solitary woman, who might have a sorrowful life before her.

"To whom may the Lord be kind!" said John, with a softened heart. "I
love her, and it is no sin to love her, since I may never see her face
again."

And many more thoughts he had which might not so well bear the telling;
and all the time Robin was bawling into his inattentive ears an account
of a battle of words which had taken place between two of his friends,
who had agreed, since neither would acknowledge defeat, to make him
umpire to decide between them.

When they, turned their backs to the wind and their faces homeward,
hearing and answering became possible. They had the matter decided to
their own satisfaction before they reached the house, and their merry
sparring and laughter, and the evidence they gave of an excellent
appetite when supper-time came, might have been reassuring to Mrs
Beaton, even had she been more anxious than she was about her son.

After that John was more careful of his looks and words and ways, when
in his mother's presence. All tokens of weariness or preoccupation or
depression were kept out of her sight; and, indeed, at all times he felt
the necessity of struggling against the dullness and the indifference to
most things, even to his work, which were growing upon him.

He did his best against it, or he thought he did so. He forced himself
to read as usual, and when he "could make nothing of it," he took long
walks in all weathers, so as to keep his "helplessness" out of his
mother's sight, believing that when the necessity for exertion should be
over-