jist the same."

"Mind your head," said the laird, as he stooped to pass the low doorway,
and led his friend into the hut.

The interior consisted of one extremely dirty room, in which the
confined air was further vitiated by tobacco smoke, and the fumes of
whisky. One entire side of it was occupied by two box-beds, in one of
which lay a brawny, broad-shouldered man, with fiery red hair and
scarcely less fiery red eyes, which seemed to glare out of the dark den
in which he lay.

"Well, Ivor, are ye not better to-day, man?"

There was a sternness in Mr Gordon's query, which not only surprised
but grieved his young companion; and the surprise was increased when the
sick man replied in a surly tone--

"Na, laird, I'm not better; an' what's more, I'll not be better till my
heed's under the sod."

"I'm afraid you are right, Ivor," returned the laird, in a somewhat
softer tone; "for when a man won't help himself, no one else can help
him."

"Help myself!" exclaimed the man, starting up on one elbow, and gazing
fiercely from under his shaggy brows. "Help myself!" he repeated. And
then, as if resolving suddenly to say no more, he sank down and laid his
head on the pillow, with a short groan.

"Here, Ivor, is a bottle o' physic that my wife sends to ye," said Mr
Gordon, pulling a pint bottle from his pocket, and handing it to the
man, who clutched it eagerly, and was raising it to his mouth when his
visitor arrested his hand.

"Hoot, man," he said, with a short laugh, "it's not whisky! She bid me
say ye were to take only half a glass at a time, every two hours."

"Poor't oot, then, laird--poor't oot," said the man, impatiently.
"Ye'll fin' a glass i' the wundy."

Fetching a wine-glass from the window Mr Gordon half filled it with a
liquid of a dark brown colour, which the sick man quaffed with almost
fierce satisfaction, and then lay down with a sigh.

"It seems to have done ye good already, man," said the laird, putting
the bottle and glass on that convenient shelf--the window-sill. "I've
no idea what the physic is, but my good wife seems to know, and that's
enough for me; and for you, too, I think."

"Ay, she's a good wumin. Thank her for me," responded Ivor.

Remounting the dog-cart the old gentleman explained, as they drove
along, that Ivor Donaldson's illness was the result of intemperance.

"He is my gamekeeper," said the laird; "and there is not a better or
more trustworthy man in the island, when