t because in the visions of his troubled
brain he saw once more the cottage of his father the shepherd, with all
its store of lovely nothings round which the nimbus of sanctity had
gathered while he thought not of them; wept over the memory of that
moment of delight when his mother kissed him for parting with his willow
whistle to the sister who cried for it: he cried now in his turn, after
five-and-fifty years, for not yet had the little fact done with him, not
yet had the kiss of his mother lost its power on the man; wept over the
sale of the pet lamb, though he had himself sold thousands of lambs
since; wept over even that bush of dusty miller by the door, like the
one he trampled under his horse's feet in the little yard at Scaurnose
that horrible day. And oh that nest of wild bees with its combs of honey
unspeakable! He used to laugh and sing then: he laughed still
sometimes--he could hear how he laughed, and it sounded frightful--but
he never sang. Were the tears that honored such childish memories all of
weakness? Was it cause of regret that he had not been wicked enough to
have become impregnable to such foolish trifles? Unable to mount a
horse, unable to give an order, not caring even for his toddy, he was
left at the mercy of his fundamentals: his childhood came up and
claimed him, and he found the childish things he had put away better
than the manly things he had adopted. It is one thing for Saint Paul and
another for Mr. Worldly Wiseman to put away childish things. The ways
they do it, and the things they substitute, are both so different! And
now first to me, whose weakness it is to love life more than manners,
and men more than their portraits, the man begins to grow interesting.
Picture the dawn of innocence on a dull, whisky-drinking, commonplace
soul, stained by self-indulgence and distorted by injustice! Unspeakably
more interesting and lovely is to me such a dawn than the honeymoon of
the most passionate of lovers, except indeed I know them such lovers
that their love will out-last all the moons.

"I'm a poor creature, Lizzy," he said, turning his heavy face one
midnight toward the girl as she sat half dozing, ready to start awake.

"God comfort ye, sir!" said the girl.

"He'll take good care of that," returned the factor. "What did I ever do
to deserve it? There's that MacPhail, now--to think of _him_! Didn't I
do what man could for him? Didn't I keep him about the place when all
the rest were dis