ud
's han'. Binna far frae him, O Lord; dinna lat him be fleyt."

To Janet, what we call life and death were comparatively small
matters, but she was very tender over suffering and fear. She did
not pray half so much for Gibbie's life as for the presence with him
of him who is at the deathbed of every sparrow. She went on
waiting, and refused to be troubled. True, she was not his bodily
mother, but she loved him far better than the mother who, in such a
dread for her child, would have been mad with terror. The
difference was, that Janet loved up as well as down, loved down so
widely, so intensely, because the Lord of life, who gives his own to
us, was more to her than any child can be to any mother, and she
knew he could not forsake her Gibbie, and that his presence was more
and better than life. She was unnatural, was she?--inhuman?--Yes,
if there be no such heart and source of humanity as she believed in;
if there be, then such calmness and courage and content as hers are
the mere human and natural condition to be hungered after by every
aspiring soul. Not until such condition is mine shall I be able to
regard life as a godlike gift, except in the hope that it is drawing
nigh. Let him who understands, understand better; let him not say
the good is less than perfect, or excuse his supineness and
spiritual sloth by saying to himself that a man can go too far in
his search after the divine, can sell too much of what he has to buy
the field of the treasure. Either there is no Christ of God, or my
all is his.

Robert seemed at length to have ceased his caged wandering. For a
quarter of an hour he had been sitting with his face buried in his
hands. Janet rose, went softly to him, and said in a whisper:

"Is Gibbie waur aff, Robert, i' this watter upo' Glashgar, nor the
dissiples i' the boat upo' yon loch o' Galilee, an' the Maister no
come to them? Robert, my ain man! dinna gar the Maister say to you,
O ye o' little faith! Wharfor did ye doobt? Tak hert, man; the
Maister wadna hae his men be cooards."

"Ye're richt, Janet; ye're aye richt," answered Robert, and rose.

She followed him into the passage.

"Whaur are ye gauin', Robert?" she said.

"I wuss I cud tell ye," he answered. "I'm jist hungerin' to be my
lane. I wuss I had never left Glashgar. There's aye room there.
Or gien I cud win oot amo' the rigs! There's nane o' them left,
but there's the rucks--they're no soomin' yet! I want to gan