came to her
a week after, he came to a true woman, one who had kept faith with
him.

CHAPTER LVI.

THE LAIRD AND THE PREACHER.

Since he came to town, Gibbie had seen Ginevra but once--that was in
the North church. She looked so sad and white that his heart was
very heavy for her. Could it be that she repented?--She must have
done it to please her father! If she would marry Donal, he would
engage to give her Glashruach. She should have Glashruach all the
same whatever she did, only it might influence her father. He paced
up and down before the cottage once for a whole night, but no good
came of that. He paced before it from dusk to bedtime again and
again, in the poor hope of a chance of speaking to Ginevra, but he
never saw even her shadow on the white blind. He went up to the
door once, but in the dread of displeasing her lost his courage, and
paced the street the whole morning instead, but saw no one come out.

Fergus had gradually become essential to the small remaining
happiness of which the laird was capable. He had gained his favour
chiefly through the respect and kindly attention he showed him. The
young preacher knew little of the laird's career, and looked upon
him as an unfortunate man, towards whom loyalty now required even a
greater show of respect than while he owned his father's farm. The
impulse transmitted to him from the devotion of ancestors to the
patriarchal head of the clan, had found blind vent in the direction
of the mere feudal superior, and both the impulse and its object
remained. He felt honoured, even now that he had reached the goal
of his lofty desires and was a popular preacher, in being permitted
to play backgammon with the great man, or to carve a chicken, when
the now trembling hands, enfeebled far more through anxiety and
disappointment than from age, found themselves unequal to the task:
the laird had begun to tell long stories, and drank twice as much as
he did a year ago; he was sinking in more ways than one.

Fergus at length summoned courage to ask him if he might pay his
addresses to Miss Galbraith. The old man started, cast on him a
withering look, murmured "The heiress of Glashruach!" remembered,
threw himself back in his chair, and closed his eyes. Fergus, on
the other side of the table, sat erect, a dice-box in his hand,
waiting a reply. The father reflected that if he declined what he
could not call an honour, he must lose what was unquestionabl