me with a shake of
the head and a bitter dogged smile, my zeal quite carried me beyond my
place. "This is midsummer madness," cried I; "and I for one will be no
party to it."

"You speak as though I did it for my pleasure," says he. "But I have a
child now; and, besides, I love order; and to say the honest truth,
Mackellar, I had begun to take a pride in the estates." He gloomed for a
moment. "But what would you have?" he went on. "Nothing is mine,
nothing. This day's news has knocked the bottom out of my life. I have
only the name and the shadow of things--only the shadow; there is no
substance in my rights."

"They will prove substantial enough before a court," said I.

He looked at me with a burning eye, and seemed to repress the word upon
his lips; and I repented what I had said, for I saw that while he spoke
of the estate he had still a side-thought to his marriage. And then, of
a sudden, he twitched the letter from his pocket, where it lay all
crumpled, smoothed it violently on the table, and read these words to me
with a trembling tongue:--"'My dear Jacob'--This is how he begins!"
cries he--"'My dear Jacob, I once called you so, you may remember; and
you have now done the business, and flung my heels as high as Criffel.'
What do you think of that, Mackellar," says he, "from an only brother? I
declare to God I liked him very well; I was always staunch to him; and
this is how he writes! But I will not sit down under the
imputation"--walking to and fro--"I am as good as he; I am a better man
than he, I call on God to prove it! I cannot give him all the monstrous
sum he asks; he knows the estate to be incompetent; but I will give him
what I have, and it is more than he expects. I have borne all this too
long. See what he writes further on; read it for yourself: 'I know you
are a niggardly dog.' A niggardly dog! I niggardly? Is that true,
Mackellar? You think it is?" I really thought he would have struck me at
that. "O, you all think so! Well, you shall see, and he shall see, and
God shall see. If I ruin the estate and go barefoot, I shall stuff this
bloodsucker. Let him ask all--all, and he shall have it! It is all his
by rights. Ah!" he cried, "and I foresaw all this, and worse, when he
would not let me go." He poured out another glass of wine, and was about
to carry it to his lips, when I made so bold to as lay a finger on his
arm. He stopped a moment. "You are right," said he, and flung glass and
all in the fir