brother. I assure you, it is
merely custom. Interrogate your memory; and when first you came to
Durrisdeer, you will find you considered him a dull, ordinary youth. He
is as dull and ordinary now, though not so young. Had you instead fallen
in with me, you would to-day be as strong upon my side."

"I would never say you were ordinary, Mr. Bally," I returned; "but here
you prove yourself dull. You have just shown your reliance on my
word--in other terms, that is, my conscience--the same which starts
instinctively back from you, like the eye from a strong light."

"Ah!" says he, "but I mean otherwise. I mean, had I met you in my
youth. You are to consider I was not always as I am to-day; nor (had I
met in with a friend of your description) should I have ever been so."

"Hut, Mr. Bally," says I, "you would have made a mock of me; you would
never have spent ten civil words on such a Square-toes."

But he was now fairly started on his new course of justification, with
which he wearied me throughout the remainder of the passage. No doubt in
the past he had taken pleasure to paint himself unnecessarily black, and
made a vaunt of his wickedness, bearing it for a coat-of-arms. Nor was
he so illogical as to abate one item of his old confessions. "But now
that I know you are a human being," he would say, "I can take the
trouble to explain myself. For I assure you I am human too, and have my
virtues like my neighbours." I say, he wearied me, for I had only the
one word to say in answer: twenty times I must have said it: "Give up
your present purpose and return with me to Durrisdeer: then I will
believe you."

Thereupon he would shake his head at me. "Ah! Mackellar, you might live
a thousand years and never understand my nature," he would say. "This
battle is now committed, the hour of reflection quite past, the hour for
mercy not yet come. It began between us when we span a coin in the hall
of Durrisdeer, now twenty years ago; we have had our ups and downs, but
never either of us dreamed of giving in; and as for me, when my glove is
cast, life and honour go with it."

"A fig for your honour!" I would say. "And by your leave, these warlike
similitudes are something too high-sounding for the matter in hand. You
want some dirty money; there is the bottom of your contention; and as
for your means, what are they? to stir up sorrow in a family that never
harmed you, to debauch (if you can) your own nephew, and to wring the
heart of