to
the finest by love of your fellows."

"And that's the truth--when they are not clerics," cried John.

"Touched to the finest, and set in a glow too, by a manly and unselfish
act, and eager to go through this world on pleasant footings with
yourself and all else."

"Come, come," I cried; "I know my friend well, Master Gordon. We are not
all that we might be; but I'm grateful for the luck that brought me so
good a friend as John M'Iver."

"I never cried down his credit," said the minister, simply.

"Your age gives you full liberty," said John. "I would never lift a
hand."

"The lifting of your hand," said the cleric with a flashing eye, "is the
last issue I would take thought of. I can hold my own. You are a fair
and shining vessel (of a kind), but Beelzebub's at your heart. They tell
me that people like you; this gentleman of Elrigmore claims you for his
comrade. Well, well, so let it be! It but shows anew the charm of the
glittering exterior: they like you for your weaknesses and not for your
strength. Do you know anything of what they call duty?"

"I have starved to the bone in Laaland without complaint, stood six
weeks on watch in Stralsund's Franken gate, eating my meals at my post,
and John M'Iver never turned skirts on an enemy."

"Very good, sir, very good," said the minister; "but duty is most ill to
do when it is to be done in love and not in hate."

"Damn all schooling!" cried John. "You're off in the depths of it again,
and I cannot be after you. Duty is duty in love or hate, is it not?"

"It would take two or three sessions of St Andrews to show you that it
makes a great differ whether it is done in love or hate. You do your
duty by your enemy well enough, no doubt,--a barbarian of the blackest
will do no less,--but it takes the better man to do his duty sternly by
those he loves and by himself above all Argile----"

"Yes," cried I, "what about Argile?"

The minister paid no heed to my question.

"Argile," said he, "has been far too long flattered by you and your
like, M'Iver."

"Barbreck," put in my comrade.

"Barbreck be it then. A man in his position thus never learns the truth.
He sees around him but plausible faces and the truth at a cowardly
compromise. That's the sorrow of your Highlands; it will be the black
curse of your chiefs in the day to come. As for me, I'm for duty first
and last--even if it demands me to put a rope at my brother's neck or my
hand in the fire."

"Maybe