ike me
at the back of the head and a black vapor fell before my eyes and
stopped my breath--I knew that Father Pierre caught me in his arms, a
merciful unconsciousness seized me, and everything faded away.

* * * * *

When I came to myself I was in my own sleeping-room at Stair, a
night-light burning on the table, and some one on the other side of the
screen sat reading by the fire. I saw the top of the head over the
chair-rail, and knew it was Sandy Carmichael's. Five weeks longer I lay
there, and on toward midsummer, my fever having lasted four months,
Sandy proposed I should start as soon as I was able and tour the world.
It had been an old dream of mine, but with little taste for life, I set
sail from Glasgow for Gibraltar some time in August, 1769, to visit
other lands and see new lives with old sorrows like my own.

CHAPTER IV

ENTER NANCY STAIR

I had been from Scotland near five years, when two letters were handed
to me as I sat in The British Sailors' Tavern, in Calcutta; one of
which was from Hugh Pitcairn and the other from Sandy Carmichael. I
thought as I read them what characteristic epistles they were, for
Hugh's read as though I had parted from him but the day before, and
urged my return to look after some land interest which he as my
solicitor felt should have my immediate supervision.

"There is another thing," he added, "which should bring you home. Huey
MacGrath is ailing and I fear is sickening to die."

Sandy spoke, as was his way, of our old affection and his wish to see
me once again, and he ended by a tender reference to the baby of mine
who was growing a big girl and needed me, he said.

God knows how lonely I was when these two letters came to me, and the
thoughts of home and a child dependent upon me brought, for the first
time since my dread trouble, a sense of comfort. Huey sick unto death
was another call to my heart, and in four days' time I was homeward
bound.

Before I stepped ashore at Leith it was Sandy who waved to me from the
quay; Sandy whose hand gripped mine so hard the fingers ached for days;
Sandy whose eyes beamed with joy as he looked at me and took me back to
Stair.

"I've been living on the docks awaiting your return until the town
doubtless thinks I'm going for a sailor," he cried. "Well, it's good to
have you back, Jock Stair--and I believe that Huey MacGrath's illness
is little more than a longing for the sight