THE grey downpour of a wet afternoon in late September gave a dreary look to the surroundings of Ballendoun farmhouse up on the hillside, and to the little village of Inchrye in the valley below. In the northern counties of Scotland in such weather, nature's face seems grim and careworn to her loving children; and even on those who profess a stoic indifference to her moods she has a depressing effect.

So down in the village the one long straggling street was empty even of the children, who on a less dismal day would have braved the rain and their mothers' admonitions alike. The smithy-door, a favourite loitering-place, was deserted; there was no one to be seen at the burn, where the parapet of the little bridge ended in a conveniently low wall on which sociably-disposed people might sit and talk. Only at the merchant's shop was there any stir of life. The merchant's shop in a Scotch village is, as far as his capital permits, an emporium, and even if your lack be only a lack of news, you will find that he retails it too, and gratis.

On this cheerless afternoon the merchant had some half-dozen customers, -one or two in search of pins or treacle, but most come to talk over the news. And for once they had weighty news to discuss -news which, as Affleck the innkeeper remarked, with a certain gloomy satisfaction, "would be in a' the papers the morn." Peter Sim, a local jack-of-all-trades, as accredited Inchrye correspondent of the weekly County Herald,'

I.

was already composing his account of the sad event, or tragic occurrence (he was not sure how to characterise it), and was quite alive to his increased importance in the esteem of his neighbours, as their mouthpiece on this occasion to the world.

"Ye maun min' an' pit in that he's some silly-like, Peter," said Mrs Rae, the merchant's wife.

"Silly-like!" interrupted her husband; "he's mair nor silly,— he's clean daft."

"The wunner to me is," said Peter, "no that the thing has happened, but that it didna happen afore."

"Ye're richt there, Peter," from Affleck; and a chorus of "Ay, ay," followed this remark, and there was another ruminative pause. They had had the news under discussion since morning; and although there was still much to think of, there was little left to say.

"There hasna bin onything like it in the place sin' that pedlar body was murdered at the crossdykes," said Peter at length; "an' he was an orra sort o' cratur, that naebody kent much aboot. Noo, this is ane o' wersels."

"Fa was't murdered the pedlar?" inquired Mrs Rae.

Oh, some o's ain freens, as far as I min'; it was efter some drucken quarrel they hed."

"Ye canna jist say that auld Grant's murdered, though," said Mrs Rae; "he's no deid yet, and Robbie Macbeth's wife telt me 'at he had heard the doctor say to auld Kirsty 'at he micht live gin they took awfu' care o' him."

"Teuch!" said Peter, contemp

tuously; "doctors maun gie folk hope, fatever's wrang, but we a' ken that's naething to gae by. Na, na; if this wasna a by-ordnar' thing, wad the doctor hae tauld Robbie to gang to Kirktown and see the fiscal aboot it? an' as sure's I'm sittin' here, that's far Robbie's gane."

As he ceased, the sound of quick footsteps coming along the uneven roadway roused a general expectancy among the group; and Jean Raffan, the schoolmaster's servant, who was ostensibly there to choose some knitting-yarn from the piledup bundles in the doorway, looked out to report, turning in again with a warning, "Preserve us! if it's no Meg Grant!

The new-comer paused on the threshold to close her wet umbrella before entering the shop. She was a weather-beaten, elderly woman, very plainly dressed, in dark wincey, with a checked plaid covering her head and closely wrapped round her spare figure. Both dress and plaid were very wet, and her thick shoes were covered with mud. "A loaf o' white breid and a quarter o' tea," she said, as Mrs Rae came forward to serve her. She felt painfully conscious that her every word and movement were noted by those round her, but the somewhat ungracious reserve habitual to her race helped her to hide, under an impassive face and laconic tone, all the agitation they looked for.

"Is that a'?" asked Mrs Rae, when she had served her.

"Ay," was the answer, as her customer, gathering her purchases into the grey shawl, turned quickly to the door.

Peter Sim and Affleck shuffled out of her way; and, still with a tingling consciousness of their attentive eyes and ears, Meg Grant stepped out into the rain and

hastened home. They were not unkindly people: if her unexpected advent had roused their curious interest in her, as a partaker in that morning's tragedy, it had also served to quicken their sympathy; and when Mrs Rae said, "She was aye ane to keep hersel' to hersel', Meg Grant, but we maun a' feel for her noo, puir thing" there was a general assent.

Meanwhile, leaving them to discuss her trouble, as she knew they would, Meg hastened home, past the church, prettier than most Scotch parish churches, but to-day sharing in the dreary aspect of the world up the steep hill road, across the whin-hill as a short cut, and into the road again. It was a Highland road, and long sprays of wild-rose overhung the dyke on either side, while the rushes and marsh - fern fringing the ditches smelt sweet in the rain. Every stone in the wall, every bush she knew, and yet she seemed so far removed in her own consciousness from the days when they were familiar. They looked now as they had looked yesterday, but she felt herself so strangely different. The change, the horror which had in a few hours seized and made itself at home in her life, overshadowed all her thoughts as she walked. She tried to ignore it, she forced her mind to grasp and reiterate every trivial idea suggested by external things; she observed the cart-ruts, half full of rain, and wondered in a dull fashion if any cart had passed that day. The braid at the edge of her dress was frayed in front, and she made herself calculate how much she would need to go round the skirt. was trying to absorb herself in the question of whether she should take into common wear her purple wincey gown, and use this for her morning work, when the lurking

She

consciousness of her trouble, which she had striven to keep out, overthrew all her feeble defences, and like a surrounding, inrushing tide, swept through her heart. Her father would die-why, it would be mourning she would be wearing next, and where would she be? Her father gone, and Willie-if they "did onything" to him she would be left alone, alone in the world.

The sight of the sodden cornstooks in the fields as she passed seemed to have no meaning to her eyes. Yesterday they were her father's, the precious scanty results of the year's anxious farming; and she had watched for a drying wind, and rejoiced when it cameand hoped and feared: but now, now, her father was dying, and Willie in trouble, and what did it matter about the corn? The cart-track grew more steep and stony as she came near home, and ended in a narrow bit of open grassy field, at the farther side of which was the farmhouse and steading. Her heart had been dully beating in her ears all the way, like a whispered suggestion, "What if he is dead? what if he is dead?" and she dreaded to look, lest at door or window she should see some one watching to tell her. But all was still. Only Moy, the collie, with all a dog's sympathy, came to meet her, looking in her face with troubled affection, and following her slowly to the door.

In front of the farmhouse was a little bit of garden, full of wet bushy plants: these grew lank and lush about the low windows, lessening the amount of light they gave, which was not much at best. On either side of the little pebblepaved path leading from the gate to the door, the borders were trodden down by heavy footmarks, and the climbing monthly rose

bush trained up the house wall had one long unfastened branch broken and trampled into the wet earth. The threshold was marked with muddy footsteps, and the few deer- and sheep-skin mats laid on the stone floor of the little entrance lobby had been hastily pushed aside. Meg noted these signs of disorder with dull eyes. All the zeal for thrift and order which had hitherto kept her hands busy, and her home a credit to her-all her huswife pride seemed far away from her, and it was mechanically and without paying much heed that she lifted the broken rose branch and fastened it back before she went in. The keeping-room and a little - used parlour flanked the door on either side. A small staircase opposite gave access to the bedrooms; and a long, narrow, echoing passage, off which opened dairies and cupboards, led to the back kitchen. Meg stood and listened at the parlour door, where her father lay, but there was no sound. He had been carried in there in the morning, and the doctor had forbidden her to attempt to move him. him. Hoping that he slept, she went as quietly as she could to the back kitchen. Here a peat-fire was smouldering on the open hearth, and beside it, slouching in a low arm-chair, sat a tall, heavily built man, somewhat older than herself. It was her brother Willie.

66 That's you, is't?" he remarked, hardly looking round. "Ye've gotten yoursel' real weet."

"Ay, it's jist me," said Meg, wearily, unfolding her purchases from her shawl; "has Kirsty been ben?"

"Ay, she was ben," he answered, indifferently; then observing the parcels, "Hae ye been doun a' the wye to the mairchant's? Fat for

did ye no tell me ye were gaun? I wad hae gane for ye. I like fine to gang to the mairchant's, ye ken that," he went on, with a childish air of grievance.

Meg looked at him. She was filled with an aching sense of pity for him-his inability to understand what he himself had done. "He wad gang to the mairchant's!" she thought to herself, with almost a smile at his childishness, and then a sharp pang, as she pictured the sensation his appearance would have created among the gossips there. "It was bad aneuch me gaun," she added to herself, as she knelt on the hearth to blow up the fire.

"I dinna ken."

"Did ye no speer at her?" continued Meg, trying to speak lightly.

"No, I tell you; fat for should I speer?" I speer?" he replied, roughly. "She said somethin' about fader wantin' his tea, and that you were ower lang-that's a' I min' o'. Fat for did ye no lat me gang to the mairchant's," he continued, fretfully, harking back to his grievance.

Meg knew his ways, and that she must humour him to keep him quiet. "Weel, Wullie, fat wad ye hae gotten gin I had latten ye? is't sweeties ye were wantin'?"

He nodded with a cunning look. "She aye gies me them when I gang,-ye ken that."

Aweel, if that's a'," said Meg, "you blaw the fire, there's a guid laddie, till I gang up the stair and get aff thae weet claes, an' I'll fess down a gran' poke I got frae Glesgey tae ye."

Willie's eyes brightened, and he clenched the bargain by taking the bellows from his sister, leaning forward in his chair and blowing

or ye cam'."

"I'll bring it ben in twa meenits; gang in an' tell him," said Meg, as she hastened to the backkitchen. Willie had wearied of his task, but the fire had burnt up nevertheless, and the kettle boiled. Meg hurried to get the tea ready, laying on the table the box of confections she had brought down with her. "See, Wullie, there's for ye." It was a pretty little French-made box, with a picture of kittens on the top. Willie seized it with an exclamation of pleasure.

"Eh, see at thae bonnie little catties! Isna that real bonnie?"

He was still occupied with it, turning it over in his hands, taking out and replacing first one sweetmeat and then another, when Meg summoned him to the table.

"There's white breid for ye the nicht," she said, "an' ye like that. Come in ower and tak' your tea, and I'll send Kirsty to ye-I'm away ben wi' fader's."

She placed a tea-cup and some bread and butter on a small japanned tray which had been her mother's, and was kept as an orna

ment on the kitchen mantel-shelf. As she took it down and dusted it, with the sense of a great occasion justifying its use, she remembered how her mother used to speak of it with pride as "ane o' my mairriage presents." She carried it along the passage, and gently opened the door of the room where her father lay. Kirsty was stirring the fire, which burnt in a dull and cheerless fashion. "I canna mak' it burn," she explained; "the vent's that damp wi' no being eesed."

"Are ye cauld, fader?" asked Meg, tenderly, as she laid down her tray and bent over him. He was an old man, but strong and hearty-looking, with a vigorous frame and sunburnt face. His thick grey hair was ruffled with the uneasy movement of his head on the pillow, and his eyes unclosed wearily as his daughter spoke.

"I think I maun hae been sleepin'," he said, in a puzzled tone. "Far hae ye been, Meg?"

"I gaed doun to the mairchant's. I wasna lang; and noo, here's yer tea, fader."

He lay on the sofa, which had been hastily converted into a bed for him. It was a hard, oldfashioned sofa, covered with horsehair, but more roomy than a modern couch; and with blankets and pillows gathered in haste from the rooms up-stairs, Meg had made it fairly comfortable.

His eyes fell on the little teatray as she put it on a chair beside him. "That's yer mither's tray," he said, dreamily; and then with a faint smile, "Fat hae we gotten white breid for? I'm no a

veesitor."

"I thocht ye micht fancy it, fader," she said, trying to smile back, "an' I haena bakit the day."

The room was so dark, from the shadow of the elder-bushes in the garden, and the fire so cheerless, that Meg lit a candle, one of a pair in tall green-glass candlesticks on the mantelpiece, which was crowded with an array of little ornaments-three framed photographs, a pair of china watch-dogs with gilt chains, and a britanniametal vase full of dried grasses mixed with silver moons of honesty from the garden.

Meg placed the candlestick on the top of a high chest of drawers, behind her father's head, and went to the window to draw down the blind. As she did so, she saw the figure of an approaching visitor opening the little gate.

"It's the minaister!" she said, half aloud, and turned to Kirsty. "Kirsty, thon's the minaister; he'll hae come to see fader, but ye maunna lat him in: say 'at the doctor said we were to lat naebody in; an' say I canna come to the door, gin he speers for me."

Kirsty rose from her knees before the fire, on which she had not effected any visible improve

ment.

'at

An', Kirsty," said Meg, following her as she went to the door, "ye maunna lat him ben to Wullie-ye maunna! Jist say we canna see him the noo, nane o's, though we're muckle obleeged till him for coming."

A knock at the house - door

summoned Kirsty. She hastily smoothed her apron and left the room, closing the door behind her. A rainy gust of wind shook it as she opened the outer one to the minister's knock; and the old farmer looked inquiringly at his daughter, who came and knelt beside him.

"Fa's thon?" he asked, uneasily. "Wasna that some ane at the door?"