"Weel, I hae been hearin' that John Beaton has had a measure o'

prosperity since he was here afore, and if it's good for him it will bide wi' him. He kens Him that sent it, and who has His e'e on him."

"Ay, ay; it's as ye say. But prosperity or no prosperity, I'm no' feart for John."

"Weel, I canna just say that I'm feart for him mysel'. Gin he is ane o'

His ain, the Lord will keep a grip o' him, dootless. It's no' that I'm feart, but he has never taken the richt stand among us, as ye ken. And ye ken also wha says, 'Come oot from among them and be ye separate.' He ay comes to the kirk when he's here. But we've nae richt hold on him.

And where he gaes, or what he does at ither places, wha kens? I hae ay fear o' folk that are 'neither cauld nor het.'"

Fortunately the friends had reached the spot where their ways parted, and Peter, being slow of speech, had not his answer ready, so Saunners went home content at having said his say, and more content still at having had the last word.

All this time John Beaton was striding about the lanes in the darkness, as much at a loss as his friend, Saunners Crombie, as to what had happened to him. He had not got the length of thinking about it yet.

He was just "dazed-like," as the schoolmistress would have said-- confused, perplexed, bewildered, getting only a glimpse of what might be the cause of it all, and the consequences.

If he had known--if it had come into his mind, that the sorrowful eyes which were looking at him out of the darkness--the soft, brown eyes, like Crummie's, which had met his first on the hilltop, might have power over him to make or to undo, as other eyes had wrought good or evil in the lives of other men, he would have laughed at the thought and scorned it.

He had had a long day of it. Since three in the morning he had walked the thirty miles that lay between Nethermuir and Aberdeen, to say nothing of the rumble in Peter Gilchrist's cart to the Stanin' Stanes, and the walk home again with little Marjorie in his arms. No wonder that he was a little upset, he told himself. He was tired, and it was time he was in his bed. So with a glance at the moon which was showing her face from behind a cloud--she had a queer look, he thought--he turned homeward.

He stepped lightly, and opened the door softly, lest his mother should be disturbed so late. A foolish thought of his, since he knew that "his very step had music in't" to her ears.

"Well, John?" said she, as he paused a moment at her door. And when he did not answer at once, she asked, "Is it well with you, John?"

"Surely, mother. Why should you ask?"

"And they were glad to see you at the manse?"

"Oh! yes, mother. They're ay kind, as ye ken."

"Ay, they're ay kind. And did you see--Allison Bain?"

"Allison Bain!" repeated John, dazed-like still. "Ay, I saw her--at the Stanin' Stanes, as I told you."

"Yes, you told me. And all's well with you, John?"

"Surely, mother," repeated John, a little impatiently. "What should ail me?" And then he added, "I'm tired with my long tramp, and I'll away to my bed. Good-night, mother."

He touched with his strong, young fingers the wrinkled hand that lay on the coverlid, and the touch said more to her than a kiss or a caress would have said to some mothers.

"Sleep sound!" said she.

But the charm did not work, for when daylight came he had not closed his eyes.

CHAPTER NINE.

"The honest man, howe'er so poor, Is king of men for a' that."

John Beaton's father had been John Beaton also, and so had _his_ father before him. The first John had farmed a three-cornered nook of land, which had found a place among the grey stones scattered closely over a certain part of the high coast that looks down upon one of the narrow bays setting in from the North Sea.

He must have been a strong man, this John, for on this bit of land he lived and laboured for sixty years and more, and on it he brought up, and then sent out, to make a place for themselves, in their own, or in other land's, five strong sons and four fair daughters. And he had so brought them up that never, as long as he lived, did he, or any one else, hear aught of son or daughter to cause him to bow his good grey head before the face of man.

One son, neither the eldest nor the youngest, stayed near home. First he had broken stones on one of the great highways which they were stretching through Scotland about that time. Then he learned to cut and dress the grey granite of his native hills, and then to build it into houses, under another man's eye, and at another man's bidding. After a time he took his turn, first as overseer, and then as master-builder, and succeeded, and men began to speak of him as a rising man, and one well-to-do in the world. All this was before he had got beyond middle life.

Then he married a woman "much above him," it was said, but that was a mistake. For though Marion Sinclair came of a good stock, and had all her life lived in a home well placed and well plenished, among folk who might have thought themselves, and whom others might have thought to be John Beaton's superiors, yet no man or woman of them all had a right to look down on John Beaton. He stood firm on his own feet, in a place which his own hand had won. No step had he ever taken which he had needed to go back upon, nor had he ever had cause to cast down his eyes before the face of man because of any doubtful deed done, or false word spoken.

And Marion Sinclair, no longer in her first youth, might well go a proud and happy bride to the home of a man wise and strong, far-seeing, honest, and successful--one who loved her dearly, as a man of middle age may love, who in his youth has told himself that he had neither will nor time for such sweet folly.

With all his strong and sterling qualities he was regarded by the world in general, as, perhaps, a little hard and self-opinioned. But he was never hard to her, or to the one son who was born to them. He exacted what was his due from the rest of the world, but he was always soft and yielding to them in all things. He was proud of his success and of his good name in the countryside, and he offended some of those who came into contact with him by letting his pride in all this be too plainly seen. But he was prouder far of his wife, and his happy home, and of his young son, with whom, to his thought, no prince in all the land could compare.

And so it went well with him, till one day the end came suddenly. A broken bank, a dishonoured name, scathe and scorn to some--to him among the rest--who was, G.o.d knows, neither in deed nor in thought guilty of the sin which had brought ruin upon thousands.

He made a gallant stand for his good name and his well-earned fortune, and for his fellow-sufferers; but he was an old man by this time, and he died of it.

Mrs Beaton had never all her life been a strong woman, and had never needed to think and act for herself in trying circ.u.mstances. She had not the skill to plan nor the strength to execute, and it was too late to begin now. But she could endure, and she did so, with long patience; and though her face grew thin and white, she gave no sign of anger, or discontent, or of breaking down under her troubles, as all her little world had believed she would surely do.

Amid the din and dulness of the great town in which they first took refuge for a while, she made a home for her son, and waited patiently to see what his young strength might do for them both, and never, by word or look, made his struggle for standing room in the crowd harder for him, or his daily disappointment worse to bear.

He fought his way to standing room at last--standing room at a high desk in a dark office, at work which he had still to learn, and which, though he loathed it, he might have learned to do in time if it had not "floored him" first.

"Mother," he cried one night in despair, "let us get away from this place--anywhere, where there is room to breathe. I will work with my hands as my father did before me. There are still surely stones to break somewhere up there in the north. We'll get fresh air at least."

So, without a word of doubt or of expostulation, she made haste to get ready, while they had yet the means of going, and they went north together, where they found, indeed, fresh air, and for a time they found nothing else. But fresh air was something to rejoice in, since it brought back the colour to the lad's cheeks and lightened the heart of the mother, and they kept up one another's courage as well as might be.

A chance to earn their bread, that was all John wanted, and it came at last; but it was dry bread only for a while.

"What can you do? And what are you willing to do?" said a man who was the overseer of other men, and whom John had seen several times at the place where his work was done. John answered:

"I am willing to do anything. And I think I could break stones."

"I think I see you!" said the man with a shrug.

"I only wish I had a chance to show you. I think I might even chip awa'

at cutting them, to as good purpose as some of those lads yonder."

"Here, Sandy," said the overseer. "Gie this lad your hammer, and let him try his hand, for the fun o' the thing."

The man laughed, but John Beaton was in earnest. In a minute his coat was off, and he set to work with a will. He needed a hint or two, and he got them, with a little banter thrown in. The lad stuck to his work, and could, as his friend said, "do no' that ill." He had perhaps inherited the power to do the work, since he could do it, he thought, and he asked leave to come again in the morning.

"Ye hae earned your shilling," said the overseer, when it was time to go, and he held one out to John. He hardly expected the lad to take it, but he took it gladly, and looked at it, the man thought, in a curious way.

"Is it the first shilling ye ever earned?" said he.

"The very first! May I come back to-morrow?"

"O, ay! gin ye like; but I should think that this is hardly the kind o'

work ye're best fitted for."

"One must take what one can get," said John.