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Yes, Esmé," he replied, looking down kindly upon her, but with a contraction on his brow, and deep thought in his eyes; "I was thinking it was time for me to put out to sea." "Do you mean to go away?" she asked, as with parted lips she gazed upon his face: hers looked very pale in the moonlight.

"I must go into Parliament, Esmé, and do the work I was born for. This has been ever before me and I have delayed it until I had attained sufficient maturity to guarantee success. I am strong enough now for the battle, and must be up and doing."

"Rest a little while longer, Mr. Marchmoram," and poor Esmé spoke in a more pleading tone than she was aware of: "when once you enter, it will be long ere you pause again: a long life is before you. Your resolution will not lose, though you delay it."

"Ah! Esmé, you should not speak in this way; but rather urge me on the wide ocean invites, and out upon it my bark must be launched: I dare not linger longer by the lake of the lily." He spoke this hurriedly; but at the last words a gleam of tenderness beamed on Esmé's pale face. She looked up, with a slight curve of the lip, and a calm proud smile, and answered slowly and distinctly, without a tremble in her voice. "No, you should not. If you feel thus ready, and have work before you, you should go out and begin it. Life will not be long enough for you."

They were both silent for a time. Marchmoram then said, "Esmé, though my mind is dedicated to practical work, still I have some imagination in me, else I could not appreciate you."

"And, Mr. Marchmoram, I may say I understand you; fo though you may think me a dreamer, still I feel I could throw that mood off, and enter heartily into the stirring realities of life."

"Therefore, Esmé, there is not a little mutual sympathy between us; in fact, we are very nearly counterparts, in the true sense of the term."

Esmé did not reply; and they again moved on in silence.

When Marchmoram next spoke, his tone was wholly different. "Look!" he said, pointing to the river flowing still and solemnly by their path; "did you ever see anything more beautiful? See the water, tremulous in the moonbeams, flowing in a tide of molten silver; and look how vividly the moonlight brings out the colouring of the grassy banks, and the gray and purple hills. There is a little loch not far from this, where water-lilies grow: do you know it, Esmé? It would look exquisite on a night like this."

"I know it," she replied, and a deep blush spread over her face, which had been pale as marble before. "Mr. Auber brought me there."

"Ah!" exclaimed Marchmoram, absently; and then, with a lowered tone, "You think Auber very agreeable?"

"Yes; very."

"You must do so: no man is more undeniably thought so; and no man has been more fortunate than myself in having for so many years enjoyed such society as his."

"You are great friends, Mr. Marchmoram," Esmé said in a low voice.

"Yes, Esmé." And then he spoke in deep and earnest tones, but with a nervous twitch of the severe thin lip, and with eyes which moved restlessly, but never once sought hers, as they slowly walked on.

"His father and mother died years ago, and he was left an only son. I was an only son, too, but my father died not a year ago. Auber's intellect acquired strength early, and he reached his manhood young; early his own master, he indulged freely the gratification of his impulses: a wayward fancy urged him on, and his faculties and tastes had full scope. for exercise. But I, Esmé, only now intend to begin life, the vitality of which is already almost dying out with Auber; and in my career I will enjoy what he now can never reach! By long concentration I have gained in depth what he has wasted in speed; and, as in act, so in feeling, Esmé."

Here Marchmoram turned, and gave her one lightning glance from his deep dark eyes, which thrilled throughout her frame.

"But my friend Auber, whom all know to be fascinating, does not love: he never has loved; he will not love truly. Think not I betray him, Esmé: I have seen him seek for love before; I have seen him elicit it from others as young and fair as you, and I have left it to themselves to discover, and to rus

it: but it shall not be so now.

Esmé, beware of the evil and here Marchmo

angel! I saw him at the lily lochram grasped the hand which Esmé had put before her face, and the keen fire of his eyes almost blazed upon her as he spoke. He clutched her hand with the strength of a vice, as Esmé tried to free it, and his voice was deep and harsh; but a change came over him, and he threw her hand from him with a rough tenderness, and then strode on to join the others. They were but a few yards from the encampment.

CHAPTER XIV.

ADVENTURES AND LEAVE-TAKING.

-Excisemen in a bustle,
Seizin' a stell,

Triumphant crushin't like a mussel

Or lampet shell.-BURNS.

"Douglas has laid bye his bassenet,

The King his hawk, and gude gray hounde,

And Harry Maxwell's ta'en his bent,

An' it's hey, an' it's hey for English ground.”

FLORH returned from the Dual Ghu a day sooner than the rest of the party, and after executing some commissions at Glenbenrough on which Norah had purposely despatched her, she proceeded to her own cottage. Neither Huistan nor Ewen were within doors; but she knew one or other must be at home, for the embers of a turf fire burnt on the hearth, and soon after her arrival they both made their appearance. Huistan had been away for some days, and on foot nearly the whole time; having gone with his faithful collies, Conas and Frenchen, to distant hills in search of a missing score of sheep, which he and his dogs were now driving home before them; and hig heart was cheered, when, from a distant height, he came in sight of the smoke issuing from his mother's cottage chimney. As Huistan, thankful in heart, though worn and wearied in limb, came plodding onwards, he had met with an adventure which so broadly touched his sense of the ludicrous, that, as he afterwards said, it sent him home quite "spirited up" again. Stopping to look down on Lochandhu, where a deep wild ravine opened winding from the neighbouring hills, there came a dis

tant echo of a terrible yell upon Huistan's startled ear. The next moment he saw old Ian Mohr advancing at full speed, wildly rushing through the trees, his broad blue bonnet off, his long white hair streaming in the breeze, and his plaid dragging after him on the ground. As he came nearer, Huistan saw water

dripping from his clothes, elbows, and knees.

"Hout tout! hout tout! Halt ava, halt ava! what's this?" cried Huistan, as he ran forward to intercept Ian's mad career. But the old man rushed past him with irrestrainable impetus, and darted on a few paces beyond ere he stopped. Then, however, turning back, he with trembling grasp seized Huistan's hand; his wrinkled face was ash-coloured, and his old voice quaked with terror.

"Och, stop him! stop him!" he gasped in Gaelic; "he 's after me, at last! I'm old-very old; and I never yet encountered him like this afore!"

"What? who, man?" Huistan exclaimed. mortal thing could daunton ye!"

"I thocht nae

"Neither could it; but it's the de'il, man!" Ian replied, dropping his voice to a whisper, and glancing fearfully backwards. "Lord be aboot us!" cried Huistan, and he staggered back for a moment against a tree.

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Aye, say that, say that! Pray ye, pray ye! keep him aff!" ejaculated old Ian, again taking a protecting grasp of Huistan. "He had me nigh by the shuther: his vera grip was on my throat! Oh! Huistan, ye'se such a guid lad, an' aye read your Bible on the hill; maybe I am wrang to tak the deer, when the Sassenachs pay their money for 't. Not a grain wad I ever gie in to them; but noo, if they 've got the de'il to tak care o' their goods, Lord, Lord! I can stand it no langer! If the de'il's to come into the purty stag, an' tak wing wi' the ptarmigan an' grouse, Lord! ae things are cursed an' changed thegither."

"But hoo? but hoo?" exclaimed Huistan, with awakened interest.

"He caught me at the rinning stream. I was up in Glen Madhu early the morn. Ye ken the Dreumah keeper is up in the laird's country if the noo; an' I heard there was a bonny herd last night in the glen, so I aff wi' my ain auld flint, and never did I mark an easier quarry. I had nae stalk ava, for I shot the bonniest stag o' the season three hours syne, as he stooped to drink at the rowan spring. When I had left the eagles their share o' him there, I gat him lightened on my

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"Ye hae no shot ane the year afore, Ian," interrupted Huistan. Maybe ye're ain increase o' age made that"Na, na! Bide a wee!" said Ian, shivering. "When I dragged down to the river, I plunged in, the bonny legs fast round my neck. Half way through, the evil ane cam! He louped on me wi' a stound, I was gripped by the throat and dragged back in the water. The de'il gripped me, man, and rove the staig from my back. I gae a skriech, an' a loup, an' saw the hoofs o' beast, an' o' de'il, plunge up a'thegither in the water. Wi' my ain strength I cleared them baith and got on to the dry land; then, man, man, I ran for my sowl!"

Huistan grasped something he had concealed in the folds of his plaid on his breast, and made a step for the ravine, as he ⚫ said firmly,

"Come back wi' me, Ian: we maun see to this."

"No, dinna gae, dinna gae! I'll no gae wi' ye! I could na, an' I darena, bide here my lane without ye!" exclaimed Ian, clutching him vehemently.

"Weel, weel," Huistan muttered; and he hesitated also: a faint feeling of natural superstition made his strong step and willing heart almost quake; but the next moment he drew out his Bible from his plaid, and gave it into Ian's hand.

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"Sit ye down wi' that, Ian, an' ye'se safe, though they come as legion. Haud it for a safeguard. I'm no feared, mysel', for de'il, or bodach, or bogle; and he strode off, as the old man sat him down, crouching in the heather. Here was true courage, with its highest attributes; for poor Huistan, in his unselfish surrender of the Bible, parted with the armour he alone trusted in for himself. The ravine, thickly wooded, wound down to the river edge; and, as Huistan emerged, his eye fell on a vaguely terrible object. Not ten paces from him, something moved in the water; it was black and hairy, and the points of what seemed long ears or horns, momently appeared and vanished. With a loud, wild ejaculation in Gaelic prayer, Huistan plunged boldly in. "Beir uainn! Beir uainn!" (away-away with thee!) he cried, as he grappled with a bulky moving mass. A pair of glazed brown eyes turned upward in the water, as, with nervous grasp, Huistan clung on to Ian's fine slain deer! The head and legs were fast caught amidst the dense strong branches of a knotted thorn that had stranded and long lain there beneath the deep rapid current. Unper

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