MISS MARGARET ROWLEY, like the majority of wealthy and unemployed people, had always an immensity of work on hand, and could seldom manage to get through half of her self-imposed jobs in the course of the day. She was in the habit of asserting that if only she had time to look after things herself she would have the very best garden in England; but this opinion was not shared by her head-gardener, Mr. Peter Chervil, who naturally did not like to tell her that her interference was usually, if not invariably, productive of disastrous consequences. Peter Chervil, being an ancient retainer, and having little fear of dignitaries before his eyes, was not in the least disposed to submit to instructions respecting his own business from one whom he still looked upon as a mere child; so that he and his mistress seldom met without a more or less amicable interchange of home truths.

One fine afternoon in the month of August they met, and, in accordance with precedent, lost no time in flying at one another's throats. Peggy, who, for a wonder, had nobody staying with her, and had resolved to devote a good two hours to gardening, had arrayed herself in a short skirt, had armed herself with a spud and had sallied forth fully determined upon obtaining replies to several very important questions. First, why were there no eucharis lilies? Secondly, how was it that, after all the money which she had expended upon begonias during the last two years, everybody in the neighbourhood could beat her with them? Thirdly, would Peter be good enough to explain any particular reason that he might have for allowing two of the greenhouses to be simply devastated by green fly? She had other minor matters to inquire into, but these were the chief, and she felt that her case as it stood was a tolerably strong one.

The tall, thin, grey-bearded individual whom she ran to earth

from a very serious bush fire, and both he and David were convinced that Sandie was an uncanny bairn.

Colin returned to Australia immediately afterwards, and as he parted from his brother and sister-in-law he said with a melancholy smile, 'If ony mischance befa's me, ye'll ken as sune as I do mysel'. Your awesome bairn will see it a', and ye may tak' for gospel aught tauld ye by ane that has the second sight.'

One fine afternoon, some three weeks after Colin had sailed, David having just then no particular work to keep him on the farm all day, proposed for a great treat to row Sandie to the Bass Rock. Oat-cutting would shortly begin, and then he would not have a spare hour from morning to night. But to-day he and his son would enjoy a holiday together, and Sandie was to take with him the small gun that his father gave him on his last birthday, for he was now nine years of age, and high time that he set about learning to kill something or other. All the latent boy seemed developed in the delicate child by the possession of the small fowling-piece, and he blazed away at the rats under the hayricks, and at the sparrows on the roof, to the peril alike of the poultry and of the bedroom windows. Mother, mother, I'll shoot ye a gannet and mak' ye a cushion o' the down!' he shouted in wild excitement as he set forth on the expedition.

Mrs. Galbraith stood on the doorstep watching her husband and son leave the house together, David a stout, tall man in the prime of late middle life, red faced and grey haired, and Sandie a lanky lad with pale freckled face, but with more vigour in his step than the fond mother had ever expected to see. He carried his gun over his shoulder and strode along by his father's side, glancing up at him frequently to try to imitate his every look and gesture. David Galbraith was fond of rowing, and as it was a very calm day he dismissed the man in charge of the boat, and taking the oars himself said it would do him good to row as far as the Bass Rock and back again. The sea was like a mill-pond, a glassy stretch of water with here and there a wind flaw wrinkling its smooth surface. There was not a wave that could have displaced a pebble on the beach, and great masses of olive-green seaweed floated motionless in its clear depths. To the left, high above them, stood the ruins of Tantallon Castle, bathed in August sunshine, its grey walls taking warmth and colour from the glow of light that softened and beautified its rugged outline. Before them the sullen mass of the Bass Rock towered above the blue

water, circled by countless thousands of sea birds, the glitter of whose white wings was seen as silvery flashes of light, from a distance too great to distinguish the birds themselves.

They were near enough to the shore to hear voices and laughter borne over the water from the grassy inclosure before Tantallon Castle, and lowing of kine in the pastures, and as they neared the Bass Rock these sounds were exchanged for the squealing of wild fowl and the clang of their wings. To Sandie's delight he was allowed to shoot from the boat, which he did with as little danger to the birds as to the fishes, and the only condition his father imposed was that he should fire with his back towards him, 'till your aim is mair preceese, man.' Though it soon became evident even to the sanguine Sandie that he would bring home neither gannet nor kittiwake, it was a rapturous delight to be rowed about the island by his father, who told him the name of every bird he saw, and pointed out their nests on the precipitous face of the rock. Then David rested on his oars, and the boat scarcely moved on the still water while Sandie ate the oat cake and drank the milk provided for him by his mother, and his father took a deep draft from his flask till his face grew crimson.

hand.

Father, gie me a drink, too,' said Sandie, stretching out his

'Na, na; ye'll stick to your milk-drinking till ye hae built up a strong frame, and then ye may tak' as much whusky as ye wull to keep it in guid repair.'

And now the boat was turned landward once more, and they soon lost sound of the clang of the sea birds' wings, and the lowing of kine was again heard, and David rowed slowly past the rock of Tantallon, After chattering for hours Sandie had fallen silent, and sat leaning his arm on the gunwale of the boat looking into the limpid water, dipping his hand into a soft swelling wave, and scattering a shower of glittering drops from his fingers. Suddenly he ceased his idle play, and kneeling in the bottom of the boat, clung firmly to the side with both hands, leaned over and gazed intently in the water. His father, who was always on the alert where his son was concerned, at once noticed the change that had come over him, rowed quicker, and said cheerily, 'What are ye glowering at, man? Did ye never see a herring in the sea before?'

Sandie neither spoke nor stirred, and David took comfort in thinking that after all the lad could see nothing uncanny in the water; it was just some daft folly or other he was after, best

their way into the house when one is not at home; so that Miss Rowley's face, as she entered the drawing-room and greeted her visitor, wore a distinctly interrogative expression.

Mrs. Colborne jumped up, seized her by both hands, and kissed her on both cheeks. If Mrs. Colborne's manner, which was really a very perfect manner of its kind, had a fault, that fault may have been that it was a shade too effusive.

'My dear,' she began, ' I know I am inexcusable; you didn't want to be bothered with me, and I have forced you to be bothered with me. Strike, but hear me. I have had a letter from Douglas which has startled me out of my seven senses, and I couldn't for the life of me have gone home without having told you about it.'

Miss Rowley took a chair, and observed: 'He is going to be married to some fascinating foreigner, I suppose. I expected as

much.'

'How extraordinary of you to have expected it!' exclaimed the elder lady admiringly. But then you are so wonderfully clever. For my own part, I was no more prepared to hear of such a thing than I was to hear of his having lost his heart to a barmaid. All his life he has been such a good, steady fellow, and has never given me a moment of anxiety.'

A closer observer than Mrs. Colborne might have detected a slight diminution of the healthy colour which graced Miss Rowley's open countenance; but it was in an absolutely steady and unconcerned voice that the latter inquired: 'Are there barmaids in France? and does he propose to espouse one of them? I hope not, because if he does we shall assuredly lose the seat at the next election.'

'Oh dear, no!' replied Mrs. Colborne; it isn't so bad as that. The lady is the only living representative of a very old family, and is enormously rich, he tells me. She is a certain Countess Radna, a Hungarian heiress, whom he met in Paris last spring. From some points of view it may be considered a great match for him, though it is hardly what I should have chosen.'

'Men have a way of choosing for themselves,' remarked Miss Rowley, and men who are worth their salt always do so. I don't see that you have much to complain of, especially as the woman is rich. The good old days of bribery and corruption are at end; still it does a candidate no sort of harm to be provided with a rich wife. Free and independent as the electors are, they

Sydney had mysteriously fallen overboard in perfectly calm weather and was drowned. The gentleman's name was Mr. Colin Galbraith, and his sudden untimely end had cast a gloom over the ship's company. So far the newspaper report, which, brief as it was, was all that David and Alison could ever learn of their poor brother's fate. They carefully compared the dates, and found that Colin had been drowned three days after Sandie had seen the vision of the body in the sea.

'I winna tell the bairn that puir Colin is dead,' said David gloomily.

'Ye'll just tell the bairn he's dead, but you'll say naething of drowning.'

'Ye maun do as ye think best, but I canna mention puir Colin's name to him.' And it was from his mother that Sandie heard of his Uncle Colin's death. He listened gravely and thoughtfully to the tidings. 'Yes, it was him that I saw in the water,' and that was all that he had to say about the death of his favourite uncle; he asked no question and made no further remark.

From this time forward a great change came over David Galbraith. From being wholly matter of fact and little inclined to believe more than his senses could attest, he became credulous and superstitious. He trembled at omens, and was unnerved for his day's work if his dreams overnight were unpropitious. He disliked being out on dark nights, and cast uneasy glances over his shoulder as though he heard steps behind him. At times when he was riding he thought that he heard some one following hard on his heels, and he would gallop for miles and reach home, horse and rider both in a sweat of fear. And Sandie, the unconscious cause of the evil change in his father, mutely wondered what had come over him. David scarcely let the boy out of his sight, though his society was a torment to him, and he was always wondering what would be the next shock he would receive. Unhappily he tried to restore tone to his shaken nerves by drinking, and the habit grew quickly on him, to his good wife's great distress; and times were now so changed that Sandie was often more frightened of his father than his father was of him. Mrs. Galbraith proposed sending Sandie to stay with some relations of her own at Linlithgow, thinking that it would do her husband good to have the strain of the boy's constant society removed for awhile. But he would not hear of it, and merely said, 'The bairn sall bide at hame. It's my ain weird, and I maun dree it.'