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corous citizen, subscribe to the Primrose League and growl at Democracy-live a life as viciously respectable as was lived in that deplorable monument of impeccable taste." He waved his hand at the façade of the palace, which surveyed them with its chilly glare of self-conscious breeding. "Mrs Heathcote, if you had lived my life you would know that that was impossible. I should be as much out of place in English country life as the Siamese ambassadors were at the Court of Louis XIV."

Impossible!" she echoed, warmly. "You of all persons to use that phrase, you who haveHe winced, as he always did, at such allusions.

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"I retract," he said, slowly. "It might have been possible once; it is no longer so." was gazing at him questioningly. "I don't think," he replied, gently, "you quite understand what I have been. Perhaps I am a riddle, but it's not of my making. There was a time when your ideal was my ideal; but, after fifteen years of cutting throats, it only remains for me to continue cutting the throats that civilisation in its own interest says must be cut. You tell me my view of life is all wrong-perhaps it is. I have never told you my story-I couldn't tell you all-but I will confide to you one episode. Have you guessed that I first went to South Africa because of a woman? That was fifteen years ago. I was a young sub, and knew everything. I was engaged to be married-in order to be jilted, I suppose. I was betrayed by a woman I had loved -vilely betrayed. So I went to South Africa and the devil together I beg your pardon, I was forgetting. Any way, I had my chance of being domesticated, and I made a mess of it; and since

then the women I have met have done nothing to make me alter my verdict on the sex."

He paused, expecting her usual reproaches, but instead she was looking at him with the tenderest sympathy. "I am sorry," she said in a whisper, "very sorry. We women have much to answer for. I had no idea that that was your story. Forgive me for having spoken so lightly." A smile broke into her eyes. "The riddle is solved," she said, quickly.

"And, like every bad riddle," he replied, "there is no proper

answer."

"Oh no!" she rejoined, warmly, "the answer is yet to come. You simply made the same mistake that I did. You mistook physical admiration for love. Love can only be won."

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'By the beautiful life," he interrupted, bitterly. "And my

life has been so beautiful." "Not altogether, I fear," she replied, half sadly. "But you have at least been unselfish-we all know that. Come, be honest,

and admit that on that chord of

unselfishness you can, if you will, build up the beautiful symphony." "Ah! if I could only believe you. But I have no sister, as you have your brother, to train myself on. I have no one-no one."

She flushed. "No, not at present, but you can find a woman who would" She broke off. Was it, West asked himself with a delicious throb, because she could not trust herself?

"And then suppose I made another mistake? All women are not as you are always saying they ought to be," he added, seeing her troubled look.

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He shrank back from her touch. The movement was cruelly pathetic. "No, Mrs Heathcote," he said, almost fiercely; "your optimism does you credit, but I am too old to change now. I shall have to go back to South Africa. of my life are not made to make any woman happy. If I had married that girl, I should have made her unhappier even than she is to-day. I do not know the -" he turned unwoman, unlessconsciously towards her. "See, there is Tom,' ," she said, hurriedly, "waiting for us."

He accepted the reproof humbly. "Forgive me," he said, contritely; "I hardly knew what I was saying."

"There is nothing to forgive," she replied, in a low voice. As they rose he saw her eyelashes sweep her burning cheek, and they were wet with tears.

The next day he marched out into the hotel garden, where she was sitting with her Tauchnitz unread in her lap. He waved a slip of paper.

"I need your advice," he began. "There is trouble in South Africa, and they want me to leave at once. Shall I go?"

She looked up at him and caught a quick breath. "Yes, go," she said; "go with our good wishes."

He bit his moustache. "But yesterday you told me to stay at home."

"I thought," she replied, with a slow smile, "that your experience told you that women were fickle. You surely don't want further proofs."

"Then I must go?" he queried. She nodded, and without a word he went away to pack his things.

When he returned they chattered idly for some minutes. "I am going," he said at last, looking

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"But you will come back," and she smiled up at him.

"Who knows? Even a Matabele shoots straight sometimes." Her smile faded away. The grey wings of the grim angel seemed for a moment to throw a shadow of pain across her face. "I want to come back," he went on, "for life is beginning to be worth living. May I tell you-in case I should not have another chance — that, thanks to you, I have recovered my belief in women."

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She flushed a happy red. "Then I shall look out in the papers,' she answered, brightly, "because I shall see the belief in the telegrams."

He lingered. "Life is worth living," he repeated, sadly. "I only wish I had something to live for. May I not hope?" he slipped in, pleadingly. A waiter came out with the unwelcome news that monsieur's fiacre was avancé.

He held out his hand. "Goodbye!" he muttered, huskily. She gave him her hand in silence and he raised it to his lips. She snatched it back, and then, as if repentant, drew off the signet-ring and handed it to him.

"I may hope, then?" he cried in a joyous burst.

"You will miss your train," was all she said. "Au revoir!" and without further words they parted. But as he drove away in the merry sunshine, the ring on his finger long continued to flash back the look of tender trust that had dawned in her moistened eyes.

C. GRANT ROBERTSON.

ELRICK

It was soon after moonrise on the eve of full moon, the 2d of October, a year ago, when in crossing the bridge over Elrick 1 burn there appeared to me the strangest, weirdest illumination upon the old stone parapet on either side. Opposing lights were cast from a great gold harvest moon and from the green glow of a frosty west. Neither light did seem to gain the mastery, for both alike threw shadows on the walls. On the right hand burned the moon's light, warm as the reflex of some dying conflagration, while cold and crystal-pure as beryl itself shone the western sky upon the left. Past the bridge the road lay between lines of slender ash-trees casting halftransparent shades. Did ever any one before, I wondered, walk thus between two shadows, shadowing him right and left? Better so than none, for that is no good sign. Long ago it was said, by the country-folk, of at least one man of evil repute among lairds of his day, that "neither on moonlichty nichts nor in broad day had he ever a shadow to him."

As I stood still for a moment considering the curious effect, I thought a third silently, slowly went by. It might have been a mere momentary illusion, though certainly I saw a shadow pass. There was just a little shock of surprise, nothing more; for who can tell what strange things may not happen on such an evening in the North? It is likely that on no other evening, in any other month of the year, would moon

WALKS.

and sky combine to make one feel linked with the outland race of them who, as a poet told, dwell "east of the sun and west of the moon,” wherever that fair land of dreams may be.

Along these lonesome country roads, when labourers have gone home and lights begin to stream from windows on the hillsides far apart, few might be the belated wayfarers who marked the crossing shadows by the light of the harvest

moon.

When summer is past and happy daylight walks are done, there comes the joy of the moon, with her mysterious charm. When the Empress of the Night rules in splendour, flooding the earth with seas of silver broken by blots of ebon blackness, they need not be all so-called lunatics who respond with a kind of exaltation to the strong influences of her reign. But when she floats a crescent bark, serene in the soft atmosphere of an autumn evening, then is her sway hushed and gentle-divine with thoughts that are not of earth. Whether by sunlight or by moonshine, long hours of solitary walks inland of this north-east coast of Aberdeenshire are to be counted amongst the purest of life's common pleasures. Then is the time for dreams. Then are composed essays and poems,-every one of them perhaps to fade away, unwritten and forgot. Then are there pictures painted which never know paint or canvas. Then also is it that a subject for pen or pencil-first forms itself in the mind, and in many a happy walk is pursued until "the idea shines." And when this is thus, we confess

1 Elrick-field of the fairies.

VOL. CLXI.-NO. DCCCCLXXX.

3 K

the hours not idly spent. Yet how deeply soever the mind may be at work, the eye sees and takes in with delight details of rocks and grass and wild-flower, each varied outline of trees or fields, of hilltop and of cloud. Wild woods and mountains and river-sides may be more full of romantic beauty, yet, for everyday wear, these familiar roads with their old stone dikes are best. There are the roadside flowers and herbs, changing ever with the changeful months; the purple distance of wooded heights: with the field life, and birds,—and the human interest, which last never can be least.

This Elrick countryside is very old-a truism that only means old cottages, old landmarks, old stones. There is a hilly road from which the prospect on a sunny late September morning is as beautiful as the breeze that blows over it is bright and health-giving. It is the very picture of prosperity. Amidst the upland corn and pasture are scattered clumps of trees and islands of white farmsteads. Around each farm lies its little enclosed bit of garden and a labourer's cottage or two, and the shadow of them aslant upon the hill. A black heap under every farm gable and beside every cot is the winter hoard of peat. Later in the month dark loads creep all day along the winding far - seen roads. It is the season for "leading" peats. Pasturing in the fields beside the cattle are flocks of white

'sea-mew. The birds rise and settle and rise again in a perpetual twinkle of white wings. The weather is so fine that "stookey Sunday" must be near. On stookey Sunday the corn- stooks stand in ordered ranks everywhere up and down the wide deserted

lands.

The last of the harvest ("clyack" they still call the last sheaf, sometimes) has been cut by the youngest lass in the field, and only tarries for the "leading," or carrying, as they would say in England. There is a deeper quiet in the air than even on any ordinary Sabbath day, by contrast with the busy jollity of last week's end. The very

silence speaks, while the Bible word keeps running in our mind,-the word which said, "and the land had rest." The sheaves will stand as they are, all a-row up and down the fields day and night, for long. They have to await fulfilment of "the flailer's prayer "-the welcome shower that makes the threshing easy. An old rhyme

formerly in use was written down nineteen years ago from the lips of an old ploughman crooning by the farm-kitchen fire

"Trembling strae maks trottin' owsen;1

Trottin' owsen maks red lan' banks; Red lan' banks maks a thin corn-yaird; A thin corn-yaird maks a hungry fairmer!"

That is true Doric; but, whether in rhyme or prose, "the flailer's prayer" is now but an empty sound, for the big deafening threshing-machine needs none of

it.

Yet, rain or shine, the stooks will bide a wee, and hold the field. If to-day were Sabbath, the seabirds would be away. Birds, &c., as we all know, have their own ways of spending it. On Sundays gulls

are not seen inland. Rooks choose it for the first day of nest-building in the spring. Caged doves almost invariably lay an egg on Sunday. The heron alights by the burn near the house for an hour's quiet fishing while the people are at kirk. Salmon get up the river unscared

1 Owsen-oxen.

by mills, and bees are said not to

swarm.

The aspect of a certain quiet full prosperity, so characteristic of this part of Scotland, is no mere idle show. The black peat neatly stacked at the gable end of the poorest dwelling, alone might mark the difference. New slated houses are many, but there still remain dotted about near the roads or on the hillsides old low-roofed dreary little dwellings of the poor (poor, almost without poverty !), the same as were in existence a hundred years ago and more. The old thatch grows deep-green crops of moss; the wooden lum is swathed round in hay-ropes; the doorway is only just high enough, or barely, for a man to walk in without knocking his head; little deep-set windows not made to open, with one like an afterthought worked in the wall beside the ingle-neuk. Sometimes huge boulders, built in as cornerstones, give a sense of solidness and security. How well the colourtone of roof and walls blends with the colouring of all the land around! Dreary little northland cottages! how pleasant is their look of homely comfort, how engaging their bit of bright garden, and how seldom would it gain a prize for tidiness! Sweet simple flowers, such as are sown in spring, grow there, with a patch or two of so-called English iris and blue monk's-hood, all blooming as they never bloom in milder regions. If a few tall splendours of crimson sword - lily perchance aspire above the humbler flowers, they are guilty of giving no shock of incongruousness, as would a scarlet geranium or yellow calceolaria, or any other flowering foreigners. Deep-rooted in Scotland, in the hearts of her people is their love for gardens. It is a love born with their birth, and it forsakes

them never. Even the children play at gardening, and make small pleasure-plots by the road, in rough waste-grounds, or in corners of the crofts. One such miniature garden I pass in walks along the Elrick roads. It is the joint property of a family of four children. The little space is carefully fenced round, and laid out in walks and flower - beds. Two tiny wooden gates, fastened with a loop of old string, admit-or keep out-the brownies, the only people who might be supposed to wish to trespass there, or sit under the shade of a tall tree of spiced southernwood in the midst ! A fairy path leads to a thicket of spotted pulmonaria; and in a sunny corner are the strawberry beds, where is room for just one large strawberry root. Sometimes I have known the children make their "brownie" gardens among the foundation-stones of some poor ruined cot; and there I have seen a fairy farmyard too, with little corn-stacks of wild grasses thatched with rush.

Bound up together with this native love for flowers and gardens is the faculty of vivid imagination. It dies down as the years increase, but in the bairnie's breast, as a rule, it glows and burns. With flame more faint perhaps, imagination does also not seldom illuminate the daily life of cottage children in the tamer South. In Berkshire field-paths, for instance, one may often come unawares upon little altars piled within recesses of big tree-roots, decked out in freshly gathered flower-heads. It is the children who build these high places, and make their little offerings there of red clovers or buttercups or blue veronica. A tiny survival it may be of Mariolatry, or perchance of some remoter pagan age. The remnants of that

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