telling Mr. and Mrs. Thornhill that he would be back in an hour or two, St. Clyde went to the carne in the muir, where he found Carr sitting.This spot was well chosen for a private conversation. Not a bush to screen a listener for half a mile around; not an house to shelter an eavesdrop per; not one speck on which any cowin to privacy could take advantage of speech; it was on this spot that Carr appointed to meet Colin; and on the carne they both sat down.

"Ye'll be fain, nae doubt, to ken how Maister Whiggans is? then I can tell you vera weel; he is unco well; though he has nae gotten a hantle o' siller now, he can behave like any gentleman; and he has nae forgotten the house o' St. Clyde, dear; and there is naebody, I wadna exempt even the minister himsel, that looes ye better, and that wad do mair baith for you,

dear, and for the lady Ellen, dear; an' its yoursels he wad die for, darlings."

St. Clyde bowed, and thanked Carr for the compliment he was paying his employer at his expense; but he asked where Whiggans was?

"I was just gaen on to tell ye, how that Maister Whiggans will yet be unco weel aff in the warld, though he lost the lugger; and he got ane Shemus Macalester, taishatr; and, as ye see, Shemus Macalester, who can ken what's doing in other kintries, as weel as at hame, tald Maister Whiggans things, himself will tell ye a', and I'll send him word this night that ye are come hame, dear, and I'll warrant ye'll see Mr. Whiggans here unco soon; it's for you he wad risk his life, darling." This Shemus Macalester, taishatr, was then a seer-one of those second-sighted folks, who owed their inspiration to a gift peculiar in their families. And

St. Clyde listened to the discourse of Carr; and though he had no faith in the tale of the seer, he was considerably struck with the mention made of him; and, remembering how keen and knowing a man Whiggans was, St. Clyde started suddenly, and Carr with his eye steadily fixed upon him, coolly asked, "if he saw a' Rothsay gaun to see the bailey o' regality an' a pit and gallows for them that did the bloody deed."

"There are mair suspected to hae had a hand in the strangling o' your late father than Lerwick,-aye! and ane too ye may nae yet hae guessed at, and if he be not the man, Shemus Macalester was sair taen to say, as he said, sitting at his ain ingle at Bunaive, the vera day yaur father was laid i' the cauld ground, There is a funeral procession in the south, a' the isle is at it, a poor man could na' hae sae mony friends; there is a mourner there was at

bloody wark-I kenna his name, but weel I can describe him.' Now," continued Carr, "if Shemus Macalester did na' ken vera well a' the outs an' ins, a' the ups and downs, a' the straucht and cruket ways o' this murky warl, I’se tak my aith, he could na' hae seen and tald a' this, and muckle mair, the whilk I dinna mind: but he said, seven years wad nae gang oure his head till he saw the neck powed o' twa right deel ripe reeking haund monsters.""

St. Clyde was going to put some other questions to Carr, who now looked him full in the face for a second, and drawing a skeenocles from his sleeve, he thrust it into the ground, and seizing the right hand of St. Clyde with his own left hand, he opened the fist of his. right, and brought the palm of it to his mouth to salute it, flourished his hand round his head, and came smack with it into the palm of St. Clyde's

right hand, and shook it, whilst his whole frame was convulsed with the shock into which the agitation of his mind cast him.

The disarming of himself whilst he plighted his faith, and the act of vowing friendship, occupied perhaps threeeights of a minute,--it was not quite twenty-three seconds, words and all.

"You have done weel, Mr. St. Clyde to confide in me; Mr. Whiggans is as much worthy of trust, dear, as either the minister or baillie Ilan Dou." And wheeling round, he picked up his knife from the barren ground, and wishing St. Clyde a good day, crossed the muir in the direction of Ettrick bay.

St. Clyde stood motionless, wrapped in dreams of imagination; gazing after Carr, who gradually decreased in size and distinctness, till his head and shoulders seemed to flicker on the verge of the muir's horizon, as, on

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