bundle on the floor, and dropped arms and face into his mother's lap. "Mother-I did know that the Lord was standing by, but-but-the time was fearsome. It was nigh ten o' the night by the dying light, and I was sair tired, but I could na' sleep-and oh! mither, mither, I did weary so for ye." A tear dropped on the boy's sunbrowned hand. A tender hand caressed his sunny hair. Five days' solitary confinement has been known to quell even stout men's hearts. It was not surprising that nearly a week of loneliness had told somewhat heavily upon the high-wrought susceptibilities of a young boy, living in times when those in the prime of age and intellect were not ashamed to believe in witches, warlocks, and all the rest of the miserable and mischievous delusions. To change the current of his memories, Mary Blair said cheerfully: "No doubt, my bonny bairn, ye did weary for her, and so a good bairn should. But ye have her the noo, and we are a' fain to hear what it is ye ha' getten for her. Will ye no' let us see it, and tell after how ye came by it?" That was a very artful suggestion of Mary Blair's, for she pretty clearly divined that it was one that would not be at all welcome. His past fears and miseries dispelled by a present very vivid, but exceedingly harmless alarm, Ivie lifted his face again from his mother's knees, and laid his hand quickly over the plaid as he answered her: "Nay, nay, Mary. It will pleasure me rather to tell ye my tale first, and show ye the braw giftie I have hidden intil this, afterwards. And, mother dear, it was no' just a wayfarer, so to be called, was my visitor, neither, nor in need o' any hospitality that I could offer him. He was a grand man, young and pleasant-looking, though wi' a touch maybe o' haughtiness in his face, so much as I could see of it through the darkness." "Did you find him in the yard, dear?" asked his mother. Ivie shook his head vigorously, and turning, pointed his finger at the room-door behind him. "That is where I found him. And how and when he came there, I cannot tell. Wallace just gave one wee bittie growl, mair like as though to warn me, than as if he were onyways angered. And I took my face oot my hands, and looked where Wallace looked, and I saw him. A' the doorway was just filled wi' him. It seemed to ha' grown a mere wee bit slit, like as when Dame Elspeth Spence screwed up her eyelids yon morn, till only a narrow line o' her eyes showed through. The door-way was too narrow for him, and too low for him. He was tall-so tall-and his shoulders broader even than William's, but thinnerlike. And he smiled till I thought o' the sun-ripples in the burn, when he stooped low, low down, and said: 'Good old Wallace, good old guardian, take care of him till his mother comes back, and his friend William.'" At this point in the history there burst forth such a tu mult of wonder and questionings, from all the three listeners, that it seemed as though the narrator's breath would all be exhausted before he got a chance. to end it. But, however, the questionings did come to a finish at last, when it became fully evident that Ivie could give them no more satisfactory replies than that: "Yes; the mysterious stranger-guest did evidently know Wallace, and something at least of Wallace's master, and of the other inmates of Blair's Farm. And he thought it was equally evident that Wallace knew something of the stranger." But how much either knew of the other he could not say, neither did the stranger tell him who he was, where he came from, nor even his name. "He only gave me this," wound up Ivie, at length. opening his package with the greatest care, and taking out a beautiful, many-hued crystal phial. "He gave me this, and told me it was for my mother, And that I was to say to her- The giver thought she might value it, in remembrance of that day, and that he would she should guard it carefully, as it might prove of use to me, should I ever be led to follow in my father's footsteps, and perchance come to need a friend.' He made me repeat the words thrice, as though he misdoubted my memory. And then, while I turned to place the wee bit bottle on yonder shelf, as he bade me, he was gone." Mistress McCall scarcely heard the concluding words. The phial in one hand, its curiouslytwisted engraved stopper in the other, she sat as though she were in a trance. The Blairs appeared to be equally spell-bound, and the subtle aroma of some exquisite foreign perfume filled the whole room. There was no mistaking that phial, nor the peculiar fragrance it still emitted, although the contents had been poured more than thirty-six hours ago upon the headless body of James Guthrie, as it lay, safe at last from all pain, at peace from all restless indignations and anxieties, in a coffin placed in the aisle of the Old Kirk in Edinburgh. Why the flask had been brought to Blair's Farm, and given into the keeping of Mistress McCall, remained a secret which that wondering little company had had to trust that the future might reveal. Each in turn twisted it about in their hands, as though they imagined that by the superlatively strong exercise of their wishes glass might be taught to speak, and prevailed upon to tell all it knew about its late owner. But telephones were not invented then, much less talking-bottles possessed of powers for satisfying curiosity. And so the mysterious gift was put away at last, with a sigh, amongst the lady's few cherished treasures that remained to her after the despoiling of her home. And few indeed they were. She had lost her husband, and all worldly gear in the cause of the Covenant and the King. Had she lost them on the King's account only she might now have |