uneasy, my dear; he was positively wrecking his own prospects because he
dared not leave him alone. How wholly we all lie at the mercy of a

single prater, not needfully with any malign purpose! And if a man but
talks of himself in the right spirit, refers to his virtuous actions by

the way, and never applies to them the name of virtue, how easily his
evidence is accepted in the court of public opinion!

All this while, however, there was a more poisonousferment at work
between the two lads, which came late indeed to the surface, but had

modified and magnified their dissensions from the first. To an idle,
shallow, easy-going customer like Frank, the smell of a mystery was

attractive. It gave his mind something to play with, like a new toy to
a child; and it took him on the weak side, for like many young men

coming to the Bar, and before they had been tried and found wanting, he
flattered himself he was a fellow of unusual quickness and penetration.

They knew nothing of Sherlock Holmes in those days, but there was a good
deal said of Talleyrand. And if you could have caught Frank off his

guard, he would have confessed with a smirk that, if he resembled any
one, it was the Marquis de Talleyrand-Perigord. It was on the occasion

of Archie's first absence that this interest took root. It was vastly
deepened when Kirstie resented his curiosity at breakfast, and that same

afternoon there occurred another scene which clinched the business. He
was fishing Swingleburn, Archie accompanying him, when the latter looked

at his watch.
"Well, good-bye," said he. "I have something to do. See you at

dinner."
"Don't be in such a hurry," cries Frank. "Hold on till I get my rod up.

I'll go with you; I'm sick of flogging this ditch."
And he began to reel up his line.

Archie stood speechless. He took a long while to recover his wits under
this direct attack; but by the time he was ready with his answer, and

the angle was almost packed up, he had become completely Weir, and the
hanging face gloomed on his young shoulders. He spoke with a laboured

composure, a laboured kindness even; but a child could see that his mind
was made up.

"I beg your pardon, Innes; I don't want to be disagreeable, but let us
understand one another from the beginning. When I want your company,

I'll let you know."
"O!" cries Frank, "you don't want my company, don't you?"

"Apparently not just now," replied Archie. "I even indicated to you
when I did, if you'll remember - and that was at dinner. If we two

fellows are to live together pleasantly - and I see no reason why we
should not - it can only be by respecting each other's privacy. If we

begin intruding - "
"O, come! I'll take this at no man's hands. Is this the way you treat

a guest and an old friend?" cried Innes.
"Just go home and think over what I said by yourself," continued Archie,

"whether it's reasonable, or whether it's really offensive or not; and
let's meet at dinner as though nothing had happened, I'll put it this

way, if you like - that I know my own character, that I'm looking
forward (with great pleasure, I assure you) to a long visit from you,

and that I'm taking precautions at the first. I see the thing that we -
that I, if you like - might fall out upon, and I step in and OBSTO

PRINCIPIIS. I wager you five pounds you'll end by seeing that I mean
friendliness, and I assure you, Francie, I do," he added, relenting.

Bursting with anger, but incapable of speech, Innes shouldered his rod,
made a gesture of farewell, and strode off down the burn-side. Archie

watched him go without moving. He was sorry, but quite unashamed. He
hated to be inhospitable, but in one thing he was his father's son. He

had a strong sense that his house was his own and no man else's; and to
lie at a guest's mercy was what he refused. He hated to seem harsh.

But that was Frank's lookout. If Frank had been commonlydiscreet, he
would have been decently courteous. And there was another

consideration. The secret he was protecting was not his own merely; it
was hers: it belonged to that inexpressible she who was fast taking

possession of his soul, and whom he would soon have defended at the cost
of burning cities. By the time he had watched Frank as far as the

Swingleburn-foot, appearing and disappearing in the tarnished heather,
still stalking at a fierce gait but already dwindled in the distance

into less than the smallness of Lilliput, he could afford to smile at
the occurrence. Either Frank would go, and that would be a relief - or

he would continue to stay, and his host must continue to endure him.
And Archie was now free - by devious paths, behind hillocks and in the

hollow of burns - to make for the trysting-place where Kirstie, cried
about by the curlew and the plover, waited and burned for his coming by

the Covenanter's stone.
Innes went off down-hill in a passion of resentment, easy to be

understood, but which yielded progressively to the needs of his
situation. He cursed Archie for a cold-hearted, unfriendly, rude, rude

dog; and himself still more passionately for a fool in having come to
Hermiston when he might have sought refuge in almost any other house in

Scotland. But the step once taken, was practically irretrievable. He
had no more ready money to go anywhere else; he would have to borrow

from Archie the next club-night; and ill as he thought of his host's
manners, he was sure of his practical generosity. Frank's resemblance

to Talleyrand strikes me as imaginary; but at least not Talleyrand
himself could have more obediently taken his lesson from the facts. He

met Archie at dinner without resentment, almost with cordiality. You
must take your friends as you find them, he would have said. Archie

couldn't help being his father's son, or his grandfather's, the
hypothetical weaver's, grandson. The son of a hunks, he was still a

hunks at heart, incapable of true generosity and consideration; but he
had other qualities with which Frank could divert himself in the

meanwhile, and to enjoy which it was necessary that Frank should keep
his temper.

So excellently was it controlled that he awoke next morning with his
head full of a different, though a cognate subject. What was Archie's

little game? Why did he shun Frank's company? What was he keeping
secret? Was he keeping tryst with somebody, and was it a woman? It

would be a good joke and a fair revenge to discover. To that task he
set himself with a great deal of patience, which might have surprised

his friends, for he had been always credited not with patience so much
as brilliancy; and little by little, from one point to another, he at

last succeeded in piecing out the situation. First he remarked that,
although Archie set out in all the directions of the compass, he always

came home again from some point between the south and west. From the
study of a map, and in consideration of the great expanse of untenanted

moorland running in that direction towards the sources of the Clyde, he
laid his finger on Cauldstaneslap and two other neighbouring farms,

Kingsmuirs and Polintarf. But it was difficult to advance farther.
With his rod for a pretext, he vainly visited each of them in turn;

nothing was to be seen suspicious about this trinity of moorland
settlements. He would have tried to follow Archie, had it been the

least possible, but the nature of the land precluded the idea. He did
the next best, ensconced himself in a quiet corner, and pursued his

movements with a telescope. It was equally in vain, and he soon wearied
of his futilevigilance, left the telescope at home, and had almost

given the matter up in despair, when, on the twenty-seventh day of his
visit, he was suddenly confronted with the person whom he sought. The

first Sunday Kirstie had managed to stay away from kirk on some pretext
of indisposition, which was more truly modesty; the pleasure of

beholding Archie seeming too sacred, too vivid for that public place.
On the two following, Frank had himself been absent on some of his

excursions among the neighbouring families. It was not until the
fourth, accordingly, that Frank had occasion to set eyes on the

enchantress. With the first look, all hesitation was over. She came
with the Cauldstaneslap party; then she lived at Cauldstaneslap. Here

was Archie's secret, here was the woman, and more than that - though I
have need here of every manageable attenuation of language - with the

first look, he had already entered himself as rival. It was a good deal
in pique, it was a little in revenge, it was much in genuine admiration:

the devil may decide the proportions! I cannot, and it is very likely
that Frank could not.

"Mighty attractivemilkmaid," he observed, on the way home.
"Who?" said Archie.

"O, the girl you're looking at - aren't you? Forward there on the road.
She came attended by the rustic bard; presumably, therefore, belongs to