Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/406

400 the king, an' syne we'll get oor richts, for he'll no stan' to see't, an' maitters 'll sune be set upon a better futtin' for puir fowk 'at has no freen' but God an' the sea."

The greatness of the result represented laid hold of Peter's imagination, and the resistance to injustice necessary to reach it stirred the old tar in him. When they took their leave he walked halfway up the street with them, and then returned to tell his wife what they had been saying, all the way murmuring to himself as he went, "The Lord is a man of war." And ever as he said the words he saw as in a vision the great man-of-war in which he had served sweeping across the bows of a Frenchman, and raking him, gun after gun, from stem to stem. Nor did the warlike mood abate until he reached home and looked his wife in the eyes. He told her all, ending with the half-repudiatory, half-tentative words, "That's what they say, ye see, Annie."

"And what say ye, Joseph?" returned his wife.

"Ow! I'm no sayin'," "he answered.

"What are ye thinkin' than, Joseph?" she pursued. "Ye canna say ye're no thinkin'."

"Na, I'll no say that, lass," he replied, but said so more.

"Weel, gien ye winna say," resumed Annie, "I wull; an' my say is, 'at it luiks to me unco like takin' things intil yer ain han'."

"An' whase han' sud we tak them intil but oor ain?" said Peter, with a falseness which in another would, have roused his righteous indignation.

"That's no the p'int. It's whase han' ye're takin' them oot o'," returned she, and spoke with solemnity and significance.

Peter made no answer, but the words Vengeance is mine began to ring in his mental ears instead of The Lord is a man of war.

Before Mr. Graham left them, and while Peter's soul was flourishing, he would have simply said that it was their part to endure, and leave the rest to the God of the sparrows. But now the words of men whose judgment had no weight with him threw him back upon the instinct of self-defence — driven from which by the words of his wife, he betook himself, not, alas! to the protection, but to the vengeance, of the Lord.

The next day he told the three commissioners that he was sorry to disappoint them, but he could not make common cause with them, for he could not see it his duty to resist, much as it would gratify the natural man. They must therefore excuse him if he left Scaurnose at the time appointed. He hoped he should leave friends behind him.

They listened respectfully, showed no offence, and did not even attempt to argue the matter with him. But certain looks passed between them.

After this Blue Peter was a little happier in his mind and went more briskly about his affairs.

 

was a lovely summer evening, and the sun, going down just beyond the point of the Scaurnose, shone straight upon the Partan's door. That it was closed in such weather had a significance — general as well as individual. Doors were oftener closed in the Seaton now. The spiritual atmosphere of the place was less clear and open than hitherto. The behavior of the factor, the trouble of their neighbors, the conviction that the man who depopulated Scaurnose would at least raise the rents upon them, had brought a cloud over the feelings and prospects of its inhabitants which their special quarrel with the oppressor for Malcolm's sake had drawn deeper around the Findlays; and hence it was that the setting sun shone upon the closed door of their cottage.

But a shadow darkened it, cutting off the level stream of rosy red. An aged man in Highland garments stood and knocked. His overworn dress looked fresher and brighter in the friendly rays, but they shone very yellow on the bare hollows of his old knees. It was Duncan MacPhail, the supposed grandfather of Malcolm. He was older and feebler — I had almost said blinder, but that could not be — certainly shabbier than ever. The glitter of dirk and broadsword at his sides, and the many-colored ribbons adorning the old bagpipes under his arm, somehow enhanced the look of more than autumnal, of wintry, desolation in his appearance. Before he left the Seaton the staff he carried was for show rather than use, but now he was bent over it, as it: but for it he would fall into his grave. His knock was feeble and doubtful, as if unsure of a welcoming response. He was broken, sad, and uncomforted.

A moment passed. The door was unlatched, and within stood the Partaness, wiping her hands in her apron and looking thunderous. But when she saw who 