Page:The strange story book.djvu/115

 THE GENTLEMAN HIGHWAYMAN

people can have crowded more occupations into a life of twenty-six years than James Maclean.

His father, a Scot by birth, had settled in the Irish county of Monaghan, where the position of minister to a body of dissenters had been offered him. From the first moment of his coming amongst them Mr. Maclean was much liked by his congregation, who carried all their troubles to him, sure that if he could not help them, he would at least give them advice and sympathy, and there was not one of them who did not drink his health with his whole heart when the minister married the daughter of a gentleman in the neighbourhood.

More than twenty years passed away quietly and happily. The Macleans had two sons, and the elder one early showed a wish to follow his father's profession, and, at an age when most young men are still at the University, received a 'call' to a Protestant congregation at the Hague.

James, the younger, was educated for a merchant, and as soon as he was eighteen was to go into a counting-house and learn his business. Unfortunately, just before he reached the date fixed, his father died, leaving the youth his own master—for as no mention is made of his mother, it is probable she vas dead also. Without consulting anyone, James threw up the post which old Maclean had taken so much pains to get for him, and withdrawing the money left him by the will, from the bank, spent it all in a few months on racing and betting.

Of course he was not allowed to make himself a beggar in this silly way without an effort to save him on the part of his mother's friends. But from a child he had always thought

85