After he had borne it as long as he could, Colin turned to bay. “Scotland is not in the South Seas,” said the young Scotchman; “a day’s journey any time will take you there. As for our Universities, they are not rich like yours, but they have been heard of from time to time,” said Colin, with indignation. His eyes had caught fire from long provocation, and they were fixed at this moment upon Matty, who was showing her cousin something which she half drew out of her pocket under cover of her handkerchief. Was it his foolish offering that the two were about to laugh over? In the bitterness of the moment, he could have taken the most summary vengeance on the irreproachable young clergyman. “We don’t tattoo ourselves now-a-days, and no Englishman has been eaten in my district within the memory of man,” said the young savage, who looked quite inclined to swallow somebody, though it was doubtful who was the immediate object of the passion which played in his brown eyes. Perhaps Colin had never been so much excited in his life. “I beg your pardon,” said the wondering curate. “I tire you, I fear--” and he followed Colin’s eyes, after his first movement of offence was over, and perhaps comprehended the mystery, for the curate himself had been in his day the subject of experiments. “They seem to have come to a very good understanding, these two,” he said, with a gentle clerical leaning towards inevitable gossip. “I told you how it was likely to be. I wish you would come to the vicarage oftener,” continued the young priest. “If Frankland and you don’t get on--” “Why should not we get on?” said Colin, who was half mad with excitement; he had just seen some paper, wonderfully like his own verses, handed from one to another of the pair who were so mutually engrossed--and, if he could have tossed the curate or anybody else who might happen to be at hand out of window, it would have been a relief to his feelings. “He and I are in very different circumstances,” said the young man, with his eyes aflame. “I am not aware that it is of the least importance to any one whether we get on or not. You forget that I am only the tutor.” It occurred to him, as he spoke, that he had said the same words to Matty at Ardmartin, and how they had laughed together over his position. It was not any laughing matter now; and to see the two heads bending over that bit of paper was more than he could bear. “I wish you would come oftener to the parsonage,” said the benevolent curate. “I might be--we might be--of--of some use to each other. I am very much interested in your opinions. I wish I could bring you to see the beauty of all the Church’s arrangements and the happiness of those--” Here Colin rose to his feet without being aware of it, and the curate stopped speaking. He was a man of placid temper himself, and the young stranger’s aspect alarmed him. Harry Frankland was coming forward with the bit of paper in his hand.