"You'll just stop havering and talking nonsense, Alexander. Are you going to die and leave me my lane for a bit o' siller? I'm ashamed o' you. Twa or three hundred pounds! Is that what you count your life worth? Help your father to his bed, Neil, and I'll bring him some gude mutton broth. He's hungry and faint and out o' his sleep--it tak's little to make men talk o' dying. Parfect nonsense!" "You don't know, Janet Semple----" "Yes, I do know, Alexander. Quit whining, and put a stout heart to a steep hill. You hae a wife and sons and friends yet about you, and you talk o' dying! I'll not hear tell o' such things, not I!" But when the Elder had taken a good meal and fallen asleep, Janet spoke with less spirit to her son. And Neil was in a still fury; he found it difficult to answer his mother's questions. "The money is to be found, and that at once," he said. "Father will not rest until it is paid; and I have not the least idea where I can procure it." "You must sell some o' that confiscated property you and your father wared all your ready money on," said Janet bitterly. "At the present time it is worth nothing, mother; and houses and lands are not sold at an hour's notice. I suppose if I ask Batavius DeVries he will help father. I think Curtis can manage my share of the blackmail." "That poor lad wha has made a' the mischief, what of him?" "He is John Bradley's son." Then Neil described the scene in the courtroom, and Madame's eyes filled with tears as she said, "I never thought so well o' the Bradleys before. Poor Agnes!" Yes, "poor Agnes!" Neil was feeling a consuming impatience to be with her, to comfort her and help her to bear whatever might be appointed. "So the lad is to be tried in the Military Police Court. Is not that a good thing?" "Yes. John Bradley has money. It is all the 'law' there is to satisfy in that court." "Are they trying him to-day?" "Yes. I heard his case called as we left the room. Where is Maria?" "She has cried herself blind, deaf and dumb. She is asleep now. I went to tell her you were hame, and she was sobbing like a bairn that has been whipped ere it shut its eyes. I dinna waken her." Then Neil went to his room to dress himself. He felt as if no care and no nicety of apparel could ever atone for the crumpled disorder of his toilet in the courtroom, which had added itself so keenly to his sense of disgrace. Then he must go to Agnes; her brother was his brother, and, though he had brought such shame and loss on the Semples, still he must do all he could for him, for the sake of Agnes. And there was the money to find, and Madame Jacobus to see! A sense of necessary haste pressed him like a goad. Not a moment must be lost, for he felt through every sense of his mortal and spiritual being that Agnes was calling him. CHAPTER VII. THE PRICE OF HARRY'S LIFE.