At this Isaac shook his head; he went on shaking it as if he had been a little mechanical figure, which could not stop itself if once started. “T’auld maister would never have allowed that,” he said. “What do I care for the auld master? I’m my own master, and nobody shall stand in my way,” cried Harry, putting his hand in his turn on Isaac’s arm, and swinging him out of the path. He was impatient of the interruption. “I’ll go where I have a mind and bide where I have a mind, and I would like to know who’ll stop me,” he cried. Isaac thus suddenly wheeled about and taken by surprise, went spinning across the road, recovering himself with an effort. But he did not show any anger. He stood looking after the young man as soon as he had recovered his balance with a “Tck--tck--tck” of his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “It’s my duty to see after him,” old Isaac said, at length, slowly shuffling along in the young man’s steps. There was a certain satisfaction in his tone. The “Red Lion” was forbidden ground--still if there was a motive, a suitable reason for it. “Ay, ay,” said Isaac to himself, “a plain duty; so far as I can tell, there’s never a one to look the gate he’s going but only me.” CHAPTER IV. “THE RED LION.” The parlour of the “Red Lion” was a room with a sanded floor, protected on the side next the door by wooden barriers with seats fixed into them, which acted the part at once of settles, and screens to keep out the draught. There was a bright fire which kept it in a blaze of ruddy light, outdoing the lamps, which were not remarkable for their brilliancy. This fire was the great attraction of the place. The very distant prospect of it, gleaming out into the night, warmed and cheered the passer-by. It was like a lantern ever so far down the river side, on which the back window, partially veiled with a bit of old red curtain which let the light shine through and added a tone of warmth the more, looked out. You saw this window from the Wyburgh Road, and from all the cold flats of the water-side. The poor women at the Smiddy-houses, which was the name of the hamlet to the west, thought it a snare of Satan, and compared it vindictively to the red glaring eye of some evil spirit lying in wait to devour the unwary. But unfortunately the men were not of that opinion. Old Isaac, who was on his way home when he encountered Harry, and who was perfectly sincere in his opinion that nothing could be worse for his young master than to go to such a place, felt, notwithstanding, in his own person a thrill of internal satisfaction when he saw that it was his duty to follow and watch over the young fellow. It was wrong--but it was exhilarating: instead of trudging another slow mile home, to get into the corner of one of those wooden settles and feel the glow of the generous fire, and imbibe slowly a glass of “summat,” and suck slowly at the tube of a long clay pipe, and make a remark once in five minutes to one of the neighbours, who each of