“They that have called me proud and severe,” said Ella, when she began to return his confidence, “little knew what a humbled spirit I bore within me, and how easily I feared I should forgive at the first word. They little guessed, when they bid me not be so careful and troubled about whatever happened, that all these things were like motes in the sunbeam to me, compared with the hidden thoughts from which my real troubles sprang. When they half laughed at me and half praised me to my father, as being like a mother to these growing lads, they did not know that it was because I spent on them the love I could not spend as a wife, nor how glad I was that my cheek withered, and that years left their marks upon me, that I might fancy myself more and more like their mother indeed. If you see me grow young again, and be made sport of like a girl by these tall youths,” she continued, smiling through her tears, “you will have to answer for it, Angus. Will you take the venture? You were ever the merry one, however, and my part was to be grave for us both. Are we to play the same part still, to keep the brothers in order?” In the midst of Angus’s reply, the lads burst in, crying, “The laird’s bark! the laird’s bark! and Mr. Callum is standing at the landing place, with his feet almost in the water, he is so eager to have the first word. You should have seen him waive us off with his cane.” “He is welcome to the first word,” said Ella: “all that matters to us is, who shall have the last.” ---------------------------- CHAPTER VII. INNOVATIONS “Stand back, sir!” cried the laird to Callum, as soon as the boat brought him within speaking distance. “I always doubt the soundness of a plea which is urged in such a hurry.” Callum, though much dismayed, ventured to reply that his enemies had told their tale first. “Through no good-will of yours, Callum. I saw the race between your messenger’s bark and theirs. It grieves my heart to find that, even in a remote corner of the world like this, men cannot live in peace. Angus, I am surprised to find you engaged in a contentious appeal.” Angus replied that he was as unwilling as any one to quarrel; but that he would never submit to see the helpless injured. “I was thinking,” said the laird looking about him, “that he who has the most cause for complaint is the only absent one.—Ella, where is the lad whom Callum took upon him to chastise?” “Archie is at home.” “Not dead or dying, I hope?” “He is already much recovered, and——” “What! neither half-killed, nor even shut up in the dark? How little a doleful story may come to when told at noonday instead of midnight!” “Much remains to be told,” Ella quietly replied. “Well, call the boy, and let us hear it at once.” Ella replied that he was asleep, and that she could not awake him, even at his honour’s bidding.