Her mother's grievance being incapable of statement, the ebullitions thence arising could neither be foreseen nor assigned to any specific cause. The scandalous rumours relating to the Browns were retailed and enlarged on in a way that, but a few short weeks before, Mrs. Sangster would have been shocked to think she could indulge in before her carefully nurtured child; and Sophia, as her only defence, had to fall back on the paternal gift of silence. But that invariably drove her mother vanquished from the field, seeing that it takes two to fight, and with a parting shot at the dull _dour_ blood of the Sangsters, she would seek relief in the privacy of her chamber from that sovereign remedy, 'a good cry.' At the end of three weeks Roderick was found well enough to travel, and it was time that they should start, if, in those ante-railway days, they would avoid the delays, discomforts, and extra fatigue of bad roads. They took the stage coach as far as Dundee, where they would embark in the steamer for London. Thence there was railway westward, and with more staging, they would reach their destination. It need scarcely be said that Eppie and the baby stood on the inn steps to watch the travellers drive away, and wish them 'God-speed.' Mary kissed them both, hoping a father might shortly be found for the little one, but grudgingly, for she deeply loved it herself. Kenneth was there, likewise, with regretful adieux and repetition of the already-made promises to write soon and often. So too was the Laird, and this time Sophy was on his arm, and Roderick thenceforth had at least one smile and handshake to treasure in his memory, unspoken answers to his letter of a month back, and tokens from which to bode hopefully of the future. There were other onlookers, but they peered from windows, over averted shoulders, or from behind corners. The parishioners had begun to find out many differences between their new pastor and his predecessor. There were no alms now, for the new man had no money to give; and there was less sympathy, for he was a stranger in the parish, and likewise new to ministerial work. Shame kept them from coming forward; but when the guard blew his horn, the coachman tipped up his leaders with the whip, and the lumbering vehicle rolled up the eastern brae, every one felt that he had a friend the less left in Glen Effick. CHAPTER XXXIII. _DISCOMFITED_. Within the Post Office as well as in other places, there stood a group watching Roderick's departure, and among them, as might be supposed, was Joseph Smiley. It would have been a very unexpected event indeed that could have transpired in the village without his being there to see.