"But how came he here?" "Listen," replied the priest in a low voice, and they all drew aside. "Many years ago I was at sea, flying for safety from Argyllshire, having been hunted from parish to parish, because I had dared to say mass in secret to our people--for to perform the offices of our faith in Scotland was then to commit a crime. Our vessel was running seaward down the Sound of Mull, when a boat was discovered adrift, without sails or oars; and in that boat we found a little child--a boy--asleep, or worn by terror and the tossing waves into a dreamless torpor. He was brought on board, and to me the discovery of a boy floating thus upon the sea, like Amadis de Gaul or Florizel in their baskets, as we read in the old romances; or like Moses or Judas Iscariot, as we may read in the writings of the Fathers, seemed of great import--the more so, as I found an amulet, or reliquary, at his neck, wherein was a relic of St. Margaret, with a prophecy written by one whom I knew, for I was then but a youth--yea, knew well----" "Father John of Douay?" exclaimed Dick Duff. "Yes; John Macdonald of Douay--how know you that?" "Ask me not--ask me not, sir---but proceed." "Yes, written by the most reverend father, John of Douay (who was butchered by the French in Flanders), foretelling that this child would yet become great in the church, and would serve God at His altar long and faithfully----" "This was in the year 1772?" exclaimed Dick, who had listened breathlessly. "It was, sir. The poor child could tell me nothing of his parents, and knew only that his name was Hamish--that he had seated himself in an old boat upon the beach, and fallen asleep, after which he was awaked by the rough rocking of his new cradle, as it tumbled on the waves, which had risen and floated it out into the Sound. He wept for his mother long and passionately; but I brought him hither, and in the bosom of our Mother Church he soon learned to forget his earthly mother, who is now, perhaps, awaiting him in heaven----" "For her wish has doubtless been mysteriously fulfilled," said Duff, incoherently. "Eternal Power! if this should be the case! Tell me, good sir, is there a scar----" "Upon his left side?--yes." "The mark of a stag's-horn, which gored him on the rocks of Loch-na-Keal." "Yes, yes." "Then this child whom you found floating on the sea, and who has lived to become the Rector of your College, is my _brother_, Hamish Duff, for whose supposed drowning in the Sound of Mull, our poor mother died of grief on the sixteenth of November." "The _sixteenth_ of November! the very day on which he has so long believed he is himself to die." Dick threw down his plumed bonnet and hastened to the bedside with his eyes full of tears and a wild expression in his face. "O how like our old father he looks!" he exclaimed, as he turned down the coverlet.