"As it would be my business to know my tenants that I might rule them," he answered, "I would first court the society and confidence of the best men among them. I should be in no hurry to make changes, but would talk openly with them and try to be worthy of their confidence. Of course I would see a little better to their houses, and improve their harbor; and I would build a boat for myself that would show them a better kind; but my main hope for them would be the same as for myself--the knowledge of Him whose is the sea and all its store, who cares for every fish in its bosom, but for the fisher more than many herrings. I would spend my best efforts to make them follow Him whose first servants were the fishermen of Galilee, for with all my heart I believe that that Man holds the secret of life, and that only the man who obeys Him can ever come to know the God who is the root and crown of our being, and whom to know is freedom and bliss." A pause followed. "But do you not sometimes find it hard to remember God all through your work?" asked Clementina. "Not very hard, my lady. Sometimes I wake up to find that I have been in an evil mood and forgetting Him, and then life is hard until I get near Him again. But it is not my work that makes me forget Him. When I go a-fishing, I go to catch God's fish; when I take Kelpie out, I am teaching one of God's wild creatures; when I read the Bible or Shakespeare, I am listening to the word of God, uttered in each after its kind. When the wind blows on my face, what matter that the chymist pulls it to pieces? He cannot hurt it, for his knowledge of it cannot make my feeling of it a folly, so long as he cannot pull that to pieces with his retorts and crucibles: it is to me the wind of Him who makes it blow, the sign of something in Him, the fit emblem of His Spirit, that breathes into my spirit the breath of life. When Mr. Graham talks to me, it is a prophet come from God that teaches me, as certainly as if His fiery chariot were waiting to carry him back when he had spoken; for the word he utters at once humbles and uplifts my soul, telling it that God is all in all and my God--and the Lord Christ is the truth and the life, and the way home to the Father." After a little pause, "And when you are talking to a rich, ignorant, proud lady?" said Clementina, "what do you feel then?" "That I would it were my Lady Clementina instead," answered Malcolm with a smile. She held her peace. When he left her, Malcolm hurried to Scaurnose and arranged with Blue Peter for his boat and crew the next night. Returning to his grandfather, he found a note waiting him from Mrs. Courthope to the effect that, as Miss Caley, her ladyship's maid, had preferred another room, there was no reason why, if he pleased, he should not reoccupy his own. CHAPTER LXV. THE EVE OF THE CRISIS.