“You are more skilled in argument than I am, Saunders,” said Mossgray, “but I think we can settle that point between us. The vow was a vow of offering--of special service, or special gifts, or of the sacrifices of that grand old symbolic Hebrew law. It did not by any means refer to such frail, inconsiderate resolutions, Saunders, as are common to this humanity of ours.” “Ay, but if it was a vow before the Lord,” said Saunders, in his strong, harsh, emphatic voice; “if before the Lord, Mossgray, ye had spread out the ill that troubled ye, as the guid King Hezekiah did the proud words of the Assyrian langsyne, and put forth ane--I’m saying nae man in particular; it’s a case just like what micht happen wi’ onybody--put forth ane, I say, solemnly out of your heart and out of your house, as an ill-doer and a reprobate; would the man that daured to break that no be man-sworn, Mossgray, having vowed before the Lord?” There was a certain huskiness and tremor in the harsh voice of the old man. They stood together strangely contrasted; the master in his benign and gentle humbleness, the servant in the stern and rugged strength of his pride. “Saunders,” said Mossgray, “the utmost vision of our wisdom, you know, is very poor and dim; and will the Lord hold you, do you think, to an oath made in ignorance, and dimly, as are all things mortal, even though you place it in His keeping? If what you vowed in His presence was an ill vow, Saunders, be thankful that this privilege of humanity is left to you, and that God gives you power to change--to change; it is a great gift this. That when the purer light comes upon us we may follow its course wherever it travels, and that all our vain purposes and foolish vows are not bound on us, but that gratefully in sight of heaven we may throw our old encumbrances away, and change. We are growing old, Saunders, we are travelling towards the setting sun; and by and by we will lose this power. Think of it before it leaves your hands--mind what a gracious thing it is, given of God--and make merciful use of it while you may.” Mossgray turned round as he concluded, and bent his steps to his favourite Waterside. He had not unfrequently had such controversies with his stern old serving-man; and pitying the forlorn heart which, out of its very excess of harsh, strong love, could debar itself so relentlessly from the mild humanities of nature, he had taken pains to leaven the mind of Saunders with his own gracious philosophy. But it would not do; the rugged, intense spirit buckled its harsh vow upon itself like armour, while the wiser poet-man opened the heart which could not be old to all the gentle influences of the earth and of the heaven. CHAPTER II.