These rash, youthful folk were more fortunate than prudent people might think they deserved. They excited the interest and kindly sympathy of Mrs Oswald, the banker’s wife, and through her, of her sterner husband; so that when the pleasant summer air had done its gentle spiriting on the wan cheek of Walter Buchanan, and he felt himself able for work again--which was happily before his wife’s little portion was altogether exhausted--he was received into the bank as Mr Oswald’s clerk. To be called “of the bank,” in a country town in Scotland, is a matter of considerable dignity, and the salary, if small, was enough for their limited expenses. The Oswalds were kind and neighbourly; other friends gathered about the gentle couple; and as they stood in their own garden beneath the heavy branches of their own fruit-trees, in those serene autumnal evenings, watching the sun go down gloriously behind the dark crest of yonder hill, they were wont to render quiet thanksgiving out of full hearts. This pleasant life continued through ten happy years, and in its placid course the delicate man seemed strengthened in mind no less than in body. His nervous melancholy glided away into graceful mists of pensive thought. The nervous impatience and irritability, which it had once cost him so much pains to subdue, were soothed and softened. He became, mentally no less than physically, as it seemed, a more healthful and a stronger man. At the end of the ten years his position was changed. They had saved enough to raise their little capital to a larger amount than the original sum on which their inexperience had braved the evils of the world. This was invested in the purchase of bank shares, and Walter Buchanan, a clerk no longer, became Mr Oswald’s partner in the agency of the bank. An unhappy change. The one peculiar, distinguishing feature of the Scottish banking system, over which our economists boast themselves, became a source of constant torment to Walter Buchanan. The quick and prompt decisions of Oswald, in which he could not join, made him feel his own weaker will overborne and set aside. A hundred “peculiar cases,” and “very peculiar cases,” in which the clear, acute mind of the banker could see no peculiarity at all, troubled the midnight rest of his nervous and tenderhearted partner. That this struggling man whose security was dubious, or that hapless farmer wading knee-deep in difficulties, whose cash account was already overdrawn, and who wanted more, should be dealt with summarily, was clear to Oswald’s steady eye; but was enveloped in painful mists of distress and perplexity to Walter Buchanan, himself acquainted with all the restless shifts and expedients of the struggling poor.