Other arrangements had to be made before they left Portoran--the transfer of Alexander Semple's lease to Mr. Ferguson being the principal matter which occupied them. Semple was a soft, spiritless man, of indolent temper; and no enterprise, and the bleak, unprofitable acres were certain to remain as unprofitable and bleak as ever during his occupancy. Already many times Mr. Coulter had sighed over them, and poured into the ears of their listless tenant vain hints, and unheeded remonstrances. Mr. Coulter was most pleasantly busied now devising the means for their fertilization, and, in company with Mr. Ferguson, had already taken various very long, wearisome, and delightful walks, partly from a neighborly regard for the interests of the broken man, and partly from his own entire devotion to his respectable and most important science, advising with the new farmer as to the various profitable and laborious processes necessary for these unpromising and barren fields. The rental Archibald Sutherland insisted should remain in the factor's hands, or in Mr. Foreman's hands, or in the Portoran branch of the British Linen Company's Bank, if his zealous friends insisted on that, his own resolution being to spend nothing beyond the income he worked for, however small that might be at first. His own tastes had always been simple, and money the mere bits of gold and scraps of paper--had become precious in his eyes. There was little fear either that he should ever be a worshipper of the golden calf--the unrighteous Mammon. But Strathoran--his home--his birth-place--the house of his fathers!