"I will flee unto the Omnipotent. He will keep even my shadow from the evil ones that follow after. Now I will go, for I see there is no hope of good-will between us two." "And it is my advice that you go away from Shetland." "That I will _not_ do. There are my cousins Nanna and Vala here; and it is freely said that you have done them much ill. I will stay here and do them all the good I can." "Then you will have Nicol Sinclair to settle with. That is the best of my wish. Nicol Sinclair is my third cousin, and I have given him five hundred pounds because he hates the Borsons and is ready to cross their happiness in all things possible. Pack, now, from my presence! I have no more to say to you. I am no kin to you, and I have taken good care to prevent the law making you kin. My will is made. All that I have not given to Nicol Sinclair goes to make free the slaves in Africa. Freedom! freedom! freedom!" she shrieked. "Nothing is cruel but slavery." It was the old Norse passion for liberty, strong and vital when every other love was ashes. It was a passion also to which David instantly responded. The slumbering sentiment awoke like a giant in his heart, and he comprehended it by a racial instinct as passionate as her own. "You have done well," he said. "Hunger and cold, pain and poverty, are nothing if one has freedom. It is a grand thing to set a man or a woman _free_." "And yet you catch haddock and herring! Bah! we have nothing to do with each other." "Then farewell, aunt, and God give you mercy in the day you will need mercy." She was suddenly and stolidly silent. She fixed her eyes on the dull glow of the burning peats, and relapsed into the torpor that was her habitual mood. Its force was insurmountable. David went slowly out of her presence, and was unable for some time to cast off the depression of her icy influence. Yet the meeting had not been without result. During it he had felt the first conscious throb of that new passion for freedom which had sprung into existence at the impetuous, glowing iteration of the mere word from his aunt's lips. He felt its charm in the unaccustomed liberty of his own actions. He was now entirely without claims but those his love or liking voluntarily assumed. No one older than himself had the right to reprove or direct him. He had at last come to his majority. He was master of himself and his fate. The first evidence of this new condition was a dignified reticence with Barbara Traill. She was conscious of the change in her lodger. She felt instinctively that he was no longer a child to be questioned, and there was a tone of authority in his refusal to discuss his aunt Sabiston with her which she could not but respect. Indeed, it was no longer possible to speak to him of Mistress Sabiston as Mistress Sabiston deserved to be spoken of. Her first censure was checked by David's air of disapproval and his few words of apology: