"And peace, you," he says roughly, as he entered the house; "if the lass hearkened to your accursed creed, I should have stronger words for her." My breath was fairly taken from me at this incredible rudeness. I had my hand on my sword, and had I been in my own land we should soon have settled it. As it was, I shut my lips firmly and choked down my choler. Yet I cannot leave with this ill word of the man. That very night he talked with me so pleasingly, and with so friendly a purport, that I conceived he must have been scarce himself when he so insulted me. Indeed, I discerned two natures in the man--one, hard, saturnine, fanatically religious; the other, genial and kindly, like that of any other gentleman of family. The former I attributed to the accident of his fortune; the second I held to be the truer, and in my thoughts of him still think of it as the only one. But I must pass to the events which befell on the even of the third day, and wrought so momentous a change in the life at Lindean. 'Twas just at the lighting of the lamp, when Anne and the minister and myself sat talking in the little sitting room, that Master Henry entered with a look of great concern on his face, and beckoned the elder man out. "Andrew Gibb is here," said he. "And what may Andrew Gibb be wanting?" asked the old man, glancing up sharply. "He brings nae guid news, I fear, but he'll tell them to none but you; so hasten out, sir, to the back, for he's come far, and he's ill at the waiting." The twain were gone for some time, and in their absence I could hear high voices in the back end of the house, conversing as on some matter of deep import. Anne fetched the lamp from the kitchen and trimmed it with elaborate care, lighting it and setting it in its place. Then, at last, the minister returned alone. I was shocked at the sight of him as he re-entered the room. His face was ashen pale and tightly drawn about the lips. He crept to a chair and leaned his head on the table, speaking no word. Then he burst out of a sudden into a storm of pleading. "O Lord God," he cried, "thou hast aye been good to us, thou has kept us weel, and bielded us frae the wolves who have sought to devour us. Oh, dinna leave us now. It's no' for mysel' or Henry that I care. We're men, and can warstle through ills; but oh, what am I to dae wi' the bit helpless lassie? It's awfu' to have to gang oot among hills and bogs to bide, but it's ten times waur when ye dinna ken what's gaun to come to your bairn. Hear me, O Lord, and grant me my request. I've no' been a' that I micht have been, but oh, if I ha'e tried to serve thee at a', dinna let this danger overwhelm us!" He had scarcely finished, and was still sitting with bowed head, when Master Henry also entered the room. His eyes were filled with an austere frenzy, such as I had learned to look for.