She prepared the laird's supper with a strange mingling of hope and anxiety: she feared having to go to bed without telling him. But he came at last, almost merry, with a brown paper parcel under his arm, over which he was very careful. Poor man, he little knew there waited him at the moment a demand from the eternal justice almost as terrible as: “This night they require thy soul of thee!”--(What a _they_ is that! Who are _they_?)--The torture of the moral rack was ready for him at the hands of his innocent house-maid! In no way can one torture another more than by waking conscience against love, passion, or pride. He laid his little parcel carefully on the supper-table, said rather a shorter grace than usual, began to eat his porridge, praised it as very good, spoke of his journey and whom he had seen, and was more talkative than his wont He informed Alexa, almost with jubilation, that he had at length found an old book he had been long on the watch for--a book that treated, in ancient broad Scots, of the laws of verse, in full, even exhaustive manner. He pulled it from his pocket. “It is worth at least ten times what I gave for it!” he said. Dawtie wondered whether there ought not to have been some division of the difference; but she was aware of no call to speak. One thing was enough for one night! Then came prayers. The old man read how David deceived the Philistines, telling them a falsehood as to his raids. He read the narrative with a solemnity of tone that would have graced the most righteous action: was it not the deed of a man according to God's own heart?--how could it be other than right! Casuist ten times a week, he made no question of the righteousness of David's wickedness! Then he prayed, giving thanks for the mercy that had surrounded them all the day, shielding them from the danger and death which lurked for them in every corner. What would he say when death did get him? Dawtie thought. Would he thank God then? And would he see, when she spoke to him, that God wanted to deliver him from a worse danger than any out-of-doors? Would he see that it was from much mercy he was made more uncomfortable than perhaps ever in his life before? At length his offering was completed--how far accepted who can tell! He was God's, and He who gave him being would be his Father to the full possibility of God. They rose from their knees; the laird took up his parcel and book; his daughter went with him. CHAPTER XVIII. DAWTIE AND THE LAIRD.