‘Why didn’t you ask the Judge to have him stopped?’ ‘Man, did you no hear me say I owed him a heap o’ siller? He’ll never fash me for that noo.’ ‘I doubt you’re an ill stick, MacGowan,’ said Cameron gravely. ‘But you’ve done my friend a good turn this day; and I wish I could do something for ye. You just come wi’ me.’ So saying, Cameron took the little man by the arm and marched him off to a neighbouring tavern, where a long and weighty consultation took place. The result of it was that the ne’er-do-weel was persuaded to emigrate, this time in earnest; and he was consigned to a second cousin of Cameron’s, who had a farm in Manitoba. In his letters home MacGowan always dwells with pride upon the circumstance that he ‘has been teetotal’ for three or six months, as the case may be, forgetting to add that as the nearest public-house is five-and-twenty miles away, it is next to impossible for him to be anything else. When Cameron had disappeared with MacGowan, Blake carried off his friends, after giving Alec a hearty invitation to Highgate, and after expressing a hope to Mr. Lindsay that they would see him and Miss Lindsay there once more before they left town. But the old man was anxious to get back to his farm; London had no attractions for him; and he intimated his intention of going back to Scotland the next day. As for Alec, his one desire was to find himself in his own sitting-room, alone, and at peace. That was impossible, however, for the present. He could not ignore his father and Margaret’s evident expectation that he would spend the rest of the day with them. But the reunion was not in any sense a joyful one. Mr. Lindsay remembered always that he had refused to believe in his son’s innocence, and had thus added to his trouble; and now it was but poor comfort to remind himself that in holding Alec to be guilty, he had only followed the dictates of his reason. Margaret, too, though she had been always loving and affectionate to her brother, knew that she had doubted him, and knew also that he had been aware of the fact. Alec tried his best to pluck up a lively if not a festive spirit at the dinner-table that evening, but he was not very successful in his efforts. His father took the opportunity of saying grace to thank the Almighty publicly that his son ‘had been delivered from the snare of the fowler,’ and Alec was annoyed by this open allusion to what was still a very painful theme. To his surprise, Alec found that his father and sister had seen nothing of the sights of London during the weeks they had spent in town. ‘How could we go sight-seeing, Alec, when you were in prison, and in danger?’ asked Margaret, almost reproachfully. ‘But you might at least have gone to Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s. You really must stay another day and see the Abbey, father. It would be almost a sin to go north again without paying it a visit.’