Malcolm watched him narrowly. But Peter was first so taken by surprise, and then so carried away with the interest of what he saw, that thinking had ceased in him utterly, and imagination lay passive as a mirror to the representation. Nor did the sudden change from the first to the second scene rouse him, for before his thinking machinery could be set in motion, the delight of the new show had again caught him in its meshes. For to him, as it had been to Malcolm, it was the shore at Portlossie, while the cave that opened behind was the Bailie’s Barn, where his friends the fishers might at that moment, if it were a fine night, be holding one of their prayer meetings. The mood lasted all through the talk of Prospero and Miranda; but when Ariel entered there came a snap, and the spell was broken. With a look in which doubt wrestled with horror, Blue Peter turned to Malcolm, and whispered with bated breath-- “I’m jaloosin’--it canna be--it’s no a playhoose, this?” Malcolm merely nodded, but from the nod Peter understood that _he_ had had no discovery to make as to the character of the place they were in. “Eh!” he groaned, overcome with dismay. Then rising suddenly-- “Guid nicht to ye, my lord,” he said, with indignation, and rudely forced his way from the crowded house. Malcolm followed in his wake, but said nothing till they were in the street. Then, forgetting utterly his resolves concerning English in the distress of having given his friend ground to complain of his conduct towards him, he laid his hand on Blue Peter’s arm, and stopped him in the middle of the narrow street. “I but thoucht, Peter,” he said, “to get ye to see wi’ yer ain een, an’ hear wi’ yer ain ears, afore ye passed jeedgment; but ye’re jist like the lave.” “An’ what for sudna I be jist like the lave?” returned Peter, fiercely. “’Cause it’s no fair to set doon a thing for wrang ’at ye ha’e been i’ the w’y o’ hearing aboot by them ’at kens as little aboot them as yersel’. I cam here mysel’, ohn kent whaur I was gaein’, the ither nicht, for the first time i’ my life; but I wasna fleyt like you, ’cause I kent frae the buik a’ ’at was comin’. I ha’e h’ard in a kirk in ae ten meenutes jist a sicht o’ what maun ha’e been sair displeasin’ to the hert a’ the maister o’ ’s a’; but that nicht I saw nae ill an’ h’ard nae ill, but was weel peyed back upo’ them ’at did it an’ said it afore the business was ower, an’ that’s mair nor ye’ll see i’ the streets o’ Portlossie ilka day. The play-hoose is whaur ye gang to see what comes o’ things ’at ye canna follow oot in ordinar’ life.” Whether Malcolm, after a year’s theatre-going, would have said precisely the same is hardly doubtful. He spoke of the ideal theatre to which Shakspere is true, and in regard to that he spoke rightly. “Ye decoy’t me intill the hoose o’ ineequity!” was Peter’s indignant reply; “an’ it’s no what ye ever ga’e me cause to expec’ o’ ye, sae ’at I micht ha’e ta’en tent o’ ye.”