"You do not know what you say, daughter," said old Isaac, starting to his feet, and looking her sternly in the face. "If I again hear you presume to prejudge any accountable and immortal being in such a manner, I shall be more afraid of your own state than of his. While life remains, we are in a land where repentance is to be had and hoped for, and I will not hear the mercy of God arraigned. Bring me my cloak and my staff instantly, without another word. When I think of the country beyond the grave, and of the eternal fate that awaits this hapless prodigal, all my injuries vanish, and my trust in the Lord is strengthened anew. I shall at least pray with him, and for him; if he will not hear me, my Father who is in heaven may hear me, and haply He will open the victim's eyes to the hope that is set before him; for the hearts of all the children of men are in his hands, and as the rivers of water He turneth them whithersoever He pleaseth." So old Isaac got his staff in his hand that had the head turned round like the horn of a cow, and also his cloak round his shoulders, not the tartan one with its gaudy spangles, but the grey marled one lined with green flannel. Well might old Isaac be partial to that cloak, for it was made for him by a beloved daughter who had been removed from him and from her family at the age of twenty-three. She was the mother of his two darlings, Isaac and Euphemia, mentioned before; and the feelings with which he put on the mantle that day can only be conceived by those who have learned to count all things but loss save Jesus Christ, and him crucified; and how few are the number who attain this sublime and sacred height! "The blessing of him that is ready to perish shall light on the head of my father," said Matilda, as she followed with her eye the bent figure of the old man hasting with tottering steps over the moor, on the road that led to Shepherd Gawin's; and when he vanished from her view on the height, she wiped her eyes, drew the window screen, and applied herself to her work.