Walter, however, did not pay much attention even to this view. His mind had not room at the moment for Paterson of Inverchory, who was behind with the rent, or Sir John, who had devastated the moors. He did not get beyond the primitive natural horror of what seemed to him an outrage of all natural laws and kindness. He had not been a landowner long enough to feel the sacred right of property. He turn the cottagers out of their poor little homes for the sake of a few pounds more or less of which he stood in no need? The very arguments against taking this step made him angry. Could anybody suppose he could do it? he, Walter Methven! As for the Erradeen business, and all this new affair altogether--good heavens, if anybody thought he would purchase it by that! In short, the young man, who was not born a grand seigneur, boiled up in righteous wrath, and felt it high scorn and shame that it could be supposed of him that he was capable, being rich, of oppressing the poor--which was the way in which he put it, in his limited middle-class conditions of thought. Mr. Shaw was half-gratified, half-annoyed by the interview. He said to the minister with whom he stopped to dine, and who was naturally much interested about the new young man, that assuredly the young fellow had a great deal of good in him, but he was a trifle narrow in his way of looking at a question, "which is probably just his English breeding," the factor said. "I would have put the Crofter question before him in all its bearings; but he was just out of himself at the idea of eviction--like what happened in Ireland, he said. I could not get him to go into the philosophy of it. He just would not hear a word. Nothing of the kind had ever come his way before, one could see, and he was just horrified at the thought." "I don't call that leemited, I call it Christian," the minister said, "and I am not surprised he should have a horror of it. I will go and see him in the morning, if you think it will be well taken, for I'm with him in that, heart and soul." "Yes, yes, that's all in your way," said Mr. Shaw; "but I am surprised at it in a young man. There is a kind of innocence about it. But I would not wonder after a little if he should change his mind, as others have done." "Do you form any theory in your own thoughts, Shaw," said the minister, "as to what it is that makes them so apt to change?" "Not I," cried the factor, with a shrug of his shoulders; and then he added hurriedly, "you've given me a capital dinner, and that whisky is just excellent: but I think I must be going my ways, for already it's later than I thought."