"But ye dinna understand," said the bewildered Davie. "I ha'e na been gude. I e'en had it in my heart to be a thief, a wicked, pawkie thief." "What you _intended_ to do matters less to me than what you have really done," answered the good-natured laird. "Are ye na going to put me in prison, or turn me out o' my place?" "On the contrary, I am going to reward you for the service you have rendered." "That maun na be," cried Davie, drawing back. "Dinna ask me. I seek na reward but to feel that I can once mair look my fellow-creatures in the face, _an honest man_. An' the story o' what I ha'e suffered shall aye be a warning to me, and to my bairns after me, _to flee frae temptation_." A happy circle was that which gathered round Davie's ingle that night, the ingle from which the ale-house never again had power to allure him. Jean, the gudewife, with her sewing in her hand, and the old gray cat at her feet, shall be the central figure. Grandmother sits on one side of the fireplace, spinning flax--ever and anon bursting out into some old Jacobite song--and Davie himself in the arm-chair, on the other side, with Jamie on his knee. On a low seat close by him is Nannie--now looking into her father's face, and now glancing beyond--for there sits Robbie Ainslee. And so we drop the curtain. LLOYD'S FIRE ON THE BEACH. Lloyd and Jem were squatted up among the rocks, watching a vessel out to sea. It was a cold evening,--Christmas eve,--the night coming on fast. No vessel had any business to be out there among the breakers, running in straight on the bar; that is, if any man aboard of her knew what he was about. So Lloyd and Jem said, at least, and they had a right to know, as they had been born and bred on that bit of rocky island, and knew every foot of the sea within a mile, as well as they knew their own crab-boats and drag-nets. The vessel was a small schooner, such as ran down to the island from town in summer with flour, and took back crabs and fish. "But what can she want now?" said Jem. "She don't know the coast," said Lloyd. "She'll be on the rocks in an hour, if she don't tack." Jem went to school over on the mainland in winter. There was no need for him to work so hard, either. The money he made by gunning or fishing he spent for tops and kites. But Lloyd's mother, Mrs. Wells, who lived in a little brown cottage back of the rocks, was not able to keep him and herself without his help. For two or three years he had worked as hard as any man on the island. There had been another son of Mrs. Wells, older than Lloyd, a young man called John. But he had been mate on the _Swallow_, that was wrecked on the Irish coast four years ago, when all the crew were lost--never heard of again. So there was nobody left but Lloyd. In winter, when there was no fishing, he whittled crosses and paper-knives out of the cedars, trimming them with lichen, and sent them over to town for sale.