rough fellows who were standing behind the old man had
suddenly struck him down by a savage blow upon the head.

Alec Trenholme ran and sprang upon the man who had struck the blow. Some
other man, he did not see which, wrested the club from the fellow's
hand. In the moments Alec was grappling with him he became conscious
that the old man lying near his feet on the grass was more to him than
revenge, and, with the caprice of a boy who turns from what interests
him less to what interests him more, he contented himself with hurling
the assailant from him, so that he fell heavily down the sloping ground
to where his companions stood. Then Alec pushed others aside and lifted
the wounded man.

Wounded? His hair was wet with warm blood. There was something done--a
good deal done, by many people--to restore him. Alec remembered
afterwards that the young man who had previously spoken to him had been
active, showing a more personal solicitude than was seen in the awed
kindness even of the women. One lives through such scenes with little
real perception of their details. He knew at last for certain that he
put his burden from him, and throwing himself down laid his ear on the
broad, muscular breast. Long as he listened, there was no movement
there. The mad old preacher was dead.

CHAPTER XXIII.

When Alec Trenholme rose from the dead man's side he felt his shoulder
taken hold of by a familiar hand. He knew at once that it was his
brother. It was quite what he would have expected, that Robert should be
there; it was surely his business to come after straying sheep.

The manslayer, awed and sobered by finding what he had done, had been
easily overpowered. Even his comrades helped to bind him. He was a poor
creature at best, and was now in the misery that comes with sudden
reaction from the exaltation of strong drink.

Alec saw that his brother was limping, that he seemed in actual pain; he
was anxious to know how this was, yet he did not say so. He asked rather
if Robert thought that the old man had consciously awakened from his
trance of expectation, and they both, in spite of all that pressed,
stooped with a lantern some one had lit to look again at the dead face.
Just as he might have looked when the heavens seemed to open above him,
so he looked now. They talked together, wondering who he really was, as
men find words for what is easiest to say, although not relevant to the
moment's necessity.

So absorbing is th