ten at the
loss of the rest. My duty and my conscience would always be at strife.'

'Then what will you be, Mr. Ericson?'

'To tell the truth, I would rather be a watchmaker than anything else I
know. I might make one watch that would go right, I suppose, if I lived
long enough. But no one would take an apprentice of my age. So I suppose
I must be a tutor, knocked about from one house to another, patronized
by ex-pupils, and smiled upon as harmless by mammas and sisters to the
end of the chapter. And then something of a pauper's burial, I suppose.
Che sara sara.'

Ericson had sunk into one of his worst moods. But when he saw Robert
looking unhappy, he changed his tone, and would be--what he could not
be--merry.

'But what's the use of talking about it?' he said. 'Get your fiddle,
man, and play The Wind that shakes the Barley.'

'No, Mr. Ericson,' answered Robert; 'I have no heart for the fiddle. I
would rather have some poetry.'

'Oh!--Poetry!' returned Ericson, in a tone of contempt--yet not very
hearty contempt.

'We're gaein' awa', Mr. Ericson,' said Robert; 'an' the Lord 'at we ken
naething aboot alane kens whether we'll ever meet again i' this place.
And sae--'

'True enough, my boy,' interrupted Ericson. 'I have no need to trouble
myself about the future. I believe that is the real secret of it after
all. I shall never want a profession or anything else.'

'What do you mean, Mr. Ericson?' asked Robert, in half-defined terror.

'I mean, my boy, that I shall not live long. I know that--thank God!'

'How do you know it?'

'My father died at thirty, and my mother at six-and-twenty, both of the
same disease. But that's not how I know it.'

'How do you know it then?'

Ericson returned no answer. He only said--

'Death will be better than life. One thing I don't like about it
though,' he added, 'is the coming on of unconsciousness. I cannot bear
to lose my consciousness even in sleep. It is such a terrible thing!'

'I suppose that's ane o' the reasons that we canna be content withoot
a God,' responded Robert. 'It's dreidfu' to think even o' fa'in' asleep
withoot some ane greater an' nearer than the me watchin' ower 't. But
I'm jist sayin' ower again what I hae read in ane o' your papers, Mr.
Ericson. Jist lat me luik.'

Venturing more than he had ever yet ventured, Robert rose and went to
the cupboard where Ericson's papers lay. His friend did not check him.
On the contrary, he took the papers from