hospital to stay
with Nan for a week or two."

"Good old file!" his son murmured gratefully, and, bidding his father
good-night, climbed the stairs to his room. Hearing his footsteps
ascending, Jane emerged from the rear of the landing; simultaneously,
his mother and Elizabeth appeared at the door of the latter's room. He
had the feeling of a captured missionary running the gantlet of a
forest of spears _en route_ to a grill over a bed of coals.

"Donald dear," Elizabeth called throatily, "come here."

"Donald dear is going to bed," he retorted savagely. "'Sufficient unto
the day is the evil thereof.' Good-night!"

"But you _must_ discuss this matter with us!" Jane clamored. "How can
you expect us to rest until we have your word of honor that you--"

The Laird had appeared at the foot of the stairs, having followed his
son in anticipation of an interview which he had forbidden.

"Six months, Janey," he called up; "and there'll be no appeal from
that decision. Nellie! Elizabeth! Poor Jane will be lonesome in Port
Agnew, and I'm not wishful to be too hard on her. You'll keep her
company." There was a sound of closing doors, and silence settled
over The Dreamerie, that little white home that The Laird of Tyee had
built and dedicated to peace and love. For he was the master here.

XXII

Caleb Brent's funeral was the apotheosis of simplicity. Perhaps a
score of the old sailor's friends and neighbors attended, and there
were, perhaps, half a dozen women--motherly old souls who had known
Nan intimately in the days when she associated with their daughters
and who felt in the presence of death a curious unbending of a curious
and indefinable hostility. Sam Carew, arrayed in the conventional
habiliments of his profession, stood against the wall and closed his
eyes piously when Hector McKaye, standing beside old Caleb, spoke
briefly and kindly of the departed and with a rough eloquence that
stirred none present--not even Nan, who, up to that moment, entirely
ignorant of The Laird's intention, could only gaze at him, amazed and
incredulous--more than it stirred The Laird himself. The sonorous and
beautiful lines of the burial service took on an added beauty and
dignity as he read them, for The Laird believed! And when he had
finished reading the service, he looked up, and his kind gaze lay
gently on Nan Brent as he said:

"My friends, we will say a wee bit prayer for Caleb wi' all the
earnestness of our hearts.