behaved precisely as you have done, and had
you been at the Slugs you would have jumped in as I did. Mr. Cathro,
you pain me by holding back; I assure you I esteem my old Dominie more
than ever for the way in which you stuck up for Captain Ure, though
you must see why I could not drink that gentleman's health."

And Mr. Cathro made the best of it, wringing Tommy's hand effusively,
while muttering, "Fool, donnard stirk, gowk!" He was addressing
himself and any other person who might be so presumptuous as to try to
get the better of Thomas Sandys. Cathro never tried it again. Had
Tommy died that week his old Dominie would have been very chary of
what he said at the funeral.

They were in the garden now, the gentlemen without their hats. "Have
you made your peace with him?" Cathro asked Grizel, in a cautious
voice. "He is a devil's buckie, and I advise you to follow my example,
Miss McQueen, and capitulate. I have always found him reasonable so
long as you bend the knee to him."

"I am not his enemy," replied Grizel, loftily, "and if he has done a
noble thing I am proud of him and will tell him so."

"I would tell him so," said the Dominie, "whether he had done it or
not."

"Do you mean," she asked indignantly, "that you think he did not do
it?"

"No, no, no," he answered hurriedly; "or mercy's sake, don't tell him
I think that." And then, as Tommy was out of ear-shot: "But I see
there is no necessity for my warning you against standing in his way
again, Miss McQueen, for you are up in arms for him now."

"I admire brave men," she replied, "and he is one, is he not?"

"You'll find him reasonable," said the Dominie, drily.

But though it was thus that she defended Tommy when others hinted
doubts, she had not yet said she was proud of him to the man who
wanted most to hear it. For one brief moment Grizel had exulted on
learning that he and Captain Ure were one, and then suddenly, to all
the emotions now running within her, a voice seemed to cry, "Halt!"
and she fell to watching sharply the doer of noble deeds. Her eyes
were not wistful, nor were they contemptuous, but had Tommy been less
elated with himself he might have seen that they were puzzled and
suspicious. To mistrust him in face of such evidence seemed half a
shame; she was indignant with herself even while she did it; but she
could not help doing it, the truth about Tommy was such a vital thing
to Grizel. She had known him so well, too well, up to a minu