his pockets, and whistled a music-hall catch, which sounded strangely in
that white solitude.

"Weel do you ken that your faither has no sillar!" said Meysie. "You had
a' the sillar, and what ye hae done with it only you an' your Maker ken.
But ye shallna come into this hoose to annoy yer faither. Gang to the
barn, and wait till I bring you what I can get."

The young man grumblingly assented, and within that chilly enclosure he
stood swearing under his breath and kicking his heels.

"A pretty poor sort of prodigal's return this," he said, remembering the
parable he used to learn to say to his father on Sunday afternoons; "not
so much as a blessed fatted calf--only a half-starved cow and a deaf old
woman. I wonder what she'll bring a fellow."

In a little while Meysie came cautiously out of the back door with a
bowl of broth under her apron. The minister had not stirred, deep in his
folio Owen. The young man ate the thick soup with a horn spoon from
Meysie's pocket. Then he stood looking at her a moment before he took
the dangling pencil again and wrote on the slate--

"_Soup's good, but it's money I must have_!"

Meysie bent her head towards him.

"Ye shallna gang in to break yer faither's heart, Clement; but I hae
brocht ye a' I hae, gin ye'll promise to gang awa' where ye cam' frae.
Your faither kens nocht aboot your last ploy, or that a son o' his has
been in London gaol."

"And who told you?" broke in the youth furiously.

The old woman could not, of course, hear him, but she understood
perfectly for all that.

"Your ain sister Elspeth telled me!" she answered.

"Curse her!" said the young man, succinctly and unfraternally. But he
took the pencil and wrote--"_I promise to go away and not to disturb my
father_."

Meysie took a lean green silk purse from her pocket and emptied out of
it a five-pound note, three dirty one-pound notes, and seven silver
shillings. Clement Symington took them and counted them over without a
blush.

"You're none such a bad sort," he said.

"Now, mind your promise, Clement!" returned his old nurse.

He made his way at a dog's-trot down the half-snowed-up track that led
towards the Ferry Town of the Cree; and though Meysie went to the stile
of the orchard to watch, he ran out of sight without even turning his
head. When the old woman went in, the minister was still deep in his
book. He had never once looked up.

The short day faded into the long night. Icy gusts drove