Mr. Blake, rising to depart.

"Weel, I'll tell ye. Twa days afore he died, Tom Creighton tuk him oot
for a drive--he was awfu' fair to his face an' he got around him; tell't
him at the gate that he hoped to gie him anither drive later on. Of
course, he got his trade--he had to gie him his trade after that. But I
wadna stoop to sic like tricks for nae man's trade. So I left Lockerby
an' came here--I'm the only yin here."

Mr. Blake was glad to escape his garrulous acquaintance, and had heard
enough of his sombre annals. He walked out, and wandered far--o'er moor
and fen, o'er hill and valley, by many an unforgotten path, he
wandered--past his boyhood's school, where he heard again the laughing
shout that seemed scarcely to have died away from lips now silent long.

He loitered again by the babbling stream which had been the
fishing-ground of boyhood, and lay once more on mossy beds, and bathed
his face in the same friendly tide. He gazed far up into the leafy trees
and saw the very nooks where boyhood's form had rested; again he saw the
sun gleam on the happy heads of those who gambolled far beneath.

He drank his fill of the long yesterday, thirsty still. No familiar
face, no voice of long ago, had he seen or heard; and he tasted that
unreasoning pain which comes to the man who knows, and is wounded by
the truth, that his native heath is reconciled to his exile, careless
of his loneliness, indifferent to bid it cease.

When he returned to the hospitable inn, he was as one seeking rest, and
finding none. He sat, reflective, while memory bathed the soul of love
with tears. Presently the sound of voices floated out from an adjoining
room. He listened eagerly, for one was evidently the voice of a returned
wanderer like himself. The other was that of a man who had never
wandered from his native spot. The home-keeper's tongue had still its
mother-Scotch, but his companion had been cured.

"I know I shouldn't do it, Gavin," he heard the latter say, "I'm really
a teetotaler in Australia. Used to take a drop or two before I
emigrated; but I'm an elder now, and I haven't tasted for years. However
this is a special occasion."

Mr. Blake moved his chair to where he could catch a glimpse of the men.
They were advanced in years, both about sixty-five, and their heads were
gray. Their dress betokened plainness of nature, though that of the
Australian might indicate prosperity. Both would seem uncultured, except
in heart.

"A