use, and his
extraordinary reception of myself. I rose to my feet.

"Well, uncle--for my uncle you certainly are, whatever you may say to
the contrary--I must be going. I'm sorry to find you like this, and from
what you tell me I couldn't think of worrying you with my society! I
want to see the old church and have a talk with the parson, and then I
shall go off never to trouble you again."

He immediately became almost fulsome in his effort to detain me. "No,
no! You mustn't go like that. It's not hospitable. Besides, you mustn't
talk with parson. He's a bad lot, is parson--a hard man with a cruel
tongue. Says terrible things about me, does parson. But I'll be even
with him yet. Don't speak to him, laddie, for the honour of the family.
Now ye'll stay and take lunch with me?--potluck, of course--I'm too poor
to give ye much of a meal; and in the meantime I'll show ye the house
and estate."

This was just what I wanted, though I did not look forward to the
prospect of lunch in his company.

With trembling hands he took down an old-fashioned hat from a peg and
turned towards the door. When we had passed through it he carefully
locked it and dropped the key into his breeches' pocket. Then he led the
way upstairs by the beautiful oak staircase I had so much admired on
entering the house.

When we reached the first landing, which was of noble proportions and
must have contained upon its walls nearly a hundred family portraits all
coated with the dust of years, he approached a door and threw it open. A
feeble light straggled in through the closed shutters, and revealed an
almost empty room. In the centre stood a large canopied bed, of antique
design. The walls were wainscoted, and the massive chimney-piece was
carved with heraldic designs. I inquired what room this might be.

"This is where all our family were born," he answered. "'Twas here your
father first saw the light of day."

I looked at it with a new interest. It seemed hard to believe that this
was the birthplace of my own father, the man whom I remembered so well
in a place and life so widely different. My companion noticed the look
upon my face, and, I suppose, felt constrained to say something. "Ah!
James!" he said sorrowfully, "ye were always a giddy, roving lad. I
remember ye well." (He passed his hand across his eyes, to brush away a
tear, I thought, but his next speech disabused me of any such notion.)
"I remember that but a day or two before ye went ye