g grace. It
was never the way of the Lashcairns to notice overmuch the demands of
the body. And now they sat by the almost bare refectory table, and none
of them would mention hunger; Andrew did not feel it. His zeal fed him.
Marcella, however, took to going down oftener to the huts and always
Wullie, who sensed these things, toasted fish--three or four at a
time--over the embers, and roasted potatoes in the bed of ashes.

It was in the summer following this last obsession that Andrew was taken
suddenly ill. One evening, praying with blazing ardour for the souls of
the whole world, consciousness of unbearable weight came upon him.
Standing in the little chapel he felt that he was being pressed to his
knees and there, with a terrible voice, he cried:

"Yes, Lord, put all the weight of Thy cross upon me, Thy poor
servant--Thy Simon of Cyrene who so untimely, so unhelpfully hath found
Thee."

Those watching believed that they saw the black shadow of a cross laid
over his bowed shoulders. But then, like Andrew, they were Kelts who
could see with eyes that were not apparent. Andrew was carried home to
his bed, and Dr. Angus, the same doctor he had driven forth in violence
from his wife's sickness, came to him.

Thorough in body as in soul, Andrew seemed called upon to bear all the
woes of the world. Sometimes, watching him lying there with closed eyes
and lips that moved faintly as he prayed for courage, Marcella wished
she could see him once again come tearing into the room in a passion
of destruction. His gentleness, his pathos, and the way he talked so
quietly to God with his beautiful voice, almost tore her in two with
pity.

Many nights his illness made it impossible for him to lie down, and then
he would stand, wrapped in a blanket--for his dressing-gown had long
since been torn to shreds--his hands clutching the post of his ancient
bed, his eyes gazing deeply at the faded sun in splendour on the
tapestry back of the bed while he read slowly the old boastful motto,
"By myself I stand." And the girl, lying on a little couch where she
took turns with Aunt Janet in nursing him through the night, would hear
him talking to God by the hour.

"Not by myself, O Lord, but in Thy might. Thou art my Rock and my
Fortress, my Defence on my right hand, my strong shield in whom I
trust--"

Silence--except for the grating of rats in the ceiling as they tried to
gnaw the beams, and the moaning of the wind. Then the musical voi