ll be many to follow you
when your time comes?"

"Ey, please God," answered the banksman, dashing away a furtive drop
that had rolled on to his cheek; "there'll be my childer, and my
childer's childer, and their childer, forby. Maybe the barns will lay me
behind the mother; poor auld body!"

Hugh Ritson's face darkened, and he resumed his walk.

"Tut! what matter?" he asked himself; "the night winds are enough to
moan over a man's grave." And he laughed a little.

Next morning--Saturday morning--he wrote a letter, and sent Luke to the
village to post it. Then he attended to some business relating to the
pit. After that, he shut the door and bolted it. When the old man
brought the midday meal he knocked in vain, and had to go away.

Night closed in, and still there came no answer to the old man's knock.
When the sun had set the wind had risen. It threatened to be a
tempestuous night.

Toward ten o'clock Parson Christian arrived. He had wrestled long with
his own heart as to what course it was his duty to take. He had come at
last in answer to the banksman's summons, and now he knocked at the
door. There was no answer. The wind was loud in the trees overhead, but
he could hear the restless footfall within. He knocked again, and yet
again.

Then the bolt was drawn, and a voice at once strange and familiar cried,
"Come in, Parson Christian."

He had not called or spoken.

The parson entered. When his eyes fell on Hugh Ritson's face he
shuddered as he had never shuddered before. Many a time he had seen
death in a living face, but never anything like this. The livid cheeks
were stony, the white lips were drawn hard, the somber eyes burned like
a deep, slow fire, the yellow hands were gaunt and restless. There was
despair on the contracted brow, but no repentance. And the enfeebled
limbs trembled, but still shuffled on--on, on, on, through their longer
journey than from Gabbatha to Golgotha. The very atmosphere of the room
breathed of death.

"Let me pray with you," said the parson, softly, and without any other
words, he went down on his knees.

"Ay, pray for me--pray for me; but you lose your labor; nothing can save
me."

"Let us call on God," said the parson.

A bitter laugh broke from Hugh Ritson's lips.

"What! and take to him the dregs and rinsings of my life? No!"

"The blood of Christ has ransomed the world. It can save the worst
sinner of us all, and turn away the heavy wrath of God."

Hugh Ritso