roaring; and every trace of both the chase and the chaser
disappeared. The party broke up, and I was left standing alone on the
beach, a little nearer home, but in every other respect in quite the
same circumstances as when landed by my American friends on the wild
coast of Connaught. "Another of Fortune's freaks!" I ejaculated; "but
'tis well she can no longer surprise me."

A man stepped out in the darkness as I spoke, from beside one of the
rocks; it was the peasant Burns, my acquaintance of the earlier part of
the evening.

"I have waited, Mr. Lindsay," he said, "to see whether some of the
country folks here, who have homes of their own to invite you to, might
not have brought you along with them. But I am afraid you must just be
content to pass the night with me. I can give you a share of my bed
and my supper, though both, I am aware, need many apologies." I made a
suitable acknowledgment, and we ascended the cliff together. "I live,
when at home with my parents," said my companion, "in the inland parish
of Tarbolton; but, for the last two months, I have attended school here,
and lodge with an old widow woman in the village. To-morrow, as harvest
is fast approaching, I return to my father."

"And I," I replied, "shall have the pleasure of accompanying you in at
least the early part of your journey, on my way to Irvine, where my
mother still lives."

We reached the village, and entered a little cottage, that presented its
gable to the street, and its side to one of the narrower lanes.

"I must introduce you to my landlady," said my companion, "an excellent,
kind-hearted old woman, with a fund of honest Scotch pride and shrewd
good sense in her composition, and with the mother as strong in her
heart as ever, though she lost the last of her children more than
twenty years ago."

We found the good woman sitting beside a small but very cheerful fire.
The hearth was newly swept, and the floor newly sanded; and, directly
fronting her, there was an empty chair, which seemed to have been drawn
to its place in the expectation of some one to fill it.

"You are going to leave me, Robert, my bairn," said the woman, "an' I
kenna how I sall ever get on without you; I have almost forgotten, sin
you came to live with me, that I have neither children nor husband." On
seeing me, she stopped short.

"An acquaintance," said my companion, "whom I have made bold to bring
with me for the night; but you must not put yourself to an