which
had once been the sacrificial altar of the dead creed, and then
leaned wearily against one of the sheltering pillars.

His person was at this time remarkably handsome and in wonderful
harmony with its surroundings. He was large and strong--a man not
made for the narrow doorways of the town, but for the wide, stormy
spaces of the unstreeted ocean. The sea was in his eyes, which were
blue and outlooking; his broad breast was bared to the wind and
rain; his legs were planted apart, as if he was hauling up an anchor
or standing on a reeling deck. An air of somber gravity, a face
sad and mystical, distinguished his solitary figure. He was the
unconscious incarnation of the lonely land and the stormy sea.

Leaning against the pagan pillar, he revolved in his mind those
great questions that survive every change of race and dynasty: Whence
come we? Where go we? How can a man be justified with God? Though
the rain smote him east and west, he was in the sunshine of the Holy
Land; he was drawing nets with Simon Peter on the Sea of Galilee; he
was listening to Him who spake as never man spake. Suddenly the
sharp whistle of a passing steamer roused him. He turned his eyes
seaward, and saw the _Polly Ann_ hastening to the railway port with
her load of fish for the Glasgow market. The sight set him again in
the nineteenth century. Then he felt the rain, and he drew his bonnet
over his brows, and lifted his nets, and began to walk toward the
little black hut on the horizon. It was of large stones roughly
mortared together, and it had a low chimney, and a door fastened with
a leather strap; but the small window wanted the screen of white
muslin usual in Highland cots, and was dim with dust and cobwebs.

It was David's home, and he knew his father waited there for his
coming; so he hastened his steps; but the radiant, dreamy look
which had made him handsome was gone, and he approached the door
with the air of a man who is weary of to-day and without hope for the
morrow. At the threshold he threw off this aspect, and entered
with a smile. His father, sitting wearily in a wooden arm-chair,
turned his face to meet him. It was the face of a man walking with
death. Human agony grimly borne without complaint furrowed it;
gray as ashes were the cheeks, and the eyes alone retained the
"spark of heavenly flame" which we call life.

"There has been a change, David," he said, "and it is well you are
come; for I know I must soon be going