machine for the drying of crops in wet weather, and he said he would
like to go to England to see the newer ones and all the later
improvements, if these was a chance of any one about here going shares
with them. And it would not be very much. Keith, if you were to share
with him; and the machine it can be moved about very well; and in the
bad weather you could give the cotters some help, to say nothing about
our own hay and corn. And that is what Major Stuart was saying
yesterday, that if there was any place that you wanted a drying-machine
for the crops it was in Mull."

"I have been thinking of it myself," he said, absently, "but our farm is
too small to make it pay--"

"But if Major Stuart will take half the expense? And even if you lost a
little, Keith, you would save a great deal to the poorer people who are
continually losing their little patches of crops. And will you go and be
my agent, Keith, to go and see whether it is practicable?"

"They will not thank you, Janet, for letting them have this help for
nothing."

"They shall not have it for nothing," said she--for she had plenty of
experience in dealing with the poorer folk around--"they must pay for
the fuel that is used. And now, Keith, if it is a holiday you want, will
not that be a very good holiday, and one to be used for a very good
purpose, too?"

She left him. Where was the eager joy with which he ought to have
accepted this offer? Here was the very means placed within his reach of
satisfying the craving desire of his heart; and yet, all the same, he
seemed to shrink back with a vague and undefined dread. A thousand
impalpable fears and doubts beset his mind. He had grown timid as a
woman. The old happy audacity had been destroyed by sleepless nights and
a torturing anxiety. It was a new thing for Keith Macleod to have become
a prey to strange unintelligible forebodings.

But he went and saw Major Stuart--a round, red, jolly little man, with
white hair and a cheerful smile, who had a sombre and melancholy wife.
Major Stuart received Macleod's offer with great gravity. It was a
matter of business that demanded serious consideration. He had worked
out the whole system of drying crops with hot air as it was shown him in
pamphlets, reports, and agricultural journals, and he had come to the
conclusion that--on paper at least--it could be made to pay. What was
wanted was to give the thing a practical trial. If the system was sound,
surely any one who