have read, I have pondered----"

"Just so," whispered M'Iver, not a bit abashed that a sneer was in his
interjection and his master could behold it.

"--And I have my doubts about the righteousness of much of our warfare,
either before my day or now. I have brought the matter to my closet I
have prayed----"

"Pshaw!" exclaimed M'Iver, but at once he asked pardon.

"--I am a man come--or wellnigh come--to the conclusion that his life
was never designed by the Creator to be spent in the turmoil of faction
and field. There is, I allow, a kind of man whom strife sets off, a
middling good man in his way, perhaps, with a call to the sword whose
justice he has never questioned. I have studied the philosophies; I have
reflected on life--this unfathomable problem--and 'fore God I begin to
doubt my very right to wear a breastplate against the poignard of fate.
Dubiety plays on me like a flute."

To all this I listened soberly, at the time comprehending that this was
a gentleman suffering from the disease of being unable to make up his
mind. I would have let him go on in that key while he pleasured it, for
it's a vein there's no remedy for at the time being; but M'Iver was not
of such tolerant stuff as I. He sat with an amazed face till his passion
simmered over into a torrent of words.

"MacCailein!" said he, "I'll never call you coward, but I'll call you
mad, book mad, closet mad! Was this strong fabric your house of Argile
(John M'Iver the humblest of its members) built up on doubt and whim and
shillyshally hither and yond? Was't that made notable the name of your
ancestor Cailein Mor na Sringe, now in the clods of Kilchrenan, or
Cailein Iongataich who cooled his iron hide in Linne-na-luraich; or your
father himself (peace with him!), who did so gallantly at Glenlivet?"

"----And taught me a little of the trade of slaughter at the Western
Isles thirty years ago come Candlemas," said the Marquis. "How a man
ages! Then--then I had a heart like the bird of spring."

"He could have taught you worse! I'm your cousin, and I'll say it
to your beard, sir! Your glens and howes are ruined, your cattle are
houghed and herried, your clan's name is a bye-word this wae day in
all Albainn, and you sit there like a chemist weighing the wind on your
stomach."

"You see no farther than your nose, John," said the Marquis, petulantly,
the candle-light turning his eyes blood-red.

"Thank God for that same!" said Mlver, "if it gives me t