ts, glucking in a gluttonous ecstasy.

"God's grace for us all!" said the minister again, as in a benediction.

M'Iver pushed back his chair without rising, and threw a leg across its
arm with a complacent look at the shapely round of the calf, that his
hose still fitted with wonderful neatness considering the stress they
must have had from wind and rain.

"We had grace indeed," said he, "in Pomerania. We came at night, just as
now, upon this castle of its most noble and puissant lord. It was Palm
Sunday, April the third, Old Style. I mind, because it was my birthday;
the country all about was bursting out in a most rare green; the gardens
and fields breathed sappy odours, and the birds were throng at the
Digging of their homes in bush and eave; the day sparkled, and river and
cloud too, till the spirit in a person jigged as to a fiddle; the nights
allured to escapade."

"What was the girl's name?" I asked M'Iver, leaning forward, finding his
story in some degree had parallel with my own.

"Her name, Colin--I did not mention the girl, did I? How did you guess
there was a girl in it?" said John, perplexed.

I flushed at my own transparency, and was glad to see that none but the
minister (and M'Iver a little later) had observed the confession of my
query. The others were too busy on carnal appetites to feel the touch of
a sentiment wrung from me by a moment's illusion.

"It is only my joke," I stammered; "you have a reputation among the
snoods."

M'Iver smiled on me very warm-heartedly, yet cunningly too.

"Colin, Colin," he cried. "Do I not know _you_ from boot to bonnet? You
think the spring seasons are never so fond and magic as when a man is
courting a girl; you are minding of some spring day of your own and a
night of twinkling stars. I'll not deny but there was a girl in my case
in the parlour of Pomerania's cousin at Regenwalde; and I'll not deny
that a recollection of her endows that season with something of its
charm. We had ventured into this vacant house, as I have said: its
larders were well plenished; its vaults were full of marshalled brigades
of bottles and battaglia of casks. Thinking no danger, perhaps careless
if there was, we sat late, feasted to the full, and drank deep in a
house that like this was empty in every part It was 1631--I'll leave you
but that clue to my age at the time--and, well I was an even prettier
lad than I am to-day. I see you smile, Master Gordon; but that's my bit
joke.