great red hands._'
'Surely they had better be red than green--celestial rosy red, love's
proper hue.' Good gracious! here he is."

"Ah, Craik! is that you? How goes it?"

One of Mr. Craik's gifts was that he could sigh better than almost
anybody; whenever he was going to speak of anything as darkly
mysterious, his sigh was enough to convince any but the most hardened.
He _fetched_ a sigh then (that is the right expression)--he fetched it
up from the very bottom of his heart, and then he began to unfold his
grievances to Valentine, how some of his best school-girls had tittered
at church, how some of his favourite boys had got drunk, how some of
the farmers had not attended morning service for a month, and how two
women, regular attendants, had, notwithstanding, quarrelled to that
degree that they had come to blows, and one of them had given the other
a black eye, and old Becky Maddison is ill, he concluded. "I've been
reading to her to-day. I don't know what to think about administering
the Holy Communion to her while she persists in that lie."

"Do you mean the ghost story?" asked Valentine.

"Yes."

"It may have been a lie when she first told it; but in her extreme old
age she may have utterly forgotten its first invention. It may possibly
not be now a conscious lie, or, on the other hand, it may be true that
she did see something."

"Your grandmother always considered that it was a lie, and a very cruel
lie."

"How so? She accused no one of anything."

"No, but she made people talk. She set about a rumour that the place was
haunted, and for some years the family could hardly get a servant to
live with them."

"Poor old soul!" thought Valentine. "I suppose it would be wrong to try
and bribe her to deny it. I wish she would though."

"I think," said Mr. Craik, an air of relief coming over his face--"I
think I shall tell her that I regard it in the light you indicated."

Soon after that he went away. It was evening, the distant hills, when
Valentine sauntered forth, were of an intense solid blue, gloomy and
pure, behind them lay wedges of cloud edged with gold, all appeared
still, unchanging, and there was a warm balmy scent of clover and
country crops brooding over the place.

Valentine sauntered on through the peaceful old churchyard, and over the
brow of the little hill. What a delightful evening view! A long hollow,
with two clear pools (called in those parts meres) in it, narrow, and
running side by