“Humff!” said the laird with a scornful laugh as he kicked a pebble out of his way.

“There is a great outpouring at Oxford among the young men, and though I dinna agree wi’ them in a’ things, I can see that they hae gotten a revelation.”

“Ou, ay, the young ken a’ things.  It is aye young men that are for turning the warld upside down.  Naething is good enough for them.”

The dominie took no notice of the petulant interruption.  “Laird,” he said excitedly, “it is like a fresh Epiphany, what this young Mr. Selwyn says—­the hungry are fed, the naked clothed, the prisoners comforted, the puir wee, ragged, ignorant bairns gathered into homes and schools, and it is the gospel wi’ bread and meat and shelter and schooling in its hand.  That was Christ’s ain way, you’ll admit that.  And while he was talking, my heart burned, and I bethought me of a night-school for the little herd laddies and lasses.  They could study their lessons on the hillside all day, and I’ll gather them for an hour at night, and gie them a basin o’ porridge and milk after their lessons.  And we ought not to send the orphan weans o’ the kirk to the warkhouse; we ought to hae a hame for them, and our sick ought to be better looked to.  There is many another good thing to do, but we’ll begin wi’ these, and the rest will follow.”

The laird had listened thus far in speechless indignation.  He now stood still, and said,

“I’ll hae you to understand, Dominie Tallisker, that I am laird o’ Crawford and Traquare, and I’ll hae nae such pliskies played in either o’ my clachans.”

“If you are laird, I am dominie.  You ken me weel enough to be sure if this thing is a matter o’ conscience to me, neither king nor kaiser can stop me.  I’d snap my fingers in King George’s face if he bid me ‘stay,’ when my conscience said ‘go,’” and the dominie accompanied the threat with that sharp, resonant fillip of the fingers that is a Scotchman’s natural expression of intense excitement of any kind.

“King George!” cried the laird, in an ungovernable temper, “there is the whole trouble.  If we had only a Charles Stuart on the throne there would be nane o’ this Whiggery.”

“There would be in its place masses, and popish priests, and a few private torture-chambers, and whiles a Presbyterian heretic or twa burned at the Grass-market.  Whiggery is a grand thing when it keeps the Scarlet Woman on her ain seven hills.  Scotland’s hills and braes can do weel, weel without her.”

This speech gave the laird time to think.  It would never do to quarrel with Tallisker.  If he should set himself positively against his scheme of sending his clan to Canada it would be almost a hopeless one; and then he loved and respected his friend.  His tall, powerful frame and his dark, handsome face, all aglow with a passionate conviction of right, and an invincible determination to do it, commanded his thorough admiration.  He clasped his hands behind his back and said calmly,