CHAPTER IV.


In a year after the departure of the clan, the clachans of Crawford
and Traquare had lost almost all traces of their old pastoral
character. The coal pit had been opened, and great iron furnaces built
almost at its mouth. Things had gone well with Crawford; the seam had
proved to be unusually rich; and, though the iron had been found, not
on his land, but on the extreme edge of Blair, he was quite satisfied.
Farquharson had struck hands with him over it, and the Blair iron ore
went to the Crawford furnaces to be smelted into pig iron.

Crawford had grown younger in the ardent life he had been leading. No
one would have taken him to be fifty-five years old. He hardly thought
of the past; he only told himself that he had never been as strong and
clear-headed and full of endurance, and that it was probable he had
yet nearly half a century before him. What could he not accomplish in
that time?

But in every earthly success there is a Mordecai sitting in its gate,
and Colin was the uncomfortable feature in the laird's splendid hopes.
He had lounged heartlessly to and from the works; the steady,
mechanical routine of the new life oppressed him, and he had a
thorough dislike for the new order of men with whom he had to come in
contact. The young Crawfords had followed him about the hills with an
almost canine affection and admiration. To them he was always "the
young laird." These sturdy Ayrshire and Galloway men had an old
covenanting rebelliousness about them. They disputed even with Dominie