table. "I should like to make trial of my strength," he said, with, a
laugh. "Come! I did you a service to-day; in your turn do me a pleasure."

MacLean dragged a chair to the table, and sat down. "I will drink with
you," he said, "and forget for an hour. A man grows tired--It is Burgundy,
is it not? Old Borlum and I emptied a bottle between us, the day he went
as hostage to Wills; since then I have not tasted wine. 'Tis a pretty
color."

Haward lifted his glass. "I drink to your future. Freedom, better days, a
stake in a virgin land, friendship with a sometime foe." He bowed to his
guest and drank.

"In my country," answered MacLean, "where we would do most honor, we drink
not to life, but to death. _Crioch onarach!_ Like a gentleman may you
die." He drank, and sighed with pleasure.

"The King!" said Haward. There was a china bowl, filled with red anemones,
upon the table. MacLean drew it toward him, and, pressing aside the mass
of bloom, passed his glass over the water in the bowl. "The King! with all
my heart," he said imperturbably.

Haward poured more wine. "I have toasted at the Kit-Kat many a piece of
brocade and lace less fair than yon bit of Quaker gray that cost you a
broken head. Shall we drink to Mistress Truelove Taberer?"

By now the Burgundy had warmed the heart and loosened the tongue of the
man who had not tasted wine since the surrender of Preston. "It is but a
mile from the store to her father's house," he said. "Sometimes on
Sundays I go up the creek upon the Fair View side, and when I am over