Lashcairn's voice was raised in prayers and exhortations so long and so
burning that he often emptied the place even of zealots before he had
tired himself and God.

All the time Marcella ached with pity for him now that she feared him no
longer. He seemed so naive, so wistful to her, this strange father whom
she could never understand, but who seemed like a child very keen on a
game of make-believe. Things went from bad to worse, but they sat down
to their meal of oatcake and milk uncomplaining, after a long grace. It
was never the way of the Lashcairns to notice overmuch the demands of
the body. And now they sat by the almost bare refectory table, and none
of them would mention hunger; Andrew did not feel it. His zeal fed him.
Marcella, however, took to going down oftener to the huts and always
Wullie, who sensed these things, toasted fish--three or four at a
time--over the embers, and roasted potatoes in the bed of ashes.

It was in the summer following this last obsession that Andrew was taken
suddenly ill. One evening, praying with blazing ardour for the souls of
the whole world, consciousness of unbearable weight came upon him.
Standing in the little chapel he felt that he was being pressed to his
knees and there, with a terrible voice, he cried:

"Yes, Lord, put all the weight of Thy cross upon me, Thy poor
servant--Thy Simon of Cyrene who so untimely, so unhelpfully hath found
Thee."

Those watching believed that they saw the black shadow of a cross laid
over his bowed shoulders. But then, like Andrew, they were Kelts who
could see with eyes that were not apparent. Andrew was carried home to
his bed, and Dr. Angus, the same doctor he had driven forth in violence