consideration to their own strange encounter. When he had told her of
the time he had seen old Cameron at prayer in the lone wintry fields,
and how far he had just walked to see him again in the strange
conditions of to-night, they climbed on together.




CHAPTER XXII.


There is nothing of which men take less heed than the infection of
emotion, a thing as real as that mysterious influence which in some
diseases leaps forth from one to another till all are in the same pain.
With the exception, perhaps, of the infection of fear, which societies
have learnt to dread by tragic experience, man still fondly supposes
that his emotions are his own, that they must rise and fall within
himself, and does not know that they can be taken in full tide from
another and imparted again without decrease of force. May God send a
healthful spirit to us all! for good or evil, we are part of one
another.

There were a good many people who went up the mountain that night to
find the enthusiasts, each with some purpose of interference and
criticism. They went secure in their own sentiments, but with minds
tickled into the belief that they were to see and hear some strange
thing. They saw and heard not much, yet they did not remain wholly their
own masters. Perhaps the idea that Cameron's assembly would be well
worth seeing was gleaned partly from the lingering storm, for an
approaching storm breeds in the mind the expectation of exciting