upon him when his army service had been completed became still more
urgent. He longed to be able to devote himself to a penitential life,
as a means of making such atonement as was in his power for his past
transgressions. Even while in the army his life had been one of
rigorous mortification, dating from the day when he once more began to
practise his religion; he shunned no duty, however distasteful, and
shrank from no danger.

In response to the keen desire which dominated him, Archie threw up his
situation, and searching for some part of the country in which he would
not be known, yet where he should find life and surroundings not
entirely foreign to his experience, settled at length at Ardmuirland.
For about forty years his life was characterized by a rigorous
austerity. His pension was at once carried to the priest, as soon as
he received it, to be devoted to the offering of Masses for the soul of
his unhappy wife, and the relief of the poor--scarcely poorer than
himself. He never spent a penny upon his own needs; even the scanty
earnings of his labor, unless made in kind, went the same way as his
pension. The clothing, even, which charitable persons bestowed upon
him in pity soon passed into coin for the same end; no scolding of his
spiritual Father could prevail upon him to look better after his own
well-being.

"I've been a great sinner, Father," he would say. "I owe a big debt to
the justice of the Almighty!"

As he had lived, so he died, I had noticed that my brother had shown no
surprise, as I did, at the sight of the dying figure of the old man
stretched on the bare earth with a stone for his pillow; Val had become
familiar with the idea.