third bottle, he showed the plebeian in a larger print; the low, gross
accent, the low, foul mirth, grew broader and commoner; he became less
formidable, and infinitely more disgusting. Now, the boy had inherited
from Jean Rutherford a shivering delicacy, unequally mated with
potential violence. In the playing-fields, and amongst his own
companions, he repaid a coarse expression with a blow; at his father's
table (when the time came for him to join these revels) he turned pale
and sickened in silence. Of all the guests whom he there encountered, he
had toleration for only one: David Keith Carnegie, Lord Glenalmond.
Lord Glenalmond was tall and emaciated, with long features and long
delicate hands. He was often compared with the statue of Forbes of
Culloden in the Parliament House; and his blue eye, at more than sixty,
preserved some of the fire of youth. His exquisite disparity with any
of his fellow-guests, his appearance as of an artist and an aristocrat
stranded in rude company, riveted the boy's attention; and as curiosity
and interest are the things in the world that are the most immediately
and certainly rewarded, Lord Glenalmond was attracted by the boy.

"And so this is your son, Hermiston?" he asked, laying his hand on
Archie's shoulder. "He's getting a big lad."

"Hout!" said the gracious father, "just his mother over again - daurna
say boo to a goose!"

But the stranger retained the boy, talked to him, drew him out, found in
him a taste for letters, and a fine, ardent, modest, youthful soul; and
encouraged him to be a visitor on Sunday evenings in his bare, cold,
lonely dining-room, where he sat and read in the isolation of a bachelor
grown old in refinement. The beautiful gentleness and grace of the old
judge, and the delicacy of his person, thoughts, and language, spoke to