perhaps thrice or so at the sheep-washing, since the chase of his
father's murderers. The figure he had shown on that eventful night
disappeared as if swallowed by a trap. He who had ecstatically dipped
his hand in the red blood, he who had ridden down Dickieson, became,
from that moment on, a stiff and rather graceless model of the rustic
proprieties; cannily profiting by the high war prices, and yearly
stowing away a little nest-egg in the bank against calamity; approved of
and sometimes consulted by the greater lairds for the massive and placid
sense of what he said, when he could be induced to say anything; and
particularly valued by the minister, Mr. Torrance, as a right-hand man
in the parish, and a model to parents. The transfiguration had been for
the moment only; some Barbarossa, some old Adam of our ancestors, sleeps
in all of us till the fit circumstance shall call it into action; and,
for as sober as he now seemed, Hob had given once for all the measure of
the devil that haunted him. He was married, and, by reason of the
effulgence of that legendary night, was adored by his wife.
He had a mob of little lusty, barefoot children who marched in a caravan
the long miles to school, the stages of whose pilgrimage were marked by
acts of spoliation and mischief, and who were qualified in the country-
side as "fair pests." But in the house, if "faither was in," they were
quiet as mice. In short, Hob moved through life in a great peace - the
reward of any one who shall have killed his man, with any formidable and
figurative circumstance, in the midst of a country gagged and swaddled
with civilisation.

It was a current remark that the Elliotts were "guid and bad, like
sanguishes"; and certainly there was a curious distinction, the men of
business coming alternately with the dreamers. The second brother, Gib,
was a weaver by trade, had gone out early into the world to Edinburgh,
and come home again with his wings singed. There was an exaltation in