and so keeps it to himself, you see."

"Yes, and tat'll pe pecause it 'll pe too coot to be gifing to
another. And some people would be waik of heart, and be letting
teir enemies co."

"I suspect it's for the opposite reason, Mr MacPhail:--we would
go much too far, making no allowances, causing the innocent to
suffer along with the guilty, neither giving fair play nor avoiding
cruelty,--and indeed"

"No fear!" interrupted Duncan eagerly,--"no fear, when ta wrong
wass as larch as Morven!"

In the sermon there had not been one word as to St Paul's design
in quoting the text. It had been but a theatrical setting forth
of the vengeance of God upon sin, illustrated with several common
tales of the discovery of murder by strange means--a sermon
after Duncan's own heart; and nothing but the way in which he now
snuffed the wind with head thrown back and nostrils dilated, could
have given an adequate idea of how much he enjoyed the recollection
of it.

Mr Graham had for many years believed that he must have some
personal wrongs to brood over,--wrongs, probably, to which were
to be attributed his loneliness and exile; but of such Duncan had
never spoken, uttering no maledictions except against the real or
imagined foes of his family.*

*[What added to the likelihood of Mr Graham's conjecture was the