Yes, he had a sair struggle with his lower nature to the very last, but he was constantly strengthened by the conviction of a “Power closer to him than breathing, nearer than hands or feet.”  Nine weeks after the dominie’s death they found him sitting in his chair, fallen on that sleep whose waking is eternal day.  His death was like Tallisker’s—­a perfectly natural one.  He had been reading.  The Bible lay open at that grand peroration of St. Paul’s on faith, in the twelfth of Hebrews.  The “great cloud of witnesses,” “the sin which doth so easily beset us,” “Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith”—­these were probably his last earthly thoughts, and with them he passed into

  “That perfect presence of His face
  Which we, for want of words, call heaven.”

James Blackie’s Revenge.

JAMES BLACKIE’S REVENGE.

CHAPTER I.

Few people who have travelled will deny that of all cities Glasgow is apparently the least romantic.  Steeped in wet, white mist, or wrapped in yellow fog vapor, all gray stone and gray sky, dirty streets, and sloppy people, it presents none of the features of a show town.  Yet it has great merits; it is enterprising, persevering, intensely national, and practically religious; and people who do not mind being damp have every chance to make a good living there.  Even the sombre appearance of the dark gray granite of which it is built is not unsuitable to the sterling character of its people; for though this stone may be dull and ugly, there is a natural nobility about it, and it never can be mean.

I have said that, as a city, Glasgow is practically religious, and certainly this was the case something less than half a century ago.  The number of its churches was not more remarkable than the piety and learning of its clergy; and the “skailing” of their congregations on a Sabbath afternoon was one of the most impressive sights, of its kind, in the world.

My true little story opens with the skailing of the Ramshorn Kirk, a very favorite place of worship with the well-to-do burghers of the east end of the city, and it was a peculiarly douce, decent, solemn-looking crowd that slowly and reverently passed out of its gates into the absolutely silent streets.  For no vehicles of any kind disturbed the Sabbath stillness, and not until the people had gone some distance from the house of God did they begin to think their own thoughts, and with a certain grave reserve put them into words.

Among the groups who proceeded still farther east, towards the pleasant houses facing the “Green,” one alone was remarkable enough to have elicited special notice from an observing stranger.  It consisted of an old man and a young girl, evidently his daughter.  Both were strikingly handsome, and the girl was much better dressed than the majority of women who took the same road.  Long before they reached the Green they were joined by a younger man, whom the elder at once addressed in a reproving voice.