“Life is the same everywhere, Mr. Cameron.  I dare say there is as much sin and as much worry and care among the mountains as on the Glasgow pavements.”

“You may ‘daur say’ it, James, but that winna mak it true.  Even in this warld our Father’s house has many mansions.  Gang your way up and up through thae grand solitudes and ye’ll blush to be caught worrying among them.”

And then in a clear, jubilant voice he broke into the old Scotch version of the 121st Psalm: 

  “I to the hills will lift mine eyes
    from whence doth come mine aid;
  My safety cometh from the Lord,
    who heaven and earth hath made.”

And he sang it to that loveliest of all psalm tunes, Rathiel’s “St. Mary’s.”  It was impossible to resist the faith, the enthusiasm, the melody.  At the second bar Christine’s clear, sweet voice joined in, and at the second line James was making a happy third.

  “Henceforth thy goings out and in
    God keep for ever will.”

“Thae twa lines will do for a ‘Gude-night,’” said David in the pause at the end of the psalm, and James rose with a sigh and wrapped his plaid around him.

CHAPTER II.

James had gone into the house so happy and hopeful, he left it so anxious and angry—­yes, angry.  He knew well that he had no just cause for anger, but that knowledge only irritated him the more.  Souls, as well as bodies, are subject to malignant diseases, and to-night envy and jealousy were causing James Blackie more acute suffering than any attack of fever or contagion.  A feeling of dislike towards young Donald McFarlane had taken possession of his heart; he lay awake to make a mental picture of the youth, and then he hated the picture he had made.

Feverish and miserable, he went next morning to the bank in which he was employed, and endeavored amid the perplexities of compound interest to forget the anxieties he had invented for himself.  But it was beyond his power, and he did not pray about them; for the burdens we bind on our own shoulders we rarely dare to go to God with, and James might have known from this circumstance alone that his trouble was no lawful one.  He nursed it carefully all day and took it to bed with him again at night.  The next day he had begun to understand how envy grew to hatred, and hatred to murder.  Still he did not go to God for help, and still he kept ever before his eyes the image of the youth that he had determined was to be his enemy.

On Thursday night he could no longer bear his uncertainties.  He dressed himself carefully and went to David Cameron’s.  David was in his shop tasting and buying teas, and apparently absorbed in business.  He merely nodded to James, and bid him “walk through.”  He had no intention of being less kindly than usual, but James was in such a suspicious temper that he took his preoccupation for coolness, and so it was almost with a resentful feeling he opened the half-glass door dividing the shop from the parlor.