and seemed to fall softly asleep, with a beautiful smile on his face.

At this moment midnight was chimed from the Cross steeple, near which they lived.

It is Christmas morn! But Norrie Campbell lies dead! No, not dead, but changed; for this very hour is Christ born-the Hope and the Light of the world; and lo! He stands by the bedside of wee Norrie, saying, 'Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven.'

CHAPTER II.

SPYCRAFT.

NORMAN CAMPBELL lies quietly and cosily in his little grave, beyond the hunger of a hungry time. There is a mouth less to fill in Jamie Campbell's household, but there is a void in Mary Campbell's heart which no feast can fill. Willie still goes twinkling about the house with his bright towsy curls; but even he pauses sometimes, forgetful, and wonders where Norrie can have gone to. Then suddenly remembering, he creeps silently to his mother's knee, where he lays his head, brooding, if not weeping.

But the great wheel, unpausing and unpathetic, goes steadily round, ever descending with half the world through the still twilight into the reposeful star-glowing shadow of night; and ever ascending with the other half through the cool dawn and the rosy morn into the broad blaze of noon. From birth to death swiftly round moves the great globe. The success or failure of men does not affect it, and it will pause as little at the death of a king as at the death of a beggar. To grief-stricken hearts this fixity in the succession of daily phenomena is at first an aggravation of their grief; but the very providence of steady recurrence, dulling and drowsing the sense of pain, becomes one of the great gratuitous healers of human woe; so that at length the agonies which once seemed so unendurable are transformed into pleasing, and sometimes into glorious, memories. So was it with the piercing sorrow of the Campbell household. Perhaps, too, the knowledge that calamity assailed others as well as themselves helped the Campbells to bear their heavy burdens, revealing as it did that they were not alone afflicted.

But the shadow hung longest on Mrs. Campbell. As to Jamie, the struggle for a subsistence and the political agitations of the day allowed him little time to brood or lament. Besides, he and Makane were haunted by Richmond, who was making the most strenuous endeavours to demolish the conspiracy, by

sowing in the minds of these two leading members of the club every conceivable doubt of anything of the kind being able to succeed in the face of the overwhelming force which the Government could instantaneously marshal against it. Richmond's plan was, on the one hand, to let the conspiracy fill as large a space as possible in the imagination of authority; on the other, to reduce its power by introducing into it the loosening elements of dissension; and then, by some master-stroke, to blow it quietly to the winds, without the aid either of policeman or soldier. Such a feat, he fairly argued, would be sure to gain some conspicuous recognition from the Government.

It was a ticklish part that Richmond was playing; but he was succeeding, though very slowly. Already Campbell began to entertain doubts where he had formerly been inspired only with hopes. Makane was more difficult to deal with, being less open to reason and more unscrupulous in conduct. Jock might know a certain line of policy to be unreasonable; but it would not necessarily follow that he would cease to pursue it. Prove to Campbell that anything was impossible, and he would at once fling the idea of it from his mind. As yet, therefore, neither of the two was wholly convinced; they were both only shaken a little in their physical-force aspirations-Campbell rather more than Makane. Richmond, who himself got no rest from Mr. Finlay, gave them no rest, but

VOL. II.

haunted them everywhere, and plied them perpetually with arguments skilfully calculated to sap their faith in the views and objects of the confederacy.

Another member cunningly pursued and pumped by Richmond was Andrew Mackinlay, a decent, evendown, unsuspecting kind of mortal; a good specimen of the Glasgow weaver, with an admirable power of belief in the wisdom of the policy initiated by the Cromwell Club. This man Richmond encountered one afternoon in Ingram-street, and with him adjourned to a tavern.

'Ye haena joined us yet,' said Mackinlay, after taking off his cup; 'I thought frae what Makane tell't us that ye wad hae made up your mind by this time and become a member.'

'You see, Andrew,' answered the spy from the midst of his invariable tobacco-cloud, 'I am still unsettled in my private affairs. Any day I may have to leave Glasgow to enter upon a new situation that I have been looking after

'Wi' Mr. Owen at New Lanark ?'

Precisely; and for that reason I can't well see the propriety of engaging in politics without some more powerful incentive than any I have yet heard from the lips of those to whom I have spoken on the subject.'

'What wad ye hae ?'

'Well, I don't exactly know. What I hear of

the Club is all very well; but it affords no particular proof of sincerity or determination on the part of the members. There is no proof that I know of to show that you are men of mettle.'

'Wad black and white convince ye o' our courage ?' demanded Mackinlay, made bolder by another glass.

'I don't know even about that,' said Richmond. 'It would depend upon the nature of what was put in black and white;' and the spy smoked more vigorously than ever, yet affecting an air of indifference. Then he added: But take another dram, Andrew; the weather is cold.' Nothing loath, Andrew took another pull at the whisky, and immediately said, presenting a paper:

'Will that convince ye that we're no cowards ?' Richmond took the paper carelessly, glanced at it carelessly, and then answered in a bantering tone:

'That's an excellent joke, I must say; you are not fit for that seriously.'

'It's as true as death,' protested Mackinlay energetically; that's been sworn to by every member o' the Club; and ye canna but allow that when men in their senses swear to a thing o' that kind, it's far enough frae sprosing.'

Richmond had doubts within himself of the sanity of the persons who could swear to anything of the