admired him, and they praised his improved manners, though he was far enough from being a model either of taste or fashion. His self-dismissal from Strathern's office they did not clearly understand; but although they thought that he was not entirely blameless, they acted the part of parental censors in the mildest of terms.

When he returned to the city, Alan proposed, as a temporary arrangement, that he should take lessons in practical mechanics in the workshop of Mr. Dundas. After some discussion, in which Lewis tried to dissuade him from his project, it was arranged that he should enter the workshop for a time, in order to discover whether he possessed any genius or taste for the profession.

Now it happened at this time that Mr. Dundas had in his employment a Frenchman who had served for some years in the army of the great Napoleon. This man, besides being an excellent workman, was also a dexterous swordsman; and Alan, ever eager to increase his accomplishments in the domain of athletics, thought that he could not do better than take this chance of learning how to handle the sword. Having therefore made a bargain with Jules Elmar, he set to work with a will under this skilful teacher, and was soon in a fair way to become his rival, if not his equal. At every spare hour the two were whipping at each other, or at the air, which they

pierced as earnestly as if it contained some opponent visible only to themselves. Whether Alan had any thought that he might require soon to put his swordcraft to the test, it is difficult to say; but he certainly worked at it with more enthusiasm than in learning the mysteries of mechanics, although he did not neglect these, but made fair progress in the departments both of theory and practice.

Nor all this while did he forget the 'cause,' in so far as he could serve it, by attending the meetings of the Cromwell Club, and occasionally the gatherings of suburban societies, at which he was nothing loth to deliver his soul of such ideas or political nebulæ as might flicker up in his mind on the rights and wrongs of mankind. He happened to be at that meeting in Neil Jorum's when Richmond and that other unknown spy were slinking outside, watched by Mrs. Campbell. Alan was the first to see the incautious face at the window, and give intimation of it to Mackinlay, who that night occupied the chair. Andrew, without moving his head, asked quietly of Alan,

'Are ye a guid marksman?'

Capital. I have shot hundreds of sparrows, some hares, and, by mistake, one calf.'

'I accept the certificates, though they come frae yoursel'. D'ye see this tobacco-box ?'

'Yes.'

'It's an airn ane, and gey heavy for its size. Tak' it cannily out o' my haun, and fire't wi' a' your bung at that cauf's face at the window. We can afford to pay Neil for the glass.'

'All right,' said Alan, as he took the box quickly from the hand of the president. The members watched and listened.

one.

In a moment there was a crash, followed by a groan outside, and by suppressed laughter inside. Mackinlay recovered his tobacco-box; and the person so dexterously hit by it, and who, in staggering in anguish from the scene, lost his cap, also recovered his property in the manner presently to be seen. That meeting was not altogether a satisfactory Not that there was, on the whole, any lack of enthusiasm; but there was but there was some wrangling, the cause of which nobody seemed clearly to understand. Campbell was there, but kept as much as possible in the shade, spoke little, and when he did speak it was not as he had often done before, to inflame the members with a passion of zeal for the special object of the confederacy, but rather to cool and moderate the prevalent extravagance, as if he wished to introduce into their deliberations the thin end of the wedge of wisdom. This effect was, however, rather felt than seen. One member whispered to another, 'Jamie's words are gay wersh and watery the nicht. He's no weel like, I think.'

'He hasna been the same man,' replied the other,

since the death o' his son Norman.'

Even Makane, who was the Ajax of the club, was content for the night to lean peaceably, though gloomily, on his battle-axe, and only vindicated his character by giving an occasional growl as some vital question came up which demanded an emphatic exhibition of opinion.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CAP FITS.

MRS. CAMPBELL had carried home the cap of the wounded spy, and her husband examined it, but without making any discovery.

A day or two afterwards, however, Alan, who called to see Jamie, also examined the cap, while its history was explained to him. In turning it up and down, he happened to open part of the inside lining, whereon his eye caught a name, written in a wellknown hand, which made him chuckle pleasantly within himself. He told the Campbells that he had a good guess as to the head which the cap ought to fit, and at his request they willingly let him have the pleasure of returning it to the owner.

Although the small and rather absurd attempt which Andrew Semple had made upon the affections of Christine Dundas was an utter failure, that circumstance did not prevent the young man from nursing in his mind the image of the young lady. She was too beautiful in herself, and too attractive by reason of her prospects, to be easily forgotten by a mind so practical as that of Andrew Semple.

The evil of his case was, as we know, that adversity—if failure in love can be so called-did not reveal its precious jewel of wisdom to him-did not shine upon him its purifying beams, and show him what to do and what not to do, which road to take and which to shun. Failure clouded his reason and cankered his soul; and so, instead of submitting to the inevitable with as much grace as he could call to his assistance, he strangled every gracious suggestion, and took into his service a variety of wicked spirits, with the aid of which he hoped to annoy, if not to overreach, his rival.

He was successful, as we have seen, in interrupting Alan's progress towards the woolsack through Strathern's office; but some other of his evil arrows fell short of the mark, or had their venomous points blunted on Alan's generally impenetrable armour. In a very forcible sense indeed, one of his ill-shot weapons turned upon and stung himself.

Andrew was for some time erroneously under the