32 NATURE'S REALM. 
was really a dark bukbling brew sucked from 
many a peaty ooze away up in the moor; silver 
sheened and iron-bronzed. 
And what a trouting one got there! How 
at charmed Master Dolphy and his particular 
friends! Strangers at Manse breakfasts were 
-astounded at the rich colored fish, so plump 
-and well flavored. They were caught at early 
‘dawn by Master Dolphy. This was indeed the 
only enticement that was ever known to draw 
‘this young gentleman from his sluggish couch 
sooner than the last breakfast bell, when he 
had to make a hurried, slovenly rush to get to 
his place before the anticipatory grace of the 
painfully precise ‘“‘ Doctor.” “Ah!” laughed 
Master Dolphy in these years of precocious 
volubility, as the tempting, steaming, delicate 
fish were served around to the efger guests, 
«Ah! they are the real Glencomie speckle- 
backs.” The burn, though, hastens on, wend- 
ing its fretful way down to the Peel of the 
Auch, thence to the Auch Loch itself, another 
fishy-finned, as well as feathery-winged, resort. 
Ah! this burn was a fairy-peopled haunt. 
Long have we lingered amid its charms, ab- 
sorbed in its varied aspects of golden dappling 
and variegating sunshine, or the silvery glint- 
ing, and thus so often scary, eerie moon-night 
light. 
~The Manse itself was, by an _ indefinable 
something about it, at once seen to be ‘‘aboove 
th’ ordinar’,” though it was a bare-walled, 
straggling structure. Its many wings spread 
out puzzlingly awry. There was nothing about 
its gray white extent of cold, hard, harled walls 
to relieve their unplacid monotony, except at 
one awkward gale, a few streaks of young, 
hard-skinned ivy spreading out like opened 
fingers. These leaf-gripping cords seemed to 
make a desperate claim for support and pity. 
The Manse was about three times the size of 
any apparent necessity. The pile had been 
successively, wing by wing, added to at evi- 
dently very different times to accommodate the 
difficulties of parochial heritors’ tightness. Its 
outward morphology therefore gave the idea 
of a rather complicated internal arrangement 
of chambers and passages, queer-shaped rooms 
and crooked alleys, floors of annoyingly vary- 
ing level, with narrow, winding and steep 
stairs. ‘‘Ah!’ but of course would exclaim 
Master Dolphy, ‘‘ what hide and seek pranks 
we can play’—to the most amusingly sup- 
pressed exasperation of the terribly serene and 
dignifiedly long-suffering Doctor. But the 
merest glance from the outside in at the win- 
dows discovered the key to the sort of life that 
was led within. The clear, transparent bright- 
ness of the window panes, with just a little bit of 
old-fashioned, richly carved oak furniture fore- 
ing itself into view against the heavy edge ot 
the thick, mossy curtain from behind which it 
peeped so slyly, just over a dainty little stand, 
too, that always bore some gay-colored hya- 
cinth or less effusive geranium. A bar of 
bright red higher up indicated an old-fashioned 
window blind. Heavily draped and well pre- 
served in color, thickly surfaced, richly pat- 
terned, too, and subduedly tinted, hung the 
curtains which fringed the sides of the bright 
windows. All this hinted at some more deli- 
cate charm other than that the sole undomestic 
sterner sex could produce within. Ah! so! 
Yes, there was Tibbie, who reigned as queen- 
mistress and ‘‘housekeeper” (what a dear 
name to some thoughtful girls!) since that 
sore night that had taken the former Manse 
mother so mysteriously away from her. Tib- 
bie proved a rare blessing to her father, and 
indeed to everybody within and without the 
Manse and far around. 
The serene composure that had ruled within 
the Manse had perhaps been influenced by the 
close contiguity of the churchyard with its fre- 
quent solemn remindings. The door of the 
Manse faced the little private gate entrance to 
the God’s-acre. From the peculiar conforma- 
tion of the ground the surface of the latter was 
on a much higher level than the Manse itself. 
The ‘‘kirk-yaird” was thus reached through 
the ‘‘yett” by ascending some narrow, age- 
worn stone steps imbedded in the mossy- 
patched, grassy‘tufted, lichen-plastered side 
walls that were continued around and confined 
the ‘“‘yaird.” The steps were worn and rain 
washed ; the little iron gate was rusty and hung 
heavily, almost helplessly, on one apparently 
creaking hinge. There was a sacred reluc- 
tance to interfere with the influence of unre- 
pairing time. The ‘“ Aul’ Kirk,” standing 
