7
apple-trees on the lawn. The window-panes, crystal clear
and bulging outward slightly in their narrow frames, gave
on airy appearance to the house. But Mr Sorleyson did not
hurry inward. Leaning his arms on the dry yielding hedge,
he studied the ploughland on the other side, his eyes
running up the curving furrows until they became flattened
cogs on the skyline. He felt nothing hut satisfaction at
what he had done, what weighed most with him, he reflected,
was the pleasure that his father would feel in knowing that
Hamilton and Sarah were now married. That alone Justified the
casuistry. Except What his predecessor had told him, he knew
very little of their history. From his father he had had
only a few disjointed words of concern, and then, on the last
time he had questioned him, an agonised pressure of the hand,
which had left him in surprise and wondering silence as the
old nan. withdraw to his room. Thinking of it afterwards, he
remembered that this had been the old man’s first charge, and
the son felt again, vicariously and for a moment, the anguish
of his father.
As he stood gazing at the pent-in landscape, he thought it
no irreverent fancy to interpret as the devine Will that he
should be instrumental in bringing back to the paths of
propriety these two souls that must have caused his father so
much sorrow. At that moment he raised his eyes to the hill-
farm of Rathard. The horse and trap had drawn up in the farm-
close and he watched the elderly couple and their son dismount.
