What's Mine's Mine. George MacDonald

would not come near me. They would be off up that hill as hard as they could tear, jumping everything that came in their way."

      "Is it not very dull here in the winter?" asked Christina, panting a little, but trying to look as if she had known quite well he was only joking.

      "I do not find it dull."

      "Ah, but you are a man, and can do as you please!"

      "I never could do as I pleased, and so I please as I do," answered Alister.

      "I do not quite understand you."

      "When you cannot do as you like, the best thing is to like what you have to do. One's own way is not to be had in this world. There's a better, though, which is to be had!"

      "I have heard a parson talk like that," said Mercy, "but never a layman!"

      "My father was a parson as good as any layman. He would have laid me on my back in a moment—here as I stand!" said Alister, drawing himself to his height.

      He broke suddenly into Gaelic, addressing the more troublesome of the bulls. No better pleased to stand still than to go on, he had fallen to digging at his neighbour, who retorted with the horn convenient, and presently there was a great mixing of bull and harness and cloddy earth. Turning quickly towards them, Alister dropped a rein. In a moment the plough was out of the furrow, and the bulls were straining every muscle, each to send the other into the wilds of the unseen creation. Alister sprang to their heads, and taking them by their noses forced them back into the line of the furrow. Christina, thinking they had broken loose, fled; but there was Mercy with the reins, hauling with all her might!

      "Thank you, thank you!" said the laird, laughing with pleasure. "You are a friend indeed!"

      "Mercy! Mercy! come away directly," cried Christina.

      But Mercy did not heed her. The laird took the reins, and administering a blow each to the animals, made them stand still.

      There are tender-hearted people who virtually object to the whole scheme of creation; they would neither have force used nor pain suffered; they talk as if kindness could do everything, even where it is not felt. Millions of human beings but for suffering would never develop an atom of affection. The man who would spare DUE suffering is not wise. It is folly to conclude a thing ought not to be done because it hurts. There are powers to be born, creations to be perfected, sinners to be redeemed, through the ministry of pain, that could be born, perfected, redeemed, in no other way. But Christina was neither wise nor unwise after such fashion. She was annoyed at finding the laird not easily to be brought to her feet, and Mercy already advanced to his good graces. She was not jealous of Mercy, for was she not beautiful and Mercy plain? but Mercy had by her PLUCK secured an advantage, and the handsome ploughman looked at her admiringly! Partly therefore because she was not pleased with him, partly that she thought a little outcry would be telling,—

      "Oh, you wicked man!" she cried, "you are hurting the poor brutes!"

      "No more than is necessary," he answered.

      "You are cruel!"

      "Good morning, ladies."

      He just managed to take off his bonnet, for the four-legged explosions at the end of his plough were pulling madly. He slackened his reins, and away it went, like a sharp knife through a Dutch cheese.

      "You've made him quite cross!" said Mercy.

      "What a brute of a man!" said Christina.

      She never restrained herself from teasing cat or puppy for her amusement—did not even mind hurting it a little. Those capable of distinguishing between the qualities of resembling actions are few. There are some who will regard Alister as capable of vivisection.

      On one occasion when the brothers were boys, Alister having lost his temper in the pursuit of a runaway pony, fell upon it with his fists the moment he caught it. Ian put himself between, and received, without word or motion, more than one blow meant for the pony.

      "Donal was only in fun!" he said, as soon as Alister's anger had spent itself. "Father would never have punished him like that!"

      Alister was ashamed, and never again was guilty of such an outbreak. From that moment he began the serious endeavour to subjugate the pig, tiger, mule, or whatever animal he found in himself. There remained, however, this difference between them—that Alister punished without compunction, while Ian was sorely troubled at having to cause any suffering.

      CHAPTER XI.

       THE FIR-GROVE.

       Table of Contents

      As the ladies went up the ridge, regarded in the neighbourhood as the chief's pleasure-ground where nobody went except to call upon the chief, they must, having mounted it lower down than where they descended, pass the cottage. The grove of birch, mountain-ash, and fir which surrounded it, was planted quite irregularly, and a narrow foot-path went winding through it to the door. Against one of the firs was a rough bench turned to the west, and seated upon it they saw Ian, smoking a formless mass of much defiled sea-foam, otherwise meer-schaum. He rose, uncovered, and sat down again. But Christina, who regarded it as a praiseworthy kindness to address any one beneath her, not only returned his salutation, but stopped, and said,

      "Good morning! We have been learning how they plough in Scotland, but I fear we annoyed the ploughman."

      "Fergus does sometimes LOOK surly," said Ian, rising again, and going to her; "he has bad rheumatism, poor fellow! And then he can't speak a word of English, and is ashamed of it!"

      "The man we saw spoke English very well. Is Fergus your brother's name?"

      "No; my brother's name is Alister—that is Gaelic for Alexander."

      "He was ploughing with two wild little oxen, and could hardly manage them."

      "Then it must have been Alister—only, excuse me, he could manage them perfectly. Alister could break a pair of buffaloes."

      "He seemed rather vexed, and I thought it might be that we made the creatures troublesome.—I do not mean he was rude—only a little rough to us."

      Ian smiled, and waited for more.

      "He did not like to be told he was hard on the animals. I only said the poor things did not know better!"

      "Ah—I see!—He understands animals so well, he doesn't like to be meddled with in his management of them. I daresay he told you that, if they didn't know better, he had to teach them better! They are troublesome little wretches.—Yes, I confess he is a little touchy about animals!"

      Somehow Christina felt herself rebuked, and did not like it. He had almost told her that, if she had quarrelled with his ploughman-brother, the fault must be hers!

      "But indeed, Captain Macruadh," she said—for the people called him captain, "I am not ignorant about animals! We have horses of our own, and know all about them.—Don't we, Mercy?"

      "Yes," said Mercy; "they take apples and sugar from our hands."

      "And you would have the chief's bulls tamed with apples and sugar!" returned Ian, laughing. "But the horses were tamed before ever you saw them! If you had taken them wild, or even when they were foals, and taught them everything, then you would know a little about them. An acquaintance is not a friendship! My brother loves animals and understands them almost like human beings; he understands them better than some human beings, for the most cunning of the animals are yet simple. He knows what they are thinking when I cannot read a word of their faces. I remember one terrible night, winters ago—there had been a blinding drift on and off during the day, and my father and mother were getting anxious about him—how he came staggering in, and fell on the floor, and a great lump in his plaid on his back began to wallow about, and forth crept his big colley! They had been to the hills to look after a few sheep, and the poor dog was exhausted, and Alister carried him home at the risk of his life."

      "A