SANDY BEITH, THE HIGHLAND
DROVER.

ON the road-side to St. Boswell's stood the "Thistle" Inn. It was a poor-looking place; the sign was washed white with the rain, and creaked on the post it hung from with a melancholy noise as it swayed backwards and forwards in the breeze. On a bench beneath the dingy window lolled the landlord, looking listlessly up and down the road after the travellers to and from the fair -the St. Boswell's great yearly cattle fair, at which Scotch and English farmers equally abound. His eyes were dull, his dress careless and poor, his person neglected; he seemed like his sign-post, to have had all his good looks worn off by rough weather. And his house was much the same-the customers he had were drovers of the lowest

kind, who didn't see dirt, or if they did, didn't mind it; unwashed, unswept, with little furniture, and that furniture poor and broken. His only care was to keep a pretty fair tap going, and his only comfort to share it with his customers. Such as he usually obtained had been and for that morngone ing, and he sat now gaping and staring at the passers to and fro, none the better for what he had taken already, yet feeling a craving to go in and get more.

Just as he was on the point of moving for that purpose, he saw a tall, firmly-built man, in the dress of a Highland drover, walking briskly towards the house: he was coming from the direction of the fair, and Willie Ross (as the landlord of the "Thistle" was called) imagined that he was making the best of his way home; he was so different in his appearance from his ordinary guests, that he did not for a moment suppose he would stop at his door.

As he came nearer and nearer, he couldn't help looking at him with admiration; his free manly step and erect figure, and his easy graceful air, were indeed very attractive.

To his surprise, as he advanced, he looked towards the sign, then came quite up and stood before the landlord.

"Is it the Thistle' you call yon thing?" he asked, pointing to the board.

"Ay, and a putty thistle it was before it was ruinated by the pelt of the storm,' said Willie, a little offended at what he considered the contemptuous tone of the stranger, whose fine bronzed face, with its dark, bright, penetrating eyes, now turned on the landlord.

"Then maybe it's Willie Ross you are? but you're no more like the Willie Ross of Meldrum in days gone by than yon is like the thistle of the field."

"Why, it's never Sandy Beith!" exclaimed Willie, starting up. "Oh, Sandy, man, it's light to my eyes and comfort to my heart to see you. Why, I never thought it was you when I was looking at you on the road, and considering the while I'd

not seen a smarter man, gentle or simple, pass the house this day."

"I brought Mr. McNiven's lambs to St. Boswell's," replied the drover; "and for all this was the longest way back, when I heard you could be found here, I cast about how I could come round to see you."

"Good, good!" cried Willie; "come in and have a drink of the best I can give you, with a hearty good-will."

"No drink for me, man; but I'll turn in out of the sun," said Sandy, stooping to follow Willie through the door. The lek of the inside, however, was so uninviting, that he added, "We'll be better on the settle outside, Willie; the sun is a bit carried off there by yon tree."

Uninviting, indeed: the ashes lay about the hearth where the morning fire had been, the dirty table was covered with unwashed drinking cups, and the rank fumes of bad tobacco were strong in it.

"As you please," said Willie, who felt that his house was dirty when he saw Sandy turn out with a look of disgust, and was a little ashamed of it. He had once been as cleanly as the handsome drover, but habit had brought him to live as he did without perceiving the wretchedness around him.

For some time they sat talking on the settle about the various things cach had passed through since they last met.

"To think of your being with Mr. McNiven now," said Willie. "If I'd been my own friend, I'd never have left him myself."

"No; you see you wanted to be free," said Sandy.

"I didn't know as free and easy was going to be so far apart," said Willie, “or I'd never have left service."

"Well, well, there's hardship and trouble in most ways of life," said Sandy; "but I know a good service is a good thing."

"Don't you show that, every step you take and every look you give?" asked Willie, fixing his heavy eyes on his friend with envy and admiration.

"And a bad service is a bad thing," said Sandy, "as you show, sitting here so disconsolate and dismal."

"It's no service I'm in, man!" replied Willie quickly; "I've never had a master since I left Mr. McNiven, and married the widow as had this inn for her fortune; und a nice thing it might have been, only for her dying and other troubles."

'Why, man, I tell you you have been in service ever since, and are now; I know it by your livery," said Sandy.

"Livery!" exclaimed Willie, looking at his soiled and worn clothes; "it's a mighty poor one, then, and not worth working for, I reckon; but I tell you, Sandy (if you're in carnest), I've never done a day's work for a day's wage since you and me was together at Meldrum."

"It's a way your master has got to keep his servants in the dark about things,

Willie," said Sandy, looking steadily at him; "but I'm right-you get a livery and small pay now, and the full wages are standing over."

"Have it your own way," said Willie, who had a guess at what his companion meant, and wished to change the subject. "You have nought to say anyhow against Mr. McNiven; and surely if I'd thought he'd ever have made me his bailey, as he has you, and trusted me and given me so much that I could have married and raised a respectable family on, like you, Sandy, I'd have been with him to this day."

"I don't owe my prosperity to Mr. McNiven, you know," said Sandy quietly; "his wages would never have contented me.'

"Oh, oh!" said Willie; "two strings to your bow, is it? And who's the other?"

"The greatest and the best, that puts good into all the rest, is my faithful God, Willie," said Sandie, reverently moving his bonnet.

"Oh, dear me!" sighed Willie, "you was always serious-minded, Sandy, and I wish I'd been too: but it's too late nowit's no use me pretending to talk that way."

"You're just right, Willie, there's no use in pretending," said his friend; "but let me talk a word to you. I heard you was getting lower and lower, and that was why I tried to come this way that I might see if you'd listen to an old friend."

Willie, who was very warm-hearted, looked gratefully at Sandy, who went on—

"Ye see, Willie, it's clearly Satan you're serving,―his work is sin, and his livery is rags and dirt (for you), and his small pay is all manner of uncomfortableness, and his is death at last." wages

"Ay, to be sure-true enough," said Willie.

"You own it, and yet you will go on in the same way, Willie ?" asked his friend.

"Ye see, I'm a bit in debt, and I've no way to pay it if I give up the 'Thistle;' and while I'm the landlord, it's few customers I'd get if I didn't take a drop with them," said Willie, as if excusing himself.

"Drunkenness never paid debts yet," said Sandy.

"Oh, surely you're right," said Willie freely; "and I'm certain if I could get back to old ways, I would to-morrow."

"You've never had any worth going back to, I fancy," answered Sandy; "you'd best begin fresh, as I did, Willie, some few years ago."

"There's many things I'd like to begin fresh," said Willie with a sigh, for his head ached, and he felt the want of more drink, to which he had got so accustomed that nothing but shame kept him from fetching it that moment.

"Begin one fresh-that will do all the rest," said Sandy.

"And what's that ?" asked Willie.

"Give up your ingratitude, man!" said Sandy.

Ingratitude! Why wasn't his heart full of gratitude at that very moment to the kind friend who had come to him? He looked amazed; he had expected to hear about drinking and other sins, but not ingratitude.

"You don't see it? No," said Sandy. "Man, while you are giving yourself up to misery and poverty and death, just to please your thirst for drink, are you not ungrateful to Him who suffered hunger and thirst, shame and sorrow, pain and death, for you, to save you from the ruin you are running

after ?"

Willie didn't answer.

"Oh, to think of your giving your hand to the destroyer, the enemy of Jesus Christ, and turning your back upon Him, the kind, generous friend, who says, 'Come to me, Willie, come to me, I will release you from the bonds of sin; I will cure your drunkenness; I will teach you how to be sober and honest; I will make you happy in this world, and I will take you to myself in the next."

nor to ask a blessing for him by name when he worshipped daily with his family.

The meeting made a strong impression on Willie, and from that time he abstained from drink and read his Bible, and asked that he might know the power of the love of Jesus in his heart. His customers noticed the change and laughed at him; some left him when he absolutely refused to draw for them after they had already taken too much. But his debt increased as his custom grew less, and his landlord hearing that the maltster was going to put in an execution, was beforehand with him, and sold off all he had and turned him out.

There were many who owed small sums to Willie, for he had always been far too open-handed for his own welfare, but not one came forward now to help him in his trouble, even by returning his own to him.

"Well, well! I can never say a word about it," he exclaimed; "it's plain truth, ingratitude is in the heart of man, and who has been ungrateful beyond my mark to the best of friends, as Sandy said ?"

With a trifle in his pocket, he turned his back on the "Thistle" and started for Mel

"Oh, Willie," said Sandy again, “you said I was always serious; and so I was, having had good living parents that shamed me away from open sin; but it wasn't till I saw my ingratitude, in not loving Him, that I forsook the service of sin."

Willie looked up amazed at this.

"It's true, indeed. Mr. McNiven could tell me my faults in my business; but it was my Heavenly Master that taught me what the sin of my heart was, and how I was treating with contempt the great King who had left all his glory to come down and die for and me you "You and me?" said Willie slowly, looking at Sandy.

"Ay, you and me. I always was taught to say he died for sinners, but what good was that to me while I didn't know I was a sinner? but when I found out I was one, I saw he died for me, and then I loved him and worked hard to forsake sin, for oh, Willie, believe me, I wouldn't anger or grieve him now for the world!"

Willie didn't answer, but slowly raised himself from the settle and threw his empty pipe over the hedge; then turning to Sandy, gave him his hand.

"What's this a sign of ?" asked his friend, grasping it.

"It's a sign that I think you're right, and-and-I want to be right too. I never thought about the ingratitude."

There was so much sincerity in Willie's manner that Sandy left him with much hope, after many an earnest entreaty that he would pray for the help of the Holy Spirit to believe in Jesus for salvation; and he did not fail to pray for him as he walked homewards,

him to help him to get work.

"It's clear to be seen," he said, "the Lord has taken me out of temptation, and I'll go into it no more.”

Work was quickly obtained for him, and he became a steady, industrious, thriving man. Sandy, who rightly looked on himself as the instrument of his rescue from ruin, always kept up the closest friendship with him, and Willie used to say, that he counted this intimacy the tip-top of his blessings.

As they travelled together to fair and market with stock, people would say, "Who is that fine-looking fellow, dressed so well, and strong enough to face an army "Oh," one would answer, "that's Sandy Beith, the Highland drover, and there's not a man that's his better, gentle or simple, in England or Scotland; and he by his side is his friend, Willie Ross, that was on the road to ruin, but Sandy spoke a faithful word to him and brought him to turn round."

"I don't believe a more respectable man is in the three Kingdoms," said Mr. McNiven, "than my man, Sandy Beith; he's an honour to his country and a blessing to his kind, for God is in his heart and life. made if we'd all such drovers!"

We'd be

T was a sorrowful Christmas-time. At least, it was to me; and though my husband did not lose his confidence in his Heavenly Father's care, and his assurance that all would

prove to be right in the end, it is not to be wondered at that he was a little cast down. It hurt him very much that he could no longer do anything for his poor mother's support. I think he felt this more keenly than anything else.

For the first time in his life he was in debt. The quarter's rent was due, and he could not pay it; and there was the doctor's bill, which he could not pay either. Both landlord and doctor, however, were kind-hearted gentlemen; and they had told John not to trouble himself. They knew it was not his fault that he could not pay-so they both said-and they would willingly wait till things worked round again.

This was a great comfort; but when would things work round"? John was still too weakly with his long illness to be able to work, even if work were to be had.

My readers know what my trouble was.

One evening, in the Christmas week, we sat together-poor, pale, thin, and weak John and I. His mother had been with us, trying to comfort us in her cheery way; but she was gone, and we were alone.

"How much money have we left now, Maggie?" said John presently, when we had been some time silent. I knew without counting. "One shilling and twopence, not another penny in the world,' I said, and burst into tears.

John was moved to see me so distressed. "Not another penny," he said gently; "but something better than pennies, or shillings, or pounds, or hundreds of pounds, Maggie. Will you reach me my Bible, my dear?"

I took the Bible from its shelf, and gave it into my husband's trembling hands. He opened it, and read those comforting words of the Lord Jesus Christ which are to be found in the 6th chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, the last ten verses; and two verses out of the Epistle of St. Peter:-" Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you" (1 Pet. v. 6, 7).

"These are precious words, are they not, Maggie?" he said.

I could not answer him for crying. "Perhaps you think," he went on, talking slowly and feebly, he was so weak--" perhaps you think that these promises don't put money in our purse, nor bread in our cupboard; but, Maggie, it is written, that 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.' And there is a hymn that tells us,-

'Make but his service your delight,

He'll make your wants his care.' ” And then John went on to say that he tried to believe this; and that God had helped him to believe it; and that now he was quite satisfied that we should not be left nor forsaken, though he could not see where help was to come from.

"But there's something I want you to tell. me, Maggie," he went on speaking kindly and lovingly. "There's some trouble you are keeping from me; and I want you to tell me what it is; let me share it with you if I cannot help you out of it."

What did he mean? I asked in great fear.

Was it not trouble enough that he was ill, and that all our money was gone? Why should John think there was any other trouble on my mind?

And then John told me that sometimes when he had lain awake at night, and I was in a sort of uneasy sleep, I had talked in a way he could not understand, as though I was arguing with some one about something disagreeable,-that I had declared that that some one was a cheat. Also, more than once, in the day-time, while he was in bed, up-stairs, in the worst of his illness, he had heard me, as he fancied, arguing in the same way with somebody in the down-stairs room, or at the door. He had not liked to say anything about it at the time, John went on,indeed he was not well able to talk about anything. But now would not I tell him what the trouble was?

I tried to laugh, and said something about sick folk's fancies; but it would not do.

"Don't put me off, Maggie," he said, fondly; "remember, I am your husband, your best earthly friend; and everything that concerns you, concerns me. We have not had any secrets apart from one another yet; and we must not have now."

This time I did not try to laugh, my handkerchief went to my eyes instead.

"I can't help thinking," John said, "that you have been getting

a little into debt to somebody, for my comforts, while I have been so ill; and you don't want me to be worried about it. But it will worry me more if I am

I told him all. I need not go over the story again as I told it to my husband. I was honest with him and faithful to myself at last. I know that I did not attempt to make any excuses; I had been foolish and deceitful, and I said so.

And then John drew me to him, and put his arm around me, and kissed me again and again, as I tried to hide my face on his shoulder. "My poor Maggie," he said cheerily; "so this is the trouble, is it? And we owe that deceitful packman more than a pound; and Mr. Smith seven shillings and sixpence; and we have only one shilling and twopence in all the world? My poor Maggie! But cheer up, we'll soon find a way out of this. We won't let that debt run on much longer; and the man shall not frighten my poor dear again."

"O John, John, how good you are!" I could not help saying. "But how can we pay that debt?"

"You must leave that for me to think about, Maggie. We need not decide on anything Maggie. We need not decide on anything to-night; and to-morrow will be a new day. When will the man call again?"

I told him,-the next day but one. "Well, then, we must have the money for his debt by to-morrow night; not before. So we won't say any more about it now."

"But, O John, can you for-". I was going to say, "forgive," but he would not let me finish. And indeed there was no need for him to tell me that he forgave me; he had forgiven me from the very first.

And I knew what he would do on the morrow without his telling me. Though we had no

THE WIFE'S CONFESSION.

It

money, we had good furniture, as the packman very well knew, and it was all our own. would be painful to part with any of it, no doubt; but better that than having a disgraceful debt, as mine was, hanging over our heads.

[It was not John who said this, but I who thought it; and as I thought it I have written it down. It was a disgraceful debt; disgraceful to me, I mean.]

I was very happy that night, happier than I had been for months, for there was no secret now to make me half afraid of my husband.

The next day was New Year's Day, and a strange thing happened.

It was in the forenoon, and I was going, with a heavy heart, and yet with a light heart too, to a furniture dealer a few streets off, the very furniture dealer of whom we had bought most of our furniture before we were married-John and I. I was going to ask him to look round and give us a price for the chest of drawers we had bought of him. Well, when going on this unpleasant errand, who should I see but Mr.

"You are a very naughty woman," he said, shaking his head, and looking serious. I looked serious too, I am sure, for I was ready to sink. "O sir," I said, "indeed I have not forgotten that I owe you

"Pho, pho!" he said, interrupting me; "Did not I say you were not to pay me till you were able? Don't trouble yourself about that."

"But it is a great trouble to me, sir, leastwise it has been," I said; "but I hope I shall be able to pay you to-morrow."

"Ah! And how will you do that?" he asked. I did not like to tell Mr. Smith where the money was to come from, but he pressed me so that at last I did.

I'll

"Nonsense," he said; "you are not going to sell your furniture. Turn back again; go with you." So I turned back. "And you are a naughty woman," he said once more, laughing this time. "What business had you to want, or to let your husband want anything, when you have friends who would be only too glad to help him and you?"

We soon reached our home; and Mr. Smith shook hands with John, and, when that was done, there was a fivepound note left in John's hand.

"Put it up, put it up, don't thank me, there's no occasion," said the generoushearted gentleman, when John tried to speak. "It was only yesterday that I heard something about your straits; and so I went to two or three friends, and there, never mind. But there's more where that came from; so only let me know before it is gone. And when you are well enough to do a little light work, come to me; I want a lot of shelving done in my warehouses. And now, my friends, if you like, I'll just kneel down with you and say a few words in prayer. We can't begin the new year in a better way, can we ?"

I shall not make my story longer, only to say that from that day to this we have never really wanted. We had no need to sell our furniture; John soon got well enough to work, and had as much as he could do; and was able to support his mother till the day of her death. I never had a secret from him; nor he from me. As to my scarlet shawl, I never wore it, and never parted with it: there it is now where it was twenty-five years ago.

I need not say why I have written down its history and mine. At least I hope the story will carry its own teachings with it.