CHAPTER VIII.

GEORGE AND THE LAIRD.

Alexa's money was nearly exhausted, and most of her chickens had been devoured by the flourishing convalescent, but not yet would the doctor allow him to return to business.

One night the electric condition of the atmosphere made it heavy, sultry and unrefreshing, and George could not sleep. There came a terrible burst of thunder; then a bannered spear of vividest lightning seemed to lap the house in its flashing folds, and the simultaneous thunder was mingled with the sound, as it seemed, of the fall of some part of the building. George sat up in bed and listened. All was still. He must rise and see what had happened, and whether any one was hurt. He might meet Alexa, and a talk with her would be a pleasant episode in his sleepless night. He got into his dressing-gown, and taking his stick, walked softly from the room.

His door opened immediately on the top of the stair. He stood and listened, but was aware of no sequel to the noise. Another flash came, and lighted up the space around him, with its walls of many angles. When the darkness was returned and the dazzling gone, and while the thunder yet bellowed, he caught the glimmer of a light under the door of the study, and made his way toward it over the worn slabs. He knocked, but there was no answer. He pushed the door, and saw that the light came from behind a projecting book-case. He hesitated a moment, and glanced about him.

A little clinking sound came from somewhere. He stole nearer the source of the light; a thief might be there. He peeped round the end of the book-case. With his back to him the laird was kneeling before an open chest. He had just counted a few pieces of gold, and was putting them away. He turned over his shoulder a face deathly pale, and his eyes for a moment stared blank. Then with a shivering smile he rose. He had a thin-worn dressing-gown over his night-shirt, and looked a thread of a man.

"You take me for a miser?" he said, trembling, and stood expecting an answer.

Crawford was bewildered: what business had he there?

"I am not a miser!" resumed the laird. "A man may count his money without being a miser!"

He stood and stared, still trembling, at his guest, either too much startled or too gentle to find fault with his intrusion.

"I beg your pardon, laird," said George. "I knocked, but receiving no answer, feared something was wrong."

"But why are you out of bed—and you an invalid?" returned Mr. Fordyce.

"I heard a heavy fall, and feared the lightning had done some damage."

"We shall see about that in the morning, and in the meantime you had better go to bed," said the laird.

They turned together toward the door.

"What a multitude of books, you have, Mr. Fordyce!" remarked George. "I had not a notion of such a library in the county!"

"I have been a lover of books all my life," returned the laird. "And they gather, they gather!" he added.

"Your love draws them," said George.

"The storm is over, I think," said the laird.

He did not tell his guest that there was scarcely a book on those shelves not sought after by book-buyers—not one that was not worth money in the book-market. Here and there the dulled gold of a fine antique binding returned the gleam of the candle, but any gathering of old law or worthless divinity would have looked much the same.

"I should like to glance over them," said George. "There must be some valuable volumes among so many!"

"Rubbish! rubbish!" rejoined the old man, testily, almost hustling him from the room. "I am ashamed to hear it called a library."

It seemed to Crawford, as again he lay awake in his bed, altogether a strange incident. A man may count his money when he pleases, but not the less must it seem odd that he should do so in the middle of the night, and with such a storm flashing and roaring around him, apparently unheeded. The next morning he got his cousin to talk about her father, but drew from her nothing to cast light on what he had seen.