The listening Jamie spoke from beyond Strickland. "What's your nephew's name, sir?"

"Ian. Ian Rullock. His father's mother was a Highland lady, near kinswoman to Gordon of Huntley." Mr. Touris was again speaking to his host. "As a laddie, before his father's death (his mother, my sister, died at his birth), he was much with those troublous northern kin. His father took him, too, in England, here and there among the Tory crowd. But I've had him since he was twelve and am carrying him on in the straight Whig path."

"And in the true Presbyterian religion?"

"Why, as to that," said Mr. Touris, "his father was of the Church Episcopal in Scotland. I trust that we are all Christians, Glenfernie!"

The laird made a dissenting sound. "I kenned," he said, and his voice held a grating gibe, "that you had left the Kirk."

Mr. Archibald Touris sipped his tea. "I did not leave it so far, Glenfernie, that I cannot return! In England, for business reasons, I found it wiser to live as lived the most that I served. Naaman was permitted to bow himself in the house of Rimmon."

"You are not Naaman," answered the laird. "Moreover, I hold that Naaman sinned!"