Henry. "I shall be left in such a situation as no man of sense and honour could endure. I shall be neither fish nor flesh!" he cried. And a little after he had another expression, plainer perhaps than he intended. "It is your duty to be here with my father," said he. "You know well enough you are the favourite." "Ay?" said the Master. "And there spoke Envy! Would you trip up my heels Jacob?" said he, and dwelled upon the name maliciously. Mr. Henry went and walked at the low end of the hall without reply; for he had an excellent gift of silence. Presently he came back. "I am the cadet and I SHOULD go," said he. "And my lord here in the master, and he says I SHALL go. What say ye to that, my brother?" The Master of Ballantrae CHAPTER I. SUMMARY OF EVENTS DURING THIS MASTER'S WANDERINGS. 5

"I say this, Harry," returned the Master, "that when very obstinate folk are met, there are only two ways out: Blows and I think none of us could care to go so far; or the arbitrament of chance and here is a guinea piece. Will you stand by the toss of the coin?" "I will stand and fall by it," said Mr. Henry. "Heads, I go; shield, I stay." The coin was spun, and it fell shield. "So there is a lesson for Jacob," says the Master. "We shall live to repent of this," says Mr. Henry, and flung out of the hall. As for Miss Alison, she caught up that piece of gold which had just sent her lover to the wars, and flung it clean through the family shield in the great painted window. "If you loved me as well as I love you, you would have stayed," cried she. "'I could not love you, dear, so well, loved I not honour more,'" sang the Master. "Oh!" she cried, "you have no heart I hope you may be killed!" and she ran from the room, and in tears, to her own chamber. It seems the Master turned to my lord with his most comical manner, and says he, "This looks like a devil of a wife." "I think you are a devil of a son to me," cried his father, "you that have always been the favourite, to my shame be it spoken. Never a good hour have I gotten of you, since you were born; no, never one good hour," and repeated it again the third time. Whether it was the Master's levity, or his insubordination, or Mr. Henry's word about the favourite son, that had so much disturbed my lord, I do not know; but I incline to think it was the last, for I have it by all accounts that Mr. Henry was more made up to from that hour.