MARGARET'S Geordie's boat at Wick, had easily prevailed upon him to put off at once to sea."

What cowards sin makes of us! Margaret had seen this very lad face death often among the sunken rocks and cruel surfs, that he might save the life of a shipwrecked sailor; and now, rather than meet the creditors that he had wronged, he had committed a robbery, and was flying from justice.

She was shocked and speechless, and stood wringing her hands and moaning pitifully. Her brother grew impatient. Often the first result of a bitter sense of sin is to make the sinner peevish and irritable.

"Margaret," he said, almost angrily, "I came to bid you farewell, and to promise you by my father's name to retrieve all this wrong. If you can speak a kind word, speak it for God's sake; if not, I must go without it."

Then she fell upon his neck, and, amid quickcoming sobs, said all that love so sorely and so suddenly tried could say. He could not even

promise to write to her, but he did promise to come back, sooner or later, with restitution in his hand. All she could do now for this dear brother, in her anguish, was to watch Geordie as he put out to sea, knowing that if any sailor could keep his boat above the stormiest waters, he could; and if not-she durst not follow the thought further, but putting her hands before her face, stood silent while the two men pulled away in the little skiff that had brought them up the outlet connecting the Lake of Stennis with the sea.

Margaret would have turned away from Ranald's open grave less broken-hearted. It was midnight now, but her real terror absorbed all her imaginary ones. She did not even call a pony; but with swift, even steps walked back to Stromness. Ere she had reached it, she had decided what was to be done; and the next day she left Kirkwall by the mail packet for the mainland. Thence, by night and by day, she travelled to Glasgow, and a week after her interview with Ranald she was standing before the directors of the defrauded bank, and offering them the entire proceeds of her Kirkwall property, until the debt was paid.

The bank had thoroughly respected Peter Sinclair, and his daughter's earnest, decided. offer won their sympathy. It was accepted without any question of interest, though she could not hope to clear off the obligation in less than nine years. She did not go near any of her old acquaintances, she had no heart to bear their questions and their condolences, and she had no money to stay in Glasgow at charges. Winter was coming on rapidly, but before it broke over the lonely islands she had reached her cottage in Stromness again.

There had been, of course, much talk about her hasty journey, but no one had suspected its cause. Indeed the pursuit after Ranald had been entirely the bank's affair, and had not been nearly so hot as the frightened criminal believed. Ilis failure and flight had indeed been noticed in the Glasgow newspapers, but this information did not reach Kirkwall until the following spring, and then in a very indefinite form.

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A ship going westward took him off the boat." "Thank God! You'll say naught at all, Geordie?"

"I ken naught at a', save that his father's son was in trouble, and trying to gi'e them weary unchancy lawyers the go-by. I was glad eneuch myself to bank them."

But Margaret's real trials were all to come. The mere fact of doing a noble deed does not absolve one often from very mean and petty consequences. Before the winter was over she had found out how rapid is the descent from good report. The neighbours were deeply offended at her for giving up the social tea-parties that had made the house of Sinclair popular for more than one generation. She gave still greater offence by becoming a working woman, and spending her days in braiding straw into the (once) famous Orkney Tuscans, and her long evenings in the manufacture of those fine knitted goods peculiar to the country.

It was not alone that they grudged her the money for these labours, as so much cut of their own pockets-they grudged her still more the time; for they had been long accustomed to rely on Margaret Sinclair for their children's garments, for nursing their sick, and for help in weddings, funerals, and all the other extraordinary occasions of sympathy among a primitively social people.

Little by little all winter the sentiment of disapproval and dislike gathered. Some one soon found out that Margaret's tenants "just sent every bawbee o' the rent siller to the Glasgow Bank," and this was a double offence, as it implied a distrust of her own townsfolk and institutions. If from her humble earnings she made a little gift to any common object, its small amount was a fresh source of anger and contempt; for none knew how much she had to deny herself, even for such curtailed gratuities.

In fact, Margaret Sinclair's sudden stingincss and indifference to her townsfolk was the common wonder and talk of every little gathering; old friends began to either pointedly reprove her or pointedly ignore her; and at last even old Helga took the popular tone, and said, "Margaret Sinclair had got too scrimping for an auld wife like her to bide wi' langer."

Through all this Margaret suffered keenly. At first she tried to make her old friends understand that she had good reasons for her conduct; but as she would not explain these good reasons, she failed in her endeavour. She had thought that her good conscience would support her, and that she could live very well without love and sympathy; she soon found out that it is a kind of negative punishment, worse than many stripes.

At the end of the winter Captain Thorkald again pressed their marriage, saying that "his regiment was ordered to England, and any longer delay might be a final one." He proposed also

that his father, the Udaller Thorkald of Lerwick, should have charge of her Orkney property, as he knew its value and changes. Margaret wrote and told him frankly that "her property was not hers for at least seven years, but that it was under good care, and he must accept her word without explanation." Out of this only grew a very unsatisfactory correspondence; Captain Thorkald went south without Margaret, and a very decided coolness separated them further than any number of miles could have done.

Udaler Thorkald was also exceedingly angry, and his remarks about Margaret Sinclair's refusal to trust her bit property in as gude hands as her own, increased very much the bitter feeling against the poor girl. At the end of three years the trial became too great for her: she began to think of running away from it.

Throughout these dark days she had purposely kept apart from her old friend Dr. Ogilvie, for she feared his influence over her might tempt her to confidence. Latterly the doctor had humoured her evident desire, but he had never ceased to watch over her, and in a great measure to believe in her; so when he heard of this determination to quit Orkney for ever, he went to Stromness with a resolution to spare no efforts to win her confidence.

He spoke very solemnly and tenderly to her, reminded her of her father's generosity and good gifts to the kirk and the poor, and said, "O Margaret! dear lass, what good at a' will thy silent money do thee in that day? It ought to speak for thee out of the mouths of the sorrowfu' and the needy, the widows and the fatherlessindeed it ought. And thou hast given nought for Christ's sake these three years. I am fair shamed to think thou bears sae kind a name as thy fathers."

What could Margaret do? She broke into passionate sobbing, and when the good old dominie left the house an hour afterward, there was a strange light on his face, and he walked and looked as if he had come from some interview that had set him for a little space still nearer the angels.

Margaret had now one true friend. In a few days after this, she rented her cottage, and went to live at the manse. Nothing could have so effectually reinstated her in public favour, and wherever the dominie went, on a message of kindness or help, Margaret went with him. She fell gradually into a quieter but far more affectionate regard; the aged, the sick, and the little children clung to her hands, and she was comforted.

Her life indeed seemed to have wonderfully narrowed, but when the tide is fairly out, it begins to flow again. In the fifth year of her poverty there was from various causes such an increase in the value of real estate that her rents were nearly doubled; and by the end of the seventh year she had paid the last shilling of her assumed debt, and was once more an independent woman.

It might be two years after this event that she one day received a letter that filled her with joy and amazement. It contained a cheque for her whole nine hundred pounds back again. The bank had just received from Ranald Sinclair

of San Francisco the whole amount due it, with the most satisfactory acknowledgment and interest. It was a few minutes before Margaret could take in all the joy this news promised her, but when she did, the calm well-regulated girl had never been so near committing extravagances.

She ran wildly upstairs to the dominie, and throwing herself on her knees beside him, cried out, amid tears and smiles, "Father! father! here is your money! Here is the poor's money! And the kirk's money! God has sent it back to me-sent it back with such glad tidings!" And surely if angels rejoice with repenting sinners, they must have felt that day a far deeper joy with the happy, justified girl.

She knew now that she would hear soon from Ranald, and she was not disappointed. The very next day the dominie brought home the letter. Margaret took it upstairs to read upon her knees, while the good old man walked softly up and down his study, praying for her. Very soon she came to him with a radiant face.

"Is it weel with the lad, ma dawtie?"

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'Yes, father, it is very well." Then she read him the letter.

Ranald had been in New Orleans, and had the fever; he had been in Texas, and spent four years in fighting Indians and herding cattle. He had suffered many things, but he had worked hard, and always managed to grow a little richer every year. Then suddenly the word "California "rung through the world, and he caught the echo, even on the lonely south-western prairies. Through incredible hardships he had made his way thither, and a quick and wonderful fortune had crowned his efforts, first in mining, and afterward in speculating and in merchandising. He said that he was indeed afraid to tell how rich he was, lest to her Orcadean views the sum might appear impossible.

Margaret let the letter fall on her lap and clasped her hands above it. Her face was beautiful. If the prodigal son had a sister, she must have looked just as Margaret looked when they brought in her lost brother in the best robe and the gold ring.

The dominie was not so satisfied. A good many things in the letter displeased him, but he kissed Margaret tenderly and went away from her.

"It is a' I did this, and I did that, and I suffered you, and there's never a word o' God's help, or o' what other folk had to thole. I'll no be doing ma duty if I dinna set his sin afore his e'en."

The old man was little used to writing, and the effort was a great one, but he made it, and without delay. In a few curt, idiomatic sentences he told Ranald Margaret's story of suffering and poverty and wrong; her hard work for daily bread, her loss of friends, of her good name, and her lover-adding: "It is a puir success, my lad, that ye dinna acknowledge God in; and let me tell thee, thy restitution is o'er late for thy credit. I wad hae thought better o' it had thou made it when it took the last plack out o' thy pouch. From thy great wealth, a few hun'red pounds is nae matter to speak about."

But people did speak about it. In spite of our abuse of human nature, it is, after all, a kindly

MARGARET'S nature, and rejoices in good more than in evil. The story of Ranald's restitution it considered very honourable to it, and it was much made of in the daily papers. Margaret's friends flocked round her again, saying, "I'm sorry, Margaret! as simply and as honestly as little children, and the dominie did not fail to give them the lecture on charity that Margaret neglected.

Whether the Udaller Thorkald wrote to his son about these transactions, or whether the captain read in the papers enough to satisfy him, he never explained; but one day he suddenly appeared at Dr. Ogilvie's and asked for Margaret.

He had probably good excuses to offer for his conduct; if not, Margaret was quite as ready to invent them for him as she had been for Ranald. The captain was weary of military life and anxious to return to Orkney; and, as his own and Margaret's property was yearly increasing in value, he foresaw profitable employment for his talents. He had plans for introducing southern improvements for building a fine modern house, growing some of the hardier fruits, and for the

construction of a grand conservatory for Margaret's flowers.

It must be allowed that Captain Thorkald was a very ordinary lord for a woman like Margaret Sinclair to "love, honour, and obey." But few men would have been worthy of her, and the usual rule, which shows us the noblest women marrying men manifestly their inferiors, is doubtless a wise one. A lofty soul can have no higher mission than to help upward one on a lower plane, and surely Captain Thorkald, being, as the dominie said, "no that bad," had the fairest opportunities to grow to Margaret's stature in Margaret's atmosphere.

While these things were occurring, Ranald got his sister's letter. It was full of love and praise, and had no word of blame or complaint in it. He saw indeed that she still signed her name "Sinclair," and never alluded to Captain Thorkald, and the supposition that the stain on his character had caused a rupture did for a moment force itself upon his notice; but he put it instantly away with the reflection that "Thorkald was but a poor fellow, after all, and quite unworthy of his sister."

The very next mail day he received the dominie's letter. He read it once, he read it again and again, until his lips blanched and his whole countenance was changed. In that moment he saw Ranald Sinclair for the first time in his life. Without a word he left his store, went to his house, and locked himself in his own

room.

Then Margaret's silent money began to speak. In low upbraidings it showed him the lonely girl in that desolate land, deserted by lover and friends, robbed of her property and good name, silently suffering every extremity, never reproaching him once, not even thinking it necessary to tell him of her sufferings, or to count their cost unto him.

What is this bitterness which we call remorse? This agony of the soul in all its senses? This sudden flood of intolerable light in the dark places of our hearts? This truth-telling voice which leaves us without an excuse? For many

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days Ranald could find no words to speak but these, "O wretched man that I am! But at length the Comforter came-came as swiftly, as surely, as mysteriously as the Accuser had come, and once more that miracle of grace was renewed-" That day Jesus was guest in the house of one who was a sinner."

Margaret's silent money now found a thousand tongues. It spoke in many a feeble church that Ranald Sinclair held in his arms until it was strong enough to stand alone. It spoke in schools, in colleges and hospitals, in many sorrowful homes, and to many a lonely, struggling heart; and at this day it has echoes that reach from the Far West to the lonely isles lying beyond the stormy Pentland Firth, and the sea-shattering precipices of Duncan's Bay Head.

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THE EARTHQUAKE AT ISCHIA.* VIOLENT earthquakes are happily so rare in Europe, that there is no word in modern languages that properly expresses what they are. Aquake," a "tremble," a movement" of the earth, are the terms used in English, French, and Italian, but these do not express the awful violence of the shake which in a few seconds destroyed a wide district of the island of Ischia on the evening of July 28th.

Shakespeare makes Hotspur utter the right words when in speaking of the birth of Glendower he says, "the earth in passion shook." It was no mere quake or tremble, it was nature in violent rage or passion, shaking in destroying fury. No other power in so short a time could have been so destructive. Not only were houses by hundreds, many of them filled with human beings, levelled to the ground, tall trees were laid flat by the earth being rent, or hurled down. Mont Epomeo, more than 2,000 feet in height, used to be covered to the summit with verdure. All through the long dry summer it remained green and fresh, but now a great bare stretch appears on one side, for the whole surface laden with Spanish chestnut trees and vines was swept into the ravine below. The shock came without any warning for the multitude.

A fairer picture of peace and beauty than the island showed on the day of the 28th was never seen. I was playing on my piano about 9.30 in the evening, when suddenly what sounded like the discharge of a cannon exploded below. I rose at once to place myself under the cross beam of large folding-doors which divided my drawing-rooms, but in the act of going a sound like a heavy railway train going at express speed thundered below, accompanied by such a shake that everything around me seemed to crash, and I expected instant death, thinking no building could resist its power.

But the beam and wall above did not fall, and the great shake and crash passed in a moment. I stayed for a short time, and then seeing that a glass door which led to a terrace had opened by

*We are indebted to a resident at Ischia for this account of the catastrophe of last year.-ED. S. II.

the shock, I got out, stumbling amidst the débris which had fallen from the roof on to another terrace, and I called for a ladder, and so got down. But in crossing this terrace, which was long and wide, surrounded by slender white pillars in double rows, which made it be called my cloisters, I saw at a distance, beyond vineyards, a dense cloud of dust, and I knew it was caused by fallen houses, and I heard wild cries. And in the act of descending, I heard my gardener calling the names of his wife and son (a boy of thirteen) Restituta and Johnine. I found that they and the baby of a year old were buried under the ruins of their house. It stood just outside my little garden, and had an arch stone roof. The roof and walls had all given way and fell over them in bed. The poor man began at once to dig for them. I stood by him, and when the night darkened we got a lantern, which I held. First Giobernin (or Johnine as he was always called) was found, but quite dead. No bone seemed broken, but one side of his brow was discoloured where a stone must have struck him. It was the same with his mother when she was found. They were probably killed when asleep, and died more from suffocation than injuries. It was hard work for one man to raise such a heap of stones. If there had been ten men to work and they had been rescued quickly, I think they might have lived. It was the same in other places. I saw those who appeared quite uninjured and quietly sleeping. The night was far advanced when our dead were found, and I prevailed on the gardener to stop and rest, for I thought he would kill himself. I said the baby must be dead and he would find him at dawn. He did so, but he had never ceased a wild howl while working, and he still continued. That, joined to the screams of those at a distance, was distracting, and tore my heart.

But

I felt exhausted, and lay down on the garden walk. My donna sat down near me. She had been going to bed on the low floor of my house and was quite unhurt, but was useless with fear. The cries went on all through that dreadful night, along with the sound of landslips, for terraces on the mountain were constantly falling. there was no danger from these to us, for my house stood on a height, and there was a deep valley between it and the mountain. Early in the morning I went up the ladder, and I found half of the roof of my drawing-room to the north had fallen, a large bookcase, which stood on one side of the room, had smashed down on the centre table. The marble stairs which led to this room had fallen over a cabinet filled with china in the entrance hall. Part of the wall in the back drawing-room had rolled down, wheeling the piano out on to the floor, and overturning music chair and other things. The mantel-piece of three shelves had all fallen, and everything on them, including a china lamp filled with petroleum. It was extinguished, but although it fell on the tiled floor, it did not break. That I felt a special providence, for fire might have been added to the disaster. I had seen through the night fires blazing at a distance, and knew they were fallen houses which had caught fire.

Soon after I made my way through the almost impassable roads, blocked up by fallen walls, to the hotels nearest to me. It seemed like a dream to be asking if those I had seen the day before were living. Such scenes there were! In the garden of one house I found a lady and her little daughter, but she pointed to the ruined house and said, Charlie (her youngest son) was under the stones, and they could get no one to help to disinter him. I went away to try and send some people, but could only find one man disengaged, and when he went, he found he could do nothing alone, the mass of building was so great. I saw those dead lying on the road, and some people dreadfully bruised, and with arms and legs broken. On returning home, I stumbled on the loose stones and hurt my side so badly that after that I could not walk well.

I lay under my vines, watching our dead. Every one who could left Casamicciola on Sunday, but I could not go until I had seen my Restituta and her baby and her dear boy Johnine decently buried. She had been faithful and good to me, and Johnine acted as my little page, going out with me in my afternoon walks and holding my dogs when I made visits. We sent and sent for people to take them to the Campo Santo, but none came. On Monday I urged the husband to have his wife and children buried in the vineyard, but he shrank from this. We, living apart from other houses, did not know then how wide-spread the disaster was, and that to bury the dead where found had been commanded. On Tuesday morning burial could be delayed no longer, and I got three men and saw a deep grave made below my vines, and the best of mothers with her children laid to rest.

Then I went to Naples. My arm and hand had been badly bruised and hurt at the time of the earthquake. Something must have fallen on them, but I never felt it at the time. I had to rest.

After a fortnight I returned to the island, and found more of my house had fallen. The roof of the loggia had smashed down, destroying palm trees, rare ferns and other foliage plants, and all the furniture. I felt sorry for my plants on terraces, my hanging gardens. There were raised borders filled with earth, and full of flowering plants. The Banksia rose, passion flower, and vines climbed up from the garden below and twined in trellis-work, and made a covering above, supported by a light framework of wood. That had given way, and the climbing plants were lying broken in disorder on the ground. Plants in pots had been overturned and broken, and they were all withering and dying from want of water. I used to give them water every evening, Johnine helping me, and they so visibly missed us, it made me feel sad for them. I got my piano, books, and what remained of furniture not much broken, sent to Naples. They were let down by a window, as the stair had fallen.

Those of my poor friends who remained crowded around me. Every one had their tale of woe, every one mourning was for those near and dear to them. As day's went on, and as memory recalled those who used to come to me, the sadness increased. Where was Maria Antonia, so

light-hearted and improvident? She had a large family, and although her husband worked for their support, still she was always in need of something or other. Her youngest children were four daughters, as pretty, bright little creatures as were ever seen. They and their mother were all crushed to death under their house. Maria had often wearied me with her wants, but what would I not have given to see her and her pretty children back again. Every Sunday morning a long procession of the very poorest people came to my door, and they all got a penny at least. I saw only one of these now, and he one of the feeblest. I rented a good-sized room, where three old men, homeless and destitute, had comfortable beds to lie down on and were taken care of. The room fell and they were killed. I had put pictures on the walls. One was of the Father receiving the Prodigal Son, another a photograph from Guido Réné's picture of Christ on the Cross. I used to speak of those to the old men.

One

of them was a singularly gentle, pleasant old fellow. He went by the name of Santo Fillipo. He reminded me of one, near and dear, dead long ago.

I think we never miss any people so much as those we have tried to help, in however small a way. How I missed the cheerful voices of Restituta and her baby! And Johnine seemed ever before me, dressed to go out with me, in his clean unbleached linen shirt, and short trousers of the same, and a wide sash of Turkey red cotton rolled round his waist. He had dark eyes and rich brown curls! and with his little straw hat, a prettier little fellow could not be seen. And so good he was; he did everything I asked him con amore. The last words of a hymn he used to say to me on Sunday when he and his elder brother came for their lessons, I seem to hear always. The literal translation is, God, make me good, and grant that one day on angels' wings I may fly to Thee."

"Oh

I had two dogs (Jack and Jill), descendants of a Skye terrier I brought from Scotland. Jack was erratic in his habits, and when indoors wandered up-stairs, down-stairs, by night as well as day. He was on the ground floor when the shock came, and quite safe. He fled when the servant opened the door, and we saw nothing of him until next day. Jill never left me, and was close to me at the time. In the excitement of my escape I forgot her until I reached the ground, and then, hearing no sound, I concluded she was killed. Next morning, seeing the heaps of stones in both drawing-rooms, and hearing nothing, I thought Jill was under one of these; but in the afternoon I struggled up again, and then I heard a faint cry. I thought it might be her last gasp, and I called my gardener up to help me to find her. We found her under the table, but held fast by her tail, the large bookcase having fallen over her. She was so firmly held, there was difficulty in getting her extricated. So cheerfully my poor gardener said, "She's living," I thought it nice of him, for he knew I liked the dog; but I felt sorry for him to find the little animal alive, when all his dear ones were dead when found. Jill had been made silent by terror, and she is still nervous, and starts

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at the slightest unusual sound, but was not hurt.

During my absence in Naples the soldiers had made the roads passable. They had not attempted to remove the ruins, but they had smoothed ways over these. I went from one place to another to see, and no words can describe the impression made. The Piazza of Casamicciola, that used to be surrounded by respectable houses and shops, and a very handsome church filling up one end of it, was unrecognisable. There was scarcely a wall standing, only a huge pile of stones. Many people were still lying under the ruins of their houses. A man we met pointed to a fallen house and said, "There are eight people under that." Another man told me his wife and five children were still under their house; another that his wife and all his children (four) were buried alive also. One had only to look at the immense ruins to feel sure that many must be under them.

Orders had been given two days after the earthquake, that wherever the dead were found they were not to be removed, but to be buried again where found. Friends had put crosses to mark the spots. These crosses were in every place where we went, so the whole district had the appearance of a cemetery, and it was one in reality. I had put a black cross and sunk my best plants on Restituta's grave.

Sometimes we could see how death had come. I saw the iron head-piece of a bed appearing above a heap of stones, and a cross was put in the midst, telling how plainly that the roof had fallen and killed a person in bed. A gentleman was being excavated as I passed a house. He had been sitting on an easy chair, and had never tried to rise, for the chair had fallen backwards with him. From what we were told, some people might have been saved if they had only thought to rise and run at once.

I had dined with English friends, scarcely a week before the fatal day, at the Piccola Sentmilla, and so could picture the gay party in the salon, all buried in a moment. The windows opening on the ground were open, and if there had been any one in the room to cry out, "Fly for your lives," I think many might have been saved. The details of the sad night there have been well told in the "Times" by a survivor.

The nights I stayed in the island I slept with my servant in the only house in the district not much injured. It was built by a Russian gentleman to be secure against earthquakes. But we were the only people who ventured to sleep within walls, and there was some risk, for if another shock had come it would probably have fallen. It and wooden houses erected after the earthquake of 1881 were the only places at all safe, showing that extreme solidity or extreme lightness could alone resist a violent shake.

Wooden houses were being erected in numbers before I left the island, but what will be the future of Ischia? I think no one could have experienced the awful shake without feeling that some strong explosive substance was imprisoned below, eagerly desiring an outlet. That relief it does not seem yet to have found, so I think that probably a still more violent shock will come before long, ending in the bursting forth of a new volcano.