No sooner had he left off ransacking it, than it
suggested something--not, indeed, a very brilliant something, but still
something. On having grasped it, he laid down his knife and fork, and
with the air of one distraught he said--
"My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills
My father feeds his flock--a frugal swain."
"I heard you," exclaimed the stranger, "and I can interpret every word of
what you have said, but it would not become me to do so, for you have
conveyed to me a message more comforting than I can bring myself to
repeat even to him who has conveyed it."
Having said this he bowed his head, and remained for some time wrapped in
meditation. My father kept a respectful silence, but after a little time
he ventured to say in a low tone, how glad he was to have been the medium
through whom a comforting assurance had been conveyed. Presently, on
finding himself encouraged to renew the conversation, he threw out a
deferential feeler as to the causes that might have induced Mr. Balmy to
come to Fairmead. "Perhaps," he said, "you, like myself, have come to
these parts in order to see the dedication of the new temple; I could not
get a lodging in Sunch'ston, so I walked down here this morning."
This, it seemed, had been Mr. Balmy's own case, except that he had not
yet been to Sunch'ston.
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