CHAPTER II

BECAUSE OF JULIA

Life like a dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity.

For Money, like the swords of Kings,
Is the last reason of all things.

HE next morning Captain Kelder was up an hour before his usual time. He felt quite

Τ'

sure of Jan's decision and wished to escape

to business before his wife could interfere with his day. For it is certain that the genius of every day in the week is upon us and we cannot easily escape it. On Saturdays the Captain put his office in order, paid outstanding wages and debts, examined complaints and engaged or dismissed men. It was generally an irritating day, full of small trials and annoyances, and he did not want to begin it with a cross word or look from his wife. So he rose an hour before his usual time and thought to escape her presence.

But Mrs. Kelder had heard his careful movements and understood them. She had been down

stairs twenty minutes before him and seen to the preparation of his oatmeal porridge, the boiling of his salt herring and the toasting of his oat-cake and scone. His breakfast lacked nothing of its usual care and completeness except Mary's smile and cheering words. This morning she gave him neither. She was unhappy looking and dourly silent and the Captain glanced at her and made up his mind that he would not interfere with her temper. So he ate a silent breakfast, and she neither walked to the front door with him nor yet watched him out of sight from the parlor window. It troubled him, though he had resolved that he would not let her trouble him. And she did watch him out of sight though he did not know it; but that is a way that wives have when husbands are unreasonable.

Mary Kelder was a Norse woman from the Shetland Isles and a fine type of her race; tall and fair, with a vigorous vitality, domestic and practical for the present, romantic for the past, piquant and expressive in her words and bearing, with a firm trust in God and the highest regard for the kirk and its ministers. In her opinion the greatest of all men were the servants of God and the spiritual power and influence they enjoyed in Glasgow City she earnestly coveted for her son. Did not the Lord Provost and

the Bailies wait for them? And were not even nobles and the landed gentry obliged to walk behind a minister wearing gown and bands?

These were the tenets of Mary Kelder's firmest principles. They beat with her pulses and ran with her heart's blood and she would have died for their sanctity and preservation if such a necessity had been put before her. Robert Kelder thought well of her opinions under usual circumstances; no one set a higher value on the social honor given to ministers; but he loved money and mercantile prestige better. All the long years through which his wife had been dreaming of Jan ruling his flock from the spiritual throne of a pulpit, Robert Kelder had been dreaming of his becoming a great merchant or banker and winning back the fair lands of Kelder Court. And during the long, changing interval both husband and wife had clung tenaciously to their desires and intentions.

Jan's teachers also, without any knowledge of these diverse influences, had urged on him the duty of consecrating his unusual talents to some noble service of God and humanity. And there were frequent periods when Jan was honestly resolved to do so and these periods, often lengthy ones, gave to Mary Kelder assurance that her hopes and dreams

for this dear son would be fully realized. But Jan was ruled by many opposite desires and intents and with all his book learning had only the smallest acquaintance with himself. He knew neither his strong points nor his weak ones and had not even a suspicion that the love of gold was really the ruling passion of his heart. Other passions might perhaps modify and apparently weaken it but unless some miracle intervened the love of gold was likely to be strong and potent in Jan Kelder's heart when all other passions were dormant or dead.

The oration he was to make that morning was to be his last college exercise-his last! The two words filled him with a kind of regret, but he told himself it was Destiny, and not to be averted. And he was even conscious of a sentimental pity for his fate. Was he not going to leave all the dear, familiar ties of his college and his home, for an unknown and perhaps unkind world? He remembered some lines about a young man driven by Destiny away and afar from all he loved; and he had a few moments' sorrow for the young man; but speedily he remembered that in his own case he was going to an affectionate relative and very tangible results.

The oration was a wonderful success. He left that day in the college a name that is yet proudly

remembered.

After the session was over he dined with his companions in the college refectory and in a short after-dinner speech told them of his plans and intentions. Many congratulated him, many were eloquently silent, but Andrew Caird regretted his decision and feared their well-loved Jan was taking a dangerous road. A little later, as they walked through the busy streets together, Andrew did not hesitate to say, "Jan! Jan! I am sure you are leaving the path of duty."

"Is it not my duty to obey my father and fulfill his will ?"

"You are no longer a child. You are taking up a man's work. You know your own heart. You have had your personal spiritual experiences. Not even your father can lawfully come between you and your God."

"That is special pleading, Andrew."

"No. Every man's life bears its inscription. James Grahame was born, as you may say, with a sword in his hand; and he has gone on its bare, bare, terrible mission. Archie Strong was born, as the Fife men say, 'with the sea in his mouth,' and he is never happy but on the sea; and David Semple took to the scales and the balances as a duck takes to the water. Do you remember the day you spoke to the