CHAPTER 9.
This summer, which, as it glided away, Lord Cairnforth often declared to be the happiest of his life, ended by bringing him the first heavy affliction--external affliction--which his life had ever known.
Suddenly, in the midst of the late-earned rest of a very toilsome career, died Mr.Menteith, the earl's long-faithful friend, who had been almost as good to him as a father.

He felt it sorely; the more so, because, though his own frail life seemed always under the imminent shadow of death, death had never touched him before as regarded other people.

He had lived, as we all unconsciously do, till the great enemy smites us, feeling as if, whatever might be the case with himself, those whom he loved could never die.

This grief was something quite new to him, and it struck him hard.
The tidings came on a gloomy day in late October, the season when Cairnforth is least beautiful; for the thick woods about it make the always damp atmosphere heavy with "the moist, rich smell of the rotting leaves," and the roads lying deep in mud, and the low shore hung with constant mists, give a general impression of dreariness.

The far-away hills vanish entirely for days together, and the loch itself takes a leaden hue, as if it never could be blue again.