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32X

Gilian the
Dreamer

ilian the Dreamer

His Fancy His Love and
Adventure ^ By Neil Munro

Author o/'John Splendid' *The Lost
Pibroch ' Gff.

/,/, r

Toronto

The Copp Clark Co. Ltd.

1899

CONTENTS

PART I.

CHAP.

I. WHEN THE GEAN-TREE BLOSSOMED

II. THE PENSIONERS

III. THE FUNERAL

IV. MISS MARY .
V. THE BROTHERS

VI. COURT-MARTIAL

VII. THE MAN ON THE QUAY
VIII. THE sheriff's SUPPER PARTY

IX. ACADEMIA ...

X. ON HIS majesty's SERVICE
XI. THE SOUND OF THE DRUM
XII. ILLUSION . . .

XIII. A GHOST

XIV. THE CORNAl's LOVE SIORY
XV. ON BOARD THE " JEAM "

XVI. THE DESPERATE BATTLE

XVII. THE STORM

XVIII. DISCOVERY .

XIX. LIGHTS OUT !

rAi;E

9
18

43
61

75
90

lOI

127

135
142

156

16s
177
190

195

205

215

vin

CONTENTS

PART 11.

CHAP.

XX. THE RETURN
XXI. THE SORROWFUL SEASON
XXn. IN CHURCH .
XXIIl. YOUNG ISLAY
XXIV. MAAM HOUSE

XXV. THE EAVESDROPPER

XXVI. AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

XXVII. ALARM . .

XXVIII. GILIAN's OPPORTUNITY

XXIX. THE ELOPEMENT .

XXX. AMONG THE HEATHER

XXXI. DEFIANCE

XXXII. AN OLD maid's SECRET
XXXIII. THE PROMISE

XXXI\ . CHASE .

XXXV. AN EMFIY HUT

XXXVI. CONCLUSION .

■■Aon

232
241

262

<* •^ ^

*■ I I
290
306

340

352
361

37+

3H3
3«9
395

Gilian the Dre

amer

-t

PART J

CHAPTER I

WHEK THE GEAN-TREE BLOSSOMED

Ra:n was beating on the open leaf of plane and
beech, and rapping at the black doors of the ash-
bud and the scent of the gean-tree flourish hune
round the road by the river, vague, sweet, haunl?
l.ke a recollection of the magic and forgott;n gardel'
of youth Over the high and numerous hills moun!
tarns of deer and antique forest, went the mist a

hlT/n^t f ^ "^^''' S°"'"- The river sucked
below the banks and clamoured on the cascades
drawn unw.lhngly to the sea. the old gluttonous ^a
that must ever be robbing the glens of their gathered
wa ers. A„d the birds were at their loving! or the
bu, Idmg of their homes, flying among the bushes
trolhng upon the bough. One with an eye, as .h'
say.nggoes, could scarcely pass among L travail
of the new year without some pleasure in the
spectac^, though the rain might drench him to the
skm. He could not but joy in the thrusting crook

GILIAN THE DREAMER

of the fern and bracken ; what sort of heart was his
if it did not lift and swell to see the new fresh green
blown upon the grey parks, to see the hedges burst,
the young firs of the Blaranbui prick up among the
slower elder pines and oaks ?

Some of the soul and rapture of the day fell wich
the rain upon the boy. He hurried with bare feet
along the river-side from the glen to the town, a
bearer of news, old news of its kind, yet great news
too, but now and then he would linger in the odour
of the bloom that sprayed the gean-tree like a fall of
snow, or he would cast an eye admiring upon the
turgid river, washing from bank to bank, and feel
the strange uneasiness of wonder and surmise, the
same that comes from mists that swirl in gorges of
the hills or haunt old ancient woods. The sigh of
the wind seemed to be for his peculiar ear. The
nod of the saugh leaf on the banks was a salutation.
There is, in a flutter of the tree's young plumage,
some hint of communication whose secret we lose as
we age, and the boy, among it, felt the warmth of
companionship. But the sights were for the errant
moments of his mind ; his thoughts, most of the way,
were on his message.

He was a boy with a timid and wondering eye, a
type to be seen often in those parts, and his hair blew
from under his bonnet, a toss of white and gold, as
it blew below the helms of the old sea-rovers. He
was from Ladyfield, hastening as I say with great
news though common news enough of its kind — the
news that the goodwife of Ladyfield was dead.

If this were a tale of the imagination, and my task

WHEN GEAN-TREE BLOSSOMED ii

was not a work of history but to pleasure common
people about a hearth, who ever love the familiar
emotions in their heroes, I would credit my hero with
grief. For here was his last friend gone, here was he
orphaned for ever. The door of Ladyfield, where he
was born and where he had slept without an absent
night since first his cry rose there, a coronach in the
ears of his dying mother, would be shut against him ;
the stranger would bar the gates at evening, the
sheep upon the hills would have another k.:( 1-mark
than the old one on their fleecy sides. Surely the
sobs that sometimes rose up in his thro 't were the
utter surrender of sorrow; were the tears tliat
mingled vvith the rain-drops on his cheek rot griefs
most bitter essence ? For indeed he had loved the
old shrunk woman, wrinkled and brown like a nut,
with a love that our race makes no parade of, but
feels to the very core.

But in truth, as he went sobbing in his loneliness
down the river-side, a regard for the manner of his
message busied him more than the matter of it. It
was not every Friday a boy had a task so momentous
had the chance to come upon households with intelli-
gence so unsettling. They would be sitting about
the table, perhaps, or spinning by the fire, the good-
wife of Ladyfield still for them a living, breathing
body, home among her herds, and he would come in
among them and in a word bring her to their notice
in all death's great monopoly. It was a duty to be
done with care if he would avail himself of the whole
value of so rare a chance. A mere clod would be for
entering with a weeping face, to blurt his secret in

GILIAN THE DREAMER

shaking sentences, or would let it slip out in an
indifferent tone, as one might speak of some common
occurrence. But Gilian, as he went, busied himself
on how he should convey most tellingly the story he
brought down the glen. Should he lead up to his
news by gradual steps or give it forth like an alarum ?
It would be a fine and rare experience to watch them
for a little, as they looked and spoke with common
cheerfulness, never guessing why he was there, then
shock them with the intelligence, but he dare not let
them think he felt so little the weightiness of his
message that his mind was ready to dwell on trivi-
alities. Should it be in Gaelic or in English he should
tell them ? Their first salutations would be in the
speech of the glens ; it would be, " Oh Gilian, little
hero ! fair fellow 1 there you are 1 sit down and have
town bread, and sugar on its butter," and if he followed
the usual custom he would answer in the same tongue.
But between " Tha bean Lecknamban air falbh " and
" The wife of Ladyfield is gone," there must be some
careful choice. The Gaelic of it was closer on the
feelings of the event ; the words some way seemed
to make plain the emptiness of the farmhouse. When
he said them, the people would think all at once
of the little brown wrinkled dame, no more to be
bustling about the kitchen, of her wheel silent, of
her foot no more upon the blue flagstones of the milk-
house, of her voice no more in the chamber where
they had so often known her hospitality. The English,
indeed, when he thought of it with its phrase a mere
borrowing from the Gaelic, seemed an affectation.
No, it must be in the natural tongue his tidings should

WHEN GEAN-TREE BLOSSOMED 13

be told. He would rap at the door hurriedly, lift the
sneck before any response came, go in with his
bonnet in his hand, and say " Tlia bean Lecknamban
air falbh " with a great simplicity.

And thus as he debated and determined in hi.;
mind, he was hastening through a country that in
another mood would be demanding his attention
almost at every step of the way. Ladyfield is at the
barren end of the glen — barren of trees, but rich in
heather, and myrtle, and grass — surrounded by full
and swelling hills. The river, but for the gluttonous
sea that must be sucking it down, would choose, if it
might, to linger in the valky here for ever, and in
summer it loiters on many pretences, twining out and
in, hiding behind Baracaldine and the bushes of
Tom-an-Dearc, and pretending to doze in the long
broad levels of Kincreggan, so that it may not too
soon lose its freedom in so magic a place. But the
glen opens out anon, woods and parks cluster, and
the Duke's gardens and multitudes of roads come
into view. The deer stamp and flee among the
grasses, flowers grow in more profusion than up the
glen where no woods shelter. There are trim houses
by the wayside, with men about the doors talking
with loud cheerfulness, and laughing in the way of
inn-frequenters. A gateway from solitude, an en-
trance to a region where the most startling and varied
things were ever happening, to a boy from the glen
this town end of the valley is a sample of Paradise
for beau«-y and interest. Gilian went through it with
his blue eyes blurred to-day, but for wont he found
it full of charms and fancies. To go under its white-

GILIAN THE DREAMER

harled archways on a market day was to come upon
a new world, and yet not all a new world, for its
spectacles of life and movement — the busy streeti
the clanging pavement, the noisy closes, the quay
ever sounding with the high calls of manners and
fishers — seemed sometimes to strike a chord of
memory. At the first experience of this bury com-
munity, the innumerable children playing before the
school, and the women with wide flowing clothes,
and flowered bonnets on their heads, though so
different from the children of the glen and its familiar
dames with piped caps, or maids with snooded locks
— all was pleasant to his wondering view. He
seemed to know and understand them at the first
glance, deeper even than he knew or understood the
common surroundings of his life in Ladyfield ; he felt
at times more comfort in the air of those lanes and
closes though unpleasantly they might smell (if it was
the curing season and the gut-pots reeked at the
quay) than in the winds of the place he came from,
the winds of the wilds, so indifferent to mankind, the
winds of the woods, sacred to the ghosts, among
whom a boy in a kilt was an intruder, the winds of
the hills, that come blowing from round the universe
and on the most peaceful days are but momentary
visitors, stopping but to tap with a branch at the
window, or whistle mockingly in a vent.

In spite of their mockery of him, Gilian always
loved the children of the town. At first when they
used to see him come through the arches walking
hurriedly, feeling his feet in unaccustomed shoes
awkward and unmanageable, and the polish of his

-■**

:.i«

WHEN GEAN-TREE BLOSSOMED 15

face a thing unbearable, they would come up in
wonder on his heels and guess at his identity, then
taunt him for the rustic nature of his clothing.

*' Crotal-coat, crotal-coat, there are peats in your
brogues ! " they would cry ; or " Hielan'-man, hielan'-
man, go home for your ftiarag and brose 1 "

They were strange new creatures to him, foreigners
quite, and cruel, speaking freely a tongue he knew
not but in broken parts, yet deep in his innermost
there was a strange feeling that he was of their kind.
He wished he could join them in their English play,
or better far, that he might take them to the eagle's
nest in Stob Bhan, or the badgers' hamlet in
Blaranbui, or show them his skill to fetch the deer
at a call, in the rutting time, from the mud-wallows
above Camus. But even yet, he was only a stranger
to the boys of the town, and as he went down the
street in the drenching rain that filled the syvers to
overflowing and rose in a smoke from the <:alm waters
of the bay, they cried "Crotal-coat, crotal-coat,'*
after him.

"Ah," said he to himself, inly pleased at their
ignorance, " if I cared, could I not make them
ashamed, by telling them they were mocking a boy
without a home ? "

Kept by the rain closer than usual to the shelter
of the closes, the scamps to-day went further than
ever in their efforts to annoy the stranger; they
rolled stones along the causey so that they caught
him on the heels, and they ran out at the back ends
of their closes as he passed, and into others still
before him, so that his progress down the town was

GILIAN THE DREAMER

to run a gauntlet of jeers. But he paid no heed ; he
was of that gifted nature that at times can treat
the most bitter insults with indifference, and his
mind was taken up with the manner of his mes-
sage.

When he came to the Cross-houses he cast about
for the right close in a place where they were so
numerous that they had always confused him, and a
middle-aged woman with bare thick arms cavne out
to help him.

" You'll be looking for some one ? " said she in
Gaelic, knowing him no town boy.

He was standing as she spoke to him in a close
that had seemed the one he sought, and he turned
to tell her where he was going.

"Oh yes," said the woman, "I know her well.
And you'll be from the glen, and what's your errand
in the town to-day ? You are from Drimfern ? No,
Ladyfield I It is a fine place Ladyfield ; and how is
the goodwife there ? "

*' She is dead," said Gilian hurriedly.

" God, and that is a pity too I " said the womin,
content now that the news was hers. " You are in
the very close you are looking for," and she turned
and hurried up the street to spread the news as fast
as could be.

The boy turned away, angry with himself to have
blurted out his news to the first stranger with the
curiosity to question him, and halfway up the stairs
he had to pause a little to get in the right mood for
his errand. Then he went up the remaining steps
and rapped at the door.

WHEN GEAN-TREE BLOSSOMED 17

"Come in," cried a frank and hearty woman's
voice. He put down the sneck with his thumb and
pushed in the door and followed.

A little window facing the sea gave light to the
interior, that would have been dull and mean but for
the brilliant deif upon the dresser rack and the
cleanliness of all things and the smiling faces of Jean
Clerk and her sister. The hum of Jean's wheel had
filled the chamber as he entered ; now it was stilled
and the spinner sat with the wool pinched in her
fingers, as she welcomed her little relative. Her
sister — Aliset Dhu they called her, and if black she
was, it had been long ago, for now her hair was like
the drifted snow — stood behind her, looking up from
her girdle where oaten bannocks toasted.

He stood with his bonnet in his hand. Against
his will the grief of his loss swept over him more
masterfully than it had yet done, for those two sisters
had never been seen by him befoie except in the
company of their relative the little old woman with
a face like a nut, and the sobs that shook him were
checked by no reflection of the play-actor. He was
incapable of utterance.

" O my boy, my boy 1 " cried Jean Clerk. " Do I
not know your story ? I dreamt last night I saw a
white horse galloping over Tombreck to Ladyfield
and the rider of him had his face in his plaid. Peace
with her, and her share of Paradise 1 "

And thus my hero, who thought so much upon
the way of his message, had no need to convey it
any way at all.

CHAPTER II

THE PENSIONERS

"Go round," said Jean Clerk, "and tell the Pay-
master ; he'll be the sorry man to lose his manager."
" Will he be in his house ? " asked Gilian, eating
the last of his town bread with butter and sugar.

" In his house indeed ! " cried Jean, her eyes ' .ill
red with weeping. " It is easy to see you are from
the glen, when at this time of day you would be for
seeking a gentleman soldier in his own house in this
town. No! no! go round to Sergeant Morc's
change-house, at the quay-head, and you'll find the
Captain there with his cronies."

So round went Gilian, and there he came upon
the pensioners, with Captain John Campbell, late
Paymaster of his Majesty's 46th Foot, at their
head.

The pensioners, the officers, ah ! when I look up
the silent street of the town nowadays and see the
old houses empty but for weavers, and merchants,
and mechanics, people of useful purposes but little
manly interest, and know that all we have of martial
glory is a dust under a score of tombstones in the
yard, I find it ill to believe that ever wars were

THE PENSIONERS

bringing trade for youth and valour to our mitlst.
The warriors arc gone ; they do not fight their
battles over any more at a meridian dram, or late
sitting about the bowl where the Trinidad lemon
floated in slices on the philtre of joy. They are up
bye yonder in the shadow of the rock with the sea
grumbling constantly beside them, and their names
and offices, and the dignities of their battles, and
the long number of their years, are carved deeply,
but not deeply enough, for what is there of their
fame and valour to the fore when the threshing rain
and the crumbling frost have worn the legend off the
freestone slab ? We are left stranded high and dry
upon times of peace, but the old war-dogs, old
heroes, old gentles of the stock and cane — they had
seen the glories of life, and felt the zest of it.
Bustling times I the drums beat at the Cross in
those days, the trumpeters playing alluringly up the
lanes to young hearts to come away; pipers
squeezed out upon their instruments the fine tunes
that in the time I speak of no lad of Gaelic blood
could hear but he must down with the flail or sheep-
hook and on with the philabeg and up with the
sword. Gentlemen were for ever going to wars or
coming from them ; were they not of the clan, was
not the Duke their cousin, as the way of putting it
was, and by his gracious offices many a pock-
pudding English corps got a colonel with a touch of
the Gaelic in his word of command as well as in his
temper. They went away ensigns — some of them
indeed went to the very tail of the rank and file with
Mistress Musket the brown besom — and they came

mmmmmmmmtmm

GILIAN THE DREAMER

. J

li ■

back Majors-General, with wounds and pensions.
" Is not this a proud day for the town with three
Generals standing at the Cross ? " said the Pay-
master once, looking with pride at his brother and
Turner of Maam and Campbell of Strachur standing
together leaning on their rattans at a market. It
was in the Indies I think that this same brother the
General, parading his command before a battle, came
upon John, an ensign newly to the front with a draft
from the sea.

" Who sent you here, brother John ? " said he,
when the parade was over. " You would be better
at home in the Highlands feeding your mother's
hens."

In one way it might have been better, in another
way it was well enough for John Campbell to be
there. He might have had the luck to see more
battles in busier parts of the world, as General
Dugall did, or Colin, who led the Royal Scots at
Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo; but he might
have done worse, for he of all those gallants came
home at the end a hale man, with neither sabre-cut
nor bullet. To give him his due he was willing
enough to risk them all. It bittered his life at the
last, that behind his back his townspeople should
call him " Old Mars," in an irony he was keen
enough to feel the thrust of.

Captain Mars, Captain Mars,
Who never saw wars,

said Evan MacCoU, the bard of the parish, and the
name stuck as the bye-names of that wonderful town
have a wa}' of doing.

THE PENSIONERS

*' Old Mars," Paymaster, sat among the pensioners
in the change-house of the Sergeant More when
Gilian came to the door. His neck overflowed in
waves of fat upon a silk stock that might have
throttled a man who had not worn the king's stock
in hot lands over sea ; his stockings fitted tightly on
as neat a leg as ever a kilt displayed, though the
kilt was not nowadays John Campbell's wear but
kcrseymore knee-breeches. He had a figured vest
strewn deep with snuff that he kept loose in a
pocket (the regiment's gold mull was his purse),
and a scratch wig of brown sat askew on his bullet
head, raking with a soldier's swagger. He had his
long rattan on the table before him, and now and
then he would lift its tasseled head and beat time
lightly to the chorus of Dugald MacNicol's song,
Dugald was Major once of the ist Royals ; he had
carried the sword in the Indies, East and West, and
in the bloody Peninsula, and came home with a
sabre-slash on the side of the head, so that he was a
little weak-witted. When he would be leaving his
sister's door to go for the meridian dram at the
quay-head he would dart for cover to the Cross,
then creep from close to close, and round the
church, and up the Ferry Land, in a dread of lurking
enemies; yet no one jeered at his want, no boy
failed to touch his bonnet to him, for he was the
gentleman in the very weakest moment of his disease.
He had but one song in his budget :

O come and gather round me, lads, and help the chorus

through,
When I tell you how we fought the French on the plains of

Waterloo,

GILIAN THE DREAMER

-l

He sang it in a high quavering voice with curious
lapses in the vigour of his singing and cloudings in
the fire of his eyes, so that now and then the com-
pany would have to jolt him awake to give the air
more lustily. Colonel Hall was there (of St. John's)
and Captain Sandy Campbell of the Marines, Bob
MacGibbon, old Lochgair, the Fiscal with a ruffled
shirt, and Doctor Anderson. The Paymaster's
brothers were not there, for though he was the
brother with the money they were field-officers and
they never forgot it.

The chorus was ringing, the glasses and the Pay-
master's stick were rapping on the table, the
Sergeant More, with a blue brattic tied tight across
his paunch to lessen its unsoldierly amplitude, went
out and in with the gill-stoups, pausing now and
then on the errand to lean against the door of the
room with the empty tray in his hand, drumming
on it with his finger-tips and joining in the officers'
owercome.

He turned in the middle of a chorus, for the boy
was standing abashed in the entry, his natural fears
at meeting the Paymaster greatly increased by the
sound of revelry.

"Well, little hero," said the Sergeant More, in
friendly Gaelic, " are you seeking any one ? "

" I was sent to see the Paymaster, if it's your
will," said Gilian, with his eyes falling below the
scrutiny of this swarthy old sergeant.

" The Paymaster ! " cried the landlord, shutting
the door of the room ere he said it, and uplifting
alarmed hands, " God's grace ! do not talk of the

•

THE PENSIONERS

Payinastcr here ! lie is Captain Campbell, mind,
late of his Majesty's 46th Foot, with a pension of
£4 a week, and a great deal of money it is for the
country to be paying to a gentleman who never saw
of wars but skirmish with the Syke. Nothing but
Captain, mind you, and do net forget the salute, so,
with the right hand up and inumb on a line with
the right eyebrow. But couid your business not be
waiting? If it is Miss Mary who sent for him it is
not very reasonable of her, for he is here no longer
than twenty minutes, and it is not sheepshead broth
day, I know, because 1 saw her servant lass down at
the quay for herrings an hour ago. Captain, n.ind,
it must be that for him even with old soldiers like
myself. I would not dare Paymaster him, it is a
name that has a trade ring about it that suits ill with
his Highland dignity. Captain, Captain ! "

Gilian stood in front of this spate of talk, becom-
ing more diffident and fearful every moment. He
had never had any thought as to how he should tell
the Paymaster that the goodwife of Ladyfield was
dead, that was a task he had expected to be left to
some one else, but Jean Clerk and her sister had a
cunning enough purpose in making him the bearer
of the news.

" I am to tell him the goodwife of Ladyfield is
dead," he explained, stammering, to the Sergeant
More.

" Dead ! " said John More. " Now is not that
wonderful ? " He leaned against the door as he
had leaned many a time against sentry-box and
barrack wall, and dwelt a little upon memory. " Is

■■9

mmm^

GILIAN THE DREAMER

not that wonderful ? The first time I saw her was
at a wedding in Karnes, Lochow, and she was the
handsomest woman in the room, and there were
sixty people at the wedding from all parts, and
sixty-nine roasted hens at the supper. Well, well —
dead I blessings with her ; did I not know her well ?
Yes, and I knew her husband too, Long Angus,
since the first day he came to Lady field for Old
Mar — for the Paymaster — till the last day he came
down the glen in a cart, and he was the only sober
body in the funeral, perhaps because it was his own.
Many a time I wondered that the widow did so well
in the farm for Captain Campbell, with no man to
help her, the sowing and the shearing, the dipping
and the clipping, ploughmen and herds to keep an
eye on, and bargains to make with wool merchants
and drovers. Oh I she was a clever woman, your
grandmother. And now she'j dead. Well, it's a
way they have at her age 1 And the Paymaster
must be told, though I know it will vex him greatly,
because he is a sort of man who does not relish
changes. Mind now you say Captain ; you need
not say Captain Campbell, but just Captain, and
maybe a ' sir ' now and then. I suppose you could
not put off telling him for a half-hour or thereabouts
longer, when he would be going home for dinner
any way ; it is a pity to spoil an old gentleman's
meridian dram with melancholy news. No. You
were just told to come straight away and tell hirn —
well, it is the good soldier who makes no deviation
from the word of command. Come away in then
and — Captain mind — and the salute,'"

THE PENSIONERS

The Sergeant More threw open the door of the
room, filled up the space a second and gave a sort of
free-and-easy salute. " A message for you, Captain,"
said he.

The singing was done. The Major's mind was
wandering over the plains of Waterloo to guess by
the vacancy of his gaze ; on his left Bob MacGibbon
smoked a black segar, the others talked of townsmen
still in the army and of others buried under the walls
of Badt ios. They all turned when the Sergeant
More -. e, and they saw him push before him into
the room the little boy of Ladyfield with his bonnet
in his hand and his eyes restless and timid like
pigeons at a strange gate fluttering.

" Ho I Gilian, it is you ? " said the Paymaster,
with a very hearty voice ; then he seemed to guess
the nature of the message, for his voice softened from
the loud and bumptious tone it had for ordinary.
" How is it in Lecknamban ? " he asked in the
Gaelic, and Gilian told him, minding duly his " sir "
and his " Captain " and his salute.

" Dead 1 " said the Paymaster, " Blessings with
her ! " Then he turned to his companions and in
English — "The best woman in the three parishes
and the cleverest. She could put her hand to an}^-
thing and now she's no more. I think that's the last
of Ladyfield for me. I liked to go up now and then
and go about the hill and do a little bargaining at a
wool market, or haggle over a pound with a drover at
the fair, but the farm did little more than pay me
and I had almost given it up when her husband
died."

^fmsmw^amss

GILIAN THE DREAMER

lie looked flushed and uncomfortable. His stock
seemed to fit him more tightly than before and his
wig sat more askew than ever upon his bald head.
For a little he seemed to forget the young messenger
still standing in the room, no higher than the table
whereon the glasses ranged. Gilian turned his
bonnet about in his hand and twisted the ribbons
till they tore, then he thought with a shock of the
scolding he would get for spoiling his Sunday
bonnet, but the thought was quickly followed by the
recollection that she who would have scolded him
would chide no more.

The pensioners shared their attention betv/een the
Paymaster and the boy. While the Paymaster gave
them the state of his gentleman farming (about which
the town was always curious), they looked at him
and wondered at a man who had seen the world and
had £4 a week of a pension wasting life with a paltry
three-hundred sheep farm instead of spending his
money royally with a bang. When his confidence
seemed likely to carry their knowledge of his affairs no
further than the town's gossip had already brought
it, they lost their interest in his reflections and had
time to feel sorry for the boy. None of them but
knew he was an orphan in the most grievous sense
of the term, without a relative in the wide world, and
that his future was something of a problem.

Bob MacGibbon — he was Captain in the 79th —
leaned forward and tried to put his hand upon the
child's shoulder, not unkindly, but with a rough
i.lnyfulness of the soldier. Gilian shrank back, his
face flushing crimson, then he realised the stupidity

THE PENSIONERS

of his shyness and tried to amend it by coming a Httlc
farther into the room and awkv/ardly attempting the
salute in which the Sergeant More had tutored him.
The company was amused at the courtesy, but no
one laughed. In a low voice the Paymaster swore.
He was a man given to swearing with no great
variety in his oaths, that were merely a camp phrase
or two at the most, repeated over and over again, till
they had lost all their original meanings and
could be uttered in front of Dr. Colin himself
without any objection to them. In print they would
look wicked, so they must be fancied by such as
would have the complete picture of the elderly soldier
with the thick neck and the scratch wig. The Ser-
geant More had gently withdrawn himself and shut
the door behind him the more conveniently to hear
what reception the messenger's tidings would meet
witii from the Paymaster. And the boy felt himself
cut off most helplessly from escape out of that fearful
new surrounding. It haunted him for many a day,
the strong smell of the spirits and the sharp odour
of the slices floating in the glasses, for our pensioners
were extravagant enough to flavour even the cold
midday drams of the Abercrombie with the lemon's
juice. Gihan shifted from leg to leg and turned his
bonnet continuously, and through his mind there
darted many thoughts about this curious place and
company that he had happened upon. As they
looked at him he felt the darting tremor of the fawn
in the thicket, but alas he was trapped ! How old
they were ! How odd they looked in their high collars
and those bands wound round their necks ! They

GILIAN THE DREAMER

were not farmers, nor shepherds, nor fishermen, nor
even shopkeepers; they were people with some
manner of Hfe beyond his guessing. The Paymaster
of course he knew ; he had seen him often come up
to Lady field, to talk to the goodwife about the farm
and the clipping, to pay her money twice yearly that
was called wages, and was so little that it was
scarcely worth the name. Six men in a room, all
gentle (by their clothes), all with nothing better to do
than stare at a boy who could not stare back I How
many things they had seen ; how many thoughts they
must share between them 1 He wished himself on
the other side of Aora river in the stillness of Kin-
creggan wood, or on the hill among the sht-sp — any-
where away from the presence of those old men with
the keen scrutiny in their eyes, doubtless knowing
all about him and seeing his very thoughts. Had
they been shepherds, or even the clever gillies that
sometimes came to the kitchen of Ladyfield on
nights of ceilidh or gossip, he would have felt him-
self their equal. He would have been comfortable
in feeling that however much they might know about
the hills, and woods, and wild beasts, it was likely
enough better known to himself, who lived among
them and loved them. And the thoughts of the
gillie, and the shepherd, were rarely beyond his
shrewd guess as he looked at them ; they had but to
say a word or two, and he knew the end of their
story from the beginning. But these old gentle-
men were as far beyond his understanding as
Gillesbeg Aotram, the wanderer who came about the
glens and was called daft by the people who did

THE PENSIONERS

The Sergeant More stepped softly on his tiptoes

.X steps ,uto tl.e kitchen, then six steps noisi v

back again and put his head in ^

atZwit'h r" ^"'' C-P'=""?"^^W he, polishinj.
a tray with the corner of his brattie

. y"'*^^.^'^- There is nothing at our place to-div
but herrings, and it's the poorest of meals for mela i-
choly. M.SS Mary would make it all the m2
jnejncholy with her weeping over the UdwiH

Gilian went out with the Sergeant More and
»ade a feeble pretence at eating hi second dVrl^

s*'

CHAPTER III

■i:
1 1

THE FUNERAL

All the glen came to the funeral, and people of
Lochovvside on either bide from Stronmealachan to
Eredine, and many of the folk of Glen Shira and the
town. A day of pleasant weather, with a warm
wind from the west, full of wholesome dryness for
the soil that was still clogged with the rains of
spring. It filled the wood of Kincreggan with
sounds, with the rasping and creaking of branches
and the rustle of leaves, and the road by the river
under the gean-trees was strewn with the broken
blossom.

The burial ground of Kilmalieu lies at the foot of
a tall hill beside the sea, a hill grown thick with
ancient wood. The roots come sometimes under the
walls and below the old tombstones and set them
ajee upon their bases, but wanting those tall and
overhanging companions, the yard, I feel, would be
ugly and incomplete. It is in a soothing melan-
choly one may hear the tide lapping on the rocks
below and the wood-bird call in the trees above.
They have been doing so in the ears of Kilmalieu
for numberless generations, those voices everlasting

THE FUNERAL

<■*'-

but unheard by the quiet folk sleeping snug and
sound among the clods. Sun shines there and rain
falls on it till it soaks to the very bones of the old
Parson, first to lie there, and in sun or rain there
grow the laurel-bushes that have the smell of death,
and the gay flowers cluster in a profusion found
nowhere else in the parish except it be in the garden
of the Duke. The lily nods in the wind, the
columbine hangs its bell, there the snowdrop first
appears and the hip-rose shows her richest blossoms.
On Sundays the children go up and walk among the
stones over the graves of their grandfathers and
they smell the flowci^ chey would not pluck. Some-
times they will put a cap on the side of a cherub
head that tops a stone and the humour of the grin-
ning face will create a moment's laughter, but it lo
soon checked and they walk among the graves in a
more seemly peace.

They buried the goodwife of Ladyficld in her
appointed place beside her husband and her only
child, Gilian taking a cord at the head of the coffin
as it was lowered into the red jaws of the grave
prepared for it. The earth thudded on the lid, the
spades patted the mould, the people moved off, and
he was standing yet, listening to the bird that shook
a song of passionate melody from its little throat as
it becked upon a tabic tombstone. It was a simple
song, he had heard it a thousand times before and
wondered at the hidden meaning of it, and now it
puzzled him anew that it should encroach upon so
solemn an hour in thoughtless love or merriment.

The men were on their way home over the New

GILIAN THE DREAMER

■,f.

Bridge, treading heavily, and yet light-headed, for
they had the Paymaster's dram at the " lifting " at
Ladyfield in them, and the Paymaster himself was
narrating to old Rixa, the Sheriff, and Donacha
Breck his story, told a hundred times before, of
Long Dan Maclntyre, who never came up past the
New Bridge, except at the tail of a funeral, for fear
the weight should some day bring the massive
masonry down. " Hal ha 1 is that not good ? "
demanded the Paymaster, laughing till his jowl
purpled over his stock. " I told him he would cross
the bridge to Kilmalieu one day and instead of being
last he would be first."

The Fiscal hirpled along in his tight knee-breeches
looking down with vain satisfaction now and then
at the ruffles of his shirt and the box-pleated frills
that were dressed very snodly and cunningly by Bell
Macniven, who had been in the Forty-second with
her husband the sergeant, and had dressed the shirts
of the Marquis of Huntly, who was Colonel.

" I have seldom, sir, seen a better dressed shirt,"
said Mr. William Spencer, of the New Inn, who
was a citizen of London and anxious to make his
way among the people here. " It is quite the style,
quite the style, sir."

" Do you think so, now ? " asked the Fiscal,
pleased at the compliment.

" I do, indeed," said Mr. Spencer, " it is very
genteel and just as the gentry like it."

The Fiscal coloured, turned and paused and fixed
him with an angry eye.

" Do you speak to me of gentry, Mr. Spencer," he

THE FUNERAL

Fiscal,

asked, "with any idea of making distinctions ? You
are a poor Sassenach person, I daresay, and do not
know that my people have been in Blarinarn for
three hundred years and I am the first man-of-
business in the family."

The innkeeper begged pardon. Poor man ! he
had much to learn of Highland punctilio. He might
be wanting in delicacy of this kind perhaps, but he
had the heart, and it was he, as they came in front
of the glee'd gun that stands on the castle lawn, who
stopped to look back at a boy far behind them, alone
on the top of the bridge.

" Is there no one with the boy ? " he asked.
" And where is he to stay now that his grandmother
is dead?"

The Paymaster drew up as if he had been shot,
and swore warmly to himself.

" Am not I the golan ? " said he. " I forgot about
the fellow, and I told the shepherd at Ladyfield to
lock up the house till Whitsunday. I'm putting the
poor boy out in the world without a roof for his head.
It must be seen to, it must be seen to."

Rixa pompously blew out his cheeks and put
back his shoulders in a way he had to convince
himself he was not getting old and round-backed.
"Oh," said he, "Jean Clerk's a relative; he'll be
going to bide there."

They stood in a cluster in the middle of the road,
the Paymaster with his black coat so tight upon his
stomach it looked as if every brass button would
burst with a crack like a gun ; Rixa puffing and
stretching himself ; Major Dugald ducking his head

GILIAN THE DREAMER

ii J

and darting his glance about from side to side
looking for the enemy ; Mr. Spencer, tall, thin, with
the new strapped breeches and a London hat,
blowing his nose with much noise in a Barcelona
silk handkerchief. All the way before them the
crowd went straggling down in blacks with as much
hurry as the loo!: of the thing would permit, to
reach the schoolhouse where the Paymaster had
laid out the last service of meat and drink for
the mourners. The tide was out ; a sandy beach
strewn with stones and clumps of seaweed gave its
saline odour to the air ; lank herons came sweeping
down from the trees over Croitivile, and stalked
about the water's edge. There was only one sound
in nature beyond the soughing of the wind in the
shrubbery of the Duke's garden, it was the plaintive
call of a curlew as it flew over the stable park. A
stopped and stagnant world, full of old men and old
plaints, the dead of the yard behind, the solemn and
sleepy town before.

The boy was the only person left in the rear of
the Paymaster and his friends ; he was standing on
the bridge, fair in the middle of the way. Though
the Paymaster cried he was not heard, so he walked
back and up to the boy while the others went on
their way to the schoolhouse, where old Brooks the
dominie was waiting among the jars and oatcakes
and funeral biscuits with currants and carvie in them.

Gilian was standing with the weepers off his cuffs
and the crape off his bonnet ; he had divested him-
self of the hateful things whenever he found himself
alone^ and he was listening with a rapt and inex-

(

■*, —

THE FUNERAL

pressive face to the pensive call of the curlew as it
rose over the fields, and the tears were dropping
down his cheeks.

"Oh, '/7/t', what's the matter with you?" asked
the Paymaster in Gaelic, struck that sorrow should
so long remain with a child.

Gilian started guiltily, flushed to the nape of his
neck and stammered an explanation or excuse.

" The bird, the bird ! " said he, turning and looking
at the dolorous piper of the marsh.

" Man ! " said the Paymaster in English, looking
whimsically at this childish expression of surprise.
" Man ! you're' a queer callant too. Are there no
curlews about Ladyfield that you should be in such
a wonder at this one ? Just a plain, long-nebbed,
useless bird, not worth powder and shot, very douce
in the plumage, and always at the same song like
MacNicol the Major."

The little fellow broke into a stammering torrent
of Gaelic. " What does it say, what does it say ? "
he asked : " it is calling, calling, calling, and no one
will answer it ; it is telling something, and I cannot
understand. Oh, I am sorry for it, and "

" You must be very hungry, poor boy," said the
Paymaster. "Come away down, and Miss Mary
will give you dinner. Did you ever taste rhubarb
tart with cream to it ? I have seen you making
umbrellas with the rhubarb up the glen, but I'm sure
the goodwife did not know the real use of it."

Gilian paid no heed to the speaker, but listened
with streaming eyes to the wearied note of the bird
that still cried over the field. Then the Paymaster

GILIAN THE DREAMER

;■ I:

swore a fiery oath most mildly, and clutched the boy
by the jacket sleeve and led him homeward.

" Come along," said he, " come along. You're the
daftest creature ever came out of the glen, and
what's the wonder of it, born and bred among stirks
and sheep on a lee-lone country-side with only the
birds to speak to ? "

The two went down the road together, the Pay-
master a little wearied with his years and weight or
lazied by his own drams, leaning in the least degree
upon the shoulder of the boy. They made an odd-
looking couple — dawn and the declining day. Spring
and ripe Autumn, illusion and an elderly half-pay
officer in a stock and a brown scratch wig upon a
head that would harbour no more the dreams, the
poignancies of youth. Some of the mourners
hastening to their liquor turned at the Cross and
looked up the road to see if they were following^
and they were struck vaguely by the significance of
the thing.

" Dear me," said the Fiscal, " is not Old Mars
getting very bent and ancient ? "

" He is, that ! " said Rixa, who was Sheriff
Maclachlan to his face. " I notice a glass or two
makes a wonderful difference on him this year back
ever since he had his little bit towt. That's a nice
looking boy ; I like the aspect of him ; it's unusual.
What a pity the Paymaster never had a wife or sons
of his own."

"You say what is very true, Sheriff," said Mr.
Spencer. " I think there is something very sad in the
spectacle, sir, of an old gentleman with plenty of the

THE FUNERAL

world in his possession going down to the bourne
with not a face beside him to mind of his youth."

But indeed the Paymaster was not even reminded
of his own youth by this queer child on whom he
leaned. He had never been like this, a shy frightened
dreaming child taken up with fancies and finding
omens and stories in the piping of a fowl. Oh ! no,
he had been a bluff, hearty, hungry boy, hot-headed,
red-legged, short-kilted, stirring, a bit of a bully, a
loud talker, a dour lad with his head and his fists.
This boy beside him made him think of neither man
nor boy, but of his sistet* Jennet, who died in the
plague year, a wide-eyed, shrinking, clever girl, with
a nerve that a harsh word set thrilling.

" Did Jean Clerk say anything about where you
are to sleep to-night ? " he asked him, still speaking
the Gaelic in which he knew the little fellow was
most at home.

*' I suppose I'll just stay in my own bed in Lady-
field," said Gilian, apparently little exercised by the
thought of his future, and dividing some of his atten-
tion to the Paymaster with the sounds and sights of
nature by the way, the thrust of the bracken crook
between the crannies of the Duke's dykes, the
gummy buds of the limes and chestnuts, the straw-
gathering birds on the road, the heron so serenely
stalking on the shore, and the running of the tiny
streams upon the beach that smoked now in the heat
of the sun.

The Paymaster seemed confounded. He swelled
his neck more fully in the stock, cleared his throat
with a loud noise, took a great pinch of snuff from

GILIAN THE DREAMER

li I

his waistcoat pocket and spent a long time in dis-
posing of it. Gilian was in a dream far off from the
elderly companion and the smoking shore ; his spirit
floated over the glen and sometimes farther still,
among the hill gorges that were always so full of
mystery to him, or farther still to the remote unknown
places, foreign lands, cities, towns, where giants and
fairies roamed and outrage happened and kings were,
in the tales the shepherds told about t)ie peat fires
on ceilidh nights.

" I'm afraid you'll have to sleep in the town to-
night," said the Paymaster, at last somewhat relieved
of his confusion by the boy's indifference ; " the
truth is we are shutting up Ladyfield for a little.
You could not stay alone in it at any rate, and did
Jean Clerk not arrange that you were to stay with
her after this ? "

" No," said Gilian simply, even yet getting no
grasp of his homelessness.

" And where are you going to stay ? " asked ihe
Paymaster testily.

" I don't know," said the boy.

The Paymaster spoke in strange words under his
breath and put on a quicker pac.*^ and went through
the town, even past the sdK)(;ihouse, where old
Brooks stood at the door in Suii long surtout saying
a Latin declension over to himself as if it were a
song, and into the Crosshouses past the tanned
women standing with their hands rolled up in their
aprons, and up to Jean Clerk's door. He rapped
loudly with his rattan. He rapped so loudly that
the inmates knew this was no common messenger,

THE FUNERAL

and instead of crying out their invitation they came
together and opened the door. The faces of the
sisters grew rosy retl at the sight of the man and the
boy before him.

"Come away in, Captain," said Jean, assuming an
air of briskness the confusion of her face belied.
" Come away in, I am proud to see you at my
door."

The Paymaster stepped in, still gripping the boy
by the shoulder, but refused to sit down. He spoke
very short and dry in his best travelled English.

" Did you lock up the Ladyfield house as I told
you ? " he asked.

" I did, that ! " said Jean Clerk, lifting her brattie
and preparing to weep, " and it'll be the last time I'll
ever be inside its hospitable door."

"And you gave the key to Cameron the shep-
herd?"

" I did," said Jean, wondering what was to come
next.

The Paymaster changed his look and his accent,
and spoke again with something of a pawky humour
that those who knew him best were well aware was
a sign that his temper was at its worst.

" Ay," said he, " and you forgot about the boy.
What's to be done with him ? I suppose you would
leave him to rout with the kye he was bred among,
or haunt the rocks with the sheep. I was thinking
myself coming down the road there, and this little
fellow with me without a friend in the world, that
the sky is a damp ceiling sometimes, and the grass
of the field a poor meal for a boy's stomach. Eh 1

n 1

GILIAN THE DREAMER

II r

(I'l

:;ii ii;

Ilil

what say you, Mistress Clerk ? " And the old
soldier heaved a thumbful of snufF from his waist-
coat pocket.

" The boy's no kith nor kin of mine," said Jean
Clerk, "except a very far-out cousin's son." She
turned her face away from both of them and pre-
tended to be very busy folding up her plaid, which,
as is well known, can only be done neatly with the
aid of the teeth and thus demands some concealment
of the face. The sister passed behind the Pay-
master and the boy and startled the latter with a sly
squeeze of the wrist as she did so.

"Do you tell me, my good woman," demanded
the Paymaster, " that you would set him out on the
road homeless on so poor an excuse as that ? Far-
out cousin here or far-out cousin there, he has no
kin closer than yourself between the two stones of
the parish. Where's your Hielan' heart, woman? "

"There's nothing wrong with my heart, Captain
Campbell," said Jean tartly, "but my pocket's
empty. If you think the boy's neglected you have
a house of your own to take him into ; it would be
all the better for a young one in it, and you have
the monej> to spend that Jean Clerk has not." All
this with a very brave show of spirit, but with
something uncommonly moist about the eyes.

The Paymaster, still clutching the boy at the
shoulder, turned on his heel to go, but a side glance
at Jean Clerk's face again showed him something
diiferent from avarice or anger.

" You auld besom you 1 " said he, dunting the
floor with his rattan, " I see through you now ; you

THE FUNERAL

think you'll get him put off on me. I suppose if I
refused to take him in, you would be the first to
make of him."

The woman laughed through her tears. " Oh,
but you are the gleg-eyed one, Captain. You may
be sure I would not see my cousin's grandchild
starving, and I'll not deny I put him in your way,
because I never knew a Campbell of Klels, one of
the old bold race, who had not a kind heart for the
poor, and I thought you and your sister could do
better than two old maiden women in a garret could
do by him."

" You randy ! " said he, " and that's the way you
would portion your poor relations about the country-
side. As if I had not plenty of poor friends of my
own I And what in all the world am I to make of
the youth ? " -

"You'll have nothing to do with the making of
him, Captain Campbell," said Jean Clerk, now safe
and certain that the boy's future was assured. " It'll
be Miss Mary will have the making of him, and I
ken the lady well enough — with my humble duty to
her — to know she'll make him a gentleman at the
very least."

" Tuts," said the Paymaster, " Sister Mary's like
the rest of you ; she would make a milksop of the
boy if I was foolish enough to take him home to
her. He'll want smeddum and manly discipline ;
that's the stuff to make the solJier. The uneasy
bed to sleep on, the day's tasJ. to be done to the
uttermost. I'll make him the smartest ensign ever
put baldrick on — that's if I was taking him in

r^^

■ff^^^^p

PPlMi

GILIAN THE DREAMER

t H;

hand," he added hastily, realising from the look
of the woman that he was making a complete
capitulation.

" And of course you'll take him. Captain Camp-
bell," cried Jean Clerk in triumph. " I'm sure you
would sooner take him and make a soldier of him
than leave him with me — though before God he was
welcome — to grow up harvester or herd."

The Paymaster took a ponderous snuff, snorted,
and went off down the stair with the boy still by
the hand, the boy wide-eyed wondering, unable to
realise very clearly whether he was to be made a
soldier or a herd there and then. And when the
door closed behind them Jean Clerk and her sister
sat down and wept and laughed in a curious
mingling of sorrow and joy — sorrow that the child
had to be turned from their door and out of their
lives with even the pretence at inhospitality, and
joy that their device had secured for him a home
and future more comfortable than the best their
straitened circumstances could afford.

i 1

CHAPTER IV

MISS MARY

The Paymaster and his two brothers lived with sister
Mary on the upper flats of the biggest house of the
burgh. The lower part was leased to an honest
merchant whose regular payment of his rent did not
prevent the Paymaster, every time he stepped through
the close, from dunting with his cane on the stones
with the insolence of a man whose birth and his
father's acres gave him a place high above such as
earned their living behind a counter.

" There you are, Sandy ! " he would call, " doing
no trade as usual ; you'll not have sold a parcel of
pins or a bolt of tape to-day, I suppose. Where am
I to get my rent, I wonder, next Martinmas ? "

The merchant would remonstrate. "I've done
very well to-day, Captain," he would say. " I have
six bolls of meal and seven yards of wincey going
up the glen in the Salachary cart."

" Pooh, pooh, what's that to the time of war ? I'll
tell you this, Sandy, I'll have to roup out for my rent
yet." And by he would sail, as red in the face as a
bubbly-jock, swelling his neck over his stock more
largely than ever, and swinging his rattan by its tassel

GILIAN THE DREAMER

>;>'

or whacking with it on his calves, satisfied once more
to have put this merchant-body in his own place.

To-day he paid no heed to the merchant, when,
having just keeked in at the schoolroom to tell Dr.
Colin and old Brooks he would be back in a minute
to join the dregy, he went up the stairs with Gilian.
" I'm going to leave you with my sister Mary," he ex-
plained. " You'll think her a droll woman, but all
women have their tiravees, and my sister is a well-
meaning creature."

Gilian thought no one could be more droll than
this old man himself. Before indifferent to him, he
had, in the past hour, grown to be afraid of him as a
new mysterious agent who had his future in his hands.
And to go up the stairs of this great high house, with
its myriad windows looking out upon the busiest part
of the street, and others gazing over the garden and
the sea, was an experience new and bewildering.
The dwelling abounded in lobbies and corridors, in
queer corners where the gloom lurked, and in doors
that gave glimpses of sombre bedsteads and high-
backed austere chairs, of china painted with the most
wonderful designs (loot of the old Indian palaces),
of swords and sabretaches hung on walls, and tables
polished to such degree that they reflected their sur-
roundings.

They went into a parlour with its window open,
upon the window-sill a pigeon mourning among pots
of wallflowers and southernwood that filled the
entering air with sweetness. A room with thin-
legged chairs, with cupboards whose lozens gave view
to punch-bowls and rummers and silver ladles, a room

MISS MARY

I open,
pots
the
thin-
view

I room

where the two brothers would convene at night while
John was elsewhere, and in a wan candle light sit
silent by the hour before cooling spirits, musing on
other parlours elsewhere in which spurs had jingled
under the board, musing on comrades departed. It
was hung around with dark pictures in broad black
frames, for the most part pictures of battles, " Fonte-
noy," " Stemming the Rout at Steinkirk," " Blenheim
Field," and — a new one — "Vittoria." There were
pictures of men too, all with soldier collars high upon
the nape of the neck, and epaulettes on their shoulders,
whiskered, keen-eyed young men — they were the
brothers in their prime when girls used to look after
them as they went by on their horses. And upon
the mantlebrace, flanked by tall silver candlesticks,
was an engraving of John, Duke of Argyll, Field-
Marshal.

" Look at that man there," said the Paymaster,
pointing to the noble and arrogant head between the
candles, " that was a soldier's soldier. There is not
his like in these days. If you should take arms for
your king, boy, copy the precept and practice of Duke
John. I myself modelled me on his example, and
that, mind you, calls for dignity and valour and educa-
tion and every manly part and "

" Is that you blethering away in there, John ? "
cried a high female voice from the spence.

The Paymaster's voice surrendered half its con-
fidence and pride, for he never liked to be found
vaunting before his sister, who knew his qualities
and had a sense of irony.

"Ay I it's just me, Mary," he cried back, hastening

GILIAN THE DREAMER

^ .

to the door. " I have brought a laddie up here to see
you."

" It would be wiser like to bring me a man," cried
the lady, coming into the room. " I'm wearied of
washing sheets and blankets for a corps of wrunkled
old brothers that have no gratitude for my sisterly
slavery. Keep me ! who's ballachan is that ? "

She was a little thin woman, of middle age, with a
lowland cap of lace that went a little oddly with the
apron covering the front of the merino gown from
top to toe. She had eyes like sloes, and teeth like
pc... 13 that gleamed when she smiled, and by constant
trying to keep herself from smiling at things, she had
w ^^n t' „ 'ines up and down between her eyebrows.
A dear fond heart, a darling hypocrite, a foolish
bounteous mother-soul without chick or child of her
own, and yet with tenement for the loves of a large
family. She fended, and mended, and tended for her
soldier brothers, and they in the selfish blindness of
their sex never realised her devotion. They sat, and
over punch would talk of war, and valour, and de-
votion, and never thought that here, within their very
doors, was a constant war in their behalf against
circumstances, in their interest an unending valour
that kept the little woman bustling on her feet, and
shrewd-eyed over her stew-pans, while weariness
and pain itself, and the hopeless unresponse and in-
gratitude of the surroundings, rendered her more
appropriate place between the bed-sheets.

" What ballachan is this ? " she asked, relaxing the
affected acidity of her manner and smoothing out the
lines upon her brow at the sight of the little fellow in

MISS MARY

the

tlie

iw in

a rough kilt, standing in a shy unrest upon the spot-
less drugget of her parlour floor. She waited no
answer, but went forward as she spoke, as one who
would take all youth to her heart, put a hand on his
head and stroked his fair hair. It was a touch wholly
new to the boy; he had never felt before that tingling
feeling that a woman's hand, in love upon his head,
sent through all his being. At the message of it, the
caress of it, he shivered and looked up at her face in
surprise.

" What do you think of him, Mary ? " asked the
brother. " Not a very stout chap, I think, but hale
enough, and if you stuck his head in a pail of cream
once a day you might put meat on him. He's the
oc from Ladyfield ; surely you might know him even
with his boots on."

" Dear, dear," she said ; " you're the Gilian I
never saw but at a distance, the boy who always ran
to the hill when I went to Ladyfield. O little hero,
am I not sorry for the good wife ? You have come
for your pick of the dinner "

" Do you think we could make a soldier of him ? "
broke in the Paymaster, carrying his rattan like a
sword and throwing back his shoulders.

" A soldier ! " she said, casting a shrewd glance at
the boy in a red confusion. " We might make a
decenter man of him. Weary be on the soldiering !
I'm looking about the country-side and I see but a
horde of lameter privatemen and half-pay officers
maimed in limb or mind sitting about the dram
bottle, hoved up with their vain-glory, blustering and
blowing, instead of being honest, eident lairds and

GILIAN THE DREAMER

'■/

■'

1 i:

farmers. I never saw good in a soldier yet, except
when he was away fighting and his name was in the
Courier as dead or wounded. Soldiers, indeed !
sitting round there in the Sergeant More's tavern»
drinking, and roaring, and gossiping like women —
that I should miscall my sex 1 No, no, if I had a
son

" Well, well, Mary," said the Paymaster, breaking
in again upon this tirade, " here's one to you. If
you'll make the man of him I'll try to make him the
soldier."

She understood in a flash ! " And is he coming
here ? " she asked in an accent the most pleased and
motherly. A flush came over her cheeks and her
eyes grew and danced. It was as if some rare new
thought had come to her, a sentiment of poetry, the
sound of a forgotten straiii of once familiar song.

" I'm sure I am very glad," she said simply. She
took the boy by the hand, she led him into the
kitchen, she cried *' Peggy, Peggy," and when her
servant appeared she said, " Here's our new young
gentleman, Peggy," and stroked his hair again, and
Peggy smiled widely and looked about for something
to give him, and put a bowl of milk to his lips.

" Tuts 1 " cried Miss Mary, " it's not a calf we
have ; we will not spoil his dinner. But you may
skim it and give him a cup of cream."

The Paymaster, left in the parlour among the
prints of war and warriors, stood a moment with his
head bent and his fingers among the snuff listening
to the talk of the kitchen that came along the spence
and through the open doors.

MISS MARY

" She's a queer body, Mary," said he to himself,
" but she's taking to the brat I think — oh yes, she's
taking to him." And then he hurried down the stair
and up round the church corner to the schoolhouse
where the company, wearied waiting on his presence,
were already partaking of his viands. It was a
company to whom the goodwife of Ladyfield, the
quiet douce widow, had been more or less a stranger,
and its solemnity on this occasion of her burial was
not too much insisted on. They were there not so
much mournersasthe guests of Captain Campbell, nigh
on a dozen of half-pay officers who had escaped the
shambles of Europe, with the merchants of the place,
and some of the farmers of the glen, the banker, the
Sheriff, the Fiscal and the writers of whom the town
has ever had more than a fair share. Dr. Colin had
blessed the viands and gone away ; he was a new
kind of minister and a surprising one, who had odd
views about the drinking customs of the people, and
when his coat skirts had disappeared round the
corner of the church there was a feeling of relief, and
old Baldy Bain, " Copenhagen " as they called him,
who was precentor in the Gaelic end of the church,
was emboldened to fill his glass up to more generous
height than he had ever cared to do in the presence
of the clergyman. The food and drink were spread
on two long tables ; the men stood round or sat upon
the forms their children occupied in school hours.
The room was clamant with the voices of the com-
pany. Gathered in groups, they discussed every-
thing under heaven except the object of their meet-
ing—the French, the sowing, the condition of the

GILIAN THE DREAMER

: I

hogs, the Duke's approaching departure for London,
the storm, the fishing. They wore their preposterous
tall hats on the backs of their heads with the crape
bows over the ears, they lifted up the skirts of their
swallow-tail coats and hung them on their arms with
their hands in their breeches pockets. And about
them was the odour of musty, mildewed broadcloth,
taken out of damp presses only on such occasions.

Mr. Spencer, standing very straight and tall and
thin, so that his trousers at the foot strained tightly
at the straps under his insteps, looked over the
assembly, and with a stranger's eye could not but be
struck by its oddity. He was seeing — lucky man to
have the chance ! — the last of the old Highland burgh
life and the raw beginnings of the new ; he was
seeing the real doame-uasatl, gentry of ancient family,
colloguing with the common merchants whose day
was coming in ; he was seeing the embers of the war
in a grey ash, officers, merchants, bonnet lairds, and
tenants now safe and snug and secure in their places
because the old warriors had fought Boney. The
schoolroom was perfumed with the smoke of peat,
for it was the landward pupils' week of the fuelling,
and they were accustomed to bring each his own
peat under his arm every morning. The smoke
swirled and eddied out into the room and hung about
the ochred walls, and made more umber than it was
before the map of Europe over the fireplace. Look-
ing at this map and sipping now and then a glass of
spirits in his hand, was a gentleman humming away
to himself " Merrily danced the Quaker's wife."
He wore a queue tied with a broad black ribbon that

MISS MARY

reached well down on his waist, and the rest of his
attire was conform in its antiquity, but the man him-
self was little more than in his prime, straight set up
like the soldier he was till he died of the Yellow in
Sierra Leone, where the name of Turner, Governor,
is still upon his peninsula.

" You are at your studies ? " said Mr. Spencer to
him, going up to his side with a little deference for
the General, and a little familiarity for the son of a
plain Portioner of Glen Shira who was to be seen any
day coming down the glen in his cart, with a mangy
sporran flapping rather emptily in front of his kilt.

Charlie Turner stopped his tune and turned upon
the innkeeper.

" I scarcely need to study the map of Europe,
Mr. Spencer," said he, *' I know it by heart — all of
it of any interest at least. I have but to shut my
eyes and the panorama of it is before me. My
brothers and I saw some of it, Mr. Spencer, from
Torres Vedras to the Pyrenees, and I'm but looking
at it now to amaze myself with seeing Albuera and
Vittoria, Salamanca and Talavera and Quatre Bras,
put on this map merely as black dots no more ken-
speckle than the township of Carnus up the glen.
Wars, wars, bloody wars 1 have we indeed got to the
last of them ? "

" Indeed I hope so, sir," said the innkeeper, " for
my wife has become very costly and very gaudy in
her Waterloo blue silks since the rejoicings, and if
every war set a woman's mind running to extrava-
gance in clothing, the fewer we have the better."

" If I had a wife, Mr. Spencer (and alas ! it's my

t t'

GILIAN THE DREAMER

! 1

; *

i I

fate to have lost mine), I should make her sit down
in weeds or scarlet, after wars, the colour of the
blood that ran. What do you say to that, General ?"

He turned, as he spoke, to Dugald Campbell, who
came to dregies * because it was the fashion of the
country, but never ate nor drank at them.

" You were speaking, General Turner ? " said
Campbell.

Turner fingered the seal upon his fob, with its
motto " Tu ne cede malis," and smiled blandly, as he
always did when it was brought to his recollection
that he had won more than soldiers' battles when the
odds against him were three to one.

" I was just telling Mr. Spencer that Waterloo
looks like being the last of the battles, General, and
that one bit of Brooks' map here is just as well known
to some of us as the paths and woods and wat<^ 's of
Glen Shira."

"I'm not very well acquaint with Glen Shira
myself," was all the General said, looking at the
map for a moment with eyes that plainly had no
interest in the thing before them, and then he turned
to a nudge of the Paymaster's arm.

Turner smiled again knowingly to Mr. Spencer.
" I put my brogues in it that time," said he in a
discreet tone. " I forgot that the old gentleman and
his brothers were far better acquaint with Glen Shira
in my wife's maiden days than I was myself. But
that's an old story, Mr. Spencer, that you are too

* Dregy : The Scots equivalent of the old English Dirge-ale,
or funeral feast. From the first word of the antiphon in the
office for the dead, " Dirige, Dominc mens."

MISS MARY

recent an incomer to know the shades and meanings
of."

" I daresay, sir, I daresay," said Mr. Spencer
gravely. " You are a most interesting and sensitive
people, and I find myself often making the most
unhappy blunders."

" Interesting is not the word, I think, Mr.
Spencer," said General Turner coldly ; " we refuse
to be interesting to any simple Sassenach." Then
he saw the confusion in the innkeeper's face and
laughed. " Upon my word," he said, " here I'm as
touchy as a bard upon a mere phrase. This is very
good drink, Mr. Spencer ; your purveyance, I
suppose ? "

" I had the privilege, sir," said the innkeeper.
" Captain Campbell gave the order "

" Captain Campbell ! " said the General, putting
down his glass and drinking no more. " I was not
aware that he was at the costs of this dregy. Still,
no matter, you'll find the Campbells a good family to
have dealings with of any commercial kind, pernick-
etty and proud a bit, like all the rest of us, with
their bark worse than their bite."

" I find them quite the gentlemen," said the inn-
keeper.

Turner laughed again.

" Man ! " said he, " take care you do not put your
compliment just exactly that way to them ; you might
as well tell Dr. Colin he was a surprisingly good
Christian."

Old Brooks, out of sheer custom, sat on the high
stool at his desk and hummed his declensions to

mim

rmm

GILIAN THE DREAMER

himself, or the sing-song Arma virumque cano that
was almost all his Latin pupils remembered of his
classics when they had left school. The noise of the
assembly a little distressed him ; at times he would
fancy it was his scholars who were clamouring before
him, and he checked on his lips a high peremptory
challenge for silence, flushing to think how nearly he
had made himself ridiculous. From his stool he
could see over the frosted glass of the lower window
sash into the playground where it lay bathed in a
yellow light, and bare-legged children played at
shinty, with loud shouts and violent rushes after a
little wooden ball. The town's cows were wandering
in for the night from the common muir, with their
milkmaids behind them in vast wide petticoats of
two breadths, and their blue or lilac short-gowns
tucked well up at their arms. Behind, the windows
revealed the avenue, the road overhung with the
fresh leaves of the beeches, the sunlight filtering
through in lighter splasnes on the shade. Within,
the drink was running to its dregs, and piles of oat-
cake farls lay yet untouched. One by one the
company departed. The glen folks solemnly shook
hands with the Paymaster, as donor of the feast,
and subdued their faces to a sad regret for this
" melancholy occasion, Captain Campbell " ; then
went over to the taverns in the tenements and kept up
their drinking and their singing till late in the even-
ing ; the merchants and writers had gone earlier, and
now but the officers and Brooks were left, and Mr.
Spencer, superintending the removal of his vessels
and fragments to the inn. The afternoon was sinking;

;
:

MISS MARY

into the cal" it ever has in this place, drowsing,
mellowing ; an air of trance lay all about, and even
the pensioners, gathered at the head of the school-
room near the door, seemed silent as his scholars to
the ear of Brooks. He lifted the flap of his desk
and kept it up with his head while he surveyed the
interior. Grammars and copy-books, pens in long
tin boxes, the terrible black tawse he never used but
reluctantly, and the confiscated playthings of the
children who had been guilty of encroaching upon
the hours of study with the trifles of leisure, were
heaped within. They were for the most part the
common toys of the country-side, and among them
was a whistle made of young ash, after the fashion
practised by children, who tap upon the bark to
release it from its wood, slip off the bark entire
upon its sap, and cut the vent or blow-hole. Old
Brooks took it in his hand and a smile went over
his visage.

" General Turner," he cried up the room, " here's
an oddity I would like to show you," and he balanced
the pipe upon his long fingers, and the smile played
about his lips as he looked at it.

Turner came up, and " A whistle," said he.
" What's the story ? "

" Do you know who owns it ? " asked Brooks.

" Sandy, I suppose," said the General, who knew
the ingenuities of his only son. " At least, I taught
him myself to make an ash whistle, and this may
very well be the rogue's contrivance." He took the
pipe in hand and turned it over and shrilled it at his
lip. " Man," said he, " that makes me young again 1

GILIAN THE DREAMER

I t

\ :

i i

J li !

1 1 ;

) r

I wish I was still at the age when that would pipe me
to romance."

The schoolmaster smiled still. " It is not Master
Sandy's," said he. "Did you never teach the
facture of it to your daughter Nan ? She made it
yesterday before my very eyes that she thought
were not on her at the time, and she had it done
in time to pipe Amen to my morning prayer."

" Ah ! the witch 1 " cried the General, his face
showing affection and annoyance. "That's the
most hoyden jade I'm sure you ever gave the ferule
to."

" I never did that," said the schoolmaster.

" Well, at least she's the worst that ever deserved
it. The wind is not more variable, nor the sea less
careless of constraint. She takes it off her mother,
no doubt, who was the dearest madcap, the most
darling wretch ever kept a sergeant's section of lovers
at her skirts. I wish j'ou could do something with
her, Mr. Brooks. I do not ask high schooling,
though there you have every qualification. I only
ask some sobriety put in her so that she may not
always be the filly on the meadow."

Old Brooks sighed. He took the whistle from
the General and thought a moment, and put it to his
lips and piped upon it once or twice as the moor-fowl
pipes in spring. " Do you hear that ? " he asked.
" It is all, my General, we get from life and know-
ledge — a very thin and apparently meaningless and
altogether monotonous squeak upon a sappy stem.
Some of us make it out and some of us do not, be-
cause, as it happens, we are not so happily constituted.

MISS MARY

You would have your daughter a patient Martha of
the household, and she will be playing in spite of you
upon a wooden whistle of her own contrivance.
What you want of me, I think, General, is that I
should make her like her neighbours to pleasure you
and earn my fees and Queen Anne's Bounty. I
might try, yet I am not sure but what your girl will
become by her sunny nature what I could not make
her by my craft as a teacher. And this, sir, I would
tell you : there is one mischief I am loth to punish in
my school, and that's the music that may be inoppor-
tune, even when it takes the poor form of a shrill
with an ashen stick made by the performer during
the morning's sacred exercise."

The whistle had brought two or three of the
company back to see what old Brooks was doing,
and among them was the Paymaster. He was redder
in the face than ever, and his wig was almost off his
head, it was so slewe;d aside.

" Giving the General a lesson ? " he asked with
some show at geniality. He leaned a hand upon a
desk, and remembered that just on that corner he
leaned on he had placed many a shilling as Candlemas
and Han'sel Monday offerings when he was a school-
boy, before the farming, before the army and India,
and those long years at home on the upper flat of
the house up the street where Miss Mary sat the lee-
lone homester among her wanderers returned.

" I was but showing him the handiwork of his
daughter Miss Nan," said Old Brooks pleasantly.
" A somewhat healthy and boisterous lady, I assure
you."

t ii

rf ii

GILIAN THE DREAMER

" Oh, I have heard of her," said the Paymaster,
taking a pinch of maccabaw from his pocket, and
leisurely lifting it to his nostril with the indifference
of one with little interest in the subject. There was
insult in the contempt of the action. The General
saw it and flamed very hotly.

"And you have heard of a very handsome little
lady," said he, "remarkably like her handsome
mother, and a very good large-hearted daughter."

The Paymaster had an unpleasant little laugh that
when he chose he could use with the sting of a whip
though accompanied by never a word. He flicked
the surplus of his snuff from his stock and gave this
annoying little laugh, but he did not allow it to go
unaccompanied, for he had overheard the General's
speech to Mr. Spencer.

" No doubt she's all you say or think," said he
dryly, " I'm sure I'm no judge, but there's a rumour
abroad that she's a big handful. A want of discipline
perhaps, no more than that "

"You know the old saying, Captain," said the
General, "bachelors' bairns are aye well trained."

The Paymaster started in a temper, and " I have
a son," said he, " and "

The General smiled with meaning.

" A son ; at least I'll make him that, and I'll

show you sometl' ng of training "

Turner smiled anew, with a mock little bow and a
wave of the fingers, a trick picked up abroad and
maddening in its influence on a man with the
feeling that it meant he was too small to have words
with.

n til

MISS MARY

"I'll train him-l'll train him to hate your very
name," said the Paymaster with an oath ^

" I'm obliged for your cake and wine," said the
General, st.ll smiling, "and I wish you all JnH

room' "' ""'' '" '"' '"" """^^ -^^ '"ft the

"This is a most unfortunate contretemps," said

Brooks, all trembling. "If J had thought 1 little

whistle, a mere tibia of ash, had power to precipitate

■«s unlucky and unseemly belligerence I would

never have opened my desk."

The great bell upon the roof of the church swung
upon ,ts arms like an acrobat in petticoats, and
loudly pealed the hour of seven. Its hammer
boomed agamst the brassy gown, the town rang
from end to end with the clamour of the curfew and
Its tale of another day gone rumoured up the glens
Near at hand the air of the playground'and of the
street was tossed by the sound into tumultuous waves
so that even in the schoolroom the ear throbbed to
the loud proclamation. Into the avenue streamed
he schools of crows from their wanderings on the
braes of Sh.ra, and the children ceased their sJ.inty
play and looked up at the flying companies, and
called a noisy son?— r , uu

Crow, crow, fly away home.

Your fires are out and your children gone.

"That^s a most haughty up-setting crew, and the
queue-haired rover the worst of the lot ! " said the
laymaster, still red and angry. "What I say's
true, Brooks; it's true I tell you I You'll not for

6o GILIAN THE DREAMER

your life put it out of the boy's head when you have
the teaching of him ; he must hate the Turners like
poison. Mind that now, mind that now ! "

And turning quickly on his heels, the Paymaster
went out of the schoolroom.

i: i.

,7«

ave

5ter

t '

CHAPTER V

THE BROTHERS

GiLiAN, meanwhile, sat on a high chair in Miss
Mary's room. She gave him soup till her ladle
scraped against the bottom of the tureen ; she cut
for him the tenderest portions of the hen ; she gave
him most generously of cheese— not the plain skim-
milk curd cheese of Ladyfield, the leavings of the
dairy, but the Saturday kebboch as it was called,
made of the overnight and morning's milk, poured
cream and all into the yearning-tub. And as she
served him, her tongue went constantly upon themes
of many varieties, but the background of them all,
the conclusion of them ail, was the greatness of her
brothers. Ah I she was a strange little woman with
the foolish Gaelic notion that an affection bluntly
displayed to its object is an affection discreditable.

"You will go far," said she to Gilian, "before
you will come on finer men. They are getting old
and done, but once I knew them tall and strong and
strapping, not their equals in all the armies. And
what they have seen of wars, my dear ! They were
ever going or coming from them, and sometimes I
would not know where they were out in the quarrel-

GILIAN THE DREAMER

ii '

iS;

some world but for a line in the Saturday Post or
the Courier or maybe an old hint in the General
Almanack itself. Perhaps when you become
acquainted with the General and the Cornal you
will wonder that they are never at any time jocular,
and maybe you will think that they are soured at life
and that all their kindness is turned to lappered cream.
I knew them nearly jocular, I knew them tall, light-
footed laddies, running about the pastures there
gallivanting with the girls. But that, my dear, was
long ago, and I feel myself the old woman indeed
when I see them so stiff and solemn sitting in there
over their evening glass."

" I have never seen them ; were they at the
funeral ? " asked Gilian, his interest roused in such
survivals of the past.

" That they were," said Miss Mary ; " a funeral
now is the?'r only recreation. But perhaps you
would not know them because they are not at all
like the Captain. He was a soldier too, in a way,
but they were the ancient warriors. Come into the
room here and I will show you, if you have finished
your dinner."

Gilian went with her into the parlour again
among the prints and the hanging swords, that now
he knew the trade and story of the men who sat
among them, were imbued with new interests.

Miss Mary pointed to the portraits. " That was
Colin and Dugald before they went away the second
time," she said. " We had one of James too — he
died at Corunna — but it was the only one, and we
gave it to a lady of the place who was chief with

k}'.^

^■■x.^

THE BROTHERS

him before he went away, and dwincd a great deal
after his death. And that's his sword. When it
came home from Spain by MacFarlane, the carrier
round from Dumbarton, I took it out and it was
clagged in the scabbard with a red glut. It was a
sore memorial to an only sister."

The boy stood in the middle of the floor feeling
himself very much older than he had done in the
morning. The woman's confidences made him
almost a man, for before he had been spoken to but
as a child, though his thoughts were far older than
his years. Those relics of war, especially the
sheath that had the glut of life in it corrupting when
it came back with the dead man's chest, touched
him inwardly to a brief delirium. The room all at
once seemed to fill with the tramping of men and
the shrilling of pipers, with ships, quays, tumultuous
towns, camps, and all the wonders of the shepherds'
battle stories round the fire, and he was in a field, and
it was the afternoon with a blood-red sky beyond the
fir-trees, dense smoke floating across it and the cries
of men cutting each other down. He saw — so it
seemed as he stood in the middle of the floor of the
little parlour with the crumbs of his dinner still upon
his vest — the stiff figure of a fallen man in a high
collar like the man portrayed upon the wall, and his
hand was still in the hilt of a reddened sword and
about him were the people he had slain. That did not
much move the boy, but he was stirred profoundly
when he saw the sword come home. He saw Miss
Mary open out the chest in the kitchen and pull hard
upon the hilt of the weapon, and he saw her face

GILIAN THE DREAMER

f ,

when the terrible life-glut revealed itself like a rust
upon the blade. His nostrils expanded, his eyes
glistened ; Miss Mary hurriedly looked at him with
curiosity, for his breath suddenly quickened and
strained till it was the loudest sound in the room.

" What is it, dear ? " she said kindly, putting a
hand upon his shoulder, speaking the Gaelic that
any moment of special fondness brought always to
her lips.

" I do not know," said he, ashamed. " I was just
thinking of your brother who did not come home,
and of your taking out his sword."

She looked more closely at him, at the flush that
crept below the fair skin of his neck and more than
common paleness of his cheek. " I think," said she,
" I am going to like you very much. I might be
telling my poor story of a sword to Captain John
there a hundred times, and he could not once get at
the innermost meaning of it for a woman's heart."

" I saw the battle," said he, encouraged by a
sympathy he had never known before.

" I know you did," said she.

" And I saw him dead."

" Oc/iame / "

" And I saw you dropping the sword when yovl
tugged it from the scabbard, and you cried out and
ran and washed your hands, though they were quite
clean."

" Indeed I did!" said Miss Mary, all trembling as
the past was so plainly set before her. " You are
uncanny — no, no, you are not uncanny, you are only
ready-witted, and you know how a sister would feel

THE BROTHERS

when her dead brother's sword was brought back to
her, and the blood of the brothers of other sisters
was on its blade. That's my only grievance with
those soldier brothers of mine. I said I did not
think much of the soldiers ; oh ! boy, I love them all
I sometimes grieve that God made me a woman that
I might not be putting on the red coat too, and follow-
ing the drum. And still and on, I would have no
son of mine a soldier. Three fozy, foggy brothers—
what did the armies do for them ? They never
sharpened theirwits, but they sit and dover and dream,
dream, even-on, never knowing all that's in their
sister Mary's mind. And here you are, a boy, yet
you get to my thoughts in a flash. Oh ! I think I
am going to be very fond of you."

Gilian was amazed that at last some one under-
stood him. No one ever did at Ladyfield ; his
dreams, his fancies, his spectacles of the inner eye
were things that he had grown ashamed of. But
here was a shrewd litde lady who seemed to think
his fancy and confidence nothing discreditable. He
was encouraged greatly to let her into his vagrant
mind, so sometimes in passionate outbursts, when the
words ran over the heels of each other, sometimes in
shrinking, stammering, reluctant sentences he told her
how the seasons affected him, and the morning and
the night, the smells of things, the sounds of woods
and the splash of waters, and the mists streaming
along the ravines. He told her— or rather he made
her understand, for his language was simple— how
at sudden outer influences his whole being fired, and
from so trivial a thing as a cast-off horseshoe on the

CILIAN THE DREAMER

(i ; \

1 1
I' ' '.

I <*

i ii !

highway he was compelled to picture the rider, and
set him upon the saddle and go riding with him to
the King of Erin's court that is in the story of the
third son of Easadh Ruadh in the winter tale. How
the joy of the swallow was his in its first darting flights
among the eaves of the old barn, and how when it
sped at the summer's end he went with it across
shires and towns, along the surface of winding rivers,
even over the seas to the land of everlasting sun.
How the sound of the wave on the rock moved him
and set him with the ships and galleys, the great
venturers whipping and creaking and tossing in the
night-time under the stars. How the dark appalled
or soothed as the humour was, and the sight of a
first flower upon a tree would sometimes make him
weep at the notion of the brevity of its period.

All the time Miss Mary listened patient and under-
standing. The high-backed chair compassed her
figure so fully that she seemed to shrink to a child's
size. It was a twelve-window house, and so among
the highest taxed in all the town, but in the parlour
there were two blind windows and only one gave
light to the interior, so that as she sat in her chair
with her back to the window, her face in the shadow,
leaning against the chair hafilts with the aspect of
weariness her brothers never had revealed to th m
it seemed to Gilian the little figure and the
face of a companion. She was silent for a rr. ,ent
after his confessions were completed, as if she liad
been wandering with him in the realm of fancy, and
with wings less practised had taken longer to fly
back to the narrow actual world. The boy had

ient

had

ind

fly

lad

THE BROTHERS 67

realised how much he had forgotten himself, and
how strange all this story of his must be even to a
child-companion with her face in the shadow of the
chair haffits, and his eyes were faltering with shame.

*' You are very thin, sweetheart," said she, with
the two lines darkly pencilled between her eyebrows.
" You arc far too white for a country boy ; upon my
word we must be taking the Captain's word for it
and putting your head in the cream."

At this Gilian's confusion increased. Here was
another to misunderstand, and he had thought she
was shivering to his fancy as he was himself. He
turned to hide his disappointment. At once the
lines disappeared. She rose and put an arm over
his shoulder and stooped the little that was necessary
to whisper in his ear.

" I know, I think I knov%" said she j " but look,
I'm very old and ancient. Oh, dear! I once had
my own fancies, but I think they must have been
sweat out of me in my constancy to my brothers'
oven-grate and roasting-jack. It must be the old,
darling, foolish Highlands in us, my dear, the old
people and the old stupid stories they are telling for
generations round the fire, and it must be the hills
about us, and the constant complaint of the sea —
tuts I am not I foolish to be weeping because a boy
from Glen Aray has not learned to keep his lips
closed on his innermost thought ? "

Gilian looked up, and behold ! she was in a little
riin of tears, at least her eyes swam soft in moisture.
It comforted him exceedingly, for it showed that
after all she understood.

wmm

■■ii

n >
1 I

GILIAN THE DREAMER

I. -I

•I ■«

M?- :!

" If you were a little older," she said, " so old as
the merchants of the town that are all too much on
the hunt for the bawbees and the world to sit down
and commune with themselves, or if you were so
old as my brothers there and so hardened, I would
be the last to say my thoughts ever stirred an ell-
length out of the customary track of breakfast, beds,
dinner and supper. Do not think I do not love and
reverence my brothers, mind you I " she added
almost fiercely, rubbing with her lustre apron the
table there was nothing to rub from save its polish.
" Oh I they are big men and far-travelled men, and
they have seen the wonderful sights. They used to
get great thick letters franked from the Government
with every post, and the Duke will be calling on
them now and then in his chariot. They speak to
me of nothing but the poorest, simplest, meanest
transactions of the day because they think I cannot
comprehend nor feel. Gilian, do you know I am
afraid of them ? Not of John the Captain, for he is
different, with a tongue that goes, but I'm frightened
when the General and the Cornal sit and look at me
baying nothing because I am a Vvoman."

" I do not like people to sit looking at me saying
nothing," said Gilian, " because when I sit and look
at people VvHhout saying anything I am reading
them far in. But m< stly I would sooner be making
up things in my mind."

"Ah!" said she, "that is because your mind is
young and spacious ; theirs, poor dears, are full of
things that have actually happened, and they need
not fancy the orra any more."

-.1

THE BROTHERS

of
iq6

They moved together out of the parlour and along
the lobby that lighted it. With a low sill it looked
upon the street that now was thronged with the
funeral people passing home or among the shops, or
from tavern to tavern. The funeral had given the
town a holiday air, and baxters and dealers stood
at their doors gossiping with their customers or by-
goers. Country carts rumbled past, the horses
moving slowly, reluctant to go back from this place
of oats and stall to the furrows where the -collar
pressed constantly upon the shoulder. One or two
gentlemen went by on horses' — Achnatra and Major
Hall and the through-other son of Lorn Campbell.
The sun, westering, turned the clean rain-washed
sand in the gutters of the street to gold, and there
the children played and their calls and rhymes and
laughter made so merry a world that the boy at the
window, looking out upon it, felt a glow. He was
now to be always with these fortunate children
whom he knew so well ere ever he had changed
words with them. He had a little dread of the
magnitude and corners of this dwelling that was to
be his in the future, and of the old men who sat in it
all day saying nothing, but it was strange indeed
(thought he) if with Miss Mary within, and the
sunshine and the throng and the children playing in
the syver sand without, he should not find life more
full and pleasant than it had been in the glen. All
these thoughts made warp for the woof of his
attention to the street as he stood at the window.
And by-and-by there came a regret for the things
lost with the death of the httle old woman of Lady-

- : .:^ROPERTY OF

PUBLIC LIBRARY.

mrr

mmmmmm

■ ■'

GILIAN THE DREAMER

field — what they were his mind did not pause to
make definite, but there was the sense of chances
gone with no recalling, of a calm, of a solitude, of a
mere intimate communion with the animals of the
wild.^ and the voices of the woods and hills.

Thi^i woman as well as the boy must have been
lost in thought, for neither of them noted the step
upon the stair when the General and Cornal came
back from the dregy. The brothers were in the
lobby beside them before Miss Mary realised their
presence. She turned with a flushed face and, as it
were, put herself a little in front of the boy, so that
half his figure found the shelter of a wing. The
two brothers between them filled the width of the
lobby, and yet they were not wide. But they were
broad at the shoulders and once, no doubt, they
filled their funeral suits that of their own stifTness
seemed to stand out in all their old amplitude. The
General was a white-faced rash of a man with bushy
eyebrows, a clean-shaven parchment jowl, and a
tremulous hand upon the knob of his malacca rattan ;
his brother the Cornal was less tall ; he was of a
purpled visage, and a crimson scar, the record of a
wound from Corunna, slanted from his chin to the
corner of his left eye.

" What wean is that ? " he asked, standing in the
lobby and casting a suspicious eye upon the boy,
his voice as high as in a barrack yard. The General
stood at his shoulder, saying nothing, but looking at
Gilian from under his pent brows.

Into Miss Mary's demeanour there had come as
great a change as that which came upon the Pay-

f i

THE BROTHERS

can;

the

ay-

master when she broke in upon his vaunting. The
lines dashed to her brow ; when she spoke it was in
a cold constrained accent utterly different from that
the boy had grown accustomed to.

" It is the oe from Ladyfield," she explained.

" He'll be making a noise in the house," said the
Comal with a touch of annoyance. " I cannot
stand boys ; he'll break things, I'm sure. When is
he going away ? "

"Are you one of the boys who cry after Major
MacNicol, my old friend and comrade ? " asked the
General in a high squeaking voice. " If I had my
stick at some of you, tormenting a gallant old
soldier ! " And as he spoke he lifted his cane by
the middle and shook it at the limbs of the affrighted
youth.

" O Dugald, Dugald, you know none of the
children of this town ever annoyed the Major ; it is
only the keelies from the low-country who do so.
And this is not the boy to make a mock of any old
gentleman, I am sure."

" I know he'll make a noise and start me when I
am thinking," said the Cornal, still troubled. " Is it
not very strange, Dug.^id, that women must be aye
bringing in useless weans off the street to make
noise and annoyance for their brothers ? " He
poked as he spoke with his stick at Gilian's feet as
he would at an animal crossing his path.

" It is a strange cantrip, Mary," said the General ;
" I suppose you'll be going to give him something.
It is give, give all the day in this house like Sergeant
Scott's cantinicrs."

wmmngm^m

GILIAN THE DREAMER

" Indeed and you need not complain of the
giving," said Miss Mary : " there was nobody gave
with a greater extravagance than yourself when you
had it to give, and nobody sends more gangrels
about the house than you."

" Give the boy his meat and let him go," said the
Cornal roughly.

" He's not going," said Miss Mary, turning quite
white and taking the pin carefully out of her shawl
and as carefully putting it in again. And having
done this quite unnecessary thing she slipped her
hand down and warmly clasped unseen the fingers
of the boy in the folds of her bombazine gown.

"Not going? I do not understand you, Mary;
as you grow older you grow stupider. Does she not
grow stupider, Dugald ? " said the Cornal.

" She does," said the General. " I think she docs
it to torment us, just." He was tired by this dis-
cussion ; he turned and walked to the parlour.

Miss Mary mustered all her courage, and speaking
with great rapidity explained the situation. The
boy was the Ladyfield boy ; the Paymaster was
going to keep him hereafter.

The Cornal stood listening to the story as one in
a tr?nce. There was a little silence when she had
done, and he broke it with a harsh laugh.

*' Ah ! and what is he going to make of this
one ? " he asked.

" That's to be seen," said Miss Mary ; " he spoke
of the army."

" Fancy that now 1 " said the Cornal with con-
tempt. " Let me see him," he added suddenly.

'.'

THE BROTHERS

^he

^as

1 in

lad

his

okc

3n-

ily.

" Let me see the seeds of soldiery." He put out a
hand and — not roughly but still with more force than
Gilian relished — drew him from the protection of the
gown and turned his face to the window. He put
his hand under the boy's chin ; Gilian in the touch
felt an abhorrence of the hard, clammy fingers that
had made dead men, but his eyes never quailed as
he looked up in the scarred face. He saw a mask ;
there was no getting to the secrets behind that purple
visage. Experience and trial, emotions and passions
had set lines there wholly new to him, and his fancy
refused to go further than just this one thought of
the fingers that had made dead men.

The Cornal looked him deeply in the eyes, caught
him by the ear, and with a twist made him wince,
pushed him on the shoulders and made his knees
bend. Then he released him with a flout of con-
tempt.

" Man ! Jock's the daft recruiter," he said coarsely
with an oath. " What's this but a clerk ? There's
not the spirit in the boy to make a drummer of him.
There's no stuff for sogering here."

Miss Mary drew Gilian to her again and stiffened
her lips. "You have nothing to do with it, Colin ;
it's John's house and if he wants to keep the boy
he'll do it. And I'm sure if you but took the trouble
to think that he is a poor orphan with no kith nor
kin in the world, you would be the first to take him
in at the door."

The Cornal's face visibly relaxed its sternness.
He looked again more closely at the boy.

"Come away into our parlour here, an 1 the

f ^

111

GILIAN THE DREAMER

General and I will have a crack with you," said he,
leading the way.

Miss Mary gave the boy's hand a gentle squeeze,
and s-)ftly pushed him in after her brother, shut the
door behind them, and turned and went down to the
kitchen.

t I

CHAPTER VI

COURT-MARTIAL

GiLiAN was in a great dread, but revealed none of it
in the half dusk of the room' where he faced the two
brothers as they sat at cither side of the table. The
General took out a bottle of spirits and placed it with
scrupulous care in the very centre of the table • his
brother lifted two tumblers from the corner cupboard
and put them on each side of the bottle, fastidious
to a hair's breadth as if he had been kying out
columns of troops. It was the formula of the after-
noon ; sometimes they never put a lip to the glass,
but it was always necessary that the bottle should
be in the party. For a space that seemed terribly
long to the boy they said no word but looked at him.
The eyes of the Gonial seemed to pierce him through ';
the General in a while seemed to forget his presence'
turnmg upon him a flat, vacant eye. Gilian leaned
upon his other foot and was on the verge of cryin^^
at his situation. The day had been far too crowded
with strangers and new experience for his comfort •
he felt himself cruelly plucked out of his own
sufficient company and jarred by contact with a very
complex world.

If :'r-

GILIAN THE DREAMER

iiM

■ ■ ■■

■i! i

With a rude loud sound that shook the toddy
ladles in the cupboard the Cornal cleared his throat.

" How old are you ? " he asked, and this roused
the General, who came back from his musings with
a convulsive start, and repeated his brother's
question.

"Twelve," said Gilian, first in Gaelic out of
instinct, and hurriedly repeating it in English lest
he should offend the gentlemen.

" Twelve," said the Cornal, thinking hard. " You
are not very bulky for your age. Is he now,
Dugald?" ^\

"He is not very bulky for his age," said the
General, after a moment's pause as if he were recall-
ing all the boys he knew of that age, or remitting
himself to the days before his teens.

" And now, between ourselves," said the Cornal,
leaning over with a show of intimacy and even
friendliness, " have you any notion yourself of being
a soger ? "

" I never thought anything about it," Gilian
confessed in a low tone. " I can be anything the
Captain would like me to be."

" Did you ever hear the like ? " cried the Cornal,
looking in amazement at his brother. " He never
thought anything about it, but he can be anything
he likes. Is not that a good one ? Anything he
likes I " And he laughed with a choked and heavy
effort till the scar upon his face fired like blood, and
Gilian seemed to see it gape and flow as it did when
the sword-slash struck it open in Corunna.

•' Anything he likes ! " echoed the General, laugh-

COURT-MARTIAL

ivy
ind
lien

|g^"

ing huskily till he coughed and choked. They both
sat smiling grimly with no more sound till it seemed
to the boy he must be in a dream, looking at the
creations of his brain. The step of a fly could have
been heard in the room almost, so sunk was it in
silence, but outside, as in another world, a band of
children filled the street with the chant of " Pity
be " — chant of the trumpeters of the Lords.

Gilian never before heard that song with which
the children were used to accompany the fanfare of
the scarlet-coated musicians who preceded the Lords
Justiciary on their circuit twice a year ; but the
words came distinctly to him in by the open window
where the wallflower nodded, and he joined silently
in his mind the dolorous chorus and felt himself the
prisoner, deserving of every pity.

" Sit ye down there," at last said the Cornal,
" with my brother the General's leave." And he
waved to the high-backed haffit chair Miss Mary
had so sparely filled an hour ago. Then he with-
drew the stopper of the bottle, poured a tiny drop
of the spirits into both tumblers, and drank " The
King and his Arms," a sentiment the General joined
in with his hand tremulous around the glass.

" Listen to me," said the Cornal, " and here I
speak, I think, for my brother the General, who has
too much to be thinking about to be troubling with
these little affairs. Listen to me. I fought in
Corunna, in Salamanca, Vittoria and Waterloo, and
at Waterloo I led the Royals up against the yetts of
hell. Did I not, Diigald ? "

"You did that," said Dugald, withdrawing himself

: li

GILIAN THE DREAMER

I .

':il

i i

again from a muse over the records of victory.
And then he bent a lustreless eye upon his own
portrait, so sombre and gallant upon the wall,
with the gold of the lace and epaulettes a little
tarnished.

" I make no brag of it, mind you," said the
Cornal, waving his hand as if he would be excused
for mentioning it. " I am but saying it to show
that I ken a little of bloody wars, and the art and
trade of sogering. There are gifts demanded for
the same that seriatim I would enumerate. First
there is natural strength and will. All other trades
have their limits, when a man may tell himself,
* That's the best I can do,' and shut his book or set
down the tool with no disgrace in the relinquish-
ment. But a soger's is a different ploy ; he must
stand stark against all encountering, nor cry a
parley even with the lance at his throat. Oh, man !
man 1 I had a delight in it in my time for all its
trials. I carried claymore (so to name it, ours was
a less handsome weapon, you'll observe), in the
ranting, roving humour of a boy ; I sailed and
marched ; it was fine to touch at foreign ports ; it
was sweet to hear the drums beat revally under the
vines ; the camp-fire, the "

" And it would be on the edge of a wood," broke
in the boy in Gaelic ; " the logs would roar and hiss.
The fires would be in yellow dots along the country-
side, and the heather would be like a pillow so soft
and springy under the arm. Round about, the
soldiers would be standing, looking at the glow,
their faces red and flickering, and behind would be

COURT-MARTIAL

the

roke
liiss.

1 soft
the
|low,
be

the black dark of the wood like the inside of a pot,
a wood with ghosts and eerie sounds and "

He stammered and broke down under the
astounded gaze of the Cornal and the General,
Vi/ho stood to their feet facing his tense and thrilled
small figure. A wave of shame-heat swept over
him at his own boldness.

Outside, the children's voices were fading in the
distance as they turned the corner of the church
singing " Pity be."

Pity be on poor prisoners, pity be on tlicm ;

Pity be on poor prisoners, if they come back again,

they sang ; the air softened into a fairy lullaby
heard by an ear at eve against the grassy hillock,
full of charm, instinct with dream, and the sentiment
of it was as much the boy's within as the performers'
without.

" This is the kind of play-actor John would make
a soldier of," said the Cornal, turning almost
piteously to his brother. " It beats all ! Where
did you learn all that ? " he demanded harshly,
scowling at the youth and sitting down again.

" He has the picture of it very true, now, has he
not ? " said the General. " I mind of many camps
just like that, with the cork-trees behind and old
Sir George ramping and cursing in his tent because
the pickets hailed, and the corncrake would be
rasping, rasping, a cannon-carriage badly oiled,
among the grass,"

Gilian sank into the chair again, his face in
shadow.

GILIAN THE DREAMER

I ' '

It;

Ii 1 1

lit

ill m

" Discipline and reverence for your elders and
superiors are the first lesson you would need, my
boy," said the Comal, taking a tiny drop of the
spirits again and touching the glass of his brother,
who had done likewise. " Discipline and reverence ;
discipline and reverence. I was once tocky and
putting in my tongue like you where something of
sense would have made me keep it between my
teeth. Once in Spain, an ensign, 1 found myself in
a wine-shop or change-house, drinking as I should
never have been doing if I had as muckle sense as a
clabbie-doo, with a dragoon major old enough to be
my father. He was a pock-pudding Englishman, a
great hash of a man with the chest of him slipped
down below his belt, and what was he but bragging
about the rich people he came of, and the rich soil
they flourished on, its apple-orchards and honey-
flowers and its grass knee-deep in June. * Do you
know,' said I, * I would not give a yard's breadth of
the shire of Argyll anywhere north of Knapdale at
its rockiest for all your lush straths, and if it comes
to antique pedigrees here am I, Clan Diarmid, with
my tree going down to Donacha Dhu of Lochow.'
That was insolence, ill-considered, unnecessary, for
this major of dragoons, as I tell you, might be my
father and I was but a raw ensign."

" I'll warrant you were home-sick when you said
it," said the General.

•' Was I not ? " cried the brother. " 'Twas that
urged me on. For one of my company, just a
minute before, had been singing Donacha Ban's
song of ' Ben Dorain,' and no prospect in the world

\. 'su

COURT-MARTIAL

seemed so alluring to mc then as a swath of the
land I came from."

"I know *Ben Dorain,'" said Gilian timidly, "and
I think I could tell just the way you felt when you
heard the man singing it in a foreign place."

" Come away, then, my twelve-year-old warlock,"
said the Cornal, mockingly, yet wondering too.

*' This is a real oddity," said the General, drawing
his chair a little nearer the boy.

" I heard a forester sing ' Ben Dorain ' last
Hogmanay at home — I mean in Ladyfield ; he w.is
not a good singer, and he forgot bits of the words
here and there, but when he was singing it I saw
the sun rise on the hill, not a slow grey, but
suddenly in a smother of gold, and the hillside
moved with deer. Birds whirred from the heather
and the cuckoo was in the wood."

" That was very unlucky about the cuckoo before
breakfast," said the Cornal, and he quoted a Gaelic
proverb.

" Oh ! if I was in a foreign place and some one
sang that song I would be very, very sick for home.
I would be full of thoughts about the lochs and the
hunting roads, the slope of the braes and stripes
of black fir on them ; the crying of cattle, the sound
of burn and eas and the voices of people I knew
would be dragging my heart home. I would be
saying, * Oh ! you strangers, you do not understand.
You have not the want at your hearts,' and there
would be one little bit of the place at home as plain
to my view as that picture."

As he spoke Gilian pointed at " The Battle of

'11:

GILI/vN TFIE DREAMER

\ i

ti '

ViLloria." The brothers turned and looked as i( ^.t
was sionicthing quite new and strange to them. Up
rose the Cornal and went closer to peer at it.

** Confound it !" said he. " You're there with your
talc of a ballant, and you point at the one picture
ever I saw that gave nie the dnv-dreaminfr. I never
see that smudgy old print but I'm crying on the
cavalry that made the Frenchmen rout."

From v;herc he -^at the boy could make out the
picture in every detail. It was a sce.ie of flying and
broken troops, of men on the v/ings of terror and
drasTOons ridinrr thcvn do-'.vn. There was at the very
front of the picture, in a corner, among the fiy'^S
Frenchmen pursued by the horses, th.e presentment
of a Scottish soldier, wounded, lying upon his back
with his elbows propped beneath him so that he had
his head up, looking at the action, a soldier of a thin
long habit of body, a hollow face and high check-
bones.

Gilian forcrot the tvv'o old men in the room with
hlra when he looked intently on this soldier in the
throes ; he stood up from the chair, went forward
and put a finger as high as he could to point out the
pnrticular thing he referred to. "That's a man,"
said he, " and he's afraid. He does not hear the
guns, nor the people crying, but he hears the horses'
feet thudding on the grass, and lie thinks they v.'illgo
over him and crush his bones."

"Curse mc," cried the Cornal, "but you have the
thing to a nicety. That's the man's notion, for a
g iinca, for I have been in his case myself, and tlic
thud of horses was a sound that filled the v/orld. Sit

COURT-MARTIAL

^'3

with
the
•ward
ut the
man/'
the
lorscs'
,viU go

down, sit down ! " he went on sharply, as if he had of
a sudden found something to reproach himself with in
an}' complacent recognition of this child's images.
" You are not canny ; how old arc you ? "

Gilian was trembling and parched at the lips now,
awake to the enormity of his forwardness. " I am
twelve," hi repeated.

" It is a cursed lie," said the Cornal hotly ; " you're
a hundred ; don't tell me ! "

He was actually a little afraid of those mani-
festations, so unusual and so rcmarlvable. Mis
excitement could with difficulty be concealed. Very
restlessly he moved about in his chair, and turned
his look from the General to the boy and back again,
but the General sat with his chin in his breast, his
mind a vacancy.

" Look at the General there ; you're fairly scun-
nering him with your notions," said the Cornal, " I
must speak to John about this. A soldier indeed !
You're not fit for it, lad ; you have only the makings
of a dominie. Sit you there, and we'll see what John
has to say about this when he comes in : it is going
on seven, and he'll be back from the dregy in time
for his supper."

Gilian sat trem.bling in his chair; the brothers
leaned back in thcifs and breathed heavily and said
no word, and never even stretched a hand to the
bottle of spirits. A solemn quiet again took pos-
session of the house, but for a door that slammed in
the lower flat, shaking the dwelling; the lulled
sound of women's conversation at the oven-grate
was utterly stilled. The pigeons came to the rill a

ff5

GILIAN THE DREAMER

|m|

moment, mourned and flew away ; the carts did not
rumble any more in the street ; the children's chorus
was altogether lost. A feeling came over the boy
that he had been here or somewhere like it before,
and he was fascinated, wondering what next would
happen. A tall old clock in the lobby, whose pen-
dulum swung so slowly that at first he had never
realis-^d its presence, at last took advantage of the
silence and swung itself into his notice with a tick —
tack. The silence seemed to thicken and press upon
his ears ; no striving after fancy could bring the boy
far enough oflf from that strange convention, and try as
he might to realise himself back in his familiar places
by the riverside at Ladyfield, the wings of his ima-
gining failed in their flight and he tumbled again into
that austere parlour sitting with two men utterly
beyond his comprehension.

There was, at last, one sound that gave a little
comfort, and checked the tears that had begun to
gather on the edges of his eyes. It came from
ihe direction of the kitchen ; it was a creaking of
the wooden stairs ; it was a faint shuffle of slippers
in "be lobby ; then there was a hush outside the
door deeper even than the stillness within. Gilian
knew, as if he could see through the brown panelling,
that a woman was standing out there listening with
her breath caught up and wondering at the quiet
within, yet afraid to open a door upon the
mystery. The brothers did not observe it ; all
this was too faint for their old ears, though
plainly heard by a child of the fields whose
ear against the grass could detect the marching of

COURT-MARTIAL

i not
lorus
: boy
efore,
kvould
pen-
never
of the
tick—
i upon
le boy
[ try as
places
is ima-
lin into
utterly

a little
:gun to
e from
ing of
ippers
de the"*
Gilian
nelling,
ig with
le quiet
)on tlie
it ; all
though
whose
hing of

■^

insects and the tunnelling of worms. But for that
he would have screamed — hut for the magic air of
friendship and sympathy that flowed to him through
chink and keyhole from the good heart loud-beating
outside; in that kind air of fond companionship
(even with a door between) there was comfort. In
a little the slippers sped back along the lobby, the
stair creaked, in the lovv'er flat a door slammed.
Gilian felt himself more deserted and friendless than
ever, and a few moments more would have found him
break upon the appalling still with sobs of cowardly
surrender, but the church bell rang. It was the first
time he had heard its evening clamour, that, however
far it might search up the glens, never reached Lad}'-
field, so deep among the hills, and he had no more
than recovered from the bewildering influence of its
unexpected alarm when the foot of the Paymaster
sounded heavily on the stair.

"You're here at last," said the Cornal, without
looking at him.

" I was a thought later than I intended," said the
Paymaster quickl}', putting his cane softly into a
corner. " I had a little encounter with that fellow
Turner and it put by the time."

"What— Jamie?"

" No ; Charlie."

" Man I I wonder at you, John," said the Corn::!
with a contempt in his utterance and a tightening of
the corner of his lips. " I wonder at you changing
words with him. What was it you were on ? "

The Paymaster explained shortly, guardedly,
because of Gilian's presence, and as he spoke the

GILIAN THE DREAMER

1 1

f' 'i

'I tr

l! iii

i I i

■ ■' i

purple of the Cornal's face turned to livid and the
scar became a sickly yellow. He rose and thumped
his f7st upon the table.

" That was his defiance, was it ? " he cried. " We
are the old sonlcss bachelors, are we, and the name's
dead with the last of us ? And you argued with him
about that I I would have put a hand on his cravat
and throttled him."

The Paymaster was abashed, but "Just consider,
Colin," he pleaded. " I am not so young as I was,
and a bonny-like thing it would be to throttle him
on the ground he gave."

v^^Old Mars!" cried the Cornal, with a sneer,
" Man ! but MacColl hit your character when he
made his song ; you were always well supplied by
luck with excuses for not fighting."

To the General the Paymaster turned with piteous
appeal. " Dugald," said he, " I'll leave it to you if
Colin's acting fairly. Did ever I disgrace the name
of Campbell, or Gael, or soger ? "

" I never said you did," cried the Cornal. " All I
said was that fate was a scurvy friend to you and
seldom put you face to face with your foe on any
clear issue. Perhaps I said too much ; I'm hot-
tempered, I know; never mind my taunt, John.
But you'll allow it's galling to have a beggarly up-
start like Turner throwing our bachelorhood in our
teeth. Now if we had sons, or a son, ore; of us, I'll
warrant we could bring him up with more credit
than Turner brings up his long-lugged Sandy, or
that randy lass of his."

^* Isn't that what I told him ? " said the Paymaster^

COURT-MARTIAL

instcr^

scooping a great heap of dust into his nostrils, and
feverishly rubbing down the front of his vest with a
large handkerchief. " I wish "

He stopped suddenly ; he looked hard at Gilian,
whose presence in the shadow of the big chair he
had seemingly forgotten ; seeing him gaze thus and
pause, the Cornai turned too and looked at the youth,
and the General shrugged himself into some interest
in the same object. Before the gaze of the three
brothers, the boy's skin burned ; his eyes dropped.

" This is a queer sallant you've brought us here,"
said the Cornai, nudging his brother and nodding
in Gilian's direction. *' I've seen some real diverts
in my time, but he beats ali. And you have a notion
to make a soger of him, they tell me. You heard
that yourself, didn't you, General ? "

The General made no reply, for he was looking at
the portrait of himself when he was thirty-live, and
to sit doing nothing in a house would have been
torture.

" I only said it in the b^^-going to Mary," explained
the Paymaster humbly. *' The nature for sogcring
is the gift of God, and the boy may have it or he
ma}'' not ; it is too soon to say."

" Tlicre's no more of the soger in bin: than there
is of the writer in me ! " cried the Cornai ; " but
there's something by-ordinar in him all the same.
It's your affair, John, but — " He stopped short and
looked again at Gilian and hummed and ha'd a
little and fingered his stock. " ]\Ian, do you know
I would not say but here's your son for you."

"That's what I thought myself," said the Pay-

■'.t

GII^IAN THE DREAMER

I 1

i ;

master, "and that's what I said. I'll make him a
soger if I can, and I'll make him hate the name of
Turner whether or not."

And all this time Gilian sat silently by, piecing
out those scraps of old men's passion with his child's
fancy. He found this new world into which he had
been dragged, noisy, perplexing, interested apparently
in the most vague trifles. That they should lay out
his future for warfare and for hate, without any
regard for his own wishes, was a little alarming.
Soldiering — with the man before him in the picture,
sitting propped up on his arms, frantic lest the horses
should trample en him — seemed the last trade on
earth ; as for hate^ that might be easier and due to
his benefactor, but it would depend very much on
the Turners.

When the brothers released him from their den,
and he went to Miss Mary, standing at the kitchen
door, eager for his company, with a flush on her
cheek and a bright new ribbon at her neck, he laid
those p)oints before her.

** Tuts ! " said she, pressing food on him — her
motherhood's only cure for all a child's complaints —
** they're only haverils. They cannot make a soger
of you against your will. As for the Turners — well,
they're no very likeable race, most of them in my mind.
A dour, soar, up-setting clan of no parentage. Perhaps
that does not much maiter, so long as people are
honest and well-doing ; we are all equals before God
except in head and heart, but there's something too
in our old Hielan' notion that the closest kith of the
King are ayr most kindly, because the hal. it is born

•

COURT-MARTIAL g

in them to be freehanded and unafraid. Am not I the
omseach to be sticking up for pedigrees ? Perhaps
It IS because our own is so good. Kiels Z.
three hundred years, and n,/grandfa^ ^^^0""

uiey say— and the Turners were onlvDortinn^r. „ ^
tenants as far back as we ken » P^^^'^^^^^ and

.aiv^rGit;rd;i::nredi'f's:;^^'----

. his^adn^ation of the enerJ^efL--

a >™;dtuiood:;!;.' " -'^ '•^^'^™^''' ^- --

( »

n i

CHAPTER VII

THE MAN ON THE QUAY

It has always happened that the first steps of a boy
from the glen have been to the quay. There the
ships lie clumsily on their bulging sides in the ebb
till the tar steams and blisters in the sun, or at the
full they lift and fall heavily like a sigh for the
ocean's expanse as they feel themselves prisoners to
the rings and pawls. Their chains jerk and ease upon
the granite edges of the wall or twang tight across
the quay so that the mariners and fishermen moving
about their business on this stone-thrust to the sea
must lift their clumping boots high to step across
those tethers of romance. At a full tide one walk-
ing down the quay has beside him the dark aspiring
bulwarks of the little but brave adventurers, their
seams gazing to the heat, their carvel timbers striped
by the ooze and brine of many oceans and the scum
of ports. Upon their poops their den-fire chimneys
breathe a faint blue reek ; the iron of bilge-pump
and pin is rust red ; the companions are portals to
smelling depths where the bunks are in a perpetual
gloom and the seamen lie at night or in the heat of
the day discontent with this period of no roaming

THE MAN ON THE QUAY

•mg

nuns

and remembering the tumbling waters and the far-
oflf harbours that must ever be more alluring than
the harbours where we be. From the ivy of the
church the little birds come chafTcring and twittering
among the shrouds, and the pigeon will perch upon
a spar, so that the sea-gull, the far-searcher, must
wonder as he passes on a slant of silent feathers at
its daring thus to utilise the dcficr of the outermost
seas and the most vehement storms. And side by
side with these, the adventurers, are the skiffs and
smacks of the fishermen, drilled in rows, brought
bow up, taut on their anchors with their lug-sails down
on their masts to make deck tents for shelter from
sun or rain. With those sturdy black gabbarts and
barques and those bronze fishers, the bay from the
quay to the walls of the Duke's garden, in its season,
stirs with life.

More than once when he had come to the town
Gilian looked a little way off from the Cross upon
this busy concourse in the bay and wished that he
might venture on the quay, but the throng of tall,
dark-shirted fishermen and seafarers frightened him
so that he must stand "^oof guessing at the nearer
interest of the spectacle. Now that he was a town
boy with whole days in which to muster courage, he
spurred himself up to walk upon the quay at the
first opportunity. It was the afternoon, the tide
lapped high upon the slips and stairs, a heaving lazy
roll of water so clear that the star-fish on the sandy
bottom might plainly be seen through great depths.
The gunnies of the ships o'ertopped by many feet
t.hc quay-wall and their chains rose slanting, tight

■Hi!

GILIAN THE DREAMER

\\ul

from the rings. The fishermen and their boats
were far down on Cowal after signs of herring ; the
bay was given up to barque and gabbart alone. For
once a slumber seemed to lie upon the place for
ordinary so throng and cheerful ; the quay was
Gilian's alone as he stepped wonderingly upon it
and turned an eye to the square ports open for an
airing to the dens. In all the company of the ships
thus swaying at the quay-side there was no sign of
life beyond the smoke that rose from the stunted
funnels. The boy's fancy played among the masts
like the birds from the ivy. These were the galleys of
Inishtore, that rode upon the seven seas for a king's
son with a hauberk of gold. The spicy isles, the
silver sands, the songs the gratigach sang below the
prows when the sea dashed — they came all into his
vision of those little tarred hulks of commerce. He
thought how fine it would be to set foot upon those
decks and loose the fastenings, and drop down the
sea-slope of the shepherds' stories till he came upon
Ibrisail, happy isle of play and laughter, where the
sun never drops below the ocean's marge.

In one of the vessels behind him, as he mused, a
seaman noiselessly thrust his head out at a companion
to look the hour upon the town's clock, and the boy,
pale, fair-haired, pondering, with eyes upon the
shrouds of a gabbart, forced himself by his stillness
and inaction upon the man's notice. He was a little,
stout, well-built man, with a face tanned by sun-
shine and salt air to the semblance of Spanish
mahogany, with wide and searching eyes and long
curled hair of the deepest black. His dress was

THE MAN ON THE QUAV

, a
iion

py.

ithe

singularly pcrjink, cut trim and tight from a blue
cloth, the collar of a red shirt rolled over on the
bosom, a pair of simple gold rings pierced the ears.
As he looked at the boy, he was humming very softly
to himself a Skye song, and he stopped in the midst
of it with " So *iUc, have you lost your ship ? " A
playful scamp was revealed in his smile.

Gilian turned rt)und with a start of alarm, for he had
been on some coracle of fancy, sailing upon magic
seas, and thus to break upon his reverie with the
high Gaelic of Skye was to plunge him in chilling
waters.

*^ T/iig an so — come here," said the seaman,
beckoning, setting an easy foot upon the deck.

Gilian went slowly forward. He was amazed and
fascinated by this wondrous seaman come upon the
stillness of the harbour without warning, a traveller
so important yet so affable in his invitation. Black
Duncan that day was in a good humour, for his
owners h^.d released him at last from his weeks of
tethering to the quay and t^is dull town and he was
to depart to-morrow with his cargo of timber. In
a little he had Gilian's history, and they were
comrades. He took him round the deck and showed
its simple furniture, then in the den he told him
mariners' tales of the sea.

A Carron stove burned in the cabin, dimly, yet
enough to throw at times a flicker of light upon the
black beams overhead, the vessel's ribs, the bunks
that hung upon them. Sitting on a sea-chest,
Gilian felt the floor lift and fall below him, a steady
motion wholly new, j'et confirming every guess he

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23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N . M580

(716) 872-4503

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

had made in dreams of life upon the wave. A
ceaseless sound of water came through the wood,
of the tide glucking along the bows, surely to
the mariner the sweetest of all sounds when he
lies in benign weather moving home upon the sigh
of God.

Black Duncan but wanted a good listener. He
was not quite the world's traveller he would have
Gilian believe ; but he had voyaged in many out-
landish parts and a Skyc.nan's memory is long and
his is the isle where fancy riots. He made his
simple ventures round the coast voyages terrible
and unending. The ^ays, the water-mouths, the
rocks, the bosky isl(,s — he clothed them with de-
lights, and made them float in the haze wherein a
boy untravelled would envelop them.

"There's a story I know," said Gilian, "of a
young son who went to a town where the king of
Erin bides^ and he found it full of music from end to
end, every street humming with song."

"Oh, lad, I have been there," said the seaman,
unabashed, his teeth very white in the brown of his
smiling face. " You sail and sail in winds and drift
in calms, and there is a place called Erin's Eye and
a mountain rock behind it, and then you come upon
the town of the king's dauj;hter. It is a town reeling
with music ; some people without the ears would
miss it, you and Black Duncan would be jigging to
the sound of it. The world, '///(? (and here's the
sailorman who has sailed the seven ncas and knows
its worst and best), is a very grand place to such as
understand and allow. I was born with a caul as

THE MAN ON THE QUAY

we say ; I know that I'll never drown, so that when
uiiids crack I feci safe in the most staggering ship.
I have gore into foreign ports in the dead of night,
our hail for light but answered by Sir Echo, and we
would be waiting for light, with the smell of flowers
and trees about us, and "

" That would be worth sailing for," said Gilian,
looking hard at the embers in the Carron stove.

" Or the beast of the wood might come roaring
and bellowing to the shore."

"That would be very frightsome," said Gilian
with a shiver. " I have made believe the hum of
the bee in the heather at my ear as I lay on it in
the summer was the roar of the wild beast a long
way off; it was uncanny and I could make myself
afraid of it, but when I liked it was the bee again
and the heather was no higher than my knee."

The seaman laughed till the den rang. He poked
the fire and the flame thrust out and made the boy
and the man and the timbers and bunks dance and
shake in the world between light and shadow.
" You arc the sharpest boy ever I conversed with,"
said he.

A run of the merriest, the sv.'ectest, the most
unconstrained laughter broke overhead like a bird's
song. They looked up and found the square of
blue sky broken at the hatch by a girl's head. A
roguish face in a toss of brown hair, seen thus
above them against the sky, seemed to Gilian the
face of one of the fairies with which he had peopled
the seaman's isle.

*' There yoii go ! " cried Black Duncan, noway

GILIAN THE DREAMER

astonished. " Did I not tell you never to come on
board without halloo ? "

" I cried," said the girl in a most pretty English
that sounded all the sweeter beside the seaman's
broken and harsh accent in a language foreign to
him. "I cried *0 Duncan' twice and you never
heard, so I knew you were asleep in your dingy old
den." She swung herself down as she spoke and
stood at the foot of the companion with the laugh
renewed upon her lips, a gush of happy heart.

" Indeed, Miss Nan, and I was not sleeping at all,"
said Black Duncan, standing up and facing her; "if
I was sleeping would there be a boy with me here
listening to the stories of the times when I was
scouring the oceans and not between here and the
Clyde in your father's vessel ? "

" Oh I a boy I " cried the girl, taken a little aback.
" I did not know there was a boy."

"And a glen boy, too," said the seaman, speaking
in a language wherein he knew himself more the
equal of his master's daughter. " I told him of
Erin O and the music in its streets, and he does not
make fun of my telling like you, Miss Nan, because
he understands."

The girl peered into the dark of the cabin at the
face of Cilian that seemed unwontedly long and
pallid in the half light, with eyes burning in
sepulchral pits, repeating the flash of the embers.
She was about his own age — at most no more than
a month or two younger, but with a glance bold and
assured that spoke of an early maturity.

"Ohl a Glen Aray boy," said she. "I never

THE MAN ON THE QUAY 97

ish
in's
i to
iver
old
and
lugh

all,"

; "if

here

was

id the

iback.

laking

-e the

lim of

les not

xause

never

much care for them. You would be telling him
some of the tales there is no word of truth in."

" The finest tales in the world are like that," said
Black Duncan.

She sat on the edge of a bunk and swung a little
drab jean shoe.

The glamour of Black Duncan's stories fled for
Gilian before this presence like mist before a morn-
ing wind. So healthy, so ruddy, so abrupt, she
was so much in the actual world that for him to be
dreaming of others seemed a child's weakness.

" I was in the town with uncle," she said, " and I
heard you were sailing away to-morrow, and I
thought I would come and say good-bye."

She spoke as prettily in her Gaelic as in her
English.

"Ah, mo run" said the seaman, putting out his
arms as to embrace her, " am not I pleased that you
should have Black Duncan in your mind so much as
to come and say * fair wind to your sail ' ? "

" And you'll bring me the beads next time ? " she
said hastily.

" That will I," said he, smiling ; " but you must
sing me a song now or I might forget them."

" Oh, I'll sing if ." She paused and looked

doubtfully at Gilian, who was still open-mouthed at
her breezy vehemence.

" Never mind the boy," said the seaman, stretch-
ing himself to enjoy the music at his ease ; " if you
make it * The Rover ' he will understand."

The afternoon was speeding. The sun had
passed the trees that round the Tolbooth walls and

» ,

GILIAN THE DREAMER

a beam from his majesty came boldly into the den
by the companion. It struck a slanting passage on
the floor and revealed the figure of a girl at her ease
dangling her feet upon a water anker with her hair
a flood of spate-brown fallen back upon its fastening
band. And the boy saw her again as it were quite
differently from before, still the robust woman-child,
but rich, ripe, blooded at the plump inviting lip,
warm at the throbbing neck. About her hung a
searching odour that overcame the common and
vulgar odours of the ship, its bilge, its tar, its oak-
bark tan, its herring scale, an odour he knew of
woods in the wet spring weather. It made him
think of short grasses and the dcwdrop glittering in
the wet leaf; then the sky shone blue against a
tremble of airy leaf. The birch, the birch, he had
it ! And having it he knew the secret of the odour.
She had already the woman's trick of washing her
hair in the young birch brewings.

" I will sing * The Rover ' and I will sing * The
Man with the Coat of Green,'" said she, with the
generosity of one with many gifts. And she started
upon her ditty. She had a voice that as yet was
only in its making ; it was but a promise of the
future splendour, yet to Gilian, the hearer, it brought
a new and potent joy. With * The Rover,' he lived
in the woods, and set foot upon foreign wharves ;
' The Man \vith the Coat of Green ' had his company
upon the morning adventures in the islands of
fairydom. It was then, as in after years she was
the woman serious, when her own songs moved her,
with her dalliance and indifference gone. A tear

THE MAN ON THE QUAY 99

trembled at her eyes at the trials of the folk sLc
sang.

" You sing — you sing — you sing like the wind in
the trees," said the seaman, stirred to unaccustomed
passion. The little cabin, when she was done,
seemed to shrink from the limitless width of the
world to the narrowness of a cell, and Gilian sat
stunned. He had followed her song in a rapture
she had seen and delighted in for all the apparent
surrender of her emotion ; she saw now the depth
to which she had touched him, and was greatly
pleased with this conquest of her art. Clearly he
was no common Glen Aray boy, so she sang one or
two more songs to show the variety of her budget,
and the tears he could not restrain were her sweetest
triumph. At last, "I must be going/' said she.
" Good-bye, Duncan, and do not be forgetting my
beads." Then she dashed or: deck, waiting no
answer to that or to the friendly nod of parting to
Gilian.

" Now isn't she a wonder ? " asked the seaman,
amused, astonished, proud. "Did you ever hear
singing like it ? "

" I never did," said Gilian.

" Ah, she is almost as fine as a piper ! " said the
seaman. " She comes down here every time I am
at the quay and she will be singing here till the
timbers strain themselves to listen."

•' 1 like her very much," said Gilian.

" Of course you do," the seaman cried, with a
thump of his hard hand on the edge of his bunk,
" and would it not be very curious indeed if you did

100

GILIAN THE DREAMER

' 1

not like her ? I have heard women sing in many
places — bold ones in Amsterdam, and the shy
dancers of Bermuda, but never her equal, and she
only a child. How she does it is the beat of me."

" I know," said Gilian, reddening a little to say so
much to the seaman, but emboldened by the shadows
he sat among. ** The birds sing that way and the
winds and the tide, because they have the feeling of
it and they must. And when she sings she is * The
Rover,' or she is ' The Man with the Green Coat.' "

"Indeed, and it is very easy too when you
explain," said the seaman, whether in earnest or in
fun the boy could not make out. " She is the strange
one anyway, and they say General Turner, who's
her father and the man this ship belongs to, is not
knowing very well what to make of her. What is
the matter with you?" For the boy's face was
crimson as he looked up the quay after the girl from
the deck where now they stood.

" Oh," said Gilian, " I was just wondering if that
would be the family the Paymaster is not friendly
with."

The seaman laughed. " That same I " said he.
*' And are you in the family feud too ? If that is so
you'll hear little of Miss Nan's songs, I'm thinking,
and that is the folly of feuds. If I was you I would
say nothing about the Jean, and the lass who sang
in her."

CHAPTER VIII

THE SHERIFFS SUPPER PARTY

But Gilian was soon to hear the lass again.

It was a great town for supper parties. To make
up, as it were, for the lost pedt-side parliaments or
supper nights that for their fore-folk made tolerable
the quiet glens, the town people had many occasions
of social intercourse in each other's homes, where
the winter nights, that otherwise had been long and
dreary, passed in harmless gaiety. The women
would put on their green Josephs and gaudiest quilted
petticoats or their tabinet gowns of Waterloo whose
splendour kirk or market poorly revealed for the
shawls that must cover them. The men donned
their best figured waistcoats and their newest stocks,
and cursed the fashions that took them from their
pipes and cards, but solaced themselves mightily
with the bottle in the host's bedroom. From those
friendly convocations, jealousies innumerable bred.
It was not only that each other's gowns raised un-
christian thoughts in the bosoms of the women, but
in a community where each knew her neighbour and
many were on equality, there must be selections, and
rancour rose. And it was the true Highland rancour,

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102

GILIAN THE DREAMER

concealing itself under a front of indifference and
even politeness, though the latter might be ice-cold
in degree but burning fiercely at the core.

A few days after Gilian came to town Miss Mary
and her brothers were submitted to a slight there
could be no mistaking. It came from the wife of
the Sheriff, who was a half-sister of the Turners.
The Sheriff's servant had come up to the shop below
the Paymaster's house early in the forenoon for
candles, and Miss Mary chanced to be in the shop
when this purchase was made. It could signify
nothing but festivity, for even in the Sheriff's the
home-made candle was good enough for all but
festive nights.

Miss Mary went upstairs disturbed, curious,
annoyed. She had got no invitation to the Sheriff's,
and yet here was the hint of some convivial gathering
such as she and her brothers had hitherto always
been welcome to.

" What do you think it will be, John ? " she asked
the Paymaster, telling him what she had seen.

" Tuts," said he, " they'll just be out of dips. Or
maybe the Sheriff has an extra hard case at aviz-
andum, not to be seen clearly through with a common
creesh flame."

" That's aye you," cried Miss Mary, indignant.
** People might slap you in the face and you would
have no interest."

She hastened to Peggy in the kitchen and Peggy
shared her wonder, though she was not permitted to
see her annoyance. A plan was devised to find out
what this extravagance of candle might portend. '

THE SHERIFF'S SUPPER PARTY 103

The maid took her water-stoups and went up to
the Cross Well, where women were busy at that
hour of the day plying for the water of Bealloch-an-
uarain, that bubbles up deep in the heart of the hills,
and brings the coolness and refreshment of the
shady wood into the burgh street in the most
intense days of summer warmth. She filled her
stoups composedly, set them down and gossiped,
upset them as by accident, and waited patiently her
turn to fill them anew. Thus by twenty minutes'
skilful loitering she secured from the baxter's
daughter the news that there was a supper at the
Sheriff's that very night, and that very large tarts
were at the firing in the baxter's oven.

" Oh, indeed I " cried Miss Mary, when her
emissary brought to her those tidings. "Then it
seems the Campbells of Keil are not good enough
company for Sheriff Maclachlan's supper parties !
My brother the Comal, and my brother the Major-
General, would have their own idea about that if so
small a trifle as Madam's tart supper and green tea
was worth their notice or annoyance."

She was visibly disturbed, yet put on a certain
air of indifference that scarcely deceived even Peggy.
The worst of it was there was no one with whom
she could share her annoyance, for, if the Paymaster
had no sympathy, the other two brothers were
unapproachable. Gilian found her in a little rain of
tears. She started with shame at his discovery,
and set herself to a noisy handling of dinner dishes
that by this time he knew well enough were not in
her daily office of industry. And she said never a

104

GILIAN THE DREAMER

;

I .

word — she that never heard his foot upon the stair
without a smile of pleasure, or saw his face at the
door without a mother's challenge to his appetite.

" What is wrong, aunty ? " he said in the Gaelic,
using the term it had been agreed would best suit
the new relationship.

" Just nothing at all, my dear," she said without
looking round. " What would be wrong ? "

** But you are crying," protested Gilian, alarmed
lest he in some way should have been the cause of
her distress.

" Am I ? " said Miss Mary. " And if I am, it is
just for a silly thing only a woman would mind, a
slight from people not worth heeding." And then
she told, still shamefacedly, her story.

Gilian was amazed.

"I did not think yoi cared for suppers and
teas," he said. "The last time you went to the
Sheriff's you said you would far sooner be at home,
and "

" Did I ? " said she. Then she smiled to find
some one who knew it was not the outing she
immediately prized. " Indeed, what you say is true,
Gilian. I'm an old done dame, and it was wiser for
the like of me to be sitting knitting at the fire than
going on diverts to their bohea parties and clashing
supper tables. But it's not myself I'm angry for.
Oh, no I they might leave me alone for ever and a
day and I would care not a pin-head, but it's Dugald
I'm thinking of — a Major-General — one of the
only three in the shire, and Colin — a Comal — and
both of Keils. The Sheriffs lady might leave me

THE SHERIFF'S SUPPER PARTY 105

out of her routs if she pleasured it, but she has no
cause to put my brothers to an insult like this."
She said " my brothers " with a high hard sound of
stern and proud possession that was very fine to
hear. Even Gilian, as yet only beginning to know
the love and pride of this little woman, had, at her
accent, a sudden deep revealing of her devoted
heart.

"It is the Turners' doing," she said, feverishly
rubbing a warming pan whose carved lid from
Zaandam blinked and gleamed like the shining face
of a Dutch skipper over his dram. " I know them ;
because my brother must be quarrelling with the t,
their half-sister must be taking up the quarrel and
shutting her door in our faces."

" The 1 luners I Then I hate them too," cried
Gilian, won to the Paymaster's side by the sorrow
of Miss Mary.

" Oh, you must not say that, my dear," she cried,
appalled. " It is not your affair at all, and the
Turners are not to blame because the Sheriff is
under the thumb of his madam. The Turners
have their good points as well as the rest of us,
and "

"They have a daughter," said Gilian, almost
unconsciously, for there had come flooding into his
mind a vision of the sombre vessel's cabin, shot over
by a ray of sunshine, wherein a fairy sang of love
and wandering. And then he regretted he had
spoke of hate for any of her name, for surely (he
thought) there should be no hate in the world for
any that had her blood and shared her home.

ill I

' i

III

t •

1 06

GILIAN THE DREAMER

Surely in her people, knowing her so warm, so
lovely, so kind, so gifted, there could be no cruelty
and wrong.

" I would not say I hated any one if I were you,
my dear," said Miss Mary ; " but I would keep a
cool side to the Turners, father, or daughter, or son.
Their daughter that you speak of was the cause of
this new quarrel. The Captain miscalled her to her
father, which was not right, for indeed she's a bonny
lasE'e, and they tell me she sings "

" Like the mavis," cried Gilian, still in his Gaelic
and in a transport of recollection.

" Where did you hear her ? " asked Miss Mary.

Gilian, flushed and uneasy, told her of the per-
formance in the ship. Finding a listener neither
inattentive nor without sympathy, he went further
still and told of the song's effect upon him, and that
the sweetness of it still abiding made his hatred of
her people impossible.

" She'll do for looks too," said Miss Mary. " She
takes them with her singing from her mother,
who was my dear companion before this trouble
rose."

" Oh ! she looks like — like — like the gniagach girl
in the story," said Gilian, remembering the talc of
the sea-maiden who sat on the shore and dressed
her hair with a comb of gold.

" I hope ::he's not so uncanny," said Miss Mary
with a laugh, " for the gntagach combed till a sweet-
heart came (that I should be talking of such daft-
like things !), and he was drowned and that was the
end of him."

THE SHERIFF'S SUPPER PARTY 107

"Still — still," said Gilian, "the gniagach was
worth the drowning for."

Miss Mary looked at him with a sigh for a spirit
so much to be envied.

" This may be but a chapter in a very old tale,"
said she. "It was with a lass the feud came in."
A saying full of mystery to the boy. Then she
changed the conversation back to her own affairs.
" We'll take a walk out in the gloaming and see all
the Sheriff's friends," said she, " and all the Sheriff's
friends in this supper are Turner's friends and the
Paymaster's enemies."

The night of the Sheriff's supper party came with
heavy showers and a sky swept by clouds that let
through glimpse of moon nor star. The town lay in
pitch darkness, all silent except for the plash of the
sea upon the shore or its long roll on the Ramparts.
A deserted and wind-swept street, its white walls
streaming with waters, its outer shutters on the
ground flats barred to darkness, its gutters running
over — it was the last night on which any one with
finery and a notion for comfort would choose for
going abroad to parties. Miss Mary, sitting high at
her parlour window with Gilian, looked out through
the blurred pane with satisfaction upon all this
inclemency.

" Faith," said she, " I wish them joy of their party
whoever they be that shrre it I " Then all at once
her mood changed to one of pity as the solitary
street showed a moving light upon its footway.
" Oh I " jhe cried. " There's Doracha Breck's
lantern and his wife will be with him. P d to-day

■I *

a 1

♦

io8

GILIAN THE DREAMER

she was at me for my jelly for a cold I I wish — I
wish she was not over the door this night ; it will
be the death of her. To-morrow I must send her
over the last of my Ladyfield honey."

From the window and in the darkness of the
night, it was impossible to tell who were for the
Sheriff's party, so Miss Mary in the excess of her
curiosity must be out after a time and into the
dripping darkness, with Gilian by her side for
companionship. It was an adventure altogether to
his liking. As he walked up and down the street
on its darker side he could think upon the things
that were happening behind the drawn blinds and
bolted shutters. It was as if he was the single
tenant of a sleeping star and guessing at the mys-
teries of a universe. Stories were happening behind
the walls, fires were glimmering, suppers were set,
each family for the time being was in a world of its
own, split off from its neighbours by the darkness.

A few shops lay open, throwing faint radiance on
the footpath that swam in water.

Miss Mary went to the window of two sisters
who made caps on the Lady Charlotte model and
mantuas inspired by a visit to Edinburgh five years
ago. She scanned the contents of the window
carefully.

" It's gone ; I knew it would be gone," she said
in a whisper to Gilian, withdrawing hastily from the
revelation of the window as a footstep sounded a
little way down the street.

He awaited her explanation, not greatly interested,
for the blank expanse of the moaning sea round the

THE SHERIFF'S SUPPER PARTY 109

corner of a tall tenement filled him with new and
moving emotions.

"There has been a cap there for a week with
lilac trimmings for Rixa's sister, and now it has
gone. It was there this morning, and I saw her
lassie going by with a bandbox in the middle of the
day. That's two pair at least for the Sheriffs
party."

"Would it not be easier to-morrow to ask some
one who were all there ? " said Gilian.

She shook his arm with startled affright.

" Ask I ask I " she exclaimed. " If you dared let
on to any one we even heard there was a party, I
would — I would — be terribly vexed. No, Gilian, we
must hold our heads a bit higher than that."

She passed with the boy from tenement to
tenement.

" Major Hall and his sister are there," she said,
showing darkened windows. " And the Camerons
and the Frasers," she added later, informed by the
same signs of absence.

Out came the late merchants and shuttered their
little windows and bolted up their doors, then re-
treated to their homes behind. More dark than ever
became the world, though the rain had ceased. Only
a few windows shone wanly in the upper flats and
garrets. The wind moaning in the through-going
closes expressed a sense of desolation.

And yet the tdwn was not all asleep but for the
Sheriff's party and Miss Mary and the Paymaster's
boy, for there came from the Abercrombie, though
the door was shut discreetly, a muffled sound of

M '!

GILIAN THE DREAMER

;i^

carousal. It was not, this time, the old half-pay
officers but a lower plane of the burgh's manhood, the
salvage and the wreckage of the wars, privatemen
and sergeants, by a period of strife and travel made
in some degree unfit for the tame ways of peace in a
stagnant burgh. They told the old tales of the bi-
vouac ; they sang its naughty or swaggering songs.
By a plain deal door and some glasses of spirit they
removed themselves from the dull town drowsing in
the night, and in the light of the Sergeant More's
cruisie moved again in the sacked towns of Ciudad
Rodrigo, Badajos and San Sebastian, gorged anew,
perhaps, with blood and lust.

Miss Mary and Gilian passed the door of the Ser-
geant More hurriedly, she deaf to its carousal, he
remembering all at once and finding wake anew his
first feelings when he stood in the same room before
the half-pay officers at their midday drams. He had
become a little tired of this quest all to gratify an old
maid's curiosity, he wished he could be home again
and in his attic room with his candle and his story
book, or his abundant and lively thoughts. But
there was one other task before Miss Mary. She
could not forbear so little as a glance at the exterior
of the Sherifi"'s dwelling where the enemies of her
home (as so she now must fancy them) were trying
to be happy without the company of the Campbells of
Keils. When they were in front of it every window
shone across the grass-plot, some of them open so
that the sound of gaiety came clearly to the woman
and the boy. Miss Mary stood woebegone, suffused
in tears.

,!;

THE SHERIFF'S SUPPER PARTY iii

"And there are my dear brothers at home yonder,
their Icc-lone, silent, sitting in a parlour 1 Oh 1 it
is shameful, it is shameful! And all for a hasty
word about a lass ! "

Gilian before this curious sorrow was dumb.
Silently he tried to lead the little lady away from the
plaje, but she would not go, and would not be com-
forted. Then there came from the open windows
the beginning of a song. At the first note Gilian
thrilled in every nerve.

" Fancy that now I " said Miss Mary, checking
her tears. " No more than , a wean and here she
must be singing at supper parties as brave as the
mother before her. It's a scandal ! And it shows
the bitterness of the quarrel to have her here, for
she was never here at supper before."

" But is she not fine ? " said Gilian, with a passion
in his utterance.

Nan it was, singing a Scots song, a song of sad
and familiar mood, a song of old loves, old summers,
and into the darkness it came with a sweetness
almost magic.

" Is she not fine ?" he said again, clutching with
eager hands at the rail and leaning over as far as he
could to lose no single note of that alluring melody.

" Oh, the dear ! the dear ! " sobbed Miss Mary,
moved to her inmost by the strain. " When I heard
her first I thouG:ht it was her mother, and that too
was her favourite song ! Oh, the dear ! the dear I
and I to be the sinful woman here on any quarrel
for her!"

The song ceased, a window noisily closed, and

112

GILIAN THE DREAMER

i I 'I

Gilian fell back with a shock upon a wet world with
roads full of mire and a salt wind from the sea moan-
ing in the trees behind the town.

" What — what — what are we here for ? " said he,
beholding for the first time the impropriety of this
eavesdropping on the part of so genteel and sensitive
a dame.

She blushed in the dark with the shame the query
roused. She had thought him too young to under-
stand the outrage this must be on her every sense
of Highland decency, and yet he could reprove her
in a single sentence I

" You may well ask," she said, moving away from
that alluring house-front with its inmates so in-
different to the passions in the dark without. And
her sobs were not yet finished. " Because I prize
my brothers," said she, "and grieve at any slight
upon them, must I be spy upon my dead companion's
child ? " She hurried her pace away from that house
whose windows stared in a dumb censure upon her
humiliation. Gilian trudged reluctantly at her side,
confounded, but she seemed almost unconscious that
he v;as there, till he tugged with a shy sympathy at
her gown. Then she looked and beamed upon him
with the mother-face.

" Do you like that girl ? " said she.

" I like her — when she sings," said he.

" Oh ! it was always that," she went on helplessly.
" My poor brothers 1 They were not to blame, and
she was not to blame, at least, not very much per-
haps ; if blame there was, it lay with the providence
that brought them together." Then she stopped a

THE SHERIFF'S SUPPER PARTY 113

moment with a pitiful exclamation : " Oh I I was
the instrument of providence in their case ; but for
me, that loved them all, it might never have been.
What am I doing here with you ? She may have
her mother's nature as well as her mother's songs."

For once Gilian found himself with many pieces
of a tale he could not put together, for all his
ingenuity. He said nothing, but fumbled in many
trials at the pieces as he and the little lady walked
up the street, now deserted but for themselves and
a man's footsteps sounding on the flags. The man
was on them before Miss Mary realised his coming.
It was Mr. Spencer of the New Inn. He stopped
with a salutation, coming upon them, as it happened,
in the light of the oil-lamp at the Cross Well, and a
discreet surprise was in his visage.

" It is an inclement evening. Miss Campbell," he
said, in a shrill high dainty accent that made him
seem a foreigner when in converse among the
guttural Highland burghers.

She answered in some confusion, and by this
time he had found a reason for her late hour abroad
in the wet deserted street.

" You have left the Sheriffs early to-night," said
he. " I was asked, but I find myself something of
the awkward stranger from the big world when I
come into the kind and homely gatherings of the
clans here."

" I think we are not altogether out of the big world
you speak of," said Miss Mary, in a chilly tone.
"The mantua-maker tells me the latest fashions are
here from London sooner than they are in Edin-

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114

GILIAN THE DREAMER

burgh." She saw in his face the innkeeper's
apology for his common sin against the Gaelic
vanity. " We were just out for an airing," she
added, taking Gilian's hand in hers and squeezing
it with meaning.

"I thought, ma'am, you were at the Sheriff's,"
said Mr. Spencer.

" Oh 1 there is a party in the Sheriff's, is there ? "
she said. " That is very nice ; they have a hospit-
able house and many friends. I must hurry home
to my brothers, who, like all old gentlemen, are a
little troublesome and care neither to move out at
night, nor to let me leave them to go out myself."

She smiled up in his face with just a hint of a
little coquette that died in her twenty years before.
She said " Good-night," and then she was gone.

Mr. Spencer's footsteps sounded more slowly on
the flagstone as he resumed his accustomed evening
walk, in which for once his mind was not on London
town, and old friencs there, but upon the odd thing
that while this old maid had smiled upon him, there
was a tear very plain upon her cheek.

i '

CHAPTER IX

ACADEMIA

In the fulness of time, Gilian attained to the highest
class in old Brooks' school, pushed up thereto by
no honest application of his own, but by the luck
that attends on such as have God's gift to begin
with. And now that he was among the children of
the town he found them lovable, but yet no more
lovable than the children of the glen. The magic he
had fancied theirs as he surveyed them from a
distance, the fascination they had before, even when
they had mocked with cries of " Crotal-coat, Crotal-
coat," did not very bravely stand a close trial. He
was not dismayed at this ; he did as we must all be
doing through life and changed one illusion for
another. It is a wonderful rich world for dreams^
and he had a different one every day, as he sat in
the peaty odour of instruction.

Old Brooks would perch high on his three-legged
stool conning over some exercise while his scholars
in their rows behind the knife-hewn inky desks
hummed like bees upon their tasks. The horn-
books of the little ones at the bottom of the room
would sometimes fall from their hands in the languor

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ii6

GILIAN THE DREAMER

I *

1? !

of that stagnant atmosphere, but the boys of the
upper forms were ever awake for mischief. To the
teaching of the Dominie they would come with
pockets full of playthings, sometimes animals from
the woods and fields about the town — frogs, moles,
hedgehogs, or fledgeling birds. Brooks rarely sus-
pected the presence of these distractions in his
sacred grove, for he was dull of vision and pre-
ferred to see his scholars about him in a vague
mist rather than wear in their presence the great
horn spectacles that were privy to his room in
Crombie's Land. The town's clock staring frankly
in at the school windows conveyed to him no know-
ledge of the passing enemy, and, as his watch had
been for a generation but a bulge upon his vest, he
must wait till the hour struck ere he knew it was
meridian and time to cross the playground and into
Kate Bell's for his glass of waters. " Silence till I
return I " he would say, whipping on his better coat
and making for the door that had no sooner shut on
him than tumult reigned.

On his way back from the tavern he would meet,
perhaps, the Paymaster making for the house of the
Sergeant More. " I cannot understood," would the
Paymaster say, " what makes you take your drams
in so common a civilian house as that. A man and
a soldier keeps the Abercrombie, a fellow who
fought for his country. And look at the company I
MacNicol and Major Hall — and — and — myself, and
some of the best in the burgh ; yet you must be fre-
quenting a low tavern with only merchants and
mechanics and fisherman to say * Good health ' to."

ACADEMIA

Master Brooks had always his answer very pat.

" I get a great abundance of old war tales in my
books," he would say drily. "And told with a
greater ingenuity — not to mention veracity — than
pertain to the legends and histories of you old
campaigners. Between ourselves, I'ni not for war at
all, but for the far finer and more whuiosome rarity
called peace. Captain, Captain ! " (and here would
he grasp the Paymaster by the coat lapels with the
friendly freedom of an old acquaintance,) " Captain,
Captain ! it is not a world for war though we are the
fools to be fancying so, but a world for good-fellow-
ship, so short the period we have of it, so wonderful
the mind of them about us, so kind with all their
faults ! I find more of the natural human in the
back room of Kate's there where the merchants dis-
course upon their bales and accompts than I would
among your half-pay gentry who would have the
country knee-deep in blood every day in the calendar
if they had their way of it."

" It's aye the old story with you," the Paymaster
would say tolerantly. " You cannot see that if this
country has not its wars and rumours of wars, its
marchings-oflf and weedings-out, it would die of a
rot. I hope you are not putting too many notions
of that clerkly kind in the boy's head. Eh ? I would
be vexed to have my plans for him spoiled and a
possible good soldier turned into a swindling
writer."

"The boy's made. Captain Campbell," said the
schoolmaster one day at this. " He was made and
his end appointed ere ever he came to your house

■I 'i

ii8

GILIAN THE DREAMER

or felt my fcrulc-cnd. He is of the dream nature
and he will be what he will be. I can no more
fashion him to the common standard than I can
make the fir-tree like unto the juniper. I've had
many a curious student yonder, wild and tame,
dunce and genius, but this one baffles me. He was
a while up in the glen school, they tell me, and
he learned there such rudiments as he has, but
what he knows best was never learned anywhere
but as the tinkler learns — by the roadside and in
the wood."

" I know he's a droll one," said the Paymaster,

uneasily, with a thoughtful brow, " but you have the
reputation, Mr. Brooks, you have turned out lads
who were a credit to you. If it is not in him, thwack
it in with your tawse."

The Dominie flushed a little. He never cared to
have the tawse mentioned; it was an ally he felt
ashamed of in his fight with ignorance and he used
it rarely, though custom and the natural perverse-
ness of youth made its presence necessary in his
desk.

** Captain Campbell," said he, " it is not the tawse
that ever put wisdom into a head like yon. The
boy is unco, the boy is a lustis naiurcc, that is all ;
as sharp as a needle when his interest is aroused, as
absent as an idiot when it is not, and then no tawse
or ferule will avail."

And while the Paymaster and the Dominie were
thus discussing Gilian, the school would be in a
tumult whereof he was sometimes the leader. To
him the restraints were galling shackles. When the

ACADEMIA

119

classes woulil be luimming in the drowsy afternoon
and tlic sharp high voice of old Brooks rose above
the murmur as he taught some little class in the
upper corner, the boy would be gazing with vacant
eyes at the whitewashed wall in front of him, or
looking out at the beech branches that tapped in
faint breezes at the back windows, or listening with
an ecstatic ear to the crisp contact of stone and
scythe as the mowers in the fields behind put a new
edge on their instruments. Oh ! the outer world
was ever the wc:' ' )f charm for him, winter or
summer, as he sat j that constrained and humming
school. That sound of scythes a-sharping was more
pleasing to his ear than the poetry Mr. Brooks
imposed upon his scholars, showing, himself, how
to read it with a fierce high limping accent as
if it were a thing offensive. When hail or rain
rattled on the branches, when snow in great flakes
settled down or droves of cattle for distant markets
went bellowing through the street, it was with
difficulty the boy kept himself to his seat and did not
rise and run out where his fancy so peremptorily
called.

If he learned from books at all, it was from the
wonderful, dusty, mildewed volumes that Marget
Maclean had on her shelves behind the post-office.
She was one of three sisters and they were all so
much alike that Gilian, with many other boys, never
learned to know one from the other, so it was ever
Marget who was behind the counter, a thin old lady
of carefully nurtured gentility, with cheeks like a
winter apple for hue, with eyebrows arching high in

i n

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120

GILIAN THE DREAMER

a perpetual surprise at so hurried and ridiculous a
world, and a curled brown wig that was suspected
of doing duty for the three sisters who were never
seen but one at a time. Marget Maclean's little shop
was the dullest in the street, but it was the ante-
room of fairydom for Gilian who borrowed books
there with the pence cozened from Miss Mary. In
the choosing of them he had no voice. He had but
to pay his penny and Marget would peer through
her glasses at the short rows of volumes until she
came upon the book she thought most suited for her
customer.

"You will find that a good om," she would say.
" The one you mention is not at all good ; it was
very fashionable last spring, but it is not asked for
now at all." And in proof that the volume she
recommended was quite genteel, she would add :
"That one was up at the Castle last Saturday.
Lady Charlotte's maid, you will notice, wet all the
pages crying over the places where the lover v/ent
to sea another voyage. It is a very clever book, my
dear, and I think there is a moral, I do not remem-
ber what the moral is, but I know there is one or
else I would not recommend it. It is in large black
type you see, and there is a great deal of speaking
in parlours in it, which is always informing and nice
in a book."

" You have none of Mr. Scott's poetry ? " asked
Gilian one day, moved thereto by an extract read by
Brooks to his scholars.

" Scott, Scott," said Miss Marget. •' Now let me
think, my dear."

ACADEMIA

121

She turned her odd thin figure and her borrowed
curls bo^''2d behind her ears as she tihed up her
head and glanced along the shelves for what she
knew was not there.

"No, my boy," she said. "We have none of
Mr. Scott's works ?>t present. There is a demand
among some people for Mr. Scott I believe, but,"
here she frowned slightly, " I do not think you are
old enough for poetry. It is too romantic, and — it
lingers in the memory. I have not read him myself
lliough I hear he is clever— in a way. I would not
say that I object to Mr. Scott, but I do not recom-
mend him to my young customers."

So off Gilian would go with his book under his
arm to the Ramparts. The Ramparts were about
the old Tolbooth and kept crime within and the sea
without. Up would the tide come in certain
weathers thrashing on the granite cubes, beating as
it might be for freedom to the misunderstood within,
beating and hissing and falling back and dashing in
again and streaming out between the joints of
masonry in briny jets. Half-way up the Ramparts
was a foot-wide ledge, and here the boy would walk
round the bastions and in the square face to the sea
would sit upon the ledge with his legs dangling over
the water and read his volume. It might be the
" Mysteries of Udolpho," " Thaddeus of Warsaw,"
" Moll Flanders," or " Belinda," the story of one
Random, a wandering vagabond, or Crusoe, but no
matter where the story led, the boy whose feet
dangled over the sea was there. And long though
the tale might be Gilian pieced it out in fancy by

^r-

122

GILIAN THE DREAMER

many pngcs. His situation on the Ramparts was an
aid to his imagination, for as he sat there the sea
would be sluggishly rolling below or beating in
petulant waves and he floated, as it were, between
sea and sky, as free from earth's clogging influence
as the gannet that soared above.

He sought the Ramparts because for a boy of his
age to read in books, except as a task of the school,
was something shameful ; and he had been long
accustomed to the mid-air trip upon the walls ere
some other boys discovered him guilty, flushing and
trembling with a story book in his hand. They
looked with astonishment at their discovery and
were prepared to jeer when his wits came to his
rescue. He tore out one or two leaves of the book,
twisted them into a rough semblance of a boat and
cast them in the water.

" Watch," said he, " you'll see the big ones are
sunk sooner than the little ones."

" Do not tear the good book," said one of the
boys, Young Islay, shocked, or pretending to be so,
at the destruction.

" Oh 1 it's only a stupid story," said Gilian, tear-
ing again at the treasure, with an agony that could
have been no greater had it been his heart. He
had to forego many books from Marget Maclean to
make up for this one, but at least he had escaped
the irony of his companions.

Yet not books were his first lovers and friends
and teachers, so much as the creatures of the wild,
and the aspects of nature. Often the Dominie
missed him from his accustomed place at the foot of

ACADEMIA

123

the class, and there was no explanation to offer
when he returned. He had suffered again the
wood's fascination. In the upper part of the glen
he had been content with little clumps and plantings,
the caldine woods of Kincreggan or the hazels
whereof the shepherds made their crooks. But the
forest lay for miles behind the town, a great land of
shade and pillars where the winds roved and
tangled. It abounded in wild life, and sounded
ever in spring and summer with songs and cries.
Into its glades he would wander and stand delirious
to the solitude, tingling to the wild. The dim vistas
about him had no affrights ; he was at home, he
was the child of the tranquil, the loving mother,
whose lap is the pasture-land and forest. Autumn
fills those woods with the very breath of melancholy,
no birds will sing in the multitudinous cloisters
except the birds of the night whose melody is one
doleful and mocking note. The bracken burns and
withers, lush grass rots and whitens above the fir-
roots, the birds flit from shade to shade with no
carolling. And over all will stand the trees sleeping
with their heads a-nod.

He would walk among the noisy fallen leaves,
posturing the heroes of his reading or his own
imagination about him in the landscape — a pleasant
recreation. He would set Bruce the king himself
sitting at a cave-mouth, a young gentleman with a
queue like Turner's, pondering upon freedom, while
the spiders wrought for his instruction ; deer break-
ing from covert to dash away, or moving in stately
herds across the forest openings, became a foreiQ:n

f] i

124

GILIAN THE DREAMER

: i

cavalry. Sometimes he would take a book to the
upper hunting-roads, where rarely any intrusion
came except from some gillie or fisher of the lochs
far back in the moors, and stretched on dry bracken
he would read and dream for hours.

It was in such an attitude Young Islay found him
on the Saturday after the episode on the Ramparts.
Gilian was in the midst of the same book, trying
hard to fill up the gaps that his sacrifice of leaves
had brought into the narrative, and Young Islay
going a-fishing in the moor-lochs, a keen sportsman
all alone, stood over him a very much surprised
discoverer.

He gave an halloo that brought Gilian to his feet
alarmed, for it happened to fit in with some passage
in his mind where foes cried. In vain the book
went behind the Paymaster's boy; Islay saw the
ragged pages.

"Oh ! " he cried, "you'll not cheat me this time ;
you're reading." An annoying contempt was in his
manner, and as he stood with his basket slung upon
his back, and his rod in the crook of an arm, like a
gun, a straight, sturdy lad of neat limb, a handsome
face, and short black curls, he was, for a moment,
more admirable in Gilian's eyes than the hero of the
book he was ashamed to show.

" I had it in my pocket," said Gilian, in a poor,
ineffeclive explanation, relinquishing the volume
with a grudge to the examination of this cynic.

" You pretended on the Ramparts you were tear-
ing it up like any other boy," said Young Islay,
"and I was sure you were doing nothing of the

ACADEMIA

125

kind." He turned over the pages with scornful
fingers. "It's not a school-book, there's not a
picture in it, it's full of talking — fancy being here
with that rubbish, when you might be fishing with
me!"

Gilian snatched the volume from him. *' You
don't know anything about it ! " he cried.

" I know you at any rate," said Young Islay
craftily. " You were ashamed of your book ; you
come here often with books ; you do nothing like
anybody else ; you should have been a girl ! "

All the resentment of the Pavmaster's boy sprung
to his head at this taunt ; he threw the book down
and dashed a small fist in Young Islay's face. There
he found a youth not slow to reply. Down went
the rod and the book, and with the fishing-basket
swinging and beating at his back. Young Islay fell
upon the zealous student. Gilian's arms, as he
defended or aimed futile blows, felt, in a little, as
heavy as lead. Between each blow he aimed there
seemed to be a great space of time, and yet his
enemy was striking with rapidity.

*♦ Are you beaten ? " at last cried Young Islay,
drawing back for a truce.

"No," said Gilian, gasping. "I'm only tired,''
but he looked bloody and vanquished.

" It's the same thing," said Young Islay, picking
up his rod. " You can do nothing with your hands;
I — I can do anything." And he drew up with a
bantam's vanity. He moved off. The torn book
was in his path. He kicked it before him like a
football until he reached the ditch beside the hunt-

11!

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126 GILIAN THE DREAMER

ing road, and there he left it. A little later Gilian
saw him in a distant vista of the trees as an old
hunter of the wood, with a gun in his hand and his
spoil upon his back, breasting the brae with long
strides, a figure of achievement altogether admir-
able.

in
Id
lis

ir-

CHAPTER X

ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE

Marget Maclean (or one of her sisters) was accus-
tomed when the mails contained a letter on His
Majesty's Service for the Paymaster, to put on a
bonnet, and in a mild flurry cross the street, feeling
herself a sharer in the great matters of State. So
important was the mission that she had been known
even to shut her shop door for the time of her
absence upon eager and numerous youths waiting
the purchase of her superior " black man," a comfit
more succulent with her than with Jenny Anderson
in Crombie's Land, or on older patrons seeking the
hire of the new sensation in literature — something
with a tomb by Mrs. RadclifTe.

" Tell your mistress I wish to see her," she would
say on these occasions with great pomp to Peggy,
but even Miss Mary was not sufficiently close to
State to be entrusted with the missive.

" Good day, Miss Campbell, I called to sec Captain
John on important business," and the blue document
with its legend and seal would be clutched with
mittened hands tight to the faded bodice.

Miss Mary shared some of this awe for State

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128

GILIAN THE DREAMER

documents ; at least she helped out the illusion that
they were worth all this anxiety on the part of the
post-office, and she would call the Paymaster from
his breakfast. His part on the other hand was to
depreciate their importance. He would take the
most weighty and portentous with an air of
contempt.

"What's this, Miss Maclean?" he would say
impatiently with the snuff-pinch suspended between
his pocket and his nose. "A king's letter. Con-
found the man ! what can he be v/anting now ? "
Then with a careless forefinger he would break the
seal and turn the paper outside in, heedless (to all
appearance) as if it were an old copy of the Courier.

One day such a letter sent his face flaming as he
returned to the breakfast table. He looked at Miss
Mary, sitting subdued behind her urn and Gilian at
her side, and then at his brothers, hardly yet awake
in the early morning, whose breakfasts in that small-
windowed room it needed two or three candles to
illuminate.

"The county corps is coming south this way,"
said he, with a great restraint upon his feelings.

Cornal Colin turned on him a lustreless eye.

" What havers are you on now, John ? " said he,
with no pause in the supping of his porridge. Dugald
paid no heed. With a hand a little palsied he
buttered a scone, and his lower lip was dropped
and his eyes were vacant, showing him far absent
in the spirit. Conversation was never very rife at
the Paymaster's breakfast table.

" I'm telling you the county corps is coming south,"

ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 129

said Mars, with what for him to the field officer was
almost testiness. " Here's a command for billeting
three hundred men on Friday night on their way to
Dumbarton."

Up stood the Cornal with a face transfigured. He
stretched across the table and almost rudely clutched
the paper from his brother's hand, cast a fast glance
at the contents and superscription, then sat again
and gave a little choked cheer, the hurrah of spent
youth and joyfulness.

"Curse me! but it's true," he cried to the
General. "The old 91st under Crawford — Jiggy
Crawford we called him for his dance in the ken
at Madrid before he exchanged — Friday, Friday;
Where's my uniform, Mary? They'll be raw recruits,
I'll warrant, not the old stuff, but — are you hear-
ing, Dugald ? Oh ! the Army, the Army ! Let me
see — yes, it says six pipers and thirty band. My
medals, Mary, are they in the shottle of my kist yet ?
The 91st — God! I wish it was our own; would
I not show them ! You are not hearing a word I
am saying, Dugald."

He paused in a feverish movement in his chair,
thrust off from him with a clatter of dishes and a
spilling of milk the breakfast still unfinished, and
stared with annoyance at the General. Dugald
picked at his fish with no appetite, seeing nothing,
hearing nothing, a silent old man palsied on one
side, with a high bald head full of visions. " What's
that about the Argylls?" he said at last, with a
start, brought to by the tone aod accent of his
brother.

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130

GILIAN THE DREAMER

Cornal Colin cleared his throat, and read the
notification of the billet.

" Friday, did you say Friday ?" asked Dugald, all
abstraction gone.

" This very Friday."

The old man rose and threw back his shoulders
with some of the gallantry of his prime. He walked
without a word to the window and looked at the
deserted street. Ten — fifteen — twenty years fell
from his back as thus he stood in the mingled light
of the wan reluctant morning and the gutfering
candles on the table. To Miss Mary, looking at him
there against the morning light, his figure — black
and indefinite — was the figure that went to Spain,
the strong figure, the straight figure, the figure that
filled its clothes with manliness. There was but the
oval of the bald high head to spoil the illusion. He
turned again and looked into the candle-lit room,
but seeing nothing there, for all his mind was else-
where.

" I thought," he muttered, brokenly, " I thought I
would never see red-coat again." Then he straight-
ened his shoulders anew, and flexed the sinews of
his knees, and pressed the palsied hand against the
breeches' seam. The exertion brought a cough to
his throat, a choking resistless cough of age and
clogging humours. It was Time's mocking reminder
that the morning parade was over for ever, and now
the soldier must be at ease. He gasped and splut-
tered, his figure lost its tenseness, and from the fit of
coughing he came back again an old and feeble man.
He looked at his hand trembling against his waist,

ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 131

at his feet in their large and clumsy slippers ; he
looked at the picture of himself upon the wall, then
quitted the room with something like a sob upon
his lip.

"Man! he's in a droll key about it! "said thef
Paymaster, breaking the silence. " What in all the
world is his vexation ? "

Miss Mary put down her handkerchief impatiently
and loaded Gilian at her side with embarrassing
attentions.

"What — in — all — the — world — is — his vexation?"
mocked the Comal in the Captain's high and
squeaking voice, reddening at the face and his scar
purpling. " That's a terribly stupid question to put,
Jock. What — in — all — the — world — is — his — vexa-
tion ? If you had the soger's heart and your
brother's past you would not be asking what an
ancient's sorrow at his own lost strength might
mean. Oh, man, man ! make a pretence at spirit
even if the Almighty denied it to you ! "

He tossed the letter from him, almost in his
brother's face.

The Paymaster held his anger in leash. He was
incapable of comprehending and he was, too, afraid.
With a forced laugh, he pressed the creases from
the document.

"Oh, I'm glad enough to see the corps," said he,
" if that's what you mean. If I have not your
honours from the Army, I'm as fond of Geordie's
uniform as any man of my years. I'll get the best
billets in the town for "

The Cornal scowled and interjected, " Ay, ay, and

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132

GILIAN THE DREAMER

'i * I

f ■$

you'll make all the fraca that need be about the lads,
and cock your hat to the fife, and march and act the
veteran as if you were Moore himself, but you'll be
far away from knowing what of their pomp and
youth is stirring the hearts of your brother Dugald
and me. The Army is all bye for us, Jock, Boney's
by the heels ; there's younger men upon the roster
if the foreign route is called again in the barrack
yard."

His glance fell upon Gilian, wide-eyed, wonderful,
in the shade beside Miss Mary's chair, and he turned
to him with a different accent.

" There ^OM are!" said he, "my wan-faced war-
lock. What would Colin Campbell, Commander of
the Bath, not give to be your age again and all the
world before him ? Do you say your prayers at
night, laddie, before you go to your naked bed in
the garret ? I'll warrant Mary taught you that if
she taught you nothing else. Pray every night then
that Heaven may give j'ou thew and heart and a
touch of the old Hielan' glory that this mechanic
body by my side has got through the world wanting.
Oh, laddie, laddie, what a chance is yours ! To
hear the drum in the morning and st^ the sun glint
on the line ; to sail away and march with pipe or
bugle in foreign countries ; to have a thousand good
companions round about the same camp-fires and
know the lift and splendour of parades in captured
towns. It's all bye for me; I'm an old pensioner
rotting to the tomb in a landward burgh packed with
relics like myself, and as God's in heaven, I often
wish I was with brother Jamie yonder fallen in my

^v .».:A^.^jj.s.-^i :.iiife.-.

or HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE 133

prime with a clod stopping the youth and spirit in
my throat."

" Tut, tut, now weVc in our flights 1 " said the Pay-
master, not very audibly, so that in his transport the
Comal never heard.

" Are you for the Army ? " asked the Cornal, like
a recruiting sergeant bringing the question home to
a lad at a country fair; and he fixed Gilian with an
eye there was no baffling.

" I would — I would like it fine," said Gilian stam-
mering, " if it was all like that."

" Like what ? " asked the Cornal, subdued, and a
hand behind his ear to listen.

** Like that — " repeated the boy, trembling though
Miss Mary's fingers were on his. " All the morning
time, all with trumpets and the same friends about
the camp-fire. Always the lift inside and the notion
to go on and on and "

He stopped for want of English words to tell the
sentiment completely.

The Cornal looked at him now wistfully.

" I would not say, Gilian," said he, " but what
there might be the makings of a soger in you yet. li
you have not the sinews for it you have the sense.
You'll see a swatch on Friday of what I talked about
and we'll — Come away this minute, Mary, and look
me out my uniform. Jiggy Crawford ! Young
Jiggy that danced in the booze-house in Madrid !
He was Ensign then and now he has his spurs and
handles tartan. He is at the very topmost of the
thing and I am going down, down, down, out, out,
out, like this, and this, and this," and so saying he

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134 GILIAN THE DREAMER

pinched out the candle flames one by one The
morning swept into the room, no longer with a rival,
lighting up this parlour of old people, showing the
wnnkles and the grey hairs and the parchment-
covered knuckles, and in its midst the Paymaster's
boy With a transfigured face and a head full of martial
glory. *"

Sv;;

'f .:"

CHAPTER XI

THE SOUND OF THE DRUM

And the same spirit, martial, poetic, make-believe,
stayed with Gilian up till the Friday. It was hard
indeed to escape it, for was not the town about him
in a ferment of anticipation ? In our sleeping
community we know no longer what of zest the very
name of the Army had for the people now asleep
in the rank grasses of Kilmalieu. The old war-dogs
made more lingering sederunts in the change-houses,
the low taverns in the back lands sounded with
bragging chorus and debate, and in the room of
the Sergeant More the half-pay gentlemen mixed
more potently their midday drams. The burgh
ceased its industry, and the Duke, coming down the
street upon his horse, saw most of the people who
should be working for his wages leaning upon the
gables indolent or sitting at the open windows with
the tumblers at their hands, singing naughty songs.

He leaned over, and with his crop rapped upon
the factor's door. Old Islay came o'it with a quill
behind his ear and a finger to his brow.

" What is wrong in the place to-day ? " asked his
Grace with a flourish of his crop about him to the

'I!

136

GILIAN THE DREAMER

lounging rascals and the groups at the tavern doors.
"Am I paying good day's wages for the like of
that?"

Islay Campbell bobbed and smirked. " It's the
coming of the army," said he. " The county corps
comes to-morrow and your men are all dukes to-day.
They would not do a hand's turn for an emperor."

" Humph ! " said Duke George. " I wish I could
throw off life's responsibilities so easily. The
rogues ! the rogues I " he mused, soothing his horse's
neck with a fine and kindly hand. " I suppose it's
in them, this unrest and liability to uproar under the
circumstances. My father — well, well, let them be."
His heels turned the horse in a graceful curvet.
" I'm saying, Islay," he cried over his shoulder,
" have a free cask or two at the Cross in the
morning."

But it was in the Paymaster's house that the
fullest stress, the most nervous restlessness of
anticipation were apparent. The Paymaster's snuff
was now in two vest-pockets and even then was
insufficient, as he went about the town from morning
till night babbling in excited half-sentences of war,
and the fields he had never fought in, to men who
smiled behind his back. His brothers' slumbers in
the silent parlour had been utterly destroyed till
" Me-the-day ! " Miss Mary had to cry at last when
her maid brought back untasted viands, " I wish the
army was never to darken our gates, for two daft
men up there have never taken a respectable meal
since the billet order came. Dugald will be none
the better for this."

THE SOUND OF THE DRUM

'37

All this excitement sustained the tremulous feel-
ing at the boy's heart. There must be something
after all, he thought, in the soldier's experience that
is precious and lasting when those old men could
find in a rumour the spark to set the smouldering
fire in a blaze. He wondered to see the heavy
eyelids of the General open and the pupils fill as he
had never seen them do before, to hear a quite new
accent, though sometimes a melancholy, in his voice,
and behold a distaste to his familiar chair with its
stuffed and lazy arms. The Cornal's character
suffered a change too. He that had been gruff and
indifferent took on a pleasing though awkward
geniality. He would jest with Miss Mary till she
cried " The man's doited ! " though she clearly liked
it ; to Gilian he began the narration of an unending
series of campaign tales.

Listening to those old chronicles, Gilian made
himself ever their hero. It was he who took the
flag at Fuentes d'Onoro, cutting the Frenchman to
the chin ; it was he who rode at Busaco and heard
the Marshal cry " Well done ! " ; when the shots
were threshing like rain out of a black cloud at
Ciudad Rodrigo, and the soldiers were falling to it
like ripe grain in thunderplumps, he was in the
front with every " whe — e — et " of the bullets at his
ear bringing the moment's alarm to his teeth in a
checked sucking-in of air. Back to the school he
went, a head full of dreams, to sit dumb before his
books, with unwinking eyes fixed upon the battle-
lines upon the page — the unbroken ranks of letters,
or upon the blistered and bruised plaster of the wall

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

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to see horsemen at the charge and flags flying.
Then in the absence of Brooks at the tavern of
Kate Bell, Gilian led the school in a charge of
cavalry, shouting, commanding, cheering, weeping
for the desertion of his men at deadly embrasures
till the schoolboys stood back amazed at his reality,
and he was left to come to himself with a shiver,
alone on the lid of the master's desk in the middle
of the floor, utterly ashamed before the vexed but
sadly tolerant gaze of the dominie.

Old Brooks took him by the ear, not painfully,
when he had scrambled down from the crumbled
battlements where his troops had left him.

" At the play-acting again. Master Gilian ? " said
the dominie a little bitterly, a little humorously.
" And what might it be this time ? "

Sogers," said the boy most red and awkward.
Ay, ay," said Brooks, releasing his ear and
turning his face to him with a kind enough hand on
his shoulder. "Soldiers is it? And the pla}'-
ground and the play-hour are not enough for a play
of that kind. Soldiers I H'm ! So the lessons of
the gentlemen up-bye are not to be in vain. I
thought different, could I be wrong now? And
you're going to meet Captain Campbell's most
darling wish. Eh ? You have begun the trade
early, and I could well desire you had a better head
for the counts. Give me the mathematician and I
will make something of him; give me a boy like
yourself, with his head stuffed with feathers and
the airs of heaven blowing them about through the
lug-holes and — my work's hopeless. Laddie, laddie,

Ll.l.

THE SOUND OF THE DRUM 139

go to your task ! If you become the soldier you
play-act to-day you'll please the Paymaster; I
could scarcely wish for better and — and — I maybe
wished for worse."

That night Gilian went to bed in his garret while
yet the daylight was abroad and the birds were
still chattering in the pear-trees in the garden. He
wished the night to pass quickly that the morrow
and the soldiers should find him still in his fine
anticipation.

He woke in the dark. , The house was still. A
rumour of the sea came up to his window and a
faint wind sighed in the garden. Suddenly, as he
lay guessing at the hour and tossing, there sounded
something far-off and unusual that must have
wakened half the sleeping town. The boy sat up
and listened with breath caught and straining ears.
No, no, it was nothing ; the breeze had gone round ;
the night was wholly still ; what he had heard was
but in the fringes of his dream. But stay ! there it
was again, the throb of a drum far-off in the night.
It faded again in veering currents of the wind, then
woke more robust and unmistakable. The drums !
the drums ! the drums ! The rumour of the sea
was lost, no more the wind sighed in the pears, all
the voices of nature were dumb to that throb of
war. It came nearer and nearer and still the boy
was all in darkness in a house betraying no other
waking than his own, quivering to an emotion the
most passionate of his life. For with the call of the
approaching drums there entered to him all the
sentiment of the family of that house, the sentiment

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

of the soldier, the full proclamation of his connection
with a thousand years of warrior clans.

The drums, the drums, the drums ! Up he got
and dressed and silently down the stair and through
a sleeping household to the street. He of all that
dwelling had heard the drums that to ancient
soldiers surely should have been more startling, but
the town was in a tumult ere he reached the Cross.
The windows flared up in the topmost of the tall
lands, and the door? stood open to the street while
men and won.k n v ,.pt along the causeway. The
drums, the drums, the drums ! Oh ! the terror and
the joy of iitSiw, *^be v^'^.-ler, the alarm, the sweet
wild thrill of them ior Gilian as he ran bare-legged,
bare-headed, to the factor's corner there to stand
awaiting the troops now marching on the highway
through the wood ! There was but a star or two
of light in all the grudging sky, and the sea, a beast
of blackness, growled and crunched upon the shore.
The drums, the drums, the drums I Fronting that
monotonous but pregnant music by the drummers of
the regiment still unseen, the people of the burgh
waited whispering, afraid like the Paymaster's boy
to shatter the charm of that delightful terror. Then
of a sudden the town roared and shook to a twofold
rattle of the skins and the shrill of fifes as the corps
from the north, forced by their jocular Colonel to a
night march, swept through the arches and wheeled
upon the grassy esplanade. Was it a trick of the
soldier who in youth had danced in the ken in
Madrid that he should thus startle the hosts of his
regiment, and that passing through the town, he

THE SOUND OF THE DRUM 141

should for a little make his men move like ghosts,
saying no word to any one of the aghast natives,
but moving mechanically in the darkness to the
rattle of the drums ? The drums, the drums, the
drums! Gilian stood entranced as they passed,
looming large and innumerable in the darkness,
unchallenged and uncheered by the bewildered
citizens. It was the very entrance he could have
chosen. For now they were ghosts, legions of the
air in borrowed boots of the earth, shades of some
army cut down in swathes and pitted in the fashion
of the Cornal's bloodiest stories. And now they
were the foreign invader, dumb because they did
not know the native language, pitying this doomed
community but moving in to strike it at the vitals.

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.: CHAPTER XII

. , ILLUSION

He followed them to the square, still with the
drums pounding and the fifes shrilling, and now
the town was awake in every window. At a word
the Colonel on his horse dispelled the illusion.
" Halt ! " he cried ; the drum and fife ceased, the
arms grounded, the soldier clamoured for their
billets. Over the hill of Strone the morning paled,
out of the gloom the phantom body came a corps
most human, thirsty, hungry, travel-strained.

Gilian ran home and found the household
awake but unconscious of the great doings in the
town.

" What ! " cried the Cornal, when he heard the
news. " They came here this morning and this is
the first we have of it." He was in a fever of
annoyance. " Dugald, Dugald, are you hearing ?
The Army's in the town, it moved in when we
were snoring and only the boy heard it. I hope
Jiggy Crawford does not make it out a black affront
to him that we were not there to welcome him. My
uniform, Mary, my uniform, it should be aired and
ironed, and here at my hand, and I'll warrant it's

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ILLUSION

never out of the press yet. It was the boy that
heard the drums ; it was you that heard the drums,
Gilian. Curse me, but I believe you'll make a soger
yet!"

For the next few days, Gilian felt he must indeed
be the soldier the Paymaster would make him, for
soldiering was in the air. The red-coats gaily filled
the street ; parade and exercise, evening dance and
the continuous sound of pipe and drum left no room
for any other interest in life. Heretofore there was
ever for the boy in his visions of the Army a back-
ground of unable years and a palsied hand, slow
decay in a parlour, with every zest and glamour
gone. But here in the men who stepped always to
melody there was youth, seemingly a singular enjoy-
ment of life, and watching them he was filled with
envy.

When the day came that they must go he was
inconsolable though he made no complaint. They
went in the afternoon by the lowlands road that
bends about the upper bay skirting the Duke's
flower gardens, and with the Cornal and the Pay-
master he went to see them depart, the General left
at home in his parlour, unaccountably unwilling to
say good-bye. The companies moved in a splendour
of sunshine with their arms bedazzling to look upon,
their pipers playing " Bundle and Go."

" Look at the young one 1 " whispered the Cornal
in his brother's ear, nudging him to attention.
Gilian was walking in step to the corps, his
shoulders back, his head erect, a hazel switch
shouldered like a musket. But it was the face of

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

him that most compelled attention for it revealed
a multitude of emotions. His fancy ran far ahead
of the tramping force thudding the dust on the
highway. He was now the Army's child indeed,
stepping round the world to a lilt of the bagpipes,
with the currachd — the caul ot safety — as surely his
as it was Black Duncan the seaman's. There were
battles in the open, and leaguering of towns, but
his was the enchanted corps moving from country
to country through victory, and always the same
comrades were about the camp-fire at night. Now
he was the foot-man, obedient, marching, marching,
marching, all day, \7hile the wayside cottars wondered
and admired ; now he was the fugleman, set before
his company as the example of good and honest and
handsome soldiery; now he was Captain — Colonel
-—General, with a horse between his knees, his easy
body swaying in the saddle as he rode among the
villages and towns. The friendly people ran (so his
fancy continued) to their close-mouths to look upon
his regiment passing to the roll and thunder of the
drums and the cheery music of the pipes. Long
days of march and battle, numerous nights of wearied
ease upon the heather, if heather there should be,
the applause of citadels, the smile of girls. The
smile of girls ! It came on him, that, with a rush
of blood to his face and a strange tingling at the
heart as the one true influence to make the soldier.
For what should the soldier wander but to come
again home triumphant, and find on the doorstep of
his native place the smiling girls ?

"Look at him, look at himl" cried the Cornal

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ILLUSION

ni^ain with a nudge at his brother's arm. They
were walking over the bridge and the pipes still
were at their melody Jiggy Crawford's braid shone
like moving torches at his shoulder as the sun smote
hot upon his horse and him. The trees upon the
left leaned before the breeze to share this glory;
far-oflf the lonely hills, the great anJ barren hills,
were melancholy that they could not touch closer on
the grandeur of man. As it were in a story of the
shealings, the little ones of the town and wayside
houses pattered in the rear of the troops, enchanted,
their bare legs stretching to the rhythm of the
soldiers' footsteps, the children of hope, the children
of illusion and desire, and behind them, sad, weary,
everything accomplished, the men who had seen the
big wars and had many times marched thus gaily
and were now no more capable.

" It is the last we'll ever see of it, John," said the
Comal. " Oh, man, man, if I were young again ! "
His foot was very heavy and slow as he followed
the last he would witness of what had been his
pride ; his staff, that he tried to carry like a sword,
must go down now and then to seek a firmness in
the sandy foot-way. Not for long at a time but in
frequent flashes of remembrance he would throw
back his shoulders and lift high his head and step
out in time to the music.

The Paymaster walked between him and Gilian, a
littlemore robustandyouthful, altogether in a different
key, a key critical, jealous of the soldier lads that
now he could not emulate. They were smart enough,
he confessed, but they were not what the 46th had

146

GILIAN THE DREAMER

been ; Crawford had a good carriage on his liorse
but — but — he was not

" Oh, do not haver, Jock," said the Comal, angrily
at last ; " do not haver 1 They are stout lads, good
lads enough, like what we were ourselves when first
the wars summoned us, and Crawford, as he sits
there, might very well be Dugald as I saw him ride
about the bend of the road at San Sebastian and
look across the sandy bay to see the rock we had to
conquer. Let you and me say nothing that is not
kind, Colin ; have we not had our own day of it with
the best ? and no doubt when we were at the march-
ing there were ancients on the roadside to swe^i ,ve
were never their equal. They are in there in the
grass and bracken where you and I must some day
join them and young lads still will be marching out
to glory."

" In there among the grass and bracken," thought
Gilian, turning a moment to look up the slope that
leads to Kilmalieu. The laurel drugged the air with
death's odour. " In the grasses and the bracken,"
said Gilian, singing it to himself as if it were a
coronach. Was that indeed the end of it all, of the
hope, the lilt, the glory ? And then he had a great
pity for the dead that in their own time had been on
many a march like this. Their tombs are thick in
Kilmalieu. It seemed so cruel, so heedless, so taunt-
ing thus to march past them with no obeisance or
remembrance, that to them, the dead soldiers, all his
heart went out, and he hated the quick who marched
upon the highway.

But Crawford, like the best that have humoufi

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ILLUSION

had pity and pathos too. " Slow marcli ! " he cried
to his men, and the pipers played "Lochabcr No
More."

** He's punctilious in his forms/' said the Pay-
master, " but it's thoughtful of him too."

** Tliere was never but true duhte iiasail put on the
tartan of Argyll," said the Cornal.

The pipes ceased ; the drums beat again, echoing
from the Sgornach rock and the woody caverns of
Blaranbui, Glenshira filled to the lip with rolling
thunder, the sea lulled to a whisper on the shore.
Gilian and the children were now all that were left
to follow the soldiers, for the oldsters had cheered
feebly and gone back. And as he walked cl se up
on the rear of the troops, his mind was again on the
good fortune of those that from warfare must return.
To come home after long years, and go up the street
so well acquaint, sitting bravely on his horse, paled
in the complexion somewhat from a wound, perhaps
with the scar of it as perpetual memorial, and to be-
hold pity and pride in the look of them that saw
him ! It would be such a day as this, he chose, with
the sun upon his braid and the sheen upon his
horse's neck. The pipers would play merrily and
yet with a melancholy too, and so crowded the cause-
ways by the waiting community that even the
windows must be open to their overflowing.

And as thus he walked and dreamt saying no
word to any of the chattering bairns about him he
was truly the Army's child. The Paymaster was
right, and generous to choose for him so fine a
calling ; the Cornal made no error, the soldier's was

148

GILIAN THE DREAMER

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the life for youth and spirit. He had no objection
now to all their plans for his future, the Army was
his choice.

It was then, at the Boshang Gate that leads to
Dhuloch, Maam, Kilblaan and all the loveliness ot
Shira Glen, that even his dreaming eyes found Nan
the girl within the gates watching the soldiers pass.
Her face was flushed with transport, her little shoes
beat time to the tread of the soldiers. They passed
with a smile compelled upon their sunburnt faces,
to see her so sweet, so be?utiful, so sensible to their
glory. And there was among them an ensign,
young, slim, and blue-eyed; he wafted a vagabond
kiss as he passed, blowing it from his finger-tips as
he marched in the rear of his company. She tossed
hei- hair from her temples as the moon throws the
cloud apart and beamed brightly and merrily and
sent him back his symbol with a daring charm.

Gilian's dream of the Army fled. At the sight of
Nan behind the Boshang Gate he was startled to
recognise that th« girls he had thought of as smiling
on the soldier's return had all the snuie of this one,
the nut-brown hair of this one, her glance so fear-
less and withal so kind and tender. At once the
roll of the drums lost its magic for his ear; a caprice
of sun behind a fleck of cloud dulled the splendour
of the Colonel's braid ; Gilian lingered at the gate
and let the soldiers go their way.

For a little the girl never looked at him as he
stood there with the world (all but her, perhaps) so
commonplace and dull after the splendours of his
mind. Her eyes were fixed upon the marching

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ILLUSION

149

soldiers now nearing ilie Gearron and about her lips
played the smile of wonder and pleasure.

At last the drumming ceased as the soldiers
entered the wood of Strone, still followed by the
children. In the silence that fell so suddenly, the
country-side seemed solitary and sad. The great
distant melancholy hills were themselves again with
no jealousy of the wayside trees dreaming on their
feet as they swayed in the lullaby wind. Nan
turned with a look yet enraptured and seemed for
the first time to know the boy was there on the
other side of the gate alone. .

" Oh ! " she said, with the shudder of a woman's
delight in her accent. •' I wish I were a soldier."

"It might be good enough to be one," he answered,
in the same native tongue her feeling had made her
choose unconsciously to express itself.

" But this is the worst of it," she said, pitifully ;
" I am a girl, and Sandy is to be the soldier though
he was too lazy to come down the glen to-day to see
them away, and I must stay at home and work at
samplers and seams and bake bannocks."

With wanton petulant fingers she pulled the haws
from the hedge beside her, and took a strand of her
hair between her teeth and bit it in her reverie of
wilfulness.

" Perhaps," said Gilian, coming closer, " it is
better to be at home and soldiering in your mind
instead of marching and fighting." It was a thought
that came to him in a flash and must find words, but
somehow he felt ashamed when he had uttered ihem.

" I do not understand you a bit," said Nan, with

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

a puzzled look in her face. *' Oh, you mcp.n to
pretend to yourself," she added immediately. "That
might be good enough for a girl, but surely it would
not be good enough for you. You are to be a
soldier, my father says, and he laughs as if it were
something droll."

" It is not droll at all," said Gilian stammering,
very much put out. " There are three old soldiers
in our house and "

" One of them

Captain Mars, Captain Mars,
Who never saw scars ! "

said the girl mischievous!}', familiar with the town's
song. " I hope you do not think of being a soldier
like Mars. Perhaps that is what my father laughs
at when he says the Paymaster is to make you a
soldier."

" Oh, that ! " said Gilian, a little relieved. " I
thought you were thinking I would not be man
enough for a soldier."

Nan opened the gate and came out to measure
herself beside him. " You're a little bigger than I
am," said she, somewhat regretfully. " Perhaps you
will be big enough for a soldier. But what about
that when you think you would sooner stay at
home and pretend, than go with the army? Did
you see the soldier who kissed his hand to me ?
The liberty ! " And she laughed with odd gaiety as
if her mood resented the soldier's freedom.

"He was very thin and little," said Gilian,
enviously.

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ILLUSION

151

"I thought he was quite big enough," said Nan
promptly, " and he was so good-looking ! "

" Was he ? " asked Gilian gloomily. " Well, he
was not like the C ornal or the General. They were
real soldiers and have seen tremendous wars."

"I daresay," said Nan, ''but no more than my
father, I cannot but wonder at you; with the
chance to be a soldier like my father or — or the
General, being willing to sit at home pretending or
play-acting it in school or "

" I did not say I would prefer it," said the boy ;
" I only said it could be done."

" I believe you would sooner do it that way than
the other," she said, standing back from him, and
looking with shrewd scrutiny. "Oh, I don't hke
the kind of boy you are." i-

" Except when you are singing, and then you like
to have me listening because I understand," said
Gilian, smiling with pleasure at his own astuteness.

She reddened at his discovery and then laughed
in some confusion. " You are thinking of the time
I sang in the cabin to Black Duncan. You looked
so white and curious sitting yonder in the dark, I
could have stopped my song and laughed."

"You could not," he answered quite boldly,
" because your eyes were "

" Never mind that," said she abruptly. " I was
not speaking of singing or of eyes, but I'm telling
you I like men, men, men, the kind of men who do
things, brave things, hard things, like soldiers. Oh,
I wish I was the soldier who kissed his hand to me !
What is pretending and thinking ? I can do that

152

GILIAN THE DREAMER

in a way at home over my sampler or my white
seam. But to be commanding, and fighting the
enemies of the country, to be good with the sword
and the gun and strong with a horse, hke my
father!"

** I have seen your father," said Gilian. " That
is the kind of soldier I would like to be." He said
so, generously, with some of the Highland flattery ;
he said so meaning it, for Turner the bold, the
handsome, the adventurer, the man with years of
foreign life in mystery, was always the ideal soldier
of Brooks' school.

"You are a far nicer boy than I thought you
were," said she enjoying the compliment. " Only —
only — I think when you can pretend so much to
yourself you cannot so well do the things you
pretend. You can be soldiering in your mind so
like the real thing that you may never go soldiering
at all. And of course that would not be the sort of
soldier my father is."

A mellowed wail of the bagpipe came from Strone,
the last farewell of the departing soldiers ; it was
but a moment, then was gone. The wind changed
from the land, suddenly the odours of the traffics of
peace blew familiarly, the scents of gathered hay
and the more elusive perfume of yellowing corn. A
myriad birds, among them the noisy rooks the
blackest and most numerous, sped home. In the
bay the skiffs spread out their pinions, the halyards
singing in the blocks, the men ye-hoing. For a
space the bows rose and fell, lazy, reluctant to be
moving in their weary wrestle with the sea, then

ILLUSION

153

tore into the blue and made a feather of white.
Gilian looked at them and saw them the birds of
night and sf:a, the birds of prey, the howlets of the
brine, flying large and powerful throughout the
under-sky that is salt and swinging and never lit by
moon or star. And as the boats followed each other
out of the bay, a gallant company, the crews leaned
on tiller or on mast and sang their Gaelic iorrams
that ever have the zest of the oar, the melancholy of
the wave.

As it were in a pious surrender to the influence
of the hour, he and the girl walked slowly, silently,
by the wayside, busy with their own imaginings.
They were all alone.

Beyond the Boshang Gate is an entrance to the
policies, the parks, the gardens, of the Duke, stand-
ing open with a welcome, a trim roadway edged with
bush and tree. Into it Nan and Gilian walked,
almost heedless, it might seem, of each other's
presence, she plucking wild flowers as she went
from bush to bush, humming the refrain of the
fishers' songs, he with his eyes wide open looking
straight before him yet with some vague content to
have her there for his companion.

When they spoke again they were in the cloistered
wood, the sea hidden by the massive trees.

" I will show you my heron's nest," said Gilian,
anxious to add to the riches the ramble would confer
on her.

She was delighted. Gilian at school had the
reputation of knowing the most wonderful things of
the woods, and few were taken into his confidence.

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

I le led her a little from the path to the base of a tall
tree with its trunk for many yards up as bare as a
pillar.

"There it is," he said, pointing upward to a knot
of gathered twigs swaying in the upper branches.

" Oh I is it so high as that ? " she cried, with dis-
appointment. " What is the use of showing me
that ? I cannot see the inside and the birds."

"But there are no birds now," said Gilian; "they
are flown long ago. Still I'm sure you can easily
fancy them there. I see them quite plainly. There
are three eggs, green-blue like the sky up the glen,
and now — now there are three grey hairy little birds
with tufts on their heads. Do you not see their beaks
opening?" ..

" Of course I don't," said Nan impatiently, strain-
ing her eyes for the tree-top. " If they are all flown
how can I see them ? "

Gilian was disappointed with her. " But you
think you see them, you think very hard," he said,
"and if you think very hard they will be there quite

true.

Nan stamped her foot angrily. "You are daft,"
said she, " I don't believe you ever saw them your-
self."

" I tell you I did," he protested hotly.

" Were you up the tree ? " she pressed, looking
him through with eyes that then and always
wrenched the prosaic truth from him.

He flushed more redly than in his eagerness of
showing the nest, his eyes fell, he stammered.

"Well," said he, "I did not climb the tree.

ILLUSION ,55

What is the good when I know what is there ? It
is a heron's nest."

" But there might have been no eggs and no birds
in it at all," she argued.

" That's just it," said he engeily. " Lots of boys
would be for climbing and finding that out, and
think how vexatious it would be after all that trouble !
I just made the eggs and the young ones out of my
own mind, and that is far better."

At the innocence of the explanation Nan laughed
till the woods rang. Her brown hair fell upon her
neck and brow, the flowers tumbled at her feet all
mingled and beautiful as if summer has been raining
on its queen. A bird rose from the thicket, chuck-
chucking in alarm, then fled, trailing behind him a
golden chain of melody.

CHAPTER XIII

A GHOST

C -

I THINK that in the trees, the dryads, the leaf-
haunters invisible, so sad in childlessness, ceased
their swinging to look upon the boy and girl so
enviable in their innocence and happiness. Gilian
knelt and gathered up the flowers. It was, perhaps,
more to hide his vexation than from courtesy that
he did so, but the act was so unboylike, so deferring
in its manner, that it restored to Nan as much of her
good humour as her laughter had not brought back
with it. As he lifted the flowers and put them
together, there seemed to come from the fresh lush
stalks of them some essence of the girl whose hands
had culled and grasped them, a feeling of her warm
palm. And when handing her the re-gathered
flowers he felt the actual touch of her fingers, his
head for a second swam. He wondered. For in
the touch there had been something even more
potent and pleasing than in the mother-touch of
Miss Mary's hand that day when first he came
to the town, the mother-touch that revealed a
world not of kindness alone — for that was not
new, he had it from the little old woman whose

A GHOST 157

face was like a nut — but of understanding and
sympathy.

" Have you any more wonders to show ? " said
Nan, now all in the humour of adventure.

" Nothing you would care for," he said. " There
are lots of places just for thinking at, but "

" I would rather them to be places to be seeing
at," said Nan.

Gilian reflected, and "You know the Lady's
Linn ?" he said.

She nodded.

" Well," said he. " Do you know the story of it,
and why it is called the Lady's Linn ? "

Nan confessed her ignorance ; but a story — oh,
that was good enough !

" Come to the Linn and I'll show you the place,
then," said Gilian, and he led her among the grasses,
among the tall commanding brackens, upon the old
moss that gave no whisper to the footfall, so that,
for the nymphs among the trees, the pair of them
might be ct Tirades too, immortal. A few moments
brought them to the Linn, a deep pool in the river
bend, lying so calm that the blue field of heaven and
its wisps of cloud astray like lambs were painted on
its surface. Round about, the banks rose steep,
magnificent with flowers.

" See," said Gilian, pointing to the reflection at
their feet. " Does it not look like a piece of the sky
tumbled among the grasses ? I sometimes think, to
see it like that, that to fall into it would be to tangle
with the stars."

Nan only laughed and stooped to lift a stone.

158

GILIAN THE DREAMER

She threw it into the very midst of the pool, and the
mirror of the heavens was shattered.

** I never thought I could throw into the sky so
far," she said mischievously, pleased as it seemed
to spoil the illusion in so sudden and sufficient a
manner.

"Oh !" he cried, pained to the quick, "you should
not have done that, it will spoil the story."

" What is the story ? " she said, sitting and look-
ing down upon the troubled pool.

" You must wait till the water is calm again," said
he, seating himself a little below her on the bank,
and watching the water-rings subside. Then when
the pool had regained its old placidity, with the
flecked sky pictured on it, he began his Gaelic story.

" Once upon a time," said he, in the manner of
the shealing tales, " there was a lady with eyes like
the sea, and hair blowing like the tassel of the fir,
and she was a daughter of the King in Knapdale,
and she looked upon the world and she was weary.
There came a little man to her from the wood and
he said, * Go seven days, three upon water and four
upon land, and you will come to a place where the
moon's sister swims, and there will be the earl's son
and the husband.* The lady travelled seven days,
three upon water and four upon land, and she came
to the Linn where the sister of the moon was
swimming. * Where is my earl's son that is to be
my husband ? ' she asked : and the moon's sister
said he was hunting in the two roads that lie below
the river bed. The lady, who was the daughter of
the King of Knapdale, shut her eyes lliat were like

!ii-r

A GHOST

159

the sea, and tied in a cushion above her head her
hair that was Hke the tassel of the fir, and broke the
crystal door of dream and reached the two hunting
roads in the bed of the river. *We are two brothers/
said the watchers, standing at the end of the roads,
* and we are the sons of earls.' She thought and
thought. * I am Sir Sleep,' said the younger. * And
will you be true ? ' said she. * Almost half the time,
he answered. She thought and thought. * 1 am
very weary,' she said. * Then come with me,* said
the other, * I am the Older Brother.' She heard
above her the clanging ot the door of dream as she
went with the Older Brother. And she was happy
for evermore."

" Oh, that is a stupid story," said Nan. " It's
not a true story at all. You could tell it to me any-
where, and why should we be troubled walking to
the Linn ? "

" Because this is the Lady's Linn," said Gilian,
" and to be telling a story you must be putting a
place in it or it will not sound true. And Gillesbeg
Aotram who told me the story "

" Gillesbeg Aotram I " she said in amaze. ** He's
daft. If I thought it was a daft man's story I had
to hear I "

"He's not daft at all," protested Gilian. "He's
only different from his neighbours."

" That is being daft," said she. " But it is a very
clever tale and you tell it very well. You must
tell me more stories. Do you know any more
stories ? 1 like soldier stories. My father tells me
a great many."

i6o

GTLIAN THE DREAMER

*' The Cornal tells me a great many too," said
Gilian, " but they are all true, and they do not sound
true, and I have to make them all up again in my own
mind. But this is not the place for soldier stories ;
every place has its own kind of story, and this is
the place for fairy stories if you care for them."

" I like them well enough," she answered dubi-
ously, " though I like better the stories where people
are doing things."

They rose from their seat of illusion beside the
Linn where the King of Knapdale's daughter broke
the gate of sleep and dream. They walked into the
Duke's flower garden. And now the day was done,
the sun had gone behind Creag Dubh while they
were sitting by the river; a grey-brown dusk
wrapped up the country-side. The tall trees that
were so numerous outside changed here to shorter
darker foreign trees, and yews that never waved in
windsjbut seemed the ghosts of trees, to thickets pro-
found, with secrets in their recesses. In and out
among these unfamiliar growths walked Nan and
her companion, their pathway crooking in a maze
of newer wonders on either hand. One star peered
from the sky, the faint wind of the afternoon had
sunk to a hint of mingled and moving odours.

Gilian took the girl's hand, and thus together they
went deeper into the garden among the flowers that
perfumed the air till it seemed drugged and heavy.
They walked and walked in the maze of intersecting
roads whose pebbles grated to the foot, and, so
magic the place, there seemed no end to their
journey.

A GHOST

i6t

Nan became alarmed. "I wish I had never
come," said she. " I want home." And the tears
were very close upon her eyes.

"Yes, yes," said Gilian, leading her on through
paths he had never seen before. "We will get out
in a moment. I know — I think I know, the road.
It is this way — no, it is this way — no, I am wrong."

But he did not cease to lead her through the garden.
The long unending rows of gay flowers stretching
in the haze of evening, the parterres spread in
gaudy patches, the rich revelation of moss and grass
between the trees and shrubs were wholly new to
him ; they stirred to thrills of wonder and delight.

" Isn't it fine, fine ? " he asked her in a whisper
lest the charm should fly.

She answered with a sob he did not hear, so keen
his thrall to the enchantment. No sign of human
habitation lay around except the gravelled walks;
the castle towers were hid, the boat-strewn sea was
on their left no more. Only ihe clumps of trees
were there, the mossy grass, the flowers whose
beauty and plenteousness mocked the posie in the
girl's hands. They walked now silent, expectant
every moment of the exit that somehow baffled, and
at last they came upon the noble lawn. It stretched
from their feet into a remote encroaching eve, no
trees beyond visible, no break in all its grey-green
flatness edged on either hand by wood. And now
the sky had many stars.

Their gravelled path had ceased abruptly ; before
them the lawn spread like a lake, and they were shy
to ver ure on its surface.

1 62

GILIAN THE DREAMER

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" Let us go on ; I must go home, I am far from
home," said Nan, in a trepidation, her flowers shed,
her eyes moist with tears. And into her voice had
come a strain of dependence on the boy, an accent
more pleasing than any he had heard in her before.

" We must walk across there," he said, looking at
the far-oft' vague edge ; but yet he made no move
to meet the wishes of the girl now chnging to his
arm.

" Come, come," said she, and pressed him gently
at the arm ; but yet he stood dubious in the dusk,

" Are you afraid ? " she asked, herself whispering,
she could not tell why.

He felt his face burn at the reflection ; he shook
her hand off almost angrily. " Afraid ! " said he.
"Not I; what makes you think that? Only —
only " Plis eyes were staring at the lawn.

" Only what ? " she whispered again, seeking his
side for the comfort of hjs presence. ;

"It is stupid," he confessed, shame in his accent,
" but they say the fairies dance there, and I think
we might be looking for another way."

At the confession. Nan's mood of fear wnat Gilian
had conferred on her was gore. She drew back
and laughed with as much heartiness as at his story
of the heron's nest. The dusk was all around and
they were all alone, lost in a magic garden, but she
forgot all in this new revelation of her companion's
strange belief. She turned and ran across the lawn,
crying as she went, " Follow me, follow me ! " and
Gilian, all the ecstasy of that lingering moment on
the cd^c of fancy gone, ran after her, feeling himself

A GHOST

163

a child of dream, and her the woman made for
action.

A sudden opening in the thicket revealed the
shore, the highway, the quay with its bobbing
lamps, the town with its upper windows lighted.
At the gateway of the garden the Cornal met them.
He was close on them in the dusk before he knew
them, and seeing Gilian he peered closely in the
girl's face.

" Who's this ?" said he abruptly.

Gilian hesitated, vaguely fearing to reveal her
identity, and Nan shrank back, all her memories of
conversation in Maam telling her that here was an
enemy.

Again the Cornal bent and looked more closely,
lifting her chin up that he might see the better.
She flashed a glance of defiance in his scarred old
parchment face, and he drew his hand back as if he
had been stung.

" Nan ! Nan ! " cried he, with a curious voice.
" What witchery is this ? " He was in a tremble.
Then he started and laughed bitterly. "Oh no, not
Nan ! " said he. " Oh no, not Nan ! " with the most
rueful accent, almost chanting it as if it were a
dirge.

" It is Nan," said Gilian.

" It is her breathing image," said the old man.
" It is Nan, no doubt, but not the Nan I knew."

She turned and sped home by the seaside, with-
out farewell, alarmed at this oddity, and Gilian and
the Cornal stood alone, the Con\^\ looking after her
with a wistfulness in his very attitude.

>Pl

164

GILIAN THE DREAMER

!(•

' The same, the same, the very same ! " said he to
himself, in vords the boy could plainly hear. " Her
mother to th e very defiance of her eye." He clutched
Gilian rudely by the shoulder. "What," said he,
"were you wandering about with that girl for?
Answer me that. They told me you were off after
the soldiers, and I came up here hoping it true. It
v;ould have been the daft but likeable cantrip I
should have forgiven in any boy of mine ; it would
have shown some sign of a sogerly emprise. And
here you are, with a lass wandering I Where were
you?"

Gilian explained.

" In the flower garden ? Ay ! ay ! A lassie on
the roadside met your fancy more than Geordie's
men of war. Thank God, I was never like that !
And Turner's daughter above all ! If slie's like her
mother in her heart as she's like her in the face, it
might be a bitter notion for your future."

He led the way home, muttering to himself, " Nan !
Nan ! It gave me the start ! It was nearly a stroke
for me ! The same look about her I She is dead,
dead and buried, and in her daughter she defies us
still I"

CHAPTER XIV

THE CORNAL'S LOVE STORY

Miss Mary, in great tribulation, was waitiug on
them at the stair-foot, hfer face, with all its trouble
in dark and throbbing lines, lit up by the lamp
above the merchant's door. When she saw her
brother coming with Gilian she ran forward on the
footway, caught the boy by the hand and drew
him in.

" I am very angry, oh, I am terribly angry with
you I " she cried. " Do not speak a word to me."
She pushed him into a chair and spread thick butter
on a scone and thrust it in his hand. " To frighten
us like this ! The Captain is all over the town for
you, and the General has i ent men to drag for you
about the quay."

Peggy the maid smiled over her mistress's
shoulder at the youth. He ate his scone with great
complacency, heartened by this token that something
of Miss Mary's vexation was assumed. Not perhaps
her vexation — for were her eyes not red as with
weeping ?— but her anger, if she had really been
angry,

•'You are a perfect heartbreak," she went on

';5

■f

1 66

GILIAN THE DREAMER

** The Cornal heard you had run off after the sogers,
and "

"Would that vex you?" asked Gih'an.

" It would not vex Colin ; he would give his only
infant, if he had one, to the army ; but I was think-
ing of you left behind in the march about the loch-
head, and lost and starving somewhere about the
wood of Dunderave."

" I would not starve in Dunderave so long as the
nut and bramble were there," said Gilian, rejoicing
in her kindly perturbation. "And I could not be
lost anywhere "

" — Except in the Duke's flower garden, wasting
the time with — with — a woman's daughter," said the
Cornal, putting his head in at the kitchen door. He
frowned upon his sister for her too prompt kindness
to the rover, and she hid behind her a cup of new-
skimmed cream. "Come upstairs and have a talk
with Dugald and me," he went on to the boy.

"Will it not do in the morning?" asked Miss
Mary, all shaking, dreading her darling's punish-
ment.

" No," said the Cornal. " Now or never. Oh !
you need have no fears that I would put him to the
triangle."

" Then I may go too ? " said Miss Mary.

The Cornal put the boy in front of him and
pushed him towards the stair-foot. "You stay
where you are," he said to his sister. " This will
be a man's sederunt."

They went up the stair together and entered the
parlour, to find the General half-sleeping in his

THE CORNAL'S LOVE STORY 167

lug-chair. He started at the apparition of the
entering youth.

"You are not drowned after all," said he, "and
there's my money gone that I spent for a gross of
stenlock hooks to grapple you."

"Sit down there," said the Comal, pointing to
the chair in which Gilian had first stood court-martial.
The bottle was brought forth from the cupboard;
the glasses were ranged again by the General. In
the grate a sea-coal fire burned brightly, its glance
striking golden now and then upon the polished
woodwork of the room and all its dusky corners,
more golden, more warm, more generous, than the
wan disheartened rays of the candles that shook a
smoky flame above the board. Gilian waited his
punishment with more wonderment than fear. What
could be said to him for a misadventure ? He had
done no harm except to cause an hour or two of
apprehension, and if he had been with one whose
company was forbidden it had never been forbidden
to him.

" It's a fine carry-on this," said the Cornal, break-
ing the silence. "Ay, it's a fine carry-on." He
stretched the upper part of his body over the low
table with his arms spread out, and looked into the
boy's eyes with a glance more judicial than severe.
" Here are we doing our best to make a man of you,
more in a brag against gentry that need not be
named in this house than for human kindness,
though that is not wanting I assure you, and what
must you be at but colloguing and, perhaps, plotting
with the daughter of the gentry in question ? I

i*.

;;. II

i68

GILIAN THE DREAMER

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will not exactly say plotting/' he hastened to amend,
remembering apparently that before him were but
the rudiments •£ a man. " I will not say plotting,
but at least you were in a way to make us a laugh
to the whole community. Do you know anything
of the girl that you were with ? "

"I met her in the school before she got her
governess."

" Oh, ay ! they must be making the leddy of her ;
that was the spoiling of her mother before her. As
if old Brooks could not be learning any woman
enough schooling to carry on a career in a kitchen.
And have you seen her elsewhere ? "

" I heard her once singing on her father's vessel,"
said Gilian.

"She was singing!" cried the Cornal, standing
to his feet and thumping the table till the glasses
rang. " Has she that art of the devil too ? Her
mother had it ; ay ! her mother had it, and it would
go to your head like strong drink. Would it not,
Dugald ? You know he dame I mean."

" It was very taking, her song," said the General
simply, playing with the empty glass, his eyes upon
the table.

" And what now did she sing ? Would it be "

"It was *The Rover' and *The Man with the
Coat of Green,' " said Gilian in an eager recollection.

" Man ! did I not ken it ? " cried the Cornal.
" Oh ! I kent it fine. * The Rover ' was her mother's
trump card. I never gave a curse for a tune, but she
had a way of lilting that one that was wonderful."

" She had, that," said the General, and he sighed.

THE CORNAL'S LOVE STORY 169

The room, it seemed to Gilian, was a vault, a
cavern of melancholy, with only the flicker of the
coal to light it up in patches. These old men sighing
were its ghosts or hermits, and he himself a worldling
fallen invisible among their spoken thoughts. To
him the Cornal no longer spoke directly; he was
thinking aloud the thoughts alike of the General and
himseir — the dreams, the actions, the joys, the
bitterness of youth. He sat back in his chair,
relaxed, his hand wrinkled and grey, with no lusty
blood rushing any more under the skin ; upon the
arms his fingers beating tattoo for his past.

"You'll be wondering that between the Turners
and us is little love lost, though no doubt Miss Mary
with her clinking tongue has given you a glisk of
the reason. He'll be wondering, Dugald, he'll
be wondering, I'll warrant. And, man, there's
nothing by-ordinar wonderful in it, for are we not
but human men ? There was a woman in Little
Elrig who took Dugald's fancy (if you will let
me say it, Dugald), and he was willing to draw in
with her and give her a name as reverend as any in
the shire, for who are older than the Campbells of
Keils ? It's an old story, and in a way it was only
yesterday : sometimes I think it must be only a
dream. But, dream or waking, I can see plainly my
brother Dugald there, home on leave, make visitation
to Glen Shira. I have seen him ambling up there
happy on his horse (it was Black Geordie, Dugald,—
well I mind him), and coming down again at night
with a glow upon his countenance. Miss Mary, she
would be daffing with him on his return, with a

i li

170

GILIAN THE DREAMER

* How's her leddyship to-day, Dugald ? ' and he
would be in a pleasant vexation at this guessing of
what he thought his secret It was no secret : was
ever such a thing secret in the shire of Argyll ? We
all knew it. She was Mary's friend and companion,
she would come to our house here on a Saturday ;
I see her plainly on that chair at the window."

The General turned with a gasp, following his
brother's glance. " I wish to God you would not be
so terribly precise," was what he said. And then he
fingered at his glass anew.

" Many a time she sat there with our sister, the
smell of the wallflower on the sill about her,
and many a time she sang * The Rover ' in this
room. In this very room, Dugald : isn't every word
I'm saying true ? Of course it is. God ! as if a
dream could be so fine ! Well, well ! my brother,
who sits there all bye with such affairs, went away
on another war. She was vexed. The woods of
Shira Glen were empty for her after that, I have no
doubt, now that their rambles were concluded ; she
was lonely on the Dhuloch-side, where many a time
he convoyed her home in the summer gloaming. He
came back a tired man, a man hashed about with
wounds and voyaging, cold nights, wet marches,
bitter cruel fare, not the same at all in make or
fashion, or in gaiety, that went away. The girl — the
girl was cold. I hate to say it, Dugald, but what
is the harm in a story so old ? She came about
Miss Mary in this house as before, no way blate,
but it was 'Hands off!' for the man who had so
liked her."

P'i

THE CORNAL'S LOVE STORY 171

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He paused and stretched to fill his glass, but as
he seized the bottle the hand shook so that he laid
the vessel down in shame. The boy stood entranced,
following the story intimately, guessing every coming
sentence, filling up its bald outline with the pictures
of his brain ; riding with the General, almost in his
prime and almost handsome, and hearing the woman
sing in the window chair ; feeling the soldier's return
to a reception so cruel. The General said nothing,
but sat musing, his eyes, wide and distant, on the
board. And out in the street there was the traffic
of the town, the high calls of lads in their boisterous
evening play, the laugh of a girl. From the kitchen
came the rattle of Peggy's operations, and in a low
murmur Miss Mary's voice as she hummed to her-
self, her symptom of anxiety, as she was sieving the
evening milk in the pantry.

The Comal gulped the merest thimbleful of spirits
and resumed in a different key.

" Then, then," said he, " then I became the family's
fool. Oh, ay ! " — and he laughed with a crackle at
the throat and no merriment — " I was the family
fool; there was aye a succession of them in our
house, one after another, dancing to this woman's
piping. For a while nobody saw it ; Dugald never
saw it, for he was sitting moping, wearying for some
work anywhere away from this infernal clime of rain
and sleep and old sorrows ; Mary never noticed it —
at least not for a little ; she could not easily fancy
her companion the character she was. But I would
be meeting the girl here and there about the country,
in the glen, in the town, as well as here in this very

U *i

J- ■

172

GILIAN THE DREAMER

parlour where I had to sit and look indifferent,
though — though my heart stounded, and I never met
her but I felt a traitor to my brother. You will
believe that, Dugald ? " said he, recognition for a
moment flashing to his eye.

And the General nodded, stretching himself weary
on the chair.

" Oh, ay ! even then I wished myself younger, for
she was not long beyond her teens, and walking
beside her I would be feeling musty and old, though
I was not really old, as my picture there above the
chimneypiece will show. I was not old, in heart —
it pattered like a bairn's steps to every glimpse and
sentence of her. I lost six months at this game,
my corps calling me, but I could not drag myself
away. Once I spoke of going, and she sang * The
Rover ' — by God ! it sealed me to her footsteps. I
stayed for very pity of myself, seeing myself a rover
indeed if I went, more distressed than ever gave the
key to any song. The woods, the woods in spring ;
the country full of birds ; Dhuloch lap-lapping on
the shore; the summer with hay filling the field,
and the sky blue from hill to hill, the nights of
heather and star — oh, yes, she led me a pretty dance,
I'm thinking, and sometimes I will be wondering if
it was worth the paying for."

The Paymaster's house was grown very stilL
Gilian ceased to make the pictures in his mind.

" I met her ghost up there on the road this very
night, and I had a hand below her chin," said the
Comal with a gulp.

" You did not dare, you did not dare ! " cried his

THE CORNAL'S LOVE STORY 173

brother, an apple-red upon his cheek, and half rising
in his chair.

"Surely, surely — in a ghost," said the Cornal.
" I would never have mentioned it had it been
herself. Sit down, Dugald. It was her daughter.
I never saw her so close before, and the look of her
almost gave me a stroke. It was what I felt when
I first saw her mother with a younger man than you
or I. Just like that I met them in the gloaming,
with Turner very jaunty at her side, rapping his leg
with his riding-cane, half a head higher than myself,
a generation less in years. It was a cursed bitter
pill, Dugald ! Then I understood what you had
meant and what Mary meant by her warnings. But
I was cool — oh yes ! I think I was cool. I only
made to laugh and pass on, and she stopped me with
her own hand. ' I kept it from you as long as I
could,' she said : * it was cruel, it was the blackest
of sins, but this is the man for me.' "

" That was the man for her," echoed the General,
his sentence stifled in a sigh.

" * This is the man for me.* Turner stood beside
her, looking with an admiration, but to do him
justice, ill at ease, and with some-^— with some — with
some pity for me. Oh ! that stunned me ! * Is it
so indeed ? ' I said in a little when I came to myself,
feeling for the first time old. * And must it be fare-
well with me as with my brother Dugald ? ' "

" You should not have said that at all," said the
General. " I would not have said it."

" I daresay not ; I daresay not," said the Cornal
slowly, pondering on it. "But, mind you, I was in

174

GILIAN THE DREAMER

a curious position, finding myself the second fool of
a family that had got fair warning. She birked up
and took her gallant's arm. Said I then, * We'll
maybe get you yet ; I have a younger brother still/
It was a stupid touch of bravado. 'Jock!' said
she, laughing, all her sorrow for her misdoing 'jone ;
'Jock ! Not the three of you together ; give me youth
and action.' Then she went away with her new
fancy, and I was left alone. I was left alone. I
was left alone." • ' '

His voice, that had risen to a shout as he gave
the woman's words, declined to a crackle, a choked
harsh utterance that almost failed to cross the table.

Up got the General. " Never mind, never mind,
Colin," said he as it were to a vexed child. " We
took our scuds gamely, and there was no more to
do. God knows we have had plenty since — made
wanderers for the King, ill fed for the King, wounded
and blooded for the King. What does it matter for
one that was a girl and is now no more but a clod
in Kilmalieu ? I'm forgetting it all fast. I would
never be minding it at all but for you and Miss
Mary there, and that picture of the man I was once,
on the wall. I mind more of Badajos and San
Sebastian — that was the roaring, the bloody, the
splendid time ! — than of the girl that played us
on her string — three brothers at a single cast —
a witch's fishing. What nonsense is this to be
bringing up at our time of life ? In the hearing
of a wean too." -^ ; .; >•. '1

A cough choked him and he stopped. At Gilian,
sitting still and seemingly uncomprehending, the

THE CORNAL'S LOVE STORY 175

Cornal looked as at a stranger. " So it is," said he ;
"just a wean ! I forgot, some way. How old are
you — sixteen ? Nonsense ! By the look of you I
would say a hundred. Oh, you're an old-farrent
one, sitting there with your lugs cocked. And what
do you think is the moral of my story ? Eh ? — the
moral of it ? The lesson of it ? What ? What ?
What?"

Gilian had the answer in a flash. " It is to be
younger than the other man ; it is "

" What ? " cried the Corqal. " That's the moral ?
To be younger than the other man. No more
than that ? To be young ? Old Brooks never
put you to your iEsops when that's all you can
make of it."

The General sat back and folded his soft thick
hands upon his lap. He drew in his breath and
blew it out again with the gasp of the wearied
emerging from water. " Do you know, Dugald,"
said he, " there's something in that view of it ? We
were not young enough. We had too sober an eye
on life. Youth is not in the straigiit back or the
clear eye ; there is something more, and — the person
you mentioned had it, and has it yet."

" That's all havers," said the Cornal ; " all havers.
I was as jocular at the time as Jiggy Crawford him-
self. It did not come natural, but I could force
myself to it. The blame was not with us. She
was a wanton hussy first and last, and God be with
her!"

He gripped the boy by the jacket collar. " Up
and away," said he. ** If my tale's in vain, there's

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

no help for it. I cannot make it plainer. Do not
be a fool, wasting the hours that are due to your
tasks in loitering with the daughter of a vomai: who
has her mother's eye and her mothr.r's songs, and
maybe her mother's heart."

He pushed the boy almost rudely out at the
parlour door.

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CHAPTER XV

ON BOARD THE « JEAN "

GiLiAN went up to his attic, stood looking blankly
from the window at the skylights on the other side
of the street, his head against the camceil of the
room. He was bewildered and pleased. He was
bewildered at this new candour of the Comal that
seemed to rank him for the first time more than a
child; he was pleased to have his escapade treated
in so tolerant a fashion, and to be taken into a great
and old romance, though there was no active feud
in it as in Marget Maclean's books. Besides, the
sorrow of the old man's love story touched him.
To find a soft piece in that old warrior so intent
upon the past and a splutter of glory was aston-
ishing, and it was pitiful too that it should be a
tragedy so hopeless. He 'listed once more on the
Cornal's side in the feud against Maam, even against
Nan herself for her likeness to her mother, forgetting
the charm of her song, the glamour at the gate, and
all the magic of the garden. He determined to keep
at a distance if he was to be loyal to those who had
adopted him. There was no reason, he told himself,
why he should vex the Paymaster and his brothers

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

b}' indulging his mere love of good company in such
escapades as he had in the ship and in the Duke's
garden. There was no reason why — His head
unexpectedly bumped against the camceil of the
room. He was startled at the accident. It revealed
to him for the first time how time was passing and
he was growing. When he had come first to the
Pa3'master's that drooping ceil was just within the
reach of his outstretched hand ; now he could touch
it with his brow.

" Gilian ! Gilian ! " cried Miss Mary up the stair.

He went down rosy red, feeling some unrest to
meet a woman so soon after the revelation of a
woman's perfidy, so soon indeed after a love-tale
told among mr.i. The parlour, as he passed its
slightly open door, was still ; its candles guttered on
the table. The fire was down to the ash. He
knew, without seeing it, that the old men were
seated musing as always, ancient and moribund.

Miss Mary gave him his supper. For a time she
bustled round him, with all her vexation gone,
sa3'ing nothing of his sederunt with her brothers.
Peggy was at the v;ell, spilling stoup after stoup to
make her evening go -sip the longer, and the great
flagged kitchen was theirs alone.

" What — what was the Cornal saying to ycu ? "
at last she queried, busying herself as she spoke
with some uncalled-for kitchen office to show the
indiiference of her question.

"Oh, he was not angry," said Gilian, thinking
that might satisfy.

" I did not think he would be," she said. Then

ON BOARD IHE "JEAN" 179

in a little again, reluctantly : " But what was he
talking about ? "

The boy fobbed it off again. " Oh, just about —
about — a story about a woman in Little Elrig."

" Did you understand ? " she said, stopping her
fictitious task and gasping, at the same time scru-
tinising him closely.
t> "Oh, yes — no, not very well," he stammered,
making a great work with his plate and spoon.

" Do not tell me that," she said, coming over
courageously and laying her hand upon his shoulder.
" I know you understand every word of the story, if
it is the story i mean."

He did not deny it this time. " But I do not
know whether it is the same story or not," he said,
eagerly wishing she would change the subject.

" What I mean," said she, " is a story about a
woman who was a friend of mine — and — and she
quarrelled with my brothers. Is that the one ? "

" That was the one," said he.

Miss Mary wrung her hands. " Oh ! " she cried
piteously, " that they should be thinking about that
yet I wiser-like would it be for them to be sitting at
the Book. Poor Nan ! Poor Nan ! my dear com-
panion ! Must they be blaming her even in the
grave ? You understand it very well. I know by
your face you understand it. She should not have
all the blame. They did not understand ; they were
older, more sedate than .she was ; their merriment
was past ; there was no scrap left of their bairnhood
that even in the manliest man finds a woman's heart
quicker than any other quality. I think she tried

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

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to — to — to >— " like them because they were my
brothers, but the task beat her for all her endeavour.
It is an old, daft story. I am wondering at them
bringing it up to you. What do you think they
would bring it up to you for ? " And she scrutinised
him shrewdly again.

" I think the girl the Comal saw me with put him
in mind of her mother," said Gilian, pushing the
idea no further.

She still looked closely at him. *' The girl cannot
help that," said she. " She is very like her mother
in some ways — perhaps in many. Maybe that was
the Comal's reason for telling you the story."

There was not, for once, the response of under-
standing in Gilian's face. She could say no more.
Was he not a boy yet, perhaps with the impulse
she and the Comal feared, all undeveloped ? And
at any rate she dare not give him the watchword
that all their remembrances led up to— the word
Beware.

But Gilian guessed the word, and his assumption
of ignorance was to prevent Miss Mary from gm^gs-
ing so much. Only he misunderstood. He looked
upon the desire to keep him from the company of
the people of Maam as due to the old rancours and
jealousies, while indeed it was all in his interest.

But in any case he respected the feelings of the
Paymaster's family, and thereafter for long he
avoided as honestly as a boy might all intercourse
with the girl, whom circumstance the mischievous,
the henchman of the enemy, put in his way more
frequently almost than any of her sex. He must be

ON BOARD THE "JEAN" i8i

meeting her in the street, the lane, the market-place,
m the highway, or in walks along the glen. He
kept aloof as well as he might (yet ever thinking her
for song and charm the most interesting girl he
knew), and the days passed ; the springs would be
but a breath of rich brown mould and birch, the
summers but a flash of golden days growing biiefer
every year, the winters a lessening interlude of
storm and darkness.

Gilian grew like a sapling in all sear.ons, in mind
and fancy as in body. Ever he would be bent above
the books of Marget Maclean, getting deeper to
the meaning of them. The most trivial, the most
inadequate and common story had for him more than
for its author, for under tne poor battered phrase that
runs through book and book, the universal gestures
of bookmen, he could see history and renew the
tragedies that suggested them at the outset. He was
no more Brooks' scholar though he sat upon his
upper forms, for, as the dominie well could see, he
was launching out on barques of his own ; the plain
lessons ot the school were without any interest as
tney were without any difficulty to him. He roamed
about the woods, he passed precious hours upon
the shore, his mind plangent like the wave.

"A droll fellow that of the Paymaster's," they said
of him in the town. For as he aged his shyness
grew upon him, and he went about the community
at ease with himself only when his mind was else-
where.

" A remarkable young gentleman," said Mr,
Spencer one day to the Paymaster. " I am struck

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

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by him, sir, I am struck. Fie has an air of clever-
ness, and yet they tell me he is "

*' He is what ? " asked the Paymaster, lowering
his brows suspicious on the innkeeper's hesitation.

" They tell me he is not so great a credit to old
Brooks as he might expect," said the innkeeper, who
was not lacking in boldness or plain speaking if
pushed to it.

*'Ay, they say that?" repeated the Paymaster,
pinching his snuff vigorously. *' Maybe they're
right too. I'll tell you what. The lad's head is
stuffed with wind. He goes about with notions
swishing round inside that head of his, as much the
plaything of nature as the reed that whistles in the
wind at the riverside and fancies itself a songster."

Mr. Spencer tilted his London hat down upon his
brow, fumbled with his fob-chain, and would have
hked to ask the Paymaster if his well-known intention
to send Gilian on the same career he and his brothers
had followed was to be carried into effect. But he
felt instinctively that this was a delicate question.
He let it pass unput.

Bob MacGibbon had no such delicacy. The same
day at their meridian in the " Abercrombie " he
broached the topic.

" I'll tell you what it is. Captain : if that young
fellow of yours is ever to ecrn salt for his kail, it is
time he was taking a. crook m his hand."

"A crook in his hand?"* said the Paymaster.
"Would you have nothing else for him but a
crook ? "

" Well," said MacGihbcm, " I supposed you would

ON BOARD THE "JEAN »

i«3

be for putting him into Ladyfield. If that is not
your notion, I wonder why you keep it on for."

" Ladyfield ! " cried the Paymaster. " There was
no notion further from my mind. Farming, for all
Duke George's reductions, is the last of trades nowa-
days. I think I told you plain enough that we meant
to make him a soger."

MacGibbon shrugged his shoulders. " If you
did I forgot," said he. " It never struck me. A
soger ? Oh, very well. It is in your family : your
influence will be useful." And he changed the
subject.

At the very moment that thus they discussed him,
Gilian, a truant from school, which now claimed his
attention, as Brooks sorrowfully said, " when he had
nothing else to do and nowhere else to go," was on
an excursion to the Waterfoot, where the Duglas in
a sandy delta unravels at the end into numerous
lesser streams, like the tip of a knotless fishing-line.
It was a place for which he had an exceeding fond-
ness. For here in the hot days of summer there
was a most rare seclusion. No living thing shared
the visible land with him except the sea-birds, the
white-bellied, the clean and wholesome and free,
talking like children among the weeds or in their
swooping essays overhead. A place of islets and
creeks, where the mud lay golden below the river's
peaty flow ; he had but to shut his eyes for a little
and look upon it lazily, and within him rose the
whole charm and glamour of oceans and isles.
Swimming in the briny deeps that washed the rocks,
he felt in that solitude so sufficient, so much in

€

184

GILIAN THE DREAMER

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harmony with the spirit of the place, its rumination,
its content, its free and happy birds, as if he were
Ellar in the fairy tale. The tide caressed ; it put its
arms round him ; it laughed in the sunshine and
kissed him shyly at the lips. Into the swooping
concourse of the birds he would send, thus swim-
ming, his brotherly halloo. They called back ; they
were not afraid, they need not be — he loved them.

To-day he had come down to the Waterfoot
almost unknowing where he walked. Though the
woods were bare there was the look of warmth in
their brown and purple depths; only on the upper
hills did the snow lie in patches. Great piles of
trunks, the trunks of old fir and oak, lay above high-
water mark. He turned instinctively to look for
the ship they were waiting for, and behind him,
labouring at a slant against the wind, was the Jean
coming from the town to pick her cargo from this
narrow estuary.

He was plucked at the heart by a violent wish to
stay. At the poop he couid see Black Duncan, and
the seaman's histories, the seaman's fables all came
into his mind again, and the sea was the very high-
way of content. The ship was all alone upon the
water, not even the tan of a fisher's lug-sail broke the
blue. A bracing heartening air blew from French
Foreland. And as he was looking spellbound upon
the little vessel coming into the mouth of the river,
he was startled by a strain of music. It floated, a
rumour angelic, upon the air, coming whence he
could not guess — surely not from the vessel where
Black Duncan and two others held the deck alone ?

ON BOARD THE "JEAN"

i8s

It was for a time but a charm of broken melody in
the veering wind, distinct a moment, then gone, then
back a faint echo of its first clearness. It was not
till the vessel came fairly opposite him that the
singer revealed herself in Nan sitting on a water-
breaker in the lee of the companion hatch.

For the life of him he could not turn to go away.
He rebelled against the Paymaster's service, and
remained till the ship was in the river mouth beside
him.

"Ho V//<7 Ulle!" Black Duncan cried upon him,
leaning upon his tarry gunnle, and smiling to the
shore like a man far-travelled come upon a friendly
face in some foreign port. The wooded rock gave
back the call with interest. Round about turned
the seaman and viewed the southern sky. A black
cloud was pricked upon the spur of Cowal. " There's
wind there," said he, "and water tool I'm think-
ing we are better here than below Otter this night.
Nan, my dear, it is home you may get to-day, but
not without a wetting. I told you not to come, and
come you would."

She drummed with her heels upon the breaker,
held up a merry chin, and smile, uoldly at her
father's captain. " Yes, you told me not to come,
but you wanted me to come all the time. I know
you did. You wanted songs, you wanted all the
songs, and you had the ropes off the pawl before I
had time to change my mind."

"You should go home now," said the seaman
anxiously. " Here is our young fellow, and he will
walk up to the town with you."

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

She pretcnted to see Gilian for the first time,
staring at him boldly, with a look that made him
certain she was thinking of the many times he had
manifestly kept out of her way. It made him uneasy,
but he was more uneasy when she spoke.

" The Paymaster's boy," said she. " Oh ! he
would lose himself on the way home, and the fairies
might get him. When I go I must find my own
way. But I am not going now, Duncan. If it will
rain, it will rain and be done with it, and then I will
go home."

" Come on board," said Duncan to the boy.
" Come on board, and see my ship, then ; she is a
little ship, but she is a brave one, I'm telling you ;
there is nothing of the first of her left for patches."

Gilian looked longingly at the magic decks con-
fused with ropes, and the open companion faced him,
leading to warm depths, he knew by the smoke that
floated from the funnel. But he paused, for the girl
had turned her head to look at the sea, and though
he guessed somehow she might be willing to have
him with her for his youth, he did not care to ven-
ture.

Then Black Duncan swore. He considered his
invitation too much of a favour to have it treated sq
dubiously. Gilian saw it and went upon the deck.

Youth, that is so lo.ig (and all too momentary),
and leaves for ever such a memory, soon forgets.
So it was that in a little while Gilian and Nan were
on the friendliest of terms, listening to Black
Duncan's stories. As they listened, the girl sat
facing the den stair, so that her eyes were lit to their

ON BOARD THE "JEAN"

i8;

depths, her lips were flaming red. The seaman and
the boy sat in shadow. The seaman, stretched upon
a bunk with his feet to the Carron stove, the boy
upon a firkin, could see her every wave of fancy dis-
played upon her countenance. She was eager, she
was piteous, she was laughing, in the right key of
response always when the stories that were told were
the straightforward things of a sailor's experience —
storms, adventures, mishaps, passion, or calm. She
had grown as Gilian had grown, in mind as in body ;
and thinking so, he was pleased exceedingly. But
the tales that the boy liked were the tales that were
not true, and these, to Gilian's sorrow, she plainly
did not care for ; he could see it in the calmness of
her features. When she yawned at a tale of Irish
mermaidens he was dashed exceedingly, for before
him again was the sceptic who had laughed at his
heron's nest and had wantonly broken the crystal of
the Lady's Linn. But by-and-by she sang, and oh !
all was forgiven her. This time she sang some
songs of her father's, odd airs from English camp-
fires, braggart of word, or with the melodious long-
ings of men abroad from the familiar country, the
early friend.

" I wish I was a soldier," he found himself repeat-
ing in his thought. " I wish I was a soldier, that
such songs might be sung for me."

A fury at the futility of his existence seized him.
He would give anything to be away from this life of
ease and dream, away where things were ever
happening, where big deeds were possible, where
the admiration and desire were justified. He felt

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

ashamed of his dreams, his pictures, his illu-
sions. Up he got from his seat upon the firkin,
and his head was in the shadows of the smoky
timbers.

" Sit down, lad, sit down," said the seaman, lazy
upon his arm upon the shelf. ** There need be no
hurry now ; I hear the rain."

A moan was in the shrouds, the alarm of a
freshening wind. Some drops trespassed on the
cabin floor, then the ram. pattered heavily on the
deck. The odours of the ship passed, and in their
place came the smell of the cut timber on the
shore, the oak's sharpne<»3, the rough sweetness
of the firs, all the essence, the remembrance of
the years circled upon the ruddy trunks, their
gatherings of storm and sunshine, of dew, showers,
earth-sap, and the dripping influence of the constant
stars.

"I cannot stay here, I cannot stay here I I
must go," cried the lad, and he made to run on
deck.

But Duncan put a hand out as the lowest step
was reached, and set him back in his place.

" Sit you there I" said he. " I have a fine story
you never heard yet. And a fighting story too."

"What is it? What is it?" cried Nan. "Oh!
tell us that one. Is it a true one ? "

"It is true — in a way," said the seaman. "It
was a thing that happened to myself."

Gilian delayed his going — the temptation of a new
story was too much for him.

"Do you take frights?" Black Duncan asked

ON BOARD THE "JEAN" 189

him. "Frights for things that are not there at
all?"

Gilian nodded.

"That is because it Is in the blood," said the
seaman ; " that is the kind of fright of my story "

And this is the story Black Duncan told in the
Gaelic

'X ■■

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CHAPTER XVI

THE DESPERATE BATTLE

** Black darkness came down on the wood of
Creag Dubh, and there was I lost in the middle
of it, picking my way among the trees. Fir
and oak are in the wood. In the oak I could walk
straight with ray chin in the air, facing anything
to come ; in the fir the little branches scratched at
my neck and eyes, and I had to crouch low and go
carefully.

** I had been at a wedding in the farm-house of
Leacann. Song and story had been rife about the
fire; but song and story ever have an end, and
there was I in the hollow of the wood after song
and story were by, the door-drink still on my palate,
and I looking for my way home. It was nut-time.
I had a pouch of them in my jacket, and I cracked
and ate them as I went. Not a star pricked the
sky ; the dark was the dark of a pot in a cave and
a snail boiling under the lid of it. I had cracked
a nut and the kernel of it fell on the ground, so I
bent and felt about my feet, though my pouch was
so full of nuts that they fell showering in the fir-
dust. I swept every one with a shell aside, hunting

THE DESPERATE BATTLE

191

for my cracked fellow, and when I found him never
was nut so sweet !

"Then came to me the queerest of notions, that
some night before in this same wood I had lost a
nut, and the darkness was the dark of a pot in a
cave and a snail under the lid of it And yet the
time or season that ever I cracked nuts in Creag
Dubh was what I could never give name to".

'"Where was it? When was it?' said I to
myself, bent double creeping under the young larch
with my plaid drawn up to fend my eyes, and the
black fright crept over me. An owl's whoop would
have been cheery, or the snort of a hind — and
Creag Dubh is in daytiiie stirring with bird and
beast — but here was I stark lonely in the heart of it,
never a sound about, far from the hunting road, and
my mind back among the terrors of a thousand years
ere ever the Feinne were sung.

" In this dreamy quirk of the mind I felt I was a
hunter and a man of arms. I was searching for a
something here in this ghostly wood. The cudgel
and knife of folks I could not understand were coming
on me ! Fast, fast, and hard I crunched my nuts,
chewing shell and meat fiercely between my teeth to
fill the skull of my head with noise and shut out the
quietness. Never a taste of what I ate, sour or
sweet. But so hard and fast I crunched that soon
my store of nuts was done, and there I was helpless
with my ears open to the roaring wave of sound that
we call silence. I stood a little, and though my
back grewed at the chill of the dreadful spaces
behind me, I held my breath to study the full fright

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

of the hour. Something was coming to me ; I knew
it. When this thing happened before, when a skin
was my kilt and my shanks were bare, whatever I
had to meet had met me in the round space among
the candle-wood roots. The hair on my wrists
stirred, a cry came to my throat and was over the
edge of it and into the dcrk night like a man's heart
scurrying craven to the door.

"Through the wood went that craven roar, the
wood all its own and, a stranger, I listened to my
own voice wake up Echo far off on Ben Dearg.

" The doors of Echo shut on the only thing I knew
and was half friendly with in the Duke's wood, and
down on me again came the quietest quietness.

" * Be taking thy feet from here,' said I to myself,
taking out my sailor-knife and scrugging my bonnet
well on my brow. And there was no wind, not a
breath, on Creag Dubh. The stars black out, the
rough ground broken to my foot, the branches
scraping unfriendly, I went on through the trees.

"When one goes up from the Leacann hunting
road into the farm-lands he comes in a while on a
space among the trees, clean shorn like the shearing
of a hook but for white hay that lies there thick and
rustling in the spring of the year. * Black Duncan,*
said I, * be pulling thyself together, gristle and bone,
for here's the fright that stirs about the dark with
fingers and claws.' I was the first man (said my
notion) who ever set foot on the braes of Argyll,
newly from Erin and Argyll thick with ghosts ; day-
time or dark the woods were full of things that hate
the stranger. Under my feet the rotting dust of the

THE DESPERATE BATTLE

193

fir-trees felt soft and clogging, like the banks of new-
delved graves. My back shivered again to the feel
of the space behind me ; in my bonnet stirred my
hair. I went into the glade with a dry tongue
rasping on the roof of my mouth.

"When the Terror came up against me, I could
have laughed in my sudden ease of mind, for here
at last was &omething to be sure of, in a way. And
I gripped back as it gripped fast at me, feeling it
hairy at the neck and the crook of the arms — a
breathing and lusty body.

"'What have I here?' I asked, but never an
answer. At my throat went ten clawed fingers, and
there was Duncan at dismal battle, fighting foi life
with what he could not see, in his own home woods,
but they so strange and never a friend to help !

" For a time I had no chance witl.\ the knife ; but
at last * Steel, my darling!' said I, and I struck low
in the soft spaces. 'Gloop,' said the knife, and
Death was twisting at my feet.

" Did Duncan put hurry on his heels and fly ?
The hurry was not in me but the deep heart's wonder.
My first dead thing that in life had ever struck back
held me till the morning with a girl's enchantment.
I went down on a knee in the grass and felt him, a
soft lump, freezing slowly from the heel to the knee,
from the knee to the neck. Some rags of costume
were on him, a kilt of coarse plaiding and a half-
shirt of skin, soaked in sweat at the armpits and
wet with blood at the end.

" I waited till the morning to see what I had.
* This/ said I, hunched on a mound, * is all as it was

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

before.' The first sound I heard was the squeal of
a beast caught at the throat among the bracken,
then a hind snored among the grass. The morning
walked solemn among the trees, stopping at every
step to listen ; birds put their claws down and shook
themselves free of sleep and dev; ; a polecat slinking
past me started at my eye and went back to his
hole. Began the fir-trees waving in the wind, and
then the day was open wide and far.

" In the dark I had strained my eyes to see what
was at my feet till my eyeballs creaked in their
hollows, yet now I had no desire to turn about from
the cheerful dawn and look behind, but I did it with
my heart thudding.

"Nothing was there to see, lappered blood, nor
mark of body on grass !

" My knife, without a stain on the steel of it, was
still in my hand. I wiped it with a tuft of bracken,
and I laughed with something of a bitterness.

*" So I ' said I, * the old story, the old story ! It
happened me before, and in a hundred years from
now Black Duncan will be at the killing again.' "

CHAPTER XVII

THE STORM

The vessel, straining at the rope that bound her to
the shore, lay with a clumsy shoulder over the bank
that shelved abruptly into the great depths where
slimy weeds entangled. Her sails were housed and
snug, the men in the bows lay under the flapping
corner of the jib and played at cards, though the
noise of the raindrops on their canvas roof might
well disturb them. Gilian made no pause ; he ran
up at the tale's conclusion, at a bound he was on the
shore, staggering upon the rocks and slipping upon
the greasy weeds till he came to the salt bent grass,
and with firmer footing ran like a young deer for
the shelter of the wood. The rain battered after
him, the wind rose. In front, the wood, so still an
hour before, in its winter slumber, with no birds now
to mar its dreams, had of a sudden roused to the
rumour of the storm. As by an instinct, the young
trees on the edge seemed to shudder before the
winds came to them. Their slim tips could not
surely be bowing, even so little, to tiic gale that was
yet behind Gilian. But he passed them and plunged
under the tall firs, and he felt secure only when the

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

ruddy needles of other years were a soft carpet
underfoot. It was true he found shelter here from
the rain that slanted terrifically, but it was not for
sanctuary from the elements he sought the rude
aisles, though now he appreciated the peace of them.
It was for escape from himself, from his sense of
hopeless, inexplicable longing, from some tremen-
dous convulsion of his mind created by Black
Duncan's fable.

The wood was all a wood of fir, not old nor very
young, but at that mid age when it has to all of
country blood an invitation to odorous dusks and
pathless wanderings below laced branches. The
sun never could reach the heart of it, except at the
hour of setting, when it flamed bloody through the
pillars. The rain never seemed to penetrate, for the
fir-needles underfoot grew more dusty year by year.
But when the rain beat as it did now, through the
whole of it went a sound of gobbling and drumming,
and the wind, striking upon the trunks as if they
were the strings of Ossian, harped a great and
tremendous tune, wanting start or ending. And
by-and-by there came company for Gilian as he
sheltered in the wood. Birds of all kinds beat
hurriedly through the trees and settled upon the
boughs with a shudder of the quill, pleased to be out
of the inclement open and cosily mantled in.

The boy went into the very inmost part of the
wood without knowing the reason why thus he
should fly from the ship that so recently had en-
chanted him, from the tales he loved. But in the
soothing presence of the firs and the content of the

TH£ STORM

197

animals sheltering from the storm, he found a
momentary peace from the agitation that had set up
in him, roused at the song of the girl, the story of
the mariner. The emotions, the fears, longings,
discontents that jangled through him as they had
never done before relapsed to a mood level and calm,
as if they, too, had sheltered from the storm like the
birds upon the trees.

But by-and-by he became ashamed of his action,
that must seem so foolish to the friends he had left
in the ship without a word of explanation. His
face flamed hotly at the thought of his rude depart-
ure. He would give a world to be able to go
back again as if nothing had happened and sit
unchallenged in the cosy den of the Jean. And
musing thus he went through the wood till he came
upon the bank of the Duglas, roaring grey and
ragged, a robber from the hills, bearing spoil of the
upper reaches, the town-lands, the open and wind-
swept plains. It carried the trunks of great trees
that had lain since other storms upon its banks, and
with a great chafing and cracking no less than the
wooden bridge from Clonary which the children were
wont to cross from those parts on their way to school.

" That will go battering on the vessel," he thought,
looking amazed at its ponderous beams flicking
through the water and over the little cascades as if
they had been feathers blown by an evening breeze.
" That will go battering on the Jcan,^^ he thought,
and of a sudden it seemed his manifest duty to warn
the occupants of the ship to defend themselves from
the unexpected attack.

U i

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I- ;!

198

GILIAN THE DREAMER

He followed the bridge for a little, fascinated,
wondering what was to become of it next in the
tumult of waters till he came to the falls, where he
had looked for a check to it. But it stayed no more
than a moment on the lip of the precipice, swung up
a jagged edge above the deep, then crashed into the
linn, where it seemed to swerve and turn, giddy
with its adventure. Gilian stood spellbound on the
banks looking at it so far down, then he turned,
and cutting off the bend of the river, made for the
shore.

He crashed through bracken and bramble and
through the fir-wood again, startling the sheltering
birds by his hurry, emerging upon the face of the
brae in sight of the Jean and the sea. In his absence
a great change had come upon the wave, upon the
hilly distance, upon the whole countenance of nature.
The rain was no longer in drumming torrents, but
in a soft and almost imperceptible veil ; but if the
rain had lost the wind had gained. And as he
passed from the edge of the wood, all the trees
seemed to twang and creak, or cracked loudly, parting
perhaps at some dear nerve where sap and beauty
would no longer course. In every bush along the
edge of the wood there seemed a separate chorus of
voices, melodious and terrific, whistle and whoop,
shriek and moan. Even the grass nodding in the
wind lent a thin voice to the chorus, a voice such as
only the sharp and sea-trained ear may comprehend,
that beasts hear long before the wind itself is appa-
rent, so that they remove themselves to the bieldy
sides of the hills before tumult breaks.

THE STORM

199

But it was the aspect of the sea that most sur-
prised the boy, for where before there had been
but a dreaming plain of smiles there was the
riot of waters. The black lips of the wave parted
and showed the white fangs underneath, or spat the
spume of passion into the face of the day. It looked
as if every glen and every gully, every corry and cas
on that mountainous coast was spending its breath
upon the old sea, the poor old sea that would be let
alone to dream and rest, but must suffer the humours
of the mischievous winds.

It was but for a moment Gilian lent his eye to the
open and trouble*^ r panse. He saw there no sign
of ship, but looking lower into shore he beheld the
Jean in travail at the Duglas mouth. The tide had
come fully in while he was absent, the delta that
before had been so much lagoon and isle was become
an estuary, where, in the unexpected tide and rush
of the river, the logs of fir and oak were all adrift
about the sides of the vessel. Every hand was
busy. They poled off as best they might the huge
trunks that battered at the carvel planks and pressed
upon the twanging cable. Forward of the mast
Black Duncan stood commanding in loud shouts
that could not reach the boy through the wind's
bellowing, and as' he shouted, he lent, like a good
seaman, vigour to a spar and pushed off the besieg-
ing timbers, all his weight aslant upon the wood,
his arms tense, a great and wholesome figure of
endeavour.

But not Black Duncan nor his striving seamen so
busy in that confusion of wind and water were the

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200

GILIAN THE DREAMER

first to catch the boy's eye. It was Nan, struggling
by her captain's side at the unshipped tiller, and in
the staggering ship seeking to send it home in the
avoiding helm-head. Her hair blew round her with
the vaunting spirit of a banner, her body in every
move was rich with a sort of exaltation.

As yet the bridge had not reached them. It
might have been checked altogether in the linn, or
it might still be slowly grinding its way round the
great bend of the river, that Gilian had cut off by
his plunge through the wood. But at least he was
there to alarm, for its assault, borne down on the
spate, would be worse by far than that of the timber.
He beat his way again, bent, through the wind, to
the water-edge now so far in and separate from the
ship, and cried out a loud warning. It seemed to
himself as he did so the voice of an infant, so weak
was it, so shrill and piping, buffeted about by
Heaven's large and overwhelming utterance. They
paid no heed at first, but by-and-by they heard
him.

"The bridge! God! do you tell me?" cried
Black Duncan in a visible consternation. " Is it far
up?"

GiHan put his hand to his mouth and trumpeted
his response.

" The bend ! My sorrow ! she's as good as on us
then. We must be at our departures."

The mariners scurried about the deck ; Black
Duncan threw off the prisoning cable ; there were
shouts, swift looks, and a breathless pause ; the
Jean swung round before the corner of her jib,

The storm

lot

laboured clumsily for a moment unbelieving of her
release, then drifted slowly from the river mouth,
her little boat and her tiller left behind, the first
caught by the warring tree-trunks, the latter dashed
from Nan's hands by the swing of an unfastened boom.
As helpless as the logs she had been encountering,
she was loose before the wind that drove her parallel
with the shore at no safe distance from its fringe of
rocks.

Gilian, scarcely knowing what he did, ran along
the shore, following her course, looking at her with
a wild eye. The men were calling to him, waving,
pointing, but what they meant he could not surmise ;
all his interest was in the girl who stood motionless,
seemingly aghast at her mishap, with her hair still
blowing about her.

To the north where he was running, black masses
of clouds were piling, and the sea, so far as the eye
could reach, was weltering more cruelly than before.
Seagulls screamed without ceasing, and the human
imitation of their calls roused uncanny notions that
they welcomed the vessel to her doom. She seemed
so helpless, so hopeless, dashed upon by the spume
of those furious lips, bit by the grinding teeth.

But yet he ran on and on over the salt grass or
the old wrack that the sea-spray wet to a new slime,
never pausing but for a moment now and then to
try and understand what the men on deck were
shouting to him.

Off the shore north of the Duglas is a rock called
Ealan Dubh, oi the Black Island, a single bare and
rounded block without a blade of grass on it, ;hat

\-A

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[■•I

202

GILIAN THE DREAMER

juts out of the sea in all weathers and tides and is
grown on thickly with little shell-fish. To-day it
could not be seen, but the situation of it was plain
in the curling crest of the white waves that bent
constantly over it. Straight for this rock the Jean
was driving, and a great pity came over Gilian, a
pity for himself as he anticipated the sickening crash
upon the rock, the rip of the timber, the gurgle at
the holes, the sundering of the bolted planks, the
collapse of the mast, the ultimate horrible plunge.
He was Black Duncan, the swimmer, fighting hard
for life between the ship and the shore ; he was the
girl, with wet hair flapping blindly at the eyes,
clinging with bleeding finger-nails to the rough
shells that clustered on the rock. It was horrible,
horrible ! And then many tales from the shelves of
Marget Maclean came to his memory where one in
such circumstances had done a brave thing. To
save the girl and bring her from the rock ashore —
that was the thing to be done — but how ? Even
the sea fairy, as he had said, might be worth
drowning for. Helplessly he looked up and down
the shore. There was nothing to see but the torn
fringe of the tide, the waving branches of the coast.

He had no more than grasped the solitude of the
country-side (feeling himself something of God's
proxy thus to be watching *he destruction of the
ship) when the Jean went upon the rock. Her
shock upon it was not to be heard from the shore,
and she did not break up all at once as he had
anticipated ; she paused as it might seem, quite
willingly, in her career before the wind and slewed

THE STORM

ao3

round a tarry broadside to the crested wave. She
began to settle in the water by her riven quarter,
but Gilian did not see that, for it came about slowly.
All he could see was that Black Duncan and his
men upon the higher part of the slanted deck were
calling to him more loudly than before and pointing
with frenzied gestures back in the direction whence
they had come.

He looked back, he could not comprehend.

More loudly yet they called. They clustered, the
three of them on the shrouds, and in one voice tried
to bellow down the gale.

He could not understand. He turned a pitiful
figure on the shore, his mind tumultuous with
wrestling thoughts and dreads, with images of the
rough depths where the girl's hair would sway like
weed in a green haze in an everlasting stillness.

Again the seamen called, and it seemed, as he
looked at their meaningless gesticulations, that the
bowsprit of the vessel now pointed higher than
before. The appalling story thus told to him had
barely got home when he saw a change in the
conduct of the seamen. They ceased to cry and
wave; they looked no longer at him but in the
direction whence he had come, and turning, he saw
the vessel's little boat bobbing in the sea-ti oughs.
It had an occupant too, a lad not greatly older than
himself, using only a guiding oar, who so was
directing the boat in the drifting waves towards the
Ealan Dubh and the counter of the Jean.

Then the whole folly of his conduct, the meaning
of the seamen's cries, the obvious and simple thing

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204

GILIAN THE DREAMER

he should have done came to Gilian — he discovered
himself the dreamer again. A deep contempt for
himself came over him and he felt inclined to run
back to the solace of the woods with a shame more
burdensome than before, but the doings of the lad
who had but to wade to pick up the lost boat and
was now bearing down on the doomed vessel pre-
vented him. He watched with a fascination the
things being done that he should have done himself,
he made himself, indeed, the lad who did them. It
was as if in a dream, looking upon himself with a
stranger's admiration, he saw the little boat led
dexterously beside the vessel in spite of the
tumbling waves, and Black Duncan, out upon her
bowsprit, board her, lift his master's daughter in,
and row laboriously a.-jhore. Then Gilian turned
and made a poor, contemptuous retreat.

I >

(

CHAPTER XVIII

DISCOVERY

The town was dripping at its eaves and glucking
full of waters at rone-mouths and syvers when he
got into it after his disgraceful retreat. He was
alone in the street as he walked through it, a wet
woebegone figure with a jacket-collar high up to the
ears to meet the nip of the elements. Donacha
Breck, leaning over his counter and moodily looking
at the hens sheltering their wind-blown feathers
under his barrow, saw him pass and threw over his
shoulder to his wife behind a comment upon the
eccentricity of the Paymaster's boy.

" He's scarcely all there," said he, " by the look of
him. He's wandering about in the rai.i as if it was
a fine summer day and the sun shining."

Crossing from the school to his lodging, an arm
occupied by a great bundle of books, the other con-
tending with an umbrella, was the dominie, and he
started at the sight of his errant pupil who nearly
ran against him before his presence was observed.

" Well, Gilian ? " said he, a touch of irony in his
accent, himself looking a droll figure, hunched round
his books and turning like a weathercock jerkily to

; f

206

GILIAN THE DREAMER

keep the umbrella between him and the wind that
strained its whalebone ribs till they almost snapped.

Gilian stopped, looked hard at the ground, said
never a word. And old Brooks, over him, gazed at
the wet figure with puzzlement and pity.

"You beat me; you beat me quite!" said he.
" There's the making of a fine man in you ; you have
sharpness, shrewdness, a kind of industry, or what
may be doing for that same; every chance of a
paternal kind — that's to say a home complete and
comfortable — and still you must be acting like a
wean! You were not at the school to-day. I'm
keeping it from Miss Campbell as long as I can, but
I'll be bound to tell her of your truancy this time."

He risked the surrounding hand a moment from
his books, bent a little and tapped the boy's jacket
pocket.

" Ay ! A book again ! " said he slyly. " What
is it this time ? But never mind ; it does not matter,
I'll warrant it is not Mr. Butter's Spellings nor
Murray the Grammarian, but some trash of a novelle.
Any exercise for your kind but the appointed task !
I wish — I wish — ^Tuts ! laddie, you are wet to the
skin, haste ye home and get a heat."

Gilian did not need a second bidding, but ran up
the street, without slacking his pace till he got to the
foot of the Paymaster's stair, where the wind from
the pend-close was howling most dismally. He
lingered on the stair, extremely loth to face Miss
Mary with a shame so plain upon his countenance
as he imagined it must be. No way that he could
tell the story of the Jcan'$ disaster would leave out

\ !

DISCOVERY

207

Trom

[iss

ince

)uld

out

his sorry share in it. A quick ear heard him on the
stair ; the door opened.

" Oh, you rascal ! " cried Miss Mary, her anxious
face peering down at him. ** You were never in the
school till this time." She put her hand upon his
bonnet and his sleeve and found them soaking.
" Oh, I knew it ! I knew it ! " she cried. " Just
steeping ! "

He found an unexpected relief in her consterna-
tion at his condition and in her bustle to get him
into dry clothing. After the experience he had come
through, the storm and the spectacle he had seen as
in a dream from the shore, he indulged in the
cordiality and cosiness of the warm kitchen for a
little with selfish gladness. But it was only for a
little; the disaster to the vessel and the conscious-
ness that his own part in the business would cer-
tainly come to light, overwhelmed him again, and it
was a most dolorous face that looked at Miss Mary
over the viands she had just put before him.

" What ails the callant ? " she demanded in a
tremble, staring at him.

He burst into tears, the first she had seen on his
face since ever he had come to her house, and all
her mother's heart was sore.

"What mischief were you in ? " she asked, putting
an arm about his neck, and her troubled face down
upon his hair as he shook in his chair. " I am sure
you were not to blame. It could not have been
much, Gilian. Tuts ! tuts ! " And so she went on
in a ludicrous way, coaxing him to indifference for
(he sin she fancied.

208

GILIAN THE DREAMER

At last he told her the beginnings of his tragedy,
that he had seen the Jean wrecked on Ealan Dubh,
and the girl Nan on board of her. She was for a
moment dumb with horror, believing the end had
come to all upon the vessel, but on this Gilian
speedily assured her, and " Oh, am n't I glad ! " said
she with a simple utterance and a transport on her
visage that showed how deep was her satisfaction.

" How did they get ashore ? " she asked.

"In the small boat," said Gilian uncomfortably.
*' It caught on the logs at the mouth of the river
when she drifted off, and — and "

" And a boy went out in it and brought them
help ! " she cried, finely uplifted in a delight that she
had guessed the cause of his trepidation. " Oh, you
darling ! And not to say a word of it ! Am not I
the proud woman this day? My dear companion
Nan's girl!"

She caught him ferv ently as he rose ashamed from
his seat to explain or to make an escape from the
punishment that was in her error, a punishment
more severe than if he had been blamed. She was
one never prone to the displays of love and rapture,
but this time her joy overcame her, and she kissed
him with something of a redness on her face. It
was to the boy as if he had been smitten on the
mouth. He drew back almost rudely in so great a
confusion that it but confirmed her guess.

" You must come and tell my brothers," said she,
" this very moment. Don't say anything about the
lass, but they'll be keen to hear about the vessel.
They sit there hearing nothing of the world's news^

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DISCOVERY

209

rom
the
lent
Iwas
lure,
ised
It
the
lat a

she,
the

tsel.
Iws,

unless it comes to the fireside for them, and then
I've noticed they're as ready to listen as Peggy
would be at the Cross well."

She had him half way to the parlour before he
thought of a protest, he had found such satisfaction
in being relieved from her mistaken pride in him.
Then he concluded it was as well to go through with
it, thinking ^.hat if the rescue of the girl was not to
be in the story, his own shortcomings need not
emerge. She pushed him before her into the room ;
her brothers were seated at the fire, and they only
turned when her voice, in a very unaccustomed
excitement, broke the quietness of the chamber.

" Do you hear this ? " she cried, and her hand on
Gilian's shoulder; "a vessel's sunk on the Ealan
Dubh."

'* I knew there would I^e tales to tell of this," said
the General. "The wind came too close on the
frost. I mind at Toulouse "

" And Gilian was down at the Waterfoot and saw
it all," she broke in upon the reminiscence.

" Was he, faith ? " said the Cornal. " I like my
tales at first hand. Tell us all about it, laddie ;
what vessel was she ? "

He wheeled his chair about as he spoke, and
roused himself to attention. It was a curious group,
too much like his old court-martial to be altogether
to the boy's taste. For Miss Mary stood behind
him, with an air of proud possession of him that was
disquieting, and the two men seemed to expect from
him some very exciting history indeed.

" Well, well I " said the Cornal, druRiming with

jii

210

GILIAN THE DREAMER

If!

£ *

m . f.

If'

{" 1 1'

his fingers on his chair-arm impatiently, "you're in
no great hurry with your budget. What vessel was

it?"

"It was the/eau,'* said Gilian, bracing himself up

for a plunge.

"Ye seem to be a wondrous lot mixed up with
the fortunes of that particular ship," said the Cornal
sourly. " What way did it happen ? "

" She was in the mouth of the river," said Gilian,
"and the spate of the pver brought down the
wooden bridge at Clonary. I saw it coming, and I
cried to them, and Black Duncan cast otf, leaving
boat and tiller. She drove before the wind and
went on Ealan Dubh, and sunk, and — that was all."

The story, as he told it, was as bald of interest as
if it were a page from an old almanack.

" What came of the men ? " said the Cornal.
"The loss of the /ean does not amount to muckle ;
there was not a plank of her first timbers left in
her."

" They got ashore in the small boat," said Gilian.

" Which was left behind, I think you said at first,"
said the Cornal, annoyed at some apparent link
a-missing in the chain of circumstance. " If the
boat was left behind as well as the tiller — I think
you mentioned the tiller — how did they get ashore
in it ? Did you see them get ashore ? "

" I saw Black Duncan and the girl, but not the
others," answered Gilian, all at once forgetting that
some caution was needed here.

Up more straightly sat the Cornal, and fixed hira
with a stern eye.

'f "

DISCOVERY

211

Lilian,
irst,"
link
the
Ithink
Ishore

^t the
that

him

" Oh, ay ! " said he ; " she was in the story too,
and you fancied you might hide her. I would not
wonder now but you had been in the vessel your-
self."

Gilian was abashed at his own inadvertence, but
he hastened to explain that he was on !he shore
watching the vessel when she struck.

" But you were on the vessel some time ? " said
the Cornal, detecting some reservation.

" Oh, Colin, Colin, I wonder at you ! " cried
Miss Mary, now in arms for her favourite, and
utterly heedless of the frown her brother threw at
her for her interference. " You treat the boy as if
he was a vagabond and "

" — Vagabond or no vagabond," said the Cornal,
" he was where he should not be. I'm wanting but
the truth from him, and that, it seems, is not very
easy to get."

" You are not just at all," she protested. Then
she went over and whispered something in his ear.
His whole look changed ; where had been suspicion
came something of open admiration, but he gave it
no expression on his tongue.

" Take your time, Gilian," said he ; " tell us how
the small boat got to the vessel."

" The boy went down to the river mouth," said
Gilian, "and "

" — The boy ? " said the Cornal. " Well, if you
must be putting it that idiotic way, you must ; any-
way, we're waiting on the story."

" — The boy went down to the river mouth and
got into the small boat. She was half full of water

212

GILIAN THE DREAMER

and he baled her as well as he could witli his bonnet,
then pushed her off. She went up and down like a
cork, and he was terrified. He thought when he
went in first she would be heavy to row, but he
found the lightness of her was the fearful thing.
The wind slapped like a big open hand, and the
water would scoop out on either side "

"Take it easy, man, take it easy; slow march,"
said the Cornal. For Gilian had run into his narra-
tive in one of his transports and the words could not
come fast enough to his lips to keep up with his
imagination. His face was quivering with the
emotions appropriate to the chronicle.

" — Then I put out the oar astern "

" — Humph ! You did ; that's a little more
sensible way of putting it."

" — I put the oar astern," said Gilian, never hear-
ing the comment, but carried away by his illusion;
" and the wind carried us up the way of Ealan Dubh.
Sometimes the big waves would try to pull the oar
from my hands, wanting fair play between their
brothers and the ship. (" Havers ! " muttered the
Cornal.) And the spindrift struck me in the eyes
like hands full of sand. I thought I would never
get to the vessel. I thought she would be upset
every moment, and I could not keep from thinking
of myself hanging on to the keel and my fingers
slipping in weariness."

" A little less thinking and more speed with your
boat would be welcome," said the Cornal impatiently.
" I'm sick sorry for them, waiting there on a wreck
with so slow a rescue coming to them."

DISCOVERY

213

bset

[crs

)ur
Itly.

Icck

Gilian hesitated, with his illusion shattered, and,
all unnerved, broke for the second time into tears.

" Look at that ! " cried Miss Mary pitifully,
herself weeping; "you are frightening the poor
laddie out of his wits," and she soothed Gilian with
numerous Gaelic endearments.

" Tuts ! never mind me," said the Cornal, rising
and coming forward to clap the boy on the head for
the very first time. " I think we can guess the rest
of the story. C?" we not guess the rest of the
story, Dugald ? "

The General sat bewildered, the only one out of
the secret, into which Miss Mary's whisper to the
Cornal has not brought him.

" I am not good at guessing," said he ; "a man at
my time likes everything straiglit forward." And
there was a little irritation in his tone.

" It's only this, Dugald," said his brother, " that
here's a pluckier young fellow than we thought, and
good prospects yet for a soger in the family. I
never gave Jock credit for discretion, but, faith, he
Lccms to have gone with a keen eye to the market
for once in his life ! If it was not for Gilian here,
Turner was wanting a daughter this day ; we could
hardly have hit on a finer revenge."

'' Revenge ! " said the General, a flash jumping to
his eyes, then dying away. " I would not have said
that, Colin ; I would not have said that. It is the
phrase of a rough, quarrelsome 3'oung soldier, and
we are elders who should be long by with it."

" Anyhow," said the Cornal, " here's the makings
of a hero." And he beamed almost with afTection

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

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on Gilian, now in a stupor at the complexity his
day's doings had brought him to.

The Paymaster's rattan sounded on the stair, and
"Here's John," said his sister. "He'll be very
pleased, I'm sure."

It was anything but a pleased man who entered
the room, his face puffed and red and his eyes
searching around for his boy. He pointed a shak-
ing finger at him.

" What, in God's name, do you mean by this ? '»
he asked vaguely.

" Don't speak to the boy in that fashion," said the
Comal in a surprising new paternal key. "If he
has been in mischief he has got out of it by a touch
of the valiant "

" Valiant ! " cried the Paymaster with a sneer.
" He made an ass of nimself at the Waterfoot, and
his stupidity would have let three or four people
drown if Young Islay, a callant better than himself,
had not put out a boat and rescued them. The
town's ringing with it."

The scar on the Cornal's face turned almost
black. "Is that true that my brother says?"
said he.

Gilian searched in a reeling head for some answer
he could not find ; his parched lips could nut have
uttered it, even if he had found it, so he nodded.

" Put me to my bed, somebody," said the General,
breaking in suddenly on the shock of the moment,
and staggering to one side a little as he spoke.
" Put me to my bed, somebody. I am getting too
old to understand 1 "

CHAPTER XIX

LIGHTS OUT!

As he spoke he staggered to the side, and would
h?ve fallen but for his sister's readiness. About that
tall rush of a brother she quickly placed an arm and
kept him on his feet with infinite exertion, the while
uttering endearments long out of fashion for her or
hin, but come suddenly, at this crisis, from the grave
of the past —the past where she and Dugald had
played as children, with free frank hearts loving each
other truly.

" Put me to my bed," said he again thickly, and
his eyes blurred with the utmost weariness. " Put
me to my bed. O God 1 what is on me now ? Put
me to my bed."

" Dugald ! Dugald ! Dugald ! " she cried. " My
darling brother, here is Mary with you ; it is just a
turn." But as she said the flattering thing her face
was hopeless. The odour of the southernwood on
the window-sill changed at once to laurel, rain-
drenched, dark, and waving over tombs for the boy
spellbound on the floor. All his shameful pertur-
bation vanished, a trifling thing before the great
Perturber's presence.

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

The brothers went quickly beside their sister, and
took him to his bedroom, furnished sparsely always
by his own wish that denied indulgence in anything
much beyond a soldier's campaign quarters.

Dr. Anderson came, and went, shaking hands
with Miss Mary in the lobby and his eyes most
sternly bent upon the inside of his hat. " Before
morning at the very most," he said in his odd low-
country voice. No more than that, and still it
thundered at her soul like an infernal doom. Up she
gathered her apron, up to her face, and fled in among
her pots and pans, and loudly she moved among
them to drown her lamentation.

Dr. Colin came later and prayed in the two
languages over a figure on the bed, and then went
home to write another sermon than the one already
started. The room he left was silent for a while,
till of a sudden the eyes of the General opened and
he looked upon the sorry company.

" Bring me MacGibbon," said he in a voice
extremely sensible.

Gilian ran up the street and fetched the old
comrade, who put his hand upon the General's
head.

" Dugald, do you ken me ? " said he.

** Do I ken you ? " said the General with an un-
practised smile. " You're the laddie that burned
the master's cane. I would know your voice if you
were in any guise, and what masquerade is this that
you should be so old ? . . . We're to be the first to
move in the morning, under arms at scream of
day. . . . Lord, but I'm tired 1 Bob, Bob, they're

LIGHTS OUT !

217

not thinking of us at home in the old place I'll
warrant, and to-morrow we may be stricken corpses
lor the king without so much as Macint3Te's stretch-
ing-board to give us a soger's chest and shoulders."

"Was there anything I could do, Dugald ?" said
the comrade, a ludicrous man with his paunch now far
beyond the limit of the soldier's belt he used to
buckle easily, wearing in a clownish notion of defer-
ence to this soldier's passing a foolish small High-
land bonnet he had donned in old campaigns.

"There was something running !n my mind," said
the man in the bed. " I think I would be wanting
you to take word home in case anything happened.
I was thinking of — of — of — what was her name,
now ? You know the one I mean — her ladyship in
Glen Shira. Am I not stupid to forget it ? that's
the worst of the bottle ! What was her name,
now? . . . Batlalion will form an hollow square. . . .
The name, the name, what was it? . . . On the
centre companies, liwards ivliccl. . . . I'm wearied to
the marrow of my bones, all but the right arm, tiiat's
like a feather, that's like a . . . By the right angle of
the front face; sub-divisions to the right and left half
ivhccl. Re-form the square. Halt!. Dress! . . .
What's that piper doing out there ? MacVurich,
come in ! This is not a reel at a Skve wedding.
. . . Let me see, I have the name on the tip of my
tongue — what could it be, now ? Steady, men ! "

The door of the chamber was pushed in a little,
and to Gilian's mouth his heart rose up at the mani-
festation, for what was this with no footstep on the
wooden stair ? About him he felt of a sudden cold

2l8

GILIAN THE DREAMER

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airs waft, and the door ajar with no one entering
glued his gaze upon its panels. The others in the
room had not perceived it. Miss Mary, grown of
a sudden plain and old, looked up in the Cornal's
face, craving there for something for the ease of
sorrow, as if he that had wandered so far and seen
the Enemy so often and so ugly had some secret to
share with her whereby this ancient trouble could be
marred. There she found no consolation. No
magician but only the brother looked over an untidy
scarf and a limp high collar at the delirious man in
bed. The Paymaster stood at the window frowning
out upon the street; MacGibbon coughed in short
dry jerky coughs, patted with a bony hand upon the
coverlet, turned his head away. A stiL'ness that was
like a swoon came over all.

" Is that you, mother ? " It was the General who
broke the quiet, and his eyes were on his sister. A
flush had fallen like a sunset on his face, his eyes
were very clear and full, and, with his shaven cheeks,
he might in the mitigate light of the chamber have
been a lad new waked from an unpleasant dream.
His sister put her head upon the pillow beside him
and an arm about his shoulders.

"Oh, Dugald, Dugald ! " said she, "it is not
mother yet, but only Mary." And the bedstead
shook with the stress of her grief.

" Mary, is it ? " said he, shutting his eyes again.
" What are you laughing at ? I was not up there at
all ; I never saw her to-day, upon my word ; I was
just giving Black George an exercise no further than
the Boshang Gate. . . . I'm saying, though, you

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LIGHTS OUT !

219

need not let on about it to Colin . . . Colin, Colin,
Colin, 1 wish we were home ; the leaf must be fine
and green upon Dunchuach. . . . They're over the
river at Aldea Tajarda, and we push on to
Cieudada. . . . What's that, Mackay? let go the
girl ! And you the Highland gentleman I Lo
sien — sien — siento mticho^ Seilora."

*' I am at your shoulder, Dugald, do you not know
me?" asked the Comal, gently putting his sister
aside. His brother looked and smiled again, but did
not seem to see him.

" What was her name ? and I'll send her my love
and duty, for, man, between us, I wr.' fond of her,
too. . . . There was a song she had :

The Rover went a-roving far upon the foreign seas.
Oh, hail to thee, my dear, and fare-ye-weel.

Only it was in the Gaelic she sung it."

His voice, that was very weak and thin now,
cracked, and no sound came though his lips moved.

Miss Mary took a cup and wet his lips. He
seemed to think it a Communion, for again he shut
his eyes, and " God," said he, " I am a sinful man
to be sitting at Thy tables, but Thou knowest the
soldier's trade, the soldier's sacrifice, and Thou art
ready to forgive."

And still Gilian was in his bewilderment and fear
about the open door. Had anything come in that
was there beside them at the bed ? Down in the
kitchen Peggy poked the fire with less than her
customary vigour, but between her cheerful and
worldly occupation and this doleful room, felt Gilian,

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

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lay a space — a stairway full of dreads. All the
stories he had heard of Death personified came to
him fast upon each other, and they are numerous
about winter fires in the Highland glens. He could
fancy almost that he saw the plaided spectre by the
bedside, arms akimbo, smiling ghastly, waiting till
his pre}' was done with earthly conversation. It
was horrible to be the only one in that chamber to
know of the terrific presence that had entered at the
door, and the boy's mouth parched with old, remote,
unreasonable fears.

They did not disappear, those childish terrors,
even when a kitten moved across the floor and
began to toy with the vallance of the bed, explaining
at once the door's opening. For might not the
kitten, he thought, be more than Peggy's foundling,
be the other Thing disguised ? He watched its
gambols at the feet of that distressed household,
watched its pawing at the fringe, turning round
upon itself in playfulness, emblem surely of the cruel
heedlessness of nature.

MacGibbon moved to the window and stood beside
the Paymaster, saying no word, but looking out at
the vacant street, its causeway still shining with the
rain. They were turning their backs, as it were, on
a sorrow irremediable. Miss Mary and the Cornal
stood alone by the dying man. He lay like a log
but that his left hand played restlessly on the cover-
lec, long in the fingers, sinewy at the wrist. Miss
* .-ok it in hers and put palm to palm, and
the back with her other hand with an
Ing of affection that murmured at her throat.

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LIGHTS OUT !

221

and

log

And now that MacGibbon did not see and the Comal
had blurred eyes upon his brother's boyish counte-
nance, she felt free to caress, and she laid the poor
hand against her cheek and coyly kissed it.

The General turned his look upon her wet face
with a moment's comprehension. " Tuts ! never
mind, Mary, my dear," said he, " it might have been
with Jamie yonder on the field, and there — there
you have 2. son — in a manner — left to comfort you."
Then he began to wander anew. " A son," said he,
" a son. Whose son ? Turner threw our sonless-
ness in our Jock's face, but it was in my mind there
was a boy somewhere we expected something of."

Miss Mary beckoned on Gilian to come forward
to the bedside. He rose from the chair he sat on in
the farthest corner with his dreads and faltered
over.

"What boy's this?" said the General, looking
at him with surmising eyes. " He puts me in mind
of — of — of — of an old tale somewhere with a sunny
day in it. Nan ! Nan ! Nan ! — that's the name. I
knew I would come on it, for the sound of it was
always like a sunny day in Portugal or Spain — He
esiado en EspaM^

" This is the boy, Dugald," said Miss Mary ; " this
is just our Gilian."

" I see that. I know him finely," said the General,
turning upon him a roving melancholy eye : "Jock's
recruit. . . . Did you get back from your walk, my
young lad ? I never could fathom you, but perhaps
you have your parts. . . . Well, well . . . what are
ye dreaming on the day ? . . . Eh ? Ha ! ha ! ha !

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

13 I

Aye dreaming, that was you; you'll be dreaming
next that the lassie likes you. Mind, she jilted
Jock, she jilted Colin, she jilted me; were we not
the born idiots ? yet still-and-on. . . . Sixty miles
in twenty-four hours; good marching, lads, good
marching, for half-starved men, and not the true
heather-bred at that."

The voice was becoming weaker in every sentence,
the flush was paling on the countenance. Standing
by the bedside, the Cornal looked upon his brother
with a most rueful visage, his face hoved up with
tears.

"This beats all!" said he, and he turned and
went beside the men at the window, leaving Miss
Mary caressing still at the hand upon the coverlet,
and with an arm about the boy.

" He was a strong, fine, wiry man in his time,"
said MacGibbon, looking over his shoulder at this
end of a stormy life. "I mind him at Talavera; I
think he was at his very best there."

The Paymaster looked, too, at the figure upon the
bed, looked with a bent head, under lowered eye-
brows, his lip and chin brown with snuffy tears.

"At sixteen he threw the cabar against the cham-
pion of the three shires, and though he was a sober
man a bottle was neither here nor there with him,"
said the Cornal.

Miss Mary was upon her knees.

" The batteries are to open fire on San Vincent ;
seven eighteen-pounders and half a dozen howitzers
are scarcely enough for that job. Tell Mackellar to
move up two hundred yards farther on the right."

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LIGHTS OUT!

223

The General babbled again of his wars in a child's
accent, that rose now and then stormily to the vehe-
mence of the battle-field. " Columns deploy on the
right centre company. . . . No^ no, close column on
the rear of the Grenadiers. ... I wish, I wish. . . .
Jock, Jock, Where's your boy now ? I cannot see
him, I'm sore feared he's hiding in the sutler's
vans. I knew him for a dreamer from the first day
I saw him. . . . That's Williams gone and my step
to Major come. God sain him ! we could have better
spared another man. . . . Halt, dress I "

He opened his eyes again and they fell upon
Gilian. " You mind me of a boy I once knew," said
he. " Poor boy, poor boy, what a pity of you ! My
sister Mary would have liked you. I think we never
gave her her due, and. indeed she had a generous
hand."

" Here she's at your side, dear Dugald," said his
sister, and her head went down upon his breast.

" So she IS," said he, arousing to the fact ; " I
might be sure she would be there ! " He disengaged
the hand she had in hers, and wearily placed it for
a moment on her hair with an awkward effort at
fondling. "Are you tired, my dear?" he said,
repeating it in the Gaelic. " It's a dreich dreich
dying on a feather bed." He smiled once more
feebly, and Gilian screamed, for the kitten had
touched him on the leg.

"Go downstairs, this is no place for you, my
dear," said Miss Mary; and he went willingly,
hearing a stertorous breathing in the bed beliind
him.

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PART II

CHAPTER XX

THE RETURN

When the General died, the household in the high
burgh land suffered a change marvellous enougn
considering how little that old man musing in his
parlour had had to do for years with its activities.
Cornal Colin would sit of an evening with candles
extravagantly burning more numerous than before
to make up for the glowing heart extinguished ; the
long winter nights, black and stifling and immense
around the burgh town, and the wind with a perpetual
moan among the trees, would find him abandoned to
his sorry self, looking into the fire, the week's paper
on his knees unread; and him full of old remem-
brances and regrets. I": had become for him a
parlour full of ghosts. He could not, in October
blasts, but think of Jamie yonder on the cold foreign
field with no stone for his memorial ; Dugaid, so
lately gone, an old man, bent and palsied, would
return in the flicker of the candle, remitted to his
prime, the very counterpart of the sturdy gallant
on the wall. Sometimes he would talk with these
wraiths, and Miss Mary standing still in the lobby,
her hcarf'torturcd by his loneliness, would hear him

THE RETURN

225

murmuring in these phantom visitations. She would,
perhaps, venture in now and then timidlj', and tal<e
a seat unbidden on the corner of a chair near him,
and embark on some topic of the day. For a Httle
he would hstcn almost with a brightness, but brief,
brief was the mood ; very soon would he let his
chin fall upon his breast, and with pouted lips
relapse into his doleful meditation.

All life, all the interests, the activities of the town
seemed to drift by him ; folk saw him less and less
often on the plain stones of the street ; children
grew up from pinafores to kilts, from kilts to breeches,
never knowing of his presence in that community
that at last he saw but of an afternoon in momentary
glimpses from the window.

On a week-end, perhaps, the veterans would come
up to cheer him if they could ; tobacco that he nor
any of his had cared for in that form would send its
cloud among Miss Mary's dear naperies, but she
never complained : they might have fumed her out
of press and pantry if they brought her brother
cheer. They talked loudly ; they laughed boister-
ously ; they acted a certain zest in life : for a little
he would rouse to their entertainment, fiddling
heedlessly with an empty glass, but anon he would
see the portrait of Dugald looking on them wonder-
ing at their folly, and that must daunten him. It
would not take long till some extravagance of these
elders made him wince, and there was Cornal Colin
again in the dolours, poor company for them that
would harbour any delusion of youth. It was pitiful
^hen to see them take their departures, almost slink-

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226

GILIAN THE DREAMER

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ing, ashamed to have sounded the wrong note in
that chamber of sober recollections. Miss Mary,
lighting them to the door with one of her mother's
candlesticks, felt as she had the light above her head
and showed them down the stair as if she had been
the last left at a funeral feast. Mer shadow on the
wall, dancing before her as she returned, seemed
some mockery of the night.

Only Old Brooks could rouse the Cornal to some
spirit of liveliness. In a neighbourly compassion
the dominie would come in of a Sunday or a Friday
evening, leaving for an hour or two the books he was
so fond of that he must have a little one in his
pocket to feel the touch of when he could not be
studying the pages. Seated in the Cornal's chair,
he had a welcome almost blithe. For he was a man
of great urbanity, sobered by thought upon the
complexities of life, but yet with sparkling courage.

He found the brothers now contemptuous of the
boy who showed no sign of adaptability or desire
for that gallant career that had been theirs. These,
indeed, were the cold days for Gilian in a household
indifferent to him save Miss Mary, who grew fonder
every day, doting upon him like a lovci for a score
of reasons, but most of all because he was that
rarity the perpetual child, and she xyaiit be loving
somewhere.

" I have not seen the lad at school for a week
now," Brooks said, compelled at last by long
truancies.

*' So ? " said the Cornal, showing no interest. " It
is not my affair. John must look after his owr>

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THE RETURN

227

Mr.

recruit, who seems an uncommon tardy one,
Brooks — an uncommon tardy."

" But I get small satisfaction from the Captain."

" I daresay, I daresay ; would you wonder at that
in our Jock ? He's my brother, but some way there
is wanting in him the stuff of Jamie and of Dugald.
Even in his throes upon his latter bed Dugald could
see what Jock could never see — the doom in this
lad's countenance. As for me, I was done with the
fellow after the trick he played us in his story of
the wreck on Ealan Dubh. I blame him, in a way,
for my brother Dugald's stroke."

The dominie looked in a startled remonstrance.
** I would not blame him for that, Comal," he said :
"that was what the Sheriff calls damnum fatale.
Upon my word, though Gilian has been something
of a heart-break to myself, I must say you give him
but scant justice among you here."

" I can see in him but youth wasted, and the
prodigal of that is spendthrift indeed."

** I would not just say wasted," protested the
dominie. " There's the makings of a fine man in
him if we give him but a shove in the right direc-
tion. He baffles me to comprehend, and yet " — this
a little shamefacedl} — " and yet I've brought him
to my evening prayers, I would like guidance on
the laddie. With him it's a spoon made or a horn
spoiled. Sometimes I feel I have in him fine stuff
and pliable, and I'll be trying to fathom how best to
work it, but my experience has always been with
more common metal, and I am feared, I'm feared,
we may be botching him."

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

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"That was done for us in the making of him,"
said the Cornal.

" I would not say that either, Cornal," said
the dominie firmly. " But Tm wae to see him
brought up on no special plan. The Captain
seems to have given up his notion of the army for
him."

"You can lead a horse to the water, but you
cannot make him drink. What's to be made of
him ? Here's he sixteen or thereabouts, and just a
bairn over lesson-books at every chance."

Brooks smiled wistfully. " It is not the lesson-
books, Cornal, not the lesson-books exactly. I wish
it was, but books of any kind — come now, Cornal,
you can hardly expect me to condemn them in the
hands of youth." He fondled the little Horace in
his pocket as a man in company may squeeze his
wife's hand. "They made my bread and butter,
did the books, for fifty years, and Gilian will get no
harm there. The lightest of novelles and the thin-
nest of ballants have something precious for a lad
of his kind."

The Cornal made no response ; the issue was too
trivial to keep him from his meditation. His chin
sunk upon his chest as it would not have done had
the dominie kept to the commoner channels of his
gossip, thit A'as generally on universal history,
philosophy of a rough and ready rural kind, and
theology handled with a freedom that would have
seriously alarmed Dr. Colin if he could have heard
his Session Clerk in the operation.

" Eh ? Arc you hearing me, Cornal ? " he pressed,

ii I

THE RETURN

229

eager to compel something for the youth whose days
were being wasted.

" Speak to Miss Mary," was al'. the Cornal would
say. " I have nothing to do with him, and John's
heedless now, for he knows his plan for the army is
useless."

The dominie shook his head. " Man ! " he cried.
" I cannot even tell of his truancy there, for her heart's
wrapped up in the youth. When she speaks to me
about him her face is lighted up like a day in spring,
and I dare not say cheep to shatter her illusion."

Gihan, alas ! knew how little these old men now
cared for him. The Cornal had long since ceased
his stories ; the Paymaster, coming in from his
meridian in the Sergeant More, would pass him
on the stair v/Ith as little notice as if he were a
stranger in the street. Miss Mary was his only
link between his dreams, his books, and the common
life of the day, and it was she who at last made the
move that sent him back to Ladyfield to learn with
Cameron the shepherd — still there in the interests
of the Paymaster who had whimsically remained
tenant — the trade that was not perhaps best suited
for him, but at least came somehow most conveniently
to his practice. But for the loss of her consoling
and continual company there would have been
almost joy on his part at this returning to the
scene of his childhood. He went back to it on a
summer day figuring to himself the content, th'-j care-
lessness that had been his there before, and thinking,
poor fool, they were waiting where he had left them.

Ladyfield was a small farm of its kind with four

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230

GILIAN THE DREAMER

hundred sheep, seven cows, two horses, a goat or
two and pouhry. When the little old woman with
a face like a nut was alive she could see the whole
tack at one sweep of the eye from the rowan at the
door, on the left up to the plateau where five burns
were born, on the right to the peak of Drimfern. A
pleasant place for meditation, bleak in winter for the
want of trees, but in other seasons in a bloom of
colour.

Though he was there 'prentice to a hard calling,
Gilian's life was more the gentle's than the shep-
herd's. He might be often on the hill, but it was
seldom to tend his flock and bring them to fank for
clip or keeling, it was more often to meditate with a
full pagan e3'e upon the mysteries of the country-
side. A certain weeping effect of the mists on the
ravines, one particular moaning sound of the wind
among the rocks, had a strange solace for his ear,
chording with some sweet melancholy of his spirit.
He loved it all, yet at times he would flee from the
place as if a terror were at his heels and in a revolt
against the narrowness of his life, hungering almost
to starvation for some companionship, for some salve
to an anxious mind, and, in spite of his shyness,
bathe in the society of the town — an idler. The
people as he rode past would indicate him with a
toss of the head over their shoulders, and say,
"The Paymaster's boy," and yet the down was
showing on his lip. He would go up the street
looking from side to side with an expectancy that
had no object; he stared almost rudely at faces,
seeking for he knew not what.

THE RETURN

231

It was not the winters with their cold, their rain,
their wind and darkness, that oppressed him most in
his banishment, but the summers. In the winter the
mists crowded so close about, and the snow so robbed
the land of all variety, that Lady field house with its
peats burning ceaselessly, its clean paven court, its
store of books he had gathered there, was an
enviable place for compactness and comfort, and he
could feel as if the desirable world was in his imme-
diate neighbourhood. Down in the street he knew
the burgh men were speeding the long winter nights
with song and mild carousal ; the lodges and houses
up the way, each with its spirit keg and licence,
gave noisiness to the home-returning of tenants
for Lochow from the town, and as they went by
Ladyfield in the dark they would halloo loudly to
the recluse lad within who curled, nor shot, nor
shintied, nor drank, nor did any of the things it was
youth's manifest duty to do.

But the summer made his station there in Lady-
field almost intolerable. For the roads, crisp, yellow,
Ettiight,' demanded his going on them ; the sun-dart
among distant peaks revealed the width and glamour
of the world. "Come away," said the breezes;
passing gipsies all jangling with tins upon their
backs awoke dreams poignant and compelling.
When the summer was just on the turn at that
most pitiful of periods, the autumn, he must go
more often d 'vn to town.

I ■ a

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CHAPTER XXI

i i

a- k

THE SORROWFUL SEASON

It was on a day in a month of August he went to
town to escape the lamentation of the new-weaned
lambs, that made the glen sorrowful from Carnus
to Kincreggan. A sound pleasant in the ears of
Cameron the shepherd, who read no grief in it, but
the comfortable tale of progress, growth, increas-
ing flocks, but to Gilian almost heartrending. The
separation for which the ewes wailed and their little
ones wept, seemed a cruelty; that far-extending
lamentation of the flocks was part of some universal
coronach for things eternally doomed. Never seemed
a landscape so miserable as then. The hills, in the
morning haze, gathered in upon his heart and seemed
to crush it. A poor farmer indeed to be thus affected
by short brute sorrows, but so it was with Gilian,
and on some flimsy excuse he left Lad3'field in the
afternoon and rode to town. H3 had grown tall
and slim in those latter days ; his face would have
seemed — if not handsome altogether — at least notable
and pleasant to any other community than this,
which ever preferred to have its men full-cheeked,
bronzed, robust. He had an air of gentility oddly

THE SORROWFUL SEASON 233

out of place with his immediate history ; in his walk
and manner men never saw anything very taking,
but young women of the place would feel it, puzzle
themselves often as to what the mystery of him was
that made his appearance on the street or on the
highway put a new interest in the day.

The Paymaster was standing gossiping at the inn
door with Mr. Spencer, Rixa, and General Turner
himself — no less, for the ancient rancour at the
moment was at rest.

" Here he comes," said old Mars sourly, as Gilian
turned round the Arches into the town. " He's like
Gillesbeg Aotram, always seeking for something
he'll never find."

"Your failure!" said Turner playfully, but with
poor inspiration, as in a moment he realised.

The Paymaster bridled. He had no answer to a
truth so manifest to himself. In a lightning-flash
he remembered his boast in the schoolroom at the
dregy, and hoped Turner had not so good a
memory as himself. He could only vent his annoy-
ance on Gilian, who drew up his horse with a studied
curvet — for still there was the play-actor in him to
some degree.

" Down again ? " said he with half a sneer. There
is a way of leaning on a stick and talking over the
shoulder at an antagonist that can be very trying to
the antagonist if he has any sense of shyness.

" Down again," agreed Gilian uncomfortably, sorry
he had had the courtesy to stop. The others moved
away, for they knew the relations of the man and
his adopted son were not of the pleasantest.

7- I !

234

GILIAN THE DREAMER

ii !•;

"An odd kind of farm training!" said the old
officer. " I wish I could fathom whether you are
dolt or deep one."

Gilian might have come off the horse and argued
it, for he had an answer pat enough. He sat still
and fingered the reins, looking at the old man with
the puffed face, and the constricted bull neck, and
self-satisfaction written upon every line of him, and
concluding it was not worth while to explain to a
nature so shallow. And the man, after all, was his
benefactor: scrup-ilous ':'Out every penny he spent
on himself, he had p ad, 4.'. Miss Mary's solicitations,
for the very horse the lad bestrode.

"Do you know wbat T"rn> . i.aid there?" asked
the Paymaster, still with his contemptuous side to
the lad. " He called you our failure. God, and it's
true ! Neither soldier nor shepherd seems to be in
you, a muckle bulrush nodding to the winds of
Heaven ! See that sturdy fellow at the quay
there?"

Gilian looked and saw Young Islay, a smart ensign

home on leave from the county corps that even yet

was taking so many fine young fellows from that

community.

" There's a lad who's a credit to all about him

and he had not half your chances; do you know
that ? "

" He seems to have the knack of turning up for
my poor comparison ever since I can mind," said
Gilian, good-humouredly. "And somehow,** he
added, " I have a notion that he has but half my
brains as well as half my chances.'' He looked up

ii ^

fii

THE SORROWFUL SEASON 235

to see Turner still at the inn door. "General
Turner," lie cried, his face reddening and his heart
stormy, " I hear that in 3'our frank estimate I'm the
Paymaster's failure ; is it so bad as that ? It seems,
if 1 may say it, scarcely fair from one of your years
to one of mine."

" Shut your mouth ! " said the Paymaster coarsely,
as Turner came forward. "You have no right to
repeat what I said and show the man I took his
insolence to heart."

" I said it ; I don't deny," answered the General,
coming forward from the grpup at the door and
putting his hand in a friendly freedom on the horse's
neck and looking up with some regret in Gilian's
face. " One says many things in an impetus.
Excuse a soldier's extravagance. I never meant
it either for your ear or for unkindness. And you
talk of ages : surely a man so much your senior has
a little privilege ? "

"Not to judge youth, sir, which he may have
forgotten to understand," said Gilian, yet very red
and uneasy, but with a wistful countenance. " If
you'll think of it I'm just at the beginning of life, a
little more shy of making the plunge perhaps than
Young I slay there might be, or your own son
Sandy, who's a credit to his corps, they say."

"Quite right, Gilian, and I ask your pardon,"
said the General, putting out his hand. " God
knows who the failures of this life are ; some of
them go about very flashy semblances of success.
In these parts we judge by the external signs, that
are not always safest ; for my son Sandy, who looks

f 1

hi-

236

GILIAN THE DREAMER

fit t •■ Ml

Mi.

SO thriving and so douce when he comes home, is
after all a scamp whose hands are ever in his simple
daddy's pockets." But this he said laughing, with a
father's reservation.

The Paymaster stared at this encounter, in some
ways so much beyond his comprehension. " Humph ! "
he ejaculated; and Gilian rode on, leaving in the
group behind him an uncomfortable feeling that
somehow, somewhere, an injustice had been done.

Miss Mary's face was at the window whenever
his horse's hooves came clattering on the causeway
— she knew the very clink of the shoes. " There's
something wrong with the laddie to-day," she cried
to Peggy ; " he looks unco dejected ; * and her own
countenance fell in sympathy with her darling's
mood.

She met him on the stair as if by accident,
pretending to be going down to her cellar in the
pend. They did not even shake hands; it is a
formality neglected in these parts except for long
farewells or unexpected meetings. Only she must
take his bonnet and cane from him and in each hand
take them upstairs as if she were leading thus two
little children, her gaze fond upon the back of
him.

" Well, auntie ! " he said, showing at first no sign
of the dejection she had seen from the window.
*' Here I am again. I met the Captain up at the
inn door, and he seems to grudge me the occasional
comfort of hearing any other voice than my own. I
could scarcely tell him as I can tell you, that the
bleating of the lambs gave me a sore heart. The

THE SORROWFUL SEASON

237

very hills are grieving with them. I'm a fine farmer,
am I not ? Are you not vexed for me ?" His lips
could no longer keep his secret, their corners trembled
with the excess of his feeling.

She put a thin hand upon his coat lapel, and with
the other picked invisible specks of dust from his
coat sleeve, her eyes revealing by their moisture a
ready harmony with his sentiment.

" Farmer indeed 1 " said she with a gallant attempt
at badinage; "you're as little for that, I'm afraid, as
you're for the plough or the army." She led him
into her room and set a chair for him as if he had
been a prince, only to have an excuse for putting an
arm for a moment almost round his waist. She
leaned over him as he sat and came as close as she
dared in contact with his hair, all the time a glow in
her face.

" And what did you come down for ? " she asked,
expecting an old answer he never varied in.

He looked up and smiled H'ilh a touch of mock
gallantry wholly new. " To see you, of course,"
said he, as though she had been a girl.

She was startled at this first revelation of the
gallant in what till now had been her child. She
flushed to the coils above her ear. Then she
laughed softly and slapped him harmlessly on the
back. " Get away with you," she said, " and do not
make fun of a douce old maiden ! " She drew back
as she spoke and busily set about some household
office, fearing, apparently, that her fondness had
been made too plain.

"Do you know what the Captain said?" he

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238

GILIAN THE DREAMER

1-' ii

f>:. fi;

remarked in a tone less hearty, moving about the
room in a searching discontent.

" The old fool ! " she answered irrelevantly, anti-
cipating some unpleasantness. " He went out this
morning in a tiravee about a button wanting from
his waistcoat. It's long since I learned never to heed
him much."

It was a story invented on the moment; in
heavenly archives that sin of love is never indexed.
Her face had at once assumed a look of anxiety, for
she felt that the encounter had caused Gilian's dejec
tion as he rode down che street.

"What was he saying?" she asked at last,
seeing there was no sign of his volunteering more.
And she spoke with a very creditable show of in-
difference, and even hummed a little bar of song as
she turned some airing towels on a winter-dyke
beside the fire.

" Do you think I'm a failure, auntie ? " asked he,
facing her. " That was what he called me."

She was extremely hurt and angry.

" A failure ! " she cried. " Did any one ever hear
the like ? God forgive me for saying it of my
brother, but what failure is more notorious than his
own ? A windy old clerk-soger with his name in a
ballant, no more like his brothers than I'm like
Duke George."

" You do not deny it ! " said Gilian simply.

She moved up to him and looked at him with an
affection that was a transfiguration.

" My dear, my dear ! " said she, " is there need for
me to deny it ? What are you yet but a laddie ? "

THE SORROWFUL SEASON

239

live

He fingered the down upon his lip.

*' But a laddie," she repeated, determined not to
see. " All the world's before you, and a braw
bonny world it is, for all its losses and its crosses.
There is not a man of them at the inn door who
would not willingly be in your shoes. The sour old
remnants — do I not know them ? Grant me patience
with them ! "

" It was General Turner's word," said Gilian»
utterly uncons'^led, and he wondered for a moment
to see her flush.

" He might have had a kinder thought," said she,
" with his own affairs, as they tell me, much ajee, and
Old Islay pressing for his loans. I'll warrant you
do not know anything of that, but it's the clavers of
the Crosswell." She hurried on, glad to get upon
a topic even so little away from what had vexed her
darling. " Old Islay has his schemes, they say, to
get Maam tacked on to his own tenancy of Drimlee
and his son out of the army, and the biggest gentle-
man farmer in the shire. He has the ear of the
Duke, and now he has Turner under his thumb.
Oh my sorrow, what a place of greed and plot ! "

" That Turner said it, showed he thought it ! "
said Gilian, not a whit moved from bitter reflection
upon his wounded feelings.

" Amn't I telling you ? " said Miss Mary. " It's
just his own sorrows souring him. There's Sandy,
his son, a through-other lad (though I aye liked
the laddie and he's young yet), and his daughter
back from her schooling in Edinburgh, educated, or
polished, or finished off as they call it — I hope she

, ■ ,1'

M ■

• It'

[ . !!:„ i I

ill ^ ^

240

GILIAN THE DREAMER

kens what she's to be after next, for I'm sure her
father docs not."

Gilian's breast filled with some strange new sense
of sudden relief. It was as if he had been climbing
out of an airless, hopeless valley, and emerged upon
a hill-crest, and was struck there by the flat hand
of the lusty wind and stiffened into hearty interest
in the rolling and variegated world around. In a
second, the taunt of the General of Maam was no
more to him than a dream. A dozen emotions
mastered him, and he tingled from head to foot, f jr
the first time man.

" Oh, and s/ic's back, is she ? " said he with a
crafty indifference, as one who expects no answer.

Miss Mary was not deceived. She had moved to
the window and was looking down into the street
where the children played, but the new tone of his
voice, and the pause before it, gave her a sense of
desertion, and she grieved. On the ridges of the
opposite lands, sea-gulls perched and preened their
leathers, pigeons kissed each other as they moved
about the feet of the passers-by. A servant lass
bent over a window in the dwelling of Marget
Maclean and smiled upon a young fisherman who
went up thn middle of the street, noisily in knee-
higli boots, Tiie afternoon was gloriouo with tun.

M' 'r

i'i i

CHAPTER XXII

IN CHURCH '

Ir the lambs were still wailing when Gilian got oack
to Ladyfield he never heard therii. Was the glen as
sad and empty as before ? Then he was absent,
indeed ! For he was riding through an air almost
jocund, and his spirit sang within him. The burns
bubbled merrily among the long grasses and the
bracken, the myrtle cast a sharp and tonic sweetness
all around. The mountain bens no more pricked
the sky in solemn loneliness, but looked one to the
other over the plains — companions, lovers, touched
to warmth and passion by the sun of the afternoon.
It was as if an empty world had been fresh tenanted.
Gilian, as he rode up home, woke to wonder at his
own cheerfulness. He reflected that he had been
called a failure — and he laughed.

Next day he was up with the sun, and Cameron
was amazed at this new zeal that sent him, crook in
hand, to the hill for some wanderers of the flock,
whistling blithely as he went. Long after he was
gone he could see him, black against the sky, on the
backbone of the mountain, not very active for a man
in search of sheep. But what he could not see so

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242

GILIAN THE DREAMER

far was Gilian's rapture as he loolied upon the two
glens severed by so many weary miles of roadway,
but close together at his feet. And the chimneys of
Maam (that looks so like an ancient castle at Dhu
Loch head) were smoking cheerily below. Looking
down upon them he made a pretence to himself after
a little that he had just that moment remembered
who was now there. He even said the words to
himself, "Oh! Nan — Miss Nan is there!" in the
tone of sudden recollection, and he flushed in the
cold breeze of the lonely mountain, half at the
mention of the name, half at his own deceit with
himself.

He allowed himself to fancy what the girl had
grown to in her three years' absence among Low-
land influences, that, by all his reading, must be
miraculous indeed. He saw her a little older only
than she had been when they sat in the den of the
Jean or walked a magic garden, the toss of spate-
brown hair longer upon her shoulders, a little more
sedateness in her mien. About her still hung the
perfume of young birch, and her gown was still no
lower than her knees. lie met her (still in his
imagination upon the hill-top) by some rare chance,
in the garden where they had st»;a}'ed, and his cool-
ness and ease were a marvel to himself.

*' Miss Nan ! " he cried. '' They told me you were

returned and " What was to follow of the

sentence he could not just now saj'.

She blushed to see him ; his hand tingled at the
contact with hers. She answered in a pleasant tone
of Edinburgh gentility, like Lady Charlotte, and

vere
the

It the

tone

IN CHURCH

243

they walked a little way together, conversing
wondrously upon life and books and poems, whose
secrets they shared between them. He was able to
hold her fascinated by the sparkle of his talk ; he
had never before felt so much the master of hirarelf,
and his head fairly hummed with high notions.
They talked of their childhood

Here Gilian dropped from the clouds, at first with
a sense of some unpleasant memory undefined, then
with shivering, ashamed, as his last meeting with
the girl flashed before him, and he saw himself
again fleeing, an incapable, from the sea-beach at
Ealan Dubh.

If she should remember that so vividly as he
did 1 The thought was one to fly from, and he sped
down the hill furiously, and plied himself busily for
the reraainder of the day with an industry Cameron
had never seen him show before. Upon him had
obviously come a change of some wholesome and
compelling kind. He knew it himself, and yet — he
told himself — he could not say v/hat it was,

Sunday came, and he went down to church in the
morning as usual, but dressed with more scruples
than was customary. Far up the glen the bell
jangled through the trees of the Duke's policies, and
the road was busy with people bound for the sermon
of Dr. Colin. The}^ walked down the glen in groups,
elderly women with snow-white piped caps, younger
ones with sober hoods, and all with Bibles carried in
their napkins and southernwood or tansy between
the leaves. The road was dry and sandy ; they
cast ofl" their shoes, as was their custom, and walked

*5 1

i >

1 1

244

GILIAN THE DREAMER

M'}<

1 f.1

; I

barefoot, carrying them in their hands till they came
to the plane-tree at the cross-roads, and put them on
again to enter the town with fit decorum. The men
followed, unhappy in their unaccustomed suits of
broad-cloth or hodden, dark, flat-faced, heavy of
foot, ruminant, taming their secular thoughts as they
passed the licensed houses to some harmony with
the sacred nature of their mission. The harvest
fields lay half-garnered, smoke rose indolent and
blue from cot-houses and farm-towns ; very high up
on the hills a ewe would bleat now and then with
some tardy sorrowi for her child. A most tranquil
day, the very earth breathing peace.

The Paymaster and Miss Mary sat together in
Keils pew, Gilian with them, conscious; of a new silk
cravat. But his mind almost unceasingly was set
upon a problem whose solution lay behind him.
Keils pew was in front, the Maam pew was at least
seven rows behind, in the shadow of the loft,
beneath the cushioned and gated preserve of the
castle. One must not at any time look round, even
for the space of a second, lest it should be thouglit
he was guilty of some poor worldly curiosity as to
the occupants of the ducal seat, and to-day especially,
Gilian dared not show an unusual interest in the
Turner pew. His acute ear had heard its occupants
enter after a loud salutation from the elder at the
plate to the General, he fancied there was a rustle of
garments such as had not been heard there for three
years. All other sounds in the church — the shuffle
of feet, the chewing of sweets with which the
worshippers in these parts always induce wakeful-

i i

IN CHURCFI

24.5

ncss, the noisy breathing of Rixa as he hunched in
his corner beside the pulpit — seemed to stop while a
skirt rustled. A glow went over him, and unknow-
ing what he did he put forward his hand to take his
Bible off the book-board.

Miss Mary from the corners of her eyes, and with-
out turning her face in the slightest degree from the
pulpit where Dr. Colin was soon to appear, saw the
action. It was contrary to every form in that
congregation ; it was a shocking departure from the
rule that no one should display sign of life (except
in the covert conveyance of a lozenge under the
napkin to the mouth, or a clearance of the throat),
and she put a foot with pressure upon that of Gilian
nearest her. Yet as she did so, no part of her body
seen above the boards of the pevy betrayed her
movement.

Gilian flushed hotly, drew back his hand quickly,
without having touched the book, and bent a stern
gaze upon the stairs by which Dr. Colin would
descend to his battlements.

It was a day of stagnant air, and the church swung
with sleepy influences. The very pews and desks, the
pillars of the loft and the star-crowned canopy of the
pulpit, seemed in their dry and mouldy antiquity to
give forth soporific dry accessions to that somnolent
atmosphere, and the sun-rays, slanted over the heads
of the worshippers, showed full of dust. Ouiside,
through the tall windows, could be seen the beech-
trees of the Avenue, and the crows upon them busy
at their domestic affairs. Children in the Square
cried to each other, a man's footsteps passed on the

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246

GILIAN THE DREAMER

causeway, returned, and stopped below the window.
Everybody knew it was Black Duncan the seaman,
of an older church, and reluctant, yet anxious, to
share in some of the Sabbath exercises.

Gilian, with the back of the pew coming up near
his neck, wished fervently it had been built lower, for
he knew how common and undignified his view from
the rear must thus be made. Also he wished he could
have had a secret eye that he might look unashamed
in the direction of his interest. He tingled with
feeling when he fancied after a little (indeed, it was
no more than fancy) that there was a perceptible
odour of young birch. Again he was remitted to his
teens, sitting transported in the Jean, soaring heaven-
ward upon a song by a bold child with spate-brown
hair. He put forward his hand unconsciously again,
and this time he had the Bible on his knee before
Miss Mary could check him.

She looked down with motionless horror at his
fingers feverishly turning over the leaves, and saw
that he had the volume upside down. Her pressure
on his foot was delayed by astonishment. What
could this conduct of his mean ? He was disturbed
about something ; or perhaps he was unwell. And
as she saw him still holding the volume upside down
on his knee and continuing to look at it with absent
eyes she put her mittened hand into the pocket of
her silk gown, produced a large peppermint lozenge,
and passed it into his hand.

This long unaccustomed courtesy found him
awkwardly unprepared, and his fingers not closing
quickly enough on the sweet it fell on the floor. It

IN CHURCH

247

rolled with an alarming noise far to the left, and
stirred the congregation like a trumpet. Though
little movement showed it, every eye was on the
pew from which this disturbance came, and Miss Mary
and Gilian knew it. Miss Mary did not flinch ; she
kept a steadfast eye straight in front of her, but to
those behind her the sudden colour of her neck
betrayed her culpability. Gilian was wretched, all
the more because he heard a rustle of the skirts
behind in Turner's pew, and his imagination saw
Miss Nan suppressing her laughter with shaking hair
and quite conscious that he had been the object of
Miss Mary's attention. He felt the blood that
rushed to his body must betray itself behind. All
the gowk in him came uppermost ; he did not know
what he was doing ; he put the Bible awkwardly on
the book-board in front of him, and it, too, slid to the
floor with a noise even more alarming than that of
the rolling sweet.

The Paymaster, clearing his throat harshly,
wakened from a dover to the fact that these disturb-
ances were in his own territory, and saw the lad's
confusion. If that had not informed him the mis-
chievous smile of Young Islay in Gilian's direction
would have done so. He half turned his face to
Gilian, and with shut lips whispered angrily :

" Thumbs ! thumbs 1 " he said. ** God forgive you
for a gomeral 1 " And then he stared very sternly
at Rixa, who saw the movement of the swollen neck
above the 'kerchief, knew that the Paymaster was
administering a reproof, and was comforted exceed-
ingly by this prelude to the day's devotions.

I i

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248

GILIAN THE DREAMER

t ■ ;-

Gilian left the book where it lay to conceal from
those behind that he had been the delinquent. But
he felt, at the same time, he was detected. What a
contrast the lady behind must find in his gawkiness
compared with the correct and composed deportment
of the Capital she had come from ! He must be the
rustic indeed to her, handling lollipops yet like a
child, and tumbling books in a child's confusion. As
if to give more acuteness to his picture of himself
he saw a foil in Young Islay so trim and manly in
the uniform old custom demanded for the Sunday
parade, a shrewd upward tilt of the chin and
lowering of the brow, his hand now and then at
his cheeks, not so much to feel its pleasing rough-
ness, as to show the fine fingers of which he was so
conscious. It demanded all his strength to shake
himself into equanimity, and Miss Mary felt rather
than saw it.

What ailed him ? Something unusual was per-
turbing him. An influence, an air, a current of
uneasiness flowed from him and she shared his
anxiety, not knowing what might be its source.
His every attitude was a new and unaccustomed
one. She concluded he must be unwell, and a
commotion set up in her heart, so that Dr. Colin's
opening prayer went sounding past her a thing
utterly meaningless like the wind among trees, and
love that is like a high march wall separated her and
her favourite from the world.

She surrendered even her scruples of kirk etiquette
to put out a hand timidly as they stood together at
the prayer, and touched Gilian softly on the sleeve

IN CHURCH

249

lis

rcc.

led

in s

ling

ind

at
:ve

with a gush of consolation in the momentary
contact.

But he never felt the touch, or he thoup^ht it
accidental, for he was almost feverishly waiting till
that interminable prayer was ended that he might
have the last proof of the presence of the girl behind
him. The crimson hangings of the canopy shook in
the stridor of Dr. Colin's supplication, the hollows
underneath the gallery rumbled a sleepy echo ; Rixa
breathed ponderously and thought upon his inter-
locutors, but no other life was apparent ; it was a
man crying in the wilderness, and outside in the
playground of the world the children were yet
calling and laughing content, the rooks among the
beeches surveyed, carelessly, the rich lush policies
of the Duke.

Gilian was waiting on the final proof, that was
only in the girl's own voice. He remembered her
of old a daring and entrancing vocalist, in the har-
mony one thread of gold among the hodden grey of
those simple unstudied psalmodists.

The prayer concluded, the congregation, wearied
by their long stand, relapsed in their hard seats
with a sense of satisfaction, the psalm was given
out, the precentor stuck up on the desk before him
the two tablets bearing the name of the tune,
" Martyrs," and essayed at a beginning. He began
too high, stopped and cleared his throat. " We will
try it again," said he, and this time led the voices
all in unison. Such a storm was in Gilian's mind
that he could not for a little listen to hear what he
expected. He had forgotten his awkwardness, he

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250

GILIAN THE DREAMER

I' <•

had forgotten lus shame ; his erratic and fleet-
winged fancy had sent him back to the den of the
/can, and he was in the dusk of the ship's interior
listening to a girl's song, moved more profoundly
than when he had been actually there by some
message in the notes, some soothing passionate
melancholy without relation to the words or to the
tune, some inexplicable and mellow vibration he
had felt first as he stood, a child, on the road from
Kilmalieu, and a bird solitary in the winds, lifting
with curious tilt of feathers over the marshy field,
had piped dolorously some mystery of animal life
man must have lost when he ceased to sleep stark
naked to the stars. In his mind he traced the
baffling accent, failing often to come upon it, anon
finding it fill all his being with an emotion he had
never known before.

Miss Mary was now more alarmed than ever.
For he was not singing, and his voice was for wont
never wanting in that stormy and uncouth unison
of sluggish men's voices, women's eager earnest
shrilling. It was as if he had been absent, and
so strong the illusion that she leaned to the side
a little to touch him and assure herself he was
there.

And that awakened him ! He listened with his
workaday ears to separate from the clamour, as
he once had done, the thread of golden melody.
For a moment he was amazed and disappointed ;
no unusual voice was there. If Miss Nan was
behind him, she was taking only a mute part in the
praise, amused mildly perhaps — he could not blame

IN CHURCH

251

his
, as

ited;

was

the

llame

her — by this rough contrast with the more tuneful
praise she was accustomed to elsewhere.

And then — then he distinguished her I No, he
was wrong ; no, he was right, there it was again,
not so loud and clear as he had expected, but yet
her magic, unmistakably, as surely as when first it
sounded to him in " The Rover " and " The Man
with the Coat of Green." A thrill went through
him. He rose at the close of the psalm, and trod
upon clouds more airily, high-breastedly, uplifted
triumphantly, than Ronaig of Gaul who marched, in
the story, upon plunging seas from land to land.

" He has been eating something wrong," con-
cluded Miss Mary, finding ease of a kind in so poor
an excuse for her darling's perturbation. It ac-
counted to her for all his odd behaviour during the
remainder of the service, for his muteness in the
psalmody, his restless disregard of the sermon, his
hurry to be out of the straight-backed, uncomfort-
able pev/.

As he stood to his feet to follow the Paymaster
she ventured a hand from behind upon his waist,
pretending to hasten the departure, but in reality to
get some pleasure from the touch. Again he never
heeded ; he was staring at the Maam pew, from
which the General and his brother were slowly
moving out.

There was no girl there !

He could scarcely trust his eyes. The aisle had
a few women in it, moving decorously to the door
with busy eyes upon each other's clothes ; but no,
she was not there, whose voice had made the few

it!

252

GILIAN THE DREAMER

psalms of the day the sweetest of his experience.
When he got outside the door and upon the entrance
steps the whole congregation was before him ; his
glance went through it in a flash twice, but there
was no Miss Nan. Her father and his brother walked
up the street alone. Gilian realised that his imagina-
tion, and his imagination only, had tenanted the
pew. She was not there !

1 :

i ;!■<

•

ice.
nee
his
ere
ked
na-
the

CHAPTER XXIII

yOUNO ISLAY

" The clash in the kirkyard is worth half a dozen
sermons," say the unregenerate, and though no
kirkyard is about the Zion of our parish, the people
are used to wait a lictlc before home-going and talk of
a careful selection of secular affairs ; not about the
prices of hoggs and queys, for that is Commerce, nor
of Saturday night's songs in the tavern, for that
(in the Sabbath mind) is Sin. But of births, mar-
riages, courtships, weather, they discourse. And
Gilian, his head dazed, stood in a group with the
Paymaster and Miss Mary, and some of the people
of the glens, who were the ostensible reason for the
palaver. At first he was glad of the excuse to wait
outside, for to have gone the few yards that were
necessary down the street and sat at Sunday's cold
viands even with Peggy's brew of tea to follow
would be to place a flight of stairs and a larch door
between him and — And what? What was he re-
luctant to sever from ? He asked himself that with
as much surprise as if he had been a stranger to
himself. He felt that to go within at once would be
to lose something, to go out of a most agreeable

'' r

\ i

:'i

:l =

i t

.1 1

•i!>

\H- ■ ■!:

25 +

GILIAN THE DREAMER

^\l\ I

atmosphere. He was not hungry. To sit with old
people over an austere table with no flowers on it
because of the clay, and see the Paymaster snufF
above his tepid second day's broth, and hear the
Cornal snort because the mince-collops his toothless-
ness demanded on other days of the week were not
available to-day, would be, somehow, to bring a
sordid, unable, drab and weary world close up on a
vision of joy and beauty. He felt it in his flesh, in
some flutter of the breast. It was better to be out
here in the sun among the chattering people, to have
nothing between him and Glen Shira but a straight
sweep of wind-blown highway. From the steps of
the church he could see the Boshang Gate and the
hazy ravines and jostling elbows of the hills in Shira
Glen. lie saw it all, and in one bound his spirit
vaulted there, figuring her whose psalm he had but
heard in the delusion of desire.

The Duke came lazily down the steps, threw a
glance among his clan and tenantry, cast his plaid,
with a fine grace, about his shoulders, touching his
bonnet with a finger as hat or bonnet rose in saluta-
tion, and he went fair up in the middle of the street.

The conversation ceased, and people looked after
him as on an Emperor.

" lie's going to London on Tuesda}'', I hear," said
Major Hall to Mr. Spencer. It was the Major's
great pride to know the prospective movements at
the Castle sooner than any one else, and he was not
above exchanging snuff-mulls with Wat Thomson,
the ducal boot-brusher, if ducal news could only be
cot thereb}'.

'.'■^ I

YOUNG ISLAY

255

lid
)r's

at
lot
)n,

"London, London ; did you sa\', London, sir?"
said tiie innl<ecper, loo!;ing again with an envy after
liis Grace, the name at once stirring in him the
cHme from wliich he was an exile. And tlic smell
of peaty clothes sniote him on the nostril for the
first time that day. He had been so many Sundays
accustomed to it that as a rule he no longer perceived
it, but now it rose in contrast to the beefy, beer-
charged, comfortable odours of his native town.

" Ah ! he's going on Tuesday," said the Paymaster,
*' but when Duke George's gone, there are plenty of
Dukes to take his place. Every officer in his corps
will be claiming a full command, quarrelling among
themselves. There'll be Duke I slay "

" 1 1 us — s — sh ! " whispered ^lajor Hall discreetly
from the corner of his mouth. " Here's his young
fellow coming up behind." Then loudly, "It's a
very fine season indeed, Captain Campbell, a very
fine season."

Young Islay came forward with a salute for the
Captain and his sister. He was Gilian's age and
si;^e, but of a different build, broader at the shoulder,
fuller at the chest, black of hair, piercing of eye,
with just enough and no more of a wholesome con-
ceit of himself to give his Majesty's uniform justice.
V, .len he spoke it vvas with a clear and manly tone
deep in the chest.

le shook hands all round, he was newly come
home from the lowlands, his tunic vvas without speck
or crease, his chin was smooth, his strong hands
were white; s Gilian returned his greeting he felt
himself in an enviable and superior presence.

256

GILIAN THE DREAMER

U; i

Promptly, too, there came like a breath upon glass a
remembrance of the ensign of the same corps who
kissed his hand to Nan on just such another day of
sunshine at Boshang Gate.

" Glad to see you back, Islay," said the Paymaster,
proffering his Sabbath snuff-mull. " Faith, you do
credit to the coat 1 " And he cast an admiring eye
upon the young soldier.

Young Islay showed his satisfaction in his face.

"But it's a smaller coat than yours, Captain,"
said he, " and easier filled nowadays than when
fighting was in fashion. I'm afraid the old school
would have the better of us."

It was a touch of Gaelic courtesy to an elder,
well-meant, pardonable ; it visibly pleiised the old
gentleman to whom it was addressed, and he looked
niore in admiration than before upon this smart
young officer.

" Up the Glen yet, Giliau?" said, Islay, with the
old schoolboy freedom, and Gilian carelessly nodded,
his eyes once more roving on the road to Boshang
Gate. Young Islay looked at him curiously, a little
smile hoveriiig about the corners of his lip'- for he
knew the dreamer's reputation.

The Paymaster gave a contemptuous " Humph I "
** Up the Glen yet. Yoi? may well say it," said he.
"And like to be. It's a fine clin e for stirks."

Gilian did not hear it, but Miss Mary felt it sting
to her very heart, and she moved away, pressing
upon her favourite's arm to bring him with her.
** We must be moving," said she ; " Peggy will be
scolding about the dinner spoiled with wailing."

YOUNG ISLAY

157

\<T

little
for he

iph 1 "
lid lie.

It sting
kssing

her.
n\\ be

But no one else seemed willing to break up the
group. Young Islay had become the centre of
attraction. MacGibbon and Major Hall, the Sheriff,
Mr. Spencer and the dominie, listened to his words
as to a sage, gratified by his robust and handsome
youth, and the Turners had him by the arm and
questioned him upon his experience. Major Mac-
Nicol, ludicrous in a bottle-green coat with abrupt
tails and an English beaver hat of nn ancient
pattern, jinked here and there among the people,
tip-toeing, round shouldered, with eyes peering and
alarmed, jerking his head across his shoulder at
intervals to see that no musket barrel threatened,
and at times, for a moment or two, he would hang
upon the outskirts of Young Islay's leve'c, with a
hand behind an ear "o listen to his story, filled for a
little space with a wave of vague and bitter recollec-
tion that never broke upon the shore of solid under-
standing, enchanted by a gleam of red and gold, the
colours of glory and of youth.

" Let us go liome," whispered Miss Mary, pulling
gently at Gilian's coat.

" Wait, wait, no hurry for cold kail hot again,"
said the Paymaster, every instinct for gossip alert
and eager.

"And you showed him the qualities of a Highland
riposte I Good lad 1 Good Lid ! Tm glad that
Sandy and you learned something of the art of fence
before they tried you in the Stirling fashion,"
General Turner was saying. " You'll be home for a
while won't you? Come up and see us at Maam ;
no ceremony, a bird, a soldier's jug, and "

ti '•■

I ■

!:1

258

GILIAN THE DREAMER

wm^ .1

" And a soldier's song from Miss Nan, I hope,"
continued the young officer, smiling. " That would
be the best ind;icement of all. I hear she's home
again from the low country, and thought she would
have been in church to-day."

"City ways, you know, Islay, city ways," said
Turner, tapping the young fellow playfully on the
shoulder with his cane. " She did not come down
because she must walk 1 I wonder what Dr. Colin
would say if he found me yoking a horse to save a
three miles Sabbath daunder to the kirk. Come up
and have your song, though, any day you like ; I'll
warrant you never heard better."

" I'm certain I never did," admitted Young Islay
heartily.

" And when I think," said the General softly, more
closely pressing the young fellow's arm, " that there
might be no song now at all but for your readiness
with an oar, I'm bound to make a tryst of it : say
Tuesday."

" Certainly ! " said Young Islay. " About my readi-
ness with an oa»-, now, that was less skill than a
boy's luck. I can tell you I was pretty frightened
when I baled — good heavens, how long ago ! — the
water from the punt, and felt the storm would smother
me ! " He was flushing to speak of a thing so much
to his credit, and sought relief from his feelings by a
random remark to the Paymaster's boy

" You mind ? " said he, with a laughing look at
Gilian, who wished now that he were in the more
comfortable atmosphere of the Paymaster's parlour
for he was lamentably outside the interests of this

»f

readi-
lan a
Itened
I — the

lother
I much
by a

|)ok at
more

larlour
f this

YOUNG ISLAY

259

group. " You mind ? " he pressed again, as if the
only victim of that storm and stranding could ever
forget!

" I remember very well," said Gilian in an Angli-
fied accent that renewed all Miss Mary's apprehension,
for it showed an artificial mood. " I came out of
that with small credit," he went on, sparing himself
nothing. " I suppose I would have risked my life
half a dozen times over to be of any service ; what
was wanting was the sense to know what I should
do. There you had the advantage of me. And did
you really bail the boat with your bonnet ? "

" Faith I did 1 " said Young Islay, laughing.

" I knew it," said Gilian. " I knew your feelings
and your acts as well as if it had been myself that
had been there. I wish my comprehension of the act
to be done was as ready as my imagination. I
wish "

A shyness throttled the words in his mouth when
he found all the company looking upon him, all
amused or a little pitiful except the dominie, whose
face had a kindly respect and curiosity^ and Miss
Mary, who was looking wistfully in his eyes. •

" There are two worlds about us," said Brooks ;
" the manifest, ihat is as plain as a horn-book from
A to Ampersand ; the other, that is in the mind of
man, no iota less real, but we are few that venture
into it further than the lintel of the door." And he
had about his eyes an almost fatherly fondness for
Gilian, who felt that in the words were some justifica-
tion for him, the dreamer.

The street was cmotying, one by one the pcop'e

I ^

III

TT'

260

GILIAN THE DREAMER

'I 'II'

had dispersed. Young Islay's group broke up, and
went their several ways. The Paymaster aijd Miss
Mary and Gilian went in to dinner.

" What's the matter with you, my dear ? "
whispered Miss Mary at the turn of the stair when
her brother had gone within.

"Matter?" said Gilian, surprised at her dis-
covery. " Nothing that I know of. What makes
you think there is anything the matter with me ? "

She stopped him at the stair-head, and here in
the dusk of it she was again the young companion.
" Gilian, Gilian," said she, with stress in her
whisper and a great afiertion in the face of her.
" Do you think I. can be deceived ? You are ill ; or
something troubles you. What were you eating ? "

He laughed loudly ; he could not help it at so
prosaic a conclusion.

" What carry-on is that on the stair on a Lord's
day ? " cried the Paymaster angrily and roughly
from his room as he tugged short-tempered at the
buckle of his Sabbath stock.

" Then there's something bothering you, my
dear," said Miss Mai-}' again, paying no heed to the
interruption. And Gilian could not release his arm
from her restraint.

" Is there, Auntie ? " said he. " Perhaps. And
still I could not name it. Come, come, what's the
sense of querying a man upon his moods ? "

"A man ! " said Miss Mary.

"On the verge at least," said he, with a confidence
he had never had in his voice before, taking a full
breath in his chest.

-> "

YOUNG ISLAY 261

"A man! "said she again. And she saw, as if a
curtain had fallen from before her eyes, that this
was no more the fair-haired, wan-faced, trembling
child who came from Ladyfield to her heart.

"I wish, I wish," said she all trembling, "the
children did not grow at all I "

■m

CHAPTER XXIV

MAAM HOUSE

lii

' ' ^Si

ni' ^ii'

IvIaam House stands mid-way up the Glen, among
pasture and arable land that seems the more rich
and level because it is hemmed in by gaunt hills
where of old the robber found a sequestration, and the
hunter of deer followed his kingly recreation. The
river sings and cries, almost at the door, mellow in
the linns and pools, or in its shallow links cheerily
gossiping among grey stones ; the Dhu Loch shines
upon its surface like a looking-glass or shivers in
icy winds. Round about the bulrush nods ; old
great trees stand in U^ rains knee-deep like the
cattle upon its marge pondering, and the breath of
oak and hazel hangs from shore to shore.

To her window in the old house of Maam would
Nan come in the mornings, and the beauty of Dhu
Loch would quell the song upon her lips. It
touched her with some melancholy influence.
Grown tall and elegant, her hair in waves about
her ears, in a rich restrained tumult about her head,
her eyes brimming and full of fire, her lips rich, her
bosom generous — she was not the Nan who swung
upon a gate and wished that hers was a soldier's

MAAM HOUSE

263

fortune. This place lay in her spirit like a tomb-
stone — the loneliness of it, the stillness of it, the
dragging da3's of it, with their dreary round of
domestic duties. She was not a week home, and
already sleep was her dearest friend, and to open
her eyes in the morning upon the sunny but silent
room and miss the clangour of Edinburgh streets
was a diurnal grief.

What she missed of the strident town was the
clustering round of fellow creatures, the eternal
drumming of neighbour hearts, the feet upon the
pavement and the eager faces all around that were
so full of interest they did not let her seek into the
depths of her, where lay the old Highland sorrows
that her richest notes so wondrously expressed.
The tumult for her! Constant touch with the active,
the gay ! Solitude oppressed her like a looming
disease. Sometimes, as in those mornings when
she looked abroad from her window upon the Glen,
she felt sick of her own company, terrified at the
pathetic profound to which the landscape made her
sink. Then she wept, and then she shook the
mood from her angrily and flashed about the house
of Maam like a sunbeam new-washed by the rain.

Her father used to marvel at those sudden whims
of silence and of song. He would come in on some
poor excuse from his stable or cunningly listen
above his book and try to understand ; but he, the
man of action, the soldier, the child of undying
ambitions, was far indeed from comprehension.
Only he was sure of her affection. She would come
and sit upon his knee, with arms around his neck.

t II

264

GILIAN THE DREAMER

:f'i '

,1 ili

' i

indubent niadlv in a child's caresses. Her uncle
James, finding them thus sometimes, would start at
an illusion, for it looked as if her mother was back
again, and her father, long so youthful of aspect,
seemed the sweetheart husband once more.

" Ah ! you randy ! " he would say to his niece,
scowling upon her ; " the sooner you get a man
the better ! "

" If there is one in the world half so handsome as
my father — yes," she would answer merrily, nestling
more fondly in the General's breast, till he rose and
put her off with laughing confusion.

" Away I away ! " he would cry in pretended
annoyance. '' You make my grey hairs ridiculous."

" Where are they ? " she would say, running her
white fingers over his head and daintily refastening
the ribbon of that antiquated queue that made him
always look the chevalier. She treated him, in all,
less like a father than a lover, exceedingly proud of
him, untiring of his countless tales of campaign and
court, uplifted marvellously with his ambitious dreams
of State preferment. For General Turner was but
passing the time in Maam till by favour promised a
foreign office was found for him elsewhere.

" And when the office comes," said he, " then I
Jeave my girl. It is the one thing that sobers me."

*^ Not here ! not here ! " she cried, alarm in eye
and tone. So he found, for the first time, her
impatience with the quiet of Maam. He was, for a
little, dumb with regret that this should be her
feeling,

" Where better, where safer, my dear ? " he asked.

ims

)Ut

her

icr

led.

MAAM HOUSE

265

" Come up to the bow-window." And he led her
where she could see their native glen from end to end.
The farm-towns, the cots were displayed ; smoke
rose from their chimneys in the silent air, grey blue
banners of peace.

" Bide at home, my dear," said he softly, " bide at
home and rest. I thought you would have been glad
to be back from towns among our own kindly people
in the land your very heart-blood sprang from. Quiet,
do you say ? True, true," and] still he surveyed
the valley himself with solemn eyes. " But there is
content here, and every hearth there would make you
welcome if it was only for your name, even if the
world was against you."

She saw the reapers in the fields, heard their
shearing songs that are sung for cheer, but somehow
in this land are all imbued with melancholy. Loud,
loud against that sorrow of the brooding glen rose
up in her remembrance the thoughtless clamour of
the lowland world, and she shivered, as one who
looks from the window of a well-warmed room upon
a night of storm.

Her father put an arm about her waiiit.

"Is it not homely ? " said he, dreading her
reply.

" I can bear it — with you," she answered pitifully.
" But if you go abroad, it would kill me. I must
have something that is not here ; I must have youth
and life — and — life."

"At your age I would not have given Maam and
the glen about it for my share of Paradise."

— " But now ? " said she.

i;l

I i il

/ ■ ■

266

GILIAN THE DREAMER

'!!

i i

He turned hastily from the window and nervously
paced the room.

" No matter about me," he answered in a little.
"Ah I you're your mother's child. I wish — I wish I
could leave you content here." He felt at his chin
with a nervous hand, muttered, looked on her
askance, pitied himself that when he went wandering
he must not have the consoling thought that she was
safe and happy in her childhood's home.

" I wish I had never sent you away," he said.
" You would have been more content to-day. But
that's the manner of the world, we must pay our way
as we go, in inns and in knowledge."

She ran up with tripping feet and kissed hira
rapturously.

** No lowland tricks I " he cried, pleased and yet
ashamed at a display unusual in these parts. " Fancy
if some one saw you I "

" Then let them look well again," she said, laugh-
ingly defiant, and he had to stoop to avoid the
assault of her ripe and laughing lips. The little
struggle had brought a flame to her eye that grew
large and lambent ; where her lower neck showed in
a chink of her kerchief-souffle it throbbed and glowed.
The General found himself wondering if this was,
indeed, his- child, the child he had but the other
day held in the crook of his arm and dandled on his
knee.

" I wish," said he again, while she neatly tied the
knot upon his queue, " I wish we had a husband for
you, good or — indifferent, before I go."

"Not indifferent, father," she laughed. " Surely the

the
for

the

MAAM HOUSE

267
As

best would not be too good for your daughter 1
if I wanted a husband of any kind ! "

•• True, true," he answered thoughtfully. " You
are young yet. The best would not be too good for
you ; but I know men, my dear, and ihe woman's
well off who gets merely the middling in her pick of
them. And that minds me, I had one asking for you
at the kirk on Sunday, A soldier, no less. Can you
guess him ? "

"The Paymaster's Boy," said she promptly,
curiosity in her countenance.

Her father laughed.

"Pooh I" he exclaimed. "Is that all you have
of our news here that you don't know Gilian's
farming, or making a show of farming, in Lady field ?
He never took to the Army after all, and an old brag
of Mars is very humorous now when I think of it."

" I told him he never would," said Nan, with no
note of triumph in the accuracy of her prediction.
" I thought he could play-act the thing in his mind
too well ever to be the thing itself."

" It was Young Islay I meant," said her father.
" A smart lellow ; he's home on leave from his corps,
and he promises to come some day this week to see
the girl whose father has seme reason to be grateful
to him."

She flushed all at once, overtaken by feelings she
could not have described — feelings of gratitude for
the old rescue, of curiosity, pleasure, and a sudden
shyness. Following it came a sudden recollection
of the old glamour that was about the ensign — such
another, no doubt, as Young Islay — who had given

268

GILIAN THE DREAMER

her the first taste of gallantry as he passed with the
troops in a day of sunshine. She looked out at the
window to conceal her eyes, and behold ! the glen
was not so melancholy as it was a little ago. She
wished she had put on another gown that afternoon,
the rustling one of double tabinetthat her Edinburgh
friends considered too imposing for her years, but
that she herself felt a singular complacence in no
matter what her company might be.

" A smart fellow," repeated her father musingly,
flicking some dust from his shoes, unobserving of
her abstraction. " I wish Sandy took a iesson or
two from him in application."

" Ah!" she cried, " you're partial just because "

And she hesitated.

— '• Just because he saved my lassie's life," con-
tinued Turner, and seized by an uncommon impulse
he put an arm round her and bent to kiss her not
unwilling lips. He paused at the threshold, and
drew back with a half-shamed laugh.

"Tuts!" said he. "Vou smit me with silly
lowland customs. Fancy your old Highland daddie
kissing you 1 If it had been the young gentleman
we speak of "

A loud rap came to the knocker of the front door,
and Nan's hands went flying to her hair in soft
inquiries ; back to her face came its colour.

It was Young Islay. He came into the room with
two strides from the stair-head and a very genteel
obeisance to the lady, a conceit of fashion altogether
foreign to glens, but that sent her back in one dart
of fancy to the parlour of Edinburgh, back to the

If ' "

MAAM HOUSE

269

warm town, back to places of gaiety, and youth, and
enterprise, back to soft manners, the lip gossiping at
the ear, shoes gliding upon waxen floors, music,
dance, and mirth. Her heart throbbed as to a
revelation, and she could have taken him in her
arms for the sake of that brave life he indicated.

His eyes met hers whenever he entered, and he
could not draw them away till hers, wavering before
him, showed him he was daring. He turned and
shook hands with the General, and muttered some
commonplace, then back again he came to that
pleasant face so like and yet so unlike the face he
had known when a boy.

"You'll hardly know each other/' said the father,
amused at this common interest. ** Isn't she a most
elderly person to be the daughter of so young and
capable a man ? "

Young Islay ranged his mind for a proper compli-
ment, but for once he was dumb ; in all the oft-
repeated phrases of his gallant experiences there
was no sentiment to do justice to a moment like
this. " I am delighted to meet you again," he said
slowly, his mind confused with a sense of the
inadequacy of the thing and the inexplicable feelings
that crowded into him in the presence of a girl who,
three years ago, would have no more disturbed him
than would his sister. She was the first to recover
from the awkwardness of the moment.

" I was just wishing I had on another gown," she
said more frankly than she felt, but bound to give
utterance to the last clear thought in her mind. " I
had an idea we might have callers."

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'You could have none that became you better,"
said ihe lad boldly, feasting upon her charms of lip
and eye. And now he was the soldier — free, bold,
assured.

"What? In the way of visitors," laughed her
father, and she flushed again.

" I spoke of the gown," said Young Islay (and he
had not yet seen it, it might Lave been red or blue
for all he could tell). "I spoke of the gown ; if i!
depends on that for you to charm your company,
you should wear no other."

" A touch of the garrison, but honest enough to
be said before the father ! " thought General Turner.

Nan laughed. She courtesied with an affected
manner taught in P dinburgh schools.

" Sir," '=?he said, " you are a soldier, and of course
the gown at the moment in front of you is always
the finest in the world. Don't tell me it is not so,"
she hastened to add, as he made to protest, "because
I know my father and all the ways of his trade,
and — and — and if you were not the soldier even in
your pleasantries to ladies I would not think you the
soldier at all."

The General smiled and nudged the young fellow
jocosely. " There," said he, " did I not tell you she
was a fiery one ? "

" I hope you did not discuss me in that fashion,"
said Nan, pausing with annoyance as she moved
aside a little, all her pride leaping to her face.

" Your father will have his joke," said Young
Islay quickly. " He barely let me know you were
licre."

MAAM HOUSE

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271

the

The General smiled again in admiration of
young fellow's astuteness, and Nan recovered.

They went to the parlour. Through the window
came the songs of the reapers and the twitter of
birds busy among the seeds at the barn - door.
Roses swinging on the porch threw a perfume into
the roo^a. Young Islay felt, for the first time in his
life, a sense of placid happiness. And when Nan
sang later — a newer, wider world, more years, more
thoughts, niure profound depths in her song — he was
captive.

To his aid he sumrnoned all his coniidence ; he
talked like a prince (if they talk head-up, valiantly,
serene and possessing) ; he moved about the room
studiously unconscious and manly ; he sat ^vith grace
and showed his hand, and all the time he claimed
the girl for his. " You are mine, you are mine 1 "
he said to himself over and over again, and by the
flush on her neck as she sat at the harpsichord she
might be hearing, through some magic sense, his
bold unspoken thought.

Evening crept, lights came, the father went out
to give some orders at the barn ; they were left
alone. The instrument that might have been a
heavenly harp at once lost its dignity and relapsed
to a tinkling wire, for Nan was silent, and there
crowded into Young Islay's head all the passion of
his people. He rose and strode across the room ;
he put an arm round her waist and raised her, all
astounded, from the chair.

She turned round and tried to draw back, looking
stnrtled at his eyes that were wide with fire.

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GILIAN THE DREAiMER

" What do you mean ? " she gasped.

*' Need you ask it ? " he said in a new voice,
raising an arm round her shoulder. His fingers
unexpectedly touched her warm skin beneath the
kerchief-souffle. The feeling ran to his heart, and
struck him there like an earthquake. Down went
his head, more firm his hold upon the lady's waist ;
she might have been a flower to crush, but yet he
must be rude and strong ; he bent her back and
kissed her. Her lips parted as if she would cry out
against this outrage, and lie felt her breath upon his
cheek, an air, a perfume maddening. '* Nan, Nan,
you are mine, you are mine ! " said he huskily, and
he kissed her again.

Out in the fields, a corncrake raised its rasping
vesper and a shepherd whistled on his dogs. The
carts rumbled as they made for the sheds. The
sound of the river far off in the shallows among the
saugh-trees came on a little breeze, a murmur of the
sad inevitable sea that ends all love and passion, the
old Sea beating b'ack about the world.

In the room was an utter silence. She had drawn
back for a moment stupefied, checking in her pride
even the breathing of ner struggle. He stood bent
at the head a little, contrite, his hat, that he had lifted,
in his hand. And they gazed at each other — people
who had found themselves in some action horribly
rude and shameful.

" I think you must have made a mistake, or have
been drinking," she said at lasr^ her breast now
heaving stormily and her tyes ablaze with anger.
" I am not the da'iy-maid.''

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MAAM HOLoE

273

" I could not help it," he answered lamely.
*' You — you — you made me do it. I love you ! "

She drew back shocked.

He stepped forward again, manly, self-possessed
again, and looked her hungrily in the eyes. " Do
you hear that ? " he said. " Do you hear that ? I
love you ! I love you ! There you look at me, and
I'm inside like a fire. What am I to do ? I am
Highland ; I am Long Islay's grandson. I am a
soldier. I am Highland, and if I want you I must
have you."

She drew softly towards the door as if to escape,
but heard her father's voice without, and it gave her
assurance A pallor had come upon her cheek, only
her lips were bright as if his kiss had seared them.

" You are Highland, you are Highland, are you ? "
she said, restraining her sobs. " Then where is the
gentleman ? Do you fancy I have been growing up
in Maam all the years you were away among canteens
for you to come heme and insult me when you
wished ? "

He did not quail before her indignation, but he
drew back with respect in every movement.

" Madame," he said, with a touch of the ballroom,
" you may miscall me as j'ou will ; I deserve it all.
I have been brutal ; I have frightened you — that
would not harm a hair of your head for a million
pounds ; I have disgraced the hospitality of your
father's house. I may have ruined myself in your
eyes, and to-morrow I'll writhe for it, but now — but
nov*r — I have but one plea : I love you ! I'll say it,
though you struck me dumb for ever."

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

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She recovered a little, looked curiously at him, and
" Is it not something of a liberty, even that ? " she
asked. " You bring the manners of the Inn to my
father's house." The recollection of her helplessness
in his grasp came to her again, and stained her face
as it had been with wine.

He turned his hat in his hand, eyeing her
dubiously but more calmly than before.

" There you have me," he said, with a large and
helpless gesture, " I am not worth two of your most
trivial words. I am a common rude soldier that has
not, as it were, seen you till a moment ago, and when
I was at your — at your lips, I should have been at
your shoes."

She laughed disdainfully a little.

"Don't do that," said he, "you make me mad."
Again the tumult of his passion swept him down ; he
put <i foot forward as if to approach her, but stopped
short as by an immense inward effort. " Nan, Nan,
Nan," he cried so loudly that a more watchful father
would have heard it outside. " Nan, Nan, Nan, I
must say it if I die for it : I love you ! I never
felt — I do not know — I cannot tell what ails me, but
you are mine ! " Then all at once again his mood
and accent changed. " Mine ! What can I give ?
What can I offer ? Here's a poor ensign, and never
a war with chances in it ! "

He strode up and down the room, throwing his
shadow, a feverish phantom, on the blind, and Nan
looked at him as if he had been a man in a play.
Here was her first lover with a vengeance ! They
might be all like that ; this madness, perhaps, was

MAAM HOUSE

275

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the common folly. She remembered that to him she
owed her life, and she was overtaken by pity.

" Let us say no more about it," she said calmly.
" You alarmed me very much, and I hope you will
never do the like again. Let me think I myself was
willing" — he started — "that it was some — some
playful way of paying off the score I owe you."

" What score ? " said he, astonished.

"You saved my life," she answered, all resentment
gone.

" Did I ? " said he. " It would be the last plea I
would offer here and now. That was a boy's work,
or luck as it might be ; this is a man before you. I
am not wanting gratitude, but something far more ill
to win. Look at me," he went on ; " I am Highland,
I'm a soldier, I'm a man. You may put me to the
door (my mother in heaven would not blame you),
but still you're mine."

He was very handsome as he stood upon the floor
resolute, something of the savage and the dandy, a
man compelling. Nan felt the tremor of an admira-
tion, though the insult was yet burning on her
countenance.

" Here's my father," she said, quickly sitting at the
harpsichord again, with her face away from it and
the candle-light.

Into the room stepped the General, never knowing
he had come upon a storm. Their silence surprised
him. He looked suspiciously at the lad, who still
stood on the floor with his hat in his hand.

" You're not going yet, Islay ? " said he, and there
was no answer.

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GILTAN THE DREAMER

IWi

" I lave you two quarrelled ? " he asked, again
glancing at his daughter's averted face.

Young Islay stammered his reply. " I have been
a fool, General, that's all," said he. " I brought the
manners of the Inn, as your daughter says, into your
house, and "

The father caught him by the sleeve and bent a
most stern eye.

"Well, well? "he pushed.

" And — the rest, I think, should be between your-
self and me," said Young Islay, looking at Nan now
with her back to them, and he and the father went
out of the room.

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CHAPTER XXV

THE EAVESDROPPER

There was no moon, but the sky hung thick with
stars, and the evening was a rare dusk where bush
and tree stood half revealed, things sinister, con-
cealing the terrific elements of dreams. Over the
hills came Gilian, a passionate pilgrim of the night.
The steeps, the gullies, the hazel thickets he trod
were scarcely real for him, he passed them as if in a
swoon, he felt himself supreme, able to step from
ben to ben, inspired by the one exaltation that puts
man above all toils, fears, weariness and doubts,
brother of the April eagle, cousin-german of the
remote and soaring star.

He approached the house of Maam by a rough
sheep-path along the side of the burn, leaped from
boulder to boulder to keep the lights of the house in
view, brushed eagerly through the bracken, ran
masterfully in the flats. When he came close to
tlie house, caution was necessary lest late harvesters
should discover him. He went round on the outside
of the orchard hedge, behind the milk-house wall,
and stcod in the concealment of a little alder plant-
ing. The house was lit in several windows, it
struck — thought he — warm upon a neck and flashed

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278

GILIAN THE DREAMER

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back in a melting eye within ; his heart drummed
furiously.

In the farmyard the workers were preparing to
depart for the night from their long day of toil. All
but the last of the horses had been stabled; the
shepherds were returning from the fanks ; two
women, the weariness of their bodies apparent in
their attitudes even in the dusk, stood for a little in
the yard, then with arms round each other's waists
went towards the cot-house, singing softly as they
went. The General's voice in Gaelic rose over all
but the river's murmur, as he called across the
wattle gate to a herd-boy bearing in peat for the
night and morning fires. And the night was all
wrapt in an odour of bog myrtle and flowers.

That outer world, for once, had no interest for
Gilian ; his eyes were on the windows, and though
the interior of Maam was utterly unknown to him
from actual sight, he was fancying it in every detail.
He knew the upper room where Nan slept ; he had
watched the light come to it and disappear, every
night since she had returned, though he could not
guess how in that eminent flame she was reading
the memorials, the letters, the diaries of her lost
lowland life and weeping for her solitude.

The light was not there now ; it was too early in
the evening, so she must be in the room whose two
windows shone on the grass between the house and
the barn. He could see them plainly as he stood in
the planting, and he busied himself, forgetting all
the outside interests of the house, in picturing its
interior. Nan, he told himself, sat sewing or read-

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THE EAVESDROPPER

279

ing within, still the tall lady of his day-dreams, for
he had not yet seen her since her return.

And then he heard her harpsichord, its unfamiliar
music amazing him by its relation to some world he
did not know, the world from which she had just
returned. She was playing the prelude of the
simplest song that ever had been taught in an
Edinburgh academy, yet these ears, accustomed only
to rough men's voices, the song of birds, now and
then a harsh fiddle grating for its life about the
country-side, or the pipe of the hills, imbued the
thin and lonely symphony with associations of life
genteel and wide, rich and warm and white-handed.
Never seemed Miss Nan so far removed as then from
him, the home-staying dreamer. Up rose his startled
judgment and called him fool.

But hark 1 her voice came in and joined the
harpsichord — surely this time he was not mistaken ?
Her voice ! it was certainly her voice I He held
his breath to listen for fear he should lose the
softest note as it came from her lips. Now he was
well repaid for his nights of traverse on the hills,
his watching, his disappointment! The very night
held breath to listen to that song, n'^'- <-he song that
had been sung in the Jean^ but anoJier, the song
of a child no more, but of a woman, ful' of passion,
antique love and sorrow, of the unsatisfied and
yearning years.

The music ceased ; the night for a space swooned
into a numb and desolate silence. Then in the field
behind, the last corncrake harshly called ; a shepherd
whistled on his dogs ; a cart rumbled over the

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

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cobbles, making for the shed. The sound of the river
as it came to him among the alder-trees seemed the
sound the wave makes in the ears of the sinking
and exhausted swimmer.

Gilian turned over in his pocket a lucky flint
arrowhead, and wished for a glimpse of Nan.

He had no sooner done so than her shadow
showed upon the blind, hurried and nervous as in
some affright.

His heart leaped ; he made a step forward as if
he would storm that citadel of his fancy, but he
checked himself on a saner thought that he was
imbuing the shadow with fears that were not there.
He drew a deep breath and turned his lucky arrow-
head again. For a second or two there was no
response. Then another shadow came upon the
blinds — a man's, striding for a little back and for-
ward, as if in perturbation. Who could it be ? the
trembling outsider asked himself. Not the father ;
there was no queue to the shadow, and a vague
suggestion of the General's voice had come but a
moment before from another part of the steading.
Not the uncle ? This was no long, bent, bearded
apparition, but the figure of youth. Gilian promptly
fancied himself the substance of the shadow in that
envied light and presence, seeing the glow of fire
and candle in Nan's eyes as she turned to the
accepted lover. " Nan, Nan ! " he whispered, " I
love you ! I love you ! "

A faint breath from a new point came through the
trees, the dryads sighing for all this pitiful illusion.
It struck chill upon his face ; he shivered and pre-

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THE EAVESDROPPER

281

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he
In.
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pared to set off for home across the hill. A last
reluctant glance was thrown at the window, and he
had turned towards the milk-house wall when a
sound of opening doors arrested him. Now he
could not escape unobserved ; he withdrew into the
shadow of the trees again.

The General and another came out and stood
midway between the house and the planting. There
they spoke in constrained words that did not at first
reach him. Against the grey dun of the sky he
could separate their figures, but he could not guess
the identity of the General's companion.

In a second or two they moved nearer and he was
an unwilling listener, though a keenly interested
one.

" Come, come," said the General, in a tone of
some annoyance, "you had me out to hear your
explanation, and now I'm to be kept chittering
in the night air till you range your inside for
words."

The other murmured something in r, voice that
did not intelligently reach the planting.

"Ay, you did, did you?" said the General in
reply, very dryly, and then he paused. " I'll
warrant you found a tartar," he said in a little.

The other answered softly in a word or two.

There was another pause, and then the General
laughed, not with much geniality. " That was all
the news you brought me out here for ? " said he.
" Come, come, the lady can look after herself so far
as that goes. Either that or she's not her mother's
child. And yet — and yet, I would not be saying.

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282

GILIAN THE DREAMER

Edinburgh and all their low-country notions make
some difference ; I see them in her. This is not
the girl I sent off south on a mail-gig— just like a
parcel. Curse the practice that we must be risking
the things of our affection among strangers 1 "

There was no more than the brief and muffled
answer, like that of a man ashamed.

" IVe seen that before," said the General stiffly.
*' It's not uncommon at the age, but it's unusual to
take the old gentleman into the garden at night
without his bonnet to tell him so little as that."

The answer, still muffled to the listener in the
planting, poured forth quickly.

"Highland," said the General, "queer Highlands!
And it must be now or never with us, must it ?
Well, young gentleman, you have nerve at least,"
and he quoted a Gaelic proverb. He put his hand
on the shoulder of the other and leaned to whisper.
Gilian could make the action out against the sky.
Then " Good-night " and the father's footsteps went
back to the door and the unknown proceeded down
the glen.

On an impulse irresistible, Gilian followed at a
discreet distance, keeping on the verges of the grass
beside the road, so that his footsteps might not
betray him. All the night was tenantless but for
themselves and some birds that called dolefully in
the woods. The river, broadened by the burns on
either hand that joined it, grew soon to a rapid and
tumultuous current washing round the rushy bends,
and the Dhu Loch when they came to it had a ripple
on its shore, so that they were at the bridge and yet

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THE EAVESDROPPER

283

the one who led was not aware that he was followed.
He leaned upon the crenelated parapet and hummed
a strain of song as Gilian came up to him with a
swinging step, now on the footway.

Young Islay started at this approach without
warning, but he was not afraid. He peered into
Gilian's face when he had come up to him.

" Oh, you ! " said he. " I got quite a start, I
thought at first it was Drimmin dorran's ghost."
This, laughingly, of a shade with a reputation for
haunting these evening solitudes.

" You're late on the road ? " he went on curiously.

" No later than yourself," answered Gilian,
vaguely grieving to find that this was the substance
of his shadow on the blind and the audience for
Miss Nan's entertainment.

" Oh I I was — I was on a visit," said Young Islay.
He went closer up to Gilian and added eagerly, as
one glad to unbosom, " Man 1 did you ever hear—
did you ever hear Miss Nan sing ? "

" Long ago," said Gilian ; " it's an old story."

" Lucky man 1 " said Young Islay enviouslyi
"to be here so long to listen when I was far
away."

"She was away herself a good deal," said Gilian,
" but when we heard her we quite appreciated our
opportunities, I assure you."

" Did you, faith ? " said Young Islay, with a
jealous tone. " You seem," he went on, " to have
made very little use of them. I wonder where the
eyes of you could be. I never saw her, really, till
an hour or two ago. I never heard her sing before,

284

GILIAN THE DREAMER

Tit '

but yet, some way " He hesitated in embarrass-
ment.

Gilian made no answer. He felt it the most
natural thing in the world that any one ieeing and
hearing Nan should appreciate herself and her sing-
ing. There was no harm in that.

The night was solemn with the continual cry of
the owls that abound in the woody shoulder of
Duntorvil ; a sweet balmy influence loaded the air,
stars gathered in patches between drifts of cloud.
For some distance the young men walked together
silent, till Young Islay spoke.

" I've been away seeing the world," said he
hurriedly, like a man at a confession, " not altogether
with my father's wish, who v;ould sooner I stayed
at home and farmed Drimlee ; moving from garrison
to garrison, giving my mind no hearth to stay at for
more than a night at a time, and I've been missing
the chance of my life. I went up the way there an
hour or two since — Young Islay, a soldier, coarse,
ashamed of sentiment, and now I go down another
man altogether. I would not say it to any one but
yourself; you're a sort of sentimental person in a
wholesale way; you'll understand. Eh, what?
You'll understand ! " He threw out his chest ;
breathed fully. '* I'm a new man, Tm telling
you. I wonder where the eyes of you fellows
were ? "

Even yet Gilian did not grudge Young Islay the
elation that was so manifest.

" You understand, we did not see much of her in
these parts lately, much more than yourself. I have

THE EAVESDROPPER

28s
Has she

not seen her myself since she returned,
changed much ? "

" Much ! " exclaimed Young Islay, laughing. " My
son ! she is not the girl I knew at all. When I went
in there — into the room up, there you know, I was —
I was — baffled to know her. I think I expected to
see the same girl I had — I had — you mind, brought
the boat out to, the same loose hair, the same — you
know, I never expected to see a princess in Maam.
A princess, mind you, and she looked all the more
that because her uncle met me at the stair-foot as I
was going in. A sour old scamp yon ! He was
teasing out his beard, and, ' A nice piece there,' said
he, nodding at the door, ' and I'm sure her father
would be glad to have her off his hands.' I laughed
and "

" I would have struck him on the jaw," said Gilian
with great heat.

" Oh ! " said Young Islay, astonishment in his
voice. He said no more for a little. Then, " I was
not very well pleased myself with the remark when I
went into the room and saw the lady it referred to.
You're not — you're not chief in that quarter, are
you ? "

" Chief! " repeated Gilian. " You're ahead of me
even in seeing the lady."

"Oh well, that's all right," said Young Islay,
seemingly relieved. " Look here ; I'm gone, that's
the long and the short of it ! I'm seeing a week or
two of hard work before me convincing her ladyship
that a young ensign in a marching regiment is maybe
worth her fmiling on."

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Gilian turned cold with apprehension. This,
indeed, was a revelation of love-making in garrison
fashion.

"You don't know the girl at all," he said.

" So much the better," said Young Islay ; " that
means that she does not know me, and that's all the
better start for me, perhaps. It's a great advantage, for
I've noticed that they're all the most interested — the
sex of them — in a novelty. I have a betterchance than
the best man in these parts, that has been under her
eye all the time I was away. I'll have stiff work,
perhaps, but I want her, and between ourselves, and
not to make a brag of it, I'll have her. You'll not
breathe that," he added, turning in apprehension,
stopping opposite Gilian and putting his hand on his
coat lapel. " I am wrong to mention it at all even to
you, but I must out with what I feel to somebody.
The thing is dirling in my blood. Listen, do you
hear that ? " He threw out his chest again, held his
breath, and Gilian could almost swear he heard his
heart throb with feeling.

"Does she want you? That's the question, I
suppose," said Gilian weakly.

" That is not the question at all, it's do I want her ?
There must be a beginning somewhere. Look at me ;
I'm strong, young, not very ugly (at least they tell
me), I'm the grandson of Long Islay, who had a
name for gallantry ; the girl has no lover — Has
she ? " he asked eagerly, suddenly dropping his
confidence.

" Not that I'm aware of," said Gilian.

" Well, there you are I What more is to be said ?

THE EAVESDROPPER

287

In these things one has but to wish and win — at
least that's been my training and my conviction.
Here she's lonely — I could see it in her ; the company
of her father is not likely to be long for her, and her
Uncle Jamie is not what you would call a cheerful
spark. Up«n my soul, I believe I could get her if I
was a hunchback. . . . Mind, I'm not lightlying the
lady ; I could not do that in this mood, but I'm fair
taken with 1 sr ; she beats ail ever I saw. You know
the feeling ? No, you don't ; you're too throng at
book notions. God I God I God I I'm all ashake ! "

He looked at Gilian, trying in the dark to make
out how he was taking this, to make sure he was
not laughing at him. Gilian, on the contrary, was
feeling very solemn. He felt that this was a danger-
ously effective mood for a lover, and he knew the
lad before him would always bring it to actual
wooing if it got that length. He had no answer,
and Young Islay again believed him the abstracted
dreamer.

" I have this advantage," he went on, unable to
resist. " She likes soldiers ; she said as much ; it
was in her mother and in her ; she likes action, she
likes spirit. She has them herself in faith 1 she
almost boxed my ears when — when — but I could
swear she was rather tickled at my impudence."

" Your impudence ! " repeated Gilian, " were you
in that mood ? "

"Oh, well, you know — I had the boldness
to "

"To what?" said Gilian; apprehending some
disaster.

288

GILIAN THE DREAMER

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"Just a trifle," said Young Islay, shrewdly
affecting indifference. "A soldier's compliment;
we are too ready with them in barrack-yards, you
know." And he sighed as he remembered the red
ripe lips, the warm breath on his face, and the
tingling influence of the skin he touched under the
kerchief.

They walked on in silence again for a while.
The night grew dark with gathering clouds. Lights
far out at sea showed the trailing flshers ; a flaring
torch told of a trawler's evening fortune made
already. And soon they were at the Duke's lodge
and Gilian's way up Glen Aray lay before him. He
was pausing to say good-night, confused, troubled
by what he had heard, feeling he must confess his
own regard for the girl and not let this comparative
stranger so buoyantly outdo him in admiration.

" Now," said he, hesitating, " what would you
think I was in Glen Shira myself for ? "

" Eh ? " said Young Islay, scarcely hearing, and
he hummed the refrain of the lady's song.

"In Glen Shira ; what was I doing there ? "
repeated Gilian. He wanted no answer. " It was
on the odd chance that I might see Miss Nan. We
are not altogether without some taste in these parts,
though wanting the advantage of travel and garrison
gallantry. I was in the garden when you were
inside. I heard her singing, and I think I got closer
on herself and her song than you did."

" My dear Gilian," said Young Islay, " I once
fought you for less than that." He laughed as he
said it. " If you mean," he went on, " that you are

THE EAVESDROPPER

289

in love with Miss Nan, that's nothing to wonder at,
the miracle would be for you to be indifferent. We're
in the same hunt, are we then ? Well, luck to the
winner ! I can say no fairer than that. Only you'll
have to look sharp, my boy, for I'm not going to lose
any time, I assure you. If you're going to do all
your courtship of yon lady from outside her window,
you'll not make much progress, I'm thinking.
Good-night; good-night!" He went off laughing,
and when he had gone away a few yards Gilian,'
walking slowly homewards, heard him break whist-
ling into the air that Nan had sung in the parlour of
Maam.

1 1 >

CHAPTER XXVI

AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

Only for a single sleepless night was Gilian dashed
by this evidence that the world was not made up of
Miss Nan and himself alone. Depressions weighed
on him as briefly as the keener joys elated, and in
a day or two his apprehension of Young I slay had
worn to a thin gossamer, and he was as ardent a
lover as any one could be with what still was no
more than a young lady of the imagination. And
diligently he sought a meeting. It used to be the
wonder of Mr. Spencer of the Inns, beholding this
cobweb-headed youth continually coming through
the Arches and hanging expectant about the town-
head, often the only figure there in these hot silent
days to give life to the empty scene. There is a
stone at Old Islay's corner that yet one may see
worn with the feet of Gilian, so often he stood there
turning on his heel, lending a gaze to the street
where Nan might be, and another behind to the long
road over the bridge whence she must sometime
come. Years after he would stop again upon the
blue slab and recall with a pensive pleasure those
old hours of expectation.

AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

191

For days he Iditcred in vain, the wonder of the
Inns and its frequenters. Nan never appeared. To
her father a letter had come ; the Duice had come up
on the back of it ; there had been long discourse and
a dram of claret wine in the parlour ; the General
came out when his Grace's cantering horse had
ceased its merry hollow sound upon the dry road to
Dhu Loch, and breathed fully like one relieved from
an oppression. Later Old Islay had come up,
crabbed and snuffy, to glower on Nan as he passed
into the house behind her father, and come out anon
smiling and even joco with her, mentioning her by
her Christian name like the closest friend of the
family. Then for reasons inscrutable her father
would have her constant in his sight, though it
was only, as it seemed, to pleasure an averted
eye.

By-and-by Gilian turned his lucky flint one morn-
ing in a fortunate inspiration, and had no sooner
done so than he remembered a very plausible excuse
for going to a farm at the very head of Glen Shira.
He started forth with the certainty, somehow, that
he should meet the lady at last.

He had transacted his business and was on his
way to the foot of the glen when he came upon her
at Boshang Gate. Her back was to him ; she was
looking out to sea, leaning upon the bars as if she
were a weary prisoner.

She turned at the sound of his footstep, a stranger
utterly to his eyes and imagination, but not to his
instinct, her hair bound, her apparel mature and
decorous, her demeanour womanly. And he had

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292

GILlAN THE DREAMER

been looking all the while for a little girl grown tall,
with no external difTerencc but that !

She took an impulsive step towards him as he
hesitated with his hand dubious between his side
and his bonnet, a pleasant, even an eager smile upon
her face.

"You arc quite sure you are you?" she said,
holding out her hand before he had time to say a
word. " For I was standing there thinking of you,
a little white-faced fellow in a kilt, and here comes
your elderly wraith at my back like one of Black
Duncan's ghosts ! "

" I would be the more certain it was myself," he
answered, " if you had not been so different from
what I expected."

"Oh! then you had not forgotten me altogether?"
she said, waiting her answer, a mere beginner in
coquetry emboldened to practice by the slightly rustic
awkwardness of the lad.

" Not — not altogether," said he, unhappily accept-
ing the common locution of the town, tliat means
always more than it says.

A spark of humour flashed to merriment in her
eyes and died to a demure ember again before he
noticed it. " Here's John Hiclan'man," she said to
herself, and she recalled, not to Gilian's credit in the
comparison, the effrontery of Young Islay.

The situation was a little awkward, for he held
her hand too long, taking all the pleasure he could
from a sudden conviction that in all the times he
had seen Glen Shira it had never seemed fully
furnished and habitable till now. This creature, so

AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

293

much the mistress of herself, and dainty and cheer-
ful, made up for all its solitude ; she was the one
thing (he felt) wanting to make complete the land-
scape.

Her blush and a feeble effort to disengage her
hand brought him to himself.

" I am pleased to see you back," said he shyly,
as he released her. " I had not forgotten — oh no,
I had not forgotten you. It would be easy to con-
vince you of that, I think, but in all my recollection
of Miss Nan I had more of the girl in the den of the
Jean in my mind than the Edinburgh lady."

" You'll be meaning that I am old and — and
pretty no longer," said she. " Upon my word, you
are honestly outspoken in these parts nowad.iys."
She pouted, wuh lines of annoyance upon her brow,
which seriously disturbed him, and so obviously
that she was compelled to laugh.

Not a word could he find to say to raillery which
was quite new to him, and so for the sake of both of
them as they stood at the gate Miss Nan had to ply
an odd one-sided conversation till he found himself
at his ease. By-and-by his shyness forsook him.

The sun was declining ; the odours of the traffic
of peace blew from the land ; one large and ruddy
star lit over Strone. The fishers raised their sails,
and as their prows beat the sea they chanted the
choruses of the wave.

A recollection of all this having happened before
seized them together; she looked at him with a
smile upon her lips, and he was master of her
thought before she had expressed it.

III

294

GILIAN THE DREAiMER

** I know exactly what you are thinking of," he said.

*' It was the odd thing about you that you often
did," she replied. " It's a mercy you do not know
it always, John Hielan'man," she thought.

" You are remembering the evening we walked in
the Duke's garden," he said. " It looks but yester-
day, and I was a child, and now I'm as old — as old
as the hills." He looked vaguely with half-shut eyes
upon the looming round of Cowal, where Sithean
Siuaidhe was tipped with brass. "As old as the
hills," he went on, eager to display himself, and also
to show he appreciated her advantages. " Do you
know I begin to find them irksome ? They close in
and make a world so narrow here ! I envy you the
years you have been away. In that time you have
grown, mind and body, like a tree. I stunt, if not in
body, at least in mind, here in the glens."

She looked at him covertly with her face still
half averted, and found him now more interesting
than she had expected, touched with something of
romance and mystery, his eyes with that unfathomed
quality that to some women makes r. strange appeal.

" One sees much among strangers," she confessed.
" I thought you had been out of here long ago. You
remember when I left for Edinburgh they talked of
the army for you ? "

"The army," he said, wincing imperceptibly.
" Oh ! that was the Paymaster's old notion. Once
I almost fell in with it, and as odd a thing as you
could imagine put an end to the scheme. Do you
know what it was ? " He glanced at her with a
keen scrutiny.

AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

295

" No, tell me," she said.

" It was the very day we were here last, when the
county corps moved off to Stirling. I was in the
rear of them very much a soldier indeed, shoulder-
ing a switch, feeling myself a Major-General at the
very least, when a girl sitting on the gate there,
waving a tiny shoe, caught my eye, drew me back
from the troops I was following, and extinguished
my martial glory as if it were a flambeau thrown in
the sea. I think that was the very last of the army
for me."

" I don't understand it," she said.

" Nor I," he confessed frankly ; " only there's the
fact ! All I know is that you cut me off from every
idea of the army then and there. I forgot all about
it, and it had been possessing my mind for a week
before, night and day."

" I think I remember now that I told you, did I
not, that you were not likely to be a soldier because
you could pretend it too well ever to be the Uiing in
actuality."

"I remember that too. Dhe! how the whole
thing comes back ! I wonder "

" Well ! " she pressed.

" I wonder if we walked in the Duke's garden
again, if we could restore the very feelings of that
time — the innocence and ignorance of it ? "

" I don't know that I want to do so," said she,
laughing.

" Might we not " He paused, afraid of his own

temerity.

" Try it, you were going to say," she cctinued.

296

GILIAN THE DREAMER

i|!

lli

" You see I have little of your own gift. I'm willing.
I am going to the town, and we might as well go
through the grounds as not."

Something in his manner attracted her ; even his
simple deference, though she was saying "John
Hielan'man, John Hielan'man ! " to herself most of
the time and amused if not contemptuous. He was
but a farmer — little more, indeed,than a shepherd, yet
something in his air and all his speech showed him
superior to his circumstances. He was a god-send
to her dreariness in this place Edinburgh and the
noisy world had made her fretful of, and she was in
the mood for escapade.

They walked into the policies, that were no way
changed. Still the flowers grew thick on the dykes;
the tall trees swayed their boughs : still the same,
and yet for Gilian there was, in that faint tinge of
yellow in the leaves, some sorrow he had not guessed
in the day they were trying to recall.

" It is all just as it was," said she. " All just as
it was ; there are the very flowers I plucked," and
she bent and plucked them again.

" We can never pluck our flowers twice," said he.
" The flowers you gathered then are ghosts."

" Not a bit," said she. " Here they are re-born,"
and she went as before from bush to bush and bank
to bank, humming a strain of sailor song.

They went under the trees on which he had fancied
his heron's nest, and they looked at each other,
laughing.

" Wasn't I a young fool ? " he asked. " I was full
of dream and conceit in those days."

igr 1

iiii

AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

297

he.

" And now ? " she asked, burying her face in the
flowers and eyeing him wonder ingly.

" Oh, now," said he, " I have lost every illusion."

" Or changed them for others, perhaps."

He started at the suggestion. " I suppose you are
right, after all," ne said. " Tm still in a measure the
child of fancy. This countryside mo vcs me — I could
tenant it with a thousand tales ; never a wood or
thicket in it but is full of song. I love it all, and yet
it is my torture. When I was a child the Paymaster
once got me on the bridge crying my eyes out over
the screech of a curlew — that has been me all through
life — I must be wondering at the hidden meanings of
things. The wind in the winter trees, the gossip of
the rivers, the trail of clouds, waves washing the
shore at night — all these things have a tremendous
importance to me. And I must laugh to see my
neighbours making a to-do about a mercantile bargain.
Well, I suppose it is the old Highlands in me. as Miss
Mary says."

" I have felt a little of it in a song," said Nan.

" You could scarce do otherwise to sing them as
you do," he answered. " I never heard you yet but
you had the magic key for every garden of fancy. One
note, one phrase of yours comes up over and over
again that seems to me filled with the longings of
a thousand years."

He turned on her suddenly a face strenuous, eyes
filled with passion.

" I wish ! I wish I " said he all fervent, " I wish
I could fathom the woman within."

" Here she's on the surface," said Nan, a little

298

GILIAN THE DREAMER

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impatiently, arranging her flowers. And then she
looked him straight in the eyes. " Ladyfield seems
a poor academy," she said, " if it taught you but to
speculate on things unfathomable. I always preferred
the doer to the dreamer. The mind of man is a far
more interesting thing than the song of the river I'm

thinking, or the trailing of mist. And woman "

she laughed and paused.

" Well ? " He eyed her robust and wholesome
figure. *

" Should I expose my sex, John Hielan'man, or
should I not ? " she reflected with an amused look in
her face yet. " Never bother to look below the
surface for us," she said. " We are better pleased,
and you will speed the quicker to take us for what we
seem. What matters of us is — as it is with men too
— plain enough on the surface. Dear, dear! what
nonsense to be on 1 You are far too much of the mist
and mountain for me. As if I had not plenty of them
up in Maam ! Oh ! I grow sick of them ! " She
began to walk faster, forgetting his company in the
sudden remembrance of her troubles ; and he strode
awkwardly at her heels, not very dignified, like a
menial overlooked. "They hang about the place
like a menace," said she. " No wonder mother died !
If she was like me she must have been heart-broken
when father left her to face these solitudes."

" It is so, it is so," confessed the lad. " But they
would not be wearisome v^rith love. With love in
that valley it would smile like an Indian plain."

" How do you ken? " said she, stopping suddenly
at this.

AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

299

»»

" It would make habitable and even pleasant," said
he, " a dwelling where age and bitterness had their
abode."

" Faith, you're not so blate as I thought you I "
she said, setting aside the hst of her affected shy
simplicity.

• " Blale ! " he repeated, " I would not have thought
that was my failing. Am I not cracking away to you
like an old wife ? "

"Just to hide the blateness of you," s^.e answered.
" You may go to great depths with hills and hcughs
and mists — and possibly with women too when you
get the chance, but, my dear Gilian, you're terribly
shallow to any woman with an eye in her head."

" Did you say ' Gilian ' ? " he asked, stopping and
looking at her with a high colour.

" Did I ? " she repeated, biting her lips. " What
liberty!"

" No, no," he cried

" I thought myself young enough to venture it ;
but, of course, if you object "

He looked at her helplessly, realising that she was
making fun of him, and she laughed. All her assur-
ance was back to her, she knew the young gentleman
was one she could twist round her little finger.

" Well, well," she went on after a silence, " you
seem poorly provided with small talk. In Edin-
burgh, now, a young man with your chances would
be making love to me by this time."

He stared at her aghast. " But, but "

" But I would not permit it, of course not I We
were bi ought up very particularly in Miss Simpson's,

300

GILIAN THE DREAMER

I can assure you." This with a prim tightening of
her lips and a severity that any other than our
dreamer would have understood. To Nan there
came a delight in this play with an intelligence she
knew so keen, though different from her own. It
was with a holiday feeling she laughed and shone,
mischievously eyeing him and trying him with badin-
age as they penetrated deeper into the policies.

They reached the Lady's Linn, but did not repeat
old history to the extent of seating themselves on the
banks, though Gilian half suggested it in a momen-
tary boldness.

"No, no," said she. "We were taught better
than that in Miss Simpson's. And fancy the risks
of rheumatism ! You told me one of Gillesbeg
Aotram's stories here ; what was it again ? "

He repeated the tale of the King of Knapdale's
Daughter. She listened attentively, sometimes
amused at his earnestness, that sat on him gaukily»
sometimes serious enough, touched with the poetry
he could put into the narrative.

" It is a kind of gruesome fable," she said when he
was done, and she shuddered slightly. " The other
brother was Death, wasn't he ? When you told it to
me last I did not understand."

They walked on through the intersecting paths
whose maze had so bewildered them before : " After
all, it is not a bit like what it was," said she. " I
thought it would take a wizard to get out of here, and
now I can see over the bushes and the sea is in sight
all the time."

" Just so," he answered, " but you could see over

AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

301

no bushes in those days, and more's the pity that you
can see over them now, in the Dulse's garden as well
as in hfe, for it's only one more dream spoiled, my
dear Nan."

" Oh ! there is not much blateness there I You
are coming on, John Hielan'man." But this was to
herself.

" Then to you this is just the same as when we lost
our way ? "

" The same and not all the same," he admitted.
" I can make it exactly the same if I forgot to look
at you, for that means sensations I never knew
then. I cannot forget the place has been here night
and day, summer and winter, rain and sun, since we
last were in it, and time makes no difference ; it is
the same place. But it is not the same in some other
way, some sad way I cannot explain."

The night was full of the fragrance of flowers and
the foreign trees. There was no breath of wind.
They were shades in some garden of dream compelled
to stand and ponder for ever in an eternal night of
numerous beneficent stars. No sound manifested
except the lady's breathing, that to another than the
dreamer would have told an old and wholesome Panic
story, for her bosom heaved, that breath was sweeter
than the flowers. And the dryads, no whit older as
they swung among the trees, still all childless, must
have laughed at this revelation of an age of dream.
Than that sound of maiden interest, and the far-off
murmur of the streams that fell seaward from the
woody hills, there was at first no other rumour to the
ear. #

302

GILIAN THE DREAMER

"Listen," said Gilian again, and he turned an
anxious ear towards that grey grassy sea. His hand
grasped possessingly the lady's arm.

"Faith, and you are wo/blate," said she whimsically,
but indifferent to remove herself from a grasp so
innocent.

She listened. The far bounds of the lawn were
lost in gloom, in its midst stood up vague in the dusk
a great druidic stone. And at last she could dis-
tinguish faintly, far-away, as by some new sense, a
murmur of the twilight universe, the never-ending
moan of this travailing nature. A moment, then her
senses lost it, and Gilian yet stood in his rapt atten-
tion. She withdrew her arm gently.

" Hush, hush ! " he said. " Do you not fancy you
hear a discourse ? "

"I do ? " she answered a little impatiently, but not
without a kindly sense of laughter as at a child.
" Bees and midges, late things like ourselves. You
are not going to tell me they are your fairies."

" They are, of course they are," he protested, laugh-
ing. " At least a second ago I could have sworn they
were the same that gave me my dread on the night
the Cornal met us. Even yet " — his humour came
back — "even yet I fear to interrupt their convocations.
Let us go round by the other path."

" What, and waste ten minutes more I " she cried.
" Follow me, follow me 1 "

And she sped swiftly over the trim grass,
bruising the odours of the night below her dainty feet.
He followed, chagrined, ashamed of himself, Very
much awake and practical, realising how stupid if not

AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

303

idiotic all his conversation must seem to her. Where
was the mutual exchange of sentiments on books,
poetry, life ? He had thrown away his opportunity.
He overtook her in a few steps, and tore the leaves
from his story book again to please or to deceive the
Philistine. .

" I thought we could bring it all back again— that
was the object of my rhapsody, and you seem to have
kept good memory of the past."

They were under the lamps of the lodge gates.
She eyed him shrewdly.

"And you do not believe these things yourself?
So ? I have my own notions about that. Do you
know I begin to think you must be a poet. Have
you ever written anything ? "

He found himself extremely warm. Her question
for the first time suggested his own possibilities.
No, he had never made poetry, he confessed, though
he had often felt it, as good as some of the poetry he
had read in Marget Maclean's books that were still
the favourites of his leisure hours.

" It'll be in that like other things," she said with
some sense of her own cruelty. " You must be
dreaming it when you might be making it."

" I never had the inspiration— — "

" What, you say that to a lady who has been talking
fair to you ! " she pointed out.

" But now, of course "

" Just the weather, Gilian," she hastened to inter-
ject. "A bonny night with stars, the scent of flowers,
a misty garden— -I could find some inspiration in them
myself for poetry, and I make no pretence at it."

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304

GILIAN THE DREAMER

" There was a little more," he said meaningly ; " but
110 matter, that may wait," and he proceeded im-
mediately to the making of a poem as he went, the
subject a night of stars and a maiden. They had got
into the dark upper end of the town overhung by the
avenue trees, the lands were spoUtu with the leraon
lights of the evening candles, choruses came from the
New Inns where fishermen from Cowal met to spend
a shilling or two in the illusion of joy. Mr. Spencer
saw them as he passed and was suffused by a kindly
glow of uncommon romance. He saw, as he thought,
a pair made for each other because they were of an
age and of a size (as if that meant much); what
should they be but lovers coming from the gardens
of Duke George in such a night and the very heavens
twinkling with the courtship of the stars ? He looked
and sighed. Far off in the south was an old tale of
his own ; the lady upstairs eternally whining because
she must be banished to the wilds away from her
roaring native city was not in it. '• Lucky lad I " said
he to himself. "He is not so shy as we thought him."
They came for a moment under the influence of the
swinging lamp above his door, then passed into the
dusk. He went into his public room, and "Mary,"
he cried to a maid, " a little drop of the French for
Sergeant Cameron and me. You will allow me,
Sergeant ? I feel a little need of an evening brace."
And he drank, for the sake of bygone dusks, with his
customer.

Nan and Gilian now walked on the pavement, a
discreet distance apart. She stopped at the mantua-
maker's door. He lingered on the parting, eager to

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AGAIN IN THE GARDEN 305

prolong it. The street was deserted ; from the Ser-
geant More's came the sound of song ; some fallen
leaves ran crisp along the stones, blown by an air of
wind. He had her by the hand, still loath to leave,
when suddenly the door of the mantua-maker's
opened and out came a little woman, who, pKtnging
from the splendour of two penny dips into the ..uter
mirk, ran into his arms before she noticed his
presence. She drew back with an apology uttered
in Gaelic in her hurried perturbation. It was Miss
Mary.

" Auntie," he said, no more.

She glanced at his companion and started as if in
fear, shivered, put out a hand and bade her welcome
home.

" Dear me I Miss Nan," said she, " amn't I proud to
see you back ? What a tall lady you have grown,

and so like—so like " She stopped embarrassed.

Her hand had gone with an excess of kindness upon
the girl's arm ere she remembered all that lay between
them and the heyday of another Nan than this. Of
Gilian she seemed to take no notice, which much
surprised him with a sense of something wanting.

At last they parted, and he went up with Miss
Mary to the Paymaster's house.

:i^^'

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lip

}

CHAPTER XXVII

ALARM

Nan's uncle, moving with hopeless and dragging steps
about the sides of Maam hill, ruminating constantly on
nature's caprice with sheep and crop, man's injustice,
the poverty of barns, the discomforts of seasons, nour-
ishinghis sour self on reflections upon all life's dolours,
would be coming after that for days upon the girl
and Gilian gathering berries or on some such childish
diversion in the woods behind the river. A gaunt,
bowed man in the decline of years, with a grey tangle
of beard — a fashion deemed untidy where the razor
was on every other man's face — he looked like a
satyr of the trees, when he first came to the view of
Gilian. He saw those young ones from remote vistas
of the trees, or from above them in cliffs as they
plucked the boughs. In lanes of greenwood he would
peer in questioning and silent, and there he was certain
to find them as close as lovers, though, had he known
it, there was never word of love. And though Gilian
was still, for the sake of a worn-out feud with the house
of the Paymaster, no visitor to Maam, that saturnine
uncle would say nothing. For a little he would look,
they uncomfortable, then he would smile most grim,
a satyr, as Gilian told himself, more than ever.

ALARM

307

Me came upon them often. Now it would be at
the berries, now among the buh'ushes of Uhu Loch.
They strayed like children. Often, I say, for Gilian
had no sooner hurried through his work in these days
than he was off in the afternoon, and, on some
pretence, would meet the girl on a tryst of her own
making. She was indifferent — I have no excuse for
her, and she's my poor heroine — about his wasted
hours so long as she had her days illumined by some
flicker of life and youth. He never knew how often
it was from weeping c r a letter from Edinburgh,
or a song familiar else- iiere, upon the harpsichord,
she would come out to meet him. All she wanted
was the adventure, though she did not understand
this herself. If no one else in a bonnet came to
Maam — and Young Islay was for reasons away in
the Lowlands — this dreamer of the wild, with the
unreadable but eloquent face and the mysterious moods
would do very well. I will not deny that there might
e/en be affection in her trysts. So far as she knew
they were no different from trysts made by real lovers
elsewhere since the start of time, for lovers have ever
been meeting in the woods of these glens without
saying to each other why.

Gilian went little to town in that weather, he
was getting credit with Miss Mary, if not with her
brothers, for a new interest in his profession. Nor
did Nan. Her father did not let her go much with-
out himself, he had his own reasons for keeping her
from hearing the gossip of the streets.

A week or two passed. The corn, in the badger's
moon, yellowed and hung ; silent days of heat haze,

411

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

all breathless, came on the country ; the stubble
fields filled at evening vith great flights of birds
moving south. A spirit like Nan's, that must ever
be in motion, could not but irk to share such a doleful
season ; she went more than ever about the house of
Maam sighing for lost companions, and a future not
to be guessed at. Only she would cheer up when she
had her duties done for the afternoon and could run
out to the hillside to meet Gilian if he were there.

She was thus running, actually with a song on
her lips, one day, when she ran into the arms of her
uncle as he came round the corner of the barn.

" Where away ? " said he shortly, putting her
before him, v/ith his hands upon he~ shoulders.

She reddened, but answered promptly, for there
was nothing clandestine in her meetings on the bare
hillside with Gilian.

** The berries again," she said. " Some of the
people from Glen Aray are coming over."

" Some of the people," he repeated ironically ;
" that means one particular gentleman. My lassie,
there's an end coming to that."

He drew a large-jointed coarse hand through his
tangled beard and chuckled to himself.

" Are you aware of that ?" he went on. " An end
coming to it. Oh I I see things ; I'm no fool : I
could have told your father long ago, but he's putting
an end to it in his own way, and for his own reasons."

" I have no idea what you mean," she said, sur-
prised at the portentous tone. She was not a bit
afraid of him, though he was so little in sympathy
with her youth, so apparently in antagonism to her.

. It

ALARM

309

"What would you say to a man?" he asked
cunningly.

" It would depend, uncle," she said readily and
cheerfully, though a sudden apprehension smote her
at the heart. " It would depend on what he said to
me first."

The old man grinned callously as the only person
in the secret.

"Suppose he said : 'Come away home, wife, I've
paid a bonny penny for ye ' ? "

"Perhaps I would say, if I was in very good
humour at the time, ' You've got a bonny wife for
your bonny penny.' More likely I would be throw-
ing something at him, for I have my Uncle Jamie's
temper they say, but I'm nobody's wife, and for
want of the asking I'm not likely to be."

"Well, we'll see," said the uncle oracularly.
Then abruptly, " Have you heard that your father's
got an appointment ? "

" I— I heard just a hint of it , of course he has
not told me all about it yet," she answered with a
readiness that surprised herself when she reflected
on it later, for the news now so unexpectedly given
her in the momentary irritation of the old man was
news indeed, and though she was unwilling to let
him see that it was so, a tremendous oppression
seized her ; now she was to be lonely indeed. Half
uttering her thoughts she said, " I'll sooner go with

him than stay here and "

"Oh, there's no going yonder," said the uncle.
" Sierra Leone is not a healthy clime for men, let
alone for women. That's where the man comes in.

310

GILIAN THE DREAMER

V\ 1 1

\i'i

He could hardly leave you alone to stravaige about
the hills there with all sorts of people from Glen
Aray."

" The white man's grave ! " said she, appalled.

"Ay I" said he, " but he's no ordinary white man ;
he's of good stock."

"And — and — he has found a man for me," she
said bitterly. " Could I not be left to find one for
myself?"

Her uncle laughed his hoarse rude laugh again,
and still combed his tangled beard.

" Not to his fancy," he answered. " It's not every
one who would suit." He smiled grimly — a wicked
elder man. " It's not every one would suit," he
repeated — as if he was anxious to let the full signi-
ficance of what he meant sink to her understanding.
And he combed his rough beard with large-jointed
knotted fingers, and looked from under his heavy
eyebrows.

" Seeing the business is so commercial," said she,
" I'm sure that between the two of you you will
make a good bargain. I am not sure but I might be
glad to be anywhere out of this if father's gone and
I not with him." She said it with outer equanimity,
and unable to face him a moment longer without
betraying her shame and indignation, she left him
and went to the corn-field where Black Duncan was
working alone.

That dark mariner was to some extent a grieved
sharer of her solitude in Maam. The loss of the
Jean on Edan Dubh had sundered him for ever
from his life of voyaging. The distant ports in
whose dusks wild beasts roared and spices filled the

ALARM

air were far back in another life for him ; even the
little trips to the Clyde were, in the regrets of
memory, experiences most precious. Now he had
to wear thick shoes on the hill of Maam or sweat
like a common son of the shore in the harvest-fields.
At night upon his pillow in the barn loft he would
lie and mourn for unreturning days and loud and
clamorous experience. Or at morning ere he started
the work of the day he would ascend the little
tulloch behind the house and look far off at a patch
of blue — the inner arm of the ocean.

Nan found him in one of his cranky moods, fretful
at circumstances, and at her father who kept him
there on the shore, and had no word of another ship
to take the place of the /can. Of late he had been
worse than usual, for he had learned that the master
was bound for abroad, and though he was a sure
pensioner so long as Maam held together, it meant
his eternal severance from the sea and ships.

Nan threw herself upon the grass beside him as
he twisted hay-bands for the stacks, and said no
more than " Good afternoon " for a little.

He gloomed at her, and hissed between his teeth
a Skye pibroch. For a time he would have her
believe he was paying no attention, but ever and
anon he would let slip a glance of inquiry from the
corner of his eyes. He was not too intent upon his
own grievances to see that she was troubled with
hers, but he knew her well enough to know that she
must introduce them herself if they were to be
introduced at all.

He changed his tune, let a little more affability
come into his face, and it was an old air of her

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

W:-l

childhood on the Jean he had at his lips. As he
whistled it he saw a little moisture at her eyes ; she
was recalling the lost old happiness of the days
when she had gone about with that song at her lips.
But he knew her better than to show that he per-
ceived it.

"Have you heard that father's going away,
Duncan ? " she asked in a little.

" I have been hearing that for five years," said he
shortly. He had not thought her worries would
have been his own like this.

" Yes, but this time he goes."

" So they're telling me," said Black Duncan.

He busied himself more closely than ever with his
occupation.

"Do you think he should be taking me?" she
asked in a little.

He stopped his work immediately, and looked up
startled.

"The worst curse!" said he in Gaelic. "He
could not be doing that. He goes to the Gold
Coast. Do I not know it — the white man's
grave ? "

"But this Glen Shira," said she, pretending
merriment, " it's the white girl's grave for me,
Duncan. Should not I be glad to be getting out of
it ? " And now hei eyes were suffused with tears
though her lips were smiling.

" I know, I know," said he, casting a glance up
that lone valley that was so much their common grief.
"And could we not be worse? I'm sure Black
Duncan, reared in a bothy in Skye, who has been
tossed by the sea, and been wet and dry in all airts

ALARM

313

of the world, would be a very thankless man if he
was not pleased to be here safe and comfortable, on a
steady bed. at night, and not heeding the wind nor
the storm no more than if he was a skart."

" Oh ! you're glad enough to be here, then ? " said
she.

*' Am I ? " said he. And he sighed, so comical a
sound from that hard mariner that she could not
but laugh in spite of the anxieties oppressing her.

" I'm not going with him," she proceeded.

" I know," said he. "At least I heard—I heard
otherwise, and I wondered when you said it, think-
ing perhaps you had made him change his mind."

" You thought I had made him change— what do
you mean ? " she pressed, feeling herself on the verge
of an explanation, but determined not to ask directly.

Black Duncan became cautious.

"You need not be asking me anything: I know
nothing about it," said he shortly. " I am very busy

I " He hissed at his work more strenuously than

ever.

Then Nan knew he was not to be got at that way.
"Oh, well, never mind," said she; " tell me a
story."

" I have no time just now," he answered.

Nan's uncle came round the corner of the dyke, no
sound from his footsteps, his hands in his pockets,
his brows lowering. He looked at the two of them
and surmised the reason of Nan's discourse with
Black Duncan.

"Women—" said he to himself vaguely.
'' Women—" said he, pausing for a phrase to express
many commingled sentiments he had as to their

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314

GILIAN THE DREAMER

unnecessity, their aggravation, and his suspicion of
them. He did not find the right one. He lifted his
hand, stroked again the tangled beard, then made a
gesture, a large animal gesture — still the satyr — to
the sky. He turned and went down to the riverside.
Mid-way he paused and stroked his beard again, and
looked grimly up at where the maid and the man-
servant were blue-black against the evening sky.
He shrugged his shoulders. " Women," said he,

" they make trouble. I wish — I wish " He had

no word to finish the sentence with, he but sighed
and proceeded on his way.

Nan seemed to be lazily watching his figure as she
sat in the grass, herself observed by Black Duncan.
But she really saw him not.

" Ah well ! never mind the story, Duncan," she
said at last ; " I know you are tired and not in the
mood for sguulachd, and if you like I will sing you
my song." . \ . • . ,

" You randy I " he said to himself, " you are going
to have it out of me, my dear." And he bent the
more industriously to his task.

" Stop I stop ! " he cried before she had got half-
way through the old song of " The Rover." " Stop!
stop 1 " said he. He threw the binding bands from
him and faced the crimson west, with his back to her.

"Any port but that, my dear! If you are griev-
ing because you think you are going abroad you need
not be anything of the kind, my leddy. This is the
•" ^or you, about your father's door and him away
f L rhe fevers are — aye and the harbours too with
.•'•.?: '"IS in every one of them."

"Ai.J Uncle Jamie's going to keep me, is he?"

(icion of
ifted his
made a
atyr — to
iverside.
ain, and
le mati-
ng sky.
said he,
He had
: sighed

•e as she
Duncan.

in," she
t in the
ing you

re going
>ent the

ot half-
"Stop!
ds from
: to her.
i griev-
ou need
J is the
m away
00 with

s he ? "

ALARM

315

said she. " Lucky me ! I v;as aye so fond of gaiety,
you mind."

" Whoever it is that's to keep you it might be
worse," said he.

" Then there's somebody."

" Somebody," he repeated ; " the cleverest
young "

"Stop! stop!" she cried, rising suddenly to her feet ;
" do not dare to mention a name ; spare me that."

He looked at her in amazement.

" Do you think I'm a stone, Duncan ? "

" You would not be asking me that twice if I was
younger myself," he said redly, looking at her fine
figure, the blush like a sunset on her neck, the palpi-
tation of her bosom, the flash and menace of her eyes.

" Well, well, well, go on, tell me more," she cried
when she had recovered herself. "What more is
there ? "

" You are the one that should know most," said he.

" I know nothing at all," she answered bitterly.
" It seems that nowadays the lady is the last to be
taken into confidence about her own marriage."

"Are you telling me ? " he asked incredulously.

" I'm swearing it down your throat," she cried.
" If I had a friend in this countryside he would be
pitying my shame that I must be bargained for like
a beast at a fair and not have a word in the bargain."

"My name's what my name may be," said he,
putting out an arm and addressing the world, " and
you are my master's daughter ; I would cut off that
hand to save you a minute's vexation. What did
Black Duncan know but that you had the picking of
the gentleman yourself — and you might have picked

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316

GILIAN THE DREAMER

worse, though I tell you I did not care to hear about
the money in it."

" The money," she exclaimed, turning pale to the
lips ; " then — then — then there's money in it ? "

" He's a smart young fellow "

"No name, no name, or you are no friend of mine !
Money, you say ? "

" I could have picked no better for you myself."

" Did you say money ? "

" I thought once there might be something."

" Money, money," she repeated to herself.

" A tocher should not be all on one side," said he,
" and I know the gentleman would be glad to have
you "

" Perhaps the whole countryside knows more
about it than I do ; it could scarcely know less. I
wondered why they were looking at me in the church
on Sunday. Oh 1 I feel black burning shame —
shame — shame ! "

She put her hands to her face to hide her tears ;
she trembled in every part.

" They know ; the cries are in at least," said
Duncan.

" The cries 1 the cries 1 " she repeated. '• Is my
fate so near at hand as that ? "

" You'll be a married woman before the General
takes the road," said he.

She took her hands from her face ; her eyes froze
and snapped, cold as ice, the very redness of her
weeping cooling pale in her passion. She had no
words to utter ; she left him hurriedly, and ran fast
into the house.

CHAPTER XXVIII

■

GILIAN'S OPPORTUNITY

Her father was at the door when she went in. Now
for the first time she knew the reason for his change
of manner lately, for that bustle about trivial affairs
when she was near, that averted eye when she was
fond and humorous. She went past him, unable to
speak more than an indifferent word, and great was
his relief at that, for he had been standing there
bracing his courage to consult her on what she must
be told of sooner or later. He looked after her as
she sped upstairs. " I wonder how she'll take it ? "
he said to himself, greatly perplexed. "A father
has some unco' tasks to perform, and here's a father
not very well fitted by nature for the management
of a daughter." He took off his hat and dried a
clammy brow that showed how much the duty post-
poned had been disturbing him. " It's for the best,
but it's a vulgar business even then. If it was her
uncle, now, he would wake her out of her sleep to
tell her the news. Poor girl, poor girl ! I wish she
had her mother."

He went into the barn, where corn was piling up,
the strav/ filling the gloomy gable-ends with rustling

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3'8

GILIAN THE DREAMER

> S

( I

I I

gold. Loud he stormed among some workers tliere;
loud he stormed, for him a thing unusual ; and they
bent silent to their work and looked at one another
knowingly, sensible that he was ashamed of himself.
Sitting dry-eyed on the edge of her bed. Nan
reflected upon her next step. At a cast of her
mind round all the countryside she could think of no
woman to turn to in this trouble, and only with a
woman could she share it. Her pride first, and then
the fear of her father's anger, left her only certain
limits in which to operate. Her pride would not let
her even show curiosity in the identity of the man
who was to be her doom, nor confess to another
that she did not know his name. And the whole
parish, if it was acquainted with her sale (as now
she deemed it), must be her enemy. Against any
other outrage than this she would have gone straight
to her father. He that she loved and caressed, on
whose knees sometimes even yet she sat, would not
be deaf to any ordinary plea or protest of hers.
She would need but to nestle in his arms, and loose
and tie the antique queue, and perhaps steal a kiss
willingly surrendered, and all would be well. But
this, all her instincts, all her knowledge of her
father told her, was no ordinary decision of his.
He had gone too far to draw back. The world
knew it ; he feared to face her because for once to
please her he could not cancel what was done.
There was no hope, she told herself, in that direc-
tion ; even if there was she would not have gone
there, for the sordid horror of this transaction put a
gulf between them. Feverishly she turned over her

GILIAN'S OPPORTUNITY

319

rs there;
md they
another
himself,
ed, Nan
t of her
ink of no
y with a
and then
y certain
Id not let
the man
• another
:he whole
(as now
ainst any
e straight
essed, on
vould not
of hers,
and loose
eal a kiss
rell. But
of her
of his.
he world
)r once to
7as done,
lat direc-
ave gone
tion put a
1 over her

lowland letters, and there she found but records of
easy heart and gaiety ; no sacrificing friends were
offering themselves in the pages she had mourned
over in her moods of evening loneliness. And again
she brought her mind back to her own country, and
sitting still dry-eyed, with a burning skin, upon her
bed, reviewed her relatives and friends, weighing
which would be most like to help her.

She almost laughed when she found she had
reduced all at last to one eligible — Elasaid, her old
Skye nurse, and the mother of Black Duncan, who
was in what was called the last of the shealings, by
the lochs of Karnes. Many a time her mother had
gone to the shoaling a young matron for motlierly
counsel, but Nan herself had never been there,
though Elasaid had come to Nan to nurse her when
her mother died. In the shealing, she felt sure,
there was not only counsel, but concealment if occa-
sion demanded that.

But how was she to get there, lost as it was
somewhere mjlcs beyond the corner of the Sala-
chary hill, in the wild red moors between the two
big waters ?

First she thought of Young Islay — first and with
a gladness at the sense of his sufficiency in such an
enterprise. His was the right nature for knight-
errantry in a case like hers, but then she refiected
that he was away from home — her father had
casually let that drop in conversation at breakfast
yesterday ; and even if he had been at home, said
cooler thought, she would hesitate to enlist him in
so sordi i a cause^

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320

GILIAN THE DREAMER

Then Gilian occurred — less well adapted, she felt,
for the circumstances ; but she could speak more
freely to him than to any other, and he was out there
in the hazel-wood, no doubt, still waiting for her.
Gilian would do, Gilian would have to do. If he could
have seen how unimpassioned she was in coming
to this conclusion he would have been grieved.

She went out at once, leisurely and with her
thoughts constrained upon some unimportant matter,
so that her face might not betray her tribulation
when she met him.

In the low fields her uncle was scanning the hills
with his hands arched above his eyes to shield them
from the glare of the westering sun, groaning for the
senselessness of sheep that must go roaming on
altitudes when they are wanted specially in the
plains. She evaded his supercilious eyes by going
round the hedges, and in ten minutes she came
upon Gilian, waiting patiently for her to keep her
own tryst. His first words showed her the way
to a speedy explanation.

" Next week," said he, " we'll try Strongara ; the
place is as full of berries as the night is full of stars.
Here they're not so ripe as on the other sld.?."

" Next week the berries might be as nura<irous as
that at the very door of Maam," said shj, "and I
none the better for them."

" What's the matter ? " he cried, appalled at the
omen of her face.

"My father is going abroad at once," she an-
swered.

" Abroad ? " he repeated. He had a branch of

GILIAN'S OPPORTUNITY

321

ihc felt,
k more
It there
"or her.
le could
coming
d.

rith her
; matter,
bulation

the hills
;ld them
y for the
ming on
in the
jy going
le came
eep her
the way

ara; the
of stars.

:rous as
"and I

d at the

she an-

anch of

bramble in his hand, plucked for the crimson of its
leafage. He drew it through his hands and the
thorns bled the pahiis, but he nrver felt the pain.
She was going too ! She was going away from
Maam 1 Me might never see her again 1 These
late days of tryst and happiness in the woods and
on the hilis were to be at an end, and he was again
to be quite alone among his sheep with no voice to
think on expectantly in slow-passing forenoons, and
no light to shine like a friendly eye from Maam in
evening dusks I

"Well," she said, looking curiously at him. " My
father is going abroad, have you heard ? "

" I have not," he answered ; and she was relieved,
for in that case he had not learned the full ignominy
of her story.

" Can you not say so little as ' good luck ' to us ? "
she asked in her lightest manner.

" You — you are going with him, then ? " said
Gilian, and he delighted in the sharp torture of the
thorns that bled his hands.

" No," she answered, " it's worse than that, for I
stay. You have not heard ? Then you are the
only one in the parish, I am sure, so ignorant of
my poor business. They're — they're looking for a
man for me. Is it not a pretty thing, Gilian ? "
She laughed with a bitterness that shocked him.
" Is it not a pretty thing, Gilian ? " she went on.
" I'm wondering they did not lead me on a halter
round the country and take the best offer at a fair I
It was throwing away good chances to give me to
the first offerer, was it not, Gilian ? "

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GILIAN THE DREAMER

" Who is it ? " he asked, every nerve jarring at the
story.

" Do you think I would ask ? " she said sharply.
" It does not matter who it is ; and it is the last thing
I would like to know, for then I would know who
knew my price in the market."

*• Your father would never do it ! "

" My father would not do but what he thought he
must. He is poor, though I never thought him so
poor as this ; and I daresay he would like to see me
settled before he goes. It is the black settling when
I'm cried in the kirk before I'm courted."

" They can never marry you against your will,"
said Gilian in a dull, lifeless way, as if he had no
great belief in what he laid forth.

"And that would be true," she said, " if I had a
friend in the whole countryside. I have not one
except ''

He flushed and waited, and so did she expectantly,
thinking he would make the fervent protest ipost lads
would do under the same circumstances. But in the
moment's pause he could not find the words for his
profound feeling.

" — Except old Elasaid, the nurse on the Kames
moor," she continued.

•' Oh; her ! " said he lamely.

" The e's no one else I could think of."

" Look at me," he cried ; " look at me ; am I not your
true friend : I will do anything in the world for you."
But he still went on torturing himself with his bramble
branch, the most insensible of lovers.

She was annoyed at his want of the commonest

GILIAN'S OPPORTUNITY

323

g at the

sharply.
ist thing
ow who

mght he
; him so
3 see me
ng when

ur will,"
: had no

■ I had a
not one

)ectantly,
ost lads
ut in the
s for his

Kames

not your

[for you."

bramble

Immonest

courage or tact. "John Hielan'man! John Hielan*-
man ! " she said inwardly, trying a little coquetry of
the downcast eyes to tempt him. For now she was
so desolate that she almost loved this gawky youth
throbbing in sympathy with her tribulation.

" I believe you are my true friend, I believe you are
my true friend, and there is no one else," she said,
blushing now with no coquetry, and if he had not
been a fool and his fate against him, he might at a
hand's movement or a word have had her in his arms.
The word to say was sounding loud and strong within
him ; he took her (only, alas ! in fancy) to his breast,
but what was she the wiser ?

"And I can do nothing?" he said pitifully.
" Nothing ! " said she ; " you can do everything.*'
" Show me how, then," he said eagerly.
She had been gazing away from him with her eyes
on Maam, that looked so sombre a home, and was
certainly now so cruel a home, and she turned then,
almost weeping, her breath rising and falling, audible
to his ear, the sweetest of sounds.

" Will you take me away from here ? " she asked in
entreaty. " I must go away from here."

" I will take you anywhere you wish," said he.
He held out his hands in a gesture of sudden offering,
and she felt a happiness as one who comes upon a
familiar and kind face all unexpectedly in a strange
country. Her face betrayed her gladness.

"I will take you, and who would be better pleased?"
said Gilian.

She explained her intention briefly. She must
leave Maam at the latest to-morrow night without

324

GILIAN THE DREAMER

being observed, and he must show her the way to
Elasaid's shealing.

" Ah ! give me the right," he said, " and I will take
you to the world's end." He put out his ihands and
nigh encircled her, but shyness sent him back to a
calmer distance.

" John Hielan'man ! " she repeated to herself,
annoyed at this tardiness, but she outwardly showed
no knowledge of it.

They planned what only half in fun she called their
elopement. He was to come across to Maam in the
early morning.

\, <.<.-

CHAPTER XXIX

THE ELOPEMENT

He had ideas of his own as to how this enterprise
should be conducted, but on Nan's advice he had gone
about it in the fashion of Marget Maclean's novels,
even to the ladder. It was not a rope ladder, but a
common one of wood that Black Duncan was ac-
customed to use for ascent to his sleep in the loft.

Gilian, apprised by Nan of its exact situation,
crept breathlessly into the barn, left his lantern at
the door, and felt around with searching fingers.
The place was all silent but for the seaman's snores
as he slept the sleep of a landsman upon his coarse
pallet. Outside a cock crew ; its sudden alarm brought
the sweat to Gilian's brow ; he clutched with blind
instinct, found what he wanted, turned and hastened
from the dusty barn.

The house of Maam was jet-black among its trees,
no light peeped even in Nan's room.

Carefully he put the ladder against the wall beneath
her window, and as he did so he fancied he heard a
movement above. He stood with his hand on one
of the rungs, dubious, hesitating. For the first time
a sens- of the risks of the adventure swept into that

Iti

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•?26

GILIAN THE DREAMER

Pit!

U I

n I

mind of his, always the monopoly of imagination
and the actor. He was ashamed to find himself
half-wishing she might not come. He tried to think
it was all a dream, and he pinched his arm to try and
waken himself. But the blank black walls of Maam
confronted him ; the river was crying in its reeds ;
it was a real adventure that must be gone on with.

He lit the lantern. Through the open door of it
as he did so the flood of light revealed his face
anxious and haggard, his eyes uncertain. He closed
the lantern and looked around.

Through the myriad holes that pierced the tin,
pin-points of fire lanced the night, streaming in all
directions, throwing the front of the house at once
into cold relief with a rasping, harled, lime surface.
The bushes were big masses of shade ; the trees, a
little more remote, seemed to watch him with an
irony that made him half ashamed. What an
appalling night 1 Over him came the sentiments
of the robber, the marauder, the murderer. As he
held the lantern'on his finger a faint wind swung it,
and its lances of light danced rhythmic through the
gloom. He put it under his plaid, and prepared to
give the signal whistle. For the life of him he could
not give it utterance ; his lips seemed to have frozen,
not with fear, for he was calm in that way, but with
some commingling of emotions where fear was not
at all. When he gave breath to his hesitating lips,
it went through inaudible.

What he might have done then may only be
guessed, for the opening of the window overhead
brought an end to his hesitation.

THE ELOPEMENT

327

"Is it you?" said Nan's voice, just a little re-
vealing her anxiety in its whisper. He could not
see her now that his lantern was concealed, but he
looked up and fancied her eyes were shining more
lambent than his own lantern that smelled un-
pleasantly.

He wet his lips with his tongue. " The ladder is
ready ; it's up against your window, don't you see
it ? " he said, also whispering, but astounded at the
volume of his voice.

"Tuts!" she exclaimed impatiently, "why don't
you show a light? How can I see it without a
light?"

" Dare I ? " he asked, astonished.

"Dare! dare! Oh dear!" she repeated. "Am
I to do the daring and break my neck perhaps ? "

Out flashed the lantern from beneath his plaid and
he held it up to the window. Nan leant over and
all his hesitation fled. He had never seen her more
alluring. Her hair had become somehow unfastened,
and, without untidiness, there lay a lock across her
brow ; all her blood was in her face, her eyes might
indeed have been the flames he had fancied, for to
the appeal of the lantern they flashed back from
great and rolling depths of luminousness. Her lips
seemed to have gathered up in sleep the wealth of
a day of kissing. A screen of tartan that she
had placed about her shoulders had slipped aside
in her movement at the window and showed her
neck, ivory pale and pulsing.

" Come along, come along ! " he cried in an eager
whisper, and he put up his arms, lantern and all, as

III

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328

GILIAN THE DREAMER

U.h )

•-■ I

t'^i

m w

if she were to jump. Something in his first look
made her pause.

" Do you really want to go ? " he asked, and she
was drawing her screen by instinct across her form.
An observer, if there had been such, might well have
been amused to see an elopement so conducted.
There was still no sound in the night, except that
the cock crew at intervals over in the cottars. The
morning was heavy with dew; the scent of bog-
myrtle drugged the air.

" Do I really want > ' she repeated. " Mercy 1
what a question, it sLcms to me that yesterday
would have been the best time to ask it. Are you
rueing your bargiiin ? ' S.-i looked at him with
great dissatisfaction as he stood at the foot of the
ladder, by no means a handsome cavalier, as he
carried his plaid clumsily. He was made all the
more eager by her coldness.

"Come, come!" he cried; "the house will be
awake before you are ready, and I cannot be keeping
this lantern lighted for fear some one sees it."

" We are safe for an hour yet, if we cared to waste
the time," she said composedly, " and if you're sure

you want it "

"Want you. Nan," he corrected.
" That's a little more like it," she said to herself,
and she dropped the customary bundle at his feet.
He picked it up gingerly, as if it were a church relic ;
that it was a possession of hers, apparel apparently,
made him feel a slight intoxication. No swithering
now ; he would carry out the adventure if it led to
the end of the world ! He hugged the bundle under

>'.

THE ELOPEMENT

329

lerself,

is feet.

relic ;

Irently,

[hering

led to

under

his arm, as if it were a woman, and felt a fictional
glow from the touch of it. "Well?" said she
impatiently, for he was no longer looking at her, no
longer, indeed, conceding her so little as the light of
the lr\ntern, which he had placed on the ground, so
that its light was dissipated around, while none of it
reached the top of the ladder.

**Well," she repeated sharply, for he had not
answered.

He looked up with a start. " Are you not
coming ? " he said, with a tone to suggest that he
was waiting impatiently.

She had the window wide open now ; she leaned
out on her arms ready to descend ; the last rung of
the ladder was a foot lower than the sill of the
window ; she looked in perplexity at her cavalier, for
it was impossible to put much of grace into an emer-
gence and a descent like this.

" I am just coming," she said, but still she made
no other move, and he held up the lantern for her to
see the better.

" Well, be careful ! " he advised, and he thought
how delightful it was to have the right to say so
much.

" O Gilian ! " she said helplessly, " you are far
from gleg."

He gazed ludicrously uncomprehending at her,
and in his sense of almost conjugal right to the girl
failed to realise her delicacy.

" Go round to the barn and make sure that Duncan
is not moving ; he's the only one I fear," she said.
" Leave the lantern."

ii 'i

rim

U i

4 .if I

F»I!,W'

m '

K%.

^t'
4

330

GILIAN THE DREAMER

He did as he was told ; he put the iantcrn on the
ground ; he went round again to the barn, put his head
in, and satisfied himself that his seaman was still
musical aloft. Then he hurried back. He found the
lantern swinging on Nan's finger, and her composed
upon the ground, to which she had made a speedy
descent whenever he had disappeared.

" Oh ! I wanted to help you," said he.

" Did you ? " said she, looking for a sign of the
humorist, but he was as solemn as a sermon.

They might havs been extremely sedate in Miss
Simpson's school in Edinburgh, but at that moment
Miss Nan would have forgiven some apparent appre •
ciation of her cleverness in getting him out of the
way while she came feet first through a window.
They stood for a moment in expectancy, as if some-
thing was going to happen, she still holding the
lantern, trembling a little, as it might be with the
cold, he with her bundle under his arm pressed
affectionately.

" And — and — do we just go on ? " she asked sug-
gestively.

" The quicker the better," said he, but he made no
movement to depart, for his mind was in the house of
Maam, and he felt the father's sorrow and alarm at
an empty bed, a daughter gone.

She put out an arm, flushing in the dark as she
did so, as if to place it on his neck, but drew back
and put the lantern fast behind her, lest her fervour
had been noticed by the ironic and jealous night.
He, she saw, could not notice ; the thing was not in
his mind. , , ,

THE ELOPEMENT

331

I on the
[lis head
vas still
3und the
jmposed
L speedy

n of the

in Miss
moment
It appre •
It of the
window,
if some-
ding the
with the
pressed

ied sug-

made no

louse of

alarm at

as she

ew back

fervour

) night.

not in

" In the stories they just move off, then ? " said
she shyly. " There was the meeting, the meeting —
no more, and they just went away ? "

"And the sooner the better," said he, again lead-
ing the way at last, after taking the lantern from her,
and " John Hielan'man, John Hielan'man ! " she cried
vexatiously within.

She followed, pouting her lips in the darkness.
" It's quite different from what I expected," she said,
whispering as they passed the front door and down
by the burn.

" And with me too," he confessed. " I had it
made up in my mind all otherwise. There should have
been moonlight and a horse, and many other things."

" It seems to me you are not making so much as
you might of what there is," she suggested. " Are
you sure it is not a trouble to carry the lantern and
the bundle too ? "

" Oh ! no, no 1 " he cried softly, but eagerly, every
chivalric sentiment roused lest she should deprive him
of the pleasure of doing all he could for her.

She sighed.

" Are you vexed you have come ? " he asked, stop-
ping and turning on her his yet wan face full of regret
and of dubiety too.

" The thing is done," she answered abruptly, and
they were stepping carefully over the burn that ran
about its boulders in the dark, gurgling. " Arc you
sure you are not sorry yourself ? "

" I am not a bit sorry," he said, " but — but "

'* Your ' buts ' are too late, Gilian," she went on
firmly. "If you rued the enterprise now, I would go

I '

11
11

f/t!

, I ■ 'h

332

GILIAN THE DREAMER

•III'

] !

! ■ i -S

mysel f. " But she relaxed some of the coldness of her
mood as he shifted his lantern to the other hand and
put a bashful but firm and supporting hand below her
arm to secure her footing in the rough ascent. This
was a little more like what she had expected, she
told herself, though she missed something of warmth
in the action. How could she tell that the hand that
held her was trembling with passion, that her shawl
fringe as it was blown across his face by the breeze
was something he could have kissed rapturously ?

And now they were well up the hillside. The
house of Maam, the g£ rden, the plantings, the noisy
river, were down in the valley, all surrendered to the
night. Their lantern, swinging on the lad's finger,
threw a path of light before them, showing the short
cropped grass, the rushy patches, or the gall they
trod odorously, or the heather in its rare clumps.
No sound came louder than the tumbling waters;
their voices, as they spoke even yet guardedly as
people will in enterprises the most solitary when
their consciences are unresting, seemed strange and
unfamiliar to each other.

Soon they were on the summit of the hill range
and below them lay the two glens, and the first breath
of the morning came behind from Strone, where dawn
threw a wan grey flag across the world. They
plunged into the caldine trees of Strongara, sped fast
across Aray at Three Bridges, and the dawn was on
Balantyre, where the farm-touns high and low lay like
thatched forts, grey, cold, unwelcoming in the morn-
ing, with here and there a stream of peat reek from
the greasach of the night's fires. They became, as it

THE ELOPEM'^.NT

333

5s of her
land and
elow her
t. This
;ted, she
f warmth
land that
er shawl
le breeze
>usly ?
de. The
he noisy
red to the
i's finger,
the short
gall they
2 clumps.
J waters;
rdedly as
iry when
ange and

hill range
rst breath
lere dawn
They
sped fast
n was on
w lay like
he morn-
reek from
ame, as it

might be, children again as they hastened through
the country. He lost all his diffident dubiety and
was anew the bold adventurer, treading loverlike
upon the very stars. A passion of affection was on
him ; he would take her unresisting hand and lead
her as though she were his, really, and before them
was their moated castle. And Nan forgot herself in
the fresh zest of the dewy morning that now was
setting the birds to their singing in the dens that
hang above the banks of the Balantyre burn.

A rosy flush came to the hills where on the upper
edges spread the antlers of deer sniffing the wind,
rejoicing in the magnificence of the fine highland
country in its autumn time. Nan hummed and
broke into a strain of the verse of Donacha Ban that
chants the praise of day and deer-hunting; she
charmed her comrade; he felt the passion of the
possessor and stopped and turned upon her and
made to kiss. She laughed temptingly, drew back,
warding her lips with the screen that now she had
arranged in a new and pleasing fashion on her
shoulders so that she looked some Gaelic huntress
of the wilds. " So, so, Gilian I " said she, " you have
found that there might be more in the books than
simply to take the girl away with not so much as
* Have you a mouth ? ' when she stepped out at the
window."

" What a fool I was 1 " he cried. " I was thinking
of it all the time, but did not dare." But awakened
to the actuality of what he now had dared, he was
ashamed to go further.

Nan laughed. He looked odd indeed standing

'li

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334

GILIAN THE DREAMER

facing her with the lantern burning yet in his hand
though the clay was almost wide-awake. He was a
poet bearing his own light about the world extra-
vagantly while the sun was shining for common
mortals.

" Out with your light ! " said she. And then she
added : " If you dared not do it in the dark when
you met me first, you cannot do it now," and he was
dashed exceedingly. He puffed out the flame.

" That's aye me I " he said as they resumed their
journey up the second hill of their morning escapade.
" I am too often a day behind the fair. I was — 1
was — kissing you a score of times in fancy and all
the time you were willing in the actual fact."

"Was I indeed?" she retorted shortly, with a
movement to bring her shawl more closely round
her. " Do not be so flattering. I like you little
over-blate, Gilian, but I like you less over-bold. If
you could see yourself you would know which suits
you best."

He had no answer. He must face his L'Me with
lacerated feelings, now a step removed from the girl
who walked with him. But only for a little was he
depressed. She saw she had vexed him, and soon
she was humming again, and again they were
children of illusion and content.

They reached the pass that led to the lochs, and
now Gilian had to confess himself in a strange
country, but he did not reveal the fact to his com-
panion. They talked of their coming sojourn in
these lovely wilds that her mother had known and
loved. The sun would shine constantly for them ;

THE ELOPEMENT

335

is hand
e was a
1 extra-
common

hen she
rk when
i he was
le.

led their
iscapade.
[ was — I
^ and all

, with a
ly round
LTOU little
bold. If
lich suits

.le with
the girl
was he
and soon
ley were

ochs, and
strange
his com-
)journ in
lown and
or them ;

the lakes — the little and numerous lakes — would be
fringed with dreams and delight, starshine would
find them innocent among the heather, remitted to
'lys of old when they were happy and careless,
vviien no trouble marred their sky. Only now and
then, as they sped on their way, Gilian wished
fervently he knew more of where he was going, and
was certain that life in the wilds would be so pleasant
and easy as they pictured it.

When they came at last upon the slope of Cruach-
an-Lochain that revealed the great valley of the lakes,
they stood raptured by the spectacle before them.
Far off, the great hollow among the hills was hazy
and mysterious, but spread before them was the
m ^, tangled with grass and heather, all vacant in
t orning dream. A tremor of wind was in the
grass about their feet, a little mist tarried about the
warm side of Ben Bhreac, caught among the juniper
bushes the hunters had put there for shelter. All
over brooded calm, a land forgetful of its stormy
elements, of the dripping nights, the hail-beat, shrewd
frost and hurricane. They could not, the pair of
them, flying from a world of anxieties, but stop and
look at the spectacle, when they came on the face of
the Cruach. Por a little they did not speak.

" My God ! " said Gilian at last, a lump somewhere
at his throat. " It seems as if this place had been
waiting on us tenantless since the start of time.
Where have we been to be so long and so far away
from it ? Mo chrid/ie, mo chridhe ! "

" Now that I see it," said she doubtfully, " it seems
melancholy enough. I wish " She hung upon

i Vi

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336

GILIAN THE DREAMER

' ' )

I ■*■ '

her sentence, with a rueful gaze out of her eyes at
the scene.

" Melancholy I " he repeated. " Of course, of
course," he quickly came to her reflection, " what
could it be but melancholy with all the past unre-
coverable behind it ? It must be brooding for its
people gone. Empty, empty, but I see all the old
peoples roaming in bands over it, the sun smiting
them, the rain drenching, I cannot but be thinking
of shealing huts that spotted the levels, of bairns
crying about the doors, ot nights of ceilidh round
peat fires dead and cold now, but yet with the
smoke of them hanging somewhere round the
universe."

He stopped, and turned away from her, concealing
his perturbation.

She shivered at the thought and partly from
weariness and hunger, with a little sucking in of the
breath his ear caught, and he turned, a different
man.

"You are tired; will we rest tofore we go
further?"

" Is it far ? " she asked.

He reddened. He cast a fast glance round the
country as if to look for some familiar laLdmark, but
all was strange to him.

" I do not know," he confessed humbly. " I was
never on the moor before."

" Mercy ! " she said. " I thought there was never
a lad from town but had fished here."

" But I was different," he replied. " The woods
and waters about the door were enough for me. But

; 4

r eyes at

Durse, of
n, ** what
ast unre-
g for its
I the old
1 smiting
thinking
of bairns
dh round
with the
)und the

Dncealing

tly from
in of the
different

: we go

)und the
nark, but

" I was

as never

e woods
le. But

THE ELOPEMENT

337

we'll get to Elasaid's very soon, I'm sure, and lind
lire, food, and rest."

She bit her nether lip in annoyance at a courtier
so ill-prepared for their adventure. She turned to
look back to the familiar country they were leaving
behind them, and for a moment wished she had
never come.

" I wish we could have them now," she said at last ;
the words drawn from her by her weariness.

" And so we can," said he eagerly, with a delight
at a reflection that sprung into his mind like a reve-
lation. " We can go down to the water there and
build a fire, and rest and eat. It will be like
what I fancied, a real adventure of hunters, and
I will be the valet, and you will be the — the
queen."

So they went down to the lake side. Heathery
braes rose about it, reflected in its dark water ; an
islet overgrown with scrub lay in the middle of it,
the very haunt of possible romance ; Gilian straight
inhabited the same with memories and exploits.
Nan sat her down on the springy heather that swept
its scents about her, she leaned a tired shoulder
on it, and the bells of the ling blushed as they swayed
against her cheek. Gilian put down his lantern, a
ludicrous companion in broad sunshine, and was
dashed by the sudden recollection that though he
had talked of something to eat, he had really no
means of providing it 1

The girl observed his perturbation and shrewdly
guessed the reason.

" Well ? " she said maliciously, without a smile ;

'ill;'

if I*

* ■' t'

338

GILIAN THE DREAMER

, i

Ij iii

" and where are we to get the food you so nicely
spoke of?"

He stood stupefied, and so dolorous a spectacle
that she could not but laugh.

" You have got none at all, but imagined our feast
— as usual," she said, unfolding her bundle. " It
was well I did not depend on your forethought,
Gilian," and she took a flask of milk and some bread
from within. He was as much vexed at the spoiling
of his illusion about the contents of the bundle as at
the discovery of his thoughtlessness. What he had
been so fervently caressing against his side had been
no more romantic than bread and cheese and some
more substantial augmentation for the poor table of
the old woman they were going to meet 1

The side of the loch bristled with dry heather
roots ; he plucked them and placed them on the side
of a boulder beside Nan, and set' fire to them, and
soon a cheerful blaze competed with the tardy morn-
ing chill. They sat beside it singularly uplifted by
this domestic hearth among the wilds ; he felt him-
self a sort of householder, and to share as he did
the fare of the girl was a huge delight. Her single
cup passed between them ; at first he was shy to
touch at all the object her lips had kissed ; he showed
the feeling in his face, and she laughed again.

He joined in the merriment, quite comprehending.
Next time the cup came his way he boldly turned it
about so that where last she had sipped came to his
lips, and there he lingered — just a shade too long for
the look of the thing. What at first she but blushed
and smiled at, she frowned upon at last with a sparkle

THE ELOPEMENT

339

nding.
ned it

to his
)ng for

ushed
parkle

of the eye her Uncle Jamie used to call in the Gaelic the
torch of temper. Gilian missed it ; that touch of his lip
upon her cup had recalled the warmth of her hand
upon the flowers he had gathered when she had let
them fall in the Duke's garden, but this was closer
and more stirring. As he knelt on the heather he felt
himself a worshipper of ancient days, and her the
goddess of long-lost times. An uplifting was in his
eyes ; it would have been great and beautiful to any
one that could have understood, but her it only vexed.

When he handed back the cup she tossed it from
her. It broke — sad omen I — on their first hearth-
stone. " That'll do," said she shortly, " it's time we
were going." And she gathered hastily the remains
of their breakfast and made for a departure.

He surveyed her dubiously, wondering why she
so abruptly checked the advances he could swear she
had challenged.

" I am sorry I vexed you," he stammered.

She brought down her brows questioningly. There
was something pleasant and tempting though queen-
like and severe in her straightened figure standing
over him curved and strong and full, her screen fallen
to her waist, a strand of her hair blown about her
cheek by a saucy wind.

" Vexed ? " she queried, and then smiled indifferent.
" What would I be vexed at ? We are finished, are
we not ? Must we be burdening ourselves unneces-
sarily going on a road you neither know the length or
nature of?"

And without a word more they proceeded towards
the shealing that was to be the end of their adventure.

i|-r

:( :,.

i'f

► (?■■

CHAPTER XXX

AMONG THE HEATHER

hi ,;i

i'i' .

Old Elasaid met them at the door. She was a
woman with eyes profound and piercing under hang-
ing brows, a woman grey even to the colour of her
cheeks and the checks of the gown that hung loosely
on her gaunt figure. It was with no shealing welcome,
no kind memory of the old nurse even, she met them,
but stood under her lintel looking as it were through
them to the airt of the country whence they had come.
She passed the time of day as if they had been
strangers, puckering her mouth with a sort of un-
expressed disapproval. They stood before her very
much put out at a reception so different from what
they had looked for, and Gilian knew that there must
be something decisive to say but could not find it in
his head.

" Well," said the old woman at last, " this'll be the
good man, I'm thinking ? " But still she had that in
her tone, a sour dissatisfaction that showed she had
her doubts.

Giliaii was not unhappy at the assumption, but felt
warm, and Nan reddened.

AMONG THE HEATHER 341

" Not at all," she answered with some difficulty.
*' It's just a friend who convoyed me up."

" Well I kent it," said the old woman, who spoke
English to show she was displeased, and there was in
her voice a tone of satisfaction with her own shrewd-
ness. " When I saw you coming up the way there
I thought there was something very unlike the thing
about this person with you. The other one would
have been a little closer on your elbow, and a lantern's
a very queer contrivance to be stravaiging with on a
summer day."

All her contempt seemed to be for Gilian, and he
felt mightily uncomfortable.

" Tell me this," she went on, suddenly taking Nan
by the arm and bending a most condemnatory face
on her ; " tell me this : did you run away from the
other one ? "

" Mercy on mo ! " cried the girl. " Is the story
up here already ? "

" Oh, we're not so far back," said the dame, who
did not add that her son the seaman had told her the
news on his last weekly visit.

" Then I'll need the less excuse for being here,"
said Nan, trying to find in the hard and unapproving
visage any trace of the woman who in happier days
used to be so kind a nurse.

" No excuse at all ! " said old Elasaid. " If it's
your father's wish you're flying from, you need not
come here." She stepped within the house, pulled
out the wattle door and between it and the fir post
stuck a disapproving face.
" Go away I go away 1 " she cried harshly, " I have

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342

GILIAN THE DREAMER

fj.

1 ■;

no room for a baggage of that kind." Then she shut
the door in their faces ; they could hear the bar rurt
to in the staples.

For a minute or two they stood aghast and silent,
and Nan was plainly close on tears. But the humour
of the thing struck her quick enough — sooner than
Gilian saw it — and she broke into laughter, subdued
so that it might not reach the woman righteous
within, and her ear maybe at the door chink. It
was not perhaps of the heartiest merriment, but it
inspired her companion with respect for her spirit
in a moment so trying. She was pale, partly with
weariness, partly with distress at this unlooked-for
reception ; but her lips, red and luscious, smiled for
his encouragement.

" Must we go back ? " he asked, irresolute, as
they made some slow steps away from the door.

"Backl" said Nan, her eyes flashing. "Am I
mad? Are you speaking for yourself? If it must
be back for you let me not be keeping you. After
all you bargained for no more than to take me to old
Elasaid's, and now that I'm here and there's none of
the Elasaid I expected to meet me, I'll make the rest
of my way somewhere myself." But her gaze upon
that rolling and bleak moorland was far less confi-
dent than her words.

Gilian made no reply. He only looked at her
reproaching for her bitterness, and humbly took up
step by her side as she walked quickly away from
the scene of the cold reception.

They had gone some distance when Elasaid
opened her door again and came out to look after

■

AMONG THE HEATHER

343

them. She saw a most touching helplessness in the
manner of their uncertain walk across the heather,
with no fixed mind as to which direction was the
best, stopping and debating, moving now a little
to the east, now a little to the west, but always
further into the region of the lochs. She began to
blame herself for her hastiness. She had expected
that, face to face with her disapproval, the foolish young
people would have gone back the road they came ;
but here they were going further than ever away
from the father in whose interest she had loyally
refused her hospitality. S,he cried loudly after them
with a short-breathed Gaelic halloo, too much like
an animal's cry to attract their attention. Nan did
not hear it at all ; Gilian but dreamed it, as it were,
and though he took it for the call of a moor-fowl,
found it in his ready fancy alarmingly like the sum-
mons of an irate father. But now he dared betray no
hesitancy ; he did not even turn to look behind him.

Elasaid cried again, but still in vain. She con-
cluded they were deliberately deaf to her, and " Let
them go ! " she said crabbedly, flaunting an eloquent
arm to the winds, comforting herself with the
thought that there was no other house in all that
dreary country to give them the shelter she had
denied.

The sun by this time was pouring into the moor
from a sky without a speck of cloud. Compared
with the brown and purple of the moor and the dull
colour of Ben Bhreac — the mount away to the south-
east — the heavens were uncommonly blue, paling
gradual to their dip. In another hour than this

!« ■

'iir

" it

'> V,

344

GILIAN THE DREAMER

distressed and perplexed one, our wanderers would
have felt some jocund influence in a forenoon so
benign and handsome.

And now, too, the country began to show more of
its true character. Its little lochs — a great chain of
them — dashed upon their vision in patches of blue
or grey or yellow. The valley was speckled with
the tarns. Gilian forgot the hazards of the enter-
prise and the discomforts to be faced ; he had no
time to think of what was to be done next for them
in their flight, so full was he with the romance of
those multitudinous lakelets lost in the empty and
sunny wilds, some with isle, all with shelving heathery
braes beside them, or golden bights where the little
wave lapped. He turned to his companion with an
ecstasy.

" Did you ask me if I rued it ? " he said. " Give
me no better than to stay here for ever — with you to
share it."

She met his ardour with coolness. " I wish you
had been so certain of that a Uttle ago," she said ;
"you seem very much on the swither. Have you
thought of what's to be done next ? It is all very
well to be putting our backs to the angry Elasaid
behind us there, but all the lime I'm wondering
what's to be the outcome."

He confessed himself at a loss. She eyed him
without satisfaction. This young gentleman, who
seemed so enchanting in circumstances where no
readiness of purpose was needed, looked very in-
adequate in the actual stress of things, in the broad
daylight, his flat bonnet far back on his brow, his

iti

AMONG THE HEATHER

345

■
1 '

Id him
who
pre no
|ry in-
broad
Nv, his

face wan, his plaid awry. And there was something
in his carriage of the ridiculous lantern that made
her annoyed at herself for some reason.

She stopped, and they hung hesitating, with the
lapwings crying about them, and no other sound in
the air.

" I'm going back," said she, as if she meant it.

His face fell. This time there was no mistaking
his distress.

" No, no, you cannot, Nan," he said. " We will
get out of it somehow ; you cannot return, and what
of me ? It would be ill to explain."

" We're neither whaup nor deer," said she, shrug-
ging her shoulders, " to live here wild the rest of
our days."

Gilian looked about him rather helplessly, and he
started at the sight of a gable wall, with what in a
shealing might pass for a window in it, and he knew
it for a relic of the old days, when the moor in its
levels here would be spotted with happy summer
homes, when the people of Lochow came from the
shores below and gave their cattle the juicy grazing
of these untamed pastures, themselves living the
ancient life, with singing and spinning in the open,
gathering at nights for song or dance and tale in the
fine weather.

" There's something of shelter at least," he said,
pointing to it. She looked dubiously at the dry-
stone walls almost tumbling, the cabars of what had
been a byre fallen over half the interior, and at the
rank nettles — head-high almost — about the rotten
door.

ITT^

346

GILIAN THE DREAMER

' Kt

1. -

i.i:.

[•ii

"Is this home-coming?" she said whimsically,
forcing a smile, but she was glad to see it. By this
time she was master of her companion's mind, and
could guess that it would be to him a palace for
them both. But they went up towards the aban-
doned hut, glad enough, both of them, to see an
edifice, even in decay, showing man had once been
there, where now the world about seemed given over
to vacant sunshine or the wild winds of heaven, the
rains, and doleful birds. It stood between two lochs
that were separated from each other by but a hundred
yards of heather and rush, its back-end to one of
the lochs, the door to Ben Bhreac. '

Gilian went first and trod down the nettles,
making a path that she might the more comfortably
reach this sanctuary so melancholy. She gathered
up her gown close round her, dreading the touch of
these kind plants that hide the shame of fallen lintels
and the sorrow of cold hearths, and timidly went to
the door, her shawl fallen from one of her shoulders
and dragging at the other. She put her head
within, and as she did so, the lad caught the shawl,
unseen by her, and kissed the fringe, wishing he
could do so to her lips.

A cold damp air was in the dwelHng, that had no
light but from the half open door and the vent in
the middle of the roof.

She drew back shuddering in spite of herself,
though her whole desire was to seem content with
any refuge now that she had brought him so far on
what looked like a gowk's errand.

He ventured an assuring arm around her waist

isically,
By this
nd, and
lace for
e aban-
see an
ce been
'en over
ven, the
vo lochs
hundred
D one of

nettles,
I fort ably
jathercd
touch of
n lintels

went to
lioulders
head
shawl,

ling he

had no
vent in

herself,
ent with
far on

ler waist

AMONG THE HEATHER

347

and they went slowly in together, and stood silent
in the middle of the floor where the long-dead fire
had been, saying nothing at all till their eyes had
grown accustomed to the gloom.

What she felt beyond timidity she betrayed not,
but Gilian peopled the house at an instant with all
its bygone tenants, seeing the peats ruddy on the
stones, the smoke curling up among the shining
cabars, hearing ghosts gossiping in muffled Gaelic
round the fire.

Yet soon they found even in this relic of old long-
gone people the air of domesticity ; it was like a
shelter even though so poor a one ; it was some sort
of an end to her quest for a refuge, though the more
she looked at its dim interior the more content she
was with the outside of it. Where doubtless many
children had played, on the knowe below a single
shrub of fir-wood beside the loch. Nan spread out
the remains of her breakfast again and they prepared
to make a meal. Gilian gathered the dry heather
tufts, happy in his usefulness, thinking her quite
content too, while all the time she was puzzling as
to what was next to be done. Never seemed a bleak
piece of country so lovely to him as now. As he
rose from bending over the heather and looked
around, seeing the moor in its many colours stretch
in swelling waves far into the distance, the lochans
winking to the day and over all a kind soft sky, he
was thrilling with his delight.

She summoned him in a little to eat. He looked
at her scanty provender, and there was as much of
truth as self-sacrifice in his words as he said : " I do

It*,. Kt.

348

GILIAN THE DREAMER

■■ ' c

not care for eating ; I am just satisfied with seeing
you there and the world so fine." And still exulting
in that rare solitude of two he went farther off by
Little Fox Loch and sought for white heather,
symbol of luck and love, as rare to find among the red
as true love is among illusion. Searching the braes
he could hear, after a little, Nan sing at the shealing
hut. A faint breeze brought the strain to him faintly
so that it might be the melody of fairydom heard at
eves on grassy hillocks by the gifted ear, the melody
of the gentle other world, had he not known that it
had the words of " The Rover." Nan was singing
it to keep up her heart, far from cheerful, tortured
indeed with doubt and fear, and yet the listener
found in the notes content and hope. When he
came back with his spray of white heather he was
so uplifted with the song that he ran up to her for
once with no restraint and made to fasten it at her
neck. She was surprised at his new freedom but
noway displeased. A little less self-consciousness
as he fumbled at the riband on her neck would
have satisfied her more, but even that disappeared
when he felt her breath upon his hair and an un-
conscious touch of her hand on his arm as he
fastened the flower. She let her eyes drop
before his bold rapture, he could have kissed
her there and then and welcome. But he only
went halfway. When the heather was fastened,
he took her hand and lifted it to his lips, remem-
bering some inadequate tale in the books of Marget
Maclean.

" John Hielan'man ! John Hielan'man 1 " she said
within herself, and suddenly she tore the white spray

AMONG THE HEATHER

349

th seeing
I exulting
er off by

heather,
ig the red
the braes
: shealing
iin faintly

heard at
le melody
m that it
s singing

tortured
I listener
When he
r he was
her for
it at her
;dom but
:iousness
;k would
appeared
d an un-
tn as he
es drop
e kissed

he only
fastened,
, remem-
' Marget

she said
ite spray

from her bosom and threw it passionately at her
feet, while tears of vexation ran to her eyes.

" Forgive me, forgive me, I have vexed you again,"
said Gilian, contrite. " I should not be so bold."

She could not but smile through her tears.

"If you will take my heather again and say
nothing of it, I will never take the liberty again,"
he went on, eager to make up for his error.

"Then I will not take it," she answered.

" It was stupid of me," said he.

" It is," she corrected meaningly.

" I never had any acquaintance with — with — girls,"
he added, trying to find some excuse for himself.

" That is plain enough," she agreed cordially, and
she followed it with a sigh.

For a minute they stood thus irresolute and then
the lad bent and lifted the ill-used heather. He held
it in his hand for a moment tenderly as if it was a
thing that lived, and sighed over it, and then, fearing
that, too, might seem absurd to her and vexatious,
he made an effort and twirled it between a finger and
thumb by its stem like any casual wild-flower culled
without reflection.

" What are you going to do with it now ? " she
asked him, affecting indifference, but eyeing it with
interest ; and he made no answer, for how could he
tell her he meant to keep it always for remembrance ?
" Gi\ it to me," she said suddenly, and took it from
his fingers. She ran into the house and placed it in
the only fragment of earthenware left by the departed
tenants. " It v 111 do very well there," she said.

"But I meant it for you," said Gilian ruefully.
" It is a sign of good luck."

I,.,

«ii

350

GILIAN THE DREAMER

„i I

■ (

I? i

'* It is a sign of more than that, I've heard many
a time," she replied, and he became very red indeed,
for he knew that as well as she, though he had not
said it. ** I'll take it for the luck," she went on.

" And for mine too," said Gilian.

" That's not so blate, John Hielan'man I " said she
again to herself. " And for yours too," she conceded,
smiling. " When you find that I have taken it away
from there you will know it is for your luck too '

" And it will be at your breast then ? ' he cried
eagerly.

She laughed aiid blushed and aughed again, most
sweetly and most merrily. "It will be at — at — at
my heart," she said.

"Ah," said he, in an instinct of fear that quelled
his rapture ; " ah, if they take you from me I "

" When I take your heather," said she, " it will be
for ever at my heart."

Oh ! then that savage moorland was Paradise for
the dreamer, and he was a coquette's slave, fettered
by a compliment. The afternoon passed, for him at
least, in a delirium of joy ; she, though she never
revealed it, was never at a moment's rest from her
plans of escape from her folly. Late in the after-
noon she came to a lame conclusion.

"You will go down to the ♦lown to-night," she
said, "and "

"And you!" he cried, alarmed at the notion of
•severance.

" I'll stay here, of course. You'll tell Miss Mary
that we — that I am here, and she will tell you what
we — what I, must do."

AMONG THE HEATHER

351

rd many
I indeed,
had not
; on.

said she
onceded,
1 it away
too'
he cried

tin, most
— at — at

: quelled

it will be

idise for
ettered
him at
e never
om her
e after-

," she

)tion of

Mary
>u what

** But — but — " he stammered, dubious of the plan.

" Of course I can go home again to Maam now,"
she broke in coldly, and she was vexed for the alarm
and grief he showed at the alternative.

" I will go ; I will go at once," he cried, but first
he went far down on Blaraghour for wood for a fire
to cheer her loneliness, and the dusk was down on
them before he left her.

She gave him her hand at the door, a hand for
once with helpless dependence in the clinging and
the confidence of it, and he held it long without
dissent from her. Never before had she seemed so
beautiful or so affable, so necessary to his life. Her
trials had paled the colour of her face and her eyes
had a hint of tears. Over his shoulder she would
now and then cast a glance of apprehension at the
falling night and check a shudder of her frame.

" Good-night I " he said.

" Good-night 1 " she answered, and yet she did not
loose her prisoned hand.

He sighed, and brought, in spite of her, an echo
from her heart.

Then he drew her suddenly to his arms and
scorched her face with lips of fire.

Nan released herself and fled within. The door
closed ; she dared not make her trial the more intense
by seeing the night swallow up her only living link
with the human world beyond the vague selvedge of
the moor.

And Gilian, till the dawn came over Cruach-an-
Lochain, walked by the side of Little ^ox Loch,
within view of the hut that held his heart.

r r f-

CHAPTER XXXI

BJR'ii'

il %\l.

Btli '

DEFIANCE

That there was some unusual agitation in the town
Gilian could gather as soon as he had set foot
within the Arches in the early morning. It was in
the air, it was mustering many women at the well.
There they stood in loud and lingering groups, their
stoups running over extravagantly while they kept
the tap running, unconscious what they were about.
Or they had a furtive aspect as they whispered in the
closes, their aprons wrapping their folded arms. At
the door of the New Inns, Mr. Spencer was laying
forth a theory of abduction. He had had English
experience, he knew life ; for the first time since he
had come to this place of poor happenings he had
found something he could speak upon with authority
and an audience to listen with respect. What his
theory was, Gilian might have heard fully as he
passed ; but he was thinking of other things, and
all that came to him were two or three words, and
one of the errant sentences was seemingly about
himself. That attracted all his attention. He gave
a glance at the people at the door — the inn-keeper,
MacGibbon, with an unusual Kilmarnock bonnet on

;|i' !

DEFIANCE

353

that seemed to have been donned in a hurry ; Rixa,
in a great perturbation, having just come out of a
shandry-dan with which he had been driving up
Glen Shira; Major Paul, and Wilson the writer.
The inn-keeper, who was the first to see the lad,
stopped his speech with confusion and reddened.
They gave him a stare and a curt acknowledgment of
his passage of the time of day as the saying goes,
looked after him as he passed round Old Islay's
corner, and found no words till he was out of sight.

"That puts an end to that notion, at any rate,"
said the Sheriff, almost pleased to find the Londoner
in the wrong with his surmises. And the others
smiled at Mr. Spencer as people do who told you so.
Two minutes ago they were half inclined to give
some credit to the plausibility of his reasoning.

The inn-keeper was visibly disturbed. " Dear me I
I have been doing the lad an injustice after all; I
could have sworn he was the man in it if it was
anybody."

" Pooh ! " said Rixa, " the Paymaster's boy I I
would as soon expect it of Gillesbeg Aotram."

They went into the hostelry, and ' 'lian, halfway
round the factor's corner, was well-nigli ridden down
by Turner on a roan horse spattered on the breast
and bridle with the foam of a hard morn's labour.
He had scoured the countryside on every outward
road, and come early at the dawn to the ferry-house
and rapped wildly on the shutter. But nowhere
were tidings of his daughter. Gilian felt a traitor to
this man as he swept past, seeing nothing, with a
face cruel and vengeful, the flanks of his horse

f , !l

r 1

m ' i

S' ;

it ii

354

GILIAN THE DREAMER

streaked with crimson. The people shrunk back in
their closes and their shop-doors as he passed all
covered upon with the fighting passion that had
been slumbering up the glen since ever he came
home from the Peninsula.

It was the breakfast hour in the Paymaster's.
Miss Mary was going in with the Book and had but
time to whisper welcome to her boy on the step of
the door, for the brothers waited and the clock was
on the stroke. Gilian had to follow her without a
word of explanation. He was hungry ; he welcomed
the little respite the taking of food would give him
from the telling of a confidence he felt ashamed to
share with Miss Mary.

The Paymaster mumbled a blessing upon the
vivours, then fed noisily, looking, when he looked at
Gilian at all, but at the upper buttons of his coat
as if through him, and letting not so little' as the edge
of his gaze fall upon his face. That was a studious
contempt, and Gilian knew it, and there were many
considerations that made him feel no injury at it.
But the Cornal's utter indifference — that sent his
eye roaming unrecognising into Gilian's and away
again without a spark of recognition — was painful.
It would have been an insufferable meal, even in
his hunger, but for Miss Mary's presence. The
little lady would be smiling to him across the table
without any provocation whenever her brothers'
eyes were averted, and the faint perfume of a
silk shawl she had about her shoulders endowed
the air with an odour of domesticity, womanhood,
maternity.

;;

DEFIANCE

355

ik back in

passed all

that had

• he came

lymaster's.
d had but
he step of
clock was
without a
welcomed
'. give him
shamed to

upon the

looked at

f his coat

is the edge

1 studious

/ere many

ury at it.

sent his

and away

as painful.

1, even in

nee. The

the table

brothers'

Lime of a

endowed

)manhood,

For a long time nobody spoke, and the pigeons
came boldly to the sill of the open window and
cooed.

At last said the Paymaster, as if he were resuming
a conversation: " I met him out there on horseback;
the hunt is still up, I'm thinking."

"Ay?" said the Cornal, as if he gripped the
subject and waited the continuance of the narrative.

"He'll have ranged the country, I'm thinking,"
went on his brother. " I could not but be sorry for
the man."

Miss Mary cast upon him a look he seldom got
from her, of warmth more than kinship, but she had
nothing to say ; her voice was long dumb in that
parlour where she loved and feared, a woman sub-
jugate to a sex far less worthy than her own and
less courageous.

" Humph I " said the Cornal. He felt with ner-
vous inquiry at his ragged chin, inspired for a second
by old dreads of untidy morning parades.

" I had one consolation for my bachelordom in
him," went on the youngt." brother, and then he
paused confused.

"And what might that be ? " asked the Cornal.

" It's that I'm never like to be in the same scrape
with a child of mine," he answered, pretending a
jocosity that sat ill on him. Then he looked at
Miss Mary a little shamefaced for a speech so
uncommonly confidential.

The Cornal opened his mouth as if he would
laugh, but no sound came.

" I'm minding," said he, speaking slowly and in a

I
•:1

I f

356

GILIAN THE DREAMER

muffled accent he was beginning to have always ;
" I'm minding when that same, cast in your face by
the gentleman himself, greatly put you about. Jock,
Jock, I mind you were angry with Turner on that
score I And no child to have the same sorrows

over ! Well — well " He broke short and for the

first time let his eyes rest with any meaning on
Gilian sitting at the indulgence of a good morning's
appetite.

Miss Mary put about the breakfast dishes with a
great hurry to be finished and out of this explosive
atmosphere.

"There was an odd rumour — " said the Pay-
master. He paused a moment, looking at the in-
attentive youth opposite him. He saw no reason
to stay his confidences, and the Cornal was waiting
expectingly on him. " An odd rumour up the way ;
I heard it first from that gabbling man Spencer at
the Inns. It was that a young gentleman of our
acquaintance might have had a hand in the affair.
I could not say at the 1 'st whether the notion vexed
or pleased me, but I assured him of the stupidity of
it." He looked his brother in the eyes, and fixing
his attention cunningly dropped a lid to indicate that
the young gentleman was beside them.

The Cornal laughed, this time with a sound.

" Lord," he cried. *' As if it was possible ! You
might go far in that quarter for anything of dare-
deviltry so likeable. What's more, is the girl daft ?
Her mother had caprice enough, but to give her her
due she took up with men of spirit. There was my
brother Dugald — But this one, what did Dugald

DEFIANCE

357

ilways ;
face by
Jock,
on that
sorrows
for the
ling on
)rning's

i with a
cplosive

e Pay-

the in-

reason

waiting

le way ;

sneer at

of our

e aifair.

1 vexed

idity of

I fixing

ite that

! You
dare-
daft?
ler her
/as my
Dugald

call him — aye ! on his very death-bed ? The dreamer,
the dreamer I It will hold true I Him, indeed ! "
And he had no more words for his contempt.

All the time, however, Gilian was luckily more or
less separate from his company by many miles of
fancy, behind the hills among the lochs watching
the uprising of Nan, sharing her loneliness, seeing
her feet bru h the dew from the scented gall. But
the Cornal's allusion brought him to the parlour of
his banishment, away from that dear presence. He
listened now but said nothing. He feared his very
accent would betray his secret.

" I'll tell you what it is," said the Cornal again,
" whoever is with her will rue it ; mind, Tm telling
you. It's like mother like child."

" I'm glad," said the Paymaster, " I had nothing
to do with the sex of them." He puffed up as he
spoke it ; there was an irresistible comedy in the
complacence of a man no woman was ever like to
run after at his best. His sister looked at him ; his
brother chuckled noiselessly.

"You — you — you " said the elder brother

grimly, but again he did not finish the sentence.

The meal went on for a time without any speech,
finished, and Miss Mary cried at the stair-head for
her maid, who came up and sat demurely at the
chair nearest the door while the Cornal, as hurriedly
as he might, ran over the morning's sacred exercise
from the Bible Miss Mary laid before him. The
Paymaster took his seat beside the window, looking
out the while and heedless of the Scriptures, watched
the fishermen crowding for their mornings into the

I li I

358

GILIAN THE DREAMER

f^ij

house of Widow Gordon the vintner. Miss Mary
stole glances at her youth, the maid Peggy fidgeted
because she had left the pantry door open and the
cat was in the neighbourhood. As the old man's voice
monotonously occupied the room, working its way
mumblingly through the end of Exodus, conveying no
meaning to the audience, Gilian heard the moor-fowl
cry beside Little Fox. The dazzle of the sunshine,
the sparkle of the water, the girl inhabiting that
solitary spot, seemed very real before him, and this
dolorous routine of the elderly in a parlour no more
than a dream from which he would waken to find
himself with the girl he loved. Upon his knees
beside his chair while the Cornal gruffly repeated
the morning prayer he learned from his father, he
remained the remote wanderer of fancy, and Miss
Mary knew it by the instinct of affection as she
looked at the side of his face through eyelids dis-
creetly closed but not utterly fastened.

The worship was no sooner over than Gilian was
for off" after Miss Mary to her own room, but the
Paymaster stayed him with some cold business query
about the farm, and handed him a letter from a
low-country wool merchant relative to some old
transaction still unsettled. Gilian read it, and the
brothers standing by the window resumed their talk
about the missing girl : it was the subject inspired
by every glance into the street where each passer-
by, each loiterer at a close mouth, was obviously
canvassing the latest news.

" There's her uncle away by," said the Paymaster,
straining his head to follow a figure passing on the

DEFIANCE

359

other side of the street. " If they had kept a stricter
eye on her from the first when they had her they
might have saved themselves all this."

" Stricter eye I " said the Cornal. " You ken as
much about women as I ken about cattle. The
veins of her body were full of caprice, that's what
ailed her, and for that is there any remede? I'm
asking you. As if I did not ken the mother of her I
Man, man, man ! She was the emblem and type of
all her sex, I'm thinking, wanting all sobriety,
hating the thought of age in herself and unfriendly
to the same in others. A kind of a splash on a fine
day upon the deep sea, laughing over the surface
of great depths. I knew her well, Dugald knew
her-

" You had every chance," said the Paymaster, who
nowadays found more courage to retort when his
brother's shortness and contempt annoyed him.

" More chance, of course I had," said the Cornal.
" I'm thinking you had mighty little from yon lady."

" Anyway, here's her daughter to seek," said the
Paymaster, feeling himself getting the worst of the
encounter ; " my own notion is that she's on the road
to Edinburgh. They say she had aye a crave for
the place ; perhaps there was a pair of breeches
there behind her. Anyway, she's making an ass of
somebody ! "

Gilian threw down the letter and stood to his
feet with his face white. " You're a liar ! " said he.

No shell in any of their foreign battles more
astounded the veterans he was facing with wide
nostril and a face like chalk.

•r I

360

GILIAN THE DREAMER

'I I

1 1

11 ' '•

V i':

■

iiM\.

" God bless me, here's a marvel ! " cried the
Cornal when he found voice.

" You — you — you damned sheep 1 " blurted the
Paymaster. " Do you dare speak to mc like that ?
For tuppence I would give j'ou my rattan across the
legs." His face was purple with anger; the stock
that ran in many folds about his neck seemed like a
garotte. He lifted up his hand as if to strike, but
his brother caught his arm.

" Let the lad alone," said he. " If he had a little
more of that in his make I would like him better."

Together they stood, the old men, facing Gilian
with his hands clenched, for the first time in his
life the mutineer, feeling a curious heady satisfaction
in the passion that braced him like a sword and
astounded the men before him.

" It's a lie 1 " he cried again, somewhat modifying
his accusation. " I know where she is, and she's not
in Edinbun h nor on her way to it."

"Very well," said the Paymaster, "ye better go
and tell Old I slay where she is ; he's put about at
the loss of a daughter-in-law he paid through the
nose for, they're saying."

The blow, the last he had expected, the last he
had reason to look for, struck full and hard. He
was blind then to the old men sneering at him there ;
his head seemed charged with coiling vapours ; his
heart, that had been dancing a second ago on the
wave of passion, swamped and sank. He had no
more to say ; he passed them and left the room and
went along the lobby to the stair-head, where he
stood till the vapours had somewhat blown away.

IS'ii

cried the

urted the
like that?
across the
the stock
ned like a
strike, but

ad a h'ttlc
better."
ig Gih'an
nc in his
itisfaction
^ord and

nodifying
she's not

setter go

about at

3Ugh the

i last he
ird. He
m there;
•urs; his
3 on the
had no
oom and
^here he
away.

CHAPTER XXXII

AN OLD MAID'S SECRET

Miss Mary bustled about her kitchen with a liveli-
ness that might have deceived any one but Gilian,
who knew her to be in a tremendous perturbation!
She clattered among pans, wrestled with her maid
over dishes and dusters, and kept her tongue in-
cessantly going on household details. With a
laughable transparency she turned in a little to the
lad and said something about the weather. He sat
down in a chair and gloomed into the fire, Miss Mary
watching his every sigh, but yet seemingly intent
upon her duties.

"Donacha Breck's widow was over before we
were up to-day, for something for her hoast," she
said. "She had tried hyssop and pennyroyal
masked in two waters, but I gave her sal prunellc
and told her to suck it till the cough stopped.
There's a great deal of trouble going about just now

sometimes I think " She stopped incontinent

and proceeded to sweep the floor, for she saw that
Gilian was paying no attention to her. At length
he looked at her and then with meaning to Peggy
bent over her jaw-box.

, : i

ll^f

I I

rii : ■

i, ■

!il

\ ''

I.;

■ ' -i!;'

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362

GILTAN THE DREAMER

"Peggy," said Miss Mary, "go over and tell the
mantua-maker that she did not put the leavings in
the pocket of my jacket, and there must have been a
good deal."

Peggy dried her arms, tucked up the corner of her
apron, and departed, fully aware of the stratagem,
but no way betraying the fact. When she was
gone. Miss Mary faced him, disturbed and question-
ing.

"We had a quarrel in there," said he shortly.
" I am not going to put up with what they said
about any friend of mine."

She had no need to ask who he spoke of. " Is it
very much to you ? " said she, turning away and
busy with her brush that she might be no spectator
of his confusion. A great fear sprang up in her;
the boy who had grown up a man for her in the
space of a Sunday afternoon was capable of new
developments even more rapid and extraordinary.

" It should be very much to anybody," said he,
" to anybody with the spark of a gentleman, when
the old and the soured and the jealous "

" I'm thinking you are forgetting, Gilian," said
she, facing him now with a flush upon her face.

" What ? what ? " he asked, perplexed. " You
think I should be grateful. I cannot help it; you
were the kind one and "

" I was not thinking of that at all," she rejoined.
" I was just thinking you had forgotten that I was
their sister, and that I must be caring much for
them. If my brothers have said anything to vex
you, and that has been a too common thing — my

AN OLD MAID'S SECRET

363

tell the
vings in
e been a

cr of her
ratagem,
she was
juestion-

shortly.
ley said

" Is it
way and
spectator

in her;
r in the

of new
nary,
said he,
n, when

1" said
ice.

"You
it; you

ejoined.
t I was
uch for
to vex
|ig— my

sorrow ! — in this house, you should be minding their
years, my dear. It is the only excuse I can offer,
and I am willing to make up for their shortcomings by
every kindness." And she smiled upon the lad with
the most wonderful light of affection in her eyes.

" Oh," he cried, " am I not sure of that. Auntie ?
You are too good to me. What am I to be com-
plaining — the beggarly orphan ? "

" Not that, my dear," she cried courageously, " not
that 1 In this house, when my brothers' looks were
at their blackest for you, there has always been
goodwill and mothcrliness. But you must not be
miscalling them that share our roof, the brothers of
Dugald and of Jamie." Her voice broke in a gasp of
melancholy ; she stretched an arm and dusted from a
corner of the kitchen a cobweb that had no existence,
her eyesight dim with unbrimming tears. At any
other time than now Gilian would have been smitten
by her grief, for was he not ever ready to make the
sorrows of others his own ? But he was frowning
in a black-browed abstraction on the clay scroll of
the kitchen floor, heartsick of his dilemma and the
bitterness of the speeches he had just heard.

Miss Mary could not be long without observing,
even in her own troubles, that he was unusually
vexed. She was wise enough to know that a fresh
start was the best thing to put them at an under-
standing.

"What did you come to tell me to-day?" she
asked, composing herself upon a chair beside him
and taking up some knitting, for hers were the fingers
that were never idle.

?* I

I?.! I

I 1

u\ m.'- ,1

[pfl ' ■ 'i

''i ^

K '■

luiL...

364

GILIAN THE DREAMER

"Come down to tell you? Come down to tell
you ? " he repeated, in surprise at her penetration,
and in some confusion that he should so sharply be
brought to his own business.

"Just so," she said. "Do you think Miss Mary
has no eyes, my dear, or that they are too old for
common use ? There was something troubling you
as you came in at the door ; I saw it in your face —
ay, I heard it in your step on the stair."

He fidgeted and evaded her eyes. " I heard out-
side that — that Turner's daughter had not been got,
and it vexed me a little."

" Turner's daughter !" 3he said. "It used to be
Miss Nan ; it was Miss Nan no further gone than
Thursday, and for what need we be so formal to-day ?
You are not heeding John's havers about your name
being mixed up with the affair in a poor Sassanach
inn-keeper's story ? Eh, Gilian ? " And she eyed
him shrewdly, more shrewdly than he was aware of.

Still he put her off. He could not take her into
his confidence so soon after that cold plunge into
truth in the parlour. He wanted to get out of doors
and think it all over calmly. He pretended anger.

" What am I to be talked to like this for ? All in
this house are on me. Is it wonderful that I should
have my share in the interest the whole of the rest
of the parish has in this young lady lost ? "

He rose to leave the room. Miss Mary stopped
him with the least touch upon the arm, a lingering,
gentle touch of the finger-tips, and yet caressing.

" Gilian," she said softly, " do you think you can
be deceiving me ? ATeudail, m^eudaiU I know there

m to tell
netration,
harply be

liss Mary
)0 old for
bling you
•ur face —

leard out-
been got,

sed to be
gone than
al to-day ?
^our name
Sacsanach
she eyed
aware of.
e her into
unge into
It of doors

anger.
? All in
I should
the rest

stopped
fingering,
jsing.

you can
low there

AN OLD MAID'S SECRET

365

is a great trouble in your mind, and is it not for me
to share ? "

"There is something, but I cannot tell you now
what it is, though I came here to tell you," he
answered, making no step to go.

"Gilian," said she, standing before him, and the
light from the window touching her ear so that,
beside the darkness of her hair (for she had off her
cap), it looked like a pink flower, " Gilian, can you
not be telling me? Do you think I cannot guess
what ails you, nor fanc3' something for its cure ? "

He saw from the shyness of her face that she had
an inkling of at least the object of his interest.

"But I cannot be mentioning it here," he said,
feebly enough. " It's a matter a man must cherish
to himself alone, and not be airing before others. I
felt, in there, to have it in my mind before two men
who had worked and fought and adventured all their
lives, and come to this at last, was a childish weak-
ness."

She caught hold of his coat lapel, and fingered it,
and looked as she spoke, not at the face above her,
but at some vision over his shoulder. " Before them,
my dear," she said. "That well might be, though
even they have not always been the hard and selfish
veterans. What about me, my dear ? Can I not be
understanding, think you, Gilian ? "

" It is such a foolish thing," said he weakly, " a
thing of interest only to the very young."

" And am I so old, my dear," she slid, " not to
have been young once ? Do you think this little
wee wif^ with her hair getting grey — not so grey

j:!R I

iff

•

• . _

11 '^'■
f - 1,

ii:-'

II:.

i . ' •■ ' ^ ■';'' ' ■

■"5

;|;' : ^

366

GILIAN THE DREAMER

either, though — was always in old maid dolours in
her garret thinking of boasts and headaches and
cures for them, and her brothers' slippers and her
own rheumatics on rainy days ? Oh, my dear, my
dear I you used to understand me as if it had been
through glass — ay, from the first day you saw me,
and my brother's sword must be sending me to my
weeping; can you not understand me now? I am
old, and the lowc of youth is down in its ember, but
once I was as young — as young — as — as — as the
girl you are thinking of."

He drew back, overwhelmed with confusion, but
she found the grip of his coat again and followed up
her triumph.

" Did you think I could not guess so little as that,
my dear? Oh, Gilian, sometimes I'll be sitting in
there all my lone greeting my eyes out over darning
hose, and minding of v/hat I have been and what I
have seen, and the days that will never come any
more. The two upstairs will be minding only to
envy and to blame — me, I must be weeping as much
for my sin as for my sorrow. Do I look so terrible
old, Gilian, that you cannot think of me as not so
bad-looking eith'^r, with a bonny eye, they said, and
a jimp waist, and a foot like the honey-bee ? It was
only yesterday ; ah, it was a hundred years ago !
I was the sisterly slave. No dancing for me. No
romping for Mary at hairst or Hogmanay. My father
glooming and binding me motherless to my household
tasks, so that Love went by without seeing me. My
companions, dnd she the dearest of them all, enjoying
life to the full, and mc looking out at this melancholy

AN OLD MAID'S SECRET

367

dolours in
laches and
-s and her
y dear, my
; had been
u saw me,
me to my
)w? I am
ember, but
as — as the

[fusion, but
bllowed up

tie as that,

I sitting in

7er darning

md what I

come any

ng only to

ig as much

so terrible

as not so

Y said, and

? It was

^ears ago !

r me. No

My father

household

me. My

1, enjoying

lelancholy

window from year to year, and seeing the traffic of
youth and all the rest of it go by."

She released his lapel and relapsed, all tears, upon
her chair.

" Auntie, Auntie ! " be cried, " do not let my poor
affairs be vexing you." He put, for the first time in
his life, an arm about her waist, bending over her,
W' all forgotten for the moment save that she had
longed for love and seemingly found it not. At the
touch of his arm she trembled like a maiden la her
teens an(' forced a smile upon her face. " Let me
go," she said, and yet she gloried in that contact as
she sat in the chair and he bent over her.

" Aud was there no one came the way ? " he asked.
'* Was I not worth it, do you think ? " she replied,
yet smiling in her tears. " Oh, Gilian, not this old
woman, mind you, but the woman I was. And yet
— and yet, it is true, no one came ; or if they came,
they never came that I wanted."
" And he ? " said GiHan.

She paused and sighed, her thin little hands, so
white for all their toil in that hard barracks, playing
upon her lap. " He never had the chance. My
father's parlour had no welcome, a soldier's house-
hold left no vacant hours for an only daughter's
gallivanting. I had to be content to look at him —
the one I mean — from the window, see him in the
church or passing up and down the street. They
had up Dr. Brash at me — I mind his horn specs, and
him looking at my tongue and ordering a phlebotomy.
What I wanted was the open air, a chance of youth,
and a dance on the green. Instead of that it was

I ;

"1 ■ •■

'ii,

r i

368

GILIAN THE DREAMER

! h

«h

always * Ho, Mary ! ' and ' Here, Mary,' and * What
are you wasting your time for, Mary ? ' " She was
all in a tremble, moist no more with tears, but red
and troubled at her eyes. " And then — then — then
he married her. If he had taken any one else it
would not have seemed so hard. I think I hated
her for it. It was long before I discovered they
were chief, for my brothers that were out and in
kept it from me for their own reasons, and they
never kent my feeling. But when she was cried
and married and kirked, each time it was a dagger
at my heart. Amn't I the stupid old caiikach, my
dear, to be talking of such a thing ? But oh ! to see
them on the street together ; to see him coming home
on his furloughs — 1 am sure I could not be but
unfond of her then ! I mind once I wished her
dead, that maybe he might — he might see some-
thing in me still. That was when Nan was born
and "

"What," cried Gilian, "and was he Nan's father?
I — I did not know."

She turned upon him an old face spoiled by the
memories of the moment. " Who else would it be,
my dear ? " said she, as if that settled it. " And
you are the first in the world I mentioned it to. He
has never seen me close in the face to guess it for
himself, before or since. It might have happened if
I wished, after, but that was the punishment I gave
myself for my unholy thought about my friend his
wife."

"Ah, little Auntie, little Auntie," said he in Gaelic.

Little Auntie, little Aui]tie ! " No more than that,

!,1

AN OLD MAID'S SECRET

369

1 'What
She was
, but red
m — then
e else it
I hated
red they

I and in
ind they
ras cried
a dagger
each, my

I I to see
ing home
L be but
shed her
pe some-
iras born

3 father?

by the
Id it be,

"And
to. He
2SS it for
jened if
t I gave
end his

Gaelic.

an that,

and yet his person v/as stormy with grief for her old
sorrow. He put his arm about her neck now — surely
never Highland lad did that before in their position,
and tenderly, as if he had practised it for years, he
pressed her to his breast and side.

"And is it all by now but a recollection ? " said he
softly.

"All by long syne," said she, dashing me tears
from her face and clearing herself from that unusual
embrace. "Sometimes I'll be thinking it was better
as it was, for I see many wives and husbands, and
llie dead fire they sit at is less cheery than one made
but never lighted. You mustn't be laughing at an
old lady, Gilian."

" I would never be doing that, God knows," he
answered solemnly.

" And 1 am sure you would not, my dear," she
said, looking trustfully at him ; " though sometimes
I must be laughing at myself for such a folly. Lads
and lasses have spoken to me about their courtships
and their trials, and they never knew that I had
anything but an old maid's notion of the thing.
And that's the way with yourself, is it not, Gilian ?
Will you tell me now ? "

Still he hung hesitating.

" Do you — are you lond of the girl ? " said she ;
and now it was he who was in the chair and she
was bending over him.

" Do I not ? " he cried, sudden and passionate
lest his confidence should fail. "Ay, with all my
heart."

" Poor Gilian ! " said she.

2 A

11" i

t it-

GILIAN THE DREAMER

** Yes, poor Gilian !" he repeated bitterly, thinking
on all that lay between him and the girl of his
devotion. Now, if ever, was the time to tell the real
object of his visit, how that those old surmisers
upstairs were wider of the mark than the innkeeper,
and that the person for whom the hunt was up
through half the shire was sequestered in the lonely
shealing hut on the moor of Karnes.

"I am sorry," she went on, and there was no
mistake about it, for her grief was in her face. " I
am sorry, but you must forget, my dear. It is easy
— sometimes — to forget, Gilian ; you must be just
throng with work and duty, and by-and-by you'll
maybe wonder at yourself having been in the notion
of Nan Gordon's daughter, made like her mother
(and God bless her !) for the vexation of youth, but
never for sober satisfaction. I am wae for you,
Gilian, and I cannot help you, though I would tramp
from here to Carlisle in my bauchles if it would
bring her to you."

" You maybe would not need to go so far," he
answered abruptly. " There is a hut behind the
hill there, and neither press nor fire nor candle nor
companion in it, and Nan — Miss Nan, is waiting
there for me to go back to her, and here I'm wasting
precious hours. Do you not see that I'm burning
lie a fire?"

" And you have the girl in the moor ? " she cried
incredulously.

" That I have ! " he answered, struck by the
absolute possession her sentence suggested. " I have
her there. I tjook bes there. I took her from her

, thinking
,rl of his
11 the real
surmisers
innkeeper,
t was up
the lonely

•e was no

face. " I

It is easy

ist be just

i-by you'll

the notion

ler mother

youth, but

e for you,

ould tramp

f it would

io far," he
ehind the
candle nor
is waiting
'm wasting
'm burning

she cried

;k by the

" I have

ir from her

AN OLD MAID'S SECRET

371

father's home. She came willingly, and there she
is, for me ! "

He held out his arms with a gesture indescribable,
elate, nervous with his passion. "Auntie, think of
it : you mind her eyes and her hair, yon turn of the
neck, and her song ? They're mine, I'm telling
you."

" I mind them in her mother," said the little lady,
stunned by this intelligence. "I mind them in her
mother, and they were not at all, in her, for those
who thought they were for them. This — this is a
terrible thing, Gilian," she said piteously.

He rose, and " What could I do ? " he asked.
" I loved her, and was I to look at her father selling
her to another one who never had her heart ? "

" Are you sure you have it yourself, Gilian ? "
she asked, and her face was exceedingly troubled.

"It's a thing I never asked," he confessed care-
lessly. " Would she be where she is without it
being so ? "

"Where her mother's daughter might be in any
caprice of spirit I would not like to guess," said
Miss Mary, dubious. "And I think, if I was the
man, it would be the first thing I would be making
sure about."

" What would she fly with mc for if it was not
for love ? " he asked.

"Ask a woman that," she went on. "Only a
woman, and only some kinds o* women, could tell
vou that. For a hundred reasons good enough for
herself, though not for responsibility."

He bit his lips in perplexity, feeling all at sea,

372

GILIAN THE DREAMER

|:'

h ■

M: . k

If .i

It i;

{
t

•

]

i
i

the only thing clear to his mind being that Nan was
alone on the moor, her morning fire sending a smoke
to the sky, expectation bringing her now and then
to the door to see if her ambassador was in view.

For the sake of that sweet vision he was bound
to put another question to Miss Mary — to ask her if
the reference by her brother to Old Islay bore the
import he had given it. He braced himself to it — a
most unpleasant task.

"It's true," she said. "Do you mean to tell me
you did not know he was the man ? "

" I did not. And the money ? "

"Oh, the money!" said Miss Mary oddly, as if
now a great deal was explained to her. " Did Nan
hear anything of that ? "

" She knows everything — except the man's name.
She was too angry to hear that."

" Except the man's name," repeated Miss Mary.
" She did not know it was Young Islay." She
turned as she spoke, and busied herself with a
duster where there was no need for it. And when
she showed him her face again, there were tears
there, not for her own old trials, but for his.

" You must go back there," she said firmly, though
her lips were trembling, " and you will tell Miss Nan
that whatever Old Islay would do, his son would
never put that affront on her. At the worst, the
money was no more than a tocher with the lad ; it
was their start in Drimlee and Maam that are now
together for the sake of an old vanity of the fac-
tors. . . . You must tell all that," she went on,
paying no heed to the perplexity in his face. " It

hat Nan was
ling a smoke
ow and then
3 in view.
e was bound
to ask her if
jlay bore the
iself to it — a

n to tell me

oddly, as if
" Did Nan

man's name.

Miss Mary,
[slay." She
self with a
And when
were tears
his.

mly, though
:11 Miss Nan
3 son would
worst, the
the lad ; it
iiat are now
of the fac-
ie went on,
) face. "It

AN OLD MAID'S SECRET

373

would be unfair to do less, my dear ; it will be wiser
to do all. Then you will do the other thing— if need
be—what you should have done first and foremost ;
you'll find out if the girl is in earnest about yourself
or only indulging a cantrip like her mother's daughter.
Ask her— ask her— oh ! what need I be telling you ?
If you have not the words in your heart I need not
be putting them in your mouth. Run away with
you now 1 " and she pushed him to the door like a
child that had been caressed and counselled.

He was for going eagerly without a word more,
but she cried him back. For a moment she clung to
his arm as if she was reluctant to part with him.

" Oh ! " she cried, laughing, and yet with tears in
her voice, " a bonny-like man to be asking her with*
out having anything to offer."

He would have interrupted her, but she would not
let him.

"Go your ways," she told him, "and bring her
back with you if you can. Miss Mary has some-
thing in a stocking foot, and no long need for it."

hi'

h I ;:

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE PROMISE

i ^ §1

lifi-

; ii "

When Gilian came down the stair and to the
mouth of the pend close, he stood with some of the
shyness of his childhood that used to keep him
swithering there with a new suit on, uneasy for the
knowledge that the colour and cut of it would be the
talk of the town as soon as it was seen, and that
some one would come and ask ofthand if Miss Mary
was still making-down from the Paymaster's waist-
coats. It was for that he used at last to show a new
suit on the town by gentle degrees, the first Sunday
the waistcoat, the next Sunday the waistcoat and
trousers, and finally the complete splendour. Now
he felt kenspeckle, not in any suit of material clothes
but in a droll sense of nakedness. He had told his
love and adventure in a place where walls heard and
windows peered, and a rumour out of the ordinary
went on the wind into every close and soared straight
to the highest tenement — even to the garret rooms.
He felt that the women at the wells, very busy, as
they pretended, over their boynes and stoups, would
whisper about him as he passed, without looking up
from their occupation.

Down the street towards the church there was
scarcely any one to be seen except the children out

THE PROMISE

375

id to the
me of the
keep him
3y for the
jld be the

and that
liss Mary
:r's waist-
low a new
>t Sunday
tcoat and
ur. Now
al clothes
i told his
lieard and

ordinary
:d straight
et rooms.

busy, as
ps, would
)oking up

here was
Idren out

for the mid-day airing from Brooks's school, and old
Brooks himself going over to Kate Bell's for his mid-
day waters with a daundcring step as if he had no
special object, and might as readily be found making
for the quay or the coftee-house. The children were
noisy in the playground, the boys playing at port-the-
helm, a foolish pastime borrowed in its parlance and
its rule from the seafarerswho frequented the harbour,
and the girls more sedately played pecveral-al and I
dree I dree I dropped it, their voices in a sweet uni-
son chanting, yet with a sorrow in the cadence.

Up the street some men sat on the Cross steps
waiting the coming of the ferry-boat from Kilcatrinc,
for it was the day of the weekly paper. Old Islay
went from corner to corner, looking eager out to sea,
his hands deep in the pockets of his long coat.
Major McNicol put his head cautiously out at his
door that his servant lass held open and scanned the
deadly world where Frenchmen lay in ambush. He
caught a glimpse of Gilian spying from the pend close
and darted in trembling, but soon came out again,
with the maid patting him kindly and assuringly on
the back. From close to close he maJe a tactical
advance — swift dashes between on his poor bent old
limbs, and he drew up by Gilian's side.

"All's well!" said he with a breath of relief.
" Man 1 but they're throng to-day ; the place is fair
botching with them."

Gilian expressed some commonplace and left the
shelter of the pend close and went up the street
round the factor's corner. He looked behind him
theie. The ferry-boat from Kilcatrine was in •
Young Islay had stepped the first off the skiff and

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23 WEST MAIN STREET

WEBSTER, N.Y MS80

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[15

376

GILIAN THE DREAMER

was spcnking — not to his father, but to General Turner,
whose horse, spattered with foam and white with
autumn dust, a boy held at the quay head. The
post-runner took a newspaper from his pocket and
handed it to the men waiting at the Cross ; they
hastened into the vintners, and one of them read aloud
to the company with no need to replenish his glass.
Against the breast wall the tide at the full lapped
with a pleasant sound. Mr. Spencer came out to the
front of the Inns, smoking a segar, very perjink with
a brocade waistcoat and a collar so high it rasped
his ears.

Evoything visible impressed itself that day
acutely on Gilian as he went out of the town ; not
only as if he were naked but as if he were raw and
feeling flesh, and he was glad when the turn of the
road at the Arches hid this place from his view.

A voice cried behind him, and turning around he
found Peggy running after him with a basket, Miss
Mary's afterthought for the fugitive girl on the moor.

Very quickly he sped up the hills ; Nan ran out
to meet him as he came up the brae from Little Fox.
She had been crying in the morning till tears would
come no longer, but now she was composed ; at
least her eyes were calm and her cheeks lost the
pallor they had from a night almost sleepless in that
lonely dwelling. As he saw her running out to
meet him he filled with elation and with apprehen-
sion. She was so beautiful, so airy, so seemingly
his alone as she ran out thus from their refuge, that
he grudged the hours he had been gone from her.

"Oh," she cried, "the Spring was no more
welcome to the wood. I hope jiou have brought

THE PROMISE

377

al Turner,
hite with
ad. The
>cket and
)ss; they
ead aloud
lis glass,
ill lapped
)ut to the
jink with
it rasped

:hat day
)wn; not
raw and
rn of the
iew.

round he
cet, Miss
le moor,
ran out
le Fox.
*s would
sed ; at
ost the
in that
out to
prehen-
mingly
ge, that
her.

more
wrought

good news, Gilian." And up she went to him and
linked an arm through his with some of the com-
posure of the companion and some of the ardour of
the sweetheart.

" I think it's all well," srid he, putting his arm
round her as they went up towards the hut together.

" Is it only thinking ? " she asked with disappoint-
ment in her voice, all the ardour gone from her face,
and her arm withdrawn. " I was so certain it
would be sureness for once. Will Miss Mary not
help me ? I am sorry I asked her. It was not
right, perhaps, that my father's daughter should be
expecting anything from the sister of the Campbells
of Keil." She was all tremulous with vexed pride
and disappointment.

"Miss Mary is your very kind friend. Nan," he
protested, ** and she will help you as readily as she
will help me."

"I am to go down then?" she cried, uplifted again.

** Well, yes — that is, it is between ourselves."

"That's what I would be thinking myself, John
Hielan'man," she thought. And still with all her
contempt for his shrinking uncertainty there was a
real fondness that might in an hour have come to
full blossom in that solitude where they so de-
pended on each other.

" I was to ask you something," he said.

" My wise Miss Mary 1 " said Nan to Herself.
" Women have all the wits." But she said nothing
aloud, waiting for his explanation.

" I thought there was no need of it myself, but
she saia she knew better."

" Very likely she was right too," said Nan. " And

I:!

378

GILIAN THE DREAMER

now you must tell me all about what is going on
down-by. Are they looking for me ? What is my
father saying ? Do they blame me ? "

Gilian told her all he knew or thought desirable,
as they went up to the hut and prepared for the
first meal Nan had that day. It was good that the
weather favoured them. No sign of its habitual
rain and wind hung over the moorland. Soft clouds,
white like the wool of lambs new-washed in running
waters, hung motionless where the sky met the moor,
but over them still was the deep blue, greying to the
dip.

They lit a fire in the hut with scraps of candle-fir
Gilian had picked up on the way from the town, and
a cheerful flame illumined the mean interior, but in
a while they preferred to go outside and sit by the
edge of Little Fox. In a hollow there the wilds
seemed more compact about them ; the sense of
solitude disappeared ; it was just as if one of their
berrying rambles in the woods behind Maam had
been prolonged a little farther than usual. Lazily
they reclined upon the heather, soft and billowy to
their arms ; the kind air fanned them, a melody
breathed from the rippling shore.

All the reading in Marget Maclean's books, the
shy mornings, the pondering eves, the ruminations
lonely by wood and shore, had prepared Gilian for
such an hour, and now he felt its magic. And as
they sat thus on the bank of the little lake, Nan sung,
forgetting herself in her song as she ever must be
doing. The waves stilled to listen ; the birds on the
heather came closer ; the clouds, like wool on the
edge of Ben Bhreac, tarried and trembled. And

I'll

THE PROMISE

379

Gilian, as he heard, forgetting all that ancient town
below of unable elders and stagnant airs, illusion
gone and glory past, its gossip at well and close,
its rancours of clan and family, knew the message
now of the bird that cried across the swampy meadow-
land at Kilmalieu. Love, love, love-— and death.
It was the message of bird and flower, of wave and
wind, the deep and constant note in Nan's song,
whatever the words might be. No more for a
moment the rustic, the abashed shepherd, but with
the secret of the world filling his heart, he crept
closer to Nan's side as she leaned upon the heather,
and put an arm around her waist.

" Nan, Nan," he cried, " could we not be here,
you and I, alone together for ever ? "

The gaudy bubble of her expectation burst ; she
released herself from his grasp with " John Hielan'-
man ! John Hielan'man ! " in her mind.

" And was that Miss Mary's question ? I thought
she was a more sensible friend to both of us."

" Never a better," said he. " She offered her all
and "

" What ! " cried Nan, anger flaring in her face,
" are you in the market too ? "

He stammered an excuse.

" It was not a gift," said he, " but to you and mc ;
and that, in 'ced, was as much as Old Islay meant,
to give him his due."

" Old Islay, Old Islay ! " she repeated, turning her
face from him to hide its sudden remorse. " Islay,
Islay," she repeated to herself. He noticed the
hand she leaned upon, so soft, so white, so beautiful,
trembled in its nest among the heather. He was so

38o

GILIAN THE DREAMER

■•';* 1

r.'i.f

taken up with it there among the heather, so much
more beautiful than the fairest flower, that he did
not notice how far he had given up his secret.

He caught the hand and fondled it, and still she
repeated to herself like a coronach, " Islay, Islay."
For once more the rude arm was round her waist in
Maam, and the bold soldier was kissing her on the
lips.

Gilian stood up and " Oh I " he cried, as he looked
from her to the landscape, and back from the land-
scape to her again, " Oh ! " he cried, " I wondered,
when you were gone in Edinburgh, what was
wanting here. When Miss Mary told me you were
come home, I felt it was the first time the sun had
shone, and the birds had found a song."

" Young Islay ! " she still was thinking, hearing
the dreamer but to compare him with the practitioner
she knew.

And then the dreamer, remembering that his
question was still unput, uttered it shyly and
awkwardly. " Do you love me ? " said he.

It was for this she had fled from Young Islay,
who knew his mind and had no fear to speak it !

" Do I love you ? " she repeated. " Are you not
too hasty ? "

*' Am I ? " he said, alarmed.

And she sighed.

*' Oh yes, of course you are ! You know so little
of me. You have taken me from my father's house
by a ladder at night, and share a moor with me, and
you know I have no friend to turn to in the world
but yourself. You have eyes and ears, and still you
must be asking if it is not hasty to find out if I love

THE PROMISE 381

you. It is a woiider you have the boldness to say
the word itself."

".Well," he pursued gawkily, though he perceived
her drift clearly, " here I am, and I do love you.
Oh, what a poor word it is, that love, for the fire I
feel inside me. There is no word for that, there is
nothing but a song for it that some day I must be
making. Love, quo' she ; oh, I could say that truly
of the heather kissing your hand, ay, of the glaur
your feet might walk on upon a wet day ! "

" My best respects to you, Master Gilian I " said
Nan. " You have the fine tongue in your head after
all. What a pity we have been wasting such a
grand opportunity for it here ! " and there was an
indulgence in her eye, though now and then the
numb regret of a blunder made came upon her spirit-

"Will you ccme down with me?" he went on,
far too precipitate for her fancy.

"When?" she asked, thoughtlessly robbing a
heather-tuft bell by bell with idle fingers.

"Now; Miss Mary expects us this evening."

" Miss Mary ! " said she, a little amused and
annoyed. "You would never have come to the bit
but for her."

" Perhaps not," he confessed, " but here I am, and
God bless her for bringing me to it ! Will you— will
you take my white heather now ? " And he stood,
something of a lout, with nervous hands upon his
hips.

" It looks very pretty where it is," she answered
playfully. " And for what should I be decking myself
in the wilderness ? "

She wanted the obvious compliment, but this was

; :

382

GILIAN THE DREAMER

3' ll '•

»»

a stock from a kail gardcii, and " Oh, John
Hielan'man 1 " she cried aloud for the first time.

" You promised, you know," he said lamely.

" That was yesterday, and this is to-day, and—
she could not finish for thinking of Young Islay.

" Must I be taking it to you ? " he went on,
making to move to the door of the hut where lay the
symbol of his love and the token of her surrender.

" Wait ! wait 1 " she cried, standing to her feet and
approaching him. " Is that all there is in the bar-
gain ? Are there no luck-pennies at this sort of
market ? "

He understood her and kissed her with a heart
furious within but in his movement hesitating, shy
and awkward.

For her life she could not but recall the other — the
more confident and practised one she had fled from.
She drew off, red, to give her no more than her due,
for the treachery of her mind.

" Leave it," she said to him. " I will get it myself.
Does anyone besides Miss Mary know we are here?"

" No."

" Then she will tell nobody our secret. You will go
down now. We could scarcely go together. You will
go down now, and tell her I will follow in the dusk."

" You have given me no answer, Nan," he pleaded ;
" the heather ! "

" The heather will be at my heart I " she cried
hurriedly.

It was a promise that sang in his head as he went
on his way, the herald of joy, the fool of illusion.

'Oh, John
t time,
niely.
/, and—
J Islay.
: went on,
ere lay the
irrender.
er feet and
in the bar-
lis sort of

h a heart
ating, shy

)ther — the
fled from.
1 her due,

it myself,
re here?"

ou will go

You will

he dusk."

pleaded ;

he cried

he went
ision.

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHASE

When he had gone and was no farther than tiie
shoulder of the brae lying between the hut and
i-ittle Fox, and there was no longer any chance of
his turning to repeat his wild adieux, Nan went into
the old hut and put the sprig of white heather at her
bosom, and gave way to a torrent of tears. She
could not have done so in the sunshine outside, but
in that poor interior, even with the day spying
through the roof, she had the sense of seclusion
She cried for grief and bitterness. No folly she had
ever committed seemed so great as this her latest
that she should blindly have fled from a danger
unmeasured into a situation that abounded with
difficulties. She blamed herself, she blamed her
father, she blamed Gilian for his inability to be
otherwise than God had made him. In contrast to
his gawky shyness-the rusticity of the farm and
hill, rose up constant in her remembrance the con-
fident young gentleman she had run away from
without so much as a knowledge of his name. She
cried, and the afternoon came, a blush of fire and
flowing gold upon the hills, the purple of the steeps

384

GILIAN THE DREAMER

behind her darkened ; upon Big Fox behind, some
wild duck floated and gossiped.

She was still at her crying, a maiden altogether
disconsolate, with no notion of where next she should
turn to, afraid to go home yet never once thinking of
going to Miss Mary's refuge as she had promised,
and the world was all dolorous round her, when a
step sounded near the door. She started in terror
and shrank into the darkest corner of the hut. The
footstep came not quite close to the door; it was as
if the stranger feared to find a house empty and
hesitated before setting foot on the threshold. From
where she stood she could not see him, though his
breath was to be heard, short and panting. The
square of the open door was filled with green and
purple — the green of the rank nettle, the purple of
the bell-heather she had been always careful to spare
as she had gone in and out.

Who could it be ? Her first thought was of some
fisherman or sportsman late upon the hill and at-
tracted by the smoke of the hut that had so long
known no fire. Then she thought of her father, more
kindly and more contrite to him than she had ever
felt before. If it was her father, what should she
do? Would she run out and dare all for his for-
giveness of her folly, and take his terms if that were
possible now that her name and his were ridiculous
through all the shire ? But it could not be her father.
Her father would not be alone and

Into the square of light stepped Young Islay ! He
was all blown with thehurry of his ascent after hearing
from Black Duncan (who had heard from Elasaid)

■' (

chind, some

n altogether
t she should
: thinking of
d promised,
lier, when a
cd in terror
c hut. The
r ; it was as

empty and
lold. From

though his
[iting. The
1 green and
le purple of
eful to spare

vas of some
lill and at-
lad so long
father, more
le had ever
should she
for his for-
if that were
; ridiculous
I her father.

Islay ! He
fter hearing
m Elasaid)

CHASK

38s

that Nan had been there in the morning, and nowthere
was no sign of life about the silent hut except the
bluereekthat rose over the mouldering thatch. Hewas
a brave youth, but for once he feared to try his fate.
As he stood in the doorway and looked into the
dark interior, where a poor fire smouldered in the
centre of the floor, he seemed so woebegone that Nan
could not but smile in spite of her trepidation. He but
looked a second, then turned to seek her elsewhere.
As he turned away she called faintly, all blushing
and all tears, but yet with a smile on her face that
never sat so sweetly there as when her feelings
mingled. He started as at the voice of a ghost, and
hung hesitating on the threshold till she stepped from
her gloomy corner into the light of the afternoon
As he saw her where a moment before was a vacancy
he could scarcely believe his eyes. But he did not
hesitate long. In an instant, encouraged by her
tears and smiles, he had an arm round her.

" Nan ! Nan ! " he cried, " I have found you I I
never was so happy in my life I "

For a moment she did not put him off; and he
took her hesitation for content.

"What did it mean? Were you flying from me^ "
he asked.

All her hardships, all the wrong and degradation
leaped into her recollection. She withdrew herself
firmly from that embrace that might be the embrace of
love and possession or of simple companionship in
trial.

" I would never have been here but for you " said
she. " Did you— did you pay much ? " '

2 B

.!i

ti'l t 1

386

GILIAN THE DREAMER

" Ah ! " he cried ruefully, " there's where you do
me injustice! Did you know me so little — and
indeed you know me but little enough, more's my
sorrow — did you know me so little that you must
believe me a savage to be guilty of a crime like
that ? Must I be saying that before God I did not
know that my father and — and "

"—And my father."

-And your father, though I would be the last
to charge him, were scheming in any commercial
way on my behalf? Come, come, I was not blate,
was I ? the last time we were together ; my impu-
dence was not in the style of a man who would go
the other way about a wooing, was it ? "

" Then you did not know ? " She blushed and
paused.

" I knew nothing," he protested. " I knew
nothing but that I loved you, and you know that
too if telling can inform you. I told my father that,
and he was well enough pleased, and I could not
guess he would make a fool of mc and a victim of
you in my absence."

She stood trembling to this revelation of his
innocence, and, once more the confident lover. Young
Islay tried to take her in his arms.

She ran from him, not the young lady of Edin-
burgh but a merry-hearted child, making for the
side of Little Fox, the air as she went flapping her
gown till it beat gaily like a flag. She ran light-
footed, laughing in her sudden ease of mind, and on
the more distant of the two slopes of Cruach-an-
Lochain, antlers rose inquiring; then a red deer

CHASE

387

; you do
tie — and
ore's my
ou must
rime like
I did not

J the last
»mmercial
not blatc,
my impu-
would go

ishcd and

** I knew
:now that
ither that,
could not
victim of

)n of his
er, Young

J of Edin-
for the
pping her
ran light-
id, and on
>uach-an-
red deer

looked and listened, forgetting to crop the poor
grass at his feet.

For a second or two Young Islay paused, won-
dering at her caprice ; then he caught the spirit of it
and followed with a halloo. A pleasant quarry — the
temptation of it made his blood tingle as no sport in
the world could do ; his halloo came back in echoes
from the hill, jocund and hearty echoes, and Sir Deer
at a bound went far to the rear among the t-rackcn.

Nan sped panting yet laughing. Then she heard
his cry. "I am coming, I am comi' ,," \\c callr"i.
It might have been the pibroch cf the dr-n-n, the
hoyelui conquering dawn on valley riins. She put
more vigour into her flight ; her lips set hard ; she
thought if he caught her before she reached the spot
where Gilian last had kissed her, she must be his
for good.

" Run as you like, I am coming," cried her pursi'cr,
and he was easily overtaking her. Then he saw how
hard and earnestly she strove. With a grimace to
himself, he slackened his pace and let her gain groutid.

" I must be doing my best for Gilian," she
thought ; but as she risked a glance over her
shoulder and saw the pursuit decline, saw his face
handsome and laughing and eager, full of the fun of
the adventure, across a widening space, saw him
kiss his hand to her as he ran leisurely, she forgot
that she had meant to run for fair play and Gilian,
and she, too, slackened her pace.

A moment more and he caught her, and she relapsed

in his arms with a sigh of exertion and surrender.

" Faith, you are worth running for I " said he.

388

GILIAN THE DREAMER

'If

turning her to him to see into her eyes. For a little
he looked at the flushed and beautiful countenance.
Her bosom throbbed against his breast ; her head
thrown back, showed the melting passion of her eyes
like slumbering lakes only half hid by her trembling
lids, her lips red and full, tempting, open upon
pearls. She was his, he told himself, all his, and
yet — and yet, he had half a regret that now he had
caught he need chase no more — the regret of the
hunter when the deer is home, of the traveller who
has reached the goal after pleasant journey^ngs.

His pause was but for a moment, then on her lips
he pressed his ; on all her glowing face fell the fever
of his kisses.

" Nan, Nan ! " he whispered, " you are mine, did
I not tell you ? "

" I suppose I am," she whispered faintly. Then
to herself, " Poor Gilian I "

"And yet," said he, " I'm not worth it."

" I daresay no:/' she confessed, nestling the more
closely in his arms. " But you won me when you
saved my life."

" Did i ? " said he. " How very wise of me !
Give me a kiss, then ! "

She tried to free herself, and the white heather at
her neck fell between them. She stooped for it and
he to get her kiss, but she was first successful. To
him she held out the twig of pale bells.

" The kiss or that ; you can have either," she said.
" One is love and the other is luck."

"Then, sweetheart, I'll have both," said Young
Islay.

rt (

3r a liitle
itenance.
^er head
her eyes
rembling
;n upon
his, and
1 he had
: of the
Her who
igs.

her h'ps
[le fever

ine, did
Then

e more
en you

of me!

ther at

it and

1. To

e said.

Voung

CHAPTER XXXV

AN EMPTY HUT

The town bell rang, the little shops were shuttered.
Miss Mary, with a new cap on to do justice to the
occasion, had sat for hours with Gilian at the window,
waiting ; the Cornal was in bed, and the Paymaster,
dubious but not unpleased, was up at MacGibbon's
telling the story over a game of dambrod. And still
Nan did not appear. There was a sign of changing
weather above Strone, and Gilian was full of sorrow
to think of the girl travelling to him through darkness
and rain, so he started out to meet her by the only
path on which she must come.

He reached the lochs as the night was drawing in.
The moor was sounding loud and eerie with the call
of large birds. Very cold and uncharitable, a breeze
came from Cruach-an-Lochain, and in the evening
dusk the country seemed most woefully poor and
uninhabitable. So it appeared to Gilian for a moment
when at last he came to the head of the brae where
he should have his iirst sight of the liglit that could
make that wild as warm and hospitable and desirable
as a king's court. Th'jre was no light now ! At first
he doubted his eyesight ; ^'.en he thought he was not

39°

GILIAN THE DREAMER

»}■ 5

at the right point of view ; then he was compelled to
confess to himself that darkness was assuredly where
before had been a bright spot like one of the stars
that shine in murky heavens in the midst of storms
to prove that God does not forget.

She had been kept, the dear heart, he told himself;
she had been kept by her modesty waiting for the
dusk, and fallen asleep for weariness.

He went awkwardly off the customary track so
that he might reach the shealing the quicker by a
short cut that led through boggy grass. He stumbled
in hags and tripped on ancient heather-tufts ; the
birds wheeled and mocked over him, something in
their note most melancholy and menacing to his
ear.

The loch with the islet was muttering in its
sleep, and woke with the shriek of a thousand
frightened birds when this phantom stumbled on its
solitude. The tiny island even in the dusk rose
black like a hearse plume in the water. At his feet
he felt upon a stone the tinkle of broken glass, and
he stooped to feel. His finger came upon the
portions of the broken cup, and he remembered,
with shame for his own share in the scene, how Nan
had punished his awkwardness by casting from her
the vessel of which this was the fragment. She had
had her lips to this, her fingers had touched it ; it
was a gem to put in his pocket, and he put it there.
He searched round again as he repeated in his mind
all the incidents of that first morning in the moor,
and a little farther on he came upon the ashes of
their dead fire. Poor dead fire, grey old ashes, flame

AN EMPTY HUT

391

upelled to

dly where

the stars

of storms

i himself;
g for the

track so
:ker by a
stumbled
Lifts; the
Jthing in
g to his

I in its
housand
2d on its
isk rose
his feet
ass, and
3on the
mbered,
ow Nan
rom her
she had
d it ; it
t there,
is mind
; moor,
shes of
if flame

quenched, warmth departed, loneliness come— the
reflections made him shiver.

As he stood there in what was now the dark
night, he might have been a phantom mourning for
the unrecoverable, the ghost of old revelries, the
shade of pleasant bygone hearths and love the
ancient.

He shook himself into the present world, and left
behind the ashes of their lire and made for the
shealing hut, all the way solacing himself with fancy.
The girl was his, but he never let his mind linger on
the numerous difficulties that lay inevitably between
the present hour and his possession of her. He
projected himself into the future with a blank un-
explained behind, and saw them at unextinguishable
hearths, love accompanying them through genera-
tions. Through the heather he brushed eagerly
now, his eyes intent upon the dim summits of the
brae from which again he should see the light of the
shealing if it was there. Loch Little Fox, and Great
Fox, and all the black and sobbing pools among the
heather he passed on the light feet of love, and when
he came to the brae top and still found no beacon
there, he was exceedingly dashed.

" I hope, I hope there is nothing wrong," he said
aloud. And he hurried the faster.

The sky was full of clouds, all but a patch star-
sown over Ben Bhreac, and all through the hollows
and hags ran a wail of rain-wind most mournful.
The birds that had been crying over the pools
departed, and there was no sound of animal life.
The wind moaned and the pools sobbed. About the

1 I

1^ If •

V I

392

GILIAN THE DREAMER

black edifice in which he thought was all he prized
most dear on earth, blackness hung like a terror.
Breathless he stood at the door. It was wide open I
It was wide open ! It was wide open to the night
wind ! As if a hand of ice had clutched him at the
heart he shook and staggered back.

" God of Grace ! " he cried in his mother tongue,
then " Nan I Nan ! " he called to the dark within.
There was no answer, and a bird flew out above his
head.

He cried no more there, but out he ran into the
vacant moor and loudly he called to the night,
" Nan ! Nan 1 " till his voice seemed to himself
some terrific chant of long-dead peoples come first
to this strange land and crying for each other in the
wilderness where they were lost.

" Nan I Nan ! " he cried, sometimes entreating,
sometimes peremptory, as though she might be
hiding in the dark in some childish caprice. " Nan 1
Nan ! " he called plaintively, and he called sharply
too and loudly, the possessor. The sides of Ben
Bhreac woke to answer " Anan," as people reply in
dreams ; and the stars of heaven in their little garden
over the hill had no interest whatever in his crying ;
they hung out cool and imperturbable, and the wind
wailed, but not for his anxieties, on the reeds of
Little Fox.

Then he pressed his hand upon his heart to still
its uproar and strained his ears to listen. No sound
of a girl's voice, no foot upon the heather. He could
scarcely believe his senses. In his mind, as he
approached the house she had seemed as essential a

AN EMPTY HUT

he prized

a terror.

ide open !

the night

him at the

er tongue,
k within,
above his

1 into the
he night,
) himself
:ome first
er in the

itreating,
night be
" Nan 1
1 sharply
» of Ben

reply in
e garden

crying ;
the wind
reeds of

t to still
fo sound
le could
!, as he
iential a

393

part of it as the sky was portion of the universe, and
here she was gone ! t

"After all, she may be in the house asleep," he
thought, cheating himself into a moment's comfort ;
and back he went again. He listened at the threshold
for a breath : no sound came to him ; the fire was
all out, the air was the air of a dungeon. " Nan ! "
he called timidly. He got no reply.

Timidly now he stepped into that chamber that
had been sacred to him before— the holy of holies—
and fumbled with a steel. The sparks showed him
his hands trembling, but at first he did not dare to
look behind him for fears intangible. The dried
heather stems caught the flame of the tinder ; there
was but a handful of them ; they flared up in a
moment's red glare on the interior, then died out
crackling. It was enough to show him the place was
empty. It showed him, too, his lantern, the poor
companion of his adventure, lying on the floor as if
it had been tumbled there in some hasty escape ; he
picked it up and lit it, the gleam lighting a ghastly
face. And then he went out again, not knowing why
or what he might do there, but bound to be moving
and away from that empty shell where had been his
kernel untasted. The wind had risen and was rising
higher still. On Little Fox side he stood, a ludicrous
object, with the pin-points of light pricking the dark-
ness. He was there the dreamer and the hesitator,
his eyes vacant. He wore a short ill-fitting jacket ;
his vest had come unbuttoned in the haste of his
clamber up the moor ; his^bonnet was drawn low upon
his orow. As he cherished the lantern from the

r I

i. I

|1;

1 f>

j|: . .

\'W

394

GILIAN THE DREAMER

wind with his back bent he was no figure of the ideal
lover, but yet some tragedy was in the look of
him — some great and moving fate that might have
made the night pity him. Down again to their little
knowe he went, and cast himself upon it and
surrendered to emotion. It was for him the grave
of love, the new-reared mound of his affection. Even
yet he could see where she had pressed down the
heather as she reclined. Looking at the heather he
remembered the white spray of his affection that she
had said would be the sign of his fate. He went back
quickly to the hut, the wind still puffing at his foolish
lantern, and he found the heather gone. It comforted
him exceedingly. She had gone, why or v here he
could not guess, but she had taken with her the
token of his love and thereby left him her capitulation.
His heather was at her heart !

Wearied utterly, as much by the stress of his
passions as by the ardours of the day, he took
possession of her couch and slept till morning.

of the ideal
the look of
might have
> their little
on it and

the grave
ion. Even

down the
heather he
)n that she
went back
his foolish
comforted
■ V here he
li her the
pitulation.

ss of his
he took
ing.

CHAPTER XXXVI

CONCLUSION

Fair day in the town, and cattle roved about the
street, bellowing, the red and shaggy fellows of the
moors, mourning in Gaelic accent and with mild
large eyes pondering on the mysteries of change.
Behind them went the children, beating them lightly
on the flanks with hazel wands, imagining them-
selves travellers over the markets of the world, and
others, the older ones, the bolder ones, went from
shop to shop for farings, eating, as they went, the
parley-man and carvey-cakeofthe Fair day. Farmers
and shepherds gossiped and bargained on the foot-
paths or on the grass before the New Inns; the
Abercrombie clattered with convivial glass and some-
times rose the chorus to a noisy ditty of Lorn. Old
Brooks, with his academy shut for holiday, stood at
the Church corner with a pocket full of halfpence for
his bairns, and a little silver in his vest for the
naughty ones he had thrashed with the ferule and
grieved for. " To be good and clever is to be lucky
enough," he said; "I must be kind to my poor
dunces." Some of them, he saw, went with his gift
straight to Marget Maclean's. "Ah/' he said,

396

GILIAN THE DREAMER

smiling to himself, "they're after the novelles! I
wish Virgil was so much the favourite, or even the
Grammarian."

All in the pleasant sunshine the people walked
abroad on the plain-stones ; a piper of the company
of Boboon the wanderer, with but two drones to his
instrument, played the old rant of the clan as Duke
George went past on a thoroughbred horse.

"Do you hear yon?" asked the Paymaster,
opening the parlour window to let in that mountain
strain his brother loved so truly.

The Cornal cocked an ear, drew down shaggy
brows on his attention, and studied, musingly, the
tune that hummed from the reeds below.

" ' Baile Inneraora ' ! " said he. " I wish it was
' Bundle and Go.* That's the tune now for Colin
Campbell, for old Colin Campbell, for poor Colin
Campbell who once was young and wealthy. I've
seen the day that rant would set something stirring
here " — and he struck a bony hand upon his breast.
" Now there's not a move " — and he searched
still with fingers above his heart. " Not a move I
There's only a clod inside where once there was a
bird."

He stood with his head a little to the side, listen-
ing to the piper till the tune died, half accomplished,
at a tavern door. Then the children and the
bellowing kine had the world to themselves again.
The sound of carriage wheels came from the Cross,
and of the children calling loud for bridal bowl-
money.

" What's that ? " asked the Cornal, waking from

novelles ! I
, or even the

eople walked
the company
drones to his
clan as Duke
rse.

Paymaster,
lat mountain

own shaggy
lusingiy, the

wish it was
w for Colin
poor Colin
:althy. I've
ling stirring
1 his breast,
e searched
rot a move I
here was a

side, listen-
complished,
n and the
:lves again,
the Cross,
idal bowl-

iking from

CONCLUSION

397

his reverie ; and his brother put his head out at the
window. He drew back at once with his face ex-
ceeding crimson.

"What is't?" said the Cornal, seeing his hesi-
tation.

"A honeymoon pair," said the brother, and
fumbled noisily with the newspaper he had in his
hand.

" Poor creatures I And who is it ? Though I
never get over the door you'll tell me nothing."

The Paymaster answered shortly. " It's the pair
from Maam," said he, and back to his paper again.

Up to his brow the Cornal put a trembling hand
and seemed amazed and startled. Then he recol-
lected, and a sad smile came to his visage. " Not a
clod altogether yet ! " said he, half to himself and
half to his brother. " I felt the flutter of a wing.
But it's not your grief or mine this time, Jock ; it's
your poor recruit's."

" He's down in Miss Mary's room, and that's the
place for the like of him."

" Is it ? " said the Cornal. " Dugald understood
him best of any of us ; he saw this coming, and I
mind that he grieved for the fellow."

" He's grieving plenty for himself, and let him ! "
said the Paymaster, setting aside his journal.
" Look what he dropped from his pocket this morn-
ing. Peggy thought it was mine and she took it to
me. Mine ! Fancy that ! I'm jalousing she was
making a joke of me." He produced, as he spoke,
a scrap of paper with some verses on it and handed
it to his brother.

|1 !

is^

^;n II =

398

GILIAN THE DREAMER

The Cornal held the document far from his faiHng
eyes and perused the writing. It was the first of
tiiosc heart-wrung fancies that went to the making
of the volume that lies before me as I write — the
familiar lament for the lost " Maid of the Moor "
that shepherds still arc singing on his native hills.

" A ballant ! " said he, wondering, «nd with some
contempt.

" That's just what it is," said his brother. " There
was never the like broke out in this family before,
I'm glad to say."

The Cornal screwed his lips firmly. " It's what I
would call going altogether too far," he said. " I'm
feared your recruit will affront us again. A song,
now ! did you ever know the like of it ? I'll not put
up with it 1 Did you say he was down with Miss
Mary?"

" I saw her laying the corner of the table," said
the Paymaster, "and I'll warrant it was not to feed
herself at this time of day."

The Cornal looked again at the verses, clearing
his eyes with his hand, as if he might happily be
mistaken. But no, there were the foolish lines, and
some sentiments most unmanly frank of love and
idleness among the moor and heather. He growled ;
he frowned below his shaggy brows : " Come down
this instant and put an end to it," said he.

"He's with Mary," his brother reminded him,
hesitating.

" I don't care a curse if he was with the Duke,"
said the Cornal. " I'll end this carry-on in an honest
and industrious family."

m his failing
the first of

the making
write — the

the Moor "

tive hills.

I with some

r. "There
tnily before,

It's what I

said. " I'm

I. A song,

I'll not put

with Miss

table," said
not to feed

is, clearing
happily be
lines, and
if love and
e growled ;
bme down

nded him,

he Duke,"
an honest

CONCLUSION 399

He led the way downstairs, the Paymaster following

softly, both in their slippers. Noiselessly they pushed

open the door of Miss Mary's room and gazed within.

She and her darling were looking over the window

at the tumultuous crowd of hildren scrambling for

Young Islay's bowl-money scariered by Black Duncan

in the golden syver sand. Miss Mary in that position

could not but have her arm about his waist, and her

hand unconsciously caressed the rough home-spun

of his jacket. The brothers, unobserved, stood silent

in the doorway.

"That's the end of it 1" said Gilian bitterly, as he
came wholly into the room. His face, shone on by
the sun that struck above the tall lands opposite
from fiery clouds, was white to the lips. Miss Mary
looked up into his eyes, mourning in her very
inmost for his torture.

"I would say 'fair wind to her,' my dear, and a
good riddance," said she, and yet without conviction
in her tone.

" I will say 'fair wind ' readily," he answered, " but
I cannot be forgetting. I know she likes— she loves
me still."

Miss Mary showed her pity in her face, but nothing
at all had she to say.

"You are not doubting it, are you?" he cried
eagerly; and, still unnoticed in the doorway, the
Paymaster grimaced his contempt, but his brother,
touched by some influence inexplicable, put the poem
in his pocket and delayed the entry.

"Are you doubting?" again cried the lad, deter-
mined on his answer but dreading a denial.

't.

hi!

iiiii

ft'

m.ii

i 1

400

GILIAN THE DREAMER

" It is not your bowl-money the bairns arc gather-
ing at the Cross/' said Miss Mary simply.

" True," he acknowledged ; " but she went because
she must. She loves me still, I'm telling you ; she
has my heather at her heart I "

Miss Mary understood. She looked at her dreamer
and stifled a sigh. Then she saw her brothers in
the doorway, silent, and her hand went down and
met his and fondled it for his assurance as on the
day he first stood, the frightened stranger, on that
floor, and she had sheltered his shyness in the folds
of her bombazine gown.

THE END

mnpi

VIER

lirns are gathcr-

nply.

le went because

elling you ; she

I at her dreamer
^ler brothers in
vent down and
ance as on the
ranger, on that
:ss in the folds