*
 
 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 A. KEITH FRASER
 
 A GARDEN OF 
 SPICES 
 
 BY 
 
 A. KEITH FRASER 
 
 "Were plants ne'er tossed by stormy wind, 
 Their fragrant spices who could find?" 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 1913, 
 BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
 
 TO ALL 
 KNIGHTS OF THE SILVER HAIR 
 
 WHO LOVE 
 LITTLE CHILDREN 
 
 2135449
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE GARDEN OF SWEET MEMORIES . . 9 
 
 II THE DEPARTURE OF THE DRAGON . . 19 
 
 III THE QUEEN OF THE MEADOW ... 28 
 
 IV WHERE THE RIVER DIVIDES .... 40 
 V LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 53 
 
 VI THE SECRET OF THE WATERS ... 70 
 
 VII A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS .... 84 
 
 VIII A LITTLE SACRAMENT 102 
 
 IX GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER . . . .119 
 
 X A KNIGHT-ERRANT 145 
 
 XI THE LONDON LADIES 157 
 
 XII THE MAGNETISM OF HENDRY . . .178 
 
 XIII THE SORROWFUL WAY 189 
 
 XIV LIKE AS A FATHER 205 
 
 XV IN THE GLOAMING . 217 
 
 XVI THE CLOSING OF THE GATES .... 236 
 
 XVII SCOTTISH MARTYRS 248 
 
 XVIII FAREWELL TO BARBARISM .... 268 
 
 XIX ROSES AND FORGET-ME-NOTS .... 277 
 
 XX A PASSING BELL ....... 289 
 
 AFTERMATH 302
 
 A GARDEN OF SPICES
 
 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE GARDEN OF SWEET MEMORIES 
 
 THE wind blows softly from the south in 
 the garden where I lie all day. Roses and 
 stocks are blooming all around me. Sweet-peas 
 are fluttering like butterflies in the breeze. 
 Stately Madonna lilies stand sentinels by the 
 gate. 
 
 In the evening, when the tide is low, and the 
 bees have ceased their humming, and the moon 
 shines in a silver pathway over the sea, I still 
 lie here, in an atmosphere heavy with the fragrance 
 of sweet-scented stocks, and evening primroses 
 opening their pale chalices to the moonbeams. It 
 is a garden of sweet scents. 
 
 Then, sometimes, there comes upon me a great 
 longing, and my heart aches with the memory of 
 past loves. I cry aloud with the sacred poet to 
 the north wind to awake and blow upon my gar- 
 den that the spices thereof may flow out. 
 
 9
 
 10 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 And from the north there comes a zephyr laden 
 with perfumes, and lo! there is thyme, and sweet 
 marjoram, and rosemary, and alas ! rue. And 
 the garden from which they come lies in the 
 north and is flanked by purple hills. It is the 
 garden of sweet memories. 
 
 Between the currant-bushes and up the grassy 
 paths there flits the figure of a little child. A 
 solitary, old-fashioned little child in a cotton 
 frock, pin-spotted with lilac, a lilac sunbonnet 
 dangling by its strings down her back, and ruddy, 
 corkscrew curls of an auburn shade clustering and 
 bobbing round her head. 
 
 She is generally alone and yet never lonely. 
 Who could be lonely with birds and bees and 
 butterflies and caterpillars all around*? I say 
 caterpillars advisedly. There were such dainty 
 speckled beauties on the gooseberry-bushes, shim- 
 mering in their robes of green. They went into 
 such charming families when gathered into a little 
 toy sugar-scoop. Fathers and mothers, brothers 
 and sisters, even tiny babies sometimes amongst 
 them. To an only child, with none or, at least, 
 only one of all these things belonging to her, 
 the collective families made fascinating history, 
 and many stories of romance clustered around the
 
 GARDEN OF SWEET MEMORIES 11 
 
 caterpillars. (Even now I hesitate, as I pick a 
 green caterpillar or two off my roses, and say to 
 myself, "There's Annie, and John, and James, 
 
 and Peter " and then stop short, ashamed to 
 
 find that in my sober middle age, with the hair 
 grown grey about my temples, I am making fam- 
 ilies of caterpillars tell stories, as in the old 
 days.) 
 
 Sometimes, down the grassy path there strides 
 the figure of a man looking for the child. A man 
 of fine physique, tall, erect, and somewhat stately, 
 albeit the thickly clustering rings of hair on his 
 shapely head are silver-white, and his old-fash- 
 ioned black silk bow tie and Gladstonian collar 
 proclaim the gentleman of the old and courtly 
 school. 
 
 He would call in a deep, mellow voice, 
 "Where is she?" And then the child would 
 come out from amongst the bushes with her cater- 
 pillars. 
 
 They would then wander away together, hand 
 in hand, children both, for he who loves Nature 
 is ever young. She with dreamy eyes not long 
 opened to the glories of a beautiful world, he wkh 
 his dark ones dreamy too, misty a little with 
 age fixed on the purple hills, and beyond, where
 
 12 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 the dim faces of his far-away youth haunted 
 them. 
 
 They are both only shadows now, for both 
 have long passed away. The man to become 
 young with everlasting youth; the child ah, 
 well ! she lies here in this southern garden, dere- 
 lict, and the lot of the invalid is hers. 
 
 But this is a little tale of true love and so 
 should be worth the telling. For the hearts in 
 the north country are true as steel, although it 
 may be that they lack some fluency in the expres- 
 sion of their deepest feelings. The love of a man 
 for a maid is of perennial interest everywhere, 
 but especially in a garden, from the Garden of 
 Eden to the Garden of Paradise, where true lov- 
 ers meet again. And when its theme is the love 
 of three men for one lucky maid (and she a little 
 one), it should be better still. 
 
 I hardly know what name to call him who was 
 her first love unless I call him "the Laird," which 
 is the one by which he was best known. He had 
 been "the young Laird" for many a day, to dis- 
 tinguish him from his father, the old one. Then 
 he was promoted in late middle age, when the 
 memory of his father had faded a little from the 
 countryside, and "the Laird" he remained, till he
 
 GARDEN OF SWEET MEMORIES 13 
 
 was no laird at all, and owned no land except 
 what was waiting for him in the churchyard of 
 his forefathers. 
 
 It is sad to relate that, even as the serpent 
 frequented the Garden of Eden, so there was a 
 dragon in this northern one. The Dragon was in 
 human shape and of feminine gender. She wore 
 a mob cap with frills on her jet-black hair, which 
 was smoothly parted in the middle and plastered 
 down on each side of her somewhat angular face. 
 She had a hard mouth, a firm chin, and eyes that 
 were sometimes green, and sometimes grey, and 
 sometimes black, and could flash fire when they 
 liked. And then they were very fearsome to be- 
 hold. 
 
 In short, she was a nurse or, to be more exact 
 a nurse-housekeeper of the old school. In her 
 pocket she carried a pair of leathern "tawse," and 
 she believed in no spoiling of the child by sparing 
 of the rod. 
 
 She also would come wandering out into the 
 garden, knitting a long grey stocking, her grim, 
 severe lips compressed till they looked but one 
 straight line across her colourless face, and the 
 children at play, perhaps, with daisy-chains 
 hung round their necks, or fuchsias, tied with
 
 14 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 thread, dangling from their ears for ear-rings 
 would spring guiltily away from each other, and 
 it would be difficult to say which face was the 
 reddest, the grown-up man's or the child's. 
 
 She would give them a withering look and pass 
 on, and the man would try to look dignified a 
 difficult matter when one is lying flat on one's 
 back, covered with docken-seeds, with a wreath, 
 perhaps, of ragged robin and corn-flowers twined 
 amongst one's curls. 
 
 Sometimes they stole a march on her. Then 
 they would slip out of the back door, and mount- 
 ing Donald Dhu, a shaggy Highland pony, would 
 gallop off together to the foot of the Grampians, 
 to feast on nectar and wild strawberries. Donald 
 Dhu on these occasions would quite enter into the 
 spirit of the thing, and, snorting defiance at the 
 Dragon, would shake his tawny mane and spring 
 forward like a winged steed. In the heart of the 
 cup-shaped moor, with the purple mountains 
 standing guard all round, the two children would 
 dismount, leaving Donald Dhu in the fairies' 
 charge, and wander hand in hand amongst the 
 heather with Dame Nature for their nurse. 
 
 For it was the Golden Age for them both. To 
 the little maid it had come early t and would pass
 
 GARDEN OF SWEET MEMORIES 15 
 
 early. To the man, in his vigorous old age, it 
 had come late. Life had flitted past him with 
 empty hands, till his child, who was not his own, 
 had come across his path, and the latent paternity 
 in his heart had been stirred into being. 
 
 They lunched by the cool trickle of a moun- 
 tain spring. From his pocket there came a col- 
 lapsible tumbler of tartan india-rubber, or, if it 
 had been forgotten in the hurry of departure, 
 there were his hands, large, strong, supple, the 
 white hands of the gentleman, which, curved to- 
 gether, formed a fine drinking-cup fit for a lady. 
 There were also oatcakes, done up in clean 
 writing-paper, in his pocket, and skim-milk cheese, 
 and what more would you have, with the air 
 whistling through the crevices of the Grampians 
 for a draught of champagne, and hunger for a 
 sauce? Ambrosia, fit for the gods. 
 
 It would be long past dinner-time ere the 
 truants returned home again, and, after handing 
 Donald Dhu to his caretaker, on nearing the 
 gable end of the house, where the Dragon sat 
 sewing endless white seam by the kitchen window, 
 there would be a marked change in their de- 
 meanour. 
 
 The child would slink with lagging footsteps
 
 16 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 behind, while still clinging tightly to the firm 
 wrinkled hand with the gold nugget ring on it. 
 Her cheeks would blanch and her heart would 
 beat a tattoo loud and fast. 
 
 The man would then straighten himself up 
 and his well-knit limbs assume a stride. His lips 
 were firm, his head well back, as he approached 
 the Dragon. 
 
 "We have returned," he said firmly; "I am 
 afraid we have torn this frock" exhibiting a 
 large jagged tear in the front breadth of the 
 child's dress "but it is only cotton, it will soon 
 mend." (How like a man! Soon mend, in- 
 deed.) "We will have our dinner served in the 
 study," he continued, and turned to walk away. 
 
 The Dragon opened her mouth to speak, and 
 shut it again with a snap of unclenched teeth. 
 She breathed rather than said, "Yes, sir." She 
 had risen respectfully and dropped her white 
 seam, but her lips were white with their rigid 
 compression, and her downcast eyes showed flick- 
 ers of lambent flame underneath. At least, so the 
 child thought. 
 
 "Did you speak?' asked the Laird, wheeling 
 round in response to a low murmur. 
 
 "I only said, sir," replied the Dragon, with
 
 GARDEN OF SWEET MEMORIES 17 
 
 great meekness, "that Miss Elspeth had missed 
 her midday sleep." 
 
 She hesitated over the word, to which her 
 tongue was somewhat unaccustomed, but he was 
 so unmistakably the Laird that the Dragon was 
 cowed and had even to treat the child with re- 
 spect. 
 
 "She will have her sleep after dinner," he re- 
 plied. "Take her to wash her face and hands 
 and bring her to the study to dine with me." 
 
 Then he strode along the stone-flagged passage, 
 which led from the large pleasant kitchen to the 
 rest of the house, with loud clank of heel. 
 
 With soft step, and ominously controlled voice, 
 the Dragon led the child away, washed her face 
 and hands in silence, covered her tatters with a 
 large white pinafore and pushed her, a few min- 
 utes later, in at the study door. So ominous was 
 the silence, so vicious the push, that the child's 
 spirit quailed. Not even the joys of a late after- 
 noon dinner kept hot in the oven, with freshly 
 fried potatoes, brought back the colour to her 
 cheeks or the light to her eyes. 
 
 "You are tired, my dearie," said the gentle 
 Laird, stretching a tender hand across the study 
 table and taking the small freckled one in his
 
 18 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 own. "You'll be better for a rest in your own 
 little beddie." 
 
 He thought nothing of it when a watery smile 
 was all his answer. 
 
 Dinner over, he rested quietly in his big study 
 chair, a Greek tome on his knee, a gay crimson silk 
 handkerchief spread over his silver curls. "She's 
 very tired," he said, "she'll be the better for a 
 sleep. The air of the Highlands is strong," and 
 slipped off himself into the land of dreams. 
 
 Whilst upstairs, behind double baize doors, 
 which screened the Dragon's haunts from the 
 paths of men, there arose the heart-broken sobs 
 of a motherless child and the sharp sound of the 
 leathern tawse. 
 
 When King Solomon wrote that oft-quoted 
 verse about the rod, he did not, in spite of his 
 wisdom, know that rods are not in it compared 
 with the Scottish instrument for training up a 
 child in the way it should go. 
 
 But all this happened long ago, and, doubtless, 
 a new and much-indulged generation knows it 
 not.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 DEPARTURE OF THE DRAGON 
 
 IT fell on a day, a bright summer day, when 
 the corn was ripening fairly, that Davy Mc- 
 Lelland brought a freshly painted cart up to the 
 back door, drawn by Star that fine steed on 
 whose broad, brown forehead there shone a snow- 
 white star of the first magnitude. 
 
 Davy looked with some pride at his cart with 
 its brilliant colouring of blues and reds, his own 
 neat brushwork. Inside, a layer of clean straw 
 covered the floor. On both sides, planks covered 
 with carpet stood on low trestles for seats. It 
 was a chariot fit for a king. 
 
 Upstairs, the child Elspeth was being deftly 
 robed for the road by Mistress Kate, the Laird's 
 housekeeper. Now Mistress Kate was a comely 
 and douce young woman about thirty, with a pleas- 
 ant face, a bright smile, and crinkly hair of a flaxen 
 shade that was never much tidier than the child's 
 own refractory curls, for it would break out into 
 big ripples and waves wherever it could. She was 
 
 19
 
 20 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 undeniably a person to ask questions of, so, al- 
 though questions were strictly forbidden, the child 
 could not resist asking, while Mistress Kate with 
 deft, quick fingers buttoned on a little white pique 
 pelisse and tied the broad ribbons of a big Leg- 
 horn hat under her chin. 
 
 "Where am I going to?" 
 
 "To the station," responded Mistress Kate, 
 somewhat more blithely than the occasion war- 
 ranted. 
 
 Then the child pondered a minute, for there 
 were no signs of packing around. 
 
 "Who with?" she whispered. 
 
 "You'll see," whispered Mistress Kate back. 
 
 Davy was still admiring his fine handiwork 
 when they came downstairs. 
 
 "Now lift her up, Davy, and there's a nice 
 soft shawl for her to sit on." 
 
 So Davy swung the child up, remarking as he 
 did so: 
 
 "What a fine, heavy little Miss ye are gettin'." 
 Then grumbled aside to Mistress Kate. "If 
 she's no' quick wi' her graund packin* she'll miss 
 the train." 
 
 Then there suddenly appeared, dragging a box 
 with some flutter of haste, the Dragon in her best
 
 DEPARTURE OF THE DRAGON. 21 
 
 clothes. Her black bonnet was spangled with 
 jet flowers, and the beads on her Sabbath jacket 
 glittered in the sun with a shimmer of jet. In 
 her hands she carried black kid gloves, to be strug- 
 gled with later. She was flushed and her eyes 
 were red. If dragons, like crocodiles, could 
 weep, one would say she had been weeping. 
 
 She glanced rapidly at the seating of her little 
 charge, and hauled in with one hand the tin box 
 Davy handed up to her. 
 
 "We'll hae to mak' haste," he said, climbing 
 quickly up to his perilous seat on the edge of 
 the cart. "Trams'll no wait. Haud ticht, noo." 
 And so, with a smart crack of the whip, a rattle 
 of freshly painted cart-wheels on the cobble-stones 
 of the yard, and gallop of Star to catch the train, 
 they were off. With such haste, indeed, that the 
 Dragon and the child fell in an ignominious heap 
 beside the tin box in the straw, and took some 
 time in the readjusting. Hens cackled and ducks 
 flew in all directions out of their way. It was a 
 royal departure. 
 
 After rumbling heavily over the bridge and 
 rattling down a hill, Star slackened speed some- 
 what, and devoted himself to more quiet progress 
 along the straight line of white road which
 
 22 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 wended its weary miles to the station. The 
 Dragon put on her gloves, carefully inflating them 
 before she did so, and drawing the child to her 
 other side, so that she should hear the conversa- 
 tion less, began to talk in a low voice to Davy. 
 
 At first nothing was audible but occasional 
 snatches, such as "Taken ill last week." "No 
 expected to live through the night." "Leaving 
 a grand testimony behind him," interspersed 
 with "Ay, ay," from Davy. "D'ye say that, 
 woman 1 ?" and "Hoots! lots o' fouk get better;" 
 by which the eavesdropper gathered that the 
 Dragon was anticipating a bereavement. 
 
 Then the conversation became a little louder 
 and more personal. 
 
 "A child of wrath," said the Dragon. 
 
 "Hoots ! no. Ye' re ower strict, woman." 
 
 "I dinna like leaving her," said the Dragon. 
 
 "Oh, the maister'll look aifter her fine," con- 
 soled Davy. "He's a graund man wi' the bairns." 
 
 "Him ! A muckle bairn himsel'," retorted the 
 Dragon, reverting back to her natural Doric in 
 her contempt. "Juist a muckle bairn." 
 
 There was an interlude of silence here. Then 
 the Dragon groaned again :
 
 DEPARTURE OF THE DRAGON 23 
 
 "A child of wrath. A spoilt bairn. Father, 
 grandfather, the Laird, all spoiling her." 
 
 "All except you," said Davy grimly. 
 
 "I try to do my duty," said the Dragon se- 
 verely. "It is not easy. You know what King 
 Solomon " 
 
 "Hoots, woman, haud your wheesht! King 
 Solomon was a gey lad himseP. He cudna man- 
 age his ain hoose, let alane ither fouks." 
 
 The Dragon waxed wrathful at this disre- 
 spectful remark, and there ensued a long string of 
 adjectives, of which the child of wrath (whom a 
 sudden jerk of Star, in response to the crack of 
 Davy's whip, had precipitated once more into the 
 bottom of the cart) caught but a few. 
 
 Rude, obstinate, self-willed, lazy, sulky, bad- 
 tempered like the rest of the red-headed folks, 
 curly hair too, which made it ten per cent worse 
 caring nothing for the Sabbath, disobedient, 
 selfish. A veritable daughter of perdition surely. 
 The Dragon harked back to ingratitude. 
 
 "Cares nothing for anybody, so doesn't care a 
 bit about my going away." 
 
 "Mebbe she disna ken," mildly expostulated 
 Davy.
 
 24 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Here the Dragon's eye fell upon the culprit 
 plaiting straw in the bottom of the cart. She 
 dragged her up by the arm suddenly, shook her, 
 and set her down with a bump on the seat, clutch- 
 ing her hand firmly so that she should not go 
 again, and addressed her point-blank: 
 
 "Are you sorry I am going away*?" 
 
 Scottish-like, the child asked a question quietly 
 in return. 
 
 "Is it for altogether*?" 
 
 "I told you," groaned the Dragon to Davy. 
 "She cares for nobody, not even for me who has 
 done everything for her and been a mother to 
 her all her days." 
 
 "Wheesht, wheesht, woman! Ye're sorry, are 
 ye no 1 ?" Davy said, turning round in his seat to 
 look at the small monster of depravity, "that yer 
 kind nurse is going away for a month." 
 
 O, Davy, Davy, there was a twinkle in your eye 
 when you said it! 
 
 The child gazed at him, but she said nothing. 
 Long repression had taught her that silence is 
 golden. In other words, she had learnt the mel- 
 ody of the closed mouth. Was she sorry? Not 
 a bit of it. Glad, glad in every fibre of her small 
 being. If a rift in the blue above us showed
 
 DEPARTURE OF THE DRAGON 25 
 
 us a glimpse of Paradise, would we be sorry*? 
 No. A thousand times no. So she said nothing. 
 
 Davy turned his large body round so as to 
 face her, and looked at her reproachfully. 
 
 "Say ye' re sorry," he said. "I am sure ye 
 are. .Ye're sorry that your nurse's faither's 
 deein', an' she's going away for mebbe a month, 
 an' mebbe 1 anger." 
 
 Now she knew. But she was not sorry. Not 
 a bit of it. Like the young lambs upon the 
 mountains, even so did her soul skip within her. 
 A month! Joy of joys! In the harvest time 
 too, with the Laird all to herself, and nobody, 
 literally nobody, to find fault. 
 
 "Hae," coaxed Davy, handing her the reins. 
 "Say ye're sorry, and I'll let ye drive the rest o' 
 the road to the station noo." 
 
 She looked at the tempting reins, but did not 
 attempt to take them. For this was bribery, and 
 she was not sorry. She was glad, and to say she 
 was sorry would be a lie, and she was only too 
 well aware where liars went. 
 
 The Dragon snatched the reins angrily. 
 
 "Ye're like the rest, Davy, ay spoiling her. 
 She's a bad girl and she's not sorry one bit. I 
 ken her. She shall never drive me."
 
 26 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 At that there was a quiver of the culprit's lips, 
 and real tears welled up in her eyes. 
 
 "I am sorry, now" she said in a low voice. 
 But I fear me it was over the loss of the reins she 
 was sorry. 
 
 While this discussion had been going on, the 
 reins hanging loose, and his master's back turned 
 to him, Star had been taking things easy. He had 
 helped himself to a low branch of birch hanging 
 over the road, and between cannily chewing it, 
 and flicking his tail to keep off the flies, had 
 dropped into a funeral pace. He was leisurely 
 walking over to the shadiest side of the road for 
 coolness when Davy turned round again. At that 
 moment a sharp puff of smoke showed the ap- 
 proach of the train out of a distant tunnel. 
 
 "Losh ! we'll never catch it," cried Davy, lasrj.- 
 ing up his steed, and between rumble, and gallop, 
 and clatter of tin box in the rear, there was no 
 more time for conversation, and they dashed into 
 the station in the same grand style they had left 
 the farm-yard, reaching it simultaneously with the 
 train. There was no time even for good-byes, 
 and the tin box was nearly left behind in the com- 
 motion. 
 
 And behold! the Dragon's eyes were again
 
 DEPARTURE OF THE DRAGON 27 
 
 dewy as she was bundled hastily into the last rail- 
 way carriage, and it was a damp handkerchief 
 which she waved from the window as she went out 
 of sight. But the eyes of the child in the cart 
 were dry. 
 
 Then from somewhere out of sight a gig came 
 rattling up, with Donald Dhu dancing and curvet- 
 ing after the departing train, and the Laird sitting 
 smiling on the seat. There was a hasty transfer- 
 ence enacted, and now with head erect, and Leg- 
 horn hat hanging rakishly in its most frequent 
 place, down her back, the Child of Wrath held 
 the reins with proud satisfaction, and Donald 
 Dhu was soon trotting, with his two conspirators 
 behind him, away down the ribbon-like stretch of 
 road, bound for the open country with Elysium 
 at the end. 
 
 And Davy, lying leisurely in his empty cart 
 far behind them, chewing a straw for company, 
 sang softly to himself with a pawky smile on his 
 face as Star drew him leisurely homewards: 
 
 "Wha'll be King but Charlie." 
 
 As the Laird's name was Charles it sounded 
 very appropriate, and was a bit of dry humour 
 on Davy's part.
 
 A 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE MEADOW 
 
 S into each life some rain must fall, so it 
 seems to me that into each life there 
 comes at some time or other a glimpse of Para- 
 dise. It comes generally in childhood, when the 
 eyes are clear, and the spirit is untarnished with 
 the stains of earth. 
 
 I saw a ragged, barefooted child once in the 
 back streets of my own grey native town. Her 
 face was blue and pinched with cold, the biting 
 north wind whistled cruelly through the many 
 openings of her tattered garments, her bare feet 
 were covered with chilblains. But in her eyes 
 there shone the peace of Paradise. She had 
 found the end of a broken whisky bottle, and 
 after filing its jagged edges on the granite curb 
 was playing "peaver" with it. I do not know 
 the English equivalent for the name of "peaver," 
 nor do I know its mysteries, except that it is con- 
 nected in some mystic way with the scores on the 
 
 pavement. 
 
 28
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE MEADOW 29 
 
 As she hopped backwards and forwards on one 
 blue leg, pushing her bit of jagged bottle before 
 her, she kept count, "Ane, twa, three, fower." 
 Big flakes of snow fell on her face, but she heeded 
 them not. I doubt if she even saw them. Turn 
 and turn again. "Ane, twa, three, fower," as 
 the snow fell faster and faster. Not till the 
 pavement was covered and all its divisions oblit- 
 erated did she desist. Then she ran "home" with 
 a look of fear on her face. In the years to come 
 that girl would look back upon "peaver" on an 
 icy pavement as a game played in Paradise, and 
 would never remember either the cold or the fear 
 of what was to come after. 
 
 But to the child, Elspeth, whose lines were 
 cast in pleasant places, and whose summers were 
 spent in Arcady, there were vastly different 
 glimpses to remember. Especially during that 
 summer when there was no Dragon. 
 
 To wake in the morning and find, instead of a 
 hard, severe face bending over you, a round, be- 
 nignant one, probably with spectacles on, fresh 
 from his morning reading. To be greeted with 
 smiling looks instead of sour ones. To sally out 
 in the early morning to look at the calves. To 
 scatter corn amongst flying hens out of one's
 
 30 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 pinafore. To breakfast on ham and eggs, in- 
 stead of porridge, not only on the Sabbath but 
 on every day of the week. To wander down the 
 burn-side, and to be allowed oh, joy of joys! 
 to take off one's shoes and stockings and dabble 
 amongst the minnows with one's bare toes. To 
 sit on a shepherd's plaid on the bank and listen, 
 while clever male fingers twisted rushes into dolls' 
 cradles (how did he learn, I wonder?), to thrill- 
 ing tales of ancient Greeks and Romans, and 
 glorious Scottish heroes, Wallace, Bruce, and the 
 rest, with the burn tinkling a musical accompani- 
 ment all the time. 
 
 And then, best of all, to watch the Laird, his 
 coat and waistcoat thrown off, his soft wideawake 
 hat on the back of his curls, hard at work cutting 
 clods on the bank where the burn was deepest 
 with a big pocket-knife. What were they for? 
 Watch him and you will see. 
 
 First he gathered big stones and placed them 
 across the burn. Then he cut his turf and rolled 
 it, packing it tightly between the stones. It took 
 days in the making, and the sun was hot, but 
 slowly it resolved itself into a dam. All this was 
 because the child of his affections had expressed 
 a desire to bathe. She should have a bathing-
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE MEADOW 31 
 
 place then, fit for a queen, in the clear limpid 
 water of the 'burn, with the surprised minnows 
 playing hide-and-seek around her. 
 
 Then on one never-to-be-forgotten day in 
 August, when the golden grain was whispering 
 towards the water, and the meadow-sweet that 
 rival queen scented the banks, they went down 
 together for the disrobing. First the Laird de- 
 posited a brown-paper parcel on the bank at her 
 feet, and retired with his newspaper to a little 
 distance, where a bend in the burn hid him and 
 her from view. 
 
 "You will come to me my dearie, if you can't 
 undo the buttons," he said, as he disappeared. 
 And the child gravely opened the parcel, and 
 drew out a towel and a small white flannel night- 
 gown. I think she managed all the buttons, and 
 disrobed herself in the bright sunshine. Then 
 she went to him to fasten the band of the night- 
 gown. And behold! she was suddenly seized 
 with a great fear. Like many older and wiser 
 persons, the desire of her heart was within her 
 grasp, and she shrank from it in terror of the un- 
 known. 
 
 The shadows fell upon the water. It was deep 
 for her. It was undoubtedly cold.
 
 32 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "I'm frightened," she said, with a catch in her 
 breath. "I want you to come too. I want you 
 to bathe with me." 
 
 At that the Laird laughed. 
 
 "My dearie," he said, "it is not deep enough 
 for me. When I bathe I like the river to swim 
 in. This is but a fairy river, for a little fairy 
 like yourself to bathe in." 
 
 "Oh, but I'm afraid," she said, trembling. 
 
 Then of course he took off his shoes and stock- 
 ings (and the stockings and garters which he wore, 
 after the fashion of his youth, were a great sur- 
 prise to her), and, rolling his trousers up, held 
 her hand and gently waded in with her to the 
 bath. 
 
 It was very cold, and deeper than she liked, 
 and she cried "Oh!" many times. Then she 
 grew braver, and let go his hand to dab her curls 
 with water, to prevent herself from taking cold, 
 after the fashion of the Dragon at the seaside. 
 That duty done she bobbed solemnly up and 
 down, the nightgown swelling out round her like 
 a balloon. Braver still, and with a splash she 
 was in, swimming for dear life with her knees grat- 
 ing on the pebbles and her arms spread out like 
 wings.
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE MEADOW 33 
 
 Then the Laird laughed again and left her to 
 herself, and, sitting down on the bank, timed her 
 by his big silver watch. 
 
 And now there was no getting her out. The 
 Laird said "Time's up" several times, and she 
 cunningly made a great splashing, so that 
 she could not hear. So he looked grave when she 
 caught his eye, as she turned, laughing, for the 
 last time. 
 
 "You must come out now," he said. It was 
 a tone to be obeyed, and she, recognising it as 
 such, came out at once. 
 
 But oh! the joy of that daily bath through the 
 happy weeks that followed. To see Mistress 
 Kate, blithe and smiling and crinkly-haired, take 
 the dripping nightgown from them when they 
 reached home, and hang it on the hedge to dry, 
 with never a word of scolding for the extra work 
 to either of them, was an awakening a vision 
 of what a good housekeeper ought to be. 
 
 And when at last the reapers came to cut the 
 corn in that field by the bathing-place, so that 
 there could be no more daily baths, well, there 
 were other joys to take their place. 
 
 Surely it was a joy to ride backwards and for- 
 wards in the carts. Rattling in the empty ones,
 
 34 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 tossed up like a pancake over the rough fields, 
 with never a thought of headaches and digestive 
 troubles waiting, with added years, round the 
 corner. To ride back with dignity, like a real 
 queen in her chariot, on the top of the rich, fra- 
 grant pile of golden grain, held on by the Laird's 
 strong, loving arm. Those were the golden days 
 indeed. 
 
 All too soon the harvest ended, only the last 
 sheaf of corn, "the maiden," remained in the 
 fields for "little Miss" to cut. She had hard 
 work to cut it, for they would not give her a hook, 
 still less a scythe, and the Laird's big pocket- 
 knife was desperately blunt after so much turf- 
 cutting. But at last it was done, and "the 
 maiden" was carried home in triumph, to be tied 
 with blue ribbons, and put in the place of honour 
 for the Harvest Home that evening, and to keep 
 there to bring good luck and a plenteous harvest 
 for the ensuing year. 
 
 Never had Elspeth been in the country so late 
 in the year, and she was never there again, so it 
 was impressed very indelibly upon her memory. 
 All her life she would never forget the evening 
 of that Harvest Home, and would see the low, 
 old-fashioned farm-kitchen, decorated with its
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE MEADOW 35 
 
 brightly polished tin and copper utensils, its hams 
 dangling from the oaken rafters, with all the bustle 
 and commotion of preparation for the supper in 
 the back kitchen, and the clearing of the front 
 for the dance. 
 
 When they were all assembled, men, and maids, 
 regular farm-hands and strays, the Laird and she, 
 hand in hand, led off the first dance. She was 
 unmistakably Queen of the Assembly, and I fear 
 she was very proud. She shook out her diminu- 
 tive skirts of white embroidered muslin, she 
 fingered the necklace of pearl beads Mistress Kate 
 had given her never before had she been per- 
 mitted to wear anything so elegant and she tossed 
 her curly mane, with its wreath of late honey- 
 suckle round it, those curls which Mistress Kate 
 could never twist into such stiff corkscrews as the 
 Dragon, and she showed off very greatly. On 
 every side there was admiration. 
 
 "Well done, little Miss!" 
 
 "Isn't she a clever one*?" 
 
 "Just like a little fairy dancing." 
 
 It was enough to turn any child's head. And 
 so, when the Laird, having done his part in open- 
 ing the dance, retired to his study, and the farm- 
 hands danced reels to their hearts' content, and
 
 36 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 clamped with their heavy boots through the 
 mazes of the country dances, shouting "Hooch !" 
 with as much frequency as they liked, the child, 
 Elspeth, jinked in and out amongst them, grow- 
 ing ever wilder and more excited as the night of 
 dissipation grew longer. 
 
 When the fiddler paused and the dancers 
 rested, holding up her tiny skirts, she danced 
 pas-de-seul, with crimson cheeks and sparkling 
 eyes, down the middle of the long kitchen for all 
 to see. Many hand-clappings followed these dis- 
 plays. 
 
 It was in the middle of one of them that she 
 suddenly became conscious of some adverse in- 
 fluence, as if a disapproving eye were watching 
 her. She stopped a moment and looked round 
 on all the kindly, smiling faces. No, there was no 
 disapprobation there. Nothing but approval and 
 admiration. 
 
 Then she tried to peer into the darkness of 
 the long trance, or passage, which separated the 
 kitchen from the rest of the house. The trance 
 was dimly lit by a small hanging oil lamp, and 
 in the darkness beyond there clustered the faces 
 of some who did not dance wives and mothers 
 of the men and maids, whose dancing days were
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE MEADOW 37 
 
 over. The adverse influence seemed to come 
 from there. 
 
 Boldly she danced up to the dimness, fingering 
 her pearls. All should own her sway. She was 
 elated and excited with the evening's long tri- 
 umph. It was now well past midnight. 
 
 She pranced gaily, and they made a way for 
 her up the passage. She had nearly reached the 
 end, when, from amongst the silent and dark 
 spectators, a hand was suddenly stretched out a 
 hand like the hand of Fate, hard and knobby 
 and she was kidnapped. That is the only word 
 for it. Through the door that led to the front 
 hall, through another door leading up to the 
 stone staircase. So swiftly, so silently, was it 
 done that she was upstairs in the large room be- 
 hind the baize doors before she was missed 
 before she barely had time to recognise her captor. 
 
 But in the light of a small chamber lamp she 
 had now no difficulty in doing so. For there 
 stood the Dragon, come back at the eleventh hour ! 
 How much had she seen of all that mincing and 
 prancing? How much had she heard of the 
 clapping and praise? From the flash of her eyes 
 when the lamp was turned up, and the thunder- 
 clouds on her face than which the crape on her
 
 3 8 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 new dress was no blacker the Dragon had seen 
 everything! Grim and terrible she approached 
 the trembling child. And as Fate with her shears 
 cuts asunder the thread of our lives and shatters 
 our idols before our eyes, so did the Dragon seize 
 the pearl necklace, that emblem of pride, and 
 holding it firmly in her strong hands, break the 
 thread on the child's neck. Hither and thither 
 in every direction ran the released pearls, and as 
 she saw each one the Dragon stamped upon it, 
 shivering its beauty into a thousand fragments 
 of paltry crushed paste, even as our most cher- 
 ished idols are shivered. 
 
 Then, turning to the child, she slapped her, 
 first on one plump arm, then on the other. 
 
 "Set you up, indeed," she said slap "with 
 your awful pride" slap "and your mincing 
 steps" slap "and your tinkling cymbals" 
 slap "you'll go straight to the Father of Pride" 
 slap. And a great deal more that I think I 
 shall not write, for it makes my heart sore even 
 to think of it. 
 
 It was half an hour later before the Dragon 
 went down again to the festivities, leaving the 
 dethroned queen sobbing in her bed in the dark- 
 ness as if her heart would break. Her sceptre
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE MEADOW 39 
 
 was broken, her faded honeysuckle crown was 
 thrown out of the window, her jewels were 
 trampled upon, her kingdom was passed away, 
 her poor, tired little body was worn out with 
 pain and fatigue. Verily it is but an uneasy 
 head that wears a crown ! 
 
 Whilst far away in the kitchen there sounded 
 the scuffling of the dancing feet and the merry 
 laughter over the old country dance, "Sir 
 Ronald MacDonald." 
 
 "A' yer richt feet in, 
 
 An' a' yer left feet oot, 
 Shake them a little within, 
 An' whirl yersels aboot. 
 
 Hey, Sir Ronald MacDonald, 
 
 And hey, Sir Ronald MacDh" 
 Hey, Sir Ronald MacDonald, 
 We're a' roarin' fu'." 
 
 Which was not, strictly speaking, true as they 
 were all absolutely sober. They were only 
 enjoying themselves very thoroughly.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHERE THE RIVER DIVIDES 
 
 THERE was no garden belonging to the 
 grey house in the square where the child, 
 Elspeth, lived all the year round, with her father 
 and the Dragon, in the town, except for the few 
 halcyon weeks which she spent with the Laird in 
 the country in the summer. Only a small paved 
 yard at the back, surrounded by high houses, 
 which could never by any possibility be called a 
 garden. But there were others within reach. 
 Nature's gardens, only a short way out of 
 town, in wooded hills and by-paths. There was 
 also the Garden of Sleep a very beautiful one 
 lying high on a rocky tableland, where one 
 could see the sun setting behind the purple 
 peaks in the distance, till one felt as if the Pearly 
 Gates which opened into Holy City itself 
 were just beyond them. 
 
 There were several entrances into this beauti- 
 ful garden, lying high above the grey town, 
 where the river divides, and the Angels keep 
 guard over its quiet inhabitants. 
 
 40
 
 WHERE THE RIVER DIVIDES 41 
 
 One, the main one, was often thrown wide 
 back, and a policeman stood to guard it. Then 
 there would come sometimes a great crowd of 
 warriors in garbs of woe, sword-handles swathed 
 in crape, and crape on sleeves, marching to the 
 roll of muffled drums playing the Dead March, 
 or the pibroch wailing "Lochaber no more." 
 On a gun-carriage would follow the one who 
 slept, with the accoutrements of his warfare 
 pathetically grouped upon his coffin. And, if 
 he had been mounted in the days of his strength, 
 his horse would follow, with the empty saddle on 
 his back and his master's empty boots dangling 
 at the stirrups. And eyes, dimmed by the 
 passing of the gun-carriage and the soul-melting 
 music, would brim over at the pathetic figure of 
 the dumb animal, grief-marked in every curve 
 of his beautiful form, as he kept careful step with 
 the muffled drums, his soft dark eyes with that 
 strange look of despair in them, which is so often 
 seen in the petted animal in the hour of human 
 grief. 
 
 Sometimes Elspeth and the Dragon, on their 
 usual Saturday afternoon's visit to the Garden 
 of Sleep, went in by the gate, opening it far 
 enough to admit them and closing it softly behind
 
 42 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 them again. There must be no jarring noises 
 in the cemetery. And here, let me add, the 
 Dragon never scolded beyond a "Come now," in 
 quiet accents of reproof. 
 
 And sometimes they went in by another gate, 
 a small one, and paused for a minute by the 
 bowling-green to watch the gentlemen playing 
 bowls, as generations of bowlers had done ever 
 since the days of King James, and probably long 
 before. The Game of Life olayed so close beside 
 the Game of Death. 
 
 But perhaps oftener still they went up a quiet 
 road bordered by rocks and trees, with pleasant 
 glimpses of picturesque landscape between, and, 
 opening another small gate, landed at once in an 
 expanse of smooth green sward peopled by 
 statutes of heroes. Some of them were in the 
 attitude of preaching, and looked wild, denuncia- 
 tory, as if warning of the wrath to come in 
 forcible, though inaudible, words. Others were 
 mild and benign in aspect. Some had rapt, 
 upward expressions, as if they were holding 
 communion with the unseen. Others were 
 very humanly sympathetic in their appearance, 
 smiling, as if telling of the Love of God to men. 
 Many of them were martyrs for their faith.
 
 WHERE THE RIVER DIVIDES 43 
 
 Some carried Bibles in their hands, emblems of 
 the sacred truths for which they had laid down 
 their lives. 
 
 At the foot of one of the statues the Dragon 
 and her little charge always paused in silence. 
 The Dragon would look reverently up at the 
 sculptured face, and her thin lips would move in 
 a murmured prayer, for this was a martyred 
 ancestor of her very own, and she paused here, 
 as if to attune her soul to the spirit of the place 
 before proceeding any farther. It was not 
 exactly a prayer, of course. That would have 
 savoured of Mariolatry. Let us call it, rather, 
 a firm resolve. A resolve to do her duty in that 
 state of life to which it had pleased God to call 
 her, and to be faithful, till death, if necessary. 
 For the Dragon was a woman of deeply religious 
 views, and the spirit of the Convenanters was 
 strong within her. 
 
 Elspeth had no martyrs amongst her ances- 
 tors, but she was a solitary child full of imagina- 
 tion, and at the gates she had always been met by 
 Someone. It did not matter which gate they had 
 gone in by. Someone always seemed to know 
 when she was there. It was the spirit of her 
 dead mother. To the lonely child, with the ache
 
 44 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 of the motherless always in her little heart, it 
 seemed as if her mother seemed to glide beside her 
 and hold her hand in a gentle clasp the mother's 
 clasp. There is no other like it in the world. 
 The hand holding hers might still to the material 
 eye be the Dragon's hand hard, knobby, bony, 
 encased in one-buttoned black kid gloves a size 
 too large for her but it was not. To Elspeth it 
 was soft, white, warm, loving her mother's 
 hand. 
 
 The Dragon might walk along beside her on 
 tiptoe, trying to keep her elastic-sided boots from 
 sacrilegious squeaking, in her prim black bonnet 
 with its broad strings tied under her chin, and 
 jacket with linen collar pinned invisibly inside it, 
 but Elspeth never saw her. So far as she was 
 concerned the Dragon might have been left outside 
 the gates altogether. It was a radiantly youthful 
 figure which glided by her side, with shining cop- 
 per-red curls like her own, only longer, and a 
 soft, white, flowing robe the same as the angel 
 wore in one of the beautiful marble monu- 
 ments. 
 
 She would seem to pause with Elspeth beside 
 the statues, and speak to the little aching, childish 
 heart something like this :
 
 WHERE THE RIVER DIVIDES 45 
 
 "My child, my own only little child, for whom 
 I gave my life, I want you to grow up brave and 
 noble like those heroes those men who died, or 
 lived, for their faith. It is harder sometimes to 
 live than to die." 
 
 She would move on then slowly, till they came 
 to the place where they thought she slept herself. 
 
 Then the Dragon would take a trowel out of 
 the canvas hand-bag she carried, and reverently 
 dig the flower-border round, while the child with 
 the mother-angel stood watching her hand in 
 hand. 
 
 The Dragon's eyes were holden so that she 
 could not see, but she was always very gentle on 
 those occasions. Not even, when forgetting 
 sometimes where she was, Elspeth skipped over 
 an intervening grave for her mother was young 
 and let her do it would her voice rise higher 
 than a shocked "Oh! Think shame!" 
 
 Then Elspeth would "think shame" indeed, 
 and with crimson cheeks and tearful eyes would 
 hang her head low. But it always seemed to her 
 as if her mother smiled at her, and even laughed 
 a little in a happy girlish way. For, after all, 
 there was nobody underneath those graves. 
 They were all so very wide awake elsewhere.
 
 46 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Then, still holding her mother's hand, they 
 went over the paths and round the graves till 
 they came to Freddy's. The Dragon would 
 leave Elspeth there, where she knew she liked to 
 play quietly, and go farther on by herself into 
 the older part of the cemetery where some of her 
 own people slept. There she often met friends, 
 and they sat and gossiped together on the flat 
 tombstones, keeping a watchful eye on Elspeth 
 at the same time. 
 
 Freddy's little garden-bed always seemed to 
 lie in a mist of blue. Whether they had been 
 the colour of his eyes, or his favourite flower, I 
 do not know, but his little grave seemed always 
 blue with forget-me-nots. A tiny white monu- 
 ment rose at the head, so small it was little 
 more than a tablet. On it was inscribed in gold 
 letters the words: 
 
 "LITTLE FREDDY 
 
 Aged four." 
 " 'Alas, Master, for it was borrowed.' " 
 
 That quotation was a great mystery to 
 Elspeth. She knew, of course, the story of the 
 prophet and the borrowed axe. She knew. 
 Freddy's father and mother, and brothers and 
 sisters, very well indeed. She knew also a little
 
 WHERE THE RIVER DIVIDES 47 
 
 vacant high chair, where she sometimes sat when 
 she went to his home to tea. She had seen his 
 mother's eyes full of tears as she looked at her 
 sitting in it, for she had been the very same age 
 as Freddy, and their mothers had been close 
 friends. But any thought of the beautiful senti- 
 ment evinced in that text was far from her. To 
 her it was literally an axe, a borrowed axe at 
 that, and what was a little boy like Freddy doing 
 with it? 
 
 Once, when she was sitting in the high chair, 
 she ventured to ask his mother; 
 
 "Did your little Freddy cut himself with an 
 axe?' 
 
 But the mother looked so unmistakably dis- 
 tressed, and answered in such a broken voice; 
 "No, darling, God took him," that she could ask 
 no more. 
 
 Another time she asked the Dragon, changing 
 the form of the question and giving no names. 
 
 "Why did they let a little wee boy have an 
 axe?" 
 
 And the Dragon answered; 
 
 "Axe? They never do let little wee boys have 
 axes, nor little girls either. What do they want 
 with axes, I would like to know!"
 
 So the mystery remained. That was the be- 
 ginning of Elspeth's talking to a phantom Freddy. 
 She sat down by the tiny grave, with its white 
 railings, and its mist of blue forget-me-nots, and 
 in a low tone she asked questions. 
 
 "Why did they give you an axe, Freddy*?" 
 
 "Why was it borrowed 1 ? Hadn't your father 
 got one of his own 4 ?" 
 
 "Did you steal the axe and kill yourself with 
 it?" 
 
 "Were you beheaded like Queen Mary?" 
 
 And then it seemed one day as if Freddy came 
 himself and answered; "I don't know anything 
 about axes, and I don't know why you are always 
 asking me. But I like forget-me-nots, and I want 
 to play with you, and if you'll just run round that 
 grave I'll try and catch you." 
 
 So after that he seemed to play with her every 
 Saturday at least she thought so. And her 
 angel-mother sat on a grave and watched them 
 running about. She would rest her elbow on 
 her knee (as the angel did on the monument), 
 and her wide white sleeve would fall back and 
 show her softly rounded arm, and the afternoon 
 sun, travelling in glory towards the west, would
 
 WHERE THE RIVER DIVIDES 49 
 
 light upon her auburn curls till they shone like 
 burnished copper. 
 
 (They always called her mother's hair "au- 
 burn" and Elspeth's unvarnished "red," although 
 they were exactly the same shade, an injustice 
 which she never could fathom.) 
 
 The hawk-like eye of the Dragon would fix 
 Elspeth now and again, but to her blinded 
 senses she was still sitting silently by the white 
 railings and she saw none of those phantom gam- 
 bols. One day Elspeth so far forgot herself as 
 to laugh out loud, for she thought she had caught 
 Freddy at the foot of John Knox's statue, and it 
 seemed as if even the grave Reformer's stern face 
 had relaxed its expression. But the Dragon 
 turned hastily round with a very withering one on 
 hers. 
 
 Elspeth could have told Freddy's mother. 
 She was so gentle and kind, and had so sweet and 
 motherly an air, that she would like to have 
 slipped her hand into hers and said; 
 
 "Do you know I play with your Freddy when 
 I go to the cemetery on Saturday afternoons'? 
 He wants me to tell you that the forget-me-nots 
 grow by the river where he lives. They are very
 
 50 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 big ones, and there are whole fields of them up to 
 his knees. But he knows nothing at all about 
 axes, and neither do I. That isn't a nice text on 
 his grave." 
 
 But perhaps even Freddy's gentle mother would 
 have said she was dreaming. So blind are 
 grown-ups. 
 
 Then after the Dragon and her friends had 
 gossiped a long while, they would saunter slowly 
 towards her and say it was time to go home. 
 They were mostly married friends who met the 
 Dragon up there, sometimes with a baby or two. 
 But when she took Elspeth's hand to lead her 
 home, the child would invariably say she had not 
 been yet to see Jane, and with her cemetery- 
 acquired amiability the Dragon would reply; 
 
 "Very well, then, go and see Jane's grave, and 
 we will wait for you here, or go slowly on." 
 
 The friend of the day would probably inquire, 
 "Whatna, Jane?" and the tones of the voices 
 would be lowered instantly. 
 
 Elspeth did not want to hear what they said, 
 for they all spoke about Jane in the same tone of 
 shocked awe, and to her Jane's memory was sa- 
 cred. So she walked on by herself to where 
 Jane's lonely grave was.
 
 WHERE THE RIVER DIVIDES 51 
 
 It was right in an angle of an unfinished wall 
 all by itself. A rubbish-heap was on one side 
 of it, dandelions and dock-leaves and other rank 
 weeds grew in luxuriance around it. It was just 
 a low mound, gradually flattening itself to the 
 level of the rubbish on each side of it, as if it did 
 not matter where "Jane" was put. No mark of 
 any kind had been put up on it, but Elspeth could 
 have singled out that spot even if they had built 
 the wall on the top of it. No one passed that 
 way except workmen with barrows, so no one 
 heard what she said when she bent down low, 
 and laid her hand lovingly on the dockens beside 
 that deserted grave. 
 
 "Dear Jane," she whispered softly, "I love youj 
 and I shall never forget you. When I am a 
 woman you shall have lilies-of-the-valley on your 
 grave, and if if you have really gone to that 
 bad place that they say, I will ask my mother 
 if she will go and see you sometimes. Good-bye, 
 dear Jane." 
 
 Then she would walk away again, and go 
 home, lagging as far as possible behind the Dragon 
 and her friends, whom the mere mention of the 
 name of Jane had sent off on a trail of gossip 
 sufficient to last them all the afternoon.
 
 52 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 When they left the cemetery gates behind Els- 
 peth always looked back before they turned the 
 corner, and waved her hand in farewell. And it 
 was a very usual thing to overhear the remark : 
 
 "Wha's she wavin' to 1 ? What a queer bairn." 
 
 "Oh, just some of her fancies," the Dragon 
 would answer. 
 
 But it was no fancy to Elspeth. For her 
 mother was at the gate waving to her, with the 
 light shining on her beautiful hair and the smile 
 in her eyes. And surely it would have hurt her 
 if her child had not waved back.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 
 
 ELSPETH liked them best by far. The la- 
 dies of the nursery were always autocratic, 
 and thought their children so much superior, and 
 the babies squalled so loudly. The noise of a 
 well-filled nursery was distracting to the nervous, 
 solitary child. 
 
 The ladies of the drawing-room were some- 
 times very sweet, like Freddy's mother, but they 
 were apt to be personal and make one feel sadly 
 old-fashioned and self-conscious. 
 
 "Poor little lamb," one would say, "why does 
 Janet dress her like that*?" 
 
 And another would say, kindly enough: 
 
 "My dear child, you really must not use such 
 old-fashioned words. You said this was a 'little 
 conceit.' There isn't such a thing as a 'little con- 
 ceit.' Unless it is yourself," she might add in an 
 undertone. 
 
 One house in particular, the home of a large 
 family, was quite spoilt for her because she al- 
 ways had to spend the whole day there, and din- 
 
 53
 
 54 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 ner was made a perfect misery over the little mat- 
 ter of the holding of a spoon. 
 
 "My dear little girl, can't you hold that spoon 
 properly yet? I have told you so many times. 
 I really must speak to Janet about it. She is 
 getting you into quite servants' ways, and it 
 would so vex your mother, dear. Ladies never 
 hold their spoons like that." 
 
 They always said "dear" when they were un- 
 usually personal, like a sweet after a grey powder. 
 Even the joys of the happy nursery in that house, 
 where a pair of plump, beautiful twins, who sel- 
 dom cried, disported themselves together every 
 evening in a long coffin-shaped bath, hardly con- 
 soled her for the miseries endured at that lady's 
 dinner-table. 
 
 Elspeth's father, a young and rising solicitor, 
 was hard at work in his office all day. Being 
 withal of a very genial and social nature, with a 
 most lovable and attractive disposition and hand- 
 some presence, also an important matter, no 
 doubt a distinctly eligible man, was much 
 sought after in the provincial society of the town, 
 and was seldom at home in the evenings. No 
 doubt the word "home" only spelt the desolation 
 of emptiness for him.
 
 LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 55 
 
 The Dragon also sought occasionally to relieve 
 the tedium of the long winter evenings by visiting 
 her friends, taking her charge with her, and re- 
 ceiving visits from them in return. 
 
 The kitchen ladies were mostly of her own class, 
 respectable upper servants, working housekeepers 
 to single ladies or gentlemen. Sometimes they 
 had servants under them, and then Elspeth and 
 the Dragon sat in state in the housekeeper's room. 
 But that was not much fun for the child. She 
 had albums of faded photographs given her to 
 look at, and if she appeared to be listening to the 
 conversation the voices immediately dropped into 
 stage whispers, often interspersed with spelt words 
 a great insult to a child, one of the incompre- 
 hensible meannesses of a certain class of grown- 
 ups, easily seen through by transparent youthful 
 souls. 
 
 Once Elspeth overheard the Dragon say that 
 she did not consider she was paid high enough 
 wages, so she promptly asked her father next 
 morning, in the Dragon's presence, if he could 
 not give her more. She meant it in kindness, 
 and perhaps just a little to curry favour with 
 her nurse. But anyhow the result was a sad dis-
 
 56 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 appointment. Her father's step had hardly 
 ceased to sound on the pavement as he walked 
 off, laughing, to his office, when the Dragon led 
 her solemnly down the kitchen stairs, and in the 
 solitude of the back regions introduced her to the 
 rod of correction. And, to imprint the incident 
 on her childish memory still further, she was made 
 to repeat, without a mistake, ten times in succes- 
 sion the formula: 
 
 "A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and 
 a rod for the fool's back." 
 
 She was sadly mixed between saddles and bri- 
 dles by the time she was done, and did not know 
 whether the text applied to her, personally, as a 
 horse, an ass, or a fool. But perhaps she was 
 only meant to act as a bridle round the neck of the 
 Dragon. 
 
 After that she was branded as untrustworthy, 
 or, to use the Dragon's own expressive word, as 
 a "tale-pyet," and the whispering and spelling 
 between some of her friends and herself increased 
 in volume. 
 
 There was a mystery attached to one gentle- 
 man's house to which they used to go, and some 
 excitement also. In that housekeeper's room 
 they always sat with bated breath, and talked in
 
 LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 57 
 
 undertones, for fear the "master" should hear 
 them. 
 
 The master, as was understood from snatches 
 of whispered conversation, had in youth experi- 
 enced a disappointment and had become a con- 
 firmed misogynist. 
 
 "Jilted in love," whispered the Dragon; "hates 
 the women like poison." 
 
 All visitors to his establishment, however, male 
 as well as female, were strictly forbidden. Els- 
 peth and the Dragon skulked in by a side gate 
 labelled "Servants" in the dusk, walking softly 
 on the grass beside the path, slinking under the 
 shadows of the trees, till they reached a side en- 
 try, where the stout and portly housekeeper, with 
 her finger on her lip to enforce silence, always ad- 
 mitted them with her own fair hand. 
 
 The master was an old man now, but glimpses 
 of him seen through the chinks of closed Venetian 
 blinds were not reassuring. With a black silk 
 skull-cap on his head, and his hands clasped firmly 
 behind his back, he paced backwards and forwards 
 on a paved path laid down for him on the lawn 
 so that he could not get his feet damp, under 
 the light of the moon. He was said to write 
 books on learned and abstruse subjects, and he
 
 58 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 could often be heard muttering their contents to 
 himself. Altogether, he was uncanny, and Els- 
 peth sat very still on a little stool behind the door 
 in that housekeeper's room, listening in dread for a 
 shuffling step coming along the passage. 
 
 There were compensations, however, in the way 
 of kittens, and she was sitting one evening with 
 four very new blind ones tucked beneath a little 
 tartan shawl pinned round her (for there were 
 draughts behind the door), when, after having 
 had many false alarms, she really did hear the 
 shuffling step close by. The hostess and the 
 Dragon had their heads close together talking 
 across a small table, when the door opened sud- 
 denly, and there stood the master ! 
 
 He was not so fearsome close at hand. His 
 eyes were small, and black, and twinkling under 
 his beetling brows, but they were mild and even 
 kind in expression. The servants both stood up 
 hastily in evident fear and trembling, however. 
 Elspeth also stood up, dropping kittens in every 
 direction, and made a little old-fashioned curtsey, 
 as the Dragon had taught her to do to her su- 
 periors. 
 
 "Who is this?" said the master, and his tones 
 were very stern.
 
 LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 59 
 
 The housekeeper hurriedly explained. 
 
 "Oh, sir, this is Mr. Hugh Arnot's Janet, and 
 his little girl. YOU know Mr. Hugh Arnot, sir, 
 and young Mrs. Hugh, you remember." 
 
 The master looked at the child with a kindly 
 smile. 
 
 "I remember," he said gently. "So this is 
 the motherless babe. Come with me, my dear. 
 I have apples in my study, and dates," and he 
 held out his hand. 
 
 Janet hurriedly dashed forward to unpin the 
 tartan shawl and give a hasty stroke to the child's 
 untidy head. But the master ignored her. She 
 had broken his rules. So had Elspeth, but he 
 evidently did not blame her. 
 
 There was nothing terrible about the master 
 in his study. He was gentleness itself. His 
 kindly eyes beamed as he planted her on a hassock 
 by the fire, and peeled an apple for her with a 
 dainty silver knife and fork. He asked her many 
 questions about her father and grandfather, and 
 the shyness fell away from her lonely little soul 
 like a mask. Then he asked a direct personal 
 question. 
 
 "And is your nurse kind to you*?" he asked, 
 and with quick eye noticed the hesitation in the
 
 60 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 affirmative reply. When at last the apples and 
 dates were finished he told her it was time to 
 go home, and, as she rose demurely, he rested 
 his wrinkled hand a moment on her curls and gave 
 her his benediction. 
 
 "May the Lord bless you and keep you, little 
 one. Remember, the God of the fatherless is also 
 the God of the motherless." 
 
 And the child went away feeling solemnised, 
 as if she had been at church. The master had 
 been so much nicer than the minister, who always 
 asked her questions out of the Catechism with 
 some sternness, and that, together with the Drag- 
 on's angry eye fixed on her, made her completely 
 forget the answers, although she knew them quite 
 well. She never saw the master nor his house- 
 keeper again, for he died soon after. 
 
 But of all the ladies of the kitchen, Jane Kidd 
 was the flower, a perfect Princess Royal amongst 
 housekeepers. She lived in the large house which 
 faced down the square where Elspeth lived. It 
 was a bright, sunny, square-built house and had 
 echoed to the sound of merry young voices in its 
 day. Now it was silent, and stood pathetically 
 in its loneliness and detachedness. The sons of 
 the house had all been military. Now it might
 
 LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 61 
 
 almost have been called a relic of the Crimea and 
 the Indian Mutiny. There were many such deso- 
 lated homes in Scotland in those days. 
 
 Old Major Kidd walked in and out for many 
 a day afterwards, his military stride unchanged 
 the cavalry stride, with feet well apart to keep 
 the spurs which were no longer there from en- 
 tanglement but with bent shoulders, and 
 broken heart, after the awful news came from 
 India. 
 
 Miss Margaret, his only surviving child, lay 
 always in a quiet back bedroom, overlooking the 
 garden, after the fall of Sebastopol, paralysed 
 through shock, with all her fair hopes shattered in 
 her gentle breast. When the guns were firing, 
 and bonfires were blazing all over the country over 
 the news of victory, at the conclusion of the Cri- 
 mean War, Miss Margaret had been sobbing her 
 heart out in the kitchen, with her head resting on 
 her faithful servant's shoulder. 
 
 But bad as the Russian news was it had been 
 easier to bear than the other. Of the Indian 
 massacre, father and daughter never spoke. It 
 was known throughout the town that the gallant 
 Captain, the Major's last, and youngest, son had 
 been blown from native guns, and the angel over
 
 62 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 the well of Cawnpore watches to this day over his 
 young wife and her little ones. 
 
 The aged Major gradually grew frailer. His 
 military stride became more shuffling. He 
 dragged his feet instead of a sword, and his face 
 remained grim and set until the day when he fell 
 calmly asleep in his easy-chair, never to wake on 
 earth again. 
 
 It was in the years after his death that Elspeth 
 and the Dragon visited Jane in the kitchen. The 
 family then consisted only of the two solitary 
 women, a one-legged soldier, Jeremiah Kidd (all 
 were called by the name of the lady of the house 
 in Elspeth' s mind) who looked after the garden 
 and could tell endless tales of the Crimean War 
 and of Scutari, where he had been nursed back to 
 life by the Lady of the Lamp and her devoted 
 band of Sisters. It was known that he had been 
 Captain Moore's (Miss Margaret's lover's) body- 
 servant, and that it was he who had brought home 
 that gallant officer's sword, which hung always on 
 the wall opposite her bed. 
 
 There was also Garibaldi Kidd, a huge, fero- 
 cious-looking mastiff, who lived in a kennel out- 
 side and protected the family. It was a military 
 household altogether.
 
 LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 63 
 
 Jane was a plump, sunny-faced, brown-eyed 
 woman in her prime. She had high spirits and 
 was no respecter of persons, for she slapped the 
 Dragon heartily on the shoulder, and danced 
 round her with a merry "Slap, bang ! Here we are 
 again," for a greeting, when she saw her two prim 
 visitors demurely coming round to the back en- 
 trance on alternate Wednesday evenings, and ran 
 out to meet them. The Dragon, mind you! 
 But even she laughed and said, "Ye daft lassie," 
 and looked as if she rather enjoyed it. Every- 
 body knew Jane's merry, happy ways. 
 
 The next performance was to produce samples 
 of her skill from the oven for their refreshment. 
 Such dainty turn-overs, with the apples simmer- 
 ing and hissing in their own juice, asking to be 
 eaten! Such delicate little plum cakes! Such 
 triumphs of culinary art in the way of puff- 
 pastry heroes, with military coats and buttons, 
 and currant eyes, and strips of lemon-peel for 
 swords! To be nibbled nay, mutilated 
 daintily, cannibal fashion. 
 
 After the favoured visitors' appetites had thus 
 been gently tickled, and the Dragon had disbursed 
 herself of the most important items of her fort- 
 nightly budget of news, the fun began.
 
 64 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "You just spoil her," said the Dragon on every 
 occasion. "She can play by herself quite well. 
 She has to play at home. I never play with her. 
 Give her your work-basket, and she'll sit still and 
 make up stories with the bobbins and be quite 
 happy." 
 
 But Jane's answer was always the same. 
 
 "No," she said, with decision, "poor bairn. 
 While she's here in my kitchen she shall have 
 her fun. Miss Margaret likes to hear her laugh." 
 
 So then the fun began, and Jane's versatile 
 genius shone. I have already said she was a 
 Princess Royal amongst kitchen ladies. Voices 
 rose from different parts of the basement, mys- 
 terious, shrill, sibilant, gruff, for Jane was a born 
 ventriloquist of no mean order. The deep growl- 
 ing voice of Angus McNab, the big, fat town bell- 
 man, called down the chimney in imperative 
 tones. 
 
 "I want that little girl you've got there with 
 you. She's good for eating, she is, with those 
 cheeks like ripe apples, and those rosy lips." 
 
 Then there were loud shrieks, and Jane's indig- 
 nant voice replying: 
 
 "Indeed, then, and you won't have her." 
 
 And they raced away together, tumbling over
 
 LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 65 
 
 each other in their haste to escape from the greedy 
 bell-man. 
 
 Willie Windy whistled in his blustery fashion 
 through the keyhole of the back door. 
 
 "Where's my little wine? the little girl with 
 the auburn curls'?" (Ah, Jane, Jane! You 
 knew the weakness and pandered to juvenile van- 
 ity.) "I want to carry her off to the back of 
 the North Wind. He's my brother. It is cold 
 there without a wife." 
 
 "You are the North Wind yourself, aren't 
 you?" Jane would question. 
 
 And the Wind would whistle angrily. 
 
 "Who says I am the North Wind? How dare 
 you? I'm not. I blow from the south, where 
 the oranges " 
 
 "You! Oranges!" Jane would retort, "with 
 the snow coming slithering through the keyhole 
 while you speak. You shall not have my wee 
 lassie for a wife." 
 
 Then the Wind would go "Whew " along 
 
 the stone passages, and become so boisterous that 
 once or twice Miss Margaret's bell rang to know 
 if there was a hurricane downstairs. 
 
 Sometimes she would send down for the 
 Dragon and Elspeth to go and see her, and then
 
 66 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 the child would sit very still on the bed watch- 
 ing the bright-faced lady who was bed-ridden 
 with great interest, but returning as soon as possi- 
 ble to the entertainment below stairs. 
 
 Jane could dance the Highland Fling well. 
 Kilting up her skirts would do the sword-dance 
 with great neatness and dexterity, and her twin- 
 kling, well-shod feet would jink in and out be- 
 tween the broomsticks, which took the place of 
 swords, like the best Highlander of them all. 
 So well would she dance, leaving no little turn, or 
 swirl of skirt, undone, that even the grave Drag- 
 on's expression would relax, and, forgetting the 
 Covenanters and her ancestors, she would clap 
 her hands at sight of the dances of her native land 
 so well done, and remark dryly: 
 
 "You would take the prize for dancing at the 
 Highland Games, Jean. You just need a kilt." 
 
 Then there were scones and fresh butter for 
 supper, and milk with thick cream on the top of 
 it, and the visitors would depart well-pleased 
 with their evening's entertainment. Even the 
 Dragon was amiable for a day or two afterwards. 
 
 It was on the morning of one of those red- 
 letter alternate Wednesdays (the others were 
 black, being reserved for the administration of
 
 LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 67 
 
 castor oil and whippings) that Auntie Rosie, the 
 charwoman, came running, at full speed down 
 the square for the Dragon. And she, without 
 stopping to take off her morning-cap, ran off with 
 her without a single word of explanation, leaving 
 Elspeth with her face pressed against the dining- 
 room window-pane vainly trying to see what was 
 the matter. 
 
 It was a very quiet square in the residential 
 part of the town, inhabited chiefly by profes- 
 sional men, and there was no traffic to speak of. 
 Elspeth waited patiently by the window. The 
 minutes passed into the half -hour, which struck, 
 then the hour, and still no Dragon. 
 
 Then a quick firm step came round the corner. 
 There was a cry of delight, and the lonely child 
 was half-way down the front steps, and in her 
 father's arms, in less time than it takes to write 
 it. Breathlessly she told him of Janet's sudden 
 and long disappearance, the words tumbling over 
 each other in her haste. Then her father said ; 
 
 "Well, I'm going out into the country at twelve 
 o'clock. The gig is coming for me. I want some 
 sandwiches to take with me, so we'll have to 
 make them ourselves as best we can. Something 
 has happened up the square, evidently. Come
 
 68 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 along down to the pantry with me and see if you 
 can help." 
 
 Together they rummaged in the pantry, and 
 clumsily constructed sandwiches were wrapped in 
 paper before the gig drove up to the door. At 
 the same moment the Dragon returned. Her eyes 
 were red with weeping. 
 
 "Oh, sir, I am very sorry," she said, "for run- 
 ning off like that, but Jane found Miss Margaret 
 dead in her bed this morning and they sent down 
 for me. No one can do anything with Jane, she 
 is like a mad creature, and they are afraid 
 she'll " 
 
 Here the rest of the conversation was con- 
 tinued in an undertone. 
 
 "Well," said Elspeth's father aloud at last. 
 "I'll take the child with me, and you can go up 
 and stay with Jane to-day. I shall not be home 
 till the evening. Run, dearie, and get on your 
 coat and hat quickly, for I am late." 
 
 So perched up beside her father in the high 
 gig, muffled up in her mother's furs, Elspeth 
 drove off with her father in style, and they were 
 soon bowling along the fast-bound roads into the 
 country. 
 
 From that day Jane disappeared.
 
 LADIES OF THE KITCHEN 69 
 
 The shrouded house at the top of the square 
 bore the usual evidences of bereavement, and in 
 due time Miss Margaret's funeral wended its way 
 to the cemetery, amidst every token of respect and 
 sorrow on the part of her neighbours and friends. 
 
 But of Jane, with the merry heart and the 
 snod, dancing feet, there was never more any 
 sign. She had vanished out of the life of the 
 square as completely as if she had never been.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE WATERS 
 
 AUNTIE ROSIE was a useful and homely 
 personage, who went out to her daily la- 
 bour of washing and charing in the early morn- 
 ing, and returned in the evening to her humble 
 little home on the banks of the river. Past the 
 windows of her cottage the great river rushed on 
 its way to the sea, swirling, black, deep, gaining 
 in ever-increasing velocity as it narrowed to force 
 itself under the wide arches of the railway-bridge, 
 which spanned it here. It was not the smoothly 
 flowing silver stream that it was a mile or two 
 higher up. Since then it had gathered three trib- 
 utaries on its broad bosom, and together they were 
 all racing to the sea. Down at Auntie Rosie's 
 the river was fascinating by reason of being terri- 
 ble, especially to Elspeth, on those rare visits to 
 the cottage which she paid when the Dragon 
 wished to engage its occupant for extra work. 
 She could have stood for hours, had she been per- 
 mitted, watching the black, angry, seething vol- 
 
 70
 
 THE SECRET OF THE WATERS 71 
 
 umes of water, the swirling eddies, and the 
 creamy froth round the arches of the bridge. 
 But the Dragon generally pounced on her and 
 dragged her away. 
 
 "It will draw you in," said the Dragon. That 
 is what fascinating things do, it seems. 
 
 Auntie Rosie herself was a fat, jolly-looking 
 woman given to much talk and laughter. Her 
 laugh was fat and gurgling. Folds of super- 
 fluous flesh shook in all directions with suppressed 
 merriment whenever she laughed. Her life was 
 sad, but to look at her you would have thought 
 this game of daily washing and charing, with a 
 lazy, drunken husband who drank all her earn- 
 ings, was the best joke going. She was rather 
 deaf, and, like most deaf people, was given to 
 talking in a very loud voice. She never needed 
 to wait for an answer, for if one were not forth- 
 coming she immediately supplied the deficiency 
 herself. The strange thing about her was that 
 she seemed to be everybody's aunt. Indeed it was 
 probable she was Elspeth's as well as the rest, 
 for when she went to the house in the square 
 every fortnight she always greeted the child 
 thus: 
 
 "And how is the little Missy to-day?"
 
 72 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 And Elspeth replied gravely, as she had been 
 taught ; 
 
 "I am quite well, I thank you, Auntie Rosie." 
 
 And no one had ever checked her for doing so. 
 
 It was from Auntie Rosie's conversation, ad- 
 dressed to the Dragon, that Elspeth gathered her 
 first clue to the mystery of Jane's disappearance. 
 
 It was on the Tuesday following Miss Mar- 
 garet's death. Auntie Rosie was established in 
 the little wash-house in the yard at the back of 
 Elspeth's home, in an atmosphere of steam and 
 soap-suds, from whence her rubicund countenance, 
 rising like the full moon through a mist, beamed 
 on all the trades people who came to the back 
 door, while at the same time she carried on a 
 desultory conversation with the Dragon during her 
 intermittent visits to the kitchen. 
 
 The Dragon had asked some question, which 
 Elspeth, hovering about the back, did not hear, 
 but she heard the answer. 
 
 "No," Auntie Rosie replied, "no a sign o't, and 
 been in the watter since last Thursday. It was 
 me that saw the shawl and bunnet, ye ken, lyin' 
 by the side o' the watter. 
 
 " 'Rin, rin,' sez I tae Tam, 'there's somebody 
 fa' in in.'
 
 THE SECRET OF THE WATERS 73 
 
 "Til rin nane,' sez Tarn; 'ye' re daft, ye can 
 gang yersel'. I'm no' gaun tae be mixed up wi' 
 the poliss.' 
 
 "So I gaed mysel', and there was the fine new 
 black m'urnin' shawl and bunnet, but no' a buddy 
 was tae be seen. Hech ! little did I think it was 
 Jean. Bonnie Jeanie, we aye ca'ed her. My! 
 but she could dance. I saw the Hielanders dan- 
 cin' aince at the Hieland Games, but they didna 
 dance ony better than Jean no near sae weel, 
 I'm thinkin'." 
 
 And then the Dragon's eyes fell on Elspeth, 
 listening with round eyes and mouth wide open, 
 and she was told to run away and play directly. 
 But she had heard, and when they went up to 
 the cemetery on the following Saturday, she asked 
 the Dragon point-blank; 
 
 "Is Jane dead?" and was answered, "Yes," 
 with a sharp snap of the lips. 
 
 Elspeth's throat was parched and her voice 
 choking, as she whispered her next request. 
 "I want to see her grave, please." 
 But the Dragon replied more sharply still : 
 "She has no grave. She is not buried." 
 No grave! Not buried! What did that 
 mean 1 ? She dared not ask any more, but in se-
 
 74 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 cret she wept bitterly for Jane, her true friend, 
 the gay Princess of the Dance. 
 
 As it was Auntie Rosie who supplied the first 
 clue to Jane's disappearance, so some weeks later 
 it was she who supplemented it. 
 
 There was mystery in the air that morning. 
 Elspeth was sent upstairs to play, and told to 
 shut the door at the top of the landing, as usual 
 when Auntie Rosie was there, for, as I have said, 
 she was deaf and her voice penetrated far. 
 
 And here let me digress for a moment to say 
 that to play alone was no hardship to Elspeth, 
 and the meaning of the word "loneliness," as we 
 understand it, she did not know, at least so far as 
 play was concerned. With the whole house to 
 wander over and fresh fields for imagination in 
 every room, she needed no companionship, even 
 dolls were often quite superfluous. So, when she 
 was shut out from the kitchen and its denizens, 
 she was wont to wander into the drawing-room 
 and people it with creations of her own. 
 
 It was a large pleasant room with three win- 
 dows in it, and the Dragon kept it spotlessly 
 neat. With the sentiment of her race she left 
 everything untouched, as it had been during the 
 young wife's short reign in her kingdom. Music
 
 THE SECRET OF THE WATERS 75 
 
 still lay piled on the piano, wedding-presents 
 ornaments and paintings for the most part deco- 
 rated the room. By the large chintz-covered 
 sofa stood a rosewood work-table, just as its 
 owner had left it that night when she left the 
 room never to return. 
 
 It was the child's custom to sit down on the 
 sofa and receive imaginary visitors. After some 
 conventional conversation with them to begin 
 with, she would open the work-table, and, taking 
 out the piece of work left lying within it, would 
 put on the small gold thimble and pretend to 
 sew. It was an exquisite piece of needlework 
 the unfinished top of a little baby's frock and 
 the needle and cotton were still left in it. As she 
 sewed or rather, pretended to she took her vis- 
 itors into her confidence. 
 
 "Yes," she would say, "this is for my own 
 little baby who is coming to me soon. I have 
 finished the christening robe and the plainer 
 frocks, this is only for second best." 
 ; "How do I know I have a little baby coming 
 to me? Why, the angels whispered it to me. 
 Do you know how wee babies are made? I do. 
 God just takes a pinch of dust and blows on it, 
 and it comes down to earth like that. They are
 
 76 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 just made of dust and God's breath. It is not 
 true that they are found in cabbages. I have 
 looked for them often in the Laird's garden and 
 there were none there. There were only caterpil- 
 lars, and they turn into butterflies, so they couldn't 
 be babies. 
 
 "No, I don't want a little boy. I want a little 
 girl that I can teach to sew little wee stitches like 
 these. And I want her to have auburn curls, and 
 they may be carroty if they like, but never, never 
 shall people dare to call them red while I am 
 there. I'll stick up for her, poor wee thing. 
 
 "Yes, perhaps the little baby may come to- 
 night. I don't know when 'zactly, the angels 
 didn't say, they like to surprise people. But I 
 have got the basket all ready for it such a funny 
 one. Why do babies need such funny baskets, I 
 wonder*? It is in the next room. Would you 
 like to come and see it 1 ?" 
 
 Then they would walk, the phantom-guests and 
 the solitary child, into the spare-room. A sad 
 and shrouded room, with the mystery of life be- 
 stowed, and life taken away, hanging about it al- 
 ways. And in the wardrobe, she would show 
 these invisible ones the baby's basket with its soft 
 muslin coverings, carefully washed and ironed by
 
 THE SECRET OF THE WATERS 77 
 
 the methodical Dragon every year. And she 
 would open the bottom drawer. 
 
 Ah, that bottom drawer ! 
 
 There lay, under folds of silk paper, a girlish 
 wedding-gown of white silk, a veil of tulle, a 
 chaplet of orange-blossoms, a dainty lace hand- 
 kerchief, and a pair of satin shoes, hardly pressed 
 by the slim feet on that one time of bridal wear- 
 ing. While beside them all lay the baby's chris- 
 tening robe that dearly bought little baby a 
 vision of purity and exquisite embroidery. 
 
 I do not think any morbid feelings ever came 
 over Elspeth as she gazed in that drawer, as she 
 often did, smoothing the silken frock with her 
 fingers, replacing the silk paper again, and closing 
 it very softly, as the Dragon closed the gates in 
 the cemetery. Her mother's spirit was always so 
 very near her, hovering, watching, a guardian 
 angel over her little child. 
 
 Very beautifully and touchingly, out of his 
 own great love for his mother, does Mr. Barrie 
 picture the spirit of the mother, dying at the 
 birth of her child, coming in the night to look 
 in the drawers at her little one's under-garments 
 to see if it had warm enough clothing to wear. 
 
 But Elspeth's mother did much more for her
 
 78 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 than that. She lived ever beside her. The 
 whole house seemed full of her. Something of 
 hers was still lying in every room, her music, 
 her work, her paintings, as if she had only gone 
 out of sight for a very little while into some other 
 room, and had left the door unlatched for her 
 loved ones to follow. 
 
 When Elspeth was naughty and pranced in 
 tempers over the Dragon's whippings, the sight 
 of a patch of blue sky would quiet her directly. 
 They were her mother's eyes (which had been 
 blue) looking down at her naughty little girl, 
 and heart-broken sobs and tears would follow. 
 The terror of her childhood was that when she 
 reached Heaven she would be found to be one 
 of those foolish virgins who had no oil in their 
 lamps, and that the gates would be shut in her 
 face and the terrible words "Too late, too late," 
 be pronounced against her for her childish mis- 
 deeds. 
 
 When she had gently closed the bottom drawer 
 Elspeth would return again to the drawing-room, 
 and, as she had been told her mother had done on 
 the last evening she had spent in that room, offer 
 to sing to her visitors. 
 
 "Shall it be The Blue Bells of Scotland'?" she
 
 THE SECRET OF THE WATERS 79 
 
 would ask politely, and on apparently receiving 
 an answer in the affirmative she would sing, sit- 
 ting at the piano. 
 
 The Dragon might, at the sound of the sing- 
 ing wafted below-stairs, come up with a sharp 
 material question. 
 
 "Have you got a newspaper on the piano now 
 not to mark the polish with your fingers'?" 
 
 Yes, there would be a newspaper carefully 
 spread over the closed piano, for it was always 
 kept locked. The piano was a sacred instrument. 
 Elspeth would not be likely to forget to protect 
 it with a newspaper. The Dragon would then go 
 away downstairs again and leave the child to 
 her songs, and a bird-like little treble voice would 
 warble through the silent house, singing about 
 blue-bells or a hundred pipers. 
 
 But the games were not always those of senti- 
 ment and imagination. Often they were very 
 noisy, even martial in type, as when volleys of 
 musketry were fired (a thick mahogany ruler rat- 
 tling down the bannisters), or when, in the box- 
 room, a mask and foil belonging to her father 
 did good execution against the unseen foes. 
 
 On the day when Elspeth heard the solution 
 of the mystery of Jane's disappearance, she was sit-
 
 80 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 ting in her father's dressing-room in his bath, 
 to be exact. The handle of the shower was in 
 her hand, the chintz curtains lined with water- 
 proof were closely drawn around her. It was a 
 realistic performance, which had already on two 
 separate occasions gone too far, for by accident 
 she had pulled the shower down and had been 
 drenched from head to foot, in her clothes, the 
 cold water and the Dragon's wrath deluging her 
 simultaneously. But it was all the more fascin- 
 ating on that account. She was sitting now in 
 the empty bath, imagining the shock and shudder 
 of the cold water coming down on her head, 
 when she was arrested by the sound of Auntie 
 Rosie's loud voice, floating through the open win- 
 dow from the yard at the back, in conversation 
 with the Dragon in the kitchen. 
 
 "The corp' was an awfu' sicht," shouted Auntie 
 Rosie cheerfully, her tones somewhat muffled by 
 the corner of a sheet, which she held in her strong 
 teeth, while she dexterously swished it round her 
 tub preparatory to wringing it. "Losh ! if I was 
 gaun tae tak' my life I wadna droon mysel'. A 
 buddy looks awfu'." 
 
 Auntie Rosie laughed her fat laugh. "Hech 
 hech hech !" and every fold and crease of su-
 
 THE SECRET OF THE WATERS 81 
 
 perfluous flesh crinkled with laughter. Not that 
 she was unfeeling. It was only her way of ex- 
 pressing her emotion. Where tears take one, 
 laughter takes another. 
 
 "What wonder, after a month*?" said the 
 Dragon quietly, from the kitchen. 
 
 "Ay, what wonder? They wad niver hae got 
 her if she hadna stuck on ane o' the piers o' the 
 auld brig. She had tied muckle stanes roond her 
 goun tae keep herseP doun. They saw her at low 
 watter. The river's extra dry this week. They 
 say there's a neap tide, though what the watter 
 has to dae wi' neeps at this time o' the year I 
 dinna ken. They're a' howkit up in the gairdens 
 lang syne." 
 
 The Dragon replied to this in a murmur quite 
 inaudible to the listener upstairs, but Auntie 
 Rosie's response was loud and cheerful. 
 
 "Oh, they wad niver hae kent it was Jean. 
 She wasna like a human buddy ava', if it hadna 
 been for the bit brooch at her neck. Ye mind"? 
 It had Miss Marget's hair ae side and her photo- 
 graph the ither." 
 
 Elspeth got out of the bath, white and trem- 
 bling in every limb. Never had the proverb 
 anent "little pitchers" been better illustrated.
 
 The wonder was she did not pull the shower 
 down in her terror and agitation. But before 
 she ran away to hide under the drawing-room 
 sofa her usual place of retreat in times of great 
 tragedy she could not help hearing the rest, as 
 she stood for a moment transfixed with horror. 
 
 "Ay, they're buryin' her the day. Takin' her 
 up back streets no' tae hae a croud aif ter her. She 
 was awfu' weel likit was Jean. I dinna ken 
 whaur they'll pit her. I didna hear. They 
 canna pit her hi the kirkyaird amang ither dacent 
 fowk, and they canna hae ony prayers ower her." 
 
 No prayers! No proper grave in the church- 
 yard ! Jane, her Jane of the merry heart, could 
 have no prayers said over her, and was not good 
 enough to lie beside the rest of the departed, who 
 had shaken off their burden of mortality in the 
 usual fashion! 
 
 Elspeth's blood boiled with indignation. It 
 boils still when she thinks of it. 
 
 Ah, it is well that the gates of Heaven are 
 wide, for the ways of men are often very narrow. 
 And for that poor unhinged mind, and heart 
 broken with the strength of its great love and de- 
 votion to an earthly mistress, there may have been
 
 THE SECRET OF THE WATERS 83 
 
 tender mercy shown even at the threshold of that 
 other life. Who knows? 
 
 Elspeth, child as she was, could not have put 
 her indignant feelings into words if she had tried. 
 But it was not long till, by dint of much worrying 
 of the Dragon in the cemetery (after seeing her 
 in deep and solemn converse with the grave-dig- 
 ger), she discovered the nameless mound by the 
 rubbish heap and prayed her defiant, heterodox 
 prayers beside it.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 
 
 A SABBATH peace lies over my garden. 
 The very bees seem to hum more softly 
 in its stillness. 
 
 In the distance I hear the musical chimes of 
 the Church of St. Bertram's playing a hymn- 
 tune. The tinkling bell of St. Cuthbert's floats 
 down from the promontory at the end of the 
 cliffs. The invitation of St. Mary's, Star-of-the- 
 Sea, rings far out over the furled sails of the fish- 
 ing smacks and yachts, snugly tucked away for 
 their day's rest in the harbour. It is a day of 
 rest and solemn things. 
 
 The call to worship here in the south is soft, 
 inviting, even caressing. Things were different 
 in that old grey town where Elspeth lived in the 
 days of her childhood. The loud "cling, clang," 
 of the bell of the Doctor of Thunders' church was 
 peremptory, depressing, commanding. You dis- 
 obeyed that sound at your peril. Peril of the 
 Doctor's pulpit denunciations, peril of the soul in 
 the world to come.
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 85 
 
 But to Elspeth herself the Sabbaths began 
 softly too, in those days. In a feathery corner 
 of her father's big bed, shrouded by soft curtains 
 of delicate grey and green, cuddled up warm and 
 close in his loving arms, she and her father had 
 been exchanging confidences since quite early in 
 the morning, and talking and laughing over the 
 doings of the week. 
 
 She was conveyed thither on Saturday nights, 
 fresh from the bath and the Dragon's scrubbing, 
 delicately perfumed with wholesome Brown 
 Windsor, with the tangles of her still only half- 
 dry curls neatly encased in a net of white tape, 
 which stayed on exactly five minutes by the clock 
 and had to be hunted for at the foot of the bed 
 in the morning. She had gone to sleep early by 
 the cheerful flicker of her father's bedroom fire, 
 or the twinkle of innumerable stars shining in at 
 his window, to wake and find him beside her. 
 For try as hard as she could she never managed 
 to keep awake till he came. It was the one weekly 
 treat of those two lonely ones, the one and only 
 opportunity they had of learning to know each 
 other better, and so of getting a little more closely 
 to the heart of things. 
 
 There is something infinitely pathetic in the
 
 86 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 efforts of a widowed man to take the part of both 
 parents to a little child. A widowed mother's 
 task is hard indeed, God knows! but the 
 widower's, to my mind, is harder still. For a 
 true woman has a sense of intuition into a child's 
 mind which a man does not possess. He can 
 only put forth clumsy efforts where a woman has 
 her natural instincts to guide her. And espe- 
 cially hard must it be for him when the child is a 
 girl. Her nature is an unknown world to a man 
 with no wife to guide him through its in- 
 tricate mazes. The enigma and mystery of 
 womanhood is there, the woman's soul in embryo, 
 and who can understand it? The depths of a 
 woman's soul who can fathom? And as the 
 twig is bent so is the tree inclined. 
 
 In the case of Elspeth's father, who had no 
 womankind whatever belonging to him, and 
 whose young wife had only been with him one 
 short year, it was unusually hard. His endeav- 
 ours to draw out this woman-child of his, to try 
 and discover what lay underneath that apparently 
 transparent, dimpled, pink-and-white little piece 
 of humanity, were very tender, but a little awk- 
 ward. She was so new and strange to him. His
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 87 
 
 heart a loving and sympathetic heart ached 
 often for some help in the matter. 
 
 She had, naturally, no such feelings. If she 
 woke first in the morning she promptly roused 
 him by kissing him. First on the smooth patch 
 of cheek which lay above his dark moustache. 
 Next on his nose, and then on the dimple in the 
 middle of his smoothly shaven chin. If these 
 blandishments failed, she sat on his chest and 
 rode a violent gallop on it. And that never 
 failed to wake him and make him call out; 
 
 "Come, come, now. You little monkey !" 
 
 In her earliest days the Sunday morning's com- 
 panionship had consisted in Elspeth's climbing 
 up the Ben Nevis of his knees, raised up in a high 
 heap under the bedclothes, and riding-a-cock- 
 horse on the top of them, then falling off in a 
 tumbled mass, this performance being many 
 times repeated. The laughter and shrieks of the 
 pair would reach down to the kitchen, where the 
 Dragon, engaged in frying sausages for her own 
 breakfast, would stop and shake her head in 
 strong disapproval. 
 
 "To think of them! On the Sabbath too! 
 He ought to think shame," she would say. And, 
 with an extra shake of the frying pan to prevent
 
 88 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 the sausages from burning, she would repeat in 
 solemn tones her morning orisons : 
 
 "Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it 
 holy." 
 
 But perhaps the merry laughter of a happy 
 babe and her tender, widowed father was no 
 more displeasing to the Author and Framer of the 
 commandment, the loving Father of all, than the 
 Dragon's frying of Sabbatarian sausages. 
 
 As Elspeth grew older her pleasures were more 
 demure. She was her father's little companion 
 and comforter his sweetheart, as he often told 
 her and she sat bolt upright in the crook of 
 his arm and blinked, owl-like, in wisdom and 
 sagacity, as he told her of his doings throughout 
 the week. Where he had been on Friday when 
 he was away all day; with whom he had supped 
 on Thursday night; what he had seen in the 
 Court House; and then sometimes he would 
 forget she was there, and continue a forensic 
 argument with some legal opponent. He had to 
 be drawn sharply back to attention when that 
 happened. His talk was no doubt much beyond 
 her. He was a clever, highly-cultured man, and 
 the small child's mind was wholly a puzzle to 
 him. But they were both very happy in their
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 89 
 
 own way, as happy as was possible in the circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Elspeth had not many confidences to impart 
 to him in return. Her dolls' escapades would 
 hardly interest him. Her life was dull and 
 monotonous outwardly, and inwardly was full of 
 highly-coloured imaginings of which she was not 
 even quite sure he would approve. Perhaps if 
 she had tried she would have found more sympa- 
 thy and understanding from him than she ex- 
 pected in that direction. But that she did not 
 know. So she looked wise and listened to him, 
 telling him only of prim walks with the Dragon, 
 of an occasional tea-party, or a visit to the Park 
 to see a Review. 
 
 He invented a mysterious language code for 
 their private use. It was somewhat confusing, 
 each word ending in "buss," and the conclusion 
 of a sentence being marked by "jig." It sounded 
 weird, to the Dragon it seemed positively hea- 
 thenish. There was much laughing over each 
 other's mistakes. 
 
 They talked together on many subjects, foolish 
 and the reverse, but on one, as if by a tacit 
 understanding between them, they never spoke. 
 It was ignored as if it had no existence, although
 
 9 o A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 the rattle of cups and saucers in the kitchen was 
 a constant reminder of its actuality. 
 
 That subject was the Dragon herself. For, 
 if the truth must be told, she ruled the father 
 every bit as much as she ruled the child, and he 
 was quite as much afraid of her. 
 
 Only once had Elspeth, in a gush of infantile 
 confidence, told him of an unjust whipping which 
 had been given her, and he was so angry, and 
 spoke so sternly to the Dragon, that his little 
 daughter hardly knew him, so great was the trans- 
 formation in him. He would have been sur- 
 prised had he seen what happened afterwards, 
 and how severe was the second punishment meted 
 out to the teller of tales, and the texts which 
 Elspeth learned in- the coal-cellar that day. 
 
 "He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth 
 secrets. . . ." 
 
 "Whoso keepeth his mouth and tongue keepeth 
 his soul from troubles." 
 
 It was completely effectual too, and the texts 
 were imprinted so indelibly on her memory as to 
 check her from ever telling her father about her 
 punishments again. 
 
 At half-past eight the Dragon's hard knuckles
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 91 
 
 rapped sharply on the door, and her voice, always 
 more sour on Sundays, announced ; 
 
 "Your shaving water, sir. And I am ready for 
 Elspeth." 
 
 Half an hour later the child, clothed in her 
 Sunday silk (for the frugal Dragon was having 
 her mother's gowns made down to her a little bit 
 at a time) was seated by her father's side at the 
 breakfast-table. No common porridge to be 
 eaten to-day; only delicious ham and eggs, 
 sausages or Findon haddocks, or other Sabbath 
 dainties. The place at the head of the table was 
 always significantly left vacant, and the father 
 moved quickly between his own duties at the 
 foot and the lady's at the head. 
 
 There was not much time for conversation. 
 The Dragon was the veriest hustler on Sundays, 
 and, being single-handed below-stairs, had a great 
 rush to get her work done in time to start for 
 church, she attending a distant one of much more 
 severe doctrine than the Doctor of Thunders'. 
 But the morning's hurry was soon over, and, after 
 prayers, Elspeth and her father might have been 
 seen walking leisurely to church together hand in 
 hand, she trying to keep step with his long
 
 92 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 stride, holding on proudly to a blue velvet Tes- 
 tament with golden clasps the Laird's present to 
 her. 
 
 The church they attended was a large one and 
 very crowded. The Doctor of Thunders' was a 
 famous man and great orator. Elspeth and her 
 father sat in the front seat of the gallery facing 
 him. And here Elspeth's seventh day ordeal 
 began. 
 
 It was not the sitting still through a long 
 service, though that was hard enough. It was 
 not the wearisome long prayers, when the grown- 
 ups had to stand upright listening to the Doctor's 
 eloquent perorations to the Almighty till their 
 legs were stiff, and they had to "change their 
 feet" as silently as possible for fear of disturbing 
 him. For then she was allowed to disappear 
 under the book-board and sit on a little wooden 
 footstool, where, I am sorry to say she played 
 with her gloves and made up stories on her 
 fingers, so that the time passed pleasantly and 
 swiftly. Nor was it the singing of the Psalms, 
 for she loved music and joined her childish treble 
 to her father's rich, musical voice long before she 
 could read, singing "The Lord is my Shepherd," 
 to every tune which the percenter showed from
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 93 
 
 his little platform. But it was the sermon. 
 
 The Doctor's sermons were learned and pro- 
 found. They needed the whole attention of his 
 cultered hearers, and, naturally, rumbled over the 
 heads of the ignorant and illiterate. They had 
 caused him deep and profound study, and much 
 burning of midnight oil, and as he preached with- 
 out a single note he expected to be listened to 
 in the most reverent silence. He was, moreover, 
 a man of a highly nervous temperament and 
 could not bear interruptions. You could have 
 heard a pin drop during his pauses, while he 
 looked round on his large and influential con- 
 gregation. His deep voice alone must be heard 
 in their midst. The rustle of his stiff silk 
 gown as he pulled it closer over his shoulders, 
 after reading his text slowly and impressively 
 twice, was the signal for a death-like stillness 
 throughout the whole church. 
 
 And that also was the signal for Elspeth's 
 misery to begin. With the last word of the 
 Doctor's text something began tickling in her 
 throat every Sunday. It was a veritable device 
 of the Evil One, to make her miserable and dis- 
 turb everybody around her. She fought against 
 it, she struggled, she prayed. It was no use. It
 
 94 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 was there. Something that wriggled, and irri- 
 tated, and tickled, like a little worm. 
 
 "Ahem!" coughed Elspeth softly, as soon as 
 the sermon began, and her father looked at her 
 gravely. With the effort to suppress it it grew 
 worse, and, after one or two more abortive 
 "Ahems," there was a terrific blurt which 
 sounded like an explosion. In vain she sucked 
 three peppermints which the Dragon gave her 
 always in her pocket before she left home. 
 They quieted her for the time, but three pepper- 
 mints, however carefully eked out by the slowest 
 sucking, do not last seventy-five minutes, the 
 time-limit of the Doctor's weekly sermon. Her 
 father took her hand and gave it a little shake, 
 and looked at her sternly. He was cross, and 
 the tears rushed into her eyes. He thought she 
 was making it up, because once he had taken her 
 out to finish it in the passage, and she got home 
 nice and early in consequence. 
 
 "Did I hear Elspeth coughing again upstairs 
 to-day?" asked her grandfather, as they met 
 him coming out of church, after the service, at the 
 main door. 
 
 "You did," responded her father gravely. 
 
 "Has she got a cold?" asked grandfather
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 95 
 
 anxiously. She was his only grandchild, the 
 daughter of his only child, and the very apple of 
 his eye. "Linseed tea, I have heard, is a very 
 good thing for coughs." 
 
 "She has no cold," said her father grimly. 
 "It is her usual Sunday cough which seizes her 
 every Sunday morning during the sermon. It 
 is got up expressly for the Doctor's benefit and 
 to aggravate me, I think. You will notice she 
 has none now." 
 
 And then her kind grandfather, too, looked 
 sternly at her. 
 
 "The Doctor does not like coughs," said he 
 significantly. He was an Elder and knew. 
 
 That was just it. The Doctor did not like 
 coughs. He had been known to stop suddenly 
 in the midst of his sermon, more than once, to 
 order the cougher of coughs in peremptory tones 
 to leave his church. On Baptismal Sundays it 
 was quite a usual thing for him to stop suddenly 
 in his final address to the parents to say; 
 
 "Take that child out," to the mother of an 
 unfortunate, yelling infant. To see indignant, 
 crimson, monthly-nurses, or pale, trembling, 
 gentle-faced mothers retiring, covered with 
 shame, to the vestry, carrying babes struggling
 
 96 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 with baptismal finery, and infantile rage at the 
 Doctor's rough "slushing" of cold water on their 
 faces, was quite a familiar sight. Many a time 
 had Elspeth watched them go out, her own heart 
 standing still at the sight, and she herself lived 
 in constant terror of seeing the Doctor fixing her 
 father with his eagle eye and saying; 
 
 "Take that child out." 
 
 Visions of herself in the eyes of the decorous, 
 well-dressed congregation stumbling she would 
 be certain to stumble up the wooden steps from 
 that terribly conspicuous front seat, haunted her 
 dreams at nights. Hence the Sunday forenoon 
 cough. But in those days the word "nerves" 
 would not have been permitted. One was not 
 supposed to possess such unruly things. For a 
 child to have a nervous cough would have been 
 looked upon as supremely ridiculous. Like the 
 megrims, not to be tolerated for one moment. 
 
 During the hurried walk home after the service, 
 and still hastier snatching of a cold collation 
 the Doctor having encroached on the time be- 
 tween the "diets" of worship, thereby curtailing 
 the diet of the physical man by the rich food he 
 distributed for the mind the cough vanished as 
 if by magic. Nor did it return in the afternoon.
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 97 
 
 For the afternoon service, shorter and calmer than 
 its predecessor, gave weary morning listeners time 
 to indulge in siestas. Then the Doctor. himself, 
 being old, and unequal to sustain the effort of 
 conducting two long services, sat in the front seat 
 downstairs next the pulpit, and listened to his 
 assistant, a mild and short-sighted young man of 
 serene aspect, unfolding more tranquil doctrines. 
 The aged and the very young slumbered undis- 
 guisedly. Elspeth flattened her beaver or Leg- 
 horn hat, according to the season of the year, 
 against her father's encircling arms, and slept com- 
 fortably. He himself started with such suspi- 
 cious alertness, at the conclusion of the sermon, 
 that one could almost have sworn he had been 
 sleeping too, although when Elspeth accused him 
 of it once he only said, "Hush, hush," in shocked 
 tones. 
 
 The walk home in the afternoon was very 
 pleasant. There was now no hurry, and much 
 shaking of hands and conversing with friends took 
 place, the genial young widower being a general 
 favourite with every one. Many kind ladies 
 spinsters and the reverse would have even 
 managed his house for him had he permitted 
 them.
 
 98 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Cheerful smells of cooking assailed their 
 olfactory nerves as he and his child entered their 
 own home again, for the Dragon had dashed out 
 of her church the moment the minister had 
 finished his sermon, and had run home most of 
 the way on purpose to cook for them. Half an 
 hour later saw them seated together again, smiling 
 and hungry, disposing of tea and hot meat patties, 
 or steak, or other viands, what in Scottish par- 
 lance is called a "tea-dinner." The Dragon 
 waited on them in her stiff Sabbath gown of 
 black silk, with embroidered muslin collar fas- 
 tened with a gold cameo brooch at the neck. She 
 would pause a moment perhaps, ere she closed 
 the door to retire, and remark; 
 
 "Mr. Morrison gave us a splendid sermon, to- 
 day, sir." 
 
 There was always some jealousy in her mind 
 about the famous and eloquent Doctor. 
 
 "Did he*?" asked her master, in the indifferent 
 tone of one who was hungry and preferred to get 
 on with the business in hand. "Would you like 
 two pieces of sugar, or three, Elspeth *?" 
 
 "Two, please," said Elspeth demurely, the 
 Dragon having fixed her with her eye. 
 
 "We had five heads and a finally," continued
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 99 
 
 the privileged housekeeper, turning the handle 
 of the door round in her hand. 
 
 "What you would call a hydra-headed ser- 
 mon," said her master, smiling genially, display- 
 ing a faultless row of white teeth under his 
 moustache. 
 
 "Sir?" queried the Dragon in astonishment. 
 
 "I said hydra-headed. That means many- 
 headed. Rather too many heads, don't you 
 think?" 
 
 "Not too many for me, sir," said the Dragon 
 severely. 
 
 "Ah!" said her master helping himself to an- 
 other patty. The Dragon's cooking was good, 
 and her pastry was light and flaky as a feather. 
 
 "I could sit all day listening to Mr. Morrison 
 expounding the sacred Scriptures," commented 
 she. 
 
 "Ah, well, Janet, you are fonder of long ser- 
 mons than I am," said her master. "The Doctor's 
 seventy-five minutes are just about sixty too long 
 for me. Will you pass the mustard, please, 
 Elspeth?" 
 
 "The Doctor!" snorted the Dragon with con- 
 tempt, as she closed the door, with herself out- 
 side it, feeling herself dismissed. She slammed
 
 ioo A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 the one at the top of the kitchen stairs, and de- 
 scended to the lower regions to air her grievances 
 to the widowed sister who always spent Sunday 
 evenings with her. 
 
 "A lukewarm Christian that's what the 
 master is," she said. "Goes to church and says 
 the sermon is an hour too long for him. What 
 could he get out of a quarter of an hour's sermon 
 like the Episcopate? A lukewarm Christian. 
 Neither hot nor cold. And God said, 'I 
 will ' " 
 
 Here she paused over the rude word, for she 
 was particular in her speech, and had lived with 
 educated and refined people always. Then she 
 continued with emphasis: 
 
 " 'I will spue them out of my mouth.' ' 
 
 "Oh, wheesht, wheesht!" ejaculated her 
 gentler sister in horror. "He's a gude master 
 to you, Janet. We canna judge other folks. 
 And that was a bad, low word you said. Our 
 mother would never let us use that word even 
 when we were bairns." 
 
 "It's in the Bible," snapped Janet. "And he 
 is a lukewarm Christian, that's all he is. He 
 dances and plays cards nearly every night in the 
 week, and goes walks on Sabbath evenings, when
 
 A DAY OF SOLEMN THINGS 101 
 
 he might be Superintendent of the Doctor's 
 Sabbath School. Not that it is much of a school. 
 I would rather be a doorkeeper" (her sister was 
 one) "in Mr. Morrison's Church than the leader 
 of the choir in the Doctor's, or the Superintendent 
 of the Sabbath School either." 
 
 And then they fell to discussing the heads of 
 Mr. Morrison's sermon in the tone of professional 
 critics.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A LITTLE SACRAMENT 
 
 ON dull, or stormy, or wet Sunday evenings, 
 when Elspeth and her father stayed at 
 home to keep house, she sat on her own little 
 chair by the sofa after tea, toiling over the learn- 
 ing of her Psalm, the Dragon helping her with 
 the long words as she cleared away the tea-things. 
 Her father was in the habit then of slipping 
 away upstairs. Very early in Elspeth's life had 
 she begun to listen for him going into the draw- 
 ing-room overhead after tea on Sunday evenings. 
 She knew exactly what he did there. He strode 
 across the room first, and pulled up the Venetian 
 blinds of all its three windows. Then he 
 paused, with the lace curtains held back in his 
 hand, and looked out into the square. Quiet as 
 the square always was, it was doubly so on Sun- 
 days, when there was not even the cheerful 
 whistle of an errand-boy, or the rattle of a milk 
 cart, to enliven it. 
 
 Then he walked over to the mantelpiece and 
 
 102
 
 A LITTLE SACRAMENT 103 
 
 pretended he was playing with the candelabra on 
 it. You could hear the tinkling of its crystal 
 prisms downstairs. But Elspeth knew very well 
 he was only shamming. In reality he was look- 
 ing at a pair of small, hand-painted pictures in 
 rose-wood frames, representations of birds of 
 Paradise standing on branches of olive, specimens 
 of the delicate art of that womanhood which has 
 now passed away, except in old-fashioned and 
 out-of-the-way corners. Then he went over and 
 looked at another pair of pictures on the opposite 
 side of the room. These were paintings of fruit, 
 clusters of grapes, brilliant-hued apples, and 
 plums with the bloom on them. And then at two 
 more, flowers this time, roses, wallflowers and 
 forget-me-nots. 
 
 Then he took a bunch of keys out of his pocket, 
 and, unlocking the piano, passed his white hand- 
 kerchief once or twice lightly over the keys. 
 Then he walked backwards and forwards a few 
 times, and stopped at last before a large steel 
 engraving of Turner's Venice. He and his bride 
 had passed their honeymoon in Italy, and had 
 glided so he told Elspeth up and down those 
 very lagoons in gondolas. He showed her the
 
 104 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 motion on his knee sometimes and hummed 
 snatches of the gondoliers' songs to her. 
 
 And lastly, he opened the rose-wood work- 
 table, and touched, as tenderly as Elspeth her- 
 self, with his big, masculine fingers, the baby's 
 little unfinished frock. He then closed the table 
 rather hurriedly, and began pacing up and down 
 the room again, talking to himself. It was from 
 him Elspeth had learnt that habit. 
 
 Meantime the Dragon and her sister started 
 off for their Sunday School, going out at the front 
 door, the back being locked. Lonely Elspeth 
 stood at the dining-room window watching them 
 go. The widow smiled kindly at her. The 
 Dragon nodded her head a great many times, a 
 pantomimic gesture which meant as plainly as 
 words could say, "Sit down and learn 
 your Psalm this very minute." 
 
 Her father, drawn to the window again by 
 the slamming of the dopr, smiled under his 
 moustache at the antics, then hastily dropped the 
 curtain and drew back when he saw the women 
 looking up. 
 
 Elspeth, sighing wearily, returned to her chair, 
 and toil of Psalm-learning, and the reasons an- 
 nexed to the Fourth Commandment.
 
 A LITTLE SACRAMENT 105 
 
 "Oh, dear me," she said. "Why couldn't 
 King David make the Esalms easier to 
 learn? 
 
 'Kiss ye the Son lest in his ire 
 Ye perish from the way.' 
 
 What is his 'ire,' and why am I to kiss him?" she 
 questioned, but there was no one to answer. 
 She droned over the Psalm after the manner of 
 the unlearned, repeating it in a sing-song style 
 like the Dragon, rocking her body backwards and 
 forwards in a seesaw-like motion to keep time to 
 the rhythm. 
 
 Upstairs, she heard her father come out of the 
 drawing-room and walk into the shrouded spare- 
 room, and close the door behind him. She had 
 never found out what he did in that room on 
 those quiet evenings. He never pulled up the 
 blinds there, nor did he walk about and talk to 
 himself. He never opened the wardrobe, nor the 
 bottom drawer, for both of them creaked loudly 
 and she would have recognised the sound directly. 
 From the time he went into that gloomy room till 
 he came out, some ten or fifteen minutes later, 
 there was absolute silence in the house. 
 
 Once, feeling very eerie downstairs with the
 
 106 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 darkness gathering apace, Elspeth crept up to 
 the outside of the door and waited for him, 
 leaning against it. She heard him then speaking 
 softly within. His voice sounded low down, 
 near the door, as if he might be kneeling by the 
 bed. He was not speaking in the tone he used 
 when he walked about talking to himself. His 
 voice was very reverent and pleading, as if he 
 talked to Someone Who listened. It was as the 
 tender tone of a child asking its Father for help. 
 And Elspeth went quietly away again and 
 wondered if he could be praying. She never in- 
 truded after that, but always waited patiently 
 till she heard him once more pacing up and down 
 the long drawing-room. 
 
 She watched Leerie-light-the-lamps running 
 first up one side of the square, and then down 
 the other, with his ladder and his long magic 
 wand with the gas-jet in it. How swiftly he ran 
 up the ladder, and how quickly he vanished out 
 of sight altogether, leaving all the lamps shim- 
 mering behind him. One just outside their own 
 gate cast a glow on Elspeth's wistful little face. 
 Then she slipped away upstairs to the drawing- 
 room to her father, and said; 
 
 "Please, father, I am lonely, and it is dark
 
 A LITTLE SACRAMENT 107 
 
 downstairs. Leerie has lit all the lamps, and I 
 know my Psalm." 
 
 Then her father would hold out a loving hand. 
 
 "Poor little daughter. Did father forget you 
 then? Come and walk with him up and down 
 this long room." 
 
 So then they walked up and down together, 
 she holding his arm and taking mighty strides 
 with her short legs to keep in step with him. 
 They did not talk much. The man's thoughts 
 were far away, and I do not pretend to know 
 what they were after that little visit to the 
 shrouded room. But I do know Elspeth's, and 
 I know that they were very much on the subject 
 of clothes. 
 
 For although it may be very nice to walk in silk 
 attire, and Elspeth was often vain enough to put 
 her hands under her best lace- trimmed, muslin 
 pinafore and smooth down her silken Sabbath 
 frock, she had a certain sense that it was hardly 
 appropriate wear for her. Other little girls of 
 her own age, those -mothered little girls that she 
 came across in the nurseries of her parents' 
 friends, wore cottons and muslins in summer, 
 even on Sundays, and merinos or winceys in 
 winter. None of them wore silk, although some
 
 io8 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 of their parents were quite rich, much richer than 
 hers. They looked admiringly at her when she 
 wore her best frocks to their houses to tea, and 
 touched its shimmering surface with envious 
 fingers. While Elspeth, with a choking sob in 
 her throat, explained hastily; 
 
 "It is my own mother's frock made down to 
 me." 
 
 It was an act of vandalism in her eyes. 
 There was sacrilege in the very thought of it. 
 
 So now she imagined, as she walked beside her 
 father, that she was dressed in simple cottons and 
 woollens like other children, and that on this other 
 side there walked the slender, graceful figure to 
 whom the silk gowns had originally belonged. 
 
 There was a bonnet in the band-box in the 
 spare-room wardrobe, a simple, girlish affair of 
 white rice straw, trimmed with white tulle and 
 little bunches of myrtle, with sprays of white 
 heather tucked under the brim for good luck. 
 
 "Her going-away bonnet," the Dragon had ex- 
 plained when asked. 
 
 So Elspeth, in fancy, retrimmed that bonnet 
 and put it on the head of the imaginary figure. 
 If she herself wore a blue silk dress she took it 
 off, figuratively speaking, and put it on her phan-
 
 A LITTLE SACRAMENT 109 
 
 torn mother, and the bonnet she retrimmed with 
 nodding blue-bells, or cornflowers, such as grew 
 in the Laird's fields in autumn. 
 
 If she wore a lilac silk herself, then the bonnet 
 had heartsease or pansies in it. And if she wore 
 her grey, thickly-lined winter silk, then the figure 
 wore grey, and had chinchilla furs (which had 
 also been cut up and made down by sacrilegious 
 fingers) round her throat, and a black velvet 
 polka and round velvet turban on her head, such 
 as also hung in the wardrobe. 
 
 Strange fantastic thoughts of a lonely child! 
 Were they stranger than the father's, I wonder, 
 far away in a brown study, occasionally speaking 
 to himself in low, confidential tones? 
 
 The clock striking seven in the hall, and the 
 blackness of the gathering night, brought them 
 at last back to mundane affairs again. 
 
 "We must go down now," said the father, "or 
 the dining-room fire will be out, and Janet will 
 scold us both when she comes in." 
 
 The fire generally was out, or nearly so, and 
 hand in hand they explored the kitchen cupboards 
 for wood, and paper, and bellows. They lit it 
 again together, Elspeth poking the wood with her 
 fingers and her father sitting on a hassock with his
 
 no A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 long legs crossed, bellows in hand, blowing hard 
 to make a blaze. 
 
 When the Reverend Ebenezer Morrison, on his 
 ministerial calls on the Dragon twice a year, after 
 inquiring about her own spiritual state, put the 
 question (he had a bad memory so he generally 
 put the same question) : 
 
 "And this family you serve with? Are they 
 decided Christians like yourself?" 
 
 The Dragon would answer modestly : 
 
 "There is only my master and his little mother- 
 less girl. And I try to do my duty by the little 
 girl, sir." 
 
 Mr. Morrison would then say suavely: 
 
 "I am sure you do, Janet. I am sure you do. 
 But your master, what of him?" 
 
 Janet would then purse up her lips and reply, 
 after a pause: 
 
 "My master, sir, is a member of the fashionable 
 
 Dr. Z 's church. He is a regular attendant 
 
 and communicant there. But " she would 
 
 add, shaking her head slowly and sadly, "he is 
 not a 'professor.' " 
 
 Then Mr. Morrison would say "Ah!" very 
 gravely, and smooth his black kid gloves care- 
 fully before he shook hands with her. He said
 
 A LITTLE SACRAMENT .111 
 
 "Ah!" again as he reached the gate. That ex- 
 plained the fine editions of Shakespeare, and 
 "Don Quixote," and other ungodly books which 
 he had seen in the book-case. But by the time 
 he had reached the bottom of the square he had 
 forgotten all about the little household. Such 
 was the fine quality of his absent mind. 
 
 Not being a "professor" therefore, it never 
 occurred to Elspeth's father that he should have 
 been hearing his child repeat the shorter Cate- 
 chism, and her badly learnt Psalm, but when the 
 fire was blazing merrily, and the bellows had been 
 put away, he brought down the large Bible from 
 its place in the book-case and laid it on the table. 
 His own views were so broad and liberal that 
 even the little childish mind, blank as yet as a 
 sheet of clean paper, he would leave at liberty 
 to form its own views unbiassed, and to drink 
 them in only from that well of religion undefiled, 
 the Bible. He would have been rather aston- 
 ished at the result sometimes, could he have read 
 her thoughts. 
 
 Then they read a chapter together, Elspeth 
 stumbling over the verses from a very early age. 
 It was generally in the Psalms, and no comments 
 were made. There is a grand roll about the
 
 112 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Psalms and they have not very many long words. 
 They make a splendid reading-book for a child. 
 It was John Wesley, I think, whose first reading- 
 book was the Book of Proverbs. The Psalms 
 were the child, Elspeth's. And if the stem 
 Dragon trained her in the way she should go, 
 according to King Solomon's rules as laid down 
 in the Proverbs, and the silver-haired Laird 
 opened the Book of Nature, and showed her all 
 the Manuscripts of God unrolled for even such 
 an infant student to read, it was her father who 
 taught her the art of reading itself out of the 
 Book of Psalms. And when his fine voice rolled 
 over the "Selah," when it came at the end of the 
 verses, Elspeth's childish treble rolled in imita- 
 tion, although she had not the remotest idea what 
 it meant. 
 
 That Bible, too, was an education in itself. It 
 was so large and heavy that even the Dragon 
 could not move it. It was bound in exquisite 
 calf. It had gold edges, and on its fly-leaf was 
 written in firm, characteristic handwriting: 
 
 "Present to Mr and Mrs Hugh Arnot, on the 
 auspicious occasion of their marriage, by their affec- 
 tionate friend and pastor."
 
 A LITTLE SACRAMENT 113 
 
 Here followed the Doctor's distinguished 
 name a name well known in Scottish ecclesias- 
 tical history and unnecessary to be put down here. 
 
 Never had the Doctor of Thunders' fine 
 cultured taste shown itself more than in his choice 
 of this costly and beautiful wedding-present. 
 The large pictures in it, of which there were 
 many, were exquisite reproductions of the works 
 of the Great Masters. Elspeth spent hours 
 poring over them, weeping tears of sympathy 
 over the Massacre of the Innocents, and thrilled 
 with awe over Daniel in the Lions' Den. 
 
 There was a Family Register between the Old 
 and New Testaments, with a space for births, 
 marriages, and deaths. That space was empty. 
 All round it were artistic drawings of the seven 
 ages of man. From the infant in the cradle to 
 the youth bringing home his bride, and the aged 
 couple passing, after many years, into the grave 
 together, emerging on the other side radiant with 
 the beauty of eternal youth. On that page 
 Elspeth loved to linger. To family life of 
 all sorts the solitary child's heart was drawn. 
 But her father always turned it over hastily, as 
 if he did not wish to see it. 
 
 "Why are there no names here*?" she asked
 
 114 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 every time, and he evaded a reply. Or else, if 
 she were very persistent, answered; 
 
 "Because there are so few of us." 
 
 "There are you and me," argued Elspeth. 
 
 Then he would get up and walk about. 
 
 When she was tired of gazing at it and think- 
 ing how nice her full name, Elspeth Grant 
 Arnot, would have looked there, she slipped up to 
 him with a whispered request. 
 
 "Not to-night, darling," he replied. 
 
 "Please" she insisted. 
 
 "You had it only a Sunday or two ago." 
 
 "It is five Sundays," said Elspeth, pouting. 
 "I've been at grandpa's three Sunday evenings 
 running, and the one before that Janet had a bad 
 cold and was at home. It is five Sundays." 
 
 But he shook his head. Then Elspeth tried 
 blandishments, and began to pull his hand to- 
 wards the sideboard. She told him that he was 
 the dearest, darlingest father that ever a little 
 girl had, and she loved him more than she could 
 tell. The whole world was not big enough to 
 hold her love, it was just bushels full. 
 
 He smiled at that, but still he shook his head. 
 
 Then Elspeth tried tears. She screwed a few 
 far-fetched ones out into her diminutive pocket-
 
 A LITTLE SACRAMENT 115 
 
 handkerchief, and, after watching to see the effect, 
 gave a little smothered sob. That was very 
 effectual. Her father could not stand tears, 
 much less the sobs which were now following in 
 quick succession. 
 
 He closed the big Bible quickly and moved it 
 to the foot of the table, and walked over to the 
 sideboard of his own accord, jingling the keys in 
 his trousers' pocket as he went. 
 
 Elspeth dried her tears and watched him 
 surreptitiously behind the handkerchief. 
 
 Her father took a table-napkin out of the side- 
 board drawer and spread it smoothly at the top 
 of the table. Then he unlocked the middle com- 
 partment of the sideboard, and drew out with 
 great care the ornamental top of a wedding-cake. 
 It stood on a silvered pedestal, and round it there 
 ran sprays of white heather (that false emblem 
 of good luck!), and from the sugared vase which 
 it upheld there fell sprays of white honeysuckle, 
 and jasmine, and orange-blossoms. 
 
 "It is a very beautiful wedding-cake, father," 
 Elspeth said, coming over to him now, and slip- 
 ping her hand in his. She knew the value of 
 such little caresses. 
 
 "This was only the top of it," he replied. "It
 
 ii6 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 had three tiers, each one bigger than the one be- 
 neath. That is how it is there is still some left." 
 
 He brought out a square biscuit-tin from the 
 interior of the sideboard as he spoke, and tenderly 
 lifted a large piece of wedding-cake out of it on 
 to the lid. Then, with a silver fruit knife out 
 of the drawer, he cut two small and delicate 
 squares of almond-icing, sugar-icing, and rich 
 cake, and laid them on the table-napkin. 
 
 By this time Elspeth had clambered on to his 
 knee, and his arm went round her lovingly as 
 they nibbled their cake together. 
 
 "I think wedding-cake is the most beautifullest 
 thing in the whole world," said she. 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 "Not every little girl gets the chance of eating 
 her own mother's wedding-cake. Does she, 
 father?" 
 
 "Not every little girl." 
 
 "It is like taking the sacrament, isn't it, 
 father?" asked Elspeth, who had once watched 
 with deep interest the administration of that holy 
 ordinance from her seat in the gallery, and had 
 been deeply impressed with her grandfather's 
 solemn, white neck-tied appearance. 
 
 "Perhaps it is just a little," her father replied
 
 A LITTLE SACRAMENT 117 
 
 slowly. He was always strangely quiet on those 
 occasions. 
 
 Did the spirit of the young wife and mother 
 draw near, I wonder, and watch the two lonely 
 ones that she had left behind eating her wedding- 
 cake in remembrance 4 ? Who knows"? Per- 
 haps she did. 
 
 "Grandpapa says I'm not a bit like my 
 mother," chattered Elspeth. "He says she never 
 had a whipping in all her life. Fancy that, 
 father! He says he slapped her hand just once, 
 and he remembers that slap always, for he found 
 out afterwards she hadn't done the thing he 
 slapped her for, and it had nearly broken her heart. 
 She was different to me. I am not good like her. 
 Do you think I mightn't have another piece of 
 cake now*? Just a wee bittie*?" 
 
 But her father said "No, no," and drew her 
 very close to him. Then he kissed her and set 
 her down. 
 
 The little pieces of cake were finished now, and 
 after that they ate up all the precious crumbs, and 
 put everything away very carefully and tidily. 
 There was still time left, before the Dragon came 
 home, for father and child to rest a little together 
 on the sofa, and so end that day of solemn and
 
 ii8 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 beautiful things as they had begun it, in each 
 other's arms. 
 
 And when the Dragon came in at last she 
 hustled Elspeth off to bed, and hustled her master 
 to the supper which she quickly set for him, and 
 brought them both right away down to the com- 
 monplaces of daily life again by the sheer force of 
 her personality. And it may be it was just as 
 well they had some one so severely practical to 
 manage them both.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 
 
 GRANDFATHER, the Elder, lived some 
 little distance away, in a house on one of 
 the terraces, with a little strip of garden in front 
 where old-fashioned flowers bloomed in their sea- 
 son. Blue periwinkles climbed up the railings. 
 A bed of lilies-of-the-valley lay beneath. A 
 moss-rose occupied the place of honour in the 
 round bed, edged with box, in the middle, and 
 dusty miller auriculas, purple primroses, and 
 white rockets made the air sweet all round. 
 
 He also was a widower with a housekeeper, 
 but an even more lonely one than his son-in-law, 
 for he was absolutely alone in the world. He 
 had married late, and none of the children bom 
 to him had survived their infancy, except Elspeth's 
 mother, the youngest of them all. His wife died 
 early. Thus a father and daughter had been all 
 the world to each other in the former generation 
 also. When his daughter married for he had 
 
 not been so selfish as to wish to keep her always 
 
 119
 
 120 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 with him although he was very lonely, yet he 
 had been happy in seeing her happiness, and be- 
 tween her husband and himself there existed a 
 strong attachment. The two houses were not so 
 very far apart but that the young wife could run 
 in to see him every day, to cheer him with her 
 bright sunny ways and still look after his house 
 as much as was possible. 
 
 .When she died, one short year later, the old 
 man's heart, shaken as it was by so many previous 
 griefs, seemed for a time quite broken. Indeed 
 his mind almost seemed to be a little unhinged. 
 As he came back from his son-in-law's house on 
 that dreadful night when she left them, he knelt 
 down by his desolate hearth and prayed aloud in 
 Gaelic, which was the language of his youth, and 
 in which he had more fluency of expression. 
 
 "O God," he prayed; "thou hast taken away 
 the mother, the light of my eyes. Take away 
 now, we pray Thee, the child also. We do not 
 want it. We are two men all alone. I am too 
 old, and its father knows nothing at all about 
 bairns, and what can two men-folk do with an in- 
 fant of days? A woman-child, too. We cannot 
 manage a woman-child, we who have no women- 
 folk of our own to help us. Take it away to its
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 121 
 
 mother, we beseech Thee. And we will thank 
 Thee and bless Thee for Thy goodness all our 
 days." 
 
 They said also that he had prayed something 
 in Gaelic by his daughter's bedside as she lay 
 dying, and that she had opened her eyes suddenly 
 and looked at him, although they had thought 
 her unconscious, and had said in quite a clear, 
 distinct voice, "No. The baby will comfort you 
 all." But no one understood what he had been 
 saying except herself, and they were the last words 
 she spoke. 
 
 However that may be, the old man's prayers 
 were not answered. The woman-child, that un- 
 desired infant of days, flourished exceedingly. 
 
 When her nurse brought her the first time to 
 see him, a mass of dainty cambric and lace, with 
 the white silk hood on the little round head tied 
 with black ribbon, in token of the babe's mourn- 
 ing, the newly made grandfather turned away his 
 head and said simply, "I do not wish to see her at 
 all." 
 
 When people asked the old man very tenderly 
 after his infant granddaughter, he replied; 
 
 "I do not know. She is the child of desola- 
 tion. The desolation of two homes."
 
 122 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 And at last he desired the nurse not to bring 
 her to see him any more, for he could not bear it. 
 
 "Look after her. Be kind to her, and I'll add 
 something handsome to your wages, my good 
 woman. But don't bring her here any more to 
 see me," was what he said. 
 
 "What shall we call her?" asked her young 
 father, one evening when it was getting time for 
 her to be christened, as he sat with his head be- 
 tween his hands staring stonily in front of him. 
 
 "Not her mother's name," answered the grand- 
 father sharply. 
 
 But he made no objection to her grandmother's 
 quaint, old-fashioned name being bestowed upon 
 her. That long-passed grief had healed. It was 
 the agony of the new, gaping wound which for a 
 time almost unstrung his mind. And he went 
 himself to support her father during the trying 
 Baptismal Service. The two broken men were a 
 pathetic sight in the Doctor's church that day. 
 
 It was the Doctor himself who at length took 
 his Elder to task about the child. 
 
 "You are acting wrongly," said the Doctor, 
 and the fine voice which thundered in the pulpit 
 was tender and soft in the house of mourning. 
 "You are acting wrongly. God has taken away
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 123 
 
 your sweet daughter, whom you trained to be a 
 bright and shining light, to His Higher Service 
 in the flower of her youth. And He has sent 
 you this child, her child, instead, as a token of 
 His love, and to show you that He did not mean 
 you to be left utterly desolate. I, myself, have 
 lost six sons and daughters " 
 
 "But you have six left," interrupted the Elder. 
 
 "I have. But that does not mean that I have 
 not known deep sorrow and bereavement in losing 
 the six who have gone before me. I have not 
 lost my one ewe-lamb as you have, but I know 
 your feelings. I know, I understand, and my 
 heart beats in sympathy with you. But I still 
 say to you that you are acting wrongly, and that 
 it is rebellion on your part, rebellion, pure and 
 simple, to the Will of God." 
 
 His words struck home. Grandfather thought 
 it well over, and came to the conclusion that the 
 Doctor was right and that perhaps it was rebel- 
 lion. He had said "her child" too, and that went 
 straight to grandfather's broken heart and touched 
 the parental chords there. Her child, therefore 
 his too. 
 
 So when the nurse timidly passed his house 
 with the baby next time, he tapped on the window
 
 124 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 for her to come in, and gravely put a stick of 
 barley-sugar in the tiny hand, which promptly 
 dropped it. 
 
 "Never mind, sir," said the nurse consolingly; 
 "she'll take it soon. She takes a lot of notice 
 now, bless her, and she'll soon know when grand- 
 papa gives her barley sugar. Won't you, my 
 Iambic?" 
 
 He did not refuse to see her any more after 
 that. But he could not bring himself to touch 
 her for many a long day. 
 
 As she grew older, she seemed to know in- 
 stinctively that his attitude towards her was dif- 
 ferent to her father's, and, woman-like, she deter- 
 mined to conquer him. The eternal feminine in 
 her awoke early. Her first tottering steps were 
 exhibited proudly to him. Her first lisping 
 words were heard by him rather than by her de- 
 voted father. 
 
 Then, as if to make up for the time when he 
 could not bear to look at her, the grave, somewhat 
 stern, old man became her willing captive, and 
 as months passed into years she wielded the sceptre 
 of the despot over him, while he bore his chains 
 of slavery with submission, and even, if the truth 
 must be told, with secret satisfaction over her
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 125 
 
 strength of character. It was perhaps some con- 
 solation to him that, except for the colour of her 
 hair, she bore no resemblance whatever to her 
 mother either in appearance or disposition. 
 
 "I am quite happy about her," said the Dragon 
 to her sister, on her way to her Sunday School on 
 fine Sunday evenings, when her lukewarm master, 
 having betaken himself to the country for a con- 
 templative walk with Nature to return perhaps 
 with the first spring violets tucked in his pocket- 
 book for his little girl, or a jaunty wild-rose in his 
 button-hole as she left Elspeth, in passing, at 
 her grandfather's door. "I am quite happy about 
 her when I know she is with her grandfather. He 
 'would not be the Doctor's Senior Elder if he was 
 not very strict, for the Doctor is very parteecular 
 about his Elders. I knew a man once who tried 
 to get taken on in his church as a deacon, but the 
 Doctor catechised him with such a vengeance that 
 he withdrew. And if he did that with a deacon, 
 whatever kind of a stiff questioning would it be 
 for Elders'?" 
 
 She turned round as she spoke to wave her 
 hand to Elspeth, who was now meekly standing 
 at the door waiting for admittance. 
 
 "He will hear her say her Catechism and her
 
 126 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Psalm, and will see that she sits quiet with her 
 hands folded for the rest of the evening, while 
 he gives her an exhortation," continued the 
 Dragon. "An Elder is just as good as a minister 
 at the preaching sometimes." 
 
 Would he? 
 
 The Elspeth who walked so primly up the snow- 
 white steps in the Dragon's sight, and stood so 
 meekly waiting at the door, was not the same as 
 the one who bounded into her grandfather's par- 
 lour a few moments later, and dashing off her hat 
 and coat on the sofa, waited, her face wreathed 
 in smiles, for what was to follow. 
 
 "Oh, come now, come," said her grandfather, 
 "that's not a nice girl. You must come and say 
 'How do you do*?' to me, politely." 
 
 "I saw you at the plate this morning," said 
 Elspeth, in the familiar tone of one talking to a 
 contemporary. "It was your turn. And I said 
 'How do you do?' to you as I went past." 
 
 "Ah, yes, but you must say it again. That 
 was only a polite greeting in passing." 
 
 So Elspeth rose and shook hands with him 
 gravely. They did not kiss. He was too Scotch 
 for that and did not approve of kissing. He had 
 never kissed her in his life. Privately, Elspeth
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 127 
 
 thought it was because he did not know how to 
 do it. 
 
 "Now, where is my cheese-cake*?" she asked. 
 
 Grandfather patted a paper bag lying beside 
 the book he was reading. 
 
 "Your cheese-cake is here. But I want to 
 know first what sort of a girl you have been this 
 week. Come, sit down here and tell me how 
 many whippings you have had." 
 
 He pushed a footstool forward for her beside 
 his knee a footstool festooned in multi-coloured 
 roses in wool-work on a black ground, some more 
 of the work of her mother's industrious fingers. 
 
 "You will not tell?' said Elspeth, leaning her 
 elbow on his knee. 
 
 "No, I will not tell," he replied gravely. 
 "Your confidences to me are sacred. You know 
 that." 
 
 "Well, then, I've had six." 
 
 "Oh, dear me! That is shocking. Six in a 
 week. That means one every day except the Sab- 
 bath." 
 
 "She never whips on Sabbaths," explained Els- 
 peth. 
 
 "Well, now, what were they all for? What 
 was Monday's whipping for*?"
 
 128 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "I upset my porridge down my clean pinafore 
 on Monday," said the delinquent glibly. "I spilt 
 the ink-bottle on the table-cloth on Tuesday. I 
 couldn't take the castor-oil on Wednesday " 
 
 "Why not 1 ?" interrupted grandfather. 
 
 "Because I can't take castor-oil. It's too 
 horrid." 
 
 "There's no such word as 'can't' in Webster's 
 Dictionary. You can do anything if you only set 
 your mind to it." 
 
 "I prayed about it," said Elspeth, "I did truly. 
 And Janet prayed too, but it wasn't any use. I 
 got it all in my mouth and it wouldn't go down. 
 And she held my nose and I kicked and it 
 spluttered all down her dress. It was her new 
 afternoon dress too. And oh! she just was 
 angry." 
 
 "Oh dear, oh dear," said grandfather, horri- 
 fied. "I am afraid there is no cheese-cake for 
 you to-night." 
 
 "Do you take castor-oil every other Wednes- 
 day night, grandpapa?" asked she, quickly turn- 
 ing the tables on him. 
 
 "No, indeed, I do not," said grandfather, 
 laughing. 
 
 "Then you do not know what horrible stuff it
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 129 
 
 is. But senna-tea is worse. Janet puts senna- 
 leaves in an old teapot and lets it stew all the 
 evening on the kitchen hob, and the smell goes 
 all upstairs. And I can't pray about senna-tea 
 at all. I never try, because I just have to be 
 whipped. I get a whole teacupful to drink arid it 
 just won't swallow. Janet pours it out of the 
 teapot, and tells me to pretend it's tea without 
 any milk in it. But how can I, with such a 
 smell?" 
 
 Grandfather sighed. He ought to have said 
 something here, because he was an Elder. It was 
 a grand opportunity lost. But he only said: 
 
 "Well, what about Thursday?" 
 
 "Let me see, what did I do on Thursday? 
 Oh, I fell down and cut my new stockings. And 
 I cut my knee too, but Janet said that didn't 
 matter a bit. It only served me right for not 
 looking where I was going. And on Friday I 
 couldn't say my text. And on Saturday father 
 stole two pieces of loaf-sugar, and Janet blamed 
 me " 
 
 "Oh, come, come! What was that?" 
 
 "It is true, grandpapa. He stole two pieces 
 of loaf-sugar out of the sugar-basin. He often 
 does. And he offered one to me, but I was fright-
 
 130 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 ened Janet would see it, so I didn't take it. And 
 he said, 'Don't tell on me,' and he went out 
 crunching it up. He likes sugar every bit as much 
 as me. He is just a big boy, father is. Janet 
 says so," she added, with a maternal air. 
 
 "Well, what happened then?" 
 
 "Well, Janet whipped me. She said she 
 counted the pieces and there were ten left when 
 father had finished his breakfast, and that I had 
 told her a fearful story. She whips awfully hard 
 for stories." 
 
 Grandfather compressed his lips. They were 
 firm lips, and his chin was firm too. 
 
 "I think we'll have to put a stop to some of 
 this," he said. 
 
 "You promised you wouldn't tell, grandpapa. 
 Now I want my cheese-cake, please." 
 
 She knew he would keep his word or she would 
 never have risked telling him. 
 
 He handed her the paper bag and watched 
 her eat the cheese-cake in it, a circular hollow of 
 feathery puff-pastry crowned by a pyramid of 
 macaroon, a triumph of the art of the profes- 
 sional pastry-cook in the Land o' Cakes. She ate 
 it slowly, with the air of an epicure, taking the 
 outside first as being least attractive to the palate.
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 131 
 
 Stay a moment, Time, while I sketch Grand- 
 father, the Elder. Whose eye should remember 
 him like mine 1 ? Whose pencil ought to sketch 
 him better"? He has been gone these five-and- 
 thirty years, and the world in which he lived 
 has forgotten all about him long ago. But I 
 remember. He did not like kissing, yet God 
 kissed him into sleep, and he knew not death, 
 only a quiet sleep and a bright awakening. For 
 the food that I have eaten and the raiment I have 
 worn these many weary years in the wilderness, 
 and in the shadow of the prison-house, I am 
 indebted, humanly speaking, to his love and to 
 his foresight. The very grave where they laid 
 him belongs to me. It is my right, then, to pause 
 a moment here, lest the day should come when 
 even I may forget. 
 
 The rays of the setting sun are lingering on 
 his abundant silver hair, making an aureole about 
 his head, as he leans back by the window watch- 
 ing his little grandchild eat her cake. His 
 straight, beautiful hair falling almost to his shoul- 
 ders, after the picturesque fashion of his youth. 
 There is a touch of the pedagogue about his thin, 
 rather long-shaped, clever face. He had been a 
 schoolmaster in his early days, and the firm, un-
 
 132 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 wrinkled hand resting on the arm of his chair 
 had wielded the cane many a time, although now 
 it only had acquaintance a prosperous acquaint- 
 ance with the ledger and the desk. No lack of 
 discipline with his male pupils had ever been put 
 down to his account, although his small grand- 
 daughter could now wind him round her little 
 ringer. He is clean-shaven, his features clearly 
 cut. A certain sternness about the mouth is be- 
 lied by the kindly expression of his eyes, which 
 are blue, limpid, and clear, looking through gold- 
 rimmed spectacles with a shrewd but slightly quiz- 
 zical gaze upon his fellow-men. An observant 
 face, keen, thoughtful, the dignity of the clans- 
 man easily apparent, albeit he is the most humble- 
 minded of men. His face is ruddy with the hue 
 of health and a naturally fair complexion, as be- 
 comes one who has been brought up 
 
 "In the Highlands, in the country places, 
 Where the old, plain men have rosy faces 
 And the young, fair maidens 
 Quiet eyes." 
 
 His figure, spare, active, lithe, at threescore-and- 
 ten, he is even a dapper old man, particular both 
 in dress and speech. His elbow-chair, of black oak 
 with a horsehair seat, is hard and uncomfortable.
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 133 
 
 The men and women of his generation did not 
 lounge. Do I not know it 1 ? When I broke its 
 left elbow off three times through sitting side- 
 saddle on it, and he said I would land him in the 
 Bankruptcy Court. 
 
 But now the cheese-cake is finished and Elspeth 
 has drawn closer with her next demand. One 
 could hardly call it a request. 
 
 "I am ready now to curl your hair, grand- 
 papa. It is most terrible straight this week. If 
 I put it in papers soon it'll have time to be nice 
 and curly before I go home." 
 
 "My dear little girl," said he, the instinct of 
 the dominie awake, "you must not say 'most ter- 
 rible.' It is ungrammatical to begin with. If 
 you must use such awe-inspiring words, say 'terri- 
 bly,' not 'most terrible.' But I do not like them 
 at all in ordinary conversation. They are quite 
 unnecessary. There is nothing 'terrible' nor 
 'awful,' to my mind, except the Day of Judg- 
 ment." 
 
 "Well, your hair is very straight indeed to- 
 night, grandpapa," said Elspeth obediently. 
 
 "It will always be straight until the end of the 
 chapter, I fear."
 
 134 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "Was it always quite straight when you were 
 a little boy?" 
 
 "Always." 
 
 "Did your mother never crimp it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "How nice for you. Then you never knew 
 what ruggy-tuggy hair was, like mine?" 
 
 "No, never." 
 
 "But you do like curly hair best, don't you?" 
 she wheedled, drawing closer to him and bobbing 
 her curls in his face. 
 
 "Yes, I do," he said, laying an affectionate hand 
 on her head. "Your mother had curls, and your 
 grandmother that other Elspeth." 
 
 "And the Laird," added she. "Then you'll 
 let me curl yours early to-night, won't you, grand- 
 papa, dear? And you'll go to bed in your pa- 
 pers?" 
 
 The Elder shook his head. 
 
 "I couldn't do that. What would Mrs. Mc- 
 Intyre say when she came in to prayers to see me 
 with my hair in papers?" 
 
 And he smiled at the thought of his prim, 
 rather stiffly-starched Highland housekeeper find- 
 ing him in such a plight. 
 
 "Well, I'll do it up in two rows then to-night,
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 135 
 
 tighter than I did last week, and let it have as 
 long as it can." 
 
 "First of all, I think," said grandfather, "we'll 
 have that Psalm of yours, or you won't know it 
 for Janet to-morrow, and you'll start the week 
 with whippings again, and that would be a pity. 
 Now, don't drone it, for I cannot stand dron- 
 ing. We'll have you taught elocution by and 
 by." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 "You'll find out presently. Now then." 
 
 She repeated her Psalm two or three times be- 
 fore she pleased him. He was so very particular, 
 and it was difficult to stop the familiar droning 
 as taught by Janet. Then he asked her all the 
 commandments, and she finished up very hur- 
 riedly with; 
 
 "Now, grandpapa, for the papers." 
 
 "Not yet," he evaded. "Wait till the gas is 
 lit and the blinds down. People can see me from 
 the road. You can amuse yourself with the 
 things in the table drawer for a little." 
 
 There was not much in the table drawer, but 
 anything can be a treasure to a child. An old 
 cloth map of London, a pair of blunt compasses, 
 a copy of the gospel of St. John in raised type
 
 136 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 for the blind, and a box of coloured wafers, such 
 as had been in use before the days of adhesive 
 envelopes, were all deeply interesting to Elspeth. 
 A strange collection surely. She took out the 
 book in raised type and went to her grandfather 
 to blindfold her with his pocket handkerchief. 
 Then she spelt some of the words, slowly and with 
 difficulty, feeling each letter out with her fingers. 
 
 "Well," she said at last, with a sigh. "I 
 wouldn't be blind for anything. It is such slow 
 work. Now you read, grandpapa." 
 
 He laid the book on his knee and closed his 
 eyes. Then passing his fingers rapidly over the 
 raised letters, he read in the swift and easy man- 
 ner of the educated blind. 
 
 "Oh, you're just wonderful, grandpapa, you're 
 so clever," Elspeth said with great admiration. 
 "How long were you blind*?" 
 
 "I was blind for three years," he replied, "and 
 for a long time after that was not allowed to read 
 any books." 
 
 "It was chicken-pox made you blind, wasn't 
 it'?" 
 
 "No, it was the smallpox. My father died of 
 it and I became blind." 
 
 "Is it worse than chicken-pox*?" asked Els-
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 137 
 
 peth, with a lively recollection of having it on her 
 head and of the Dragon's rough comb ploughing 
 through her hair. 
 
 "Oh, yes, much worse. There is not much 
 smallpox now, thank God! When I was young 
 nearly everybody you met was pitted with it or 
 disfigured in some way or other." 
 
 "Then you were blind and had to learn to read 
 
 like this. And a clever doctor came " 
 
 prompted Elspeth, who had heard it all a hun- 
 dred times before. 
 
 "And a clever doctor came and said he thought 
 he could operate and restore my sight. And he 
 did so. My mother held my hand all the time. 
 There was no chloroform in those days," said 
 grandfather, with a shudder. "But I have never 
 seen very well with one of my eyes." 
 
 Elspeth patted his hand sympathetically. 
 "Never mind, grandpapa," she said, "you can see 
 better with your one good eye than lots of people 
 can with two. Janet says I can see through a 
 deal door with mine, and I am sure you see as 
 well as I do." 
 
 Her grandfather laughed. 
 
 There was a slight diversion here, as Mrs. Mc- 
 Intyre came in to light the gas and pull down the
 
 138 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 blinds. Grandfather gave her an order, to which 
 she replied in Gaelic, having, as she expressed it, 
 "fery little English." 
 
 When she had gone Elspeth jumped up hastily. 
 
 "Now, grandpapa, quick, the papers." 
 
 "Oh, dear, I thought you had forgotten," said 
 the victim. But he meekly produced from his 
 coat-tail pocket, where, by the way, they had been 
 secreted all the time, a small packet of curl-pa- 
 pers and an old-fashioned pocket-comb in a sha- 
 green case. 
 
 "You are a most self-willed girl, I think," he 
 said, as she climbed up on the arm of his chair 
 and tucked his big handkerchief round his neck, 
 after the manner of the professional barber. 
 
 "Two rows to-night, and as tight as I can 
 screw them," replied the tyrant firmly. "Your 
 hair has just got to be curly to-night, whether it 
 likes it or not." 
 
 Grandfather took his spectacles off and laid 
 them in his Bible for a marker. He closed his 
 eyes, and, sighing slightly, leant back and sur- 
 rendered himself into the hands of the skilled 
 operator, who had been practising on her dolls all 
 the week. 
 
 It was done at last. Two rows, tightly screwed
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 139 
 
 all round the venerable head, curl-papers sticking 
 out like little horns in all directions. Grand- 
 father's eyes looked strained with the tightness of 
 them above his ears. 
 
 "It is not very tight here, is it, grandpapa?" 
 asked the hairdresser, patting his head and peep- 
 ing round into his face. 
 
 "No no," said he guardedly, "not very." 
 
 "Rags would be ever so much softer for you, 
 and I could tie them. I wouldn't Heed to twist 
 them so tight. Janet often gives me rags for my 
 dolls' hair. I think I'll ask her to give me some 
 for yours." 
 
 "No, no no" said grandfather emphatically. 
 "That you certainly shall not." 
 
 "Well, then, I am afraid you'll just have to 
 grin and bear it. That is what Janet says to me 
 when my hair is tuggy. You can put your glasses 
 on now and read, if you like, and I'll go and play 
 with the map. I want your hair to be as curly 
 to-night as the Laird's." 
 
 It is rather difficult to adjust spectacles on the 
 top of stiff curl-papers, but at last grandfather 
 managed it and pretended to read, keeping his 
 eyes fixed, however, on the child, wondering what- 
 ever she was doing with the map.
 
 140 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 A map is a fine thing for the imagination. 
 This must have been a very old one, for, although 
 it showed miles upon miles of the streets of Lon- 
 don town, there were many green oases in the 
 suburbs which Elspeth could not find when she 
 looked for them in reality. Kensington was the 
 old Kensington of Miss Thackeray, full of coun- 
 try mansions with walled-in gardens and pleas- 
 aunces. Primrose Hill showed green fields dotted 
 with trees, full apparently of blossom, where one 
 might seek, and perchance even find, the primroses 
 which gave it its name. Spring Gardens appeared 
 to be really gardens. The Round Pond and the 
 Serpentine looked very blue on the map, in those 
 other gardens which Peter Pan has claimed now 
 for his very own. 
 
 Elspeth ran round and round them with her 
 father after her figuratively speaking. When 
 the compasses were folded up, and trotted on 
 "their knees," as Elspeth expressed it, they were 
 herself. When they strode along on their blunt 
 points, taking mighty strides, they were her 
 father. If they stopped at the corner of a road 
 in the West End it was always near where the 
 Queen lived he had lost her and was asking a 
 policeman, "Have you seen my little girl any-
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 141 
 
 where?" Then you saw him hurrying in what- 
 ever direction the policeman said. 
 
 If you saw the compasses on their knees mak- 
 ing lowly if rather stiff genuflexions towards 
 the roadway, the Queen was passing, and was stop- 
 ping her carriage to inquire; 
 
 "Who is that little Scotch girl with the auburn 
 curls'?" (The Queen would never be so rude 
 as to catch the wrong tint.) "Would she like to 
 come and see my dolls' -house in Kensington 
 Palace?" 
 
 Of course she would. 
 
 Then hand in hand, Elspeth and her father 
 would walk meekly and humbly, as became loyal 
 and dutiful subjects, past the sentries, the Queen 
 having driven in first with a haughty wave of her 
 hand, directing, "Allow these people to pass. 
 They are my guests." 
 
 Grandfather watched the child playing with 
 the compasses for a long time. He said, "Ex- 
 traordinary," to himself once or twice. He was 
 practical and matter-of-fact, and had never known 
 what it was to be troubled (or gifted) with an 
 imagination in his whole life. 
 
 Then his eyes fell upon his Bible with the 
 recollection of Whose holy day it was, and soon
 
 142 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 he had forgotten the unwonted discomfort of his 
 head and was deep in the woes of the minor 
 prophets. 
 
 Time passed. Both were absorbed. The one 
 in the past, the other in visions of a golden future, 
 when the door opened quietly and Elspeth's father 
 walked in. Neither of them had heard his quiet 
 step. 
 
 Grandfather rose, smiling and hospitable, hold- 
 ing out his hand in welcome. Not until his son- 
 in-law burst out into an uncontrollable fit of 
 laughter did he remember the condition of his 
 head. Then the old man tore at his hair, his face 
 crimson with shame and annoyance. 
 
 "This bairn! this bairn!" he cried. "She'll be 
 the unmanning of me. Come and help, Elspeth, 
 you little monkey. Mrs. Mclntyre will be in 
 directly with the supper." 
 
 But wicked Elspeth shook her head and disap- 
 peared under the table. Grandfather pulled and 
 tugged at his tightly-twisted curl-papers and 
 trampled them fiercely underfoot. Two still re- 
 mained, twisted and entangled with silver hairs, 
 over his right ear, when Mrs. Mclntyre entered 
 with the supper tray. Grandfather covered them 
 with his hand, flung himself into his armchair,
 
 GRANDFATHER, THE ELDER 143 
 
 and leant hurriedly against the embroidered bell- 
 rope hanging on the wall, in deep dejection. 
 
 The Doctor's Senior Elder on a Sabbath night ! 
 
 Mrs. Mclntyre, a grave, elderly widow, in 
 black, with a white cap edged with crimped frills, 
 tied neatly in a muslin bow under her chin, and 
 the black velvet widow's band lying across her 
 smooth grey hair, moved quietly round the table 
 arranging plates and glasses. Elspeth's father 
 addressed a pleasant remark or two to her, which 
 she answered in her soft Highland tones. 
 
 Grandfather pressed his head firmly against 
 the bell-rope and gazed moodily into the fire. 
 His hair was distinctly crimpy all round to-night. 
 The hairdresser had done her work well. There 
 was something to show for all the discomfort he 
 had endured. 
 
 At last the housekeeper looked straight at him, 
 and addressed a question to him which required a 
 direct answer. 
 
 "If you please, will you hef toddy or negus to- 
 night, sir?" 
 
 He replied without looking round, holding his 
 head stiffly on one side. 
 
 "Toddy negus toddy oh, whatever you 
 have." The last, in despair, to his son-in-law.
 
 144 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 The younger man answered, to cover his con- 
 fusion, "We'll have toddy to-night, thank you, 
 Mrs. Mclntyre." His own lips were twitching, 
 and smothered giggles came from under the table. 
 
 "Now, Elspeth, come out at once," her father 
 said, as soon as the housekeeper had left the 
 room, "and take the papers out of your grand- 
 papa's hair." 
 
 "I do not know what the Doctor would say to 
 me," said Grandfather, the Elder, rather ruefully, 
 trying to flatten out his frizzed white hair with 
 his hand, while the curl-papers which he had been 
 trampling on blazed merrily in the fire. 
 
 "And I don't know what Janet would say 
 either, which is much more to the point," said 
 the younger man significantly. "I think I shall 
 have to tell her what goes on here on Sunday 
 evenings with you two." 
 
 "Oh, no, no," cried Elspeth, clambering up on 
 his knee and kissing him. 
 
 "You're just a spoilt girl, that's what you are. 
 And I don't know which of us spoils you the 
 most." 
 
 But Elspeth soon settled that question. 
 
 "Grandpapa does, of course" she said.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT 
 
 ELSPETH first fell under the spell of a 
 very interesting and magnetic personality 
 at the mature age of four-and-a-half. 
 
 The kind nurse and foster-mother, who had 
 brought her up from her birth, having gone out to 
 America with her own husband and child, the 
 Dragon had a relay of nursemaids who had given 
 her much trouble. 
 
 "I suppose it is having no lady in the house," 
 she said, at last appealing to her master, "they 
 take advantage of me because they think I am 
 just a servant like themselves. I really think I 
 could manage the child better by myself, if she 
 could just be occupied for a few hours in the 
 mornings while I am busy, to keep her out of 
 mischief. I have plenty of time to take her out 
 walks in the afternoons." 
 
 So her master, after thinking it over a little 
 and consulting with grandfather, walked up the 
 square one evening to the house at the corner, 
 
 J45
 
 146 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 where a brass plate on the gate announced that 
 it was: 
 
 "The Misses Stewarts' Select Seminary for 
 Young Ladies." 
 
 In small letters in the corner there was the word 
 "Juniors." For the young ladies were very 
 junior indeed. 
 
 Grandfather also walked up later the same 
 evening and had a talk with the two ladies. 
 
 "If her father decides to send my little grand- 
 child to you," he said to Miss Georgina Stewart, 
 the mild, sweet-faced elder sister who taught 
 sewing and embroidery; "I do not wish her to 
 be overworked at the sewing-class with needle- 
 work. I always feel with great regret that her 
 mother sewed too much. She would have been 
 stronger had she not sat sewing and embroider- 
 ing so continually as she did, and had gone out 
 more into the open air." 
 
 Miss Georgina smiled, and promised that the 
 child should not be overworked with needlework 
 while in their care. 
 
 It was all settled later, and Elspeth started 
 her schooldays one bright, clear morning in 
 September. 
 
 Nobody called it a Kindergarten, or any
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT 147 
 
 other such deceptive name. You went to the 
 Misses Stewarts', even at the age of four-and- 
 a-half (they took no young lady over eight), 
 for undisguised learning. You learned the three 
 R's, you inked your fingers, and were smartly 
 rapped over the knuckles for it by Miss Maria. 
 You learned to hem pocket-handkerchiefs under 
 Miss Georgina's gentler tuition, with hot, sticky 
 needles, and thread that turned dirty in no time, 
 and you left blood tracks all the way along the 
 hem, so that you could be recognised by your 
 trail, so to speak. You knitted cotton garters 
 which were interminable for length, and you 
 crocheted cotton mats which were absolutely of no 
 use whatever, except for slipping about on wash- 
 stands and endangering the crockery. You 
 worked kettle-holders in little dabs and squares 
 and triangles of coloured wool, which vanished 
 on their completion, and reappeared on the last 
 day of the term, so magnificent with velveteen 
 backs and brilliant loops of ribbon or cord, that 
 you did not recognise your own handiwork, but 
 had to be introduced to it again. And if Miss 
 Stewart's ancient method was a somewhat labor- 
 ious fashion of learning to read and write, with 
 no cunning devices of word-building and such-
 
 148 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 like, it was a very good training in patience and 
 perseverance, and helped to form stronger char- 
 acters by and by. 
 
 Elspeth's first schoolday being on a Monday 
 morning, the Dragon was too busy to take her 
 up to school herself. She pinned a little red 
 shawl of Rob Roy tartan (which was most unbe- 
 coming to her complexion) carefully across her 
 chest, and put on her hat for her. Then she 
 watched her walk up alone from their own gate 
 at the foot of the square until she turned into 
 Miss Stewart's at the top corner, nodding her 
 head encouragingly with rapid nods for her to 
 go on, whenever the child turned round to look 
 wistfully back. 
 
 Elspeth, very puffed up and inflated outside 
 with her own importance at being a schoolgirl, 
 very trembling and quivering in that inner 
 Elspeth which nobody saw and few guessed 
 anything about, walked somewhat slowly and 
 reluctantly. She carried a brand-new pair of 
 strap shoes buttoned together over one arm, and 
 on the other a new school-bag, neatly made of 
 crimson baize with a handle of plaited black 
 braid. Inside, if you could have looked, you 
 would have seen a little new reading-book of grey
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT 149 
 
 linen. (They never professed to teach you 
 "without tears." It would have been false if 
 they had.) And on the cover, neatly written in 
 the Dragon's best round hand, in the same way 
 as her own mother had written her name at the 
 beginning of her own schooldays some forty years 
 before (for the Dragon too had been a child once, 
 however difficult it was to believe it) was the 
 name : 
 
 "Elspeth Arnot. Her book." 
 
 There was also a little square of canvas, bound 
 round with white tape, with a wool-needle in it 
 (Miss Georgina provided the gaily-coloured 
 wools for the geometrical patterns), and another 
 small and dainty bag made of pale blue silk. 
 That was to hold the tickets which Miss Maria 
 gave out at the conclusion of every scholastic 
 day, when you dropped your parting curtsey to 
 her at the schoolroom door. The precious 
 tickets, with good, bad, or middling, written on 
 them, according to your behaviour, or sins of 
 omission and commission. Woe betide you if 
 you had lost any of them when Miss Maria added 
 them up on Fridays ! And woe betide Elspeth in 
 the days to come when the Dragon found a 
 "middling" one in the blue silk bag!
 
 150 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Elspeth passed inside the Misses Stewarts' 
 formidable iron gate with a tremulous wave of 
 her hand to the familiar figure, standing a little 
 patch of pale colour in her neat working dress 
 of lilac print, with the strings of her frilled 
 morning cap flying out behind her in the breeze, 
 at the foot of the square. The Dragon gave an 
 answering wave and ran back to her work. 
 
 "Well, I'm glad she's gone," she said. "I 
 really thought she was going to run back." 
 
 But to see a child go in at a gate, and to be 
 quite sure it has reached its destination, are two 
 vastly different matters. 
 
 Elspeth walked bravely up the wide gravel 
 path, and clambered up the front steps, holding 
 on to the iron railings, her heart thumping 
 furiously with each step. She looked round fear- 
 fully when she reached the top. No one was to 
 be seen. On turning her attention to the door, 
 she found to her horror that the knocker was be- 
 yond her reach. She tried to turn the door- 
 handle. It was a fixture, a mere ornament, not 
 meant for use. Then she tried to reach the bell. 
 By dint of jumping high she could just touch it. 
 She laid down her bag and shoes and jumped as 
 high as she could, trying to reach it enough to
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT 151 
 
 hold on to it. In the middle of her fifth useless 
 jump she heard the sound of unmistakable giggles, 
 and,, looking down, saw a cluster of little faces 
 watching her in great merriment from a basement 
 window. 
 
 That was enough. She jumped no more, but, 
 leaning as far out of their sight as she could, 
 timidly rapped at the door for admission with her 
 small knuckles again and again. No one came. 
 She heard the tramp of children's feet far away 
 in the distance and the merry hum and chatter of 
 many little voices. There was a lull, and then 
 the sound of the rising of an infant's morning 
 hymn. She was too late. School had begun. 
 The Dragon had been telling her only that very 
 morning of the enormity of the sin of playing 
 truant, and here she was doing it on her very first 
 day. She could bear no more, her overcharged 
 heart was bursting. Tears rolled slowly down 
 her cheeks. They trickled down the Rob Roy 
 tartan shawl to her new cambric pinafore. They 
 splashed on the freshly washed step. It had 
 rained in the night, and soot had fallen on the 
 railings. She laid her face on them and sobbed 
 as if her heart would break. Life could have 
 no worse horrors for her than this. She had been
 
 152 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 early taught self-restraint, so she seldom cried 
 aloud, like other children, unless she was in a 
 temper. So now she sobbed quietly and unceas- 
 ingly, deep convulsive sobs, coming straight up 
 from a very broken heart, which shook her whole 
 body, rubbing her sooty hands all over her face 
 meanwhile. 
 
 Surely fair lady was never in greater plight 
 when knight-errant appeared on the scene. 
 
 It was Hendry, swinging his strap-full of books 
 and whistling a merry tune. He was late too, 
 and was hurrying. His High School bell that 
 High School which now holds his name in venera- 
 tion as one of the most illustrious of its many 
 gifted scholars was ringing its last tocsin-like 
 notes away far up the hill amongst the trees. 
 
 Elspeth saw him coming and held her breath. 
 He was one of Freddy's big brothers and she 
 knew him very well by sight, but hitherto had 
 never exchanged a personal word with him. And 
 she was terrified of boys in general and of big 
 boys in particular. 
 
 He saw her as he passed the gate and stopped 
 short. 
 
 "Hallo! What's this?" he called out. 
 
 There Was no answer. Between terror and
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT 153 
 
 grief the lady was speechless. Her shy, sooty 
 face was hidden behind her pinafore. 
 
 He swung the gate open and ran up the gravel 
 path, and with two flying bounds was up the 
 steps at her side. 
 
 "Hallo, Elspeth! What are you doing here?' 
 he said gently. "Can't you get in? Have you 
 come to begin school at Miss Stewart's? Why 
 ever did they let you come by yourself 1 ? You've 
 come to the wrong door. The children go round 
 the corner to the other gate at the side. They 
 don't come to the front door at all. Oh, 
 don't cry again," he added hastily. "See, I'll 
 ring the bell for you and knock loud. I can't 
 stop to see you in, for I am late myself. I shall 
 be locked out." 
 
 The High School bell tolled its last notes as 
 he spoke. But he stopped to ring a terrific peal 
 on the bell and to give a thundering knock at the 
 door before he ran off. It would not have been 
 Hendry to have left any one in distress, even if he 
 were caned for it. He had only gone a step or 
 two when he ran back again. 
 
 "See, Elspeth, dear," that word which always 
 comes so slowly from Scottish lips "do you like 
 chocolates? You can have my piece."
 
 154 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 He was off again before she could thank him. 
 
 When the servant opened the door a few mo- 
 ments later it was to find a tear-bedewed maiden 
 standing there, albeit with a little wan smile on 
 her sooty face and a long stick of chocolate cream 
 in its magic silver wrapping firmly clasped in her 
 hand. A red-letter day, indeed, for Elspeth had 
 never tasted chocolate in the whole course of her 
 short life before. It was an introduction to 
 Hendry and the evanescent joys of chocolate 
 cream at the same time. 
 
 That was the beginning of Hendry's magne- 
 tism for her, sealed and ratified with a stick of 
 chocolate cream. After that, every time she went 
 to his home, which she always called "Freddy's 
 house," it was with the shy hope that she would 
 see again the kind big boy who had befriended her 
 in her sorrow. Sometimes she did see him. 
 As she played in the large deserted nursery in his 
 home for the boys had all grown out of it, and 
 the girls were young ladies now, Freddy had been 
 the little Benjamin of his family with the kind 
 nurse sewing beside the window, Hendry some- 
 times came bounding in. Once or twice he rode 
 her on his back round the garden, and took her
 
 A KNIGHT ERRANT 155 
 
 to see the peaches growing in the glass-houses. 
 Another joyous red-letter day he turned the tap 
 on in the bath and gave her his boats to play with, 
 showing her how to blow hurricanes with the bel- 
 lows. What a day of gales and wet pinafores that 
 was! All these little kindnesses on Hendry's 
 part won Elspeth's lonely little heart, as he was to 
 win the hearts of thousands of his fellow-men in 
 after years. 
 
 Many things have been written about :that 
 wonderful magnetic personality. Few, I think, 
 have written very much about him as a boy. It 
 was only as a boy that Elspeth knew him and 
 loved him, but years afterwards, when far away 
 from old scenes and friends, she read of his pre- 
 mature death, no heart grieved more truly and 
 deeply than hers over this much-admired friend 
 of her childhood. 
 
 The obituary notices did not spell his name as 
 I have done. That was the Dragon's pronuncia- 
 tion and Elspeth's. There was a word put be- 
 fore it, and a surname after it. But it was the 
 same Hendry. 
 
 I saw his photograph only the other day on 
 the paper cover of a cheap edition of one of his
 
 156 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 books, and gazed once more at the kind hazel 
 eyes and wealth of wavy, auburn hair, which I 
 doubt if anybody had even been so unkind as to 
 call "red" in the whole history of his happy life.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 
 
 IT was a Sabbath to be remembered. Outside, 
 the north wind howled and shrieked and blew 
 a perfect blizzard of snow against the bedroom 
 window and down the chimney. Elspeth's father 
 had risen and pulled the blind up so that they 
 could lie and watch the whirling eddies of snow. 
 Certainly there would be no church for either 
 Elspeth or the Dragon that day, unless the 
 weather improved. Janet would not risk being 
 lost in a snow-wreath on her way to hers. So, 
 as there was no hurry to get up, her master had 
 sent his shaving water downstairs again when it 
 was brought up, and now he and Elspeth were in- 
 dulging in the luxury of "a long lie" in the shape 
 of half an hour extra in bed together. 
 
 Elspeth lay snugly cuddled with her father's 
 arm round her and her hand tucked in his. She 
 was in a delicate grey and green arbour. The 
 soft silk damask curtains of the Arabian bed- 
 
 157
 
 158 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 stead formed a tent. The pattern on them was 
 of vine-leaves and tendrils, with clusters of 
 grapes festooned all over in tender shades of grey 
 and green, which lent a Southern touch at once. 
 Sometimes Elspeth was in the great Sahara, trans- 
 ported thither on a camel and was a dweller in 
 tents like the patriarchs. Sometimes she was on 
 India's coral strand or elsewhere. Wherever 
 the magic carpet of her thoughts transported her. 
 She was seldom in a commonplace bed. She lay 
 still now, thinking deeply, with her eyes fixed on 
 the curtains. 
 
 "A penny for your thoughts," said her father 
 suddenly. 
 
 "I wasn't thinking exactly, father. I was just 
 'magining." 
 
 "Well, what is that but thinking?" laughed 
 her father. "A penny for your imaginations 
 then." 
 
 "I thought we were shipwrecked on a desert 
 island," replied Elspeth, who had been reading 
 a child's illustrated edition of "Robinson Crusoe." 
 "We had been wandering on the beach all night 
 and had lain down and gone to sleep. And a 
 gourd had grown up over us like Jonah's, only it 
 had grapes on it. That was all. We were all
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 159 
 
 alone, and all the world to each other," she con- 
 cluded fervently. 
 
 "Where was grandfather and the Laird*?" 
 
 "I don't know. They did not seem to be 
 there. It was just you and me. And we were 
 all the world to each other," she repeated again. 
 
 "As we are," said her father. 
 
 "And now I give you your penny back," said 
 Elspeth gravely, "for you were thinking too." 
 
 "Yes, I was thinking too. I was thinking that 
 my little girl is growing up, and that soon she 
 will be too big to come into her father's bed on 
 Saturday nights to sleep with him any more." 
 
 "I shall never be too big for that" said 
 Elspeth, nestling closer on his arm. 
 
 "Oh, yes, you will. Were you six or seven 
 last birthday?" 
 
 "I was seven, father." 
 
 "I thought so. Then we'll have to see about 
 having a room made for yourself soon. Your 
 mother and I were going to have turned the 
 large box-room upstairs into a nursery, had she 
 lived. It was to have had a big bow window 
 put in it. I think we will have it made 'into a 
 room for you. It would have a beautiful view 
 at the back. Right over the tops of the houses
 
 160 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 to the river, and away out ever so far. You 
 might even be able to see the sea on a clear 
 day." 
 
 "Should I see Auntie Rosie's cottage and the 
 brig?' 
 
 "Bridge," corrected her father. "And who, 
 may I ask, is Auntie Rose*?" 
 
 "Why, she is the washerwoman, father. 
 Don't you know?" 
 
 Her father shook his head. He was not 
 domesticated, and of the Dragon's employes he 
 knew nothing. 
 
 "Yes, you will be able to see the bridge from 
 the window, and perhaps you may even get a 
 distant view of the sea," he continued. "I don't 
 know about the cottage, for I don't know where 
 it is. We'll have a little Arabian bed for you 
 like this that you are so fond of, so that you may 
 still think you are in a tent. I saw some chintz 
 in a shop the other day that I thought would 
 make very pretty bed-curtains for you. It had 
 moss rose-buds and lilies of the valley on it. 
 And we'll have a rose-bud paper on the wall for 
 a rose-bud girl. The rose is the Queen of 
 Flowers." 
 
 "That would be very nice," said Elspeth. "I
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 161 
 
 should like a pretty room like that. And then if 
 I was up there I could come creeping creeping 
 downstairs to your bed every morning early 
 and Janet would never know." 
 
 Her father laughed, but soon became thought- 
 ful again. 
 
 "I have been wondering very much sometimes," 
 he said presently, "if you would like to have a 
 mother. Fathers don't make very good mothers 
 for little girls when they are growing up." 
 
 "Oh, yes, they do" said the child eagerly, 
 "they make darling mothers. But I would like 
 to have my own mother too," she added wist- 
 fully. 
 
 "I'm afraid you cannot have her back again," 
 the father said, with a sigh. "But there is such 
 a thing as having another mother, you know." 
 
 Elspeth's eyes opened very round and wide. 
 
 "Can widow-men " she began. 
 
 "Widowers," he corrected again. 
 
 "Widowers marry again, then*?" 
 
 "Yes," responded her father, "they can." 
 
 "Janet's sister is going to be married again 
 in the summer. She is going to marry the bea- 
 dle in Mr. Morrison's church. They call him 
 'muckle Geordie' because he's so big," chattered
 
 162 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Elspeth, with little idea of what was coming. 
 "But I didn't know widow-men widowers, I 
 mean could marry again. Then grandpapa 
 could marry again?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Then," said Elspeth firmly, "I'll tell him to 
 marry Mrs. Mclntyre at once. I told the Laird 
 to marry Mistress Kate long ago. He has been 
 an old bachelor far too long, but he hasn't done it 
 yet. But grandpapa shall do it at once." 
 
 "I am afraid he won't do that," laughed her 
 father. 
 
 "Grandpapa always does whatever I tell him," 
 said the despot. 
 
 "He does a great deal that you tell him, I 
 admit. A great deal too much, I think. But 
 you'll find he won't do that, even to please you." 
 
 "And you, father," said Elspeth, ignoring the 
 interruption, "you can marry Janet, if you like. 
 Then we can go on just the same." 
 
 "But I am afraid I should not want to marry 
 Janet." 
 
 "She'd make you a very good wife, father," 
 went on the small arbiter of destiny. "She can 
 cook, and sew, and look after us both very well. 
 Grandpapa says Janet is a very thrifty woman.
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 163 
 
 He says he'll give her her due, although there is 
 no love lost between them." 
 
 "Oh, yes, no doubt she is all that. But well, 
 she is not not exactly a lady, is she?" 
 
 Elspeth stared aghast. She did not like ladies. 
 
 "Would a new mother have to be a lady?" 
 she stammered. 
 
 "Certainly. I don't think I should care to 
 marry any one else." 
 
 Elspeth drew a long breath. 
 
 "O oh!" she said. Her mind ran rapidly 
 over the circle of their lady friends. Then she 
 laughed gaily. 
 
 "Why, we don't know anybody. They're all 
 married, father. Except the Miss Stewarts, and 
 they are old. Grandpapa says my mother used 
 to go to their school when she was a little girl like 
 me, and that they taught her to sew. So we'll 
 just go on as we are doing." she concluded, "and 
 I'll keep house for you when I am grown-up." 
 
 Her father looked a little embarrassed. She 
 was making it difficult for him. A slight flush 
 spread over the tan of his manly cheeks. 
 
 "What do you say " he asked; "would you 
 
 like one of the London ladies for a mother?" 
 
 Then Elspeth's face fell suddenly. Her
 
 164 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 thoughts flew back to one miserable day in the 
 autumn, when, running hastily in from morning 
 school, with inky face and dun-coloured fingers, 
 her little red tartan shawl pinned clumsily across 
 her chest, her hat on anyhow, and her hair blow- 
 ing in frowsy tangles in every direction, the Dra- 
 gon had sharply told her that she was wanted up- 
 stairs in the drawing-room immediately. 
 
 "Am I not to wash my face and hands, or have 
 my hair tidied, or anything, first 1 ?" she had asked, 
 and had been sharply answered "No." 
 
 She had gone upstairs just as she was, and in 
 horror-stricken silence had there been introduced 
 by her father to two very fashionable strange 
 ladies, who were seated on the drawing-room 
 sofa. 
 
 "This is my little girl," said he, drawing her 
 
 forward. "But why " he asked, and when he 
 
 drew his bushy, dark eyebrows close together like 
 that it showed that he was greatly annoyed, "why 
 has Janet allowed you to come upstairs so un- 
 tidy?' 
 
 He hastily unpinned her shawl and took off 
 her hat himself, and pushed her forward, looking 
 quite cross. 
 
 The ladies seated on the sofa smiled, and
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 165 
 
 greeted her with soft words spoken with a finick- 
 ing English accent. But she heard the elder 
 of the two whisper the word "terrible" to the 
 younger, and the younger murmur two words in 
 French in reply. They were drawing-room ladies 
 of the very worst and most fussy and particular 
 type. 
 
 They were dressed in simple printed muslins, 
 and had large flat floppy hats with long ostrich 
 feathers round them, but it was the simplicity 
 which costs much money. Their muslin skirts 
 gave out the rustle of silk foundations worn un- 
 derneath whenever they moved, and their gloves, 
 of the palest lavender tint, were so spotless and 
 delicate that the marks of Elspeth's grubby fingers 
 showed plainly where she had touched them when 
 she shook hands. They were very much alike, 
 only the younger had a curl dangling gracefully 
 over one shoulder. The other had none. 
 
 "Now, we'll have some music," said her father, 
 with alacrity, unlocking the piano and passing his 
 handkerchief lightly over the keys. "We do not 
 often have such a treat, and my little girl inherits 
 a great love of music. Now, Miss Lilian, I have 
 had the piano tuned on purpose for you." 
 
 The elder of the two ladies rose with some
 
 166 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 laughing remark. The younger smilingly drew 
 the shy, awkward child beside her on the sofa. 
 
 Then Miss Lilian sang, song after song, and 
 Elspeth gazed stiffly at this stranger turning over 
 her mother's music with careless hand, singing her 
 mother's favourite songs with laugh and merry 
 remark. She gazed, bewildered, at her father 
 too, leaning on the piano, turning over the music, 
 laughing and joking with this strange lady, plead- 
 ing for "just one more." His eyes were sparkling 
 with animation and pleasure, and he joined his 
 rich baritone voice in a duet with her to wind up 
 with, murmuring some remark in an undertone 
 as he did so, a remark which brought a very be- 
 coming blush to the lady's cheek, and to which 
 she replied by a gleam of white teeth. 
 
 In vain the younger lady on the sofa tried to 
 attract the child's attention to herself, asking her 
 about her lessons and how many pets she had. 
 Elspeth had never had any pets, and lessons were 
 nowhere in the world compared to her father, 
 whom she adored. Her eyes remained glued to 
 the scene at the piano. 
 
 When at last the ladies went away, her father 
 had been cross with her, and had reproved her 
 rather sharply for her "bad manners." He had
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 167 
 
 also reproved Janet for letting her come upstairs 
 in such a disreputable state, and Janet had pursed 
 up her lips and remained in one of her tempers 
 for some days afterwards. 
 
 Altogether the London ladies' visit had been 
 by no means a pleasant memory. And here was 
 her father asking her if she would like him to 
 marry one of them! He repeated his question, 
 after waiting a little, looking at her very seriously. 
 He evidently meant it. 
 
 "Would you like to have one of the London 
 ladies for a mother*?" 
 
 Elspeth then, seeing that an answer was ex- 
 pected of her, stammered hastily; 
 
 "Father I think the one sitting on the sofa 
 was perhaps rather nice." 
 
 "They were both sitting on the sofa," he re- 
 plied blandly. So they had been for some time 
 before Elspeth appeared on the scene, and he had 
 feasted his eyes on the two dainty visions in 
 muslin and lace, who had seemed to bring a gleam 
 of brightness into that desolate and empty draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 "The one who talked to me, I mean, father; 
 the youngest one. The one with the curl who 
 didn't sing with you."
 
 168 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "Ah! Miss Constance. Well, I fear I can- 
 not marry Miss Constance. She is engaged al- 
 ready, and goes out to Hong Kong to her fiance 
 in the spring. It is Miss Lilian I want." 
 
 Elspeth's heart sank. It was evidently all 
 settled. Gentle and easily influenced as he was, 
 her father could yet put his foot down on occa- 
 sion. He was not to be wheedled or coaxed like 
 the Laird. He was certainly never to be com- 
 manded like grandfather. Tears managed him 
 sometimes, but this was hardly a subject for tears. 
 So Elspeth, with a sinking heart, felt it was no use 
 saying anything. She pushed her small hand 
 closer into his. 
 
 "Are you going to marry her, father*?" she 
 asked, very simply. And he answered as simply, 
 but with a smile of radiant happiness on his face ; 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Elspeth sighe'd a little weary sigh. Child as 
 she was, she felt the old life slipping away and 
 would fain have clung on to it with both hands 
 if she could. 
 
 But her father was speaking. 
 
 "It is a secret," he said. "We do not wish it 
 talked about. Miss Lilian cannot leave her par- 
 ents just after her sister goes. So our marriage
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 169 
 
 will not be just yet. I want you to promise not 
 to tell Janet, for she might make it very unpleas- 
 ant for us both." 
 
 "I won't tell Janet," said Elspeth. 
 
 "And it would be better not to tell grandpapa 
 either. I will tell him myself when the right 
 time comes. He does not know the ladies at all, 
 and might feel it a little." 
 
 This promise was more difficult to give. For 
 Elspeth treated the Elder as a comrade and con- 
 fidential friend, confiding everything to him, even 
 to the scrapes she continually got into both at 
 school and with Janet, well knowing that they 
 never went any further, for grandfather was true 
 as steel. 
 
 "Very well, father," she said at last. "I won't 
 tell grandpapa either if I can help it. And the 
 Laird?" she inquired. 
 
 "The Laird," laughed her father, "is snowed 
 up in his Highland fastnesses. You are not like- 
 ly to see him. I'll be bound the snow is lying in 
 wreaths up to his hedges just now, and he 
 is buried deep in his Greek and Hebrew lexi- 
 cons." 
 
 "It is a very big secret, then, father." 
 
 "Yes, for the present, a very big secret. She
 
 I 7 o A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 only accepted me last night, in a letter condi- 
 tionally," he added. 
 
 He did not say what the conditions were. One 
 of them was that the child should be sent away to 
 a boarding-school to be made fit for civilised so- 
 ciety. Another, that the crusty, determined-look- 
 ing Dragon should disappear for ever from the 
 family life. 
 
 At this moment Janet knocked at the door with 
 the hot water for the second time, and Elspeth, 
 carefully enveloped in her father's big dressing- 
 gown, went away to dress by the blazing kitchen 
 fire. 
 
 It is a terrible thing to be burdened with a 
 great and weighty secret, especially in the winter 
 holidays when you have no companions to share 
 it with. To be entrusted with it on a stormy 
 Sabbath too, when you cannot even go to church 
 to take it off, so to speak, for a time, is worst of 
 all. 
 
 Twenty times that snowy Sabbath morning, as 
 Elspeth sat in the kitchen beside Janet learning 
 her Psalm and texts, or singing her favourite 
 hymns, with her restless hands folded in her lap, 
 and her fidgety feet carefully kept off the spar of 
 her chair, was she on the point of telling the whole
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 171 
 
 story to the Dragon. It was her very first secret, 
 and she found it a most intolerable burden. 
 
 "I must tell some one or I shall burst," she said 
 to herself at last. The thought of her father's 
 displeasure alone kept her from blurting the 
 whole thing out. At last she thought of a round- 
 about way. 
 
 "Janet," she began; then hesitated, for the mere 
 mention of the London ladies always seemed in 
 some unaccountable way to make Janet cross. 
 
 "Well," said the Dragon, "why don't you 
 finish saying a thing when you begin it*?" 
 
 "I was wondering. Do you think one of the 
 
 London ladies would make a " good mother, 
 
 she was going to say. But Janet turned sharply 
 round from the kitchen sink, where she was busy 
 peeling potatoes, and stopped her short. 
 
 "Now, just you look here," said she, and her 
 face was more flushed and angry than the occa- 
 sion warranted. "If you don't leave off talking 
 about those London ladies, I shall have to punish 
 you. You've done nothing but talk, talk, talk, 
 about them silly, dressed-up puppets that they 
 are ever since they were here. And if you think 
 they'd make anything for you, you are under a big 
 mistake. If it is a muslin dress like theirs for
 
 172 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 your best doll, like you wanted, I doubt if either 
 of them could do anything so sensible as make a 
 doll's dress. I shouldn't think they could hold a 
 needle in their hands, let alone use it. And you 
 have no business thinking about your dolls on the 
 Sabbath Day either." 
 
 "It wasn't a doll's dress I was wondering if 
 they would make," said Elspeth meekly. 
 
 "Well, I don't care what it was. Don't you 
 mention them to me again. I saw them laugh- 
 ing and giggling when they went away that day. 
 At you and your father, no doubt. I hope they 
 never enter this house again while I am here, 
 that's all." 
 
 So Elspeth subsided hastily. 
 
 "If I had only a cat," she whispered to her- 
 self; "or if I might just bring out Eliza Jane 
 to tell her, it wouldn't be so bad. Oh, I wish 
 father hadn't told me about it." She sighed 
 heavily, and Janet, turning round again, softened 
 when she saw the child's wistful little face. 
 
 "You may go upstairs now and watch for your 
 father coming home from church, if you like. 
 YOU can put the table-cloth on for me, and put 
 out the mats and the table-napkins, and make 
 yourself useful," she said graciously.
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 173 
 
 Elspeth went away upstairs with alacrity. 
 When she had done these small duties, and put 
 her father's slippers down to warm at the fire, 
 she gazed out at the window on the spotless 
 scene. The grey square was transformed into a 
 glistening fairyland of whiteness, the trees were 
 all burdened and bowed down with their heavy 
 weight of spotless snow. Not a living creature 
 was to be seen. Even the tame robin, which came 
 to the window-sill every morning at breakfast- 
 time for crumbs, was hidden up somewhere. 
 
 "I must tell somebody," she said. "Would 
 it be very wicked, I wonder, to make up a doll? 
 Would God strike me dead for breaking the 
 Sabbath if I did? Oh, I must tell somebody." 
 
 She listened a moment, and now she heard 
 Janet walking to and fro in her bedroom beneath, 
 dressing herself for church in the afternoon, the 
 snow having ceased falling. Hastily she snatched 
 the cushion off the sofa, wrapped it up in a 
 woollen antimacassar, and sat down with it in her 
 lap. 
 
 "Oh, Helena Victoria Beatrice," she murmured, 
 in the hushed tones of romance, being greatly en- 
 amoured of the royal princes and princesses at 
 that time the youngest of them in particular
 
 174 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 laying her cheek against the cushion, conscious 
 that she was imperilling her soul in this make- 
 believe. "My darling own father is going to be 
 married again, and I am not glad. I can't be 
 glad. Father is my sweetheart and I cannot give 
 him up to any one else. He is mine, my very 
 own, and it breaks my heart. He says I can go 
 halves, but I can't go halves with any one." 
 
 She felt better after this outburst, and, hear- 
 ing her father knocking the snow off his boots at 
 the gate just then, hastily put away the make- 
 believe doll and ran to greet him with a smiling, 
 if flushed and guilty, face. 
 
 The longing for comfort and exchange of con- 
 fidences overwhelmed her again in the afternoon, 
 when she and her father were alone. She crept 
 close up to him and laid her head on his arm, 
 more than once, but he was writing, writing to 
 the London lady all the time, hurrying to get his 
 letter finished before the Dragon came home from 
 her church, so that he need not meet her accusing 
 eyes. He, too, was breaking the Sabbath writing 
 letters. 
 
 Elspeth longed for her dolls and sighed wearily 
 through the long, dreary afternoon. In the even- 
 ing it was a little better, when she and her father
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 175 
 
 read the big Bible together and she had the pic- 
 tures to look at. But he was firm in his refusal 
 that night to bring out her mother's wedding- 
 cake and have that little sacramental service. 
 (Indeed, they never had it again in this world.) 
 He also changed the subject whenever she began 
 to talk about the London lady, with whom, to 
 tell the truth, he was a little annoyed. He had 
 been reading her long, much-crossed letter over 
 again, and it had struck him as being slightly 
 dictatorial in its tone. 
 
 "When I think of your little girl," it said, 
 with many underlinings, "as I saw her that day, 
 with her red shawl and red hair, a colour I have 
 always particularly disliked, as in my experi- 
 ence of life I have always found it associated 
 with a very bad temper" (poor, maligned, red 
 heads!) "her shocking manners and her deplor- 
 able Scotch accent, I really feel that I cannot 
 marry you. She looked such a little barbarian. 
 But as for yourself you know that I " 
 
 He smiled over the remainder of the sentence. 
 The lady had been by no means easy to win. 
 Perhaps that was part of the attraction to a man 
 so much courted as he was. The unconscious 
 child had been at one time an almost insurmount-
 
 176 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 able barrier between them. A previous marriage 
 was bald enough. But a child! The lady drew 
 the line firmly at the child. However, he had 
 conquered at last. His second wooing was 
 crowned with success, after a long time of appar- 
 ently fruitless effort on his part. The lady was 
 quite within her rights in imposing conditions on 
 him. It was a great honour that she should take 
 him at all, for she was distinctly charming, and 
 very clever and accomplished. He was, more- 
 over, very much in love, so there was an end of 
 it. 
 
 But did she, perhaps, think a little too much 
 of appearances and the outside things of life"? 
 He was a simple-minded man himself and liked 
 simplicity and naturalness before everything else. 
 And was the child really so bad as all that? He 
 had kept glancing at her from time to time while 
 writing his reply, and he thought not. A little 
 old-fashioned, perhaps. She was being brought 
 up by old-fashioned people. Grandfather was 
 old-fashioned. So was Janet. So was the Laird. 
 So, perhaps, also, was he himself. But they had 
 done their best. 
 
 And as for her hair, in his eyes it was beauti- 
 ful, and to call it red was a libel. He had artis-
 
 THE LONDON LADIES 177 
 
 tic tastes, and it was the shade and colour 
 artists raved over. Titian would have painted 
 it. It had been the sun glinting on her mother's 
 ringlets of burnished copper that had made him 
 glance first at the gentle face framed by them. 
 There was a tugging at his heart-strings as he 
 thought of her, but he put the old memories 
 hastily aside. Such thoughts were not for him 
 now. But he wondered a little if he were doing 
 right in his choice of a second mother for the 
 child she had left behind in his care. 
 
 Already, without their knowing it, the graceful 
 shadow of the London lady was gliding between 
 them, and the dual life of father and child, with 
 its touching devotion to each other, its pathetic 
 love, born of loneliness and bereavement, was 
 slipping away from them both down that swiftly 
 flowing, restless stream which we call Life, never 
 to return again.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE MAGNETISM OF HENDRY 
 
 IT was four days after Elspeth was burdened 
 with the secret of her father's engagement to 
 the London lady, and there was a young people's 
 party at Freddy's old home, to which she had been 
 invited. 
 
 During those four days Elspeth had been 
 snowed up in the house alone with the Dragon, 
 and although she had told all her dolls the won- 
 derful secret, and the robin had listened to it 
 on the window-sill, with his perky little head 
 cocked on one side, no sympathetic human ear 
 had heard it as yet. The London lady's name 
 must not be mentioned, even indirectly, in Janet's 
 hearing. Her father was very much engaged 
 that week, and was even lunching in town on 
 account of the bad weather. Except for a few 
 minutes during his hurried breakfast Elspeth 
 never saw him at all. So now she turned her 
 thoughts in the direction of the party, where she 
 hoped to meet some of her little girl friends, 
 
 178
 
 THE MAGNETISM OF HENDRY 179 
 
 to whom she could confide it in strictest secrecy. 
 
 Parties were not always nice. Often they were 
 quite the reverse. Sometimes there were grumpy, 
 taciturn, or terrifying fathers to be met. On 
 those occasions how proud Elspeth was of her 
 own handsome, genial one, who had once or twice 
 come to take her home! Sometimes there were 
 fidgety or critical mothers, who were always find- 
 ing fault with their own children and looking 
 askance at other people's. Sometimes the girls 
 of the family were quarrelsome or jealous, and 
 sometimes oh, horror of horrors! there were 
 bullying big brothers to be encountered. 
 
 At Freddy's old home there were none of those 
 uncomfortable things. The mother was gentle 
 and sweet, the white-haired father was as genial 
 and kind and handsome as Elspeth's own. The 
 boys and girls had been brought up to think of 
 others rather than themselves. Consequently, 
 parties there were a source of unalloyed delight, 
 and although all the family were rriuch older than 
 herself, a few choice little ones, who would have 
 been Freddy's contemporaries had he lived, were 
 always invited with the others. 
 
 Think, then, of Elspeth's disgust when she 
 heard the Dragon say that Thursday morning to
 
 i8o A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 her father, as he was putting on his coat in the 
 hall, 
 
 "I am afraid Elspeth won't be able to go to 
 the party to-night." 
 
 Her father, looking down, saw a flushed and 
 eager little face, with a very anxious pair of 
 brown eyes in it, fixed on him. 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," he said. "Why not 4 ?" 
 
 "The weather, sir, just look at it. And all the 
 way to the other side of the Park! It is such 
 a long way for her to walk. The snow is very 
 deep in places, and I heard her sneezing in the 
 night last night too. She'll catch her death of 
 cold." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," said the easy-going father 
 again. "She is not made of salt or sugar to melt 
 easily, are you, Elspeth? If she wants to go, and 
 is well wrapped up, I don't think she would take 
 any harm. Do you want to go, dear 1 ?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, father." 
 
 The Dragon compressed her thin lips. Would 
 this irresponsible man never learn the value of 
 the child's soul entrusted to him 1 ? Would he 
 never understand that disappointments were good 
 for her 1 ? That what she liked, or did not like, 
 was but a bubble compared to her development.
 
 THE MAGNETISM OF HENDRY 181 
 
 That the will must be broken in childhood or the 
 heart will assuredly be broken in maturity. She 
 said nothing, however, but was silent, with the 
 stern silence of disapproval. 
 
 There was nothing for it after that but to get 
 things ready. So, with much grumbling at hav- 
 ing to go out herself with her charge in such bit- 
 ter weather, she starched and ironed the little 
 rough-dried white muslin party frock, and laid it 
 with its sash of royal-blue, ready for use on the 
 bed, and aired various dainty, lace-trimmed party 
 garments at her kitchen fire. 
 
 Four o'clock in the afternoon saw them start- 
 ing. Elspeth, muffled up to the eyes in shawls, 
 her feet encased in thick knitted woollen stock- 
 ings over her white open-worked evening ones, 
 and strong laced boots, with india-rubber goloshes 
 on the top of all. 
 
 The wind blew fiercely down the square. It 
 had been thawing all day and the deep snow had 
 turned into a sticky substance. The weather was 
 full of vagaries, and now it was freezing hard 
 again. What walking would be like later on no- 
 body knew. 
 
 Elspeth's goloshes, bought with a careful and 
 thrifty eye to futurity, were a size too large for
 
 182 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 her, and were continually slipping off at the most 
 inconvenient places, or whenever she tried to 
 hurry. Once or twice one was left behind in a 
 mountain of slush and had to be gone back for. 
 The Dragon was in a very bad temper. 
 
 "I am sure you might feel when they come 
 off. They are heavy enough," she said angrily, 
 after going back the third time. Elspeth was 
 very near tears. The multi-coloured tip of her 
 nose felt frost-bitten even under her grey Shet- 
 land veil. Altogether it was a slow and rather 
 sorrowful progress to the brilliantly-lighted house 
 beyond the Park, and tea had already commenced 
 when they arrived. 
 
 All troubles were forgotten, however, by Els- 
 peth, after the Dragon had taken off her mummy- 
 like wrappings, put on her evening shoes, and 
 brushed her curls by a warm bedroom fire, and 
 she went down to the happy party in the dining- 
 room and saw the many smiling faces of her kind 
 friends. 
 
 "Come away, come away. Better late than 
 never," said Freddy's genial father. The mother 
 smiled a gentle welcome, and made a place beside 
 her at the table for the late-comer. Hendry, 
 whom Elspeth had not seen for a year, as he was
 
 THE MAGNETISM OF HENDRY 183 
 
 now away at boarding-school, ran round to her 
 with cookies, pinching her cheek as he did so, look- 
 ing tall and handsome in his evening suit, and the 
 shy child soon forgot her shyness in the warm and 
 cheerful atmosphere of this happy home. 
 
 The evening was well-advanced, and a game of 
 "forfeits" was in progress, before Elspeth discov- 
 ered that she had lost her pocket-handkerchief, 
 and would have nothing to pay were she called 
 upon to forfeit anything. She remembered that 
 she had not had it since tea. So, during one of 
 the pauses of the game, she slipped downstairs to 
 look for it under the dining-room table. 
 
 The room was in semi-darkness, but she soon 
 spied the little embroidered white square lying 
 where she had dropped it at tea-time. As she 
 picked it up, she heard a smothered laugh from a 
 corner of the large room, and looking fearfully 
 round, discovered a small group of boys who had 
 slipped surreptitiously away from the girls' games 
 going on in the drawing-room. 
 
 There was Hendry in the corner sitting on a 
 form, with boys to right of him, and boys to left 
 of him, doing sleight-of-hand tricks for their 
 benefit. There was much laughing and whisper- 
 ing going on in the half-light of that merry corner.
 
 184 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Now what was it if it was not pure magnetism? 
 Elspeth was naturally a very nervous and shy 
 child. She was particularly afraid of the whole 
 boy-species. And amongst this group of boys she 
 saw the bullying big brother of one of her little 
 friends a boy who had once snatched the slender 
 gold chain from her neck at a party, and snapped 
 the ingenious wire fastening at the back. It was 
 her mother's watch-chain, which the Dragon had 
 wound several times round her neck, attached to 
 the little locket with her mother's likeness in it. 
 This bully had made ribald remarks and asked if 
 it had come out of the pawnshop, and Elspeth 
 had flown into a violent rage and stamped her 
 foot at him, which had apparently greatly pleased 
 him. Now, whenever he saw her alone, or met 
 her on her way to school in the morning, he would 
 come close up to her with the jibe "pawnshop," 
 hissed hatefully in her ear as he passed, or make 
 some unintelligible low remark from the other side 
 of the road about donkeys liking carrots. Elspeth 
 in her heart hated him so much she could have 
 killed him. 
 
 Her enemy looked round now jeeringly, and 
 she drew herself up with dignity and prepared
 
 THE MAGNETISM OF HENDRY 185 
 
 to leave the room. But Hendry also looked. 
 The merry, twinkling hazel eyes said to her as 
 plainly as words, "Come here, Elspeth, and sit 
 on my knee and see me do my conjuring tricks. 
 / will take care of you." And the mesmerism of 
 those kind, laughing eyes went straight to her 
 heart and ran down into her little bronze shoes, 
 and, without stopping to think what she was do- 
 ing, she ran quickly across the room, warily step- 
 ping over the big, clumsy foot which the Bully 
 had stuck out for her to trip over. She was on 
 Hendry's knee, within his warm, encircling arm, 
 before you could look round. The Bully was 
 quelled by the look of quiet power on Hendry's 
 face and said nothing. Happy Elspeth, to have 
 such a "very parfait gentil knight" as her pro- 
 tector. The influence which Hendry afterwards 
 possessed over his fellow-men was there in em- 
 bryo over his fellow-boys. 
 
 For some minutes she sat quietly watching his 
 clever tricks. Then she suddenly became con- 
 scious of her secret. The intolerable burden of 
 it had somewhat worn off during the excitement 
 of the evening, and it had for a time passed out 
 of her mind. She had as yet found no one with
 
 186 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 whom to share it. It now flashed across her that 
 here was a safe recipient. Hendry was true, and 
 staunch, and loyal, a very prince amongst 
 boys. She would share the mighty secret with 
 Hendry. 
 
 She watched her opportunity, and one soon 
 occurred. There was a pause in the tricks. The 
 Bully's attention was temporarily engaged in cuf- 
 fing the small boy next to him. Elspeth slipped 
 a loving arm round Hendry's neck and whispered : 
 
 "Hendry." 
 
 He bent his head to listen, smiling at her. 
 
 "Well, what is it? Do you think you can do 
 that trick?" 
 
 "Hendry, I have a secret to tell you." 
 
 Then he saw that it was something important. 
 
 "Well, what is it?" he whispered back. 
 
 "I want to tell you. My father is going to be 
 married again." 
 
 Now he was surprised indeed. 
 
 "No!" he ejaculated. 
 
 "He is," said Elspeth, nodding her head. "He 
 is, truly." 
 
 "Who told you?" asked Hendry. 
 
 "He told me his own self." 
 
 "Who to?" was the next whispered question.
 
 THE MAGNETISM OF HENDRY 187 
 
 "To one of the London ladies." 
 
 "Never!" said Hendry, in such a tone of sur- 
 prise that he nearly let Elspeth slip off his knee 
 and had to gather her hurriedly on again. 
 "Which of them?" 
 
 "Miss Lilian. The one who sings, 'Will ye 
 no come back again*?' " 
 
 For that was what her father and Miss Lilian 
 had sung together in her hearing. 
 
 "Well, I never!" whispered Hendry. 
 
 At this moment his mother appeared in the 
 doorway. 
 
 "Boys!" she exclaimed, "how naughty of you 
 to go away like that by yourselves. How very 
 unchivalrous to go off and leave the girls to play 
 alone ! Hendry, I am surprised at you. Go all 
 of you upstairs at once and join in the girls' 
 games. And you, Elspeth, dear, what are you 
 doing down here?" 
 
 "I came for my handkerchief," she replied, 
 holding it out, "and I stayed." 
 
 "Come away, then, with me," said the lady. 
 "Now, boys, off you go at once." 
 
 The boys tumbled upstairs laughing, a rough- 
 and-tumble mass of humanity, Elspeth and the 
 hostess following.
 
 i88 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 No one noticed that Hendry had quietly de- 
 tached himself from the group, and that when 
 they all entered the drawing-room he was not 
 amongst them.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE SORROWFUL WAY 
 
 FOR what followed Elspeth never blamed 
 Hendry. Not even when the fate of the 
 revealer of secrets befell her, when the sun was 
 darkened and the moon ceased to give light, when 
 even the stars themselves ceased to twinkle, as 
 she bewailed her sins in the black darkness of the 
 coal-cellar, trembling with fear at Willie Windy 
 howling round the house for his little wife. For 
 Jane's ventriloquism had been well done, and to 
 Elspeth Willie Windy was a real personage, a 
 very living and real terror, and there was no one 
 to undeceive her. Besides, in the coal-cellar, 
 there was nothing to hinder him from flying 
 down the grating and going off with her bodily. 
 
 She never blamed Hendry. He was not to 
 know the weight of her mighty secret, and that 
 he alone out of a crowd had been chosen to share 
 it. Probably in the short course of the inter- 
 rupted whisper he had not even understood that 
 
 189
 
 igo A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 it was a secret at all. Certainly he did not know 
 that it was a burden which had been carried for 
 days awaiting a trustworthy confidant. Still less 
 did he dream of the consequences to her of his 
 repeating what she had told him. 
 
 It was the simplest thing in the world. Fate 
 has often hung upon a thread. This time she 
 hung upon a button. 
 
 When Hendry left the other boys he bounded 
 upstairs to the nursery. The comfortable, moth- 
 erly nurse, who had been a second mother to all 
 the family, sat in an easy chair by the fire sew- 
 ing, an open work-basket on the table beside her 
 well supplied with needles threaded ready with 
 cotton. For it was a time of girls' flimsy even- 
 ing frocks. Tulles and tarlatans and gauzes tore 
 if you so much as looked at them sometimes, and 
 all knew that nurse waited with nimble fingers in 
 the nursery, ready to repair rents, or gathers, torn 
 in play as soon as they occurred. 
 
 Hendry now held out a shirt-cuff with a but- 
 ton hanging by a thread. 
 
 "Ah, Master Hendry ! Conjuring again, I can 
 see." 
 
 "Yes," he replied. 
 
 "Do you know," he asked carelessly, while the
 
 THE SORROWFUL WAY 191 
 
 nurse stitched the button on, "Elspeth Arnot says 
 her father is going to marry Miss Lilian Carew 4 ?" 
 
 "Is he*?" said the nurse, with much interest; 
 for the London ladies had been staying as guests 
 in that very house (although Elspeth did not 
 know it), and it was there that her father's court- 
 ship had been carried on. There had been a good 
 deal of talk and surmise about it in the servants' 
 hall, and much wondering as to whether anything 
 would come of it. 
 
 "Is he? Well, I am not surprised. He came 
 here a great deal when they stayed here. Who 
 did you say told you, Master Hendry*?" 
 
 "Elspeth told me just now. She said her 
 father told her himself." 
 
 "Oh, then it must be all settled," said the 
 nurse. "I must ask Janet when she comes to- 
 night how she likes that idea. It will make a 
 great difference to her, I should think. Any 
 more loose buttons, Master Hendry*?" 
 
 "No, thanks," said Hendry, hurrying off. 
 Nothing could have been simpler. 
 
 When Janet came for Elspeth that evening 
 the nurse and she had a long private conversa- 
 tion in the nursery together, and it was late be- 
 fore the child was summoned from the drawing-
 
 192 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 room. She trotted upstairs gleefully, her hands 
 full of bon-bons, and miscellaneous treasures out 
 of crackers, to show Janet. On her head was a 
 pink paper cap, and she was flushed and excited 
 with the happy time she had been having. It 
 had been a delightful evening all through. She 
 had rolled her burden on the sympathetic Hendry, 
 and felt correspondingly light of heart. 
 
 But at the first sight of the Dragon's face her 
 own fell. It was white, set, and terrible, the 
 thin lips drawn to a mere line. Not a word was 
 said. Janet snatched the treasures out of the 
 child's hands, and the cap off her head, and threw 
 them on the dressing-table. Then she muffled 
 her up quickly in her shawls and wrappings, tying 
 on the capacious goloshes firmly this time with 
 string brought with her in her pocket. 
 
 "You have tied them too tight, they hurt me," 
 whispered Elspeth. 
 
 "They are nothing of the kind," said the 
 Dragon. Not another word passed between 
 them. 
 
 In absolute silence they went through the hall, 
 grimly passing the line of maids sitting waiting 
 for their charges. In silence they trod the 
 crunching snow, down the carriage-drive, out into
 
 THE SORROWFUL WAY 193 
 
 the road. They turned to the right, ,a different 
 direction to that by which they had come, and 
 Elspeth ventured to remonstrate. 
 
 "Oh, why are we going such a long, round- 
 about way home on such a cold night?" 
 
 "That is my business," was the stern reply. 
 
 What was going to happen? They walked on 
 rapidly. To Elspeth it almost seemed as if they 
 flew, so quickly did they get over the ground. 
 They went out of their way to reach the terrace 
 where her grandfather lived, and stopped oppo- 
 site his house. Elspeth was panting breathlessly 
 between fear and haste. She was absolutely ig- 
 norant of any cause of offence. What had she 
 been doing? There is something horribly appall- 
 ing about the unknown. 
 
 A bright light was burning in her grandfather's 
 bedroom upstairs. It shone cheerfully through 
 the buff linen blind of his window. The Elder 
 was going to his peaceful bed. He was punc- 
 tuality and method itself, and the town clock 
 struck ten as the two figures stood silently in 
 the snow outside. Two loose teeth awaiting the 
 Dragon's rough dentistry chattered in Elspeth's 
 head. 
 
 As they looked, the Elder's shadow crossed
 
 194 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 the blind. He came over close to the window 
 and stood there winding up his watch. His slim, 
 erect figure was silhouetted against the bright 
 yellow background, every line of it perfect, his 
 straight, clear-cut features, framed with his abun- 
 dant hair, showing up as if they had been cut out 
 of black paper. 
 
 "Do you see your grandfather*?" asked the 
 Dragon in an awful whisper. 
 
 "Ye-es," said the child, trembling. 
 
 "He thinks the whole world of you," hissed 
 the Dragon. "You are the very apple of his 
 eye. You little deceiver ! I wonder you are not 
 killed this moment at his railings like Ananias 
 and Sapphira. Their lives were not as bad as 
 yours." 
 
 The Elder moved away from the window just 
 then, and the sense of his nearness and protect- 
 ing presence, if she screamed very loud, forsook 
 the child and she shivered with terror. 
 
 "Take that and that and that," said the 
 Dragon. "That" meant blows on the victim's 
 back. They sounded very loud, but they did 
 not hurt much, for they fell on many woollen 
 wrappings, till a crowning one came and she went 
 down amongst the snow like a ninepin.
 
 THE SORROWFUL WAY 195 
 
 It was the most exquisite refinement of cruelty 
 to chastise her thus in front of her grandfather's 
 house, with her protector so near and yet so far 
 away. 
 
 Look out, quickly, grandfather, and see the 
 helpless child of your old age, the apple of your 
 eye, lying prostrate in the snow in front of your 
 window this bitter night! 
 
 She was not there long though. The Dragon 
 dragged her up again hastily before she had time 
 to cry out, and shook her roughly, balancing her 
 on the slippery goloshes. 
 
 "I've a good mind to leave you in the street 
 all night. You wicked, untruthful child!" she 
 said. 
 
 "I wish you would," wailed Elspeth, "and 
 then grandpapa would take me in." 
 
 The Dragon hurried her quickly past the house 
 at that. The Elder's hearing was quick. He 
 would recognise the child's voice at once, and 
 come out if she cried out loud. 
 
 A policeman passed them on his beat. Some 
 vague thoughts of appealing to him passed 
 through Elspeth's mind. But he never looked at 
 her.
 
 196 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "It's a fine clear nicht," he remarked in suave 
 tones to the Dragon. 'Treezin' hard again." 
 
 "It is that," she replied as blandly. 
 
 They walked on till they reached a corner of 
 waste ground at the end of the terrace. Here 
 some ancient corporation, with vague dreams of 
 beauty in its heart, had planted grass and shrubs 
 and erected a fountain in the middle. The nude 
 figure of a little child, blackened with age, stood 
 on a pedestal, tipping up a pitcher, through one 
 generation to another. The fountain, of which 
 it was the crowning ornament, was somewhat er- 
 ratic in its performances, and who turned on its 
 water supply or who turned it off, or whether it 
 was automatic, nobody seemed to know. It 
 played sometimes for weeks at a time, then 
 stopped suddenly for months. It had been play- 
 ing for some obscure reason when the Frost King 
 descended upon it and bound it fast in his chains 
 of ice. The little black figure stood now, pa- 
 thetic in its nakedness and loneliness, fringed 
 with mighty icicles, with icicles dropping from its 
 pitcher. 
 
 Elspeth had always felt a strange sympathy 
 for this childish statue. When she was very lit- 
 tle she had wanted to bring some of her warm
 
 THE SORROWFUL WAY 197 
 
 clothes to put on it. She thought of it often on 
 cold nights in the winter. So now she felt she 
 had a silent companion in her cold and misery. 
 The Dragon stopped by the frozen fountain and 
 began again. 
 
 "The wickedest, story- telling girl that ever 
 lived. That's what you are. A hypocrite. A 
 whited sepulchre, full of rottenness and dead 
 men's bones within. You pretend to be so good, 
 with your innocent looks, to your father and 
 grandfather. They don't know you. You lit- 
 tle " she paused to find the most expressive 
 
 word in her vocabulary, then hissed it out between 
 her teeth "you little cutty!" 
 
 Elspeth here plucked up a little courage, helped 
 by that silent, ice-bound, childish figure, which 
 was at once so much worse off than herself. 
 
 "I have been a good girl this week. You said 
 so yourself," she said, between her piteous sobs. 
 "I don't know why you are scolding me. If it is 
 the loaf-sugar that's gone again I wish you'd ask 
 father about it. He will tell you I've had none. 
 He says he buys the sugar and he'll take it if he 
 likes in spite of anybody." 
 
 She was tale-bearing again about her father 
 to excuse herself. The Dragon slapped her
 
 198 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 harder than ever. It penetrated this time to the 
 bare shoulders under her woollen wrappings. 
 
 "You know very well it is not sugar I am 
 speaking about," she said. "I forbade you ever 
 to mention those London ladies' names again, 
 and you go straight to this party, the very first 
 chance you have, and tell Hendry, Hendry who 
 is a boy! I wonder you didn't think shame to 
 be so forward as to tell a boy such a thing that 
 your father is going to marry one of them ! And 
 it'll be all through the town to-morrow, and in 
 the papers on Saturday. Such a wicked, wicked 
 lie ! As if your father would look at one of them 
 after the mother you had. You'll come to the 
 gallows before you've done." 
 
 "But father " began Elspeth. 
 
 "Be quiet now immediately, and don't tell me 
 any more of your lies, but walk home in front 
 of me. You'll never see your mother again, that 
 I know. When you get to the next world the 
 door of Heaven will be slammed close shut in 
 your face!" 
 
 This was the culminating and most terrible 
 prophecy, which generally broke Elspeth's heart 
 and haunted her dreams for nights. But some-
 
 THE SORROWFUL WAY 199 
 
 how to-night, as she walked the rest of her sor- 
 rowful way home, weeping quietly in anticipation 
 of what was sure to come, dragging her heavy 
 goloshed feet through the snow, so conscious was 
 she of absolute innocence that it had little or no 
 effect. Even the stars seemed to wink kindly 
 down upon her, as if to say that beyond them, 
 where her mother dwelt, there was only peace and 
 love, and little children were never misunder- 
 stood, as they so often were in this weary world 
 down below. 
 
 The Dragon was one of those people who, even 
 in a walk with a confidential friend, had to keep 
 stopping to talk every now and then, as if the 
 mere act of locomotion impeded her flow of lan- 
 guage. But she never stopped now till they 
 reached their own house, walking the rest of the 
 way in a silence that could be felt, and was very 
 uncomfortable to feel. Then she propped Els- 
 peth, who was by this time very tired, up against 
 one stone pillar of the gate, and leant against the 
 other herself for further parley. The house was 
 in semi-darkness, her master not having yet re- 
 turned home. 
 
 "Now, before you go in, you've got to say
 
 200 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 you're sorry for telling such lies," she said, fe- 
 turning to the charge; "or else you'll stay out 
 here all night." 
 
 Elspeth sighed wearily. She was too tired to 
 care what happened to her. The secret was out 
 now anyway. Her father was better able to pro- 
 tect himself than she was. 
 
 Suddenly and unexpectedly she turned at bay, 
 and her quivering childish mouth took on a 
 strange resemblance to her grandfather's firm one. 
 
 "I am not sorry," she said boldly. "I am 
 not sorry one single bit. I haven't told any lies. 
 Father told me himself, and he said I wasn't to 
 tell you. You may kill me if you like," she 
 added, with sublime indifference, leaning up 
 against the pillar. 
 
 But this was a new aspect of the affair. Could 
 there possibly be some truth in it after all"? The 
 Dragon was nonplussed. That her suspicions 
 had been aroused previously, was evident by the 
 jealousy with which she had received any mention 
 of the London ladies' names. She called to mind 
 that lately her master had been behaving uncom- 
 monly like an accepted lover whistling and sing- 
 ing Jacobite songs about the quiet house like a 
 happy-hearted boy. He was still young and was
 
 THE SORROWFUL WAY 201 
 
 now evidently getting over his grief, which had 
 been very deep and sincere while it lasted. 
 
 The Dragon said no more, but walked thought- 
 fully up the steps, inserted her latch-key in the 
 door, and, pushing the child before her, entered 
 the hall, still thinking. 
 
 "Now go downstairs," she said sharply, "while 
 I see to the fires up here. And take off your 
 wraps, and I'll come down and give you the big" 
 gest thrashing you have ever had in your life. 
 You deserve it. You won't forget this one in a 
 hurry." 
 
 Elspeth walked slowly and sorrowfully along 
 the hall, with eyes half-blind with weeping. 
 There was no escape. Janet's word was as the 
 laws of the Medes and Persians. She always 
 kept it. If she could only run away to her 
 grandfather! But the back door was locked and 
 bolted she knew. It always was at nights, and 
 she could not reach the top bolt. So that was no 
 use. 
 
 The back stairs were very dark and crooked, 
 with an awkward bend to them. Elspeth had 
 had more than one bad fall there, and her father 
 had a thick rope fixed up for her to hold on by, 
 as there was no railing. She held on to the rope
 
 202 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 now by sheer force of habit, for she would have 
 been glad to have gone down head first, with 
 the natural speed of gravitation, right from the 
 top to the bottom, and there would have been 
 an end of her. She kicked one foot sullenly be- 
 hind the other and walked as slowly as possible. 
 
 At the crooked and dangerous bend the string 
 which tied on a golosh came undone and it slipped 
 off. And there in the dark corner, in her fatigue, 
 and despair, and helplessness, the tempter met 
 her. 
 
 Hitherto she had been blamed unjustly. She 
 would now deserve the punishment which was 
 surely coming. She would leave the golosh lying 
 there, and Janet, who never held on by the ropes, 
 would fall over it, and rumbling down to the 
 bottom of the stairs would break her neck. She 
 (Elspeth) would be hanged for it. But that was 
 a mere detail. 
 
 Another thought also struck her, and on the 
 spur of it she raced down the rest of the stairs 
 with speed. The bedroom which she shared 
 (except on Saturday nights) with Janet, was a 
 large sunny room in the front of the house, facing 
 the square. It was the breakfast-room of the 
 house, really, and was only a semi-basement.
 
 THE SORROWFUL WAY 203 
 
 Here, in a large cupboard, Elspeth kept her toys 
 and played by herself when it was not too cold, 
 and here also she slept. It served as day and 
 night nursery combined. It was exactly opposite 
 the stairs. The gas a naked light was burn- 
 ing there now dimly. The bracket had flexible 
 joints, it was bent over to the looking-glass, 
 where Janet had serenely put on her bonnet before 
 going out, and was well within Elspeth's reach. 
 
 Speedily she disrobed, dashing off shawls and 
 mufflers. Then with three mighty puffs she blew 
 out the gas, and in her low-necked muslin frock 
 crawled under Janet's bed, and up into its farth- 
 est away corner. She was absolutely safe there, 
 she knew. It was an old-fashioned wooden 
 double bedstead, very narrow underneath, and no 
 grown-up person could ever get under it. It was 
 fixed up against the wall and was very heavy to 
 move. Unless her father helped Janet to move 
 it she might stay there all night if she liked. 
 
 It was bitterly cold. There was no fire in the 
 room. Janet would not allow that, for she be- 
 lieved in making children hardy. The icy wind 
 blew up from the cracks in the floor, which was 
 uncarpeted under the bed. There was dust, and 
 cobwebs, where Janet's broom could not reach to
 
 204 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 sweep. It was hardly the place for a scanty mus- 
 lin, low-necked, short-sleeved evening frock on a 
 bitter night in January. But Elspeth knew she 
 was safe from pursuit. She held the key of the 
 position in her own small hands.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LIKE AS A FATHER 
 
 JANET was a long time upstairs in the dining- 
 room and her master's bedroom. She had 
 been away for two or three hours, and the fires 
 were nearly out and were tiresome to burn. It 
 was some time before she could leave them to go 
 to the shivering culprit below. As she went down 
 the back stairs she was assailed by a strong smell 
 of escaping gas. 
 
 "What have you been doing, you bad child!" 
 she cried, running down swiftly, neatly missing 
 the golosh. 
 
 Then the window had to be opened to let 
 the smell out, and in the darkness Janet, 
 fumbling for the bracket to turn the gas off, 
 knocked her head sharply against it. Elspeth 
 laughed hysterically under the bed. She was 
 thoroughly naughty now and utterly regardless 
 of consequences. 
 
 In vain, when Janet discovered her where- 
 abouts, did she order her to come out, issuing 
 
 205
 
 206 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 imperative commands, entreaties, threats, by 
 turns. Elspeth remained there, sullen and im- 
 movable. If she froze to death, which seemed 
 quite likely, there she would stay till they found 
 her skeleton. Janet's temper waxed furious. 
 She fetched a broom and gave several smart cracks 
 with it in the far corner. Elspeth lay face down- 
 wards, laughing and crying alternately when she 
 found she was beyond reach. 
 
 At last the enemy was worsted and had no al- 
 ternative but to surrender. 
 
 "Stay, then, where you are," Janet cried, "till 
 your father comes home, if it should be till mid- 
 night. His hands are stronger and heavier than 
 mine. What he'll do to you I dare not think. 
 I would not trust myself now to whip you. I 
 am too angry." 
 
 She went off into the kitchen as she spoke, 
 and Elspeth lay still, sobbing and shivering, till she 
 heard her father's step in the hall. Janet went 
 up to meet him. There was a long conversation 
 in the room overhead. The voices rose and fell, 
 now low, now loud. Elspeth heard her father 
 pacing about the room. It almost seemed as if 
 he were remonstrating with Janet for giving him 
 some task to do to which he objected.
 
 LIKE AS A FATHER 207 
 
 "Where is she 9" she heard him ask at length. 
 
 Presently she heard a loud noise on the stairs 
 rumble-tumble, rumble-tumble as if a heavy 
 body were being suddenly precipitated to the 
 bottom. It was her father tumbling over the 
 golosh! She had killed him instead of Janet! 
 Her kind, indulgent father ! She put her fingers 
 into her ears so that she should not hear the rest. 
 It was not until he looked under the bed that she 
 knew nothing serious had happened. 
 
 "Come out now, Elspeth, at once, and no non- 
 sense," he said gravely, in the quiet tone of one 
 accustomed to being obeyed. 
 
 But for the first time in her life Elspeth did 
 not obey that beloved voice. 
 
 Janet leant against the rail at the foot of the 
 bed, her face white with concentrated passion. 
 Her master glanced at her and took in the situa- 
 tion at once. He saw that it was a battle royal 
 of wills and that neither of the combatants would 
 surrender. 
 
 "I think, Janet," he said quietly, "if I am to 
 manage her, you had better go away. I can do 
 it better alone. You can go and make me some 
 coffee. I am tired and hungry. I have had a 
 long, hard day's work, and have not eaten any-
 
 208 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 thing since midday. Go away, now, if you 
 please, and leave me to manage her by myself." 
 
 So Janet withdrew, and he waited till he heard 
 her busy in the kitchen. She would disapprove 
 of his methods, he knew. There was dead silence 
 under the bed. 
 
 "Now, Elspeth," he said sorrowfully, "you're 
 a very naughty little girl, I hear. I want you 
 to come out at once. Father is very tired and 
 very cold. He has had a long drive from the 
 country to-night, and you will be kind to him, I 
 know. You know he won't whip his own only 
 little girl, so you can come out. He wants her 
 to explain to him what all this rumpus has been 
 about." 
 
 He waited patiently, and presently he heard 
 her shuffling nearer a little nearer still then 
 she peeped out from under the bed to see how 
 the land lay. 
 
 "Come away now, darling," he said. 
 
 After some more delay, she came out, a miser- 
 able and melancholy little object in her muslin 
 frock, all bedraggled with melted snow from the 
 golosh which had stayed on, festooned with cob- 
 webs, and covered with dust. Her sash of royal- 
 blue was crumpled and twisted round to the front;
 
 LIKE AS A FATHER 209 
 
 her white, tear-stained face was pitiable in its 
 abject misery. She who had gone forth so brave- 
 ly to her party ! 
 
 But there was dignity in every line of the erect, 
 diminutive figure. Her spirit was not yet broken. 
 Her father's lips twitched under his moustache 
 in spite of himself. 
 
 He held out his hand, and she took it with slow 
 and dignified deliberation. They looked at each 
 other gravely, as if taking each other's measure. 
 There was silence between them for a minute or 
 two. Then, at last, her dignity broke down, and, 
 sobbing, she asked a foolish question. 
 
 "Are you killed, father?" 
 
 It was absurd, seeing him there in the flesh, and 
 he laughed. He was rather glad to get an op- 
 portunity of laughing out loud. 
 
 "Killed! No. Why should I be killed?" 
 
 "Are you hurt?" 
 
 "No, I am not hurt. I slipped on the stairs, 
 that is all. Janet should be more careful and 
 not leave things lying about in that dark corner." 
 
 Elspeth looked at him. In spite of being 
 swollen with tears, her eyes grew round and big 
 at the thought of what might have been. But 
 she was no moral coward to let the weight of
 
 210 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 blame for her misdeeds fall upon any one else. 
 Not so had she been brought up. 
 
 "/ left it lying there," she said slowly. "It 
 wasn't Janet." 
 
 "You! Why?" 
 
 "For Janet to tofall over. I wanted to 
 murder her," she wailed, and flung herself 
 into her father's arms. He gathered her up in 
 them and held her frozen hands tightly in his 
 own. 
 
 "Now tell me," he said gravely, "from the be- 
 ginning, all about this. It is no use your setting 
 your will in opposition to Janet's, you know, for 
 she'll master you. You'll get the worst of it, 
 however hard you try. You may as well under- 
 stand that to commence with." 
 
 With many sobbing interruptions, and much 
 coaxing, she told her long and sorrowful story, 
 gathering confidence to explain some of the feel- 
 ings bottled up in her heart as she went along. 
 The father got a glimpse then into depths he had 
 never guessed at, so uncommonly like his own 
 that more than once he smiled over the childish 
 confidences. For it had been a difficulty in keep- 
 ing his own secret that had made him share it with
 
 LIKE AS A FATHER 211 
 
 her in the first place a most foolish and unwise 
 proceeding altogether. 
 
 He drew the rug off her crib beside him and 
 wrapped the shivering little mortal in it, listen- 
 ing to her story with a tenderness born of much 
 sympathy and understanding on his part. 
 
 "And, O father," wound up Elspeth, "please 
 do let me be your little companion again. But 
 don't don't tell me any more secrets, for I 
 can't keep them, you see. I was afraid I couldn't. 
 It was such a big secret for a little girl like me, 
 and I had to tell somebody. And now I've 
 broken my word, and grandpapa says that's a 
 very bad sign of anybody. But you never told 
 me not to tell Hendry, did you*? And I didn't 
 tell Janet till she knew." 
 
 "I never thought of him," said her father 
 simply. "Indeed, I didn't know you knew him 
 well enough to tell him anything. And he is a 
 big boy. I thought you were so dreadfully afraid 
 of big boys." 
 
 "Not of Hendry, father." 
 
 "Well, we'll say no more about it now. Shall 
 father undress you and sit with you till you go to 
 sleep*? and then you and Janet, as you've had
 
 212 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 such a terrific big quarrel, needn't see each other 
 again to-night." 
 
 "Oh, please." 
 
 He undressed her with tenderness, as he had 
 often done before on Sunday nights, when she 
 was too little, or too sleepy, to wait till Janet 
 came home. The excitement was over now and 
 she was quite worn out with the stress of her 
 emotions. He wiped her tear-stained face with 
 his pocket-handkerchief, and gently picked some 
 cobwebs off her hair, and he tucked her up in 
 her own little crib as tenderly as any mother. 
 The clock struck the hour of midnight as he did 
 so. 
 
 Her sleepy face looked up at him from the 
 pillow, all aglow with responsive love and grati- 
 tude, as with quivering lips she murmured: 
 
 "My prayers. You've forgiven me. May I 
 say them to you, dear father, now 1 ?" 
 
 "Surely surely." 
 
 He did not know that this was Janet's crown 
 and climax of punishment, to refuse to let her 
 say her prayers, and to send the child, sorrowful 
 and unshriven, into unhallowed sleep. It was 
 on those occasions that the door of Heaven was 
 slammed in her face, and she heard the terri-
 
 LIKE AS A FATHER 213 
 
 ble cry "Too late!" echoing through the night. 
 She murmured the infant's committal hymn 
 aloud : 
 
 "I lay my body down to sleep, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to keep. 
 If I should die before I wake, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to take." 
 
 Her voice grew fainter, and it was in a very 
 sleepy tone that she began the enumeration of her 
 beloved ones. "Bless father, grandfather, the 
 
 Laird, and Janet, and make little Elspeth " 
 
 Here the voice trailed away into silence. She 
 was asleep. 
 
 "Well, that's quick work," said her father, 
 after waiting a few minutes to hear if the sleepy 
 voice resumed its orisons again. "She must have 
 been thoroughly tired out. But what in the 
 world possessed her to tell the lad Hendry, I 
 wonder?" he added musingly, as he gently with- 
 drew his hand from hers. 
 
 Half an hour later Janet stood, shading a 
 candle with her hand, looking at the sleeping 
 child. A quivering sob passed over the little 
 frame as Janet stood there. The storm had spent 
 itself, but as the thunder rumbles away among the 
 mountains long after the sky has cleared, so
 
 214 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Elspeth's memory of her Via Dolorosa haunted 
 her even in her dreams. 
 
 She was small for her age, and for the first 
 time Janet seemed to see traces of inherent deli- 
 cacy in the dark violet shadows under her eyes, 
 and the blue veins shining through the white 
 skin. Her heart softened as she looked. 
 
 "Poor wee thing!" she said to herself. "Per- 
 haps her grandfather is right when he says I am 
 too severe with her. And I'm beginning to won- 
 der if there has maybe been some truth in what 
 she has been saying after all. Her father looked 
 uncommonly sheepish when I told him about it. 
 I don't know if he whipped her or not, but I will 
 not say anything more about it to her to-morrow. 
 I will just put her in the coal-cellar for tale-bear- 
 ing, for she must be stopped at that that is, un- 
 less she has got her death of cold to-night, which 
 I think is very likely." 
 
 Here Janet lifted up the crumpled blue sash 
 from where her master had put the boots on the 
 top of it, shook it out carefully, and moved her 
 candle farther away so that its rays should not 
 disturb the sleeper. 
 
 "And if her father is really going to marry a 
 butterfly of a lady like one of these London ones,"
 
 LIKE AS A FATHER 
 
 continued she, "then all the more reason why I 
 should make the most of my time while I am 
 here, in training her up in the nurture and ad- 
 monition of the Lord, so that she may never for- 
 get. She won't get much of it afterwards, or I'm 
 cheated. But what in the world made her tell 
 that boy Hendry is what gets over me, and her 
 ordinarily so shy with boys." 
 
 So both master and maid wondered the same 
 thing in almost identical words. But neither of 
 them ever thought a word about personal magne- 
 tism, or that would have explained everything. 
 
 And there let me say, as the figure of Janet 
 passes across these pages, that if I have failed to 
 depict her as she really was, a good woman and 
 true, of sterling principles, with high ideals of 
 duty and religion, I have failed indeed. 
 
 Of the blood of the martyrs was Janet. Fit 
 mate for one of those brave men of the moss- 
 hags, who skulked in caves and holes of the earth, 
 or left their bones bleaching in the dungeons of 
 the Bass, laying down their lives triumphantly 
 for God and the Covenant. Unfortunately, she 
 was born a couple of centuries too late, and, liv- 
 ing in the palmy, easy-going days of Queen Vic- 
 toria, had not their glorious opportunities of testi-
 
 216 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 fying. But that ancestor of hers who received 
 the crown of martyrdom, whose name is writ 
 large in the roll of the noble army of martyrs in 
 Edinburgh, had no more leal and true follower of 
 the principles for which he laid down his life, than 
 this humble working housekeeper, who was his 
 direct descendant, and earned her daily bread by 
 the honest sweat of her brow in the commonplace 
 ruts of quiet life. 
 
 She, too, would have gladly hailed such an 
 opportunity of laying down her life for her princi- 
 ples as he did, had she lived in more strenuous and 
 stirring times.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IN THE GLOAMING 
 
 SHADOWS lay over the grey house in the 
 square, the shadows of coming events. At 
 the door Fate sat spinning. When she saw the 
 Dragon go out, she shook her head slowly and 
 sadly. When she saw Elspeth come bounding in, 
 swinging her bag of school-books, she smiled a 
 little wistfully. Perhaps she herself had been a 
 child once and knew how swiftly childhood passes 
 away. When she saw grandfather, the Elder, 
 toiling up the steep walk which wound amongst 
 the trees for his daily constitutional, with his 
 hand behind his back to act as a propeller in his 
 ascent, she had tears in her eyes. But when she 
 looked at Elspeth's father, and saw the worried, 
 preoccupied look on his handsome face, she 
 laughed, and holding up her distaff laughed again 
 behind it. 
 
 "The Elder was up in the cemetery yester- 
 day," whispered the Dragon's widowed sister one 
 Sabbath, when she had come to tea. 
 
 "Never!" said the Dragon, with a start of 
 217
 
 218 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 such surprise that the toast on her toasting-fork 
 fell into the ash-pan. 
 
 "He was. I saw him." 
 
 "He's never been there since Mistress Arnot 
 was buried. Are you quite sure it was him 1 ?" 
 
 "Ay, I'm sure," said the widow. "I bought 
 two roots of pink double daisies at the door in 
 the forenoon. They were real fine roots. I paid 
 tuppence each for them. And I took them up 
 to the cemetery in the aifternoon, and I was 
 plantin' them on the gudeman's grave, when I 
 h'ard a quick, shairp step ahint me my! but he's 
 soople on his feet, that auld man and there was 
 the Elder. And he walkit ower to Mistress Ar- 
 not's grave and stood there a 'while. Then he 
 stoopit down and pookit up some weeds " 
 
 "Weeds!" interrupted the tidy Dragon, and 
 nearly dropped the toast again. "Is it untidy? 
 Elspeth and me haven't been up there for three 
 weeks." 
 
 "Oh, no, it's no' to say untidy. There's wall- 
 flowers out and white lilies real bonny and 
 / saw nae weeds. But the Elder pookit twa, 
 three bits o' gress, I'm thinkin' and flung 
 them ower the wall. Then he went away, walkin' 
 very shairp."
 
 IN THE GLOAMING 219 
 
 "Wonders'll never cease," said the Dragon. 
 "I wonder what took him up there." 
 
 But the Dragon herself had some mystery about 
 her, for sometimes she sighed, and once or twice 
 Elspeth saw tears in her eyes. She sewed ever- 
 lastingly at white seam. 
 
 "But, Janet," remonstrated Elspeth, "I had 
 three quite new white petticoats with a lot of 
 tucks in them last year, and you're making me 
 three more. And grandpapa says I haven't 
 grown a quarter of an inch since last year, for 
 he measures me on the door. He thinks I'm go- 
 ing to be a dwarf, like Kitty Wake." 
 
 "It's best to have half a dozen of everything," 
 said the Dragon. "You never know what's go- 
 ing to happen." Then she added in a vicious un- 
 dertone, breaking her thread with a snap as she 
 did so; "She shall see I know how to sew, at any 
 rate, and how children's clothes should be made." 
 
 When the light failed for white seam, the Dra- 
 gon crocheted tuckers, neat tuckers stitched on 
 white tape, a whole cardboard box full of them, 
 and explained how it was easiest for small fingers 
 to sew them on frocks. 
 
 "But, Janet," queried Elspeth, "if I have three 
 for my everyday frocks, and three for Sundays,
 
 220 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 I don't need any more, do I, when Auntie Rosie 
 washes them every fortnight*?" 
 
 "Auntie Rosie won't always wash them every 
 
 fortnight." 
 
 "Who will, then?" 
 
 "They'll perhaps go to a laundry," said Janet 
 mysteriously. She pronounced it "landry." 
 
 "What is a 'landry' *?" promptly asked Elspeth. 
 
 "Wait and see," said the Dragon. That horrid 
 answer to stay the insatiable thirst for knowledge 
 in youth, lately revived by an eminent person- 
 age. Surely he must have had it said to him in 
 his nursery days and have taken that opportunity 
 of retaliating on his fellow-countrymen. 
 
 "But, Janet " persisted the querist. 
 
 The Dragon here fixed her with her eye. 
 
 "Now then ! how often have I told you to ask 
 no questions and you'll be told no lies." 
 
 No more was to be gathered from that quarter. 
 
 Grandfather, too, was somewhat mysterious. 
 He drew the child close to him very often when 
 she went to see him, and sometimes smoothed 
 back her curls from her forehead with a very 
 gentle old hand. 
 
 " L You are getting rather like your grand-
 
 IN THE GLOAMING 221 
 
 mother," he said softly; "but with a difference, 
 for you are like your father too. You have her 
 brow. A fine, broad brow. There ought to be 
 something behind it. You must be very diligent 
 indeed with your lessons." 
 
 "I am," said Elspeth. "I have kept top for a 
 fortnight. I went bottom yesterday, though," 
 she added, as an afterthought. 
 
 "What for 4 ?" asked grandfather. 
 
 "For giggling. Oh, it was funny. We all 
 said that Miss Maria's curls at the back of her 
 head were false, and Nellie Anderson said if ever 
 she got the pointer in her hand when Miss Maria 
 was tying up the map, she would feel with it and 
 see. And she did it yesterday. And Miss Maria 
 turned round her head quickly to see who it was, 
 and the pointer caught in them, and the curls 
 came all off in a bunch, with a big comb, and the 
 black lace cap she always wears, fastened on to 
 them. And they all fell right down on to the 
 floor in a big bunch. And I laughed out loud. I 
 couldn't help it." 
 
 "That was a very rude girl," said grandfather 
 severely. 
 
 "Oh, but, grandpapa, you would have laughed
 
 222 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 yourself if you had seen it. Father laughed out 
 loud when I told him this morning. Miss Maria 
 looked so funny. She's got grey hair underneath, 
 just a little screwed-up wee wisp. And she's 
 quite bald on the top." 
 
 "Well, it was very rude, all the same," re- 
 peated grandfather. "I am surprised at you that 
 you didn't know how to behave better than that." 
 
 Elspeth hastily changed the subject. 
 
 "Grandpapa, why am I not going to the Laird's 
 this summer?" she asked. 
 
 "You must ask your father that question, not 
 me," he replied. 
 
 "But father won't tell me. He just says we 
 are going to the seaside instead. And the sea- 
 side isn't half so nice as going to the Laird's. I 
 just hate bathing when Janet puts me over the 
 head." 
 
 "No," said grandfather, "I agree with you. It 
 isn't nearly so nice as the Laird's." 
 
 He got up and walked over to the window as 
 he spoke, and looked out on his little garden patch, 
 now bursting into bloom with its sweet, old- 
 fashioned flowers. 
 
 " 'And the Lord God planted a garden east- 
 ward in Eden,' " he said softly to himself: " 'and
 
 IN THE GLOAMING 223 
 
 there he put the man whom he had formed . . . 
 to dress it and to keep it.' ' He paused a mo- 
 ment or two, and then went on: "'And the 
 Lord God drove the man . . . out of the gar- 
 den.' " 
 
 "There was a woman too," chimed in Elspeth, 
 who was listening intently, in the hope of catch- 
 ing some fragment of a solution to the mystery, 
 as she often did in her father's monologues. 
 "There was a woman too," she repeated, for her 
 grandfather did not appear to be listening to her. 
 
 "In this case there was only a man," he re- 
 plied. 
 
 "Grandpapa!" ejaculated Elspeth, "where was 
 Eve then? Adam was married when he was 
 turned out of Eden." 
 
 "In this case Adam was an old bachelor," said 
 her grandfather, so seriously that Elspeth asked 
 no more. 
 
 She grew tired at last of worrying her mysteri- 
 ous relatives, and devoted herself instead to her 
 dolls, crooning over them, mothering them, flying 
 into rages and slapping them, after the manner 
 of the Dragon herself. Then, after praying earn- 
 estly with the delinquents that they might have 
 new hearts given to them, hearts of flesh instead
 
 224 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 of stone, making them sit down and learn texts out 
 of the Proverbs as she had to do so often herself. 
 
 But indeed it was over the Laird's home that 
 the mystery and trouble lay. The long shadows 
 reached the grey town, but it was in the heart of 
 the beautiful country that the crucible was burn- 
 ing, purging and purifying the soul of the silver- 
 haired Laird, and breaking his heart in the proc- 
 ess. 
 
 It was through no fault of his own. He was 
 one of the simplest and most economical of men, 
 with not a single ambitious or extravagant taste 
 belonging to him. But his estate had been heav- 
 ily mortgaged by his father when he inherited it, 
 and he knew it. He was, unfortunately, no 
 farmer, and the land needed skilled farming to 
 make it pay. He was, withal, so simple and 
 child-like, so unbusiness-like and utterly unprac- 
 tical, living centuries back in his study amongst 
 his books, that he did not even seem to realise his 
 position until the inevitable happened. Then he 
 had to sell the house of his fathers to pay debts 
 that were none of his making, and his own heart 
 had to be fused in the process. 
 
 It was the last night of May, 18 . The Laird 
 had spent the day in his shirt-sleeves in his study,
 
 IN THE GLOAMING 225 
 
 and the result of his labours was apparent. 
 Three huge packing-cases were filled with books. 
 The dead languages were in one, modern lan- 
 guages in another, classics in the third. They 
 had all been bought secondhand. He had never 
 been rich enough to buy new books. Two more 
 cases yawned empty, waiting for the miscellaneous 
 assortment on the study shelves; the novels of 
 Scott, Fenimore Cooper, Smollett, Fielding, and 
 Richardson, books of Theology, Logic, Chemistry, 
 and all Hugh Miller's geological books. The 
 Laird was a voluminous reader of wide culture 
 and broad views. All sort of authors, ancient 
 and modern, crowded his shelves, the silent ser- 
 vants of his many solitary hours. 
 
 He was tired of stooping, and, standing up 
 straight to stretch his long back, he caught sight 
 of the sun setting, a red globe of fire, behind the 
 long range of serrated peaks which were visible 
 from his windows. It called to him to go out and 
 watch it, as it had done any time for the last sixty 
 years. To him the voice of Nature was the Voice 
 of God. 
 
 He washed his dusty hands in the little wash- 
 stand which stood in the cupboard of his study, 
 and put on his coat. The instincts of the old
 
 226 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 bachelor his "pernickety ways," as the Dragon 
 called them made him brush it carefully before 
 he put it on to go and look at the sunset, and he 
 rumpled up his snow-white curls with both his 
 hands. Then he went out and stood in the porch, 
 a fine, stalwart figure of a man. 
 
 Long years before, an eminent sculptor had 
 asked permission to model the old Laird's, his 
 father's, magnificent limbs for a celebrated statue 
 of Adam. The son inherited his father's splendid 
 health and magnificent physique. 
 
 He stood now, tall and stately, with the young 
 fresh tendrils of the honeysuckle climbing over 
 the trellis-work of the porch above his head. Be- 
 fore it flowered the old place would know him no 
 more. The man's heart was very full. 
 
 It was a sunset of strange tints that evening. 
 A background of clouds of deep violet tipped 
 with crimson. The sky, of the very palest blue, 
 had been turned by the brightness of the sun into 
 a lake of silver, in which floated small, fleecy 
 cloudlets of brilliant rose-pink, like islets float- 
 ing in a crystal sea. The rays of the sun be- 
 hind the purple clouds threw out long shafts of 
 dazzling brightness, which tipped the dark back- 
 ground with silver, as the sun kisses the petals of
 
 IN THE GLOAMING 227 
 
 a daisy. Every peak in the long range of moun- 
 tains on the west was rose-tipped, but the highest 
 of them all towered clear and cone-shaped in the 
 distance, glistening in a shimmering mantle of 
 silver and pale blue, as if the sky had wrapped 
 it round in its own cerulean colour. 
 
 The beautiful tints sank into the Laird's heart, 
 and set it throbbing and pulsing wildly against his 
 destiny. He was a child of the mountains, 
 poetic and dreamy. Spirits are not finely touched 
 but to fine issues, and such see God in every 
 flower that blooms and every leaf which rustles 
 and whispers overhead. The Spirit of the Moun- 
 tains spoke to the Laird's soul now in the glory 
 of the setting sun. 
 
 He reached his hand out for his hat, hanging 
 on a peg in the hall. He must go out into that 
 fresh, sweet-scented, rose-tinted air while the 
 afterglow lasted. He must walk round the old 
 place once more. 
 
 He paused at the sweet-brier hedge which 
 bordered the garden and looked over it. Every 
 spot was associated with his life. The old pear- 
 tree, with its gnarled and twisted branches, each 
 one bearing a different kind of fruit he had him- 
 self, as a boy, superintended their grafting into
 
 228 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 the original stock was now a mass of blossoms. 
 The apple and plum-trees were flaunting in their 
 spring robes of beauty. In the shady corner was 
 a bed of lilies-of-the-valley, and at his feet violets, 
 white and blue, lurked like weeds in every corner, 
 springing up even on the flagged path, filling the 
 air with their fragrance. 
 
 Was it in the spring of the year, I won- 
 der, when Adam and Eve were turned out of 
 Eden? 
 
 The Laird walked up and down the grassy 
 paths slowly, with his hands behind his back, 
 drinking in the pure sweetness of the air, and the 
 smell of the fresh earth with the vigorous spring 
 growth going on within it. He paused again at 
 the bottom of the slope to look over the fields his 
 fields and gazed over the rich pasture land. If 
 he had only been a better farmer ! 
 
 Just so had they looked when he came home 
 every year from college in the spring. Just 
 where he stood, his mother used to stand and 
 wave her hand to him, as he turned the corner 
 in his father's gig. Just so had they looked 
 when, on one never-to-be-forgotten evening, he had 
 wandered out, and standing on lower ground be- 
 hind the untrimmed hedge had heard what he
 
 IN THE GLOAMING 229 
 
 was not meant to hear. The soft, low laugh of 
 a girl, the deep, pleading tones of a man. 
 
 "You did not think," said the girl, "that I 
 cared for your brother, did you? Why, it was 
 always you, Robin Adair." 
 
 Then she laughed, a long, low ripple of happy 
 girlish laughter, as at some old joke between 
 them. 
 
 The man outside the hedge moved softly away. 
 No one ever knew that he had heard a word, 
 but the current of his life changed with a rush 
 from that hour. 
 
 The old man glanced now at the nugget ring 
 on his left hand. It was a keepsake from them 
 both. They had gone to Australia, these two, his 
 younger brother and the pretty orphan girl-cousin 
 whom both brothers had loved, and they had died 
 there within a few months of each other. Their 
 boy Elspeth's father had come home to his 
 uncle and had been brought up here in the old 
 place. 
 
 Gladly would he have averted this catastrophe. 
 But the Laird was proud, and perhaps even a 
 little obdurate in his sacrifice for principle. He 
 would pay his debts himself. He would incur no 
 fresh ones. And, after all, what did he need? A
 
 230 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 place whereon to lay his head. A few shelves on 
 which to put his books. He would have enough 
 and to spare for all that when everything was 
 paid in full. And the house had always been too 
 big for him. The farm had only been a great 
 worry and anxiety. He was a student and no 
 farmer. He was as strong and as young as ever, 
 he assured those who would only too gladly have 
 extended a helping hand. So they were over- 
 ruled. 
 
 The Laird walked slowly through the radiant 
 garden, where all Nature was smiling on her 
 silver-haired child. Past the kitchen window, 
 where Mistress Kate, her face pale and her eyes 
 red with weeping, sat putting a few stitches in 
 the gown she was going away in on the morrow, 
 and on into the summer-house. By the mere 
 force of habit he raised his hand above his head 
 and felt beneath the heather thatch. A wren flew 
 out and then another. Yes, the wrens had 
 built here again this year. How many genera- 
 tions of wrens'? It was sixty years since he had 
 found the first nest there, and during the genera- 
 tions the birds had grown very tame. Did they 
 hand down a tradition, from one generation to an- 
 other, that a gentle boy and man owned this sum-
 
 JN THE GLOAMING 231 
 
 mer-house and would not touch their eggs? For 
 they built in the same spot every year. 
 
 He wandered outside the little white wicket- 
 gate which shut off the garden from the paved 
 courtyard, and stood under a large beech-tree 
 on the grass. 
 
 A squirrel darted up at his approach and sat 
 motionless on a branch. But he was not caring 
 anything about the squirrels. He was looking 
 at Elspeth's swing hanging on the beech-tree. It 
 had been put up again by his orders, as he had ex- 
 pected her to come out with her father on the pre- 
 vious Saturday to say good-bye to the old place. 
 But her father, at the last moment, had thought it 
 best not. She was a great deal too sharp and 
 asked far too many questions. 
 
 A fierce pang shot through the Laird's heart. 
 He might have a pillow on which to lay his head, 
 and shelves on which to put his books. But 
 never again would he have a home in which to 
 welcome the child of his old age. Nor a swing 
 for her to swing on, so that he might hear the 
 music of her childish laughter, as she swung high 
 amongst the leafy branches and startled the 
 squirrels. He was closing the gates of Paradise 
 for her also as well as for himself. He gave a
 
 232 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 smothered groan, and a man standing motionless 
 near the gate turned round quickly. It was 
 Davy Andrews. The Laird had not seen him. 
 
 "Takin 5 a bit daunder, Laird*?" said Davy with 
 the assurance of an old servant. 
 
 "Yes," said the Laird. "It is a beautiful even- 
 ing." 
 
 "Ay, ay," said Davy, and turned his face 
 away. He too left the old place to-morrow and 
 was taking "a bit daunder." 
 
 Touch a Scotsman (when you have once found 
 his vulnerable spot), the slightest pin-prick will 
 do, and you will find sentiment. It may take a 
 surgical operation to drive a joke into his head, 
 as our ancient foes, the English, are fond of as- 
 serting. I am no judge of that. The quality of 
 humour varies, and where one sees a joke another 
 sees nothing but a mere quibble, not worth chang- 
 ing his facial expression for. That is not to say, 
 however, that he has not perceived what was in- 
 tended to be a joke. But I do know that only 
 the very thinnest layer of epidermis covers the 
 sentiment which lies deep in the soul of the Scot, 
 although he would not own it for the world, and 
 would probably despise me for letting out the 
 secret.
 
 IN THE GLOAMING 233 
 
 It you watch a Scotch tinker, standing shiver- 
 ing in his rags, gazing over a paling, you may 
 know he is peopling the scene with memories of 
 his past. And the most disreputable-looking ur- 
 chin amongst the whole ragged company will tell 
 you where you can best see the sun rise from be- 
 hind the hills. The old toothless crone, whom 
 you may meet in your rambles over the moors, 
 mumbling amongst the ruins of a homestead, is 
 peopling them with life, forming them once more 
 into a cottar's home, where women croon and 
 babes weep as in the past. 
 
 The Laird walked quickly away from Davy 
 across the flagged courtyard. He was not in 
 the mood for talk with his fellow-men. He 
 craved for Solitude, that nurse of full-grown 
 souls. 
 
 On every door of the farm-steading loomed 
 bills in large lettering: "Displenishing Sale," 
 "Roup of Valuable Stock," "Arable Land," etc., 
 so many acres, roods, poles. 
 
 The Laird turned his eyes away from them, 
 and only saw the big letters in a mist as he 
 passed. 
 
 A quarrelsome fowl flew down from her roost 
 in the hen-house with an angry "Tchk tchk
 
 234 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 tchk " at some other one usurping her position 
 
 on the perch. 
 
 Cattle lowed in the byre and the farm horses 
 neighed in their stable. But, in a small stable 
 at the end of the yard, there whinnied and nick- 
 ered the voice of Donald Dhu, frantic with joy 
 at the sound of his master's footsteps. The Laird 
 unlocked the door and passed in. Here was the 
 dumb companion of his lonely years. 
 
 The pony laid a loving head upon his master's 
 arm, eating the sugar which the Laird had brought 
 with avidity and delicate crunchings. The eyes 
 of the petted creature were soft and limpid with 
 love. 
 
 The Laird patted the brown head and stroked 
 the tawny mane. 
 
 "We've wandered mony a weary " he cor- 
 rected himself, "mony a gladsome fit thegither, 
 you and me, Donald Dhu," he said, speaking in 
 the homely Scottish dialect, as if the pony under- 
 stood it better. "We hae come noo to the pairt- 
 ing o' the ways. The minister will be a gude 
 maister to you. He is a smaller and a lichter 
 man than I am. Your burden will be easy in 
 your auld age, Donald, my man. Good-bye, auld 
 faithful freend."
 
 IN THE GLOAMING 235 
 
 The pony seemed to understand. When, a 
 few minutes later, the Laird left him, he stamped 
 his feet, and nickered and whinnied as if life were 
 too hard for him. He would rather have been 
 shot by the Laird's own hand, and have lain down 
 beside his mother in the same green pastures where 
 he had scampered as a foal, than change masters, 
 had he be given liberty of choice. 
 
 The Laird quietly returned to the house and, 
 changing his coat again, resumed his packing.
 
 w 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE CLOSING OF THE GATES 
 
 HEN Mistress Kate came herself to re- 
 move the Laird's supper-tray, she found 
 the dainty supper she had prepared for him, the 
 well-cooked milk-porridge and the little glass jug 
 of cream, the crisp delicious oat-cakes, the thin 
 potato scones, and the pats of newly-made butter 
 all his favourite dainties untouched. 
 
 "Oh sir " she said, remonstrating, but he 
 
 raised his hand. 
 
 "I wish to speak to you, Katherine to say 
 good-bye. I am going early to-morrow morn- 
 ing." 
 
 He paused a moment as he saw her turn a 
 shade paler. 
 
 "It is not an easy thing to say good-bye after 
 ten years together ten years of faithful service 
 on your part, Katherine, and many kindnesses 
 done to me and mine but it has to be done. Here 
 
 you will find your wages," he handed an envelope 
 
 236
 
 THE CLOSING OF THE GATES 237 
 
 to her across the table, "and for three months 
 extra. That will give you a rest until you find 
 something to do. Changes are coming in my 
 nephew's household. He may need you for a 
 time. And then perhaps I hope," he added, 
 with a smile, "the Canadian lad may be able to 
 send for you across the sea to a home of your own. 
 I am a poor man, but I will gladly pay your 
 passage-money for you. Or if I can help you in 
 any other way " 
 
 Here the housekeeper could control herself no 
 longer. She had been screwing her black alpaca 
 apron round and round, till it bore no semblance 
 to an apron at all, in her efforts to control her feel- 
 ings, so as not to upset her master. Now she held 
 it up to her face, her pent-up feelings gave way, 
 and she burst into a fit of uncontrollable weep- 
 ing. 
 
 "Oh sir sir " she sobbed; "if you would 
 
 only let me go with you, to work for you and 
 fend for you. I want no wages and no lad in 
 Canada he can wait. To think of you in two 
 rooms in Mistress Cameron's wee bit hoosie in the 
 village and you used to this a' your life just 
 breaks my he'rt. And Mistress Cameron canna 
 cook, they say, and she doesna know the things
 
 238 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 you like and you're getting old, sir excuse 
 me." 
 
 The Laird smiled, but he was ill at ease. He 
 was not used to women's tears. They discom- 
 posed him. His mother had been a woman of 
 stern self-control. 
 
 "Not so very old, Katherine," he said jokingly; 
 "old to you, perhaps. I am not seventy till Mid- 
 summer, and I am strong. At threescore-and-ten 
 my natural vigour is not abated. I have all my 
 faculties quite unimpaired, thanks be to God for 
 His many mercies, and for the quiet life He has 
 permitted me hitherto to lead. My forebears 
 have been long lived." And he looked as if he 
 thought it rather a pity. 
 
 Then she began pleading that she might go 
 with him to nurse him when he should be ill. 
 
 "But I am never ill," he assured her. "You 
 know that. Besides, I am too poor now. I can- 
 not afford to keep a housekeeper, even if I would. 
 And there would be no room for you in Mistress 
 Cameron's house. I have taken the only rooms 
 she has for myself. You need not fear, I shall be 
 perfectly happy," he said, rising, and holding out 
 his hand to her. "And oh, spare me, Katherine,"
 
 THE CLOSING OF THE GATES 239 
 
 he added, as she went on sobbing, "for it is hard 
 enough as it is, God knows." 
 
 The housekeeper seized the hand he held out 
 to her, and, raising it to her lips, kissed it fervent- 
 ly. The Laird was to her as a king amongst 
 men. 
 
 The shy, sensitive old bachelor looked a little 
 embarrassed. Then she fled to the silence and se- 
 clusion of her own room. 
 
 It was well on in the small hours of the morn- 
 ing before the Laird sought his, and then only 
 for a short rest. Sleep had forsaken him that 
 night. 
 
 Before that he went through his usual practice 
 of locking up, seeing to the bolts of doors and 
 windows, with his chamber candle held high in 
 his hand. 
 
 In the large east room he set it down on the 
 table for a few moments and glanced around. 
 Everything was dismantled. This had been the 
 chief reception-room of the house and of late 
 years had seldom been used. It had a musty 
 smell about it. The old-fashioned chairs of 
 carved oak, dark with age and much polishing, 
 were piled together. These were going to help
 
 240 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 to furnish his two rooms. On the round spindle- 
 legged table and old-fashioned piano some things 
 were lying ready for the housekeeper to pack for 
 him next day. A trayful of geological specimens 
 picked up in his own travels; marbles brought to 
 him by his nephew from Italy; quartz sent him 
 in his earlier days from Australia; specimens of 
 ore from Cornish and Welsh mines; and fossils 
 from his own hills. He had never been beyond 
 Paris himself, but had explored Great Britain 
 with the keen eye of the geological enthusiast and 
 expert. 
 
 A few pieces of old china also lay here wait- 
 ing to be packed, handleless cups and quaint 
 bowls, his mother's treasures. And, beside them, 
 two long pastoral staves made of crystal (or a 
 substance resembling it), which had been the mys- 
 tery of his childhood. The hooks from which 
 they had been suspended were still over the man- 
 telpiece. He lifted up one of them and won- 
 dered if wadding as Mistress Kate had suggested 
 was the best thing to pack them in. They 
 were very brittle. 
 
 "They are the mystery of our house," he had 
 been in the habit of laughingly informing his few 
 stray visitors. "Tradition says they were given
 
 THE CLOSING OF THE GATES 241 
 
 to an ancestor of ours by King James IV., but 
 why, we do not know. Why long pastoral crooks'? 
 and why made of this brittle and unusual sub- 
 stance? The ancestor to whom they were given 
 was killed at the Battle of Flodden, and his 
 widow died at the birth of her posthumous son, 
 from the shock of the bad news. There was no 
 one left to tell the tale and explain, but the staves 
 were evidently considered of great value, and 
 were preserved for the orphaned babe. It is 
 through him and his heirs that they have de- 
 scended to me. 
 
 "We have been a pastoral family, perhaps that 
 was the explanation of the gift. The one killed 
 at Flodden was the only fighter. That I am no 
 farmer is for no lack of pastoral blood. It is 
 because I am a freak, like the fighter. But there 
 have been several courtiers amongst us, and we 
 have a family tree and a few heirlooms. Our 
 family is old and if I may say it without boast- 
 ing honourable, although it is now almost ex- 
 tinct. One of our ancestors was Comptroller of 
 the Household to the ill-fated Mary, Queen of 
 Scots." 
 
 The Laird laid down the precious, mysterious 
 crystal staff with the history attached to it, in
 
 242 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 the heart-felt hope that neither of them would 
 be broken in their transit to his new home. 
 
 Then he went upstairs, and into the large room 
 with the baize doors, the old nursery of the house. 
 Here, as a child, he used to play. There was 
 the rocking-chair where his mother used to sit 
 rocking his little brothers, who were all younger 
 than himself. He could see her now, and hear 
 her softly crooning to the babe in the old- 
 fashioned wooden cradle, with her foot on the 
 rockers while she knitted. 
 
 Here, too, was the Dragon's bed, and 
 Elspeth's little cot, just as they had left them 
 when they went back to the town last time. The 
 blankets and quilts were all neatly folded, ready 
 for airing when they should be coming back 
 again. 
 
 He turned away from that room very quickly, 
 and entered a smaller one close by, which had 
 two windows set in an angle at the end of the 
 passage. A large four-post mahogany bedstead, 
 with curtains of ancient-patterned, but spotlessly 
 clean, chintz, occupied the centre of the room, 
 covered with an embroidered quilt worked in 
 faded silks of aesthetic shades. 
 
 He went over and looked at the bed. For
 
 THE CLOSING OF THE GATES 243 
 
 many years he had entered that room early every 
 morning, carrying in his own hand a cup of tea, 
 and had been greeted by the occupant of the bed 
 with a pleasant smile and cheery question. 
 
 "Did you make my tea with your own hands, 
 Charles, my son*?" 
 
 And his laughing answer was always the 
 same. 
 
 "With my own hands, mother. And the 
 cream is from your own cow's boyne in the 
 dairy." 
 
 "Then it is good, my son. Pull up the caster 
 blind and let me see the sun rising over the young 
 plantation." 
 
 It was not many years before only ten, for 
 she had lived to be over ninety that going in 
 one morning as usual with his mother's cup of 
 tea, for the first time in his life he received no 
 greeting, and peeping behind the curtains, he found 
 her asleep. When he gently pulled up the caster 
 blind to wake her, he saw that a miracle had hap- 
 pened in the night, and that all the wrinkles, gath- 
 ered up in her ninety and odd years' pilgrimage, 
 had been smoothed away from the familiar fea- 
 tures. It was. the face of a woman in her prime 
 which lay on the pillow, with the morning sun-
 
 244 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 shine streaming all around her. The face of 
 Death turned towards the Sun of Life. 
 
 The Laird walked now to that caster window 
 and looked out. Over what his mother called 
 the "young plantation" it was full-grown now 
 the rosy flush which precedes the dawn was al- 
 ready spreading along the sky. In those northern 
 latitudes there is little light at that season of the 
 year. The afterglow has barely faded in the west 
 before the blushing dawn asserts its reappearance 
 in the east. 
 
 It had been a perfect night, with a young sil- 
 very moon sailing in majesty through the sky. 
 Now, when the distant peaks of the mountains 
 cast their dark lagged silhouettes against the sky- 
 
 J C7C7 J 
 
 line, the stars were already paling in their bril- 
 liance before the light of the coming day. Far to 
 the eastward the darkness of the deep blue sky 
 had faded into a paler shade, and a wondrous 
 light gleamed behind it, as of some glory shining 
 through a transparency of blue. It passed 
 through a succession of shades, each paler than 
 the last, into pink, gold, amber, then softest green, 
 deepening again to blue, which darkened till it 
 reached the trees of the avenue near the house. 
 Then it shone through quivering traceries of pop-
 
 THE CLOSING OF THE GATES 245 
 
 lar, and sycamore, and beech, till the deep soft 
 shades of night lying over the house were once 
 more reached. 
 
 The Laird lingered long at the window watch- 
 ing the glorious panorama of changing colours. 
 Then, passing out of the room, he closed the door 
 softly behind him, as one closes it on the dead. 
 That part of his life was over. Henceforth, his 
 face was turned towards the dawn. 
 
 A morning of glorious promise followed that 
 radiant sunrise. The larks were carolling love- 
 songs all over his fields, in wonderful trills and 
 waterfalls of sound, when the Laird left his own 
 house for the last time, before any one else was 
 stirring. 
 
 He had thought his good-byes all said, but a 
 thrush, not to be outdone, called out "Farewell," 
 from a lilac bush. A light breeze blowing over 
 a bed of wallflowers stirred his silver curls and 
 wafted a kiss of fragrance to him. A blush rose 
 bush beside the porch, blown by the breeze against 
 his coat, thrust a half-opened bud into his hand. 
 He stooped and plucked it tenderly and laid it in 
 his pocket-book, placing it back beside his burst- 
 ing heart. 
 
 With firm step and head erect he passed on,
 
 246 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 through the young greenery of the beech-trees, to 
 a short cut which led through the meadow to the 
 main road. As his foot struck the metal of the 
 road Donald Dhu heard it and whinnied. But 
 the Laird looked neither to the right side nor to 
 the left. With a firm hand he tied up the gate 
 of the field with its piece of hempen rope, thus 
 closing the gates of his earthly paradise with his 
 own hand. He said softly to himself as he did 
 so: 
 
 " Thy spirit is good; lead me into the land of 
 uprightness ... to the promise of an eternal in- 
 heritance . . . incorruptible, undefiled and that 
 fadeth not away. 
 
 " 'Happy is he ... whose hope is in the Lord 
 his God.' " 
 
 Then with his face set towards the silences of the 
 everlasting hills, now lying bathed in the glory 
 of the morning sun, he walked through dewy 
 hedgerows, white with scented hawthorn, into 
 the "young plantation," and, emerging from it on 
 the other side, he passed on to his conflict alone, 
 up on the moors, where there were only the cur- 
 lews to see him. 
 
 He looked back once before he went quite out 
 of sight of his earthly Eden. A glint of brilliant
 
 THE CLOSING OF THE GATES 247 
 
 sunshine shone on the white bill of sale pasted on 
 the gate-post. That was the cruellest stab of all. 
 He turned his face quickly away from it, and 
 strode on fiercely for a few minutes, pierced to the 
 heart. For that was to him as the sword of the 
 angel barring the entrance. 
 
 But when, in the evening of that same day, he 
 reached the widow's cottage in the little village 
 amongst the hills, and the two small rooms, which 
 were now to be his home for the rest of his life, 
 till in the fulness of time God called him to that 
 other inheritance awaiting him, he met her anx- 
 ious looks with gentle, smiling ones. No trace 
 of the long day's anguish remained on his calm 
 face, but on it there shone the peace of a great 
 renunciation.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 
 
 THERE came a year of changes after the 
 Laird closed the gates of his earthly Eden 
 with his own hands. It was a changing year for 
 every one concerned. 
 
 Sometimes it seems as if the kaleidoscope of 
 life is shaken violently by an unseen hand. All 
 the pieces, hitherto remaining in the same quiet 
 positions, change places and alter their points of 
 view without any of them being missing. In the 
 life of Elspeth and her friends during that year 
 no old ones passed away. Nevertheless every- 
 thing changed. 
 
 To begin with, she had her eighth birthday, 
 and consequently reached the age limit of the 
 Misses Stewarts' school. Something else had to 
 be arranged, some other fields and pastures of edu- 
 cation had to be provided for her. 
 
 Grandfather went to the grand final "break- 
 ing-up" at the Select Seminary in the square, as 
 
 representing the family, Elspeth's father being 
 
 248
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 249 
 
 engaged in business in London. (It was strange 
 how much business he had to take him to London 
 about that time.) Grandfather and she came 
 away together from the Misses Stewarts' literally 
 with flying colours at least grandfather did. 
 For Elspeth, having refused to part with her hard- 
 won prizes, with the precious Good Conduct one 
 lying on the top, he was perforce obliged to carry 
 home all the trophies of her industry in the shape 
 of penwipers, markers, kettle-holders, and needle- 
 books of wool-work and perforated cardboard. 
 Indeed, so gaily be-ribboned was the Elder that 
 he came down the square in a perfect flutter of 
 colours, purple, red, blue, green, pink, and yellow, 
 looking positively rakish. The hand, with which 
 he raised his hat on leaving Miss Maria Stewart 
 at the door, went up to it fluttering in all the 
 colours of the rainbow. 
 
 Miss Maria had called him back, as it was her 
 custom to have a few private words with the 
 parents of any pupil who was leaving only on 
 account of the age limit. 
 
 "You see, Mr. Grant," she explained, "we 
 have to make a limit. My father, whom you may 
 remember (he was the Independent minister in 
 this town), used to say that the world would be
 
 250 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 a much easier place to live in if people would only 
 recognise their limitations. So my sister and I 
 have tried to recognise ours. We are not accom- 
 plished, Mr. Grant, and do not pretend to be. 
 We leave that for our youngest sister, who has 
 been governess, as you know, for many years in 
 the family of Lord B . 
 
 "But I do profess to be able to teach English, 
 and to ground my pupils thoroughly in their own 
 language. And my sister endeavours to inculcate 
 a love for the fine arts in a very much neglected 
 sphere of ladies' education nowadays, namely, 
 needlework, both ornamental and plain. Our 
 pupils succeed, sir, in other departments when they 
 leave us. Eight is a very good age to begin the 
 lighter branches of education. It is neither too 
 late nor too early, and we have the assurance that 
 they have been thoroughly grounded in the rudi- 
 ments of learning. 
 
 "Oh, yes. Your little granddaughter has very 
 good abilities indeed, and will succeed if she ap- 
 plies herself. But she is very mischievous; and 
 I confess it is an astonishment to me that she 
 carries off the Conduct Prize. 
 
 "Oh no, I don't mean to say it is undeserved. 
 Our system of marks is very fair. The prize goes
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 251 
 
 to the one who has had no bad tickets for the 
 whole year. But I don't know how Elspeth has 
 steered clear this year, I am sure. She has been 
 sailing pretty near the wind several times." 
 
 Here the old gentleman perceived Elspeth 
 prancing with impatience at the gate, and know- 
 ing Miss Maria to be somewhat long-winded, her 
 conversational powers, when once fairly started 
 on her scholastic hobby, knowing no limitations 
 whatever, said "Good day" rather hastily. 
 
 The Dragon had argued with Elspeth before 
 she left home that morning that she would never 
 get the Conduct Prize if she lived to be the age 
 of Methuselah, so she did not know how to re- 
 strain herself now from running away from her 
 grandfather to show her hard-won victory. 
 
 In August the little family went to Arran, both 
 houses being locked up, the Elder's housekeeper 
 going north to her own people for a holiday. As 
 Elspeth's father wanted to go on fishing and walk- 
 ing expeditions, he had chosen a cottage in a re- 
 mote, little-frequented corner of the island. It 
 stood perched up on a rocky promontory, like the 
 nest of the golden eagle which they could see not 
 very far away, and looked down over a wide sweep 
 of sea and rock-bound coast, and it had a zigzag
 
 252 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 private path which led through a stunted wood 
 to the seashore. It was a month of unalloyed 
 delight to Elspeth, so far as afternoons and even- 
 ings were concerned. Of the mornings she pre- 
 ferred not to think. For then she had to bathe. 
 
 It was by no means the same kind of bathing 
 as that in the Laird's deligthful dam. First of 
 all she had to undress in the lee of a rock on the 
 beach, and clothe herself, shivering, in a cotton 
 nightgown. In vain she begged for one of her 
 winter flannel ones. The Dragon refused to en- 
 courage such extravagance, as she said the sea- 
 water would "shrink" them. 
 
 The weather was very cold for the time of year. 
 It was more like October than August, and the 
 wind blew from whatever quarter it was not 
 wanted to blow. Small garments rose fluttering 
 in the air as fast as they were taken off, and had 
 to be captured, and kept down by heavy stones, 
 as Elspeth slowly undressed. Through it all 
 there was the misery of anticipation of what was 
 to corne. The Dragon kept up a running com- 
 mentary of remarks from the other side of the rock 
 on her slowness. 
 
 "What a time you are! Hurry now! You
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 253 
 
 know it takes you about ten minutes to get down 
 to the sea. Your feet seem so tender." 
 
 "What was that blew away just now 4 ? You're 
 letting your clothes blow away on purpose, just 
 to take up time running after them. They'll be 
 blowing into the sea next." 
 
 At last Elspeth could dally no longer, and had 
 to start by herself for the detested water. She 
 trod slowly and gingerly on the stones with her 
 bare feet, but was generally caught up and seized 
 by the hand by the Dragon long before she 
 reached the sea. 
 
 An almost unrecognisable Dragon, disguised 
 for contact with the ocean wave nearly as much 
 as a professional diver. A huge, shapeless cap of 
 black india-rubber encircled her head and ears, 
 drawn tight with tape round her neck and over 
 her forehead. A long, shapeless, sack-like robe 
 of thick blue flannel, with slits left in the seams 
 for the arms, hung in classic looseness from an- 
 other string round her neck, enveloping her form 
 from head to foot. (Directoire bathing-costumes 
 were not in it in those days.) An unruly robe it 
 was too when it was wet and heavy, always try- 
 ing to get away from its tethering string, and slip-
 
 254 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 ping off first one shoulder, then the other, and 
 having to be dragged up again. 
 
 "Come away, now, be brave," said Janet en- 
 couragingly, as she dragged the reluctant cotton- 
 clad figure into the sea. "Think of the Wigtown 
 martyrs, that you are so fond of hearing about, 
 how brave they were. And they were not much 
 older than you. Agnes Wilson was just twelve. 
 You wouldn't be a coward, would you?" 
 
 "But they didn't dr-own Agnes," chattered 
 the teeth of Elspeth. 
 
 "No, and I am not going to drown you. But 
 they drowned Margaret, and she was only 
 eighteen. There is not much difference between 
 eight and eighteen." (Isn't there 1 ?) 
 
 "Oh, nonsense, now, that wasn't a cutty stone 
 at all. You'll find the stones won't cut when you 
 get in deeper. Come away." 
 
 A big wave at this moment raced in at full 
 speed and hit them both a violent blow, taking 
 away Elspeth's breath and nearly knocking her 
 down. 
 
 "Were the waves in the Sol way as horr-horr- 
 horrible as these*?" she asked, after a few more 
 steps had been taken and they stopped a few mo- 
 ments for the preliminary performance of damp-
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 255 
 
 ing Elspeth's head, the Dragon's waterproof en- 
 casement on hers rendering her impervious to tak- 
 ing cold. 
 
 "Oh, the waves were far worse than these. The 
 tide in the Solway races in faster than a man 
 can gallop on horseback," said Janet, dragging 
 her charge in a little deeper. 
 
 "Then they wouldn't take long to dr-r-own," 
 said Elspeth, glad to talk so as to gain time. 
 
 "Oh yes, they did. They were at the part 
 where it doesn't come in fast, and they were tied 
 to stakes. It had to come creeping up and up 
 and up slowly. And they sang Psalms and 
 were brave." 
 
 "Not like me," said Elspeth. "But I think I 
 could hang easier than drown. I would be braver 
 over hanging. Am I not in deep enough yet, do 
 you think*?" 
 
 "Yes, I think you are. Now then, shut your 
 mouth and eyes, and you are to come up all by 
 yourself when I put you down. And you are 
 not to cling on to me, mind." 
 
 Elspeth obeyed by clenching her teeth firmly 
 together and shutting her eyes. But she forgot 
 to close her lips, so as she went down bodily into 
 the clear green water, surrendering herself into
 
 256 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Janet's firm hands with a silent prayer for courage, 
 there was the gleam of a whole row of small teeth 
 visible even until she reached the very bottom. 
 The result was that she came up choking and gur- 
 gling, gasping for breath, clutching on to Janet 
 as with a death-grip. 
 
 Janet was a woman of many theories, gastro- 
 nomic and otherwise, from castor-oil every fort- 
 night, to cupfuls of sea-water to be drunk every 
 morning before breakfast at the seaside, which 
 accustomed you to the taste of salt water, previ- 
 ous to swallowing gallons of it while bathing. 
 One of her theories was that it taught a child to 
 float as a preliminary to swimming to put it 
 down on its back to the bottom of the sea, and 
 then leave go and let it come up by itself. It 
 gave it confidence to feel the buoyancy of the 
 sea-water, she thought. 
 
 But oh ! nobody knows what a horrible sensa- 
 tion that is unless they try it. To feel oneself 
 in the grasp of something very strong and very 
 firm as you go down, then to have your clinging 
 clasp relaxed (with a slap to make you leave go, 
 if necessary), and to be left struggling in the 
 mighty ocean, with your feet slipping away from 
 you whenever you try to use them !
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 257 
 
 Elspeth came up spluttering every time, implor- 
 ing not to be put down again. 
 
 "If I might just lie down by myself, Janet. I 
 would lie down, really, truly, on my honour. Or 
 if you'd let me have a flannel nightgown on next 
 time it wouldn't be quite so bad. Please Janet," 
 she implored. "Dear Janet. Oh !" 
 
 Down she went again. Janet had no mercy. 
 
 "Better get it over," she said, as Elspeth came 
 up the second time, and popped her down the 
 third time before she had time to gasp out a word. 
 
 Then she was told to go and "play herself," 
 while Janet did her own personal dumb-crambo 
 show of bobbing up and down in the sea. As 
 if any one could "play themselves" after that! 
 Elspeth went to the edge of the water and wept 
 and shivered there every day till Janet came out, 
 hurt pride battling with cold and suffocation. 
 
 "You are really the biggest coward I ever came 
 across," was Janet's daily remark, as she dragged 
 the blue and weeping bather up the stony beach 
 to the natural dressing-room behind the rocks. 
 "The very biggest. Take no notice of the cutty 
 stones, as you call them. Walk fast and then 
 you won't feel them." 
 
 But that ordeal over in the morning, there was
 
 258 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 nothing but unalloyed pleasure for the rest of the 
 day. As soon as Elspeth was dressed (the gar- 
 ments never blew away during the dressing proc- 
 ess, however windy it was, strange to say,) she 
 ran straight like a dart to where, in modest and 
 discreet seclusion, grandfather waited for her on 
 the other side of the wood. Waited, not empty- 
 handed either, but with a bag full of gingerbread 
 nuts, which he had walked a mile to the village 
 post office to buy for her, having great faith in 
 the efficacy of gingerbread as a "cluttering bite." 
 
 "I have found out the reason why grandpapa 
 and I are such good friends," announced Elspeth 
 suddenly one evening to her father. "Sometimes 
 you are cross with me and we have little tiffs, don't 
 we, father? But grandpapa and I never have 
 any." 
 
 "For a very easy reason to find out," said her 
 father. "He gives you your own way in every 
 single thing. You couldn't very well have tiffs 
 with anybody like that." 
 
 "I suppose you think she doesn't manage you 
 as well as me," remarked grandfather dryly. 
 
 "Oh, but that is not the reason at all," said 
 Elspeth hastily, not desiring to hear any discus-
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 259 
 
 sions on that point. "The reason is that grand- 
 papa and I are both such terrible cowards." 
 
 The Elder's Highland blood flushed into his 
 old cheeks hotly. 
 
 "I'd like to see the man who would dare to 
 say that to me," said he. "Explain yourself, if 
 you please, miss." 
 
 "Well, you see, grandpapa, it is quite easy. 
 It's like parsing. You have just got to change 
 the preposition. I am terrified in the water, and 
 you are terrified on it," said Elspeth, airing her 
 newly-acquired grammar. 
 
 Her father laughed loudly. The Elder joined 
 in feebly in an attempt to laugh at his own ex- 
 pense. For indeed it was quite true. As Els- 
 peth's morning ordeal waned in the background, 
 so did her grandfather's evening one wax large 
 in the horizon as it drew near. 
 
 The Elder, being an inland-bred man with no 
 boating experience, had a perfect abhorrence of 
 boats of all kinds smaller than steamers, preferring 
 deep-sea-going ones even at that, as being stronger 
 than the others. To trust precious lives in the 
 frail cockle-shells which Elspeth and her father 
 were in the habit of frequenting in the evenings,
 
 260 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 with but a plank between them and eternity, was 
 in his eyes a fair tempting of Providence. 
 
 At first he flatly refused to accompany them 
 on their boating expeditions, and stood wringing 
 his hands on the shelving rock from which they 
 had pushed off till they were out of sight. Until 
 one night, when they went out against all his per- 
 suasions in what he called "rough weather," but 
 what they said was "just nice." The agonies 
 of mind which the old man went through as he 
 saw his beloved ones tossing in their frail bark, 
 now perched up on the top of a breaker, now van- 
 ishing altogether in the trough of the sea, made 
 him resolve that if they were determined to perish 
 in a watery grave they should not go to the bot- 
 tom without him. The next evening he slipped, 
 unobserved, into the kitchen and handed his gold 
 watch and chain to Janet. 
 
 "I am going with them to-night," he said. "If 
 we come back safe and sound, please God, I'll 
 have my watch and chain back again. If not, 
 you need not hand it to my executors. I have left 
 a note for them in my pocket-book in my room 
 explaining about it. You can just keep it for 
 yourself, Janet, for looking after the child. I
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 261 
 
 have not always approved of your methods, as 
 you know, for I have not scrupled to speak my 
 mind to you sometimes, but your intentions, I am 
 aware, regarding her have been good. You have 
 been faithful to your duties both to your master 
 and to her." 
 
 And he walked away down the hill after the 
 giddy boating couple with the firm tramp of the 
 Highlander on his way to execution. The very 
 swing of his coat-tails was reminiscent of the kilts 
 of his ancestors, as they swung into their northern 
 forays with the fierce cry of: "A Grant to the 
 rescue." Or its equivalent in Gaelic. 
 
 The last week of that month in Arran was 
 absolute perfection, and stood out in Elspeth's 
 memory in after years as if glorified by the rays 
 of a setting sun. Summer seemed to have come 
 back, the air was balmy and soft, and the sea was 
 like a lake. 
 
 Then, in the first place, she had the great good 
 fortune, while hovering near the edge of the sea 
 after bathing, to tread on a small jellyfish and get 
 her foot stung. Her father, on being appealed 
 to, said she need not bathe any more. 
 
 "I verily believe you did it on purpose, so as
 
 262 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 to get let off bathing," said the suspicious Dragon, 
 as she bathed and bandaged the slightly swollen 
 foot. 
 
 "I truly didn't." 
 
 "Well, you had no business stopping at the 
 edge and crying as you did. If you had been 
 in deeper you would have seen it floating about. 
 If it had been a big one you would have known 
 it. It must have been a very little one." 
 
 "It was a little one. I said it was." 
 
 "Well, you made enough noise over it. You 
 couldn't have made more if a shark had got hold 
 of you. A big girl like you squealing out like 
 that! You ought to think shame of yourself. 
 You are a coward, really." 
 
 "I wish you saw grandpapa holding on to the 
 edge of the boat at nights," said Elspeth irrele- 
 vantly. 
 
 The Dragon disdained to reply to this remark. 
 
 "He jumps up if he sees a big lump of sea- 
 weed coming. Father says if we are all in the 
 water one of these nights he won't be surprised. 
 And it will be grandpapa who has done it. He 
 nearly upsets the whole hypothec every time." 
 
 Janet remained silent, and Elspeth, having suc- 
 cessfully introduced a long word into her sentence,
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 263 
 
 and apparently clinched the argument at the same 
 time, looked, as she felt, extremely virtuous. 
 
 In the second place, the Laird came to spend 
 that last week with them, and with her three 
 lovers all at once Elspeth was in her element. 
 
 If her father and the Laird went off on walking 
 tours which involved a whole day's absence to- 
 gether, she and her grandfather gathered shells on 
 the beach, made crabs run races, and ate ginger- 
 snaps to their heart's content, coolly ignoring 
 Janet's cutting remarks on their having no ap- 
 petites at dinner-time. 
 
 If the Laird happened to be the one who was 
 left behind, Elspeth, leaning heavily on his arm 
 (for she became lamer every day after his tender 
 inquiry, "How is the poor foot this morning, 
 dearie 1 ?"), roamed with him in the woods, look- 
 ing for ferns and listening to the legend of the 
 Osmunda Regis. No one could tell stories like 
 the Laird. He peopled every glen with fairies 
 and pixies, and you had only to walk with him 
 to hear the dryads whispering amongst the trees, 
 and the gnomes knocking in their subterranean 
 passages under the hills. There was the lepre- 
 chaun sitting on a whin-bush, flitting farther away 
 as you came nearer, vanishing with mocking laugh-
 
 264 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 ter into rocky crevices. And there were witches 
 and warlocks tobogganing down the course of the 
 waterfall in the wood at the back of the house, if 
 you only knew the right time of the day to go and 
 look for them. 
 
 With her father Elspeth was seldom alone, the 
 two old gentlemen if one might use such an ad- 
 jective in describing septuagenarians who were 
 still in the prime of their youthful vigour not 
 having, perhaps, very much in common. 
 
 For although the Elder looked up to the gentle 
 and dignified Laird, greatly admiring him as a 
 man of learning and a fine classical scholar, he 
 privately rather despised him for his poor busi- 
 ness capabilities. 
 
 "If that fine land, lying in the midst of such a 
 fertile strath, had been mine, I would not have 
 parted with it in any such quixotic fashion," he 
 would say. "I know nothing at all about fann- 
 ing, having been chained to a desk all my life, 
 but I would have applied myself to studying it 
 and redeeming the bonds. I would not have 
 parted with the property. Besides, here am I, 
 with capital lying by, and nobody belonging to 
 me except the child, I would have been only too 
 glad to have advanced it. It might as well have
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 265 
 
 been invested in that land, which has belonged 
 to her forebears for generations, as anywhere else, 
 and I would only have charged a small percentage 
 of interest for it. None at all, if he would have 
 let me. But no, he must follow out his own ob- 
 stinate, quixotic ideas. Highland pride, I call 
 it sheer folly." 
 
 The Laird, on his part, was slightly nervous in 
 the presence of the keen, hard-headed man of 
 business. But the two gentlemen were vastly 
 polite to each other, after the manner of their 
 more courteous generation, saying, "After you, 
 sir," with a low bow, every evening on the shelv- 
 ing rock, while the boat waited for them on the 
 dancing waves underneath, until several times 
 they were in danger of both being left behind to- 
 gether. 
 
 The Elder waxed quite valiant when he saw 
 the Laird's fine stroke at the oar, and sat in the 
 stern, holding firmly to the skirts of his wriggling 
 grandchild, whose services had been dispensed 
 with, with a comparatively easy expression of 
 countenance. 
 
 "You are a fine oarsman, sir," he compli- 
 mented the Laird. "I could almost enjoy boat- 
 ing with you. But when it comes to Elspeth and
 
 266 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 her father rowing it is absolute misery to me. 
 Hugh is young and rash and very erratic in his 
 
 performances. While as for the child ! 
 
 What between their seafaring expressions to each 
 other, picked out of some nautical storybook, I 
 don't doubt, and their contradictory orders of 
 "larboard," "starboard," "feather your oars," 
 "backwater," and so on, I don't know where I 
 am. I just sit and mutter savage expressions to 
 myself in Gaelic all the time. The only thing I 
 do understand is "feathering oars," for that means 
 I get a ducking from head to foot, every time 
 Elspeth raises her oar in some fantastic fashion in 
 obedience to her father's orders. I see no sense 
 in the thing at all. But it is quite different when 
 you are there, sir. I could almost enjoy it." 
 
 Indeed it was very beautiful, and only lasted 
 too short a time. To see the sun setting over 
 the sea, casting its rays of glory around the hills, 
 touching, as with loving reverence, the two vener- 
 able heads, as, hatless, they let the breeze play 
 over their crowns of beautiful silver hair curly 
 and straight was a sight to live in the memory 
 for ever. 
 
 That last week ended only too soon, and one 
 bright morning you might have seen them all
 
 SCOTTISH MARTYRS 267 
 
 packed in the big ferry-boat, waiting for the 
 steamer to take them home. The Dragon count- 
 ing boxes and fussing over the luggage, for fear 
 she had left anything behind. Elspeth, with a 
 big pickle-jar full of sea-anemones and salt water 
 on her lap, which she was constantly spilling, 
 either over herself or some one else. Her father 
 looking regretfully at the receding cliffs, whistling 
 hard boyish fashion to conceal his feelings of 
 regret at leaving. The Laird watching the sea- 
 gulls swoop down to eat the crumbs he had 
 brought for them in his capacious pockets. And 
 grandfather holding on to what he called a "tirl- 
 pin," in preparation for the wash of the waves 
 from the big steamer from Campbeltown, as it 
 came up to them, hooting proudly. 
 
 Then at last they were all safely transferred 
 to its decks, bag and baggage, a family of irre- 
 sponsibles (more or less), the only level head 
 amongst them being that of the Dragon. And so 
 to Glasgow and home.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 FAREWELL TO BARBARISM 
 
 IT was the week after they reached home that 
 the news came to Elspeth, which, to use her 
 own somewhat quaint phraseology, seemed to 
 come upon her "just like a thunder-plump," and 
 took her breath away completely, rendering her 
 giddy and bewildered for the rest of her holidays 
 in that old familiar grey house in the square, which 
 had been her home all her life. 
 
 For then her father broke to her very tenderly 
 and gently, but with much inward trepidation and 
 some expectation of arguments and tears, that it 
 had been decided to send her to a boarding-school 
 at the beginning of the new term. 
 
 He drew her very close to him as he did so, 
 resting his dark moustache against her ruddy hair, 
 so that he might not see the expression of her 
 face, prepared to be very sympathetic and tender, 
 but very firm. 
 
 But, greatly to his surprise, Elspeth took it (out- 
 wardly) very quietly. It was those constant, un- 
 
 268
 
 FAREWELL TO BARBARISM 269 
 
 expected surprises which she was continually giv- 
 ing him, that made him feel so helpless with this 
 strange woman-child of his. 
 
 She was only silent for a few moments, and 
 then asked in very subdued tones, with a little 
 quiver of her lips : 
 
 "Have I not been a good girl then, father, 
 that you are going to send me away from you*?" 
 
 "Oh yes, you have been a very good girl. But, 
 you see, grandpapa and I think you have been 
 long enough at home here alone with Janet. And 
 the new mother who is coming she has to be con- 
 sidered now too, you know thinks we are all 
 barbarians up here in the north. She seems to 
 think we are only half-civilised yet in Scotland. 
 So I would like to get you polished up a little be- 
 fore she comes." 
 
 "And will you be going to some sort of a grown- 
 up school too, father 4 ?" she asked, presently. 
 
 He laughed at that, and shook his head. 
 
 "No. I think she will have to take me in 
 hand and polish me up herself when she comes 
 here. But you are different. And grandpapa 
 and I don't care very much for any of the ladies' 
 boarding-schools in this town." 
 
 Elspeth looked aghast at that.
 
 270 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 ' 'Where am I going to then, father*?" 
 
 "You are going away to London to school. 
 To a very fine school in the West End, near Hyde 
 Park, which Miss Lilian has found for you. 
 Where the young ladies go for rides in Rotten 
 Row twice a week with their riding-master, and 
 you will be able to walk with your young com- 
 panions by the banks of the Serpentine, that you 
 are so fond of talking about, every day of your 
 life." 
 
 And that was what took Elspeth's breath away. 
 To go to London, and see Queen Victoria with her 
 crown on. To get into personal touch, so to 
 speak, with her most Gracious Majesty! To 
 walk on those golden streets and meet the ladies 
 glittering with diamonds and precious stones, as 
 she had read about in descriptions of the drawing- 
 rooms at Buckingham Palace. Think of it, staid, 
 Scottish stay-at-homes ! 
 
 There were only three weeks remaining of her 
 time at home, and they passed in a perfect whirl. 
 Dressmakers, milliners, shoe-makers, box-makers, 
 all were requisitioned in haste. 
 
 The Dragon wiped her eyes silently, as she 
 washed and ironed for her charge, and was
 
 FAREWELL TO BARBARISM 271 
 
 strangely gentle as she packed familiar and fa- 
 vourite belongings into the new boxes. 
 
 Elspeth flew backwards and forwards in a tre- 
 mendous state of excitement, between her grand- 
 father's house and her own. He had presents 
 waiting for her every day. 
 
 "Look at the beautiful case he has given me 
 for writing my letters to him. Real morocco, 
 look, and all the envelopes and paper are stamped 
 with my initials on. And there are five shillings' 
 worth of stamps. That means a letter to him 
 every week for a year, he says, and eight extra 
 ones for birthdays and things," chattered Elspeth 
 to Janet, when she came bounding in one day. 
 
 "And look," she said another day, "he's given 
 me 'Ministering Children,' and he says I am to 
 be careful when I open it, for it is not very well 
 bound. Why is he giving me a new book not 
 very well bound, do you think*?" 
 
 "I think we'd better look and see," said the 
 careful Janet, untying the parcelL And there 
 was a beautiful copy of "Ministering Children," 
 but when you shook it you found it was, as 
 grandfather said, not very well bound, for five 
 new, crisp, single pound notes came fluttering
 
 272 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 out of it, his loving gift for his little maid to 
 "keep her pocket." 
 
 There were enough boxes of chocolate creams 
 (which he had been buying by the dozen at a 
 time, ever since Hendry had initiated her into 
 the glories of it), and shortbread, and tins of 
 fancy biscuits, sent around to stock a siege. 
 Elspeth bid fair to be popular amongst her school- 
 fellows, by reason of the abundance of her grand- 
 father's gifts to be shared with them. For even 
 so would he pave the stony path of learning for 
 the spoilt darling of his heart. 
 
 The Laird also sent parting gifts to her by 
 post, in the shape of books. Mrs. Hemans' 
 poems, and Moore's, with inscriptions written on 
 the fly-leaf in his fine, copper-plate handwriting, 
 announcing that they were : 
 
 "Presented to Miss Elspeth Grant Arnot, on 
 her departure for the Metropolis." 
 
 There was also a volume of Robert Burns's 
 poems, so that she might not forget her nationality 
 during her residence in perfidious Albion. But it 
 was swiftly confiscated by the Dragon, and con- 
 signed, with a look of horror, to the flames of per- 
 dition at the back of her kitchen range. That 
 unholy poet !
 
 FAREWELL TO BARBARISM 273 
 
 Then the last day at home came, and with it 
 the Laird himself. 
 
 "I just couldn't stay away," he said simply. 
 
 The whole of the quaint little family party 
 went to the station together to see Elspeth and 
 her father off to London by the night mail. 
 
 While her father was busy arranging with the 
 guard for her comfort during the night, making 
 up a temporary bed for her in the first-class 
 carriage reserved for them, by means of an ingen- 
 ious contrivance of planks, walking-sticks, and um- 
 brellas, Elspeth stood white and silent on the 
 platform between her two knights-errant. 
 
 Only now, after all the excitement of the last 
 three weeks, had she begun to realise that part- 
 ing from all her loved ones was an inevitable part 
 of her going away to London. Her grandfather 
 stood holding her right hand tight in his left. 
 The Laird had the other almost swallowed up in 
 his large and loving grasp. Janet leant against 
 a pillar behind them, occasionally wiping her 
 eyes with a clean pocket-handkerchief which she 
 had not even taken the trouble to unfold. 
 
 There was a great bustle and confusion at the 
 last. Good-byes were hurriedly said, and Elspeth 
 was hastily lifted into the carriage beside her
 
 274 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 father by the Laird, who kissed her fondly, mur- 
 muring softly under his breath as he did so : 
 
 " 'May the Lord bless you and keep you, and 
 make His face to shine upon you.' " 
 
 At the very last moment grandfather came close 
 up to the carriage window. 
 
 "Come here a minute," he said. 
 
 The child obeyed wonderingly. 
 
 Then the Elder put his face through the 
 carriage window, and, thrusting aside all the 
 Scottish prejudices engrained in him for genera- 
 tions, kissed her thus publicly, though it was for 
 the first and only time in her life. A good, loud, 
 smacking kiss it was too, loud enough for every- 
 body round to hear. So he had known how to do 
 it all the time ! 
 
 "Stand back there," shouted the stentorian 
 tones of the guard, waving his flag. 
 
 Grandfather stepped deftly aside, and the train, 
 with loud snort and puff, glided away with its 
 precious freight into the unknown, carrying with 
 it the little Scottish cairngorm on her way to the 
 English lapidaries, while her two Knights of the 
 Silver Hair were left standing desolate on the plat- 
 form, with the Dragon weeping silently behind 
 them.
 
 FAREWELL TO BARBARISM 275 
 
 "It can never be the same again," said grand- 
 father, in rather a husky tone of voice, as, after 
 speaking a few kindly words to the disconsolate 
 Janet, he and the Laird walked away together, the 
 latter having accepted his hospitality for the night. 
 "Never the same. For that child is a born mimic, 
 and, without knowing it, speaks like whoever she 
 is with. I have heard her speaking so High- 
 land to my housekeeper that I expected to hear 
 her break out into Gaelic every minute. And as 
 for that Irishman who kept the boat down in Ar- 
 ran you remember him 1 ? she had got his brogue 
 as pat as himself. You would have thought to 
 hear her she had been kissing the Blarney Stone. 
 She'll take to the English accent like a duck takes 
 to the water, and be clipping her words in that 
 Cockney style like the rest of them when she 
 comes back. And she will never be the same 
 simple Scotch lassie again." 
 
 There were a good many other things which 
 would never be the same when she came back 
 again besides her accent. But of them grand- 
 father said nothing, although, no doubt, they 
 were at the back of his mind all the time. 
 
 The Laird replied very sadly :
 
 276 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "It can certainly never be the same again in 
 this world to me." 
 
 As for Janet, she went up to her sister's house 
 for the night, and the quondam doorkeeper, with 
 her new spouse, the beadle, heard her weeping 
 through the partition which separated their rooms 
 well on into the small hours. 
 
 "Hark till her! I never thought she had so 
 much affection in her," whispered the wife to her 
 husband. "She was always so hard on that poor 
 bairn. I think some of it must be re re I 
 canna mind the word I want." 
 
 "Revenge," suggested the beadle, who was 
 somewhat slow of wit. Then added reverently, 
 as became the one who carried Mr. Morrison's 
 Bible into the pulpit every Sabbath: "'Ven- 
 geance is Mine, I will repay,' saith the Lord." 
 
 "Tuts!" said his wife, "that's not the word I 
 mean at all. Remorse, that's it."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ROSES AND FORGET-ME-NOTS 
 
 JANET, unable to bear the desolation of the 
 empty nest, with its solitary little bird flown, 
 left at the ensuing term, six weeks later. She 
 went this time to keep house for an elderly 
 widower in another part of the country, and did 
 not discover until the night she arrived that he 
 was a Unitarian, and of as rigid and unyielding a 
 nature as herself. Stormy times were predicted 
 for them both. 
 
 Mistress Kate, the Laird's former housekeeper, 
 came with a young maid to superintend the prep- 
 aration of the house for the bride. An army of 
 builders, painters, and paper-hangers took posses- 
 sion after Christmas, and the old grey house in 
 the square became metamorphosed in the spring. 
 A new storey arose on the top of it, with a fine 
 bay-window looking far out over the river, and the 
 bridge, to where, on clear days, you could see the 
 sea and sky merging into one. 
 
 277
 
 278 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 The moss rose and lily of the valley chintz, 
 lined with rose-pink, the Arabian bedstead, and 
 the rosebud paper, were accomplished facts, wait- 
 ing for Elspeth's home-coming in the summer holi- 
 days. Her mother's piano was moved up into 
 . the large new room ready for her to practise her 
 newly-acquired accomplishment on when she liked. 
 Her mother's work-table, with the unfinished little 
 baby's frock in it, and the gold thimble, stood in 
 the recess by the fireplace. Her mother's paint- 
 ings hung upon the wall. And the desk on which 
 the young wife had been wont to write girlish 
 letters in her delicate Italian hand, stood ready 
 waiting for her little daughter on a new polished 
 writing-table in the window. 
 
 "And I would just like the top of the wedding- 
 cake put in a glass case on the piano," wrote 
 Elspeth, in her instructions to her father from 
 London; "and then I'll be quite content with my 
 new room when I come home." 
 
 Her father unlocked the sideboard in order to 
 comply with her request. But lo! the wedding- 
 cake was gone bodily, tin and all, and he was 
 too shy, in the circumstances, to inquire what had 
 become of it. 
 
 The truth was that Mistress Kate, seeing it
 
 ROSES AND FORGET-ME-NOTS 279 
 
 there, had remarked to her assistant, "Fancy him 
 keeping it all those years ! Well, he won't want 
 to see it now to remind him of his first. Take it 
 downstairs carefully, and put it in the press in 
 Janet's old room beside Miss Elspeth's toys. She 
 may perhaps like to keep it as a memento of her 
 mamma, as it has been kept so long." 
 
 The girl did as she was told, but, unfortunately, 
 she stumbled at the dark corner of the stairs, and 
 the slender sugared vase fell and broke in two. 
 Afraid of being scolded for her carelessness, she 
 said nothing about it, but hid it in the back of the 
 cupboard behind bricks and headless dolls and old 
 tops Elspeth having been early initiated into 
 such boyish joys by her male relatives. 
 
 There Elspeth found it, herself, when search- 
 ing for other treasures after she came home, with 
 its beauty departed, its bridal flowers all broken, 
 its graceful vase crushed into a shapeless mass. 
 She sat down with it on her lap and wept over it, 
 feeling somehow as if a deep wave of sorrow 
 went over her soul at the sight of it, and at the 
 sacred remembrance of her "little sacraments" 
 with her father, and that old life which had now 
 passed away for ever. 
 
 And the remains of the wedding-cake itself,
 
 280 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 with its delicious almond and sugar-icing, swung 
 gaily through the town in its tin, amongst other 
 treasures hanging on to the end of a dustman's 
 cart, as he took it away. And he and a fellow- 
 dustman ate it, with many ribald remarks about 
 its being "gey fushionless stuff," when they di- 
 vided their treasures between them at the end of 
 their daily round. 
 
 Thus do all human treasures pass away, and 
 what one holds sacred another laughs at. 
 
 
 
 But now it was June, and the day of the wed- 
 ding. 
 
 The old house in the square, fresh and spotless 
 in its new coat of grey paint, was ready, awaiting 
 the coming of its second bride. New lace cur- 
 tains fluttered at every window, new carpets were 
 laid down, and the emptied drawing-room awaited 
 the opening of the big packing-cases, which were 
 already on their way to Scotland with the new 
 mistress's dainty possessions. 
 
 In Kensington Gardens the sun was shining 
 brightly, the birds were singing blithely. It was 
 an ideal day for a wedding. 
 
 Crimson baize was laid down on the steps of 
 one of the houses near by, and the bride in her
 
 ROSES AND FORGET-ME-NOTS 281 
 
 chamber was robing for the ceremony which was 
 to take place that day. 
 
 In the drawing-room adjoining, a cluster of 
 fair bridesmaids waited for her, in filmy gowns 
 of white tulle, with sashes of pale rose-pink silk, 
 and with wreaths of wild pink roses on their 
 heads. There were six of them, of ages varying 
 from twelve to twenty-five. 
 
 Six stiff bouquets of pink rosebuds, edged with 
 lace paper, after the fashion of the time the 
 bridegroom's gifts resposed in pointed handles 
 of dainty basket-work, tied with pink satin rib- 
 bons, on the oval walnut table. A seventh and 
 smaller bouquet, composed of forget-me-nots, lay 
 a little apart, also in its fine wicker handle, but 
 with satin ribbons of pale blue. 
 
 The seventh, and odd bridesmaid, attired the 
 same as the others, but with a wide sash of pale 
 blue instead of pink, and her head wreathed with 
 forget-me-nots in place of roses, with sprays of the 
 same flowers stitched round the ruchings of tulle 
 at her throat and wrists, skipped about the room 
 amongst the group, pirouetting, trying new steps 
 learned from her dancing master, and altogether 
 vastly pleased with herself. It was Elspeth, 
 showing off her very first pair of white kid shoes.
 
 282 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 She danced along, looking at her feet reflected 
 in the glass mirrors of the walnut chiffonier, show- 
 ing off her steps and her shoes at the same time. 
 
 Outwardly, she was not much changed. A 
 little taller, her curls no longer bobbing thickly 
 round her head, but neatly tied back with pale 
 blue ribbon on the top. That was all the differ- 
 ence in her appearance. 
 
 But, inwardly, the last rags and tatters of her 
 barbarism were disappearing, as her grandfather 
 had predicted, very rapidly. She had adapted 
 herself readily to her altered circumstances and 
 had absorbed her environment to some purpose. 
 She bowed gracefully now if you met her out-of- 
 doors, instead of looking shy and awkward and 
 stupid. She said, "I beg your pardon," if she 
 had occasion to push past you, or "Please forgive 
 me," very sweetly; and she spoke with the accent 
 of a veritable daughter of Albion, save for a few 
 barbaric expressions which still occasionally 
 cropped up unawares. 
 
 Her prospective stepmother was very pleased 
 with the marked improvement in her manners 
 and appearance, and also with her own choice of 
 a boarding-school for her. Whether her old- 
 fashioned relatives in Scotland would look upon
 
 ROSES AND FORGET-ME-NOTS 283 
 
 it as an improvement or not was another matter. 
 
 Now, as she waltzed and pirouetted, the young- 
 est of the group of pink bridesmaids, a tall slip 
 of an English maiden of the age of great wisdom 
 that is to say, twelve named Julia, who had a 
 pair of soft, velvety dark eyes and a profusion of 
 dark hair, stepped out from amongst them, and 
 taking Elspeth by the arm, led her into the em- 
 brasure of a window. 
 
 "I think it's lovely fun being bridesmaids, don't 
 you?" asked Elspeth, still giving little hops and 
 skips of excitement. 
 
 "I don't see much fun in it," replied Julia. 
 "My wreath pricks horribly, and those big girls 
 are so stuck up. Besides, you are not a brides- 
 maid, so you don't know anything about it." 
 
 Elspeth's eyes flashed. 
 
 "I am a bridesmaid. How dare you*?" 
 
 "You are not," said Julia calmly. "All the 
 bridesmaids are dressed the same as me with pink. 
 You have got blue." 
 
 "I've only got blue because of my queer hair. 
 Pink wouldn't become it." 
 
 "What colour would you call your hair*?" 
 asked Julia, looking at it critically, shaking back 
 her own abundant gipsy locks.
 
 284 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "It depends if people like me or not, I think," 
 said Elspeth simply. "When they don't like me 
 they call it red generally. Grandfather and the 
 Laird my great-uncle called it 'Sweet Auburn, 
 
 mistress of the ' something or other. It was 
 
 a piece of poetry they said. And my father 
 called it 'bars of ruddy gold.' ' 
 
 Her eyes took on a dreamy, wistful expres- 
 sion. She was so far away from all those who 
 loved her. "But," she continued innocently, 
 "I think it is copper-coloured myself. I matched 
 it exactly once with a nearly new penny." 
 
 "It is red" said Julia, with unmistakable em- 
 phasis. 
 
 Elspeth flushed crimson. 
 
 "Oh, but not carrots," she said pleadingly, all 
 the old grievance welling up. "'Please don't say 
 it is carrots." 
 
 "Carrots" said the fair Julia. And from with- 
 in two rows of pearly teeth there came out slowly 
 a long, narrow strip of rose-red flesh. It was the 
 bridesmaid's tongue ! 
 
 Elspeth gazed horrified. Never even in her 
 naughtiest days had she dared to let a strip of 
 tongue appear from between her own lips. Once 
 only, to relieve her feelings against Janet, had she
 
 ROSES AND FORGET-ME-NOTS 285 
 
 ventured to put out a tip in the silence and black- 
 ness of the coal-cellar, and all around her she had 
 heard the snipping of the devil's scissors, eager to 
 cut it off. She had never forgotten it. 
 
 "If you ever see anybody putting out their 
 tongue," the Dragon had told her emphatically, 
 over and over again, "you may know by that they 
 are the very lowest of the low" 
 
 And here was Julia, her new mother's cousin 
 and bridesmaid, the daughter of a clergyman, and 
 a schoolfellow of her own, showing not only a tip, 
 but the whole thing, fully displayed as if for the 
 doctor's investigation ! 
 
 Elspeth turned away in disgust. 
 
 "I shall ask mamma if I am not a bridesmaid," 
 she said, lingering a little over that new, delight- 
 ful word; "for I am sure I am. My father would 
 never be married without having me for a brides- 
 maid." 
 
 "My cousin Lilian isn't your mamma yet," con- 
 tinued the tormentor. 
 
 "She will be by the time the clock strikes 
 twelve," said Elspeth calmly. 
 
 "And she doesn't want you to call her 'mamma' 
 to-day either, for she said so to my mother." 
 
 "Why not*?"
 
 286 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "Because she doesn't want people to know 
 there is such a little minx as you in existence. So 
 there!" 
 
 Further discussion was cut short at this junc- 
 ture by the entrance of the bride herself. 
 
 Very charming did Miss Lilian look in her long 
 trailing bridal robes of white satin, with her lace 
 veil slightly thrown off her face. 
 
 There was something not inapt in the Dragon's 
 calling her a "butterfly." So sylph-like was her 
 figure, so small and dainty her waist, so much of 
 the "airy, fairy Lilian" was there about her, that 
 to call her a butterfly was in that sense applica- 
 ble. 
 
 But in nothing else. The slender white hand, 
 on which her lover's diamonds sparkled and glit- 
 tered, was as firm and practical as the Dragon's 
 own, and as well capable of holding the reins of 
 a somewhat romantic and imaginative household. 
 
 Elspeth's father was a man of artistic tastes, 
 and was keenly sensitive to dainty feminine 
 beauty. It was still an age of graceful and deli- 
 cate femininity. His first wife had done credit 
 to his good taste. So did his second. 
 
 A chorus of admiration greeted the bride's 
 appearance. "How sweet !" "How charming !"
 
 ROSES AND FORGET-ME-NOTS 287 
 
 "Dearest Lilian, are you not terribly nervous? I 
 should be." 
 
 And all the rose-wreathed maidens clustered 
 round her, a pretty group. 
 
 The bride was pale, and there were traces of 
 tears round her eyes; but she seated herself 
 calmly enough, and, smiling at the assembled 
 girls, began to put on her gloves. 
 
 Elspeth, having tenderly smoothed down the 
 rich satin of the bride's dress with her fingers (an 
 old, familiar action bred in a wardrobe drawer), 
 withdrew a little from her, not having yet fully 
 recovered from the cold douches administered by 
 Julia. But now she heard that young lady say in 
 a loud, terribly distinct voice to the bride : 
 
 "Cousin Lilian, I want to know if Elspeth is one 
 of your bridesmaids or not. She says she is, and 
 my mamma said she wasn't going to be one. Is 
 she one 1 ?" 
 
 And the bride's firm answer: "No. Of course 
 she isn't one. You bridesmaids are all in pink. 
 It is a rose wedding." 
 
 Elspeth walked into the embrasure of the 
 window again and waited there silently, watching 
 the carriages arrive in the road beneath to convey 
 them all to church. Under the white frock a lit-
 
 288 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 tie heart was beating wildly, and the forget-me- 
 nots round her throat rose and fell tumultuously. 
 Julia followed her. 
 
 "I hope you heard," she said. 
 
 Elspeth answered her very quietly. She had 
 not learnt self-control in the Dragon's severe 
 school for nothing. 
 
 "Yes, I heard, but it makes no difference. I 
 am my father's bridesmaid all the same," she 
 replied. 
 
 "Silly! Bridegrooms don't have bridesmaids. 
 They have groomsmen." 
 
 "You don't know what they have in Scotland. 
 My father and I are both Scotch. We do Scotch 
 ways," said Elspeth calmly, but with some 
 dignity. 
 
 Julia had not thought of that. 
 
 "I suppose weddings are quite different in 
 Scotland*?" she inquired. 
 
 "Quite different," replied Elspeth, who had 
 never been at a wedding of any kind in her life 
 before and knew nothing at all about it. She 
 had, however, no intention of giving herself away. 
 
 The bridesmaids were here summoned away 
 one by one to their carriages, with Elspeth amongst 
 them, and the conversation ceased.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A PASSING BELL 
 
 WHEN the bride's procession formed at the 
 entrance to the church Elspeth dropped 
 behind. 
 
 Julia, passing to her place as one of the last 
 pair of bridesmaids, took the opportunity of giv- 
 ing her a wicked pinch on the fleshy part of her 
 arm, which, being only veiled by the thin tulle, 
 hurt her very much, as she passed. But Elspeth 
 was beyond feeling such indignities. She had 
 not seen her father since his visit to London dur- 
 ing the Christmas holidays, except for a few flying 
 minutes the night before. She was now going to 
 see him in all the bravery of his bridal attire. 
 Not every little girl saw her father married. He 
 should see his one only little bridesmaid with a 
 smiling face under her crown of forget-me-nots, 
 however much her pride had been hurt. 
 
 The organ pealed, the procession started slowly 
 up the aisle. Elspeth walked alone behind the six 
 
 pink bridesmaids with her head erect. 
 
 289
 
 290 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 "Give me your hand, dear," said a kind, 
 motherly lady, dressed in mauve silk, who was 
 following. But Elspeth wriggled hers away. 
 
 "No, thank you," she whispered back. "You 
 see I am the bridegroom's little bridesmaid, so I 
 must walk alone." 
 
 So alone, behind the others, the forget-me-not 
 maiden passed up the aisle, with flushed cheeks 
 and eager eyes, watching for the bridegroom. 
 
 The bride and her maidens grouped themselves 
 at the altar. The lady in mauve, standing near 
 the altar-rails, drew Elspeth beside her where she 
 could see better. A corner of the bride's square 
 train spread itself out at her feet. The child was 
 looking straight at her father's face. 
 
 "How lovely he is!" thought his bridesmaid 
 adoringly. "I must look at his dress, so as to tell 
 grandpapa all about it when I write to him. 
 White silk waistcoat, white silk tie, the new gold 
 studs that Miss Lilian has given him for a wedding 
 present, a lovely new coat he said his other was 
 getting rather glazy and a white rose in his but- 
 tonhole, because it is a rose wedding and he loves 
 roses the best of all. I can't see his trousers from 
 here, but he said they were to be lavender to 
 match his gloves. He does look beautiful. But
 
 A PASSING BELL 291 
 
 oh ! I see some white hairs in his darling head. He 
 had none when I was at home, not one. He has 
 had no little companion to comfort him for a whole 
 year. He was often so very lonely and sad. But 
 he shall have her soon now. It is only six weeks 
 till the summer holidays." 
 
 His bridesmaid here thought she had caught his 
 eye and smiled brightly to him. A loving look 
 spread over his expressive face, the look which 
 Elspeth seeing in the old days had responded to 
 always by rushing into his arms, springing upon 
 him in an abandonment of childish affection, to 
 be smothered in loving kisses. She could not do 
 that here, but a rapturous look of responsive love 
 beamed in her face, and she was wreathed in radi- 
 ant smiles as well as forget-me-nots. 
 
 But, alas ! the bridegroom never saw her. The 
 truth was he was vastly nervous over the whole 
 affair, and the rustling of the clerical vestments 
 behind the altar-rails almost took away the last 
 remnants of his self-possession. To the simple 
 Scotsman, all this paraphernalia of an English 
 wedding in a fashionable, and rather high, West 
 End church was a terrible experience. The scent 
 of the flowers, the rich tones of the organ, the 
 sweet voices of the choristers, and the movements
 
 292 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 of the white-robed clergy, caused something like 
 consternation in the heart of the bridegroom. 
 
 On his previous experience of a wedding he had 
 simply listened in silence to a homily addressed to 
 him by the Doctor, his own personal part in the 
 ceremony being confined to the putting on of the 
 ring, and meekly bowing his head in token of 
 acquiescence of the Doctor's exhortations. In the 
 Elder's own house too, surrounded by many sym- 
 pathetic friends and acquaintances, with his uncle, 
 the Laird, beaming on him all the time, not in a 
 large church with hundreds of people watching, 
 all of them strange, even his very groomsman be- 
 ing an utter stranger to him. 
 
 He had been studying the Prayer-book all the 
 way up from Scotland, and was horrified to find 
 he would have to say his part alone and aloud. 
 To speak out loud in a church was a dreadful 
 thing the horror of a sacrilege inherited from 
 generations of Presbyterian ancestors. 
 
 Also, during a little rehearsal of the marriage 
 service at Miss Lilian's house the night before, 
 he had failed in his part signally and utterly, 
 repeating her words instead of his own, and 
 stumbling fatally over the plighting of his troth. 
 It was the bride's face which the nervous bride-
 
 A PASSING BELL 293 
 
 groom sought for encouragement, and, having 
 seen her answering smile to him, he let his loving 
 eyes remain there, and never saw a bridesmaid nor 
 any one else. Then the service commenced. 
 
 Slowly it dawned upon Elspeth that she was 
 forgotten. She rose up and knelt down 
 mechanically, with her little face very serious. 
 In those old days, which seemed now to be 
 drifting away so fast, she and her father had 
 always exchanged a little look as they changed 
 positions in church. It was nothing, only that 
 both had loving and sensitive natures, and that 
 in the heart of each there was an empty void, 
 which ached almost without their knowing it. 
 
 He had come up to London at Christmas, and 
 on the two Sundays he spent there had taken his 
 little girl to St. Paul's Cathedral, the Foundling 
 Hospital, Westminster Abbey, and to hear the 
 great Spurgeon preach in his Tabernacle. There 
 he had renewed this little tacit arrangement be- 
 tween them, taking her hand softly in his at cer- 
 tain stages, smiling down upon her at others. 
 They were a sentimental couple, both of them, 
 totally un-Scottish in their demonstrative ways 
 when they were alone together with nobody to see. 
 
 For the first time in her life the child felt that
 
 294 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 she was left absolutely alone, a unit in a crowd. 
 She smiled bravely once more as she rose from her 
 knees the next time, but there was no answering 
 smile from her father. Indeed, his kind face had 
 assumed a rather stern expression, and there were 
 lines of anxiety between his eyes. (Had he put 
 the ring in his pocket, or not? when he was hesi- 
 tating which waistcoat to put on the white or 
 the black. That was what he was worrying 
 about.) 
 
 It was very silly of Elspeth, no doubt, but 
 the tears slowly gathered in her eyes. All her 
 short life she had been first with him, the little 
 queen of his heart. From some dim recess of her 
 brain (where do we keep them, I wonder, those 
 words fired at random to come back and hurt*?) 
 she remembered a stray conversation with one of 
 the Dragon's friends, a low-class one. An in- 
 sinuating smile; a remark on "a fine, big Miss;" 
 and, "Ye'll hae a lad noo. Wha's your sweet- 
 hert'?" And her own dignified answer: 
 
 'The Laird is my lad. But my father is my 
 sweetheart." 
 
 Then the vulgar laugh. 
 
 "Wait till your paw-paw gets anither wife, and 
 you'll no be his sweethert ony langer."
 
 A PASSING BELL 295 
 
 He had another wife. He had just put the 
 ring on his bride's finger. And already he had 
 forgotten his little sweetheart of the lonely and 
 lean years. Was it true? Elspeth wondered. 
 
 They knelt again. Lower and lower sank the 
 flower-crowned head of the bridegroom's maid, 
 bending over her bouquet of forget-me-nots. 
 
 A thought suddenly flashed across her. It was 
 naughty in church, but she remembered how the 
 flowers always spoke true. The Laird had told 
 her to listen at all times, and in all circumstances, 
 to the voice of Nature, for she never lied. How 
 often, on the gowan-spangled brae in front of the 
 Laird's house, had the rich, yellow buttercups, 
 held under his shaven chin, told her that he liked 
 butter and cream 1 ? How often had the big dog- 
 daisies gathered in the fields, and the wee, crimson- 
 tipped ones, told her that he loved her? She 
 would try the forget-me-nots. In church, in that 
 sacred place, they would be sure to tell her true. 
 
 She was kneeling quite close to the bride, and 
 was screened from the view of the other guests 
 by the large and portly figure of the mauve lady. 
 A corner of the bride's train, niched with white 
 lisse rose-petals, with here and there a crystal 
 dewdrop glittering amongst them, lay at her feet.
 
 296 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 Elspeth thought the dewdrops looked like tears. 
 She bent lower over her bouquet, and singling 
 out a large forget-me-not blossom let the petals 
 drop, one by one, amongst the rose-leaves and dew- 
 drops on the bridal train. 
 
 "He forgets me, forgets me not, forgets me, 
 forgets me not, forgets me," she repeated slowly to 
 herself. 
 
 Her heart sank at the result. 
 
 But that was only one time of doing it. The 
 daisies often said the Laird did not love her to 
 begin with. The Spirit of Divination was often 
 in a contrary, teasing mood. She wo.uld try 
 again. 
 
 "He forgets me, forgets me not, forgets me, 
 forgets me not, forgets me." 
 
 Elspeth stared, horror-stricken. It could not 
 be. Perhaps it was because she was naughty, 
 doing it in church. The third time might change 
 and then she would have another chance. Once 
 more: 
 
 "He forgets me, forgets me not, forgets me, 
 forgets me not, forgets me." 
 
 It was true then. He had forgotten her. For, 
 alas ! the poor little mystic flowers had an unequal 
 number of petals, and if she had pulled the whole
 
 A PASSING BELL 297 
 
 bouquet to pieces every blossom would, probably, 
 have answered in the same way, unless she had 
 begun her incantation differently. 
 
 A smart tap on the arm from the mauve lady 
 roused her. Every one was standing up now 
 except herself. She rose slowly from her knees. 
 Her eyes were dim with tears, well-nigh to 
 brimming over. The ceremony was concluded. 
 Her father and stepmother were now man and 
 wife. 
 
 They passed with the witnesses into the vestry. 
 Elspeth saw nothing. In a dream they went out, 
 and in a dream they returned. Forget-me-not 
 petals lay unseen on the bride's train, nestling be- 
 side the rose-petals and the dewdrops which looked 
 like tears. 
 
 In a dream she saw the procession form again, 
 and took her solitary place at the end of it. She 
 never saw the bride smiling and bowing to her 
 friends, nor the bridegroom, triumphant over the 
 successful passing of his ordeal, looking round for 
 herself, for in her misery she had hidden herself 
 more than ever behind that conveniently stout 
 lady. He had forgotten her. That was all. 
 Nothing else mattered. 
 
 The bridal procession passed down the aisle
 
 298 A GARDEN 'OF SPICES 
 
 again, the bridegroom's maid still walking behind, 
 alone, with head erect and dewy eyes. No one 
 interfered. They did not know if that was 
 meant to be her place or not. She was alone, 
 forgotten. Some thought it looked rather 
 strange to see the smallest bridesmaid at the end, 
 attired the same, yet differently to the rest, but 
 they put it down to some unknown Scottish 
 fashion. 
 
 The carriages filled up and rolled away. 
 Elspeth was crowded in with Julia and another 
 bridesmaid beside another strange lady. The 
 child gazed out of the carriage window in a be- 
 wildered fashion. 
 
 The bells were now crashing out a merry peal. 
 To Elspeth they rang a knell the knell of her 
 passing childhood. Henceforth, she was but a 
 schoolgirl, an atom in the world of ordinary girls. 
 To be teased and made fun of ; to be made to sub- 
 mit to all the annoyances and petty tyrannies 
 which girls can inflict, when they like, on one of 
 their number, who is much younger in every way 
 than the rest, and whom they think "odd." She 
 was no one, henceforth. The bells were tolling 
 for the passing of Elspeth Arnot, Queen of Three
 
 A PASSING BELL 299 
 
 Hearts, from the kingdom of her childhood into 
 obscurity. 
 
 Julia began to educate her by slowly rubbing 
 a slim, nearly full-grown foot up and down the 
 child's white kid shoes, with a malicious expression 
 on her face. She had seen the pirouetting in 
 front of the drawing-room and guessed its object. 
 She murmured aloud: 
 
 "Conceited imp ! You were not a bridesmaid, 
 you see, after all. I told you so. Carrots!" 
 
 Elspeth never heard her. She simply gazed in 
 front of her, dumb and unseeing. I doubt if she 
 even felt the rubbing up and down and soiling of 
 her precious shoes. Her body was in the carriage, 
 but her spirit was far away from the present. 
 
 Galloping on moorland paths on Donald Dhu's 
 shaggy back, held on by the firm white hand of 
 one true love she could feel the pressure of his 
 ring on her arm. Roaming with him amongst 
 the bees and butterflies, amid the scent of the wild 
 thyme, hand in hand, while the pony browsed 
 amongst the heather. Dancing in his study for 
 it was he who taught her dancing, and her French 
 dancing master had an easy time of it. It was 
 the Laird, with the blood of courtiers in his veins,
 
 300 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 who taught her to dance as he had danced himself 
 in the days of his youth, although he never held up 
 the skirts of his coat-tails as M. le Comte did. 
 (For, of course, the dancing master was a French 
 count in disguise.) 
 
 Sitting in a rocking-boat with her other true 
 love holding on grimly to the stern, with slippery 
 fish of her catching on the seat beside him, 
 choosing her awkward rowing, with probably death 
 at the end of it, rather than life without her. 
 How far away she was from those old loves, and 
 that old happy, ideal life! Even the Dragon 
 had been but an angel in disguise. 
 
 Oh, to be anywhere, everywhere, rather than 
 following in the joyous bridal train of the third, 
 her best beloved and dearest of all who had 
 forgotten her ! 
 
 And through it all the bells crashing, tolling 
 bells kept ringing ringing as the waters of 
 Life closed round her childish heart, swirling, 
 eddying, carrying her on with a rush, as the great 
 tidal river rushed under the bridge on its way to 
 the sea near her home. 
 
 But -did he really forget? Or was it only the 
 imagination of a romantic child's loving and fool-
 
 A PASSING BELL 301 
 
 ish heart some phantasy of the brain pertaining 
 to the natural inheritance of that strangely com- 
 plex temperament which we call the Celtic 1 ? Or 
 was it really a premonition handed down from 
 Highland ancestors in the shape of second sight 
 and, therefore, a true glimpse into the future*? 
 
 Ah, that is another story and belongs to a new 
 reign. The Queen is dead. Long live the Queen. 
 
 In real life men do forget. And women too, 
 for that matter. Only in the heart of the child 
 dwell the never-to-be-forgotten memories, laid 
 away in lavender and rue. To be taken out, per- 
 haps, and unfolded, only after the rue has dropped 
 to pieces and all its bitterness is gone. But the 
 sweet fragrance of the lavender remains for ever, 
 emblem of the Eternal, which is the Heart of True 
 Love.
 
 AFTERMATH 
 
 AND now it is eventide, the cool of the day, 
 when God walks in gardens. 
 
 A gentle breeze has risen. The evening star 
 shines through the rustling leaves of the lime- 
 trees at my gate. There is a touch of autumn 
 in the air. Sunflowers lean their wistful heads 
 over the wall to the west, where the sun has sunk 
 reluctantly into the margin of the sea. 
 
 It is not a part of the country for fine sunsets, 
 but there is a slight, rosy afterglow lingering still 
 on the horizon. 
 
 The lilies are over in my garden, although 
 roses and late sweet-peas still shed their sweet 
 autumnal fragrance on the air. 
 
 A pale, silvery disk of crescent moon rises over 
 the ridge of white cliffs. 
 
 I am alone yet not alone. 
 
 It is also the quiet eventide of a woman's life, 
 when the clouds have all rolled away. Long 
 shafts of golden light, shining over the purple 
 
 hills of the past, form pathways from past to 
 
 302
 
 AFTERMATH 303 
 
 present, from present to future. It is as the 
 clear shining which cometh after rain. The pil- 
 grim but rests at sundown in the arbour prepared 
 for weary travellers by the Lord of the Way. 
 
 Soon winter will be here, when I must lie en- 
 closed within the four walls of an invalid's room, 
 a prisoner of hope. But now I am still on my 
 garden couch, watching the evening star, and 
 listening for what*? 
 
 I am not ashamed even yet, in my solitary and 
 unromantic middle age, to dream dreams and see 
 visions. As in the old far-off days phantom forms 
 guided my childish feet over flowery meads and 
 thorny paths, so now they wait just beyond the 
 greenery at my gate to keep tryst with me. The 
 trys ting-pi ace is just beyond the lime-trees. 
 
 I see the Doctor of Thunders, his leonine ex- 
 pression softened by his new views from the other 
 side, his range of vision altered in the proximity 
 of that Light which never shone on sea or land. 
 
 Hendry, of the radiant personality, surrounded 
 by crowds whom he has helped there by his beauti- 
 ful teaching of the Gospel of Love. His mag- 
 netic laugh echoes even into my quiet garden. 
 The little brother, whom he holds by the hand, is 
 my phantom, Freddy.
 
 304 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 The Laird, rumpling up his silver curls, in his 
 old, familiar fashion, half -shy, half -nervous, as 
 was his wont when waiting to receive a much- 
 loved, long-expected friend. 
 
 Grandfather, the Elder, with his long, white, 
 "terrible-straight" hair blowing in the celestial 
 breezes. They will not lose the beautiful silver 
 hair in the new life, I think. 
 
 "Fair was the crown to behold, and beauty its poorest 
 
 part 
 
 At once the scar of the wound, and the order pinned 
 on the heart." 
 
 I can see many more. But behind these a little 
 I see the Dragon. Yes, the Dragon changed, 
 her self-confidence gone, her stern lips relaxed, 
 even breaking into a smile. A little wintry, per- 
 haps, her personality not altogether different even 
 yet, but modified, as it was the last time I saw her 
 in life. 
 
 "Forgive me," she cried then, holding out her 
 trembling, aged hands. "Forgive me for being 
 so severe. My views were narrow. They are al- 
 tered now. I wanted you to grow up good. I 
 knew nothing at all about children. I thought 
 chastisement was the riglit way to bring them up, 
 the only way to cast out original sin and to make
 
 AFTERMATH 305 
 
 their calling and election sure. Forgive me! 
 Tell me you bear me no malice. I loved you all 
 the time, but I had been brought up so strictly 
 myself, that I thought it was the only way." 
 
 No, dear, altered Dragon. I bear you no 
 malice. Only love matters. I remember your 
 prayers, and tears, and joyful thanksgivings over 
 any faint flutterings of grace shown in my way- 
 ward heart, as well as your whippings. And if, 
 on looking back, some of them appear to me to 
 have been unmerited, a good many of them were 
 richly deserved. Therefore we are quits. 
 
 But there is one amongst these waiting loved 
 ones in the forefront, close to the gate, of whom 
 I cannot write. The youngest, the most radiant 
 of them all, the latest gone. She slipped out of 
 my garden with the lilies. She, too, is waiting for 
 me, peering eagerly round the corner and saying : 
 
 "Is she not coming yet?" 
 
 She is holding on lovingly to my mother's hand, 
 this child of a later generation than my own. 
 There is a shimmer of gold and copper-red where 
 their two heads are touching. My mother is smil- 
 ing at her eagerness, holding her back a little, and 
 replying : 
 
 "Soon, soon. Perhaps this winter."
 
 306 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 And I, listening, echo back from earth with 
 rapture : 
 
 "Perhaps this winter." 
 
 Then the long-caged prisoner will be free, and 
 the shadows of the prison-house will enfold me no 
 more. 
 
 For the evening brings all Home. 
 
 And the Garden of Peace, with the Tree of 
 Life standing in the midst thereof, is the trysting- 
 place which is just beyond the lime-trees. 
 
 THE END
 
 AFTERMATH 303 
 
 present, from present to future. It is as the 
 clear shining which cometh after rain. The pil- 
 grim but rests at sundown in the arbour prepared 
 for weary travellers by the Lord of the Way. 
 
 Soon winter will be here, when I must lie en- 
 closed within the four walls of an invalid's room, 
 a prisoner of hope. But now I am still on my 
 garden couch, watching the evening star, and 
 listening for what*? 
 
 I am not ashamed even yet, in my solitary and 
 unromantic middle age, to dream dreams and see 
 visions. As in the old far-off days phantom forms 
 guided my childish feet over flowery meads and 
 thorny paths, so now they wait just beyond the 
 greenery at my gate to keep tryst with me. The 
 trysting-place is just beyond the lime-trees. 
 
 I see the Doctor of Thunders, his leonine ex- 
 pression softened by his new views from the other 
 side, his range of vision altered in the proximity 
 of that Light which never shone on sea or land. 
 
 Hendry, of the radiant personality, surrounded 
 by crowds whom he has helped there by his beauti- 
 ful teaching of the Gospel of Love. His mag- 
 netic laugh echoes even into my quiet garden. 
 The little brother, whom he holds by the hand, is 
 my phantom, Freddy.
 
 304 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 The Laird, rumpling up his silver curls, in his 
 old, familiar fashion, half-shy, half-nervous, as 
 was his wont when waiting to receive a much- 
 loved, long-expected friend. 
 
 Grandfather, the Elder, with his long, white, 
 "terrible-straight" hair blowing in the celestial 
 breezes. They will not lose the beautiful silver 
 hair in the new life, I think. 
 
 "Fair was the crown to behold, and beauty its poorest 
 
 part 
 
 At once the scar of the wound, and the order pinned 
 on the heart." 
 
 I can see many more. But behind these a little 
 I see the Dragon. Yes, the Dragon changed, 
 her self-confidence gone, her stern lips relaxed, 
 even breaking into a smile. A little wintry, per- 
 haps, her personality not altogether different even 
 yet, but modified, as it was the last time I saw her 
 in life. 
 
 "Forgive me," she cried then, holding out her 
 trembling, aged hands. "Forgive me for being 
 so severe. My views were narrow. They are al- 
 tered now. I wanted you to grow up good. I 
 knew nothing at all about children. I thought 
 chastisement was the right way to bring them up, 
 the only way to cast out original sin and to make
 
 AFTERMATH 305 
 
 their calling and election sure. Forgive me! 
 Tell me you bear me no malice. I loved you all 
 the time, but I had been brought up so strictly 
 myself, that I thought it was the only way." 
 
 No, dear, altered Dragon. I bear you no 
 malice. Only love matters. I remember your 
 prayers, and tears, and joyful thanksgivings over 
 any faint flutterings of grace shown in my way- 
 ward heart, as well as your whippings. And if, 
 on looking back, some of them appear to me to 
 have been unmerited, a good many of them were 
 richly deserved. Therefore we are quits. 
 
 But there is one amongst these waiting loved 
 ones in the forefront, close to the gate, of whom 
 I cannot write. The youngest, the most radiant 
 of them all, the latest gone. She slipped out of 
 my garden with the lilies. She, too, is waiting for 
 me, peering eagerly round the corner and saying : 
 
 "Is she not coming yet?" 
 
 She is holding on lovingly to my mother's hand, 
 this child of a later generation than my own. 
 There is a shimmer of gold and copper-red where 
 their two heads are touching. My mother is smil- 
 ing at her eagerness, holding her back a little, and 
 replying: 
 
 "Soon, soon. Perhaps this winter."
 
 306 A GARDEN OF SPICES 
 
 And I, listening, echo back from earth with 
 rapture : 
 
 "Perhaps this winter." 
 
 Then the long-caged prisoner will be free, and 
 the shadows of the prison-house will enfold me no 
 more. 
 
 For the evening brings all Home. 
 
 And the Garden of Peace, with the Tree of 
 Life standing in the midst thereof, is the trys ting- 
 place which is just beyond the lime-trees. 
 
 THE END
 
 A 000 043 705 3