THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 JAMES J. MC BRIDE
 
 Copyright, S. A'. Crocicett, igo6
 
 KID McQHIE
 
 A SORDID HEAP OF RAGS AND TATTERS LYING FACE DOWN 
 
 ON THE PATH.
 
 KID McGHIE 
 
 BY 
 
 S. R. CROCKETT 
 
 THE COPP, CLARK COMPANY LIMITED 
 
 1906
 
 " K'C 
 
 
 CONTENTS . 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 T. THE KID SUCCEEDS TO HIS TITLE - - Q 
 
 II. PRINCIPALLY PAT _ _ - - 23 
 
 III. MORE PAT ------ 37 
 
 IV. THE " KNIFER ------ 49 
 
 V. " BLIND Jacob's " - - - - ^ 
 
 VI. ARCHBOLD IklOLESAY, CITY MISSIONARY - 84 
 
 VII. PATRICIA'S BURGLARS - - - - 94 
 
 VIII. THE PEDIGREE MAN - - - - io8 
 
 IX. THE HEIRESS ON PROBATION - - - II7 
 
 X. EGHAM CASTLE 132 
 
 XI. THE FALL OF THE KID _ - - - 141 
 
 XII. HEARNE MACKENZIE REFORMATORY - 157 
 
 XIII. SOME WALKS ON THE MOOR - - - 170 
 
 XIV. THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON 
 
 MAW MOSS - - - - - 179 
 
 XV. THE TRAPPED TIGER - - - - 190 

 
 8 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XVI. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 XX. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 SCHOOLMASTER GRAINER - - - 
 
 PLOT THE FIRST - _ _ - 
 
 PLOT THE SECOND - - - - 
 
 PLOT THE THIRD — AND LAST - - - 
 
 PARRICIDE ----- 
 
 CAPTAIN HENDERLAND, CHIEF OF POLICE 
 THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH IS OVERPAST 
 " OH, DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS ! " - 
 " CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " - 
 BABY LANT's repentance - - - 
 
 THE LAST RAID OF " BLIND JACOB'S " 
 THE NEW " B. I. P." - - - . 
 
 " I WILL ARISE ! " - 
 
 THE CONDEMNED CELL - - _ 
 
 " IT IS WELL ! " - 
 
 PACK 
 
 20/ 
 223 
 238 
 
 252 
 
 265 
 
 274 
 
 2S7 
 
 297 
 306 
 
 325 
 
 354 
 367 
 380 
 
 390
 
 KID McGHIE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE KID SUCCEEDS TO HIS TITLE 
 
 Alexander McGhie was not always a bad boy, as 
 boys went in Kirkmessan, his native place, but he 
 was always the Kid — or more at large. Daft Mag 
 McGhie's Kid. He had a father also, bound to the 
 Mag aforesaid by every tie of law and gospel. 
 David was his name, and his forefathers had 
 been respectable men, marrying respectable wives, 
 till in the fulness of time, Davie, last and least 
 of the race, tarrying at Portnessock Fair, fell in 
 with Mag Caigton. 
 
 After that the descent to Avemus (or any other 
 descent) was easy indeed. Mag Caigton had a towsy, 
 blowsy, hearty-come-he arty-go way with her, which, 
 when she was yet in her teens, did David McGhie's 
 business for this hfe, and left him but a narrow squeak 
 for it in the next. 
 
 The Kid was nine years of age and already known 
 to all Kirkmessan — from the turnip-girthed provost 
 in his white waistcoat to the waifs and strays of the 
 Back Mill Lands where the Kid dwelt — when his 
 father, to get away from the clitter-clatter which on 
 washing-days filled all Back Mill Lands, took his 
 only son for a walk.
 
 10 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Eh, faither," said the Kid to his companion, 
 " but what garred ye do it ? " 
 
 ■' Do what ? " demanded Da\4d, looking very 
 queer. 
 
 " Mairry a woman like yon ? " remarked the far- 
 seeing youth. 
 
 " Faith, and that's what I am often askin' mysel ' ! " 
 said David McGhie, instinctively answering as if he 
 had been speaking to a man and an equal. Most of 
 his wife's qualities were indeed common property — 
 his sorrows the town talk. The very bairns, when 
 they saw him coming past the school at the play 
 hour, would run to the iron railings, crying with one 
 voice : 
 
 " Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed, 
 
 The spot they caa'ed it Linkumdoddie — 
 Siccan a wife as Willie had, 
 I wadna gie a button for her ! " 
 
 In the course of their walk David drew the Kid 
 into a wood, and said to him quietly, as if he had 
 brought something good to eat, for which he had 
 been groping in his pocket, " D'ye see that ? " 
 
 That was a pistol wdth two barrels, of the more 
 ancient sort, throwing a ball three times the diameter 
 of that of a modem repeating rifle. All this happened 
 some few years ago, and they hang such pistols on 
 walls now. They were com^mon then, and used for 
 killing things. 
 
 " Kid," said his father — that is to say, David 
 McGhie, Esquire, of Back Mill Lands, in the towTi of 
 Kirkmessan — " ye see this ? " 
 
 " Aye," said the Kid, " it's a wee gun. Where 
 gat ye sic a bonny pistol, daddy ? Is it yours, 
 and can I get the lend o't to shoot sparrows wi' ? 
 an' young corbies — an' maybes an odd rabbit, wha 
 kens ? " 
 
 His father shook his head slowly and sadly.
 
 THE KID SUCCEEDS TO HIS TITLE ii 
 
 " I borrowed it, Kid," he answered, " but for no 
 such purpose. It shall never be said that David 
 McGhie, wha's forbears lie in the kirkyard yonder, 
 demeaned himsel' to poachin' rabbits an' ither 
 vermin ! " 
 
 "What is't, then," cried the Kid, "and can I 
 come wi' ye, daddy ? I'll keep brave an' quiet i' 
 the covers. Never ye doubt it ! I hae been there 
 afore wi' Steenie Gormack, the poacher lad. Tell 
 me, daddy ! Is it pheasants or (here he sunk his 
 voice to a whisper) is it the deer, or some ither big 
 game that I haena seen ? " 
 
 " x\ye, 'deed," said liis father, " it's big game, 
 
 sonny ! " 
 
 "Tell me — oh, teU me, daddy. I'm a' in a reestle 
 to ken. My very taes, they wirma keep quiet ! " 
 
 But his father, sitting on a fallen tree (a spruce it 
 was, with curious dark feathery plumes Uke a hearse, 
 as the Kid remembered after), kept him some time 
 waiting. He seemed to have a difficulty in speaking. 
 Something the matter with his throat, the Kid thought. 
 Perhaps he had been eating corn, and had half -swal- 
 lowed one of the " beards." Nasty things they 
 were, too ! The Kid knew. 
 
 Then at last David McGhie, Esq., the son of an 
 excellent family, spoke : 
 
 " Aye, it's big game that this bit lump o' lead is 
 for, Kid — ^big, big game ! Ifs for you an' me, sonny ! 
 No, dinna rin awa'. Ye shall hae your chance after- 
 after I hae spoken to ye, sonny. Sit still the noo ! " 
 
 And with the failing strength of an arm that once 
 could swing the broadaxe vrith any man, David McGhie 
 pinned his son to the trunk of the spruce, and held 
 him in place by means of a leg hooked across his knees. 
 Then he leaned back and began to load the big horse 
 pistol carefully. 
 
 " Be never feared, laddie," he said, " it's a great 
 sin I am to commit. I ken that. But to hve on as 
 I hae been doin' is so mickle greater a sin, that I hae
 
 12 KID McGHIE 
 
 a kind o' hope that I may be forgiven. Because my 
 mind is made up " 
 
 " Made up to what ? No to kill yourself — no to 
 kill me, daddy ? " 
 
 The Kid's voice was low and hoarse now. He did 
 not recognise himself speaking, though he knew that 
 these were something like the words he wanted to 
 say. 
 
 " To pit an end to my puir wretched days, sonny," 
 said David McGhie, with the slow-coming determina- 
 tion of a weak man who hardly ever determines 
 anything. " Mine be the sin, Alec. Mine — mine — 
 mine ! But there is nae ither way for it, Kid, that 
 I can see ! " 
 
 " Let us rin awa' ! " said the Kid, eagerly. 
 
 " Useless — useless ! " groaned his father. " She 
 wad catch us afore ever we got to Carlisle. And, 
 forb3^e, I promised yon things afore the minister, 
 ' Till death us do pairt ' — that was what he made 
 me say. And I said it. It's little that is left to the 
 McGhies thae days, but it wiU surely be permitted 
 to the last o' them to keep his word. Aye, the last 
 o' them, laddie. For though ye bear my name, ye 
 hae never the McGhie nature. Ye are your mither's 
 son " 
 
 " Oh, no, faither," cried the Kid, bursting into 
 tears of absolute terror at the accusation, " dinna 
 say that, faither ! Dinna deny me — dinna say I 
 am no your Kid ! " 
 
 David McGhie stopped his cleaning out of the 
 pistol nipples to lay his hand on his son's head. 
 
 " Deny ye — never, laddie, never," he said ; " I 
 forgot that I was talkin' o' what a bairn could never 
 understand. But there is Caigton bluid in ye. Alec, 
 my man, and that's no guid bluid. Airchie Caigton 
 died on the gallows — that's your uncle ; your grand- 
 faither, Auld Pate, was killed in a smugglin' tulzie 
 down at the Burnfoot. They say your granny's 
 mither was burned for a witch at Portnessock. And
 
 THE KID SUCCEEDS TO HIS TITLE 13 
 
 your ain mither — but that's maybe somedeal my 
 faut — has been afore the sherifE twa score o' times 
 — aye, an' twa score to the back o' that ! And that's 
 what for I am giein' ye this chance — a chance that 
 ye will do weel to tak' ! " 
 
 As he talked, the quiet-eyed, dull-faced man in 
 the shabby black clothes went on methodically with 
 his loading of the horse pistol. Then he was silent 
 for a space. The Kid shivered and fidgeted. He 
 wondered what was coming next. It is dreadful 
 sometimes not to know what is coming. But thinking 
 it over afterwards, he could not remember that he 
 had been very frightened, which was still more strange 
 — because he knew somehow that his father was 
 mad. Everybody said he must have been, and the 
 law — that great and wonderful thing which never 
 errs — said so, too ! 
 
 " It's this way, Kid," said the quiet man, " maybe 
 ye do not mind what day it is the morn ? " 
 
 " Aye," returned the Kid, readily, " it's Friday 
 — for the housekeeper up at McGhie's hands me oot 
 a piece an' a penny every Friday." 
 
 " I'll gie you a lickin', Alexander," cried his father, 
 anger flashing from his eyes for the first time, " if 
 ever I hear tell o' you frequentin' the back door o' 
 sic a clan. The McGhies and their mansion house, 
 indeed ! I mind when his grandfaither ran a barrow 
 up and doon a plank, when my faither was ridin' 
 his hunter ! I dare you, Alexander McGhie, to dis- 
 honour your ancestors. If ve do, I'll tak' the hide 
 aff ye wi' a flail ! " 
 
 The Kid was desirous of saying that the house- 
 keeper at the mansion was not a McGhie, and that he 
 received the dole at the front door, not the back. 
 But a look at his father's face somehow stopped his 
 tongue. After his sudden flash of temper David 
 McGhie subsided into his old quiet. 
 
 " What I have to say to you is this," he said ; 
 ''it's a chance I am willin' to tak'. This world is
 
 14 KID McGHIE 
 
 no longer a place for me. Ye say that the morn's 
 a Friday, and it is on that Friday that your mither 
 will come back on us, out o' St. Cuthbert's Jail ! 
 But she will not find me — I hae a preference, and 
 rather than face her I prefer to face an offended 
 Maker." 
 
 With a movement of rude dignity he took off his 
 battered hat, and his early gray hairs streamed out 
 on the moderate wind. 
 
 " I am not an unreverent man, Kid," he continued, 
 " and, mind you, if ye will not come with me this 
 day the way I have chosen to tread, keep aye mind 
 to be reverent in your heart." 
 
 "And what are you going to do ? " asked the Kid, 
 anxiously. " What way are you takkin' to get away 
 frae her ? " 
 
 " This ! " said the quiet man, tapping the pistol 
 barrel, " just this ! " 
 
 " But then Til have no more daddy ! " wailed the 
 boy, suddenly breaking down. 
 
 " No more daddy," agreed the quiet man, " but 
 then if you'll take my advice, you will not need one. 
 It would be better than going back to her ! " 
 
 Having finished, he lifted the pistol and cHcked 
 back the huge old-fashioned dogs. 
 
 " One for me," he said, " and one for you ! " 
 
 At these words a wild and frantic terror filled aU 
 the Kid's heart. He wrenched himself clear of his 
 father with a jerk, and turned a complete somersault 
 among the leaves and underbrush. This conducted 
 him by a series of bumps and leaps to the bed of a 
 stream, where he lay shivering, but for the moment 
 safe. 
 
 " I dinna want to die, daddy, I dinna want to 
 die ! " he cried out wildly. 
 
 " There is no need," said the quiet man, speaking 
 from above ; " that will leave two for me. But 
 all the same, ye will live to rue it, Alexander ! " 
 
 Before the Kid could rise from the slippery pebbles
 
 THE KID SUCCEEDS TO HIS TITLE 15 
 
 in the bed of the bum he heard a curious scuffling 
 sound as of a struggle, and then, sharp and distinct, 
 like a thing apart, the noise of a shot. 
 
 The great doors of St. Cuthbert's Central Prison 
 rolled slowly back hke lock-gates turning. Sullen 
 black walls rose up into the midheavens, making 
 another night against the stars. It was twelve o'clock 
 on Friday night, the first of May. In an hour or 
 two aU the young lads and lassies in the countryside 
 would be rising out of their beds, and glancing out 
 at the graying morn, so as to be well up the Kirk- 
 town Fell when the sun rose. There they would 
 wash their faces in dew and phght their troth, and 
 very likely a couple or two would exchange an innocent 
 kiss behind the thickest of the hedgerows coming 
 home. 
 
 It was the first of May, and soon the things that 
 were true and honest, pure, lovely, and of good report 
 would be abroad, the virtue and the praise accom- 
 panying them. Also, fer contra, Mag McGhie would 
 be released from her full year of " time " served in 
 the penitentiary of St. Cuthbert's. As usual, Mag's 
 prison conduct had been such that not a day could 
 be remitted. Rather, if such had been possible 
 more would have been added thereto. And at her 
 exit all that Christie Lawson, the head jailer, could 
 say by way of Godspeed to Mag was, " I hope you'll 
 be such a good subject of Her Majesty's that by the 
 grace o' God we will never set eyes on the like of 
 ye again ! " 
 
 " Ye coffee-coloured lump o' sin," retorted his 
 amiable prisoner, "I'd tak' to hoose-brealdn', if 
 it were only to come back and plague you. ye ill-set, 
 somin' barrel o' condemned mihtia pork ! " 
 
 From this specimen, quite an average one, the 
 reason why Mag received no consideration from her 
 keepers is obvious. But all the same she complained
 
 i6 KID McGHIE 
 
 bitterly about favouritism. She came out at midnight 
 into the blank dark with half a dozen others, sentenced 
 along with her at the same sessions of justiciary 
 and before the same red judge. One or two, including 
 her own bosom crony, whose memory she now cursed, 
 were not of this little band, now waiting so impatiently 
 behind the barrier for liberation. Bouncing Bet 
 Lock had gone before another tribunal, and Sam 
 Seefer's case had also been called for final revision. 
 
 A few of the prisoners thanked one or other of 
 their keepers. Sentiment was far from dead among 
 these prison-stamped men and women. In some 
 it assumed even abnormal proportions. One young 
 lad wept to leave the ceU where he had been tended, 
 doctored, and fed. It was the only real home he 
 had ever known. He " would die of consumption," 
 he said. " He would never live through the winter." 
 
 " And the better for you, ye whimperin' rat ! " 
 cried Mag McGliie at the top of her voice, " ye have 
 not the spunk even to blow your nose with another 
 man's hanky ! " 
 
 At which some of the liberationists laughed, but 
 the prison discipline was still strong enough to prevent 
 anything like general conversation. And, indeed, 
 it was only an old and hardened offender like Mag 
 who spoke at all. She cursed steadily — a kind of 
 devil's paternoster of evil wishes and bitter reflections 
 imprecated upon the heads of the whole prison staff, 
 from the governor to the kitchen scullion. Mag 
 McGhie concluded her orisons thus : 
 
 " And if that man o' mine is no waitin' wi' siller 
 to buy me a drink an' a decent gown, faith, I'll 
 slaughter him, the saft, useless, brosy sumph that he 
 is!" 
 
 And Mag McGhie brought down her hand on the 
 arm of her next neighbour with such violence that 
 she cried out with the pain, and the sergeant of local 
 police in charge of the " time expireds " was obliged 
 to intervene.
 
 THE KID SUCCEEDS TO HIS TITLE 17 
 
 It was a curious sensation when, out of the flaring 
 naked gases of the prison corridor, the little band 
 of the emancipated found themselves fronting the 
 dark, while behind them the doors rumbled, shutting 
 them out with the selfsame chck that had shut them 
 in. 
 
 The flare-lamp of a low lodging-house, a refuge of 
 crimps and thieves, the worst in aU St. Cuthbert's, 
 dazzled the eyes of the ex-convicts. The hoarse 
 voice of its proprietor, one Darby John deafened 
 them, long accustomed to prison silences, where 
 the warder's footfalls are the only friendly voices, 
 and the swish of the sweeping besom the only audible 
 " sighing of the prisoner." 
 
 " This way, brave boys, this way, fine lads aU ! " 
 cried Darby John, a great hulk of a man with beetle 
 brows, a blue-black hog-mane of hair, shaven jowl, 
 and a voice like a cracked speaking trumpet. 
 
 " Here are the pots o' good hquor ! Here are the 
 comfortable beds, and if anyone hasn't got the 
 doUar, why, hang me, if honest Darby John is the 
 man to give them the worse welcome on account o' 
 that ! " 
 
 There were also in the crowd which waited one or 
 two soft-voiced Sisters of Mercy, on the lookout for 
 the women prisoners, a Salvation Army captain 
 in her red-and-blue bonnet, looking chilly in the 
 skimp clingsomeness of her official waterproof. The 
 Society for the Employment of Prisoners, the Aid 
 Society, and several others had workers on the spot. 
 There was a young Presb3rterian minister on the watch 
 for an erring sheep, her mother's one ewe lamb ; 
 while in the background, a little retired from the 
 others, the Catholic priest waited, weary but not 
 dispirited, for the Tim and the Mick and the Pathrick 
 who would presently issue forth. He was fresh to 
 his district, and knew none of these parishioners 
 at all, not even by name. But what matter ? Father 
 Macana knew that when he held up his hand and
 
 i8 KID McGHIE 
 
 spoke his sheep would know their shepherd's voice, 
 if it were only by the soft Munster accent. 
 
 But Mag McGhie would have none of all these. 
 She went through them like smoke, flinging her hoarse 
 curses in the face of all who attempted to stop her. 
 
 " Out o' my sight ! gawpin' dirt that ye are ! " 
 was her best word for the mission waiters. 
 
 " My man, the hound, the sneakin' hound, where 
 is he ? " she cried, " just let me see him ! I'm the 
 woman that will let daylight through his useless 
 calf's carcass. Let me be at him ^vith a decent bit 
 o' timber, and I'll make a hole in his chump big enough 
 for the poolies to drowTi themselves in ! " 
 
 But there came no answer to the furious crying 
 of the virago. The dumb night circled her about, 
 deadening her words, making the oaths seem merely 
 foolish. Shriek as she would, there was no response. 
 At last the sergeant and two of his men who had 
 been superintending the jail delivery, from the point 
 of view of experts and (in the case of the sergeant) 
 old acquaintances, moved Mad Mag on, still cursing 
 and foaming at the mouth, because of the unaccount- 
 able absence of her husband — " that useless, brainless, 
 thewless deil's buckie, Davie McGhie, with the back- 
 bone of a snail and the heart of Moses's own pig." 
 
 Of the threats she uttered there is no need to write 
 further, nor yet of the language in which they were 
 couched. Darby John, even he shrank before Mag's 
 fame when her transports were upon her. For she 
 would use a knife as soon as another her nails. And 
 when angered, as to-night, it was reported on good 
 authority that she was the equal of any two men, 
 even if they were both of them Darby Johns. 
 
 He gave her a drink, however, with a shrewd eye 
 to further custom, and presently the woman staggered 
 away, dogged most persistently by a smaU, nimble, 
 elusive, but inevitable shadow. 
 
 These two came to the town edge, passed into the 
 woods, heard the river beneath softly talking to itself
 
 THE KID SUCCEEDS TO HIS TITLE 19 
 
 down in the dark. All the way Mag clattered on, 
 devising new tortures for the absent Davie, her husband. 
 The small dodging shadow followed without sound, 
 without drawing breath, always nearer and nearer. 
 It was not far now to Kirkmessan. It could not 
 be, for already the dawn was coming up out of the 
 east. The pair had travelled far. Rare, chill, cold, 
 with a single eyelash of fire where the light touched 
 a flecked cloud immeasurably high, they saw before 
 them the plain pearl-gray face of the dawn. 
 
 Mag raged as she recognised the huddle of white 
 buildings. She shook her fist at the very church 
 steeples. A haughty, unregenerate GaUio in slatternly 
 garments, she cared for none of these things. She 
 spat on the gateposts of the manses, threw dirt at 
 the provost's windows, and was only persuaded away 
 by a night policeman, who told her that she was 
 wanted at " home " — that is, in the gabled, white- 
 washed barrack in Back Mill Lands which still, in 
 spite of loans and wadsetts, called the last of the McGhies 
 its lord. 
 
 This pohceman, Patrick Adair, a pitiful man where 
 women were concerned, saw Mag safe to the entrance 
 of Back Mill Lands. Farther than that he would 
 not go, that is, not without Jock Higgs, his mate. 
 Back Mill Lands was no place for a single man, nor, 
 when he was married, for his wife. 
 
 It is to be noted that Mag, perhaps in compliment 
 to Patrick Adair's good looks and condition of bachelor- 
 hood, cursed a shade less vehemently while under 
 his care. She even made the semblance of a toilet 
 by passing her fingers through the matted tangle 
 about her brow, whose luxuriance prison disciphne 
 had not been able wholly to subdue. 
 
 But Back Mill Lands it was. There was the house. 
 His house, the poltroon ! He had never so much 
 as Hghted a fire. Very likely he would have nothing 
 for her to eat — still more (and worse), nothing to 
 drink ! All her anger, half-evaporated, began to
 
 20 KID McGHIE 
 
 return. She looked about for a weapon wherewith 
 to enforce her entrance into her home. The forge 
 of Tom Dinwiddie, the village smith, was at her 
 right hand ; Gregg the baker's at her left. In front 
 of Gregg's stood his bread van, carefully dis- 
 mantled, the shafts in the air. Nothing inside 
 except a smell of yesterday's buns, and the last 
 farinaceous sigh of many departed four-pound 
 loaves. Nothing, at least, to suit Mad Mag in 
 search of an argument. 
 
 But, on the other hand, Tom Dinwiddie, late 
 at work repairing the wheel of the said bread 
 van, had left his largest " spanner " lying on the 
 ground, four pounds of good cold iron, and of a 
 convenient shape to the hand. Mag took it up 
 for the purposes of marital discussion, hefting it with 
 satisfaction. 
 
 As she reached the door, the light of morning was 
 looking in more clearly between the chimney pots 
 of the Cross Keys, which opened on the square, and 
 the squat smoke-blackened vent of Tom Dinwiddle's 
 smithy. 
 
 Mag rattled violently at the door. Silence abode 
 within. She called loudly, promised vengeances dire 
 upon the miscreant David. Again she held out 
 bribes. But the door remained shut. Rigorous 
 silence maintained itself within. A sudden flash 
 of fear, or something like it, ran through the woman's 
 mind. 
 
 Could he have run away ? No ; she decided that 
 he dared not. It was not in him. Run away, indeed, 
 no ! However fast and however far, well David 
 McGhie knew that there was no city or parish so 
 distant or so well hidden that he could abide safe 
 from Mag Caigton's vengeance. 
 
 Heads began to appear from the scandalised houses 
 surrounding Back Mill Lands — heads unkempt and 
 middle-aged, heads old and white-mutched, heads 
 young and curl-papered. In these parts the men
 
 THE KID SUCCEEDS TO HIS TITLE 21 
 
 did not bother to put on their trousers for less than 
 a fire. 
 
 " Oh, it's juist Mad Mag hame again ! " said the 
 women to the unseen questioners within, " she's 
 the deil's ain brat ! She will no be lang here. The 
 poliss will soon have her by the wrists again for some- 
 thing. But in the meantime Guid peety David McGhie, 
 honest man. He has a sair burden on his back ! " 
 " Aye, guidwife " (from one of the less censorious 
 sex), " I ken weel that David buckled the burden 
 on his back himsel'. But that makes it nane the 
 easier to carry, that I ken 0' .^ " 
 
 Finally tiring of her fruitless assaults on the flaked 
 and peeling front door, Mag took her way round to 
 the back, and there, turning the comer smartly, 
 she was too quick for the small figure which had 
 hitherto dogged her. She got him by the slack of 
 his trousers — a pair of his father's, banded and furled 
 without remaking, by a kindly neighbour — and haled 
 him out for judgment and slaughter. 
 
 " Now, then," she demanded, " what's a' this 
 aboot ? Where's your faither, the dirty scoundrel ? " 
 
 " He couldna come ! " 
 
 " Couldna come — a likely story," shrieked the 
 terror of Back Mill Lands ; " he's hidin', mair likely. 
 And what's mair, ye ken where he is ! " 
 
 " Mither, he's deid ! He killed himsel' wi' a pistol. 
 He wanted to kill me. It was because ye were comin' 
 hame. He thocht he had better ! " 
 
 Mag McGhie lifted the spanner and struck — faith- 
 fully, as if he had been her husband instead of her 
 son, a man instead of a child. The Kid fell prone, 
 without a word. And in an hour Mag McGhie was 
 celebrating her widowhood in the police cells, with 
 the chance of hanging by the neck till she was dead, 
 if the Kid did not recover. For from his window, 
 too far away to interfere, Tom Dinwiddle, the smith, 
 had seen the deed done, and knew the weapon that 
 did it. Thereafter Mag flung the spanner into the
 
 22 KID McGHIE • 
 
 deepest pool in the Messan Water, regardless of the 
 needs of justice, or the loss of an important " piece 
 of conviction." And Tom Dinwiddie swore by his 
 favourite forehammer that he would hang Mag himself 
 if the bairn died.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 PRINCIPALLY PAT 
 
 High on a pleasant bank outside the town of Kirk- 
 messan, on a choice site carefully selected to show 
 the building to the best advantage, stood " Balmaghie," 
 the beautiful castellated residence of P. Brydson 
 McGhie, Esq., J. P. — otherwise, his house. 
 
 P. Br3^dson claimed to belong to the ancient and 
 well-considered family of the McGhies, the feudal 
 lords of Kirkmessan. And so he did. He further 
 claimed to be the McGhie, the head of the name. 
 But here he erred grievously, as Davie of the Back 
 Mill Lands would have had no diificulty in showing, 
 if he had cared a ha'p'orth about the matter. How- 
 ever, he did not, having, as has been shown, something 
 else upon his mind, which might weU have occupied 
 that of a stronger man. 
 
 Nevertheless, there were those in the town of Kirk- 
 messan who did not forget. Genealogies were long 
 remembered in that parish, especially if there was 
 anything shady about them. 
 
 There was, for instance, httle Archie Craw, the 
 hunchback " writer," who (it is supposed) was engaged 
 in compiling a history of the town. He had proceeded 
 so far that he had reduced to writing all the malicious 
 stories afloat about every family in the three streets 
 — Main, King's, and High — not by any means excluding 
 his own, with most of the members of which he was 
 at variance, as became a country lawyer with a reputa- 
 tion for " good-going " pleas. 
 
 33
 
 24 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Bitter Airchie " (he was always so called) could 
 have told you, and indeed did tell everyone who 
 cared to Hsten, and some who, being obliged to Archie, 
 had to listen whether they liked it or not, how David 
 of Back Mill Lands was the true and only original 
 McGhie of McGhie and Kirkmessan, whose direct 
 male ancestor had retour of the lands in 1585, when 
 the Lords of the Congregation were distributing 
 that which did not belong to them. Consequently 
 the succession of these valuable estates, together 
 with the rightful title of " The McGhie," descended 
 to the son of the aforesaid David, other\\dse Alexander 
 the Kid, the hero of this story. 
 
 Now at this point comes in a warning. If any 
 far-sighted reader, glinting a knowing eye onward 
 to the last chapter in the expectation of great in- 
 heritance, thinks to find the Kid a knight of the 
 shire and strong on the game laws, that reader is 
 in the way of disappointment. Save in the matter 
 of barren honour, the Kid's ancient descent never 
 did him the least good. 
 
 " Aye," said Bitter Little Airchie, the writer of 
 Kirkmessan, sinking his head deep between his shoul- 
 ders hke a stork in a shower, " aye, auld Paitrick 
 up yonder has bravely feathered his nest, as ye see. 
 They tell me they can make something they caa 
 * alumeenium ' oot o' plain bumside clay. Weel, 
 that auld sinner has made minted gowd oot o' gye 
 queer dirt. Awhile at the ' pack ' and siller made 
 oot o' that — awhile at the money lendin' (on the 
 strict Q.T. as the sang says), and piles and barrow-loads 
 o' money made oot o' that ! Then contractin' on 
 a lairge scale, a braw white waistcoat, a gowd chain 
 as thick as your wrist, then the bench o' justices, 
 and word sent on ahead to St. Peter at the Muckle 
 White Yett to keep a reserved seat for P. Brydson 
 McGhie, Esq., of Balmaghie ! " 
 
 Now take away the spite in which the tongue of 
 Bitter Little Airchie Craw lived and waggled hke
 
 PRINCIPALLY PAT 25 
 
 a screw in water, and there remains no very unjust 
 or incomplete sketch of the hfe of Patrick Brydson 
 McGhie, the fortunate member of a younger branch 
 which had thus redeemed the fortunes of his ancient 
 fallen house. 
 
 " But," continued the bitter one, " I forgot the 
 family. There's the mistress — she's a fine adjunct 
 to the carriage and pair. I canna say mair nor better 
 aboot her than that. When ye see the bonny spankers, 
 chestnut and yella leather, come chppin' it up the 
 High, and the landau (or is it a baroosh ?) fresh frae 
 Penman's yaird — a' chocolate and broon, lined wi' 
 fine strokes o' scarlet dune wi' Crombie's ain hand ! 
 Oh, it's braw — Lord, sirce, but the carriage is braw ! 
 But what wad it be withoot Mrs. Brydson P. McGhie, 
 set up there a' to match wi' broon sable fur, and boas 
 and constrictors, and muffs an' puffs, a' broon and 
 chocolate, and nocht crimson aboot her except maybe 
 the point o' her nose, gin it be a cauld day ! 
 
 " Speak ? No ; what for should she speak ? Doth 
 an image, graven by airt an' man's device, speak ? 
 Doth a mantelpiece ornament engage in conversation 
 on the land laws and the price o' snuff ? Go to, 
 Baihe. Ye ask ower muckle. Mistress P. Brydson 
 is a credit to oor toon o' Kirkmessan, and that I 
 will maintain ! " 
 
 But not even Bitter Little ^\irchie had a word to 
 say against the young folks who were growing up 
 in the great, expensive, natural-wood-fitted mansion 
 of " Balmaghie." The turned commas must not 
 be forgotten. They are the hall mark of the suburban 
 house with pretensions, and in this case they prevented 
 the cruel disgrace of the residence of P. Brydson 
 McGhie being vulgarly numbered 107, High Street, 
 which, according to the Burgh Extension Act, it 
 should have been, if Mr. P. B. McGhie had not been 
 a large ratepayer. 
 
 Great, however, as he was without, P. Brydson, 
 even as a justice of the peace, was a failure indoors.
 
 26 KID McGHIE 
 
 His wife told him when she wanted more money, 
 but otherwise was perfectly contented not to see 
 his face for ten minutes in the day — outside, that is, 
 of meal times. 
 
 His sons were mostly away at school and college, 
 and when at home, squandered treasures of ingenuity 
 in avoiding " the pater," which would have placed 
 them high in any examination, oral or written. 
 
 That Patrick Brydson had three daughters need 
 be no sort of a surprise to anyone. He was just 
 the kind of bulgy, comfortable, arm-chairy man 
 who would be sure to have three daughters, and 
 to be so proud of the fact as to be completely ruled 
 by them — all the time, mark you, declaiming strongly 
 as to the necessity of the head of a house keeping 
 his family in order, inculcating respect for authority, 
 putting the young in their places, and, in general, 
 upholding obedience, subordination, and the eternal 
 laws. 
 
 " Eternal b-o-s-h ! " exclaimed Patricia McGhie, 
 the second in age of the daughters, somewhat dis- 
 respectfully, as her father, after delivering an address 
 with his coat tails parted before the fire, went out, 
 slamming the door behind him. 
 
 " Patricia," cried Marthe, the eldest of the three 
 (she was full twenty), " you must not speak that 
 way of your father. I forbid it ! " 
 
 Pat McGhie arranged herself before the fire, pretended 
 to blow her nose indignantly on an altogether in- 
 visible handkerchief, and, ha\dng thrust a pair of 
 thumbs into equally imperceptible waistcoat pockets, 
 she drummed " Peter-Dick-Pot-Stick " with her fingers 
 upon her blouse. Atalanta laughed at her sister's 
 boldness. 
 
 " I will not have it ! " repeated Marthe, stamping 
 her little foot. 
 
 "Save us! Have they made you a J. P. too, 
 Marthe ? " cried Pat, playing with the big maps, 
 which rolled and unrolled out of a sort of wooden
 
 PRINCIPALLY PAT 27 
 
 " hidie hole " arranged under the cornice. The 
 girls were in the schoolroom. For it was Saturday 
 morning, and according to the laws of Balmaghie 
 (which, hke stupid people's opinions, never altered) 
 the two housemaids were " doing " the girls' own 
 little sitting room. It was owing to this that they 
 had come across their father, and had received a 
 lecture on the danger of making and cultivating 
 undesirable acquaintances. 
 
 " All very well," commented Patricia, after her 
 father had gone out, and the sound of his heels had 
 done tap-tapping on the black-and-white tiles of 
 the hall, " all very well ! We are not to know Jim 
 This, because his father is a farmer, and can be seen 
 in the mart on Mondays, bidding for hoggets and 
 yearlings. We mustn't know Tom That, because 
 his father once kept an hotel. Or let the minister 
 come too often, because he has only two hundred 
 a year, and all minister's wives have " 
 
 " Hush, will you ? " said Marthe, blushing. " If 
 father thinks that he needs to speak to us about 
 such things, it's no business of yours ! " 
 
 " No," retorted Patricia, making a httle mouth at 
 her sister, " perhaps not. At least the minister is 
 not. But the cap is perhaps a little too near our 
 dear Marthe's size. That was a long talk we had 
 with Mr. Symington aU alone on prayer-meeting 
 night. Interesting little sinner ! Pretty too ! Faith- 
 ful pastor ! What was he saying all the time, I 
 wonder ? " 
 
 "That is none of your business, miss ! " said her 
 elder sister, a little tartly for her. 
 
 " Ah, hum, of course not," said Patricia the irre- 
 pressible, " of course not ! Secret of the confessional, 
 and all that — we understand, eh, Atalanta ? " 
 
 " We understand ! " echoed Atalanta, smiling, 
 glad to be included. 
 
 Martha, Marta, Marthe, the eldest of the three 
 girls, turned on her youngest sister.
 
 28 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Perhaps Patricia, who is old enough to know 
 how to behave herself, can say what she Ukes," she 
 said, rapping the words out smartly, " but you, 
 Atalanta, make a great mistake if you think you 
 can do so. Go to your practising this instant, and 
 don't let me see you Hft your head for an hour. Or, 
 if you don't, I'll get you sent back to be dragonised 
 for another year at Madame Faber's. You know 
 I can easily persuade the mater, and what she says, 
 the pater wiU do. He thinks three girls in the house 
 too many as it is ! " 
 
 " WeU," said Pat the freebooter, whose speech 
 was always unfettered, " you, Marthe, are going 
 the right way about it to leave only two. Bless 
 you, my children ! " 
 
 As she spoke she extended a hand high over her 
 elder sister's head. Marthe McGhie was a little 
 brown-skinned girl with the red of health and good 
 humour glowing in cheeks which reminded you con- 
 stantly of some ripe and wholesome fruit. On this 
 occasion she turned away without deigning an answer. 
 But she kept her eye on Atalanta, who did not venture 
 to dispute her authority, but took herself off in the 
 direction of the music room, her hps muttering darkly 
 what seemed to be variations upon the theme of 
 " Ha-ha, a day wiU come ! " 
 
 The three McGhie girls were considered " very 
 different," though, by general consent, aU were emin- 
 ently " nice " girls — good friends to make, good 
 housekeepers, clever at many things, and with a 
 most notable faculty of " getting on with people," 
 which their parents lacked in a quite extraordinary 
 degree. 
 
 The Marthe the iovm knew was a Httle, bright, 
 dusky thing, with red hps that were often tightly 
 compressed — a paragon of district visitors, interested 
 in aU church work, a prop of meetings, societies, 
 and Dorcas cuttings-out. She was reported to make 
 her own clothes, so as to give away the equivalent
 
 PRINCIPALLY PAT 29 
 
 portion of her allowance. But at any rate, if she 
 did, her appearance never betrayed it. Marthe 
 was always perfectly dressed. Even her enemies, 
 such as she had, allowed that much. Bright, kind, 
 busy-bee little Marthe, it did one good to meet you 
 in the street, and the light in the brown eyes and 
 the kindness about the quietly smihng mouth, did 
 many a man besides the minister good as he took 
 off his hat to the quick, trim figure on her daily 
 rounds. 
 
 If the collected male youth of Kirkmessan had 
 been assembled and the sentiment given (they were 
 great on " sentiments " in Kirkmessan) as it used 
 to be at the old Christmas and Hogmanay parties 
 long ago — " Kneel to the prettiest, bow to the wittiest, 
 and kiss the girl you like best " — it is certain that 
 little Marthe would have found herself saluted copiously 
 even to embarrassment. Very popular was the httle, 
 dimpled bro\vn thing. She might not exactly be 
 all you wanted as your sweetheart, but she was just 
 the very girl, down to the ultimate hair, in whom 
 you wanted to confide about your sweetheart. 
 
 " She's too attractive to be an auld maid," said 
 Bitter Little Airchie Craw, who melted at the sight 
 or even the thought of Marthe ; " but, oh, if it had 
 been the will of Providence, what an auld maid she 
 wad hae made — far oot o' the common. She wad hae 
 sweetened half the town ! " 
 
 And the httle bitter one thought with a sudden 
 gravity of an only sister, who had sweetened the 
 greater part of his own lonely life — now, alas ! growing 
 acrid again because she had been laid away under 
 the sod. 
 
 Concerning Patricia McGhie opinions varied. Ac- 
 cording to common report, she had a tongue capable 
 upon occasion of " clipping clouts." She had even 
 worsted Bitter Airchie himself, " writer " as he was, 
 and great wit as he set up to be, in a battle of words. 
 For the average young man of Kirkmessan and the
 
 30 KID McGHIE 
 
 neighbourhood, Pat McGhie was altogether too clever. 
 There was something in her eye, a laughing twinkle of 
 light (like a far-away lighthouse at night), which 
 suggested that the young lady did not regard you too 
 seriously. This proved disconcerting to the rural 
 mind, and even town men of eminence had been 
 discouraged thereby. 
 
 Patricia was tall, but not too tall, for the rest dark, 
 lithe, and holding herself like a trained gymnast. 
 She usually had a dog following her, sometimes two, 
 and when she wanted them she set a couple of fingers 
 to her mouth, and whistled like a shepherd on the 
 hills. This was considered to uniit her for all re- 
 spectable society in Kirkmessan. But some thought 
 otherwise. 
 
 Atalanta was only seventeen (" going eighteen " 
 as she put it) and as " pretty as a picture," or rather 
 as a Christmas card of the old-fashioned sort. She 
 had blue eyes, placed a little wide, fair hair that 
 crisped and curled rebelliously, a straight nose, and 
 as Gilbert McGhie said, with a brother's lack of enthu- 
 siasm, she " promised to be not bad-looking when 
 once she had shaken herself together." But since 
 this Gilbert, then at College, was growing in lumps 
 and annexes almost from day to day, he need not 
 have talked, as Patricia immediately and very clearly 
 pointed out. 
 
 Atalanta also was tall, and carried her head as if 
 she were proud of it, as indeed, in the opinion of 
 many (even of her ov/n sex), she had a good right to 
 be. That she was not so wise and sedate as Marthe, 
 nor so clever as Pat, was held to be no detriment. 
 She was certainly pretty beyond prettiness. And is 
 that not the whole duty of the third of three sisters, 
 ever since all the romancers were young ? 
 
 Altogether, there was not a trio of young women 
 like them in the parish, and in the public regard they 
 redeemed even the " pit from which they were digged," 
 as Bitter Airchie called their immediate parentage.
 
 PRINCIPALLY PAT 31 
 
 As for their brothers, Gilbert was a nice lad. Tom 
 was a nice laddie. Peter was a nice boy — only Bob 
 (next to Gilbert) was a " deil," and in his own person 
 revived all the family disgrace. Bitter Airchie some- 
 times said that this was a relief to him when he looked 
 at the girls and thought of P. Brydson. 
 
 Restored to their own sitting room, the three girls 
 occupied themselves variously. Busy-bee little Marthe 
 cut out blouses for her next sale of work. Blouses, 
 she found, sell best — at least, where, as at Kirkmessan, 
 there are many young women among the buying 
 population. Miraculously poised upon the backs of 
 two chairs with her feet upon the window sill, Patricia 
 alternately dipped into the sixth volume of Froude's 
 " History of England " and criticised her sister's 
 work, till, with more than her natural vivacity, Marthe 
 invited her lazy sister to take the scissors and " do 
 it herself." 
 
 Baby Lant — Atalanta's earliest attempt at her o\\ti 
 pretentious name — lay back on the sofa, at ease 
 among the pillows, content, first of all, that she was 
 not at school ; secondly, that she had not to practise ; 
 determined (thirdly) not to read ; subtly conscious, 
 too, of the pleasant reflection which the big mirror 
 with the water lihes painted over it sent back to her. 
 She was not anxious for any occupation. In the 
 meantime she pohshed her pretty pink nails into 
 super-immaculateness by means of a nail file, some 000 
 emery paper stolen from her brother Gilbert's work- 
 room, and a natural emollient appHed by the tongue, 
 and rubbed up with a handkerchief, which she had 
 abstracted for the purpose from her sister Marthe's 
 pocket as she passed, absorbed in her " cutting 
 out." 
 
 The morning room at Balmaghie — that eligible 
 suburban residence can now do without its indicative 
 turned commas, which have served their purpose —
 
 32 KID McGHIE 
 
 was a pleasant room looking over at the spires of the 
 churches, and the green and purple slate roofs of the 
 houses of Kirkmessan. 
 
 In the intervals of prettily but most improperly 
 biting and polishing her nails, Baby Lant counted 
 the steeples. She was not strong in arithmetic, 
 and often was not sure whether there were five or 
 six. But she always knew that which belonged 
 to the Free Martyr's Kirk, being that presently minis- 
 tered to by the Rev. WiUiam Heath Sjonington, 
 the effective cause of the recent lecture delivered to 
 such heedless listeners in the schoolroom of Balmaghie. 
 
 Baby Lant was not in love — not the least in the 
 world. She had never been in love. But she knew 
 it would come — at least, that she would have the 
 " horrid fag," as Pat called it, of having people in 
 love with you ! This was all very well for Patricia, 
 who was always ready to snap anybody's head off. 
 But for herself, that is. Baby Lant — with two big 
 blue eyes abrim with dreams, she took great interest 
 in the thought that she would have people in love 
 with her. 
 
 For the present, however, Patricia being publicly 
 disdainful, and no man having appeared on the horizon 
 with the necessary courage to attack her. Baby Lant 
 watched over her eldest sister like a mother, and 
 invented romances in that curly head of hers about 
 Marthe, Mr. Symington, the httle ivy-covered manse 
 on the Messan Brae, with all the devotion of a trained 
 yarn spinner who lets his puppets trot round his 
 head while he himself lies adreaming. 
 
 Hark to these three ! It is a pleasant sort of eaves- 
 dropping : 
 
 " Say, Marthe," said Patricia, with a malicious 
 twinkle and a pretty bird-hke turn of the head charac- 
 teristic of her, " when he comes past the gate now, 
 especially if he chances to look up, we must all fall 
 flat on our faces, mustn't we, or better still, turn and 
 run as hard as we can ? "
 
 PRINCIPALLY PAT 33 
 
 " I wish you would not be so silly ! '' said her 
 sister, with as much dignity as can go along with 
 four pins and a basting needle all in one's mouth at 
 a time. 
 
 " Silly ! " cried Patricia, mockingly, " never in 
 the world ! Wisdom itself is centred in me, sister 
 mine. And that you will see — before you dig your 
 first crop of potatoes out of the manse garden ! I 
 recommend ' Early Roses ' ! " 
 
 " I can't think how you can be so cruel ! " said 
 Marthe ; " you know you spoil everything when 
 you talk like that ! " 
 
 "What is 'everything'?" demanded Patricia, 
 immediately pouncing upon this as an admission. 
 
 "Oh, you know," said Marthe, keeping her eyes 
 very firmly on her work ; " you know as well as I 
 do — about Mr. Symington, and all that nonsense, 
 and father's not wanting me encourage him. As if 
 I would encourage anyone ! " 
 
 " I should ! " said Baby Lant, sucking her thumb 
 as if it were made of chocolate, " just to see what 
 he would do ! " 
 
 " That would be cruel and very wicked also ! " 
 said Marthe, sententiously, " as you will know when 
 you grow up, Baby Lant ! " 
 
 " You hear. Baby Lant," smiled Patricia, " when 
 you grow up. Marthe scores one ! Put away 
 childish things — feeding bottles and such-like, Baby 
 Lant ! " 
 
 " Well, anyway," cried Baby Lant, making an 
 end of her nails for the present, and actually 
 troubling to raise herself on one elbow, " I am 
 kinder than you, Pat, if I am only going eighteen 
 and not yet grown up ! At least I am willing to 
 help Marthe, and not just laugh and hinder ! So 
 there ! " 
 
 " Now that's what Baby Lant (eighteen and not 
 grown up) considers sensible. Yet there are people 
 who would give girls a vote ! " said Patricia, languidly.
 
 34 KID McGHIE 
 
 ' ' Why, Baby, I would do more to help in half an hour 
 — could and would both — if I thought that father 
 was in earnest with his silly talk, or Marthe there 
 cared a button-without-the-stalk for Mr. Symington, 
 than you in a lifetime. You are a cozy, comfortable 
 person enough. Baby, and will be pleasant to live 
 with. But they don't make a pretty sofa cushion 
 garnished with eyes behind and before, like the beasts 
 in the Bible ! " 
 
 Baby Lant sulked a little, but only answered, 
 " Well, you take a strange way to show your kindness 
 to Marthe, always mocking at her. You're worse 
 than the horridest girl at school ! " 
 
 " Then you've had a happy school life. Baby," 
 said Patricia, turning the leaves of her book abstract- 
 edly, and then patting her mouth to emphasize 
 a yawn. " When the time comes, dear Babe, we three 
 will hang together like crabs in a basket. But in 
 the meantime while Marthe doesn't know whether 
 she likes him or not, and he hasn't made up his mind 
 whether he likes her " 
 
 " Why, of course'^he does," cried Atalanta, with 
 a sudden burst of | indignation ; "anybody could 
 tell that ! You should have heard him at our old 
 Cook Marion's wedding — why, when Mr. Symington 
 read out all that about the happiness of the married 
 state, and the crown of happy, peaceful years, he 
 was thinking all the time about our Marthe ! I 
 could tell by his voice. Besides, he kept looking 
 over where she was ! " 
 
 " It was at me he looked, Baby Lant," said Patricia, 
 in a matter-of-fact tone ; "I had the ring, you know. 
 He told me to have it ready on my little finger, as 
 Cook Marion's husband would never be able to find 
 it at the proper moment. It was a secret between 
 us. Besides, I'm not sure but that he likes me best, 
 an3rway ! " 
 
 Baby Lant was on her feet in a flash, white hot 
 with indignation.
 
 PRINCIPALLY PAT 35 
 
 (( 
 
 Oh, you story ! " she cried, " how can you, Patricia 
 McGhie ? If you were to be taken this moment, 
 what would you say ? " 
 
 " Say ? " murmured Patricia, ^without troubHng 
 to turn her head ; "I should say, 
 
 • Good-by, proud world, I'm going home, 
 I'm not thy friend and thou'rt not mine ! ' " 
 
 " Don't be wicked, Pat," said Marthe, stirred 
 for the first time at the abuse of sacred-sounding 
 words. 
 
 Patricia waved a slender white hand in a tired way 
 over her two sisters and rearranged herself on her 
 chair backs. 
 
 " There you go," she said, " aU you good folk 
 are alike — you never take the trouble to think. The 
 man who wrote that (Emerson, his name was) only 
 meant that he was tired of Hving in the city and that 
 he was going back to the country." 
 
 " Well, it doesn't sound hke that ! " said Marthe 
 and Atalanta together, a little taken aback, however. 
 
 " Ah, yes, you go by sound, you people," said 
 Patricia, indulgently ; " pray by sound ; sing by 
 sound in church the same words you sang as a child, 
 and you like them because of that. But the m.eaning 
 — that's quite another thing. But what am I saying ? 
 Girls should not presume to think. They should 
 hsten with folded hands to their parents and guardians 
 till they get married. And after that — why, have 
 they not husbands to think for them ? " 
 
 Marthe did not answer this. She knew better. 
 She only came across and laid her cool brown cheek 
 against Patricia's. Then she kissed her softly. 
 
 " Dear old Marthe ! " said Patricia, suddenly 
 reaching up a hand and catching her sister round 
 the back of her neck, " I am a wretch. You are a 
 hundred times better than I, and far too good for 
 anybody in this wicked world — even (she added 
 maliciously) for Willie / "
 
 36 KID McGHIE 
 
 And before her sister could recover, she alighted 
 from her chair backs as easily and as daintily as a 
 bird descends from a perch. 
 
 " Here endeth the first lesson ! " she said, and 
 marched out of the parlour with a mischievous assump- 
 tion of ecclesiastical port, holding up her dress like 
 a Geneva gown.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MORE PAT 
 
 The rear portions of Back Mill Lands looked toward 
 the red freestone walls, the many windows, and 
 glittering conservatories of Balmaghie. And that, 
 for many years, was all the connection, except on 
 Fridays, that had existed between the elder and the 
 younger branches of the clan McGhie. 
 
 But it was left to the Kid — otherwise Alexander 
 McGhie, son of David — to make the first real friendly 
 advances. He made them by falling across the path 
 between the little shrubbery and the house, with 
 an ugly wound on his head. He lay there, still as 
 the dead, till Patricia came along. The young lady 
 was whistling " Ye Banks an' Braes o' Bonnie Doon," 
 and inquiring with the born whistler's exaggeration 
 of feeling why they bloomed so fresh and fair, when 
 her eye caught the sordid heap of rags and tatters 
 lying face down on the clean white gravel of the walk, 
 where the Kid, creeping from Dinwiddie's cot, whither 
 he had been carried, had fallen a second time in his 
 wild flight from Mad Mag. 
 
 In general Patricia knew no particular reason why 
 she should be afraid of anything. And indeed she 
 wasn't — except perhaps of a few of the larger camivora, 
 like mice and tigers. So she turned over the Kid, 
 started a little at the drawn white face streaked 
 with blood, and at last found the dreadful matted 
 place, dark with clotted crimson, which Mad Mag 
 had made with a single appUcation of Tom Dinwiddie's 
 " spanner." 
 
 Patricia was practical — also, considering her shm 
 figure, strong. The firm pressure of lip on lip and 
 
 37
 
 38 KID McGHIE 
 
 the look of the dark aquamarine eyes, which could 
 flash out straight as a thrust at the rapier play when 
 she would, in spite of the languid amusement in them 
 at most times, told of latent determination. 
 
 Generally she left action to others, but sometimes, 
 when there was no one to tease or to do her will, she 
 acted like a leader of armies. So now Pat McGhie 
 glanced just twice about her, once to either side. 
 She did not need to look behind. She had just come 
 that way. Then turning up her skirt, so as not to 
 soil her dress, she lifted the Kid in her arms, and 
 conveyed him to the little summer pavilion, called 
 the garden house, where the girls often sat and talked 
 over their work or pretended to read on summer 
 mornings. 
 
 Indeed Marthe's " housewife " was l3^ng there 
 at the moment when Patricia laid her burden down 
 on the bench. She pushed a hassock beneath the 
 Kid's head, and ran to the back door for a basin 
 and a sponge. But she did not confide in Mistress 
 Carter, the fat cook, nor yet in Teena, the second 
 housemaid, who ran at the word to get Miss Patricia 
 what she wanted. 
 
 She was back again in a moment without anyone 
 having followed her. She wished for Jilarthe. But 
 Marthe had gone to town to do her district visiting. 
 A small stranger had arrived from a far country, 
 somewhat unexpectedly, to the address of Mrs. "Coaly" 
 Sogie, the sweep's improvident wife, and Marthe 
 was taldng the newcomer some of the comforts of 
 home in the shape of bed wrappings and body linen. 
 His departure had been so sudden that he had not 
 had time, apparently, to pack his trunk. At least, 
 if report were to be credited, he had arrived in Jock's 
 Row, Kirkmessan, with practically nothing upon him 
 at all. Marthe could not endure cases of destitution, 
 and as Mrs. " Coaly " Sweep was a most shiftless 
 person, in whom she had no manner of confidence, 
 Marthe, neat and practical from head to foot, felt
 
 MORE PAT 39 
 
 a responsibility fall upon her, to see that the youthful 
 stranger should not suffer for his over-confidence. 
 
 Her sister Patricia, therefore, panting over the 
 Kid in the garden house on the hill, knew that what 
 she had to do, she must do quickly and alone. To 
 call Baby Lant never so much as crossed her mind, 
 though she was within hail. She would only shriek 
 and faint at the sight of blood. Then she, Patricia, 
 would have two of them on her hands. No, thank 
 you ! 
 
 Wherein, as many sisters do, she wronged Baby 
 Lant. Her time had not come, that was all. After 
 a while she wore the cap and wristbands of the trained 
 nurse with as much aplomb as any of them. 
 
 Clip-clip went the scissors out of Marthe's big, 
 figured brocade bag. They were cutting away the 
 Kid's matted hair. Then followed a pause. The 
 Kid moaned as the sponge passed hghtly over the 
 bared place. It was terrible to see, but Pat McGhie 
 had doctored dogs before. There was, for instance, 
 her own fox terrier, when it was run over by an 
 engine, and not expected to hve. The gamekeeper 
 had suggested putting a shot through it, but Patricia 
 had brought it round, and Vixen now ran about as 
 impudently as ever on three good legs, and sometimes 
 forgot at which comer the lame one was — a triumph 
 for the lady surgeon, her mistress. 
 
 There was no awkwardness or hesitation in the 
 hand that laid bare and dressed the Kid's wound 
 in the garden house, yet all the time Patricia was 
 perplexed in mind. 
 
 " What shall I do with him after ? " she was asking 
 herself. And so far she found no answer. If her 
 father knew, he would order George, the coachman, 
 to take the Kid to the combination poorhouse which 
 was his panacea for all problems of the poor whenever 
 they touched him nearly. He paid his rates ? Indis- 
 putable ! Very well then, he paid the local authority 
 to look after such cases. Wliy then should he do
 
 40 KID McGHIE 
 
 it himself ? It was merely paying twice for the same 
 article. And he, P. Brydson McGhie, of Balmaghie, 
 prided himself on never paying his just debts more 
 than once. He kept the receipts for three years. 
 This logic was unanswerable. 
 
 Patricia did not try to answer it. She simply 
 counted her father in among the strong, stupid 
 things, such as fate, the government, the confession 
 of faith, a cow, and the smallpox, which were not 
 meant to be argued with, but simply evaded at any 
 cost. 
 
 Now it was nowise difficult for Patricia to evade 
 her father. He always moved to the sound of a 
 trumpet, as she herself observed. 
 
 But the httle garden house had been constructed 
 originally of two parts, an inner, small and dark, 
 where many diseased and surgically imperfect toys 
 had been stowed away, some dating from the time 
 of Baby Lant — doUs, tailless monkeys, and cooking 
 batteries — others, and these the more numerous, 
 belonging to the boys, to Gilbert, Rob, Tom. These, 
 for the most part, were hopelessly broken bats, half- 
 finished models of ships, burst footballs — all stored 
 on the well-known principle that if you keep a thing 
 for seven years some one will find a use for it. 
 
 Pat McGhie had all these things out at the door 
 in ten minutes, while her patient was coming to. 
 Then she annexed Housemaid Teena's leaves (tea), 
 scattered them over the floor, swept them out care- 
 fully, tucked her skirt up to her waist, and before 
 you could say Jack Robinson (if so you wished to 
 do) Pat was on her knees scrubbing out the httle 
 dark apartment in the rear of the garden house. 
 It had a dim skyhght in its pent-house roof which 
 Patricia cleaned and set wide to let in the air. Then 
 — oh, happiness ! she heard the sound of Marthe's 
 blessed feet, pit-patting on the gravel walk. Pat 
 was sure she would never make fun of Marthe any 
 more — never — never ! Good Marthe !
 
 MORE PAT 41 
 
 She ran out and intercepted her sister on the plain 
 white glare of the avenue, swept that very morning 
 clear of leaves and rubbish. Marthe, smart and 
 dimpling as usual, brown hatted, brown gloved, 
 brown gowned (tailor made), brown booted — a daintier 
 person not to be met with within a radius of fifty 
 miles, — stared at her sister in astonishment. 
 
 " Why, Pat," she cried, " what have you been 
 doing with yourself ? You look a spectacle — a pair 
 of spectacles — a whole consignment of spectacles ! 
 What would Mr. Syming " 
 
 " Tut," cried Patricia, catching her sister about 
 the waist, and rushing her toward the shrubbery, 
 " come here. Never mind what anyone would say. 
 I am a sight, I know, but I want you ! " 
 
 " At least put down your skirt, Patricia McGhie," 
 cried her sister, for once submitting to be dragged 
 aside from the straight path ; " it's not decent to 
 run about hke a child of ten ! I shouldn't allow 
 Baby Lant " 
 
 " You'll see ! You'U see ! " panted Patricia. " Oh, 
 Marthe, I am so glad you have come. You will 
 help " 
 
 " Help ? " said her sister, *' help who — what ? 
 Have you gone crazy, girl ? " 
 
 " With bedding him down," cried Pat, hastening 
 their march by rimning on in front ; " quick — he 
 may die." 
 
 And in this fashion Marthe McGhie, eldest of the 
 race of Patrick Brydson McGhie, was for the first 
 time introduced to her distant cousin, the Kid, un- 
 doubted head of her feudal house. 
 
 She looked at him a moment as he lay extended, 
 his cheek on his bent arm. Marthe examined her 
 sister's hasty dressing with a professional eye. 
 
 '* Yes — all right — " she said, " not so bad, Pat. 
 Where did you learn that ? " 
 
 " It was only from doing Vixen when she got run 
 over ! " said Patricia, modestly, as she put a cup of
 
 42 KID McGHIE 
 
 water to the patient's lips. The patient thrust it 
 away, with a muttered word which startled his two 
 nurses. They looked at each other, awed. 
 
 " Poor boy," said Patricia, " he does not know 
 what he is saying." 
 
 But still, after that the girls had a clearer sense 
 of what they were attempting and their courage 
 rose with the difficulty. 
 
 " Very likely he has never heard anything else 
 where he comes from ! " said Marthe. 
 
 " Is he — does he remind you of anybody ? " said 
 Patricia, " anybody you know very weU ? " 
 
 Marthe studied the small distinct features of the 
 boy as he lay muttering on the bench of the garden 
 house. 
 
 Suddenly she clapped her hands, stiU daintily 
 gloved. " I declare," she cried, " he is hke Brother 
 Bob when he is asleep ! " 
 
 Patricia nodded and bent an attentive ear. 
 
 " Listen," she said, " he is saying something." 
 
 Both girls listened intently to the faint telephonic 
 tones. 
 
 " /'w wee Kid McGhie — Fm wee Kid McGhie (the 
 impersonal voice said), 
 
 " My faither killed himsel' 
 An' my mither killed me ! " 
 
 Over and over he said it, like the burden of a song. 
 The stroke of Tom Dinwiddie's spanner had somehow 
 struck out in that small brain the faint semblance 
 of a rhyme. 
 
 "I'm wee Kid McGhie— I'm wee Kid McGhie ! 
 My faither killed himsel' 
 An' my mither killed me ! " 
 
 "He is mentioning our name — perhaps he knows 
 where he is," said Patricia.
 
 MORE PAT 43 
 
 But Marthe, more skilled in the ill-doing families 
 of Kirkmessan, and the scandal of Back Mill Lands, 
 shook her head. 
 
 " He will be Mad Mag's boy, the son of David 
 McGhie. She is a terrible woman." 
 
 Then a sudden resolution took her. 
 
 "Stay here, Pat," she said. "Wait till I can 
 fall into my working things. We must get the key 
 of the old box-room and stow away all this rubbish. 
 It won't do to destroy it, or there will be questions 
 asked. Then we must speak to King, or he and the 
 boy will come poking round ! " 
 
 King was gardener, trusted and faithful, to P. 
 Brydson McGhie, Esq., J. P. But as a matter of 
 private enterprise, he did v/hat the young misses 
 told him, and was none the poorer thereby. 
 
 So leaving Patricia on guard, Marthe departed. 
 She was always a kind of household providence. 
 And it created no surprise when with the assistance 
 of Boy King she was seen hauling about the mattress 
 of one of her brothers' discarded beds for purposes 
 unknown. Had Pat been observed thus employed, 
 or Baby Lant, every woman in the place would have 
 become a trained detective on the spot. 
 
 But Marthe was different. She was always " con- 
 veying " something out of the house, generally by 
 hidden ways, for the benefit of her poor — or Mr. 
 Symington's poor, which was the same thing. 
 ! So her operations excited no surprise, as she went 
 about, squaring King, engaging Boy King to labour 
 at the oar, carry messages, tend the sick, stay awake 
 at nights, go for the doctor (a young, unmarried doctor, 
 with feelings easily accessible), and generally to act 
 the elfin messenger who 
 
 " When he cam to wan water, 
 
 He doffed his cap and swam ; 
 And when he cam to broken brig. 
 He bent his bow and sprang."
 
 44 KID McGHIE 
 
 Boy King knew McGhie's Kid. He had often 
 stoned him, in fact, and now did not quite see what 
 all the fuss was about. Still, there was his father 
 to reckon with, and "the young leddies " were not 
 ungenerous. So Boy King, being promised a new 
 catapult, was silent as the grave. 
 
     I •   
 
 It could not be said that at first the Kid was effusive 
 in his gratitude towards his preservers. Indeed 
 it was with the greatest difficulty that he could be 
 kept on his shake-down, scientifically arranged by 
 Dr. Albert Edward Dalrymple, M.B., CM., who showed 
 himself remarkably anxious to share a watch with 
 Miss Patricia, so that he might take counsel with 
 her concerning the treatment to be pursued. 
 
 Indeed, Dr. Dalrymple incurred some very unjust 
 suspicions which he bore with manly fortitude. For 
 Mr. P. Brydson McGhie met him in the avenue one 
 day, and after regarding him with extreme surprise 
 over the bulge of his white waistcoat, asked him 
 plump and plain what he came there for. 
 
 Fortunately, Dalrymple, with wits sharpened by 
 contact with Patricia (even though he had not had 
 as much of that as he could have desired), remembered 
 that gardener King had mentioned to him that he 
 was suffering from rheumatism in his feet. So on 
 the spot he extemporised a going concern in the way 
 of treatment. He resolved to inject cocaine on both 
 sides of the joint. He thought up what he knew 
 about Pott's Fracture, from which King had once 
 suffered, and, without actual pause, answered the 
 proprietor of the policies of Balmaghie, that he was 
 in attendance on his gardener King for rheumatism 
 of the ankles, aggravated by former lesion, resulting 
 from fracture of the smaller bone and dislocation 
 of the larger. 
 
 " Old fool, he's malingering again," retorted Mr. P. 
 Brydson McGhie, sympathetically. "Mind you,
 
 MORE PAT 45 
 
 Dalrymple, you can doctor him all you want to, but 
 don't look to me for payment. Patrick McGhie 
 is nothing if not frank. He says what he means. 
 Nothing like having a clear understanding from the 
 beginning ! " 
 
 The doctor said that he quite agreed with Patrick 
 McGhie, and that, of course, King and he would 
 settle the matter of fees between them. 
 
 " Well, you're a fool, Dalrymple," said the white 
 waistcoat with the man inside. " I think I ought 
 to know King. You'll never see a penny of your 
 money. You are only losing your time. However, 
 you can't say but what I have warned you. I am 
 not the sort of man to let another man make a fool 
 of himself without teUing him so ! " 
 
 And this feature of his character gained for P. 
 Brydson McGhie more enemies than all his other 
 pecuUarities put together. People don't want to 
 be told that they are fools. They may know it, 
 but they are not grateful for being told that other 
 people see it. 
 
 Dr. Dalrjonple went on into the garden, and, bidding 
 the astonished King take off his boots and stockings 
 on the spot, informed him that he was to be treated 
 for rheumatism in both ankles ! 
 
 " But can't we just say it ? " ejaculated the 
 alarmed man, tugging at his boot laces, and not 
 tranquilised by the glint of a silver wire at the 
 end of an injection syringe ; " that would do just as 
 well." 
 
 " It might for you," said the doctor, firmly, " but 
 it won't for me. Hang it, what a fellow has to say 
 and do for a parcel of girls ! " 
 
 And he hummed to himself certain lines — none 
 truer in the language — which he had learned in his 
 remotest childhood j 
 
 "Oh, what a tangled web we weave, 
 When first we practise to deceive ! "
 
 46 KID McGHIE 
 
 While he was inserting the needle into King's 
 ankle, who puffed and snorted as if he were going 
 to get both legs cut off, the doctor burst out suddenly, 
 and without apparent connection, "Oh, coNfound 
 all girls!" 
 
 This cured King for the moment, who felt a sudden 
 access of esprit de cor-ps. 
 
 "If ye are meanin' our young leddies," he said, 
 " I will thank you to take back thae words ! " 
 
 "With pleasure," said Dr. Dalrymple, sending 
 the needle more viciously into a new spot ; " please 
 keep still. King. Wrigghng hke that is very bad 
 for the treatment." 
 
 . • . • • 
 
 When the Kid came to himself in the httle cubby- 
 hole at the back of the garden house, in that retired 
 spot on the hmited policies of Balmaghie, he was 
 far from happy. Yet he ought to have been. All 
 rules and standards pointed this out to him. lie 
 had everything he could wish for— better bedding 
 than he had ever lain upon, the two prettiest girls 
 in Kirkmessan to wait on him hand and foot — at 
 least two of the three prettiest. Boy King was there 
 to do the coarser tendings. He had good food, nourish- 
 ing soups, the doctor to talk with him and get his 
 head into shape again. Happy— he ought to have 
 been in the seventh heaven ! Only he wasn't. The 
 Kid wanted to see what had become of his mother. 
 He wanted to go to her ! 
 
 Mysterious ties and promptings of blood — faint, 
 restless quiverings of something 'wdthin him which 
 might have been conscience, and might have been 
 only a kind of Marconi code pulsing in some secret 
 receiver where was concealed the Kid's rudimentary 
 — soul — these bade him go and seek his mother. 
 
 Mad Mag McGhie ! She had stricken him almost 
 to death in bhnd fury. Yes, that was right. The 
 doctor man meant kindly in offering him a chance
 
 MORE PAT 47 
 
 as " buttons." Marthe hinted at an additional 
 gardener boy required by King. They were all very 
 kind. But his mother — she might kill him, hut — 
 she was his mother. And she had no one now. He 
 was her Kid, now that his father was gone. 
 
 This being so, it was no great wonder that one 
 morning King's Boy came into the girls' sitting-room 
 and signalled mysteriously to Marthe and Pat. Baby 
 Lant thought it had something to do with planting 
 strawberry shoots or the grafting of roses. Marthe 
 and Pat were so funny, when they might lie still 
 and let their hair grow. Always rushing about, so 
 silly ! And now Pat was getting worse than Marthe. 
 Well, they couldn't both have him. " Him " meant 
 a quite innocent man, the Rev. William Heath 
 Symington, of the Free Martyrs' Church in Kirk- 
 messan. 
 
 " He's gane, the bird's flown ! " whispered Boy 
 King, when the girls came and stood out of hearing 
 of the house at the edge of the shrubbery. " The 
 bed's cauld ! He maun hae run awa' yestreen ! " 
 
 Inspection confirmed this. The Kid was certainly 
 gone. And everybody, with one exception, exclaimed 
 at the boy's rank ingratitude. But what could you 
 expect ? That class of boy is always restless, thank- 
 less, untrustworthy. 
 
 The exception was not Marthe, as one would have 
 expected, but Patricia. Faint and far away some 
 community of blood stirred in her. Perhaps she, too, 
 was a kid of the goats. She felt that the boy had 
 gone to his own. And so — whatever might come of 
 it, whatever of steady work and respectable position 
 he had cast behind him, there was a certain elemental 
 rightness in the thing he had done. 
 
 But this Patricia kept to herself. She handed over 
 the bedding used by McGhie's Kid to them who buy 
 and sell, asking no price, but only the promptest 
 removal. With a sigh she put back the debris of 
 dolls and cricket bats and damaged ironclads, till the
 
 48 KID McGHIE 
 
 black hole of the garden house became again what it 
 had been, and the door was shut. 
 
 The Kid faded from the memory of all but Patricia, 
 who had found him, and King's Boy, who had been 
 done out of a big fight he had planned behind the 
 harness room. These two mourned in secret for Kid 
 McGhie, and were not comforted.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE " KNIFER " 
 
 Hagman's Close, North Pleasance, in the city 
 of Edinburgh, occupied one of the oldest and 
 most unreformed situations of that still ancient and 
 unreformed town. It was called by its present highly 
 honourable name owdng to the fact that formerly it 
 had contained the official residence of the city heads- 
 man, the blade and "hag clog" of whose profession 
 were stiU to be traced over the low door of the tall, 
 old, grimy "land." 
 
 There are few " lands " like that in Edinburgh 
 now — that is, of the older sort. Thirty years ago, 
 however, they were the rule. And, as the number 
 of those who know what an actual old-time " land " 
 was, is growing steadily fewer, I wiU try to sketch this 
 towering rabbit warren in a few sentences. 
 
 A cUff-like face of gnmy gray stone, broken by rows 
 upon rows of small windows with small panes, many 
 of them broken, stuffed with rags, and mended with 
 paper. Seven and eight stories the rule, ten and 
 eleven the exception. Four famihes, sometimes eight, 
 on each landing. These landings lit by day through 
 one narrow arrow slit in the tower of the turnpike 
 stair — by night not ht at all. Thirty to sixty families 
 in all, exclusive of lodgers and casuals, hved in that 
 grimy barrack, all going to and fro upon their occasions 
 up and down that winding staircase, indescribable in 
 its filth. A faint, keen odour of packed humanity 
 grew more and more insupportable as you mounted 
 higher, which you did, holding on to a greasy rope 
 stanchioned to the wall. Children swarmed under- 
 
 49
 
 50 KID McGHIE 
 
 foot at all stages of the ascent, and it was a constant 
 miracle how more of them did not tumble over, and 
 so achieve (what was the best thing for them) Nirvana 
 at the earliest age possible. 
 
 Some did, and were happy ever after. The others 
 survived and were both sorry for it themselves and 
 made others sorry also. 
 
 Such was a " land " — the outside of it, that is, 
 before you entered the separate dwellings of which 
 this vast human warren was composed. 
 
 It was a curious life for a country-bred boy. The 
 Kid's mother, erstwhile Mag McGhie, had on her 
 arrival in to\vn, promptly remarried with a certain 
 " Knifer " Jackson, who when required, for purposes 
 of law and order, to specify his profession, said vaguely, 
 that he was " employed upon the streets." 
 
 " Knifer " was not tall, but very broad. His arms 
 swung to his knees, the elbows out a little hke an ape's 
 trying to walk erect. The most prominent part of 
 his face was his chin, and an upper lip which stuck 
 out hke the ram of an ironclad. There was at most 
 times a kind of doubtful smile on Knifer's face, and 
 " Don't pervoke me " was his word — " I Icnow my 
 weakness. Don't pervoke me ! " 
 
 And as Knifer's best-knowTi weakness was homicide 
 — and homicide, too, with but a faint dividing line 
 between it and murder — few people did care to provoke 
 Knifer Jackson. Most certainly, however, he had 
 worked a strange reformation in Mad Mag, his new 
 wife, before she had kept house a month in Hagman's 
 Close. It was whispered in Number Seven Land 
 that Mag had once seen the Knifer in wrath. The 
 other man died. 
 
 And from this and a few other circumstances had 
 grown her respect for her husband. At any rate, the 
 respect was there, as well as a curious desire to please 
 her master. And as Mad Mag was weU-looking in a 
 bold, gusty way, though burnt so brown that her 
 china-blue eyes made holes in her face, Knifer Jackson
 
 THE " KNIFER " 51 
 
 rather liked to be seen out of doors with his wife on 
 Sunday afternoons. They went down the length of 
 the Pleasance, disappeared into a close, came out 
 among the respectable houses in Arthur Street, and 
 so downhill into the Queen's Park. There, as was 
 customary, they went arm in arm. 
 
 It was on such an excursion, up among the gorse of 
 the Whinny Hill, that Knifer earned his wife's admira- 
 tion. It was soon after they were married, and Mag, 
 having let down her hair so that the wind could blow 
 through it, was wondering in her heart if she could 
 wind this man round her finger as she had done Davie 
 McGhie. They were both silent as the Sunday after- 
 noon itself. Knifer lay with his chin on his hands, 
 thoughtfully chewing a long grass. What he was 
 thinking of may appear later. 
 
 In the meantime aU was peace. But through the 
 whins there crept upon the unsuspecting pair two sons 
 of perdition, with foul-mouthed demands for money, 
 and the information, palpably false, that they were 
 private detectives. 
 
 "I'll detect you ! " cried the Knifer, springing to 
 his feet. " Go home, Mag, by St. Leonard's wee yett 
 yonder, as fast as ye can. Leave me to settle with 
 these two chaps. I've heard of them before ! " 
 
 The two " private detectives " showed fight, being 
 two to one. And Mag, fascinated, watched while one 
 man went down like a hod of bricks, a broken arm 
 doubled stiffly back beneath him in an impossible 
 position. He cried and swore. Meanwhile Knifer 
 Jackson pursued his companion, and Mag, running 
 from Imovve to knowe, followed the chase, till, with a 
 great gulp at the throat, she saw the low sun of after- 
 noon, striking from behind the black humps of Dalmahoy, 
 shine on a pohshed blade held a moment high above 
 the Knifer's head. 
 
 Then she ran for hom.e, terror winging her feet as 
 she went, and the sober Sabbath-walking people 
 staring after her.
 
 52 KID McGHIE 
 
 ' She was sitting on a chair, wide-eyed, panting, open- 
 mouthed with fear, when, half an hour later, her 
 husband entered, calm as ever. 
 
 " What — what — what ? " she cried, all with the 
 indrawing of a single breath. 
 
 " Gimme a bowl o' tea ! " said the Knifer ; " yon 
 was a hot burst, Mag ! " 
 
 " Did ye kill the man ? " she gasped, putting both 
 hands out to keep him off. 
 
 The Knifer smiled, dropped into a seat, and waved 
 his hand toward the tea caddy. 
 
 " Never you mind aboot thae twa blackguards," 
 he said not unkindly, all his anger having vanished 
 away after the wiping of his Imife ; " put on the 
 scaud ! " 
 
 " But the poHss — the poliss ? " said Mag, " they 
 will tak' you away — ye will get years an' years for it, 
 even if they dinna hang ye ! And oh, Jimmy, but 
 I'm fond o' you ! Ye are sic a man ! It was fearsome 
 to see you angry ! " 
 
 The Knifer, completely appeased, patted Mag, the 
 subdued, on the shoulder, and bade her be of good 
 heart. No policeman would meddle with him, nor any 
 lawful magistrate put him to the question for what 
 he had done that day. 
 
 " Lass," he said, " it was poliss wark I was doin' — 
 wark that they canna weel do for themsel's. Dod," 
 he exclaimed, laughing heartily at the recollection, 
 " but I wish I had had time to look at their faces, 
 when they fand that it was Knifer Jackson they had 
 to deal wi' — Knifer Jackson an' his bhthe wife Mag, 
 sweetheartin' on the Sabbath afternoon amang the 
 bonnie green busses o' the Whunny Knowe ! " 
 
 And, truly enough, even as he said, no summons 
 was taken out. The police of the city made no sign. 
 Only an inspector or two " weU in the know " nodded 
 in a friendly manner to Knifer, and once in a row 
 into which Knifer Jackson had quite casually elbowed 
 his way, when he had been swept into a wide-spread
 
 THE " KNIFER " 53 
 
 police net, the great Chief himself, after running an 
 eye over him, just muttered, " Ah, Knifer Jackson ! 
 All right ; we owe you one good turn ! " And so with 
 the faintest jerk of his head to the side, he intimated 
 to his subordinates that Knifer was to be let go his 
 way. 
 
 Knifer acknowledged the courtesy with a touch of 
 his cap, and a pull at his red-spotted, bird's-eye tie. 
 Then he took out his pipe, filled it sedately, and 
 marched off. 
 
 " The Chief kens me," he said, not without a certain 
 pride ; "he will lay for Knifer when the time comes, 
 keen as mustard, in the way o' business. But he 
 kens bravely that Knifer wadna mix himsel' wiUin' 
 in a shebeen row wi' ship-raw rats an' keelies frae the 
 Green side Sunk Flats ! Na, the Chief kens Knifer 
 Jackson ! For a little mair, and if there hadna been 
 sae mony folk aboot him, I wad hae offered him a fill 
 o' his pipe. Aye, an' he wad hae taen it, too, freely 
 and kindly, frae his auld acquaintance, Knifer Jackson." 
 
 From this it might be supposed that Knifer was a 
 " nark," a " spUt," a " sawny plant " — which is to 
 say a poUce spy upon the doings of his comrades. 
 But no one, in the force or in the profession to which 
 Knifer belonged, believed that for a moment. And 
 they were right. Knifer was no "sawny plant." 
 He did not " split." Those who called him " nark " 
 would not get more than a contemptuous kick for 
 their pains, the accusation being so extremely foolish. 
 
 It goes without saying that having seen Knifer win 
 this great moral victory over his mother, Mag," his 
 stepson adored him. The Kid had appeared, suddenly, 
 at the door of the garret of the just-wedded, happy 
 pair, in Number Seven Land, Hagman's Close, the 
 residence of the bridegroom. 
 
 His mother had forgotten to mention him. She 
 had throv/n Tom Dinwiddie's spanner, with the mark 
 on it, into the Messan Water, and, when she had 
 been set free since the boy was not kiUed, she thought
 
 54 KID McGHIE 
 
 no more about the matter. Small responsibilities, such 
 as the Kid, sat very lightly on Mad Mag, late of Back 
 Mill Lands, Kirkmessan. 
 
 At the sound of his voice she went to the door with 
 the poker in her grasp. He would have been down the 
 stair the next moment with a new clout in his crown 
 for daring to come interfering with her, but the sharp 
 voice of her husband fell, as it were, compulsively 
 over her shoulder. 
 
 " Wha's that ? " he demanded. He always liked 
 to know who came knocking at his door. It was a 
 peculiarity of his. 
 
 " Please, sir, I'm the Kid ! " said a faint voice. 
 
 " What kid ? " 
 
 " The Kid ! " 
 
 " But wha's kid ? Answer ! '* 
 
 " Juist her Kid— Mag McGhie's Kid ! " 
 
 " Oh, Knifer, I forgot to tell ye," cried the once 
 fierce virago, turning trembhng to meet her husband's 
 eyes ; " dinna look hke that at me — angrysome. 
 He was come by honest — honest. He's Davie my 
 man's boy and the heir to some property i' the south 
 country ! " 
 
 " An heir, is he ? " said Knifer, grimly. " Come 
 ben, boy, and maybe we will find some way o' sharpen- 
 in' your mither's memory for the future ! " 
 
 " Oh, Knifer, dinna, dinna ! " groaned the cowed Mag. 
 
 And then the boy wondered at the man before him, 
 thinking him to be a land of god, who had wrought 
 this marvellous change in his mother. Ministers, 
 Salvationists, temperance folk, preachers unattached, 
 elders, mission workers — all had had a try at Mag 
 dov/n in Kirkmessan, and she had chased them one 
 and all from the door, and gone on worse than ever. 
 Wlience had this man this power and authority ? 
 Even the devils obeyed him, trembling. 
 
 It was indeed strange. But then the Kid had not 
 seen the man's arm double under him as he fell in 
 the afternoon glow on the Whinny Hill. Nor heard
 
 THE " KNIFER " 55 
 
 the dreadful sudden scream of that other as the knife 
 ghttered a moment between his shoulder blades on 
 the hidden slopes of the Hunter's Bog. 
 
 But Mad Mag had seen and heard these things. 
 They conduced to sanity. They made for peace. 
 
 The Kid slipped in, taking it for granted that he 
 had reached home. He had followed the trail of his 
 mother without great difficulty, chiefly by inquiring 
 at the police stations on the route to Edinburgh, and 
 finding out if any officers had been recently assaulted 
 in the discharge of their duty by a woman with light 
 curly hair, blue eyes, and a sunburnt face. Mad Mag, 
 still unreformed by the Knifer, was never difficult to 
 trace. 
 
 So the Kid trickled round the comer of the door, 
 edged a minute portion of his minute body on the 
 chair the Knifer indicated to him, and sat shivering 
 under the steady gaze of the small, deep-set, gray eyes, 
 in which, too, there seemed to lurk a ghnt of the knife 
 from which his stepfather got his name. 
 
 " So," he said, after a painful pause, " I've got a 
 son, have I ? " 
 
 Not knowing to what tliis might be the prelude, both 
 mother and son sat silent under that steely regard. 
 
 " How far have ye come the day ? " asked the 
 Knifer, suddenly. 
 
 " Frae Peebles by Eddleston," said the boy, simply. 
 " I travelled through the night, too, and then I hae 
 been in the toon, speerin' for my mither ! " 
 
 " Twenty-three miles, besides the speerin,' " said 
 the Knifer, " that's none so dusty for a Kid ! See 
 that bar ? The one across the corner where the 
 clothes are drying. See if you can pull yourself up 
 over it. Get your chin well over — that's it ! Well 
 done ! And \\dth one hand ! You'll do ! You'll 
 do. Kid. Mag, make the bairn some tea. And I'll 
 sUce the ham. Kid, I adopt ye on the spot. Hang 
 me, if I dinna be a father to ye ! "
 
 56 KID McGHIE 
 
 "It is time ye began your ' prenticeship,' " said 
 the Knifer suddenly, one morning, " you are getting 
 too fat, Kid. In our profession it wiU not do to have 
 overmuch flesh on our bones." 
 
 " If it's the same to you, sir," Sciid the Kid, who 
 had conceived a great respect for his stepfather (and 
 justly), " I would hke to have a httle more schoolin'. 
 I'm only in the ' Tenpenny Reader,' and I canna aye 
 see my way through compound division. The frac- 
 tions bother me." 
 
 " Right— right," said the Knifer; "I have little 
 enough education myself, but if I had had more, it's 
 me would have been the great man. But ye shall 
 go to the school. Ye shall be entered as a half timer, 
 laddie, working at the Bertram's Foundry in the 
 Walk. And there are night schools, too, free, or 
 nearly. But that wiU be little matter to the son of a 
 well-to-do man hke me. Ye wiU have to take my 
 name, Kid." 
 
 " Na, I canna. I am a McGhie, ye see. I'm vexed, 
 but I canna ! " 
 
 Knifer Jackson's long upper Hp drew down, and 
 his chin pushed out, ominous with the firming 
 of his jaw. The knife-keen gray eyes glittered. But 
 the Kid never flinched. 
 
 " I dinna like to anger ye," he said, " I'll be a guid 
 boy, an' do a' that ye teU me. But I'm a McGhie. 
 My faither teUed me that when he was deid I wad be 
 ' The McGhie '—the chief o' a' the McGhies that are." 
 
 " Does ony siUer gang wi' it ? " asked the Knifer, 
 who did not see the force of barren dignities. 
 
 " I dinna think sae," said the Kid, uncertainly ; 
 " at least my faither got nane that I heard o', but 
 then he would never ask. He was prood, my 
 faither ! " 
 
 " Are you like him ? " the Knifer asked, a httle 
 maliciously. 
 
 " Na," said the Kid, blushing with shame, " I am 
 said to favour my mither ! " And at this the Knifer
 
 THE " KNIFER " 57 
 
 threw back his head and laughed a thieves* laugh, 
 gurgling and silent, deep in his throat. 
 
 " Come out," he said, suddenly, to the chief of the 
 Clan McGhie. 
 
 As they went along, Knifer Jackson instructed the 
 Kid. The matter of the surname was departed from. 
 The boy's firmness in adhering to his birthright had 
 settled that matter. He even mounted higher in the 
 Knifer's favour. 
 
 " At the door ye wiU come to — I will show it to ye — 
 ye will look this way and that on the street, and if 
 ever there is a policeman or a man wi' thick-soled 
 shoon that go clunk-clunk, or a man lookin' in a shop 
 \sdndow at three red herrin', when he should be in a 
 hurry because o' the rain or the wind, ye are never 
 to gae near the school door. Mind that ! It's a very 
 private school, ye see ! " 
 
 The Kid said that he would mind. He would do 
 exactly what Knifer Jackson said, if so be he suffered 
 for it. For Knifer had been kind to him, besides 
 reforming his mother. Knifer must be a good man. 
 
 At this Knifer turned quickly about and cast a very 
 sudden, shrewd glance at the Kid's serious face. But 
 there was no jesting there, and somehow the Knifer 
 (though he could do what we have heard of on the 
 Whinny Knowe, and come quietly home to his tea) 
 was strangely touched. He resolved on that spot 
 that he would do all that he could to place the Kid 
 in the very front ranks of the profession. 
 
 So the Knifer and the Kid descended gradually to 
 the lowest cellar floor of the ancient town of Edin- 
 burgh. Toward its easterly part the deep defile of 
 the Cowgate — formerly a bosky lane by which the 
 callants of the city drove home the lowing kine to be 
 milked twice a day, now a mere gorge of buildings 
 thrown " reel-raU " together — divides into two parts, 
 of which the one debouches toward the butt of the 
 Calton, while the other holds away to the right in the 
 direction of the^Queen's Park.
 
 58 KID McGHIE 
 
 The pair, holding hands, descended swiftly, striking 
 this way and that, up alleys and down them again, 
 apparently entering private houses by one door and 
 leaving them by another, without ever so much as 
 saying " by your leave " to the inmates, who, on 
 their part, did not seem in the least surprised. 
 
 " I could never find my road back by mysel' ! " 
 said the Kid, as he plunged into another darksome 
 passage, along which the Knifer dragged him at top 
 speed. 
 
 " Coming back, it matters less," said the leader, 
 " but the great thing is to tak' a new road every 
 time ! " 
 
 " But what am I to do ? " asked the Kid ; " I ken 
 nane o' thae places." 
 
 " Ye will learn — ye will learn," said the Knifer, 
 " and for a day or twa I will be here mysel' to bring 
 ye hame. So see and be a clever scholar." 
 
 Kid McGhie promised. During the Hmited time 
 he had spent at Dominie Tamson's, he had always 
 been thought quick at his lessons. So he had no fear 
 now. 
 
 They entered a long, narrow lane with bricked 
 walls on either side, and a curious smell coming over 
 them, musty and sweet. Knifer whispered that that 
 was Elder's big brewery, which they would go arid 
 visit some night if he was a good boy. The Kid 
 resolved to be a good boy. 
 
 Then quite suddenly, out of a dozen doors all 
 alike, the Knifer chose one, opened it, shut it 
 behind them, raced along a passage, mounted and 
 descended flights of steps, turned at right angles, and 
 finally tapped at a door. He bent his ear forward as 
 one who listens keenly. 
 
 " Who's there ? " came from ¥/ithin. 
 
 " Knifer and his Kid ! " 
 
 " What do you bring ? " 
 
 " Six red herrin' for your tea ! " 
 
 The introduction made the Kid laugh. It was sq
 
 THE " KNIFER " 59 
 
 like one of his childish games down by the shore at 
 Kirkmessan. He was certain that he would like this 
 school. But he had not seen the Knifer buy any red 
 herrings on his way. Curious, that ! But perhaps 
 he had brought them from home in his big inner 
 pocket. 
 
 An undersized young man, with what would now 
 be called a bicycle back, stood behind the door, and 
 greeted the Knifer effusively. But the Knifer passed 
 him with the shghtest nod, like a lord of high degree 
 in the presence of a menial — which, indeed, was pretty 
 much the case. 
 
 " The schoolroom ! " said the Knifer, with a certain 
 pride as they came out upon the most curious room 
 that the Kid had ever seen, or, indeed, was ever likely 
 to see. There was something really scholastic about 
 it. Maps were still on the wall. The stains of ink 
 remained on some of the desks which had not been 
 hacked awaj^ for firewood, and in a corner was a little 
 rack of canes mostly split and sadly in disrepair. 
 
 " Instruction and correction ! " said the Knifer, 
 smihng grimly at these. 
 
 " It looks just Hke a school," whispered the Kid, 
 awed in spite of himself, " but I don't see any master. 
 And what are all these black boxes and things on 
 the floor, and scattered aU about ? " 
 
 " One question at a time, youngster," said the 
 Knifer. " As to the master — he is not one, he is 
 a lot ! I am one of them ! " 
 
 " You ? " cried his adopted son, looking at Mr. 
 Jackson to see if he were in jest. But no, the Knifer 
 was very much in earnest. 
 
 " And we come on a good day too," he continued ; 
 " I'll get you entered among the intelhgence runners 
 directly. That's low — low — no ' class ' at all to 
 speak of. But it's good and safe, and does to blood 
 the beginners on. There's a lot of the way-ups here 
 to-day," he added, looking around. " Hey, Billy ! 
 Come here ! "
 
 6o KID McGHIE 
 
 A tall, gray-headed, respectable man, who might 
 have been a country beadle out of a job, rose and 
 came quietly to Knifer's side. He^put his hand 
 on the Kid's head. 
 
 " New stuff ? " he inquired, " yours ? " 
 
 " Aye, in a sort o' way — wife's kid — the first brood," 
 
 " Hum ! He shapes well — thick about the shoulders, 
 lean about the flanks. That's the way / like to see 
 'em ! " 
 
 The tall, gray-headed, respectable-looking man 
 was presently introduced to the Kid as Daddy Lennox, 
 one of the most famous " breakers " in Edinburgh. 
 And it was not long before Kid McGhie understood 
 that it was the various methods of finding a way 
 into other people's houses without previous invitation 
 which the two worthies had under discussion. 
 
 To this the Kid had no serious objections. He 
 had never been educated in any severe code of morals. 
 It was even a convenience when his mother had been 
 taken off to prison for theft. She appeared to find 
 herself pretty comfortable there. The Kid, though 
 he was glad to remain at liberty, had no rooted objec- 
 tion to confinement, if so stupid as to be caught. 
 He had remained fairly honest up to date — apples, 
 turnips, and biscuits off grocers' counters did not 
 really matter. Besides, for the first time in his life, 
 he was in the way of earning his livehhood. 
 
 As the Knifer explained, " There's scores and 
 scores in the town who would give their ears for your 
 chance to-day, sonny ! It's on my account, ye see, 
 Kid. For they think a heap o' me here ! " 
 
 Which, indeed, was a thing evident of itself. 
 
 The Knifer on one side and Daddy Lennox on the 
 other explained the various performances which 
 were at present going on in the famous " Blind Jacob " 
 school of burglary. 
 
 " Ye see," said Daddy, who was historical chorus, 
 " this is no thing o' yesterday. What it was named 
 ' Blind Jacob's ' for, I'll tell ye. Ye hae heard o' Jacob's
 
 THE " KNIFER " 6i 
 
 • 
 
 Ladder. No the ladder the angels gaed clamberin' 
 up an' doon, but the steps that begin aboot opposite 
 the schule where the bairnies learn their lessons — 
 aye, the high schule, that's it. Weel, in the days 
 lang afore there was ony schule there, there was 
 aye a Jacob's Ladder. For a heap o' folk cam' that 
 road at a' hours o' the day an' nicht. It was at the 
 time when the New Toon was a-biggin', an' by my 
 faith it was a thrang road. Weel, laddie, there was 
 a blind beggar there, that sat i' the comer where 
 ye come oot up by what is noo Royal Terrace — I 
 dinna ken his name. Nor does ony ither body that 
 ever I heard o', though nae doot his faither or his 
 mither gied him ane, Uke the lave o' us ! But, ye 
 see, he was aye caa'ed ' BHnd Jacob ' by a'body, 
 till I really beUeve the craitur forgat his real name 
 himsel' ! 
 
 " Weel, this Blind Jacob had been a cabinet-maker, 
 locksmith, whatnot, in the days o' his sicht, and, 
 besides, a great crony o' the famous Deacon Brodie 
 — him that was hanged in his sword and cocked hat 
 hke a great gentleman, at the drappin' o' his ain 
 scented cambric handkerchief ! And for a' he could 
 see nane, this Bhnd Jacob was the grandest operator 
 in a' the East-lands. He just needed to be led to 
 a door, or ony lockfast place, and — click — it flew 
 afore him ! 
 
 " Of coorse it was easier in thae days to mak' a 
 reppitation than it is noo, wi' siccan competition 
 in the profession. An' there were nae weary Chubbs 
 and Yale time locks to drive an honest man into his 
 grave. Bhnd Jacob wad never hae dune what oor 
 honoured friend, Knifer Jackson, here has dune — 
 no if he had had as mony e'en as there are in a peacock's 
 tail ! " 
 
 Knifer Jackson acknowledged the imposing com- 
 phment with a grim smile. Daddy Lennox filled 
 a pipe, dabbed it down tightly with his httle finger, 
 and ht up. As he smoked he talked. He was, to
 
 62 KID McGHIE 
 
 all appearance, professor of history and keeper of 
 the records to the senatus of " Blind Jacob's." 
 
 The Kid could not take his e3'es off him. He was 
 sure he had seen him standing by the plate at some 
 kirk door or other, his hands crossed in front of him 
 and an ear inclined to distinguish the bald clank 
 of the \Tilgar penny from the sweeter tinkle of faUing 
 silver. The Kid did not frequent the insides of 
 churches, but he often looked in at the door when 
 he had nothing else to do. In the winter it was nice 
 and warm, too, in the vestibule, after the elders and 
 deacons had slipped on tiptoe along the aisles to 
 their seats. So the Kid liked church-going, especially 
 when Mad Mag had been " out " the night before. 
 
 " And this Bhnd Jacob," purred Daddy, the his- 
 torian, bhnking between puffs, " he was a man o' 
 principle. He didna baud v\i' Glasgow. Na, he 
 was nae friend to that big muckle scrap heap o' hooses 
 an' engine smuts. He was doon on Glasgow. And 
 in thae days, as it continues even to the present time " 
 (he spoke statedly, blowing a cloud between his 
 sentences), " Glasgow had a famous schule for learnin' 
 pocket pickin'. Oh, they can come it ower us in 
 that, I allow. Say what ye Hke, Knifer, they have 
 us there ! " 
 
 " They are welcome ; it's poor work ! " commented 
 the Kid's adopted father, scornfully. 
 
 " Maybe — maybe," assented the philosopher, dis- 
 passionately, " yet the best authorities set it doon 
 as ane o' the maist ancient pairts o' the profession. 
 And there's siller in it — in a wealthy place like Glasgow, 
 that is ! " 
 
 The Knifer nodded and yavvTied. 
 
 " Pouch nicldng is all right — for Glasgow ! " he 
 said, cracking his joints one after the other in token 
 of boredom. The historian continued his mo\dng 
 tale : 
 
 " So this Jacob got a wheen lads o' the right sort 
 thegither in a quiet ken — they had notliing hke this
 
 THE " KNIFER '* 63 
 
 in thae days, of coorse. And he began to learn them. 
 And he learned them an' learned them till there 
 wasna a gentleman's hoose within twenty miles wi' 
 an unbroken bolt or an untried hasp. It was BHnd 
 Jacob's lads that took thirty pound Troy weight 
 o' goold and silver oot o' Penicuik Hoose ae Sabbath 
 day, when Sir George was at the kirk — decent man, 
 lie was an elder, an' pit a guinea i' the plate every 
 Sunday morning ! Mair nor that, Jacob garre'd 
 the countryside believe it was the gipsies, and some 
 o' them were hanged for it too. Serve the carles 
 right. They are forever stealin' hens and 'taties 
 frae the farmers and giein' the profession a bad name ! " 
 
 " Ummpha," quoth Knifer' Jackson, "gipsies are 
 bad harbourage — also tinklers ! They spoil a' 
 markets ! " 
 
 " But," continued Daddy Lennox, looking medi- 
 tatively at a slender youth vaulting feet foremost 
 through the frame of a window held at various heights, 
 and with differing widths of aperture, " the Glasgow 
 folk have had naething to boast of, against us o' 
 the East, ever since auld Bhnd Jacob's day ! Na, 
 he did it yince and for all, eh, Knifer ? And what 
 we see here is the fruit of his endeavours ! " 
 
 Daddy Lennox inclined his head quite reverently, 
 like a minister who has got through with an appropriate 
 peroration. Instinctive^, as he was used to do in 
 the porches of the Kirkmessan churches, the Kid 
 closed his eyes for the benediction. He felt somehow 
 that it was time to make for the outer door, and 
 bolt into the night. 
 
 But the next moment the Knifer's voice called 
 him to other and more practical subjects. It was 
 evident that the Knifer was intensely practical, 
 and despised all but the most recent practice of the 
 faculty. 
 
 " You see these boys," he said, " some o' them 
 younger than you, Kid. Now, come along, watch 
 them."
 
 64 KID McGHIE 
 
 Down one side of the cobwebby disused hall, once 
 a school for the children of those employed about 
 the brewery (in the time of a certain Celie who married 
 a certain junior partner), ran a series of doors, all 
 complete in their frames, and fitted with locks, 
 graduating from the huge, clumsy block, which 
 the building contractor buys by the gross, to the 
 dainty Chubb which shows no more than a Httle 
 brass lid, to mark the place where the deUcate key 
 must be inserted which is to raise each of the com- 
 plicated levers to its proper height. These doors 
 were numbered in large white figures from one to 
 twenty. 
 
 The Kid noticed that the boys in waiting seemed 
 intent on little manuscript books of notes which 
 they held in their hands. There were diagrams 
 opposite each page. 
 
 " Door class ! " called out the Knifer, in a voice 
 so like that of the Kirkmessan schoolmaster that 
 the Kid started. 
 
 Fourteen lads of various ages stood up at the sum- 
 mons, some smartly enough attired with spotted 
 ties and stand-up coUars, others without either collar 
 or tie — these last being city " keehes," and country 
 Johnny-raws like himself. 
 
 " Now, let's see," said the Knifer ; " report pro- 
 gress ! How far have we got ? Beginners who can 
 do less than five — here to the left ! " 
 
 Seven of the fourteen fell out. 
 
 " Those who cannot pass number ten — to the 
 right ! " 
 
 This done, there were but two left — one, a great 
 hulking fellow of eighteen, whose soiled and hardened 
 hands showed the blacksmith's apprentice even if 
 the nose had not scented the unmistakable burned 
 smell of the horseshoeing, and a Hmber httle fellow 
 of fifteen, with eyes clear and bright, a scarlet tie, 
 and good, unspoiled clothes, the trousers having an 
 actual folding crease from the knee.
 
 THE " KNIFER " 65 
 
 " Hey, Jock Cockpen, Duffus — ye are the lads," 
 cried the Knifer, " ye will be credits to us yet — I 
 dinna doot ! You, Jock " (he addressed the smith's 
 big apprentice), " how many are you good for ? " 
 
 " I can tackle up to seventeen ! " said the great 
 fellow without pride and without shyness. 
 
 " And you, Duffus ? " 
 
 The bright, small boy with the red silk ribbon 
 about his neck, fumbled nonchalantly with a cigarette 
 case — just then becoming the fashion — and replied 
 with a girhsh toss of the head, " If I had any decent 
 tools to work with, I could begin at one side and come 
 out at the other, but with the plough irons that one 
 has to put up with here, I could only get as far as 
 eighteen." 
 
 " Oh, young cock o' the walk," said Knifer Jackson, 
 sharply, " what's the matter with the school tools ? 
 They have been good enough for a fine lot o' bursters, 
 chipping the shell, as I know." 
 
 " That's just it," said Duffus, looking as if he would 
 like to hght a cigarette but feared a resounding box 
 on the ear, " I am not a ' burster ' you see, but a 
 ' coaxer,' and I would as soon work with a girl's 
 hairpin as with the whole class outfit. Why, half 
 of them are so worn that they won't go into the 
 keyholes." 
 
 " What do you do then ? " said the Knifer, smiling 
 at the boy's conceit. 
 
 "Oh," said the youth of the red silk tie, caressing 
 his upper lip (smooth as an eggshell) with the end 
 of a rolled cigarette, " for myself, I prefer using 
 a wire off a gingerbeer bottle to all that iron- 
 mongery ! " 
 
 " I've a good mind to kick you downstairs for an 
 impudent young blackguard ! " said the Knifer, 
 " but speak up — what do you want ? " 
 
 " To work with you, sir ! " said the boy, his eyes 
 sparkling. " If I could have half an hour of your 
 turn-out, Knifer Jackson, I could guarantee to go
 
 66 KID McGHIE 
 
 through a new improved XYZ time-and-word com- 
 bination safe ! " 
 
 The Knifer turned to a shelf, and from it took 
 down a httle black bag such as a lawyer might carry 
 his papers in, or a surgeon his instruments. There 
 was a little gold key (or what looked hke it) on his 
 watch chain. He opened the bag with this, and 
 after removing one or two heavier implements wrapped 
 in oiled silk, he took out a roU of morocco leather. 
 Duff us had approached, apparently dra'wn by an 
 overwhelming desire. 
 
 Slowly the Knifer unrolled the long tawny coil. 
 Strange clean-cut shapes of polished steel appeared, 
 hooked and branched at the top, some made to screw 
 together, others with nippers and grips, levers and 
 wrenches — a whole battery curiously arranged for 
 the infraction of doors and strong boxes. 
 
 " Oh," cried Duffus, clasping his hands with a 
 kind of seraphic expression, " if I could only have 
 a chance to use these once ! " 
 
 The Knifer handed him the roll instantly. 
 
 " Open number 20," he said, " and I will take you 
 with me next job I do ! " 
 
 " Honour ? " queried Duffus, of the red tie, his 
 ej^es fairly goggling with delight. 
 
 " Honour ! " said Knifer Jackson, nodding his 
 head. 
 
 And so, upon the honour which is among thieves, 
 it was arranged. And thus ended Kid McGhie's 
 first lesson in the burgling college founded by the 
 famous " BHnd Jacob," friend and pupil of Deacon 
 Brodie, of pious memory.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " BLIND Jacob's " 
 
 " Ye see," said the Knifer, " there's decent and 
 undecent in every trade. But Daddy Lennox an' 
 me and a wheen mair does what we can to keep ' Blind 
 Jacob's ' respectable ! " 
 
 At this the Kid wondered. For though the boys 
 and youths who had been employed on the doors 
 and black boxes had been well dressed enough — 
 indeed, generally better than himself — he had listened 
 to their discourse. And, with the exception of Duffus, 
 of the red tie, and the blacksmith, their language 
 had been vile beyond description. Now the Kid 
 was dainty in this respect. His father had cast him 
 on the world with few moral principles to speak of, 
 but hatred, even to physical loathing, of foul speech 
 was one of them. 
 
 And the masters appeared not to hear. Even 
 the Knifer and Daddy Lennox chatted on calmly 
 to each other amid the surf of profanity which beat 
 upon their ears, as if not a word had reached them. 
 And, indeed, it is exceedingly probable that it did 
 not. When the Kid went first to the Pleasance, 
 the roar of the coal carts setting northward along 
 the street in the direction of the great mineral station 
 of St. Leonard's awaked him six mornings out of 
 the seven at half-past five exactly. But after a 
 few weeks he slept serenely through the turmoil, 
 and it was only the unwonted quiet of the Sabbath 
 mom which roused him. 
 
 So if the scholars of " Blind Jacob's " had stopped 
 
 67
 
 68 KID McGHIE 
 
 swearing, it is possible that Daddy Lennox and the 
 Knifer would have remarked it. 
 
 The Kid did say something on the subject to the 
 Knifer. But his stepfather made light of his complaint. 
 
 " You'U get used to it," he said, ail too truly, " and, 
 besides, if a boy has a foul tongue, you've got a sturdy 
 fist. Fighting is not allowed in ' Bhnd Jacob's,' 
 but you are at Uberty to settle with him outside. 
 I'll speak to the blacksmith to put you in decent 
 training and see fair play." 
 
 The Knifer had no reason to be dissatisfied with 
 his protege. Perhaps the possession of a dainty set 
 of tools — the Knifer's third best — made progress 
 easy. Envious comrades said so. Perhaps he had 
 also some natural skill of touch. Otherwise he owed 
 most to the kindly laconic instructions of the black- 
 smith, Jock Cockpen. Be aU that as it may, the 
 Kid rose in ten days out of the scouring undisciphned 
 ranks of the intelhgence class into the " ordinary 
 lock " form. He was glad of this. Because, you 
 see, he was not a city boy, and the intelligence class 
 were really scouts sent to find out all about the habits 
 of the inmates of some house which was to be " tried." 
 The number and disposition of the servants, their 
 nights and afternoons out, their Sunday excursions, 
 who went to church, and who stayed at home — for 
 each of the three services on the Sabbath — at what 
 times the family dined, had family worship (if any), 
 when the bedrooms were clear, when the living rooms 
 — what lights were to be expected in the house at 
 night — which were the bedrooms and who slept 
 there — if a dog, big or httle, hved on the premises 
 (this was important), and if a revolver was kept. 
 
 AU this information, the Kid found, had to be 
 sifted, and that carefully. Once he fell into disgrace 
 with his intelligence teacher, one Keily Cobb, a severe 
 man with beetle brows, an ex-railway policeman, 
 who had tried to improve his position in the interests 
 of a persistent thirst. The Kid's fall was owing
 
 " BLIND JACOB'S " 69 
 
 to a page boy with a cherub face, who must have 
 been worth his weight in gold to the house he served. 
 He had a most picturesque imagination. He hed 
 the Kid outside in, as he afterwards boasted. He 
 " smoked a plant " from the very first question, 
 though the Kid began artfully enough by the offer 
 of a cigarette specially manufactured for the purpose 
 of stunting the growth of page boys. The Kid's 
 report very nearly disorganised the instructors of 
 the college. For two professors of " Bhnd Jacob's,'* 
 one of them the ex-railway pohceman, went the very 
 next night to reconnoitre the mansion of the page 
 boy. There they fell into a trap, from which only 
 their speed of foot saved them, and that, too, at 
 the expense of a valuable lever for forcing hasps 
 of windows in a horizontal direction without any 
 breaking of the glass. This beautiful piece of scientific 
 instrument making, the property of " Bhnd Jacob's '* 
 college, had to be abandoned. The page boy, with 
 filial fondness, hid it under his coat, and gave it to 
 his grandmother, who was out of a coal hammer 
 at the time. It was the old lady's birthday, and he 
 was a boy who spared no expense. 
 
 Keily Cobb, who had contracted the soft, insinuating 
 manners common to all railway policemen, said 
 some few words to the Kid on his calling the class 
 roll the next morning — words which fairly blistered 
 with energy. He added that if the Kid had not 
 come to " Bhnd Jacob's " in the way he had done, 
 he would have been kicked over the wall, and that, 
 in any case, the price of the lever would be 
 deducted from his first earnings. 
 
 In all innocence, and because it was the Kid's 
 nature not to owe any man anything, he told the 
 Knifer the sad story of his debt to the college. 
 
 " Keily Cobb said that, did he ? " his stepfather 
 and sponsor remarked, grimly. 
 
 " He did say so, but perhaps he did not mean any- 
 thing ! " said the Kid.
 
 70 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Ah, perhaps ! " said the Knifer, and strode away 
 to invite the ex-poHceman to a private explanation, 
 which was brief and to the point. 
 
 *' Once a pohss, always a poliss," said the Knifer, 
 menacingly. " Keily Cobb, ye are well aware that 
 the information that the twelve tribes bring in to 
 the intelligence class is public property, and not 
 to be used without permission by private individuals. 
 Now, Keily Cobb, did you bring this matter before 
 the council ? No, I should have heard of it, if ye 
 had done so. Ye made a private ' spec ' of it — you 
 and the slipper man. You could get my Kid kicked 
 out, could ye ? Wliy, man, I have only to move 
 my finger to get you kicked out, and, as ye are a ' rat- 
 ting ' pohceman, the council might think it safer to 
 let it be with an article hke this atween your shoulder 
 blades." 
 
 The wretched Keily Cobb grovelled, clasping his 
 hands, and moving his feet in a constant nervous 
 shuffle. 
 
 " Oh, no, no, Knifer," he pleaded, " not to the 
 council. Don't take it to the council ! Hammer 
 me if ye hke, but don't bring it up at the meeting ! " 
 
 " Very well, Cobb," said the Kid's sponsor, " then 
 ye'U please report that my laddie is a fit and proper 
 person to be removed to the ordinary fastenings 
 class — he has had quite plenty of your sort o' training. 
 There are always enough area sneaks ready to do 
 that sort o' thing for a good handy boy. And there 
 is no use of the Kid wasting more o' his time ! " 
 
 " I quite agree wd' you," said Keily Cobb ; " I 
 will see to it." 
 
 And so, in this simple way, the Kid received a 
 rise in the world. 
 
 These were days full of interest for the Kid. He 
 had no idea that he was doing anything really wrong. 
 It was a business in which he could show his gifts 
 and his application, just as in another. He accom- 
 panied Jock Cockpen to his smithy in Leith WjTid,
 
 " BLIND JACOB'S " 71 
 
 where the carters brought their horses to be shod. 
 And they, as it seemed to the Kid, swore even more 
 disgustingly than the boys in the school. The Kid 
 wondered if he could never achieve success without 
 that. But when he came to think of it, the real 
 " nobs " hardly ever practised it. There was the 
 Knifer, for instance. Did he swear ? Oh, no ; he 
 measured his words far too carefully. When he 
 was pleased, he turned the corners of his hps a Httle, 
 a very little, up, and a general sense of peace and 
 well-being overspread all his world. The hps turned 
 down, and immediately everyone stood from under ! 
 But swear — oh, no ! The Knifer did not swear. 
 Nor did Daddy Lennox. He talked too much. He 
 always had such a pour of things to say, that bad 
 words, which took time to articulate, could find no 
 place. Besides, they were not historical except in 
 the dying speeches of the great luminaries of the 
 profession who had fmished their course on the scaffold, 
 especially cursing assembled multitudes. 
 
 Duffus, of the red tie, that hope of "BHnd Jacob's," 
 did not swear. He was too clever. Oaths did not 
 help on the giddy heights to which he aspired. Night 
 watchman in a good bank was about Duffus's size 
 — at present, that is. Afterwards he might rise 
 to be a director. But Duffus knew the advantage 
 of beginning at the very bottom of the ladder. He 
 had never been taken in by a page boy. He had 
 been one himself. 
 
 Of course, however, his shining abiUties made 
 him somewhat " upsetting " and haughty in his 
 relations with his fellows, and he gave the Kid to 
 understand that it was merely as the son of his father 
 that he condescended to speak to " the likes of him." 
 However, Duffus did not swear. Night watchmen 
 in banks have no one to swear at, and, besides, Duffus 
 meant to be diUgent in his calling. He was the son 
 of a respectable clerk, and from his knowledge of 
 his father's Ufe, he was firmly resolved not to spend
 
 72 KID McGHIE, 
 
 his life sitting on a stool. But a regular life, strict 
 attention to business, the hving of laborious days, 
 and (by the nature of his avocation) nights still more 
 laborious, would in time, according to " Poor Richard's 
 Almanack " and the precepts of the late B. Franklin, 
 which his father had instilled into him as a rehgion, 
 conduct him to a modest competence. Then (it 
 would be duller, but, after all, one cannot always 
 be young) he would betake himself to some httle 
 county town — Kinross, Peebles, Cromarty, or such 
 hke, and there buy a watchmaker's and jeweller's 
 shop, goodwill and all. His training would fit him 
 for the mechanical part, and, he swore by the original 
 blind Jacob, he would know how to look after his 
 stock. He would be a clever fellow who would steal 
 from " A. Duffus, late of Edinburgh, watchmaker 
 and jeweller — repairs carefully and promptly executed 
 — clocks wound by the month or year." He would 
 go on the town council, and perhaps — who knows — 
 one day he might be provost. A. Duffus was a clever 
 fellow, the shining Admirable Crichton of the school, 
 and, of course, it goes without saying, far too clever 
 to waste his breath in profane swearing. 
 
 The blacksmith, sohd, rather dull, good-humoured 
 Jock Cockpen, did not swear either, unless one might 
 call a certain sudden explosive sound, hke the first 
 inquiring growl of a good watch-dog when he hears 
 a strange footstep, a " swear." This gust of noisy 
 wind occurred when Jock burned his fingers more 
 than usual in the smithy, or when a fine " double- 
 curve " fishing hook shpped and ran under his finger 
 nail. But so far as any meaning went, this might 
 have been, and perhaps was, a prayer. 
 
 Dull Jock, with his clever fingers, was one of the 
 best influences in the " Bhnd Jacob's " class rooms. 
 Specially was this evident after he passed into the 
 highest or safe and strong-box department, with 
 private tuition (an extra) in time locks and the latest 
 improvements in "open sesame" code work. Here
 
 " BLIND JACOB'S " 73 
 
 the extremely technical nature of the lessons and 
 the amount of mathematics involved was apt to be 
 a tax on these simple natures, unaccustomed to re- 
 straint. Many full-blown professionals, indeed, did 
 not think it at all beneath their dignity to attend 
 the lectures. And these, swaggering in low-cut 
 waistcoats, reefer jackets, and (in some cases) heather- 
 mixture knickers, could not very well be put under 
 the same disciphne as the regular students. 
 
 Now all this could not, of course, go on in a city 
 the size of Edinburgh, without the police of the city 
 hearing something of " St. Jacob's " — as the chief 
 in his hours of ease called the college of burglary. 
 It was a foundation of ancient date, and that it was 
 still abundantly flourishing, the columns of the morning 
 papers were the best witnesses. 
 
 If Captain Henderland did not know the locale, 
 the curriculum, the appliances, the examinations, 
 and the diplomas of " Blind Jacob's," he knew it 
 — by its works. 
 
 The leading professors were, in a sort of way, his 
 personal friends. He spoke to them familiarly when 
 he crossed them " hoofin' it " homewards in the 
 twilight. He knew well that they had been engaged 
 on business of the fraternity. Yet he did not in- 
 terrupt them. He never thought of apprehending 
 them on such occasions. He knew well that if he 
 did so, aU he would find would be a couple of soup 
 tickets, a penny Testament, a pouch of tobacco (empty), 
 and their mother's picture. 
 
 The swag, if they had pulled it off, would long 
 ago be in other hands, hidden in far cellars, covered 
 up in blameless wood yards, under the bacchanalian 
 drip of beer barrels — anywhere — anywhere ! Only 
 not in the pockets of these high-learned professors 
 of the light-fingered art. 
 
 Therefore wary Captain Henderland only exchanged 
 courtesies with them, casually mentioning to his 
 subordinates that he had met Knifer Jacksou down
 
 74 KID McGHIE 
 
 by the gas works, and then did his best to set the watch 
 more carefully for the next time. 
 
 Good Mr. Molesay, the pohce missionary, knew 
 them too. But he did not waste any words upon the 
 concerns of their souls. His business was chiefly 
 with the other sex, the sex which was not allowed, 
 on any pretext whatever, to penetrate into " St. 
 Jacob's." It was from among women, girls, and thievish 
 untaught boys, snatching apples from street shops, 
 that Mr. Molesav drew his chief trover. He knew 
 about "Bhnd Jacob's "—as, of course, he knew 
 everything — from the women who were not admitted 
 there, but who were as curious about it as Eve would 
 have been if Adam alone had had the key of the garden 
 where the apple was. 
 
 It was owing to this monastic exclusion of women 
 that " Bhnd Jacob's " had lasted so long. But all 
 the same, in moments of unbounded ease, to this and 
 that towsy Bet and blowsy Moll its graduates had 
 talked unwisely but too well. So, under the seal 
 of the confessional, of course, Mr. Molesay knew a 
 lot. 
 
 It was through a woman, too, that Mr. Molesay, 
 of the city mission (and a regular official of the muni- 
 cipahty), got on the track of the Kid. One of his best 
 and most promising patients was Kate Earsman, 
 whose " man " was BiUy Earsman, barman and 
 " bully " to a notorious estabhshment in the Cowgate, 
 called the " British Imperial Palace," which had so 
 many entrances that closing time never happened to 
 all of them at once. You had only to go all round 
 the British Imperial Palace to find a spot where it 
 was always afternoon, and never by any chance ten 
 o'clock and closing time ! Sundays were admittedly 
 more difficult, for the B. I. P. was no shebeen. But' 
 the landlord and also his barman, Billy Earsman, were 
 hospitable men. You could be accommodated as 
 friends of the family. You paid nothing — that day. 
 But if vou showed a reluctance to settle on i\Ionday,
 
 " BLIND JACOB'S " 7.^ 
 
 or by Tuesday at the latest, Billy Earsman would call 
 upon you, and, if you did not pay on the nail, it were 
 better for you to be scudding along the Great North 
 Road toward London. There was, of course, some 
 leakage in this way, but a little increase in the price 
 (to cover risks) more than squared all that, and every- 
 one was satisfied. 
 
 Billy Earsman, then, was " straight." At least he 
 was only crooked under cover, as it were, of his prin- 
 cipal, and in his service. All the same, a great many 
 people thought it wise to stand well with Billy, who 
 might be seen from morning till midnight, with his 
 shirt sleeves rolled up, within the bar of the British 
 Imperial Palace, pulling shining brass levers, wiping 
 zinc, and settling quarrels. Sometimes he settled 
 them so thorouglily that the settlements were removed 
 to the Royal Infirmary peacefully reposing on the 
 same push cart, the pusher primed mth a suitable 
 lie, provided by the establishment. Ogg, the " boss," 
 kept a stock of these. 
 
 Now Billy Earsman had a v*^ife, wedded according 
 to the easy Scottish fashion (which is yet as binding 
 as any other). Kate Earsman was a little, dark, 
 quick-tripping mite, with a sharp tongue and a very 
 decent heart of her own. She had once been a bar- 
 maid, and for the best part of a year her repiiqites 
 were famous over the city — that is, among young 
 men of a certain counter-leaning, graceful cigarette- 
 lighting type. But after she had " fallen in with " 
 Billy Earsman she ceased to interest this class. Billy 
 intimated that he would " slug " any qualified split- 
 soda rooster (such was his vulgar way of talking) 
 who dared to say a cross word to Kate. That lost 
 her her situation. For Messrs. Gape and Suck, the 
 well-known restaurateurs, do not put up with that 
 sort of thing in any of their young ladies. So Billy 
 Earsman, though a bit rough, being at heart a "straight 
 un," forthwith married Kate, and took a little flat for 
 ,l3i,er in a decent bouse, witjiiw hailing distance of the
 
 76 KID McGHIE 
 
 British Imperial Palace, in the very swing of Cowgate 
 life and bustle. 
 
 Their happiness had been great for three years. 
 And then Kate, who had begun before she left " Gape 
 and Suck's " to take a httle stimulant — just to enable 
 her to stand the long hours and the " being on her 
 feet " — ^lost her Httle girl. 
 
 She was only just a baby, but she walked at nine 
 months, most wonderfully enunciated " Dada " at 
 eleven, and could count as far as three before she was 
 eighteen months. To these marvels let it be added, 
 always on her mother's authority, that she could say 
 gu-gu with a " perfectly sweet " intonation whenever 
 she wanted her bottle, that she hammered on the 
 board in front of her httle chair with a spoon in the 
 most natural manner, and that to see her hiccough 
 was a sight entrancing in the highest degree. Never 
 in the world was there a happier ex-barmaid. Never 
 certainly a happier barman ! But Baby Earsman 
 caught a cold, rapidly developed diphtheria in the 
 damp, raw air which sinks into the trough of the 
 Cowgate — the same which makes Httle child funerals, 
 with the father carrying the tiny cof(in like a violin 
 case under his arm, and two or three forlorn men 
 trudging through the mud, the commonest of winter 
 sights. 
 
 Of course BiUy Earsman did not " put away " his 
 Uttle Polly in this way. By no means. He had a 
 proper hearse and a pair of horses, and his principal, 
 King Ogg, great magnate of the Cowgate world of 
 publicans, having explained that both he and Billy 
 could not be absent from the B. I. P. at the same 
 time, compromised for his absence by sending three 
 proper mourning carriages from Croan's, the great 
 undertaker's in the Walk. So if black horses, flowing 
 manes and tails, solemn, impenetrable coachmen, 
 could have made up to Kate Earsman for the loss of 
 little Polly, she would have mourned no more. 
 
 Never had such a sight been seen in the Cowgate.
 
 " BLIND JACOB'S " ^^ 
 
 People came from as far as " Blind Jacob's," on the 
 one hand, and Nelson's printing works, on the other, 
 to see the sight. And the boy who tried to throw a 
 gob of mud at a black-coated, solemnly rosetted 
 coachman with streamers on his hat, received a lesson 
 that he will never forget. When he crawled out of 
 the gutter into which fifty feet had kicked him, and 
 had begun to rub the various blue places, he compre- 
 hended that there was to be " none o' that " on the 
 day of the burying of Billy Earsman's little Polly. 
 
 But when Billy was gone — with Polly in the box — 
 Kate would not call it a coffin, though it had white 
 satin within, polished oak and silver without — Kate 
 Earsman, wife and mother, was left alone. You see 
 she was only a poor little barmaid who had been so 
 happy, who had had the finest, the dearest, ah — 
 sobbed Kate Earsman here — " there never was a 
 baby like my Poll}^" 
 
 Of course there was not — there never is ! Poor 
 mother, empty heart, empty house, Uttle empty 
 bed that hurts — oh, how it hurts ! Never another 
 child like that one which was lost that all unforgotten 
 day — or like any mother's only child, in any dreary 
 house, on any desolate day ! 
 
 So Kate Earsman took — who shall cast the first 
 stone ? — " something to drink," and Mr. Molesay 
 on his return from the funeral found himself with a 
 job on his hands. For a time the poor Httle mother 
 seemed to have buried her self-respect in Polly's 
 grave. She wanted to forget, and she took the easiest 
 way — the way that so many have trodden to the 
 point beyond which there is no hope — at least none 
 for a woman. 
 
 Billy Earsman behaved wonderfully well — even 
 when he knew that poor Kate was inventing excuses 
 to get him out of the room so that she might disinter 
 the bottle of brandy she had so carefully hidden. 
 The causeless laugh, the vacant, wandering eye, 
 even the maudlin tenderness betrayed her. But
 
 78 KID McGHIE 
 
 Biily, rightly interpreting his duty, and schooled by 
 Mr. Molesay, said nothing in anger. It was because 
 of Polly, he repeated to himself, and when any hght 
 tongue glanted in the direction of his wife's frailty, 
 Billy's eye flared sudden and unmistakable. 
 
 " One other word and I'U stretch you ! " was what 
 it said. 
 
 But Mr. Molesay kept it prominently in Billy's 
 mind that help would come not by might nor by 
 power, but by a certain still small voice — that same 
 voice which told Billy that it was not wrong for him 
 to "stretch" wrong-doers in the B. I. P., but it was 
 wrong for him to take a handful of gold and silver 
 out of his master's till. 
 
 " It's hke this, Billy," said the missionary, " we 
 must fill the gap. Nature abhors a vacuum — they 
 taught me that at college. It's not much I learned 
 there that I find of use to me down here in the Cowgate. 
 But it just means, Billy, that if God has seen fit to 
 take little Polly out of your wife's hfe, we must put 
 something else in." 
 
 ^^ " I'll do my best," said Billy Earsman, slowly, 
 "^but it takes time — that does ! It's a big vacancy 
 Kate has got." 
 
 " I mean," said Mr. Molesay, quickly, " get her 
 interested in something. Now what do you say to 
 our meetings, Billy ? Ever been to any of them ? 
 They're not duU, you know — hymns, harmonium, 
 solos, a magic lantern for the children (and, indeed, 
 the grown-ups don't dishke that part either), a warm 
 hall, good air, a little tea and talk afterwards among 
 the workers ! " 
 
 "Nice thing it would be to see me, sir," grinned 
 BiUy, " all the week at Ogg's Pub. handing out pints 
 o' beer as if I were weavin' a web, and then a-Sundays 
 do-ray-me-ing ' Jerusalem the Golden ' ! No, Mr. 
 Molesay, sir — I Hke you, but it wouldn't do ! Indeed 
 it wouldn't ! " 
 
 "Not for you, perhaps," said Mr. Molesay, who
 
 " BLIND JACOB'S " 79 
 
 was a wise man, and did not sow his wheat where 
 only oats would grow, " but for Kate ! " 
 
 " Kate had better learn to be " Billy began, 
 
 flushing hotly. 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Mr. Molesay, "but then 
 she only flies to the drink to drown her sorrow. Yo^i 
 know how vain that is — how it just gets back at you 
 three times worse afterwards. Well, all I want, 
 Billy, is just a promise that you won't interfere 
 if I do get your wife interested- in my mission. You 
 won't make fun of her " 
 
 " Umm — I'm a funny man by nature, I Imow," 
 said Billy, bitterly, " but losing "our little Polly, and 
 Kate takin' it hke this, don't strike me as m^ore than 
 average amusin' ! I think I can manage to keep 
 from heehawin' sir, out loud ! If I don't, I give 
 you leave to kick me hard ! " 
 
 Mr. IMolesay, the city missionary, was a quiet 
 little man v.-ith very pleasant eyes. He was clean 
 shaven, and had the true silver-ghnting hair which 
 comes only to dark men who turn grey early. He 
 was no great preacher, they said, in the pulpit, but 
 give him three or four square yards of a mission- 
 room floor, and a Cowgate audience — then, I vouch 
 for it, you heard something. 
 
 Well, Mr. Molesay went to work with Kate. She 
 had a voice, a pretty, clear contralto, not strong, 
 but with certain curious low notes in it — something 
 like the jug- jug in the song of the nightingale, that 
 took the hstener by the throat. Mr. Molesay spoke 
 to Leo_ Morse, the great singer, about her. Morse 
 had once been a celebrated operatic don, but had 
 suddenly seen the heavens opened and eternity looking 
 through at him. It had been through the rifted 
 bottom of a PuUman sleeper, and his travelhng com- 
 panion in the upper berth lay dead across him, between 
 him and the quiet stars. Since that he had spoken 
 much to his fellows of the things which are not yet, 
 as these had been revealed to him in that moment
 
 So KID McGHIE 
 
 of time. He called this his experience. It was 
 not that, for of true experience he had had none. 
 But at any rate it was a genuine impulse, and Mr. 
 Molesay employed him, both to speak in the Cowgate 
 City Mission Hall, and, above all, in managing to 
 organise the singing, which was his great attraction. 
 
 " Ah," said Leo Morse when he had Ustened to 
 Kate's simple warbling, " there is not a trace of 
 training, of course — but, if she had had it, she might 
 have done great things ! " 
 
 " I don't want her to do great things, Morse," 
 said Mr. Molesay ; " indeed, I am particularly desirous 
 that she should do nothing of the kind. But — I 
 suppose you couldn't — ah — it would be impossible 
 to give her a few lessons — yourself, I mean ! " 
 
 " Quite, I fear," said the great man. " You see, 
 I have my bread to earn now I don't sing in opera, 
 and my own pupils take up all my time — that is, 
 when I am not down here with you ! " 
 
 Mr. Molesay looked disappointed and sighed. Leo 
 Morse, also, threw back his long black hair, and seemed 
 more pensive than usual. 
 
 " But," he continued, " I know a lady — a young 
 lady, who might give her what she wants. I suppose 
 you only want this girl to sing solos and things here 
 at your meetings." 
 
 " That, of course," said the missionary. *' But 
 it is hfe or death to keep her occupied in the right 
 way for the next few months. She has just lost her 
 only child, a Uttle girl ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Leo Morse, very softly. Then he 
 nodded his head slowly. A curtain drew up suddenly, 
 and he saw a part of his own past he did not often 
 think about — a httle home, a bright face, a cradle, 
 then a blank day, and nights when he went home 
 to bitterness and desolation. 
 
 " Ah," he murmured again, more softly still. *' I 
 think I will take your Kate Earsman in hand myself. 
 When can she come ? "
 
 " BLIND JACOB'S " 8i 
 
 Then very joyfully Mr. Molesay arranged matters 
 with Kate and her husband. To Kate he said that 
 this was the one chance of her life. Which was true, 
 but did not interest her greatly, seeing she believed 
 that life was over for her and buried in Polly's grave. 
 But she looked across at her husband, and he nodded 
 brightly. 
 
 " Do as Mr. Molesay says, Kate," said Billy. " I'm 
 sure Polly 'd be proud ! " 
 
 " Do you think she will know ? Will she hear 
 — if I can learn to sing a solo in the mission hall ? 
 Would she be there ? " 
 
 She turned eagerly and tnistingly to Mr. Molesay 
 as to an acknowledged spiritual authority on such 
 subjects. 
 
 The good man did not stop to chop theology. He 
 cared not a button for eschatology. But he knew 
 his business, and answered without hesitation that 
 there was not the least doubt that Polly would hear 
 her mother singing in the mission choir and be happy 
 thereat. 
 
 Not content with that, he set about to prove it. 
 Which was not so wise ; though, in its way, it was 
 ingenious, too. " Their angels,'^ he said, " ' do always 
 behold the face of God.' So it is written of the chil- 
 dren. Now God hears prayer — therefore also praise. 
 Therefore those ' in the Presence ' will also hear, 
 as courtiers may hsten to the songs sung at a king's 
 banqueting table." 
 
 Perhaps it would have been better if Mr. Molesay 
 had not expanded his simple affirmation, because, 
 while he was speaking, he saw Kate's eyes wander, 
 and he knew she was thinking of her PoUy lying 
 out there in a far comer of the Dean. But still this 
 led to something. For it caused Kate to speak of 
 a httle friend she had made recently — a strange 
 laddie, belonging to people with nothing good in 
 them, but still having much good in himself. He 
 had seen, in one of his rambles, the forlorn httle
 
 82 KID McGHIE 
 
 mother kneeling at Polly's grave. And the next 
 day when she went to the Dean Cemetery, lo ! on 
 the grave lay a bouquet of wild flowers. 
 
 The country boy must have gone far afield for 
 those. And every day since, moved by some feehng 
 of sympathy for the suffering he was just beginning 
 to understand, the Kid had laid his offering on the 
 tomb — garden flowers mostly, as the season grew 
 later, and the days shortened. It will not be advan- 
 tageous to inquire too carefully as to how he came 
 by these. But at any rate, Kate had made a friend, 
 and as it chanced, the Kid had made many more. 
 
 " ' McGhie's Kid '—that's what he calls liimself ! " 
 said Kate smihng, " but at present he hves with a 
 man named Jackson — Knifer Jackson — I think he 
 said." 
 
 The two men looked at each other, and the barman 
 whistled, a long, low, comprehensive whistle. 
 
 " Kate," said her husband, " you're getting in 
 choice company these days. Knifer Jackson has 
 seen the inside of more men's houses than I've ever 
 seen of churches — more shame to me, I dare say. 
 And there's one or two that have owed their longest 
 sleep to him, if all tales be true ! " 
 
 " He does his kilUng among his own sort, though," 
 said Mr. Molesay. " When he does real business 
 he leaves his knife at home and trusts to a wire or 
 two on the lawn ! " 
 
 " I dare say," laughed Billy, " if I were to abuse 
 the devil before you, Mr. Molesay, you would find 
 something to say for him." 
 
 " I dare say there is something to be said ! " retorted 
 the missionary, smiling. 
 
 Then he turned to Kate, the barman's wife. 
 
 " Well, anyway, Kate, let me see your young 
 friend the first day you can entrap him up here," 
 he said. " I wiU look in. Perhaps we can get him 
 out of his bad surroundings." 
 
 For Mr. Molesay knew well that everything is
 
 " BLIND JACOB'S " 83 
 
 comparative, and that there is a whole world of differ- 
 ence between " Blind Jacob's " and Hagman's Close, 
 where dwelt the stepson of Knifer Jackson, and the 
 cozy home of the barkeeper, Billy Earsman, and his 
 wife Kate — even if Billy broke on an average half a 
 dozen heads a day in the pursuit of his calling. 
 
 A broad-minded, hard-working, Christian man 
 was Mr. Molesay, shrewd and yet childlike, with a 
 soul much too big for his body, and methods of doing 
 his work too original for the most tolerant denomina- 
 tion. 
 
 So it was about this time that the Kid began to 
 live a double life.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ARCHBOLD MOLESAY, CITY MISSIONARY 
 
 " Fishers of men ! " said Mr. Moiesay to his friend, 
 the minister of the Peden Memorial Kirk in the Cow- 
 gate, a fellow-worker in the city deeps. " 'Tis a 
 true word. But if your basket be hke mine, Mr. 
 Rodgers, the catch is a light one ! " 
 
 The minister shook his head, gazing abstractedly 
 out of the little oriel window which looked up and 
 down the grimy defile. For the Rev. Harry Rodgers 
 was not of those slum ministers who live comfortably 
 in the suburbs, and look in on their parishioners 
 when they have their sermons finished, and there 
 is no one handy to play golf with. 
 
 *' And sometimes," he broke out, suddenly, " when 
 we do get a bite, as Hke as not it's an eel or a hungry 
 brute of a dogfish." 
 
 " Anything been annoying you, Rodgers ? " said 
 Mr. Moiesay. 
 
 They had been at college together, these two, and 
 had kept up their intimacy. 
 
 " Only that abominable poison spot, ' Blind Jacob's.' 
 I hate it, and all its works !" cried the minister. " It 
 poisons everything. Sometimes I think the police 
 don't want to root it out. All they do is to chivvy 
 it about from one place to another, about once in 
 three months or thereby ! " 
 
 Mr. Moiesay thought awhile. 
 
 " Perhaps there's more in it than that," he said, 
 presently ; "it centralises and in a way modifies 
 
 84
 
 ARCHBOLD MOLESAY, CITY MISSIONARY 85 
 
 the blackguardism of the city. ' BHnd Jacob's ' 
 doesn't allow any knife-and-revolver work, and I 
 think the general tone has improved in my time." 
 
 " I am astonished at you, Molesay," said Mr. Rodgers. 
 " Rank burglary is the essence of the matter — the 
 teaching of it to children " 
 
 " Ah, that's true enough," sighed Mr. Molesay, 
 " and a heartbreak it is to me. But I'm none so 
 sure, if ' Blind Jacob's' were broken up, that things 
 would be much improved." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Mr. Rodgers. " You've lived 
 too long in this atmosphere, Molesay. You are 
 beginning to see things with a squint — just as mad- 
 house doctors become mad if they stick too closely 
 to their profession." 
 
 " So I may end by becoming a burglar, and even 
 a professor in ' BHnd Jacob's,' eh ? " cried the silver- 
 headed missionary. 
 
 " Well, not exactly," said Rodgers, whose sense 
 of humour was not his strong point — rather it was 
 the steady, firm, grave devotion to duty which made 
 him the power he was in that dim place ; " not exactly ! 
 But — don't forget, Molesay, that it never does to 
 confuse right and wrong. Right is right, and wrong 
 wrong, in the Cowgate as elsewhere. ' Blind Jacob's ' 
 is bad — conception, execution, influence, all its works 
 — and the sooner it is rooted out the better ! " 
 
 " I suppose so," said Mr. Molesay, gently. " Yes, 
 you are right. It ought to be done. It must be 
 done. But when it is done, mark me, there will 
 be an outbreak of the old bad days — killing will be 
 held no murder, and there will be no authority as at 
 present, severe enough of a kind, over the rascaldom 
 of the city ! " 
 
 " I see this clearly enough," said Mr. Rodgers, 
 doggedly, " that one can face only one problem at 
 a time. And — you know Henderland has resigned 
 the chiefship of police. I've just been to the Lord 
 Provost with some drastic suggestions, one of which
 
 86 KID McGHIE 
 
 is that the first duty of his successor should be to root 
 out and utterly destroy ' Blind Jacob's.' " 
 
 " Very well," said Mr. Molesay. " Of course 
 you know best, and as you say, right is right. You 
 know your duty, and must do as your conscience 
 tells you. But from the point of view of my parishion- 
 ers, none of whom ever enter a church door, I think 
 you have put your hand into a wasp's nest. Hender- 
 land was perhaps not so modem in his methods, 
 nor so conceited as some. But — he had been chief 
 for twenty-five years. And when anything went 
 wrong, he would say on hearing the circumstances, 
 ' that's one of three men ! ' and name them forthwith. 
 Then he would have the three men up, and make 
 them prove the employment of their time on the night 
 in question. There were, of course, the usual breakings 
 into jeweller's shops, which ought to have been better 
 guarded, and the same bathroom-window robberies, 
 where the hasp had been left open. vSafes and strong 
 boxes were tried and sometimes a booty pulled off. 
 But these things were carefully graded, and generally 
 justice was done. The man got his five or his seven 
 years as a matter of course, and came out without 
 bearing any great animosity toward the man who 
 had only beaten him at his own game. But how 
 often during these twenty-five years have you seen 
 the black flag rise over the Calton at eight o' the 
 morning, as it used to do every three weeks in the 
 bad old days ? That was Henderland — only Hender- 
 land — nothing but Henderland ! " 
 
 " Maybe — maybe," said Mr. Rodgers, " but I, 
 for one, arn for no bargainings wdtli evil, not if the 
 black flag were to go up every morning regular as 
 breakfast rolls. I think you go on a wrong principle 
 altogether, Molesay. You knov/ the text — ' that 
 the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished 
 unto all good works.' Nothing else will be of the 
 least use." 
 
 " God help my little crowd, then," groaned Molesay ;
 
 ARCHBOLD MOLESAY, CITY MISSIONARY d>7 
 
 " they are imperfect enough, even as I am. Rodgers, 
 I hold rather with that disciple who said, ' Lord, 
 are there few that be saved ? ' — hoping, like him, 
 that there may be many." 
 
 " Yes," said Rodgers, " and you would be snubbed 
 like him and told to attend to your own case — ' Strive 
 ye to enter in at the strait gate ! ' was all he got ! " 
 
 " Well, well — I haven't time to think of my wretched 
 self," said Molesay. " I have been so long in the 
 front fighting line. This constant forlorn-hope busi- 
 ness gives a fellow little time to think of drill — though, 
 doubtless, drill helps to carry him through. Man, 
 Rodgers, I declare I don't even pray very much 
 now. Shocking, isn't it ? I haven't time. But 
 for all that, I can understand that fellow who sends 
 his electricity into space, on the chance that some 
 one will hear his cry for help. So, when I get quite 
 heartsick with the squalor and the misery and the 
 crime, which none regards (not even, to all appearance, 
 God Himself), I send my cry up between the darkening 
 roofs toward the sky and the stars. Let Him answer 
 — if He will. He is far away, and, with the press 
 of universes, has doubtless many claims. But I 
 — I myself — Rodgers, have these poor creatures 
 before me and behind — a barman, whom all the 
 world thinks a brute — I see him growing like Him of 
 Nazareth, even while his hands are on the beer pull. 
 * Impossible ! ' you say. ' No Christian can be a 
 barman ! He would break stones first ! ' Well, you 
 do not know Billy Earsman, the bully at Ogg's Imperial 
 Palace, that's all ! " 
 
 " Ogg's — that dreadful place at the Wjmd comer ! 
 Ogg has been up half a dozen times for keeping open 
 after hours ! " cried Mr. Rodgers, horrified. " Surely 
 you cannot defend him ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I might have something to say even for 
 Ogg, King of Imperial Bashan," smiled Molesay. 
 " but it is of Billy Earsman, his barman, that I am 
 speaking. He has a fight to fight that I am trying
 
 88 KID McGHIE 
 
 to give him a hand with — a dead baby — a wife, pretty, 
 young, and fretting herself into drink. I have no 
 time to instruct him in all the Law and the Prophets. 
 But he makes his morning and evening sacrifices 
 all the same. In the morning he teUs his wife that 
 she is looking better, younger, bonnier every day, 
 that she sings more sweetly ; and in the evening 
 he comes home early, and washes up to take her a walk 
 in the park or to the Botanical Gardens. Or, in 
 the winter, he comes to our choir practices to hear 
 his wife sing. And to tell you the truth, Rodgers, 
 I can't for the hfe of me see much difference between 
 the beer pull at Ogg's and the servants fiUing the 
 wine jars at Cana of Gahlee ! " 
 
 " Molesay, this is sheer blasphemy 1 " cried the 
 minister of the Peden Memorial Kirk. 
 
 " I hope not," said Molesay, smiling and nodding 
 his meek httle silvery head, the best known in all 
 the quarter of the Cowgate, " I hope not. But I 
 and mine are a feeble folk — ^like Peter, we follow 
 afar off." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Mr, Rodgers, sharply, " and you know 
 what Peter did just after that — he denied his Master 
 three times ! " 
 
 " So he did — so he did," said the gentle Httle man ; 
 " but when all is said and done, he followed, didn't 
 he — when all the rest forsook Him and fled ? That 
 was always something, wasn't it, Rodgers ? " 
 
 " D'ye mean to say ? " began the pastor. 
 
 Mr. Molesay held up his hand. 
 
 " I mean to say nothing, Rodgers, except that 
 once a certain Master of the house of whom you have 
 heard was angry, and He said to His servants, ' Go 
 forth quickly into the streets and the lanes of the 
 city, and bring in hither the poor and the maimed 
 and the halt and the bhnd — and go into the highways 
 and the hedges and compel them to come in. For 
 none of those men that were bidden shall taste of 
 My supper.' "
 
 ARCHBOLD MOLESAY. CITY MISSIONARY 89 
 
 There was a moment's silence between the two 
 men, so different in head, so one in heart. It was 
 broken by Mr. Molesay asking when Mr. Rodgers 
 could come and talk to "his folk," and the pair of 
 them began settling on the following Thursday at 
 eight, immediately after the magic lantern. Then 
 he (Rodgers) would hear Kate Earsman sing, and meet 
 another little "kid of the goats," name not specified. 
 Note-books were produced, entries were made, hands 
 were shaken, and, after all, the two — sturdy Calvinist 
 and mere labourer in hope — parted in a mild, kindly 
 atmosphere of mutual tolerance, if not of understanding. 
 
 And Mr. Rodgers, left alone, continued to look out 
 of the little oriel window, and say over and over 
 Molesay 's last phrase. It haunted him Hke an echo : 
 " A kid of the goats "— " A kid of the goats ! " Where 
 had he heard it ? Ah, he had it. He had not looked 
 into Arnold's poems since he was a young and en- 
 thusiastic lad, with his beliefs not yet crystalhsed 
 into a system, and squared to a chalk line. The 
 book was dusty. It was the small green-cloth Golden 
 Treasury volume of selections, every page minted 
 gold to many a heart that was young in the later 
 seventies. Rodgers ran his fingers over the pages, 
 getting ghmpses as he went of unforgotten lines and 
 phrases, yet not pausing till he came upon the great 
 sonnet of which this is the title : 
 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD WITH THE KID. 
 
 ''He saves the sheep, the gnats he doth 7tot save / " 
 So rang TertuUian's sentence, on the side 
 Of that unpitying Phrygian sect which cried : 
 
 " Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, 
 
 Who sins, once washed by the baptismal wave " — 
 So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sighed, 
 The infant church ! Of love she felt the tide 
 
 Stream on her from her Lord's yet recent grave.
 
 90 KID McGHIE 
 
 And then, she smiled. And in the Catacombs, 
 With eyes suffused, but heart inspired true, 
 On those walls subterranean, where she hid 
 
 Her head 'mid ignominy, death, and tombs, 
 She her Good Shepherd's hasty image drew — 
 And on his shoulders — not a lamb — a kid / 
 
 " It's rank Arminianism — and the source — suspect," 
 said Rodgers, putting the book thoughtfully back 
 on its shelf. " But, after all, I don't know but what 
 I believe it. ' Not a lamh — a kid : ' " He quoted 
 the words over and over as he went downstairs. So 
 much so that his wife, busily cutting up the portions 
 for the children, and for several indigent waiters 
 at the back door, wrinkled an already sufficiently 
 worried brow at him, and asked him what he was 
 muttering about. 
 
 " A kid of the goats ! " he said, absently. 
 
 Now Mrs. Rodgers had no S5anpathy with philosophic 
 abstractions. 
 
 " Serve the gravy, and say grace," she said, curtly. 
 "The children'' are waiting, and Johnny wiU be late 
 for school ! " 
 
 As for Mr. Molesay, he went south-eastward in 
 the direction of Hagman's Close. The sight of his 
 rain-battered soft hat, a little greener at the brim, 
 especially at the place where the drip ran down, the 
 streaky gray hair shining aureole-wse beneath it, 
 the bent shoulders, the eager, searching face drew 
 many a hard countenance to the window, hfted many 
 a greasy cap as Mr. Molesay's quick, kindly eyes 
 glanced this way and that, missing nobody, yet forcing 
 attentions on none. 
 
 The Knifer, going toward " Blind Jacob's " with 
 a harmless-looldng package in brown wrapping paper, 
 knew as weU that the little city missionary would 
 not stop him, as Jock Cockpen, leather aproned to 
 the chin, and aU a smutty grin above, was certain
 
 ARCHBOLD MOLESAY, CITY MISSIONARY 91 
 
 that he would pop in and confide a feeble white palm, 
 with long fingers that trembled a Uttle, into Smith 
 Jock's big bear's-paw grip. For already the silver- 
 headed little man was on Jock's trail. He knew 
 he had been often in doubtful society of late. But 
 for all that, he never once " let on " to Jock that he 
 did not consider him the shining example of aU his 
 Bible Class. 
 
 " How d'ye do, Master Molesay ? " cried Ashbucket 
 Moll. " And a blessin' is what I ask from your 
 riverence ! " 
 
 Moll was a CathoUc, and, as usual with her at this 
 hour, partly in liquor. 
 
 " I am no ' reverence,' " said Mr. Molesay, stopping 
 and smiling, " and I am not of your faith. You 
 must go to Father McAinsh for your blessing ! " 
 
 ^'' And a good man ! " said Moll, stoutly, balancing 
 herself — her back burden of old clouts, cabbage hearts, 
 and cigar ends shedding a mild but quite perceptible 
 fragrance around — " a good man and a good priest, 
 sir ! But your riverence is the Howly Pether av 
 them all, bless your nice frosty poU ! Ye are at it 
 night an' day, Sunday aw' Saturday ! No chick 
 nor child have ye, but only us. And if they won't 
 let ye into Paradise for a saint — account 0' bein' 
 a Protestant born — faith, then / won't go neither ! 
 No, not a fut — nor anny good Kyatholic in the Cow- 
 gate ! Sorra a one, sorr ! They may whistle for 
 us. We will come along down there wid you, that 
 we will. An' maybe that will shame thim up there 
 wid their kays an' their harps an' their howly wather ! " 
 
 " Thank you — thank you ! " said Mr. Molesay, 
 smiling, for he knew the genuine, even when it spoke 
 with gin loading its breath. 
 
 " And now, your riverence — the bHssin', an' let 
 poor ould Ashbucket Moll be goin' ! " 
 
 " I wish you would not call me that ! " said Mr. 
 Molesay, gently ; " Father McAinsh might not hke it, 
 and I have no claims ! "
 
 92 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Maybe ye have never been promothed to be a 
 bishop — though it's the fine man ye wud look in the 
 purple an' goold yoursilf, sorr — entoirely. But it's 
 the heart that make us riverend or unriverend. And 
 by the powers, it's archbishop kyardinal ye should 
 be, sorr ! And ye will never let a poor ould sinful 
 woman go without a wurrd or two o' the howly Latin ! 
 It'll do me good, sorr. I'll not touch a dhrop this 
 day after ye have blessed poor ould two fathom o' 
 soapsuds, that's not long for this wurrld. Say the 
 prayer, sorr — in the howly Latin ! " 
 
 Mr. Molesay, eager as ever to meet each soul with 
 its appropriate medicine, said sharply, " If I do, then 
 you promise on your immortal hope that you will not 
 taste another drop before Saturday night ! " 
 
 He knew it was useless to bargain for more. 
 
 " Never a dhrop — shall pass thim Ups, on the hope 
 of mercy ! " cried Moll, eagerly. 
 
 Mr. Molesay blushed a httle, and glanced every way 
 to see that none observed them too closely. 
 
 " This calling of mine brings me precious near lying 
 sometimes ! " he murmured. And hfting up his right 
 hand — for he knew that Moll would hold his best 
 blessings of no account without that — he mumbled 
 hurriedly, and with a straying eye, the Lord's Prayer 
 in Greek — a rehc of Professor Blackie's class room. 
 
 Poor old Moll would have dropped on her knees, 
 but Mr. Molesay was already making off. She seized 
 his hand and pressed it fervently to her Ups. 
 
 " God in heaven's best blessings on you for your 
 kindness to a poor ould drucken woman," she cried, 
 " and in the howly Latin too ! " 
 
 " What a deceitful wretch I am ! " said Mr. Molesay 
 to himself, as he hurried off in the direction of Number 
 Seven Hagman's Close. " But after all, what is a 
 man to do ? I leave it to Rodgers himself to 
 say ! " 
 
 There was a quiet little family party in full swing, 
 when, after having knocked in vain, Mr. Molesay
 
 ARCHBOLD MOLESAY, CITY MISSIONARY 93 
 
 pushed open the door of Number Seven, and entered 
 the habitation. 
 
 The Kid had been crjHing. The tears, as they 
 followed the same channels down his cheeks, had 
 gradually hollowed out the subsoil according to the 
 latest geologic theory about denudation. The map- 
 ping of the country was the more accurate, because 
 the Kid had not been able to rub his eyes with his 
 knuckles, as is the habit of gamins of his age when 
 suffering under the lash. 
 
 Mad Mag had shut him up for two days in the coal 
 cellar, in the absence of the Knifer, for refusing to 
 take her to " BHnd Jacob's," where she suspected 
 her husband to be. She had tied his hands together 
 at the wrist with a cord, and passed that over a pulley 
 in the ceiling after the manner of Mrs. Brownrigg with 
 her unfortunate apprentices. But at the critical moment 
 the Knifer had come home, and with one slash of the 
 weapon from which he got his name, he had cut down 
 the Kid. Then quite coolly, but with the wicks of 
 his mouth drawn far down, and his lips making a 
 mere crack in cast metal, he had bidden his wife to 
 prepare for what he had promised her. 
 
 Then Mad Mag clung about the Knifer's knees, 
 crying, " Oh, dinna kill me ! Oh, dinna, dinna ! I 
 was only pretendin'. Dinna kill me, Knifer ! It 
 was only because I wanted to ken where ye were ! '* 
 
 She was sobbing and crying with the wild abandon 
 of such women, kissing the Knifer's boots, tearing 
 her hair, knocking her head on the floor, when the 
 door softly opened, and, gently as the rising of the 
 mom, the silver head and soft green hat of Mr. City 
 Missionary Molesay dawned upon that sordid scene.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PATRICIA S BURGLARS 
 
 The Knifer did not kiU her, but Mad Mag had the 
 lesson of her hfe. On the other hand, the Knifer 
 did not reform and become a shining example to the 
 flock ever after. Still, no one said a word against 
 Httle Mr. Molesay, the city missionary, in his presence. 
 As for the Kid, he had made a friend. And soon he 
 knew the way, not only to the mission premises, 
 where he helped to cut up bread and butter, but also 
 to the plain bare apartments, sitting-room and bed- 
 room, of the missionary himself. It was a long while 
 before Mr. Molesay " talked good " to the Kid. He 
 preferred rather just to let him dodge round and pick 
 up ideas. 
 
 The Knifer had been busy of late. The " job " 
 with young Duffus, of the red tie, had been carried 
 out to everyone's satisfaction— except, perhaps, that 
 of the person chiefly concerned— the passive resister, 
 as it were— the man whose safe had been broken 
 into. 
 
 Now a longer and more difficult affair was being 
 prepared. The Kid had his first intimation of it one 
 morning just as he was starting out to go to " Bhnd 
 Jacob's." The Knifer had lain stiU in his bed that 
 morning, and ordered his now exceedingly obedient 
 wife to bring him his breakfast there. 
 
 Kid," he said presently, " we are going to do a 
 bit of a journey to-day— you and me and Com Beef 
 Joe. So stay in the house till I want you ! " 
 
 94
 
 PATRICIA'S BURGLARS 95 
 
 From that command, of course, there was no appeal. 
 Therefore the Kid stayed, and employed himself in 
 polishing up the special set of tools, which the Knifer 
 referred to generally as his " bag-o'-tricks." But 
 equally, of course, the Kid kept speculating where 
 he was going and what he would have to do. He 
 had heard of boys being sent dov/n chimneys, and 
 getting roasted — of their being shot, torn by dogs, and 
 maltreated by cruel serving men. These were the 
 bogey tales current in " St. Jacob's," in which the 
 influence of the memoirs of a certain Mr. Ohver Twist 
 — who, rightly or wrongly, was considered in the 
 college as a " soft " — could distinctly be traced. 
 These were to be bought for a sixpence, but it was the 
 " classy " thing to slip a copy off the counter into 
 one's pocket while asking the price of a two-shilUng 
 Bible. Humour was thus dehghtfuUy mingled with 
 business training, a combination much approved by 
 the " St. Jacob's " faculty. 
 
 There were many severely worn prints in the usual 
 sixpenny edition of this classic, but these had no 
 success. Duffus, of the red tie, who was dainty in 
 his apparel, and fared sumptuously — at other people's 
 expense — every day, said that he would be hanged 
 if he would show up with such a set of sickening toads 
 as Charley Bates and his friends. He turned the 
 points of his stand-up coUar to the proper angle as 
 he spoke, and then with a pink-bordered silk hand- 
 kerchief flicked some grains of dust from his patent- 
 leather, buttoned boots. His opinion was much 
 quoted and approved in " BHnd Jacob's," while the 
 childishness of " fossicking " round, and " boosting " 
 wretched " wipes " out of tail-coat pockets, was much 
 commented on. It might do for Glasgow, but — 
 Lor' bless you, at " St. Jacob's," in the acquisition 
 of property, they could show you a trick worth two 
 of that. 
 
 It was to this book — the Knifer's copy, with the 
 pages about the death of Mr. W. Sykes carefully torn
 
 96 KID McGHIE. 
 
 out — ^that the Kid presently betook himself, when 
 he had made each tool a different-shaped mirror. 
 He wanted instructions how to behave when thrust 
 through a cellar window at midnight. 
 
 But the Knifer's methods were up to date, and had 
 nothing really suspicious about them. The Kid was 
 dressed carefully in a Httle ready-made navy-blue 
 suit, which appeared mysteriously upon the Knifer's 
 moving his hand in the direction of the top of the 
 wardrobe, which was also used as a cupboard. The 
 Kid's mother brought down a parcel done up in brown 
 paper, with the utmost precautions, and this, dis- 
 embowelled by the Knifer's ready instrument, dis- 
 gorged the Kid's first new complete suit. 
 
 But there was no gladness in it. He knew very 
 well that he had to be shot in the shoulder with it on, 
 and so all the gladness was but funeral-baked meats 
 to him. McGhie's Kid was a melancholy boy as he 
 and Knifer, each with a mourning band to their hard 
 " bowler " hats, and the Kid with an extra crape 
 about his left arm, walked to the railway station, 
 openly in the heart of the day. The Knifer nodded 
 to several poHce inspectors as he went. It was e\'ident 
 that neither of them were on business, for their reefer 
 jackets were buttoned so tight that there was no 
 room for even the smallest of "jemmies " to be hidden 
 beneath. 
 
 They took tickets boldly for Glasgow, the Knifer 
 speaking in a loud tone so that a robustious man with 
 a beard and the regulation " dumpers " on his feet 
 — police boots — might be able to hear. 
 
 " How balmy ! " said the Knifer, as he dropped 
 into a seat, having watched the plain-clothes man go 
 off in the direction of the telegraph office ; " how 
 particularly balmy ! " 
 
 As they regaled themselves with an illustrated 
 paper apiece, their friend of the boots stroDed neg- 
 ligently by to assure himself that the two had actually 
 taken their places in the Glasgow train.
 
 PATRICIA'S BURGLARS 97 
 
 " All serene ! " said the Knifer, under his breath, as 
 he cut into an apple with his tobacco blade. " All 
 those Glasgow coppers' fault if they miss us now ! 
 Can't pick up a scent even when the straight tip is 
 given them — report to Henderland, and go to sleep 
 with a good conscience ! Have a bit of apple, 
 Kid ? " 
 
 But the Knifer did not complete his journey to the 
 metropoHs of the West. Midway he changed hastily 
 at a quiet junction, and boarded a south-going train. 
 Curiously enough, too, the door of the compartment 
 opened of itself to receive him, and the next moment 
 he was hauling up the Kid after him. When the 
 door was shut, and the Kid had time to look about 
 him, he found there was another man in the com- 
 partment besides Knifer Jackson. He was a tall, 
 bony, fierce-looking fellow, with reddish hair, which 
 would have been bristly if it had not been cut so short 
 that it looked rather like the dust of some barber's 
 shop that had been blown accidentally against a 
 bald man's pate than proper hair grown on a proper 
 head. 
 
 This man's name, it soon appeared, was Corn 
 Beef Joe, owing to a tale of his, about which he was 
 continually being teased, that he had once assisted 
 at the packing of that article, and could swear that 
 it was all dead horse. In some lights Joe looked 
 so like a horse himseli, that he was accused of canni- 
 balism, and " Tinned Horse " was used sometimes 
 as a variant of his better-known name. 
 
 But you needed to be something, or rather, a great 
 deal of a fighter, indeed, before you dared to jest 
 with " Corn Beef " about his cognomen. 
 
 " Joseph Mitchelson is my name," he would say, 
 closing a fist Hke a fair-sized parcel-post packet of 
 bones, covered with chapped skin, " and I'll drive that 
 in the face of the man that calls me anything else ! " 
 The Kid was very careful to call this gentleman "Mr. 
 Joseph Mitchelson " at full length, till the Knifer
 
 98 KID McGHIE 
 
 told him that, being among friends, the gentleman 
 would be content with " Joe," quite short. 
 
 So in this fashion they travelled on for some hours. 
 At two several junctions they changed again into 
 side trains, always in haste and always keeping to 
 the right. It was after the final change, when the 
 men were beginning to look out of the windows oftener 
 as if to see how far they had got on their way, that 
 Knifer Jackson beckoned the Kid over to him from 
 his corner seat, at which he had been seated all day, 
 drinking in the landscape as it whirled past at varying 
 speeds — the foreground waltzing briskly with the 
 telegraph poles, the middle distance sailing majesti- 
 cally behind like dowagers doing duty in the Roger 
 de Coverley, the far-away hills serenely regardant, 
 Uke spectators in the gallery. 
 
 " Kid," said Knifer Jackson, *' ye ken what for 
 ye are here ? " 
 
 " Aye," said the Kid, suddenly struck do^vn to 
 the dismal earth, " to get shot through the shoother ! " 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said the Knifer, hastily ; " there's 
 none of that nowadays. Listen ! At the place 
 we are comin' to there's a big house, and in that house 
 there's a rich old rascal whose money does no good 
 to anybodv . To-day he will be busy gettin' in his rents, 
 and by the tnne he has them finished and the receipts 
 written he will be ower late to bank the money. The ser- 
 vants at his house are at the seaside with the family. 
 There will be nobody in the big house but the fat man 
 and his housekeeper. He will dine — that is, take his 
 dinner — at seven exact. The housekeeper will wait 
 on him. The rent money will be left locked in the 
 safe in his study, as he calls it. Then what you 
 have to do, Kid, is just this : Opposite the door of 
 the dining room there is a big cupboard, and the 
 door is back in a recess. You are to walk right in 
 at the front door of the house, and wait in the hall 
 till ye hear folk talkin'. That wiU be the house- 
 keeper servin' the rich old sinner with his dinner.
 
 PATRICIA'S BURGLARS 99 
 
 Then up along the passage ^vi' you ! The carpet's 
 thick, and your feet will never be heard. There 
 will be not a soul to see you, with the house- 
 keeper busy servin' dinner. Then into the cup- 
 board as if ye were divin' into water. And through 
 the crack ye will see aU that is goin' on. As long 
 as the two go on servin' and eatin' — do nothing. 
 Joe and me will be busy with our own affairs upstairs. 
 But if the rich old fellow rises to come upstairs before 
 he has had his cup o' coffee and washed his fingers 
 in a glass bowl, give three knocks on the big brass 
 gong that hangs on a stand just outside the cupboard, 
 and bolt out at the front door ! Mind and keep to 
 the left, close by the wall — the rest of the grass will 
 be wired ! " 
 
 The Kid nodded as Knifer Jackson slowly told 
 off point by point his instructions. The routine 
 was quite familiar to him, thanks to his course of 
 instruction at " Blind Jacob's." The object was, 
 of course, not his business. He would have no share 
 in that, and he felt no pity for the rich old hunks 
 who was sitting hatching out his rents in a lonely 
 house. Mr. Molesay's instructions had not yet worked 
 so far in. Deep-soil ploughing had, as one might say, 
 yet to be begun with the Kid. 
 
 They disembarked at a station. Something familiar 
 struck the Kid, but in the hurry of the moment he 
 could not say what it was. But a horse in a yellow 
 van, holding down its head with a tired look, seemed 
 somehow not unknown, hkewise a step to an omnibus 
 which had been twisted and mended on the skew. 
 
 His head was stiU spinning with the fast travel, 
 or he would have recognised his native town, even 
 before Bob Cochrane, the big, hale porter, went along 
 the carriages, crying " Kirkmessan — Kirk-messan ! 
 Passengers change here for Cauld Kill, Caulder, 
 Shiverton, and Portnessock ! " • • ;^ r 
 
 This is curious, but a fact. You see it was the 
 first time that the Kid had ever travelled by rail,
 
 100 KID McGHIE 
 
 which has a singularly mixing effect upon the young ; 
 besides which the Kid was not thinking that one 
 could get from Hagman's Close to Kirkmessan by 
 rail in a day. He had trudged it weary foot, taking 
 weeks and weeks to do it in. 
 
 Then all at once he had a lightning stroke. The 
 rich old man with the rents could be no one else but 
 Mr. Brydson McGhie, Patricia's father — also Marthe's 
 — therefore the owner of the garden house, where 
 he had been tended and cured, where he had had a 
 real college doctor to attend him, and nobody the 
 wiser. No, he could not do this thing. But how 
 to help it ? 
 
 He saw Gregg's boy. Ah ! now he remembered 
 — it was the baker's white horse he had seen holding 
 low its weary head between the shafts and breathing 
 on the ground between its feet. Gregg's boy had 
 been no great friend of his, but very likely he would 
 have forgotten him. The Kid was now well dressed, 
 and had on a mourning band and a new hard hat. 
 He would never be taken for Kid McGhie of the Back 
 Mill Lands. He searched his pockets for the shilling 
 the Knifer had given him that morning. 
 
 Slipping off a moment while Knifer Jackson and 
 Com Beef Joe were busy with their " luggage," he 
 ran to Gregg's boy. 
 
 " Hae," he said, shoving the shilhng into his hand, 
 " run to McGhie's big hoose — Balmaghie they caa' 
 it — as hard as ye can. See McGhie himsel', and bid 
 him to run quick to the bank wi' his rent money " 
 
 He got no time to say more, for Corn Beef Joe had 
 him by the shoulder and was leading him past the ticket 
 collector, in whom, with another shock, he recognised 
 a soft-faced boy called " Soda Bannocks," whom 
 he had often stoned for that very reason. 
 
 However, he saw Gregg's boy, after looking about 
 him and scratching his head awhile, suddenly jump 
 on the box of the old dusty van and whip up the white 
 horse to an excited and spasmodic three-legged trot
 
 PATRICIA'S BURGLARS loi 
 
 in the direction of the eligible suburban residence 
 of P. Brydson McGhie, Esq., J. P. 
 
 The Kid watched Gregg's boy out of sight, and 
 then drew a long breath. 
 
 " I'm a ' split,' " he said, sighing, " but it was 
 for yon lass's sake ! " 
 
 " Yon lass " meant Patricia McGhie — her and no 
 other. 
 
 The voice of Joe, the " Tinned Horse," awoke him 
 startlingly. " What were you saying to that boy 
 when I came up ? " he demanded. 
 
 " I was askin' him at what time the banks closed 
 here," he answered, " and if they took siUer after 
 hours." 
 
 The Knifer laughed commendingly. 
 
 " That's right, Kid," he said, nodding his head ; 
 " always try to do a bttle business on your own account. 
 But I fear you will have to leave the Kirkmessan 
 banks for another time. But I say — what ambition 
 these young shavers have got ! It's ' Blind Jacob's ' 
 that does it ! " 
 
 " There's no other way to get on ! " acknowledged 
 the " Tinned Horse " solemnly. 
 
 " Good evening, gentlemen ! " said a clear voice 
 in nett decided tones, with a ring of laughter in them, 
 when Knifer Jackson and his friend Corn Beef Joe 
 penetrated into the " study " of Balmaghie, the 
 eligible — and so forth — residence of P. Brydson 
 McGhie, Esq., J. P. 
 
 They halted on the threshold of the study, dumb 
 struck. 
 
 " Come in — come in ! " said the voice. " Make 
 yourselves at home ! " A tall, black-haired, handsome 
 girl, with merry eyes and decided features, was seated 
 on a table strewn with papers — P. Brydson McGhie's 
 own sacred work table. She held a blue-covered 
 pass book in her hand, and swung her legs carelessly
 
 102 KID McGHIE 
 
 to and fro, the table being rather a high one to suit 
 Mr. McGhie's business armchair. 
 
 " Come straight in, without wiping your feet, just 
 as if the house was your own," said Miss Patricia, 
 calmly ; " I am rather out of breath, you see. I've 
 just been down to the bank with father's rents. I 
 suppose it was about that you called. You want 
 to pay yours, Mr. — ah, I forget your name. But 
 really I can't take it to-day. Shop's closed, shutters 
 up. Come to-morrow ! " 
 
 Knifer stood gazing solemnly at the girl who thus 
 confronted two princes of burglary with ga}'^ careless- 
 ness. He could admire and understand that. The 
 " Tinned Horse," after his kind, could do neither. 
 
 " See, miss," he said, " we are not here for any 
 hp, nor yet to bandy words hither and across, but 
 to get the money, and the money we must have ! 
 We know that your father has not had the time to 
 put it in the bank ! " 
 
 " No, he hadn't," said Pat, with far less fear than 
 a more advised girl would have felt in her situation, 
 " but / did it for him. I ran through the plantation, 
 and got back here just in time to bid you welcome 
 to Balmaghie, gentlemen. See, here is the bank 
 book. It was after hours, but the clerks were 
 balancing, and Mr. Macduff is a friend of mine — or 
 would Uke to be — so he took the money, and signed 
 for it readily enough. You can look for yourselves. 
 The ink is hardly dry yet. But you can have my 
 Waterbury watch, and all I have in my pockets. 
 It's only about three and sixpence — ^gloves come 
 dreadfully expensive when you like them with four 
 buttons " 
 
 " That's enough, shut up ! " said Com Beef Joe, 
 black with wrath at being foiled. " See here, young 
 lady, you may think you are very clever ; but if 
 we don't get the money, or something worth our 
 time and expense, it will be the. worse for you ! " 
 
 " Ah, so — " said Pat McGhie, '' now, that's not
 
 NICE GUN, isn't it, gi;ntlemen ? "
 
 PATRICIA'S BURGLARS 103 
 
 polite. And I don't think the other gentleman 
 will uphold you in that, but, just in case " 
 
 She stretched out her right hand very sHghtly 
 to a pigeon hole, and Hfted her father's revolver. It 
 was a Webley, and reliable. 
 
 "Nice gun, isn't it, gentlemen ? " she said, toying 
 with it. " Continuous fire, self-ejector pattern, blunt- 
 nose bullets, warranted dum-dum, excellent stopping 
 power. My brother Gilbert taught me to use it last 
 hohdays down in the glen." 
 
 And she cocked the weapon with a knowing overlift 
 of her thumb, famihar to the initiated. 
 
 " Nice easy trigger too. Gilbert eased it for me to 
 help my scoring. I can put all six in a watch case at 
 fifteen yards — that's lady's distance, you know." 
 
 The Knifer laughed suddenly aloud. Something 
 had stirred his sense of humour. 
 
 " Hands up, Joe," he said ; " she takes us. And 
 Lor', it's worth it ! I never saw a girl hke you." 
 
 " No more did I ! " said Pat McGhie. " I've often 
 remarked as much myself." 
 
 " But now," said the Knifer, " now you've got us 
 here, and the door shut, what do you mean to do 
 with us ? Not the police, eh ? 'Cause we would have 
 to make a rush for it then, Webleys or not ! " 
 
 " Any more of you ? " said Pat, easily, as if she 
 could have undertaken all " St. Jacob's." 
 
 " Only a little 'un below," said the Knifer ; " a 
 boy, in the cupboard opposite the dining-room door, 
 wonderin' what the mischief is up." 
 
 Never a muscle of Pat McGhie's face betrayed 
 that she was not surprised at what she heard. The 
 youth from Gregg's had described the small sturdy 
 boy in the bowler hat with the mourning band round 
 his arm. But, of course, that had conveyed nothing 
 to her as to the identity of her friend and ally. 
 
 " Well," said Patricia, " I don't know that there's 
 much in the house you would care about. All the 
 folk — and all the silver — are down at the seaside.
 
 104 KID McGHIE 
 
 But if you will let bygones he bygones — why, I'll 
 see what I can do for you in the way of supper. And 
 as your bags look somewhat heavy, I'll drive you 
 over to the station in time for the late train back 
 to town — the boat train, you know." 
 
 Knifer Jackson burst into another approving 
 chuckle of laughter. 
 
 " Well, if you aren't a fair good plucked one,'* 
 he said. " I've seen some in my time, but never 
 one that could sit there picking her teeth and holding 
 up a couple of first-flight classy ' breakers ' ! Oh, 
 what would they say at ' Blind Jacob's ' ? " 
 
 " If my sister Marthe had been at home," said 
 Patricia, with a httle smiling toss of her pretty 
 black head, " she would have talked to you properly, 
 I daresay — shown you what bad, had men you were, 
 and all that. But I suppose you know. At any 
 rate, you didn't come down here to be told, did you ? " 
 
 " Well," said the Knifer, grinning, " I think we 
 can get on without the sermon ! " 
 
 " Oh, / won't bother you," said Pat McGhie, swinging 
 herself to the ground. " I'll feed you, though ! 
 Where's the little one you spoke about ? " 
 
 The Knifer opened the door and called up the 
 astonished Kid, who came trembling, not knowing 
 what might await him in the study. 
 
 " Well, young 'un," said Patricia, not the quiver 
 of an eyelash revealing that she recognised her former 
 patient of the garden house, " you have made a nice 
 start in life. But never mind, you won't be any the 
 worse of a good supper. Here," she cried, suddenly 
 tossing the revolver on the shelf, " I can't cook a 
 supper with deadly weapons getting into the frying 
 pan. Look me in the eye, you three. Now, I have 
 dispensed with my revolver, and have no weapon 
 concealed about my person more deadly than a hairpin. 
 So pile your armoury behind the door there, if you 
 please." 
 
 " We have nothing but a knife apiece," said the
 
 PATRICIA'S BURGLARS 105 
 
 hero of that weapon, drawing his renowned blade. 
 Sulkily, Joe produced his. Patricia glanced at them 
 without in the least knowing what historical weapons 
 she was privileged to look upon. 
 
 " Oh, those little things ! " she said, carelessly ; 
 " better keep them for slicing the ham. Besides, 
 I am not sure how much of the kitchen cutlery we 
 shall find unlocked, and we may need to eat with 
 these and our fingers. We will just have to scratch 
 for it. You see you did not send me word you were 
 coming." 
 
 And with these words, she turned her back on the 
 astonished three and marched downstairs into the 
 kitchen. In a few minutes she had Knifer set to 
 slicing bacon. Joe was lighting the fire — which, hke 
 himself, was sulky — while the Kid cut and buttered 
 bread as fast as his arms would work. Patricia 
 superintended, occasionally rattling bottles in the 
 cellar, and every now and then skipping in upon them 
 to see that they kept steadily to their work. 
 
 The Knifer, with the pleasantest lurking smile 
 upon his lips that the Kid had ever seen there, regarded 
 Joe. He felt the need of winking at somebody in a 
 confidential manner, but finding Joe still morose, he 
 bestowed it upon the Kid, who beamed with pleasure. 
 Somehow his message via Gregg's boy had turned 
 out for the best, for all parties concerned — if even 
 the Knifer appeared pleased. 
 
 It was a meal never to be forgotten. Patricia, 
 a rose in her dark hair to do honour to the occasion, 
 and a jest even for stubborn Joe, sat at the head of 
 the table and passed the viands. The servants' 
 cutlery was found to be indeed locked up, but with 
 a condescending twinkle the Knifer himself stepped 
 to the drawer which Patricia was shaking with a 
 pretty, pettish spite. He drew something from his 
 pocket. 
 
 " Click ! " Metal just touched metal. No more 
 — and yet the drawer was open.
 
 io6 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Why," cried Patricia, indignantly, " you had 
 the key in your pocket all the time and never told 
 me ! " 
 
 Which appeared so funny to the sombre Joe of 
 the " Tinned-Horse " visage, that he haw-hawed out 
 loud, touched for the iirst time by the humour of 
 the feast. Altogether it was gay, and the Knifer 
 sang " My Pretty Jane " with many quaint, old- 
 fashioned gestures. 
 
 " It's rather hke Sims Reeves' style, I've been 
 told " — then he added, candidly, " heard through 
 a telephone, I mean ! " 
 
 " And, now, gentlemen," said Patricia, " I must 
 leave you to lock up the cutlery and wash the dishes. 
 There's nothing in the house I can offer you for a 
 souvenir, unless you each take a marble timepiece. 
 Everything is at the seaside or at the bank. Most 
 unfortunate, isn't it ? This young man and I will 
 go and yoke up the dogcart, and I'U have you at 
 the station in ten minutes." 
 
 It says something for the Knifer and his influence 
 over men and things that he actually kept Joe of the 
 " Tinned Horse " from turning the house topsy-turvy, 
 and even from swearing during Patricia's absence. 
 
 " The girl's a marvel," he said. " She has treated 
 us square, and so we've got to toe the hue also. Get 
 on with the washing up of these dishes, Joe, d'ye hear ? " 
 
 Out in the yeird Pat whispered hurriedly to the 
 Kid: 
 
 " Your father — your mother's husband, I mean ? 
 Can't you get away ? We could easily find you a 
 place. Of course I won't tell you sent me word by 
 that baker lad ! I was just in time. Five hundred 
 and thirty pounds — ^well, there's one gold sovereign 
 for you — all I've got. I'm always on the rocks some- 
 how ! Anyway, you come here, and I'll find you 
 something to do. Stand over there, will you, Dumple, 
 you silly old thing ! — I'm not a nosebag ! " 
 
 "Good night — good-bye!" she called to the men,
 
 PATRICIA'S BURGLARS 107 
 
 who had asked to be deposited in the shadow behind 
 the big bridge out of the range of the station incan- 
 descents. " Glad Dumple put some pace into it 
 to-night in your honour. Glad you enjoyed it." 
 
 She checked herself on the point of saying " Come 
 again soon ! " and laughed instead. 
 
 The Knifer stood and looked long after the vanish- 
 ing lights of the s\^ift dogcart till he could no longer 
 see the hthe, erect silhouette of the driver. 
 
 "Well," he said, slowly, "if I had been a swell, 
 which I ain't — if I had been a young fellow, which 
 I ain't — if I had been a single man, which I ain't — 
 if I had been an honest man, which I ain't — that's 
 the girl I would ha' married ! That — and no other ! " 
 
 But Joe of the horse face trudged, dogged and sullen, 
 within the white gates of the station, while the Kid, 
 very wide-eyed, wondered.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE PEDIGREE MAN 
 
 When the Kid got home that night, under the escort 
 of his stepfather, having at the same wayside junction 
 parted from Joe of the " Tinned Horse," it was late. 
 The house was ht up, seeing which the Knifer arched 
 his eyebrows and cocked his ears as he came upstairs, 
 holding by the stanchioned rope, which shd greasily 
 through his fingers. 
 
 Mrs. " Knifer " Jackson entertained friends una- 
 wares. She had not expected her husband home 
 that night. They could hear the voice of Mad Mag 
 singing, and at that sound the Kid shivered. It 
 recalled many memories of the bad old days at Kirk- 
 messan, and something, too, of his father. And 
 there was a lingering sweetness about that in spite 
 of the fear and the pain. Mad Mag had half killed 
 him, it is true, but — he had never had a cross word 
 from his father. 
 
 The Knifer pushed the door of his dwelling open 
 with a cautious art which had long become instinctive. 
 It consisted in carrying the door forward to the verge 
 of the first creak swiftly and without hesitation — 
 then stepping back. But, though the action was 
 instinctive, only experience of the particular door 
 will teach you where it begins to creak. 
 
 Mad Mag was seated on one side of the table, a 
 tall cut-glass tumbler, partly filled, before her, while 
 a young man, who looked like a cross between a 
 groom and an undertaker, sat opposite to her. 
 
 io8
 
 THE PEDIGREE MAN 109 
 
 The Knifer conveyed his hand to his side pocket 
 where his knife abode. His face was exceedingly 
 unpleasant to see. 
 
 " Well ? " he said, glowering down upon the pair, 
 and upon the bottles and glasses on the table between 
 them, " didn't expect me so soon, eh ? " 
 
 " Oh, Knifer ! " cried Mad Mag, instantly sobered 
 — as since that day in the Hunter's Bog she always 
 was by the steady regard of her husband — " this is 
 Alf — my brother, Alf Caigton. He's doing well in 
 the historical line. He's just come in to see me — all 
 on account o' David McGhie, the Kid's own father, and 
 family affection and old times ! " 
 
 " Ah," said the Knifer, dryly, *' how d'ye do, Mr. 
 Alf Caigton — glad to meet you, though you did drop 
 in awkward, and things might a' turned out a bit 
 different ! But all's well that ends well. Kid, here's 
 your uncle ! " 
 
 But the Kid, with instinctive dislike, edged off. 
 He would have nothing to say on any terms to the 
 brother of his mother, Mr. Alf Caigton, who, by 
 his sister's telhng, was " doing so well in the historical 
 business." 
 
 " Ye see," Mag went on, " Alf's the clever one. 
 He had more schoolin' than all the rest o' us put 
 together, and I'm not sayin' that he has misused 
 it. Not that he's ever done anything for his brothers 
 and sisters — but he's always done well for himself 
 — oh, remarkable well ! " 
 
 " That's to his credit, anyway ! " said the Knifer. 
 
 " Isn't it ? " said Mag, with a sisterly pride, " an' 
 the only one o' us as has ! " 
 
 " Square — or on the crook, Mr. Alf ? " asked the 
 Knifer, reaching out for the bottle, but without sitting 
 down. 
 
 " Straight ! " said Mr. Alf Caigton, " only a curious 
 kind o' straight ! " 
 
 " U-m-m-m ! Yes ! " said the Knifer, suddenly 
 letting himself drop into a chair, " I've seen them
 
 no KID McGHIE 
 
 sort o' straights afore. There's mostly something 
 crooked aback o' them. Well, out with it, young 
 fellow — what's your httle lay ? " 
 
 "Oh, I'll tell you," said Mr. Alf Caigton, tugging 
 at one of his sandy whiskers, which he wore to give 
 him a look of greater age than he possessed in the 
 registrar's books of Kirkmessan. " I'm in the pedigree 
 business ! " 
 
 " And what's that ? " said the Knifer, looking 
 at his brother-in-law over the top of his empty glass 
 — " sort o' Burke-an'-Hare lay — slug the people 
 first and look up their pedigrees after ! Nice, pleasant, 
 hght work to apprentice a lad o' spirit to, eh ? " 
 
 Mr. Alf Caigton smiled wanly. It appeared that 
 he had a similar fear of his redoubtable brother-in-law 
 to that which pressed upon the spirits of his sister. 
 " Oh, no, how funny ! " (He said " fanny.") " You 
 have such a flow of spirits, Mr. Jackson ! " 
 
 And he laughed heartily enough, but somehow 
 the sound did not seem to come quite from the right 
 place. The Knifer looked him over, and mentally 
 arranged that, if Mr. Alf Caigton's business was at 
 all lucrative, he should have his " whack " out of 
 it. He knew men ^vith laughs Uke that. 
 
 It could not be called a very roisterous party at 
 Mad Mag's that night. Everybody was more or 
 less uncomfortable — except the Knifer, that is, who 
 was calculating how much Alf Caigton should stand 
 him in, in the course of a fairly successful twelvemonth. 
 
 First of aU, however, he wished to be posted up. 
 
 " Tell us the truth, mind — the icy truth about 
 this pedigree biz," he said, " and how much you make 
 of it." 
 
 " It's Uke this," said Mr. Alf Caigton ; " I can do 
 
 a good bit with the pen " 
 
 All you've got to do is to put a hand-o'-write 
 before our Alf," interposed liis proud sister, " the signin* 
 of a man's name, or anything hke that. And with 
 a pen in his hand, in two minutes he will have it
 
 THE PEDIGREE MAN iii 
 
 copied that exact — why, the man won't know the 
 difference himself. It's been tried ! " 
 
 " I daresay it has," remarked the Knifer, grimly. 
 " It's just the sort o' accomplishment that wouldn't 
 be let rust in a fambly like yours ! But what has 
 that to do with pedigrees ? " 
 
 " Oh, just this, said Alf, willing to clear himself 
 from the aspersions which a sister's too eager pride 
 had caused to be cast upon his commercial integrity. 
 " I take too precious good care o' my skin to risk 
 fourteen 5^ear for forgery — a few years since it would 
 have been something else " 
 
 "Ah," said the Knifer, fumbling at his necktie 
 as if he found it tight, " the risks o' that are now 
 confined to my business. It keeps it more selec' ! " 
 
 " Yuss," said Mr. Alf Caigton, " I've been in England 
 a lot, an' in one place my handwriting got me made 
 secretary to a library, where there were piles an' 
 piles of old writings, some of them near to five hunder 
 year old. And you wouldn't believe the ugly fists 
 they wrote, and the shameful way they spelt. Now 
 my girl had given me the heave that year, and I 
 wasn't doing much — took no interest in going out, 
 you see. I never was a drinkin' man " 
 
 " No, I see that," said the Knifer, looking at the 
 low-tide mark in the rum bottle. 
 
 " I wasn't speakin' about my sister," said Mr. Alf, 
 who had followed the direction of the Knifer's eyes. 
 
 His brother-in-law nodded approvingly. He might 
 have fear tingling up and down his backbone, this 
 pedigree man — thought the burglar — but, at any 
 rate, he was no fool. So much the better. He would 
 earn more. 
 
 " Perceed ! " said Knifer Jackson. And the tale- 
 teller went on. 
 
 " It's Hke this," he began again, as if from the 
 beginning. " I learned to read and to write the 
 rubbish, so as you couldn't tell the old from the new 
 — parchments chemically prepared, loads of the stuff
 
 112 KID McGHIE 
 
 inside the covers of old books. They stuffed them 
 like pillows in them days. Well, what I do now 
 is to find a joker who has had the 'oof -bird come 
 perchin' on his rooftree, but hasn't any more family 
 in particular than a stray lurcher dog. Then what 
 does he want ? Why, nine times out o' ten — pedigree ! " 
 
 " Well, Mr. Jackson, sir," (here Mr. Alf rolled a 
 cigarette with an important air which seemed to 
 amuse the Knifer hugely), " it cannot have escaped 
 the observation of a man like you, that anything 
 you want in this world can be had for money ! And 
 a pedigree is no exception ! None, sir, none — I 
 assure you. You can have it countersigned by a 
 Lord Munster King-at-Arms. You can have en- 
 gravings done in his widely circulated ' Visits to 
 Armorial Houses.' You can have the lives of your 
 progenitors writ, and if they was hanged, sir, you can 
 have the documents altered to say that they died at 
 Cressy an' Waterloo fightin' for their king, with fifteen 
 French spears buried in their manly bosoms ! We sugar 
 it to taste, sir, an' the charge is naturally accordin' ! " 
 
 The Knifer nodded, watching all the while with 
 eager interest. There seemed, after all, something 
 in the thing. But what brought such a top-sawyer 
 as Mr. Alf to the humble home of a plain, centre-bit 
 " breaker " like the Knifer ? That had still to be 
 explained. 
 
 " Yes," continued Alf Caigton, now thoroughly at 
 his ease in an atmosphere of what he took for admira- 
 tion, " it goes on four wheels, once you get a name 
 for it. One party recommends you to another as a 
 sure man and a good investigator. Now, I've got 
 the chief of a clan on, no less — a regular smasher " 
 
 " What's his ber-loomin' clan ? " said the Knifer, 
 scornfully. 
 
 " McGhie is his name," said Mr. Alf, and then 
 watching the swift alteration on his brother-in-law's 
 face, he added, hastily, " and, indeed, it's on that 
 account that I am here. It appears that my man
 
 THE PEDIGREE MAN 113 
 
 is some far-out relative of David McGhie, that boy's 
 father, and that there were certain papers in the old 
 house at Back Mill Lands which would help me. 
 This McGhie fool wants to be chief o' the name ! 
 Ha, ha ! And he'd pay good money for the papers. 
 They were in an old black box. I have the description 
 here." 
 
 He foraged in his breast pocket, and from a mass of 
 scribbled notes and nondescript material he produced 
 a memorandum from which he read as follows : " A 
 small black oaken box, clasped with iron, about one 
 foot nine every way, shaped Uke a tea chest ; nothing 
 in it but papers ! " 
 
 " I opened it with the coal axe the night before I 
 left," cried Mad Mag, " and there was nothing in it 
 but papers, as he says. I kicked it to the back of the 
 garret. And it's there yet. As far as I'm concerned 
 ye are welcome to it, Alf ! " 
 
 " But not as far as / am concerned," said the Kid, 
 coming suddenly into the circle of illumination pro- 
 duced by the lamp on the table. " / am The McGhie. 
 I am the chief of the name. Me and nae ither ! And 
 the papers are mine — mine — since my faither is killed 
 deid ! '^ 
 
 Even as one, the three faces were turned upon him. 
 His mother's face wore a scowl of fury. And had 
 she been alone with the Kid, it would have gone ill 
 with The McGhie. The clan might have required a 
 new head in very brief space indeed. Mr. Alf appeared 
 all taken aback and dumbfounded. It was as if one 
 had spoken from the dead. Only the Knifer's face 
 wore a grin of malicious pleasure. 
 
 " Spoken Hke a man, young 'un ! " he cried. " I 
 like to see a man stick up for his rights. The papers 
 are yours — not a doubt of it — and if we had but 
 thought, a little earher in the evening " 
 
 But he cut off sharp here. For, after all, he did 
 not know Mr. Alf, and the business which had given 
 the Kid and liimself the pleasure of Miss Patricia's
 
 114 KID McGHIE 
 
 society in the town of Kirkmessan was of a very 
 private nature indeed. 
 
 Mr. Alf smiled a " wersh " kind of smile, as cheerful 
 as drizzling rain in November. 
 
 " We'll take you in, then," he said, " in on the 
 ground floor too. I never meant anything else, of 
 course. You and me wiU work as partners. For 
 this McGhie pedigree, I have need of a smart boy to 
 open the doors of church vestries where books are 
 kept, to lose documents writ by me, where they will 
 be found in the nick o' time — churchyards, too, where 
 there are Httle alterations in the lettering of tomb- 
 stones to be made — I attend to that myself at special 
 rates. But I need a boy to look out and hold the 
 lantern so as to suit the chisel ! Now, if I mistake 
 not, you're that boy ! I wiU. give him a man's wage, 
 Mr. Jackson, and when all has passed the heralds' 
 office, and my man pays me, I will give him a share 
 of the take ! " 
 
 " Very well said — most liberally and nobly said ! " 
 cried the Knifer, " but what about me ?^' 
 
 " You ? " said Mr. Alf, taken very much aback. 
 
 " Yes, me ! " said the Knifer, knocking his clenched 
 fist on the table so that the bottles danced and the 
 glasses dirled and sang against each other. " I have 
 had the educating of that boy. I found him. I 
 made something of him. He has been out with me 
 at work this very day. He has my secrets. Such 
 as they are, they might hang a man, or maybe two. 
 I cannot let him go to another party without some 
 reasonable compensation, can I ? I put it to you 
 as an honourable man and a fair man, Mr. Alf Caigton, 
 is it Hkely that I will ? " 
 
 " Well, if you put it that way," said Mr. Alf, " per- 
 haps not ! But a boy can't be worth much to the 
 hke of you — a famous man — a young boy that doesn't 
 know anything almost. He's not worth much ! 
 And with me it would be all in the family, as it were ! " 
 
 " Very hke— not much to you ! " said the Knifer,
 
 THE PEDIGREE MAN 115 
 
 ** but to me he is worth gold — why, I picked him up — 
 I trained him. What shall we say, Mr. Alf ? Half 
 of everything, for me and the Kid between us, that is ? 
 And the other full half for you ? " 
 
 Mr. Alf rose to his feet, suddenly flushing hot. 
 
 " I'll see you " he began. But the Knifer was too 
 
 quick for Mad Mag's brother, as, indeed, one of his 
 profession and attainments would naturally be for 
 a mere parchment tumbler. Something razor-keen 
 and with a point to it pressed ever so gently against 
 Mr. Alf's throat, while the Knifer's left hand twisted 
 his jaw in an iron grasp. 
 
 " You have no objections, I think ! " said the 
 Knifer, softly. " Your sister will be on my side, I 
 feel sure ! She knows me T'* 
 
 " Oh, Knifer, for mercy's sake — ^no bloodshed ! " 
 cried Mad Mag, so anxiously that her brother felt the 
 sincerity in her tones, and knew that he was looking 
 out over the uttermost verge of time. Ever after 
 that he recognised eternity as a chiU blue thing which 
 buzzed. 
 
 " No, no ! " he said. " So it shall be, then ! Half 
 for me and half for you." 
 
 But privately Mr. Alf meant to do some very solid 
 lying with regard to his receipts. 
 
 " And mind, no jugghng with the accounts," said 
 the Knifer, as if reading his thoughts, " for you can't 
 get it off — not safely. You see, the Kid and me are 
 solid with Miss McGhie " 
 
 " Patricia," interrupted the Kid. 
 
 *' And we will find out to a farthing how m.uch 
 her father has paid you, Mr. Alf Pedigree-Hawker. 
 And if there's a white sixpence not accoimted for 
 when we come to settle, you'll wish you had never 
 been born ! " 
 
 On the whole, the Kid liked pedigree work better 
 than " Blind Jacob's." It was not that any moral
 
 Il6 KID McGHIE 
 
 sense was awaking in him, so raucii as that he v/as 
 ashamed, in the company among which he fomjd 
 himself at Mr. Molesay's mission rooms, to be thought 
 to have anj^thing to do with such a place. 
 
 The boys at Molesay's did not put on any " side." 
 But somehow, without actual lying, the Kid began 
 to deny his alma mater, and even, when he could 
 hide it from the Knifer, to shirk going there at all. 
 It was a much easier thing to say that his business 
 was to go about ajid copy old inscriptions in church- 
 yards. The question always followed, " And do 
 they pay you for that ? *' 
 
 To which the Kid could say, "Oh, yes, a pound 
 a week, sure ! " 
 
 For that was the truth, and carried respect at 
 the Cowgate Molesay Mission. Many full-grown men, 
 carters and so forth, did not make as much. The Kid 
 enjoyed the change in consideration exceedingly. 
 The comment which always followed was this : 
 
 *' Aye, they will be seekin' for hidden treasure, 
 dootless — or maybe — provin' a wuU ! " 
 
 For the litigious Scot likes nothing so much as a 
 wrangle over a disputed succession. So the reason 
 and end of the Kid's curious trade were clear to them 
 at once.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE HEIRESS ON PROBATION 
 
 It was about this time that Patricia became an heiress. 
 Or if not an actual heiress, at least an heiress on 
 trial. For her heiress-ship was conditional on her 
 good behaviour. Marthe, who knew the young 
 lady better than most, said that if that were the con- 
 dition, she would never inherit. The thing, long 
 pending, at last happened thus : 
 
 Patricia's mother's elder brother had been left 
 with all the riches of the family. He had married 
 a partner in life, carefully selected for the purpose. 
 He had imbued her with the idea of the enormous 
 importance of continuing the line of the Boreham- 
 Eghams, but, so far, with nothing else. They were 
 now two old people, childless, self-absorbed, vegetating 
 in a large country house within twelve miles of Edin- 
 burgh. 
 
 The Boreham-Eghams prided themselves on having 
 nothing Scotch about them. They went only to 
 the English church. They frequented only the ex- 
 clusively English society of the neighbourhood, and 
 they had two old retainers in the very un-Scottish 
 guise of housekeeper and — controller of the household. 
 At least that is the word which most nearly expresses 
 the fact. 
 
 Algernon Hammer and his wife had begun by 
 being simply old servants. They were looking forward 
 to a pension, and a " Boreham-Egham Arms " some- 
 where in the neighbourhood, when the increasing 
 willingness of the old couple to be dictated to, and 
 
 117
 
 ii8 KID McGHIE 
 
 their piteous appeals to Mrs. and Mr. Hammer to 
 continue at their posts, unconsciously riveted the 
 chains upon their aged necks. 
 
 After that, Egham Castle belonged to Mrs. and 
 Mr. Hammer, and the quaintly preserved old couple 
 upstairs never so much as ventured to give an order 
 in their own names. It was, " Ask Hammer about 
 this." Or, " I think it will be better before we go 
 further to call in Mrs. Hammer — she is in the habit 
 of looking to such matters for us ! " 
 
 But it was the matter of the heirship that brought 
 out the power of the Hammers most clearly. It 
 had often been discussed, if one of the boys McGhie 
 should not be brought from Balmaghie and invested 
 with the name, the responsibilities, and the perquisites 
 of the Boreham-Eghams. 
 
 But when Mr. Boreham-Egham had put this before 
 his downstairs lords and masters, the Hammers had 
 put the proposal out of court at once. It was simply 
 not to be thought about. A boy, indeed ! He would 
 turn all the quiet estabUshment upside down. He 
 would run over the grass. He could not be depended 
 upon to wipe his feet upon the mat, even when his 
 attention was called to the matter by a placard 
 written in Mr. Hammer's own hand. 
 
 No, the Hammers were clear upon this point. Other- 
 wise they would resign ! A successor to the long 
 De Boreham-Egham line — the article now dropped — 
 must be found. But a girl, not a boy. On that the 
 Hammers stood firm, and the sooner the two automata 
 sitting upstairs — " starved atomies " Mr. Hammer 
 called them, his own proportions being noways starved 
 — realised that the better. 
 
 " You see, Marigh," he said, " it gives us a longer 
 lease. A boy grows up — so does a girl, you say. 
 Right, she does. But a boy grows up into a young 
 man, goes to college, meets v^ith other young men, 
 becomes masterful, and then any day, bang, he may 
 turn us out of house and home."
 
 THE HEIRESS ON PROBATION 119 
 
 " But a girl might do just the same," said Maria 
 Hammer, who did not approve of the younger members 
 of her own sex. 
 
 " No — I beg your pardon, Marigh — I don't think 
 you quite catch my point," said Mr. Hammer, who 
 kept his brusque offensiveness for his master and 
 mistress, " what I mean is this. We could persuade 
 Master and Missus not to make the girl the actual 
 heir of our estates, till such time as choice had been 
 made of a suitable husband for the young person, 
 Marigh ! You understand ? " 
 
 And Mr. Algernon Hammer, satisfied with his own 
 proposition, squinted down at the purple gloss on his 
 dyed side-whiskers, and smiled cunningly at Marigh. 
 
 " I can't say as I do," said his wife, tartly. She 
 was a little skinny woman, with more knuckle bones 
 and nobby places about her, visible to the naked eye, 
 than shoidd have been allowed out of an anatomical 
 museum. 
 
 Patricia called her the ^Eohan harp at first sight, 
 *' because the wind would most assuredly whistle 
 through her — or if it did not, then the wind did not 
 know its business." 
 
 " Well, then," said Mr. Hammer, shutting the eye 
 which had examined the noble tapering copying-ink 
 cone attached to his left cheek, and squinting down 
 the other side at its equally perfect neighbour, " I 
 wiU explain, Marigh, my dear." 
 
 " If you would not look so like a blessed Shanghai 
 rooster which has choked itself trying to part its tail 
 down the centre, perhaps you might be able to do 
 it easier," interrupted his wife. 
 
 " I will explain," said Mr. Hammer, imperturbably. 
 " The young lady " 
 
 "Person," said Mrs. Hammer; "we will call her 
 ' person,' if you please, tiU we see how she is going 
 to behave herself ! " 
 
 " ' Person,' then," amended Hammer, his hand 
 travelling unconsciously up to^his favourite left cone.
 
 T20 KID McGHIE 
 
 " This young person would no doubt attract many 
 suitors, our estates being large and not involved, 
 thanks to our fostering care. A proper selection 
 would need to be made. Now, Marigh, who do 
 you think is to make that selection ? " 
 
 " Why," said Mrs. Hammer, " I suppose in these 
 days, when there is no respect for authority, as there 
 was when I was young, the — ah — person would expect 
 to choose for herself." 
 
 " Not a bit of it," cried Controller Hammer triumph- 
 antly. " Not a single bit. Why, it 'ud be us — 
 you an' me, Marigh-yah ! " And he slapped his wife 
 on the back. 
 
 " I wish you would keep your great paviers' jumpers 
 to yourself ! " said Marigh-yah tartly. " Say what 
 you have got to say without slappin' me as if I were 
 a horse you were ' come-over-ing ' in the stable ! " 
 
 Presently, however, she relented, and letting her 
 curiosity get the better of her, said, " You've some 
 idea, Hammer, I can see that. What is it ? Out 
 with it ! " 
 
 " Well," said Hammer, slowly and almost reluc- 
 tantly, for the idea, once shared, would never be 
 quite his own again, " we-e-il, Marigh, it's this. We 
 have enough influence with old Pads-and-Puffs up 
 there — you on your Fringe-Flannel-and-Slipper side, 
 and me with old Stays-and-Chokers — to keep them 
 from making the girl the heiress — till the prince 
 consort, as one might say, is chosen ! And then 
 the man would be chosen that would pay us the 
 biggest sum of cash down — no percentages on the 
 dowry for yours truly — for all our trouble, and the 
 comfort of our declining years, eh, Marigh ? " 
 
 Marigh rose and caressed the nearest tail of coal- 
 black whisker with unwonted tenderness — a tenderness 
 which she never manifested save in the immediate 
 prospect of financial advantage. 
 
 " You have a nut, Algy," she said, affectionately, 
 " I've always said it — you have a nut ! "
 
 THE HEIRESS ON PROBATION 121 
 
 Marigh — which was Mr. Hammer's way of pro- 
 nouncing " Maria " — thought awhile, and then with 
 a keen look at her husband, she added her rider. 
 
 " But," she said, " first of all we've got to choose 
 the girl — the girl heiress. And I'll do the choosing. 
 No hussies in this house, if you please ! ^Vhen you 
 want to pull your coal-black whiskers at anybody, 
 Algernon Hammer, you pull them at me, under- 
 stand ? " 
 
 And Algernon Hammer, with a sigh, said that 
 he did — fully. 
 
 • » •   • 
 
 Thus it came to pass that while the scandal of 
 Patricia's unwarrantable behaviour in letting the 
 burglars escape unpunished was stiU fresh in the minds 
 of aU the family of the McGhies {i.e., the younger 
 branch thereof), Mr. P. Brydson McGhie received 
 a letter one morning at the seaside which set him 
 pondering deeply and with reason. 
 
 It was no less than a communication from Mr. 
 Phihp Egbert Egham Boreham-Egham, of Egham 
 Castle, his wife's only brother, saying — after the 
 usual apologies for seeing so httle of him and his 
 interesting family — that it was his intention and 
 that of his wife to leave all their estates — of considerable 
 extent and value, even in these times, as Mr. McGhie 
 knew — to one of his daughters, who, upon her marriage, 
 would be required to take the name and style of Bore- 
 ham-Egham. It would, therefore, in these circum- 
 stances give Mr. P. E. Egham Boreham-Egham great 
 pleasure if, in order the better to carry out these 
 intentions, which he had already communicated 
 to his lawyer, the three young ladies — he was informed 
 that there were three — would accept an invitation 
 to visit Egham Castle at a date which would be con- 
 venient to them. Any time would suit Mr. and Mrs. 
 Egham Boreham-Egham. They did not leave the 
 castle except for the shortest possible periods.
 
 123 KID McGHIE 
 
 This letter created great joy and satisfaction in 
 the breasts of both Father and Mother McGhie. Egham 
 Castle, and one of their daughters the heiress to it, 
 was, indeed, a very different thing to " Balmaghie," 
 with double turned commas. Patrick {J. P.) felt 
 that these must be suppressed at once. Also the 
 sooner that his pedigree could be put on a proper 
 footing the better. So that same mail that bore 
 the acceptance of the Egham Castle invitation carried 
 a letter also to Mr. Alfred Caigton, armorial expert, 
 late of Register Street, Edinburgh. The latter 
 document was strictly private, but contained a wish 
 to see Mr. Caigton " in this part of the country with 
 aU documents " as soon as might be convenient, 
 and the sooner it was convenient the better worth 
 Mr. Caigton's while Mr. P. Brydson McGhie would 
 be inclined to make it. 
 
 " The McGhie " was rising in the world, and as 
 chief of the clan and name, with a daughter heiress 
 of Egham Castle, he did not see why even the 
 long-dropped title of Earl McGhie should not be 
 revived in the family. 
 
 " The Earl McGhie of Boreham and Egham " 
 would certainly be a title worth taking to bed with 
 one on winter nights. It was a pity, of course, that 
 his relative, stupid old fossil that he was, had not 
 chosen Gilbert or one of the boys. But he was one 
 of those fussy old feUows whom it was no use trying 
 to influence. He would have his own way. He had 
 had it all his hfe, and if he wanted to adopt one of 
 the girls, weU, they were each of them, particularly 
 and severally, at the disposal of Mr. P. E. Egham 
 Boreham-Egham for the aforesaid purpose. 
 
 Such was the official view at Balmaghie, which 
 was not even damped by a curious paragraph, added 
 to the letter of invitation, apparently as an after- 
 thought 3 " As both my wife and myself are in a 
 somewhat precarious state of health, it will be better, 
 if you think well of this, to fix times and seasons.
 
 THE HEIRESS ON PROBATION 123 
 
 and make aU the necessary arrangements, with Mr. 
 Algernon Hammer, the controller of our household, 
 for many years our faithful and attached servant." 
 
 But, even so, the White Waistcoat and the Brown 
 SiUc Sacque, trimmed with double niching and passe- 
 menterie, which between them represented the ob- 
 servance of the fifth commandment to the three 
 McGhie girls, were perfectly satisfied. Evidently, 
 with a controller of the household, all things were 
 done decently and in order at Egham Castle. 
 
 Praise be to Allah ! it would be a goodly heritage. 
 
 Such, as I have said, was the view official, that 
 of the study where the rents were paid, complaints 
 made, and loans adjusted, and of the large drawing- 
 room to which visitors who did not know enough to 
 ask specially for *' the young ladies " were shown. 
 
 Far different was the reception of the news in the 
 girls' parlour, in the schoolroom, the box room, and 
 generally wherever the younger members of the Clan 
 McGhie were gathered together. Exasperation ruled 
 chiefly in the boys' minds. 
 
 " What," cried Bob, indignantly, " what would 
 a pack of girls do with all those fine shootings and 
 estates and wads of money and stacks of bank notes ? 
 Just give them to some other fellow, not her brother ; 
 indeed, very Hkely no sort of kin to her at all." 
 
 This was so many different kinds of shame, that 
 Bob had finally to leave his brothers to do justice 
 to the situation. His vocabulary gave out early. 
 Gilbert proposed that they should go down to Egham 
 in a body and interview " the old pigs." He referred 
 to his uncle and aunt. But though there was a fine 
 manly spirit about this proposal, there was also 
 something which was not — not quite practical. " Be- 
 sides," added the cunning Gilbert, after he had thought 
 the thing over, " if Marthe married, it would be old 
 Symington, you know, who could never fire a gun, 
 not if the pheasants were rising as thick as sparrows 
 in a barnyard."
 
 124 KID McGHIE 
 
 Such a brother-in-law would be worth having. 
 He would have all the swot of rearing the poultry, 
 and then, as for the shooting, why, the McGhies, 
 Marthe's brothers, would attend to that. 
 
 Atalanta was a more difficult case. She was 
 evidently going to marry. Fellows were already 
 inclined to "go silly " over Baby Lant. They had 
 all noticed that. Why, in the holidays, there was 
 Maurice Benson, the captain of the school, who made 
 three figures against the West of Scotland, and all 
 the three weeks he could never be got to do a single 
 thing — only fetch cushions for Baby Lant. All because 
 she had big blue eyes and was too lazy to live ! Why, 
 they had big blue eyes, too, at least Bob had, and 
 they could be as lazy as any girl. But nobody went 
 and waited hand and foot on them ! Actually Maurice 
 Benson never put on his " pads " the whole time he 
 was with them. It was enough to disgust three 
 honest, self-respecting boys for life. 
 
 But *' Pat " — ah, there lay their hope ! Pat was 
 a good fellow. Pat was all right. As hke as not she 
 would never get married at all. No one ever made 
 love to her the way Mr. Symington did to Marthe, 
 or as all the " softs " of the neighbourhood went mooning 
 and spooning about Baby Lant. But the fellows 
 all chummed with Pat, though. And it would be 
 A.I. and no error, if these old Egham pigs would just 
 be so obliging as to " up 'n' die " and leave Pat the 
 heiress after a month or two. 
 
 *' Where Boreham-Eghani had been Lord of all 
 Since the wild Picts drave at the Roman Wall," 
 
 chanted Gilbert, who had been getting '* Boreham 
 Hall " by heart. 
 
 But in the girls' parlour was battle, murder, and 
 sudden death — war, pestilence, and the sound of a 
 trumpet. As for Patricia, the snorting of her horses 
 could be heard unto Dan !
 
 THE HEIRESS ON PROBATION 125 
 
 Mar the first, in right of seniority ; "I won't and 
 I shan't," she wept. " I don't want their old thousands 
 — ^their nasty acres ! I want to stay here, just where 
 I am — ^no, not just what I am. I won't do it for 
 father or mother — nor for the whole pack of your 
 old Boreham-Eghams " 
 
 " They aren't mine ! " said Baby Lant ; " I'm 
 sure I don't want the horrors — never go out of the 
 liouse, they say — stuck up there Hke mechanical 
 dollies that won't work ! " 
 
 *' Yes, Marthe," said Patricia, tenderly for her, 
 " we understand — you shan't have to go, if we can 
 help it. Count on us. We will cover your retreat. 
 But you must behave ever so badly when you 
 get there. We must, I think, change characters. 
 That's the way to disgust the old frumps with you. 
 Then, after that, you can come back here and marry 
 Willie " 
 
 And seizing a convenient chair back, she made it 
 revolve, while she herself waltzed round it, singing 
 to an unkenned tune : 
 
 " O gentle wind, that bloweth south, 
 From where my love repaireth. 
 Convey a kiss frae his dear mouth, 
 And tell me how he fareth ! 
 
 " O Willie's rare and Willie's fair, 
 And Willie's wondrous bonny, 
 And Willie promised to marry me 
 Gin ever he married ony ! ' ' 
 
 The last lines were rather jerkily delivered, owing 
 to the fact that the singer had at the same moment 
 to sing, to keep the chair revolving in the measures 
 of the dance, and to evade the wild sweeps of Marthe, 
 who had flung herself upon her sister, half laughing, 
 half crying, and was trying to stop her with her hand 
 over her mouth.
 
 126 KID McGHIE 
 
 (( 
 
 For shame — how can you ! " she gasped. 
 
 " Oh, quite easy — like me to begin again ? " panted 
 Patricia. " There's ever so manv more verses — all 
 about ' Sweet Wilhe ' ! " 
 
 " For pity's sake," cried Marthe through her tears, 
 " do be sensible. You are never sensible, Patricia. 
 You make fun of everything, and this means all the 
 world to me ! " 
 
 "There, there, don't cry," said Pat, catching her 
 sister about the waist and pulling her on to her knee, 
 " we wiU call you out of this game, eh, Baby Lant ? " 
 
 " I say, Babe," Pat went on, stroking Marthe's 
 smooth brovra head in a way all her own, which she 
 knew Marthe hked, " we shall form the ' Marthe 
 Protection Society,' with secretaries and treasurers 
 aU complete — same as they do over at your Willie's 
 church for the Aborigines and the Condemned Criminals 
 Aid Society, and the Highlands and Islands ! Very 
 ungrateful these Highlands and Islands are, though. 
 For they are always saying that Willie and aU the 
 other ministers are going to the bad place, because 
 they don't believe the same thing as John Knox 
 and those old people did ! I wouldn't have any 
 more collections for them, after you are married, 
 if I were you, Marthe ! " 
 
 " Oh, I wish you would not," said Marthe, Hfting 
 her tear-stained face and looking piteously at her 
 sister, *' you just spoil everjiihing. You know that 
 he has never said a word yet. He thinks that he 
 (jught not — that we are rich and he is poor — and, oh, 
 I wish I had never been bom ! " 
 
 " Marthe, my httle Marthe," said her younger 
 sister, " don't, I tell you, don't. It will all come right. 
 He does care, anyone could see that, the very blindest. 
 And he shall speak, if I have to call and ask his 
 intentions with father's Webley. There, I won't 
 make fun. But trust us, Baby Lant and your old 
 Sis Pat, we can paddle our own canoe, and it wiU be a 
 very remarkable prince consort who can get much
 
 THE HEIRESS ON PROBATION 127 
 
 change out of us ! Anyway, we wiU see you on the 
 right side oi the fence, and 
 
 " ' Marr-ri-ed to your Willie, marr-ri-ed to your Willie, — 
 With nothing to fear and two hundred a year, 
 Marr-ri-ed to your Willie !' " 
 
 She was a cheerful young woman to have in the 
 house, this Patricia McGhie. So, in the giris' pariour 
 a plot was hatched on the spot. 
 
 " We've got to go to that horrid old castle. Mother 
 has to go with us. For aU the use she'll be, they 
 might as well have sent " 
 
 " Patricia ! " cried Marthe, " think of the first 
 commandment with promise ! " 
 
 " Pshaw ! " exclaimed Patricia ; *' I could do with 
 a little less promise to our commandments. If they 
 would only leave out heiressdoms and Egham Boreham- 
 Eghams — scissors ! it sounds like a real ham-and-eggy 
 Scotch breakfast, served by men in kilts with cock's 
 feathers in their bonnets, like they have at some 
 of the Highland Railway Hotels ! " 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't say ' like they have,' " cried 
 Marthe ; " I'm sure Miss Cleary told you often enough 
 it was vulgar ! " 
 
 " Marthe, you were bom ungrateful," remonstrated 
 Pat. " Here we are. Babe and me, planning every- 
 thing, so that you may be poor and happy all your 
 life. And you go and chuck Miss Cleary at our heads 
 about grammar. Pretty Irish accent she had, if 
 it comes to that — the owld fuzzy-haired Skye-terrier- 
 worshipping darlint ! " 
 
 " Patricia ! " 
 
 " Now, Marthe," said Pat, soberly, " if you are 
 going to go off at intervals like a heavy paternal 
 one-ton gun, commit-his-body-to-the-deep, I'll pack 
 you off this minute to be an heiress, and you'U never 
 see your ain dear Willie — never no more at all. Besides 
 I'll stop stroking your head, and you won't like that I
 
 128 KID McGHIE 
 
 Just dry up till it stops raiuin', as the poet Drydeii 
 says in his ' Odyssey ' ! " 
 
 " I don't behave he ever said any such thing ! " 
 cried Marthe, with her head nestled on her sister's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Oh, very well then," said Patricia, " call your own 
 nearest and dearest a har — just when she is prepared 
 to make a virgin martyr of herself and become rich 
 beyond the dreams of Thingumbob, all for your 
 ungrateful sake. Do it ! It's all she can expect ! " 
 
 " Patricia, I wish you wouldn't ; my head aches," 
 said Marthe, plaintively. " I can't go through every- 
 thing — making fun and talking to burglars and cheeking 
 the universe, Uke 5''ou." 
 
 Patricia let her hand drop, pretending to be struck 
 dumb by the last words. She sighed wearily. 
 
 " That it should have come to this ! " she cried. 
 " Only to think that my own eldest sister should have 
 said such things about me — a poor, innocent girl 
 like me, ready to take every pemiy she is ever likely 
 to possess in the world — ' going about cheeking the 
 universe.' She said I cheeked the universe ! These 
 were her words ! Oh, Marthe ! " And she made 
 pretence to sob. 
 
 But Marthe was not in the least put about — this 
 time. 
 
 "Go on stroking my head, Pat," she said, "and 
 tell me what j^ou are going to do when you get to 
 Egham Ccistle ! " 
 
 " Wait and see ! " said Patricia, mysteriously. 
 " I daren't tell you now ! " 
 
 And really she could not, for she did not know. 
 
 Before they went, their mother's person had to 
 be newly covered up with the richest purchasable 
 materials, arranged by the best dressmakers in the 
 style appropriate to middle-aged ladies of respectable 
 position. And the eldest of the three girls ? What
 
 THE HEIRESS ON PROBATION 129 
 
 was the nature of her leave-taking with Mr. Symington, 
 would never have been revealed by Marthe, if it had 
 not been for Pat's unjustifiable interference. He 
 walked home with her under one umbrella from the 
 Back MiU Lands Mothers' Meeting. Pat met them 
 near the turn of the walk, which is just not commanded 
 from the window of P. Brydson McGhie's study. 
 
 " You'd better do it here ! " she said. " Ten yards 
 farther on, father'll spot you I " 
 
 Which glaring slang Marthe could not resent under 
 the circumstances, as, in the interests of the departed 
 Miss Geary, she felt that she ought. 
 
 " Now," said Pat, coming back after a season — 
 and a season — spent looking for brambles on rasp- 
 berry bushes, " I suppose j^'ou feel very poor and mean 
 and churchyardy, you two. But cheer up ! Baby 
 Lant and I wiU protect her with our Uves. We will 
 be content to live miserable and rich all our days, 
 and bring her back to two hundred a year and you, 
 Brother WiUie ! " 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Marthe, faintly, from some undefined 
 locality where her cries were half stifled. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " said Pat, sharply. 
 
 " What you called him ! " said Marthe, freeing 
 herself with an effort. " Think shame ! " 
 
 " Well, he is, isn't he ? " said Pat, easily. She 
 loved clear understandings. " You are going to be 
 our dear Brother Willie, aren't you ? " 
 
 "It is my most precious hope ! " said the Rev. 
 WiUiam Heath Symington, with whose dark Inverness 
 cloak Marthe's hat and feather had become tangled 
 in the twilight. 
 
 " Ah, I thought so," said Pat. " Better be, too ! 
 Do either of you think that I would be mussing about 
 here at this time of night, when I should be packing 
 my duds, laying out my war paint, dodging father's 
 genealogical lectures, and inventing excuses why you, 
 Marthe, have not yet come in, if he wasn't to be my 
 dear Brother Willie ? I say, I suppose it is two
 
 130 KID McGHIE 
 
 hundred a year you have — I want to know. Father 
 won't ask him, and I don't suppose that you ever 
 thought of it, Marthe. So / must." 
 
 " I daresay \\dth the httle I earn in other ways, I 
 can make it somewhat more than that," said Mr. 
 Symington, blushing and stammering. 
 
 " What other ways ? " demanded practical Pat. 
 " Grab it out of the church door plate under cover of 
 your gown as you go by ? " 
 
 " Oh, Patricia ! " cried Marthe, plaintively. " She 
 doesn't mean it ! " she added from the retirement to 
 which she had returned ; " Pat is always like that." 
 
 " And a good thing for some silly httle fools that she 
 is ! " said Patricia, emphatically. 
 
 " I am getting a fairly good connection with the 
 press," explained Mr. Symington. " Last year I 
 made at least £60. I give you my word of honour 
 I did not grab it from the offertory, as you suggest. 
 I use that only as a last resort. Sister Pat ! " 
 
 " That's where your brown Jou\dn gloves came 
 from, I bet ! " said Pat, with strong certainty. " Let's 
 see, Brother Willie — ;£26o and a manse, with no taxes 
 to speak of, and no bad habits except that of buying 
 Jouvin gloves — well, you may manage. But, Brother 
 Wilhe, you will have to shake up your old newspaper 
 editors and get some more money out of them ! " 
 
 " I daresay I could," said Mr. Symington, " if I had 
 the incentive ! " 
 
 " Don't worry, I'll be your incentive ! " said Pat, 
 viciously. " If you don't do your duty by Marthe, 
 you'll have to settle with me ! Come — to horse — 
 away ! No, not a moment more — I forbid the banns. 
 Most hard-heartedly do I forbid them ! Never been 
 taken that way myself, and may Allah and all the 
 minor prophets preserve me. Good night, Brother 
 Wilh^. Go home and get out the long pole you stir 
 up the editor fellows with ! Think of me ! " 
 
 As the minister went home he thought within his 
 black-coated bosom that he had never seen such a girl
 
 THE HEIRESS ON PROBATION 131 
 
 as Patricia. But, being a man with a taste for the 
 plain dishes at a feast, he concluded with a private 
 thanksgiving that Patricia McGhie was to be to him 
 only a sister-in-law and not a wife. 
 
 Dear, sweet, simple httle Marthe ! He could see 
 her all day mo\dng about the httle manse. Patricia 
 didn't fit there, somehow. 
 
 Meanwhile Baby Lant tranquilly arranged her 
 wardrobe. She was quite content with her sphere 
 and station in hfe — to be known as " the pretty Miss 
 McGhie," to stay in the comer of a sofa and have 
 desirable young men, riding on horses, come and tell 
 her so — that was in the meantime quite enough for 
 Baby Lant. 
 
 As for Patricia — she didn't care one way or the 
 other. She knew that in any case, at home or abroad, 
 she would have to do the collar work for the family. 
 She could see herself nursing Marthe's babies — 
 smacking them, too, bossing Gilbert at College, re- 
 forming Bob, and arranging who Baby Lant was not 
 to marry. 
 
 She knew it would aU fall on her. She had never 
 expected anything else. It was what she was made 
 for.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 EGHAM CASTLE 
 
 When Mrs. McGhie and her three daughters reached 
 Egham Castle, the ancestral abode of the De Boreham- 
 Eghams, all that one of her daughters remarked was, 
 " Well, it looks it ! " There is no use indicating the 
 speaker. 
 
 Egham Castle had been built inTthe later years 
 of the eighteenth century, upon a superb site, sur- 
 rounded by miles of woodland — now temporarily 
 impoverished, said good judges, by the rapacity of 
 Controller Hammer, who had no notion of the use 
 of a tree except as timber bringing in so much per 
 cubic foot, and who never thought of spending a 
 penny upon planting or fancy forestry. 
 
 Egham was a fine old Palladian house, with a 
 double front flight of steps wide enough for a Roman 
 temple of Jupiter. Rows on rows of heathen gods 
 were stuck over the porch and disposed in niches, 
 the dolphins and thunder-bolts of the gentlemen 
 conspicuously ornamented with eaves' droppings and 
 sparrow work, and the ladies being in the taste of the 
 Regency, were mercifully green-moidded to suit the 
 conventions of another age and chmate. 
 
 The modern Egham Castle stood on the site of a 
 baronial fortress with round towers, crooked staircases, 
 wheel wells in the courtyards, and the recurring three 
 acorns of the ancient Saxon family of the De Boreham- 
 Eghams which had emigrated northward in the time 
 of Margaret, the queen of Malcolm Canmore. So 
 
 132
 
 EGHAM CASTLE 133 
 
 at least said the predecessors of Mr. Alf Caigton, 
 who had been at the bottom of the ancient books of 
 heraldry, even as he and his Hke are the foundation 
 stones of the new. 
 
 Two serving men on either side, the Hammers, 
 husband and wife, in the centre, welcomed the four 
 ladies to Egham Castle. 
 
 '* Mr. Egham Boreham-Egham hopes you will 
 excuse him," said Mr. Hammer, the points of his 
 shot-silk — purple-and-black — aniline whiskers waving 
 in the breeze. " Mr. Egham Boreham-Egham is very 
 dehcate, and the least exertion fatigues him. 
 Indeed, he has never quite got over the writing of the 
 letter of invitation ! " 
 
 Thus far Mr. Hammer. During the delivery of 
 this speech he had bowed four times, once separately 
 to each of the ladies. And already in his own mind 
 Mr. Hammer had made his choice — which, though 
 they did not know it, was all there was to the business. 
 
 They might just as well have turned about the 
 horses and gone back to the station — that is, all but 
 the heiress. 
 
 Mrs. Hammer, otherwise Marigh, bent also. She 
 was girt so tightly in stiff black silk that when she 
 bowed she crackled all over, like a broomy knoll on 
 a hot sunny afternoon in August, when the pods are 
 opening by dozens. 
 
 The MrGliie ladies were conducted upstairs into the 
 sixty-foot salon, at the further end of which, one on 
 either side of a meagre fire, as if to block it from 
 running away, Mr. and Mrs. Philip Egbert Egham 
 Boreham-Egham sat waiting. 
 
 They stood up to receive their guests, the gentleman 
 being " boosted " (as Pat remarked afterwards) by 
 Coaly Whiskers, while his wife, Marigh, did the same 
 office for the lady. The two figureheads of the house 
 retained this position sufficiently long to be kissed 
 by their four relatives, and then subsided into their 
 cha;r§ with a sigh of genuine relief. -
 
 134 ^ID McGHIE 
 
 if 
 
 '* T tell you what it is, Baby Lant," said Patricia, 
 
 if this performance is to be often repeated, I declare 
 I shall have to support myself during the ordeal 
 by hanging on to Mr. Hammer's purple elephant 
 tusks ! " 
 
 " For shame ! " said Marthe. " Mother says that 
 the Hammers are most valuable and faithful old 
 family servants, and that uncle and aunt do nothing 
 without consnlting them." 
 
 "I should think not," said Patricia. "Well, if 
 / am the chosen of Mr. Philip Egbert Egham Boreham- 
 Egham — why they don't call him ' omelet ' at once, 
 I can't think — if I have to support those whiskers, 
 they shall at least support me, that is if I have to 
 salute vmcle daily. Ugh ! It was like kissing the 
 wall of a new house when the plaster is still wet." 
 
 " Saluting aunt is hke kissing an old one, where the 
 plaster is green mouldy ! " said Baby Lant. 
 
 " You ought both of you to be ashamed of your- 
 selves," declared Marthe, sententiously. 
 
 " So we are, really, Marthe," cried Patricia, " only 
 it doesn't show on us." 
 
 " It certainly does not ! " said Marthe. " All the 
 same, they are the only uncle and aunt we have 
 got " 
 
 " And quite enough, too, if they are samples of 
 what the others would be," declared Patricia, trying 
 to kick off her shoes without untying them. 
 
 " Fusty old things," said Baby Lant. " I couldn't 
 stay here six weeks — not to be Prince of Wales. I 
 should run home and marry the gardener ! " 
 
 " For shame ! " said Marthe — more faintly, how- 
 ever. 
 
 " All very well for you, Marthe," said Pat, glooming 
 menacingly at the trim little figure, " with You- 
 Know-Who waiting for you, and improving every 
 shining hour by writing you screeds and screeds of 
 love letters ! But if, as I fear, it is my lot to remain 
 in this gay abode, an innocent lamb offered up to the
 
 EGHAM CASTLE 135 
 
 sacrifice for the sake of my esteemed fambly, well, 
 
 you know what a hive of bees does ? " 
 " Work ! " said Marthe. 
 "Sting!" said Baby Lant. "I should!" 
 " No — hum ! " declared Patricia, viciously. " Things 
 
 will ' hum ' in this sub-Arctic palace hall, as saith 
 
 Dryden the poet — I'll see to it personally — 
 
 ♦' ' That lots of things get up and hum, 
 
 Which once were good and dead and dumb I ' 
 
 See Dryden's ' Rape of the Lock ' ! " 
 
 " I don't believe Dryden ever wrote that, or the 
 *Rape of the Lock' either," said Marthe, "but I 
 shall ask Willie ! " 
 
 "Ah, Willie," said Pat, carelessly, " he had better 
 mind what he is about, contradicting me, or I shall 
 make it double the money before he can have you ! 
 Twice ^^260 is — is — how much is it, Marthe ? " 
 
 " You — you " cried Marthe, indignantly, unable 
 
 to get further. 
 
 " Yes, just me, and he knows it ! " said Patricia. 
 " I have got Httle WiUie on a string. He's scared 
 stiff for fear I should say, ' Avaunt — begone — never 
 shall I sully the McGhie ancestral tree with a Heath 
 Symington ! '" 
 
 " I dare you to say any such thing," cried Marthe. 
 " I shall marry whom I Hke. You've got nothing to 
 do with me ! " 
 
 " Oh, haven't I ? " cried Patricia. " All right, 
 little lady. I have only to behave badly, and you 
 shall be the heiress ! and say ' Yes, sir,' ' Certainly, 
 sir,' to the prince consort when Hammer brings him 
 up the stairs. And Wilhe will go out straight ofi 
 and drown himself in Yarrow, in spite of the fact — 
 which I think I mentioned before — that he is ' won- 
 drous fair and wondrous bonnie 
 
 " Patricia," cried Marthe, half laughing, half in 
 tears, " I wish you wouldn't speak like that. It 
 makes me all creepy ! It might bring bad luck ! "
 
 136 KID McGHIE 
 
 "Oh, bad luck — ^bad luck to it, " cried Pat, getting 
 ready for bed in a kind of misty whirlwind, her ward- 
 robe distributing itself to the four comers of the 
 room, while the other two conscientiously folded away 
 their things as at boarding school. The girls' rooms 
 were on the floor above their mother's, and, 
 happily, all communicated by practicable folding 
 doors. 
 
 There was a loud bump, the creak of long-disused 
 springs, as Patricia made a flying leap between the 
 sheets. 
 
 " The bed's been aired, that's one thing," she 
 cried. " I say, you two, if the Gray Lady of Egham 
 walks with her head in her hand, and the headsman's 
 axe that cut it off in the other, I shan't see her. For 
 I'm dead sleepy." 
 
 " Ooooh ./ " " Eeeeeceeeeh ! " came simultaneously 
 from Marthe and Baby Lant. " You horrid mean 
 thing, Pat ! Now I shan't sleep by myself — ^not for 
 a moment ; if it were ever so ! " 
 .' Five seconds after, Marthe and Baby Lant, having 
 much curtailed their toilette arrangements, were in 
 bed — one bed — clutching each other fast and with 
 the clothes pulled weU over their heads. 
 
 As for Patricia, she slept the sleep of the just. 
 She even snored a httle — that is, tiU she really went 
 to sleep. 
 
 The days of her sorrow were not yet. 
 
 It was the dark, dark night — the same night — 
 do's\'n in a well-furnished chamber on the ground 
 floor. From bedsteads riding at anchor in opposite 
 comers of the apartment Marigh and Algernon, joint 
 controllers of the house of Boreham-Egham, compared 
 notes, Hke rival cocks crowing at each other, each 
 from his own private coign of vantage. 
 
 "The eldest one looks the softest," said Marigh, 
 meditating into the thick darkness, " but, of course,
 
 EGHAM CASTLE 137 
 
 you can't never really tell till you try them. And 
 those dumpy, little, round, partridgy girls— well, 
 large families are so very unmanageable, and I can see 
 by the look of her that it's on us that the trouble of 
 rearing would fall. No ; on the whole, the second 
 pleases me best, Algernon ! " 
 
 Cunning Algernon waited till his wife had achieved 
 her catalogue, so that he might agree with her, and, 
 as it were, cUnch the matter at the proper moment. 
 
 " That second 'un," said Marigh, " she looks master- 
 ful, but " 
 
 " What do you think of Miss Atalanta, the youngest ? 
 Now she's a beauty, if you hke ! " remarked the 
 far-seeing Algernon, adding under his breath, " that's 
 enough, if I know Marigh ! " 
 
 He had selected Patricia at the first glance, before 
 the girls had followed their mother out of the carriage. 
 But he wanted it to appear as if the choice came from 
 Marigh. So he " queered " Baby Lant, as he would 
 have said, by praising her beauty. Marigh objected 
 to pretty girls on moral and personal grounds. She 
 would as soon have taken into her own house — Egham 
 Castle — a maidservant who came with the recom- 
 mendation that she had just done seven years' time 
 for highway robbery. 
 
 " I wonder to hear you, Algernon," cried Marigh, 
 a mere voice crying out of the thick darkness, ' I 
 do wonder to hear you — a proud, idle, vain thing, a 
 piece, a minx ! I saw her look in the mirror before 
 she had been half a minute in the room. I was helping 
 old Curl Papers up on her feet when I caught her at 
 it. And, when I was passing by the keyhole of her 
 door to-night, I heard her say that — oh, the shameless 
 minx ! — that if she had to kiss master again, she 
 would sustain herself by holding on to your whiskers 
 — your whiskers ! Can you imagine it ? " 
 
 Caressing the noble appendages in question, Algernon 
 began to think more kindly of Baby Lant. But 
 recognising that he had "fully committed himself,
 
 138 KID McGHIE 
 
 he " hemmed " a moment, and then said, " At least 
 there is nothing of that sort about the second, Miss 
 Patricia, eh, Marigh ? She does not look Uke a young 
 — person — with any entanglement. She won't have 
 young fools coming writing poetry to her, and with 
 never a thought in their heads but whether she is 
 pretty or not. No, she is not that style of girl. I 
 quite agree with you, Marigh. We always do think 
 aUke — in serious matters, that is. The second will 
 do, then — eh, Marigh ? " 
 
 " She's my choice, certainly," said his wife ; " she 
 was from the first, and what I heard at the keyhole 
 — well, that settled it ! " 
 
 The lady had not yet accustomed herself to dis- 
 tinguish the voices of the sisters, as heard through 
 keyholes. Nor did she appreciate their several char- 
 acters. Or she would never have credited Baby 
 Lant with such a speech. Therefore Patricia was 
 elected, chosen in conclave, as it were, at the very 
 first ballot. 
 
 The formal assent was given a few days after by 
 the voice of Mr. P. E. Egham Boreham-Egham. 
 
 " We are pleased with all three of your daughters, 
 sister," he said, while Hammer stood behind to make 
 sure that there was no mistake, " with all of them, 
 and very much so. But " (he added), " as it is neces- 
 sary to choose one for our heiress — there is no entail 
 on any part of the estates, it was broken in the early 
 part of the nineteenth century — it is our intention, 
 subject to your consent and that of my esteemed 
 brother-in-law, Mr. — ah — McGhie, that it shall be 
 your second daughter, Miss Patricia ! " 
 
 " Provisionally ! " said Hammer in his ear. 
 
 " Ah, yes," said the Lord of Egham, going on 
 hastily, like a schoolboy who has been reminded that 
 he has left his task half said, " that is to say, of course, 
 we will arrange the matter thus — ah — provisionally. 
 We must see to it that we suit the young lady, and, 
 ah — that the young lady is — is — amenable ! "
 
 EGHAM CASTLE 139 
 
 He paused a little, searching for the final word, 
 did nnf quite succeed, but took it in lieu of better. 
 
 During all this rather jolty and wire-drawn harangue 
 Mrs. McGhie had acted her part to admiration, though, 
 as usual, without saying anything articulate enough 
 to be set down on paper. But now, at last, she said a 
 memorable thing. 
 
 " Yes, yes, Philip Egbert," she replied, " I have 
 often remarked it. But how wonderful it is that 
 you should have found it out at the very first. Patricia 
 IS by far the most amenable of my daughters ! '* 
 
 In this way Patricia became provisionally an 
 heiress, and in the intervals of padding and powdering, 
 of dressing and undressing, bedding and unbedding, 
 the Lord and Lady of Egham Castle, the controller 
 and Marigh regarded her walk and listened carefully 
 to her conversation. 
 
 " She does seem an amenable young lady ! " said 
 Marigh, to whom this had been a new word. " Not 
 but what I should have liked her to show a little more 
 interest ! " 
 
 " Marigh,'* said Algernon Hammer, " for once — 
 only for this once, mind, Marigh — you don't know 
 what you are talking about. Lack of interest ! 
 Why, that's the very thing. She will do just what 
 we want and make no trouble. She writes letters, 
 but / post them. They are all to her family. She 
 finds herself a little homesick, no doubt, but that'll 
 wear off ! A good sign, I call it ! A most domestic 
 young lady, and very pohte. ' Mr. Hammer, and 
 how is your wife this morning ? ' ' Mrs. Hammer, 
 pleased to see you looking so young and healthy, and 
 how is your husband this morning ? ' — a very proper 
 spirit ! A beautiful spirit, I call it, in one so young ! 
 We could not have fallen on better. Not a word 
 about old Croaker Corsets, or old Madam Powder 
 Puffs. Bless you, that girl's head's screwed on the 
 right way. She knows which side her bread is but- 
 tered on. She's quiet, mark me, Marigh, but she
 
 140 KID McGHIE 
 
 sees as far through a wooden post as some ten times 
 her age ! " 
 
 " I hope, Algernon," said his wife, with a touch 
 of resentment at this long and high-pitched eulogium, 
 " that you will never have reason to change your 
 mind. No, I don't mean anything. I have no 
 reason to mean anything. But — a young woman 
 whose hair curls natural, and who walks the woods 
 Hke a Guards' officer, and whistles over her shoulder 
 to a pair of dogs, will bear watching. Oh, I do admit 
 that she's always been most respectful to me ! I 
 have no complaint to make. I only spoke for 
 your good, Algernon. A man is always that easy 
 took in ! "
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE FALL OF THE KID 
 
 " He's a ' hoodoo ' ! I tell you," said Com Beef Joe, 
 crossly. " I don't Imow how he managed it, but I 
 was one trip with that young man, and all we brought 
 home was our hide and our tools. It'U be a wonder 
 if we brings home as much this time. Kids is off ! 
 We of ' Bhnd Jacob's ' don't use them. And I don't 
 see that there is anything he can do for you, that I 
 can't." 
 
 Mr. Alf Caigton, the perfect tourist — knicker- 
 bockers, spats, Norfolk jacket, and broad heather- 
 mixture cap — ^looked at his companion, the same 
 lounging, lazy, dangerous rough as ever. Then he 
 shook his head. 
 
 Next he coughed because he did not want to quarrel 
 with Mr. Com Beef Joe. Then he said, " Well, the 
 tmth is, he can go with his innocent young face into 
 places where they would make short work o' your 
 phiz or mine ! " 
 
 " What sort o' places ? " said Com Beef, suspi- 
 ciously. One crib was the same to him as another, 
 except for the difference in the lock fittings. 
 
 " Well, you see," said the pedigree man, soothingly, 
 " it's this way : I have a job on up at Egham yonder — 
 the castle, you know. It's not money, for they don't 
 keep none. That beast Hammer has every ' make ' 
 in the bank in half an hour. Their silver is too heavy 
 to carry away, and isn't in my line, anjrway, though 
 being an old family they have some hunder-weights 
 of it. But it's the dockyments I'm after, and a thousand 
 
 141
 
 142 KID McGHIE 
 
 quid — sure pay, if I get them. I have to fork out a 
 fair half of it to the Knifer, though — who loans me 
 that boy, and who pays you, my friend, whether I 
 get the dockyments or not." 
 
 Com Beef said nothing, but only remained sulky. 
 
 " Well," continued the pedigree man, yawning in 
 the shade of the big fir tree under which they were 
 rechning, 'I don't suppose that you and I, Joe, could 
 make much of a figure up yonder in a tight suit and 
 buttons down the front, with a card tray for callers, 
 and fold our arms under our chins when the young 
 lady, wot they have chose for their heiress, drives 
 out in her dogcart." 
 
 " Wot," cried Joe, " he's never a ' tiger,' is he, that 
 Kid ? " 
 
 " But that's what he is, though," said the pedigree 
 man, " and no end of a good ' tiger ' he does make. 
 It was me that thought on it first, and he is lamin' 
 aU about the papers and boxes in that house, and 
 when the time comes he'U Hft them. Maybe we 
 won't have to set a foot on the carpets ourselves. 
 Perhaps you will have to open a safe — just as it 
 happens. Hammer — the boss butler — that's what 
 he is, don't care about nothing but money. But the 
 old boy, having nothing else to do, often takes a fit 
 of arranging his papers and all that. Then he locks 
 them up safe, and lies awake with the key round his 
 neck — old rattlesnake, he is — all rattles and no snake ! " 
 
 " Easy scragged, that kind," meditated Com Beef 
 Joe softly, his long bony fingers twitching as if grasping 
 something. 
 
 " Come," said Alf Caigton, uneasily, " I'm not on 
 for that kind of talk. Getting hung by the neck 
 tiU I'm dead won't help me any, nor them that pays 
 me. 
 
 " What I don't understand," said Com Beef Joe, 
 biting at a blade of tough grass between his black, 
 uneven teeth, and scragging a field cricket, as if it 
 had been the master of Egham Castle, " is — why,
 
 THE FALL OF THE KID 143 
 
 if the bloomin' heiress is the daughter of the chap 
 you're workin' for, and the papers he wants are in 
 the house where she is — why don't she up and get 
 them herself ? " 
 
 " Joe," said Mr. Alf, " you're a good fellow and 
 rehable as far as ye go. But there's axles within 
 wheels at this game. My old joker, he daren't tell 
 anyone but me what he's after, till I've all the papers 
 shck, and the tombstones superscribed, and buried, 
 ready to be dug up. Then he goes with all his proofs 
 in one hand and a thumpin' big cheque in the other, 
 to the bloke wot writes the arms an' pedigrees in 
 a book. Then after it has been printed and all dikkered 
 up with arms and chiefs of McGhie, and ' hald retour 
 of the lands of McGhie in 1227 a.d.,' and how he swam 
 in an ark of his own alongside o' Noah at the flood, 
 holding wireless communication with Shem and 
 Japhet — Ham never having learned his Morse and 
 being a disgrace to the family, anyway ! — why, 
 after that has stood a couple o' years and been copied 
 into all the other blue-blood manuals — why, McGhie 
 of Balmaghie, chief of that name, is as good as the 
 McCallum More and a great deal better than any one 
 of them beer lords, who have no ancestry to speak 
 of, except that their father made good beer and their 
 grandfather better — pity it's all drunk up now ! " 
 
 " But what does your McGhie do it all for ? " 
 inquired Com Beef Joe, mystified. 
 
 ' Just to get in wi' the nobs, him and his fambly," 
 said Mr. Alf, fluttering the leaves of his notebook. 
 " Perhaps if he proves that he has a clear descent 
 for three hundred years, they'll make him a baronet. 
 He has money enough. Or he'll go in for politics, 
 and give thousands and thousands to the treasure 
 chest of the party " 
 
 " Is it a Chubb, think ye ? " inquired Joe, whose 
 interest was professional. 
 
 " Oh, no, it just means giving money to help the 
 red or the blue politicians to win at the elections,"
 
 144 KID McGHIE 
 
 explained Mr. Alf Caigton, " an' if he gives enough 
 and often enough, they'll make him a lord, maybe — I 
 shouldn't wonder. But, mind you, to be rich is 
 the main thing. And this pedigree business is just 
 a frill to his shirt, so that when he gets made a 
 lord on account of his money, them he has to 'sociate 
 with won't say, ' Oh, wot an outsider ! ' " 
 
 " I see," said Com Beef Joe, " but it's blame non- 
 sense, anyway, to my thinkin ' ! '* 
 
 " U-m-m-m-m-m, yes ! " said his companion. " But, 
 you see, fakin' pedigrees is a small perfession and 
 well paid. You don't risk the rope. You live fat. 
 You have your ex's sure — no gnimbUng about 
 them. And if you can't find anything exactly to 
 the purpose — why, all you've got to do is to make 
 something ! Easy as comin' downstairs when you 
 slip on the top step ! " 
 
 Meanwhile the progress of the Kid at Egham Castle 
 had been rapid in the extreme. Almost at his first 
 entrance he had been able to conquer the hking of 
 Mrs. Hammer. Marigh had never seen such a willing 
 boy, so she told her husband. 
 
 Now Algernon's opinions with regard to all boys 
 whatsoever were exactly those of his wife with regard 
 to pretty girls. They must be naturally vicious, 
 and would bear watching. It occurred to Mrs. 
 Hammer, for instance, that the occasional gift of a 
 copper coin of the realm to the new " buttons" would 
 provide her with an excellent and inexpensive check 
 on the movements, sajdngs, and, especially, writings 
 of Miss Patricia McGhie. As our young friend was 
 still on her probation, she had not been compelled 
 to add the Egham Boreham-Egham to her name. 
 And, indeed, in contempt of all Celtic chiefships and 
 Saxon ancestors, she continued to sign her ha.sty 
 letters crisply " Pat " — that and nothing more. 
 
 The Kid had great opportunities for getting at 
 the secrets of his young mistress, if Pat had had any
 
 THE FALL OF THE KID 145 
 
 these days. But, vvdth a duplicity, which, as Mr. 
 Hammer would have been the first to point out, 
 showed his natural depravity, he promptly informed 
 Miss Pat of the propositions of that lady concerning 
 his duties as spy. He exhibited the coppers in triumph 
 and finally offered to tell " the old cat " just whatever 
 Miss Patricia wished her to think. 
 
 He was not, and could not be, a remarkably scru- 
 pulous Kid, Nevertheless, considering his upbringing, 
 he averaged pretty fair. 
 
 Pat contented herself with advising the Kid to 
 consider her as his best friend, and — when asked — 
 to say that " she was a good and dutiful young lady.' 
 " In saying which," remarked Pat, " you very much 
 understate the truth — but, at least at first, you had 
 better curb your youthful enthusiasm.*' 
 
 The instructions of Mr. Alf, communicated to the 
 Kid, were to spot a small, fiat, japanned box of papers 
 marked " McGhie." If possible, to carry it off 
 without creating any suspicion ; at the worst, to 
 locate it, so that it could be reached by Mr. Alf and 
 his associate — the Knifer being temporarily detained 
 by an engagement to work for Her Majesty in one 
 of her palatial mansions known to the vulgar as prisons. 
 
 The box would certainly be among the contents 
 of the big safe in the chamber of Mr. P. E. Egham 
 Boreham-Egham. Indeed it was his only occupation 
 to stick a long, sharp nose among the leaves of such 
 musty old documents. There was, it appeared, 
 no question of real theft. The papers had been 
 collected by Mr. Egham Boreham-Egham at an 
 earher portion of his Hfe, when Mr. Patrick McGhie 
 was wishing to marry Mr. Boreham-Egham's only 
 sister. These documents included papers showing 
 the descent of the said Mr. Patrick through a cattle 
 dealer, two pig drovers, and a tinsmith — so, as it 
 were, they focussed the plebeian extraction of the 
 " Balmaghie " McGhies. On these had been founded 
 the original strong objections to the marriage on 
 
 10
 
 146 KID McGHIE 
 
 the part of the owner of Egham Castle — objections 
 which had only been overcome by the young people 
 taking the law into their own hands, and running 
 away together. 
 
 You would never have suspected them of this 
 amount of spirit to look at them now, and only the 
 great bulk of wealth amassed by the pig dealer's 
 son had induced the ancient couple at Egham Castle 
 to look favourably upon one, at least, of their nieces. 
 
 It may well be understood then, that with such 
 vivid hopes of succeeding to a clan chiefship dating 
 from the stone age, Mr. P. Brydson McGhie did not 
 wish to be confronted with the drover and the pair 
 of pig dealers, not to speak of the tinsmith. Instead 
 of leaving his money to his eldest son, the chief of 
 McGhie was arranging to make a tiiist of it, out of 
 which each of his children should be paid a certain 
 yearly sum — Gilbert, of course, having the largest 
 share. Then out of the capital the trustees were 
 empowered to buy up all valuable pieces of land, 
 and good freehold houses coming into the market, with- 
 in a certain radius of his then property of Balmaghie. 
 Whereupon, as soon as Gilbert, or any of his other 
 children, or any direct male descendant of any of his 
 sons or daughters should receive a heritable title, 
 the whole capital of the McGhie trust was to be made 
 over to him, subject only to the hfe rents at that 
 moment payable, which hfe rents would of course 
 fall in with the deceases of the said hfe renters. 
 
 Thus a peerage, even a baronetage, became the 
 goal for aU the family of McGhie, and with the chances 
 of the Egham Boreham-Egliam cormection, and the 
 selection of a suitable prince consort, the betting 
 was heavy in favour of Patricia " scooping " the 
 whole family money. Meanwhile the McGhie boys 
 were being taught to support themselves. Gilbert 
 was going forward to be a surgeon, Tom driving 
 a steel nib in a lawyer's office — that of Messrs. Searle 
 and Dalmahoy, who had drawn up the McGhie Trust
 
 THE FALL OF THE KID 147 
 
 — while Bob, being the scapegrace of the family, 
 was, of course, destined for the ministry, though 
 at present he showed no desire to fulfil his 
 obligations in the way of passing the necessary 
 examinations. 
 
 All the boys, especially Bob, had the utmost beUef 
 in the fairness with which Pat, if she did " scoop in " 
 the dollars, would " divvy up." But -they did not 
 allow their minds to rest upon the possibility that 
 Pat's husband, when he came to his prince consortship, 
 might see the matter in a somewhat different hght. 
 
 " Well," said fair-minded Gilbert, " it's no use 
 abusing the governor. He made the money — he 
 and no other. And he can do what he likes with it. 
 Fm going to stick to dissecting — so as to get a good 
 resident's place in a hospital. Then, as soon as I 
 can afford it, I shall set up as a lady's doctor — very 
 swell — dreadfully expensive, in a tiptop locahty. 
 And if I don't knock out a baronetage for prescribing 
 whisky and lemon to some rheumatic old royal dowa- 
 ger, Fm a Dutchman, that's all. I think I can beat 
 Pat's young man. She doesn't look Uke a girl that 
 would get married in a hurry. Besides which, Fm 
 really the eldest son, and you know the Good Book 
 says, ' Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just ' ! " 
 
 The other McGhies did not dispute the quotation, 
 but having no great chance of attaining a peerage 
 or any other mark of distinction — except in the case 
 of careless Bob, the bankruptcy court — they continued 
 to pin their faith to the generosity and fair-mindedness 
 of " good old Pat." 
 
 It was in these complicated family circumstances 
 that the Kid, legal and real head of the Clan McGhie, 
 and son of David, late of Back Mill Lands, became 
 Pat's assistant and confidant in her first struggles 
 for independence in the Hammer-ridden house of 
 Boreham-Egham . 
 
 " I've got to stay here," she said, " at any rate 
 till Marthe pulls it off with her Sweet Willie. She's
 
 148 KID McGHIE 
 
 next favourite, and if I give up, she's in for it. And 
 it would break her heart, poor old girl. After all, 
 it's not much to do for one's family ! " 
 
 Luckily, at the moment, she did not know how 
 much there was to be done. For Algernon and 
 Marigh had not yet begun to deploy their forces. 
 They had not even settled upon the prince consort. 
 As usual the question of finance was the difficulty. 
 
 " You see," said Algernon, as this model couple 
 sat over their cup of afternoon tea, which the fair 
 hands of Marigh always prepared for Algernon, " we 
 don't want any of those old decayed famblies, with 
 no money. Lor' knows Old Poker and Lady Tongs 
 upstairs are decayed enough to serve for twenty 
 generations. There's young Tempest Kilpatrick, 
 over the hill, of course. He's a wild lot, and will 
 have money in time. But then he has none of it 
 now, and we must have money down. There's Jim 
 Scudamore, too, of Scudamore, McMath, and Scuda- 
 more, W.S. He's in the same box — son of my old 
 master — I'd be pleased to give him a hand. But it's 
 cold cash, and clear out sharp for us. At least, the 
 cash we must have. It passes the wit o' man, as 
 the sayin' is, to devise a deed that would hold a 
 young fellow marrying our heiress, and promising 
 to pay us out of the dowry afterwards. The first 
 thing we should get would be, ' Walk ! ' " 
 
 Marigh nodded. She was proud of her far-seeing 
 husband's mind — next, I suppose, to her pride in 
 the glossy purple whiskers, which depended like the 
 tusks of a wild boar, one at either side of his pinky, 
 full-fed face. 
 
 " No lord in low water, nor yet any young aristocrat 
 on his promotion," said Algernon, summing up. 
 " A man of business, that's what we want, who has 
 made money in trade, willing to plank down the cash 
 for himself, or " 
 
 " Why not Lord Athabasca ? " said Marigh, suddenly. 
 " He's rich enough."
 
 THE FALL OF THE KID 149 
 
 Algernon got up, and flinging his arms about his 
 wife's neck, saluted her ponderously on the cheek. 
 
 " Marigh — Marigh ! " he cried, with youthful rap- 
 ture, " you are worth your weight in seed pearls. 
 The very man 1 Ripe, past middle age, a widower, 
 and his wife (that's dead) a squaw — a red Indian, 
 brown as my boots with a touch of husky, as my poor 
 brother Ben said, who was in the Nor'-west police 
 for bigamy. Lord Athabasca — and no other. Gives 
 away millions, but don't get took up by the real 
 aristocracy. Gets on — but not in. Deuced keen 
 to get in. He'd jump at the heiress of Egham Castle 
 like a trout takes a March brown. He can't keep 
 his eyes off her in church as it is. Oh, Marigh — 
 Marigh ! What a woman you are ! " 
 
 Marigh smiled, visibly flattered by all this enthu- 
 siasm, but, hke a practical woman, she wished the 
 subject discussed in aU its bearings. 
 
 " But he's over sixty, if he's a day," she said, 
 *' and has a grown-up son ! " 
 
 " A crank from Crankyshire !." said her husband, 
 contemptuously ; " good o' the people — polytechnics, 
 reformatories, protechnics, and Old Age Homes — such 
 rot ! No wonder his father has cut him oft, or nearly, 
 mixing himself up with such trash ! If every working 
 man and woman was as provident and careful as 
 you and me, Marigh, there wouldn't be no need of 
 suchlike. Old Age Homes, indeed ! The workhouse 
 is too good for them that hasn't had the pluck and 
 forethought to look after themselves ! That's my 
 mind on't ! " 
 
 " Ah, indeed, you're right, Algernon," said Marigh, 
 *' Where would we have been if we hadn't looked after 
 ourselves ? Have another cup o' this Soochong, 
 Algernon. It stood old skinflint upstairs in six shillings 
 a pound, as I know by the receipt. Shipton's best, 
 at one and-a-penny, is good enough for them ! They 
 don't know the difference ! " 
 
 " Yes, and aU in a manner o' speakin', our
 
 150 KID McGHIE 
 
 money ! We may as well drink it ! " said her 
 husband. 
 
 So in this manner the fate of Patricia was decided. 
 The fate was sixty-five years of his age and was entitled 
 Lord Athabasca. 
 
 Patricia was introduced to my Lord (colonial) 
 Athabasca, who, as he said himself, had no more 
 pedigree than a fly on a tepee wall, but who had the 
 greatest respect for it v/hen he found it in its ancestral 
 halls in the old country. Patricia had the hardest 
 work to restrain herself from telling him that her 
 grandfather drove bullocks to Barnet Fair, and was 
 much esteemed at a bargain. But because she did 
 not want the bubble to burst just then — for the sake 
 of Marthe and Mr. Symington, who were getting on 
 swimmingly — she refrained herself. 
 
 Athabasca was a nice old man, a little pompous 
 from the habit of dominating provincial parliaments 
 and addressing speeches of welcome to governors- 
 general. He had a bald spot on his crown which 
 he covered with some success by the double-pleating 
 method, and another lower dowTi on the bulge of 
 his cerebellum which was beyond all hope. With 
 his hat on, it gave him the look of having been mortally 
 wounded by a bilhard ball and yet getting about 
 lively, a marvel of the surgeon's art. 
 
 Nevertheless, he was a very nice old man, and 
 with most settled, respectable opinions — nobody more 
 so. Which made it the more sad about his son, 
 wearing a red tie, as anyone could see, and — they 
 said — going to stand for any seat that would have 
 him in the socialist interest. Worst of all, he called 
 himself a Fabian, which nobody understood, but 
 which all felt must be something very bad indeed. 
 
 This was the more surprising as in Canada, where 
 Heame Mackenzie's life had been spent, he had been 
 known as the finest dancer, the finest skater, the
 
 THE FALL OF THE KID 151 
 
 finest snowshoe runner, the gayest and the brightest 
 of all the stars who sparkled there in that frosty sky 
 of winter. 
 
 But here in England he had as many views as an 
 up-to-date countess, and looked as serious as a president 
 01 the Oxford Union three minutes before he has 
 to begin his valedictory address. 
 
 It was after this fashion that my Lord Athabasca 
 regulated the situation with Mr. Algernon Hammer : 
 
 " I understand — I understand," he said. " I am 
 most willing to marry the yoimg lady. I consider 
 that she is a very remarkable young lady indeed ! 
 She will be a credit to any estabhshment, and, 
 without doubt, a remarkable contrast to my former 
 — ah — yes — very willing indeed ! I do not know 
 how it comes to pass that you can influence the 
 young lady's decisions. But if you can do so in my 
 favour — why, I have been a man of business all my 
 life — and I am willing to meet you. How much do 
 you ask ? " 
 
 " Ten thousand pounds ! Well, the article is 
 worth it — that is, if I can depend upon delivery ! 
 I^t me see. Choose your own day for the marriage. 
 I will write you a cheque for £10,000 payable 
 the day of my mamage. Further, I shall mstruct 
 my banker not to cash it before twelve o'clock ! 
 Agreed ? Very well, then ; if that is satisfactory, 
 I will WTite you a cheque for the amount, shall we 
 say, for this day three months, the twenty-fifth of 
 February' ? " 
 
 " Now," said Marigh, " that is what I call a gen- 
 tleman ! " She was carried away by the bridegroom's 
 manly ease, but her husband said only, flipping the 
 post-dated cheque between the fingers of the left hand, 
 
 I would have preferred a little less palaver, and 
 the cash paid down on the nail ! " 
 
 " I daresay ! " said Marigh, who had her times of 
 clairvoyance ; *' but, you see, you could not pay 
 Miss Patricia doun on the nail ' "
 
 152 KID McGHIE 
 
 The proposition had then to be put before the two 
 strapped, toothed, wigged, flannelled, and corseted 
 automata up in the drawing-room. In other words, 
 Lord Athabasca paid a visit as a neighbour, and 
 in the course of it, after the usual comphments, he 
 mentioned his desire to be allowed to pay his addresses 
 to their interesting young ward, Miss Patricia McGhie. 
 
 " Egham Boreham-Egham ! " exclaimed both the 
 two automata in chorus. 
 
 " WeU, to Miss McGhie Egham Boreham-Egham ! " 
 corrected the aspirant, reaching the end in a breathless 
 manner. 
 
 " You have our best wishes," said both the automata, 
 who had been well Hammered, " but do not be cast 
 down at a first refusal. Young people, you know. 
 And Patricia, we fear, has been spoiled. She has had 
 a great deal of admiration." 
 
 " She deserves it ! " said the honest peer. *' There's 
 not a handsomer girl between here and Peace River ! " 
 
 The automata looked at each other. They smiled. 
 In their opinion the business was settled. 
 
 " Ah, I have some documents," said Mr. Philip 
 Egbert ; " You will remember that the young lady 
 is not our own daughter — adopted merely — a niece, 
 in fact. It is right that you should know her pedigree. 
 When her father, Mr. Patrick Brydson McGhie, married 
 my sister, I made it my business to inform myself 
 on the subject ! The infoimation is at your dis- 
 position." 
 
 " Oh, bother," said Lord Athabasca, under his 
 breath ; " if the girl is wiUing, that's all I care about. 
 But I suppose this is the way they do things in these 
 great old families, and I had better not give myself 
 away." 
 
 Aloud he said : "I thank you very much, Mr. 
 Boreham-Egham ; it is not in the least necessary. 
 But if you feel you are fulfilling a duty, then I have 
 nothing more to say ! " 
 
 This Mr. Boreham-Egham considered a very proper
 
 THE FALL OF THE KID 153 
 
 response indeed, and accordingly departed in search 
 of the casket. 
 
 It was not to be found ! 
 
 A Uttle, oblong, flattish, japanned dispatch box, 
 with papers in it of no particular value to anybody, 
 had disappeared, and for the first time for fifty years 
 Mr. Philip Egbert Egham Boreham-Egham became 
 agitated — violently agitated. 
 
 More than that, he was suspicious. Still worse, 
 suspicious of his chosen heiress. Mr. Philip Egbert 
 had few passions, but that of the genealogist was the 
 chief of them. It generally indicates mental and 
 physical decay — and, say the doctors, accompanies 
 myopia, aphasia, degeneration, and is the forerunner 
 of paralysis and imbecility. But, let the passion 
 be ever so slight, it certainly aroused some dying 
 spark in Mr. Philip Egbert, of the padded chest 
 and the extensive nomenclature. 
 
 " I saw it yesterday with my own eyes," cried the 
 genealogist. " Patricia has abstracted these docu- 
 ments — only because her grandfather was a cattle 
 drover, and her two great-grandfathers, on the male 
 side, pig dealers. She shall be no more heiress of 
 mine — no, nor a moment longer a resident in my 
 house. I wiU send for her elder sister, and you, my 
 Lord Athabasca, shall marry her on the same terms. 
 We have done with her — a girl who could do such 
 an act is capable of an3rthing ! " 
 
 " But," remonstrated Lord Athabasca, more than 
 slightly discomposed by the prospect, " I do not want 
 to marry Miss Patricia's sister, and I do want to marry 
 her. Have you not come rather too rapidly to a 
 conclusion ? " 
 
 " No — no — no ! " screamed the padded man, almost 
 shaking himself out of a double set of false teeth in 
 his agitation. " I saw her — saw her with my own 
 eyes, I teU you. She asked to look at them, because 
 the box was labelled with her father's name. No 
 doubt they have already been committed to the
 
 154 KID McGHIE 
 
 flames — all because she is the daughter of a pig dealer, 
 or her grandfather was, which amounts to the same 
 thing. Absurd ! As if adoption into the family 
 of tlie De Boreham-Eghams were not sufficient to 
 cover a whole styful of pig dealers. I require that 
 she shall be sent for instantly ! " 
 
 Now in the interval between Patricia's examination 
 of the documents with regard to her pedigree and 
 her summons to the drawing-room a most curious 
 thing had befallen. Pat had indeed looked at the 
 papers with some curiosity. Her father's father was 
 a drover, and she sat long and pleasurably pondering 
 on his strange life — a life of inns, bulging pocket-books, 
 masked highwaymen with bludgeons and pistols — 
 the rough Ufe of the open road, the ponies he bestrode, 
 the leagues he tramped it on foot, all the glad yellow 
 bloom of all the glad yellow springs on whin brae 
 and broomy knowe that he had passed, the larks he 
 had heard sing, the girls he had Idssed — all clay and 
 leaf mould long ago. She hoped he had a good time 
 while he lived, this grandfather of hers. For assuredly 
 he was of small account now, that joUy cattle drover ! 
 Because, as it seemed to Patricia, there was in these 
 ill times no more remembrance of the v/ise man than 
 of the fool, in spite of the attested fact that wisdom 
 exceedeth folly as the light excelleth the darkness ! 
 
 And the pig dealer, the two dead pig dealers ! 
 Patricia heard the squeal of the miclean beasts as 
 the two great-grandfathers of her line pinched their 
 shoulders and poked them Imowingly in the ribs. 
 She hoped that they, too, had had whatever their 
 eyes desired, that they had had possessions of small 
 and great cattle, both Berkshires and the wiry bi-eed 
 of Ireland, and so enjoyed after their kind the delights 
 of the sons of men and, to the amount of their bank 
 account, gathered in silver and gold and the peculiar 
 treasure of Idngs. 
 
 But as to regretting that she had such highway- 
 pervading ancestors with their droves of beeves and
 
 THE FALL OF THE KID 155 
 
 porkers, Pat T>.IcGhie only wished that she had been 
 bom in their day, and with her own ears Mstened to 
 the merry noise of dicking horns, shouldering cattle, 
 and clacking market places. 
 
 And now all of a sudden, lo ! she found herself 
 in the presence of a man she did not know — even 
 her uncle, Philip Egbert Egham Boreham-Egham, 
 angry, denunciatory, virulent. She had taken these 
 papers — she, Patricia. Only she had any interest 
 in doing so. 
 
 No, she denied it. She had left them on the table. 
 Mr. Boreham-Egham must have displaced them 
 himself. And then — swift as the sheet lightning 
 that quarters the heavens in the heart of the dog 
 days, Patricia remembered. 
 
 On the back stairs as she ran dowTi to have a word 
 with cook, concerning certain small favouritisms 
 connected with dinner time, she had met — whom 
 but the Kid, her Kid — McGhie's Kid with exactl}^ 
 such a box, and, moreover, not held openly in his 
 hand, but dissembled, or partly dissembled, under 
 his arm ! 
 
 *' Do you know anything of the matter whatsoever ? " 
 demanded the genealogist. " Only you or one of 
 your family could have had the least interest in re- 
 moving these papers. Do you know or do you not 
 know ? " 
 
 " I do not recognise any right you have to cross- 
 examine me ! " retorted Patricia, fiercely. 
 
 " That I will show you," said the aroused man 
 of the pads. " Send Hammer to me, and go and pack 
 your trunks, young lady ! " 
 
 *' You can ring for Hammer when it pleases 
 you," said Patricia, with the defiant chin of the pig 
 dealer with a big fight on hand ; " and as for my 
 trunks, I shall go more gladly from this stupid doll's 
 house than ever I entered it. Papers, indeed — 
 genealogies — cattle drovers and pig dealers among 
 my ancestors, I suppose you mean. Why, they were
 
 156 KID McGHIE 
 
 better men and of more use in the world than people 
 who are only washed and dressed and put to bed 
 like so many babies in a glass incubator ! " 
 
 It is doubtful if Mr. Boreham-Egham heard this. 
 It is certain that he would not have understood it 
 if he had. Nothing so modem as an incubator had 
 ever been mentioned in the " Gentleman's Magazine," 
 which was the most recent hterature allowed within 
 the walls of Egham Castle. But my Lord Athabasca 
 flashed a look at Patricia of admiration and gratitude. 
 
 " You will understand," he said, " that whatever 
 happens, heiress or no heiress, my offer stands ! " 
 
 Patricia held out her hand to him. 
 
 " Thank you," she said, " you are a good man ! 
 I wish " 
 
 But she did not say what she wished, for just then 
 the door was cleft as it were by a kind of earthquake 
 shock. The Kid rushed in and stopped in front of 
 Mr. Boreham-Egham. 
 
 " Oh, don't blame Miss Patricia," he said ; " put 
 me in prison — put me in prison. / stole the black 
 box. / took the papers. / came into this house 
 to do it ! "
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 HEARNE MACKENZIE REFORMATORY 
 
 " I DO wish, Molesay," groaned Sheriff Pebbles, 
 excellent stipendiary magistrate, to the Cowgate 
 police missionary, " that you would not bother me 
 about such a small thing. You do not know how I 
 have been upset — birth of my eighth child only 
 yesterday, a boy — everything upset in the house. 
 I really think I must go on a golfing hoUday to tone 
 me up ! And now you come bothering me about 
 your young thieves. 
 
 " What ? The boy might have thought that the 
 papers were in some way his own — McGhie family 
 papers ! What could a ' buttons ' have to do with 
 such things except to steal them ? All right, then 
 I will send him for five years to the Heame Mackenzie 
 Reformatory, where my Lord Athabasca's hare- 
 brained son can take him down in the old, and set 
 him up in the new. That will satisfy you, won't it ? 
 But please, Molesay, don't come interfering with the 
 course of justice when I am so worried personally. 
 Think — it happened only yesterday — an eighth child, 
 a boy ! I really must take a hohday. Oh, yes, the 
 mother was doing, what is the phrase — as well as 
 could be expected — that is, when I inquired last ! 
 But it is all most tiresome and upsetting to a man in 
 my position ! " 
 
 So they sent the Kid to the Heame Mackenzie 
 Reformatory, where, as into a mill, boys went in at 
 one end marked with the brand of the law, and came 
 out at the other good soldiers, brave sailors, and, in 
 especial, excellent colonists. 
 
 157
 
 158 ' KID McGHIE 
 
 " Yes," said Heame Mackenzie, answering slowly, 
 " it is true that I am a salaried official of this institution. 
 Otherwise I should have to starve or emigrate, which 
 would be selfish. I was sent into this world not to 
 be idle. Yes, I sunk most of my grandmother's 
 little fortune on this barren moor. You can see it 
 yonder — that big playground covered from the rain, 
 sheltered from the winter blasts, cost alone more than 
 a thousand pounds. Oh, of course there were others, 
 but they were rich, and when they put their hand 
 in their breeches' pocket, their purses did not know 
 the difference after they had brought it out. Mine 
 did. That was aU ! " 
 
 " But your father," said the young lady to whom 
 the assistant superintendent of the " Hearne Mac- 
 kenzie " had got into the habit of talking, " I thought 
 he was a rich man ! " 
 
 " So he is — so he is," said the young man with a 
 grim squaring of the jaw, " but you see over there, 
 where I come from, we have a way of our own of obey- 
 ing our parents. We do it by doing as they did. My 
 father ran away from home when he was thirteen. 
 I gave him three years' longer chance at me, and then 
 I took my own hne. Since that, I have not asked 
 him for a penny. Nor do I mean to. He pleases 
 himself — I please myself. Everybody is pleased. 
 When he comes to see me here, I show him round like 
 any other visitor- 
 
 (< 
 
 And when you go to see him ? " said the girl, 
 who was, of course, Pat McGhie, let loose from Egham 
 Castle, and on the track of her poor ex-button boy, 
 the Kid. 
 
 " I don't go to see my father," said the young man, 
 flushing a little, " I can't afford it. You see, I get 
 a hundred and twenty pounds a year, and a httle 
 brick-built cottage on the opposite side of the road. 
 And I work for the money, as the directors will tell 
 you. Also, the superintendent is pleased with me. 
 But if I went to my father's house. Three Ridings,
 
 HEARNE MACKENZIE REFORMATORY 159 
 
 once or twice, the butler and the head keeper would 
 expect half my salary. Besides, once w^hen I was 
 hard up I — I pawned " 
 
 " You pawned what ? " said Pat with a glitter of 
 appreciation. " I begin to like 3'ou Athabascans." 
 
 " I pawned my dress suit ! " 
 
 Pat McGhie stopped. She looked at the tall, 
 solidly built, upstanding young man in amazement. 
 He was in noways moved or ashamed. It seemed 
 to him an every day sort of transaction. 
 
 He nodded merely and touched his cheek, which, 
 aristocratic enough in curve and outline, like that 
 of some carven Crusader, had still a certain 
 duskiness of tint which told of Indian blood not 
 far off. 
 
 He looked straight and quietly into the girl's e3/es. 
 
 " They say you are to marry my father ? " The 
 words came slowly. 
 
 " He has asked me," said Patricia, feeling curiously 
 as if she were reading a conversation printed in a 
 book. 
 
 " Ah ! " said the young assistant superintendent, 
 " I congratulate you. He is a good man. It would 
 have pleased my mother very much." 
 
 Pat started, and almost drew back from the quiet, 
 grave-faced young man. It seemed that he must 
 be laughing at her. 
 
 " You mean ? " 
 
 " My mother was a squaw, a fuU-blood Sioux 
 squaw. She always told me that the happiest time 
 of her life was when she was out along with my father 
 in the Land of the Little Sticks, and had to carry the 
 poles for their tent. But when she was dying, she 
 said that it would be very good for him to marry a 
 white woman and have to carry her tent poles ! " 
 
 A flash of a strange mirth flickered up in Patricia's 
 face. 
 
 " Then / may be your stepmother. Shake, sonny ! " 
 she said.
 
 i6o KID McGHIE 
 
 And she held out her slim fingers, which the young 
 man took gravely, bent over, and kissed. 
 
 "Hello!" cried Pat, surprised, "where did you learn 
 that ? Something more from your mother's people ? 
 Or did you pawn your bashfulness along with your 
 dress suit ? " 
 
 " Where I come from," said the yoimg man with 
 the first touch of accent in his voice, " it is good 
 manners — of the best ! It is always done, especially 
 to — to ladies of one's own family ! " 
 
 " Ah," said Pat, with a curious shortening of breath, 
 as if the air had grown unaccountably rarified, " don't 
 you think you are a — a Httle too previous ? " 
 
 " I beg 5^our pardon," said Mr. Heame Mackenzie, 
 sedately. 
 
 " You mean I am certain to accept your father ! " 
 she said, unaccountably angered by his taking so 
 much for granted. 
 
 " I understood that ... it was arranged ! " 
 he answered, calmly. 
 
 " Then you will have to get your dress suit out for 
 the occasion ! " she said, with some spite, which the 
 next instant she recognised as petty. 
 
 " Ah, no," he answered, with reflective sadness, " my 
 father's concerns do not concern me ! Nor mine 
 him ! Besides, the dress suit belongs to the wrong 
 side of my family tree, the side I have the least sym- 
 pathy with. If I reverted to the past, it would be 
 to the pony, the fringed blanket, the Remington, 
 not to the dress suit ! " 
 
 Pat McGhie held out her hand. 
 
 " My grandfather," she said, quietly, " was a 
 cattle drover, and to this day I never see a lot of cattle 
 bunching on the road, pushing and homing together, 
 but I long to be in among them with a tight rein 
 and the stock of my whip ! " 
 
 " But," said the young man, " I thought that 
 you were proud and of a most distinguished family ! " 
 
 Patricia shrugged her shoulders very slightly.
 
 HEARNE MACKENZIE REFORMATORY i6i 
 
 "So I am — on one side, the cattle drovers," she 
 said smiling ; " the rest are all Egham Boreham- 
 Egham ! But don't let us talk any more about myself. 
 How's the Kid ? " 
 
 " Alexander McGhie ? " said the assistant super- 
 intendent, in his official manner. " He is promising 
 well. To have passed through such hands as those 
 of Knifer Jackson and Corn Beef Joe, the man in whose 
 company he was last seen, he carries with him as- 
 tonishingly Httle of the trade-mark of crime ! There 
 is generally something, probably something physical, 
 which marks the boys we get. It shows in the face 
 as if the blood were not a right red within, but a 
 kind of pale-gray puce-colour." 
 
 " Soap and water ? " suggested Pat. 
 
 " Partially," agreed the assistant superintendent, 
 giving the matter his consideration, " but not wholly 
 or even principally. See the boys in a mass before 
 you, day by day, as I do. You know they are clean. 
 You know they cannot help being clean. But the 
 livid gray-puce look is there. And it takes a boy 
 five full years to get rid of it up on our moors — that, 
 and the furtiveness of the eye ! " 
 
 • • • • « 
 
 The " Hearne Mackenzie " as it was called from 
 its principal benefactor, sat high up on the level 
 moorland. All about it was peat and heather, with 
 isles and peninsulas of green pine wood, their roots 
 striking down through the crumbly purple soil to 
 the underlying and eternal moisture of the peat bog. 
 The Hearne Mackenzie Reformatory, with all its 
 buildings, workshops, annexes, playgrounds, the houses 
 of the officers, floated, as it were, on the thin skin 
 of dry peat land above the great morass of Maw 
 Moss. 
 
 " Yet it is healthy," said the assistant superintendent, 
 as he piloted his future stepmother, younger than 
 himself by ten years, across the deep cuttings from 
 
 11
 
 i62 KID McGHIE 
 
 which, in the time of a former sub-superintendent, 
 many cubic yards had been removed to make com- 
 pressed peat. 
 
 " There is something antiseptic about this black 
 bog land, even if you are only hving above it. It 
 is just ' tundra.' One might call it the Barren Grounds, 
 as much as though it were well within the Arctic 
 Circle. And the winds blow everything away — 
 healthiest place in the British Islands ! I chose it 
 myself. And my boys are the happiest lads — all 
 on their way to do well." 
 
 " How do you get on with your superintendent ? " 
 asked Pat. 
 
 " Oh, Carvel, he's all right," said the assistant ; 
 " more than that, he's the best man that God ever 
 created — better than my father — better than any of 
 those old patriarchs and things in the Bible. Though 
 that is what he looks like, too, with his white beard 
 and clear blue eyes, and a smile Uke a boy. I saw 
 him at leapfrog the other day, and would have liked 
 to join him if I had not been too old ! " 
 
 " How old is he, then ? " Pat asked, to her aston- 
 ishment rather jealously. 
 
 " He is somewhere about sixty-three — I am thirty- 
 one. But I am almost too old for him to have about. 
 I might be his grandfather ! The boys adore him, 
 though. There are no rebellions, no big fights, when 
 Carvel is about. 
 
 " ' I prescribe walking-stick plaster, locally applied, 
 immediately and copiously ! And I'll do it myself ! ' 
 That's what he says when any trouble is reported. 
 And he picks up ' Clickie,' his trusty blackthorn, 
 and wades in. The riot is quelled in precisely three 
 warm minutes. Everyone is satisfied, and when dear 
 old Mrs. Carvel appears on the scene with the sticking 
 plaster and good advice, ' Clickie ' is replaced in the 
 comer, and the boys disperse to discuss who got the 
 completest ' lundering.' There is never much to 
 choose, however, and if by chance a boy who did not
 
 HEARNE MACKENZIE REFORMATORY 163 
 
 deserve it gets ' one of himself,' he is the proudest 
 boy in the school." 
 
 " But why are you assistant superintendent and 
 Mr. Carvel over you ? " demanded Pat. " I thought 
 it was you who built all this. It is called after you, 
 isn't it ? " 
 
 " After my father ! " said Lord Athabasca's only 
 son, dutifully, " and Carvel is superintendent because 
 he is leagues away the better man — the only man 
 for the post, indeed. I nominated him myself ! " 
 
 Patricia looked at the dusky, unmoved face of 
 her companion. Certainly he was a most remarkable 
 young man, and, yes — handsome. Not that that 
 mattered. 
 
 In the interior of the Heame Mackenzie, the Kid 
 hoed his first row. He had been taken in hand by 
 a lank boy of fourteen, famiharly called Swanker, 
 in the dialect of the schools and workshops. On 
 the roll his name was Henry Pott, and his number 
 579. The Kid's number was 666, and that was marked 
 in red on every shirt and sock, on every article of 
 clothing, tool and book which he was allowed to 
 possess. 
 
 The Kid's name was promptly changed to " Beast," 
 because, as one more Bible-learned than the rest 
 pointed out, 666 was the number of the beast. So 
 the Kid was immediately, and without prejudice, 
 ear-marked accordingly. 
 
 " Say, Beast," said the Swanker, " have ye ony 
 tobacco ? " 
 
 II No," said Kid McGhie, " it's nasty stuff ! " 
 
 " Maybe aye and maybe no," said the Swanker. 
 "You'll learn. There's them in the school that'll 
 punce you for no bringin' tobacco ! What are ye 
 in for?'' 
 
 *' Let them punce," said the Kid. " I can punce 
 back." 
 
 The Swanker regarded the little fellow with con- 
 tempt.
 
 i64 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Can you stop a shoulder hit ? " he demanded, 
 dehvering a righthander straight at the Kid's nose 
 just to try. 
 
 The Kid ducked, feinted low, and the next moment 
 the S wanker felt a sudden and most astounding jolt 
 on the point of his chin, which made him thankful 
 that he wore no false teeth, so that he could not swallow 
 them. The S wanker first of all looked round to see 
 that no bigger boy had hit him a stinger at unawares. 
 Then his eye fell on the Kid. 
 
 " Did you do that ? " he said, glowering at him. 
 The Kid nodded. 
 
 " Want me to do it again ? " he remarked, squaring 
 up. 
 
 " Well, no," said the Swanker, as if reluctantly 
 decHning through pressure of engagements, " not 
 at present, that is. But who taught you that ? It's 
 regular ' pro ' work, that is ! " 
 
 " Knifer Jackson taught me," said the Kid, quite 
 ignorant of the interest he would cause by the state- 
 ment ; " he's my father ! " 
 
 " Ger-r-r 'long ! " said the Swanker, between his 
 teeth, " what're you givin' us ? " 
 
 "The truth," said the Kid. "You're not used 
 to it— that's all ! " 
 
 " Then you are in here for runnin' with Knifer Jack- 
 son and the ' Bhnd Jacob's ' boys ? " 
 
 The Kid nodded. " Worse luck ! " he said. " Five 
 years ! " 
 
 The Swanker whistled and reached for the wet 
 clout with which the Kid was swabbing the dormitory 
 floor. 
 
 " No use for you to waste your time at this sort o' 
 thing," he said. " Why, if what you say is true — an' 
 we'll soon find that out — you're away up ! Soarin ' ! 
 Why, Knifer and Corn Beef are at the very head of 
 the ' pro.' You was nabbed with him, was ye ? 
 Ah, that would be a big job, or the Knifer would not 
 have put him on to it. Where did it happen — Egham
 
 HEARNE MACKENZIE REFORMATORY 165 
 
 Castle ? Why, that's quite near here — just over 
 the wall — you can see the pinnacle of the stable, 
 gilt weathercock and all, out of ' choko.' " 
 
 " And what is ' choko ' when he's at home ? It 
 means prison, I know, but they don't put you in 
 prison here, do they ? " 
 
 " Oh, don't they — you'll find out whether or no 
 before you are many days older," laughed the Swanker ; 
 " but I daresay it will be made plum easy for you 
 that's no end of a swell, and can get your people to 
 ' butter ' the warder and especially old Grainer, the 
 schoolmaster. He's the only real bad egg here ! " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked the Kid, always 
 eager for knowledge. 
 
 " If you've got money, or people coming to see 
 you," said Swanker, " you've got to get them to slide 
 something on the quiet to Grainer, or he'll half kill 
 you in school. The supe — ? Oh, old Carvel — he's 
 the clean peeled potato, mealy to the core, and enough 
 eyes to him to set a drill ! " 
 
 Swanker was one of the field boys, and interested 
 in agriculture. 
 
 " Carvel is never nasty," he continued. " He 
 whacks you like carpet beating sometimes when there's 
 a row. And he's not half particular whether it's 
 you that's done it or not, so long as he gets it stopped. 
 But the boys would most of them lay down their 
 lives for Carvel. And as for Cherokee Bob — that's 
 Mr. Hearne, him that built all this, and works harder 
 than anybody — he's maybe a bit soft, chip out o' 
 his cockernut, I bet, or he wouldn't stay in such 
 a hole. But there's hardly a fellow, except Snout 
 and Smutty, that would try to queer him. He's 
 a topper, too, at football and games, is Mr. Hearne." 
 
 The Swanker went off to tell the news to the school, 
 and after prayers the Kid, under his new name and 
 number, was introduced to the boys and received 
 the right hand of fellowship. " St. Jacob's " was, 
 of course, the first subject of conversation.
 
 i66 KID McGHIE 
 
 " How many doors can you do ? " they asked him. 
 
 " All," said the Kid, modestly ; " and safes, too, 
 if I get a help at the last tug, where weight tells, 
 I'm not quite big enough, you see." 
 
 " Hello," cried some of those who did not know 
 the capabilities of a graduate and, as it were, " fellow " 
 of " St. Jacob's," " d'ye mean to say that you could 
 open that dormitory door of ours with the warder 
 on the other side ? " 
 
 The Kid cast one glance at the heavy door. 
 
 " I've done with that business," he said, sweetly. 
 " I'm in documents and pedigrees now. But that 
 door — why, just for once as an exhibition game — 
 I don't mind ! " 
 
 He looked about him for a tool. These were natur- 
 ally scarce at the " Hearne Mackenzie," for the class 
 of boy and his antecedents had been studied with 
 some care. But fancy work of a simple sort was not 
 discouraged. Boys were allowed, under certain 
 restrictions as to delivering up all wool, used and 
 unused, to knit their own stockings. 
 
 " No use this," said the Kid, picking up a steel 
 
 knitting needle, " too stiff. Ah, there " a Httle 
 
 coil of iron wire from the shops caught his eye. 
 He untwisted a couple of handbreadths, broke it 
 off short, did some folding, and lo ! the skeleton of 
 a key. He fumbled a moment, touching and trjring, 
 then suddenly straightened a piece of the wire, 
 gave it a cunning hook — click — and the door 
 was open ! 
 
 The boys of No. 7 dormitory rushed tumultuously 
 toward the black cavern of the outer passage. But 
 the Kid was too quick for them. 
 
 With a second twist of his wire he fastened the 
 door as before, pulled the wire straight, and bound 
 it about the bundle. 
 
 " No, you don't," he said, " I am not going to 
 sleep in ' choko ' for attempted escape, this first 
 night, at any rate ! "
 
 HEARNE MACKENZIE REFORMATORY 167 
 
 " Bah, you're afraid, that's what you are," said 
 Smutty, a boy of fourteen, undersized, tobacco-chew- 
 ing, who thrust his head pugnaciously forward at 
 the Kid ; " open that door again or I'll make 
 you ! " 
 
 " Open it yourself," said McGhie's Kid, " there's 
 the key ! " And he pointed to the coil of wire in 
 the comer. 
 
 Smutty replied with a heavy blow at the Kid's 
 mouth, which, however, the boy had no difficulty 
 in parrying instinctively. The Kid had not been 
 brought up with Mad Mag, and within reach of her 
 hand, to be thus caught napping. The boys of No. 7 
 dormitory gathered eagerly round. 
 
 " A fight— a fight ! " they cried. 
 
 But at that moment the bushy reddish beard and 
 glaucous green-gray protuberant eyes of Warder 
 McPherson showed themselves at the wicket, which 
 he had opened noiselessly. 
 
 " Smutty," he said, " report to me to-morrow 
 morning ! And you, new boy, you've begun badly, 
 fighting your first night. If you go on like this, 
 you'U get cells. You'U sleep on the thing ! Mind, 
 I warn you." 
 
 This was Warder McPherson's word. He always 
 referred to the plank bed as the " thing." 
 
 *' Don't mind him," said Swanker, " learn your 
 drill perfect, and stand up hke a railway signal when- 
 ever old Pherson sees you. Make your hand go up 
 to your cap just as if it was a piece of wood, and you'll 
 have no trouble with old Pherson. He roars like a 
 bull, but he's aU httle woolly lamb inside ! He won't 
 even tickle up Smutty to-morrow morning — which 
 is a pity ! " 
 
 They got into their bunks, which were arranged 
 side by side, in long rows. There was a big lamp 
 which burned all night in each of the dormitories, 
 and the window into the warder's bedroom was un- 
 blinded.
 
 i68 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Better get to sleep, Beast," said Swanker, in a 
 friendly fashion, " you've got a jolly busy day before 
 you to-morrow. You've got to face Grainer. He'll 
 most likely wollop you. He's always down on the 
 newcomers till their people grease his palm. Then 
 you have to go into the shops and start work. Shoe- 
 making is best, that is, tiU you get marked ' trust- 
 worthy ' hke me. Then you get promoted to the 
 farm. That's best of all. Last, you've got to fight 
 Smutty. He's older than you a bit, but I think 
 you will surprise him. Don't let him come to grips, 
 that's all. Then, he would smash you in no time ! " 
 
 " But," said the Kid, glancing at the long rows 
 of httle iron beds, and the great glaring lantern above, 
 " I can't get to sleep with that big lamp up there. 
 Do they never put it out ? " 
 
 " Never," said the Swanker, " and the sooner 
 you learn to sleep with the light in your eyes the 
 better. You've got five years of it — or at the least, 
 three and three-quarters, if you turn out a prime 
 first-class reformed article and the Cherokee takes 
 you out with him to his farm in Canada ! " 
 
 " Good-night, Swanker, and thank you ! " said 
 the Kid. 
 
 The boy in the next bed stared in astonishment. 
 
 " Well, you are a caution, Beast," he said in almost 
 an affectionate tone. " I suppose it's the pedigree 
 work that does it. One would think you had been 
 at a toft's school, and worn a topper — fancy thanking 
 ME ! Why, nobody ever thanks anybody for anything 
 at the ' Peat ' Reformatory ' So don't you do it, 
 else you'll get welted — and that frequent ! " 
 
 " I'll try to remember ! " said the Kid. " But, 
 you see, my father taught me when I was httle. It's 
 awkward to get out of ! " 
 
 " What, the Knifer learned you to say ' Thank'ee ' ? " 
 
 " No, not the Knifer — my own real father, David 
 McGhie, of Back Mill Lands ! " said the Kid. 
 
 The Swanker uttered a snort of disgust.
 
 HEARNE MACKENZIE REFORMATORY 169 
 
 " There have I been telling the boys all about 
 your father — how he's Jackson — Knifer Jackson, 
 mind you, and nobody else. You're having a jolly 
 good start, mind you, along o' him. And don't 
 you forget that, young Beast ! Knifer Jackson's 
 a good enough father for anybody in the old ' Peat.' 
 Why, you are a credit to No. 7, and the other dormies 
 are just sweatin' with rage. There'll be a fine row 
 one o' them nights after prayers ! And now to go 
 and yam about your own real father ! Pah ! Don't 
 let me hear you at it again, that's all, young Beast ! " 
 
 " I'll try to remember ! " said the Kid, meekly. 
 And so, after staring long at the barred windows 
 and the naked light flaring and smelhng high over- 
 head, he dropped asleep. His first day as a reforma- 
 tory boy was over.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SOME WALKS ON THE MOOR 
 
 " It's a little Commonwealth, you see — self-contained, 
 self-centred, sufficient unto itself," said the assistant 
 superintendent to his usual companion, after he had 
 met her on the moor, by the httle pond over which 
 the tall green -black firs whooed and sighed all the 
 short Scottish winter afternoons. 
 
 The young man was talking, as usual, about his 
 beloved " Heame Mackenzie," into which he had put 
 his fortune, such as it was — without drawing from 
 it a farthing beyond the ;^I20 and free house, which 
 was the living wage of the assistant superintendent. 
 
 " I know," he said, " I am not a very ambitious 
 young man. Perhaps there are places where I could 
 influence more people. But nowhere so directly. 
 And two hundred boys of the criminal classes, or 
 having alliances with them, need a man to look after 
 them, and give them all his time. Well, I am that 
 man ! " 
 
 " I do not see," said Patricia, still unconvinced. 
 " If you had agreed with your father, you might 
 have had the means to build a score of reformatories 
 such as this." 
 
 " Yes, and lost my own soul money-making ! " 
 said Mr. Heame Mackenzie. " No," he went on 
 hastil3% as if he did not wish to argue the point — 
 "I go my way — he goes his. We even appreciate 
 one another, and I am glad to think that, at the 
 election for assistant superintendent, when I was 
 appointed, I had my father's vote ! " 
 
 170
 
 SOME WALKS ON THE MOOR 171 
 
 " It is certainly a pleasant thought," said Patricia, 
 " that if I marry your father, I shall have so equal- 
 minded and dutiful a son ! " 
 
 With the least flutter of the eyelashes upward 
 as she spoke, Patricia noted the effect of the appellation 
 on the tall, grave, handsome young man who walked 
 beside her. 
 
 Mr. Heame Mackenzie winced palpably. At first 
 he had entered into the jest, and it had been a continual 
 source of amusement to them — this pretty girl with 
 the dark clustering curls laid low on the neck, and 
 the swarthy cavalier with the head Uke an antique 
 design graven on a signet ring — to call each other 
 "mother" and "son." 
 
 But somehow of late the jest had lost its flavour. 
 Virtue had gone out of it, so far as Hearne Mackenzie 
 was concerned. A young girl, a sweet girl, to wed 
 a man thrice her age, and that man his father ! It 
 was a shame — just because she was heiress of the 
 great old house of Boreham-Egham. Sometimes 
 at night Heame could not sleep for thinking of it, 
 and would get up and wander out under the moon, 
 or in the blacker dark, stumbling bhndly over the 
 face of the moorland, and — had the man not been 
 his own father — he would have known what to do. 
 The Indian strain told him that. Yet Patricia seemed 
 to make no objection. 
 
 Still they continued to meet every day. In that 
 gloomy winter landscape — the frost-bound peat bog, 
 the dark upstanding pines that broke the force of 
 the blast — her eyes shone hke the fish-pools that are 
 in Heshbon. 
 
 " Oculi tut sicut piscincB in Hesebon,^^ he used to 
 repeat to himself ; for he had been trained by the 
 Jesuits in Montreal, and had read the Vulgate — 
 " as the crystalline tanks] ofj Heshbon " — so the 
 Spaniards have it. 
 
 Anon he would be angry, and rage very furiously, 
 and then be angry with himself for being angry. After
 
 172 KID McGHIE 
 
 all, what affair was it of his ? He had chosen his 
 path in life, and all that remained for him was to 
 tread it. 
 
 He was a fool, and knew it. Thrice a fool to let 
 a girl without any heart, a girl who was willing to 
 sell herself for a poor, worthless title, interfere with 
 his life. This made him angriest of all. And, quite 
 contrary to his nature, he raged out there, this swarthy, 
 grave, melancholy assistant superintendent of the 
 Hearne Mackenzie Reformatory. 
 
 Meanwhile Lord Athabasca came almost daily to 
 the castle. He did not always see Patricia. The 
 girl had a curious gift of vanishing. Hammer had 
 ordered gamekeepers to keep a watch on her goings. 
 But then Hammer was not a popular person outside 
 the Castle of Egham, and was obeyed only with eye 
 service. If Miss Patricia were seen walking with a 
 young man, across the far-brown distances of the 
 moor, or sauntering across the screen of the fir-tree 
 glades, every maidservant in the house thought the 
 more of her for it, and hoped that after all she would 
 not have to marry that stout old lord who came to see 
 her so regularly, under the protection and sanction of 
 Hammer. 
 
 The situation was clearly enough understood, and 
 the gardeners and foresters speculated in their boothies 
 on how much Lord Athabasca, a liberal man on the 
 shoot, would give Hammer for helping on his marriage. 
 Ten thousand was the favourite figure, chiefly on 
 account of the roundness of the sum. It was also an 
 unusually correct estimate. 
 
 Meanwhile the formalities were proceeded with. 
 Patricia McGhie became by poll deed Miss Patricia 
 Egham Boreham-Egham, and her uncle signed formal 
 acts of adoption and heirship. The wedding day was 
 fixed for the twenty-fifth of February, and Lord 
 Athabasca was to have his yacht — it was often mis-
 
 SOME WALKS ON THE MOOR 173 
 
 taken for a liner — at Marseilles. My lady and her 
 husband would set out at once for a long cruise among 
 the Balearics and the Greek Isles. 
 
 " For I would see before I die, 
 The palms and temples of the South ! " 
 
 chanted Pat. 
 
 She did not think very much about Lord Athabasca. 
 The only thing that bothered her was what she would 
 say to him at meals — especially at breakfast the first 
 morning. This troubled her somewhat. She resolved 
 that she would get him to teach her Spanish, which 
 both he and his son spoke like their mother tongue. 
 That would always be an interest. 
 
 But little by little something rose up in the girl's 
 heart — dinning constantly, not loud, but insistent. 
 It said that if it had been — another — she would not 
 have needed to think about subjects of conversation. 
 For instance — Hearne Mackenzie ! 
 
 So it was with her sister. So it would not be with 
 herself. Away back there, behind the hills of the 
 South, within sound of the Messan Water gurgling 
 full with the winter rains, Marthe and Mr. Symington 
 were happily engaged in house furnishing. Mr. P. 
 Brydson McGhie had given Marthe £200 with a very 
 curt blessing. Her mother had slipped another 
 hundred out of her silent economies. Mr. Symington 
 had laid aside another couple of hundreds. Marthe 
 was a happy girl. All day long she was busied with 
 a foot rule, and sheets on sheets of calculation — 
 curtains, carpets, hangings. How much of this — 
 how httle of that ? There were few happier times 
 for practical, housewifely, motherly little Marthe. 
 
 She missed Pat to " boss " her and, a little also, to 
 say " Oh, Pat, how can you ? " to — when Pat came 
 out with some of her wild sayings. 
 
 Patricia had come to Kirkmessan once or twice. 
 But somehow she appeared to Marthe and Baby Lant 
 to be older, sadder, and altogether another person.
 
 174 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Heiressing doesn't seem to agree with you, Pat," 
 said Baby Lant. " Why, what is the matter ? Is it 
 my lord ? He is old, it is true — but you remember 
 what you used to say of husbands — that the older 
 they were, the more tender they would be, just hke 
 legs of mutton hung in the meat safe ! " 
 
 " Oh, Baby Lant ! " cried Marthe. " Remember, 
 Patricia is going to marry Lord Athabasca, You 
 should not speak like that ! " 
 
 " Oh, bother," cried Baby Lant, fighting petulantly 
 with the corner of a sofa cushion which she could not 
 get to her mind, " Pat may do as she likes. She is an 
 heiress now, in her own right, but she need not oppress 
 her family beforehand with her greatness ! " 
 
 And it shows the difference that had come over 
 Patricia, that she took no pait in the battle ?)f words — 
 in which, of course, Marthe found herself absurdly 
 overmatched by Baby Lant. On the whole, Patricia's 
 father and mother were satisfied with the change in 
 their daughter. 
 
 " I knew Patricia would settle down," said her 
 mother. " She is quite my lady already." 
 
 " It's a great thing that I have finished my family 
 tree," said her father, " and that there only remains 
 to wait for next year's issue of Sir Brian's ' Peerage, 
 Baronetage, and Landed Gentry,' where my chief ship 
 of the Clan McGhie will be fully admitted. I am 
 having a copj^ of the whole account properly illumi- 
 nated on vellum with all the armorial bearings, and 
 it shall be my present to the bridegroom. I have 
 ordered an ivory casket to contain it ! " 
 
 But, secretly to her fiance, Marthe mourned over 
 her sister. 
 
 " Wilhe," she said, " I wish I could make Patricia 
 out. She is going to marry this old man, and I just 
 know she won't be happy with him. He is three 
 times her age — and just fancy, he has a son older than 
 she is — ten years older ! He has quarrelled with him, 
 too, and does not allow him a farthing. 1 don't think
 
 SOME WALKS ON THE MOOR 175 
 
 it is at all nice, do you ? By the way, what do you 
 think I am going to have for the curtains of our room ? " 
 
 *' I don't know," said WilHe, smiUng happily. 
 " Beams of cedar, rafters of fir, curtains of Solomon, 
 I suppose ! " 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said heedless little Martha. " You 
 know very well that there are no rafters. But I've 
 had the ceihng painted a nice light green to match 
 the paper, and I'm going to have dimity curtains — 
 dimity, Willie, think of it ! Doesn't it recall all sorts 
 of pleasant old country things to you — cottages, and 
 lilac bushes, and girls called Prue and their sleeves 
 rolled up, all baking bread, and ' Cranford,' and May- 
 poles — and — and " 
 
 Marthe, who had been talking very fast — she was 
 excited — stopped, completely out of breath. Then 
 Willie, who had his moments of folly, as what good 
 man has not, continued s 
 
 " Dorothy and Dimity Caterwaul, 
 
 They both went down to the Mew- sick Hall ; 
 But when they set up a feline wail, 
 They were very soon lodged in Calton Jail 1 " 
 
 " Oh, Willie ! " said Marthe, settling herself on— 
 the chair — where else, if you please ? " And you a 
 minister ! What would your people say ? " 
 
 Marthe saw with hope before her a long future of 
 exclamatory " Oh, WiUies," which — can you blame 
 her ? — would to some extent make up for the loss of 
 Patricia, or, if not exactly for losing her, at least for 
 finding her encased in the great lady, as her mother 
 had petrified into her brown brocade. 
 
 " Oh, Willie ! " said httle dimple-chinned Marthe, 
 taking her lover by both ears, " I am so glad we are 
 poor, if being rich makes people like what Patricia 
 was the other day — or like father and that dreadful 
 old lord Pat is going to marry. Aren't you glad we 
 are poor, Wilhe ? "
 
 176 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Well, I am reasonably and moderately glad, 
 Marthe," said Willie. " If we were twice as rich, I 
 think I could bear it, by sitting up at nights to streng- 
 then my mind. But if it were three times " 
 
 " Now," said Marthe, " you are laughing at me, you 
 bad boy. And I'll run away. You always do laugh 
 at me, and I don't think it's fair. But, oh, Willie, I 
 am so glad that you are not old nor rich nor horrid — 
 aren't you ? " 
 
 " On these personal matters," said Mr. Symington, 
 gravely, " it becomes a modest man to be silent." 
 
 " You modest ! " cried laughing Marthe. " Well, 
 I like that ! Who puts on a clean shirt and collar 
 and tie for every week-night service ? Answer me 
 that ! " 
 
 " Oh, but," said her betrothed, " that's your fault, 
 Marthe. It's just because you are always there in the 
 front row of the choir. But after — well, one change 
 of linen will last me a week ! " 
 
 " What ! " cried Marthe, up in arms at once. " And 
 have them all saying how you are not weU looked 
 after when you are married ! They look fearfully 
 particularly at a minister, you know. And those 
 Miss Isbisters that have always — oh, yes the}^ have — 
 the hateful minxes ! They are regular nasty catty 
 old maids ! But they shan't say I don't dress you 
 properly. Yes, and I'll always see that you have 
 your nicest cuff links on, and — and " 
 
 And so on — a great deal more, in fact, all out of the 
 speaking abundance of Marthe's simple, clean, loving 
 little heart. And happily the man was hke unto 
 her. 
 
 God keep them ever so simple and hopeful and 
 loving, even though Mistress Marthe does not quite 
 get over all her little spleens — they are very httle — 
 against the " catty " Misses Isbister, whom she will 
 never quite forgive for once on a time setting their 
 caps at her handsome husband. As, indeed, when 
 you come to think of it, why should she }
 
 SOME WALKS ON THE MOOR 177 
 
 So they were married. And, on the whole, lived 
 happily ever after. 
 
 Marthe once married, Patricia returned to Egham 
 Castle with a lightened heart. There would be no 
 heiressing for Marthe's sake, and as for Baby Lant — 
 well, as in her own case, Baby Lant could look out for 
 herself. 
 
 Atalanta had shown no signs as yet of throwing the 
 handkerchief. But when she did there would be 
 plenty of people ready to pick it up. So much Patricia 
 had always known. But her talks with her younger 
 sister on the eve of the marriage — Marthe's — had 
 shown her the truth. Baby Lant was a wonderfully 
 pretty girl, and of a heart altogether untouched. 
 
 " It's you that should be the heiress," said Pat 
 more than once to her sister. " You would not in the 
 least mind marrying an old man with a title and 
 yachts and things ! " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I should," said Baby Lant, cozying down 
 on her sister's shoulder to be petted. " I would rather 
 have half a dozen people about me, any one of whom 
 I can marry if I like — than be compelled to marry 
 any particular one whether I Uke it or no ! " 
 
 Which, though spoken in Baby Lant's sleepily light 
 way, still touched the essence of the matter. 
 
 The day of the twenty-fifth of February was a great 
 one on the Egham estates. Lord Athabasca's property 
 lay at some little distance, and was scarcely touched 
 by the loyalty, generations old, with which the Egham 
 tenants, long anchored to their holdings, greeted the 
 marriage of their heiress to a real lord with a real title. 
 His age was hardly held to be a disadvantage. 
 
 *' Sixty-five, is he ? " said one of the old goodwives. 
 " Ah, well, he'll no last lang wi' a young wife, mark my 
 words I But she'll thrive on't. And then — when 
 they hae laid him awa' decent-Uke in a coffin — certes, 
 whatna bonnie young widow she will mak' ! " 
 
 The Hammers were to receive their agreed amount 
 on the morning of the day itself — ^£10,000 in a clieque 
 
 12
 
 178 KID McGHIE 
 
 payable to bearer for the safe delivery of one heiress, 
 warranted sound in wind and limb, and embellished 
 with the legal and spotless names of Patricia McGhie 
 Egham Boreham-Egham, daughter of Patrick Brydson 
 McGhie, Esq., J. P., chief of that name, also niece and 
 heiress of Phihp Egbert Egham Boreham-Egham, of 
 Egham Castle. 
 
 That was considered a pretty good match for a 
 recently made colonial peer, who had formerly been 
 wedded to a Red Indian squaw !
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE COMING OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON MAW MOSS 
 
 Across the wide brown and gray spaces of Maw Moss 
 a little persistent black thing pushed its way. It 
 appeared either a man or an ant, according to the 
 distance and elevation from which you viewed it. 
 Its stohd persistence in a direct line belonged to one 
 or the other. Now there are common black ants, 
 and black ants which look as if they wore soft hats 
 and walked with a stick and a stoop. 
 
 But ants do not pull up on a knoll top and solace 
 themselves with a look at the landscape. Nor do they 
 mop their heated brows with red handkerchiefs. 
 These things this particular black thing did. Also, if 
 the ant meets a fir tree or a fallen rock en route he does 
 not go round, but climbs up one side and down the 
 other. If another ant is coming the opposite way he 
 invariably butts his head against him. Then the pair 
 rise up on their hind legs and fight it out. These 
 things this black thing did not do. 
 
 Therefore the black thing was a man, not an ant. 
 
 It was, in fact, Mr. Molesay, city missionary, on the 
 track of a parishioner, transplanted to another and a 
 better world — that is to say, the Kid, not removed 
 to a cemetery or " planted out " in a graveyard, as 
 he would have said himself, but established in the 
 Hearne Mackenzie Home Colony Reformatory, a 
 spot where Mr. Molesay often found waifs and strays 
 who had whizzed off centrifugaUy from his mission 
 in the Cowgate. They were generally attached to 
 a snapping, punching, shoemaking machine, cross 
 legged on a tailoring board, or, if they were specially 
 
 179
 
 i8o KID McGHIE 
 
 lucky and "trustworthy," out in the fields which, 
 under the fostering care of the assistant superin- 
 tendent, were growing every day in size and impor- 
 tance about the colony which his money had built 
 and his self-sacrifice tended. 
 
 Mr. Molesay — ^for obscure family reasons not Archi- 
 bald but Archbold Molesay — ^found Maw Moss a very 
 wide place. There seemed an unconscionable and 
 ridiculous amount of waste sky above it, to one who 
 for twenty years had been accustomed to a narrow 
 irregular jag of blue or gray seen between the chimneys 
 and the tadl houses of the over-city, actually built 
 on top of the Cowgate. 
 
 " God, God, God ! " said Mr. Molesa}^ looking up 
 with his hat off. " That is God, they say, that cold 
 blue space in which the clouds sail so silently. If it 
 were so, we in the Cowgate would have httle chance. 
 For we cannot see Him, only a handbreadth of dirty 
 smoke, a black smutty shelter tent from wliich the 
 rain comes plumping down with a skoosh ! ' The 
 Kingdom of God is within you — the Kingdom of 
 God is within you .' ' " 
 
 Archbold Molesay repeated low to himself his 
 favourite text, and sliaded his eyes from the glare of 
 that vast expanse of sky. He pulled the broad soft brim 
 of his hat lower down, and in doing so he became aware 
 of a second human being not very far away. There 
 was a httle peat stack, " Hke a bing of paving stones 
 when they mend a street," thought the city missionary, 
 and by it, seated on a " tummock " of rough moorish 
 bent, was a girl, her head in her hands, sobbing. 
 
 " My business ! " said little Mr. Molesay, looking at 
 the girl a moment. He could not see her very clearly. 
 He was short sighted, and made a poor hand at getting 
 over country in a district criss-crossed with twenty- 
 foot peat hags. But, nevertheless, he was at her side 
 in a moment. Such was his reason for being. 
 
 The girl did not hear him coming. Peat coomb 
 and growing moss deaden sounds. So does grief
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON MAW MOSS i8i 
 
 which rends the heartstrings. Suddenly Patricia 
 looked up. She felt a hand laid on her shoulder. 
 It made her violently angry to think that anyone 
 should intmde, especially— the thought jerked in 
 her heart like a trap springing — Hearne Mackenzie ! 
 
 But it was not Hearne Mackenzie. Far otherwise, 
 indeed, only a httle man with shining kindly eyes, 
 the eyes that all very godly men of whatever creed 
 acquire as their certificate and earthly reward, and 
 a head Mke dulled silver. He held his hat in his 
 hand, and in the fierce sunshine of the wide moor, 
 she saw that his coat was shiny and his trousers 
 " kneed." But there was that upon the face of Arch- 
 bold Molesay which made whatever he did right. She 
 let his hand remain on her shoulder — long, thin fingers 
 that never did any harder work than play a Httle 
 harmonium, sometimes on the street, sometimes in 
 the evening meetings indoors when the voluntary 
 lady organist happened for some reason to be absent. 
 
 '^My child," he said, " I do not know you, but you 
 are in sorrow, in trouble. I have helped many. 
 Perhaps I can help you." 
 
 Patricia looked at Archbold Molesay mth that 
 straight, piercing regard before which Ues dissolved, 
 like oxidisation on a penny dropped into an acid 
 bath. She saw in a moment that he took her for a 
 poor girl, in her plain black morning frock and sailor 
 hat. 
 
 " You have some one you are interested in, over 
 there, at the reformatory ? " he asked, his eyes keeping 
 their still, almost divine kindliness. It is a thing 
 certain that the Carpenter's Son spoke thus to the 
 woman they brought him, that time when He said, 
 " Neither do I condemn thee ! " 
 
 " I have two, over there," said Patricia, sadly ; 
 
 " two in whom I am much interested. But " 
 
 here she hesitated. She did not like to say outright, 
 " But who are you ? " He spoke with authority, 
 this man. Archbold Molesay smiled.
 
 iSa KID McGHIE 
 
 *' No," he answered gently the thought as he saw 
 it pass the windows of her eyes, " I am not a priest. 
 I am not a minister. Though again, perhaps I am 
 both. I have at least given all my Ufe to teaching 
 men the Way, as I know it," he added, hastily. 
 
 " Ah," she cried, " if only I knew the way ! " 
 
 The cry was wrung from her. It was a real appeal, 
 as natural as that which accompanies actual physical 
 pain. Archbold Molesay, the security of his message 
 upon him, sat down beside the girl. Queen's daughter 
 or strange woman, all were as much one to him as the}' 
 had been to his Master. 
 
 " Tell me ! " he commanded, speaking softly, yet 
 with the power of one who was not accustomed to be 
 disobeyed. 
 
 "Tell me first who you think I am— what you 
 imagine me to be ? " said Patricia, looking at him. 
 
 The httle silver-headed man sketched a motion 
 with his hand, which signified clearly that who or 
 what this woman who wept was, or what she had 
 done, weighed with him not so much as one of these 
 fairy gossamer threads the wind was wafting across 
 the moor, ghnting pearl pink in the morning Ught. 
 
 In his heart of hearts Mr. Molesay thought the girl 
 a mourning sister, or perhaps even — such things he 
 had known — a child-mother with a prodigal boy 
 already shut up within these great walls of red brick 
 which Heame Mackenzie had reared. But nothing 
 of this appeared on the face of the httle missionary. 
 
 " My Master sent me to meet you, here and to-day," 
 he said, with quiet certainty, " else why am I sitting 
 with 3'ou behind this erection of peat bricks ? Tell 
 you who I am, who you are ? What does it matter ? 
 For me, I am Archbold Molesay, missionary to the 
 poor in the great city yonder. And I, too, have some 
 that interest me in there ! " 
 
 He pointed to the solemn lines of the *' Heame 
 Mackenzie," the most modem and successful insti- 
 tution for reclaiming wrong-going boj^s in the world.
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON MAW MOSS 183 
 
 Now, I know not what took hold of Patricia at that 
 moment. Perhaps it was that unknown something 
 deep down in the heart of every woman, which prompts 
 her to confess to the man who summons her to speak 
 out in the name of God. She may know httle of God, 
 and nothing at all of the man. No matter ! In her 
 heart there is the thrill of an appeal. 
 
 " Speak, my child ! I and God are listening ! " 
 said Archbold Molesay. 
 
 And, against all belief, against all probability, 
 Patricia spoke. 
 
     • • • 
 
 What she said she cannot now recall. She tried 
 to keep out names. Certainly she did not reveal her 
 own, nor yet that of Lord Athabasca. The meek 
 silver head nodded at each point. Nothing was 
 missed. Archbold Molesay now and then interjected 
 a question, but not many. Patricia was too accus- 
 tomed to use her tongue to leave anything essential 
 out of her narrative. 
 
 " Ah," said Mr. Molesay, when she had finished, 
 " thank God, the wickedness is yet to do ! And it 
 shall not be done. You remember the wise sa5nng 
 of the worldly, ' Do not worry about what you can't 
 help — you can't help it I Neither worry about that 
 which you can help — go and help it ! ' So now I say, 
 help it ! To marry that man because of money, or 
 position, or on account of your family, would be an 
 iniquity. But it is not done yet. , Nor must it ! " 
 
 " And what, then, must I do ? " Patricia asked 
 meekly, looking right over the bowed glistening head 
 of the little city missionary, across the wide spaces of 
 the sunht moor. " What must I do ? " 
 
 Little Mr. Molesay studied a moment. Perhaps he 
 consulted the speaking voice' of that " Kingdom' of 
 God " which, according to his reading of divine things, 
 abode within'' every? human breast. At any rate it 
 was a moment or two that he rested so, with averted 
 eyes half-closed, seeing the inner vision^
 
 i84 KID McGHIE 
 
 Then rising up, still uncovered, he spoke briefly and 
 clearly, in short, authoritative sentences. It was now 
 Patricia's turn to look straight at him. *' Yes ! " she 
 said, promising at each point, nodding also to show 
 that she understood. 
 
 " Yes ! Yes ! Yes ! " She had no thought of re- 
 fusing, any more than if he had been an angel from 
 heaven. 
 
 "So, then," he concluded, "good-bye tiU the 
 morning of the twenty-fifth ! I wiU meet the early 
 train. It will be dark. Here is my card with my 
 address. Write what you wiU to me. God be with 
 you, my child I " 
 
 And thus came the Kingdom of God upon Maw 
 Moss, in a clear, glittering day of vrinter when even 
 the curlews had deserted it for the tidal flats of the 
 Firth. It came not with observation, but — as usual 
 — with a still, small voice. And it came to stay. 
 Henceforth Patricia McGhie had something to live 
 for — first of all, of course, the morning of the twenty- 
 fifth. 
 
     •   • 
 
 On the whole, Mr. Molesay had a harder job with 
 the Rev. Harry Rodgers, minister of the Peden Mem- 
 orial Church, Cowgate. You see, Mr. Molesay was 
 a bachelor, and, therefore, in the matter of Patricia 
 he had to have recourse to his friend the clergyman, 
 who demanded reasons, and to these again, reasons 
 annexed. 
 
 " I have no patience with you, Molesay," said the 
 Rev. Harry Rodgers, pacing up and down his con- 
 fined study, lined with the Fathers in vellum, and 
 the Puritans in duU-brown calf-skin rows. " As if 
 you had not enough to do here. And yet in addition 
 you must take on your hands a young woman you 
 don't know " 
 
 " Do you or I know any of the people we give a 
 leg over the stile to ? " said Mr. Molesay, ^dth a sigh. 
 " Do we even know them after they are over ? " ;^
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON MAW MOSS 185 
 
 "That has nothing whatever to do vith it," said 
 the Rev. Harry Rodgers, quickly. " This is serious, 
 Molesay, and I must think. You say that this young 
 lady — I will assume that she is a lady " 
 
 " Your wife v^dll tell you that in a moment ! " 
 said Mr. Molesay, with a gentle tinkle of irony in 
 his voice. 
 
 " I will assume that she is all you say," said the 
 minister, " though bachelors are easily taken in. 
 And I will assume further that all her statements, 
 though unchecked, are true. But what does that 
 amount to ? This, so far as I can see, the young lady 
 has, to obhge her family, agreed to marry a man of 
 higher rank than her o\\ti, three times her age, while 
 in the meantime her affections are bestowed upon 
 another " 
 
 " Whafs all this, Harry ? " 
 
 A small, bead-eyed, orbicular Japanesy woman 
 with very smooth hair swooped into the room, rather 
 than entered it. She had the oil-can of a sewing 
 machine in her hand, and she was in search of the 
 wherewithal to fill it. She had searched every avail- 
 able place and as a last resource she attacked her 
 husband's study. There was the very bottle, marked 
 " Singer " in large letters, on the mantelpiece itself. 
 
 " Harry, you've had it for your bicycle again," 
 she cried in reproachful accents, " and after what 
 you promised, too ! " 
 
 "Laura," he said, "I forgot—I did, indeed!" 
 
 The Reverend Harry does not quote the patristic 
 fathers to this little woman with the bright eyes. 
 He knows better. That bottle of sewing-machine 
 oil now in the sloe-pupiled woman's hands is worth 
 all the systematic divinity of twenty centuries, so 
 far as proof, trial, and sentence are concerned. 
 
 " And what was that I heard ? " she continued, 
 boarding her husband with a hot pretty vehemence. 
 " Out with it ! Some of your megrims and scruples ! 
 What was it that Mr. Molesay said / would understand
 
 i86 KID McGHIE 
 
 in a moment, and you were arguing about ? Come, 
 out with it, or I'll find out for myself ! " 
 
 And she shook the bottle of Singer's machine oil 
 — warranted fluid in any climate — in his very face. 
 
 " It was a young lady,' Rodgers murmured, resolved 
 to make a clean breast of it. " A young lady whom 
 Molesay wants to bring here." 
 
 " Here — where — to this house ? " queried the little 
 woman, her tone altering as quick as a flash. 
 
 Mr. Molesay nodded. Then he smiled and waved 
 his hand to Rodgers. " Let me tell it," he said. 
 " I know the facts better. I had the story from the 
 young lady herself." And he related Patricia's 
 parlous case. 
 
 On Mrs. Rodgers it had quite a different effect 
 from that upon her husband. 
 
 ** Of course she shall come ! " she cried with enthu- 
 siasm. " Who could doubt it ? She shall be as 
 my own sister. Marry that old dotterer — ^never, 
 if I can help it ! And I don't see that she's done 
 anything wrong either ! And if she had—why, they 
 made her, with all their foolery about heiress-ships 
 and titles. Besides, how was she to know she was 
 going to meet the other — oh, he must be nice ! Of 
 course, she shall come here ! Fill the oil-can," Harry. 
 Mr. Molesay, that's all settled." 
 
 But whether it was the filMng of the oil-can which 
 was settled, or the advent of Patricia at the Peden 
 Memorial Manse, remained, so far as the vivid little 
 woman's words were concerned, in a state of uncer- 
 tainty. 
 
 Mr. Molesay, however, departed well satisfied, 
 and waited for the twenty-fifth of February with a 
 tranquil heart. That is, he had too many other 
 things on his mind to let himself be overmuch disturbed 
 about any one of them. There was Billy Earsman, 
 for instance, who wanted to know what he must 
 do with Kate, his wife, who threatened to fall into 
 a decUne with fretting about her little Polly, in spite
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON MAW MOSS 187 
 
 of the fine funeral and the singing in the choir. This 
 was a disappointment to the city missionary, who 
 had thought that affair settled, once for all, so .soon 
 as he heard Kate Earsman's first solo after Leo Morse 
 had taken her in hand. 
 
 Then there was also Ogg, king of Bashan and land- 
 lord of the " British Imperial," who was like to lose 
 his hcence. In which case much worse might happen. 
 The local shebeens would be reopened. Drinking 
 would be done in secret Burke-and-Hare kens instead 
 of being poMced by Billy Earsman and the aforesaid 
 Ogg, king of Bashan — strong men both. A larger 
 percentage than usual of his fiock had been in the 
 dock that week, upon the usual charges, " D. and 
 D.," " resisting in the discharge," *' causing to assem- 
 ble," and so on — just the daily round, the common 
 task, nothing more. 
 
 Archbold Molesay, had, in truth, enough to do. 
 He saw the district inspectors of police. He even 
 interviewed the great Henderland, not yet retired 
 on his well-deserved pension. Of set purpose he 
 visited at the prison in the Calton many closely shaven 
 heads, and being there he was asked to look in and 
 see various others. All the time he remained the 
 same — a Uttle, timorous, undaunted man, with a 
 head that glistened with the sheen of good silver 
 plate, so good that the butler is afraid to polish it. 
 
 At last the twenty-fifth of February arrived. 
 And with his chin buried in the raised collar of his 
 worn overcoat, Mr. Molesay waited on the wind- 
 thrashed quays of the great Abbotsford Station, 
 under the changeful bluish dither of the electrics, 
 for the train due from the south at 6.15 a.m. 
 
 There was a man to be hanged aloft yonder in the 
 big quadrangle of the prison, and little Mr. Molesay 
 had been most of the night up with him. Already 
 curious folk were arriving from different parts of 
 the city, perching on rails and walls to see the black 
 flag go up as St. Giles tolled his eight strokes, when
 
 i88 KID McGHIE. 
 
 a man's strong-beating life would go out like an over- 
 snuffed candle. 
 
 But as to that Mr. Molesay had now no care. The 
 man up there, the man who had done that thing, 
 knew all that Mr. Molesay knew. And if he abode 
 with him he might be tempted " to lean on the crea- 
 ture," as Mr. Molesay expressed it, instead of passing 
 on his way to find himself face to face with the Forgiver 
 of sins concerning whom Mr. Molesay had told him. 
 Nevertheless, Mr. Molesay, adrift on the cold quays, 
 where an east wind, dry and withering, seemed almost 
 to blov/ the sohd freestone flagging underfoot into 
 grains of sand, sent a prayer up in the direction of 
 the Calton Prison. 
 
 Then he bent himself as best he might to help 
 the next of human kind who needed him. This 
 was Patricia. 
 
 She had not awaked upon the morning of her mar- 
 riage day. Rather, she rose from an unslept-in bed 
 ready dressed for her venture. She had had, since 
 her meeting with Mr. Molesay, one friend in Egham 
 Castle — even httle Kate Earsman, wife of Billy. 
 Mr. Molesay, in accordance with his usual plan, had 
 made " one hand wash another," which in this case 
 meant that one good work of necessity and mercy 
 could often be performed so as to include another 
 and a lesser good. 
 
 And the greater good of Patricia — alone in that 
 great castle, abandoned by her own, sold by the 
 Hammers to the highest bidder, and with only a 
 couple of skinny automata for responsible relatives 
 — went along with the good of httle Kate Earsman, 
 now her maid, still mourning for Polly, and with 
 this single chance of distraction and country air. 
 
 Now there were doubtless v\dser little men, according 
 to the flesh, than Mr. Archbold Molesay, cit}^ mission- 
 ary. But somewhere in his frail personahty there 
 must have been hidden one infallible instinct of a 
 great general. He provided against eventucilities.
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON MAW MOSS 189 
 
 It could not be said that Mr. Molesay actually 
 foresaw that Kate Earsman, in the freedom of the 
 Egham servants' hall, could have found the proof 
 of the base transaction to which Lord Athabasca 
 had allowed himself to become a party. Yet she 
 did. She heard the rumour that her mistress, Miss 
 Patricia McGliie Egham Boreham-Egham, was to 
 be married to the old lord, the most constant visitor 
 at the castle, and that for this, on the marriage day 
 itself, the Hammers, husband and wife, were to receive 
 the sum of £10,000. But it was not till one day in 
 the hall, fiercely brushing Lord Athabasca's overcoat, 
 mth the neck down, that a sheaf of papers fell from 
 the inner breast pocket. And among them — Kate 
 had no delicacy as to examining them — she found 
 the pencilled minute of the agreement with the Ham- 
 mers, terms, date and all. 
 
 This Kate retained in her own hands, for there 
 was no sa5T.ng what Patricia in a fit of Quixotry, 
 might not do. Kate felt that, if things happened 
 crosswise, such a weapon would be far better in her 
 hands, or in those of her husband, BiUy, the " bully " 
 of Ogg, king of Bashan, than in those of a simple 
 girl. It was no use gi\'ing all the advantages to the 
 evildoers, thought this brave little Kate, any more 
 than, in mission work, it is right that the devil should 
 have all the good tunes.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE TRAPPED TIGER 
 
 But this part of the story must begin on Patricia's 
 marriage morning in the castle of Egham. She was 
 not the only one awake in the great gaunt castle. 
 Algernon Hammer, also, could not sleep that night. 
 He took out the slip of paper with " ten thousand 
 pounds " written on it in the clean-curv^ed American 
 mercantile flourish which has reached across the 
 St. Lawrence. Then the figures in the comer, prettily 
 exact, as if my lord had been copy-setting, £10,000, 
 how beautiful it looked ! Now there would be no 
 fumbling with pints of ale, no wrangUng with doubt- 
 fully paying guests in a pubhc bar — ^nothing but 
 the ten thousand well and safely invested — " a little 
 farm well tilled, a Uttle wife well willed," he hummed. 
 He was thinking of Marigh, and however the farm 
 might be tilled, Mr. Hammer had no doubts concerning 
 the excellence of Marigh's will power. 
 
 At twelve of the clock that day ! Marriages — 
 what were marriages ? Marigh would attend to 
 that. Wliat he would do would be to take the early 
 train to Edinburgh, disembark on the platform of 
 the Abbotsford Station at 6.15 a.m. And after that, 
 lurking unseen, await the opening of the bank. That 
 would be at ten — not a minute before. He must 
 catch the morning train, for otherwise he could not 
 very well be seen leaving the castle at an early 
 hour on such a day. Marigh would see that all was 
 right. She would make his excuses — the dentist 
 — he had been taken sharply ill. It was a severe 
 
 igo
 
 THE TRAPPED TIGER 191 
 
 disappointment to him not to be all day on the spot 
 — that day, so pregnant with possibiUties to the house 
 of Boreham-Egham, which he had served so long 
 and so faithfully. He would, however, be back in 
 time for the marriage ceremony itself. Of that 
 there could be no doubt. 
 
 So at the httle moorland station of Ringside, where 
 the south train was in the habit of stopping for a 
 drink of water, three passengers mounted — two into 
 the first-class, women they, thickly veiled and deeply 
 cloaked. Then after Ungering till the very last moment 
 in the dusk of the unhghted waiting room, only a 
 degree less bleak than the moor outside, a man with 
 his face hidden, made a dash for a third-class com- 
 partment, fell over the legs of a sleeping man, was 
 cursed freely, and finally settled himself in the least 
 conspicuous comer. It was Mr. Algernon Hammer, 
 who occupied himself rubbing his shins with one 
 hand, while with the other he made sure that the 
 precious cheque was safe in the innermost pocket 
 of his waistcoat. 
 
 True, Lord Athabasca had said he would inform 
 his bankers that the cheque was not payable till after- 
 noon that day, by which time Lord Athabasca would 
 assuredly have changed his estate from that of widower 
 back to that of married man. But then my lord 
 was in love with a dashing young heiress, the hand- 
 somest in the country. And Mr. Hammer thought 
 it likely, on the principle that there are no fools hke 
 old fools, that my lord would have forgotten to give 
 any such instructions to his bankers. In v/hich 
 the knowing Algernon had indeed argued perfectly 
 correctly. The cheque would have been paid that 
 day at the big palace of Mammon on the Mound 
 at ten of the clock, that is, but for one thing. 
 
 And that small hindrance had nothing at all to 
 do with my Lord Athabasca, who was to arrive with 
 his bridegroom's party at the appointed hour of 
 half -past ten, to find a distracted Mrs. Hammer,
 
 ^92 KID McGHIE 
 
 an immensely excited Philip Egbert, a Mrs. Philip 
 apparently fainting and coming to again with the 
 regularity of clockwork. But— the bird had flown ! 
 
 Algernon Hammer was so taken up with his cheque 
 and its safety that no suspicion crossed his mind 
 till the whole party disembarked on the wind-blown 
 spaces of the Abbotsford South Station. Then, 
 as he happened to be in the last carriage of the train, 
 he had perforce to pass the compartment from which 
 Patricia, her face flicked to faint rose with the teasing 
 Easter, was descending, and for the first time in her 
 life giving her hand to a man as she did so. The 
 man, of course, was Mr. Archbold Molesay, of the 
 Cowgate Mission. 
 
 " Oh, no — of course not," she was sa5nng, " he 
 knew nothing about it— no one knew except Kate 
 Earsman." 
 
 Then Mr. Algernon Hammer, forgetting the precious 
 contents of his inner waistcoat pocket, descended 
 upon the runaways with a perfect shriek of despair. 
 
 "Miss Patricia," he cried, "what are you doing 
 here at this moment ? What ? What ? What .? 
 You must instantly return. I \vill compel you. 
 Where are the police ? I will telegraph to Mr. Bore- 
 ham-Egham— to your father. He is now at the 
 castle— to your brother. And this man— get out of 
 my way, sir ! " 
 
 And being strengthened by sudden blinding despair, 
 he gave little Mr. Molesay a swing that sent him 
 staggering against the nearest tall post of the electric 
 light. 
 
 '\Billy I " cried Kate Earsman, lifting a hand like 
 a signalman. For far down the shadowy, winking 
 platform, from which the lights were dropping away, 
 fewer and fewer, at that dead time of the morning 
 before the London expresses were due, she had seen 
 a figure she knew well. " Billy ! Billy, I want 
 you ! " 
 
 And upon the word, Billy Eai'sman heaved himself
 
 MISS PATRICIA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? YOU MUST 
 INSTANTLY RETURN."
 
 THE TRAPPED TIGER 193 
 
 forward, as big as any three men there — barring, 
 perhaps, the stately master of the Abbotsford Station 
 himself. 
 
 " What's up ? " he inquired. 
 
 His wife hurriedly explained, and Billy looked 
 about with an abrupt and ugly squaring of the jaw. 
 The Ringside engine was, of course, not one of the 
 big " through " engines, but a " short-distance local," 
 and on her, busy with a wisp of waste, was a man 
 whom Billy knew. Indeed, there were few men 
 on the south side of the city whom Billy did not 
 know, or at least who did not know Billy. 
 
 " Jackie," he said, " give me a hurl with this joker. 
 He wants to bother the wife — ye ken my Rate, 
 her that sings the hymns — and this young leddy. 
 What'll we do with him ? " 
 
 The short-distance driver scratched his head. It 
 was " clean again' regulations," of course. That 
 went without saying. But then he owed many a 
 good turn to Billy, the right-hand man of Ogg, aforesaid 
 king of Bashan. 
 
 " Fetch him on board, BiUy," he said, at last. " Faith, 
 we will run him doon to Sant Margaret's. The boys 
 will find him a warm shop to content himsel' in. 
 Botherin' Rate, your wife, was he ? He deserves 
 to hae the ugly heid knockit aff his shoothers. What 
 for dinna ye do it, Billy ? " 
 
 *' Ower mony poHss aboot," sai^ Billy, looking 
 down the long vistas of the platform ; " and, besides, 
 it wad mess Maister Paton's nice clean flags ! " 
 
 " Aweel, they're nane sac particular doon at Sant 
 Margaret's ! " said the driver, putting his hand on 
 the starting lever. " Gie him a heave amang the 
 coals." 
 
 " Doon yonder they'll rivet a man up in a biler 
 for twa gallon o' Usher's best ! Reep still, my mannie ! 
 Dinna be fear't — ye will be drooned lang before ye 
 are boilt. They say it's no a painfu' daith. But, 
 look here, Billy, dinna tell the Sant Margaret's men 
 
 IS
 
 t94 KID McGHIE 
 
 aboot Kate, or they will be for startin' the fires o' 
 the Flyin' Scotsman wi' him. He looks fine an* 
 brosy. He wad bum weel, juist like backin' the 
 fire wi' creesh ! " 
 
 They took him down in that intractable gray of 
 the morning, which is darker than the dark of midnight, 
 through a murk of tunnels, past the yellow wink 
 of many gas lamps, the brassy reek of naphtha flares, 
 to where there were digging operations going on for 
 the new station. They left the electrics far behind, 
 the high-bunched kaleidoscopes of the signals standing 
 long aloft in the west. They deUvered Algernon 
 Hammer, shaking, and much afraid, in a darksome 
 place, to a gang of brawTiy giants who worked 
 under a naked arc hght which changed its " pitch '* 
 every quarter of a minute. These men ran little 
 waggons into a black hole, a wet, greasy, unsatisfactory 
 hole in the ground. 
 
 Billy Earsman explained to his prisoner — things 
 which gave Billy great pleasure. Algernon offered 
 fabulous sums of money. Hundreds and hundreds 
 of pounds ! If he had offered half a sovereign he 
 might have had a better chance. But as the morning 
 broke, the St. Margaret's men pushed him into the 
 excavation, which, frozen outside, was drippy and 
 warm within. They gave him a pick and they told 
 him to dig. When he indignantly refused, Mr. Hammer 
 became aware that the makers of the new tunnel 
 wore No. 12 tacketty boots and, desiring no more 
 knowledge, he grasped the pick and struck his first 
 stroke of honest manual labour. 
 
 But the morning was passing. As Algernon's 
 pick rose and fell, and he felt the bhsters slowly " hov- 
 mg " themselves on his soft palms, his watch ticked 
 in his pocket relentlessly. High over head, 
 some hundreds of feet, a man's Ufe, taken by his 
 fellow men, was passing into the Whither, just as 
 if he had been a saint, a confessor, or a martyr. A 
 black flag was raised and a deep sigh went over the
 
 THE TRAPPED TIGER 195 
 
 city — at least over that part within eyeshot of the 
 ultimatum of human justice. 
 
 Presently it was ten o'clock. Algernon knew this 
 because the navvies had a spell, and Billy Earsman, 
 that man great in the world of them that draw the 
 beer-pull and turn about for the spirit bottle as it 
 stands on its glittering row, had mysteriously procured 
 for them the wherewithal to eat and drink and 
 smoke. 
 
 Ten o'clock ! And the bank on the Mound would 
 be opening. Horror ! Mr. Hammer made a rush, 
 only to be tripped up, and asked if he meant to get 
 himself hurt — informed, also, that fellows who did 
 not know how to behave to decent married women 
 had much better do very exactly as they were told. 
 They might, for instance, happen to get covered up 
 in a " shde," or their heads broken in a " roof fall." 
 It sometimes happened so in driving a tunnel. Gener- 
 ally, too, it happened to " bad men hke Mr. Algernon 
 Hammer, and though, of course, they would be 
 sorry, owing to his having been brought there 
 by such good chums as Driver Jackie and Ogg, king 
 of Bashan's BiUy — still, when a thing hke that 
 happens, as it were, it comes to pass once for aU. 
 And there is nothing more to be said. Except to 
 contract for the coffin. And sometimes even that is 
 unnecessary. 
 
 It was at five minutes to three that day, according 
 to the big, silent, official timepiece of the bank on 
 the Mound, when into the busy hush and brass- bound 
 wicker-work reserve of the business room rushed 
 a strange figure. It was Algernon Hammer, con- 
 troller of the high, the low, and the middle justice, 
 over at Egham Castle. Only one coal-black whisker 
 remained. The other had been scorched off, none 
 knew exactly how. He was dripping with wet, 
 though the day remained dry, chiU, straw twirhng, 
 Edinburghish. His clothes were in tatters of rags. 
 Bui he had a cheque for £10,000 in his hand.
 
 196 KID McGHIE 
 
 The paying teller, clean shaven, east windy, 
 Edinburghish himself, glanced casually at the long, 
 narrow oblong of bank paper, then up at a hst 
 pinned against the woodwork at his side. He never 
 once looked at Algernon Hammer. He was not paid 
 
 for that. 
 
 "This cheque was stopped at five minutes past 
 twelve to-day,!" he said, as calmly as the big clock 
 
 ticking. 
 
 But before he could hand back the cheque, Algernon 
 Hammer had fallen fainting on the floor. 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Harry Rodgers was indulging in 
 the luxury, purely feminine, of "a good cry." All 
 real women enjoy that as one of their greatest pleasures. 
 The others— well, they edit papers, speak at meetings, 
 and generally make themselves objectionable. But 
 because they don't cry as a luxury, men don't take 
 to them, somehow. Strange, but true ! 
 
 Mrs. Harry Rodgers's good cry was aided and 
 abetted by Patricia. She told her story, and some- 
 times, mostly out of sympathy, cried a httle also. 
 This showed merely that there was no ill feehng. 
 Then they kissed, and generally cheered each other 
 up. They were having " a lovely time " when the 
 Reverend Harry came in, and with him Mr. Molesay. 
 
 If it had only been her husband, at such a luxurious 
 time, Mrs. Harry Rodgers would have made remarkably 
 short work of his intrusion. But Mr. Molesay, having 
 a stake in the country, as it were, deserved and must 
 receive somewhat more considerate treatment. 
 
 " Archbold Molesay," she cried, " how dare you ? 
 Not kiss a girl Hke that, and you old enough to be 
 her father ? If you won't, I'll make Harry do it. 
 Just to show how welcome she is among us ! It 
 isn't much to do ! There ! I do believe you never 
 kissed a woman before, blushing like that ! What, 
 not since your hair was gray ! Well, more shame to
 
 . THE TRAPPED TIGER 197 
 
 you. coming here four or five times a week and. seeing 
 how happy we are, Harry and T ! " 
 
 This speech of Mrs. Harry Rodgers's was a h'ttle 
 mixed, as most of the dear lady's were. But it impHed 
 and included a good deal more than it expressed. 
 Also, it called up various emotions in the breast, 
 the highly unaccustomed breast, of little silver-haired, 
 low- voiced Mr. Molesay. 
 
 Pat had no objections to kissing such a man, " such 
 a dear little man " was her mental reservation. She 
 was sure he wouldn't mind, no, of course not. It 
 would not have mattered if he had. It was none 
 of his business. Here Patricia sighed, the why un- 
 specified even to herself. 
 
 " I do not at all agree with you as to her stopping 
 in," said Mrs. Harry Rodgers. " Who ever comes 
 here, down into the Cowgate ? They look at us as a 
 curious spectacle. You can see a crowd all day and 
 half the night staring down at us through the grilles 
 of the bridges, as if we were negroes or Hottentots. 
 Like the angels Harry talks about, they may look, 
 but they mustn't touch. They don't interfere. They 
 never think of interfering with us. We would stew 
 in our own juice from one year's end to another, 
 if it were not for the casual policeman, and the well- 
 dressed-and-bred children who throw orange peel at 
 us from ' up above.' Sometimes, once in a hundred 
 Christmases, Santa Claus comes to fill our stockings, 
 but generally those up there only — spit on us ! " I 
 
 Somewhat mildly, her husband objected to the 
 forcefulness of his wife's remarks. But Mrs. Harry 
 was not in the least abashed, and indeed in the breast 
 of the good minister of the Peden Memorial there 
 rankled a feeling that those, who, like himself, worked 
 in the 'city slums, were left very much alone, to 
 sink or swim according to the freedom of their own 
 wills. 
 
 The day wore on. Mr. Molesay went about his 
 ^(?rk without having carried out his proposition that
 
 igS KID McGHIE 
 
 he should go to Egham Castle and tell Patricia's 
 father what had become of his daughter. 
 
 The two men voted aye ; the two women, no. 
 The noes, being thus in an immense majority, carried 
 it by acclamation. So Mr. Molesay stayed at home. 
 
 " The idea ! " cried Mrs. Harry, with quite unusual 
 vehemence — which is sajnng not a little — " to go 
 out there — and have the whole Egham pack in full 
 cry ! We would never get her mind quiet at all. 
 Of course her sisters will know just what has become 
 of her. They would have done the same in her place. 
 Her brothers won't care, and as for her father " 
 
 " Oh, I know ! you needn't shake ' Laura, I'm 
 surprised at you ' over me, Harry. You are not 
 surprised in the least. I know what you are going 
 to say — all about ' honour thy father ' and so on. 
 And so I did, dear old man. But he never spent his 
 time fiddle-faddling about pedigrees. It was all 
 he could do to keep us in potatoes ! No, I won't 
 hush ! " 
 
 Patricia laughed. It eased things, that laugh. 
 
 *' I wish I had known your father, Mrs. Rodgers," 
 she said, sighing a httle. 
 
 " Tut, call me Laura," cried the httle almond-eyed 
 woman. " We've sunk so low down here that we 
 actually call each other by our Christian names on 
 the least provocation or none at all." 
 
 Then, in the gloaming, just when the casual newsboy 
 was beginning his war whoop about " speeshul edee- 
 shun " in best Cowgateese — for there is no quarter 
 in the city of windy spaces so impoverished that it 
 cannot afford a halfpenny for an evening paper — 
 httle Kate Earsman dropped in. 
 
 Billy, it seemed, had come back with a tale — oh, such 
 a tale ! A tale, which, on the face of it, had better 
 not be told to Archbold Molesay and Harry Rodgers, 
 regulars in the ranks, in the forefront of the fighting 
 hne. All the same, a tale which immensely amused 
 Patricia and Laura<. For good women, children,
 
 THE TRAPPED TIGER 199 
 
 and savages like their humour spread on with a trowel. 
 Jack, cutting the bean stalk so that the bad giant 
 might tumble down and break his crown, is about 
 their size. 
 
 The defeat — the downfall — of Controller Hammer, 
 his reception at the bank, his carrying off to the 
 hospital, his rapid recovery there, and hurried exit 
 were all greatly to the taste of the women concerned. 
 For Patricia had suffered many things at the hands 
 of Algernon Hammer. 
 
 Kate Earsman wiped her eyes as she told it. Her 
 Billy was the hero of it all. The telling had done her 
 good like a precious medicine from the Cowgate 
 Dispensary. The only point where she went beyond 
 the appreciation of her patronesses was when she 
 told them, as an additional stroke of humour, that 
 after the beast of prey was stricken down on the floor 
 of the bank by the sudden knowledge that all his 
 wiles were useless, he had called out, " Oh, what will 
 Marigh say ? " as he was coming to himself in the 
 cab which bore him along Forrest Road to the accident 
 ward. 
 
 But to Kate's surprise both Laura and Patricia 
 agreed that they thought the better of Algernon 
 Hammer for thinking of his wife at such a time, ^iv^ 
 
 " Oh, he was just feared o' what she would say to 
 him ! " said Kate Earsman who also had her own 
 griefs. But Patricia and Mrs. Rodgers remarked 
 that affection for the tigress is no shame to the tiger, 
 especially when he finds himself taken in the snare. 
 
 Meantime Egham Castle had been the scene of 
 events no less remarkable, if somewhat less varied 
 and romantic, than the adventures of Controller 
 Hammer under the guidance of Billy Earsman and 
 Driver Jackie. 
 
 From early morning the whole place had been in 
 an uproar, chiefly owing to the fact that its lord and
 
 200 KID McGHIE 
 
 master could not dress himself, could not adjust his 
 pads, pull his straps, fix and dress his wig, choose his 
 stock, propel himself to his place, and settle him for the 
 day with yesterday's Times and a volume of the 
 Gentleman's Magazine ready to his hand. It was 
 most inconsiderate of Hammer. Phihp Egbert Egham 
 Boreham-Egham could never have believed it of 
 Hammer. And on a day like that, above all, when 
 there was company in the house — McGhies and people 
 like that— besides my Lord Athabasca coming over 
 at half-past ten. 
 
 Philip Egbert's wife came in with apologies — the 
 apologies of Mrs. Hammer. As arranged. Hammer 
 had been suddenly taken in the night with a violent 
 toothache — so violent that it required an immediate 
 visit to the dentist in the city. He had started early, 
 so as to be back in time to give the necessary cares 
 to his master. 
 
 Then Mr. Boreham-Egham took the sulks. Yes, 
 great man as he was, the fruit of a family tree whose 
 roots were in Noah the navigator and Adam the day 
 labourer, Phihp Egbert took the sulks. He was so 
 emphatically in the pet that he refused to stir out of 
 his room, but sat in a chair before the fire in a scarlet 
 dressing gown and flannel trousers, cursing fate and 
 Algernon Hammer — Hammer the faithless, the once 
 attached, the now forever anathematised controller 
 of Egham. 
 
 He was thus engaged when he received the news 
 of what for the moment appeared to him a far lesser 
 grief. 
 
 The bride had disappeared I 
 
 Annoying, certainly ! But, after aU, what was 
 that to a man who could not perform the first necessi- 
 ties of the toilette for himself, and who might have to 
 appear at one of the most important events which 
 had ever taken place at Egham Castle in — shame 
 sat on his brow at the thought — ^in flannel trousers 
 and a scarlet dressing go\vn !
 
 THE TRAPPED TIGER 201 
 
 " Miss Patricia can't be found, sir ! '* 
 
 It was William, the under-butler, who brought the 
 news. William, usually something of a favourite, 
 had to fly from the wrath of the padless, hairless, 
 stayless thing in the scarlet dressing gown, which, 
 as one might say, represented all that was mortal 
 of Phihp Egbert, etc. 
 
 " What is Miss Patricia to me ? " he shrieked, 
 looking about him for a missile. Though, as WiUiam 
 remarked later, " What he thought he could hit me 
 with, the Lord only knows ! " 
 
 " ' Send Hammer to me as soon as he comes back,' 
 he says (William's report). ' Why, it's like a night- 
 mare — going to church in a dickey and a pair o' 
 spectacles ! ' he says, or words to that effect. ' And 
 if so be as Hammer does not come, there'll be no 
 wedding in Egham to-day, bride or no bride ! ' 
 
 " That's what he kep' on sayin' to me, and me 
 tryin' to edge in aU the time, that there bein' no Miss 
 Patricia, there couldn't be a wedding — no, not if he 
 was wrapped in corsets from head to foot, like them 
 ancestor fellers of his in their coats o' mail ! But 
 hsten to a word — he just wouldn't, sir. Only kept 
 cryin' for Hammer, and utterin' words, sir, that I 
 never thought wot the old creatur had the grit, sir, 
 to get his tongue round. He must ha' been a woner 
 when he was young, sir, from what I heard ! " 
 
 Thus it was at Egham Castle, so far as the master 
 of the house was concerned, and as reported upon by 
 William the faithful. 
 
 The McGhies were much more composed, especially 
 the younger members of the family. For instance, 
 the boys, though they regretted the Egham and 
 Athabasca pheasants, thought Patricia " no end of a 
 plucky girl." 
 
 " Good old Pat," said Gilbert. " Hoist the Union 
 Jack, give three cheers, and let the music play ! 
 The number of flies on our Pat is infinitesimal ! " 
 
 A-S for Baby Lant, she said nothing, only thought
 
 aoa KID McGHIE 
 
 over the things she would say to Martha, otherwise 
 Mrs. Willie Symington, on her return to Balmaghie. 
 Mr. Patrick McGhie, J. P., offered to apologise for his 
 daughter's behaviour to Mr. Boreham-Egham. But 
 that gentleman sent the bereaved parent word that 
 his daughter might go and drown herself, if only he 
 would find Hammer and bring him into the room. 
 Mr. McGhie gasped and shrank from a personal inter- 
 view with a desolate family tree wrapped in a scarlet 
 dressing gown with flannel continuations ! 
 
 But when Lord Athabasca came, with Mr. Toby 
 Lasalle, his best man, a mighty fisher of salmon 
 and authentic millionaire, the possessor of an island 
 about the size of Ireland, there were, what William 
 the footman somewhat vulgarly referred to as " times." 
 
 " Times " there were. Lord Athabasca demanded 
 to see Mr. P. E. Egham Boreham-Egham at once and 
 immediately, and it was replied to him that such a 
 thing was impossible. But even in the days when 
 Athabasca had been no more than plain Mr. Heame 
 Mackenzie, C.E., it had been difficult to say him nay. 
 
 So now. W^illiam delivered his message and was 
 calmly put to the side by the collar of his coat, as if 
 he had been a troublesome child. Then there feU a 
 knock upon the door of Mr. PhiHp Egbert, and so 
 forth. 
 
 " Don't come in — don't come in, whoever you are ! 
 I forbid you ! " screamed, squeaked, and twittered 
 — aU at one time — the bat-Uke voice of the master of 
 Egham. 
 
 But my Lord Athabasca, accustomed throughout his 
 hfe to direct methods, simply opened the door and 
 walked in. There was a wild flurry of scarlet, arms 
 gesticulating, bat-Hke voice piping, flannel-clad legs 
 which transported a white and pink earwiggy-looking 
 thing furiously in the direction of Lord Athabasca. 
 It squalled in his ear for him to go out. It pushed 
 against him with its antenna, curious jointed structures 
 akin to the arms of undressed doUs. But my Lord
 
 THE TRAPPED TIGER 203 
 
 Athabasca did not " get out." On the contrary, 
 quite I 
 
 He said, instead, " Hey, stop that ! " 
 
 And curiously enough the scarlet dressing gown 
 was at peace. Its occupant had never been addressed 
 in that manner before. 
 
 " Get your clothes on ! " said this wonderful Cana- 
 dian lord, so different from the musty inbred things 
 that are grown at home. "Get your clothes on, 
 man, and help us to find out what has happened. 
 Your Controller Hammer, who has an affair with me 
 to settle, has vanished and apparently has taken with 
 him Miss Patricia. And hang it, sir, I demand to 
 know what it all means ? Have you brought me here 
 to make a fool of me ? " 
 
 The " rehcs of humanity " were understood to 
 deny something, anything, everything. The " rehcs " 
 had nothing to do with the bride, now a term of 
 mockery. The " rehcs " demanded Hammer, who alone 
 was responsible for all the trouble. It was impossible, 
 quite impossible for the master of the house to get 
 out of his scarlet dressing gown without the help 
 of Hammer. 
 
 " We'll see about that ! " said Lord Athabasca. 
 " I'll teach you or any man in this old overcrowded 
 kingdom to make a fool of me ! Here, Toby, Heame, 
 come up, I want you ! " 
 
 And in answer to his summons, there appeared 
 at the door of Mr. Phihp Egbert's dressing room 
 a round-faced, muscular man with twinkling eyes, 
 and a tall, solemn, dark, younger man, who only 
 needed a feather head-dress and some strings of wam- 
 pum to be acknowledged a chief of the Northern 
 Sioux. 
 
 " Put' his clothes on' " said my lord, the ex-civil 
 engineer. 
 
 Mr. Boreham-Egham squalled again for assistance. 
 But as William and the other footmen were strewn 
 along the path by which the salmon fisher and the
 
 304 KID McGHIE 
 
 grandson of Chief Crowfoot had come, they felt that 
 the apparelling of his master was Hammer's place 
 and duty, and so kept at a discreet distance. 
 
 They dressed him, these two. They found his 
 wig on a shelf and put it on wrong side foremost. 
 They laced his corsets up the front. They bandaged 
 his legs as if he had had a mustang accident. The 
 scarlet dressing gown flew to one comer of the room. 
 The flannel trousers — where went they ? " Ask of 
 the winds, which far and near, with fragments strewed 
 the sea." Or, at least, ask of Toby, the salmon fisher 
 of the Restigouche, and of Hearne, the serious assistant 
 superintendent of the reformatory, not far away 
 over the flat surface of Maw Moss. Meanwhile Lord 
 Athabasca walked round the patient and offered 
 suggestions. Toby and Hearne thoroughly enjoyed 
 their task, however. And Hearne, in especial, brought 
 to bear miracles of conscientiousness upon the pads 
 and straps — so much so that Mr. Boreham-Egham 
 felt as if he were being pinioned for instant 
 execution. 
 
 "Now, I think he'll do," said Lord Athabasca. 
 
 " Looks rather Hke " a scarecrow he was going to 
 
 say, when he remembered that he was in that scare- 
 crow's house and under contract to pay £10,000 to 
 that scarecrow's confidential man. A suspicion, 
 perfectly unwarranted, that Hammer was to share 
 the proceeds with his master, acted as a spur to the 
 by no means easy temper of my Lord Athabasca. 
 
 " Fetch him downstairs," said my lord. " We 
 will go into this in the drawing-room — before every- 
 body." 
 
 And there in the drawing-room in the presence 
 of all the company assembled, the wedding guests 
 — such nearest neighbours as were acknowledged 
 by the haughty, tree-toppy Egham Boreham-Eghams 
 — Athabasca conducted his inquisition. On one side 
 of him stood his son — dark, impassive, strikingly 
 handsome ; on the other, rotund j smiling, with a
 
 THE TRAPPED TIGER 205 
 
 face polished with good cheer, was Tob}^ Lasalle, 
 the salmon fisher, the greatest in the world, they 
 said. 
 
 And so mighty is the'^ power of the stronger will, so 
 complete its domination, that Marigh herself — Marigh 
 who had always been looked on as the backbone 
 of the Hammer Combine — gave way and wept aloud. 
 
 Yes, it was true. Miss Patricia had never wished 
 to marry his lordship. More than once she had 
 declared her determination not to do so. Especially 
 of late. There was — yes, she was sure — some one 
 else ! How could she know that ? Well, Miss Patricia 
 had been seen walking on the moor with some one 
 by her side, of a figure hke that of a young man. 
 And it had been noticed that when she entered late 
 from these unchecked rambles, she was sometimes 
 flushed, sometimes sad, sometimes excited, and on 
 one occasion in actual tears ! 
 
 It was out at last, and everybody looked at Lord 
 Athabasca to see how he would take it. He took 
 it hke the game old bird he was. 
 
 " Um-m-m-m-m," he said, rubbing his chin. " It 
 would have saved a great deal of trouble if you had 
 told me that before, Mrs. Hammer. Much as I admire 
 Miss Patricia, I have not the sHghtest desire to marry 
 a girl who does not want to marry me. She has good 
 taste, no doubt. But all the same she has lost a 
 good husband, eh, Toby ? " 
 
 " That she has, dear old man," said the loyal Toby, 
 " and a first-rate sportsman ! " 
 
 " It was Algernon," said Marigh, still sobbing. 
 " We was afraid to break it to vou ! His heart is 
 that tender ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Lord Athabasca, in a lower tone, 
 " his heart is tender, is it ? And where may he have 
 hidden away that tender heart of his to-day ? Some- 
 where near the Bank of Scotland, I guess." 
 
 He looked at his watch, nodded, and then beckoned 
 his son.
 
 8o6 KID McGHIE 
 
 "Take one of the carriage horses," he said in a 
 whisper; "they are fresh. I had them ordered 
 here overnight for another purpose, which will not 
 now be carried out. Go to the bank on the Mound 
 and stop the cheque for ten thousand pounds which 
 I gave in favour of Algernon Hammer, payable this 
 day." 
 
 And he scribbled a few words on a card which 
 he picked up from the table. The face of the 
 dark young man — people whispered that it was 
 his son, and that now at last there would be a 
 reconcihation — cleared amazingly. He said not a 
 word, but left the room with the card in his hand. 
 Order the horses for us all at the same time," 
 his father called after him. " The sooner we are out 
 of this the better pleased we shall be, eh, Toby ? " 
 
 And thus it was that the east-windy, speckless, 
 frosty, along-Princes-Street-and-back-again, blue- 
 blooded, all-there, banking young man in the head 
 office, felled Algernon Hammer to the ground on his 
 return from St. Margaret's, as surely as if he had taken 
 out a loaded bludgeon to do it. 
 
 And it surprised no one very much that Marigh 
 disappeared from Egham Castle that very afternoon, 
 and that a body, identified as that of Algernon Hammer, 
 was fished up by a trawler beyond the May.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 SCHOOLMASTER GRAINER 
 
 There was a dark and deadly plot " on " at the 
 " Heame Mackenzie " Reformatory, that eminent 
 estabUshment built by the munificence of a well- 
 known miihonaire, supported by voluntary contri- 
 butions, and recently placed under Governmental 
 supervision. Now, the " Heame Mackenzie " boys 
 were not model boys. Far from it. Before entering, 
 each of its inmates had to have either three " petties " 
 or one " grave " to his discredit. The " graves " 
 — which meant magisterial sentence for a grave offence 
 — ^were the aristocrats of the school, looked up to, 
 toadied to, the models of the aspiring, as it were, the 
 " glass of fashion and the mould of form." 
 
 Kid McGhie, officially known as No. 666, was of 
 this latter sort — that is, till he fell from his high estate. 
 As the Swanker had foretold, his father's fame had 
 been his best introduction to the upper circles of 
 " Hearne Mackenzie " society. It speaks well for 
 the disciphne, and the real human kindness with 
 which the institution was carried on, that the boys 
 who were of most use in the school, who stood out 
 most strongly against the " St. Jacob's " influence, 
 who looked forward to an honest way of earning a 
 livelihood, were almost exclusively those who had 
 been longest at the " Peat." 
 
 Of these the chief was Harry Lister, a red-headed 
 lad of great strength, a good fighter with his fists, 
 a clever workman in the " shops," and dowered with 
 
 207
 
 2o8 KID McGHIE 
 
 good looks and a merry expression of eye, which carried 
 him far. 
 
 It was not that he put his reformation on any 
 moral basis — not, at least, in words. He did not 
 vaunt his virtue, except as the best policy. He knew 
 that in the " Heame Mackenzie," anything else would 
 simply be laughed at. Then there would be a fight. 
 He did not want to fight — unless he had to. It was 
 all very well for a " greenie " like McGhie's Kid, 
 who had to show his mettle so as not to be " hazed," 
 and whose recent successful encounter with Smutty 
 (No. 391) was stiU in everybody's mouth. But red- 
 headed Harry Lister was in no such case. For of 
 him it might be said with reverence, that the rest 
 of the acts of Harry Lister, and the songs that he sung, 
 and how he hcked the great bruiser, Groggy Bill, 
 so that he could not stand up straight in boot leather, 
 and how he warred with Grainer, giving back blow 
 for blow, are they not written in the chronicles of 
 the " Heame Mackenzie " ? Therefore, and for these 
 reasons, had Harry Lister no need to strip and 
 show his form to any within the walls of the 
 " Peat." 
 
 But he was a lazy boy and oftentimes let the worser 
 reason sway him to silence. About this time the 
 " bad " element, which was led by Kissar Mills and 
 Smutty, now received a tremendous addition in the 
 shape of Duffus of the red tie, condemned to five 
 years for " grave." It was the law of the school 
 that none but the superintendent should know why 
 a boy had been sent to the " Peat," but Duffus did 
 not hide his hght under a bushel. It was for house- 
 breaking, violence, firing off a revolver at a policeman, 
 and other mighty acts that Duffus the great had 
 faUen from the senior wranglership of " Bhnd Jacob's " 
 to be merely No. 680 at the " Heame Mackenzie." 
 
 " He's a bad egg," said Harry Lister, after hstening 
 to the newcomer for some hours the first night. 
 " There's only one sort worse than an industrial
 
 SCHOOLMASTER GRAINER 209 
 
 schooler, an' that's a training-ship boy wot's got the 
 chuck ! Now, you mark my words, Beast, there'll 
 be trouble in this old ' Peat ' before we are many 
 weeks older. Big trouble and blow the froth off the 
 top ! Don't you have nothing to say to the like o' 
 him ! Now, mind me, Beast, or I'll whop you for 
 it!" 
 
 The Kid took the hint, and though Duff us of the 
 red tie was at first astonishingly polite, and brought 
 many messages from Daddy Lennox, Corn Beef Joe, 
 and even from his stepfather, Knifer Jackson, the 
 Kid did not unbend in the least. 
 
 " Your father bade me teU you that he must get 
 you out — me, too. He can't work properly without 
 one of us, and I am so much in request, having 
 a headpiece, and eddication and that — he wants 
 you out for the times and seasons when he can't 
 have me — see, Kid ? " 
 
 " Well, what is he going to do about it ? " asked 
 the Kid. " I'm in for four year and a half, and you 
 for five. And then — why, it means Canada or the 
 army. The cross game is up, you ask Harry Lister. 
 He'U get his walking ticket in ten months. And then 
 he clears for Canada with young Mr. Heame." 
 
 At this simplicity Duffus laughed uproariously, 
 so that the warder looked his way, and told him to 
 shut that noise trap, or he would take the job off his 
 hand. 
 
 " And do you suppose. Softie," demanded Duffus, 
 in a lower and more cautious tone, " that a man Uke 
 me — knowing what I know, and with ten fingers like 
 these here ones — will stop to make boots or sit cross- 
 legged on a greasy board in a place that fair stinks 
 of ironing and new corduroy ! Not much, my young 
 friend ! Oh, not considerable much ! " 
 
 " And what do you intend to do, then ? " said the 
 Kid, in his most innocent manner. 
 
 But Duffus of the red tie laid his finger along the 
 side of his nose. 
 
 14
 
 210 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Ah ! " he said, " that's tellin' ! We must know 
 whether you are staunch or not. After you are sworn 
 in to be one of us, then you shall know, you and your 
 precious chum, Harry Lister. If he means to milk 
 cows in Canada all his hfe, it's more than I do ! And 
 I don't see what you are yarnin' about, anyway. 
 When you get out o' this shop, they'll have to get 
 your father's consent to send ye abroad, and you'll 
 be too young to engage in the army. So, willy nilly, 
 back you go to Mr. Knifer Jackson. There's nothing 
 for it but to be soHd with us, my young friend. And, 
 indeed, right proud you may be of Knifer. There's 
 not a cleaner workman between here an' Land's End 
 — no, nor Johnny Groat's — barrin', that is, the educa- 
 tion, where he is a bit rocky. You are in the way 
 of gettin' some o' that here, such as it is. So don't 
 throw away your chances, and the Knifer may make 
 something o' ye vet ! But stay here — me — Duffus 
 —the cock o' ' Blind Jacob's '—oh, ha— ha— ha ! " 
 
 And he went off in a paroxysm of somewhat subdued 
 laughter. 
 
 Clearly, thought the Kid, there was mischief afloat. 
 But what and where ? And even if he found it out, 
 what was he to do ? Tell ? That was impossible. 
 He had not — he could not come to that yet. 
 
 Aloft in the cold, clear atmosphere of the office, 
 otherwise the board room, Heame Mackenzie, assistant 
 superintendent, talked sadly with his chief. 
 
 " There's something in the wind," he said. " I 
 feel it— how, I can't tell you, Carvel. Just the way 
 I know by la3^ng my cheek to the ground that there's 
 a thunder-storm coming up. Indian blood, I dare say. 
 Or so they would say in the Blackfoot country, or 
 on the frontier of the North Sioux. Trouble coming 
 fast down wind. I feel the thrill of it. And if I 
 mistake not, it's that new boy." 
 
 " Not your favourite Kid ? Not No. 666 ? " said 
 Carvel. " Have the angels risen a second time in 
 rebellion against the powers of heaven ? "
 
 SCHOOLMASTER GRAINER 211 
 
 " He is no angel, that young McGhie," said the 
 assistant superintendent. " But it is not he who is 
 making the trouble. If I am not mistaken, it's 
 that gay young Duffus, who is so mighty spick and 
 span ! " 
 
 " Duffus — nonsense ! " cried Carvel. " As pleasant 
 spoken a young rascal as ever I saw, well dressed and 
 hands like a lady. It was quite a pity to make 
 him put on the institution rig. He would be a 
 credit to the place as pony boy, if only he could 
 drive ! " 
 
 " Worst kind of all ! " said Heame Mackenzie. 
 " When we get these smart Alecs on the Kootenay, 
 we run them out sharp to the nearest railway station, 
 and buy them a ticket to Uncle Sam's end of the 
 line." 
 
 " And if they won't go ? " said Carvel, smihng 
 into his white beard. 
 
 Heame Mackenzie cleared his throat and paused 
 a moment. 
 
 " Oh, well," he said, " we never have any difficulty ! 
 You see, there's a lot of us. And we don't ask them 
 to so. We tell them ! " 
 
 ' Uncle Sam always glad to see them ? " inquired 
 Carvel. " Seems to me I shouldn't hke to run a 
 reformatory for Kootenay derehcts — after what I've 
 heard you teU about them." 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Sam — he's all right ! " said Heame 
 Mackenzie. " They've either got to shin as fast as 
 they can for a Tammany town and get into ward 
 politics, or " 
 
 He imitated the gesture of some one puUing on 
 a rope. 
 
 " Ashes to ashes ! " he said, not as a joke, but as 
 a responsible man stating an undeniable fact in the 
 most concise way possible. 
 
 " I fear," said Carvel, still smihng, " that after 
 the Kootenay and your relative Crowfoot, you must 
 find our methods here a Uttle slow ? "
 
 212 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Yes," said Heame Mackenzie, thoughtfully, " it 
 is true, we can reform many a young fellow out on 
 the Kootenay. But, you see, he must be a pretty 
 decent young fellow to be let stay there at all. We 
 catch them young there, chasten 'em a bit with good 
 hard grub and good hard work, and then turn 'em 
 loose, with this single commandment on their tables 
 of stone — that they had better behave or they will find 
 themselves swinging in the wind, Hke a tassel on a flag 
 pole. As soon as a young fellow reahses that that's 
 right — sure — he takes no risks, but falls into step and 
 becomes as decent as the next man ! " 
 
 " Well, you're a rum fellow," said Carvel. " See 
 here — I have been at this sort of work all my life — 
 I believe in it. I'm ready to put my last shilling 
 on it, just as you have done. But there's something 
 about your way of looking at things which I don't 
 fathom. I can snatch a cudgel and wade into a 
 row with any man, but I beheve you would be ready 
 to see a gibbet set up in the back court to help us 
 dispose of our failures ! " 
 
 ' It would save a lot of trouble, certainly," said 
 the saturnine, quiet young man ; " also it would 
 be better for them — in the long run ! " 
 
 " What a heathen idea ! " said Carvel, who was 
 optimistic. 
 
 " Maybe," said Heame Mackenzie, " that's your 
 point of view, and you are the boss here. But I 
 have heard my grandfather. Crowfoot — he was a 
 big chief and had a bigger head — say that if you 
 couldn't make a man a good man, the next best thing 
 was to make him a quiet man — a perman-ENX-ly 
 quiet man ! And I am not sure but what he was 
 right. At least it saves trouble ! " 
 
 Carvel rose. He smiled no more. 
 
 " Well," he said, " for a young man that has been 
 recommended and pressed upon this institution, as 
 peaceable and law-abiding, Christian and God-fearing, 
 for a young man whom those who know no better
 
 SCHOOLMASTER GRAINER 213 
 
 are pleased to consider — you will excuse the word — 
 a trifle ' soft ' — you are really something of a 
 surprise, Heame — yes, that's it, something of a 
 surprise ! " 
 
 He went out as he spoke, his mild yet keen eyes 
 dwelling still on the motionless figure of the young 
 man. 
 
 " But," he said, over his shoulder, " no disap- 
 pointment ! " 
 
 The after-guard of the " Peat " being thus to some 
 extent on its defence, forearmed if not forewarned, 
 Duffus of the red tie would have found some difficulty 
 in carrying out his plan if it had not been for treachery 
 on the quarter-deck. It seems impossible to believe 
 that there could be any alliance between the warders 
 and teachers of such an institution as the " Peat " 
 Reformatory and the boys under their charge. And, 
 indeed, in ordinary circumstances, this would have 
 been incredible. 
 
 But just then the circumstances were far from 
 ordinary at the " Peat." Grainer, the schoolmaster, 
 was a soft, fair, sluggish-moving man with a shifty 
 eye and a cruel mouth. During his hours of instruction 
 there came from the schoolroom a continuous howl 
 of suffering boyhood, punctuated with dull solid 
 strokes of the cane. Hearne Mackenzie used to pace 
 up and down the brick-yard, wondering if the directors 
 would give him his leave if he were to go in just once 
 and thrash Grainer within an inch of his life with his 
 own canes, breaking them one after the other across 
 his back. Even Carvel, whose principle was non- 
 interference with his staff, kept away from the neigh- 
 bourhood of the schoolroom at such times. 
 
 Now Grainer was — though the fact was naturally 
 unknown in the school — the maternal uncle of Duffus 
 of the red tie. Duffus was also, from the first
 
 214 KID McGHIE 
 
 day, his best pupil. He had been well grounded, 
 was clever at all the ordinary branches, and indeed, 
 in arithmetic, mechanics, and the science of the pen 
 was fai in advance of his master. 
 
 Therefore Duffus was made monitor. The labours 
 of drainer, except with the cane, were mightily hghtened 
 thereby. Dnffiis taught most of the lower forms for 
 him, and conducted, all unknown to his comrades, 
 a good deal of quiet espionage in the school for the 
 benefit of Grainer, who hated to think that there was 
 a boy of any sort whom he could not flog. That was 
 the kind of beast which, more particularly, Grainer 
 was. 
 
 Of course if this spying could have been traced to 
 Duffus, he would instantly and collectively have 
 been slain. He would have got something in the 
 dormitories which would have sent him to hospital 
 for a month without malingering. But Duffus was 
 far too clever to be caught out Hke that. His relation- 
 ship to the schoolmaster of the " Peat " was unknown 
 even to the superintendent. His information or 
 misinformation was conveyed very much under the 
 rose. Grainer found a list of rebels against regulations, 
 written out in copperplate in his hat, in the pocket 
 of his greatcoat, in the inside of his locked desk. He 
 asked no questions, but acting at once upon the 
 information, " whaled " unmercifully the just and 
 the unjust, among others, of course, the Kid. 
 
 This afforded him some rehef. For he was the 
 sort of man who had instinctively chosen his profession 
 in order that he might play the brutal tyrant over 
 the bodies and souls of the helpless. He actually 
 derived a keen and exquisite delight from the infliction 
 of pain. There are such ; more, indeed, than any 
 except the medico-legal specialist wots of. 
 
 Still Grainer was not happy. At least he was 
 happy only when his thrashing arm was in action, 
 and the sobs and wails of the victims rose on the 
 stuffy schoolroom air. For Grainer was a disap-
 
 SCHOOLMASTER GRAINER 215 
 
 pointed man, a man with a grievance, or rather, two 
 grievances. 
 
 Superintendent Carvel was the one, Heame Mac- 
 kenzie the other. Grainer envied Carvel his place 
 and salary, with the low, bitter, self-gnawing hatred 
 of the mean-spirited peasant who has " bettered 
 himself " a little, but not much. He hated Heame 
 Mackenzie because he was a lord's son, because he 
 did not need to be there at all, drawing ;^I20 a year 
 of salary, and because he would have preferred 
 Heame's cottage to his own. It was at the other 
 side of the road, away from the observance of 
 
 Carvel, the hoary sneak who And here Grainer 
 
 diverged into paths of abuse along which we need 
 not foUow him. 
 
 At all events, Simeon Grainer, schoolmaster (late 
 national schoolmaster, of England), hated, envied, 
 and considered with all uncharitableness Superintendent 
 Carvel, his assistant, Heame Mackenzie, and all 
 their works. 
 
 Simeon Grainer considered schemes by which he 
 might supplant them and sit in their seats, thrashing 
 boys and ruling men. He thought of the lovely 
 canes he would buy at the expense of the institution. 
 His fingers twitched to clutch them. He thought 
 also how he would He in bed till the time of morning 
 exercise — that is, punishment — instead of going into 
 the chilly schoolroom at eight, which was the present 
 unholy rule. 
 
 Simeon Grainer, schoolmaster, saw his way to deal 
 with his superintendent. That is, he thought he saw 
 it. There is a joint in every man's harness, and 
 Simeon Grainer believed he had found that of Super- 
 intendent Carvel's. 
 
 But, admittedly, in the nature of things, Heame 
 Mackenzie was a more difficult matter. At first the 
 " staff " had fought shy of Heame. Men working 
 for their living did not understand a young man 
 who, after giving thousands of pounds to an institu-
 
 2i6 KID McGHIE 
 
 tion, was content to accept a salaried post like one 
 of themselves. But by and by, as said old Aldebaran 
 Newton, whose father had been a distinguished 
 astronomer — and, when sober, knew Jupiter from 
 Venus — " when we fand oot that he did his wark 
 like the rest o' hus — indeed, raither better — and pit 
 on nae side, and wad fry himsel' a chop or maybe 
 just a fresh herrin' or twa to his coffee an' bap, we 
 began to understand that, barrin' the bit crack in 
 his brain pan, that hurt naebody, no even himsel', 
 he was juist like the lave o' hus. Forbye, it was a 
 kind o' honour to hae the son o' a real lord in the 
 institution, even though he had a bit o' a crack in 
 the skuU o' him ! " 
 
 But Schoolmaster Grainer could not so pass things 
 over. To understand is to forgive, truly. All the 
 eternal hopes of all the rehgions are founded on that. 
 Other foundation can no man lay. But Schoolmaster 
 Grainer did not understand. He could not. His 
 mind was so constructed that he could not believe 
 but that Heame Mackenzie — that tall, sober, sombre, 
 dusky-skinned young man, with the millionaire for 
 a father — had some sinister motive in coming to 
 the " Peat " Reformatory as assistant superintendent. 
 
 He did not specially want the post for himself. 
 But he wanted Heame " out of that." He coveted his 
 house, until in the fulness of time, he should spring his 
 plot against Carvel, unseat that great man, and reign 
 in his stead. 
 
 First, then, Hearne Mackenzie ! It seemed a 
 forlorn hope for Grainer — to those, that is, who did 
 not know the miracles of low cunning that seeded and 
 mushroomed mom and eve in the brain of Simeon 
 Grainer. During the day he was too much employed 
 taking the hide off a couple of hundred boys to have 
 time for anything but the dehcious enjoyment which 
 this exercise afforded him. 
 
 But at mom and eve, as has been said, he was free. 
 Then would the creature walk out alone, with his
 
 SCHOOLMASTER GRAINER 217 
 
 waistcoat curving before him — he Hved well — and 
 his hands resting from honest toil under the tail of 
 his seedy Oxford coat. 
 
 He told you it was a fine night if you met him. But 
 that, or any other civiUty he might offer, never moved 
 anything sympathetic in your bosom. You only 
 wanted all the more to kick him. As for Heame 
 Mackenzie, he had to sink his nails into his palms 
 and turn abruptly on his heel in the opposite direction 
 to keep from doing it, thinking of the sort of music 
 he had heard from that man's schoolroom only an 
 hour before. 
 
 " Oh," he would groan, " if ' the boys * could only 
 have him for one afternoon, just one happy Sunday 
 afternoon when there wasn't much doing, down in 
 the old camp on the Kootenay, I wouldn't ask for 
 more nor better in this Hfe ! " 
 
 As Hearne was a good fellow, and the comrades 
 in the " old camp on the Kootenay " were also good 
 fellows, it is to be presumed that they wished to have 
 a little quiet Sunday school, with Simeon Grainer 
 for a first pupil. And there is no doubt but that he 
 would have learned a lesson from Hearne Mackenzie 
 and the " boys " down on the old Kootenay which 
 would have done him good for all his Ufe. 
 
 But alas for Simeon and for his chances of future 
 instruction, the Kootenay was far away, the camp 
 fires dead, " the boys " scattered to the four winds, 
 or, more hkely, eaten alive by the big gray-and-black 
 " skeeters " which abound there. 
 
 In one of his evening walks Simeon, for once in 
 luck's way — at least so he thought — kicked up a piece 
 of white paper which had been trodden into the black 
 ooze of a crumbly peat brow. 
 
 Simeon held it up. There was the print of a small 
 foot thereon — rather, of a dainty heel. 
 
 " Somebody angry ! " murmured Simeon, seeing 
 that the heel had gone right through the letter at one 
 side.
 
 2i8 KID McGHIE 
 
 *' Writing upon it ! " said Simeon, holding the 
 half-sheet up in the waning grayish-yellow light of the 
 gloaming. He struck a match, which flamed up so 
 suddenly that if the piece of paper had not been damp 
 with the dew of the moorland, it might then and there 
 have been lost to the world. 
 
 " Hum," said Simeon, scratching his cheek with 
 the hand that had held the match, " I should know 
 that writing. I will show it to Duffus. He will 
 know ! Smart boy, Duffus ! " 
 
 So to Monitor Duffus, late of the red tie, just as the 
 twilight melted into dark, and the windows of the 
 " Peat " flamed like those of a factory, the letter, 
 unsigned and apparently unfinished, was committed 
 for inspection. The last class of evening school had 
 been dismissed. Fewer boys had been flogged than 
 usual. Grainer had something on his mind, something 
 that took the edge off the delight of conjoining a 
 new and weakly boy and an old but healthy cane. He 
 wanted to be left alone with Duffus, nominally to set 
 copies, really to set traps. 
 
 " Sub supe ! " said Duffus, curtly, holding his Httle 
 cock-sparrow head to the side to look. " He wrote 
 that — no other ! " 
 
 " Could you imitate it — add another sentence or 
 two ? " queried Simeon, regarding with interest a 
 chart of the rivers of Patagonia, hung on the wall to 
 illustrate — very appropriately — the theory of water- 
 sheds — the eyes of Mr. Simeon Grainer's pupils doing 
 the practical water-shedding. 
 
 Duffus looked at the schoolmaster more cock- 
 sparrowly than ever. He had a secret contempt for 
 the cruel, cunning, sluggish creature who could do 
 nothing with his pulpy hands except thrash. But 
 for the present he was in his power, the power of 
 Grainer's cane, and he nodded, smihngly. One day, 
 he said to himself, he would get the Knifer or Corn 
 Beef Joe to give the schoolmaster a " doing." Then 
 he would learn something. Probably something
 
 SCHOOLMASTER GRAINER 219 
 
 closely approximating to Heame's Sunday school 
 lesson on the banks of the Kootenay. 
 
 In the meantime Duffus of the red tie — removed 
 for cause — glanced at Simeon Grainer and calculated 
 his own advantage. 
 
 " Supposin'," he said, slowly and softly, with the 
 cock-sparrow glint of keenest watching in his eye, 
 " supposin' that I can do as ye say, will you agree to 
 forget your master-key some night where I can get at 
 it ? I will put it back again before morning ! " 
 
 " What for ? " said the master, suspiciously. *' To 
 skip out over the heather, I suppose. You're a clever 
 boy, Duffus, but I thought you were a sight too clever 
 for that ! Why, we have everything arranged, and 
 you would be nabbed before you could get a mile ! " 
 
 Duffus sneered visibly. " These others might," 
 he said. " Listen to them quacking over their lessons 
 like so many ducks in a pond. But not me, Duffus, 
 that has had education and advantages ! Well, 
 master, you forget that key, and I'll write what you 
 want. The ink's the only difficulty -" 
 
 " Oh, I can borrow some of Mr. Heame's — tell him 
 a lie ! That's easy ! " said the schoolmaster. 
 
 Duffus regarded him approvingly. " You're in 
 the wrong profession," he said, smiling impudently ; 
 " but when you come to ' Blind Jacob's,' where I'm 
 a professor, I'll give you a tip or two that wiU send 
 you skyting to the top o' the tree ! " 
 
 " Duffus," said Simeon Grainer, " sometimes I 
 don't quite know whether to give you a feed and a 
 glass o' beer, or manhandle you with my best new 
 
 cane ! " 
 
 " I would try the feed and drink," said the boy, 
 smartly. " The cane wouldn't make me write hke 
 Mr. Hearne. Rather a good hand that ! " he added, 
 regarding it critically. " I think it could be imitated 
 best on gin an' water ! " 
 
 " You were born to be hanged, certainly ! " said the 
 schoolmaster.
 
 220 KID McGHIE 
 
 " And you would be as safe in the middle of the 
 Atlantic, with a life-preserver and a meat biscuit, as in 
 your own bed at home ! " retorted Duffus of the red 
 tie, who would give the schoolmaster nine points out 
 of ten at that sort of thing and come out ahead every 
 time. 
 
 With the aid of a couple of glasses of gin and water, 
 a bottle of ink borrowed from Mr. Heame's room, 
 and many shiftings of the paraffin lamp, so that the 
 light might fall on the writing at different angles, the 
 additions to the letter found on the moor were success- 
 fully achieved. 
 
 The schoolmaster gazed at the boy in wonderment. 
 This was far beyond him. 
 
 " You are a son of perdition," he said to Duffus ; 
 " but I wish I could do that ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " remarked Duffus, his hand still waving 
 his pen gracefully, as if in search of other worlds 
 to conquer. " Find it useful, eh ? On cheques and 
 things ? " 
 
 " Testimonials ! " said the schoolmaster, enthu- 
 siastically. " Why, with a power of handwriting Hke 
 that you could show testimonials from the highest in 
 the land, and they wouldn't ever know the difference 
 themselves ! " 
 
 " They never do," said Duffus. " It has been 
 tried. A man is doing seven years for it now. 
 Nothing to do with me, of course — being only a 
 boy ! " 
 
 " What ! " cried the schoolmaster, who remembered 
 the case. " Did you do it ? " 
 
 •' That's tellin' ! " said Duffus, winking an eye. 
 " Impossible ! Only a boy ! Led away ! First 
 offence ! Send him to a reformatory, where ky-ind, 
 good people, hke Mr. Schoolmaster Grainer " 
 
 " Drop it, that's enough ! " spurted Mr. Grainer, 
 sharply. " I can half kill you, mind ! " 
 
 " But then the testimonials ? " suggested the 
 boy, with subtle irony. "There's a power of great
 
 SCHOOLMASTER GRAINER 221 
 
 people in the world that would like to say over their 
 signature what a fine man you was, Mr. Grainer ! " 
 
 " But how ? " said Mr. Grainer, slow at any- 
 thing except thrashing and his own style of plotting. 
 " You haven't got any great folks' handwritings to 
 copy." 
 
 " There's a paper wot's called, I think, The Best 
 of All Bests or something like that — all the Bigwigs 
 in Bigwigtown all talking Bigwig together — or writing 
 it rather. It's an Ai thing. Now, in their yearly 
 album you can choose who you will have, and 
 tell me what to make 'em say — bishops, political 
 Johnnies, Mr. Gladstone, the Claimant, Mr. Company 
 Promoter Dooley, and General Booth. They say 
 what their favourite hymn is, on which arm they 
 have been vaccinated, if their souls aspire, and if 
 they are subject to bleeding at the nose. Then 
 they all end up by saying what a fine paper The Best 
 of the Best is, and how they are, one and all, the obedient 
 servants of the man wot put up the job ! Oh, the 
 Best 0' the Best's album is no end useful, and costs only 
 a silver sixpence ! Good practice for me, too, and 
 will teach you, sir, the art of superior composition ! " 
 
 " If it were not that there is really something in 
 what you say. Duff us, and I may, in fact, need such 
 a thing one of these days, I would be compelled to 
 take the hide off you for impudence ! " 
 
 " Your very good health, sir," said the cock-sparrow, 
 squinting suggestively with one eye at his empty 
 glass ; " but pray remember that I'm here for five 
 years and won't stop a month ! It's now or never 
 for those testimonials." 
 
 The schoolmaster meditated deeply. " Well," he 
 said, " I will get the book. I think I have seen it 
 on the book-staUs at railway stations, or at least 
 something like it. But there's something to come 
 before that. Now be off to your bed, Duffus. Your 
 mind travels too fast. I must think things out. 
 My motto is ' slow but sure ' ! "
 
 222 KID McGHIE 
 
 " You won't forget about the master-key, sir," 
 said Duffus. " According to agreement, sir ! On 
 the peg under the hatstand in the lobt)y of your 
 house. I can come in for it whenever I hke ! " 
 
 "You are almost too universally talented a young 
 man, Master Duffus, even for me ! " cried Schoolmaster 
 Simeon, looking after the boy as he crossed the court 
 to No. 3 dormitory.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 PLOT THE FIRST 
 
 The " Peat " Reformatory was at this time the centre 
 of three several plots — two of them having Mr. School- 
 master Simeon Grainer for their storm centre ; the 
 other was hatched by Duffus of the red tie. Of 
 these, one was deceitful, another dangerous, and 
 the third desperate. The desperate plot, as might 
 be expected, emanated from the accomplice of the 
 Knifer and Corn Beef Joe. As these three con- 
 * spiracles involved, more or less, most of the persons 
 mentioned in this history, we will take them in their 
 order. 
 
 The schoolmaster locked his door behind him. 
 His house had been " done out " for the day by Mrs. 
 Isaac Brotherton, the wife of one of the senior warders. 
 He had asked the assistant superintendent to take 
 his classes for the evening, a thing which Heame 
 was always glad to do, out of pity for the boys' hides. 
 Mr. Simeon was going on a message of his own to 
 the great house of Three Ridings down in the valley, 
 the Scottish home of Lord Athabasca. 
 
 He had a letter with him, a letter with the print 
 of a haughty Httle heel upon it, where it had been 
 angrily crushed into the peat soil. 
 
 But to that letter there were new additions — written 
 with the pen and ink of Mr. Heame Mackenzie, and 
 apparently by his hand. These additions were such 
 that — so the cunning schoolmaster thought — Mr. 
 Heame Mackenzie might think it wise to remain in 
 Canada after his next journe}^ instead of returning
 
 224 KID McGHIE 
 
 to the little red brick house across the road, so highly 
 coveted by Simeon Grainer. 
 
 There was, it seemed to Mr. Simeon, no special 
 danger to himself in what he was about to do. He 
 had found a weapon, sharpened it, and it would have 
 been foolish if he had not been willing to make the 
 best use of it. He therefore enclosed the (amended) 
 note he had found on the moor in an envelope, sealed 
 it with the strongly marked St. George and the Dragon 
 one finds on the reverse of a sovereign — an excellent 
 imitation of a coat of arms — and finally addressed 
 it to the Right Hon. Lord Athabasca, G.C.M.G., etc.. 
 Three Ridings, Lothianshire. 
 
 Having arrived in the valley, he went hastily up 
 the front steps of the great building in the dusk, 
 drawing his hat brim weU down and standing his 
 coat collar well up, he rang the bell, and handed in 
 the letter to the solemn man in black who opened 
 the door. 
 
 " From Egham Castle. No answer ! " he said, 
 and was making off. 
 
 The Three Ridings' footman stood uncertainly 
 with the note in his hand. Hospitahty was tradi- 
 tional at Three Ridings. 
 
 " Hi — won't you come round to the hall and take 
 a drop o' something ? " he called out. 
 
 " No, I thank you ! " said the schoolmaster, over 
 his shoulder. 
 
 Something unprofessional in the tone and manner 
 of the messenger from Egham Castle retained the 
 attention of the first footman at Three Ridings. 
 
 " Just as well, perhaps," he muttered, shutting 
 the door, " or Jenkins might 'a' needed to count the 
 spoons after you had gone. My, they do keep some 
 rum old fossils over at that Egham — regglar Noah's 
 Ark, it is, I'm told ! '* 
 
 But he took the letter up to Lord Athabasca all 
 the same. The peer was bending with knit brows 
 over a half-cut copy of a book on the Dominion of
 
 PLOT THE FIRST 225 
 
 Canada dedicated to himself. He had sharpened 
 a blue pencil to mark the passages from which he 
 dissented. And so far as he had gone, he seemed 
 to have dissented from everything. The blue pencil 
 had followed the lines of type, ploughing along angrily 
 here, there often piercing two or three pages right 
 through at one fell swoop. At another, it had con- 
 scientiously deleted an adjective here, corrected a 
 census return there. Then suddenly aroused, it had 
 splurted a furious scrawl — " Nonsense ! " on the 
 margin. Lastly, the book, dedication and all, was 
 on the point of being pitched across the room, in the 
 general direction of the waste-paper basket. The 
 pencil had been bitten till the taste of the blue (a 
 coal-tar product) warned the reader that his mouth 
 must look as if he had just been having a feed of ripe 
 blackberries. 
 
 " Your lordship, a letter." 
 
 " Where from ? " demanded Lord Athabasca. " Any 
 answer ? " 
 
 " From Egham Castle, my lord," said the soft voice 
 of the footman. " The man said that he would not 
 wait. There is no answer." 
 
 " So much the better," growled my lord. " What 
 can they be wanting with me ? Why, that's Heame's 
 handwriting, or I'm a Dutchman ! What filthy 
 paper, though ! What's this — what's this ? " 
 
 He went grumbhng across to the large moderator 
 lamp to see better, and stood glowering and wrinkling 
 his brow. 
 
 *' Miss Patricia " (he read), " I have no right to 
 address you, considering the position in which cir- 
 cumstances have placed us." (I should think he 
 had not, the dog !) " But in a moment of weakness 
 I have told you my heart. I hold to that. I cannot 
 go back. I love you, and I shall never love another. 
 In the future which is before both of us, in spite of all 
 that you can do, I shall be ever as now, your friend 
 and lover. My father cannot last long. I am heir to 
 
 15
 
 426 KID McGHIE 
 
 all he possesses. You might do worse than go off 
 for a while to the snug hiding place we two know of 
 till the storm blows over. Then you may have the 
 money, the peerage, and your sweetheart as well. 
 Yours tiU death." 
 
 There was no signature, but evidently the letter 
 needed none. 
 
 Lord Athabasca read the letter over thrice carefully. 
 As he read, the colour left his cheeks and he bit hard 
 again on the aniline pencil. 
 
 " So," he said, " this was the reason he came so 
 willingly and comfortably to the marriage. To- 
 morrow I shall settle Mr. Heame. He thought, 
 doubtless, that by marrying a second time I would 
 do him out of part of my money — settlements on my 
 wife, possibilities — and so on. The easiest way, in 
 the opinion of my handsome son, was to make love 
 to the girl — my girl ! Well, to-morrow I will go 
 over to the ' Hearne Mackenzie ' Reformatory — 
 and — reform the assistant superintendent ! It is 
 a blessing that I am chairman of the directors — with 
 provisional powers. If I cannot dismiss, I can suspend. 
 And if Mr. Heame does not set out at once for the 
 Kootenay, I am not such an old man yet, but I wiU 
 let dayhght through him where he stands, if he were 
 my son three times over ! " 
 
 Then the lusty old Nor' wester thrust the joint 
 production of his son and Master Duffus of the red 
 tie into his pocket, and went calmly down to 
 dinner, where he was the gayest of the large bache- 
 lor company which sat about a round of ancient 
 mahogany. 
 
 " One might take him for fifty," said Sir Peter 
 Salt, one of his guests, " but when I was governor 
 of Cape Breton, in '67, he was just as lusty an old 
 cock-bird as he is to-day. And after that he had an 
 Indian wife, too, with eyes like pansies. My word 
 — the kind with no yellow in them — and a voice — 
 on my soul, if she had had a sister and if I had been
 
 PLOT THE FIRST 227 
 
 sure that old Crowfoot, her father, would not have 
 
 cut my throat, I declare I might have married a 
 
 squaw myself ! " 
 
 " And you might have done worse ! " said Toby 
 
 Lasalle, who sat next him, swapping salmon stories. 
 
 He knew the Indian country, so they said. 
 
 " I have ! " said the ex-governor of Cape Breton, 
 
 with a sigh, as he thought of his stem spouse sitting 
 
 at home waiting for him, " nursing her wrath to keep 
 
 it warm." 
 
 " To-morrow I will settle that young man," said 
 
 Lord Athabasca to himself, " once and for all ! " 
 He went up to the " Peat " Reformatory in the 
 
 forenoon, put up his pair of grays at the httle Ringside 
 
 Inn a mile to the southward, and strolled down to call 
 
 upon his son, his soft, fawn-coloured felt on the side 
 
 of his head, and a smile on his lips — for everybody 
 
 except his only son. 
 
 He found Heame busily superintending a gang 
 
 of boys planting potatoes. The rich black soil, never 
 broken before, gave — for a year or two, at least — 
 magnificent crops of these, in what are termed locally 
 
 '' lazy beds." They were not so good nor so plentiful 
 the second year, but then there was not the least 
 difficulty in changing the venue. You had all Maw 
 Moss before you as far as the eye could reach, even 
 to the very park walls of Egham. 
 
 The young man took off his hat at sight of his 
 father, for in spite of each going his own way, there 
 was something patriarchal in their relations. 
 
 " I am glad to see you, sir," he said, striding across 
 the lumpy, irregular acres of the moorland, surefooted 
 and silent as one of his cousins of the Northern Sioux. 
 His father did not hold out his hand, but Hearne, 
 accustomed to the moods of his bluff parent, thought 
 nothing of that. Lord Athabasca came near, appar- 
 ently deeply interested in a document which he had 
 selected out of his pocket-book. He stumbled over 
 a little mound of peats, left on the still half-frozen
 
 228 KID McGHIE 
 
 ground from last year, and but for the quick restraining 
 hand of his son he would have gone headlong into 
 one of the " slunks " or deep excavations three parts 
 filled with black coomby water, from which in times 
 past the compressed peat had been dug in its raw 
 state. 
 
 Lord Athabasca shook his sleeve angrily free from 
 his son's fingers, and reaching out the letter to Heame, 
 he said abruptly, " Did you write that ? " 
 
 Heame saw only the first part. He knew the paper. 
 He was not a man to disown his handiwork in any 
 circumstances. 
 
 " I did," he said, instantly, " but " — ^he hesitated 
 a moment as if to put what he was going to say with 
 some care — " I do not see what my letter is doing 
 open in your hands ! " 
 
 " It concerns me, sir ! " said Athabasca, looking 
 at him very straight. A stare which Heame as 
 straightly returned. " It concerns me deeply. You 
 used your position here — your nearness to Egham 
 Castle — to make love to Miss Patricia, when you 
 knew that she was already my intended wife — when 
 you knew that all the preparations had been made 
 on either side for the wedding. That is true, is it 
 not ? " 
 
 The dark face of the tall grandson of Crowfoot 
 had by this time lost its flush — in which was something 
 almost metallic, like copper 'glance' from the mine 
 with the sun on it. 
 
 " It is true ! " he said, simply. 
 
 " Then why, sir," said his father, " did you 
 venture to remind her that I was an old man, 
 and that, if she would wait in the secure retreat 
 which you had provided for her, in a little while she 
 might have aU — peer, money, and a young lover as 
 well ? " 
 
 " I do not know to what vou refer ! " said the 
 young man, a Uttle dazed. ' I never thought or 
 said any of these things."
 
 PLOT THE FIRSTS 229 
 
 " Do not lie ! " cried his father, threateningly. 
 " I have a great mind to shoot you where you stand 
 for a treacherous hound ! It is only the thought 
 of your mother which stops me." 
 
 The young man drew his head up haughtily, so 
 stilly and haughtily indeed, that the letter which 
 his father was reaching out for him to see dropped 
 on the hard black peat and remained there unnoticed 
 by either. 
 
 " Hearne Mackenzie, the son of Heame Mackenzie, 
 and grandson of Crowfoot does not tell lies," he said, 
 simply. 
 
 " It is enough," said Lord Athabasca. " I have 
 heard quite enough. You have robbed me of the 
 one thing that gave me a chance to make the years of my 
 old age worth hving. You may know, or you may 
 not, where she has hidden herself " 
 
 " I do not know ! " said Heame directly, but not 
 raising his voice. 
 
 " No matter," said his father, " she fled from me 
 because of you." 
 
 " She would not Hsten to me, I tell you," said the 
 young man. " It is true I told her that I loved her. 
 I do love her. I cannot help it. But she threw my 
 letter from her and trampled it in the moss. I suppose 
 that is how I come to see my handwriting addressed 
 to a lady in your hands ? " 
 
 Lord Athabasca shook his head and smiled bitterly. 
 
 " You will not succeed in making me angry," he 
 said ; " I am resolved. You are no son of mine from 
 this moment. You have ruined and spoiled me. 
 If this girl had not seen you, listened to you, undoubt- 
 edly she would have married me. You have counted 
 on my death, on my money, on my position. She 
 will wait for you, doubtless. Very well, she can. 
 But first of all I shall take care that you lose your 
 position here. I give you twenty-four hours to get 
 away without the disgrace of dismissal. You can 
 go back to the Kootenay, and you will find your old
 
 230 KID McGHIE 
 
 logging camp ready for you. The boss will take you 
 on at the old wages. You are, I believe, a good 
 man with the axe ! " 
 
 " And suppose I do not ? " said the young man, 
 turning an emotionless and Roman face on his father. 
 " Suppose I decide to stay ? " 
 
 " Then," said Lord Athabasca, " I will have you 
 arrested for uttering menaces — for threatening to 
 kill your own father. You have done enough — you 
 had better go back to the Kootenay than face that ! " 
 
 " I have done enough — yes ! " said Hearne Macken- 
 zie. " I will resign, sir ! " And saluting his father 
 gravely, he turned toward the gang of boys who were 
 still busy at the potato-planting in the " lazy beds." 
 They had been watching the interview with quick, 
 sidelong glances, but not even the Swanker had 
 noticed anything out of the way. 
 
 " They seemed glad to see each other," commented 
 that young gentleman, " and the old bird — he tipped 
 Mr. Hearne a piece o' paper — I shouldn't wonder if 
 it was a five poun' note ! " 
 
 Hearne Mackenzie saw out the end of his working 
 day, and then, all the potatoes being set in their 
 proper places and relations, the " laz}^ beds " all 
 covered up, he conducted his gang home and went 
 to break the news to Carvel. 
 
 " Do nothing of the sort," said the superintendent ; 
 " stay where you are. I have as much influence with 
 the directors as he has, though he is chairman. Besides 
 it was your money — most of it " 
 
 " Don't let us go into that," said Hearne Mackenzie, 
 hastily for once ; " I have passed my word to my 
 father ! I must go ! " 
 
 So the first part of Schoolmaster Simeon's com- 
 binations had come off all right. He laughed that 
 night when he heard that Mr. Hearne was to go back 
 to Canada without any of the boys accompanying 
 him. 
 
 " I bet a sov.," he said to old Isaac Brotherton,
 
 PLOT THE FIRST 231 
 
 *' that this is the last the ' Peat ' will see of him. More 
 than that, I'll be in his cottage in six months ! " 
 
 Old Isaac merely remarked that he would not 
 take 'aim up. He was no vain wagerer, whose gold 
 passeth away " as the morning cloud, and as the 
 early dew." 
 
 Mr. Heame Mackenzie left the reformatory which 
 bore his name in the latter days of a keen, dry-blowing 
 March, when the stinging showers from the east 
 made e man look at his coat before he could tell whether 
 he had had to do with snow, sleet, or only plain ice- 
 water expressed from some celestial hose-pipe at 
 very high pressure indeed. 
 
 By the advice of Carvel, he took up his abode at 
 the comfortable httle inn at Ringside, an old coaching 
 " stance," and now again wath the rush of cyclists 
 becoming a " kenned place " for the quahty of its 
 ham and eggs and the affabiUty of its landlady. Mistress 
 McWhLn, whose family of pretty daughters departed 
 promptly one by one, as they ^rew up, in company 
 with one or other of the aforesaid cycHsts, bound to 
 them by the memory of many ham-and-egg teas, 
 and looking very often at a plain gold ring on the 
 fourth finger of the left hand. 
 
 Heame arrived at the Ringside Inn after the de- 
 parture cf most of these pretty daughters, when the 
 remnant, two in number, were " veesitin' their married 
 sisters," it being the dead time of the year at Ringside. 
 So Mrs. McWhan, all sympathy and personal attention, 
 waited herself on the grave, pohte young man with 
 the dusky skin, whose father was believed, on the 
 word of Mr. Carvel, superintendent of the " Peat,'* 
 to have behaved so shamefully to him. 
 
 During the days which followed, Heame tried his 
 best to search out Patricia. He even went and inter- 
 viewed her father, but found himself, as the cause 
 of the terrible fiasco of the heiress-ship, driven from 
 the door of Balmaghie by that indignant justice 
 of the peace.
 
 232 KID McGHIE 
 
 He succeeded better with Baby Lant, who, at sight 
 of his clean-cut, clean-shaven face, and the aristocratic 
 hook of his Roman nose — the direct legacy of the late 
 Crowfoot, great war chief — instantly dismissed a 
 certain Freddy Blame, a young and caUow squire 
 of the neighbourhood, who was making desperate 
 love to her, and threatening to spht his riding breeches 
 — extra well fitting — by bending fervently and im- 
 pressively forward to teU her how the colour of her 
 eyes affected him. 
 
 " Go away," she said ; " I've heard all that before 
 — hundreds of times ! " 
 
 Then she went out walking. 
 
 She met Hearne at the turn of the road, where, 
 in the times that were past, Patricia had dragooned 
 Marthe and Wilhe. Baby Lant needed no such 
 encouragements or excuses. With but one daughter 
 left at home, her parents were more " amenable," 
 as Mrs. P. Brydson McGhie had once said — ah, how 
 erroneously of Patricia. 
 
 All the same — well, aU the same — it was lonely 
 for Baby Lant at Balmaghie these days, with Marthe 
 caring only about Willie's sermons and white-seam 
 sewing of a mysterious and delicate kind. 
 
 And Pat — well, Pat — " Over the hills and far 
 away ! " That was all that could be said of Pat. 
 
 Baby Lant bent her great, wondering blue eyes 
 — real blue, as blue as the sky, for instance — on the 
 young man's face. Yes, he was handsome, distin- 
 guished — but oh, how grav^e ! Baby Lant began to 
 think she hked grave men. Baby Lant made up 
 a complete romance, in which she made love to herself 
 in a fashion perfectly irresistible. She wrote herself 
 the most charming love letters. She proposed for 
 herself. After delightful tos-and-fros, she was ac- 
 cepted, and on the eve of marriage — all to the aforesaid 
 grave young man — when with his hat off he explained, 
 in answer to her question, his purposes on her father's 
 lands and poUcies.
 
 PLOT THE FIRST 233 
 
 " To find Patricia — oh ! " she said, her eyes 
 becoming full of the most thrilling interest — nine 
 times more beautiful and fuller of emotion than 
 when she had only looked upon him as a possible 
 additional lover of her own, "are you — Lord 
 Athabasca's son ? " 
 
 The young man nodded, and a vivid flush rose to 
 either cheek bone, remaining there as if it had been 
 touched by the grand-paternal war paint. 
 
 " Did — Miss Patricia — your sister — speak to you 
 of me, by any chance ? " he faltered. 
 
 " Pat tell me. ? " said Baby Lant, with a glance 
 out of her big, blue, Uquid eyes that would have 
 " knocked Freddy Blaine silly " if he had encountered 
 the hke. " Pat tell me ? " she repeated severely. 
 " Well, young man, I don't quite see what you have 
 to do with that ! " 
 
 " Do you know where she is ? " said Heame Mac- 
 kenzie, abandoning his first position. 
 
 " That also comes under the category of things 
 which are not the business of wandering young men," 
 said Baby Lant, saucily. 
 
 " But it is of tremendous importance to me," said 
 Heame, bending his black, long-lashed eyes squarely 
 on the liquid blue ones. 
 
 " I daresay," said Baby Lant, " but it needn't 
 bring you all this way up the avenue. We shall have 
 a bulletin board fixed at the comer. Then Pat's 
 friends can read the latest dispatches from the seat 
 of war, and go their way without putting father in 
 a temper ! Now he won't be bearable all evening 
 — perhaps not for a week ! I suppose you have been 
 up at him, and he has growled at you hke a bear with 
 a sore head ? " 
 
 " He did request me to leave his property as soon 
 as might be ! " said Heame Mackenzie, as gravely 
 and quietly as ever. 
 
 " Ah," sighed Baby Lant, " it's a pity you did not 
 fall in love with me instead of Pat ! Then you would
 
 234 KID McGHIE 
 
 have had no bother — except from me, that is. My 
 father just aches to get me off his hands ! And 
 sometimes he is such a cross-patch that I just ache 
 for somebody to take me. You understand me ? " 
 
 Some young men would not have understood, and 
 presumed — to their destruction. But Heame Mac- 
 kenzie was not of this kind. 
 
 He came from a land where a fair woman is a scarce 
 article, her favours of exceeding price, and where a 
 revolver bullet at short range pa3^s in full for any 
 little misunderstanding. So Hearne Mackenzie only 
 remarked gravely that it was a pity. 
 
 The pout of Baby Lant's mouth was something 
 to remember in dreams. But she was not angry. 
 Far — very far, indeed, from it. 
 
 *' You love Pat ? " she queried, standing indomitably 
 before him. 
 
 " / do I " Heame answered, as simply as if in a 
 church. He saw no reason why he should be 
 ashamed of a fact which was a fact and could not be 
 changed. 
 
 Baby Lant put out her hand with a rather man- 
 nish gesture, picked up from her Brother Gilbert, 
 though, indeed, there was nothing else mannish 
 about her. 
 
 " Shake ! " she said. This also had been acquired 
 from Gilbert. 
 
 And Heame Mackenzie, with a first beam of gladness 
 in those deep eyes, in which joy and pain made such 
 slight showing, put his hand silently into Baby 
 Lant's. 
 
 " I would kiss you just to cement the relationship 
 — for Pat's sake, that is," she said, " but I have a 
 feeling that Freddy Blaine — I sent him off just before 
 you came — is skulking somewhere along the carriage 
 drive that goes up to the stables. And I don't want 
 to compromise you ! But all the same, as Pat herself 
 used to say to Marthe and Willie, ' Bless you, my 
 children ' I "
 
 PLOT THE FIRST 235 
 
 " And her address ? " said Heame, quietly. 
 
 " Oh, you men ! " cried Baby Lant, laughing. 
 " When you are not in love, no butterfly so uncertain, 
 no dragonfly so jumpy-off-at-an-angle. But once 
 you are in love — realsome, that is, not like silly Freddy 
 watching through the bushes yonder — you ' keep 
 in the middle of the road,' and avalanches and earth- 
 quakes are quite unable to turn you. Why, even I 
 can't do it myself ! 
 
 " ' Patricia's address ? ' We don't know it — that's 
 flat. Moreover, it's perfectly true, but if you don't 
 tell anybody, I do know that she's all safe. She's 
 learning nursing, or doing something extra angelic 
 — fagging after poor people, as all girls do when they 
 can't get the man they want just when they want 
 him, and start their own little happiness factory 
 with man attachment, nursery annexes, kitchen, 
 scullery, and garden plot, all complete and self-con- 
 tained. Of course I mean to do the same when my 
 time comes. You needn't look at me like that, Mr. 
 Hearne Mackenzie ! It won't be you that will drive 
 me to it. For you are Pat's property, and there's 
 honour among — well, among all nice girls," concluded 
 Baby Lant, somewhat lamely. 
 
 " However," she went on, " now I am studjang 
 up the rapt, self-sacrificing expression, so as to 
 be all ready to do the virgin martyr. But 
 Vm going to have a nursing home, and take only 
 interesting cases — slightly wounded young officers 
 home from the war, clergyman's sore throats (curates 
 only), authors under forty (no poets need apply), 
 and respectable young men of good appearance who 
 have been in the Nor'west Mounted Police — and 
 have been injured permanently by having so httle 
 to do!" 
 
 Hearne Mackenzie opened his mouth as if to ask 
 her how a girl could know all that. But he thought 
 better of it. It appeared that there were not 
 many things which innocent, blue-eyed Baby Lant
 
 236 KID McGHIE 
 
 did not know, except the one thing that interested 
 him — her elder sister's address ! 
 
 " But," said Baby Lant, " though your appreciation 
 of my charms cannot be said to be overwhelming, 
 I will take pity on you. Leave me your address, and 
 I wiU send you such news of Pat as reaches me. I 
 will filter the yield for your behoof. You shall have 
 the electric-separator first-quality gold, the cyanide- 
 process bars — and I will keep only the strictly feminine 
 by-products for myself — the things which it is good 
 for no man to know. If he does, he dies young and 
 unregretted — in the neighbourhood of Morningside 
 or Colney Hatch. And then everyone thinks it was 
 in the family, when really all that was the matter 
 with him was just that he knew too much I From this 
 will I save you, Mr. Heame Mackenzie. In the mean- 
 time take this information on the most authoritative 
 oihcial declaration ' communicated to the press.' 
 My sister Patricia McGhie (late Egham Boreham- 
 Egham) is well and healthy, especially at the hours of 
 eight, one, and seven — when she takes her meals. 
 But as she shows a quite new and marvellous disposition 
 to become a district nurse, unprejudiced persons Uke 
 myself, who remember the old Pat, are of the opinion 
 that there is a man in the question. Good evening, 
 Mr. Heame Mackenzie; think this well over before 
 you decide to emigrate. ' Out of the mouths of babes 
 and sucklings,' you know. And speaking of suck- 
 lings, reminds me — you can send me a box of candies. 
 Mine are ' out.' And I think I deserve them, wasting 
 my time on Pat's young men Uke this, with Freddy 
 watching over in the covers yonder, as sulky as a 
 badger ! " 
 
 And there is little doubt that, all things considered. 
 Baby Lant was well deserving of the beautiful box 
 of candied fruits which, with one of his few remaining 
 sovereigns, Mr. Heame Mackenzie bought for her. 
 
 And the last thing he heard as he went down the 
 avenue was the clear silver of Baby Lant's tones
 
 PLOT THE FIRST 237 
 
 calling, " Freddy — Freddy ! come out and take me 
 for a ride ! You needn't sulk ! I know you are 
 there ! Come, I want you ! " 
 
 A heart singularly whole and intact had Miss Ata- 
 lanta, youngest and only resident daughter of Mr. 
 P. Brydson McGhie, J. P., of Balmaghie, in the free 
 province of Galloway and Stewartry of Kirkcud- 
 bright.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 PLOT THE SECOND 
 
 Mr. Schoolmaster Simeon Grainer rubbed his 
 hands. His lirst, the plot deceitful, had worked to a 
 marvel. The second, that against Carvel, the super- 
 intendent, was more dangerous, but also, as it seemed 
 to him, more certain of success. 
 
 "It is simply impossible that Carvel can have 
 made all that money honestly," he said, as he referred 
 to some figures transcribed into a httle pocket-book 
 of his own. " Why, it's more than the whole amount 
 of his salary ever since he came to the institution ! 
 I have him sure — especially now when young Mr. 
 Heame is done for ! " 
 
 Now, what Grainer, the soft-handed, cruel-mouthed 
 schoolmaster had in his mind was very simple. The 
 " Peat " Reformatory having been erected by private 
 subscription, largely with the moneys of Lord Atha- 
 basca and his son, there was naturally a considerable 
 amount of patriarchal simphcity in its management. 
 
 Carvel, the superintendent, a man of known probity, 
 received everything — subscriptions, donations, govern- 
 ment grants, earnings of the different shops. He also 
 paid out everything — the monthly accounts of the 
 furnishers and providers of victual, wages, gratuities, 
 taxes, running expenses. Four times a year Lord 
 Athabasca, who loved anything that had to do with 
 figures or scented of strict business, would drive over 
 from Three Ridings, and audit the books and vouchers 
 liimself. There he would labour aU a winter's day, 
 
 238
 
 PLOT THE SECOND 239 
 
 tasting nothing more than a glass of water and a 
 biscuit, Carvel seated on a chair near him, ready to 
 explain anything which turned up. 
 
 It came about, therefore, that Carvel had generally 
 to pay his own salary. And so, on one occasion, 
 being a trusting man, not given to thinking evil, nor 
 to suspecting it in others, he had handed his bank 
 pass book over to Mr. Schoolmaster Grainer, who had 
 asked permission to go to the town for the afternoon, 
 with the request that he would pay in the £50 which 
 constituted the quarterly salary of the superintendent. 
 
 " I have him," said the amiable Simeon, as soon as 
 he had managed to get a quiet half hour with the 
 figures which were contained in the slim, little blue 
 book. "Carvel has brought up a large family while 
 superintendent of the ' Peat ' without touching a 
 single penny of his screw ! " 
 
 And in the night which supervened, before he could 
 give it back to Carvel, he had made a copy of the whole 
 book. Therefore, he had only to put his statement 
 before the directors, and, as bankers' records are 
 practically indestructible, Carvel's own bank must 
 perforce bear out the correctness of his figures. 
 
 " It's a clean cop ! " he said over and over to 
 himself — partly because he believed it and partly 
 to give himself courage. It needed some courage, 
 for if the superintendent were not dismissed — he, 
 Simeon Grainer, would most certainly be. This 
 accusation he could not make, like the last, anony- 
 mously ; he must come out of his rat hole and attack 
 his chief in the open. Simeon Hked this httle enough, 
 but he possessed that curious sort of desperate courage 
 which belongs to the flea and other backbiting vermin. 
 He would attack something ten times greater than 
 himself, trusting to his activity for escape. 
 
 But somehow he could not quite bring himself to 
 do it without the semblance of a quarrel with Carvel. 
 And Carvel, who, though occasionally hasty, meddled 
 with nobody's business, was always the first to make
 
 240 KID McGHIE 
 
 apologies and amends, even when he had been in the 
 right. 
 
 Grainer hit upon it, however, as excuses to quarrel 
 can be found even with the most long-suffering of 
 men. 
 
 An unusual turmoil in the schoolroom had brought 
 the superintendent on the scene, and Grainer was 
 found in the act of most brutally abusing a boy — one 
 of his favourite butts — who on inquiry was found to 
 have done nothing amiss. 
 
 '* He has a pick at him ! " said the only witness who 
 could be induced to speak. Carvel promised to make 
 inquisition on the following morning himself, and as a 
 result he called for Mr. Simeon Grainer, and remon- 
 strated with him privately in his own room. 
 
 " I had intended," said Carvel, " at to-morrow's 
 meeting of directors to ask them to appoint you 
 assistant superintendent in the place of Mr. Heame 
 Mackenzie, who has suddenly resigned ; but your 
 brutality toward the boys is such that I don't know 
 that I can conscientiously do it, Grainer. And it is 
 not a thing of yesterday. Many have noticed it. 
 My attention has been called to it ever since you came 
 here first. I have often been ashamed — yes, actually 
 and positively ashamed, Grainer — when taking visitors 
 over the reformatory to hear the screams of pain 
 coming from your department ! " 
 
 " I do not take such words from any man," said the 
 schoolmaster, sullenly ; *' the directors shall judge 
 between us. I have a httle paper to put before them 
 which may perhaps prevent you having to show any 
 more visitors about the reformatory. And I am not 
 asking your recommendation as assistant superin- 
 tendent. I have the best of reasons for knowing that 
 the post of superintendent in chief will soon be vacant. 
 1 mean to apply for that 1 " 
 
 Carvel burst into a shout of hearty laughter. 
 
 " Why, man," he cried, clapping his chest, " I wish 
 you joy. But you may have a long time to wait. I
 
 PLOT THE SECOND 241 
 
 am as sound as ever I was. I'm not going to turn 
 my toes up to the daisies, that I know of. But if I 
 am — why, you are as welcome to my old shoes as any- 
 body else. You are a good teacher, if only you would 
 be a bit more kindly with the boys ! " 
 
 Carvel thought no evil. It was not in him. And 
 he scarcely heard the sullen dominie's murmur of 
 anger, " Well, I've warned you, that's all ! You 
 can't say but what I've warned you ! " 
 
 Carvel thought no more about the matter, but went 
 his free, breezy, manly, wholesome. Christian way, 
 distributing praise and blame in the proportions of 
 about ten to one, accompan5dng his progress through 
 the " shops " with sundry playful pinches on the 
 ears, more decisive raps over the knuckles, and some- 
 times, in extreme cases, a " lunder " across the shoulder 
 with " chckie " — all which did nobody any harm, 
 but instead raised a laugh as soon as his taU, thin form 
 with the finely cut head and stooping shoulders had 
 passed on to another department. 
 
 There was, as Carvel had said, an important meeting 
 of directors called for the morrow under the presidency 
 of Lord Athabasca. The business first on the schedule 
 was the reception of the resignation of Mr. Hearne 
 Mackenzie, on which occasion a statement was ex- 
 pected, either from the young man himself or from his 
 father, as to what his position with regard to the future 
 work of the reformatory would be. 
 
 But Hearne's letter, brief and to the point, settled 
 only the financial question. He resigned his position 
 with regret. He had been perfectly happy in the 
 work, but affairs of a private nature had occurred 
 which made it inexpedient that he should longer hold 
 any salaried position in connection with the institution. 
 He asked the court of directors, in their corporate 
 capacity, to accept as a free gift all the bonds which 
 he held upon the property, and, indeed, all his monetary 
 interests in the Hearne Mackenzie." If it could be 
 called the Athabasca Reformatory, in consideration 
 
 16
 
 242 KID McGHIE. 
 
 of the recent peerage bestowed upon the chairman, 
 his father, he would be still better pleased. 
 
 Lord Athabasca was observed to grunt several times 
 during the reading of this letter. He also shuffled his 
 feet, but made no remark beyond the bald statement 
 that he supposed the directors had no choice but to 
 accept the resignation of Mr. Heame Mackenzie and 
 to pass to the next business. 
 
 But the sensation of the meeting was yet to come. 
 
 A letter was put into the honorary secretary's 
 hand requesting, on behalf of Mr. Simeon Grainer, 
 schoolmaster at the " Heame Mackenzie " Reform- 
 atory, the honour and favour of an audience. He had 
 something of the highest and most immediate im- 
 portance to communicate to the honourable the court 
 of directors. 
 
 "Oh, hang it ! " said Mr. Anthony Caimtable, the 
 bluff, cherubic-faced secretary. " What can the man 
 mean, addressing us in this way ? We are not the 
 East India Company or the Court of Chancery ! 
 What can he want ? An addition to his salary, most 
 Hkely." 
 
 " I suppose we had better have him in and let him 
 say his say ! " broke in ex-Banker Murray, of FeUnawe. 
 " I never believe in bottling a man up. If there is 
 bad blood, it may be the better of a Uttle letting ! " 
 
 But no one had the least idea of what was really 
 coming. 
 
 " Show in Mr. Simeon Grainer ! " 
 
 The senior warder, who rejoiced in the cognomen 
 of Giant Pagan, saluted stohdly, as he would have 
 done if Grainer had been ordered to instant execution, 
 and he left to choose his own firing party. He had been 
 a sergeant in the Black Watch, and his good-humoured 
 countenance expressed when on duty all the ordered 
 Sabbatic pomp characteristic of that formidable 
 regiment. 
 
 Mr. Simeon Grainer entered, a little stoutish man, 
 taUowy rather than fat, with eyes that were pale, and
 
 PLOT THE SECOND 243 
 
 flabby cheeks which trembled, quick, nervous hands, 
 evidently scared into a desperate courage — the game- 
 ster's grip on the dicebox when he has staked his all 
 on a single throw. 
 
 Carvel sat at the far end of the table — tall, emaciated, 
 with a head compounded of that attributed to the 
 Apostle Peter and that of a certain great general. 
 Carvel was bored. Directors' meetings always bored 
 him. He drummed with long, thin, almost translucent 
 fingers on the table. Pie knew nothing of what was 
 coming, and if he had known he would not have cared ; 
 only he would have been sorry for Grainer. That was 
 the sort of man Carvel was. If there was any other 
 person to think about before himself, he thought of 
 that person. And even if he had known that Grainer 
 was going to do him the most dastardly act possible 
 as between master and man, " Poor devil ! " is all that 
 Carvel would have said. 
 
 The world could do with more Carvels, but the worst 
 of it is that such men are not raised in quantity nor 
 grown from cuttings. 
 
 " Well, speak up, schoolmaster ! " said Lord Atha- 
 basca, sharply. He had not yet got over his son's 
 letter. The directors stopped sketching on the 
 blotting paper, biting the ends of their pencils, 
 searching their inner breast pockets for quite un- 
 necessary papers, each according to his habit at 
 meetings. They attended to Grainer, looking at him 
 with a calm, dispassionate absence of interest, which 
 was intensely galling to the trembUng and treacherous 
 man of taUow. 
 
 " I beUeve," he thought, " they think I am going to 
 complain of the ventilation, or the quahty of ink 
 supplied in the school — I'll show them ! " 
 
 The rat was in the comer now and showing his teeth. 
 
 " I shall have to prove to you," he said, slowly and 
 deUberately, " that your confidence in your present 
 superintendent is misplaced. I can prove that — 
 Mr. — ah — Carvel has systematically been heaping up
 
 244 KID McGHIE 
 
 money at the expense of the institution. His bank 
 book — his current pass book merely, mind you, 
 gentlemen — came by accident into my hands recently, 
 and I found that he has at this moment more money 
 lying to his credit in the bank than the amount of his 
 legitimate salary for the whole time he has been 
 superintendent of the " Heame Mackenzie " Refor- 
 matory. Where did this money come from ? From 
 the receipts, gentlemen, by a careful manipulation of 
 the accounts, which have never been properly certified 
 during all these years since the foundation of the 
 reformatory ! The present superintendent has brought 
 up and educated a large family on nothing, gentlemen, 
 besides laying away thousands of pounds in the bank ! 
 The amount of his other investments I cannot give, 
 but they are considerable. It grieves me, gentlemen, 
 to lay the facts before you, but loyalty to the bread 
 I have eaten, and to the worthy gentlemen I have 
 served in a humble but necessary capacity, emboldens 
 me to take the present step. This very day, gentle- 
 men, the superintendent for the second time offered 
 me the position of assistant, but I refused it as I 
 would have refused any other gift coming from such 
 polluted hands." 
 
 Grainer stood a moment, trying to read the effect 
 of his words, his cruel mouth shut hke a rat trap and 
 his httle eyes passing rapidly from one face to another 
 aU about the board-room table. He could read little 
 there. Attention he had certainly gained to the full. 
 Some stirred uneasily and muttered vaguely. Carvel, 
 who alone sat quite unmoved, continued to look at 
 his thin white fingers thoughtfully, as if he were not 
 sure of their number. Lord Athabasca was staring 
 at the schoolmaster with that straight, open-air, 
 " kick-him-downstairs " look which his lordship's 
 opponents in Colonial parliaments had found so 
 disconcerting. There was a faint smile about the 
 mouth of ex-Banker Murray, of Fellnawe, as he played 
 with his pencil.
 
 PLOT THE SECOND 245 
 
 Encouraged by the silence, Simeon began again : 
 
 " I think you will allow that the circumstances fully 
 warranted an appeal to you, gentlemen " 
 
 " Fully ! " said Lord Athabasca, the strong mascu- 
 line gust of his voice making all those start who were 
 not looking at him. Only Carvel continued indolently 
 the inspection of the fingers of his left hand. He did 
 not seem satisfied with the httle one. Then he held 
 his whole hand up against the window as if to study 
 some problem connected with the circiilation of the 
 blood. 
 
 " I am glad to hear from your lordship that you 
 consider my appeal fully justified," said Grainer, 
 " and I hope that every gentleman present will under- 
 stand that I have only spoken out of the highest 
 regard for the best interests of the ' Heame Mac- 
 kenzie ' Reformatory ! " 
 
 " Perfectly," said Lord Athabasca, in his clear, 
 dominating voice. " You can now retire, and the 
 directors will consider what course they are to pursue." 
 
 " Is not the present superintendent," said Grainer, 
 anxiously cHnging to the adjective, " to go out also ? " 
 
 " We may need some information from Mr. Carvel," 
 said the chairman, quietly. " Meantime you can go 
 and wait outside." 
 
 " The books of the bank can prove what I say ! " 
 he remarked, a Uttle anxiously. " I am speaking 
 the truth." 
 
 His lordship waved a hand in the direction of the 
 door. He did not deign Mr. Grainer any further 
 speech. 
 
 " See that he waits at the far side of the exercising 
 yard, warder ! " ordered my lord. 
 
 The ex-" non-com." of the Forty-second saluted 
 the Board as if it had been a court martial. 
 
 " He will be finding himself there presently," he 
 murmured. Again saluting, he erected a semaphore 
 hand of bra\Miy stuff — woven steel and four-horse 
 power attachments — at least so Grainer thought the
 
 246 KID McGHIE 
 
 next moment, as Giant Pagan caught him Ungering 
 outside with an ear obviously strained in the direction 
 of the board room. 
 
 " To the exercising yard — south side. I'll take ye 
 there meeself I " said ex-Sergeant Pagan. And the 
 little stooping slug of a man with the fox's face went 
 trotting across the yard to his appointed station. 
 He demanded of Giant Pagan to be informed why he, 
 a schoolmaster and proximate superintendent, should 
 thus be at the mercy of a mere warder. He threatened. 
 He menaced. His voice cracked and broke. Warder 
 Pagan would certainly lose his position when he 
 got back before the board if he did not instantly 
 let go his collar and give a reason for such treatment. 
 
 " Orders ! " said ex-Sergeant Pagan. " And shut 
 your mouth ! " 
 
 He was returning to his sentinel's post when a 
 thought struck him. " And there's your beat," he 
 called back ; " from one side o' the yaird to the ither. 
 And if ye come an inch nearer — weel, ye will ken what 
 the rogue's march to clink means in the Forty-twa — 
 and that's something to ken in itsel' ! " 
 
 In the board room there was a somewhat strained 
 silence. They were aU honourable men, but some 
 few of them a little dense. And Carvel's silence and 
 indifference, together with Lord Athabasca's strange 
 manner to Schoolmaster Grainer (who always had a 
 good annual report), might very well conceal some- 
 thing. So they waited and eyed Carvel, without 
 appearing to do so. 
 
 Still Carvel did not speak. He had commenced 
 the inspection of the right hand now, and his boot, 
 a-swing over the other leg in his usual languid pose, 
 moved not a beat the faster. But the hearts of all 
 the members did so instead, as is always the case when 
 a man is felt to be on trial for his hfe. There were 
 two exceptions. Lord Athabasca stared at the shut 
 door, and appeared to listen for the returning footsteps 
 of Giant Pagan, the sentry and guardian in times of
 
 PLOT THE SECOND 247 
 
 scath. Presently he heard them — stoHd, wooden, 
 regular as ever — pass the door, turn at the end of the 
 corridor, and come back, waxing louder till they 
 again began to fade away along the passage to the 
 left. Then Lord Athabasca knew that there would 
 be no hsteners to what he was going to say, so long 
 as the ex-" non-com." trod statedly without. 
 
 He looked at ex-Banker Murray, who continued 
 to smile into his big moustache, and seemed hugely 
 interested in the accurate pointing of his pencil. 
 Carvel was absorbed in the middle joint of his ring 
 finger. Board meetings were a bore. He had always 
 thought so. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Lord Athabasca, " I don't 
 often quote Scripture — you will bear me out in that — 
 but there's a good deal of soUd business in the book 
 which has Proverbs written at the top of each page. 
 He was no fool who wrote it, and what we have heard 
 reminds me of what I was reading last Sunday in 
 church, when the clergyman was addressing ' A Few 
 Words to Mothers.' It was this : ' A fool's mouth 
 is his destruction, and his Ups are the snare of his 
 soul.' " 
 
 " No, don't speak, Carvel ; you have no need to ! " 
 said ex-Banker Murray, hastily. 
 
 " I wasn't going to ! " said Carvel, in rapt 
 admiration of the pale half-moon at the base of his 
 middle finger. 
 
 " Twenty words or thereby, gentlemen, will be 
 enough," continued Lord Athabasca. " Indeed, far 
 too many to waste upon this fellow — pestilent, iU- 
 conditioned, treacherous rascal that he is. Mr. Carvel 
 our excellent superintendent, when he first came, at 
 the beginning of our reformatory work, found us, to 
 put it plainly, in something of a hole. My own 
 resources were for the moment locked up. My son 
 had spent — all that was his to spend. We had the 
 option of one week to purchase a large piece of land 
 for our present workshops. At that time, anxious
 
 248 KID McGHIE 
 
 enough for all who were then on the committee of 
 immediate direction, Mr. Carvel came nobly to our 
 aid. He became the creditor of the institution to 
 the extent of several thousand pounds. He insisted, 
 solely out of his natural delicacy, that the matter 
 should be kept secret. ' How can the directors deal 
 properly with me for my sins if such a thing were to 
 come out ? ' he said. Well, gentlemen, it did not 
 come out. But a further gift of — my son — Mr. 
 Hearne Mackenzie, upon his coming of age, and the 
 continued prosperity of the institution, put it in our 
 power to pay off our generous creditors, first of whom 
 was Mr. Superintendent Carvel, who had sold house 
 property in Newcastle in order to obhge us in our 
 time of need. This money, a very considerable sum, 
 had just been paid over, and was lodged in the bank 
 pending reinvestment, when Mr. Carvel, thinking no 
 evil, confided his bank pass book to this sneaking 
 hound — wha-a-at— — ? " 
 
 One and all the directors were on their feet, crowding 
 round Carvel and insisting on shaking him by the 
 hand. The tall man seemed a little scandalised at 
 the proceedings, but finally shook hands, as it were, 
 under protest. Then he sat down, and once more 
 regarded the toe of his boot. 
 
 " Ah, well ! " said Lord Athabasca, " I am glad 
 that no more need be said. Mr. Secretary, tell us on 
 what terms we stand with this fellow — Grainer, the 
 schoolmaster, I mean." 
 
 " A month's notice, but with liberty to dismiss for 
 bad behaviour," said the secretary. 
 
 " Dismiss — dismiss ! " cried half a dozen voices. 
 Then Carvel rose hastily, stirred to speech at last. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " he has an old father whose 
 heart would be broken if j^ou did this hastily. I 
 know him. Let the man send in his resignation — to 
 me. Tell him to clear out in a week's time. He is 
 a good teacher, but an overstrict disciplinarian — 
 thrashes the boys too much, you know— for an insti-
 
 PLOT THE SECOND 249 
 
 tution of this kind. You can put it in the minutes 
 as that. Then, at least, he will have a chance for 
 his life." 
 
 And those who were nearest Carvel assert to this day 
 that they heard him mutter " Poor devil " under his 
 breath as he sat down. 
 
 At any rate, it would have been just Uke Carvel if 
 he had. 
 
 Giant Pagan was summoned. 
 
 " Bid Schoolmaster Grainer to come this way ! " 
 said Lord Athabasca. 
 
 Sergeant Pagan marched along the echoing corridor, 
 tramped down tiie steps, and crossed the exercising 
 yard as if on parade. Then he came on a different 
 man from the one he had left. Waxen yellow was 
 Grainer's face. His mouth, once so cruel, twitched 
 at intervals. There was a frightened, furtive look 
 in his pale eyes, which had taken on a red watery 
 rim all about them as if the man had been weeping. 
 
 " The craitur ! " scorned Sergeant Pagan. " An' 
 I thocht he was a man ! " 
 
 He motioned his prisoner to foUow him, and marched 
 back to the board room. 
 
 Lord Athabasca was standing up in his place at 
 the table head, the other directors looking curiously 
 at him. Only Carvel sat sorrowfully apart, with 
 bowed head. 
 
 " All right," thought Schoolmaster Simeon ; "I 
 have pulled it off again." 
 
 " Mr. Grainer," said Lord Athabasca, " I will not 
 dweU on your shameful wickedness ; I will only 
 — what may touch you more — point out what a fool 
 you have been. The money wliich you saw credited 
 to Mr. Carvel in his pass book had been loaned to 
 the reformatory for many years. Mr. Carvel had 
 sold property to estabhsh this institution, in which 
 from the first he has been no hirehng. At long and 
 last, we were able to repay him. He had refused 
 interest, so that there was restored to him only the
 
 250 KID McGHIE 
 
 net sum we borrowed. Do you understand that 
 clearly ? Speak out, if you do not ! " 
 
 There was a thick silence as the waxy, stricken, 
 dough-faced, tallowy man stood wavering before them 
 as if about to fall but did not know to which side. 
 
 " For these malicious lies, for your inexcusable 
 attitude to your superior officer, you are from this 
 moment to consider yourself as dismissed — dismissed 
 without appeal — in disgrace ! " 
 
 Lord Athabasca let this sink in. Then he added : 
 
 " But at the request of Mr. Carvel, and out of pity 
 for your aged father, you are to be permitted to send 
 in your resignation — to Mr. Carvel — within a week. 
 Now, go, sir. We never wish to see your face again ! " 
 
 The man stood moving his Ups without achie\'ing 
 speech. He fought chokingly with his words. But 
 all that could be made out was only a stray syllable 
 here and there, which came forth as it were foam 
 flecked with the curses of bitter hate. 
 
 " Carvel — Carvel — hounds — devils ! " he spluttered. 
 
 Lord Athabasca rapped smartly with his knuckle 
 three times. It was the signal for Giant Pagan, late 
 of the Forty-second Regiment — a useful man. 
 
 The door opened, and the tall, grim, clear-eyed 
 man stood within, almost filling it up from post to 
 post. 
 
 " See that man safe to the schoolmaster's house ! '* 
 said Lord Athabasca. 
 
 " Come ! " said the sergeant, his iron hand upon 
 the quivering arm, which appeared a moment on 
 the point of resistance. 
 
 One turn, curiously spinning in its character, owing 
 to a " rick " given to the bone — only to be learned 
 when on Saturday night picket duty in Giant Pagan's 
 old regiment — then a steady progression to the door, 
 singularly swift, when you saw it sideways, and the 
 schoolmaster found himself outside. Then all the 
 wild beast in him, prisoned till that moment, broke 
 bounds. He bent his head swifter than the eye could
 
 PLOT THE SECOND 251 
 
 follow its movements and bit Giant Pagan sharply 
 in the wrist. The " clout " which he received the 
 next moment on the side of his head would certainly 
 have floored Mr. Simeon Grainer had he not been 
 firmed up on the other side by another " clout " 
 equally soHd. Thus alternately supported, and very 
 " muzzy " as to details, he reached his own house. 
 The ex-sergeant opened the door and flung him in. 
 
 " If you come out without bein' told," he said, 
 " I'll break your neck ! " 
 
 And from the then condition of his head, School- 
 master Simeon Grainer beheved him as to his neck. 
 
 You may learn many things in the " Forty-twa," 
 by the time you come to be a full sergeant, twice 
 medalled, with the largest attainable pension. For 
 one, you know Simeon Grainers at sight, and you also 
 learn how to handle them as they deserve. 
 
 Giant Pagan washed his hand at the pump and 
 went into the httle hospital, where, consulting a 
 book about first remedies, he put on some ointment 
 recommended in cases of bites of mad dogs. He passed 
 the paragraph about cauterising the wound. 
 
 " He's not worth it, him — the cur ! " he said, as 
 he went back to his sentry-go in front of the board- 
 room door.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 PLOT THE THIRD—AND LAST 
 
 Yet " mad dog " was no bad description of the con- 
 dition of Simeon Grainer as he sat down to send in 
 his resignation of the post he had so long held at the 
 " Peat " Reformatory. Pleasures the most savoury 
 instantly grew tasteless to him. He could not even 
 properly cane the boys, who by their misdeeds offered 
 themselves for that exercise — once so dear to the 
 spirit of Simeon Grainer that he used to think of it 
 the first thing in the morning as other men do of 
 their sweethearts. 
 
 The first plot, the deceitful one, had succeeded 
 beyond his thought. The second, the dangerous 
 one, had brought him to most utter shipwreck. But 
 his heart was not humihated. He was all the more 
 bitterly set on revenge. There was nothing now 
 at which he would stop to be even with Carvel and 
 with the directors. 
 
 Dulfus arose in his mind. And he went out forth- 
 with to hang up the key — his master-key which would 
 soon be no longer his — in the place designated, upon 
 a nail in the outer door of his small, red brick house 
 with the tiny patch of garden in front. As he came 
 out of his sitting-room, where he had been writing 
 in the warm yellowish glow of the paraffin lamp, 
 it seemed that he felt in his face a waft of keen moor- 
 land air. It struck him that he had left the door 
 open, yet, on going forward, he found it shut as 
 usual. The neighbourhood of sometliing mysterious 
 told on his nerves, already jarred by the events of 
 
 252
 
 PLOT THE THIRD 233 
 
 the afternoon and the heavy hand of ex-Sergeant 
 Giant Pagan, of the " Forty-twa." He turned the 
 door key in the lock, and hung up the master-key 
 on the nail by the hat pegs, as he had arranged with 
 Duff us. In a quarter of an hour he had the curiosity 
 to take the lamp in his hand and go again to the hat 
 pegs. The key was not there, but the outer door 
 was locked as before. 
 
 The schoolmaster returned to his place, wondering, 
 but not for long. The smashing of all his hopes — 
 the lost chance of the superintendentship, which 
 had seemed almost within his grasp — even the little 
 self-contained house across the road, in which Hearne 
 Mackenzie had dwelt, which had really been his — 
 or as good — these things filled his mind so that he did 
 not hear the stealthy movements which went on most 
 of the night about and within his dwelUng. 
 
 In the morning the key was back in its place, and 
 the plot desperate, that of Duffus of the red tie, well 
 under way. 
 
 Now it has so happened that for some time " Bhnd 
 Jacob's," the Cowgate, Mr. Missionary Molesay, 
 even Patricia, have had to give place to the concerns 
 of the " Peat " Reformatory, as these have been 
 thrust on our attention by the sojourn there of McGhie's 
 Kid ; yet all the time these neglected persons, and 
 especially the professors of the gentle art of burgling, 
 have been approaching the path of our story. 
 They have never really ceased their activities, though 
 Knifer Jackson has as yet failed to find a boy of the 
 intelhgence and simplicity of the Kid or a general 
 assistant of the calibre of Duffus. 
 
 The situation will be made plainer by following 
 a few of the doings of Duffus. These were curious 
 in the extreme. He had for several nights occupied 
 his spare time in making a collection of inflammable 
 objects — shavings from the workshops, rags, chips,
 
 254 KID McGHIE 
 
 torn wrappings and newspapers, and especially the 
 thin, long shreddings which are used for packing 
 the uppers of boots as they arrive at the boot factory. 
 These Duffus disposed in heaps under the floor of 
 the main school building of the " Peat " Reformatory. 
 It was easy for him to start a plank in the floor and 
 nail it down again. These artful arrangements he 
 saturated thoroughly with paraffin, dripping, varnish, 
 resin, and colza oil, according as he could lay hands 
 on inflammable materials without attracting attention. 
 Some sporting powder, which Mr. Hearne had left 
 behind him in his house, served to lay the trains upon 
 a ground prepared with torn tissue paper soaked in 
 petroleum. 
 
 At nine of the evening of Friday all was ready. 
 Letters had been passed to and fro between the heads 
 of " BHnd Jacob's " and Duffus of the red tie. There 
 was a big " job " on for that Friday night. In evil 
 as in good, one hand serves to wash the other. The 
 escape of No. 680 would certainly clear the way for 
 the larger work of Com Beef Joe and the Knifer. 
 There could be no abler recruit than Master Duffus 
 in any department of professional work. 
 
 Mysterious notes arranging all this had been carried 
 to the httle town by the " pony boy," who had deliv- 
 ered them into the hands of a shawled woman — no 
 other than the Kid's mother — who, however, never 
 once asked after her son. The mother may, indeed, 
 forget the child. Mad Mag had lost all interest in 
 her son from the moment he had espoused his father's 
 side in an early quarrel. The Knifer had, indeed, 
 quite another hold over Mag. In him she had, for 
 the first time, met her master, but even he could not 
 make her love her son. 
 
 On Friday Duffus worked all day in the shops. 
 He answered to his number at roll call. He was in 
 his place when the evening porridge was served out. 
 He had been seen in his dormitory, which was not 
 that in which the Kid slept. Nothing of the abnormal,
 
 PLOT THE THIRD 255 
 
 nothing at all remarkable ! Duffus knew how to be 
 a model reformatory boy, just as, when it came to 
 prison, he would become at once a model prisoner, 
 and depart the spoiled darling of the chaplains. 
 
 But, though no one saw him leave the dormitory 
 — save, it may be, one or two " chaps in the know ' 
 — Duffus had been downstairs more than once before 
 eleven o'clock struck from the stable clock of Castle 
 Egham. 
 
 Now Warder Pagan was responsible for No. 3 
 dormitory — Duffus's room — and though faithful in 
 many things, the ex-sergeant had one fault. He 
 loved to look upon the whisky when it gave its colour 
 aright — line, pale straw yellow was his preference 
 — in the tall tumblers. Being an Argyllshire man, 
 he swore by " Long John," and sometimes on his 
 return from the Ringside Inn, when pay night was 
 not yet too distant, his head seemed so completely 
 in the clouds, that it appeared to him that he 
 must be the original " Long John " himself, striding 
 down the mountains toward Fort William over the 
 famous succession of " aughteen faals ! " 
 
 On these occasions his inspection of Dormitory 
 No. 3 was very cursory indeed, and a bundle of clothes 
 with the coverlet pulled high about them might very 
 safely represent the absent Duffus. 
 
 Yet Warder Pagan had passed within two yards 
 of Duffus as he entered the yard, stamping with his 
 feet to show how firmly he stood on his pins, and 
 whistling as he regarded the stars. He fumbled 
 a little with his pass key, and hummed : 
 
 " Honest auld Symon Brodie, 
 Stupit auld doitit bodie ! 
 I'll awa' to the North Countrie, 
 To see auld Symon Brodie ! " 
 
 " Dear me," he said, " what's that ? " 
 He broke his song off short. It seemed as if a 
 shadow had fled from beneath his left armpit out into
 
 256 KID McGHIE' 
 
 the darkness. With the beautiful logic of those 
 who have partaken of the barley brew, he struck 
 a match and looked weU about him — of course thus 
 being unable to see three yards. Then he resumed 
 the humming where he had left it ofi : 
 
 " Symon Brodie had a coo, 
 
 The coo was lost ; he couldna find her : 
 When he had dune what man could do, 
 
 The coo cam' hame — her tail behind her ! " 
 
 All was right in the Dormitory No. 3. The lamp 
 was burning and the boys asleep, only silence and 
 the heavy hush of breathing down the long double 
 row of beds. Warder Pagan regarded his own bed 
 with suspicion. It seemed to him the only thing 
 not behaving as it ought. It would persist in running 
 round the room. Three times he tried to take it, 
 as it were, on the fly. Three times he came hea\dly 
 to grass on the carpetless floor. Then Warder Pagan 
 said to himself, shaking his head wisely, " This wiU 
 never do, sergeant ! Whaur are your tactics ? And 
 you a prop o' the ' Forty-twa ! ' " 
 
 And so waiting in the fuU track of the revolving 
 couch, he intercepted it successfully at last, held a 
 moment by the round brass knob, and then threw 
 himself fully dressed upon it. He laughed low to 
 himself, admiring his own cleverness. 
 
 " It tak's a ' non-com ' of ten years' standing to 
 do a thing like that ! " he said. " Thought it would 
 get away from me, didn't it ? Na, na, I was in the 
 Black Watch!" 
 
 And he firmly refused to give this erratic bedstead 
 another chance. Take off his clothes ? Well, he 
 knew a trick worth two of that. Why, as like as 
 not it would be off again. So he decided to go to sleep 
 fully dressed as he was, rather than run any foohsh 
 risks. And, indeed, it was as weU for No. 3 Dormitory 
 and for the inhabitants of the " Heame Mackenzie "
 
 PLOT THE THIRD 257 
 
 Reformatory that he did so, as, in time, we shall 
 see. 
 
 Having returned from another day of fruitless 
 search after the missing Patricia, concerning whom 
 he had been unable to extract any further information 
 from Baby Lant, Heame Mackenzie fell asleep in 
 the gable room of the bare two-storied house which 
 was the Ringside Inn. 
 
 The larger Scottish hostelries in market towns 
 are mostly marvels of discomfort — crowded and 
 odorous with dripping waterproofs and stertorous 
 drovers one day in the seven, silent and inhospitable 
 as the grave for the rest of the week — as has been 
 sung by an admirable poet concerning a Welsh house 
 of pubhc entertainment, so be it recorded of them : 
 
 Whenever you go to Dolgelly, 
 
 Don't stop at the " Anchor " Hotel 
 
 They'll give you no meat for your stomach, 
 The waiter won't answer the bell ! 
 
 So of the larger, of all indeed, save the few best. 
 But the smaller inns are often run upon quite a different 
 scale of comfort. It all depends upon the landlady, 
 and still more (if she has any) upon the landlady's 
 daughters. This fact, and several others that were 
 pleasant and grateful to a home-coming, wear}^ 
 wet, and tired man, Heame Mackenzie experienced 
 at the Ringside Inn. That he was in love with Pat 
 did not hinder him from recei\'ing a vague but real 
 pleasure from the observation that the (returned) 
 girls of the house were pretty. Indeed, to tell the 
 truth, the welcome he received at that warm fireside, 
 and the chat which went on about that cheerful ingle 
 while his supper was frizzHng in the pan, more than 
 made up to the natural man in him for the naked 
 and mournful sohtude of the brick house across the 
 way in which he had Hved so long at the " Peat." 
 
 17
 
 258 KID McGHIE 
 
 Being honest with himself, Hearne Mackenzie 
 recognised that for the time being, and while his 
 money enabled him to continue his search for Patricia, 
 the Ringside Inn was the best home he could have. 
 
 So on the night of Friday he went to bed early. 
 Wet from head to foot, he had come home, stumbling 
 vaguely over the moss. His soaked garments being 
 hung to dry in front of the kitchen fire, he had 
 clad himself from head to foot in the homespun 
 of the late landlord, which gave him the look of a 
 comfortable store farmer whose girth had prospered 
 in direct ratio to his bank account. But the unaccus- 
 tomed tickling of the wincey shirts, the rough rig- 
 and-fur drawers and socks, together with the warmth 
 within produced by the ham-and-egg tea, and the 
 memory of the evil night he had left without, pre- 
 disposed him to slumber. 
 
 Hearne Mackenzie went to bed early — indeed, at 
 nine o'clock precisely. He stepped out of the clothes 
 of the late landlord of the Ringside Inn as a small 
 boy might out of a pair of his father's sea boots, and 
 in five minutes he found himself between the roughish, 
 but clean and lavender-smelling sheets belonging 
 to Mrs. McWhan. 
 
 He was awakened at something like twenty minutes 
 past midnight by a faint scent in the room which 
 somehow recalled Canada to him. He sat up and 
 sniffed. " The forest on fire," he said ; " but it 
 isn't the time of the year to do much damage." 
 
 Now there was a lustre in Hearne's room — one of 
 those tinkling, fl5/-freckled, prismatic, gigantic eardrop 
 sort of ornaments only to be found in old houses, ugly 
 when clean and impossible when dirty. Leaning back, 
 Hearne's eyes closed promptly, yet something seemed 
 to move to and fro before his vision like those fire 
 shapes which one can make of different colours by 
 tightening or relaxing the lids after looking at any- 
 thing bright. Hearne amused himself with this for 
 some time.
 
 PLOT THE THIRD 259 
 
 But a continuance of the multicoloured quiverings 
 presently informed him that he was receiving other 
 and newer impressions from somewhere or other. 
 He glanced at the lustre, which hung, a mysterious 
 pearl-gray shape over his head, sucking up the starlight 
 that filtered through the uncurtained windows of 
 his room. It was all starred with Httle darting flecks 
 of orange and crimson. 
 
 Hearne rubbed his eyes. He was, he thought, 
 the victim of a colour delusion. He had often suffered 
 from them after working too long over the reformatory 
 books, or when getting up, for an examination at coUege, 
 some subject in which he was tremendously interested. 
 Black cats in comers, seen over the shoulder, which 
 vanished slowly as you went toward them — little 
 zigzag Hghtnings in the eyes which caused the print 
 on a page to melt and run together as if suddenly 
 " pied " — he knew the proper medical formula for 
 that — rest, open air, and the exhibition of a certain 
 simple domestic medicine. 
 
 But these httle darting flames and flashing signals 
 aloft in the lustre could not be thus interpreted. 
 Hearne Mackenzie sprang out of bed. He looked 
 through the little gable window of Ringside Inn, and, 
 lo ! the " Peat " Reformatory, the pride of his heart, 
 was going up to the heavens in sheet on sheet of pale, 
 yello\vish flame ! 
 
 Duffus of the red tie had made no miscalculation. 
 
 With what rapidity, with what haste of adjustment, 
 Hearne Mackenzie got into his — that is, the landlord's 
 — clothes he was never able afterwards to recall. 
 He saw his life-work passing away in a flame. He 
 seemed to hear the cry of human souls in agony going 
 up like so many mounting sparks. 
 
 He swung himself down from his low first-floor 
 window. The rest of the Ringside Inn was wrapped 
 in deep sleep, but he did not wait for that. Hearne 
 Mackenzie was on the point of rushing off in the direc- 
 tion of the reformatory, which blazed like a torch
 
 26o KID McGHIE 
 
 across the moor. But a wiser thought arrested him. 
 Also he observed something. 
 
 He could see hordes of small, antlike figures rushing 
 this way and that about the houses and out of the 
 yard. The alarm had been given. It was the detached 
 and uninhabited schoolrooms and the old dining- 
 rooms which were in flames. The fire had not yet 
 caught the dormitories, the residence of Carvel, the 
 superintendent, or the " shops " with their valuable 
 machinery. 
 
 In brief, much — most, indeed — might yet be saved ! 
 But this much was certain ; carrying water in cans 
 was of no use. What they wanted was a fire engine. 
 He had always thought of buying one for the " Peat," 
 but an unblessed want of funds had hitherto stood 
 in the way. However, there was one at Three Ridings, 
 his father's house. He would go there. If he found 
 Hutton, the coachman, and one or two gardeners 
 whom he knew for reliable men, he could get it to 
 the " Peat " in time to save the most valuable portions 
 of the institution, and those which it would take 
 the longest to replace. 
 
 Without a thought of the clothes he was wearing, 
 he hurried across the moor in the direction of the 
 Three Ridings. There was a short cut. Hearne 
 knew every step of the way. First there was the 
 black and trackless moss. Then before him would 
 stand up a long promontory of tall trees with a patriarch 
 among pines towering high in the midst. That was 
 the landmark. So much the Mght from the burning 
 school would show him. 
 
 After that it was plain sailing. Cutting through 
 the green gloom of the pine-belt, he descended sharply 
 a tiny pathway that curved and twisted, half over- 
 grown with Solomon's Seal and ground ivy. In the 
 hoUow Hearne turned sharply at right angles across 
 a bridge, which some early landscape-gardening 
 proprietor of Three Ridings had erected across the 
 river. It was high in the middle, but too narrow
 
 PLOT THE THIRD 261 
 
 for even the swag-bellied carriages of ancient times. 
 The easy archaeology of the neighbourhood had named 
 it " The Roman Bridge," though it obviously dated 
 about 1740, or thereabouts. 
 
 At any rate, Hearne crossed it hotfoot without 
 heeding its date. Then he scaled the bank opposite 
 so as to come out upon the three-cornered plateau 
 on which stood Three Ridings. For whereas Egham 
 and the " Peat " were set out baldly on the crown 
 of the moorland, Three Ridings was emphatically 
 down in the valley. Little green dells surrounded 
 it on every side, rivers ran about it, and birds chanted. 
 The spring flowers came earhest, the autumn ones 
 lingered longest, about the south-looking dells and 
 sheltered holms of Three Ridings, now the property 
 of the rich Lord Athabasca, who had paid a great 
 price to call it his own, and had spent so much money 
 on it since. 
 
 But even from Three Ridings the flare of the burning 
 "Peat" could be seen, and, as he ran, Hearne could 
 hear the distant calling of voices and the crashing 
 of underbrush as unseen men charged through it in 
 that wild excitement " to see a fire " which possesses 
 all country people — the panic which is so incompre- 
 hensible to the hlase folk of towns, who will hardly 
 go to the window for a thing so shght, and then only 
 in the hope that by good luck the whooping fire engines 
 may run over somebody. 
 
 Up the steep brow, the last part on his hands and 
 knees, climbed Hearne, as careless of ways and means 
 as if he had been in the heart of the northern Sioux 
 country where he was born. But he moved silently, 
 as became the son of his grandfather. He went hke 
 Crowfoot, that great chief, not like those other 
 charging asses up there. No one came near him as 
 he approached the silent house. It loomed up sud- 
 denly before him, massive and black. A candle was 
 being carried from room to room on the second 
 story. Some frightened maid, perhaps, thought
 
 262 KID McGHIE 
 
 Hearne, or the butler seeing that everything was 
 locked up. 
 
 He skirted the pheasant-rearing shrubbery, all 
 marled and patched with scars where the hen mothers 
 had made to themselves dust baths, then through 
 an archway to the stables. The door of the engine 
 house was open ! Hurrah ! 
 
 The alarm had been given, and they had taken it 
 off at once. Well done ! There was some hope 
 for the brains of domestic servants after all. A 
 livery did not quite destroy the soul, as Hearne had 
 previously supposed. But the candle ? Evidently 
 there were those in the house, wakeful and perhaps 
 anxious. At least he could ease his father's anxiety. 
 He remembered with a kind of pride and thank- 
 fulness how deeply interested the old man had always 
 been in the " Hearne Mackenzie." Even at that 
 present moment was he not chairman of the board 
 of directors ? Hearne would lay aside all angry 
 feehngs, and, man to man, as indeed Athabasca and 
 his son always treated each other, he would tell 
 his father the hopes he had that the better portion 
 of the buildings and, indeed, all that was intrinsically 
 most valuable, all the wage-earning part, might yet 
 be saved — especially if the men with the Three Ridings' 
 engine arrived in time. 
 
 The back door was locked, which somewhat aston- 
 ished him. He had thought that of a certainty that 
 part of the house would be the first astir, in order to 
 see strange things. The wild flurry of the mounting 
 flames, licking the few visible stars, the distant but 
 quite distinct crackle of the burning timbers, the far- 
 carried smell of the wood smoke, were all strongly 
 in evidence in the rear of the house. He had expected 
 half the servants of Three Ridings to be congregated 
 there, perhaps using the opportunity to do a little 
 private jesting and " spooning," as on such occasions 
 servants are wont to do. But to find nobody — Hearne 
 Mackenzie was not prepared for that.
 
 PLOT THE THIRD 263 
 
 It was the same at the side door. Locked firm 
 and fast it was — silence all about, save for that far-off 
 warning crackle up on the moor. 
 
 " Have they gone off in a body ? " said Hearne 
 to himself — " my father at the head of them ? That 
 is it. I would not put it past him, even at his time 
 of hfe. What an old Nor'wester he is ! " 
 
 And a something of pride swelled in his heart. 
 
 He went to the front door and mounted the steps. 
 The fire was not visible from there, but the odour 
 of burning came clearly to his nostrils. He laid his 
 hand on the great oaken door, ready to knock with 
 the immense brazen knocker which his father had 
 brought long ago from Venice. It was a clever 
 imitation, and Lord Athabasca had paid for it as 
 being the original and authentic knocker of the prison 
 of the Doges. Nobody had dared to enhghten him 
 since. 
 
 But Hearne Mackenzie's hand did not reach the 
 knocker. The door moved inward ! It had not 
 been closed at aU ! What abominable carelessness ! 
 He would have them all out of the house to-morrow. 
 They were getting too fat, like that fellow in the 
 Bible — Jeshurun, wasn't it ? But he, Hearne Mac- 
 kenzie, would do the kicking ! He would not have 
 his father imposed upon by a pack of lazy good-for- 
 nothings. 
 
 He pushed the door open and found himself in 
 the great silent haU hung with trophies of the chase 
 — mostly taken over from the previous occupant. 
 A few were his own, and, being fond of them, he could 
 have put his hand on them in the dark. The head 
 of a buck moose, the mask of a wood bison, and, finest 
 and most difficult of all to obtain, the whole upper 
 part of a musk ox, standing out of a wooden panel, 
 painted with brown gray and marish green to resemble 
 the Barren Ground plants on which he had found 
 it feeding. 
 
 But in the house nothing — no one — no sound.
 
 264 KID McGHIE 
 
 Hearne laughed silently. He might have been a 
 burglar in his own father's house. But that candle ? 
 He must find out who that was. So he mounted 
 the deeply carpeted stairs three at a time till he came 
 to his father's sitting room. Ha — at last — there 
 was a light in there ! The candle must have been 
 carried by Lord Athabasca, who was himself looking 
 to the defences in the absence of the servants, doubtless 
 all dispatched to see the burning " Peat ! " And 
 now — he would warn his father with their old hunting 
 call — the call of the Sioux on the night trail. 
 
 And the sound of his voice echoed weirdly through 
 the silent house ! Strange that his father did not 
 answer ! He must have fallen asleep in his chair, 
 no infrequent thing. He always had a burnt hole 
 or two on the breast of his smoking jacket, where 
 the red ends of his cigarettes had ahghted. 
 
 *' Father, it is I— Hearne ! Can I come in ? " 
 
 There was no stir in the room or in the house, aloft 
 or below. Behind the closed bhnds of the staircase 
 window he could see the dancing of the flames on 
 the table-land. Hearne pushed the door open. A 
 green student's lamp with a shade was arranged 
 for quiet reading. His father sat quietly in the great 
 chair with a book on his knees. 
 
 But he was" dead — a knife in his throat.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 PARRICIDE 
 
 At the Ravensnuik police office the honest inspector 
 heavily and conscientiously cautioned Heame that 
 whatever he might say would be used against him. 
 
 It was the first lightning flash of insight into the 
 possibilities of his position. He had run all the way 
 from the Three Ridings to the pohce station. The 
 " Peat "—twenty "Peats" might bum for him 
 now. He found the inspector, a massive, silent man 
 with a wooden manner, sitting soHtary over a ledger. 
 The Bible, the " Confession of Faith," and the " History 
 of the Clan McKay, " occupied a shelf along with a 
 volume of pasted pohce-court cuttings, a tin of tobacco, 
 and two pairs of handcuffs. 
 
 " It's certainly primus fashions,^'* said Inspector 
 McKay, when Heame had finished. " I am sorry, 
 sir, but my obvious duty is to detain you — as acces- 
 sory, if not principal, in your father's murder. I don't 
 say you're guilty, sir. Indeed, I believe not. I've 
 seen a heap o' good that you've done up there at the 
 old ' Peat,' and I never heard a word 'again' ye ! It's 
 not what / think, but what others would think if 
 ye was to run away from inquiry ! I'm with you, 
 sir, and it'U not be my fault if I can't lay my hand 
 on the guilty parties, and have you discharged without 
 a stain, as the Good Book says ! But in the meantime 
 ye shall have my own spare room. But — you will 
 excuse me if I turn the key in the lock." -■ 
 
 The quiet, dusky-skinned grandson of the great 
 chief Crowfoot said no word. He only nodded, and 
 told Mr. Inspector McKay that he would have done 
 
 265
 
 266 KID McGHIE 
 
 the same in his place. Then he marched calmly 
 to the " spare room," which had bars to the window 
 and a special lock and bolt to the door outside, but 
 inside was comfortable enough. 
 
 Not that that made much difference to Heame 
 Mackenzie, who sat tiU break of day on the edge of 
 the bed. The inspector, coming in sharply at eight, 
 found him thus in the clear light of the morning. 
 
 "If I were you, sir, I would wash my face and 
 hands — but first, come here, Graham. I must warn 
 you, sir, that it is my duty to enter on the books 
 of the station the condition in which you entered it, 
 as to your person. You have blood on your hands 
 and face. Your hands are torn, and your clothes 
 are another man's — of which I make no doubt what- 
 ever but that you can give a sufficient explanation. 
 Still, it is my duty to constitute an exact account of 
 all relevant circumstances on the offeeshial books of 
 the station. Also it is Officer Graham's duty to sign 
 as a witness the deposition of liis superior officer. 
 And with these few remarks " (concluded the in- 
 spector, who had Highland preaching blood in him), 
 " I will leave you to the enjoyment of your break- 
 fast." 
 
 How Heame enjoyed his breakfast in these circum- 
 stances may be imagined. 
 
 But next morning a little party of two was speeding 
 toward Ravensnuik with that in their hearts which 
 was calculated to cause Heame Mackenzie to enjoy 
 his meals better. 
 
 " Inspector McKay ? " 
 
 " That is my name ! " 
 
 The big, square-built man filled up the doorway 
 as determinedly as if he had been part of the building 
 itself. None should pass that way without his per- 
 mission. 
 
 " I am Archbold Molesay, the police missionary 
 from the city, and I come with this young lady to see 
 Mr. Hearne Mackenzie ! "
 
 PARRICIDE 267 
 
 " It is quite impossible," quoth the dour inspector, 
 holding himself officially rigid. 
 
 " I think not quite," insinuated Archbold Molesay 
 gently, like a sunbeam asking permission to enter the 
 window of a guarded castle ; " here is a line or two 
 from Captain Henderland to your address." 
 
 The countenance of Inspector McKay changed. 
 
 *' You know him ? " inquired Archbold Molesay, 
 looking up. 
 
 " Know him ! " the cry burst involuntarily from 
 the bushy beard of the country officer with a land of 
 break of admiration in his voice. Does a colour- 
 sergeant know the commander-in-chief ? Does a 
 month-old curate, still wearing with pride his first 
 M.B. waistcoat, know the archbishop of his diocese ? 
 Of course Inspector McKay, of the country force, 
 knew the great Captain Henderland, who had been 
 head of the metropolitan poUce when he was a httle 
 shaver scudding in scanty kilts over a Highland croft. 
 Know him ? Yes, indeed ! 
 
 After this he ushered them in at once, Mr. Molesay 
 and — Patricia. 
 
 This was the paragraph which had brought them 
 so far and so fast. It was a triumph of local reporting, 
 ruthlessly cut down by an unsympathetic night 
 editor, who had some feehng left for the severities of 
 style, in spite of twenty years of newspaper work : 
 
 " SUPPOSED PARRICIDE MURDER.* A pain- 
 ful sensation has been caused by the discovery, at 
 the very moment when the ' Hearne Mackenzie ' 
 Reformatory was in danger of destruction by fire, of 
 the death by violence of its chairman of directors, 
 the Right Hon. Lord Athabasca. The name of Lord 
 Athabasca is well known to all. His career in the 
 colonies was distinguished in the extreme, yet he 
 seems to have met his death by the cruel hands of a 
 
 »The striking word "PARRICIDE" had been hastily deleted here with 
 a splash of blue pencil.
 
 268 KID McGHIE 
 
 wilful murderer. The alarm was given by the son 
 of the murdered man [who had been for some time 
 lurking in the neighbourhood, and who was discovered 
 in disguise in the castle of Three Ridings, the residence 
 of Lord Athabasca, with whom he had quarrelled]. 
 A suspected person is at present in custody. The 
 capture was made at once through the zeal and deter- 
 mination of Inspector Sergeant McKay [who, during 
 his stay in Ravensnuik, has shown himself such an 
 active officer, and has so much endeared himself to 
 ratepayers and property holders by his watchful 
 diligence]. Inspector McKay deserves the highest 
 credit for his capture of the daring assailant [who, 
 strange to say, is no other than the only son of the 
 murdered man]." 
 
 This, without the brackets, was the way the local 
 reporter wrote it. Omitting the bracketed parts, the 
 slightly shortened version reveals the ideas of the 
 night editor of The Thistle newspaper upon the law 
 of hbel, and on what really constitutes " news " as 
 distinguished from advertisement, 
 pt Having read which Patricia had insisted upon 
 " going at once to him." 
 
 pi Mr. Molesay mildly objected, saying that in any 
 case Heame would be brought to the city that day 
 for examination, and without doubt interned in the 
 Calton. It would be far easier, therefore, to wait. 
 But Pat instantly demanded if Mr. Molesay considered 
 it a time for waiting. As for herself she would go at 
 once, and if the gate of the Ravensnuik'^Jericho did 
 not open before her, she would march round and 
 round it till the walls fell down. 
 
 ;,?Mr. Molesay smiled gently. He knew all about 
 such a temperament. It was what he himself did 
 with the citadel of Satan in the Cowgate. He had 
 been marching a long time about it and about, yet 
 the falling of the walls seemed as remote as ever. 
 StiU, he had made a breach or two. He smiled, and
 
 PARRICIDE 269 
 
 extorting from Pat McGhie a promise that she would 
 not start without him, he went off to see his friend 
 Captain Henderland. The " couple of lines " was 
 the result, and the result of the couple of hues was 
 that wondrously reverent look on Inspector McKay's 
 face, as he saluted and ushered them in as to a presence 
 chamber. 
 
 *' Heame ! " said Patricia, using a name she had 
 never before laid tongue to. 
 
 Utterly dazed, he stood up mechanically. She 
 went directly to him, and put her arms about his 
 neck. 
 
 *' I came at once," she said aloud, and then kissed 
 him, which certainly she had never even dreamed of 
 doing to any man. 
 
 Perforce Mr. Molesay remained where he was, his 
 bare head gleaming more gently argentine than ever, 
 in the dull hght of Inspector McKay's " spare room." 
 He was wondering if after all there might not be 
 something better in the world than the trying to save 
 souls — if he had not, indeed, needlessly missed some- 
 thing in that daily warfare of his for " the Kingdom 
 which is within " every man. 
 
 Then he went to the window and, with an assump- 
 tion of extraordinary interest, gazed out at the lone- 
 some patch of yard, v/alled and spiked, where there 
 seemed to be a hapless hen scratching between each 
 several blade of grass — and yet there were not many 
 hens, either. 
 
 Mr. Archbold Molesay tried to shut his ears to 
 the murmuring behind him. It was not for him, 
 all that, but for younger men — with heads blond 
 and brown and black — not silvery and fine, with 
 the hairs growing scanter and scanter about the 
 temple. 
 
 " Ah, me ! " said Mr. Molesay. 
 
 Had he done his duty ? He had tried. He recalled 
 the inspired Word upon the subject, and tried to 
 extract comfort out of it. "I commend unto you
 
 270 KID McGHIE 
 
 Phoebe our sister . . . receive her in the Lord, 
 as becometh saints . . . assist her in whatsoever 
 business she hath need of you." Yes, that was it. 
 Had he done it — he, Archbold Molesay, to whom 
 now the very emptiness of his own heart was a mockery? 
 
 The hens pecked hstlessly in their twenty feet 
 square of yard. One with a httle more vigour tried 
 to fly. A sky of octagonal wide-meshed wire fencing 
 brought the soarer down to earth again with a pro- 
 testing " H-r~r-r-r-r-o-o-o-p ! " 
 
 It was hke the sky above the Cowgate. And he, 
 Archbold Molesay, was like that checked but still 
 aspiring bird. 
 
 Love was young. Love was warm. There was 
 nothing in the world which made life — real Hfe — 
 but only that. And he had shut himself out of it. 
 This meeting in the prison cell of two young lovers 
 — one of them attainted of the most terrible crime 
 in the world, the other coming direct and swift 
 to her mate, like the homing dove, to speak words 
 which had been unspoken in hours of good fortune — 
 touched him more than the year-in-and-year-out 
 domesticity of Harry Rodgers and his wife. It was 
 more akin to his heart somehow. There was a wild- 
 wood, savage spirit in it which was still dear to him, 
 though he had passed his life among roofs and walls, 
 many of which sheltered criminals, ticket-of-leave 
 men, the scum of all the rascaldom of the capital. 
 
 A word caught his ear over his shoulder — ah, how 
 much against his wiU ! It was Patricia's voice. 
 But oh, how changed — soft as the dove's in the woods 
 of Romano, where, in the long summer afternoons, 
 a truant boy, named Archbold, had lain, strangely 
 moved, and listened to it. 
 
 Beloved," said the voice. " Oh, my beloved ! " 
 And what," cried Archbold Molesay's heart 
 resentfully, as he watched the poor, droopy, caged 
 fowls without, " what is thy beloved more than 
 another's beloved, O thou fairest among women ? " 
 
 ((
 
 PARRICIDE 271 
 
 And then there came back the instant response, 
 swift as the ghnting of the lightning from one world's 
 verge to the other, " My beloved is white and ruddy, 
 the chief est among ten thousand. . . . His head 
 . . . bushy, and black as a raven." Mr. IMolesay's 
 swift mind, trained in the letter of Scripture from 
 his youth up, ran over all that marvellous ascription, 
 ending with " His mouth is most sweet ... he 
 is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this 
 is my friend, O ye daughters of Jerusalem." 
 
 He murmured twice, " This is my friend, O ye 
 daughters of Jerusalem." 
 
 His eyes foUowed the poor caged bipeds scraping 
 and pecking over their eternal cinder heap, and he 
 strove to give to the Song of Songs its conventional 
 spiritual meaning — that in which he had been in- 
 structed at college ; but the low murmur behind, 
 in the direction of which he dared not turn, somehow 
 gave the lie to the conventional exegesis. No, it 
 meant earthly love. And God permitted it. More 
 — God offered it to every man. He, Archbold Molesay, 
 had missed it. He was now an old man. What a 
 fool — what a terrible fool ! 
 
 Then, when it was the lowest of the tide with him, 
 cam.e the answer, strong, sudden, as a wind fresh 
 and salt from the sea. 
 
 The Cowgate, that dim place in which his life 
 was cast, himself out at all hours, midnight and 
 dawn, and in that ghastly betwixt and between when 
 he seemed to walk down there as in a city of the dead 
 — could he ask a woman to share that — to live there 
 as he hved ? It was not as if he had a congregation, 
 a church, a manse, hke Rodgers. And God knew it 
 was hard enough, even as it was, for Laura Rodgers. 
 Often he had pitied her, and if she had not had children 
 — well, the position would have been untenable. 
 But for him — Archbold Molesay, city missionary, 
 police forlorn hope — no — it was not to be thought 
 of. And indeed had better not be.
 
 272 KID McGHIE 
 
 What were they saying now ? He would not listen. 
 Yet he did. He could not help it. 
 
 " Hearne," said the voice he could hear — the other 
 spoke too low, too hoarse, or not at all ; " of course 
 I do not beheve a word of it. That is why T am here — 
 why I came at once. They may separate us, niy 
 beloved, for a while, but you will know — you will 
 know. You are sure that I shall not forget you for a 
 moment." 
 
 Apparently Hearne was sure. The silence and the 
 low sobbing said so in a way that httle Mr. Molesay 
 understood instinctively. He winced and bowed 
 his silver head yet lower on his bosom. All this was 
 hard to bear. 
 
 •' I knew — I knew," he reproached himself, " yet 
 what right has he ? I saved her. I took her out 
 of the danger. I sought her. She was my one ewe 
 lamb — and now for all that she cares nothing — nothing. 
 She never thinks of me, but only of this man ! " 
 
 " For shame, Archbold Molesay ! " persisted the 
 stiller, smaller voice. "For shame! You know better 
 than that, Archbold Molesay. On that day when 
 the books are opened your motives will read better 
 on the pages written by the angel of the accounts. 
 To you that girl was only an unhappy woman — 
 nothing more. You would have done as much for 
 her who lieth in wait, for her whose house inclineth 
 unto death. You did more, infinitely more, for poor, 
 fooHsh Kate Earsman. And now, Hke a whimpering 
 fool, you cry out, just because she has done what you 
 always knew she would do— just because you have 
 been finding an excuse every day, as it passed over 
 your head, to go down to Rodgers', to see another 
 man's sweetheart, and so forget your folk, your mes- 
 sage, and your God ! " 
 
 Thus the voice, which now at the last sounded 
 louder than Sinai's thunders echoing from the hill 
 of Musa even to Katherina. 
 
 And after that Archbold Molesay heard no more
 
 PARRICIDE 273 
 
 the young lovers' voices. For his mission had come 
 upon him. 
 
 " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink " 
 (neither the love of women) ; " but righteousness, 
 and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. For only 
 he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable 
 to God, and approved of men ! " 
 
 Factum est ! It was done — through the octagonals 
 of the wired hencoop, past the dim, smoky bars of 
 his Cowgate prison, Archbold Molesay saw a door 
 opened in heaven, heard a voice that said " Come up 
 hither ! " And lo ! immediately he was in the spirit 
 . . . lifted into the third heaven ... in the 
 body or out of the body, he could not tell. Only 
 this he knew, that he, too, heard unspeakable words 
 which it is not lawful for a man to utter. And after 
 that neither thorn in the flesh, how fair soever the 
 rose of love which might have bloomed on that thorn, 
 nor any messenger of Satan, had power to buffet 
 Archbold Molesay any more. He had dreed his 
 weird, trodden the desert sands, passed this Jordan, 
 and now was free of the larger freedom, having proved 
 his work, and, knowing himself, he felt strong enough 
 to bear his own burden. 
 
 '* And noo, the time's up," said Inspector McKay 
 dryly, who for some time had been knocking at the 
 door all unheard. " It is my duty to take my prisoner 
 in to the Calton. And " (he turned to Heame) " I 
 have to warn ye, offeeshiaUy, while personally believin' 
 ye innocent o' the crime chairged, that whatever 
 5^6 may say will be used against ye ! " 
 
 IS
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 CAPTAIN HENDERLAND, CHIEF OF POLICE 
 
 i\Ieanwhile in a very matter-of-fact office in the 
 High Street, amid a constant to-and-fro of footsteps 
 without, not one of which dared turn aside to interrupt 
 his privacy, sat " the chief." He was not a tall man, 
 this Captain Henderland, but many a street bully 
 and hulking bruiser went through hfe with the im- 
 pression that he was a very Samson with the height 
 of a Saul. He had a quiet manner, and a way of 
 stroking the top of his head as if to keep the ideas 
 from rising too quickly — or, as it were, " swarming " 
 away hke bees on a fine July Sabbath day among 
 the hives. 
 
 He was talking to the procurator fiscal, a sharp, 
 thick-set man, without particular physiognomy save 
 a pair of boring gray eyes, wliich had the most curious 
 effect of rendering probable ill-doers very angry. 
 It was different with Henderland. His manner 
 to a possible criminal seemed to say, " Here sits your 
 best friend. Trust in me. Make a clean breast 
 of it, and it wlU be the better for us both." 
 
 And, indeed, very often he was perfectly right. 
 
 So well did the fiscal know his power (or his weak- 
 ness) that he always charged Henderland with the 
 private examination or precognosing, while he sat 
 apparently absorbed in taking notes, without once 
 hfting his uncomfortable gimlets of eyes. 
 
 Now the notes were being compared — as chief man 
 of action conferred with chief man of law. 
 
 274
 
 CAPTAIN HENDERLAND 275 
 
 " The fault is," said Captain Henderland, stooping 
 to pick up a small piece of coal which had fallen from 
 the grate with the official tongs (apparently obtained 
 second-hand from Ashbucket MoU), " the httle rift 
 within the lute is that the whole tiling is so pat. The 
 coincidences are just too obvious. It is almost equal 
 to a confession ! " 
 
 " So much the better for us," said the fiscal — 
 Findlayson was his name. " I'm sorry for the young 
 fellow, but it will be a beautiful case to blood a fresh 
 advocate depute on. He will have it all his own 
 way right from the start." 
 
 " I am none so sure of that," said Captain Hender- 
 land, balancing the disreputable tongs on one finger 
 as if about to do a conjuring trick with them. " No, 
 from what I have been hearing from Molesay — I 
 am noways so sure of that." 
 
 " And who the particular mischief is Molesay ? " 
 said the fiscal, who, outside his business, was distinctly 
 hmited. 
 
 The chief of police eyed him as if with an oflicial 
 measuring tape. He seemed to find Mr. Procurator 
 Fiscal Findlayson much under the standard for ad- 
 mission to the " force." 
 
 " Not know Molesay ? " he said, wonderingly. 
 " Why, he's our police missionary. If we knew 
 all that Molesay knows, a good many people, presently 
 at large, would sleep to-night within the stone and 
 Mme of the Calton ! " 
 
 " And why don't you make him tell ? " exclaimed 
 the fiscal. " If the man can give valuable information 
 which would lead to the conviction of offenders, why 
 does he not give it ? " 
 
 " Because if he did, he would be of no more use," 
 answered the chief. " I am beginning to see a lot 
 of things I didn't when I was young. What we are 
 doing is just repression. Molesay cures. We scotch 
 the nettle tops. He digs out the roots. But all the 
 same, a liint from Molesay is pure gold, and I teU
 
 276 KID McGHIE 
 
 you, Mr. Findlayson, I am under considerable obliga- 
 tions to Molesay." 
 
 'c " Humph ! " said the fiscal, who thought that 
 Henderland was sometimes too sentimental. WeU ?" 
 
 " Well," said Henderland, " Molesay has been all 
 the morning with young Mackenzie, and he is assured 
 of his innocence." 
 
 " Tut ! " said the fiscal. " Let us see. The young 
 fellow has had a deadly quarrel with his father. He 
 has supplanted that same father in the affections of 
 his betrothed — a fine point that, the merest duffer 
 could hang him on it. He is caught masquerading 
 in borrowed clothes in his father's house at midnight, 
 when all the servants had gone to view the fire at 
 the reformatory " 
 
 " Right," demurred the chief, " except on one 
 point — that is, he wasn't caught. He gave liimself 
 up at once at the nearest pohce station ! " 
 
 " Yes," retorted the fiscal, " that was because he 
 knew that suspicion would inevitably faU upon him. 
 Indeed, a letter written by him has been found, which, 
 if it does not directly threaten his father's life, at 
 least states plainly enough that that hfe would not 
 be a long one. This son alone benefits — he is sole 
 legatee. No wiU is found, yet it was a probable 
 intention on the part of his father to make a contrary 
 
 one." 
 
 " But the Jioung man had received a letter from 
 his father quite recently, showing that friendship 
 was re-established between them," said the chief. 
 
 " Have you seen it ? " demanded the fiscal, sharply. 
 
 " No," said Captain Henderland — " no, but Molesay 
 has!" 
 
 " We had better make this Molesay chief of police 
 when you resign," sneered the lawyer. " He appears 
 to know more of your business than you do yourself." 
 
 " I have got through my business for a quarter 
 of a century," said Henderland, quietly, " mostly 
 by keeping an open mind. But you are not so far
 
 CAPTAIN HENDERLAND 277 
 
 wrong, fiscal, after all. Molesay would make a better 
 chief than any promoted divisional inspector, trained 
 only in faction fights and street rows ! * 
 
 Suffers from ' open mind,' too, I suppose ! " said 
 the fiscal, grinning. 
 
 " Yes, he has a mind ! " said Henderland, innocently, 
 "He thinks with it." 
 
 " Meaning me ? " retorted the fiscal. " Well, it 
 isn't my business to think, you see ; only to register 
 facts which you find out, and collate them for you ! 
 Then — the Powers above take action or not as pleaseth 
 them ! " 
 
 " Findlayson," said the chief, *' it's no use you and 
 me bandying words. We have known each other 
 too long. We will hold young Mackenzie — in the 
 meantime, that is; as you say there is quite enough 
 to justify that " 
 
 " I should think so, indeed ! " said the fiscal, 
 promptly. 
 
 " Well — well ! " said the chief, soothingly ; " but 
 you will not interfere with my discretion if I give a 
 look elsewhere. There are a few things about the 
 case which need clearing up. Now, for instance, 
 the firing of the reformatory on the night of the 
 murder " 
 
 " That might have been the young man himself,'* 
 said the fiscal ; " an excellent dodge to draw off 
 attention. He knew a man like Lord Athabasca 
 would be sure to send off aB able-bodied servants to 
 help, and that the others would go of their own accord ! 
 Confirmatory evidence, I call it ! " 
 
 " Molesay " began the chief. 
 
 " Hang Molesay ! " cried the exasperated man of 
 law. " Wliat Molesay said is not evidence. 1 suppose 
 even a pohceman knows that." 
 
 " Well, then," said the chief, imperturbably — 
 for he knew his man, and got along very well with him 
 on the whole — " I say it. This young man is no 
 ordinary rich man's son. He has made his o\mi
 
 278 KID McGHIE 
 
 living ever since he was twenty — logging, farming,, 
 trading with Indians— his mother was one, you Imow, 
 the daughter of a great fighting chief— — " 
 
 " Hum — another good point," said the fiscal, making 
 a note. " Hereditary bloodthirstiness — teU with a 
 jury, that. Any mollycoddle could string him 
 up. And parricide is big money, too — don't often 
 come across such a case even in low life. I wish my 
 nephew had been ready, but he isn't called yet ! " 
 
 " Better where he is," said the chief, dryly. " If 
 that is the hne he would find himself obHged to take 
 up ! As I see things, a clever young fellow Hke Mac- 
 kenzie would not be at such pains to provide so much 
 evidence, all on the top of things, visible to the naked 
 eye. Furthermore, he would not bum a reformatory, 
 which his own money had largely built and fitted. 
 It is plainly unthinkable." 
 
 " Hum ! " said the fiscal, raising his hand toward 
 the foMos of indexed pohce cuttings, informations, 
 and so forth which cumbered the shelves, " considered 
 in the cool light of probabihty — before these things 
 happened — what percentage of them would you have 
 considered unthinkable ? " 
 
 " Ah, that's true ! " said the chief. " All the 
 same — you go on with your examinations and re- 
 mandings of this young fellow. There's nothing 
 in that to prevent me from making a few inquiries 
 on my own account, is there ? " 
 
 And so the next day Captain Henderland, accom- 
 panied by Mr. Molesaj'' in the capacity of a guide, 
 and both in severely plain clothes, once more made 
 their way across Maw Moss in the direction of the 
 " Peat." 
 
 They found Mr. Carvel, exceedingly brisk, appar- 
 ently very much in his element, not in the least sitting 
 still among the ruins of Rome, but rather, in the spirit 
 of a man who had puUed down his bams to build 
 greater, bustling the workers about their tasks. 
 
 Harm done ? " he said. " Yes, of course, capt — 
 
 a
 
 CAPTAIN HENDERLAND 279 
 
 1 mean sir " (it had been agreed that he was not to 
 recognise the chief of metropoHtan police) — " but 
 I don't know but what, after all, it will do us good. 
 We were settling down on the lees. Before I had got 
 everything comfortably to my mind, and now I have 
 to tug about and see what will do for my boys. Lost 
 any ? Well, one new boy — No. 680, name of Duffus, 
 has disappeared — a bag egg from the training ships, 
 I fancy. To tell the truth, I shan't be much disap- 
 pointed if he does not turn up again. From what 
 I hear, he would have been small credit to the school." 
 
 " What kind of a boy to look at ? " inquired the 
 chief. " A big, brutal bov — strong, violent ? " 
 
 "Nothing of the kind," said Carvel. "Butter 
 wouldn't melt in his mouth — smooth-spoken, smart, 
 well dressed when he came here — ^great fellow to 
 write, a favourite with our schoolmaster — made him 
 a sort of monitor ! " 
 
 " Ho ! " said the chief. " And so this nonesuch 
 of a pupil made off, did he, the night of the fire ? 
 \\Tiere did it originate — in that boy's dormitory, 
 perhaps ? " 
 
 " Bless you, no," said Carvel. " Happily there 
 was no suspicion of that kind. The fire never even 
 sniffed at the dormitories, and all the boys worked 
 likf Trojans — especially red-headed Lister and a new 
 boy they call the Kid — whose father is, I believe, 
 well known in the city as ' Knifer Jackson.' " 
 
 The chief turned his head quickly as a terrier when 
 he smells out an inhabited rat hole. 
 
 "Knifer Jackson's son?" he said, "quickly. 
 " I would Hke to talk a bit with him. What's he 
 in here for ? " 
 
 " Egham Castle attempt," said Carvel, briefly. 
 " But for all the Kid knew about that — why, it might 
 have been my lad or yours ! Onlj^ he is better with 
 us than back home with his people " 
 
 " I know — Hagman's Court, Pleasance," said Mr. 
 Molesay, smihng. " You are right, Carvel. But if
 
 28o KID McGHIE^ 
 
 anything should happen to his stepfather— or if we 
 could otherwise provide for him — I think that among 
 us we might get a remission of the rest of his sentence. 
 I did think of sending him out with Mr. Hearne Mac- 
 kenzie on his next trip. Mr. Carvel and 1 talked it 
 over the last time I was out here. That's over for 
 the present, of course. But if a chance should occur 
 we shall expect you to do the square thing and back 
 us up — eh, Henderland ? " 
 
 " Oh, rf^lighted ! " said Henderland. " My business 
 is to get convictions. After that, the sooner the 
 fellow gets off the better." 
 
 Carvel shouted at a passing warder. 
 
 " Send No. 666 to me ! " 
 
 The Kid came, wiping his curls with his Glengarry 
 bonnet. He had been helping to fit the winter re- 
 creation room with temporary schoolroom furniture. 
 His face was flushed, and his bright, clear eyes looked 
 wonderingly at the three gentlemen. 
 
 " Don't look a very abandoned rufi&an, does he ? " 
 said Henderland, grimly. 
 
 " Wonderful ! " exclaimed the city missionary, 
 " considering, that is, where he came from and the 
 training he had had." 
 
 " Do you want to leave the reformatory, boy ? " 
 said Henderland, quickly, keeping, as far as possible, 
 aU officialism out of his voice. 
 
 " Oh, no, sir ! " said McGhie's Kid. " I'm learning 
 a lot here.'* 
 
 " Did you never learn before ? '* said Henderland, 
 in the easiest of conversational tones. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said the Kid, "at 'Blind Jacob's'! 
 But that's all over — done wi'. I am learning in the 
 joiner's shop, sir. It's wrang to break into hooses, 
 sir. 
 
 I "Very right — very right," said the chief, approv- 
 ingly. " We must do something for you before 
 long " 
 
 " If ye please, I want to pass the fifth standard
 
 CAPTAIN HENDERLAND aSi 
 
 first," said the Kid. " And noo that Mr. Grainer 
 is sent away " 
 
 " Hush ! " exclaimed Carvel. " That has nothing 
 to do with you, No. 666 ! " 
 
 The Kid stood silent, as the chief with much non- 
 chalance took a large knife out of his pocket, opened 
 it with a formidable chck, and — fell to sharpening 
 a pencil with it. 
 
 " Eh ! " cried the startled Kid, " where did you 
 get that ? That's my faither's knife I That's Knifer 
 Jackson's knife ! " 
 
 " You are sure ? " 
 
 *' If it is, it will hae five nicks cut deep on the handle 
 — they mean something or ither." 
 
 The five nicks were duly found, the one belonging 
 to the evil doer smitten on the Whinny Knowe being 
 yet quite fresh. 
 
 " Thank you," said the chief. " I shall not forget 
 you, Kid." 
 
 Carvel moved his hand in the direction of the working 
 gang, and the Kid took himself of! obediently. 
 
 " And now, gentlemen," said the chief of police, 
 impressively, as he watched the urchin's retreating 
 back, while he held the knife aU along his palm, " that 
 clasp knife was the one found in Lord Athabasca's 
 throat the night he was murdered ! " 
 
 " Ha ! " snorted Carvel, greatly startled ; and 
 then recovering himself, he added, " All the same, 
 captain, I'll thank you not to set any more traps 
 for my boys ! " 
 
 The Kid had no idea that he had given away any- 
 thing. His exclamation at the sight of his stepfather's 
 famous knife in the possession of a stranger had been 
 altogether instinctive, " Nark," " spht," " mouther," 
 " sawny " — he was none of these — only, he wondered 
 what that keen-faced, kind man with the black mous- 
 tache was domg with his father's knife. He had found
 
 282 KID McGHIE- 
 
 it, the Kid supposed. And it was a friendly warning 
 he had given him— only that and nothing more — 
 for no one in their senses would want to keep Knifer 
 Jackson's property. 
 
 As the cliief and Mr. Molesay went home, Captain 
 Henderland was exceedingly pleased with himself.. 
 He called the sudden production of the clasp knife 
 a dramatic stroke. Mr. Molesay shook his head. 
 
 " It may be," he said ; " but you are going to 
 break up one of my most promising reformations. 
 The Knifer is no better than he should be, perhaps, 
 though somehow I never quite beheved that of him 
 — murder in the way of business, that is. But now 
 Mag, his v.dfe, will go all wrong. That's certain. 
 And if yon let it out that the boy there told — why, 
 his hfe wouldn't be worth twenty-four hours' purchase. 
 If Mag does not kill him, the ' Blind Jacob's ' people 
 will do so — if onl}^ for their ovm sakes." 
 
 " Be easy, Molesay," said the chief. " I have 
 a wide net, and I shan't use the Kid's evidence about 
 the knife — that is, unless I can't help it. From the 
 nicks in it, and the hole in the haft to put a cord 
 through, it should be an old friend of Knifer's, and 
 probably is weU known. If you look in to-morrow, 
 I wiU let you know how far I have got on." 
 
 " Well, captain," said Mr. Molesay, gently, " of 
 course I want to get the matter of Mr. Hearne Mac- 
 kenzie settled. It's a horrible thing to have a fine 
 3^oung fellow — with a taste for mission work — suspected 
 of having murdered his own father. All the same, 
 it is all up with Knifer and Mad Mag ! And that's 
 one pity ! " 
 
 " And so, indeed, it deserves to be all up with Mr. 
 Jackson," cried the chief, sharply. " We can't afford 
 to have Mr. Police Missionary Molesay's lambs wan- 
 dering about the country, putting knives into honest 
 men's throats, while he is taldng his own time con- 
 \Trting them ! " 
 
 " I daresay not," said Mr. Molesay ; " but if you
 
 CAPTAIN HENDERLAND 283 
 
 reflect you will see — what I've often told you — that 
 imprisoning, transporting, penal servitude — ^hanging 
 even — does the criminal no good " 
 
 " Stuff ! " said the chief, with excusable vehemence, 
 " great stuff ! Where's your Bible \vith its ' Eye 
 for an eye and a tooth for a tooth ' ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " said Mr. Molesay, gently, " that was before 
 Hf: came to teach us any better. That's about as 
 much out of date as the giants that were before the 
 flood. He said ' Love your enemies, do good 
 to ' » 
 
 " Hut ! " cried the chief, impatiently. " Look 
 here, Molesay, do you mean to say that you love 
 Knifer Jackson and your friend Mad Mag ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do," said the httle missionary, stoutly. 
 
 " And wiU you swear; that you have hope of doing 
 them any real good ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have — I, at least, had such hopes. I've 
 seen worse cases — more hopeless, I mean." 
 
 Now the captain was a somewhat irascible man at 
 times. At the missionary's confession of faith he toolc 
 his cloth cap off his head and threw it down in the dust 
 of the road along which they were slowly journeying 
 in the direction of Ringside Station. 
 
 " You are an impossible feUow, Molesay," he cried ; 
 " the Cowgate is too good for you — too calm and 
 holy. You should be missionary down below — in 
 a fireproof suit — among the subjects of the black 
 gentleman with the forked tail ! " 
 
 " I should like that very well," said Mr. Molesay, 
 simply ;1 " it's been tried before." 
 
 " How so ? " queried Captain Henderland, looking 
 up to see if the little man were not joking. 
 
 " WeU," said the city missionary, " one Peter, 
 a fisherman, who ought to have known what he was 
 talking about, says that He went and preached to 
 the spirits in prison, ' ivhich sometime had been dis- 
 obedient ! ' If He could, I don't see why it slionld 
 be impossible for me %
 
 284 KID McGHIE 
 
 Captain Henderland removed the little soft, green 
 brimmed hat from the silver head, and felt Mr. Molesay's 
 cranium all over carefully. 
 
 " Looking for the crack," he explained, smihng 
 at his friend ; " I might have knov.n. What's the 
 use of talking to a missionary about my business. 
 You wouldn't care if three burglaries and an assassina- 
 tion were committed every calendar night, if only 
 the housebreakers and assassins dropped in to see 
 your magic lantern after ! " 
 
 " Something in what you say — yes, something — 
 I don't deny it," assented Mr. Molesay. " The dyer's 
 hand, you know. If they look in between eight and 
 nine and have a clean necktie on — I am only too willing 
 to believe that — that — that the kingdom of God is 
 within them. And that they are growing conscious 
 of it." 
 
 " Bravo, Molesay ! " cried the chief. " This has 
 been a kind of holiday for me, up on the moorland 
 — and with you. It's about as good as two or three 
 days up aloft, all among the angels that lost not their 
 first estate ! Isn't that how it goes ? Now I must 
 go back to the reahties of Com Beef Joe, and the Knifer, 
 and the three hundred and sixty-fourth conviction 
 of your friend, Ashbucket MoU ! " 
 
 I think it is only two hundred — not three," said 
 Molesay — " two hundred and sixty-fourth, if I mistake 
 not ! " 
 
 The chief held up his hands, and intimated that 
 he had no further arguments to pursue with Mr. 
 Archbold Molesay, city missionary, presently of the 
 Cowgate. 
 
 •         
 
 But all this did not prevent Captain Henderland 
 from spreading a wide net, and a sure, from Hagman's 
 Close to the Water of Leith, and from the chaste 
 portals of Torphican Street even to Leith Links. 
 His emissaries dredged Greenside and the Lower 
 Calton as with grappling irons. They herded the
 
 CAPTAIN HENDERLAND 385 
 
 enemies of constituted society like a flock of sheep. 
 They encountered them away out on the roads, as 
 far as the Ferries and Linlithgow on the one hand, 
 and unto Cockmuir and " the Crook " on the other. 
 Com Beef Joe was trapped drinking in a house of caU 
 near Portobello, and taken after a wild attempt to 
 swim Lochend Loch, as he affirmed, " to catch a 
 passing steamer " — which would have been a long 
 swim, indeed, and much of it on dry land. 
 
 The Knifer, who knew a few things, never attempted 
 to get away at all, but was taken, along with his 
 wife Mag, sitting in his own hired house in Hagman's 
 Close. 
 
 " Blind Jacob's," its locality revealed by a frightened 
 pupil, was captured with all its scholastic furniture, 
 the same that can be viewed unto this day in the 
 famous museum of crime at the chief's offices in 
 Edinburgh. The scatterment after the building of 
 Babel, that very ancient city and tower, was a httle 
 local Mesopotamian circumstance compared to this. 
 
 Only the Cowgate remained partially exempt, owing 
 to special conditions — the chief of which were, perhaps, 
 Billy Earsman and Mr. Molesay. 
 
 The chief went to bed that night with a happy 
 heart. He felt at last that all the strings were in his 
 hand. In the meantime he kept the Knifer's weapon 
 of doom in a special drawer in the office safe, and — 
 said nothing about it. 
 
 The echoes of the great " poliss " raid filled all the 
 entrances of the B. I. P. — " jug and bottle " — as weU 
 as " public," with a confused murmur. Outwardly 
 Ogg mourned, but in private he rejoiced exceedingly. 
 
 ' A good riddance," he said. " They bring in httle 
 money, and give the place a bad name. I'd rather 
 see a dozen thirsty Gilmerton carters, or a string o' 
 Bertam's foundry lads up frae the Walk, than all the 
 ' fly coves ' let loose frae Perth Penitentiary ! " 
 
 Ogg, king of Bashan, had spoken ; there was no 
 appeal.
 
 2S6 KID McGHIE 
 
 But Mr. Molesay, in spite of several Delphic utter- 
 ances, designed to put his most promising frequenters 
 on their guard, had to mourn tliinly attended meetings 
 and sundry gaps in his carefully kept pocket-book 
 lists. He explained the matter, however, and drew 
 his moral clear. 
 
 " My friends," he said, the silver-gray head under 
 the flaring gas jet appearing as if crowned with an 
 aureole, " I cannot preach to you — I never do. Per- 
 haps that is why so many of you come here month 
 after month. You never get tired of my sermons. 
 What I have got to say to-night is plain. We have 
 lost some well-known faces from among us. We 
 mourn a few vacant chairs. We beheve they will 
 soon be back again. We feel sure that they are 
 innocent. They have stopped wrong-doing. That 
 can be done in a moment, like a clapping of hands, but 
 it takes a long while to re-establish character. And 
 our friends have been " (he was going to say " lagged ") 
 " — ahem — separated from us because of their past. 
 And the motto is, my friends, ' What thou doest, do 
 quickly ! ' Do it now ! In Christ's name, put on the 
 new man. Reform — so that there will be plenty of 
 time to work up a new character — perhaps not so fine 
 as the lord provost's, but at least as good as an average 
 town councillor's ! Amen. Let us sing, ' Jerusalem 
 the Golden.' Number 464."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH IS OVERPAST 
 
 The final examination of Hearne Mackenzie before 
 the sheriff resulted, in spite of all preconception and 
 misconception, in the dispersion of the clouds of 
 suspicion. Sheriff Peebles was in a better humour. 
 He had just returned from his holiday, and felt revived 
 after the fatigues and annoyances consequent upon 
 the bringing into the world of his eighth child — a 
 fine bo}^ He was now, on the whole, rather pleased 
 with the achievement. And if his wife was going 
 about the house like a ghost, pale and thin, why — she 
 was always like that, more or less. Sheriff Peebles 
 had never seen such a woman for complaining. Why, 
 the other night, when he had come home from his 
 club — a httle late, it is true — if she had not taken it 
 upon herself to faint, and he had to go in search of 
 the doctor — a very hard thing for a man in his position, 
 with his work to do the next day ! 
 
 Oh, this Hearne Mackenzie — a dreadful thing ! 
 Sheriff Peebles held up his hands at the thought. 
 He had kno\^Ti the murdered father well — ^liad even 
 shaken hands with him as many as three times at 
 public meetings. And to think that his son— his only 
 son, too ! 
 
 And again Sheriff Peebles held up his hands. 
 
 " I suppose there is nothing for it, Mr. Findlayson," 
 he said ; " we must commit liim ? It is a clear case, 
 as it seems to me." 
 
 The procurator fiscal shook his head, perhaps a 
 Httle reluctantly. Once he had thought the same. 
 
 2S7
 
 a88 KID McGHIE 
 
 " It did seem so at first," he said, " and to me the 
 evidence seemed very positive, but it appears that 
 Captain Henderland has discovered the owner of the 
 knife. And, on reviewing the whole matter with 
 him, and in the light of the new information which 
 Henderland has laid before me, I — I am bound to say 
 that there is nothing improbable in the tale of the 
 young man. He tells it plainly. I think you had 
 better hear him again." 
 
 " Well, if you think it necessary," lamented Sheriff 
 Peebles. " You will, however, kindly remember that 
 I have not quite recovered from the severe shock 
 I had some time ago, Findlayson. I am a sick man, 
 sir ! " 
 
 " I will remember, sheriff ! " said the fiscal, with 
 extreme aridity. 
 
 Heame Macken^e was brought in for examination, 
 and the fiscal addressed him. 
 
 " Sir," he said, " I own that at first I was exceed- 
 ingly prejudiced against you — as any man must have 
 been who believed you guilty, or even accessory to 
 the fact. But matters have taken a turn in your 
 favour — I don't mind sajring — to my extreme surprise. 
 And, for myself, I am inchned to believe your story. 
 I have told the sheriff so. Now, will you be good 
 enough to repeat what you told us formerly, as briefly 
 as possible ? I can promise you that we will be inclined 
 to hear it very differently." 
 
 Heame bowed slightly. He had lost something of 
 his out-of-door look by his confinement in the 
 Calton, but he stood up as self-contained and erect 
 as ever. 
 
 *' I was staying on at the Inn of Ringside, after 
 having given in my resignation at the reformatory," 
 he said. " My father had found a letter which I had 
 addressed to — a young lady whom he proposed to 
 marry. He quarrelled with me on that account. 
 I do not blame him, though I think that somehow he 
 must have misread what I wrote— — "
 
 THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH 289 
 
 " I have the document under my hand," said the 
 fiscal. " Tell me how you think your father may 
 have misread the letter you wrote to — the lady." 
 
 It was a copy which was handed to Heame. 
 
 He read it carefully, and his face flushed. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I did write part of that letter to 
 Miss Patricia McGhie, then sta5nng with her uncle at 
 Egham Castle. In my opinion it is every man for 
 himself in such matters, and I don't — I did not, that 
 is — recognise that my father had any right to come 
 between me and the only woman I ever loved. My 
 father would have treated me just the same. It was 
 our habit, as between man and man. But " (he 
 added with increasing emphasis), " though I wrote 
 the letter down to ' ever as now, your friend and 
 lover,' the rest I never wrote, and know nothing of. 
 It has obviously been added to anger my father. 
 The original cannot be in my handwriting." 
 
 The sheriff made a motion with his head, and the 
 fiscal, going round the table, put the original, found 
 in Lord Athabasca's strong box, before the young 
 man's eyes. 
 
 Heame was manifestly perplexed. He examined 
 the crushed letter closely. 
 
 " It is certainly very like — marvellously so, indeed," 
 he said ; " but all the same I never wrote the last 
 sentences of the letter, which are quite out of keeping 
 with the rest. They are not the composition of an 
 educated man. They are nide and insolent, and 
 indeed obvious additions to the true letter, which ends 
 plainly enough at the place specified. The rest is 
 clumsy enough as a forgery — all but the writing, 
 which is certainly wonderfully hke my own ! " 
 
 " Read the sentences which you assert are not 
 yours," said the sheriff. 
 
 " My father cannot last long," read the fiscal, who 
 had drawn back the original letter. " I am heir to 
 all that he possesses. You might do worse than go 
 off to some snug hiding place such as we know of till 
 
 19
 
 290 
 
 KID McGHffi 
 
 the storm blows o^-er. Then you may have the 
 money, the peerage, and your sweetheart, too." 
 
 " I never wrote these words — the suggestion is 
 abominable — inconceivable — ^both as to my father 
 and in what concerns the lady. It would have been 
 impossible for me to have written them." 
 
 " That," said the sheriff, sententiously, " is a matter 
 of opinion. At least the forgery took in your father, 
 who might have been expected to know you best. 
 He thought the words were yours ! " 
 
 " He was, not unnaturally, very angry," said 
 Heame. "I do not say he had no cause. But — 
 he made no effort to alter his intentions with regard 
 to me as his son I '' 
 
 "But," objected Sheriff Peebles, "in effect, the 
 affair did work out so. This letter was v/ritten before 
 the flight of the young lady, and she did conceal herself 
 in a hiding place known to you both ! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon ! " said Heame, clearly and 
 icil3^ " The part of the letter which / wrote is cer- 
 tainly prior in date to Miss Patricia McGhie's flight 
 from Egham Castle on the morning of February 25th ; 
 but the additions were no doubt made immediately 
 before the letter was sent to my father." 
 
 " Can you suggest any clue as to who could have 
 had a motive for injuring you, or the necessary skill 
 to make such extensive alterations ? Had you any 
 enemies at the reformatory ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of," said Heame, slowly, " unless 
 — unless " (he spoke with reluctance), " yes, there 
 was a schoolmaster of the name of Grainer — since 
 dismissed — who resented my being there in a salaried 
 position. But I should have thought him quite 
 incapable of the forgery, so far as the caligraphy 
 was concerned. He wTote like — well, Hke a learned 
 
 pig ! " 
 
 The fiscal made a note to tell this to Henderland, 
 
 who had an extraordinar}^ faculty for putting two and 
 
 two together.
 
 THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH 291 
 
 " And now," continued the sheriff, " give us a clear 
 account of your actions on the night of the burning 
 of the reformatory, and of the finding of your 
 father." 
 
 As clearly as if he had been giving a lesson in the 
 " Hearne Mackenzie," the young man stated his case 
 — the wetting on the moor, the borrowing of the 
 landlord's clothes, the early going to bed, the awaken- 
 ing with the dancing red hghts in his chamber lustre — 
 the idea of the fire engine at Three Ridings, the single 
 candle he had seen passing athwart the rooms on the 
 first floor of the silent house as he approached, and, 
 lastly, in a voice that trembled a little, he gave the 
 account of what he had found waiting for him there, 
 and of his hurried summons of Inspector McKay. 
 
 " I am bound to say," remarked the fiscal, with a 
 certain reluctant courage, *' that all which you have 
 advanced on your own behalf shows a disposition to 
 affirm itself by other evidence." 
 
 He turned to the sheriff : 
 
 " I do not think that I can advise you to commit 
 this gentleman. And I think we cannot do better 
 than set him at liberty — provisionally, that is — 
 advising him for his own sake to be ready to appear 
 at any time, and give what evidence may best assist 
 the course oif justice." 
 
 " Your lordship is at hberty ! " said Sheriff Peebles, 
 who loved dignities, especially of the hereditary sort. 
 He had been a convinced Tory ever since he had once 
 had the honour of lunching with an earl. " I regret 
 very much that you should have been put to so much 
 trouble ; but the course of justice, Hke that of true 
 love, does not always run smooth." 
 
 Hearne only bowed gravely, without answering. 
 
 " I am sorry," continued Sheriff Peebles, amicably, 
 *' that in the present difficult domestic circumstances 
 of my household I cannot offer you the hospitahty of 
 a friend of your lamented father ; but if your lordship 
 will dine with me at my club — they have quite good
 
 292 KID McGHIE 
 
 bedrooms there — and — my introduction would be suf- 
 ficient. They know me at 'The Bench and Bar'!" 
 
 " I thank you," said the grave grandson of Chief 
 Crowfoot, " but I have friends in the city whom it is 
 my duty to reheve from anxiety as soon as possible." 
 
 He bowed again, and went forth into the keen 
 northerly air of that early summer time a free man. 
 
 The fiscal and the sheriff looked at each other 
 steadily a moment, and then they smiled. 
 
 " He is going to her ! " said the fiscal, and rubbed 
 his hands. He, too, had once been young, and besides 
 he was pleased with Hearne for snubbmg the sheriff. 
 
 " Hum ! " said the latter, gathenng up all his 
 belongings and wrappmg his throat up carefully, 
 " after they have been married twelve years and have 
 eight or nine children, he won't be in such a hurry ! 
 / am going to my club ! " 
 
 As a matter of fact and history the men of law were 
 right. Hearne Mackenzie did go straight to Mr. 
 Molesay. In some uncertainty he threaded the 
 unfamihar mazes which lead down to the Cowgate. 
 In the Vennel the name of Mr. Molesay was still 
 unknown. The Grass Market had heard of him 
 vaguely — but as one altogether given up to devious 
 courses and the favouring of the hated Cowgate. 
 
 He turned down a short gray-black street with 
 clammy pavements. A rare policeman regarded him 
 with the jealous eye of suspicion, from which he was 
 only dehvered when he found himstlf in front of the 
 many attractions of Ogg, king of Bashan's Imperial 
 Palace. Billy Earsman presided behind the beer- 
 pulls, his chest well out, his arms bare, white-aproned, 
 and with the pride of unbroken success in his eye. 
 His look said, " Sirs and burgesses of this lower city, 
 every man is at Uberty to remain here so long as he 
 pays his drinks and behaves himself. If not, by 
 these brawny arms, I, Billy Earsman, wiU have the
 
 THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH 393 
 
 greatest pleasure in pitching him out on the pave- 
 ment ! " 
 
 " Mr. Molesay — do I know him ? " shouted Billy 
 Earsman, flinging back his head, " do I know the 
 B. I. P. ? Do I know Magdalen's Chapel ? Do I 
 know the Sooth Back ? Perhaps not ! But I know 
 Mr. Molesay. Everybody — man, woman, and child 
 in the Cowgate knows Mr. Molesay. And if you are 
 a rent collector, or a blessed shark of any kind come 
 to bother him about money — for his mission hall feu 
 duty or what not " (Billy buckled up the rolls of 
 white shirt sleeve tighter) '* ye will not get far along 
 this iDustrious thoroughfare ! No, ye will find the 
 dispensary convenient ! " 
 
 Smiling, Heame informed Billy that he cherished 
 no ill intentions, that in good truth he was infinitely 
 indebted to the city missionary, and that he had come 
 to ask another favour of him. 
 
 " Indebted to him — I bet ye are — I just bet ye 
 have been ! " cried Billy, instantly appeased, " and 
 what's mair — if it is the coat and waistcoat he has 
 on to his back this blessed minute, ye hae come to 
 seek, ye will get them. He's no fit to live, that 
 man. He's juist gane by to see BUn' Fiddler Helm's 
 wife — that is a thankless madam, and tak's the lend 
 o' a saint, if ever there was a saint i' this world. He'll 
 be back in ten minutes. Ye can bide by that window, 
 and I will tell you when I hear his wee bits o' boot 
 heels come clickety-clack on the paving stones ! For 
 he aye keeps the middle of the road, so as to be able 
 to shake hands wi' onybody on either side." 
 
 It was perhaps rather more than ten minutes that 
 Heame had to wait before the aforementioned tap- 
 tapping on the pavement announced the return of 
 Mr. Molesay. Billy stepped to the door to see fair 
 play. Heame had ordered no liquor for the " good 
 of the house," and this impressed Billy with the idea 
 that he was either a very bad sort indeed — sheriff's 
 offioef, perhaps — or one of what Billy called " his
 
 294 ^^ID McGHIE 
 
 ovvn kind " — meaning thereby, " Mr. Molesa\?'s mission 
 folk." 
 
 At the sight of Hearne, standing right in the fairway, 
 the httle city missionary stopped troubled. He was 
 thinking of the interview in the police cells. So 
 agitated was he, that Billy, deciding that Hearne was 
 a sheriff's officer after all, advanced truculently wnth 
 his elbows in the position of combat. For several 
 seconds Heame's head was in considerable danger 
 of punching, but the next moment Mr. Molesay held 
 out his hand, and said a Uttle wistfully, *' You have 
 been discharged — you have come to find Miss Pa- 
 tricia ?" 
 
 Hearne smiled with his usual grave sweetness. 
 " It does not take a prophet to foretell that," he 
 said, " and — you know I " 
 
 " Yes," said the httle city missionary, with his eyes 
 on the black, gletty paving stones, " I know ! " 
 
 Then he recovered himself somewhat, looked shyly 
 up at Hearne, even with a kind of shamefacedness, 
 and said, " Come with me ! " 
 
 Billy, still standing on the pavement, now began 
 to look wistful in his turn. 
 
 " Good day, Billy," said Mr. Molesay, somewhat 
 mournfully. 
 
 Billy marked the sadness, and his great hairy arms 
 angled themselves a httle more mihtantly. 
 
 " Sure you don't want me ? " he cried, his suspicions 
 now thorouglily aroused. "I'll ' knock ' that fellow 
 with pleasure if he has come after anything — anj^thing 
 you don't want him to have ! " 
 
 Billy followed a few steps, menacing, hopeful. 
 Mr. Molesay sighed and shook his head, smihng a 
 httle. 
 
 " Nothing that you can help me with, Billy," 
 said Mr. Molesay. " Why this gentleman is a lord — 
 a real lord ! " 
 
 " I doan't care if he w^as the only one there was ! " 
 said Billy. " If he came to Cowgate to annoy you,
 
 THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH 295 
 
 sir, I'd knock his head into a lump of putty in five 
 minutes ! " 
 
 " Thank you, Billy — I shall remember," said the 
 missionary, but he only wants to . . . to . . . 
 (something made a difficulty in his throat) take 
 away from us something that we can't — can't — hope 
 to keep in the Cowgate ! " 
 
 " Well," said Billy, v/ith hope not yet quite dead 
 in his eye, " if you don't want him to have it — no 
 more he shan't. I would do six months for him, 
 rather, pleased and proud ! " 
 
 " Thank you, no ! " said the missionary, hastily, 
 seeing that Billy's evident intentions with regard to 
 Heame's figurehead were stirring the Cowgaters with 
 the hope of a fight (chiefest of aU recreations). " This 
 is Mr. Hearne, son of the late Lord Athabasca, who 
 has come asking for Miss Patricia. Your wife, Kate, 
 will tell you the rest." 
 
 Billy's muscular arms dropped to his side. 
 
 ** TJfien there is to be no punching, sir," he said. 
 And turning to Hearne he added, "I always upheld 
 that you didn't do it ! I have five quid on your 
 getting off, even money." 
 
 *' It s v^dcked to bet, BiUy," said the city missionary, 
 " and after what you have promised me, too ! But 
 if it's a comfort to you, you have won your money. 
 Mr. Hearne had no more to do with it than I had — 
 less indeed, I do beUeve. For it was I who advised 
 Miss Patricia to run away, which was the beginning 
 of everything. If it hadn't been for that, poor Lord 
 Athabasca would have been safe and sound — a thou- 
 sand miles away on his honeymoon ! " 
 
 For the first time the stoic face of Chief Crowfoot's 
 grandson twitched. 
 
 " Never," he said, hastily, " you may make yourself 
 easy, T\Ir. Molesay — she never would have married 
 my father. She told me so herself ! " 
 
 Billy's nod expressed approval. 
 
 " Ay," he said, " and that's tnie ! My wife, Kate,
 
 296 KID McGHIE 
 
 knew it from the beginning. Your mind may keep 
 itself easy, sir ! " 
 
 " Thank you, Billy," said Mr. Molesay, turning 
 abruptly on his heel. " Now we are going to call on 
 Mrs. Rodgers." 
 
 But all the same he did not seem very grateful. 
 
 Billy watched them out of sight, his huge hands 
 thrust under his white apron and rolled up hke a big 
 double bar of soap. " The httle 'un's got something 
 on his mind. He don't hke what the big long one 
 has come for. It canH be that — no, it's plumb im- 
 possible. And yet — I don't know ! Rum things 
 
 are men and women, after all ! " 
 
 " Anyway," he concluded as he wended his way 
 thoughtfully back to the B. I. P., " I shall ask Kate 
 about it. And anyway, it was a pity that I didn't 
 get a chance to knock that big brown-faced chap's 
 head oS — any^#vay ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 *' OH, DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS ! " 
 
 Not yet was Billy Earsman a complete and seasoned 
 convert to the gospel of peace. And upon occasion 
 his hands were extremely ready to thrash the moun- 
 tains, and very convincingly to argue with any sons 
 of Belial who should venture to molest his city mis- 
 sionary. As yet, however, his virtues were mostly 
 of the Old Testament sort. 
 
 Mrs. Rodgers, after shaking hands with Heame, 
 went quickly out, and called Mr. Molesay to admire 
 her canary, which was the pride of the Cowgate and 
 then in full orange plumage. 
 
 " I don't believe, she said, ** that you could have 
 managed to get out of that room except for me. 
 How stupid you men are ! It is past believing. 
 Now there's Harry " 
 
 And Mr. Molesay spent a quarter of an hour over 
 the latest iniquities of the minister of the Peden 
 Memorial — how he forgot his tall hat in a day school, 
 and had it brought back by a hundred and fifty of the 
 senior pupils, who scrambled for enough of the brim 
 to hold a finger and thumb upon, and gave three 
 cheers afterwards on the pavement in front of the 
 manse, continuing so to do at intervals till moved 
 on by the police. Item, how he always lost an um- 
 brella every day he went out walking with one, and 
 how at last she got his parishioners to bring them 
 back by painting in large red letters on the inside 
 between each rib, " Stolen from the Rev. Harry 
 Rodgers, Cowgate." 
 
 297
 
 298 KID McGHIE 
 
 " It takes time," she explained, " but it is an 
 object lesson that honesty, in the matter of a 3s. iid. 
 umbrella, is the best policy ! It is worth two dozen 
 of Harry's sermons, any day ! " 
 
 Meanwhile in the minister's study, where first, 
 amid rows of patristic fathers and grim Puritans 
 in gigantic foho, we made the acquaintance of the 
 pastor of the Peden Memorial, Hearne and Patricia 
 met. 
 
 They could only clasp hands and look into each 
 other's eyes. No more was needed. For the bitter- 
 ness of death was past. The Marah taste had gone 
 from the fountain. The waters had run sweet and, 
 save for the memory of the father yet unavenged, 
 life had grown natural. Patricia was the old Patricia 
 again. This was by no means the hour of her weak- 
 ness. 
 
 " I wiU kiss you once, Hearne ; yes, once," she 
 said ; " and after that, we will hold a council of war. 
 Note weU, all this has to be cleared up. We are 
 responsible for that boy — McGhie's Kid, who recog- 
 nised his stepfather's knife — it reaUy turned on that. 
 Mr. Molesay knows him. He is a good boy, and we 
 must get him with nice people. We must educate 
 him, you and I, Hearne. I've been thinking of it. 
 It wiU take some time to get him off, but I've been to 
 the provost and to the chief of pohce. The sheriff is 
 an old lump of butter who takes any shape, according 
 as you pat him. I'U pat him to rights — I have not 
 been at the business twenty years for nothing." 
 
 " I dare say we can manage it," said Hearne, soberly. 
 '* I am going back to the reformatory to-morrow ! " 
 
 " You are going to-day," cried Pat, sharply. " I 
 am not going to have you hanging about here, with 
 Mrs. Rodgers running to get her husband and the 
 maid out of the way, lest they should catch us kissing 
 behind the hall door, like an under-cook and the 
 butcher's boy. No, thank you ! When I want you, 
 I'll send for you. So, remember ! I'll teU you what
 
 " OH, DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS ! " 299 
 
 you are to do. Thank Heaven, there's the penny post, 
 and I won't stint you in stamps ! " 
 
 " I should Hke one now," said Heame, humbly, 
 " just to seal the bargain ! " 
 
 *' Not another," said Patricia, determinedly. 
 " Stamps, indeed. I thought you were old enough to 
 know better. I am not Marthe or Baby Lant, who 
 would mark down such things in a notebook " 
 
 " But the other day," began Heame, tentatively 
 and in all humility. 
 
 " What other day ? " demanded Pat, fiercely. 
 
 "The day you came to the cell at Ravensnuik to 
 see me ! " said Heame, with a man's in\4ncible stupidity, 
 *' you gave me " 
 
 '' Well, and if I did," cried Patricia, " it was only 
 because I was sorry for you. And — and — oh, that 
 I should have to say it ! — because I wanted you to 
 know that there was somebody who beheved in you 
 —who came straight to you, who loved you! There 
 — you — you Man ! " 
 
 "Thank you, Patricia," said Heame, brokenly. 
 " I am an ass ! " 
 
 " As I remarked, you are a Man I " retorted Pat 
 McGhie. " There is nothing stronger to be said ! 
 Now, not a word more about it. I can't stop here 
 all day with Mrs. Rodgers thinking us clasped in each 
 other's arms, and the maid of all work tacking round 
 the passages trying to get a chance at the keyhole. 
 I won't have it, so there ! You understand ? ' 
 
 Heame well understood — however sincerely he 
 might have regretted — that Patricia was not as her 
 sisters in such matters of the heart. Pat followed 
 his reasoning. 
 
 " It's no use," she said ; " I'm not built to love-make 
 for its own sake. If that's what you want, off with 
 you to Baby Lant, who will sit and purr in an arm- 
 chair all day, and hsten to you talking to her about 
 her eyes. Once in a while, I don't mind — as it were, 
 on the way to what we mean to be together, you and
 
 300 KID McGHIE 
 
 I, Heame ! I can take such things fljnng, as a bird 
 on the wing picks a grain of wheat from the ground. 
 But to waste a day philandering — I won't — for you 
 or any man ! I don't care whether my eyes are gray 
 or green or blue or tricolour ! I am not proud of 
 my profile. The shape of my nose doesn't interest 
 me in the least, so long as I have a pocket hand- 
 kerchief to blow it with when I have a cold. My 
 mouth, in spite of my silliness in the pohce cell, was 
 made for eating with. Yes, Mr. Heame, it was — and 
 I'll thank you to bear the fact in mind. If you don't 
 agree to this, of! to Baby Lant with you. She is far 
 prettier than I am, anyway, and I have always told 
 you so." 
 
 Three minutes after these words were spoken, 
 the door was pushed open and Baby Lant appeared. 
 She had come down the passage with the cry of 
 " Where's my sister — I want my sister ! " 
 
 Baby Lant stood stock still, her blue eyes big like 
 saucers. 
 
 Her sister was kissing the dark young man whom 
 she had once seen at Egham Castle — or t'other way 
 about. Affairs were too mixed to be sure. Besides, 
 she was excited. 
 
 •* Wliy, Pat ! " she cried. " How dare you not 
 tell me ? You must be engaged ! You were letting 
 him kiss you — you were kissing him yourself. And 
 — I declare you are crying I " 
 
 After this, alarms and excursions. Exit Heame 
 without formal adieux. 
 
 " And you bade him go back to his old reforma- 
 tory," cried Baby Lant, after the first expansions 
 of sisterly affection. "You did — after — what I 
 
 saw 
 
 ? " 
 
 I was , , , only telling him . , . not 
 to I"
 
 " OH, DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS ! " 301 
 
 "I dare say!" said Baby Lant, dryly. "It looked 
 like that ! ^o wonder he was discouraged, poor 
 fellow ! You should not have been so hard with 
 him, Pat." 
 
 " Well, at any rate," said Patricia, " I made him 
 go away — till it should be satisfactorily proved who 
 had killed his father." 
 
 " WeU, I wouldn't," said Baby Lant ; " not for 
 packs of fathers — Uving ones — much less if they 
 were dead ! " 
 
 " Baby Lant, you should not speak like that ! " 
 
 Baby Lant clapped her hands. 
 
 " I knew it would come — I was sure of it ! " she 
 cried. " Whenever a girl is married, hke Marthe. 
 Or even engaged, hke you " 
 
 " Who said I was engaged ? " demanded Patricia, 
 haughtily, turning her nose horizontal, 
 
 " Well, if you are not, you ought to be," said Baby 
 Lant, vvath some candour. " Don't preach to me any 
 more, madam. Marthe ladles it out to me by the 
 hour about my behaviour. And yet she will take 
 off a new white glove so as to walk home with her 
 hand in WiUie's pocket — yes, and she makes him 
 take off his mitten, too. Oh, and she makes him 
 wear knitted wristbands — ' muffatees,* as you remem- 
 ber they call them in Kirkmessan ! And you, Pat, 
 are going to be just as bad ! Only I won't stand it 
 from you, Pat. I know too much of your ha-a-a-ad 
 past. I'll cast it up to you, if you talk to me hke a 
 grandmother — worse, I'll peach to him I Are you 
 listening ? " 
 
 " All that has nothing to do with the matter. Baby 
 Lant," said Patricia, with the grave ease which all 
 unconsciously she was quickly catching from her 
 lover. " I told him that I would never marry him 
 till it was proved who killed his father." 
 
 " Nonsense," said Baby Lant. " What does it 
 matter? — he didn't do it, at any rate." 
 
 *' Well, he was suspected," said Patricia. " And
 
 302 KID McGHIE 
 
 he owes it to his father's memory to find out his mur- 
 derer. In any case, I'm not asking you, Baby Lant. 
 I'm telling you — as I told him." 
 
 " He seemed to hke it," said Baby Lant, sneeringly. 
 " Curious, that ! " 
 
 " You see," said Patricia, without heeding Baby 
 Lant's flippancies, " Heame and his father were 
 reaUy much more to each other than one reared in 
 this old country would have supposed. He loved 
 his father, though he had always supported himself 
 since before he went to college. Then afterwards he 
 wintered in logging camps, went mining, aU on his 
 own " 
 
 " Hook, say ' hook,' Pat, oh, do ! " cried Baby 
 Lant. " It will sound more like old times — before 
 you knew tliis wonderful paragon of filial devotion 
 and correct Enghsh ! When you used to balance 
 yourself on two chair backs with your heels on the 
 mantelpiece ! " 
 
 " I never did ! " cried Patricia. " Baby Lant, 
 where do you expect to go to — telhng such lies ? " 
 
 " Wliy, to Canada," answered Baby Lant, promptly. 
 " I shall expect to go there the first winter after you 
 are married. They say girls have rather a good time 
 there, and I shan't ever let on that I can skate the 
 least bit. Instead, I shaU pick out the very nicest 
 man there is to teach me how ! Oooooooo-oop ! " 
 Baby Lant sucked the air crescendo-wise through 
 the prettiest pair of hps, " walled " her eyes reverently 
 as one who sees a vision, and then descended to earth 
 again with the reflection, " That will be ripping ! " 
 
 " You'll have to behave very much better, " said 
 Pat, gravely, "or we won't have you — my husband 
 and I." 
 
 Baby Lant folded her hands worshipfully, and 
 intoned solemnly after her sister, *' ' My husband 
 and I ! ' Oh, rare Ben Jonson ! " she cried. " Who 
 would have thought it ? Hath it come to this, ' My 
 husband and If**
 
 " OH, DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS ! " 303 
 
 It. will be obsen^ed that, howe\"er unable, even with 
 the advantage of her new dignities to restrain the 
 eccentricities of Baby Lant, Patricia had power and 
 to spare, in that which concerned Hearne Mackenzie. 
 Tlie young man punctually obeyed her will, and 
 presented himself next morning at the " Peat " by 
 the first train. He found Carvel busy with liis repara- 
 tions, humming like a bee and — though his face fell 
 at the sight of the young man's black strip of crape 
 about his arm, he had the good taste not to speak 
 of his recent brief imprisonment. 
 
 " Hey, glad to see you— glad to see you," he cried, 
 before they could shake hands. " Come to take 
 hold, eh ? Two posts vacant — you can have either ! 
 Schoolmaster and assistant superintendent — you can 
 take your choice. Or, for your father's sake, I will 
 step down and you shall be superintendent and I 
 assistant ! What say you ? We are poor, these 
 days. And I don't expect to touch much stipend 
 for a year or two. So it will matter the less ! " 
 
 Thus Carvel, and Hearne, clasping his friend's 
 hand in his strong grip, answered, Thank you, 
 superintendent ! But I am now a volunteer. I came 
 to carry out what I am sure would have been my 
 father's last wish, had time been given him to express 
 it. I will rebuild the burned portions of the reforma- 
 tory as a memorial to Lord Athabasca, and — you can 
 draw your own plans ! " 
 
 Nov/ joy affects strong men more than grief. They 
 are better prepared against one than for the other. 
 The}.' hold themselves together, too proud to show 
 emotion. We have seen how Carvel took the attacks 
 of Schoolmaster Simeon Grainer. But at Pleame's 
 words, and at the certainty that all his poor makeshifts 
 were unnecessar3% he suddenly sobbed out with that 
 quick, gulping throat catch, hke the warning of an 
 old-fashioned eight-day clock before it strikes. 
 
 *' Man — man ! " he said. " After all you have done 
 for us ! "
 
 304 KID McGHIE 
 
 " All the more reason," said Heame. " My father 
 and I did not agree about many things, but we were 
 quite at one upon the subject of the ' Peat.' " 
 
 In another moment Carvel had his notebook out, 
 and was drawing diagrams. 
 
 " The schoolroom wiU come so," he said, cocking 
 his head to the side admiringly ; " and I've long 
 thought of having the dining room at the other side, 
 quite separate, with a covered passage, you know. 
 The boys would be the better of a walk — sort of grace 
 before meat ! And a swimming bath ? " 
 
 He looked anxiously at Heame, with a question 
 in the clear, piercing eyes of the bom enthusiast. 
 Carvel was anything but calm now. 
 
 *' Most certainly a swimming bath ! " smiled Heame, 
 who also was not a little excited. 
 
 " And a Uttle reading-room for the boys to sit in 
 in the evenings — nicely ventilated ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course, a reading room ! " assented Heame. 
 
 " With a small library ? " 
 
 " With a hbrary," smiled Heame, watching the 
 sparkle in the superintendent's eyes. 
 
 " Books that the boys will really read," said Carvel, 
 as if to himself. " Not dull books in moral covers ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Heame, thinking of Patricia. 
 " I know who will see after that — good stuff, of course, 
 but well sugar-coated ! ' 
 
 *' Glory-hallelooo I " cried the erstwhile quiet Carvel. 
 And leaping up from the pile of roofing timber on 
 which he had been sitting, he danced a breakdown 
 in full view of his not very astonished boys, shuffling 
 his old down-at-heel work-a-day " slops " of green 
 carpeting briskly to the tune of 
 
 " Oh, dem golden slippers — oh, dem golden slippers, 
 Golden slippers I'm goin' to wear, 
 To walk on dem golden streets ! " 
 
 Then he thi"ust his hand through Heame's arm and 
 led him off " to see his new system of sanitation,
 
 " OH, DEM GOLDEN SLIPPERS ! " 305 
 
 perfect as human skill can make it, my dear fellow — 
 dear to my heart as my good old lady herself — 
 almost," he cried ; " and I'm going to pay for it 
 out of my own pocket as an extra — yes, I am ! " 
 
 For when anyone abused Carvel he smiled and 
 shrugged his shoulders. But if anyone abused his 
 precious reformatory, or ventured to hint that the 
 boys therein were not predestined cabinet ministers 
 and manifest saints of the calendar — then woe betide 
 that man ! 
 
 »
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 " CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " 
 
 The Knifer was tried for his crime — tried, found 
 guilty, and sentenced. He had certainly been at 
 Three Ridings, with two companions, on the night 
 of the burning. So much was proven. They had 
 known beforehand that the house would most Hkely 
 be empty or almost empty that night. Suspicion 
 lighted naturally on a certain Duffus, not in custody. 
 But the Knifer, when asked at his private examination 
 as to his comrades only rephed, " That is for you 
 to find out ! " And so held his tongue. 
 
 At one time during the trial it seemed that the 
 Knifer must get off after all, and there were frequent 
 consultations between the fiscal, the crown lawyers, 
 and a quiet, dark man whom we have previously 
 introduced into this history as Captain Henderland, 
 chief of metropolitan police. Three times the lawyers 
 had put a private question to him, and three times 
 the dark man had shaken his head. 
 
 " Not unless it cannot possibly be avoided ! " 
 he said. 
 
 And again the points which told against the Knifer 
 were laboured — his silence, his admission that he was 
 in and about the house of Three Ridings with other 
 companions, at least three in number, for the purpose 
 of committing theft. Indeed, the burglars had collected 
 numerous valuables for the pui-pose of carrying 
 them off, and had been engaged upon Lord Athabasca's 
 strong box — a recent type strongly built into the 
 
 306
 
 it 
 
 CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " 307 
 
 wall — when they had been disturbed, apparently 
 by the arrival of the son of the murdered man, Mr. 
 Heame Mackenzie — who was now complimented on 
 the clearness and conciseness with which he gave his 
 evidence. The days of Sheriff Peebles were already 
 far off in a dim obscurity. 
 " Cfl// Alexander McGhiel'*'* 
 
 At the back of the justiciary chamber a woman 
 cried out suddenly. Macers moved in her direction 
 in a dignified and leisurely manner. But instantly 
 she was silent again. The red judge looked her way 
 once, and with a shght cough the Knifer settled himself 
 more doggedly to wait the issue. 
 
 Then the Kid came in, still in his reformatory Sunday 
 suit, with the close-fitting cuffs and the red knitted 
 *' comforter " about his neck. His clean-cut features 
 and bright face took and held the eyes of all. 
 
 " You are this man's son ? " asked the crown 
 advocate, a dapper httle man with a convenient 
 stammer, which could be accentuated when he wanted 
 a laugh, or would disappear altogether at the serious 
 passages. 
 
 " He married my mither ! " said the Kid, simply. 
 " And who, then, was your father ? " 
 " He was David McGhie, of Back Mill Lands, 
 at Kirkmessan," answered the boy. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that he was a landed pro- 
 prietor ? " demanded the advocate depute, forgetting 
 his stammer, and raising his large, very round glasses 
 level with the blunt beak of his wig. They were made 
 long legged on purpose, so that he could fix a witness 
 at a distance. 
 
 " He was the chief of the Clan McGhie," said the 
 Kid, simply. " Now — I'm it ! " 
 
 At this a laugh went about the court. But Bitter 
 Little Airchie Craw, the Kirkmessan lawyer, who was 
 in Edinburgh on business connected with a will, 
 and hked attending the justiciary courts (for practice 
 in evil speaking), passed a paper up to the crown
 
 3o8 KID McGHIE 
 
 agent, to whom he was well known, having formerly 
 spent some time in the same office. 
 
 " The hoy tells the truth. He is really ' The McGhie* 
 and the chief of the clan. A. Craw, Kirkmessan.^' 
 
 The city lawyer looked over his shoulder and saw 
 the Uttle wizened apple of Bitter Airchie's face, nodding 
 at him with pleasurable malice in every wrinkle. 
 He knew Bitter Airchie's capacities as a genealogist. 
 He was also aware that he did not tell hes. So he 
 passed the document up to the advocate depute, 
 who was still on his feet, with the scribbled memoran- 
 dum " that after all there seemed to be something 
 in what the boy said." 
 
 " Ah ! " said the advocate, stammering now very 
 much indeed, " so you are a chief, and a holder of 
 property — at least your father was ? " 
 
 It never did me ony guid — bein' a chief," said 
 the Kid ; " and as for the property, I think the lawyers 
 got it ! " 
 
 Which again in its turn raised a laugh. 
 
 Suddenly the Knifer's weapon was handed up to 
 the Kid by an officer of the court. 
 
 " You have already, I think, recognised that wea- 
 pon ? " suggested the lawyer. 
 
 The boy hesitated and looked appealingly about, 
 as if to ask counsel from some one. 
 
 " Come now — no hedging, no hesitation — yes or 
 no!" 
 
 StiU the Kid stood silent. The Knifer had been 
 good to him and 
 
 " Come," said the lawyer, " out with it. You 
 told Captain Henderland, chief of police, and Mr. 
 Molesay, city missionary, that the knife now before 
 you belonged to the prisoner, the man called Knifer 
 Jackson. You even mentioned the number of nicks 
 or marks cut on the bone handle ! This you cannot 
 deny ! "
 
 " CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " 309 
 
 The Kid looked at the prisoner, who nodded and 
 smiled, as if to say, " Tell the truth and shame the 
 devil ! " 
 
 What he really meant to say was that the game 
 was up. 
 
 " It is his knife," faltered the Kid, his eyes filling 
 with tears, as he thought of the trap into which he 
 had fallen. 
 
 " Whose knife ? " The question of the lawyer 
 cut sharply now, without a suspicion of stammer 
 in his voice. 
 
 " His I " said the Kid, pointing to his stepfather. 
 
 The woman's scream rose again, ending in loud 
 imprecations. 
 
 "If he were ten times my son, I would kill him for 
 that ! " cried the voice. 
 
 There was a httle swift disturbance at the back 
 of the court, and Mad Mag — haggard, furious, muttering 
 vague threats — was led out through green baize 
 doors that swung on their well-accustomed hinges, 
 to confront with her tangled locks and blazing eyes 
 that curious apathy of the hangers-on about the 
 doors of every court where a man is on trial for his 
 Hfe. 
 
 After that the advocate depute, having made the 
 point, sat down with a confident sigh, and though 
 the Knifer's advocate, in his young enthusiasm, 
 touched all the strings of abuse to shake the Kid's 
 evidence — reformatory boy, ingrate, revengeful, and 
 so forth — the Kid's obvious reluctance, his piteous 
 look about the court, and perhaps most of all the 
 prisoner's nodded acquiescence in the recognition 
 of the knife with which the deed had been committed, 
 decided the jury. 
 
 Guilty, then, and the black cap — an old cocked 
 hat, smuggled in under the judge's cloak to be in 
 readiness ! It had remained hidden under the bench 
 till the red judge began the highly affecting speech 
 in which the Knifer was informed that on a certain
 
 310 KID McGHIE 
 
 not distant morning he should hang by the neck 
 till he was dead. 
 
 To this the Knifer hstened in silence. He had 
 nothing to say. He shook hands with the advocate 
 who had defended him, even though he had smiled a 
 Httle at many of his boyish outbursts on behalf of 
 his client. But, as he left the court in charge of the 
 pohce, he called out certain words which were not 
 intended for the red judge, nor for the gowned advo- 
 cates, nor yet for the respectable curious in the 
 galleries. 
 
 " The Kid is not to be marked," he said. *' He 
 could do no other ! " 
 
 This was for the scattered members of " Blind 
 Jacob's." Knifer was protecting the Kid from its 
 vengeance to the best of his ability. But of course 
 the most dangerous of aU did not hear him, and would 
 not have cared if she had. 
 
 Mad Mag believed that her son had " sold " her 
 husband to death. 
 
 On the whole, there was a great solid middle-class 
 contentment throughout the city when the case was 
 over. The law folk were happy. It had been a 
 neat, clean-Uned case. The advocate depute had 
 not jested too much, but had nipped in with the Kid's 
 evidence at the proper moment. Though a little 
 boyishly eager, the counsel for the defence had done 
 very well. There was stuff in him. 
 
 Even " Blind Jacob's " was satisfied. The Knifer 
 had behaved like a man and a true " sport." There 
 never was any doubt about the Knifer, but stiU it 
 was a comfort to find a man, in such utter straits, 
 acting weU up to his reputation, taking and asking 
 no favours. He had not blustered. He had not 
 spouted. He had not shown off in any wa}'', and his 
 final appeal that the Kid might not be held responsible 
 roused a kindly smile.
 
 t( 
 
 CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " 311 
 
 " He always was soft about that dratted Kid," 
 growled Corn Beef Joe. "I never seen anything extra 
 about the loon myself — a regular potted head of a 
 Kid — young Duff us was worth twenty of him ! " 
 
 And so the Knifer, with the prospect before him 
 of making a fitting end, found even his amiable weak- 
 nesses arise to call him blessed. So be it with us all ! 
 
 And the good folk of the city, pulling on their 
 nightcaps, and trying to remember if they had hasped 
 all the windows and barred the doors, sighed com- 
 fortably and said, as they turned in, " Well, it's a 
 good thing that fellow is laid by the heels — that's 
 one less, at any rate ! " 
 
 And in his exceedingly sanitary condemned cell, 
 the Knifer composed himself to sleep, with the philoso- 
 phic reflection that it was sure to come to this in the 
 long run. 
 
 As for Mr. Archbold Molesay, a great sadness 
 overpowered him. In his time he had drafted a 
 great many " lost sheep " into his flock. But on 
 the whole the Knifer was the most entirely lost of 
 any he knew — and yet, somehow, he had not despaired 
 even of the Knifer. He betook himself up to Calton, 
 where he was informed that the lately condemned 
 was asleep. So he came away disconsolate, and 
 wandered up and down the Portobello Road till 
 the dawning. 
 
 Archbold Molesay was the sort of man who would 
 never have been long happy in heaven. He would 
 certainly have asked his way dovm to the portal of 
 hell, and if refused admission there, he would 
 have wandered about, even as now, wanting to 
 get in, to see if, perchance, " he might do them 
 any good." 
 
 Consequently he was the man to whom a woman, 
 pale, dishevelled, half-clad, bareheaded, and wholly 
 dazed, suddenly appeared and propounded a question. 
 
 " Is this the road to the ' Peat ' Reformatory 
 for laddies ? " She had asked him because he dicl
 
 312 KID McGHIE 
 
 not look like a policeman, and then, suddenly recog- 
 nising Mr. Molesay, she struck at the hand which 
 tried to detain her, and fled precipitately down the 
 dark, winding path back again into the city. But 
 Mr. Molesay remembered the scene in the court that 
 day and was advised. But even then he had no idea 
 of the terrible concreteness of Mad Mag's intentions 
 with regard to her son. He thought only that Mag 
 was again on the spree. There had never been much 
 to hope for from Mag — indeed, apart from the 
 Knifer, nothing. 
 
 The silver-headed little man with the weak heart, 
 who had to stop several times before he got to the 
 seventh floor of a " land," had not been asleep for 
 well-nigh thirty hours, but he had no thought of his 
 own needs now. He forgot aU about breakfast 
 though he could smell " kippers " in the very air 
 of the narrow Cowgate. He betook him to the 
 neat first-floor dwelling of Kate and Billy Earsman. 
 Billy had his head and the upper part of his person 
 in a tub, and at the sound of the opening door he 
 arose, extremely soapsudsy. Then he danced round, 
 demanding a towel to take that three-times blessed 
 soap out of his eyes. When his laughing wife could 
 recover herself enough to hand it to him, he scrubbed 
 so furiously that the mere friction would have sufficed 
 for a crocodile taking a Turkish bath. This operation 
 he mingled with exclamations against the perfidy 
 of Kate, who knew that soft soap apphed to the eyeball 
 bit hke fun. Her conduct was specially heinous 
 in view of the fact that he had risen early that morning 
 for the express purpose of taking down her stove-pipe, 
 at the bend of which a large amount of soot had 
 collected. 
 
 Here, then, was gratitude for you ! And she 
 could find nothing better to do than, when her husband 
 was dancing about in pain, to stand with the towel 
 in her hand, held well behind her, and laugh ! Talk 
 of cruelty to animals, indeed. It was enough to keep
 
 " CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " 313 
 
 any thoughtful man from getting married. In the 
 intervals of this harangue Billy's face and neck, red 
 as a beet root, kept appearing and disappearing in 
 the towel. 
 
 Mr. Molesay presently edged in a question. 
 
 " ' Can Ogg do without me to-day ? ' " repeated 
 Billy. " He will have to, if you want me, that's 
 flat ! Kate there can go along and break it to him. 
 What time shall we be back ? Can't say — weU, 
 all the better — give him the longer speU. Ogg's 
 getting too fat ! And this is Friday, too, and the 
 fortnightly pay of those Waterworks' Irishmen ! '* 
 
 And Billy laughed. 
 
 " There,' said Kate, " now you are laughing at 
 the thought of Ogg getting the soap in his eyes ! " 
 
 But Billy was not quick at this sort of thing. 
 
 He answered shortly, " Oh no — it was his having 
 all those Irishmen — the water-trust navvies, that is 
 — to keep in order ! That's what I was laughing 
 at. Nothing to do with soap at all ! " 
 
 Kate glanced at Mr. Molesay, but the httle man 
 was much too intent on his business to think of 
 jesting. 
 
 " You see," he said, sombrely, " it's that Mad Mag. 
 She's off to kill her boy — McGhie's Kid. You know 
 him. He's at the ' Peat.' She wiU find the road and 
 walk the twelve miles by mid-afternoon. She wiU 
 ask to see him. It is visiting day, and Carvel, the 
 superintendent, wiU know no reason why she should 
 not see the boy. Then she — well, you know very 
 well what she will do ! " 
 
 " She would never do the like to her ain son ? Never ! 
 Oh, never ! " cried Kate Earsman, who thought of 
 Uttle Polly. Her husband knew better. 
 
 " She will kill him Lke a rat, 1 teD ye, for putting 
 away the Knifer ! " he said. " He mastered her, 
 did Knifer Jackson. And because o' that — she was 
 juist terrible set on the Knifer ! " 
 
 The two men took counsel together.
 
 314 KID McGHIE 
 
 It seemed good to them to take the train to Kingside 
 Station, and while one of them — Mr. Molesay for 
 choice — hurried along to warn Carvel of Mad Mag's 
 intentions as to his favourite pupil, the other was to 
 keep a keen watch for the approach of the Kid's 
 mother. 
 
 There was yet a full hour, however, before the train 
 would leave. It was a fast through train, stopping 
 only once before it reached the httle moorland station 
 of Kingside, but there was nothing in Edinburgh 
 capable of putting them on the spot any sooner. 
 
 It was at this juncture that Mr. Molesay, blushing 
 slightly, remarked that he was compelled to look in 
 and make some final arrangements for Sunday night's 
 meeting with the Rev. Harry Rodgers. 
 
 As he went hurriedly out, Kate smiled loiowingly 
 at Billy, who gazed blanldy back. 
 
 " What do ye make o' that ? " said Kate, looking 
 steadily at her husband, as if to compel the exercise 
 of inteUigence. 
 
 " Make o't ? " said Billy, scratching his great fuzz 
 of hair. " That — that Maister Molesay's busy, of 
 course ! What else ? " 
 
 Kate shoved her little head against his shoulder. 
 Then she whispered : 
 
 " Before we were married, BiUy, when you had half 
 an hour to yoursel', where did ye gang ? " 
 
 " Why," said Billy, simply, " up to Gape and Suck's 
 to see you, of course — where else ? " 
 
 That was an easy question easily answered. Kate's 
 head continued to root in the tangle and underbrush 
 about BiUy's right ear. 
 
 " You old silly," she murmured, softly. Then after 
 a pause she added, " Do you think you are the only 
 man that ever was in love ? " 
 
 " You don't think that Mr. Molesay— at his age 1 " 
 
 Kate nodded rapidly three or four times. 
 
 " As if age mattered — in a man ! " said Kate, with 
 the certainty of an expert.
 
 " CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " 315 
 
 " It will be the young leddy he fetched away from 
 the castle," ventured Billy ; " the lass that wadna 
 marry the auld lord — him that Knifer is to be hanged 
 for ? " 
 
 " Wha else ? " said his wife. " Oh, you silly ! 
 You are going out there to play gooseberry. She and 
 her sister have gone to Egham Castle. Mrs. Rodgers 
 told me when she was lookin' oot the music at the 
 organ before the practice last nicht, Billy. So he'll 
 maybe see her after a' ! Run awa', Billy, and see 
 ye bring him back safe. I'm off to break the news 
 to Ogg ! " 
 
 Kate was lacing her boots as she spoke, with a 
 quick whip-whip of drilled fingers, accustomed to do 
 little things in the least possible time. 
 
 It was true. Mrs. Rodgers smiled in Mr. Molesay's 
 face when he inquired for her husband, and remarked 
 that Harry was at the meeting of Presbytery — as 
 Mr. Molesay knew just as weU as she did herself. 
 Then she said that, for what he came about, she could 
 give him just as rehable information as Mr. Rodgers 
 himself, in fact, shghtly more so. 
 
 Mr. Molesay flushed crimson to the roots of his 
 shining silver hair. 
 
 " I thought I would also ask after Miss Patricia," 
 he said. " I heard that her sister had come from the 
 South to visit her — a very merry young lady, I am 
 given to understand." 
 
 " The two have gone off together," said Mrs. Rod- 
 gers, " back to Egham Castle. Their uncle wants to 
 forgive and forget, it seems. And I fear there is 
 but little chance of our seeing Patricia back among 
 us again." 
 
 The flush on Mr. Molesay's cheek paled slowly, and 
 then reaffirmed itself as a thought crossed his mind. 
 
 " Thank you, Mrs. Rodgers," he said. " Now I 
 must go — I have an appointment ! "
 
 3i6 KID McGHIE 
 
 " And do you know," said Mrs. Rodgers to her 
 husband as she poured out the tea, " the man actually 
 went away fumbling the leaves of a httle Murray's 
 time-table ? I do think men in love are the greatest 
 ostriches ! They think other people have no eyes. 
 And when it is all no use — and he knows it is no use. 
 Oh, I have no patience with you ! " 
 
 " If Mrs. Henry Rodgers wiU kindly explain what 
 I, personally, have to do with the love affairs of Mr. 
 Archbold Molesay " began her husband, oracularly. 
 
 " Tut ! " snapped his wife. " I suppose it is thought 
 very clever — at clerical clubs — that kind of about- 
 the-bush talk. But pray keep it for your Monday 
 afternoons. It is wasted on me. Why don't you 
 speak to Mr. Molesay ? " 
 
 " Speak to Molesay ? " said her husband, dimly and 
 vaguely searching for a solution. " Why in the world 
 should I speak to Molesay ? He is a good ten years 
 older than I am. If you are so anxious, and so well 
 informed, speak to him yourself. Where's my study 
 coat ? " 
 
 • • • * • 
 
 Meantime the through train delivered Mr. Molesay 
 and Billy duly at I-vingside Station. The station- 
 master, a brusque little snip-snappy man, much 
 imbued with the dignities of his office, called out to 
 them to cross the line by the overhead bridge, and to 
 remember that their tickets (return) were good only 
 for the week-end. Then very reluctantly, not finding 
 anything else against them, he let them pass through 
 the white gate, and so down upon the face of the 
 moor. 
 
 Egham lay dimly away to the right, hidden among 
 trees, and high behind tall park walls. Right in 
 front were the buildings of the " Peat," with all the 
 black debris of the fire already cleared away, and the 
 foundations of the new and enlarged " Athabasca " 
 roughly sketched in concrete foundations and the 
 beginnings of masonry.
 
 " CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " 317 
 
 Billy, now well informed and highly suspicious, 
 observed, with pride in his wife's acuteness, that 
 Mr. Molesay looked long and wistfully in the direction 
 of the green policies of Egham, before turning his 
 face resolutely toward the bare but healthy quad- 
 rangles of the " Peat." 
 
 " It's her he's thinkin' aboot ! " murmured BiUy to 
 himself. 
 
 Thus the world knew more about the love affairs 
 of Mr. Archbold Molesay than that innocent httle 
 gentleman himself. 
 
 In one way they came too late to the " Peat " — 
 in another too early. Mad Mag had not arrived. 
 But the " Kid " — interest having been made for him 
 in the highest quarters — had recently been allowed 
 privileges. He had departed in company with the 
 two Egham Castle young ladies, who had taken him 
 across the moor for the purpose of helping them to 
 carry their photographing and sketching apparatus. 
 
 This was Patricia's idea, and she had expressed it 
 in such absolute terms to Mr. Heame, that it became 
 necessary for that man-under-authority to obtain for 
 the Kid the necessary relaxation of disci phne, prior 
 to the issue of Home Office papers of complete dis- 
 charge on the grounds of innocence and additional 
 evidence. 
 
 " Poor boy, he has never had a chance, Heame," 
 Pat had said ; " and if he stays with Marthe and 
 Willie, he wiU be brought up as an educated man. 
 He is a gentleman already. My old dad would give 
 him many messes of pottage for his birthright. But 
 that affair in the court, and the pubhcation of the 
 report in the papers, rather knocked the feet from 
 under the dad's pedigree business. And a good job, 
 too. Still, if we have the chief of our name upon our 
 hands, we must teach him how to walk and talk and 
 behave. You do very well in your ' Peat,' but, after 
 all, there are some things you are deficient in ! " 
 
 " Happy Kid ! " said Heame, sighing pretentiously.
 
 3i8 KID McGHIE 
 
 " I offer myself as an additional subject — half-savage, 
 half -colonial ! What could you wish for more ? " 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Pat. " Remember our 
 compact. You go on with your hedging-and-ditching, 
 your brick-and-mortaring, your saw-pHting and plan- 
 drawing till you are as poor as a church mouse for the 
 second time. Then you can marry Baby Lant and 
 live happy ever after. She is to be the heiress now, 
 you know. My nose is out of joint ! " 
 
 " Baby Lant, indeed ! " exclaimed that young lady, 
 dashing fiercely into the conversation. " When Baby 
 Lant is in need of your leavings, Miss ex-Heiress 
 Patricia, she will let you know. And as to being an 
 heiress, Baby Lant never saw the man she would 
 shake a stick at, when she had not so much as tuppens- 
 farthing to her name. And if the heiress-ship — if it 
 really comes off — makes any difference, call her Ebrew 
 Jew, call her Yellow Peril, call her Ching-Chang-Fu 
 with his pigtail on ! " ^ 
 
 Her mood was so fierce that Heame hastened to 
 assure her that, so far as he was personally concerned, 
 he would not dream of calhng her any of these things. 
 
 On the present occasion the two enterprising young 
 women took the Kid to carry their paraphernalia, 
 for the purpose of educating him in the suavities 
 of the English language as professed by Pat McGhie 
 and her sister, Baby Lant. 
 
 Thus it came to pass that Baby Lant's Athenian 
 predilection for telling and hearing some new thing 
 defeated the strategy of that strong man Billy Earsman, 
 that careful man Archbold Molesay — not to speak 
 of Hearne Mackenzie and a good half score of warders 
 whom Carvel had bidden to be on the look-out for 
 Mad Mag coming along the Edinburgh Road. 
 
 It was at the place called the One Thorn Tree 
 that it happened. This ancient growth overhung 
 the deep gorge which divided the plateau of Maw
 
 " CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " 319 
 
 Moss from the Three Ridings Valley, and Patricia 
 thought she could make a good photograph of the 
 low, twisted branches, using the distant wood as a 
 background. While Baby Lant, more optimistic, 
 talked of the picture she was going to paint — " some- 
 thing weird and uncommon, with the branches bending 
 their heads like snakes about to strike, and the boughs 
 like the fingers of a witch's hand upraised in cursing 
 — all against a stormy ' King Lear sky ' ! And, oh," 
 she concluded, " I shall use such a lot of rose madder 
 and terra-verte for the grays ! I'm afraid I have 
 not brought enough ! Perhaps the Kid would not 
 mind going back to the castle and asking William 
 for them — they are in tubes, right in the middle 
 of my dressing table, among the combs and brushes ! 
 The usual place." 
 
 " Baby Lant, you should be ashamed of yourself ! " 
 said Pat. 
 
 "And I prithee, why? — give me a reason why I 
 should be ashamed of myself on so fine a day ! " 
 demanded Baby Lant. 
 
 " If reasons were as plentiful as blackberries," 
 cried Pat, " would a true woman give her young 
 sister, a mere child, a reason upon compulsion ? " 
 
 " Ah, that's better — that's more Hke our old Pat 
 before she went and feU in love ! " said Baby Lant ; 
 " and as to leaving paints and things about among 
 my brushes, my hair is such a very unfashionable 
 colour that every Httle helps. I always clean my 
 brushes on it — but you mustn't tell anybody. It's a 
 recipe. I may make my fortune out of it some day, 
 when I can no longer support myself in any other 
 honest way ! " 
 
 " I v/onder if you wiU never be serious, Baby Lant," 
 said Patricia, with a world-weary sigh, as she watched 
 the Kid's straight httle back dodging about among 
 the green marsh pools and criss-cross peat hags between 
 them and Egham. 
 
 The easel of Baby Lant was by this time camped
 
 320 
 
 KID McGHIE 
 
 in front of the One Thom Tree, and, with her gaze 
 fixed on a heaven without a cloud and as blue as her 
 eyes, she began to sketch in her stormy sky. 
 
 " Me an' Turner — he's dead now, but was a cele- 
 brated painter in Mr. Ruskin's day — we think alike," 
 aihrmed Baby Lant. " We always look at one scene 
 and draw another. He could help it. I can't ! 
 But that's not what I was going to say. What was 
 it ? Oh, yes, it was about you, Patricia ! I wonder 
 if it's like that with all girls. Before you knew him 
 — you held your head up and ' looked the whole 
 world in the face, for you owed not any man ' — that 
 sort o' expression. But now, instead of cheeking 
 the universe, and not being too respectful even to the 
 Milky Way — you go about as croaky and droopy 
 as an old crow with a broken wing. Poor Pat ! I 
 knew her, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most 
 excellent fancy. Where be her jibes now ? Her 
 gambols ? Her flashes of merriment that were wont 
 to set the schoolroom fire irons in a roar ? " 
 
 " You don't know anything about it, yet. Baby 
 Lant," said Patricia, loftily, " but some day you will, 
 when the right man comes along ! " 
 
 She thought a httle, her eyes on the blue of the 
 distant hiils. 
 
 " Yes, it will come to you, Baby," she said, softly. 
 
 "Faith," cried Atalanta. scornfully, "and I hope 
 it will do me the favour not to be in a hurry, then, 
 if it is all ' virgin rites and strewments, and bringings 
 home with bell and book and candle ! ' Hence, 
 loathed Melancholy, and Chaos, and Old Nick — 
 forsake your temples dim, Peor and Balaam ! " 
 
 Baby Lant, in her sohtude, had been doing some 
 good reading, but it had somehow got a httle mixed 
 in that bright, rippHng head of hers. The result 
 was not always entirely respectful. All the same, 
 her laugh was sunshiny to hear. It certainly did her 
 sister Pat good, and perhaps was designed for that 
 purpose.
 
 " CAN A MOTHER FORGET ? " 321 
 
 Meanwhile the Kid proceeded on his way, whisthng 
 happily. The world was beginning anew for him. 
 He was now out most of the day — in the fields with 
 Mr. Heame, or with Mrs. Carvel, attending to the 
 fowls in the hen runs. And the ladies — the young 
 ladies were taking quite a wonderful interest in him. 
 For the first time in his fife Kid McGhie was not being 
 harried from post to pillar. 
 
 About midway between the " Peat " and Egham 
 Castle the Kid had occasion to cross the road. In 
 the ditch a woman was lying, her knees drawn up, 
 her chin sunk on her breast. Her eyes were open, 
 but there was a ghastly expression in them — something 
 wild, strange, not of this earth. 
 
 " Mother ! " cried the Kid, instantly running toward 
 her. 
 
 She seeemed to hear and yet not hear. As he 
 bent over her the pupils of her eyes dilated, flashed 
 wickedly, and then narrowed to a tiny slit. 
 
 " What is it, mother ? " cried the Kid. *' Tell 
 me. What has happened ? Were you coming to 
 see me ? " 
 
 The pale, drawn face twitched, the head nodded, 
 and in the beckoning eyebrows the Kid read a desire 
 that he should come nearer. 
 
 " You want me to hft you up, mother ? " said the 
 Kid, anxiously. 
 
 Mad Mag nodded again, a little more decidedly. 
 Her hps formed some words that the Kid did not 
 hear. He approached, and was just about to take 
 his mother in his arms, when, like flame bursting 
 through smoke, something flashed from under her 
 checked apron. Luckily for the Kid, and for the rest 
 of the story, he was stooping low at that moment, 
 and the half -paralysed arm, making its last effort, 
 struck high. The blade of the knife cut through 
 the thick collar of his official coat, passed beyond, 
 and fell on the road with a hard jangle on the newly 
 broken and still unrolled macadam. The next moment 
 
 21
 
 322 KID McGHIE 
 
 Heame Mackenzie, more active than the others, 
 pulled the Kid behind him, while from different 
 sides Mr, Molesay, Billy Earsman, Patricia, and Baby 
 Lant converged upon the scene. 
 
 Mad Mag had recovered her tongue now. But 
 she tried in vain to reach the fallen weapon. 
 
 " I'll kill him— kill him— kill him ! " she sputtered. 
 " Kill him for what he did to Knifer ! " 
 
 The words were thickly uttered, indistinct, but 
 Heame Mackenzie understood them. 
 
 " He is your own son ! " he said, as he easily con- 
 trolled her arms with his brown, masculine grasp. 
 
 " My son — David McGhie's son, ye mean ! Never 
 son o' mine," she cried. " He gi'ed Knifer Jackson, 
 the only man i' the world, up to the clutches o' the 
 hangman. I wad hang for him, aye, brave and willin' 
 — if only my arm had done its duty ! And the Knifer's 
 an innocent man — I tell ye sae mysel' ! Wherefore 
 should I he, a dying woman ? He was the ae true 
 man, and that gorb selled him awa'. Oh, let me get 
 at him, juist for yince, kind gentlemen ! " 
 
 Before Patricia and Baby Lant, who had the rougher 
 road to travel, had time to arrive, Billy had secured 
 the knife which lay glittering on the clean stones of 
 the highway. It was new and had been bought on 
 purpose. He concealed it, and then began to stroll 
 about in an uninterested fashion. For, just when 
 the girls came up, a spasm of pain traversed the body 
 of Mad Mag. She seemed to sink into herself. 
 
 " Take away the boy," said Mr. Molesay to Heame, 
 without noticing Patricia and Baby Lant, who were 
 still a Httle behind the heathery ridge, which made 
 the only fence of the moorland roadside. " Take 
 away the boy — this is my work ! " 
 
 He took off his hat, and the mellow hght fell mildly 
 on his silver head. To that poor sinful woman he 
 spoke as if he had been the very Son of Man himself, 
 turned aside a little from the wayside to rest by 
 Jacob's Well. What he said is between him and the
 
 my son never son o' mine i oh, let me get at 
 
 him!"
 
 "CAN A MOTHER FORGET ?" 323 
 
 woman taken in sin. Mr. Molesay had a sprinkling 
 of physic, and at the first glance he saw that all was 
 over. 
 
 Those who stood afar oflF in wonder — Heame and 
 the Kid, Patricia and Bab}/ Lant — looked at this 
 scene of the faithful shepherd deahng with this very 
 far-strayed sheep of his flock. They heard fragments 
 of sentences : " Ask, and it shall be given ! " " Knock, 
 and it shall be opened." " In My Father's house " 
 
 But still the woman turned her head from side 
 to side and moaned uncomforted. 
 
 " Oh, if I kenned that they wadna hang Knifer 
 — my ain man, Knifer Jackson, I wad be content to 
 dee and gang to the 111 Bit ! " 
 
 Then a wild, strange thought seemed to launch 
 itself across her drink-sodden, ignorant brain. 
 
 " Bear witness," she cried, " you, Mr. Molesay, 
 that are a godly man and respected even by the 
 pohss — you, Mr. Heame Mackenzie, I ken ye, I saw 
 ye at the trial when they condemned him — you, 
 young leddies — that's four witnesses. I hae four 
 witnesses and only three are needed. Tak' oot your 
 book and write, Mr. Molesay ! Then I'll sign, as 
 the law requires ! " 
 
 This was Mad Mag's confession : 
 
 " As I, Margaret Jackson, or McGhie, or Caigton, 
 am a dyin' woman — as I, Margaret, wife of said Knifer 
 Jackson, presently l3nng in the Calton under sentence 
 o' death, for what he never did, hope for salvation, 
 it wasna him that killed your faither. Lord Athabasca, 
 at the muclde hoose caa'ed the Three Ridings. It 
 was me. I killed him wi' my ain man's knife. I 
 was there helping him ! I swear to this wi' my dyin' 
 breath, and may I never taste God's mercy if I speak 
 a lie ! " 
 
 And so, with this great oath on her lips, the spirit 
 parted, almost before Hearne Mackenzie had finished 
 writing down her confession. 
 
 " True or untrue," he said, " it may be enough to
 
 324 KID McGHIE 
 
 get the man a reprieve — for a time, at least. There- 
 fore, we had better all sign it." So they signed, all 
 four of them, and Billy Earsman added his X mark. 
 
 Mr. Molesay stood musing a moment upon the 
 empty shell of that which had now forever escaped 
 him. His head was still uncovered, and of the httle 
 group standing about, only Baby Lant — who had 
 never seen death — and McGhie's Kid, whom death 
 that day had passed so closely by, were in tears. 
 
 Then the police missionary murmured softly, not 
 a text, as perhaps he ought, but the following ancient 
 words, favourites of his ; 
 
 " Christlike it is for sin to grieve, 
 Godlike it is all sin to leave." 
 
 *' And this woman," he continued, pointing with 
 his finger, " is at least godlike in this, that she has 
 left her body of sin behind her. Who among us shall 
 cast the first stone, and judge the escaped soul ? " 
 
 And in Billy Earsman's arms, poor Mad Mag — 
 her oath scarce cold upon her lips, but with the strange 
 blessing of one who has taken another's sin upon 
 her, glorifying her face — was borne to the httle, 
 clean, whitewashed mortuary of the " Peat " Re- 
 formatory. 
 
 And they shut the door, so that no man knows 
 whether the angels twain who do such offices came 
 down to keep their accustomed watch, one at the head 
 and one at the foot, where the body was laid. 
 
 Perhaps I
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 BABY LANT's repentance 
 
 The little city missionary went up to the Calton to 
 carry the condemned man the news of his wife's 
 dying confession. Knifer Jackson scarcely lifted 
 his eyelashes as he listened. 
 
 " She said that, did she ? " he said. " Good old 
 girl, Mag — she did what she could ! " 
 
 More than that could not be drawn from him. 
 Nor, indeed, did the httle silver-topped man try very 
 hard. He knew that it would be nearer the time, when 
 the hammers were clanking in the yard, and the great 
 beam of execution was being protruded, that such a 
 heart as the Knifer's would be softened. 
 
 But perhaps not even then. For Knifer was of 
 those rare criminals, more numerous, however, in 
 the Three Islands than in France, who, hke Avinain, 
 that terrible butcher, take for their motto " N^avouez 
 jamais ! " — " Never confess ! " 
 
 Still, at intervals the Uttle missionary wrestled 
 with the condemned man. For, to his thinking, 
 there was no soul that could not be saved, which 
 was not made to be saved. Consequently, he despaired 
 not even of the Knifer — though, be it said, at present 
 the Knifer gave him httle enough encouragement. 
 
 " I am, maybe, no lang for this world," said the 
 Knifer, philosophically, " and I dinna think that 
 it wad do me mickle guid in the country where I am 
 to travel, to pretend wi' the hp to what is no in the 
 heart ! But if it will do you ony guid, I will aye say 
 a prayer after ye — you taking the responsibihty, as 
 
 335
 
 326 KID McGHIE 
 
 it were. And if you could reconcile it wi' your con- 
 science to bring me in a twist o' tobacco, Kinahan's 
 Irish Blackguard for choice, I wad caa' the maitter 
 square ! " 
 
 These things did Mr. Archbold Molesay, immaculate 
 police missionary. And if any of the warders of the 
 prison, or the master of it himself, had by the smell 
 of tlie nostril any suspicion of the contents of his 
 coat-tail pockets, they winked hard upon the hither 
 eye as he passed in and out. 
 
 It is well to be trusted and have a character. For 
 had any other come with an order of admission to 
 the condemned cell, he would have been searched 
 to his lamb's- wool undervest, in fear of prussic acid, 
 or other means of " cheatin' the widdy." 
 
 All the same the representations of the five as to 
 the death and dying depositions of Mad Mag were 
 thought of sufficient consequence that the Knifer 
 received a reprieve to allow of inquiries to be made. 
 But the letter of the secretary of state to the prisoner's 
 advocate defined clearly that, unless something more 
 was brought to hght, there was no idea of extending 
 any permanent pardon to the Knifer. In short, in 
 high quarters Mag's story was not beheved. She 
 had perjured herself in vain. And yet perhaps not 
 wholly, if it be true that there is One who regards the 
 intents of the heart. 
 
 Still, from here and there, from neighbours in the 
 great " land " of Hagman's Close, from dwellers in 
 the vicinity of the Three Ridings, there arrived at the 
 bureau of justice certain corroborations of Mag's 
 story. One had seen her leave Edinburgh that 
 afternoon in company with her husband. This was 
 thought a remarkable thing at the time, but was 
 understood to mean that, in the absence of McGhie's 
 Kid and Duffus, the Knifer had to put up with the 
 best assistance he could obtain. 
 
 A farmer, looking his sheep high on Kingside, had 
 watched a woman hke Mag going straight across the
 
 BABY LANT'S REPENTANCE 327 
 
 fields from the direction of Three Ridings. The 
 Knifer himself had nothing to say, for or against. 
 
 " Maybe I didna do this that they are hangin' me 
 for," he said, " but there is no manner o' use in lettin' 
 Mag, puir silly wench, bear the weight o't — and her 
 deid ! Na, na, let every herrin' find the weight o' 
 its ain tail, as I am like to do some fine caller morning 
 before long. And the guidwives o' the High Street 
 will stop turnin' the ham in the pan, syne look oot at 
 the window wi' the fork in their hand, and say as the 
 black flag gaes flapperin' up, ' Aye — yon's the Knifer, 
 puir chield ! Noo he kens what's what better than 
 ony minister amang them a' ! ' " 
 
 Curiously enough, the Knifer asked more than once 
 for news of the Kid. He seemed to bear no malice, 
 and even expressed a wish to see him. But this was 
 beyond even Mr. Molesay's mandate. The authorities 
 feared some sudden transport of anger. The Knifer 
 understood and waved his request aside almost grace- 
 fully. 
 
 " Aweel," he said, " let him be. If he is to be 
 reared as a gentleman in a minister's hoose, it is 
 maybe as weel that he should have as few memories 
 as possible. But I think he wiU aye be a fair good 
 locksmith a' his life. I wot that * Blind Jacob's ' 
 will have done that muckle for him ! " 
 
 It was a fair, clear, brisk day in a somewhat chilly 
 August that the Kid started down to revisit for the 
 second time his native town of Kirkmessan. He was 
 now " Master Alexander McGhie," and the discipHne 
 of the " Peat " had squared his shoulders and har- 
 dened his features, yet without taking the boyishness 
 out of his cheeks. 
 
 Patricia had not visited her home for a long time. 
 She had been looking a Httle pale of late. The suspense 
 was telling on her. So it was resolved that she should 
 escort " Master Alexander " down to the care of her
 
 328 KID McGHIE 
 
 sister, a certain Mrs. William Heath Sjmiington, 
 intimately known to this history as " Marthe." 
 
 As soon as this design became known it was remark- 
 able — according to Baby Lant — how many gentlemen 
 had business in that customarily httle-visited pro- 
 vincial town. 
 
 For at the last moment Baby Lant had decided to 
 come, too — to see fair play, as she alleged. 
 
 " I want a rest from uncle and aunt," she declared. 
 " I suppose they were more bearable in the time of 
 the Hammers — who took care of them, setting them 
 in their baby chairs, and taking them out, like twins 
 in one perambulator ! But now since they have 
 awaked to the belief that the necessary daily repairs 
 upon their persons can be effected with the aid of 
 their guests — really, Patricia, a frivolous person such 
 as I cannot stand very much of them at a time. I 
 am going to beg of Philip Egbert to have you taken 
 into favour again " 
 
 " No — no," cried Patricia, gladly estabUshing herself 
 in the carriage. " Let every heiress bear her own 
 burden. It's your turn now. And as for me : 
 
 " ' Come, birdie, come, and live with me, 
 You shall be happy, light, and free ! 
 You shall be all the world to me, 
 
 Come, birdie, come . . . AND live with me !' " 
 
 " Pat," said Baby Lant, bitterly, " if you want to 
 have a six-shilhng novel — uncut, at bookstall, no 
 discount — thrown at your head, you have only to say 
 so, you know ! " 
 
 " Well," pursued Patricia, more meekly, " you must 
 make allowances — it was only the effect of being poor 
 and happy which made me burst, as it were, into 
 unpremeditated song ! " 
 
 " Unpremeditated fiddlesticks ! " cried Baby Lant. 
 " One thing I know — if I had been convoying the
 
 BABY LANT'S REPENTANCE 329 
 
 Kid down to Marthe's I should have had the pleasure 
 of his company alone ! But with you, Pat — one has 
 half the countryside in attendance. I declare — these 
 two men — well . . . if . . . ever I did ! 
 One is hunting for grapes and unripe fruit at the 
 cigarette stall — and the other, that's Mr. Molesay, 
 is gazing at the bookstall as if he were seriously in 
 debate as to what wouldn't hurt your youthful mind. 
 It's a shame, Pat, and I won't have it ! He shall pay 
 attention to me. I'm not going to sit five hours and 
 see the Kid worship you with his big eyes, and Mr. 
 Molesay flush up and stop in the middle of his sen- 
 tences, and Heame, the great stupid, keep looking 
 at you as if you were good to eat — candy or some- 
 thing ! " 
 
 " Hush, Baby, here they come with the boy ! " 
 whispered Patricia. 
 
 " / don't care," said Baby Lant. " Mr. Molesay 
 is going to take some notice of me, or I'm going to 
 jump out of the carriage window, or up into the 
 luggage rack, and then he'll have to ! " 
 
 Just then the men entered, bearing their treasures 
 of books, pamphlets, fruit, while the Kid, all uneasy 
 — but very proud — in his new rig, was given a place 
 in the comer — because, as the curl of Baby Lant's 
 hp intimated scornfully, " everybody else wanted to 
 sit beside Patricia ! " 
 
 Each mile that the racing wheels of the deep-blue 
 Caledonian locomotive put behind them, every arriving 
 landscape, seemed to take the Kid mto a new world 
 — a world of hills and fine rare aenal distances, and, 
 strangest of all, of foregrounds in winch people laughed 
 and talked and smiled ! 
 
 At first he sat merely amazed, uncomprehending. 
 Did other people talk hke that ? Such a flow of little 
 kindly nothings, just to show each other how happy
 
 330 KID McGHIE 
 
 they were ! The people the Kid had previously 
 known swore, threatened, ordered, bulhed — punctu- 
 ating all their sayings and doings with blows. Well, 
 no, not all — there was his father. 
 
 Yes, his real father — David McGhie, of Back Mill 
 Lands. He had been different. He had been more 
 like these people — only sad, only silent. But he had 
 been of their world. And aching vaguely in his 
 boyish heart, the Kid began to watch and imitate. 
 He would try to saj' things as they said them — espe- 
 cially Baby Lant. He would do things as they did 
 them — especially Baby Lant. 
 
 Never had he dreamed of anything so bewitching 
 as this girl now seemed to him. Miss Patricia and 
 Heame had been kind to him — oh, yes, and Mr. 
 Molesay. Baby Lant he had only seen for a minute 
 or two, that terrible day on the moor. Yes, Baby, 
 perhaps it was for that reason, and still more because 
 of the adorable way you had of throwing your arms 
 back and clasping your little hands behind your head 
 — lazy Baby Lant, blue-eyed Baby Lant, with lips 
 that curled sometimes with dehghtful malice, some- 
 times with laughing guile — this small kid of the goats 
 lost his heart to you. And, indeed, save that Patricia 
 had done everything for him, small blame to him ! 
 But in love, that is usually the last thing that makes 
 any difference. 
 
 It was with shame that the Kid passed the ticket 
 collector at Kirkmessan. He knew him for Tom 
 She wan, the station master's son at Portnessock. 
 But Tom did not recognise this young gentleman in 
 the well-cut town suit, the carefully trimmed hair, 
 the rare and low-toned speech. Above all, the facts 
 that he was in the company of " some o' thae McGhie 
 lasses," and was going to " the minister's," compelled 
 Tom Shewan — actually, yes, he did it — to touch his 
 new railway cap. If he had suspected that he had 
 done such a thing to McGhie's Kid, to use his own 
 expression, " he would have ' bust ' ! "
 
 BABY LANT'S REPENTANCE 331 
 
 But he did not know. And so the fact marks a new 
 stage in the hfe history, the rise and progress of 
 McGhie's Kid. 
 
 It was something from which the Kid was rather 
 inchned to turn away his eyes, to see the welcome 
 that Marthe gave them in the httle square stone 
 *' kist " of a manse at the corner of the Carlops Road. 
 There was a new tenderness in her eyes, for was there 
 not a brass-fended cot upstairs in which lay what 
 Baby Lant called " a httle squalling brat," and the 
 brat's nearest relative, on the female side, designated 
 as " mother's own sweetness," " mammy's four-leafed 
 clover," with other foolish names — hearing which 
 Baby Lant cried out, unsympathetically, " Oh, give 
 it its father's sermons to play with. It will understand 
 them perfectly. There never was such a wondrous 
 babe in this world ! " 
 
 " Daisy is not an ' It,^ I would have you remember, 
 Atalanta," cried the proud mother ; " and she doesn't 
 want sermons ! She has your old writing desk, 
 the one you left here before you went away, to play 
 with. The letters were all scattered about the nursery 
 floor — hello. Baby Lant, where are you going to in 
 such a hurry ? " 
 
 And disregarding Baby Lant's hurried rush up 
 the stairs to save her private correspondence from 
 the fell grip of the destroyer, Marthe turned to Pat 
 with a smile of quiet triumph. 
 
 " Being married does teach you a few odd things," 
 she said. " For instance, how to deal with younger 
 sisters when they are impertinent ! " 
 
 " I suppose you don't include me, Marthe," said 
 Pat, gravely. " I don't dance waltzes with twirling 
 chairs any more. And I speak of babies respectfully, 
 and always by the personal pronoun denoting sex 
 — never as 'It.' There are signs of grace about 
 
 me." 
 
 " Yes," said Marthe sagely, throwing her arm 
 about her sister's neck (having first noticed that her
 
 332 KID McGHIE 
 
 husband was showing the Kid round the orchard, 
 and explaining the system of grafting fruit trees to 
 Daisy) ; "of course it was dreadful of you to run 
 away and all that — but " 
 
 " You would have done the same, Marthe — if 
 HE had been Willie ! " 
 
 " Oh, of course," said Marthe, "but that's impossible ! 
 There is no one in the least hke WiUie. That is the 
 conclusion I have come to now — though I knew it 
 before. And he is so nice with baby. And Daisy 
 knows him, too — says ' Gooo ' and ' Guggle-guggle,' 
 and pulls his moustache. It's wonderful ! " 
 
 " Mr. Symington will now be able to add the usual 
 ' Word to Mothers ' at the end of his sermons with 
 more serious conviction ! " said Pat, somewhat in 
 her earher manner. 
 
 " Willie's sermons are not hke anybody else's — you 
 shall hear ! " said the loyal Marthe. " I hope your 
 . . . friend . . . has right views, Pat ! " 
 
 " I'm sure I never asked him," cried Pat, with a 
 certain indignation. " He has twice spent every 
 penny he possessed on a Reformatory for Boys. Then 
 he worked hke a navvy for a hundred a year, because 
 he had given away all he possessed to make his poor 
 boys better. As to his views, you can ask him your- 
 self. And if you don't hke them, you can . . . 
 forbid us the house ! " 
 
 " Dear — dear — httle spitfire Pat," cried Marthe, 
 winding her arms, grown the faintest tinge more 
 matronly in their curves, about her sister's neck. 
 " He shall be a Mohammedan — that he shall, if he 
 hkes ! And he can spread his praying carpet in the 
 comer of my drawing-room. He shall cry ' Allah-il- 
 Allah ' or whatever it is, morning and night, from the 
 top of Willie's steeple. But don't be angry with 
 your Marthe any more ! " 
 
 Effectively, no one could long be angry with Marthe. 
 Daisy's grandmother came down to see her every 
 day, and seemed in the fair way to spoil her when
 
 BABY LANT'S REPENTANCE 333 
 
 she grew up. For already the httle thing squirmed 
 in her cot, and held out her arms at the sound of the 
 stiff-rustling brown silk on the nursery stairs, which 
 pleased the old lady very much. 
 
 P. Brydson McGhie was recovering from the 
 shock which the trial had given to his " pedi- 
 greeing." He generally turned up, however, once 
 a Sunday — on fair, rainless, windless days — to 
 patronise the Martyrs' Kirk and to drop a whole 
 golden sovereign into the plate with a resounding 
 clang ! 
 
 P. Brydson did not, at first, approve of the Kid. 
 But, then, his opinion was not asked. He had, however 
 a great reverence for Baby Lant, who was to be an 
 heiress — vice Patricia, superseded — and also for Patricia 
 who — it was not too early to take for granted — would 
 one day be my Lady Athabasca. To be the father 
 of " a genuine peeress " was even worth more to P. 
 Brydson than to be chief of the clan and head of the 
 name — wholly barren honours both. 
 
 In any case the Kid was finally presented to him 
 as a somewhat shy boy whom Pat and Baby Lant 
 had taken a fancy to, and had asked Marthe to help 
 them bring up. Very proper, he said, it was excellent, 
 for the Symingtons were not at all weD off, and it is 
 good for young people to bear the yoke in their youth. 
 P. Brydson had done it himself. Most proper, indeed ! 
 He would look in occasionally and see how the boy 
 got on in arithmetic. He had always noticed that 
 his son-in-law, being a minister, was notably defective 
 in that branch — a thing by no means singular in his 
 class. 
 
 Thus, for the first time in his hfe, the head of the 
 Clan McGhie had a chance in hfe. A justice of the 
 peace was taking an interest in him. 
 
 It must be allowed, however, that " the behaviour 
 of Baby Lant " left somethmg to be desired at this
 
 334 KID McGHIE 
 
 time. Indeed it would require a book as large as 
 this entire history to do it justice — and, speaking from 
 the craftsman's point of view, I have a great mind 
 to write it. The title is there at any rate, and a very 
 good one it is. 
 
 Marthe designated it as " nothing short of scan- 
 dalous." So the volume ought by analogy to have 
 some considerable success. " The Behaviour of Baby 
 Lant " is not yet, however, upon the market. 
 
 Patricia remembered with compunction how she 
 used to balance herself on two chair backs and was 
 silent. Heame Mackenzie would not have cared 
 if Baby Lant had pubhcly bayed the moon, so long 
 as he was permitted to escort Patricia about, and 
 see the places where she used to lie on the banks of 
 the Messan Water, hot and lazy, wondering why 
 only boys were allowed to go in swimming ! Or he 
 would look with his trained woodman's eye at the 
 trees Pat used to climb, and the younger brethren of 
 the green apples she used to — no, not steal — but obtain 
 without the consent of the proprietor ! He was 
 introduced to aU the McGhie brothers, even Rob 
 having sobered down into something so reasonable 
 as a clerk in Dribble & HiUowton's lawyers' office 
 in Kirkmessan town. They all wished that Gilbert 
 had been there, and wrote off a letter to say that 
 they had a joint invitation to go and shoot at Three 
 Ridings ! So it was aU right, if only, conjunctly 
 and severally, they could " fudge " as much out of 
 the " old 'un " as would pay for their gun licences — 
 the fellow wa.s so dead gone on Pat that he would 
 lend them all his best guns. He, too, was " all right," 
 and had even shot grizzly bear. But otherwise, 
 owing to the unaccountable infatuation aforesaid, 
 he was " dead soft," and could be worked hke modelling 
 clay in the hands of the potter, by these highly agree- 
 able brothers McGhie. Toward the fund necessary 
 for exploiting such a potential mine of wealth, Gilbert 
 was warned to " strike the mater " for as many fivers
 
 BABY LANT'S REPENTANCE 335 
 
 as he could, to help him through with his " exams," 
 and then to economise like fun, so that gun and game 
 hcences together with tips for the keepers might be 
 forthcoming when the visit to Three Ridmgs took 
 place ! 
 
 Nice, thoughtful, provident young men were the 
 brothers McGhie, and, as saith the poet, " most 
 remarkable Uke you " — and me ! 
 
 But Baby Lant ! It is obvious that her much-to- 
 be-reprobated behaviour must have been with the 
 only unattached adult of the party — that is, with 
 Mr. Molesay. 
 
 And so it was. Let it be said for her, however, 
 that she had been " dared " to it by the wicked and 
 designing Heame, who had been struck by the silent 
 worship with which the little city missionary watched 
 Patricia. Baby Lant could do no harm, he thought. 
 She might even effect a cure, on the principle of " two 
 into one goes no times." 
 
 Thus, had Mr. Molesay been other than what he 
 was, treading a wilderness way — pillar of fire before, 
 and behind, in the lurid red of the dead simset, the 
 guardian pillar of cloud — he might have been butchered 
 to make an Atalantean holiday. 
 
 But Mr. Molesay, though in his deepest heart 
 preserving ever a memory of that day — the one day 
 of his life when he had wandered through flowery 
 meads, the hand of an innocent and gentle girl on 
 his arm, great turquoise eyes looking up to his, her 
 hps chattering of all things bright and fresh and glad 
 like herself — remembered also that there were those 
 waiting for him in the grimy Cowgate with stronger 
 claims. He could not, he thought, have made this 
 girl better, or truer, or simpler, or more trusting 
 and worthy of trust than she was. 
 
 " God bless her ! " murmured the little city mis- 
 sionary, with an involuntary uplift of the heart. 
 He thought she was hke her sister, Patricia, which 
 was not at all true.
 
 336 KID McGHIE 
 
 " God bless you, my dear ! " he said aloud, as 
 she smiled trustfully up at him. " Your smile is 
 hke the white clouds in the blue when the sun 
 shines — Hke the morning Hght on banks of yellow 
 broom and whin in the springtime. I am glad God 
 made it ! " 
 
 And then Baby Lant, for the first time in her life, 
 had the grace — quite temporary — to be ashamed 
 of herself. 
 
 " Are you not happy here ? " she asked, a little 
 sobered and wistful somehow. 
 
 " Happy ! " he answered. " So happy that I 
 am fairly ashamed of myself, when there are those 
 waiting for me away back yonder in the dim place 
 — Billy and Kate Earsman, the big blacksmith, Jock 
 Cockpen " 
 
 " Oh," said Baby Lant, clasping her hands swiftly 
 before her, " no wonder you hate and despise me 
 — thinking of such things as that ! " 
 
 " Hate you — despise you ? Oh, my dear ! " said 
 Mr. Archbold Molesay, turning toward her, his hat, 
 as usual, in his hand, and a Hght wind touching the 
 argentine ripple of his hair. 
 
 The girl turned her eyes to him, dimmed with a 
 hght dew, which was not tears, but a sense of un worthi- 
 ness transforming itself into moisture. 
 
 " Ah," she said, " some day, perhaps, I shall be 
 serious and wise, like Marthe. Or make everybody 
 think how splendid I am — hke Pat ! But just now 
 I can't — I don't seem to know how — that is " 
 
 And what had been only a generous moisture 
 deepened into wells, overbrimmed, and ran down 
 the wild-rose cheeks in big tears. Baby Lant could 
 do this when she hked, but she was not playing 
 this time. 
 
 Said the city missionary, laying his hand very 
 gently on her arm, and turning her about to see the 
 green cowslip-spangled fields, the meadows creamed 
 with meadowsweet, all fading away into the pale-
 
 BABY LANT'S REPENTANCE 337 
 
 blue distance, and arched over by the bluer sky, 
 ** I said before that God made your smile. And now 
 I say that He made you as you are, for your own 
 work — to make all, women and men alike, glad by 
 your beauty. Why not ? There is nothing more 
 pernicious than the idea that good women are jealous 
 of beautiful women. If all things were made with 
 a purpose, be sure, my dear, that your beauty was 
 given you to bring joy to weary, anxious, warring 
 hearts. Be glad and gay. That is what you are 
 in the world for. Remember the purple hill shadows 
 on lonely lochs where no one sees them, hidden in 
 the vast of the hills. Think what gorgeous sunsets 
 are wasted on those wide ocean circles where not a 
 single ship ever comes from year's end to year's end ! 
 But there — I am at it once more — sermonising again. 
 As I said before — the dyer's hand, my dear. But I 
 shall not forget you — or your sister. I go back to-night 
 to the dim place — the under-city — where I must 
 labour till I die, among the spirits in prison." 
 
 The httle missionary was speaking so softly now 
 that none could hear him but Baby Lant. They 
 were at the extreme high end of the narrow poHcies 
 of Balmaghie, and could trace for miles beneath them 
 the course of the Messan Water. 
 
 " And did you never love anyone, really ? " said 
 Baby Lant, softly, all her folly having dropped from 
 her as a cloak falls from the shoulders, " any woman, 
 I mean ? " 
 
 The little missionary stood looking down at the 
 wide spread of the dale and up at the purple of the 
 heather breaking out on the flanks of the hills. He 
 was silent so long that Baby Lant, afraid that she 
 had offended him, hastened to add, " Don't tell me 
 if you would rather not ! Please don't ! — I — I — I 
 didn't mean to hurt you ! " 
 
 " Yes, one," said the missionary, pensively, but 
 not looking directly at her, "but — ^it was too late. 
 I had not the right ! " 
 
 22
 
 338 KID McGHIE 
 
 " Our Pat — I know ! " murmured Baby Lant, 
 not as a question at all, but with all the sympathy 
 in her heart. 
 
 The missionary was silent. Something of the 
 wistfulness which dwells in all blue distances when 
 looked at long, came into his dim eyes. 
 
 " I have not the right to ask any woman to share 
 my lot," he said. " I have argued it out before. 
 In some ways the Cathohcs are right. For the far 
 lands of fever and danger — for the dim city closes — 
 it is good for a man to be alone. It is good — it is 
 good ! " 
 
 " For the man ? " queried Baby Lant, who was 
 watching him sharply. "Archbold Molesay, dare 
 you say that it is good for you ? " 
 
 The little missionary started at the mention of 
 his name. But he only firmed his hps and continued : 
 
 " Even if I had been young — and she — free," he 
 faltered here a little — " I dared not. I could not 
 have taken her — there. Once she was amongst us, 
 and I saw. She never could have been of us. She 
 passed by, hke the angels along the streets of the 
 cities of the plain. Well," he turned sharply, as if 
 to put aside the subject with a wave of his hand, 
 " what am I saying ? What foUy — ah, what terrible 
 foUy ! You will not teU her. It came over me — 
 something in the day ! Something also, in your eyes, 
 perhaps — yes, I think it was that ! "' 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Baby Lant, moved as she never 
 had been before. " What a pity you did not faU in 
 love with me and not with Pat. But you didn't, 
 you see. And oh, I want so to help you — and I 
 can't ! " 
 
 " I might have been your father, child," said the 
 httle missionary, " and I see that your words run away 
 with your kind heart. You wiU be a blessing and a 
 brightness to a man of your own age. And for me, 
 I shall never forget the happiness it has been to know 
 you — and — and — your sister ! "
 
 BABY X.ANT'S REPENTANCE 339 
 
 He looked so sad and so in want of a woman to 
 take care of him that Baby Lant, her heart leaping 
 to her throat, clasped her hands and cried, " Oh, 
 can't I do anything before you go ? " 
 
 She stood breathless a long moment, almost panting 
 with that wliich she had on the tip of her tongue to 
 utter, then it came with a rush : 
 
 " You don't care a button about me, I know," 
 she'said, hastily, "but would you mind if I kissed you ? 
 Would you really mind ? It would make me happier. 
 I know you would rather it was Pat — but though 
 it's only me ! " \ 
 
 There was the sigh of the wind among the leaves 
 overhead, a hush hke the passing of a good if tricksy 
 spirit. And lo ! the Uttle missionary was kissed for 
 the first time since his mother kissed him good-bye at 
 the wayside station, before the train started that bore 
 him collegeward with his bursary. 
 
 " Thank you ! " he said, gravely, as he stood holding 
 a little trembUng hand in his, on the back of which 
 occasional big warm drops were falHng. 
 
 This was Baby Lant's repentance for her sometime 
 behaviour. She had done what she could.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE LAST RAID OF " BLIND JACOb's " 
 
 " Blind Jacob's " did not take its defeat in good 
 part. The Knifer'was out of the reach of its aid. 
 He had been reprieved, it is true. But few believed 
 that anything would come out of Mad Mag's last 
 dying words and testimony. Nevertheless, in a 
 httle sunk flat near the house called " Davie Dean's 
 Cottage " — of which Scott said that wherever Davie 
 Dean dwelt it was certainly not there — Corn Beef 
 Joe, Daddy Lennox, Fighting Nick Brady, and the 
 young man who was now the brains of the concern, 
 a certain Duffus of the red tie, met to discuss the 
 situation. They could look up at an acute angle 
 and see a patch of sky above them, and far away to 
 the right the gray scarred wall of the Salisbury Craigs. 
 The rest of the house was unoccupied, the windows 
 boarded, but Duffus having speedily improvised a 
 key, the lower portion was theirs for so long a time 
 as the house remained unpulled down. For it was 
 condemned, and Prof. Peter Geddie, the man who has 
 let more light into Edinburgh than a score of Acts of 
 Parliament, was about to build on the site another 
 of his picturesque red-tiled barracks. 
 
 In the meantime, and wholly without the con- 
 currence of Professor Geddie, the college staff of 
 " St. Jacob's," driven to their last intrenchments, 
 had rallied here their forces. It was but little time 
 they could venture to spend together, for, except 
 Duffus, who had proved hitherto invisible and un- 
 
 340
 
 LAST RAID OF " BLIND JACOB'S " 341 
 
 graspable, the whole company was under the observa- 
 tion of the poUce. ^vj 
 
 The exchequer also, general and personal, was 
 ominously low. Something must be done and that 
 instanter. There was no time to plot revenge on 
 the Kid for his testimony against the Knifer, nor 
 for any recriminations as to the helter-skelter sauve 
 qui pent which had disgraced the attempt upon Three 
 Ridings during the night of the fire at the " Peat." 
 They would manage better the next time. 
 
 Duffus of the red tie had an idea. At this everyone 
 pricked up his ears. Duffus was worth Hstening to. 
 There was only one thing against Duffus — he could 
 devise better than anybody, except perhaps the 
 Knifer. Some said that he had a better headpiece than 
 even that hero, whom, being about to die, assembled 
 "St. Jacob's " saluted in raw whisky — whisky such 
 as Billy Earsman would have thrown into the sink. 
 In execution also, there was a finish about Duffus, 
 and his faking of handwriting — weU, it was " classy." 
 That was all that could be said. Many thought it 
 was a pity that he did not give himself entirely to 
 that high craft. But something fascinating about 
 locks and levers, the laying of wires on dewy gloaming 
 grass, and long night vigils preparatory to mounting 
 by the banisters to avoid electric bells, fascinated 
 Duffus and kept him on the main, well-trodden road 
 of burglary. 
 
 But — are there not spots in the sun ? Duffus 
 of the red tie could not be depended on to stand by 
 a comrade. In a time of danger, when Knifer would 
 have been in the forefront — first in the fray, last in 
 flight, his brown neb-cap an oriflamme, Duffus simply 
 was not there at all. 
 
 He disappeared — as completely as if he had the 
 capacity, traditionally useful in his calling, of rendering 
 himself invisible. But no " thieves' candle," held 
 in any dead man's hand, could have equalled in marvel 
 the disappearances of Duffus. They were the talk
 
 343 KID McGHIE 
 
 of all "St. Jacob's." But all the same, they made 
 men a little chary of working with him. If so be 
 the piper were to pay, his comrades knew well that 
 Duff us would not be there to foot the score. 
 
 But all the same, they were no children, these 
 grim-featured, close-shaven outlaws of the northern 
 city. There was Daddy Lennox, grownn old and almost 
 respectable in crime, who had his preferences as to 
 which wing of the Calton he should be put into, and 
 sometimes condescended to give valuable biographical 
 notes upon the warders, past and present, of Perth 
 Penitentiary. There was Com Beef Joe, who lacked 
 the Knifer to keep him in order. All were ready to 
 look after themselves, and — ^if Duffus proved too 
 " slippy " — weU, it would be no difficult thing to put 
 a spoke in Duffus's wheel. They conveyed some such 
 warning to the young man, to which, as he could not 
 do without them, Duffus paid heed. 
 
 '* This is my plan," said Duffus, without taking 
 offence. And at these words there feU a silence that 
 might have been smelt — each man draining his glass 
 of fusel-oil whisky which perfumed the sunk flat, 
 so that a passing inspector of cleaning and lighting 
 sniffed ominously and vowed that these old houses 
 on Dean's Brae, between that and " Gibraltar," 
 must be seen to before long — Professor Geddie or 
 no Professor Geddie. 
 
 " Duffus's plan ! " was the toast. They composed 
 themselves to listen, and in a fit of abstraction Com 
 Beef Joe helped himself twice to the whisky, which 
 finished a second bottle neatly. 
 
 " Speak up, Duffus ! " he said to the young man 
 with the brain and the red tie. " Silence there for 
 Duffus ! " 
 
 But the veteran Daddy was not to be deceived. 
 
 " Hold on," he said. " Joe's not left a sup o' the 
 stuff in the heel of the bottle. Draw another cork, 
 lads, and mind he pays for it ! " 
 
 No wonder that the passing sanitary inspector
 
 LAST RAID OF " BLIND JACOB'S " 343 
 
 sniffed and vowed that the place must come down. 
 It was, indeed, time. 
 
 Then DuSus, after long weighing pros and cons 
 in his mind, at last spoke : 
 
 " Three Ridings has been tried, and it ended — well, 
 we know how." He made the movement of a man 
 about whose neck the hangman's rope tightens with 
 a jerk. The fierce faces about him nodded gravely. 
 It might happen to them any day. They made their 
 living on these terms. But not Duff us. He did not 
 mean to die anywhere but in his bed, and that he 
 would put off as long as possible. 
 
 " Humph," he said, scornfully, " you're brave, I 
 Icnow. And you hold your own Uves as cheap as you 
 do that of the man on whom you make a Httle evening 
 call. But what good is it all, I'd like to know ? 
 There's been bungling and bungHng — all for the want 
 of a little decent headwork. Three Ridings tried 
 and our best man's head in the noose. Egham Castle, 
 with all the nobby things collected for three hundred 
 years there for the lifting ! And all that came of it 
 is — a kid in the reformatory — a kid, too, that has 
 since got off for doing a ' spUt ' ! " 
 
 " All right, Duffus," said Daddy, " no use grousing 
 and grumbling ! We done our best, hke them as 
 went before us. And all a gentleman can say is, 
 that we are sorry it isn't better ! No use growling 
 at us ! " 
 
 " Yes, there is," said Duffus, slapping his palm flat 
 on the table. " Three Ridings is now guarded like 
 Edinburgh Castle — ^lodge tiled, outer and inner guard 
 all complete, and that long Chocktaw Injun they call 
 Heame Mackenzie with an armoury of guns ready on 
 his hip — a nice thing for a man to meet going upstairs 
 on the outside of the banisters, and his heart thumping 
 pit-a-pat because of the electric wires. No, Three 
 Ridings is not our game — not mine, at any rate. 
 I make a present of it to a better man. But Egham, 
 now — that's the jockey ! Egham's the real sausage
 
 344 
 
 KID McGHIE 
 
 and mash. They will think it is safe because it has 
 been tried before, and only for papers, mind you. 
 Then the old fellow never keeps anything but a man- 
 servant or two. He has not even replaced Hammer, 
 the old butler, who used to run everything. All one 
 has to do is just to go in with a bag, fill it at one's 
 leisure, and come away when ready — no shooting, 
 no shrieking maids, no electric traps in such an old- 
 fashioned house — no nothing — port wine, ready de- 
 canted, on the sideboard. Help yourself standing — 
 free lunch and side shows — biscuits down below on 
 gold plate, chests of silver plate, not to speak of family 
 jewels. Who wants to stand in with me ? Go where 
 glory calls — Egham or Westminster Abbey ! " 
 
 They all would, enthusiastically ; even Com Beef 
 Joe, though he distrusted Duff us instinctively, as 
 having something back in his head which he of the 
 horse face could not understand. But now, the 
 coup certainly seemed of the easiest, as described 
 by Duff us. The red tie's enthusiasm carried all 
 before it. Egham Castle it was to be — Egham Castle 
 and no error ! 
 
 And Egham Castle, after weeks of spj^ng, it was. 
 
 Duffus did the arranging. He watched on the 
 moor till he knew by heart and by the instinct of the 
 bom malefactor, all the comings and goings of the 
 neighbours. For instance, in the case of Egham 
 Castle, it was necessary to study also those of Heame 
 Mackenzie, who, indeed, constituted their greatest 
 peril. For he would ride over at any hour, and if Pat 
 happened to be at Egham with her sister, her lover 
 had been known to ride right round the house after 
 midnight, or sit his horse motionless on the road for 
 half an hour at a stretch, looking at the lights going 
 out one by one in the windows of the bedroom floor. 
 
 Duffus, therefore, warned by this unaccountable 
 young man, chose a time when both sisters were down 
 at their father's — at least, they were certainly absent 
 from Egham Castle. And, as Duffus learned from
 
 LAST RAID OF " BLIND JACOB'S " 345 
 
 a too talkative scullery maid, whose parcels he carried 
 to the great white gate from Ringside Station, they 
 were not expected back for another week. The 
 probabiUties were, therefore, that Hearne would not 
 be so recklessly ready to risk his horse's legs and his 
 own neck across the deep hags and treacherous slime- 
 pits of Maw Moss. 
 
 The night was fixed. The conspirators, four in 
 number, were on the moor at nine of the clock. Duffus 
 indeed, had been there all day. The others, Com 
 Beef Joe, Daddy Lennox and Fighting Nick Brady 
 had dropped in, more casual-hke, descending un- 
 obtrusively at Ringside and other adjacent stations, 
 from which they had to walk two or three miles at the 
 most. 
 
 This foursome said httle. Duffus was in a villainous 
 temper, having had to stay out on the moor all day, 
 and no one having thought to bring him anything 
 except a box of matches for an evening meal. They 
 listened in silence to his tongue for some time, and 
 then, without a word. Com Beef Joe started up and, 
 going almost on all fours and keeping behind the 
 intersecting ditches and peaty hummocks, he retumed 
 in half an hour with half a loaf of bread, some 
 canned meat of his favourite brand, and — a bottle 
 of beer. 
 
 " There," he said, tmculently. " And now be good 
 enough to stash it ! We've had enough of your 
 mouth ! " 
 
 The twilight began to close in. The band of four, 
 with Duffus now fallen silent and replete, lay watching 
 the Hghts come out in the great lonely pile of Egham 
 Castle. The whaup sought his dewy couch with his 
 usual long-waiHng diminuendo, a lament for the 
 dying day. The pewits, restless and suspicious, 
 circled closer about. Up in the hft a Httle cloud of 
 plovers, gray and golden, swung and swirled. Stone- 
 chats were " checking " on every bush. The shadows 
 shifted and lengthened so that a head, injudiciously
 
 346 KID McGHIE 
 
 elevated, cast the shape of a giant athwart the yellow 
 and gray of the bent. 
 
 But the pick of " St. Jacob's " senatus cared for 
 none of these things. Loot, and the excitement of 
 getting it, sufficiently occupied their minds. They 
 were not very anxious, only pleasurably excited. 
 But they listened while Duffus explained to them 
 that all the plate in the world wasn't worth being 
 hanged for. So that, if they were trapped, it was 
 their duty to struggle till the last, to use every wile — 
 but no knives, no pistols ! Did they hear that ? 
 
 The four listened, and after he had finished, Com 
 Beef Joe felt for his leather sheath, to make sure that 
 he had his ready "in case." The hand of Daddy 
 Lennox travelled to his hip — for he was of the old 
 Charles Peace school and stiU carried a revolver — 
 while Fighting Nick Brady clenched his fist, and 
 thanked his patron saint — Nicholas by name — that 
 his doubled bunches of lives would be sufficient for 
 all practical purposes, even without the American 
 " dusting " contrivance with which in times of stress 
 he could garnish them. 
 
 The lights came up here and there in the great 
 dark-gray wall of the castle. There was no regular 
 dinner at Egham Castle when the young ladies were 
 not at home. This Duffus knew, and he explained 
 clearly to his accomplices what would, and^as a matter 
 of fact did, happen. 
 
 Only a plate or two would go up to the forlorn old 
 pair in the drawing-room. These would be sent 
 dowTi practically untouched. In the hall WiUiam 
 and the servants regaled themselves on cold meat, 
 picldes, and stout. That was where the greatest 
 light came from. If you tiptoed near and glanced in, 
 you could see high jinks and listen to the sounds of 
 merriment. The scullery maid had offered to intro- 
 duce Duffus to the servants' hall — a well-appearing 
 young man, Duffus — as her cousin or brother, which- 
 ever he preferred. Then he could have a share of the
 
 LAST RAID OF " BLIND JACOB'S " 347 
 
 fun. But, like a prudent lad, Duff us had declined. 
 Duff us kept business and pleasure distinct atid apart. 
 He would see her some day in Princess" Street, he 
 said. From this the scullery maid conceived a great 
 opinion of Duff us — so haughty ! 
 
 Then the hghts began to go out. First in the 
 drawing-room. The " atomies " were being conveyed 
 to their room. They were being undressed. Now 
 they were being read to by William and one of the 
 maids, who, having an English accent, had been 
 specially selected for the purpose. 
 
 Finally the lights mounted higher. All the lower 
 part of the house — the ground floor, the first and 
 second floors — were in perfect darkness. Above in 
 the attics the servants were retiring. The maids 
 were in the east wing, Wilham and a couple of under- 
 lings directly over Mr. Boreham-Egham, so that a 
 bell rope might hang doAvn the wall in a hollow tube 
 into their master's room, and a great green tassel tickle 
 the barren scalp swathed in its close-fitting night 
 cap. 
 
 The maids' lights went out promptly. It was 
 half -past ten. William's lingered a little longer, 
 but aU was quiet before eleven — everything exactly 
 to a dot as Duff us of the red tie had foretold. 
 
 Egham Castle stood out against the sky, a stem 
 and sombre mass, solid as the everlasting hiUs, appar- 
 ently uninhabited and uninhabitable. The four out 
 on the moor were, indeed, not susceptible to impressions 
 such as these. But they were glad that the Hghts 
 were safelv out, that there had been no illness, no 
 sending off for doctors, no general movement through- 
 out the castle in search of drugs, such as had sometimes 
 spoiled the best-laid schemes of mice and burglars — 
 as saith the poet. 
 
 Duff us advised a wait of a full hour at least, to 
 let the inhabitants effectually settle down. Had 
 they not the night before them, and so on — ten minutes 
 of Duffus's cautious advice, while the men fidgeted
 
 348 KID McGHIE 
 
 with their tools, and thought over in their minds 
 the several roles they were to play. 
 
 " Now ! " 
 
 Four shadows moved across the moor as silently 
 as men of the city can over any country place. The 
 Moss of Maw was no joke even in the daytime, and 
 the working kit of four acting professors of the college 
 of " St. Jacob's " makes some noise if it falls. They 
 followed Duff us with care, admonishing each other 
 with brief whispered severity, every time a foot shpped 
 or a jemmy tinkled. 
 
 With a sigh of relief they came out upon the great 
 lawn in front of the mansion. The double stairs 
 leading to the front door, being on the Italian model, 
 appeared hke a shadowy pyramid built against the 
 front of the house. Here and there on the lawn, 
 scientifically, they began rapidly to put in the pegs, 
 for the wires which were to trip up the pursuers, 
 if any should appear. This was the task of Fighting 
 Nick and Com Beef Joe — Daddy Lennox being excused 
 on account of his age, and Duff us because he " had 
 a head on his shoiilders." Besides he had already 
 done his share in watching. 
 
 Duffus of the red tie rubbed his hands and felt 
 himself already the victor. He knew where the Egham 
 strong box was kept. It was an ancient construction. 
 He could have opened it blindfolded. There was no 
 danger anywhere. The other three gathered about 
 him for their final orders. Duffus had begim to speak 
 in a whisper when, suddenly, from room to room of 
 the first floor, a candle began to promenade. 
 
 No shadow was cast upon the bhnds. No sound 
 was heard. There was no disturbance of the mansion. 
 From skyUght to basement, the whole great house 
 was plain mirk, save for this sohtary candle, as it 
 were, taking a walk by itself. 
 
 Then all at once they remembered that in the 
 evidence of Hearne Mackenzie he declared that he 
 had seen a similar sight on the night when his father
 
 LAST RAID OF " BLIND JACOB'S " 349 
 
 had been found with Knifer Jackson's blade in his 
 throat. He, too, had heard nothing — seen nothing 
 — save only this sohtary candle going to and fro in 
 a lone and dreadful house ! 
 
 Now, such men are exceedingly and necessarily 
 superstitious. Duff us and Daddy Lennox would 
 have turned and fled without inquiry. Fighting 
 Nick Brady stood irresolute, not knowing whether 
 to give the thing up or no. But not so Com Beef Joe. 
 He had been present at too many failures, and, next 
 to Knifer Jackson, he was counted the most reckless 
 of all the " St. Jacob's " band. 
 
 " Whether it is a ghost, or only the old cripple 
 walking in his sleep, let Duffus open the door, and 
 rU go up and see," said Com Beef Joe, doggedly. 
 " I'm too near the dollars to go back again without 
 getting my fingers upon them." 
 
 But, in spite of his brave words, it took Joe some 
 time before he could bring himself to mount the 
 staircase. The silence of the great house daunted 
 him — the thought, too, of what he might find ! Why 
 had young Mackenzie sworn to just such a candle 
 being carried about in the house of Three Ridings ? 
 
 Corn Beef Joe was not afraid, but though Knifer 
 Jackson's blade was found hafted in the dead lord's 
 neck, every man of them knew that it was never 
 Knifer Jackson who carried that candle ! 
 
 Who, then, could be the bearer of this one ? 
 
 It was then that the " man " came out, according 
 as it is placed in each individual. There was something 
 in Corn Beef Joe — cold, cruel, and without bowels, 
 as he was — which yet, by his very lack of imagination, 
 placed him above the others at this juncture. He 
 had "sand." 
 
 Duffus, with trembling fingers, undid the little 
 side door. It opened into a passage, in which 
 Hngered a faint smell of stale lamp oil and boot 
 polish. 
 
 " I suppose," muttered Com Beef Joe, bitterly.
 
 350 KID McGHIE 
 
 " whatever happens, I've got to depend on myself ! 
 None o' you looks good enough to back me ! Ah, 
 if I only had the Knifer here ! " 
 
 " If it were only a man, Joe" said Fighting Nick, 
 shaking aU over, " but a ghost — a spirit — ^perhaps 
 a hand without any body going about holding a 
 candle ! " 
 
 " Hands without any body won't do me any harm," 
 said Com Beef Joe, contemptuously. "I'm going 
 up — now ! " 
 
 And he went, his knife ready in one hand, halting 
 at each creak of the staircase. With awe in their 
 hearts and a curious dryness in their mouths the 
 three stood back a httle, lea\dng the door open, so 
 as to give Corn Beef Joe a chance. The candle still 
 continued to promenade to and fro steadily, and as 
 it seemed methodically, from room to room. The 
 bearer appeared to be performing an accustomed 
 task, and for a long time the entrance of Corn Beef 
 Joe made no difference. 
 
 " He must have seen it by now, eh, Daddy ? " 
 said Duffus in a bated whisper. 
 
 " Perhaps It has struck him dead — I've heard o' such 
 things ! " said Daddy, who was nothing if not his- 
 torical. 
 
 " Perhaps worse — mad ! " rectified Fighting Nick, 
 who felt that this was no place for him. His biceps 
 would do him small good here. 
 
 But still no Corn Beef Joe appeared, and the waiters 
 without began to grow anxious. An hour passed 
 and no Joe ! Not a sign in the gi'eat silent mansion. 
 Dawn would soon be coming up out of the east from 
 behind the fir trees on the moor, and the three watchers 
 began to grow mightily uneasy. The feeUng was vague 
 at first, but continued to increase. Duffus held his 
 watch toward the east, which was just begimiing to 
 glow faintly rose. 
 
 " We will give him another quarter of an hour,'* 
 he whispered, and Daddy and Fighting Nick, glad
 
 LAST RAID OF " BLIND JACOB'S '* 351 
 
 of the respite, stepped back a little into the shadow 
 of the laurel bushes. 
 
 But they had not so long to wait. As it seemed, 
 an army of gamekeepers and foresters rose out of 
 the ground all about them. Fighting Nick got in 
 one or two before he was oppressed by numbers. 
 Duffus attempted to make his usual dash for liberty, 
 but this time all his litheness could not save him. 
 Chisholm, the head keeper, had him safe in " chancery " 
 — most unhappy he was while there ! Daddy Lennox 
 tried to entertain the head forester with reminiscences, 
 but was told to " dry-up-and-come-along " all pro- 
 nounced as one word. 
 
 But at this date nothing was heard from Com Beef 
 Joe, who, the bravest of the brave, had entered the 
 house of Egham to solve the mj^^stery of the wandering 
 candle. 
 
 • • • • « 
 
 What Head Keeper Chisholm knew about it he 
 related the next day at least fourteen times with 
 various additions and modifications. This, told to 
 the Ringside schoolmaster, is believed to be the 
 earliest and most authentic version : 
 
 " I was lying in my bed," said the keeper, " wonderin' 
 if Niagara itsel' could mak' mair noise than Mistress 
 Chisholm — that's my wife — when she lies fiat on her 
 back, and, as it were, gies her mind to the snorin' ! 
 When a' on a sudden I heard a voice, hke a voice frae 
 the deid — ' Chisholm — Cliisholm ! ' — it said. An' for 
 a minute I thocht it was auld Hammer corned to send 
 me some errand for the doctor — me no minding that 
 the puir creature was droonded and liis body fand 
 tossin' as if it had been cork atween the muckle 
 Bass and the Isle o' May ! ' Chisholm — Cliisholm ! ' 
 it cried again. My teeth fair chattered as I lifted 
 the window and looked oot. They micht hae saved 
 their trouble, for no a thing could I see — ^bena the 
 black tree branches an' a stern or twa glintin' cannily 
 doon through the chinks.
 
 352 KID McGHIE 
 
 " ' Chisholm — Chisholm ! You are to rise ! ' said 
 a voice — the voice o' the deid, sir, and the sweat 
 brak' cauld upon me frae neck to heel. Then strength 
 was given me and I answered as bauld as the minister 
 wi' the Open Buik afore him. ' I'll rise nane till I 
 ken better wha I hae to do wi' ! ' Me bein' on my 
 feet at the time, an' my sark flappin' ahint me like 
 a flag on the pigeon tower upon the momin' o' the 
 Queen's birthday. 'Then,' said the voice that was 
 like the voice o' the deid, * gather all the lads — take 
 weapons — there's a burglar locked in the strong 
 room at the castle, and three others at the cellar 
 door. See and grip them aU ! If you miss them 
 — then beware — I shall come back ! ' 
 
 *' Sae wi' that I gat me up and took my gun ower 
 my shoother. I ran to the bothy to get the lads. 
 And sure enough we grippit three o' the vaigabonds 
 at the cellar door, and the fourth was in the strong 
 room where the papers are keepit ! Though what 
 the mischief he was doin' there, and the key turned 
 i' the lock ootside — nane can teU but the voice that 
 spak' to me in at the window o' my ain hoose, and 
 never as muckle as steered the mistress ! She snored 
 on — for a' the world Uke unto Niagara ! Oh, it's 
 a fine thing to get the soond sleep ! Eh, sirs, aye ! 
 
 " The lads were a' unkenned to us," continued 
 Chisholm, " but as soon as the chief o' pohss ran his 
 eye ower them, he kenned brawly, for he said, daffin' 
 like, that the hale goodly fellowship o' ' St. Jacob's ' 
 was there ! Then the auld man, that lookit Hke a 
 beadle and the captain — I declare if they didna start 
 crackin' aboot hooses that had been robbit thirty 
 years syne, and fowk that were lang hanged, that 
 cosh and friendly-hke I was feared he wasna gaun 
 to put him in the goal at a' ! But he did, a' richt. 
 
 But the man that was fand lockit up i' the strong 
 room was the maist dazed o' a'. He either couldna 
 or wadna say a word as to how he cam' to be there ! 
 But I'll tell ye plain, lads, I dinna want yon voice
 
 LAST RAID OV " BLIND JACOB'S " 353 
 
 frae the deid cryin' at my winnock sole in a hurry 
 again ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, let it not be doubted, that if the tongue 
 of Corn Beef Joe had beenwilUng to speak that which 
 his eyes had seen, he could have told Chisholm and 
 a few others something very remarkable indeed. 
 
 3S
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE NEW " B. I. P." 
 
 The one notable effect of the final raid of the forces 
 of " BHnd Jacob's " upon the castle was that what 
 Httle spark of life remained in the poor rickety frame- 
 work of Mr. Boreham-Egham was frightened away 
 by the events of that night — the stealthy feet, the 
 irruption of armed men, perhaps something else, then 
 altogether unguessed at. The old man was found 
 dead next morning in his bed, without a mark of 
 violence on his poor made-up body, but with his eyes 
 staring steadily in the direction of the curtain which 
 covered the inner door. His companion automaton 
 survived just four days — ^the great sixty-foot drawing- 
 room having grown too lonesome without that other 
 armchair to wheel opposite to hers. So without 
 more ado Mrs. Boreham-Egham followed her husband 
 to that select corner of heaven where they make you 
 prove four clear descents, aU noble, before they let 
 you in. At any rate she died, and Baby Lant, the 
 day after the second funeral, was greeted by Mr. Searle, 
 of Searle & Dalmahoy, W.S., as the unquestioned 
 heiress of Egham Castle and of aU the Egham estates. 
 
 *' You are your own mistress at twenty-one, my 
 dear young lady," said Mr. Searle, affectingly. " I 
 trust you will not find your time of tutelage too 
 hard ! " 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Mr. Searle," answered Baby 
 Lant. " I am my own mistress now — I always have 
 been. And as I shaU be twenty-one next week, 
 I shall not give you much additional responsibility ! " 
 
 354
 
 THE NEW " B. I. P." 355 
 
 " Bless me, do you tell 'me so ? " cried the startled 
 man of law. " We must begin preparing the papers 
 at once. I trust — I trust — I dare say that you are 
 familiar with the long services which our firm, dating 
 back for many generations, has been able to render 
 to the family of Boreham-Egham ! I trust that " 
 
 " Oh, I have no intention of interfering — so long as 
 you don't bother me, or try to ' boss ' me," said Baby 
 Lant. "Besides, I think you are also lawyers 
 for Lord Athabasca ? " 
 
 " And to his father before him ! " said the lawyer, 
 now reassured, and gathering up his papers with 
 smihng ease. 
 
 " I meant his father," said Miss Atalanta Boreham- 
 Egham. " Of course you might have known that ! " 
 
 The lawyer, a suave bald-headed man, smiled blandly. 
 
 " Am I then to understand that ? " he began. 
 
 And then hesitated before completing his question. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know that it's settled ! " said Baby 
 Lant, hurriedly. " Pat declares she won't marry 
 him till it is all cleared up about the murder of his 
 father !," 
 
 " But I think it is," said the lawyer. " There 
 need be no difficulty. I have it on the best authority 
 that the reprieve granted to the criminal Jackson 
 is purely nominal, to allow time for the effect of his 
 wife's pretended confession to disappear. There is 
 not the least doubt that the woman lied to save her 
 husband ! " 
 
 " So should I ! " cried Baby Lant. " That is, if 
 I could find a man worth lying for ! " 
 
 " You will have the offer of plenty, at least," said 
 the lawyer, bowing again. " Yes, Miss Boreham- 
 Egham, I can promise you that." 
 
 " If you think I had not that before, you much 
 deceive yourself ! " said Baby Lant, complacently. She 
 could not pretend greatly to regret her uncle and 
 aunt. Indeed, only the huge stone figures of grief 
 over the Boreham-Egham mausoleum in the park
 
 356 KID McGHIE 
 
 appeared at all affected. They lield marble hand- 
 kerchiefs to their eyes, the same which had been there 
 for a hundred and fifty years, so that even their grief 
 for Phihp Egbert and his wife could not be said to be 
 very personal. 
 
 But as the lawyer appeared really anxious to be 
 friendly, even apart from the interests of his firm, 
 Baby Lant took him so far into her confidence as 
 to charge liim with a very deHcate negotiation indeed. 
 
 Marthe and her husband would not take a penny 
 of her money. Of that she was well assured. It was 
 necessary to find some way by which they could 
 benefit to something hke the extent of their needs. 
 For love's sake Marthe had elected to be poor, but 
 there was no need for her being too poor. She might 
 continue to make her own frocks. Well, nobody 
 wanted her to stop that. She had always done so, 
 and they had always fitted her like her own smooth 
 brown skin. 
 
 But an extra servant, a month or five weeks at 
 the seaside for Wilhe, the baby, and herself — a few 
 such things would make all the difference. 
 
 The lawyer wrinkled his brow and thought. Then 
 he put a question. It seemed a curious one, and very 
 far away from the subject in hand. 
 
 " Of course there are banks in Kirkmessan," he 
 said. " I beUeve it is a thriving sort of place with a 
 weekly cattle market, so there are bound to be. Do 
 any of the agents go to — ah — I mean attend your 
 brother-in-law's church ? " 
 
 " Let me see ? " meditated Baby Lant, who was 
 not ecclesiastically minded. " Yes — one of them — 
 Mr. McCallum of the Bank of Scotland. He is, I 
 think, session clerk." 
 
 " McCallum — yes, McCallum," meditated Mr. Searle. 
 " Wh5^ the very man. I think he has done some 
 business for us down there. At any rate I can get 
 at him through his general manager, who is a personal 
 friend of mine."
 
 THE NEW " B. I. P." 357 
 
 " Oh, Willie and Marthe would not take the money 
 like that ! " cried Baby Lant, alarmed, " besides, 
 they would be very hurt to think that I had told 
 anyone that they were poor." 
 
 Wary Mr. Searle, who was ecclesiastically minded, 
 smiled and waved his hand blandly toward his client. 
 It was not thus that Searle and Dalmahoy, W.S., did 
 business. 
 
 " Have no fear, my dear young lady," he said, 
 " I can arrange all that, if you will just leave it to 
 me. I guarantee that neither Mr. Symington nor 
 his \vife will know anything about it. They will 
 think it a natural tribute from their appreciative 
 congregation ! Did you ever hear of a Local Endow- 
 ment Scheme ? " 
 
 " Never ! " said Baby Lant, clearly and plainly. 
 He might as well have asked her if she had ever heard 
 of the moon craters by name — Plato, Gassendi, Coper- 
 nicus and the rest of them — of Goombridge 30, that 
 runaway sun on a tear through space, or of any other 
 of the things which constituted the unknown to the 
 pretty head of Baby Lant. 
 
 The lawyer explained at length, somewhat as 
 follows : 
 
 In cases where there was a large and thriving con- 
 gregation — as he understood that of Mr. — ah — 
 Symington was, — the office bearers, including the 
 elders and deacons, were in the habit of adding 
 to their minister's income by forming a Local 
 Endowment Fund, the total proceeds of which went 
 to augment the minister's income. 
 
 He (Mr. Searle) might add that he was an office 
 bearer in West St. Shandwick's himself, and he cer- 
 tainly ought to know something about the matter. 
 Let Miss Atalanta — so far had he progressed — leave 
 the affair with him. There would be organised in 
 the Martyrs' Congregation of Kirkmessan such a fund 
 as that of which he had spoken, and by means of the 
 treasxirpr and session clerk, an anonymous donor—
 
 358 KID McGHIE 
 
 whose name need never be mentioned — would make 
 the amount up to say £250. For the present he did 
 not recommend more than that, as a larger supple- 
 ment from a country congregation might cause as- 
 tonishment and envy. 
 
 " All right ! " said Baby Lant, cheerfully. " But 
 mind, they are not to know. If they do, I shall 
 have to find another lawyer, that's all ! " 
 
 But she smiled as she said it. 
 
 And Mr. Searle, bowing again, remarked in his 
 euavest tones, " In that case our firm will have the 
 happiness of attending to your affairs for a very 
 lengthened period indeed." 
 
 The second use that Baby Lant made of her money 
 was to intimate, always through Messrs. Searle and 
 Dalmahoy, that an anonymous donor had placed the 
 sum of £10,000 in the Bank of Scotland for the purpose 
 of being appUed to the needs of the Cowgate Mission, 
 free from all control save the sole will and pleasure 
 of Mr. Archbold Molesay, missionary there. 
 
 It came upon the httle man hke a thunderclap. 
 
 To build was a slow process. Oh, if only he had 
 a nucleus ! And the Providence which sometimes 
 takes a turn at spoiling the sons of men, arranged 
 that at this very time the great Ogg, Bashan's 
 king, the proprietor of the British Imperial Palace, 
 should fall like Lucifer clear out of the sky of 
 morning. 
 
 He awoke one day, rather late, reached out his hand 
 for his " Thistle,''^ saw a certain marked downward 
 tendency in a stock in which he was interested far 
 beyond anything that was legitimate in his position. 
 But, as usual, he had the straight tip — that " tip " 
 whose fatal rectiUnearity has wrought more ruin than 
 three centuries of fire, shipwreck, and the visitation of 
 God. He hurried dowTistairs, sent off telegram after 
 telegram telHng his broker to hold on — then to buy 
 more — and by the eventide was a ruined man. 
 
 ThS' B. L P. was for sale.
 
 THE NEW " B. I. P." 359 
 
 Then a great thought flashed along Mr. Molesay's 
 brain, and flushed his cheek. If only human nature, 
 especially Cowgate human nature, had been just a 
 little better he would have bought the B. I. P. — 
 licence, good-wiU and all — and made it a model public- 
 house. He thought of himself and Billy Earsman 
 serving out refreshments, in a snowy apron apiece. 
 Then the dance room and little theatre behind — 
 what meetings would they not have there ! New 
 combinations, new entertainments — aU with the idea 
 of gripping and holding his errant flock and exceedingly 
 prodigal children, followed each other through the 
 little missionary's brain. 
 
 But in the morning he saw that it would not do. 
 Things being as they were, a minister of the Nazarene 
 could not hold a pubUc-house. " Temperance refresh- 
 ments " as a sign-board would be enough to turn every 
 Cowgater from his door. But the buildings — the 
 situation — the many exits ! Why, the people would 
 walk in from very force of habit. It was, of course, 
 a valuable property. But Mr. Molesay had several 
 conferences with the lord provost and with Captain 
 Henderland. Strange how things get about ! It 
 came to be rumoured that in no case would the licence 
 of the B.I.P. be renewed, now that Ogg — fled the 
 country — was practically no more ! 
 
 The B. I. P. went to Mr. Archbold Molesay for the 
 very moderate sum of £5,000 ! He had therefore the 
 same amount left for alterations and new buildings. 
 He would get a good deal more from the sale of his old 
 premises. The missionary could hardly sleep at 
 nights for thinking what he would do. First of all 
 he decided that he would not change the name. It 
 would not be " Christian Institution " or Christian 
 anything. For Mr. Molesay had observed that that 
 word, the noblest adjective in the world, affected even 
 the circulation of journals, and kept the average man 
 away from the doors of haUs over which it was car\''ed 
 or gilded. No, the British Imperial Palace it had,
 
 360 KID McGHIE 
 
 been— the British Imperial Palace it should remain, 
 while it and the Cowgate lasted. 
 
 But low in his heart Mr. Molesay said, "Not my 
 palace— God forbid, but the pajace of One who had 
 nowhere to lay His head ! " 
 
 Long ere this Ogg was crossing the ocean with a 
 thousand pounds in gold, which he had kept by him 
 for a rainy day, stowed snugly in the corner of his 
 trunk. He did not sleep well, however, lest he should 
 find a detective waiting for him on the tug which 
 brought out the reporters to interview the greatest- 
 and-only-up-to-date sausage man\ifacturer in the 
 
 world. 
 
 Mr. Molesay, also, did not sleep, wondering what he 
 would do with that last £1,500. There were so many 
 things he wanted— so many things the Cowgate 
 wanted — so many things he could do with the B.I. P. 
 
 Also in her pretty first floor Kate Earsman cried all 
 night, with her arm about her husband's neck, while 
 the great fellow gulped and told her not to— at the worst 
 he could always go to the tunnel and do navvying. 
 
 Joy cometh in the morning. At least it did that 
 morning for the barman and his wife. It arrived in the 
 shape of a black-coated, disgracefully hatted, well- 
 beloved httle man with silvery hair. He found Kate 
 with red eyes frying something extra to tempt Billy 
 to his uneaten breakfast. Billy Earsman had got on 
 very well with Ogg. Ogg had never " tried it on " 
 with Billy. He knew better. And now, all of a 
 sudden, the bottom had dropped out of the big man's 
 world ; what was worse, out of his wife's. 
 
 " See here, Kate," said the httle saviour of society 
 in the Cowgate, " I want you to persuade that man of 
 yours that he can work for me as well as for Ogg. I 
 know he was fond of Ogg. But the British Imperial 
 Palace is mine now, and it will need some handling, 
 I can tell you. I want a big man, strong and willing, 
 with a clean and good-hearted wife to attend to it, 
 and to the people that come to my palace. In fact,
 
 THE NEW " B. I. P." 361 
 
 I want Billy Earsman and his wife, Kate ! They 
 will have Ogg's house on the third floor, two pounds 
 ten a week, coal and gas. It's not much, I know, but 
 it's as much as I can afford " 
 
 He did not get further, for Kate suddenly flung down 
 the fork with which she was turning the fry in the pan, 
 took three steps toward the little missionary as if she, 
 too, were about to clasp him in her arms. Then 
 suddenly coming to herself, she halted, picked up her 
 morning apron by the comers and sobbed into it. 
 Billy watched her open-mouthed. 
 
 " Ye must excuse her," he said at last ; *' she has 
 been knocked endways wi' thinkin' that it was all up 
 with us — me losin' my place and so on. A' nonsense, 
 of course, for a strong chap and a willin' man can 
 a'ways find work — of a kind. But — you know women, 
 sir." 
 
 Little Mr. Molesay was about as ignorant of them as 
 a man can be, yet, though a truthful man, he assented 
 with a smiling nod. 
 
 " Well, now then, Billy," he said, suddenly reverting 
 to his original subject, " is it a go ? Yes or no ? 
 Will you come ? " 
 
 Billy hung his head. 
 
 " If you don't think I'd be a disgrace to the place, 
 sir," he said, slowly spacing out the words. " Some 
 o' them might get askin' for a pint o' beer, and — well, 
 if they gied me ony o' their sauce — I micht be tem^pted 
 to throw them on the street ! " 
 
 " I will risk it," said Mr. Molesay. " And for a 
 while, till we get in order, Kate can look after the 
 refreshment department, with a decent lass to help 
 her. Coffee, with bread and butter, a penny. Cofiee, 
 milk, bread, butter, and cheese, a good meal — two- 
 pence ! How's that, Billy ? " 
 
 " Bless us — and your ' make ' — your profit, I 
 mean ! " explained the astonished Billy. " Why at 
 that rate you will have hard work to pay your nmning- 
 expenses ! "
 
 363 KID McGHIE 
 
 " All right," said Mr. Molesay, smiling ; " I can do 
 it. That is, with Kate to help me, and you, Billy, 
 for doorman and order keeper " 
 
 Here Billy brisked up visibly, all at once looking 
 much happier. 
 
 " Keep order ? " he inquired, in a changed voice. 
 " Would you be wantin' me to keep order for ye, sir ? '* 
 
 And he actually began to roll up his sleeves on the 
 spot. 
 
 " Yes," sighed Mr. Molesay. " You know the 
 Cowgate as well as I do. There is a proportion of 
 chaff among the wheat. The British Imperial Palace 
 shall be open and welcome to all. And I dare say 
 that if even the worst attend and behave themselves, 
 they may be helped of God ! " 
 
 " And if they do not behave themselves," thundered 
 Billy Earsman — late chucker-out at Ogg's — "then 
 God help them ! " 
 
 " Hush, Billy," said the httle missionary ; " we 
 will try the softer methods first. The fruits of the 
 Spirit, you know, are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, 
 gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance—- 
 against such there is no law ! " 
 
 " They're scarce i' the Coogate, Mr. Molesay, them 
 things," said the ex-barman, "except maybe in your 
 ain lodgings. And the law doesna bother the Coogate 
 muckle, either, sir, askin' your pardon." 
 
 "Well, at any rate," continued the happy missionary, 
 " we will have notices for the walls. For the reading 
 room, ' Please do not Speak above a Whisper.* 
 In the games room, and the bowhng alley, and at the 
 billiard and bagatelle tables, there, of course, the men 
 can smoke as much as they want to. But in the 
 general talk and tea room, and where the work-girls 
 may have a httle dance, under proper supervision, 
 after shop-closing hours, we will have "a big placard, 
 'Please do not Smoke Here,' or something hke 
 that, eh, Billy ? " 
 
 Billy Earsman had been getting more and more
 
 THE NEW " B. I. P." 363 
 
 uneasy as the gentle, equal voice proceeded, and the 
 long, slender fingers checked 0^ the programme 
 point by point. 
 
 There was evidently going to be too much sugar 
 candy in Mr. Molesay's arrangements to suit the taste 
 of the Cowgate. 
 
 *' If ye please, sir — if you please, sir — no to interrupt 
 ye," BiUy broke in at last, though Kate was signaling 
 him entreatingly to be silent. " I hae seen the ' pla- 
 card-on-the-waU ' trick tried afore. It does weel 
 eneuch, but it's Uke a weakly bairn that canna gang 
 its lane ! What care big Rob Paterson or McGaffie 
 the coal cairter — ^no to speak o' the ' St. Jacob's ' 
 boys for tickets on the wall ? No that ! " 
 
 And Billy cracked his finger and thumb with a report 
 Uke a horse-pistol. 
 
 " And what would you have me do ? " urged the 
 gentle little man. " I cannot use force." 
 
 " Do ? " cried Billy Earsman. " Just leave a' 
 that to me, sir. Only dinna come fiutterin' ben when 
 ye hear a bit noise, that's a' ! " 
 
 " But what would you do, BiUy, if any of the regu- 
 lations were systematically disregarded ? " 
 
 " Eh ? " said BiUy, who did not catch Mr. Molesay's 
 meaning among so many long words. 
 
 " If they did not behave as the placards told them," 
 explained the Uttle man, " what steps would you take 
 — what would you do ? " 
 
 " Do ? Do ! " said BiUy, scratching his head. 
 " Wee], juist what me and Ogg wad hae done. I wad 
 gang up to ony blackyard that I saw smokin', and 
 say to him, says I, ceevil-like, ' Can ye read ? ' ' Aye ! * 
 he will say. Then I wad point my finger to the ticket 
 on the waa', and says I, ' For if ye canna I'U read it 
 for ye, " Smokin' is no Allooed Here ! " And if 
 ye dinna pit awa' that pipe ye'U find yoursel' oot on 
 the pavement afore ye can draw three puffs ! ' That's 
 the way to speak to lads o' the Coogate — kind, but 
 firm ! Aye, ]ust that — kind, but firm I '* 
 
 5J
 
 364 KID McGHIE 
 
 Mr. Molesay laughed a little. 
 
 " The firmness I see indeed," he answered, smiHng ; 
 " the kindness is, perhaps, a Httle to seek ! " 
 
 " Na, na," said Billy ; " alloo me to ken. It's far 
 the kindest way in the end. Nae pohss, nae smashed 
 \sdndows, nae magistrate i' the momin'. The thing 
 juist ends where it began — richt there. And when 
 the lad that got the speedy despatch has done sweerin', 
 and rubbin' the gutters aff him, and has pitten on 
 some stickin' plaister here and there, he will come 
 back and ask for his tuppenny supper as saft-spoken 
 as ony o' thae Newington young leddies that collect 
 at the doors for the bhnd asylum ! Believe me, sir, 
 it's the only way to gar your hoose be respected in 
 the Coogate ! " 
 
 Mr. Molesay started. 
 
 "Gracious, man," he cried, "you don't surely 
 expect me to take a hand in such work ? " 
 
 The big barman spread his shoulders and chuckled. 
 Then he looked pleasantly and a trifle pitifully at the 
 missionary. 
 
 " Maister Molesay," he said, " I hae heard ye say 
 that there is his ain special wark to every man and 
 every woman on this earth. Yours is to preach the 
 gospel, and tell us how bad we are — but maybes no 
 that bad but what, if we gie ye a chance, ye can mak' 
 a better o' us. That's your business, an' ye are guid 
 for nae ither. Thae fingers o' yours are for playin' 
 ' Oh, where is my Wandering Boy,' on the American 
 organ, or turnin' the leaves o' your wee Bible to look 
 for a text that will nail some puir sowl up against his 
 wrang-doing like a hoolet on the barn waa' ! But it 
 tak's the like o' that " (and Billy laid a fist of the size 
 and weight of a fore hammer on the table so forcefully 
 that the gentle httle man jumped) "to keep the 
 Coogate in order ! " 
 
 " I hope you will be as forbearing as possible," he 
 said, " Of course, I am aware that order must be 
 maintained. But even you, strong as you are,
 
 THE NEW " B. T. P." 365 
 
 could not do everything if niiscliief were really 
 started." 
 
 " Oh," said Billy, cheerfully, " I ^^ill no be exactly 
 by my lane ! There's Muckle Jock Cockpen, the 
 young smith, that's doin' by ordinar' weel the noo 
 — and in my opeenion, he's maybe a wee bit saft on 
 Kate's sister. I was thinkin' that we wad get her 
 to gie Kate a hand at makkin' the tea an' cuttin' up 
 the bread. She bides oot by Torpheechan way, and 
 is a decent lass. It wad save Jock a fortune in third- 
 class return tickets, if he could come here to see her, 
 and I think him an' me wad be aboot eneuch for the 
 Coogate frae end to end." 
 
 " I do cherish a hope," said the missionary, " that 
 we will not need to caU in the pohce. Captain Hender- 
 land has been more than kind to me in helping with 
 all the deUcate arrangements, so I do not wish to 
 trouble him further." 
 
 *' Pohss ! " said Billy, beating his fist repeatedly 
 on the table, " me and Jock Cockpen wiU be a' the 
 majesty o' law that you wiU need in the B. I. P. 
 Forbye, if ye will no misunderstand me, ye will e'en 
 be the best poHss yoursel'." 
 
 " Me ! " cried the Httle silver-headed man, com- 
 pletely mystified. 
 
 " Aye, juist you," said Billy. " Ye see the palace 
 will be yours. And wild place as the Coogate may 
 be, there are but few that wad dare to stand up and 
 try to mak' a mock o' you or ocht that belonged to 
 ye ! He wad get his heid broke faster than ye could 
 crack a nut. Ye see, Maister Molesay, ye are brawly 
 weel Ukit i' the Coogate, and the man that hairmed 
 you or yours had better be flittin' — aye, and no stop 
 to pick up his bonnet either ! " 
 
 Hearing this there came a slight moisture into the 
 clear eyes, a kind of gracious film. 
 
 Mr. Molesay nodded. 
 
 " Well, after all, they are my flock — my family," 
 he said. "All I am ever to have in this world. But
 
 366 KID McGHIE 
 
 that they are fond o' me, that they think well of me 
 — I will not deny it — it is pleasant to hear, yes, 
 as the waters of Shiloah that flow softly." 
 
 So three hearts were made happier by the visit 
 of the little man with the silver-gray head to Kate 
 Earsman's. Kate felt now that she could Hve again. 
 Billy was glad that Kate was glad, and as for the 
 city missionary, he felt that he had not lived in vain. 
 
 Also a remarkable advance had been made in 
 simpUfying the working arrangements of the new 
 and transformed British Imperial Palace. Billy 
 Earsman was in charge of Law and Order.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 " I WILL ARISE ! " 
 
 Now while within the Calton the last sands of the 
 Knifer's appointed span were already swirling toward 
 the last grain, and no fresh reprieve seemed hkely 
 to be granted, many strange things were happening 
 outside. It did not seem, however, that any of them 
 bore directly or indirectly on the fate of Knifer Jackson. 
 
 For instance there was Egham Castle. In these 
 days Patricia and Baby Lant did not spend very much 
 time there. For one thing it was too near the reforma- 
 tory, which at first Baby Lant had vaunted as a 
 merit, though Patricia refused to see the matter in 
 that light at all. 
 
 " For the present," she said, gravely, " Heame 
 is far better at work — I also. We will take a house, 
 you and I, for the autumn and winter in Edinburgh. 
 That wiU clear the board. It will give you time to 
 make Egham habitable — and, a year or so after 
 Heame's father's death — well, I shall see." 
 
 So they took a furnished house in Glencairn 
 Crescent, well out beyond the cathedral, and helped 
 or hindered Mr. Molesay according to their moods 
 — which in the circumstances were naturally various 
 and uncertain. They bought books for the Ubrary 
 of the B. I. P. — Baby Lant attending to the department 
 of frivolous Mterature, and Pat coming out unex- 
 pectedly strong on science, travel, history, and instruc- 
 tion generally — with special reference, as was natural 
 in a British Imperial Palace, to the Dominion of 
 Canada. 
 
 367
 
 368 KID McGHIE 
 
 So one morning as Baby Lant sat looking over 
 catalogues of books removed from Foulis's and Mudie's 
 libraries — for she was a saving little woman — a message 
 was brought to her that some one from Egham Castle 
 wished to see her. " The butler, I tliink, and he looks 
 frightened," ventured the maid. 
 
 " Show him up at once," said Baby Lant, hastily 
 belting her blue gown, and tossing her hair on top 
 of her head. 
 
 And William, promoted long ago — trustworthy, 
 dull WiUiam — came in, dazed and gi^ay-white, his 
 lips an unhealthy *' blae," and his eyes red from 
 want of sleep. 
 
 " Why, what in the world is the matter ? " cried 
 Baby Lant at sight of liim, " you look half -dead." 
 
 " And so I am, miss," said WiUiam. " I can't 
 stand it — not a day longer. There's somettiing 
 wrong at Egham, something sorely wrong." 
 
 " In what way ? " demanded Baby Lant. " WTiat 
 should there be wrong ? Tell me all about it, William. 
 More burglars ? " 
 
 " I dunno, miss," he answered, " leastways I think 
 I may say it's not that. There's nothing taken 
 that I can see. Nor can I hear anything — nor has 
 any living person been seen. But the truth is just 
 I can't stop, much as I would wish to." 
 
 And the man's trembhng lips and shaking hands 
 betrayed the reality of his terror. 
 
 " But what can be the matter — nothing seen, 
 nothing heard, nothing missing ? " 
 
 " Well," said William, as it were^driven desperate, 
 " to tell the truth — ^it's master that walks — ^leastways 
 his clothes do," 
 
 " Nonsense ! " said Baby Lant. " Clothes walking ! 
 You've got nervous by yourself in that big house, 
 that's all. Have some of the gardeners and foresters 
 in to sleep with you." 
 
 " I have had," said William, shaking his head. 
 " I took that liberty — I couldn't have lived else.
 
 " I WILL ARISE ! " 369 
 
 But as I am a mortal "man there's something, miss 
 — something that isn't good nor wholesome to be near, 
 over at Egham Castle ! And I can't stay a day longer 
 — ^no, not for double wages, miss ! " 
 
 "Do you mean a ghost ? " said Baby Lant, in- 
 credulously. 
 
 " I don't give the thing a name," said William, 
 recovering himself a Httle. " No, it's beyond me. 
 But I'll tell you in a word what happens every night. 
 You know master's rooms and those that were Mrs. 
 Boreham-Egham's are all to be changed, and the mess 
 that them masons and plasterers make is just past 
 
 believing " 
 
 "Well, there's nothing spectral about that," said 
 Baby Lant, beginning to think that she had to do 
 with a lunatic. 
 
 "No, miss," continued WiUiam, "that's not it. 
 It's because every night master's things are laid out 
 properly on chairs up there, just hke they used to 
 be when he was alive. He always was very particular 
 — master was. Wouldn't have his shirt and collar 
 but only in one place, and his wig and pads and back 
 straps each by themselves. And if they didn't just 
 quite please him he would sit and storm in his dressing 
 gown tiU they was put right. Well, I go up and make 
 sure every night — that is, me and some of the lads 
 with lanterns and pitchforks. There's nothing there 
 but heaps of lime and mortar and bricks — dirt is no 
 name for it, miss. And in the morning we go up 
 again and open the door, and — there's all master's 
 things set out — all proper, as I tell you — everything 
 on its own chair, and the scarlet dressing-gown where 
 he could reach it first thing out of his bed ! " 
 
 William's voice hastened as he came near the finish, 
 broke, and tumbled to the end in the hurried screech 
 of a chased hen. 
 
 Baby Lant could make nothing of it. She had 
 never essayed to plumb such waters before. 
 
 " I must speak to Heame," she said. " Mean- 
 
 u
 
 370 KID McGHIE 
 
 while go and telegraph — no, stop, I will do it myself — • 
 to the head keeper at Egham to have half a dozen 
 men in the castle night and day till we make arrange- 
 ments." 
 
 William stood before her, not offering to retire. 
 Nor indeed had she dismissed him. He was an ex- 
 cellent servant, but he lacked initiative. 
 
 " Oh ! by the bye, WilKam," said Baby Lant, 
 presently, " you had better stay here to-night. You 
 are in no state to go back to Egham." 
 
 " Thank you, madam — no, ma'am," said William. 
 " I don't deny but that I have had a shake. Anybody 
 would have had a shake." 
 
 The night upon which William, the butler — afraid 
 to remain in Egham Castle because of a few chairs, 
 symmetrically placed, with clothes neatly folded 
 upon them — remained in Glencairn Crescent, was 
 remarkable also for two other things. 
 
 It was the last night Knifer Jackson was to spend 
 on the earth. He knew it, too, because he had noticed 
 that an extra good dinner had been served to him, 
 and that Colonel Crosstrees, the governor, had looked 
 in with a kind word, and to know how he was 
 enjoying it. Also his warders had usually been 
 changed at six o'clock in the evening. That night 
 there had been no change until ten. 
 
 The Knifer, a clever man in his way, drew his 
 conclusions. This time, for a certainty, it was to 
 be. The Knifer had some thoughts of sending for 
 Mr. Molesay. But some one of the M-arders, having 
 told him that the British Imperial Palace was to be 
 opened under new management that night, the Knifer 
 said grimly, " Well, it won't mal:e much difference, 
 anyway, and God forbid that I should cross the luck 
 of the little man ! " 
 
 The other remarkable thing, the opening of the 
 British Imperial Palace in the most eligible site in
 
 " I WILL ARISE ! " 371 
 
 the Cowgate as " Molesay's Mission," was an event 
 practically domestic to the inhabitants of that curious 
 underworld. Up on the North Bridge, even in the 
 Grass Market, the surface of things remained wholly 
 undisturbed. But in the Cowgate and the South 
 Back nothing else was talked about. Everybody 
 was going to the B. I. P. — the good, the bad, and 
 especially the indifferent. It was there that Baby 
 Lant and Patricia, her sister, expected to find Hearne. 
 
 That young man, interested in all the doings of 
 Mr. Molesay — and also that he might have a chance 
 of speaking to Patricia — had cycled in from the 
 " Peat " Reformatory, where he had been doing 
 the work of half a dozen men, as Carvel grate- 
 fully admitted. 
 
 It must be recorded in this place that Mr. Archbold 
 Molesay knew his public. Hardly even the late 
 lamented Ogg, now safely through Castle Garden 
 with his thousand gold sovereigns, had catered for 
 it better during his long tenancy of the B. I. P. There 
 was no great " swell " from a distance on Mr. Molesay's 
 opening night, who would occupy the centre of the 
 platform, and speak for an hour and a quarter till 
 the audience began to get thirsty in a mass. There 
 were only Cowgate folk, the Rev. Harry Rodgers, 
 Dr. Salmond, always wise and kind, Dr. Love from 
 the dispensary, and Hugh Barber, shy and gracious 
 — a dweller in the upper world indeed, but known 
 in the Cowgate for many a year as a son of conso- 
 lation. 
 
 Chiefly and most applauded there was Mr. Molesay 
 himself, gliding from one group to another, inviting 
 all and sundry to the great bar at which Billy Earsman, 
 in the whitest of shirt sleeves, and with a broad grin 
 on his face, served such tea and coffee and soup as 
 had never before been tasted in the Cowgate. There 
 were dishes of pie and brawn, joints of cold beef and 
 cold mutton, bread in half-pound " hunks " — all for 
 nothing, because it was " Mr. Molesay's opening
 
 372 KID McGHIE 
 
 night." Only, at either end, in a place that it was 
 impossible to overlook, hung two good-will bags, 
 to the weighty contents of which all could con- 
 tribute, if it were no more than a half -penny, as an 
 easy and practical way of saying good luck to the 
 B. I. P. 
 
 The future tariff of the estabhshment had been 
 made into a series of slides, the favourite of which 
 was a picture of a rabbit in a potato plot, holding 
 up a card between his paws, on which was inscribed 
 " You can have me baked in a pie with these for 
 only 3(3^." The fact that the artist had portrayed 
 the potatoes, which appeared here and there in the 
 furrows, of the size of melons, did not matter. For 
 he had thoughtfully added the legend at the foot. 
 " Mr. Molesay's twopenny rabbit in Mr. Molesay's 
 penny potato field." All of which, taken hterally, 
 showed that Mr. Molesay either stole his rabbits or 
 got his potatoes considerably under cost price. 
 
 The meeting proper began at eight o'clock, the 
 hour when, up in the condemned cell, the Knifer 
 was holding debate with himself whether he would 
 or would not send for Mr. Archbold Molesay. 
 
 Now, as we know, Mr. Molesay was broad-minded. 
 He knew very well that he could not address the 
 waifs and strays, men and women mostly settled 
 on the lees of their misery, and sodden with poverty to 
 the point of callousness, except in the clearest and 
 crispest way. " Sin had brought condemnation ; from 
 which only God, the forgiver of sin, could deliver. For 
 Christ's sake. Amen.'''' 
 
 This, in his mission room, was his complete gospel. 
 He could dispute with his friend Harry Rodgers, 
 till the hours grew small, and Mrs. Rodgers came 
 to the head of the stairs to ask him if he meant to 
 take breakfast with them, about the fundamental 
 difficulties of every thoughtful man, and the impossi- 
 biUty of holding any hard and fast dogmatic. 
 
 " You cannot hitch on the God within us to the
 
 " I WILL ARISE ! " 373 
 
 God who made Heaven and Earth by means of a 
 printed book," he was wont to say at such times. 
 This was his closet doctrine, which he kept to himself 
 or for one or two intimates. 
 
 But on the platform he spoke as one having author- 
 ity. Addresses deUvered there were brief and to the 
 point. The Rev. Harry Rodgers shook that hardened 
 company of backsliders with the terrors of a broken 
 Law and of an angry Judge. Little Mr. Molesay 
 shifted uneasily as his friend was speaking, but he 
 added nothing at the time, knowing what was coming 
 later. 
 
 Then Dr. Love spoke healingly of the doctors and 
 nurses, who in such a place as this Cowgate of theirs, 
 went about doing good, cheerfully, kindly, asking 
 neither fee nor reward. 
 
 " Can God, who is love, be less kind than these 
 men and women whom He has made ? I cannot 
 believe it." 
 
 Upon which Mr. Molesay breathed again and whis- 
 pered to his friend by his side, " Rodgers, you are 
 one of them. More than half your dinner goes from 
 your back door every day. And as for topcoats, 
 your wife was telling me the other day " 
 
 " Shut up ! " said the Reverend Harry, with the 
 scandalised abruptness of a college friend. 
 I The great hall, which had been the dancing saloon 
 of the B. I. P., was crowded to the door. The little 
 bar in the comer, at which on big nights, Billy had 
 stood in state, contained Billy still. But a Billy 
 no longer in shirt sleeves. At the meeting he had 
 demanded that Jock Cockpen and he should be allowed 
 to put on their Sunday coats decently. Otherwise 
 he threatened a strike. So, dearly as the quaint 
 convolution of little Mr. Molesay's brain, which loved 
 the bizarre, would have liked to see Billy as of yore 
 in shirt sleeves in the comer, he knew that it was for 
 the good of the B. I. P. under its new management 
 that he should take BiUy's advice. So, from the
 
 374 KID McGHIE 
 
 platform, and round the corner of the big twenty-foot 
 wetted screen on which the lantern pictures would 
 presently flash out, Mr. Molesay could see his Gog 
 and Magog on either side of the porch, arms folded, 
 countenance imperturbable, the whole responsibility 
 of the gathering obviously resting upon them. 
 
 Indeed, it was nothing less than the salvation of 
 BiUy the bully and Jock Cockpen. They had found 
 something to do — something definite, concrete, re- 
 quiring enthusiasm, patience, concentration. They 
 were doorkeepers in the house of their God. And 
 Satan, whose business, according to good authority, 
 is the providing of occupation for idle hands, had 
 no more power over them. 
 
 Then came Mr. Molesay, and at the sight of him a 
 wave of enthusiastic emotion filled that great assembly 
 of those who inhabit the streets and lanes of the 
 deepest city. He stood trying to say that he was glad 
 to see them, but he had to say it with his hand, as 
 cheer after cheer swept thunderous up to the roof 
 of varnished pine, and made even the gas fittings 
 dirl and sing. Gust followed gust, as the little man 
 stood before those who were peculiarly his flock 
 — that is, those who were nobody else's flock. Cheer 
 pushed on cheer, in one continuous roar, till Mr. 
 Rodgers and Dr. Love smiled across at each other, 
 watching the deprecating, feeble hfting of that little 
 white hand. 
 
 Mr. Archbold Molesay's lips moved, though nobody 
 heard what he said. He was explaining to himself 
 that this great welcome was not his, but was meant 
 for his Master. And if he had made any soul think 
 better of Him — why, what had he to say against that ? 
 God forbid ! 
 
 " My friends," he began, his voice, silvern likeThis 
 hair, easily reaching every part of the room and making 
 the twin pillars of Hercules — Billy and Jock Cockpen 
 — firm themselves on their legs and fold their arms 
 tighter, " my steadfast friends, this is a night_^of joy
 
 " I WILL ARISE ! " 375 
 
 to me — to see you here — here in this place which is 
 ours — ours by the gift of a certain gracious young 
 lady " 
 
 At this moment Pat and Baby Lant appeared, and 
 without ostentation moved from the side door by 
 which they had entered — one of many — to places which 
 were made for them in a moment just beneath the 
 platform. 
 
 " That's her ! " whispered the assembled Cowgate. 
 " Her that gied the siller to buy Ogg's Pailace wi' ! " 
 
 " What yin ? What yin ? " 
 
 But there was a division concerning this matter. 
 Pat, however, was distinctly the favourite. She had 
 lived among them — at the manse — Rodgers's. See, 
 the minister's wife was speaking to her. At any 
 rate, three cheers for her — three cheers, and three 
 cheers for her sister, who was "sic a bonnie young 
 leddy ! " For the Cowgate is as susceptible to beauty 
 as any other part of the civilised world. 
 
 By this time the slender-fingered white hand had 
 prevailed. Silence was made, so sudden that there 
 seemed to be a void somewhere in space. Ears still 
 rang with the shouting. But in the great hall of the 
 late Ogg the stillness could be felt. 
 
 " I have prepared no address of welcome," he said. 
 " You know that I am glad to see you here. It is 
 your house and God's house — where you and Lie shall 
 meet together. After a short prayer I have some 
 very fine new pictures illustrating the parable of the 
 Prodigal Son which I am going to show to you. There 
 will also be singing." 
 
 Mr. Molesay prayed. There was always a quaver 
 in his voice when he did that, something that ap- 
 proached the tremolo of a violoncello string that 
 slips a little in the night and the darkness — nothing 
 of the Boanerges or silver trumpet about the little 
 city missionary. He drew men's hearts because 
 he himself was near to the heart of God. That was 
 all.
 
 376 KID McGHIE 
 
 The prayer pleaded for sinners, that is for himself 
 and all there present — for the great sinners, of whom 
 he was the chief — or at least the one he knew best, 
 for the poor man " up yonder ! " Here a hft of the 
 hand before the closed eyes indicated where Knifer 
 Jackson awaited the morrow. 
 
 At that there came a sob from among the audience 
 somewhere. From a dark comer, out of the burdened 
 breast of some one unseen, broke the answering 
 moan, which was a prayer. 
 
 Now, to conduct lantern services is not so simple 
 as it looks. " A few remarks about the pictures " 
 will not do. No more will a sermon with pauses 
 for the flashing on of disconnected scenes which only 
 distract the attention of the audience. Hand-coloured 
 pictures only and these of the finest. That is " the 
 tip." Above all, there must be a man, a first-class 
 professional, or an amateur fully equal to a professional, 
 at the lantern. There must be no mistakes. At 
 a pathetic moment it is absolutely fatal if the Prodigal 
 Son comes in serenely sixteen feet high and — upside 
 down ! 
 
 But Mr. Molesay had no fears. All would go well. 
 For was not Charlie Haddon, the best man in Edin- 
 burgh, behind the lens. It was yet in the early days 
 of lanterns, and audiences were not surfeited with them. 
 At least Cowgate audiences were not — and certainly 
 not with shdes like those of Mr. Brown, evangehst 
 enthusiast of lantern photography. Such slides as 
 his could not be bought, and as Haddon flashed each 
 upon the screen Mr. BrowTi stood at his elbow, and 
 his heart beat fast, half with good-will for the cause, 
 and half with a kind of motherly fear that he might 
 see the fatal spreading crack which teUs that the heat 
 has been too great at the condenser. 
 
 The httle missionary held up both hands. The gas 
 was lowered. 
 
 There was a hush, deeper than all that had gone 
 before, as the Prodigal Son was seen lea\dng his father's
 
 " I WILL ARISE ! " 377 
 
 house, the desert spreading wide and tawny aU about 
 him, his footsteps making blue stains on the white 
 glare of the sand, and on his back, reduced to its 
 ultimate bulk in gold or jewels, the " portion of goods 
 that pertained to him." 
 Then unseen, and very softly, the choir sang : 
 
 " I was a wandering sheep — I did not love the fold ! " 
 
 Mr. Molesay said little in guise of comment. But 
 he had a way of saying that little impressively. In 
 substance, this : 
 
 The trackless desert was still as of old before every- 
 one. At the setting out there were no beaten roads 
 to follow. The blown sand had drifted over them. 
 Each must make his own road. Above were the 
 stars, and God — so they said, at least — as for him, 
 he, Archbold Molesay, knew that within was the 
 inner hght, at once compass and chart — the Kingdom 
 of God is within you ! 
 
 Then flashed on the great wet screen set in bamboo, 
 the Cowgate folk saw ghmpses of the far land and 
 the poor young fellow wasting his substance. That 
 affected them less. People with money to spend in 
 riotous Uving did not visit the Cowgate to do it — 
 that is, unless they were of native extraction. And 
 with the common broad way of destruction, open to 
 all and hard trodden day by day, night after night, 
 they were familiar enough. 
 
 The men all said, " What a young fool ! " 
 
 And the women, " Eh, what a peety — for he is the 
 bonnie laddie, too ! " 
 
 The swine trough touched them more closely. 
 There was the prodigal, seated at a dike-back (as it 
 seerned), the herds of the unclean beasts about him, 
 feeding out of full troughs, shouldering and trampling. 
 Famine had bitten sore on the land. Pride had had 
 a fall. But no man gave unto him. 
 
 " Aye, he's gye and vexed for't noo, I'm thinkin' ! " 
 said the men, with a nudge, as if they had told him
 
 378 KID McGHIE 
 
 how it would be, before he went among such company 
 as he had been keeping of late. 
 
 " Oh, it's a peety — it's a peety ! " sobbed the women. 
 " The puir young laddie — sae bonnie — and hungry ! 
 Oh, wae's me ! " 
 
 It was a good lantern fitted with double-dissolving 
 gear. Back in the glancing darkness where the 
 oxygen hissed low on the limes, Haddon changed a 
 shde, under the anxious eyes of Mr. Wilham Brown, 
 its owner, who trembled for its safety while assured 
 of its success. 
 
 On the screen the prodigal scarce seemed to change 
 his position, but he was looking up now. There was 
 a strange, rapt look on his face. 
 
 Then from the darkness behind the screen a single 
 voice was lifted up, a woman's thrilling contralto, 
 with notes in it that throbbed like a great organ 
 touched by a master. 
 
 "I . . . will arise . . . and go . . . to my father, 
 And will say unto him . . . ' I have sinned . . . sinnM 
 
 And am ... no more worthy . . . to be called 
 ... thy son !' " 
 
 Perhaps it was a trick. At any rate it would not 
 bear doing twice. For as the marvellous tones beat 
 upward through the hush, the withdrawing hush of 
 the dark hall, something clicked in the lantern. The 
 keen light changed its pitch momentarily, and 
 lo ! diml}^ they could see the prodigal on his feet. 
 He had arisen and was going — going — ^back to his 
 father ! 
 
 " I have sinned ... I have sinned . . . and am no 
 more worthy ..." 
 
 throbbed the voice. And then there was silence and 
 here and there the muffled sound of sobbing. 
 
 These were drowned in a kind of murmur half- 
 hum, half-whisper, all abroad over the great
 
 " I WILL ARISE ! " 379 
 
 audience, as if it were going from bench to bench. 
 And then came the voice of Mr. Molesay : 
 
 " It is never too late to go to the Father. If any 
 have sin — arise — go ! He is waiting ! He will for- 
 give ! Doubt it not ! " 
 
 And like an echo a woman's voice answered him : 
 
 " I will— I will ! " she cried. " I will hide the sin 
 no longer. The innocent shall not die for the guilty. 
 Mr. Molesay, sir, go and stop them, I pray you. Do 
 not let them hang an innocent man to-morrow morn- 
 ing, and so lose my poor soul — and his — and his ! " 
 
 The hghts had not been turned up, and there was a 
 sound of bhnd, stumbhng footsteps. A little woman 
 was staggeringly making her way to the front. 
 
 Billy and Jock turned up the hghts, and Billy started 
 forward. But it was no disturbance — no row. Only 
 a little, trembhng, frightened woman, the mere withered 
 kale-stock of a woman, was clinging to Mr. Molesay's 
 arm. He was saying something low in her ear. 
 
 " No ! " she cried. " I will not go to another 
 room. I have gone far astray. I am punished. 
 But I take your word for it — I will hold you to it 
 before the Bar — before the Bar — that there is forgive- 
 ness for him and me. I will tell in public, before all 
 these, what I have done — what he has done. And 
 then they will not hang the man Knifer Jackson, who 
 came to steal, indeed, but who is no murderer ! " 
 
 Then it came with a rush. 
 
 " Lord Athabasca was found dead in his chair ! " 
 she cried, " with the Knifer's blade in his throat. 
 But it was my poor husband who, in a fit of madness, 
 drove the knife to the haft ! " 
 
 It was Marigh Hammer who spoke !
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE CONDEMNED CELL 
 
 In this wise the B. I. P. began its work. What matter, 
 if the meeting broke up in some confusion? Already 
 it had saved a hfe — perhaps a soul. At any rate 
 the Cowgate did not wait for explanations or details. 
 In a few minutes some of the more active of the 
 audience, those nearest the door, were battering 
 on the great gates of the Calton prison. From within 
 they could hear the hollow strokes of the mallet 
 and the sharper tapping of the hammers as the scaffold 
 went up to be ready for eight o'clock of the morning. 
 
 " We will save the Knifer ! We will save the 
 Knifer ! " shouted the crowd in a Babel of cries ; 
 some hoarse, some shrill. 
 
 But the governor could do nothing, though the 
 crowd increased, even alarmingly. Not a few thought 
 that it was only another false confession to save the 
 man's precious neck — ^Uke that which already had 
 won him six weeks of wretched life. 
 
 At the British Imperial Palace no one waited for 
 the benediction, as BiUy and Jock Cockpen shooed 
 the audience out like so much intrusive poultry. 
 They had gotten their lesson. The mission was 
 vindicated. Now let them go home. Wiser heads 
 than theirs had the matter in hand. 
 
 Already Mr. Molesay, Dr. Love, and Mr. Rodgers 
 were on their way to the chief of police, with poor, 
 trembhng Marigh Hammer, in a hastily summoned 
 cab. Captain Henderland would tell them what 
 to do, 
 
 380
 
 THE CONDEMNED CELL 381 
 
 " I will fetch the lord advocate," he said, with his 
 quick emphatic grasp of detail. " It's a God's blessing 
 I know where he is dining to-night ! He shall come 
 if I have to arrest him ! Thomson " (he spoke to 
 an inspector hastily), " go down to the telegraph 
 office, and call up the Home Office. Find out where 
 the Secretary is. We may need a word from him 
 later in the night." 
 
 ^ So it came to pass that poor, quaking Marigh, 
 her mouth overflowing with the pitiful words in which 
 she strove to vent the secret that had nearly killed 
 her, told her tale in quick gasps. Heame Mackenzie 
 had come in, after a hasty word with Patricia and 
 Atalanta. In a night so full of wondrous things William's 
 strange communication had not been forgotten. 
 
 Curiously enough, after Hearne came in, Marigh 
 Hammer would address no one else, not though a 
 quiet, gray, keen -featured man, in evening dress, 
 had entered and seated himself at the table hke any 
 casual stranger. It was the lord advocate himself. 
 
 " Sir," said Marigh, looking at Heame, " God 
 knows we sinned, Algernon and I, but we were punished 
 and that grievous. But it was your father that 
 offered us the £10,000 if we could bring about his 
 marriage with Miss Patricia. Yes, it was ; we had 
 not thought of so much money. And she would have 
 done it, too, but for you. You came and stole her 
 from us. My husband went to the bank to be paid 
 the money that was his. On the way he was caught 
 and kept in a coalpit or tunnel — he was never able 
 to tell me rightly how or where." 
 
 " I had nothing to do with that ! " said Hearne, 
 sternly for him. 
 
 The chief waved his hand as much as to say, " Let 
 her talk — do not stop the current — we are doing 
 finely ! " 
 
 Marigh continued in the same dry throat voice : 
 
 " Then, when he went to the bank, they told him 
 that the cheque had been stopped hours before, and
 
 382 KID McGHIE 
 
 my poor Algernon fell stunned to the floor. They 
 took him to the hospital, but he never was himself 
 again. His mind was gone. He could say nothing 
 but — ' Ten Thousand Pounds — Ten Thousand Pounds ! 
 It is mine ! My old master would not have treated 
 me so.' 
 
 " Then he went out to drown himself, but being 
 taken by a different thought, he turned back to get 
 his rightful money from Lord Athabasca in his house 
 of Three Ridings." 
 
 " But his body was found out in the Firth ? " 
 suggested the chief in a low tone. 
 
 " It was not his — some sailor man," said Marigli — 
 " not the least like my poor Algernon. He was that 
 handsome, and had the most beautiful whiskers, 
 though they cut them off, they did in the tunnel. 
 He went to Three Ridings to see my lord and to get 
 his money. It was the night of the fire. And there 
 were burglars there. He scared them, I think, walking 
 proudly up the stairs as if they were his own. They 
 ran, believing that he had an army of police behind 
 him. Then one of them must needs drop a knife, 
 and Algernon, meaning no evil, took it in his hand. 
 
 " Yes, he went in to my Lord Athabasca with the 
 cheque in one hand and the knife in the other. So 
 much he told me. 
 
 " ' Pay me what is mine ! ' he said — or so, at least, 
 he kept saying afterwards. And my lord laughed 
 — only laughed. He did foohslily to laugh at a 
 desperate man with a knife in his hand. Algernon 
 struck him where he sat. And that v/as how you, 
 Mr. Hearne, found what you did on the night of the 
 fire ! " 
 
 Marigh fumbled a moment and produced a folded 
 oblong of paper stained with rusty finger marks. 
 
 " There is the cheque, sir," she said, handing it 
 across to Hearne. " It was for that bit o' paper 
 that your father lost his life — and my husband his 
 reason ! "
 
 THE CONDEMNED CELL 383 
 
 " And where is he now, your husband ? " said the 
 chief, quickly. 
 
 Instantly Marigh gave a quick, semi-circular glance 
 at all the company in order. For the first time the 
 importance of the little, quiet, gray man in the evening 
 coat seemed to strike her. 
 
 " If I tell you," she said, advancing a little, " j^ou 
 will give me your word — you will not hang him. He 
 is mad ! My poor man ! " 
 
 " If he is mad," said the stranger in the evening 
 clothes, " I give you my word. He shall not be 
 punished." 
 
 " Who are you ? " demanded Marigh, sharply. 
 
 The chief answered for his chief. 
 
 " This is the lord advocate for Scotland," he said, 
 quietly. 
 
 "Very well," said Marigh, "it will be better for 
 my poor Algernon to be taken care of at once. You 
 see he might do more mischief without in the least 
 meaning it. He was stricken mad when they threw 
 the paper back at him in the bank. He stayed with 
 me for weeks and weeks, all quiet, in a little house down 
 near Queen Mary's Bath at Holyrood. And oh, I 
 used to take him for walks in the park, and up the 
 side of Arthur's Seat in the gloaming ! No one would 
 have known him. But I could not keep him — not 
 when he heard that his old master was dead. 
 
 " ' That is a lie,' Algernon said to me. ' He only 
 has that reported so that I may go back and look out 
 his things for him. No one could do for Mr. Philip 
 Egbert like Hammer. He just wants me back and 
 I am going ! ' 
 
 " So he went without more ado, leaving me there 
 standing on the street, just where the thought had 
 come to him. And, gentlemen, he is there now — 
 at Egham Castle ! And the burden has grown more 
 than I can bear — the fear that he might strike another 
 in his madness as he did my Lord Athabasca ! " 
 
 They removed her, to be cared for tenderly. The
 
 384 KID McGHIE 
 
 advocate sent his message to the Home Secretary. 
 The Secretary repUed. And about the Calton the 
 noise of hammer and mallet ceased as if by magic. 
 
 And while the chief and Heame, with half a dozen 
 stalwart men of the force, mounted and rode through 
 the night toward Egham, it was decided that no one 
 in the world but Mr. Archbold Molesay had the right 
 to go in and break the news to Knifer Jackson. The 
 governor, kindly man, insisted upon this when he 
 heard the account of the confession at the opening 
 of the B. I. P. 
 
 So Mr. Molesay went. 
 
 The warder from without noiselessly undid the 
 door. 
 
 Within the cell of the doomed Knifer there was 
 silence. The two watchers within were on the alert 
 — one read while the other gazed trancedly into the 
 flicker of the naked gas jet on the whitewashed 
 wall. Knifer Jackson had lain down on his bed 
 and pulled his prison rug high about him, bringing 
 the corner over so that it covered his face. He com- 
 prehended that it was the end. 
 
 The dreadful hammering outside was present to 
 all his senses. That was the worst of it. If suddenly 
 and without warning he had been summoned to walk 
 out upon the drop, Knifer could have done it unflinch- 
 ingly. It was the waiting that told, and the duU 
 thudding of the gibbet builders without. Sometimes 
 Knifer thought that the sound was in his own head 
 —sometimes that he was in the shipbuilding yard 
 where as a boy he had been allowed to sleep by a 
 kindly watchman. It was good there — he smeUed 
 the shavings yet. He smeUed them now from the 
 yard without. Strange ! He wondered why they 
 should need shavings for such a big thing as a gallows 
 to hang a man upon. Something wrong with the 
 trap, perhaps. They would be planing that down. 
 
 Then he remembered Daddy Lennox teUing liim 
 that it was the original master and model of " Blind
 
 THE CONDEMNED CELL 385 
 
 Jacob's," a certain Deacon Brodie, who had first 
 perfected the drop. They had made them step off 
 a ladder before that. The Knifer was sure that he 
 could have devised something better than a drop 
 if only they had given him a httle time and the proper 
 tools. He was not very angry, nor very remorseful, 
 nor very curious — nor very anything. He had played 
 and he had lost. There you are ! 
 
 A simple philosophy, but it had seen the Knifer 
 through life. 
 
 He heard the hither^^and thither of footsteps before 
 his door. Presently one of the warders was summoned 
 outside to whisper a moment. 
 
 " No, he is not asleep ! " he heard him say. 
 
 He knew that it was the governor's voice, as much 
 by the deference of the warder as by the short, sol- 
 dierly grunt of questioning. Then there sprang up 
 the fragment of some ancient childish lesson — the 
 Knifer had not the least idea that it was one well 
 known to all the world. 
 
 " ' Suffered under Pontius Pilate ' ! " he mur- 
 mured to himself. " Well, I don't deserve it — this 
 time, at any rate — and perhaps they will give me an 
 easier berth on that account — where I am going ! " 
 
 He heard a shght scuffling behind him, and turning 
 saw the two watchers go out. Then httle Mr. Molesay 
 came in, a sort of divine gentleness in his eyes. 
 
 " Hello ! " said the Knifer, not unkindly, but with 
 a sort of surprise, " I didn't send for you. I thought 
 you would be down at your new palace — yours and 
 Billy's. It surely cannot be . . . time yet " 
 
 He faltered slightly and repeated — " Not time yet, 
 surely ? " a httle anxiously. The Knifer had risen 
 with the prison blanket still about him. He sat on 
 the edge of his cot. With his eyes he indicated the 
 single chair to Mr. Molesay. The Knifer was poHte 
 to the last — at least to Mr. Molesay. But he waited 
 for him to speak his message without caring what it 
 was. Wonder was dead. It died with hope. 
 
 25
 
 386 KID McGHIE 
 
 " You are not guilty of this," said Mr. Molesay 
 at length. " Why did you not protest more vehe- 
 mently ? " 
 
 " I told them. They would not beheve me," said 
 Knifer Jackson, " why should they ? My knife was 
 found in the man's throat ! He was a lord." 
 
 " Yes, but you know very well that you did not put 
 it there ! " remonstrated little Mr. Molesay, his eyes 
 shining. 
 
 The Knifer glanced at the crack of the door. It was 
 quite shut. Then he nodded. 
 
 " I would give a lot to know who did put it there ! " 
 said the Knifer, with his first flash of interest. 
 
 " I can tell you," put in Mr. Molesay. " A just 
 God has brought the murder to light ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " said the Knifer, with a catch of his breath, 
 and a dawning suspicion. " And they sent you to 
 tell me ? They are not going to hang me " (here his 
 voice mounted higher), " but they will give me penal 
 servitude for life. I do not want that. I have had 
 enough. I have passed the bitterness. My mind is 
 made up to die — I will not go back on it now ! " 
 
 Then very slowly, as if doling out nourishment to a 
 starving man, Mr. Molesay told him the story of 
 Algernon Hammer, how his wife had confessed, how 
 Hearne Mackenzie, the dead man's son. Captain 
 Henderland, and six picked men were even now 
 speeding to the capture of the poor mad ex-controller 
 of Egham ! 
 
 " But — but," gasped the Knifer, his mouth suddenly 
 dry as bone, " I wiU not be shut up for life — rather 
 than that I will stick to it — and demand that they 
 shall go on ! It is my right. No commuting to a 
 ' lifer '—I prefer to die ! " 
 
 Then Mr. Molesay undoubtedly went a little beyond 
 his mission. 
 
 " Don't teU him," the lord advocate had said, 
 " that there wiU be a pardon. I have no doubt it 
 meant burglary, at least. But then the poor creature
 
 THE CONDEMNED CELL 387 
 
 has suffered enough — two deaths, certainly. The 
 reprieve is here. I have no doubt at all but that the 
 pardon will follow ! " 
 
 Mr. Molesay, for the first time in his life, broke his 
 plighted word — or, rather, as the French say, passed 
 outside it. He told Knifer that a free pardon was 
 undoubtedly coming to him in consideration of his 
 sufferings. 
 
 The Knifer turned pale and then red and then back 
 to pale again. He jerked his finger in the direction 
 of the prison yard. 
 
 " They are taking down . . . that thing ? " he 
 whispered hoarsely. 
 
 He meant the gallows, which had been prepared 
 for its function at eight of the morning. 
 
 " It is gone — passed — there is an end ! " said little 
 Mr. Molesay, taking hold of the strong-hned, muscular 
 hand of the Knifer with both of his. And for a 
 while the city missionary talked low and quiet witli 
 the man for whom death had opened its jaws — into 
 whose eyes eternity had looked. What he said is 
 no one's business save that of these two. 
 
 " You are a good man ! " said Knifer, answering 
 him aloud. " But what am I to do ? I have stolen 
 all my life. If I were to turn pious now, everyone 
 would laugh ! Besides, I should starve ! " 
 
 " It strikes me that there will not be many to laugh 
 when you get out," smiled Mr. Molesay. " The 
 ' Blind Jacob's ' lads are mostly neighbours of yours 
 here — or at Perth." 
 
 " What ! " cried the Knifer. " So they tried another 
 job without me, did they ? Who were they ? " 
 
 " Corn Beef Joe, Daddy Lennox, Fighting Nick, and 
 Duffus — they tried Egham, got frighten'ed with some- 
 thing they saw — now we can guess what — a dead 
 man arranging neckcloths and brushing trousers ! 
 So they were taken like so many sheep ! " 
 
 The Knifer laughed a little, and was the better for 
 it.
 
 388 KID McGHIE 
 
 " And poor Mag ! " he said, more quietly. 
 
 " She died trying to save you," said the little mis- 
 sionary. " In some ways you owe her your life — at 
 least your first reprieve. Otherwise aU this would 
 have come out too late to do you any good in this 
 world ! " 
 
 "Poor Mag!" said the^ Knifer,|"putting his hand 
 to his brow. 
 
 " Now, as to yourself, Jackson," the missionary 
 went on. " Mr. Heame wiU set you down in a new 
 country where you can begin afresh, where you will 
 be as good as any man " 
 
 " It might come over me again," said the Knifer 
 sadly. " You see I have been at it a long time. I 
 would not hke to disgrace you or Mr. Heame." 
 
 " There wiU not be a locked door nor a sixpence- 
 worth for the taking within a hundred miles ! " Mr. 
 Molesay assured him. " You can do smithwork, 
 woodwork — you have the ready hand that can turn 
 itself to anything. You will climb to the top of the 
 tree Uke a man going up a ladder ! " 
 
 " And the Kid ? " asked the Knifer, suddenly. 
 ^ " Lord Athabasca — that is — Mr. Heame is bent on 
 giving him a good education," said Mr. Molesay ; 
 
 he is to learn mining engineering. Some day you 
 may have him out there for a comrade — if you are 
 lucky, Jackson." 
 
 " For a boss ! " said the Knifer, more clear-sightedly. 
 '^Mr. Molesay nodded approval, and left, only teUing 
 Jackson that he would get news when he was to be 
 set at hberty, and that then he must come straight 
 to his house. Indeed, he (Mr. Molesay) would en- 
 deavour to be in waiting for him at the prison gates. 
 After that they would go to Three Ridings and see 
 Mr. Heame. 
 
 At this the face of the Knifer fell. And the Uttle 
 missionary remembered what was the last time he 
 had been there. 
 
 " Well, then," he hastened to add, " to Egham
 
 THE CONDEMNED CELL 389 
 
 Castle — after this business is over, I mean. Mr. 
 Heame is about as much at one as at the other just 
 now ! " 
 
 The little silver-headed man took his way down 
 from the Calton leaving the prisoner a prisoner still. 
 But the bitterness of death was past. The Knifer's 
 mind was full of a new world, a new life. He was not 
 an imaginative man, Knifer Jackson, and he could 
 not yet conjure up the life in those far pine woods 
 and beside those rushing waters. He only knew 
 that, God (and Mr. Molesay) helping him, the future 
 should not copy the past for one Andrew Jackson, 
 sometime called the Knifer, who was destined, in a 
 logging camp on the Kootenay, to keep aUght a 
 blacksmith's forge, and to set a saw, or shoe a horse, 
 or put an edge on an axe with any man.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 " IT IS WELL ! " 
 
 But now we must follow the track of the chief of 
 police, who rode a little behind Hearne, and that of 
 the six tall policemen, who rode at a proper distance 
 behind their superiors. \\^iat with his trials, his 
 reprieves, and his weary waitings, the Knifer had been 
 eight good months in the Calton, and now again the 
 roads were as iron beneath the horses' shod feet as 
 these men rode to save him. The frost bit keen, and 
 it took the men all their time to keep warm. It is a 
 rise of something like a thousand feet from the level 
 of Edinburgh town to the broad plateau of Maw Moss, 
 and it seemed to the riders to count about the same 
 number of degrees of cold. 
 
 " Surely we can't be far from the north pole now," 
 growled Captain Henderland, slapping his thighs 
 with his gloved fingers, just a few minutes before the 
 dark quadrangle of buildings, which was the Castle of 
 Egham, hove into sight. 
 
 All was black, silent, and deserted. The telegram 
 which Baby Lant had sent at the instigation of Mr. 
 WiUiam, the butler, had apparently remained without 
 effect. The gardeners and foresters had had enough 
 of Egham Castle at present. The party from Edin- 
 burgh could not even get into the stable, so Captain 
 Henderland motioned one of his men forward. 
 
 " We generally keep an officer in the force who is 
 learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," he said. 
 " It's not strictly provided for in the regulations, 
 
 390
 
 IT IS WELL ! " 
 
 391 
 
 but a little cross work is necessary to our job some- 
 times, so as not to get left too far behind by the 
 professionals." 
 
 Then very swiftly, after a little tinkering, but no 
 fumbHng, the poHceman had the door of the stable 
 open, and soon the horses were placed in comfort 
 that bitter night. 
 
 " It looks as if we would have to share their hay," 
 said Heame, glancing up at the long row of black 
 windows. But the chief knew better. 
 
 " We can get in yonder," he said, jerking his thumb 
 in the direction of Egham Castle. " I know houses 
 under repair. There is always a heap of sand or 
 of bricks under an unhasped \\dndow, generally in 
 the proximity of the kitchen ! " 
 
 And the chief guessed rightl3^ Even so, by such 
 a window did the eight men penetrate the darksome, 
 half underground kitchen fiat of Egham Castle. 
 
 " Now, your lantern— quick ! " said the chief, 
 addressing the policeman who had opened the stable 
 door. 
 
 By a slight further infraction of Baby Lant's pro- 
 perty, and upon Hearne's volunteering to stand good 
 for the damage, the chief and he obtained creature 
 comforts for the cold and wearied men. As they 
 were partaking of these, there came, clear and manifest 
 from above, the shuffling tread of a foot. Then a 
 cough — yes, of all things in the world — a cough. 
 
 I think there was no one among them who did 
 not quail, at that dead hour, in that dead house, 
 and . . . with a dead man traiUng his white- 
 wrapped Hmbs tardily above looking for a scarlet 
 dressing gown. 
 
 Of course they did not beheve in ghosts — not a 
 man of them. It must be Hammer, they knew that. 
 But still, they had no objections to the other fellow 
 going first. Finally the chief, as became his office, 
 snatched the lantern, and made for the staircase 
 which led from the kitchens to the hall and from
 
 392 
 
 KID McGHIE 
 
 that again to the rooms of the late Mr. Boreham- 
 Egham. The rest followed as it happened. 
 
 But when they had mounted the staircase, which, 
 in spite of the " Hsssshs " of the chief and the Indian 
 craft of Heame, they achieved with the noise 
 of a regiment at a charge — lo ! tliey went stumbling 
 over mounds of sand ; they overturned neat parallelo- 
 grams of fire bricks ; they tore down flapping banners 
 of wall paper damp and in disarray. 
 
 Then the lantern flashed all about the rooms. 
 Nothing ! They found no soul — not the sign of a 
 hving creature, nor spirit self-manifested, nor watching 
 ghost — nothing either to put in handcuffs or to lay 
 with curse ecclesiastic. 
 
 Then they looked at each other, a Uttle fooHshly, 
 it must be said. 
 
 " I could have sworn," began Heame. 
 
 " I do swear," said the chief, who was a trifle peppery 
 when provoked, " I heard footsteps, and if we catch 
 the rascal who is making a fool of us — weU ! " 
 
 He did not finish his sentence, but much was left 
 to be inferred. 
 
 Again there was an uncomfortable pause. 
 
 " And that woman's yam ? " murmured the chief. 
 " After all, was it another plant ? Could she be lying 
 hke the other, to save the Knifer's neck ? What 
 will the lord advocate say, and the Secretary ? And 
 I . . . took it all upon myself ! What a fool ! " 
 
 He groaned, that brave, authoritative chief 
 of police. His reputation for judgment meant a 
 great deal to him. 
 
 " The light is coming," said Heame. " Let us 
 go through the house." 
 
 They did go through the house accordingly. Save 
 in the rooms where the workmen were actually re- 
 partitioning, plastering, fitting grates, and so on, 
 everything was undisturbed — indeed, in perfect order. 
 Not a trace of Algernon Hammer did they find. Not 
 a bed had been slept in. Not a chest of drawers
 
 " IT IS WELL ! " 393 
 
 was unlocked. Mystery, deep and solid, insoluble 
 by any known process of chemistry, played upon 
 Egham. 
 
 The fear of Mr. William, the butler, and the absence 
 of the servants who had been ordered to watch — 
 these things did not go well with the theory of trickery. 
 And then there was the strange dragging noise over- 
 head which they had all heard. 
 
 As the morning gray turned yellowish before the 
 winter sun, Heame went and threw open the great 
 door. He ran down the broad, monumental, Palladian 
 steps. 
 
 " What's he muddling about among the gravel 
 for ? " asked one of the men. 
 
 " Can't say, I'm sure," answered his fellow, on 
 whose temper the night rigours had told. " Got a 
 crack, they say. His mother was a Red Indian ! " 
 
 " Ummm ! " growled the other. " Then he may 
 find something. I wish to gracious he would. This 
 is no sort of work for men — standing about in this 
 teeth-chattering funeral vault. And the chief, too ! 
 Lor', what will they say in Glasgow ? What wiU 
 the Secretary say if they have to let Knifer off after 
 all and we can't prove nothing against anyone else ? " 
 
 " Well," muttered the first speaker, " I wouldn't 
 be in the chief's shoes for — ah, what's that ? That 
 chap out there is holding up his hand. He has found 
 something ! " 
 
 ' They rushed down the steps to the wide sweep of 
 gravel in front of the main entrance of Egham. 
 
 Heame had nothing more mysterious than the brass 
 castor of a bedroom chair in his hand. It did not 
 seem much to them. But Heame had an idea. 
 
 *' Follow me," he said, " and for the Lord's sake 
 —softly ! " 
 
 " Take off those boots ! " commanded the chief ; 
 " off with them this minute ! " 
 
 p^^And as the men grimaced at the lumpy, frosty 
 gravel, he set them the example. Heame did not
 
 394 KID McGHIE 
 
 take off his, an exemption which the men did not 
 think fair. But the chief only said, " He doesn't 
 need to. He walks Uke a cat ! " And with a sweep 
 of his hand drew the six officers close in behind him. 
 
 Heame took a careful Hne across the gravel. Two 
 slight scratches parallel and occasional, as if something 
 heavy had been sometimes dragged, sometimes carried, 
 guided him. Then he came to a place where two 
 paths divided, and hesitated a httle. The men rubbed 
 their stockings plaintively one over the other, and 
 thought that the lot of a pohceman was not, indeed, 
 a happy one. But the interest of the only great 
 chase — the chase of man — held them. 
 
 They became interested, too, in Heame's doings, 
 which were curious. He laid his ear to the ground, 
 and rose, shaking his head. Then he saw a twig 
 which, budded by a too mild autunm, pushed on 
 by the November rains, and nipped by the frost, 
 had now been bruised but not broken off completely. 
 The bud was crushed, but the fibres of the twig being 
 tough, it was slowly returning to its own place. 
 
 Something had passed that way during the night 
 — perhaps more than once. But the ground was too 
 hard for any marking of footsteps. 
 
 Still, his dark, subtle eyes turning from side to 
 side without his head turning with them, Heame 
 followed the trail, and the bootless policemen came 
 after, resolved to slay him if all this came to nothing. 
 The chief, too, was interested, but prepared to be 
 very angry. 
 
 The path ended abruptly in front of the Boreham- 
 Egham mausoleum ! 
 
 Hearne broke into a little cantering trot like that 
 of his grandfather (on the mother's side) when upon 
 the trail of a doomed Assiniboine. The sun, ruddy 
 and sulky through the mists of frost, glinted level 
 through the trees. Among its dark yews the door 
 of the great family mausoleum stood slightly ajar. 
 Hearne pushed it open, stared a moment, gave a
 
 (( 
 
 IT IS WELL ! " 395 
 
 slight cry, and entered. The chief followed. The 
 men crowded about the entrance. This is what they 
 saw : 
 
 Mr. Algernon Hammer, dressed perfectly, just as 
 he used to be in his days as controller of Egham Castle, 
 was seated on a chair at the foot of the marble monu- 
 ment of his dead master. 
 
 On a couple of chairs at either side was arranged 
 all that was necessary for his master's uprising. The 
 clothes were neatly folded. The scarlet dressing 
 gown was in its place — the pads and straps and braces. 
 Last of all the wig, which Hammer had dressed every 
 day with his own hands, hung over the knob of the 
 chair back with a knowing cock. 
 
 But Algernon Hammer was dead — frozen stiff 
 by the rigour of that place and the weakness of his 
 heart. His eyes were open and he held his hand 
 half-stretched out as if to assist his master to get 
 up. 
 
 But neither one nor the other of those two should 
 rise again — till That Day. 
 
 " I have come to make my report. Kid — I mean 
 Mister McGhie," said a voice which has been heard 
 more than once in this history. 
 
 " All right, Jackson," said the Kid ; " signals 
 all clear — go ahead ! " 
 
 The unchristian cognomen of Knifer has never 
 once been uttered on the western side of the ocean, 
 three thousand miles from which these two now 
 found themselves in a little rude cabin, the windows 
 of which commanded a straggling mining camp. 
 
 " The by-products have not averaged so well this 
 week, sir," said Jackson — Foreman Jackson of the 
 " Patricia " Mine, apologetically ; " but to mak' 
 up for that, the whole clean up is more nor a hundred 
 ounces better ! " 
 
 " In a fortnight I'll have another stamp dropping,"
 
 396 KID McGHIE 
 
 said the Kid, biting the end of a pencil. " Well — 
 all right, so far — and the men, Jackson ? No trouble 
 with them, I suppose ? " 
 
 " No, sir, not to speak of," said the ex-Knifer, 
 a httle reluctantly. 
 
 " What is it ? Out with it, Jackson ! " 
 
 The Kid was master here and now — a thing his 
 father had never been anywhere, chief of a clan though 
 he might be. 
 
 " Well, sir, to tell you the truth," said Foreman 
 Jackson, " there's a man, name of ScuUy — a 
 tough from 'way back — and he has a bad influence 
 on the men." 
 
 " Wliy, fire him ! " the Kid's eyes sparkled. " Why 
 can't you fire him, Jackson ? Do you think Mr. 
 Hearne pays us to run the ' Patricia ' as a free-lunch 
 bar for ' toughs ' ? " 
 
 "Well," said the ex-professor of "St. Jacob's," 
 " I'm against all violence ! " 
 
 " You ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir," said the Knifer, a little sadly. " You 
 see, if I was to begin, I don't know where it might 
 end. And Mr. Molesay, sir, he made me promise 
 —before I left " 
 
 " Very weU, then," said the Kid, with decision. 
 " Then I must do it myself ! " 
 
 He went out. There was a noise of what might 
 mildly be called a small discussion. The Knifer 
 moved to the window of the wooden shanty. He 
 set his nails into his palms to stop himself from going 
 out to take a hand. 
 
 " Oh, the young 'un ! " he said — " such a young 
 'un ! " 
 
 Then the Kid — McGhie's Kid, that was — came back 
 again, breathing hard. 
 
 " Chucked ! " he said. " You'll have no more 
 trouble, Jackson. I gave him his wages and walking 
 ticket, and saw him start across the divide for Forty 
 Mile City ! I'm like you, Jackson — against all un-
 
 " IT IS WELL ! " 397 
 
 necessary violence. But I will not have your orders 
 disregarded ! " 
 
 " Thank you, sir ! " said Foreman Andrew Jackson, 
 looking, with a curious admiration, at Mr. Molesay's 
 kid of the goats, who had turned out a man. 
 
 " What a Kid ! " he murmured, as he went out 
 with the weekly statement in his hand, examined 
 and countersigned. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 Baby Lant is still to be had for the asking. Many, 
 indeed, have asked and have not received. Heiress 
 of Egham — a new and remodelled Egham — young, 
 rich — and Baby Lant — yet in spite of all, her time 
 has not yet come. 
 
 She pets Marthe and her babes, and talks to her 
 about the Kid's wonderful career. She upholds 
 the hands of Mr. Molesay, and, I think, pets him 
 a Httle, too. And when Patricia comes across the 
 herring pond in winter — for she loves not the cold 
 — they have great times shopping, for themselves 
 and for all the world. Pat talks chiefly of a younger 
 Heame Mackenzie, and buys the most extravagant 
 apparel for that young gentleman, who (it appears) 
 is his father's image, only, if anything, handsomer. 
 Certainly, at present, he makes more noise in the 
 world. Three Ridings is very gay in winter, and some 
 day Baby Lant is going back with her sister (as she 
 says) to look for another " Heame." 
 
 " You will have to wait till this little one grows, 
 then," says Pat, " for there is no one in the world 
 Hke his father ! " 
 
 Which, after the years, is an excellent and most 
 wifely spirit. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 It was a November evening, early dark, and the 
 two girls, Pat and Baby Lant, found themselves 
 cozily installed at the house in Glencaim Crescent, 
 which the Eghamites and the Three Ridings people
 
 398 KID McGHIE 
 
 had found so convenient that they had retained 
 it, paying the rent between them. 
 
 " To-night," said Baby Lant, " do you know what 
 we are going to do ? " 
 
 " I do not," said Patricia, " but if it is anything 
 disgraceful, or of the genus madcap (to which you 
 belong), I warn you that, as a respectable married 
 woman and the mother of a family, I shall have nothing 
 to do with it ! " 
 
 " Do you see these ? " said Baby Lant. 
 
 She pointed to a pile of clothes — doubtful, second- 
 hand-looking clothes — on her sister's bed. 
 
 " Take them off my quilt — at once — at once ! " 
 cried Patricia, with quite unusual violence. And 
 \\ithout waiting for Baby Lant to obey, she settled 
 the matter herself with a single clutch. 
 
 " I got these through Ashbucket Moll," said Baby 
 Lant, watching but not offering to assist her operations. 
 " They have been well washed and are now as clean 
 as — your precious heir to the title of Athabasca just 
 after his bath ! Well, we are going to put these 
 on " 
 
 " You may — I won't ! " cried Patricia, fervently. 
 
 " Yes, you will," said Baby Lant, " when you know 
 what it is for. We are going to see Mr. Molesay in 
 his hew B. L P. He has lots of help now — from 
 priests to prima donnas. But this is his own night. 
 Anyone can ask for advice, or stop and speak to him 
 alone. He won't know us in these things. And 
 if anybody wants good advice, Pat, it's you, with 
 such a temper as you've got, and the abuse you deal 
 out to a loving and innocent younger sister ! " 
 
 " Fiddlesticks ! " said Patricia. But all the same 
 she let herself be overpersuaded. Besides, she did 
 want to see the little missionary, for in spite of husband 
 and heir to a lordship, in spite of half a province of 
 pine forests and possible gold mines, she was the old 
 Pat still. 
 
 They took the steep way down to the Cowgate.
 
 " IT IS WELL ! " 399 
 
 They were two poor women to look at. Baby Lant 
 wore a veil, but the open, summer-tanned look on 
 Patricia's face did as well. They walked purposefully, 
 and so no one spoke to them. For, of course, that 
 is the secret. 
 
 As of yore, the British Imperial Palace was glittering 
 with lights. It was after the hour of pubHc meeting, 
 but they entered a smaller hall where there were 
 women with bowed heads, and men who sat looking 
 straight in front of them with that stony stare which 
 tells of a suddenly smitten conscience — that is, among 
 such as dwell in the Cowgate. 
 
 As Atalanta foretold, Mr. Molesay was alone on the 
 platform. He was reading slowly a chapter out of 
 the Gospel of Matthew. But he turned hither and 
 thither, searching for this text and that other. His 
 hair had changed from silver to something hke the 
 radiance of frosty starhght. His face, turned to 
 the httle book in his hand, had upon it a glow warm 
 and kindly as firelight. 
 
 He was reciting his text a second time before " speak- 
 ing a few words upon it " — Mr. Molesay 's words 
 were always few and excellently ordered. 
 
 " And everyone " (he began slowly, spacing the 
 words) " that hath forsaken . . . houses, or 
 brethren, or sisters, ... or father, or mother, 
 
 He hfted his eyes and, under the plain dress and 
 poor woman's disguise, he knew Patricia at the first 
 glance. But his voice, though it checked, did not 
 falter. He went on : 
 
 " Or wife, or children, ... or lands, for My 
 name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold . . . " 
 
 Then the voice of the reader broke away in a kind 
 of gust, or gale of the spirit. 
 
 ' An hundredfold they shall receive ! " he cried. 
 " Ah, it would need to be — it would need to be ! 
 For how hard is that giving up — O Lord, Thou alone 
 knowest ! "
 
 400 KID McGHIE 
 
 He closed the book. The two women sobbed, 
 Patricia and Baby Lant together — they knew not 
 very well why. But on their faces were the only 
 tears. For, when the little missionary, Archbold 
 Molesay of the silver head and the childUke spirit, 
 met them he was smiling. His eyes were glad, and 
 he said only, " Is it well with you, my friends ? " 
 
 And through their tears Pat and Baby Lant answered 
 him, after the fashion of their nation, by another 
 question : 
 
 " And with you, Mr. Molesay, is all well ? " 
 
 And taking his eyes for the first time off Patricia's 
 face, he regarded the emptying haUs of the B. I. P. 
 Without, through the open doors, he saw the damp, 
 misty shiver of the Cowgate street lamps on the greasy 
 paving stones, and he answered, "It is well ! "" 
 
 And, indeed, it was weU. 
 
 JS 
 
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