EW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 S.R.CROCKETT
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 ROSE OF THE WILDERNESS 6/- 
 PRINCESS PENNILESS - - 6/- 
 DEEP MOAT GRANGE - - ed. 
 THE CHERRY RIBBAND- net ij- 
 LAD'S LOVE 6d.
 
 THE 
 
 DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 BY 
 
 S. R. CROCKETT 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 <THE LILAC SUNBONNET,' 'THE BLACK DOUGLAS,' 'STRONG 
 MAC,' 'rose OF THE WILDERNESS,' ETC. 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 LONDON MCMX
 
 RiCHAKD Clay & Sons, Limited, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND 
 BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Haunted House of Marnhoul . . . i 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ' In the Name of the Law ! ' . . . . .10 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 Miss Irma gives an Audience 18 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 First Foot in the Haunted House . . .22 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 The Censor of Morals 33 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Apotheosis of Agnes Anne .... 42 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 The Doctor's Advent . . . . . -Si 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 Kate of the Shore 62 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Eve of St. John 73 
 
 V 
 
 893135
 
 vi CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Crowbar in the Wood 82 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 Agnes Anne's Experiences as a Spy ... 87 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 The Fight in the Dark 96 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 A World of Ink and Fire loi 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 The White Free Traders . ... 109 
 
 PART II 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 My Grandmother speaks her Mind . . . 118 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 Castle Connoway 127 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 The Man ' Doon-the-hoose ' 133 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 The Transfiguration of Aunt Jen . . .138 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 Loaded-pistol Pollixfen 146
 
 CONTENTS vii 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Real Mr. Poole 155 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 While we sat by the Fire . . . . .162 
 
 PART III 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 Boyd Connoway's Evidence 170 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 The Sharp Spur 184 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 The College of King James 193 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 Satan finds 201 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 Perfidy, thy Name is Woman! .... 209 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 Then, Heigh-ho, the Molly!' . . . .218 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 Love and the Logician . . . . .227 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 The Avalanche . .... 233 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 The Vanishing Lady 244
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Twice Married 254 
 
 CHAPTER XXXn 
 The Little House on the Meadows . . . 262 
 
 CHAPTER XXXni 
 And the Door was Shut 268 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 A Visit from Boyd Connoway .... 274 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 The Valley of the Shadow 280 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 The Supplanter .288 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 The Return of the Serpent to Eden Valley . 297 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 By Water and the Word 305 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 The Wicked Flag 313 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 The Great 'Tabernacle' Revival. . . . 322 
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 In the Wood Parlour 330 
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 The Place of Dreams 338
 
 PART I 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE OF MARNHOUL 
 
 I, Duncan IMacAlpine, school-master's son and 
 uncovenanted assistant to my father, stood watching 
 the dust which the Highflyer coach had left between 
 me and Sandy Webb, the little guard thereof, as he 
 whirled onward into the eye of the west. It was the 
 hour before afternoon school, and already I could hear 
 my father's voice within declaiming as to unnecessary 
 datives and the lack of all feeling for style in the Latin 
 prose of the seniors. 
 
 A score of the fifth class, next in age and rank, were 
 playing at rounders in an angle of the court, and I 
 was supposed to be watching them. In reality I was 
 more interested in a group of tall girls who were 
 patrolling up and down under the shade of the trees 
 at the head of their playground — where no boy but 
 I dare enter, and even I only officially. For in kindly 
 Scots fashion, the Eden Valley Academy was not only 
 open to all comers of both sexes and ages, but was set 
 in the midst of a wood of tall pines, in which we 
 seniors were permitted to walk at our guise and 
 pleasure during the "intervals." 
 
 Here the ground was thick and elastic with dry pine 
 needles, two or three feet of them firmly compacted, 
 and smelling delightfully of resin after a shower. In- 
 
 B
 
 2 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 deed, at that moment I was interested enough to let 
 the boys run a little wild at their game, because, you 
 see, 1 had found out within the last six months that 
 girls were not made only to be called names and to 
 put out one's tongue at. 
 
 There was, in especial, one — a dark, slim girl, very 
 lissom of body and the best runner in the school. 
 She wore a grey-green dress of rough stuff hardly 
 ankle-long, and once when the bell-rope broke and I 
 had sprained my ankle she mounted instead of me, 
 running along the rigging of the roofs to ring the 
 bell as active as a lamplighter. I liked her for this, 
 also because she was pretty, or at least the short grey- 
 green dress made her look it. Her name was Ger- 
 trude Gower, but Gerty Greensleeves was what she 
 was most frequently called, except, of course, when 
 I called the roll before morning and afternoon. 
 
 I had had a talk with Sandy Webb, the guard, as 
 he paused to take in the mails. My father was also 
 village postmaster, but, though there was a girl in the 
 office to sell stamps and revenue licences, and my 
 mother behind to say "that she did not know" in 
 reply to any question whatsoever, I was much more 
 postmaster than my father, though I suppose he really 
 had the responsibility. 
 
 Sandy Webb always brought a deal of news to Eden 
 Valley. And as I had oflicial and private dealings 
 with him — the public relating to way-bills and bag- 
 receipts, and the private to a noggin of homebrewed 
 out of the barrel in the corner of our cellar — he always 
 gave me the earliest news, before he hurried away — 
 as it were, the firstlings of the flock. 
 
 "There's a stir at Cairn Edward," he said casually, 
 as he set down his wooden cup. "John Aitken, the 
 mason, has fallen off a scaffolding and broken "
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 3 
 
 "Not his leg?" I interrupted anxiously, for John 
 was a third cousin of my mother's. 
 
 "No, more miraculous than that!" the guard 
 averred serenely. 
 
 "His back?" I gasped — for John Aitken, as well 
 as a relation, was a fellow-elder of my father's, and 
 the two often met upon sacramental occasions. 
 
 "No," said Sandy, enjoying his grave little surprise, 
 "only the trams of his mortar-barrow! And there's 
 that noisy tinkler body, Tim Cleary, the Shire Irish- 
 man, in the lock-up for wanting to fight the Provost of 
 Dumfries, and he'll get eight days for certain. But 
 the Provost is paying the lodgings of his wife and 
 family in the meantime. It will be a rest for them, 
 poor things." 
 
 It was at this moment that Sandy Webb, square, 
 squat, many-wrinkled man, sounded his horn and 
 swung himself into his place as the driver, Andrew 
 Haugh, gathered up his reins. But I knew his way, 
 and waited expectantly. He always kept the pick of 
 his news to the end, then let it oft like a hre-cracker, 
 and departed in a halo of dusty glory. 
 
 "Your private ghost is making himself comfortable 
 over yonder at the Haunted House. I saw the reek 
 of his four-hours fire coming up blue out of the 
 chimbly-top as we drove past ! " 
 
 It was thus that the most notable news of a decade 
 came to Eden Valley. The Haunted House — we did 
 not need to be told — was Marnhoul, a big, gaunt man- 
 sion, long deserted, sunk in woods, yet near enough 
 to the Cairn Edward road to be visible in stray round 
 towers and rows of chimneys, long unblacked by fire 
 of kitchen or parlour. It had a great forest behind it, 
 on the verges of which a camp of woodcutters and a 
 rude saw-mili had long been established, eating 
 
 U 2
 
 4 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 deeper and deeper in, without, however, seeming to 
 make any more difference than a sohtary mouse might 
 to a granary. 
 
 We boys knew all about the Haunted House. Since 
 our earliest years it had been the very touchstone of 
 courage to go to the gate on a moonlight night, hold 
 the bars and cry three times, "I'm no feared ! " Some 
 had done this, I myself among the number. But — 
 though, of course, being a school-master's son, I did 
 not believe in ghosts — I admit that the return journey 
 was the more pleasant of the two, especially after I 
 got within cry of the dwellings of comfortable bur- 
 gesses, and felt the windows all alight on either side 
 of me;, so near that I could almost touch them with 
 my hand. 
 
 Not that I saw anything ! I knew from the first it 
 was all nonsense. My father had told me so a score 
 of times. But having been reared in the superstitious 
 Galloway of the ancient days — well, there are certain 
 chills and creeps for which a man is not responsible, 
 inexplicable twitchings of the hairy scalp of his head, 
 maybe even to the breaking of a cold sweat over his 
 body, which do not depend upon belief. I kept say- 
 ing to myself, "There is nothing! I do not believe 
 a word of it ! 'Tis naught but old wives' fables ! " 
 But, all the same, I took with a great deal of thankful- 
 ness the dressing-down I had got from my father for 
 being late for home lessons on a trigonometry night. 
 You see, I was born and reared in Galloway, and I 
 suppose it was just what they have come to call in 
 these latter days "the influence of environment." 
 
 Well, at that moment, who should come up but 
 Jo Kettle, a good fellow and friend of mine, but of no 
 account in the school, being a rich farmer's son, who 
 was excused from taking Latin because he was going
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 5 
 
 to succeed his father in the farm. Jo had a right to 
 the half of my secrets, because we both Hked Gerty 
 Greensleeves pretty well ; and I was certain that she 
 cared nothing about Jo, while Jo could swear that she 
 counted me not worth a button. 
 
 So I told Jo Kettle about the Haunted House, and 
 he was for starting off there and then. But it was 
 perfectly evident that I could not with these fifth class 
 bo3^s to look after, and afternoon school just begin- 
 ning. And if I could not, I was very sure that he had 
 better not. More than once or twice I had proved that 
 it was his duty to do as I said. Jo understood thisj 
 but grew so excited that he bolted into school in a 
 moment with the noise of a runaway colt. His en- 
 trance disarranged the attention of the senior Latiners 
 of the sixth. My father frowned, and said, "What 
 do you mean, boy, by tumbling through the class- 
 room door like a cart of bricks? Come quietly; and 
 sit down, Agnes Anne ! " 
 
 This was my poor unfortunate sister, aged fourteen, 
 whom a pitiless parent compelled to do classics with 
 the senior division. 
 
 Jo Kettle sat down and pawed about for his men- 
 suration book, which he studied for some time upside 
 down. Then he extracted his box of instruments from 
 his bag and set himself to do over again a proposition 
 with which he had been familiar for weeks. This, 
 however, was according to immemorial school-boy 
 habit, and sometimes succeeded with my father, who 
 was dreamy wherever the classics were not concerned, 
 and regarded a mere land-measuring agricultural 
 scholar as outside the bounds of human interest, if not 
 of Christian charity. 
 
 In two minutes my father was again immersed in 
 Horace, which (with Tacitus) was his chief joy. Then
 
 6 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Jo leaned nearer to Agnes Anne and whispered the 
 dread news about the Haunted House. My sister 
 paled, gasped, and clutched at the desk. Jo, fearful 
 that she would begin, according to the sympathetic 
 school phraSe, "to cluck like a hen," threatisned first to 
 run the point of his compasses into her if she did not 
 sit up instantly; and then, this treatment proving quite 
 inadequate to the occasion, he made believe to pour 
 ink upon her clean cotton print, fresh put on that 
 morning. This brought Agnes Anne round, and, 
 with a face still pale, she asked for details. Jo sup- 
 plied them in a voice which the nearness of my father 
 reduced to a whisper. He sat with his fingers and 
 thumbs making an isosceles triangle arid his eyes 
 gently closed, while he listened to the construing of 
 Fred Esquillant, the pale-faced genius of the schopl. 
 At such times my father almost purred with delight, 
 and Agnes Anne said that it was "just sweet to watch 
 Ijim." But even this pleasure palled before the tidings 
 from the Haunted House as edited and expanded by 
 Jo Kettle. 
 
 "Yes, Duncan had told him, and Sandy Webb had 
 told him. There were daylight ghosts abroad about 
 Marnhoul. Everybody on the coach had seen 
 them " 
 
 "What were they like? " queried Agnes Anne in an 
 awestruck whisper ; so well poised, however, that it 
 only reached Jo's ear, and never caused my enraptured 
 father to wink an eyelid. I really believe that, like a 
 good Calvinist with a sound minister tried and proven, 
 my father allowed himself a little nap by way of 
 refreshment while Fred Esquillant was construing. 
 
 Nothing loath, Jo launched headlong into the grisly. 
 Through the matted undergrowth of years, over the 
 high-spiked barriers of the deer-park, the Highflyer
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 7 
 
 had seen not only the familiar Grey Lady in robes of 
 rustling silk (through which you could discern the 
 gravel and weeds on the path), but little green demons 
 with chalk-white heads and long ears. These leaped 
 five-barred gates and pursued the coach and its shriek- 
 ing inmates as far as the little Mains brook that passes 
 the kirk door at the entrance of the village. Then 
 there was a huge, undistinct, crawling horror, half sea- 
 serpent, half slow-worm, that had looked at them over 
 the hedge, and, flinging out a sudden loop, had las- 
 soed Peter Chafts, the running footman, whose duty 
 it was to leap down and clear stones out of the horses' 
 hoofs. Whether Little Peter had been recovered or 
 not, Jo Kettle very naturally could not tell. How, 
 indeed, could he? But, with an apparition like that, 
 it was not at all probable. 
 
 Jo was preparing a further instalment, including 
 clanking chains, gongs that sounded unseen in the air, 
 hands that gripped the passengers and tried to pull 
 them from their seats — all the wild tales of Souter 
 Gowans, the village cobbler, and of ne'er-do-well farm 
 lads, idle and reckless, whose word would never have 
 been taken in any ordinary affair of life. Jo had not 
 time, however, for Agnes Anne had a strong imagina- 
 tion, coupled with a highly nervous organization. She 
 laughed out suddenly, in the middle of a solemn 
 Horatian hush, a wild, hysterical laugh, which 
 brought my father to his feet, broad awake in a second. 
 The class gazed open-mouthed, the pale face of Fred 
 Esquillant alone twitching responsively. 
 
 "What have you been saying to Agnes Anne 
 MacAlpine? " demanded my father, who would sooner 
 have resigned than been obliged to own son or 
 daughter as such in school-time. 
 
 "Nothing! " said Jo Kettle, speaking according to
 
 8 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 the honour that obliges school-boys to untruth as a 
 mode of professional honour. Then Jo, seeing the 
 frown on the master's face, and forestalling the words 
 that were ready to come from his lips, "But, sirrah, 
 I saw you ! " amended hastily, "At least, I was only 
 asking Agnes Anne to sit a little farther along ! " 
 
 "What ! " cried my father, with the snap of the eye 
 that meant punishment, "to sit farther along, when 
 you had no interest in this classical lesson, sir — a 
 lesson you are incapable of understanding, and — all 
 the length of an empty bench at your left hand ! You 
 shall speak with me at the close of the lesson, and 
 that, sirrah, is now ! The class is dismissed ! I shall 
 have the pleasure of a little interview with Master 
 Joseph Kettle, student of mensuration." 
 
 Jo had his interview, in which figured a certain 
 leathern strap, called "Lochgelly" after its place of 
 manufacture — a branch of native industry much 
 cursed by Scottish school-children. "Lochgelly " was 
 five-fingered, well pickled in brine, well rubbed with 
 oil, well used on the boys, but, except by way of 
 threat, unknown to the girls. Jo emerged tingling 
 but triumphant. Indeed, several new ideas had oc- 
 curred to him. Eden Valley Academy stood around 
 and drank in the wondrous tale with all its ears and, 
 almost literally, with one mouth. Jo Kettle told the 
 story so well that I well-nigh believed it myself. He 
 even turned to me for corroboration. 
 
 "Didn't he tell you that, Duncan? That was the 
 way of it, eh, Duncan ? " 
 
 I denied, indeed, and would have stated the truth as 
 it was in Guard Webb. But my futile and feeble 
 negations fell unheeded, swept away by the pour of 
 Jo's circumstantial lying. 
 
 Finally he ran off into the village and was lost to
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE 9 
 
 sight. I have httle doubt that he played truant, in 
 full recognition of pains and penalties to come, for the 
 mere pleasure of going from door to door and "raising 
 the town," as he called it. I consoled myself by the 
 thought that he would find few but womenfolk at home 
 at that hour, while the shopkeepers would have too 
 much consideration for their tills and customers to 
 follow a notorious romancer like Jo on such a fool's 
 errand. 
 
 I cannot tell how that afternoon's lessons were got 
 over in Eden Valley Academy. The hum of disturb- 
 ance reached even the juniors, skulking peacefully 
 under little Mr. Stephen, the assistant. Only Miss 
 Huntingdon, in the Infant Department, remained 
 quiet and neat as a dove new-preened among her 
 murmuring throng of unconscious little folk. 
 
 But in the senior school, though I never reported 
 a boy to my father (preferring to postpone his case 
 for private dealing in the playground), the lid of the 
 desk was opened and snapped sharply every five 
 minutes to give exit and entrance to "Lochgelly." 
 Seldom have I seen my father so roused. He hated 
 not to understand everything that was going on in 
 the school. He longed to ask me what I knew about 
 it, but, according to his habit, generously forbore, 
 lest he should lead me to tell tales upon my fellows. 
 For, though actually junior assistant to my father, I 
 was still a scholar, which made my position difficult 
 indeed. To me it seemed as if the clock on the wall 
 above the fireplace would never strike the hour of 
 four.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " IN THE NAME OF THE LAW ! " 
 
 At last — at last ! The door between the seniors 
 and Mr. Stephen's juniors was thrown open. My 
 father, making his usual formal bow to his assistant, 
 said, "When you are ready, Mr. Stephen!" And 
 Mr. Stephen was always ready. Then with his back 
 to the hinges of the door, and his strong black beard 
 with the greying strands in it set forward at an angle, 
 ]\Ir. John Mac Alpine, head-master of Eden Valley 
 Academy, said a few severe words on the afternoon's 
 lack of discipline, and prophesied in highly coloured 
 language the exemplary manner in which any repeti- 
 tion of it would be treated on the morrow. Then he 
 doubled all home lessons, besides setting a special 
 imposition to each class. Having made this clear, 
 he hoped that the slight token of his displeasure might 
 assure us of his intention to do his duty by us faith- 
 fully, and then, with the visrse of a chanted psalm we 
 were let go. 
 
 Class by class defiled with rumble of boots and 
 tramp of wooden-soled clogs, the boys first, the girls 
 waiting till the outside turmoil had abated — but, 
 nevertheless, as anxious as any to be gone. I believe 
 we expected to tumble over slow serpents and nimble 
 spectres coming visiting up the school-loaning, or 
 coiling in festoons among the tall Scotch firs at the 
 back of the playground. 
 
 lO
 
 *IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!' 11 
 
 We of the sixth class were in the rear— I last of 
 all, for I had to lock away the copybooks, turn the 
 maps to the wall, and give my father the key. But 
 I had warned the other seniors that they were not to 
 start without me. 
 
 And then, what a race ! A bare mile it was, 
 through the thick fringes of woods most of the way 
 — as soon, that is, as we were out of the village. 
 Along the wall of the Deer Park we ran, where we 
 kept instinctively to the far side of the road. We of 
 the highest class were far in front — I mean those of 
 us who kept the pace. The Fifth had had a minute 
 or two start of us, so they were ahead at first, but 
 we barged through their pack without mercy, scatter- 
 ing them in all directions. 
 
 There at last was the gate before us. We had 
 reached it first. Five of us there were, Sam Gordon, 
 Ivie Craig, Harry Stoddart, Andrew Clark and my- 
 self — yes, there was another — that forward Gerty 
 Greensleeves, who had kilted her rough grey-green 
 dress and run with the best, all to prove her boast 
 that, but for the clothes she had to wear, she was as 
 good a runner as the best boy there. Indeed, if the 
 truth must be told, she could outrun all but me. 
 
 The tall spikes, the massive brass padlock, green 
 with weathering, in which it was doubtful if any 
 key would turn, the ancient "Notice to Trespassers," 
 massacred by the stones of home-returning school- 
 boys — these were all that any of us could see at first. 
 The barrier of the deer-park wall was high and un- 
 climbabie. The massy iron of the gates looked as 
 if it had not been stirred for centuries. 
 
 But a tense interest held us all spellbound. We 
 could see nothing but some stray glimpses of an ivy- 
 clad wall. A weathercock, that had once been gilded,
 
 12 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 stood out black against the evening sky. The Grey 
 Lady in the rustling silk, through whom you could 
 see the rain drops splash on the gravel stones, was 
 by no means on view. No green demons leaped these 
 sullen ten-foot barricades, and no forwandered sea- 
 serpent threw oozy wimples on the green-sward or 
 hissed at us between the rusty bars. 
 
 It was, at first, decidedly disappointing. We 
 ordered each other to stop breathing so loudly, after 
 our burst of running. We listened, but there was 
 not even the sough of wind through the trees — 
 nothing but the beating of our own hearts. 
 
 What had we come out to see? Apparently 
 nothing. The school considered itself decidedly 
 "sold," and as usual prepared to take vengeance, first 
 upon Jo Kettle and then, as that youth still persisted 
 in a discreet absence of body, on myself. 
 
 "You spoke to Sandy Webb, the guard," said 
 Gertrude-of-the-Sleeves, scowling upon me; "what 
 did he say ? " 
 
 Before I could answer Boyd Connoway, the village 
 do-nothing, enterprising idler and general boys' 
 abettor, beckoned us across the road. He was on the 
 top of a little knoll, thick with the yellow of broom 
 and the richer orange of gorse. Here he had stretched 
 himself very greatly at his ease. For Boyd Conno- 
 way knew how to wait, and he was waiting now. 
 Hurry was nowhere in Boyd's dictionary. Not that 
 he had ever looked. 
 
 In a moment we were over the dyke, careless of 
 the stones that we sent trickling down to afflict the 
 toes of those who should come after us. We stood 
 on the top of the mound. Connoway disturbed him- 
 self just enough to sit up for our sakes, which he 
 would not have done for a dozen grown men. He
 
 'IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!' 13 
 
 removed the straw from his mouth, and pointed with 
 it to the end chimney nearest to the great wood of 
 Marnhoul. 
 
 We gazed earnestly, following the straw and gradu- 
 ally we could see, rising into the still air an unmis- 
 takable "pew" of palest blue smoke — which, as w'e 
 looked, changed into a dense white pillar that rose 
 steadily upwards, detaching itself admirably against 
 the deep green black of the Scotch firs behind. 
 
 "There," said Connoway gravely, "yonder is your 
 ghost mending his fire ! " 
 
 We stood at gaze, uncomprehending, too aston- 
 ished for speech. We had come, even the unbelievers 
 of us, prepared for the supernatural, for something 
 surpassingly eery, and anything so commonplace as 
 the smoke of a fire was a surprise greater than the 
 sight of all Jo Kettle's imaginations coming at us 
 abreast. 
 
 Yet the people who ow-ned the great house of Marn- 
 houl were far away — few had ever seen any of them. 
 Their affairs were in the hands of a notable firm of 
 solicitors in Dumfries. How any mortal could have 
 entered that great abode, or inhabited it after the 
 manner of men, w-as beyond all things inexplicable. 
 But there before us the blue reek continued to mount, 
 straight as a pillar, till it reached the level of the 
 trees on the bank behind, when a gentle current of air 
 turned it sharply at right angles to the south. 
 
 Now we heard the tramp of many feet, and beneath 
 us we saw Jo Kettle with half-a-dozen of his father's 
 workers, and the village constable to make sure that 
 all was done in due and proper order. To these was 
 joined a crowd of curious townsmen, eager for any 
 new thing. All were armed to the teeth with rusty 
 cutlasses and old horse pistols, which, when loaded,
 
 14 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 made the expedition one of no inconsiderable 
 peril. 
 
 The man with the crowbar applied it to the rusty 
 chain of the padlock. Two others assisted him, but 
 instead of breaking the chain, the iron standard of 
 the gate crumbled into so much flaky iron rust, while 
 padlock and attachments swung free upon the other. 
 It was easy enough to enter after that. 
 
 " In the name of the law ! " cried the constable, 
 taking a little staff with a silver crown upon it in his 
 hand. And at the word the gate creaked open and 
 the crowd pressed in. 
 
 But the constable held up his hand. 
 
 '"In the name of the law,' I said. I might have 
 put it, ' In the King's name,' but what I meant was 
 that we are to proceed in decency and order — no 
 unseemly rabbling, scuffling, or mischief making — 
 otherwise ye have me to reckon with. Let no word 
 of ghosts and siclike be heard. The case is infinitely 
 more serious " 
 
 " Hear to Jocky wi' his langnebbit words ! '' whis- 
 pered Boyd Con noway in my ear. 
 
 "Infinitely more so, I say. It is evident to the 
 meanest capacity — " 
 
 "Evidently ! " whispered Connow-ay, grinning. 
 
 " — that a dangerous band of smugglers or burglars 
 is in possession of the mansion of Marnhoul, and we 
 must take them to a man ! " 
 
 These words brought about a marked hesitation in 
 the rear ranks, a wavering, and a tendency to slip 
 away through the breach of the broken gate into the 
 road. 
 
 "Halt there," cried Constable Black, holding the 
 staff of office high. "I call upon you, every man, 
 to assist his Majesty's officers. You are special con-
 
 aN THE NAME OF THE LAW!' 15 
 
 stables, as soon as I get time to swear you in. Praise 
 be, here's good Maister Kettle ! He's a Justice of 
 the Peace. He will hold you to it now and be my 
 witness if ye refuse lawful aid. Now, forward ! 
 Ouick march ! " 
 
 And this formidable armed band took its way along 
 the overgrown gravel avenue up to the front of the 
 great house of Marnhoul. We boys (and Green- 
 sleeves close to my elbow) played along the flanks 
 like skirmishers. Alt our spiritual fears were abated. 
 At the name of the law, and specially after the dis- 
 play of the silver-crowned staff, we entered joyously 
 into the game. If it had only been the arm of flesh we 
 had to encounter, we were noways afraid — though it 
 was a sad downcome from the solemn awe of com- 
 ing to grips with the prince of darkness and his 
 emissaries. 
 
 "You that have pistols that will go oft", round with 
 you to guard the back doors ! '' cried Constable John 
 Black. "It's there the thieves have taken up their 
 abode. The smoke is coming from the kitchen lum. 
 I see it well. The rest, not so well armed, bide here 
 with me under the protection of the law ! " 
 
 And with that Constable Black, commonly called 
 Jocky, elevated once more his staff in the air, and 
 marched boldly to the fatal door. He went up the 
 steps by which the Grey Lady was wont to descend 
 to the clear moonlight to take her airing in the wood. 
 A little behind went Connoway, in the same manner 
 holding a "bourtree " pop-gun which he had just been 
 fashioning for some lucky callant of his acquaintance. 
 
 Almost for the first time in his life Boyd Connoway 
 had all the humour to himself. Nobody laughed at 
 his imitation of Officer Jocky's pompous ways. They 
 would do it afterwards in the safety of their own
 
 16 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 dwellings and about the \Yinter fire. But not now — 
 by no means now. 
 
 Even though supported by the majestic power of 
 the law, the crowd kept respectfully edging behind 
 wall and trees. Their eyes were directed warily up- 
 wards to the long array of windows from which 
 (legend recounted) the Maitlands of Marnhoul had 
 once during the troubles of the Covenant successfully 
 defended themselves against the forces of the Crown. 
 
 Now be it understood once for all, the inhabitants 
 of Eden Valley were peaceful and loyal citizens, 
 except perhaps in what concerned the excise laws and 
 the ancient and wholesome practice of running 
 cargoes of dutiable goods without troubling his 
 Majesty's excise oflicers about the matter. But they 
 did not w'ish to support the law at the peril of their 
 lives. 
 
 An irregular crackle of shots, the smashing of win- 
 dow glass in the back of the mansion, with two or 
 three hurrahs, put some courage into them. On the 
 whole it seemed less dangerous to get close in under 
 the great vaulted porch. There, at least, they could 
 not be reached by shot from the windows, while out 
 in the open or under the uncertain shelter of tree 
 boles, who knew what might happen ? So there was 
 soon a compact phalanx about the man in authority. 
 
 Constable Black, being filled with authority direct 
 from the Lord-Lieutenant of the County, certainly 
 had the instinct of magnifying his office. He raised 
 his arm and knocked three times on the bleached and 
 blistered panels of the great front door. 
 
 "Open, I command you! In the name of the 
 law ! " he shouted. 
 
 After the knocking there befell a pause, as it might 
 be of twenty breaths — though nobody seemed to draw
 
 'IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!' 17 
 
 any. Such a silence of listening have I never heard. 
 Yes, we heard it, and the new burst of firing from the 
 rear of the house, the cheers of the excited assail- 
 ants hardly seemed to break it, so deeply was our 
 attention fixed on that great weather-beaten door of 
 the Haunted House of Marnhoul. 
 
 Again Jocky, his face lint-white, and his voice com- 
 ing and going jerkily, cried aloud the great name of 
 the law. Again there was silence, deeper and longer 
 than before. 
 
 At last from far within came a pattering as of little 
 feet, quick and light. We heard the bolts withdrawn 
 one by one, and as the wards of the lock rasped and 
 whined, men got ready their weapons. The door 
 swung back and against the intense darkness of the 
 wide hall, with the light of evening on their faces, 
 stood a girl in a black dress and crimson sash, holding 
 by the hand a little boy of five, with blue eyes and 
 tight yellow curls. 
 
 Both were smiling, and before them all that tumult- 
 uary array fell away as from something supernatural. 
 
 The words "In the name of " were choked on the 
 
 lips of the constable. He even dropped his silver- 
 headed staff, and turned about as if to flee. As for 
 us we watched with dazzled eyes the marvels that had 
 so suddenly altered the ideas of all men as to the 
 Haunted House of Marnhoul. 
 
 But for a space no one moved, no one spoke. Only 
 the tall young girl and the little child stood there, 
 like children of high degree receiving homage on the 
 threshold of their own ancestral mansion, facing the 
 lifted bonnets and the pikes lowered as if in salutation.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MISS IRMA GIVES AN AUDIENCE 
 
 "My name is Irma Maitland, and this is my brother 
 Louis ! " Such were the famous words with which, 
 in response to law and order in the person of Con- 
 stable Jacky Black, the tall smiling girl in the door- 
 way of the Haunted House of Marnhoul §aluted her 
 "rescuers." 
 
 "And how came you to be occupying this house?" 
 demanded Mr. Josiah Kettle, father of Joseph the 
 inventive. He w^as quite unaware of the ghastly 
 terrors with which his son had peopled the Great 
 House, but as the largest farmer on the estate he felt 
 it to be his duty to protect vested rights. 
 
 "In the same way that you enter your house," said 
 the girl; "we came in with a key, and have been 
 living here ever since ! " 
 
 "Are you not feared?" piped a voice from the 
 crowd. It was afterwards found that it was Kettle 
 junior who had spoken. 
 
 "Afraid!" answered the girl scornfully, holding 
 her head higher than ever; "do you think that a few 
 foolish people firing at our windows could make us 
 afraid ? Can they, Louis ? " And as she spoke she 
 looked fondly down at her little brother. 
 
 He drew nearer to his sister, looking up at her with 
 a winning confidence, and said in as manly a voice 
 as he could compass, "Certainly not, Irma! But — 
 tell them not to do it any more ! " 
 
 "You hear what my brother says," said the girl 
 
 haughtily. "Let there be no more of this ! " 
 
 i8
 
 MISS IRMA GIVES AN AUDIENCE 19 
 
 "But — in right of law and order, I must know more 
 about this ! " cried Constable Jacky, lifting up his 
 staff again. Somehow, however, the magic had gone 
 from his words. Every one now knew that his 
 thunder had a hollow sound. 
 
 "Ah, you are the gendarme — the official — the 
 officer ! " said the tall girl, with a more pronounced 
 foreign accent than before, making him a little bow ; 
 "please go and tell your superiors that we are here 
 because the place belongs to us — at least to my 
 brother, and that I am staying to take care of him." 
 
 "But how did you come?" persisted the man in 
 authority. 
 
 The tall girl looked over his head. Her glance, 
 clear, cool, penetrating, scanned face after face, and 
 then she said, as it were, regretfully, "There are 
 no gentlefolk among you ? " 
 
 There was the slightest shade of inquiry about 
 words which might have seemed rude as a mere 
 affirmation. Then she appeared to answer for her- 
 self, still with the same tinge of sadness faintly colour- 
 ing her pride. "For this reason I cannot tell you 
 how we came to be here." 
 
 Mr. Josiah Kettle felt called upon to assert himself. 
 
 "I have reason to believe," he said pompously, 
 "that I am as good as any on the estate in the way 
 of being a gentleman — me and my son Joseph. I am 
 a Justice of the Peace, under warrant of the Crown, 
 and so one day will my son Joseph — Jo, you rascal, 
 come off that paling ! " 
 
 But just then Jo Kettle had other fish to fry. From 
 the bad eminence of the garden palisade he was 
 devouring the new-comer with his eyes. As for me, I 
 had shaken the hand of the lately adored Green- 
 sleeves from my arm. 
 
 The girl's glance stayed for an instant and no 
 c 2
 
 20 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 more upon the round and rosy countenance of Mr. 
 Josiah Kettle, Justice of the Peace. She smiled upon 
 him indulgently, but shook her head. 
 
 "I am sorry," she said, with gentle condescension, 
 "that I cannot tell anything more to you. You are one 
 6f the people who broke our windows ! " 
 
 Then Josiah Kettle unfortunately blustered. 
 
 "If you will not, young madam," he cried, "I can 
 soon send them to you who will make you answer." 
 
 The young lady calmly took out of her pocket a 
 dainty pair of ivory writing tablets, such as only the 
 minister of the parish used in all Eden Valley, and he 
 only because he had married a great London lady for 
 his wife. 
 
 " I shall be glad of the name and address of the 
 persons to whom you refer ! " said Miss Irma (for so 
 from that moment I began to call her in my heart). 
 
 "The factors and agents for this estate," Josiah 
 Kettle enunciated grandly. The writing tablets were 
 shut up with a snap of disappointment. 
 
 "Oh, Messrs. Smart, Poole & Smart,'' she said. 
 "Why, I have known them ever since I was as high 
 as little Louis." 
 
 Then she smiled indulgently upon Mr. Kettle, with 
 something so easily grand and yet so sweet that I 
 think the hearts of all went out to her. 
 
 "I suppose," she said, "that really you thought 
 you were doing right in coming here and firing oflf 
 guns without permission. It must be an astonishing 
 thing for you to see this house of the Maitlands 
 inhabited after so long. I do not blame your curi- 
 osity, but I fear I must ask you to send a competent 
 man to repair our windows. For that we hold you 
 responsible, Mr. Officer, and you, Mr. Justice of the 
 Peace — you and your son Jo! Don't we, Louis?" 
 
 " I will see to that myself ! " a voice, the same that
 
 MISS IRMA GIVES AN AUDIENCE 21 
 
 had spoken before, came from the crowd. Miss Irma 
 searched the circle without, however, coming to a 
 conclusion. I do think that her glance lingered 
 longer on my face than on any of the others, perhaps 
 because Gerty Greensleeves was leaning on my 
 shoulder and whispering in my ear. (What a 
 nuisance girls are, sometimes !) So the glance 
 passed on, with something in it at once calm and 
 simple and high, 
 
 " If any of the gentlefolk of our station will call 
 upon us," she went on, "we will tell them how we 
 came to be here — the clergyman of the parish — 
 
 or " here she hesitated for the first time, "or his 
 
 wife." 
 
 Instinctively she seemed to feel the difficulty. 
 "Though we are not of their faith !" she added, smil- 
 ing once more as with the air of serene condescension 
 she had shown all through. 
 
 Then she nodded, and swept a curtsey with an 
 undulating grace which I thought to be adorable, in 
 spite of the suspicion of irony in it. 
 
 "Good-bye, good people," she said, letting her eyes 
 again run the circuit of the sea of faces, reinforced 
 by those who had been firing their blunderbusses and 
 horse-pistols (now carefully concealed) so uselessly at 
 the back windows of the house. "We are obliged 
 for your visit. Salute them, Louis ! " 
 
 Obediently the child carried his hand to the curls 
 ♦on his brow in the same fashion I had seen soldiers 
 do at the militia training on the Dumfries sands, but 
 with the same smilingly tolerant air of receiving and 
 acknowledging the homage of vassals which both of 
 them had shown from the beginning. 
 
 Then Miss Irma smiled upon us all once more, 
 nodded to me (I am sure of it), and without another 
 word, shut the door in our faces.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 FIRST FOOT IN THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 To understand what a sensation these strange 
 events made in Eden Valley, it is necessary that you 
 should know something of Eden Valley itself and 
 how it was governed. 
 
 Governed, you say ? Was it not within the King's 
 dominions, and governed like every other part of 
 these his Majesty's kingdoms? Had we of the Wide 
 Valley risen against constituted authority and filled 
 all Balcary Bay between Isle Rathan and the Red 
 Haven with floating tea-chests ? 
 
 Well, not exactly ; but many a score of stealthy 
 cargoes had been carried past our doors on horse- 
 back, pony-back, shelty-back — ^^up by Bluehills and 
 over the hip of Ben Tudor, And often, often from the 
 Isle of Man fleet had twenty score of barrels been 
 dropped overboard just in time to prevent the minions 
 of the law, as represented by H.M. ship Seamew, 
 sloop-of-war, from seizing them. So you will observe 
 that the revolt of Eden Valley against authority, 
 though not quite so complete as that of the late New 
 England colonies, yet proceeded from the same 
 motives. 
 
 Only, as it happend, the tea-chests which were spilt 
 in Boston Harbour were finished so far as the brew- 
 ing of tea was concerned, while the kegs and firkins 
 dropped overboard were easily recoverable by such 
 as were in the secret. In a day or two, the tide being 
 favourable and the nights dark enough, these same 
 kegs would be found reposing in bulk in the recesses 
 
 22
 
 FIRST FOOT IN HAUNTED HOUSE 23 
 
 of Brandy Knowe, next by Collin Mill — save for a 
 few, left in well defined places — one bei.ng left at the 
 Manse for the Doctor himself. That was within the 
 very wall of the kirkyard, and under the shadow of 
 the clump of yews which had dripped upon the tomb- 
 stones that covered at least three of his predecessors. 
 A second reposed under the prize cabbages belonging 
 to General Johnstone (who, as a young officer of 
 Marines, had simulated the courage of Admiral Byng 
 before Minorca, and like that gallant seaman, 
 narrowly escaped being shot for his pains). General 
 Johnstone's gardener knew well where this keg was 
 hidden. But it contained liquid well-nigh sacred in 
 the eyes of his master, and he had far too much 
 common-sense ever to presume to find it. A third 
 came to anchor under a peat-stack belonging to Mr. 
 Shepstone Oglethorpe, the only Episcopalian within 
 the parish bounds, and the descendent of an English 
 military family which had once held possession of the 
 Maitland estates during the military dragonnades of 
 Charles II and James II, but had been obliged to 
 restore the mansion and most of the property after the 
 Prince of Orange made good his landing with his 
 "Protestant wind" at Torbay. Enough, however, 
 remained to make Mr. Shepstone Oglethorpe the next 
 man in the parish after the minister and the General. 
 He was, besides, a pleasant, gossipy, young-old, 
 fluttery bachelor — a great acquisition at four-hours 
 tea-drinkings, and much more of a praise to them that 
 do well than any sort of a terror to evil-doers. 
 
 These three constituted the general staff of our 
 commonwealth, and in spite of occasional forgetful- 
 nesses as to the declaration of the aforesaid kegs, 
 parcels of French silks and Malines lace, to H.M.'s 
 Supervisor of Customs, King George had no more
 
 24 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 loyal subjects than these highest authorities in Eden 
 Valley, ecclesiastical, military and civil. Then, after 
 due interval, came the farmers of Eden Valley, honest, 
 far-seeing, cautious men, slow of action, slower still 
 of speech — not at all to be judged by the standard of 
 the richest of them, Mr. Josiah Kettle. He was, in 
 fact, a mere incomer, who had been promoted a Justice 
 of the Peace because, on the occasion of the last scare 
 as to a French invasion, he had made and carried out 
 large and remunerative contracts for the supply of the 
 militia and other troops hastily got together to protect 
 the Solway harbours from Dryffe Sands to the Back 
 Shore. 
 
 The siege of the Haunted House of Marnhoul hap- 
 pened on a Friday, the last school-keeping day of the 
 week. Saturday was employed by the parish in 
 digesting the news and forming opinions for the con- 
 sumpt of the morrow. Meantime there was a pretty 
 steady stream of the curious along the Marnhoul 
 road, but the padlock had been replaced, and only the 
 broken bar bore token of the storm which had passed 
 that way. 
 
 On Sunday, however, a small oblong scrap of white 
 attracted the attention of the nearer curious. It was 
 attached, at about the level of the eyes, to the 
 unbroken bar of the gate of Marnhoul, and on being 
 approached with due care, was found to bear the 
 following mysterious inscription — 
 
 "wSi'r Louis Maitland of Marnhoul, Bart., and Miss 
 Irma Sobieski Maitland receive every afternoon from 
 
 2 to 5." 
 
 Marnhoul, GalUnvay, June 21. 
 
 "Keep us a'!" was the universal exclamation of 
 Eden Valley as it read this solemnizing inscription.
 
 FIRST FOOT IN HAUNTED HOUSE 25 
 
 It was generally believed to be a challenge to the 
 lawyers and the powers in general to come at these 
 hours and turn the young people out. 
 
 And many were the opinions as to the legality of 
 such a course. Law was not generally understood in 
 the Galloway of that date, and though the Sheriflf 
 Substitute rode through the village once a month to 
 spend a night over the "cartes" with his friend the 
 General, he too only laughed and rode on. He was 
 well known to me at the head of his profession, and 
 to have the ear of the Government. Such studied 
 indifference, therefore, could only be put dow-n to a 
 desire to wink at the proceedings of the children, 
 illegal and unprecedented as these might be. 
 
 But I must now say something about my own folk. 
 
 Though undoubtedly originally Highland, and, as 
 my father averred, able to claim kindred with the 
 highest of his name, the MacAlpines had long been 
 domiciled in the south. My father was the son of a 
 neighbouring minister, and had only escaped the fate 
 of succeeding his father in the charge by a Highland 
 aversion to taking the sacrament at the age when he 
 was called upon to do so — in order that, by the due 
 order of the Church of Scotland, he might be taken 
 on his trials as a student in Divinity. He had also, 
 about that date, further complicated matters by marry- 
 ing my mother, Grace Lyon, the penniless daughter 
 of a noted Cameronian elder of the parish of Eden 
 Valley. 
 
 In order to support her, and (after a little) tis, John 
 MacAlpine had accepted a small school far up the 
 glen, from which, after a year or two, on the appoint- 
 ment of Dr. Forbes to the parish, he had followed his 
 old college friend to Eden Valley itself. Under his 
 care the little academy had gradually been organized
 
 26 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 on the newest and best scholastic lines known to the 
 time. Even for girls classics and mathematics played 
 a prominent part. Samplers and knitting, which had 
 previously formed a notable branch of the curriculum, 
 were banished to an hour when little Miss Hunting- 
 don taught the girls, locked in her own department 
 like Wykliffites in danger of the fires of Tower Hill. 
 And at such times my father almost ran as he passed 
 the door of the infant school and thought of the follies 
 which were being committed within. 
 
 "Samplers," he was wont to mutter, "samplers — 
 when they might be at their Ovid ! " 
 
 My mother — Gracie Lyon that was— had none of 
 the stern blood of her Cameronian forebears, nor yet 
 my father's tempestuous Norland mood. She was 
 gentle, patient, with little to say for herself — like 
 Leah, tender-eyed (in the English, not in the Hebrew 
 sense) — and I remember well that as a child one of 
 my great pleasures was to stroke her cheek as she 
 was putting me to sleep, saying, "Mother, how soft 
 your skin is. It is like velvet ! " 
 
 "Aye," she would answer, with a sigh gentle as 
 herself, "so they used to tell me ! " 
 
 And I somehow knew that " they " excluded my 
 father, but whom it included I did not know then nor 
 for many a day after. 
 
 But my grandmother, my mother's mother — ah, 
 there indeed you were in a different world ! She dwelt 
 in a large house on the edge of the Marnhoul woods. 
 My grandfather had the lease of the farm of Heath- 
 knowes, with little arable land, but a great hill behind 
 it on which fed black-faced sheep, sundry cattle in the 
 "low parks," and by the river a strip of corn land 
 sufficient for the meal-ark and the stable feeding of 
 his four stout horses. Also on my father's behalf my 
 uncles conducted the lonelv saw-mill that ate and ate
 
 FIRST FOOT IN HAUNTED HOUSE 27 
 
 into the Great Wood and yet never got any farther. 
 There might be seen machinery for making spools — 
 with water-driven lathes, which turned these articles, 
 variously known as "bobbins" and "pirns," literally 
 off the reel by the thousand. It was a sweet, birch- 
 smelling place and my favourite haunt on all holidays. 
 William Lyon, my grandfather, had had a tempestu- 
 ous youth, from which, as he said, he had been saved 
 "by the grace of God and Mary Lyon." 
 
 "Many a sore day she had with me," he would 
 confess to me, for he took pleasure in my society, 
 "but got me buckled down at last ! " 
 
 As my grandmother also kept me in the most affec- 
 tionate but complete subjection, the fact that neither 
 one nor the other of us dared disobey "Mary Lyon" 
 was a sort of bond between us. Yet my grandmother 
 was not a very tall nor yet to the outward eye a 
 powerful woman. You had to look her in the eye to 
 know. But there you saw a flash that would have 
 cowed a grenadier. There was something masterful 
 and even martial in her walk, in the way she attacked 
 the enemy of the moment, or the work that fell to her 
 hand. All her ways were dominating without ever 
 being domineering. But in the house of Heath- 
 knowes all knew that she had just to be obeyed, and 
 there was an end to it. 
 
 When my father and she clashed, it was like the 
 meeting of Miltonic thunderclouds over the Caspian. 
 But on the whole it was safe to wager that even then 
 grandmother got her way. John MacAlpine first dis- 
 charged his Celtic electricity, and then disengaged his 
 responsibility with the slirug of the right shoulder 
 which was habitual to him. After all, was there not 
 always Horace in his pocket — which he would finger 
 to calm himself even in the heat of a family dispute? 
 
 A great school-master was my father, far ben in the
 
 28 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 secrets of the ancient world — and such a man is always 
 very much of a humanist. My grandmother, alert, 
 clear, decided on all doctrinal points, argumentative, 
 with all her wits fine-edged by the Shorter Catechism, 
 could not abide the least haziness of outline in 
 religious belief. 
 
 She did not agree with my grandfather's easier 
 ways, but then he did not argue with her, being far 
 too wise a man. 
 
 "Eh, William," she would say, "ye will carry even 
 to the grave some rag of the Scarlet Woman. And at 
 the end I will not be surprised to find ye sitting on 
 some knowetap amang the Seven Hills ! " 
 
 But at least my grandfather was a Cameronian 
 elder, in the little kirk down by the ford, to which 
 the Lyons had resorted ever since the days of the 
 societies — long before even worthy Mr. MacMillan of 
 Balmaghie came into the Church, ordaining elders, 
 and, along with the pious Mr. Logan of Buittle, even 
 ordaining ministers for carrying on the work pf the 
 faithful protesting remnant. 
 
 But my father, John MacAlpine, both by office and 
 by temperament, belonged to the Kirk of Scotland as 
 by law established. So indeed did nine-tenths of the 
 folk in the parish of Eden Valley. The band of 
 Cameronians at the Ford, and the forlorn hope of 
 Episcopalians in their hewn-stone chapel with the 
 strange decorations, built on the parcel of ground per- 
 taining to Mr. Shepstone Oglethorpe, were the only 
 non-Establishers in the parish. Yet both, neverthe- 
 less, claimed to be the only true Church of Scotland, 
 claimed it fiercely, with a fervour sharpened by the 
 antiquity of their claims and the smallness of their 
 numbers. This was especially true of the Camer- 
 onians, who were ever ready to give a reason for the
 
 FIRST FOOT IN HAUNTED HOUSE 29 
 
 faith that was in them. The EpiscopaHans lacked the 
 Westminster Catechisms as a means of intellectual 
 gymnastic. So far, therefore, they were handicapped, 
 and indeed reduced to the mere persistent assertion 
 that they, and they alone, were the apostolic Church, 
 and if any out of their communion were saved, it 
 must only be by the uncovenanted mercies of God. 
 
 Yet, though not within the sacred triangle of 
 gentility (as it was known in Eden Valley), of which 
 the manse, the General's bungalow, and the residence 
 of Mr. Shepstone Oglethorpe occupied the three 
 angles, my grandmother was the first caller upon the 
 lonely children in the great house of Marnhoul. 
 
 I shall never forget her indignation when I went 
 in to the dairy and told her in detail what had hap- 
 pened — of the forcing of the gates, and the firing 
 upon the back windows. My grandfather, seated 
 within doors, in his great triangular easy-chair at his 
 own corner of the wide fireplace, looked up and 
 remarked in his serene and far-off fashion that "such 
 proceedings filled him with shame and sorrow." 
 
 The words and still more the tone roused my grand- 
 mother. 
 
 "William Lyon," she said, standing before him in 
 the clean middle of the hearth which she had just 
 been sweeping, and threatening him with the brush 
 (she would not have touched him for anything in the 
 world, for she recognized his position as an elder). 
 "Hear to ye — -'shame and sorrow' ! Aye, well may 
 ye say it. Had I been there I would have ' sinned 
 and sorrowed ' them. To go breaking into houses 
 with swords and staves, and firing off powder and 
 shot — all to frighten a pair of poor bairns ! Certes, 
 but I would have sorted them to rights — with tongue, 
 aye, and with arm also."
 
 30 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 And at this point Mary Lyon advanced a step so 
 fiercely and with such martial energy, that, well inured 
 as my grandfather was to the generous outbursts of 
 his wife, he moved his chair back with a certain 
 alacrity. 
 
 "Mary," he remonstrated, "Mr. Shepstone Ogle- 
 thorpe was with them. So at least I understand, and 
 also Mr. Kettle, who is a Justice of the Peace — these 
 in addition to the constable " 
 
 He got no further. My grandmother swooped upon 
 the names, as perhaps he expected. It was by no 
 means the first time that, in order to draw off the 
 hounds of his wife's wrath, he had skilfully drawn a 
 red herring across the trail. 
 
 "Shepstone — Shepstone!" she cried, "a useless, 
 daidling body ! What was he ever good for in this 
 world but to tie his neckcloth and twirl his cane ? Oh 
 aye, he can maybe button his ' spats ' ! That is, if 
 he doesna get the servant lass to do it for him. And 
 Josiah Kettle ! William, I wonder you are not 
 shamed, goodman — to sit there in your own hearth- 
 corner and name such a hypocrite to me " 
 
 "Stop there, Mary," said her husband; "only a 
 man's Maker has the right to call him a hypo- 
 crite " 
 
 "Well, I am an Elder's wife, and I'll e'en be his 
 Viceroy. Josiah Kettle is a hypocrite, and I hae 
 telled him so to his face — not once, but a score of 
 times. He has robbed the widow. He has impover- 
 ished the orphan. Pegs, if I were a man, I could not 
 keep my hands off him, and, 'deed, I have hard 
 enough work as it is. If there was a man about the 
 house worth his salt " 
 
 "Forgive your enemies " suggested my grand- 
 father, "do good "
 
 FIRST FOOT IN HAUNTED HOUSE 31 
 
 "So I would — so I would," cried my grandmother, 
 "but first I would give the best cheese out o' the 
 dairy-loft to see Josiah ducked head over heels in 
 Blackmire Dub ! Forgive — aye, certainly, since it is 
 commanded. But a bit dressing down would do the 
 like o' him no harm, and then the Lord could take His 
 own turn at him after ! " 
 
 Thus did my grandmother address all who came 
 into contact with her, and there is every reason to 
 believe that she had more than once similarly exhorted 
 Mr. Josiah Kettle, rich farmer and money-lender 
 though he was. Yet it is equally certain that if Mr. 
 Kettle had been stricken with a dangerous and deadly 
 malady which made his nearest kin flee from him, it 
 would have been my grandmother who w'ould have 
 flown to nurse him with the same robust and forcible 
 tenderness with which she oversaw the teething and 
 other ills incidental to her daughter's children. 
 
 "As for Jocky Black," continued my grandmother, 
 "the pomp of the atomy — ' In the name of the law,' 
 says he — I'd law him ! I would e'en nip his bit stick 
 from his puir twisted fingers and gie him his paiks — 
 that is, if it were worth the trouble ! As for me, get 
 me my bonnet, Jen— my best Sunday leghorn with 
 the puce chenille in it — I must look my featest going 
 to a great house to pay my respects. And you shall 
 come too, Duncan ! " (She turned to me with her 
 usual alertness.) "Run home and tidy — quick ! Bid 
 your mother put on your Sunday suit. No, Jen, I will 
 not take you to fright the poor things out of their 
 wits. Afterwards, we shall see. But at first, Duncan 
 there, if he gets over his blateness, will be more of 
 their age, and fear them less." 
 
 "If all I hear be true," said my Aunt Jen, pursing 
 up her mouth as if she had bitten into a crab apple,
 
 32 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "the lassie is little likely to be feared of you or any 
 mortal on the earth ! " 
 
 "Maybe aye — maybe no," snapped my grand- 
 mother, "at any rate be off with you into the back 
 kitchen and see that the dishes are washed, so as not 
 to be a show to the public. You and Meg have so 
 little sense that whiles I wonder that I am your 
 mother." 
 
 "You are not Meg's mother that I ken of! " her 
 daughter responded acridly. 
 
 "I am her mistress, and the greater fool to keep such 
 a handless hempie about the house ! You, Janet, I 
 have to provide for in some wise — such being the will 
 of the Lord — His and your father's there. Now then, 
 clear ! Be douce ! Let me get on my cloak and leg- 
 horn bonnet." 
 
 My grandmother being thus accoutred, and I in- 
 vested with a black jacket, kneebreeches, shoes, and 
 the regulation fluffy tie that tickled my throat and 
 made me a week-day laughing stock to all who dared. 
 Mistress Mary Lyon and I started to make" our first 
 call at the Great House of Marnhoul.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE CENSOR OF MORALS 
 
 As my grandmother and I went down the little loan- 
 ing from Heathknowes Farm she had an eye for every- 
 thing. She "shooed" into duty's path a youngling 
 hen with vague maternal aspirations which was wan- 
 dering off to found a family by laying an egg in the 
 underbrush about the saw-mill. She called back final 
 directions to her daughter Jen and maidservant Meg, 
 and saw that they were attended to before she would 
 go on. She looked into the saw-mill itself in the by- 
 going, and made sure that Rob McTurk was in due 
 attendance on the whirling machinery which was 
 turning off the spools, as it seemed to me, with the 
 rapidity of light. She inquired as to the whereabouts 
 of her husband. 
 
 "Oh, he was in a minute since! " said the politic 
 Rob, who knew very well that my grandfather had 
 climbed into the bark storage loft, and was at that 
 moment sitting on a bundle, with a book in his hand 
 and content in his heart at having escaped the last 
 injunctions of his wife. 
 
 "Well, then," said Mistress Mary Lyon, "tell him 
 from me " And, as usual, a long list of recom- 
 mendations followed. 
 
 "I'll see to it that he hears," said Rob McTurk 
 imperturbably, knowing full well that his master could 
 by no means help hearing, since my grandmother, in 
 order to drown the noise of the whirling spindles and 
 clattering cogs, had raised her voice till her every 
 word must have penetrated to the pleasant, bark- 
 scented place where, under his solitary skylight, Mr. 
 
 D -• -•
 
 34 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 William Lyon was so calmly reading his favourite 
 Memoirs of the Life of Thomas Boston of Ettrick. 
 
 Besides my clothes, there were two things which 
 interfered with the happiness of my jaunt. One was 
 the presence of a tliird and most uncertain party to the 
 affair — our rough, red house-collie Crazy, and the 
 other was a doubt as to the way in which we would 
 be received. For, be it remembered, I had seen Miss 
 Irma Maitland shut the great door at the top of the 
 Marnhoul steps on the raging crowd of assailants, and 
 I wondered if we would not also find it slammed in our 
 faces. 
 
 I had, however, confidence in my grandmother. 
 
 On the way to the padlocked gate at the entrance 
 of the avenue which led to the Haunted House, my 
 grandmother had abundant room for the exercise of 
 her gifts. Never was there a woman who came across 
 so many things that "she could not abide." 
 
 Such, for instance, were Widow Tolmie's ideas as 
 to disposal of her nocturnal household rubbish on the 
 King's highway. Into the Tolmie house went Mis- 
 tress Mary Lyon, well aware that words would have 
 no avail. In a minute she had requisitioned broom, 
 bucket, and "claut," or byre-rake. In other three 
 minutes all was over. Widow Tolmie had a clean 
 frontage. The utensils had been washed and hung 
 up, and my grandmother was delivering a lecture from 
 one of the most frequently-quoted texts which are not 
 to be found in Holy Writ, while she drew again upon 
 her strong, energetic old hands the pair of lisle thread 
 "mitts" she had taken oH in order to effect her clean 
 sweep. 
 
 After she had duly lectured the Widow Tolmie, she 
 bade her in all amity "Good-day," and started to 
 reform Crazy, who had been gyrating furiously across 
 her path, trying apparently to bite his tail out by the
 
 THE CENSOR OF MORALS 35 
 
 roots. Crazy was, it appeared, a useless, good-for- 
 nothing beast, a disgrace to a decent Elder's house, 
 and I was ordered to stone him home. 
 
 Now I did not particularly wish Crazj^ to go w'ith us 
 to the Great House. I thought of the smiling care- 
 lessness of the girl's face I had seen there. Crazy 
 might, and very likely would, misbehave himself. 
 But still, Crazy was my friend, my companion, my 
 joy. Stone Crazy! It was not to be thought of. He 
 would certainly consider it some new kind of game 
 and run barking after the missiles. I therefore shot 
 so far beyond that the pebbles fell over the hedge, till 
 my grandmother, whose sole method was an ungainly 
 cross between a hurl and a jerk, took up the fusillade 
 on her own account, with the result that Crazy was 
 wrought up to the highest point of excitement, and, as 
 I had foreseen, brought each stone back to my grand- 
 mother, barking joyously and pulling at her skirts for 
 her to throw again. 
 
 "And just wait till I get you home," gasped Mrs. 
 Mary Lyon, shaking her rough white head, "there 
 shall a rope be put about your neck, my lad ! " 
 
 But whether for the purpose of mere tying up, or to 
 carry out the extreme sentence of the law, I did not 
 gather. I resolved that, in the latter case, Crazy 
 should come with me to the school-house. There was 
 a place I knew of there, a crib at the end of the stick- 
 cellar, w'hich at a pinch would do admirably for Crazy. 
 And I felt sure that Crazy, wholly incompetent at his 
 own business of shepherding, would be a perfect 
 "boys' dog" and a permanent acquisition to the 
 Academy of Eden Valley. There was, of course, my 
 father to consider. But I did not stop to think of 
 that. The classics and Fred Esquillant were enough 
 for him at the moment. 
 
 As she passed various cottage doors my grand- 
 
 D 2
 
 36 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUxH 
 
 inuther had several bouts with joiners who blocked the 
 road with unliiiished carts and diffusive pots of red 
 paint, with smah wayside cowherds in charge of 
 animals which considered the hedge-rows as their ap- 
 pointed pasturage, with boys going fishing who had 
 learned at school that a straight line is the shortest 
 distance between two points, and who practised their 
 Euclid to the detriment of their neighbours' fences. 
 
 But nothing of great moment occurred till, on the 
 same knoll from which he had summoned us to view 
 the smoke of the ghost's afternoon fire at Marnhoul, 
 we encountered Boyd Connoway. He was stretched 
 at length, as usual, one leg crossed negligently over 
 the other. He had pivoted his head against a log for 
 the purpose of seeing in three directions about him — 
 towards the Great House, and both up and down the 
 main road. A straw, believed to be always the same, 
 was in his mouth. 
 
 A red rag to a bull, a match to tinder, are weak 
 metaphors — quite incapable of expressing a tenth of 
 what my grandmother felt at the sight of the pet idler 
 of Eden Valley. 
 
 She rushed instantly to the assault, much as she 
 would have led a forlorn hope. The dragoons who 
 plunged their swords into great mows of straw in 
 Covenanting barns, the unfortunates who pursued a 
 needle through a load of hay, were employed in hope- 
 ful work when compared with Mistress Mary Lyon, 
 searching with her tongue in this mass of self-suffi- 
 ciency for any trace of Boyd Connoway's long-lost 
 conscience. 
 
 " Why are you not at home ? " she cried ; " I heard 
 Bridget complaining as I came by, that she could not 
 feed the pig because she had nobody to bring her 
 wood for her boiler fire — and she in the middle of her 
 blanket washing ! "
 
 THE CENSOR OF MORALS 37 
 
 The husband whom fate and her own vouthfiil follv 
 had given to Bridget Con noway, took off his battered 
 and weather-beaten hat with the native politeness of 
 a born Irishman. He did not rise. That would have 
 been too much to expect of him. But he uncrossed 
 his legs and recrossed them the other way about. 
 
 "Mistress Lyon," he said indolentlv, but with the 
 soft, well-anointed utterance of the blarneying 
 islander, Avhich does not die away till the third genera- 
 tion of the poorest exile from Erin, "now, misthress 
 dear, consider ! " 
 
 "I have considered vou for seven vears, and seven 
 to the back of that, Boyd Connoway, and you are a 
 lazy lout ! Every year you get worse ! " 
 
 My grandmother counted nothing so stimulating as 
 truth spoken to the face. She acted, with all save her 
 male grandchildren, on the ancient principle that 
 "Praise to the face is an open disgrace I " And Boyd» 
 in his time, had been singularly exempt from this 
 kind of disgrace, so far as my grandmother was 
 concerned. 
 
 "But consider, Mrs. Lyon," he went on tranquilly, 
 while my relative stood in the road and eyed him with 
 bitter scorn, "there's my wife, now she's up early 
 and late. She's scrubbing and cleaning, and all for 
 what? — just that yonder pack o' children o' hers 
 should go out on the road and come trailing back in 
 ten minutes dirtier than ever. She runs to Shepstone 
 Oglethorpe's to give his maid a help in the mornings, 
 all for a miserable three shillings a week. She takes 
 no rest to the sole of her foot, nor gives nobody any 
 either! Poor Bridget — I am sorry for Bridget. 
 ' Take things easier, and you will feel better, Bridget,' 
 I say. ' Trust in Providence, Bridget ! ' ' Think on 
 what the Doctor said three Sundays but one ago from 
 the very pulpit.' And would ye believe me, Mistress
 
 38 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Lyon, that poor woman, being left to herself, threw 
 all the weights at me one after the other — aye, and 
 would have thrown the scales too if I had not come 
 away ! " 
 
 Here Connoway sighed and stretched himself 
 luxuriously, rubbing the stiff fell of his hair medi- 
 tatively as he did so. 
 
 "Ah, poor Bridget," he continued, with pathos in 
 his voice, "Bridget is so dreadfully unresigned, 
 Mistress Lyon. Often have I said to her, ' Be 
 resigned, Bridget — trust in Providence, Bridget I' But 
 as sure as I point out Bridget's duty, there i§ some- 
 thing broken in our house ! " 
 
 "Pity but it was your head, Boyd Connoway! 
 Come away, child!" cried my grandmother, "quick 
 • — lest I do that man an injury. He puts me in such 
 a state that I declare to goodness I am thankful I 
 have not a poker in my hand ! Now there's your 
 grandfather-— — " 
 
 But she went no further in the discussion of her own 
 lesser household burden. For there right in front of 
 us was the great gate, the battered notice to tres- 
 passers, the broken standard on which the padlock, 
 now removed, had worn a rusty hollow, and in its 
 place we read the little white notice concerning the 
 hours at which the mistress of the mansion could 
 receive visitors. 
 
 "Oh, the poor young things!" said my grand- 
 mother, her anger (as was its wont) instantly cooling, 
 and even Boyd Connoway dropping back into his 
 own place as perhaps a necessary factor in an ill- 
 regulated but on the whole rather bearable world. 
 
 The gate creaked open slowly. JNIy grandmother 
 drew herself up. For did she not come of the best 
 blood of the Westland Whigs, great-granddaughter 
 of that Bell of Whiteside, kinsman of Kenmure's,
 
 THE CENSOR OF MORALS 39 
 
 who was shot by Lag on the moor of Kirkconnel, near 
 to the Lynn through which the Tarfif foams white? 
 
 For me, I was chiefly conscious of the bushes 
 and shrubs on either side the avenue, broken and 
 trampled in the tumultuous rush of the populace on 
 the day of the discovery. I felt guilty. By that way 
 Gerty Greensleeves and I had passed, Gerty very 
 close to my elbow. And now, like the rolling away of 
 a panorama picture in a show, Gerty Greensleeves, 
 and all other maids save one, had passed out of my 
 life. Or so, in my ignorance, I thought at the time. 
 
 For no woman ever passes wholly out of any man's 
 life — that is, if he lives long enough. She steals back 
 again with the coming of life's gloaming, with the 
 shadows of night creeping across the hills, or the 
 morning mists swimming up out of the valley. Some- 
 times she is weeping, but more often smiling. For 
 there is time enough, since the man last thought of 
 her, for all tears to be wiped from her eyes. But come 
 she will. Yet sometimes it is not so. She does not 
 smile. She only stands on the threshold of a man's 
 soul with reproachful eyes, and lips drawn and mute. 
 Then it is not good to be that man. 
 
 But in those days, being a boy, carried along in 
 the waft of my grandmother's skirt, I knew nothing 
 about such things. 
 
 I watched my grandmother take the antique knocker 
 between her fingers, noting with housewifely approval 
 that it had recently been polished. I have seldom 
 passed a more uncomfortable time of waiting, than 
 that between the resounding clatter of grandmother's 
 knocking reverberating through the empty house, and 
 the patter of feet, the whispering, and at last the 
 opening of the door. 
 
 Then I saw again the tall girl with the proudly 
 angled chin, the crown of raven curls, and the pair of
 
 40 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 brave outlooking eyes that met all the world with 
 something that was even a little bold. 
 
 I had been afraid that my grandmother, so indis- 
 criminating in her admonitions, might open fire upon 
 this forlorn couple, isolated in the great haunted house 
 of Marnhoul. But I need not have troubled. 
 
 My grandmother had the instinct of caressing 
 maternity for all the young, tfie forlorn, the helpless. 
 So she only opened her arms and cried out, "Oh, you 
 dears — you poor darlings ! " 
 
 And the little boy, moved by the instinctive yearn- 
 ing of all that needed protection, of everything of 
 tender years and little strength towards the breast that 
 had suckled and the hands that had nursed, let go his 
 sister's hand and ran happily to my grandmother. 
 She caught him in her arms and lifted him up with the 
 easy habitual gesture of one long certified as a mother 
 in Israel. He threw his little arms about my grand- 
 mother's neck, nestling there just as the rest of us 
 used to do when we were in any trouble. 
 
 "I like you ! You are good ! " he said. 
 
 Miss T'rma and I were therefore left eye to eye while 
 Louis Maitland, in spite of his title, was so rapidly 
 making friends with the actual head of our family. 
 
 Irma eyed me, and I did the like to Miss Irma — that 
 is, to the best of my ability, which in this matter was 
 nothing to hers. She seemed to look me through and 
 through. At which I quailed, and then she appeared 
 a little more content. 
 
 With the child still in her arms, and her voice, 
 lately so harsh in rebuke, now tuned to the cooing of 
 a nesting dove, my grandmother introduced herself. 
 
 "Child," she said to Miss Irma, "I am your nearest 
 neighbour. Who should come to welcome you if not 
 I ? You will find me at the farm of Heathknowes. It 
 is my goodman's saw-mills that you hear clattering
 
 THE CENSOR OF MORALS 41 
 
 from where vou stand, and T am come to see if there 
 is anythinef I can do to help you." 
 
 "I thank you " besran the girl, and then hesi- 
 tated. She had meant to declare that they wanted for 
 nothing, perhaps to indicate that the wife of a tenant 
 was hardly a fitting "first-foot" to venture over the 
 threshold of a baronet of ancient name and of the 
 sister who acted as his sponsor, tutor and governor. 
 
 But then Miss Trma did not know my grandmothef 
 as Eden Valley did, still less as we who were, as one 
 might say, of Caesar's household. 
 
 "Let me come in — I will soon see for myself!" 
 quoth my grandmother, and marched straight into the 
 front hall of the Maitlands, that immense dusky cavern 
 I had only once looked into over the pikes and pitch- 
 forks. She carried Sir Louis, tenth baronet of that 
 name, on one arm. With her free right hand she w .it 
 hither and thither, sweeping her hand along the 
 ledges of great oak cabinets, blowing at the dust on 
 the stone mantelpiece, and finally clearing the great 
 curtained south-western window to let in the sun in 
 flakes and patches of scarlet and gold. 
 
 Then she turned to Miss Irma and said in the tone 
 of an expert who has inspected a grave piece of work 
 and not found it wanting, "You have done very 
 well, my dear ! " 
 
 And at this Miss Irma changed the fashion of her 
 countenance. Pleasure shone scarce concealed. It 
 was certain that up to that moment she had regarded 
 my grandmother somewhat in the light of an intruder, 
 but she could not bear up against such an appeal from 
 housewife to housewife. . . 
 
 "Will you come up-stairs?" she said, "I have 
 hardly got begun here yet."
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE APOTHEOSIS OF AGNES ANNE 
 
 No word or look included me in the invitation 
 which Miss Irma tendered to my grandmother. 
 Nevertheless I followed, not knowing what else to do. 
 I felt huge, awkward, clumsy of build and knotty 
 of elbow and knee. I was conscious that my knuckles 
 were red. I felt in the way and unhappy. In short, 
 I hulked. Indeed, but that I was able to watch two 
 eyes of darkest grey beneath a wisp of untamed curls 
 on a small and shapely headj and the look of the 
 thing, I would far rather have stopped out on the 
 doorstep with Crazy. 
 
 And perhaps that would have been the best place 
 for me, all things considered. 
 
 After we had passed two or three rooms in review, 
 all of which were, as it appeared to me, garnished 
 with the ordinary sheets and coverlets of a bedroom, 
 my grandmother abruptly turned upon Miss Irma. 
 
 "Let me see your hands ! " she said, in her ordinary 
 brusque manner. I was in terror lest we should be 
 shown to the door. But the freemasonry of work, 
 the knowledge of things feminine, the fine little nod 
 of appreciation at a detail which is perfectly lost on 
 a man, the flush of answering approbation had done 
 their perfect work between the old woman and the 
 girl. 
 
 Such things were not within my ken, and my grand- 
 mother promptly banished me. She set down the 
 little baronet at the same time with a "Run and play, 
 
 my doo ! " She issued directions for me to charge 
 
 42
 
 APOTHEOSIS OF AGNES ANNE 43 
 
 myself with the responsibihty. I would much rather 
 have stayed to hear what grandmother and Miss Irma 
 had to say one to the other, because I was more in- 
 terested in that. But the choice was not given to me. 
 Go I must. 
 
 And wath her first personal word of acknowledg- 
 ment that I was a human being, Miss Irma, calling 
 me by name, indicated the "draw-ing-room " as the 
 place where we might await the end of this first con- 
 gress of the Holy Alliance. 
 
 I was some little alarmed at the place, the name 
 of which so far I had only seen in books, but little 
 Sir Louis whispered in my ear as he took my hand, 
 "We can play there. That's only what sister Irma 
 calls it ! " 
 
 When my grandmother and Miss Irma appeared 
 after an absence of half-an-hour they found the tw^o of 
 us deep in a game of bat-ball. I made an attempt 
 to hide the ball, fearing lest Miss Irma might think 
 I usually carried such things about with me (I had 
 confiscated it in class that day). But I need not have 
 troubled, she paid no attention whatever to me, con- 
 tinuing to hold my grandmother's hand and look into 
 the wise, stormy, tender, emphatic, much-enduring 
 old face. And I wondered at my relative, and saw in 
 this marvel one more proof of her own infallibility. 
 
 "You must not stay any longer in this great house 
 alone," she was saying, "I will send you — some- 
 body." 
 
 Then she looked again at Miss Irma's hands, and 
 though I did not see why, nor understand at the time, 
 she added, "No — no — it will never do — never do!" 
 I wish I could say that on this first occasion of our 
 meeting. Miss Irma devoted a little of her attention 
 to me. But the truth is, she had eyes for nobody but
 
 44 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Mistress Mary Lyon of Heathknowes. True, a 
 glance occasionally came my way, which caused me 
 instinctively to straighten myself up and square my 
 shoulders, as I did in the playground when acting 
 as drill sergeant to the juniors. But the very same 
 glance with quite as much personality in it, passed 
 on to Crazy, who, to the exuberant delight of little 
 Louis, had bv this time intruded himself. It was im- 
 possible for the most self-conceited to bring away 
 much comfort or encouragement from favours so 
 slight as these. 
 
 Even Louis, after the advent of Crazy, considered 
 me only as his drill-sergeant, and valued me accord- 
 ing as Crazy consented to show off his tricks at the 
 word of command from m6. 
 
 "Behave, sir! You are in the kirk!" cried L 
 And lo ! to the boy's wonder Crazy, who had been 
 gambolling about on the bare floor, sank down with 
 his head between his paws and his eyes hypocritically 
 closed, till I gave the signal, "Now , fight the 
 French ! " Upon which uprose Crazy like a dancing 
 bear on his bind legs, and jumped about with flaming 
 eyes, barking with all his might. This, being the 
 performance which pleased Crazy most, was also the 
 favourite with the young Sir Louis. 
 
 Lideed leavetaking was difficult, though by no 
 means on my account. For Miss Irma was all taken 
 up with grandmother and little Louis w'ith Crazy. 
 Nobody minded me, and Miss Irma did not so much 
 as reach me a finger, though at the last she just 
 nodded, and Sir Louis had to be removed wailing, 
 because he wished to keep his arms tight about the 
 shaggy neck of Master Crazy, that singularly in- 
 different sheep-dog, but excellent variety entertainer. 
 
 It was, however, promised that Crazy should
 
 APOTHEOSIS OF AGNES ANNE 45 
 
 return, and as 1 knew that Crazy would by no means 
 perform without me, considering himself bound to 
 me by hours of patient labour and persistent fellow 
 truantry, 1 saw some light on the horizon of an 
 otherwise dark future. / must go back too. But in 
 the meantime Louis wept uncomforted, and "batted" 
 his sister with baby palms in the impotence of his 
 anger as she carried him within. 
 
 My grandmother said nothing of any importance 
 on the way home. She was evidently thinking 
 deeply, and confined herself to "Hush, you there! " 
 and "Do ye hear what 1 was saying to ye ? " Under 
 a hre of suchlike remarks, delivered more or less at 
 random, and without the least discrimination between 
 the barking of Crazy (the efiect) and me (the cause) 
 — I kept a little in the rear so that 1 might have a 
 sober face on me when she turned round, while the 
 less subtle Crazy galloped in furious circles yapping 
 and leaping up even in my grandmother's face. He 
 was, however, useful in drawing her hre, and though 
 1 had to keep a sharp look-out for the stones she 
 caught up to throw at Crazy (who ran no personal 
 danger) our home-coming was effected in good order 
 and with considerable amusement to myself. 
 
 But on her arrival at Heathknowes, Mrs. Mary 
 Lyon found that there were forces in the universe 
 which even she was powerless to conquer. 
 
 Meg, the "indoor" lass at Heathknowes, refused 
 point-blank to go one foot in the direction of the 
 "Ghaist's Hoose." She persisted in her refusal even 
 when addressed by the awe-inspiring baptismal name 
 of Margaret Simprin Hetherington, and reminded of 
 the terms of her engagement. 
 
 No, Margaret Simprin Hetherington would not — 
 could not — dared not — stay a night in the great house
 
 46 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 of Marnhoul. Whatever my grandmother might say- 
 it was not so nominated in the bond. She had been 
 hired to serve about the farmhouse of Heathknowes, 
 and she did not mind carrying their dinners to the 
 workmen in the saw-mill 
 
 "No," interpolated my grandmother, "nor taking 
 an hour-and-a-half to do it in ! " 
 
 Upon which, as if stirred by some association of 
 ideas, Meg added that she w'ould go none to Marnhoul 
 Big Hoose, "because not a soul would come near the 
 place." It did not matter whether she believed in 
 Grey Ladies with rain-drops pattering through them 
 or not — other people did, and she would not be 
 banished "among the clocks and rattons " — no, not 
 for double wages ! 
 
 My grandmother, indeed, explained that there was 
 no question of ladies grey or rain-drops pattering, but 
 of obedience to her legal mistress. 
 
 But she knew that the cause was lost, and I am 
 quite sure anticipated the reply of Margaret Simprin 
 Hetherington, which was to the effect that no lass, 
 indoor or outdoor, was more willing to obey her 
 mistress than she, but it would be in the place in 
 which she had been hired to serve — there and not 
 elsewhere. 
 
 For once my grandmother was nonplussed. Being 
 a good Galloway woman she knew that of all things 
 it is most impossible to run counter to the supersti- 
 tions of her people. Perhaps she retained a touch of 
 these herself. But, as she said, "The grace of the 
 Lord can overcome all the wiles of the Evil One ! 
 And Mary Lyon would like to see witch or warlock, 
 ghost or ghostling, that would come in her road when 
 she went forth under His banner." On the darkest 
 night she marched unafraid, conquering- and to con-
 
 APOTHEOSIS OF AGNES ANNE 47 
 
 quer, having the superstitions born in her, but know- 
 ing all the same (and all the better for that knowledge) 
 on which side were the bigger battalions. 
 
 It was no use to send my Aunt Jen, who had once 
 been "in a place" before. Aunt Jen would go, but 
 — she would take her tongue with her. She had her 
 mother's command of language, but was utterly desti- 
 tute of her tact, lacking also, as was natural, the 
 maternal instinct. As, in a moment of exaspera- 
 tion my grandmother once said of her, "Our Jinnet 
 is dried up like a crab-tree in the east wind ! " 
 
 She would certainly undo all that Mistress Mary 
 Lyon had done, and "that puir young lassie" (as 
 she called Miss Irma) carried a warlike flash in her 
 eye which warned the rugged grandmotherly heart 
 that she and our Aunt Jen could not long bide at 
 peace in the same house. 
 
 My mother might have done, as far as temper was 
 concerned, but she wanted what grandmother called 
 the "needcessary birr." Besides which she had more 
 than enough to do in caring for her own house, mend- 
 ing my father's clothes and misinforming the public 
 as to Post Office regulations. On the whole, though 
 she loved her married daughter, I think Mary Lyon 
 was not a little sorry for my father, John MacAlpine, 
 in his choice of a housekeeper. I could see this by 
 the occasional descents she made upon our house, and 
 the way she had of going about the rooms, setting 
 things to rights, silent save for a running comment 
 of soft sniffs upon the nose of contempt — the while 
 my mother, after a sympathetic glance at me, devoted 
 herself to silent prayer that grandmother would not 
 light upon anything very bad. 
 
 With my grandmother, to fail in the due ordering 
 of a house was a cardinal sin. And my poor mother
 
 4d THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 sinned, not indeed by intention, hardly even in labour, 
 but in that appearance of easy perfection, which in a 
 household is the result of excellent plans thoroughly 
 and timeously carried out. She was apt to be found 
 late of an afternoon in a chair with a book — and the 
 dinner dishes still unwashed. Then Agnes Anne, 
 my sister, would come in without a word. Her school 
 frock would be quickly shrouded under a great coarse 
 apron. If 1 happened to be within doors 1 was 
 beckoned to assist. If not, not — and Agnes Anne 
 did them herself while my mother slept on. 
 
 But 1 do not think that grandmother knew this, 
 for she very generally ignored Agnes Anne alto- 
 gether, havmg a decided preference for boys in a 
 family. It fell out, therefore, that when she came a 
 little shamefacedly to consult my father, as she some- 
 times did in days of difficulty — for under a show of 
 contempt she often really submitted to his judgment 
 — it was given to Agnes Anne to say suddenly, "Let 
 me go to Alarnhoul, grandmother!" If Balaam's 
 ass (or say, Crazy), had spoken these words, grand- 
 mother could not have been more astonished. 
 
 More so still when John MacAlpine nodded 
 approval. 
 
 " Yes, let the lassie go — let her put her hand to the 
 work. The burden cannot be too soon laid on young 
 shoulders- — that is, if they are strgng enough." 
 
 Mary Lyon stared, as if both he and his daughter 
 had suddenly taken leave of their senses. 
 
 "Why, what can the .lassie do?" she cried; "I 
 thought you were making her nothing but a don in 
 the dead languages ! " 
 
 " 1 can bake, and brew, and wash, and keep a house 
 clean," said Agnes Anne, putting in her testimonials, 
 since there was no one so well acquainted with them.
 
 APOTHEOSIS OF AGNES ANNE 49 
 
 My lather nodded. He was not so blind as many 
 might suppose. My mother said, "Aye, 'deed, she 
 can that. Agnes Anne is a good lass. I know not 
 what I should do without her ! " 
 
 My grandmother looked about at the new air of 
 tidiness, and for the first time a suspicion crossed 
 her mind that, out of a pit from which she w'as expect- 
 ing no such treasure, some one in her own image 
 might possibly have been digged among her descend- 
 ants of the second generation. She looked at Agnes 
 Anne with a ray of hope. Agnes Anne stood the 
 awful searching power of that eye. Agnes Anne did 
 not flinch. Mary Lyon nodded her head with its 
 man's close-cropped locks of rough white hair in 
 lyart locks about her ears. 
 
 "You'll do, Agnes Anne, you'll do," she said, 
 adding cautiously, "that is, after a time" — so as not 
 to exalt the girl above measure. It was, however, 
 recognized by all as a definite triumph for my sister. 
 My grandmother, a rigid Calvinist, who believed in 
 Election with all her intellect, and acted Free Will 
 W'ith all her heart, elected Agnes Anne upon the spot. 
 Had the girl not willed to rise out of the pit of sloth 
 and mere human learning? And lo ! she had arisen. 
 Thenceforth Agnes Anne stood on a pedestal, and for 
 a while one sturdy disciple of Calvin's thought 
 heretically of the pure doct'-ine. Here was a human 
 being w'ho had willed, and, according to my grand- 
 mother, had made of herself a miracle of grace. 
 
 But she recalled herself to more orthodox senti- 
 ments. The steel was out of the sheath, indeed, but 
 it had to be tried. Even yet Agnes Anne might be 
 found wanting. 
 
 "When will you be ready to start? " she said, turn- 
 ing her black twinkling eyes upon her granddaughter. 
 
 E
 
 50 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "In live minutes," said Agnes Anne boldly. 
 
 "And you are not frightened?" 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 "Of these vain tales — ghosts, hauntings, and so 
 forth. Our Meg Simprin (silly maid !) would not 
 move a foot, and you are far younger." 
 
 "I am no younger than those who are in the house 
 already," said Agnes Anne, with great sense, which 
 even I would hardly have expected from her, "and 
 if ghosts are spirits, as the Bible says, I do not see 
 that they can interfere with housework ! " 
 
 My grandmother rose solemnly from her seat, 
 patted Agnes Anne on the top-knot of her hair, shook 
 hands with John MacAlpine, nodded meaningly at 
 my mother, and said, "Come along, young lass," in 
 a tone which showed that the aged shepherdess had 
 unexpectedly found a lamb whom she long counted 
 lost absolutely butting against the door of the sheep- 
 fold. 
 
 This was the apotheosis of Agnes Anne^ Her life 
 dates from that evening in our kitchen, even as mine 
 did from the afternoon when one half the fools of 
 Eden Valley were letting off shot-guns at the back 
 windows of Marnhoul Great House, while Miss Irma 
 withstood the others on the threshold of the front 
 door.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE doctor's advent 
 
 The firm of lawyers in Dumfries, the agents for the 
 Maitland properties, did not seem to be taking any 
 measures to dispossess Miss Irma and young Sir 
 Louis. Perhaps they, too, had private information. 
 Perhaps those who had brought the children to Marn- 
 houl may have been in the confidence of that notable 
 firm of Smart, Poole & Smart in the High Street. At 
 any rate they made no move towards ejection. They 
 may also have argued that any one who could dis- 
 possess the ghosts and make Marnhoul once more a 
 habitable mansion, was welcome to the tenancy. 
 
 It was the Reverend Doctor Gillespie who, first of 
 all the distinguished men of the parish, received in 
 some slight degree the confidence of Miss Irma. 
 Grandmother knew more, of course, and perhaps, 
 also, Agnes Anne. But, with the feeling of women 
 towards those whom they approve, they became Irma's 
 accomplices. Women are like that. When you tell 
 them a secret, if they don't like you, they become 
 traitors. If they do, they are at once confederates. 
 But the Doctor visited Marnhoul as a deputation, 
 officially, and also for the purpose of setting the minds 
 of the genteel at rest. 
 
 The Doctor's lady gave him no peace till he did his 
 duty. The General's womenfolk at the Bungalow 
 were clamorous. It was not seemly. Something 
 must be done, and since the action of Mr. Shepstone 
 Oglethorpe on the occasion of the assault on the house 
 had put him out of the question, and as the General 
 
 E 2 SI
 
 52 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 II. Illy refused to have anything to do with the affair, 
 it was obvious that the duty must fall to the Doctor. 
 Nor could a better choice have been made. Eden 
 Valley has known many preachers, but never another 
 such pastor— never a shepherd of the sheep like the 
 Doctor. I can see him yet walking down the manse 
 avenue — it had been just "the Loaning" in the da3's 
 before the advent of the second Mrs. Doctor Gillespie 
 — a silver-headed cane in his hand, everything about 
 him carefully groomed, and his very port breathing a 
 peculiarly grave and sober dignity. Grey locks, still 
 plentiful, clustered about his head. His cocked hat 
 (of the antique pattern which, early in his ministry, he 
 had imported by the dozen from Versailles) never 
 altered in pattern. Buckles of unpolished silver shone 
 dully at his knee and bent across his square-toed 
 shoes. 
 
 Above all spread his neckcloth, spotless, envelop- 
 ing, cumbrous, reverence-compelling, a cravat worthy 
 of a Moderator. And indeed the Doctor — our Doctor, 
 parish minister of Eden Valley, had "passed the 
 Chair " of the General Assembly. We were all proud 
 of the fact, even top-lofty Cameronians like my grand- 
 mother] secretly delighting in the thought of the Doctor 
 in his robes of ofBce. 
 
 "There would be few like him away there in Edin- 
 burgh," she would say. "The Doctor's a braw man, 
 and does us credit afore the great of the land — for a' 
 that he's a Moderate !" 
 
 And had he been the chief of all the Moderates, the 
 most volcanic and aggressive of Moderates, my grand- 
 mother would have found some good thing to say of 
 a fellow-countryman of so noble a presence — "so per- 
 sonable," and "such a credit to the neighbourhood." 
 
 Wisdom, grave and patient, was in every line of his
 
 THE DOCTOR'S ADVENT 53 
 
 kindly face. Something boyish and innocent told 
 that the shades of the prison-house had never wholly 
 closed about him. It was good to lift the hat to 
 Dr. Gillespie as he went along — hat a little tip-tilted 
 off the broadly-furrowed brow. In the city he is very 
 likely to stop and regard the most various wares — 
 children's dolls or ladies' underpinnings. But think 
 not that the divine is interested in such things. His 
 mind is absent — in communion with things very far 
 away. Lift your hat and salute him. He will not 
 see you, but — it will do you good ! 
 
 William Gillespie was the son of a good ministerial 
 house. His father had occupied the same pulpit. 
 He himself had been born in his own manse — which 
 is to say, in all the purple of which our grey Puritan 
 land can boast. We were proud of the Doctor, and 
 had good reason therefor. I have said that even my 
 field-preaching grandmother looked upon the Erastian 
 with a moisture quasi-maternal in her eyes, and as for 
 us who "sat under him and listened to his speech," 
 we came well-nigh to w^orship him. 
 
 Yet "the Doctor" was self-effacing beyond many, 
 and only our proper respect for the "Lady of the 
 Manse " kept the parishioners in their places. Dis- 
 courses which he had preached in the callow days of 
 his youth on the "Book of the Revelation" had 
 brought hearers from many distant parishes, and at 
 that time the Doctor had had several "calls" and 
 "offers" to proceed to other spheres on account of 
 their fame. But he had always refused to repeat any 
 of them. 
 
 "I have changed my mind about many things since 
 then," he would say ; "young men are apt to be hasty ! 
 The greatest of all heresies is dogmatism." 
 
 But among the older saints of the parish thnt
 
 54 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "series of expositions" was not forgotten. "It was" 
 (they averred) "like the licht o' anither world to look 
 on his face— just heeven itsel' to listen to him. Sirce 
 me, there are no such discourses to be heard now-a- 
 days — not even from himseV ! " 
 
 And be it remembered that our dear Doctor could 
 unbend — that is, in fitting time and place. From the 
 seats of the mighty, from Holyrood and the Modera- 
 tor's chair our Cincinnatus returned to shepherd his 
 quiet flock among the bosky silences of Eden Valley. 
 He wore his learning, all his weight of honour lightly 
 — with a smile, even with a slight shrug of the 
 shoulder. The smile, even the jest, rose continually 
 to his lips, especially when his wife was not present. 
 But at all times he remembered his office, and often 
 halted with the ancient maxim at the sight of some 
 intruder, " Let us be sober — yonder comes a fool ! " 
 And many of his visitors noticed this sudden sobriety 
 without once suspecting its cause. 
 
 Even the Cameronians agreed that there was 
 "unction" in the Doctor. For his brave word's sake 
 they forgave the heresies of his church about the Civil 
 Magistrate, and said freely among themselves that if 
 in every parish there was such a minister as Dr. Gil- 
 lespie, the civil magistrate would be compelled to 
 take a very back seat indeed. But it was on Com- 
 munion Sabbath days that the Doctor became, as it 
 were, transfigured, the face of him shining, though 
 he wist not of it. 
 
 Something of the spirit of the Crucified was poured 
 forth that day upon men and women humbly bowing 
 their heads over the consecrated memorials of His 
 love. 
 
 A silence of a rare and peculiar sanctity filled the 
 little bare, deep-windowed kirk. The odour of the
 
 THE DOCTOR'S ADVENT 55 
 
 flowering lilacs came in like Nature's own incense, 
 and the plain folk of Eden Valley got a foretaste, faint 
 and dim, but sufficient, of the Land where the tables 
 shall never be withdrawn. 
 
 Better preachers than the Doctor? — We grant it 
 you, though there are many in the Valley who will not 
 agree, but not one more fitted to break the bread of 
 communion before the w^hite-spread tables. 
 
 It was Agnes Anne who opened the door of Marn- 
 houl, and stood a moment astonished at the sight of 
 the Doctor all in black and silver — hat, coat, knee- 
 breeches, silken hose and leathern shoes of the first, 
 locks, studs, knee-buckles, shoe-buckles all of the 
 second. 
 
 But our Agnes Anne was truly of the race of Mary 
 Lyon, so in a moment she said, "Pray come in, sir ! " 
 with the self-respect of the daughter of a good house, 
 as well as the dutifulness which she owed to one so 
 reverend and so revered. 
 
 The Doctor was not surprised. He smiled as he 
 recognized the school-master's daughter. But he be- 
 trayed nothing. He laid his hand as usual on her 
 smooth locks by way of a blessing, and inquired if 
 Miss Maitland and Sir Louis were at home. 
 
 "They are in the school-room," said Agnes Anne, 
 in the most business-like tone in the world; "come 
 this way, sir." 
 
 It was a very different house — ^that which Agnes 
 Anne showed the Doctor — from the cobweb-draped, 
 dust-strewn, deserted mansion of a few weeks ago. 
 Simply considering them as caretakers, the Dumfries 
 lawyers ought to have welcomed their new tenants. 
 So far as cleanliness went, Miss Irma had done a great 
 deal — so much, indeed, as to earn the praise of that 
 severest of critics, my grandmother.
 
 56 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 But there was much that no girl could do alone. 
 Chair-seats and sofa-cushions had been beaten till no 
 speck of dust was left. This had had to be carefully 
 gone about. For though, apparently, no thieves had 
 broken through to steal, it was evident that the house 
 had last been occupied by people of excessively care- 
 less habits, who had put muddy boots on chairs and 
 trampled regardlessly everywhere. But the other half 
 of the text held good. Moth and rust had certainly 
 corrupted. 
 
 However, Agnes Anne was handy with her needle, 
 in spite of her father and his class on Ovid. There 
 was always a good deal to do in our house, and since 
 mother made no great effort, and was generally tired, 
 it fell to Agnes Anne to do it. 
 
 She it was who had re-covered the worn old draw- 
 ing-room chairs with brocade found in the deep, cedar- 
 wood lined cupboards, along with wealth of ancient 
 court dresses, provision of household linen, and all 
 that had belonged to the Maitlands on the day when, 
 after the falling of the head of their house upon Tower 
 Hill, the great old mansion had been shut up. 
 
 The Doctor had been strictly enjoined to take good 
 heed to write everything down on his mental tablets, 
 and to give careful account to his lady. He found 
 the two young Maitlands seated at a table from which 
 the cloth had been lifted at one corner to make room 
 for copybooks, ink, pens and reading-books. Evi- 
 dently Miss Irma was instructing her brother. 
 
 "Now, Louis," they heard her say as they came in, 
 "remember the destiny to which you are called, and 
 that now is the time " 
 
 "The Doctor to call upon you!" Agnes Anne 
 announced in a tone of awe befitting the occasion. 
 
 Then the stately apparition in black and silver which
 
 THE DOCTOR'S ADVENT 57 
 
 followed her into the room came slowly forward, 
 smiling with outstretched hand. Miss Irma was not 
 in the least put out. She rose and swept a curtsey 
 with bowed head. Little Sir Louis, evidently awed 
 by the sedate grandeur which sat so well upon the 
 visitor, paused a moment as if uncertain how he ought 
 to behave. 
 
 He was a little behind his sister, and completely out 
 of the range of her vision, so he felt himself safe in 
 sucking the ink from the side of his second finger, and 
 rubbing the wet place hard on his black velvet 
 breeches. Then, as Miss Irma glanced round, he fell 
 also to his manners and bowed gravely — unconsciously 
 imitating the grand manner of the Doctor himself. 
 
 The room used for lessons was a wide, pleasant 
 place, rather low in the roof, plainly panelled and 
 wainscotted in dark oak, with a single line of dull gold 
 beading running about it high up. There was a large 
 fireplace, with a seat all the way round, and a stout 
 iron basket to hold the fire of sea-coal, when such was 
 used. Brass and irons stood at the side, convenient 
 for faggots. A huge crane and many S-shaped pot- 
 hooks discovered the fact that at some time this place 
 had been occupied as a kitchen, perhaps in the strait- 
 ened days of the last "attainted" Maitlands. 
 
 But now the chamber was pleasant and warm, the 
 windows open to the air and the song of the birds. 
 Dimity curtains hung on the great poles by the win- 
 dows and stirred in the breeze, as if they had been 
 lying for half a century in dusky cupboards. Agnes 
 Anne looked carefully to see if the darning showed, 
 and decided that not even her grandmother could spy 
 it out — how much less, then, the Doctor. 
 
 She was, however, annoj^cd that the tall, brass-faced 
 clock in the corner, dated "Kilmaurs, 1695," could not
 
 58 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 be made to go. But she had a promise from Boyd 
 Connoway that he would "take a look at her " as soon 
 as he had attended to three gardens and docked the 
 tails of a litter of promising puppies. 
 
 The Doctor bowed graciously over the hand of Miss 
 Irma, and shook hands gravely with Sir Louis, who 
 a second time had rubbed his finger on his black 
 velvet suit, just to make assurance doubly sure. 
 
 The conversation followed a high plane of social 
 commonplace. 
 
 "Yes," said Miss Irma, "it is true that our family 
 has been a long time absent from the neighbourhood, 
 but you are right in supposing that we mean to settle 
 down here for some time." 
 
 Then she deigned to enter into particulars. She 
 had her brother to bring up according to his rank, 
 for, since there was no one else to undertake the 
 charge, it fell to her lot. Luckily she had received 
 a good education up to the time when she had the 
 misfortune 
 
 "Ah," said the Doctor quickly, "I understand," 
 
 He said nothing further in words, but his sym- 
 pathetic silence conveyed a great deal, and was more 
 eloquent and consolatory than most people's speech. 
 
 "And where were you educated? " asked the Doctor 
 gently. 
 
 "My father sent me to the Ursuline Sisters in 
 Paris," said Miss Irma calmly. 
 
 The Doctor was secretly astonished and much dis- 
 appointed, but his face expressed nothing beyond his 
 habitual good nature. He replied, "Then your father 
 has had you brought up a Catholic, Miss Maitland ? " 
 
 "Indeed, no," answered Miss Irma, "only he had 
 often occasion to be away on his affairs, and to keep 
 me out of mischief he left me with the Ursulines and
 
 THE DOCTOR'S ADVENT 59 
 
 my aunt the Abbess. At my father's death I might 
 have stayed on with the good sisters, but I left because 
 I was not allowed to see my brother." 
 
 "Then am I right in thinking that — that — in fact — 
 you are a Presbyterian ? " said the Doctor, playing 
 with the inlaid snuffbox which he carried in his hand. 
 The amount of time he occupied in tapping the lid and 
 the invisibility of the pinches he had ever been seen 
 to take were alike marvels in the district. 
 
 "I have no religious prejudices," said Miss Irma 
 to the Doctor, in a calm, well-bred manner which must 
 have secretly amused that distinguished theologian, 
 fresh from editing the works of Manton. 
 
 "I did not speak of prejudices, dear young lady" 
 (he spoke gently, yet with the thrill in his voice which 
 showed how deeply he was moved), "but of belief, of 
 religion, of principles of thought and action." 
 
 Miss Irma opened her eyes very wide. The sound 
 of the Doctor's w'ords came to her ears like the accents 
 of an unknown tongue. 
 
 "The sisters were very good people," she said at 
 last ; "they give themselves a great deal of trouble " 
 
 "What kind of trouble?" said the Doctor. 
 
 "Kneeling and scrubbing floors for one thing," 
 said Miss Irma; "getting up at all hours, doing 
 good works, praying, and burning candles to the 
 Virgin." 
 
 "I should advise you," said the Doctor, with his 
 most gentle accent, "to say as little as possible about 
 that part of your experience here in Eden Valley." 
 
 Miss Irma looked exceedingly surprised. 
 
 "I thought I told you they were exceedingly good 
 people. They were very kind to me, though they 
 looked on me as a lost heretic. I am sure they said 
 prayers for me many times a day ! "
 
 60 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 The Doctor looked more hopeful. He was thinking 
 that after all he might make something of his strange 
 parishioner, when the young lady recalled him by a 
 repetition of her former declaration, "As I said, I have 
 no religious prejudices ! " 
 
 "No," said the Doctor a little sharply — for him, 
 "but still each one of us ought to be fully persuaded 
 in his own mind." 
 
 "And that means," Miss Irma answered, quick as 
 a flash, "that most of us are fully persuaded according 
 to our father and mother's mind, and the way they 
 have brought us up. But then, you see, I never was 
 brought up. I know very well that my family were 
 Presbyterians. Once I read about their sufferings in 
 two great volumes by a Mr. Wodrow, or some such 
 name. But then my grandfather lost most of his 
 estates fighting for the King " 
 
 "For the Popish Pretender," said the Doctor, who 
 could speak no smooth things when it was a matter 
 of the Revolution Settlement and the government of 
 King George. 
 
 "For the man he believed to be king, while others 
 stayed snugly at home," persisted Miss Irma* "Then 
 my mother was a Catholic, and my father too busy to 
 care " 
 
 "My poor young maid," said the Doctor, "it is 
 wonderful to see you as you are ! " 
 
 And secretly the excellent man was planning out a 
 campaign to lead this lamb into (he fold of that Kirk 
 of Scotland, for the purity of whose doctrine and intact 
 spiritual independence her forefathers had shed their 
 blood. 
 
 "At any rate," said he, rising and bending again 
 over the girl's hand with old-fashioned politeness, 
 "you will remember that your family pew is in the
 
 THE DOCTOR'S ADVENT 61 
 
 front of our laft — I mean in the gallery of the parish 
 kirk of Eden Valley." 
 
 And the Doctor took his leave without ever remem- 
 bering that he had failed in the principal part of his 
 rrfission, having quite forgotten to find out by what 
 means these two young things came to find themselves 
 alone in the Great House of Marnhoul.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 KATE OF THE SHORE 
 
 It was, I think, ten days after Agnes Anne had left 
 us for the old house of the Maitlands when she came 
 to me at the school-house. My father had Fred 
 Esquillant in with him, and the two were busy with 
 Sophocles. I was sitting dreaming with a book of old 
 plays in my hand when Agnes Anne came in. 
 
 "Duncan," she said, "I am feared to bide this night 
 at Marnhoul. And I think so is Miss Irma. Now I 
 would rather not tell grandmother — so you must 
 come ! " 
 
 "Feared?" said I; "surely you never mean ghosts 
 — and such nonsense, Agnes Anne — and you the 
 daughter of a school-master ! " 
 
 " It's the solid ghosts I am feared of," said Agnes 
 Anne; "haste you, and ask leave of father. He is 
 so busy, he will never notice. He has Freddy in with 
 him, I hear." 
 
 So Agnes Anne and I went in together. We could 
 see the man's head and the boy's bent close together, 
 and turned from us so that the westering light could 
 fall upon their books. Fred Esquillant was to be a 
 great scholar and to do my father infinite credit when 
 he went to the university. For me I was only a 
 reader of English, a scribbler of verses in that lan- 
 guage, a paltry essayist, with no sense of the 
 mathematics and no more than an average classic. 
 Therefore in the school I was a mere hewer of wood 
 and drawer of water to my father. 
 
 "Duncan is coming with me to bide the night at 
 
 62
 
 KATE OF THE SHORE 63 
 
 Marnhoul," said Agnes Anne, "and he is going to 
 take ' King George ' with him to — scare the foxes ! " 
 
 "From the hen-coops?" said my father, looking 
 carelessly up. "Let him take care not to shoot him- 
 self then. He has no nicety of handling! " 
 
 I am sure that really he meant in the classics, for 
 his thoughts were running that way and I could see 
 that he was itching to be at it again with Freddy. 
 
 "Tell your mother," he said, adjusting his spec- 
 tacles on his nose, "and please shut the door after 
 you ! " 
 
 Having thus obtained leave from the power-that- 
 was, the matter was broken to my mother. She only 
 asked if we had told John, and being assured of that, 
 felt that her entire responsibility was cleared, and so 
 subsided into the fifth volume of Sir Charles Grandi- 
 son, where thrilling things were going on in the 
 cedar parlour. It was my mother's favourite book, 
 but was carefully laid aside when my grandmother 
 came — nay, even concealed as conscientiously as 1 
 under my coat conveyed away the bell-mouthed, 
 silver-mounted blunderbuss which hung over the hat- 
 rack in the lobby. Buckshot, wads, and a powder- 
 horn I also secreted about my person. 
 
 On our way I catechized Agnes Anne tightly as to 
 the nature of the danger which had put her so sud- 
 denly in fear. But she eluded me. Indeed, I am not 
 sure she knew^ herself. All I could gather was that 
 a letter which had reached Miss Irma that morning, 
 had given warning of trouble of some particular 
 deadly sort impending upon the dwellers in the house 
 of Marnhoul. When Agnes Anne opened the door 
 of the hall to let the sunshine and air into the gloomy 
 recesses where the shadows still lurked in spite of 
 the light from the high windows, she had found a
 
 64 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 f(ildcd letter nailed to the door of Marnhoul. I'he 
 blade of a foreign-looking knife had been thrust 
 through it deep into the wood, and the stag's-horn 
 handle turned down in the shape of a reversed capital 
 V — the spring holding the paper firm. It was 
 addressed to Miss Irma Maitland, and evidently had 
 reference to something disastrous, for all day Miss 
 Irma had gone about with a pale face, and a pitiful 
 wringing action of her fingers. No words, however, 
 had escaped her except only "What shall I do ? Oh, 
 what shall I do ? My Louis — my poor little Louis ! " 
 
 The danger, then, whatever it might be, was one 
 which particularly touched the boy baronet. I could 
 not help hoping that it might not be any plot of the 
 lawyers in Dumfries to get him away. For if I were 
 obliged to fire off "King George," and perhaps kill 
 somebody, 1 preferred that it should not be against 
 those who had the law on their side. For in that case 
 my father might lose his places, both as chief teacher 
 and as post-master. 
 
 I got Agnes Anne to look after "King George," 
 my blunderbuss, while I went round to the village 
 to see if anything was stirring about the dwelling of 
 Constable jacky. She would only permit me to do 
 this on condition that I proved the gun unloaded, and 
 permitted her to lock it carefully in one cupboard, 
 while the powder and shot reposed each on a separate 
 shelf outside in the kitchen, lest being left to them- 
 selves the elements of destruction might run together 
 and blow up the house. 
 
 I scudded through the village, passing from one 
 end of the long street to the other. Constable Jacky 
 in his shirt sleeves, was peaceably peeling potatoes 
 on his doorstep, while with a pipe in his mouth Boyd 
 Connoway was looking on and telling him how. The
 
 KATE OF THE SHORE 65 
 
 village of Eden Valley was never quieter. Several 
 young men of the highest consideration were waiting 
 within call of the millinery establishment of the elder 
 Miss Huntingdon, on the chance of being able to lend 
 her "young ladies " stray volumes of Rollin's Ancient 
 History, Defoe's Religious Courtship, or such other 
 volumes as were likely to fan the flame of love's young 
 dream in their hearts. I saw Miss Huntingdon her- 
 self taking stock of them through the window, and 
 as it were, separating the sheep from the goats. For 
 she was a particular woman. Miss Huntingdon, and 
 never allowed the lightest attentions to "her young 
 ladies " without keeping the parents of her charges 
 fully posted on the subject. 
 
 All, therefore, was peace in the village of Eden 
 Valley. Yet I nearly chanced upon war. My grand- 
 mother calle3 aloud to some one as I passed along 
 the street. For a moment I thought she had caught 
 me, in spite of the cap which I had pulled down over 
 my eyes and the coat collar I had pulled up above 
 my ears. 
 
 If she got me, I made sure that she would instantly 
 come to the great house of Marnhoul with all the 
 King's horses and all the King's men — and so, as it 
 were, spoil the night from which I expected so much. 
 
 But it was the slouching figure of Boyd Connoway 
 which had attracted her attention. As I sped on I 
 heard her asking details as to the amount of work he 
 had done that day, how he expected to keep his wife 
 and family through the winter, whether he had split 
 enough kindling wood and brought in the morning's 
 supply of water — also (most unkindly of all) who had 
 paid for the tobacco he was smoking. 
 
 To these inquiries, all put within the space of half- 
 a-minute, I could not catch Connoway's replies. Nor
 
 6G THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 did I wait to hear. It was enough for me to find 
 myself once more safe between the hedges and going 
 as hard as my feet could carry me in the direction of 
 the gate of Marnhoul. 
 
 No sooner was I in the kitchen with the stone floor 
 and the freshly scoured tin and pewter vessels glint- 
 ing down from the dresser, than I heard the voice of 
 Miss Irma asking to be informed if I had come. To 
 Agnes Anne she called me "your big brother," and 
 I hardly ever remember being so proud of anything 
 as of that adjective. 
 
 Then after my sister had answered, Miss Irma 
 came down the stairs with her quick light step, not 
 like any I had ever heard. With a trip and a rustle 
 she came bursting in upon us, so that all suddenly 
 the quaint old kitchen, with its shining utensils catch- 
 ing the red sunshine through the low western window 
 and the swaying ivy leaves dappling the floor of 
 bluish-grey, was glorified by her presence. 
 
 She was younger in years than myself, but some- 
 thing of race, of refinement, of experience, some 
 flavour of an adventurous past and of strange things 
 seen and known, made her appear half-a-dozen years 
 the senior of a country boy like me. 
 
 " Has he come ? " she asked, before ever she came 
 into the kitchen; "is he afraid?" 
 
 "Only of being in a house alone with two girls," 
 said Agnes Anne, "but I am most afraid of 
 father's blunderbuss which he has brought with 
 him." 
 
 "Nonsense," said Miss Irma, determination marked 
 in every line of her face. "We have a well-armed 
 man on the premises. It is a house fit to stand a 
 siege. W^hy, I turned away three score of them with 
 a darning needle."
 
 KATE OF THE SHORE 67 
 
 "Not but what it is far more serious this time! " 
 she said, a Httle sadly. By this time I was reassem- 
 bling the scattered pieces of "King George's" 
 armament, while Agnes Anne, in terror of her life, 
 was searching on the floor and along the passages 
 for things she had not lost. 
 
 As soon as I had got over my first awe of Miss 
 Irma, I asked her point-blank what was the danger, 
 so that I might know what dispositions to take. 
 
 I had seen the phrase in an old book, thin and tall, 
 which my father possessed, called Monro's Expedi- 
 tion. But Irma bade me help to make the ground 
 floor of the mansion as strong as possible, and then 
 come up-stairs to the parlour, where she would tell 
 me "all that it was necessary for me to know," 
 
 I wished she had said "everything" — for, though 
 not curious by nature, I should have been happy to 
 be confided in by Aliss Irma. To my delight, on 
 going round I found that all the lower windows had 
 been fitted with iron shutters, and these, though rusty, 
 were in perfectly good condition. In this task of 
 examination Miss Irma assisted me, and though I 
 would not let her put a finger to the sharp-edged 
 flaky iron, it was a pleasure to feel the touch of her 
 skirt, while once she laid a hand on my arm to guide 
 me to a little dark closet the window of which was 
 protected by a hingeless plate of iron, held in position 
 by a horizontal bar fitting into the stonework on 
 either side. 
 
 There was not so much to be done above stairs, 
 where the shutters were of fine solid oak and easily 
 fitted. But I sought out an oriel window of a tower 
 which commanded the pillared doorway. For I did 
 not forget what I had seen when the Great House of 
 Marnhoul was besieged by the rabble of Eden Valley. 
 
 F 2
 
 68 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 It was there that the danger was if the house should 
 be attempted. 
 
 But I so arranged it, that whoever attacked the 
 house, I should at least get one fair chance at them 
 with "King George," our very wide-scattering blun- 
 derbuss. 
 
 In the little room in which this window was, we 
 gathered. It made a kind of watch-tower, for from 
 it one could see both ways — down the avenue to the 
 main road, and across the policies towards the path 
 that led up from the Killantringan shore. 
 
 I felt that it was high time for me to know against 
 what I was to fight. Not that I was any way scared. 
 I do not think I thought about that at all, so pleased 
 was I at being where I was, and specially anxious 
 that no one should come to help, so as to share with 
 me any of the credit that was my due from Miss Irma. 
 
 Agnes Anne, indeed, was afraid of what she was 
 going to hear. For as yet she had been told nothing 
 definite. But then she was tenfold more afraid of 
 "King George" — mostly, I believe, because it had 
 been made a kind of fetish in our house, and the 
 terrible things that would happen if we meddled with 
 it continually represented to us by our mother. 
 Finally, we arranged that " King George " should be 
 set in the angle of the oriel window, the muzzle point- 
 ing to the sky, and that in the pauses of the tale, I 
 should keep a look-out from the watch-tower. 
 
 "It is my brother Louis — Sir Louis Maitland —   
 whom they are seeking ! " 
 
 Miss Irma made this statement as if she had long 
 faced it, and now found nothing strange about the 
 matter. But I think both Agnes Anne and I were 
 greatly astonished, though for different reasons. For 
 my sister had never imagined that there was any
 
 KATE OF THE SHORE 69 
 
 danger worse than the presence of "King George" in 
 the window corner, and as for me, the hope of help- 
 ing to protect Miss Irma herself from unknown peril 
 was enough. I asked for no better a chance than that. 
 
 "We have a cousin," she continued, "Lalor Mait- 
 land is his name, who was in the rebellion, and was 
 outlawed just like my father. He took up the trade 
 of spying on the poor folk abroad and all who had 
 dealings with them. He was made governor of the 
 strong castle of Dinant on the Meuse, deep in the 
 Low Countries. With him my father, who wrongly 
 trusted him as he trusted everybody, left little Louis. 
 I was with my aunt, the Abbess of the Ursulines, at 
 the time, or the thing had not befallen. For from the 
 first I hated Lalor jMaitland, knowing that though he 
 appeared to be kind to us, it was only a pretence. 
 
 "He entertained us hospitably enough in a suite of 
 rooms very high up in the Castle of Dinant above the 
 Meuse river, and came to see us every day. He was 
 waiting till he should make his peace with the Eng- 
 lish. Then he would do away with my brother 
 and " 
 
 She paused, and a kind of shuddering whiteness 
 came across the girl's face. It was like the flashing 
 of lightning from the east to the west that my grand- 
 mother reads about in her Bible — a sort of shining of 
 hatred and determination like a footstep set on wet 
 sand. "But no," she added, "he would not have 
 married me, even if he had kept me shut up for ever 
 in his Castle of Dinant on the Meuse ! " 
 
 Then all at once I began very mightily to hate this 
 Lalor Maitland, Governor of the Castle of Dinant. 
 I resolved to charge "King George" to the very 
 muzzle, wait till he was within half-a-dozen paces, and 
 — let him have it. For I made no doubt that it was he
 
 70 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 who was coming in person to carry off Miss Irma 
 and Sir Louis back again to his dungeons. For 
 though Irma had not called them that, I felt sure that 
 she had been shamefully used. x\nd though I did 
 not proclaim the fact, I knew the name and address 
 of a willing deliverer. I grew so anxious about the 
 matter that Agnes Anne three times bade me put 
 down "King George" or I should be sure to shoot 
 some of them, or, most likely of all, little Louis in his 
 cot-bed up-stairs. 
 
 "However, at last we escaped" (Miss Irma went 
 on), "and I will tell you how— what I have not told 
 to any here — not even to your good grandmother or 
 the clergyman. It was through our nurse, a Kirk- 
 bean woman and her name Kate Maxwell, called 
 Mickle Kate o' the Shore. Her father and all her 
 folk were smugglers, as, I understand, are the most 
 of the farmers along the Solway side. Some of these 
 she could doubtless have married, but Kate herself 
 had always looked higher. The son of a farmer over 
 the hill, from a place called the Boreland of Colvend, 
 had wintered sheep on her father's lands. Many a 
 sore cold morning (so she said) had they gone out 
 together to clear the snow from the feeding troughs. 
 I suppose that was how it began, but in addition the 
 lad had ambition. He learned well and readily, and 
 after a while he went into a lawyer's office in Dum- 
 fries, while Kate o' the Shore went abroad with the 
 family of a Leith merchant, to serve at Rotterdam. 
 She wanted to save money for the house she was 
 going to set up with the lawyer's clerk. So, rather 
 than come back at the year's end, she took the place 
 which the Governor of Dinant Castle offered her, and 
 he was no other than our cousin Lalor. 
 
 "In a little while Kate of the Shore had grown to
 
 KATE OF THE SHORE 71 
 
 hate our cousin. Why, I cannot tell, for he always 
 bowed to her as to a lady, and indeed showed her 
 far more kindness than ever he used to us. When w^e 
 wanted a little play on the terrace or a sweetcake from 
 the town, we tried at first to get Kate to ask for us. 
 But afterwards she would not. And she grew deter- 
 mined to leave the Castle of Dinant as soon as might 
 be, making her escape and taking us with her. Her 
 Boreland lad, Tarn Hislop, had told her all about the 
 estates and the great house standing empty. So 
 nothing w^ould do but that Kate o' the Shore would 
 come to this house with us, where we would take 
 possession, and hold it against all comers. 
 
 '" It is very difficult,' said Kate's friend, the Dum- 
 fries clerk, ' to put any one out of his own house.' 
 Indeed he did not think that even the very Court of 
 Session could do it." 
 
 "So during the governor's absence we brought 
 little Louis from Dinant to Antwerp, where we hid 
 him with some friends of Kate's who are Free 
 Traders, and ran cargoes to the Isle of Man and the 
 Solway shore. Kind they were, stout bold men and 
 appeared to hold their lives cheap enough — also, for 
 that matter, the lives of those who withstood them. 
 
 "Many of them were Kirkbean men, near kinsfolk 
 of Kate o' the Shore, and others from Colvend — 
 Hislops, Hendersons and McKerrows, long rooted 
 in the place. But when we were in mid-passage, we 
 were chased and almost taken by a schooner that fired 
 cannon and bade us heave to, but the Kirkbean men, 
 who had Kate o' the Shore with them, bade our boat 
 carry on, and engaged the pursuer. We could see 
 the flash of their guns a long distance, and cries came 
 to us mixed with the thunderclap of the schooner's 
 guns. The Colvend men would have turned back to
 
 72 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 help, but they had received strict orders to put us on 
 shore, whatever might happen, the which they did 
 at Killintringan. 
 
 "After that" (Miss Irma still went on) "I had so 
 much ado to look after my brother, being fearful to 
 let him out of my hands lest he should be taken from 
 me, that I only heard the names of a place or two 
 spoken among them — particularly the Brandy Knowe, 
 a dark hole in a narrow ravine, under the roots of a 
 great tree, with a burn across which we had to be 
 carried. I remember the rushing sound of the water 
 in the blackness of the night, and Louis's voice call- 
 ing out, as the men trampled the pebbles, * Are you 
 there, sister Irma? ' 
 
 "But long before it was day they had finished 
 stowing their cargo. We were again on the march 
 and the men took good care of us, leaving us here 
 according to their orders with plenty of provisions for 
 a week — also money, all good undipped silver pieces 
 and English gold. They bade us not to leave the 
 house on any account, and in case of any sudden 
 danger to light the fire on the tower head ! 
 
 "'For the present our duty is done,' said one of 
 them, a kind of chief or leader who had carried me 
 before him on his own horse, ' but there may be more 
 and worse yet to do, wherein we of the Free Trade 
 may help you more than all the power of King George 
 —to whom, however, we are very good friends, in 
 all that does not concern our business of the private 
 Over-Seas Traf!ic ' — for so they named their trade of 
 smuggling." 
 
 "I would like much to see this beacon," I said; 
 "perhaps we may have to light it. At any rate it is 
 well to be sure that w-e have all the ingredients of 
 the pudding at hand in case of need."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE EVE OF ST. JOHN 
 
 We went up the narrow stair — that is, Miss Irma and 
 I — because, since I carried my father's blunderbuss, 
 Agnes Anne would not come, but stopped half-way, 
 where the little Louis lay asleep in his cot-bed. On 
 the top of the tower, and swinging on a kind of iron 
 tripod bolted into the battlements, we found an iron 
 basket, like that in which sea-coal is burned, but wider 
 in the mesh. Then, in the "winnock cupboard" at 
 the turn of the stair-head, were all the necessaries for 
 a noble blaze — dry wood properly cut, tow, tar, and a 
 firkin of spirit, with some rancid butter in a brown jar. 
 There was even a little kindling box of foreign make, 
 all complete with flint, steel and tinder lying on a 
 shelf, enclosed in a small bag of felt. 
 
 Whoever had placed these things there was a person 
 of no small experience, and left nothing to chance. 
 It was obvious that such a beacon lit on the tower of 
 the ancient house of Marnhoul would be seen far and 
 near over the country. 
 
 Who should come to our rescue, supposing us to be 
 beset, was not so clear. I did not believe that we 
 could depend on the people of the village. They 
 would, if I knew them, cuddle the closer between their 
 blankets, while as for Constable Jacky, by that time 
 of night he would certainly be in no condition to know 
 his right hand from his left. 
 
 "And the message fixed to the front door with the 
 knife — of which my sister told me," I suggested to 
 Miss Irma, "what did it threaten?" 
 
 73
 
 74 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 For in spite of her obvious reluctance to tell me even 
 necessary things, I was resolved to make her speak 
 out. She hesitated, but finally yielded, when I pointed 
 out that we must decide whether it came from a 
 friendly or an unfriendly hand. 
 
 She handed it me out of the pocket of her dress, 
 the two of us standing all the while on the top of 
 the tower, the rusty basket wheezing in the wind, 
 and her blown hair whipping my cheek in the sharp 
 breeze from the north. 
 
 I may say that just a't that moment I was pretty 
 content with myself. I do not deny that I had fancied 
 this maid and that before, or that some few things that 
 might almost be called tender had passed between me 
 and Gerty Greensleeves, chiefly cuffing and pinching 
 of the amicable Scottish sort. Only I knew for cer- 
 tain that now I was finally and irrevocably in love — 
 but it was with a star. Or rather, it might just as 
 well have been, for any hope I had with Miss Irma 
 Maitland, with her ancient family and her eyes fairly 
 snapping with pride. What could she ever have to 
 say to the rather stupid son of a village school- 
 master? 
 
 But I took the paper, and for an instant Irma's eyes 
 rested on mine with something different in them from 
 anything I had ever seen there before. The con- 
 temptuous chill was gone. There was even a kind of 
 soft appeal, which, however, she retracted and even 
 seemed to excuse the next moment. 
 
 "Understand," she said, "it is not for myself that I 
 care. It is for — for my brother, Sir Louis." 
 
 "But, Miss Irma, do not forget that I " The 
 
 words came bravely, but halted before the enormity 
 of what I was going to say. So I had perforce to 
 alter my formation in face of my dear enemy, and only
 
 THE EVE OF ST. JOHN 75 
 
 continued lamely enough, " I had better see what the 
 letter says." 
 
 "Yes," she answered shortly, "I suppose that is 
 necessary." 
 
 The letter was written on a sheet of common paper, 
 ruled vertically in red at either side as for a bill of 
 lading. It had simply been folded once, not sealed in 
 the ordinary way, but thrust through sharply with the 
 knife which had pinned it to the wood, traversing both 
 folds. The knife, which I saw afterwards down-stairs, 
 was a small one, with a broadish blade shaped and 
 pointed like a willow leaf. I had it a good while in 
 my hand, and I can swear that it had been lately 
 used in cutting the commonest kind of sailor 
 tobacco. 
 
 The message read in these words exactly, which I 
 copied carefully on my killivine-tablets — 
 
 " The first danger is for this night, being the eve of 
 Saint John. Admit no one excepting those ivho bring 
 with them friends you can trust. Fear not to use the 
 signal agreed upon. Help will be near.'' 
 
 Now this seemed to me to be very straightforward. 
 None but a friend to the children would speak of the 
 beacon so familiarly, yet so discreetly — "the signal 
 agreed upon." Nor would an enemy advise caution 
 as to any being admitted to the house. 
 
 But Miss Irma had not passed through so many 
 troubles without acquiring a certain lack of confidence 
 in the fairest pretences. She shook her head when I 
 ventured to tell her what I thought. She was willing 
 to take my help, but not my judgment. 
 
 The words, "Admit no one, excepting those who 
 bring with them friends you can trust,'' did not ring 
 true in her ear. And the phrase, "the signal agreed 
 upon," might possibly show that while the writer made
 
 76 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 sure of there being a signal of some kind, he was 
 ignorant of its nature. 
 
 In face of all this there seemed nothing for it but 
 to wait — doors shut, windows barred, "King George" 
 ready charged, and the stuff for the beacon knowingly 
 arranged. 
 
 And this last I immediately proceeded to set in 
 order. I had had considerable experience. For 
 during the late French wars we of Eden Valley, 
 though the most peaceful people in the world, had 
 often been turned upside down by reports of famous 
 victories. After each of these every one had to illu- 
 minate, if it were only with a tallow dip, on the penalty 
 of having his windows broken by the mob of loyal, but 
 stay-at-home patriots. At the same time, all the boys 
 of Eden Valley had full permission to carry off old 
 barrels and other combustibles from the houses of the 
 zealous, or even to commandeer them without permis- 
 sion from the barns and fences of suspected "black- 
 nebs " to raise nearer heaven the flare of our victorious 
 bonfires. 
 
 With all the ingredients laid ready to my hand, it 
 was exceedingly simple for me to put together such a 
 brazier as could be seen over half the county. Not the 
 least useful of my improvements was the lengthening 
 of the chain, so that the whole fire-basket could be 
 hoisted to the top of the tripod, and so stand clear of 
 the battlements of the tower, showing over the tree- 
 tops to the very cliffs of Killantringan, and doubtless 
 far out to sea. 
 
 Last of all, before descending, I covered everything 
 over with a thick mat of tarred cloth, which would 
 keep the fuel dry as tinder even in case of rain, or the 
 dense dews that pearled down out of the clear heavens 
 on these short nights of a northern June.
 
 THE EVE OF ST. JOHN 77 
 
 It is a strange thing, watching together, and in the 
 case of young people it is apt to make curious things 
 hop up in the heart all unexpectedly. It was so, at 
 least, with myself. As to Miss Irma I cannot say, 
 and, of course, Agnes Anne does not count, for she 
 sat back in the shelter of a great cupboard, well out of 
 range of "King George," and went on with her 
 knitting till she fell asleep. 
 
 However, Miss Irma and I sat together in the jut- 
 ting window, where, as the night darkened and the 
 curtains of the clouds drew down to meet the sombre 
 tree-tops, a kind of black despair came over me. 
 Would "King George " really do any good? Would 
 I prove myself stout and brave when the moment 
 came ? Would the beacon we had prepared really 
 burn, and, supposing it did, would any one see it, 
 drowned in woods as we were, and far from all folk, 
 except the peaceable villagers of Eden Valley ? 
 
 But I had the grace to keep such thoughts to myself, 
 and if they visited Miss Irma, she did the like. The 
 crying of the owls made the place of a strange eeriness, 
 especially sometimes when a bat or other night crea- 
 ture would come and cling a moment, under the leaden 
 pent of the window. 
 
 Such things as these, together with the strain of the 
 waiting on the unknown, drew us insensibly together 
 — I do not mean Agnes Anne — but just the two of us 
 who were shut off apart in the window-seat. No, 
 whatever her faults and shortcomings (too many of 
 them recorded in this book), Agnes Anne acted the 
 part of a good sister to me that night, and her peaceful 
 breathing seemed to wall us off from the world. 
 
 "Duncan?" queried Miss Irma, repeating my name 
 softly as to herself; "you are called Duncan, are you 
 not ? "
 
 78 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 I nodded. "And you?" I asked, though of course 
 I knew well enough. 
 
 "Irma Sobieski," she answered. And then, perhaps 
 because everything inside and out was so still and 
 lonely, she shivered a little, and, without any reason 
 at all, we moved nearer to each other on the window- 
 seat — ever so little, but still nearer. 
 
 "You may call me Irma, if you like!" she said, 
 very low, after a long pause. 
 
 Just then something brushed the window, going by 
 with a soft woof of feathers. 
 
 "An owl ! A big white one — I saw him ! " I said. 
 For indeed the bird had seemed as large as a goose, 
 and appeared alarming enough to people so strung as 
 we were, with ears and eyes grown almost intolerably 
 acute in the effort of watching. 
 
 "Are you not frightened?" she demanded. 
 
 "No, Irma— no. Miss Irma! " I faltered. 
 
 "Well, I am," she whispered; "I was not before 
 when the mob came, because I had to do every- 
 thing. But now — I am glad that you are here " (she 
 paused the space of a breath), "you and your 
 sister." 
 
 I was glad, too, though not particularly about 
 Agnes Anne. 
 
 "How old are you, Duncan?" she asked next. 
 
 I gave my age with the usual one year's majoration. 
 It was not a lie, for my birthday had been the day 
 before. Still, it made Irma thoughtful. 
 
 "I did not think you were so much older than your 
 sister," she said musingly; "why, you are older than 
 I am ! " 
 
 "Of course I am," I answered, gallantly facing the 
 danger, and determined to brave it out. 
 
 On the spot I resolved to have a private inter-
 
 THE EVE OF ST. JOHN 79 
 
 view with Agnes Anne as soon as might be, and, 
 after reminding her of my birthday just past, tell her 
 that in future I was to be referred to as ''going on jor 
 hventy " — and that there was no real need to insert the 
 words "going pn for." 
 
 Irma Sobieski considered the subject a while longer, 
 anci I could see her eyes turned towards me as if 
 studying me deeply. I wondered what she was think- 
 ing about with a brow so knotted, and I knew instinct- 
 ively that it must be something of consequence, 
 because it made her forget the letter nailed to the door, 
 and the warning which might veil a threat. She fixed 
 me so long that her eyes seemed to glow out of the 
 pale face which made an oval patch against the dark- 
 ness of the trees. Irma's face was only starlit, but 
 her eyes shone by their own light. 
 
 "Yes, I will trust you," she said at last. "I saw 
 you the day when the mob came. You were ashamed, 
 and would have helped me if you could. Even then I 
 liked your face. I did not forget you, and when 
 Agnes Anne spoke of her brother who was afraid of 
 nothing, I was happy that you should come. I wanted 
 you to come." 
 
 The words made my heart leap, but the next moment 
 I knew that I was a fool, and might have known 
 better. This was no Gerty Gower, to put her hand 
 on your arm unasked, and let her face say what her 
 lips had not the words to utter. 
 
 "I want a friend," she said; "I need a friend— a big 
 brother — nothing else, remember. If you think I 
 want to be made love to, you are mistaken. And, if 
 you do, there will be an end. You cannot help me 
 that way. I have no use for what people call love. 
 But I have a mission, and that mission is my brother, 
 Sir Louis. If you will consent to help me, I shall love
 
 80 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 you as I love him, and you — can care about me — as 
 you care about Agnes Anne ! " 
 
 Now I did not see what was the use of bringfins 
 Agnes Anne into the business. At home she and I 
 were quarrelHng about half our time. But since it 
 was to be that or nothing, of course I was not such 
 a fool as to choose the nothing. 
 
 All the same, after the promising beginning, I was 
 enormously disappointed, and if only it had been 
 lighter, doubtless my chagrin would have showed on 
 my face. It seemed to me (not knowing) the death- 
 blow to all my hopes. I did not then understand that 
 in all the unending and necessarily eternal game of 
 chess, which men and women play one against the 
 other, there is no better opening than this. 
 
 But I was still crassly ignorant, intensely disap- 
 pointed. I even swore that I would not have given a 
 brass farthing to be "cared about " by Irma as I myself 
 did about Agnes Anne. 
 
 Dimly, however, I did feel, even then, that there 
 was a fallacy somewhere. And that, however much 
 human beings with youthful hearts and answering 
 eyes may pretend they are brother and sister, there is 
 something deep within them that moves the Previous 
 Question — as we are used to say in the Eden Valley 
 Debating Parliament, which Mr. Oglethorpe and my 
 father have organized on the model of that in the 
 Gentleman^s Magazine. 
 
 But Irma, at least, had no such fear. She had, she 
 believed, solved for ever a difficult and troublesome 
 question, and, on easy terms, provided herself with a 
 new relative, useful, safe and insured against danger 
 by fire. Perhaps the underwriters of the city would 
 not have taken the latter risk, but at that moment it 
 seemed a slight one to Irma Sobieski.
 
 THE EVE OF ST. JOHN 81 
 
 At any rate, to seal the new alliance, in all sisterly 
 freedom she gave me her hand, and did not appear to 
 notice how long I kept it in the darkness. This was 
 certainly a considerable set-off against the feeling of 
 loneliness, and, if not quite content, I was at least 
 more so. I wondered, among other things, if Irma's 
 heart kept knocking in a choking kind of way against 
 the bottom of her throat. 
 
 At least mine did, and I had never, to my know- 
 ledge, felt just so about Agnes Anne. Indeed, I don't 
 think I had ever held Agnes Anne's hand so long in 
 my life, except to pick a thorn out of it with a needle, 
 or to point out how disgracefully grubby it was.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE CROWBAR IN THE WOOD 
 
 We sat so long that I grew hungry. And then 
 forethought was rewarded. For as I well knew, Agnes 
 Anne had much ado to keep the house supplied (and 
 the larder too often bare with all her trying!), I had 
 done some trifle of providing on my own account. 
 I had a flask of milk in my pouch — the big one in the 
 skirt of the coat that I always wore when taking a walk 
 in the General's plantations. Cakes, too, and well- 
 risen scones cut and with butter between them, most 
 refreshing. I gave first of all to Irma, and at the sound 
 of the eating and drinking Agnes Anne awakened 
 and came forward. So I handed her some, but with 
 my foot cautioned her not to take too much, because 
 it was certain that she would by no means do her 
 share of the fighting. 
 
 Both were my sisters. We had agreed upon that. 
 But then some roses smell sweeter than othecs, though 
 all are called by the same name. 
 
 We had just finished partaking of the food (and 
 great good it did us) when Agnes Anne heard a sound 
 that sent her suddenly back to her corner with a face 
 as white as a linen clout. She was always quicker of 
 hearing than I, but certain it is that after a while I 
 did hear something like the trampling of horses, and 
 especially, repeated more than once, the sharp jingle 
 which the head of a caparisoned horse makes when, 
 wearied of waiting, it casts it up suddenly. 
 
 They were coming. 
 
 We said the words, looking at each other, and I 
 suppose each one of us felt the same— that we were 
 a lot of poor weak children, in our folly fighting 
 
 82
 
 THE CROWBAR IN THE WOOD 83 
 
 against men. At least this is how I took it, and a 
 sick disdain of self for being no stronger rose in my 
 throat. A moment and it had passed. For I took 
 "King George" in hand, and bidding Irma see that 
 little Louis was sleeping, I ran up the stairs to the 
 open tower-top. Here I had thought to be alone, but 
 there before me, crouched behind the ramparts and 
 looking out upon a dim glade which led down towards 
 the landing-place at Killantringan, was Agnes Anne. 
 In answer to my question as to what she was doing 
 there, she answered at first that she could see in the 
 dark better than I, and when I denied this she said 
 that surely I did not think she was going to be left 
 down there alone, nearest to the assailants if they 
 should force a passage ! 
 
 One should never encourage one's real sister in the 
 belief that she can ever by any chance do right. So I 
 said at once that whether she was behind the door or 
 sitting on the weathercock at jNlarnhoul Tower would 
 make no difference if the people were enemies and 
 once got in. 
 
 "Hush ! " she said. "What is that I hear now?" 
 
 And from away down the glade came slow and 
 steady blows like those which a man might make as 
 he lifts his axe and smites into the butt. There was a 
 sort of reverberation, too, as if the tree were hollow. 
 But that might only be the effect of the night, the 
 stillness, and the heavy covert of great woods which 
 lay like a big green blanket all about us, and tossed 
 every sound back to us like a w'all at ball-play. 
 
 "Oh, if we could only see what they were doing — 
 who they are?" I groaned. "I could go out quite 
 safely by the door in the tower, but then who would 
 fire off ' King George ' ? " 
 
 "Toe ! Toe ! " came the sounds. And then a pause 
 as if the woodsman had straightened himself up and 
 
 G 2
 
 84 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 was wiping his brow. The timing of the strokes was 
 very slow. Probably, therefore, the labour itself was 
 fatiguing. Sometimes, too, the axe fell with a differ- 
 ent swing, as if other hands grasped it, but always 
 with the same dull thudding and irritating slowness. 
 
 Then Agnes Anne made an astonishing proposition. 
 
 "See here, Duncan," she whispered, "let me out by 
 the little postern door at the foot of the tower. Miss 
 Irma can watch behind it to let me in if I come run- 
 ning back, and you stay on the top ready with ' King 
 George.' I will find out for you everything you want 
 to know." And I got ready to say, brother-like, 
 "Agnes Anne, you are a fool — your legs would give 
 way under you in the first hundred yards." 
 
 But somehow she saw (or felt) the speech that was 
 coming, and cut me short. 
 
 "No, I wouldn't either," she said hurriedly and 
 quite boldly. "You think that because I hate that 
 great thing there filled with powder and slugs (which 
 even you can't tell when it will go off, or what harm 
 it will do when it does) that 1 am a cow^ard. I am no 
 more frightened than you are yourself — perhaps less. 
 Who was the best tracker when we played at Indians 
 and colonists, I should like to know ? Who could go 
 most quietly through the wood ? Or run the quickest ? 
 Just me, Agnes Anne MacAlpine ! " 
 
 Well, I had to admit it. These things were true. 
 But then they had little to do with courage. This 
 was serious. It was taking one's life in one's hand. 
 
 "And pray what are we doing here and now?" 
 snapped Agnes Anne. "If they are strong enough 
 to break in one of the doors, or get through one of 
 the windows, what can we do? Till we know what is 
 coming against us, we are only going from one 
 blunder to another ! " 
 
 Now this was most astonishing of our Agnes Anne.
 
 THE CROWBAR IN THE WOOD 85 
 
 So I told her that I had known that Irma was plucky, 
 but not her. And she only said, very shortly, "Better 
 come and see ! " 
 
 So we went down and told Irma. At first she was 
 all against opening any door, even for a moment, on 
 any account. The strength of these defences was our 
 only protection. She would rather do anything than 
 endanger that. But we made her listen to the slow 
 thud of the axe out in the wood, and even as we 
 looked the figure of a man passed across the glade, 
 black against the greyish-green of the grass, on which 
 a thick rise of dew was catching the starlight. 
 
 This figure wrapped in a sea-cloak, with head bent 
 forward, passing across the pale glimmer of the glade, 
 sufficed to alter the mind of Irma. She agreed in a 
 moment, and locking the door of little Louis's room, 
 she declared herself willing to keep watch behind the 
 little postern door of the tower, ready to let Agnes 
 Anne in again, on the understanding that I should be 
 prepared from the open window above to deal with 
 any pursuer. 
 
 I admit that in this I was persuaded against my 
 judgment. For I felt certain that though Agnes i\nne 
 could move with perfect stillness through woods, and 
 was a fleet runner, her nerve would certainly fail her 
 when it came to a real danger. And so great was the 
 sympathy of my imagination that I seemed already to 
 feel the pursuer gaining at every stride, the muscles of 
 my limbs failing beneath me and refusing to carry 
 me farther, just as they do in a dream. 
 
 But Agnes Anne was serious and determined, and 
 in the end had to have her way. I can see the reason 
 now. She knew exactly what she meant to do, which 
 neither Irma nor I did — though of course both of us 
 far braver. 
 
 We got the door open quite silently — for it was the
 
 8G THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 one Irma had used in her few and brief outgates. 
 Then, shrouded in her school cloak of grey, and clad, 
 I mean, in but little else, Agnes flitted out as silent 
 as a shadow along a wall. 
 
 But oh, the agony I suffered to think what my 
 father, and still more my grandmother, would say to 
 me because I had let my sister expose herself on such 
 an errand. Twenty times I was on the point of sallying 
 forth after her. Twenty times the sight of the pale face 
 of Irma waiting there stopped me, and the thought 
 that I was the only protector of the two poor things in 
 that great house. Also after all Agnes Anne had 
 gone of her own accord. 
 
 All the same I shivered as I kneeled by the window 
 above with the wide muzzle of " King George " point- 
 ing down the path which led from the glade. Every 
 moment I expected to hear the air rent with a hideous 
 scream, and " King George " wobbled in my hands as 
 I thought of Agnes Anne lying slain in the glow-worm 
 shining of that abominable glade, with that across 
 her white neck for w'hich m.y conscience and my 
 grandmother would reproach me as long as I (and 
 she) lived. One thing comforted me during that weary 
 waiting. The hollow thudding as of axe on wood 
 never ceased for a moment. So from that I gathered 
 (and was blithe to believe) that the alarm had not been 
 given, and that wherever Agnes Anne was, she herself 
 was still undiscovered. 
 
 My eyes were so glued to that misty glade that 
 presently I got a great surprise. "There she is!" 
 cried Irma, looking round the door, and I saw a figure 
 flit out of the dusk of the copse-covert within two 
 yards of the postern door. The next moment, without 
 advertisement or the least fuss, Agnes Anne was 
 within. I heard the sliding of bolts, the hum of talk, 
 and then the patter of returning feet on the stair.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 AGNES ANNE's EXPERIENCES AS A SPY 
 
 "Well, at first I did not think much about any- 
 thing" (said Agnes Anne), "except keeping quiet and 
 doing what Duncan did not beheve I could do. But 
 I knew the wood. It was not so dark as one would 
 think, and once out of the echo of the house walls I 
 could hear far better. 1 leaned against a larch, hold- 
 ing on to the trunk and counting the sticky rosettes 
 on its trailers to keep me from thinking while I 
 listened. Twice I thought I had made out exactly from 
 which direction the sound came, and twice I found I 
 was mistaken. But the third time I followed the ditch 
 under the sunk fence till I came to the mound which 
 is shaped like a green hat at the end next the house. 
 The thudding came from there — I was sure of it. 
 When I could hear men talking, I was (and I am 
 not saying it to put Duncan in the wrong) more glad 
 than afraid. 
 
 "The bottom of the ditch was full of all sorts of 
 underbrush — hazel and birch roots mostly — growing 
 pretty close as I found when once I got there, but 
 rustling horribly while I was getting settled. How- 
 ever, there was nothing for it, if I wanted to find out 
 anything, but to go on. So on I went. I was close 
 to the mound now, and could hear the voices. 
 
 " ' Ouiet there a moment!' said some one, 'I'll 
 swear I heard a noise in the ditch ! ' 
 
 "And as I crouched something like a blade of a 
 sword or maybe a pike came high above me stabbing 
 this way and that. Twigs and leaves pattered down, 
 
 87
 
 88 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 but I was safe behind the stump of a fallen tree. 
 Presently the steel thing I had seen glinting struck 
 the dead and sodden wood of the tree-trunk, and 
 snapped with a sharp tang like a fiddle-string — a hay- 
 fork it may have been, or one of the long thin swords 
 such as are hung up in the hall. 
 
 "But another and deeper voice — like that of a man 
 somewhat out of breath, said gruffly, ' Better get the 
 job done ! 'Tis only a fox or a rabbit — what else 
 would be out here at this hour?' 
 
 "And then, with the noise of spitting on the hands, 
 the sound of the heavy tool began again. It had a 
 ring in it like steel on stone. I think they had been 
 chopping something with a pickaxe and had got 
 through. For now the clink was quite different, 
 though that again might be because I was nearer. 
 
 "' Have you found the passage? Surely it is long 
 in showing ? ' 
 
 "That was the first voice again, the better educated 
 one, I take it. He spoke like a gentleman, like the 
 General or even the Doctor himself, though there was 
 much rudeness in the voice of the other when he 
 answered him. 
 
 "'D'ye think I am breaking my back over this 
 stone-door for fun ? ' growled the man in panting 
 gasps. ' If I imagined you were any hand at a tool, 
 you should have a chance at this one quick enough ! * 
 
 " ' Steady, Dick ! ' said the first, always in his 
 pleasant tone, ' it can't be far away at the farthest 
 now ! ' 
 
 " ' Hang it, it may not be there at all. Did you ever 
 hear of a mouldy old castle but had its tale about a 
 secret pasage ? And did anybody ever see one ? 
 Better make the woman speak, I tell you ! ' 
 
 "' Well,' argued the first suavely, ' it ma) come to
 
 ANNE'S EXPERIENCES AS A SPY 89 
 
 that, of course. But let us give this a good trial first. 
 To it, Dick— to it ! ' 
 
 '" Aye, "To it, Dick— to it ! " And your own arm 
 up to the elbow in your blessed pocket,' he grunted, 
 and I could hear him set to work again with an angry 
 snarl. ' If this doesn't fetch it — well— there's always 
 the woman ! ' 
 
 '"Aye — but it will do it this time,' said the man 
 with the soft voice. ' I hear by the clink of the crow 
 that you are nearly through. My uncle used often 
 to tell me about this. The big green mound is the 
 ice-house of Marnhoul. It was his father that made 
 it, and the passage also to connect with the cellar. 
 See where it drains sideways into that ditch. That 
 is what makes the green stufif grow so rank about 
 there ! ' 
 
 "Between the noise of the heavy crowbar and the 
 dispute, I ventured to edge a bit closer, so that at last 
 I could make out the two men, and beyond them some- 
 thing that looked like a figure of a woman lying under 
 a cloak. But all was under the dimness of the stars 
 and the twinkling dew, so that I could see nothing 
 clearly. 
 
 "But what I had heard was enough, for in the 
 middle of the worker's gasping and cursing there 
 came a sudden crash and a jingle. 
 
 "'She's through — I told you so. Uncle Edward 
 was right ! ' cried the first and taller man, while the 
 other only stared at the sudden disappearance of his 
 tool, and stood looking blankly at his own empty 
 hands. 
 
 " ' What's to be done now ? ' said the tall man. 
 
 " ' Lever it up with the nose of the pick ! ' growled 
 the short thick man ; ' here, you— hang on to that ! * 
 
 "And then I knew that the sooner Duncan and
 
 90 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 ' King George ' were down in the cellar of Marnhoul 
 House, the better it would be for our lives." 
 
 • • • • • • •,• 
 
 When Agnes Anne finished we sat a moment 
 agape. But very evidently there was no time to be lost. 
 They would be among us before we knew it, if once 
 they got down into the passage. We tried to find out 
 from Irma where the cellar was, but she was sunk in 
 terrible thoughts, and for a long while she could say 
 nothing but "Lalor Maitland — it is Lalor Maitland, 
 come to kill my poor Louis ! " 
 
 And indeed it was difficult to get her aroused suffi- 
 ciently to help us. Left to herself I do not doubt that 
 she would have gone up-stairs and fled with the child 
 in her arms in the hope of hiding him in the wood. 
 
 At last we got it out of her that the keys of the cellar 
 were in the great cupboard behind the door. She 
 directed us to a double flight of broad stairs. Irma 
 had only looked into the cellar when she first came, 
 and had found it rifled, the barrels dry and gaping, 
 full of dust, dry-rot and the smell of decay. 
 
 But she too had heard her father tell of the passage 
 to the ice-house, and how he and his brothers had 
 used it for their escapades when the house was locked 
 up and the keys taken to their father's room. 
 
 We went down — I leading with "King George" 
 under my arm and the two girls following. But on 
 the stairway a sudden terror leaped upon Irma. While 
 we were all down in the cellar, might not Lalor and 
 his companion enter by the front door, or by some 
 unguarded window. So she turned and ran back to 
 the little boy's room to defend him with an old pistol 
 I had found on the wall and loaded for her with 
 powder and ball. 
 
 Then Agnes Anne and I made our way into the
 
 ANNE'S EXPERIENCES AS A SPY 91 
 
 cellar. We had taken with us the lantern, which we 
 had hitherto kept covered, lest by the moving of the 
 light about the house we might be suspected of being 
 on our guard. 
 
 Hastily I made the tour of the great cellar. The 
 back of the place was full of the debris of ancient 
 barrels, some intact, some with gaping sides, many 
 held together with no more than a single hoop. But 
 packed together in one corner and occupying a place 
 about one third of the whole area of the floor was 
 something very different. Tarpaulined, fastened to- 
 gether by ropes, and guarded from damp by planks 
 laid below them, were some hundreds of kegs and 
 packages — all, so far as I could see, marked with 
 curious signs, and in some cases the names of places. 
 One I remember, "Sallet Ooil — Apuglia," gave me a 
 sense of such distance and strangeness, that for a 
 moment I seemed to be travelling in strange countries 
 and seeing curious sights, rather than going down to 
 risk my life in Miss Irma's quarrel with men I had 
 never seen. 
 
 It was very evident that there could be but one 
 place where the passage Irma had spoken of (on her 
 father's information) could debouch upon the great 
 cellar of Marnhoul. In the angle behind the mass of 
 kegs was an open space of some yards square, so 
 clean that it looked as if it had been recently swept. 
 
 Beyond this again and quite in the corner, there 
 was a step or two downwards, as if it were into the 
 bowels of the earth. This was stopped with a door of 
 stone accurately arranged and fitted with uncommon 
 skill. And I could see at a glance that it was probably 
 one of the same kind that the men whom Agnes Anne 
 had seen were engaged in bursting by stroke of crow. 
 I understood more than that. For there was all the
 
 92 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 winter in Eden Valley scarce any other subject of 
 talk than the Free Trade (which is to say, plainly, 
 smuggling), and concerning the various "ventures" 
 or boats and crews attached to some famous leader 
 engaged in it. 
 
 There was, in fact, no particular moral wrong 
 attaching to the business in Eden Valley or along the 
 Sol way shore high and low— rather a sort of piety, 
 since the common folk remembered that the excise 
 had first been instituted by that perjured persecutor of 
 the Church, Charles II. Even the Doctor, though he 
 denounced the practice from the pulpit in befitting 
 words, did so chiefly on the ground that the attrac- 
 tions of Free Trade, its dangers even, carried so 
 many promising young men forth of the parish, and a 
 goodly proportion of them to return no more. 
 
 But for all that, I never heard that he refused to 
 partake of the anker of Guernsey which his lady 
 found by chance in the milk-house among the cream- 
 ing-pans, or by the tombstones of his predecessors in 
 the "Ministers' Corner" of the kirkyard. 
 
 I looked at the means of defence, and hidden among 
 the packages at the back I found two good muskets 
 and one or two very worn ones — yet all bearing the 
 marks of recent attention. So, since the smuggled 
 casks formed a kind of breastwork right round the 
 steps — up from the passage that was blocked by the 
 stone door — it came into my head that I could there 
 set up a kind of battery and run from one to the other 
 of them, firing — that is, if the worst came to the worst 
 and the passage were forced. So, having plenty of 
 powder and shot and the wrappings of the lace pack- 
 ages making excellent wads, I set about loading all 
 the muskets. I knew that Agnes Anne would be 
 afraid of what I was doing, having had a horror of
 
 ANNE'S EXPERIENCES AS A SPY 93 
 
 firearms ever since, as a child, she had seen Florrie, 
 our old dun cow, shot dead by Boyd Connoway to be 
 our " mart " of the year, and salted down for the winter's 
 food in the big beef barrel. Agnes Anne would 
 never be induced to eat a bit of Florrie, though indeed 
 she was very good and sweet, because forsooth she 
 had been used to milk her and give her handfuls of 
 fresh grass. Since then she had never forgiven Boyd 
 Connoway, and had never been able to look upon a 
 gun with any complaisance. 
 
 Yet when I told her to stand back and keep away 
 from the powder horn and the lantern (for it is none of 
 the easiest to charge strange pieces in a dark cellar) 
 she said that she would stand by "King George" 
 while I was at hand — yes, and fire him off, too, if need 
 were. Only I must show her how to pull the trigger, 
 and also adjust the muzzle so as to bear on the steps 
 by which the villains would come up ! 
 
 This I relate to show how (for the time being) Agnes 
 Anne was worked upon. For, as all have seen, she 
 was naturally of a very timorsome and quavering dis- 
 position. At any rate I did get the muskets, all five 
 of them, loaded, and set in position with their noses 
 cocked over the squared bulwarks of Mechlin and 
 Vallenceens, of Strasburg yarn, and Italian silver-gilt 
 wire. 
 
 And I can tell you they looked imposing in the light 
 of the lantern, though I was more than a little doubtful 
 about some of them going off without blowing them- 
 selves up. But it was no time to cavil about small 
 matters like that, and I said nothing about this to 
 Agnes Anne, who, for her part, continued to glance 
 along the barrel of "King George " at the stone door 
 with the fixity of my father viewing a star through his 
 large brass spy-glass. Only Agnes Anne, being
 
 94 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 unable to keep one eye shut and the other open, had to 
 hold the lid of the unoccupied organ hard down with 
 her left hand, as if it too were about to bounce out on 
 us like the two men she had seen in the ice-house 
 mound by the edge of the sunk fence. 
 
 We waited a good while with the light of the lamp 
 smothered — all, that is, but barely sufficient to give air 
 to the flame. And I tell you our hearts were gigot- 
 ting rarely. Even Agnes Anne had taken a sudden 
 liking to "King George," and would not let him go 
 as I proposed to her, now that all the other muskets 
 were loaded and ready. 
 
 "You would do better service with the lantern," I 
 told her, "you could hold it up to let us see them 
 better." 
 
 But she answered that the lantern could take care of 
 itself. She was going to do some of the real fighting, 
 and so I should not scorn her any more. But I knew 
 very well that it was only a kind of hysteria and would 
 all go off at the dangerous moment. Down she would 
 go on the floor like a bundle of wet rags ! 
 
 However, to encourage Agnes Anne (as one must 
 do to a girl), I said that she was not to fire till she saw 
 the white of their eyes. I remembered that my father, 
 in speaking of some battle or other, told how the 
 general had given his men that order, so that they 
 might not miss. I thought it very fine. 
 
 But Agnes Anne said promptly that she would not 
 wait for the white of anybody's eyes. She would fire 
 and run for it as soon as she saw their ugly heads 
 coming up out of the ground. This shows how little 
 you can do with a girl, even if she have occasional fits 
 of bravery. And I do not deny that Agnes Anne had, 
 though not naturally brave like myself and Miss 
 Irma.
 
 ANNE'S EXPERIENCES AS A SPY 95 
 
 It was anywhere between five minutes and a century 
 before we heard the first stroke of the crow behind the 
 barricade. It sounded dull and painful, as if inside of 
 one's head. At first we heard no talking such as 
 Agnes Anne had described at the entrance of the ice- 
 house. 
 
 Also, as they had been a good while on the way ; I 
 believe that they had found other difficulties which 
 they had not counted upon in traversing the passage. 
 But they were very near now, for presently, after per- 
 haps twenty strokes we could hear the striker sending 
 out his breath with a ''Har" of effort each time he 
 drove his crow home. 
 
 It was very dark in the cellar, for we had covered 
 the lamp more carefully and almost ceased to breathe. 
 But we saw through certain chinks that our assailants 
 had a light of some sort with them. We could discern 
 a faint glimmering all round the upper portion of the 
 stone, and stray rays also pierced at various places 
 elsewhere. 
 
 The long line of light at the top suddenly split and 
 seemed to break open in the middle. There came a 
 fierce "Hec/i" from the assailant, and the point of his 
 crowbar showed, slid, and was as sharply recovered. 
 Next moment it came again. 
 
 "Lever it ! " cried the gruff voice, "if you have the 
 backbone of a windlestraw, lever ! " 
 
 And after a short, hard-breathing struggle, the 
 stone door fell inwards, the aperture was filled with 
 intense light, dazzling, as it appeared to us — and in 
 the midst we saw two fierce and set faces peering into 
 the dark of the cellar.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE FIGHT IN THE DARK 
 
 One of the peering faces was hot and angry, bearded 
 too, which few then used to do except such as followed 
 the sea. The other was dark and beaked like a hawk, 
 so that the shadow of an aquiline nose fell on the 
 man's chin as he held the lantern high above his head. 
 
 At first we could only see them to about the middle 
 of the breast, as for a little space of time they stood 
 thus, hearkening with their heads thrust forward. 
 
 "Not a ratton — forward there, Dick ! " said the man 
 behind, and the man with the bushy beard advanced, 
 rising as he did so till I could see the ties of tarry cord 
 with which he looped up his corduroy small-clothes. 
 
 Now it was high time to act. The game had been 
 played far enough. 
 
 "Hold there — stand ! " I cried. "Not a step further 
 or we fire ! " 
 
 I suppose my voice was echoed and fortified by the 
 hollow vault. Certainly in my own ears it roared like 
 the sound of many waters. At any rate the men 
 stood, dumb-stricken, the tarry sailorly man a little 
 in front with his mouth open and his yellow dog-teeth 
 gleaming. The other, he who had given the orders, 
 held the lantern higher in the air almost against the 
 stones of the vault, so as to see over the barricade of 
 boxes and barrels. 
 
 " 'Tis no more than the " he was beginning. But 
 
 he never got the sentence completed. For I took good 
 aim from a rest upon a package of cloth, and let fly 
 with the best of the muskets— but at the clear lowe 
 
 96
 
 THE FIGHT IN THE DARK 97 
 
 of the lantern, not at the man's face, as I had at first 
 intended. Somehow, a kind of pity came over me. I 
 did not want to slay such men, who, taken in their 
 iniquity, must go right to their accounts. But the 
 lantern was hit clean, and the glass went jingling to 
 the ground in a hundred fragments. 
 
 I judge also that some of the slugs must have 
 strayed a little, for out of the darkness came curses 
 and the voice of the commander crying on Dick to 
 get back — that they were too strong for only two men. 
 But the sailor man advanced till I could hear him 
 actually pulling himself over the breastwork, gasping 
 (or, as we say, "pech-"ing) with the effort. Then I 
 ran along my battery, and directing the next two of 
 the old muskets to the arched roof, I fired them off, 
 bringing down with a crash handfuls of rough lime 
 and small bits of stone, mingled no doubt with the 
 ricocheted bullets themselves. At any rate our tarry 
 Galligaskins soon had enough of it. He turned and 
 made good his retreat towards the stairs up which he 
 had forced his way. 
 
 Then Agnes Anne, who had no chivalrous ideas of 
 sparing anybody who came assaulting the house of 
 her friends, pulled the trigger of "King George," and 
 in a moment all lesser sounds were drowned in a roar 
 loud as of a piece of ordnance. 
 
 The blunderbuss had been trained on the opening 
 with some care, and it was lucky for the men that they 
 happened to be in retreat, and so presenting their 
 ' backs at the time — lucky, also, that only buckshot had 
 been used instead of the bullets and slugs with which 
 the other guns were loaded. But even so it was 
 enough. She was always careless and scattery, our 
 old "King George." And from the marks on the 
 lintels afterwards she had sprinkled her charge pretty 
 
 H
 
 98 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 freely. Also there were tokens, besides the yells and 
 imprecations of the assailants and the threats of Galli- 
 gaskins to come back and do for us, that both of them 
 (as Constable Jacky would have said) "carried off con- 
 cealed about their persons an indictable quantity of 
 my father's good lead drops." 
 
 So far, good. Better than good, indeed — better 
 than we had the least reason to expect, all owing to 
 my presence of mind, and the fortunate nervousness 
 of Agnes Anne — which, however, in the case under 
 review, Providence directed to a wise and good end. 
 I was for running immediately back up the stairs to 
 put the mind of Miss Irma at rest, but Agnes Anne, 
 with that stubbornness which she will often manifest 
 throughout this history, withstood me. 
 
 " What is it now ? " I asked her, somewhat im- 
 patiently, I am bound to admit. For I was all in a 
 sweat to tell Irma about my victory, and how I 
 fought — and also, of course, about Agnes Anne pull- 
 ing the trigger of " King George " at random in the 
 dark. 
 
 "This is the matter," said she, "Irma can wait. 
 But if we do not improve our victory, they will be 
 back again with a whole army of men before we can 
 wink." 
 
 "Well," I answered, "I will load the guns first and 
 then go up ! " 
 
 "Loading the guns is good," said Agnes Anne. 
 "But before that we must blind up this hole by which 
 they climbed in. We will give them something more 
 difficult to break through in this narrow passage than 
 a stone door which they can make holes in with a 
 crowbar ! " 
 
 And I caught at the idea in a moment, wondering 
 how I had not thought of it myself. But of course,
 
 THE FIGHT IN THE DARK 99 
 
 though I did not actually suggest it, Agnes Anne 
 could never have carried it through without me. 
 
 We set about the work immediately. I took the 
 big stone they had loosened with their tools and 
 tumbled it down the well of the stairway, where, after 
 rebounding once, it stuck at the turn and made a good 
 foundation for the barrels, boxes and packages we 
 threw down till the whole space was choke full, and 
 then I danced on the top and defied the lantern-man 
 and Dick to get through in a week. 
 
 "Now go and tell your Irma ! " said Agnes Anne, 
 and I went, while she stopped behind with the lantern 
 and a gun to watch if anything should be attempted 
 against the cellar. 
 
 But I knew right well that no such thing was pos- 
 sible. Nothing short of such a charge of gunpowder 
 as would rive the whole house of Marnhoul asunder 
 would suffice to clear the staircase of the packing I 
 had given it. So Agnes Anne might just as well 
 have come her ways up-stairs with me. Still, I do not 
 deny that it was thoughtful of her; Agnes Anne 
 meant well. 
 
 Irma had heard the firing, and I found her with 
 her little brother in her arms, sitting by the window of 
 the parlour overlooking the pilasters of the front door. 
 She held little Louis wrapped in a blanket, and kept 
 both herself and him out of sight as much as possible 
 behind the curtain. But she had the horse pistol I 
 had given her on the ledge of the sill close at her hand. 
 
 She listened to my tale with a white intensity which 
 was very pitiful. Her eyes seemed so big that they 
 almost overran her face, and there were little sparks 
 of light like fairy candles lit at the bottom of each. 
 
 "Lalor Maitland — it was no other man ! " she said 
 in an awed voice. "And now he is wounded he will 
 
 H 2
 
 100 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 be furious. He has many men always in his power. 
 For he can make or mar a man in the Low Countries, 
 and even bad men will do much for his favour. He 
 will gather to him all who are waiting. They will be 
 here immediately and burst in the doors. Oh, what 
 shall we do ? My poor, poor Louis ! " 
 
 "There is the woman whom Agnes Anne saw," I 
 said. "Can you guess what she has to do with it? 
 They said they would try her if they did not succeed." 
 
 "Why not light the beacon now ? " said a voice from 
 the door. It was Agnes Anne, who, being left to 
 herself, the thought had come to her in the dark of 
 the cellar, and had run up to propose it. For me, I 
 was too much occupied w ith Irma, and I am sure that 
 Irma was far too troubled concerning her brother to 
 think about the beacon. Yet it was the obvious thing 
 to do, and if I had had a moment to spare I would 
 have thought of it myself. So Agnes i\nne had no 
 great credit, after all, when you come to look at it 
 rightly. 
 
 But the effect of the suggestion on Irma was very 
 remarkable. It was as if the voice of my sister actually 
 raised her from the place where she had been listlessly 
 sitting with her brother in her arms. She snatched 
 the lantern from the hands of Agnes Anne and put 
 little Louis back on his pillow, bidding him stay 
 there till the time should come for him to get up. 
 
 "Are the bad men all killed, Irma?" he asked. 
 
 "We are going to bring the good people to help 
 us ! " she cried. And with that she ran up-stairs, and 
 I after her, in a great pother of haste. For the candle 
 in her hand was the only bit of fire we had, and I did 
 not want it blown out if I could help it.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A WORLD OF INK AND FIRE 
 
 The idea of Irma's danger on the open house-top 
 and in the full glare of the beacon acted on me like a 
 charm — yet people will say that there is nothing 
 at all in such a relationship as ours. Why, I would 
 not have been half as much concerned for Agnes 
 Anne ! And as a matter of fact, I had not been so 
 anxious down there behind the barrels and packages 
 in the cellar, when Lalor Maitland and Galligaskins 
 were coming at us. 
 
 Besides which, I knew that Irma, being unused to 
 fire-building, would only waste the excellent provi- 
 sion of kindling, and perhaps do us out of our beacon 
 altogether. 
 
 So having joined her, it was not long till we had 
 the tarred cloth off, and, through the interstices of 
 the iron bucket, the little blue and yellow flames 
 began chirping and chattering. But as 1 pulled the 
 basket up to the height of its iron crane, the wind of 
 the night sent the fire off with a mighty roar. The 
 tops of the nearer trees stood out, every leaf hard and 
 distinct, but the main body of the woods all about 
 Marnhoul remained dark and solid, as if you could 
 have walked upon them without once breaking 
 through. 
 
 I stood there watching, with the chain still in my 
 hand, though 1 had run the ring into the hoop on 
 the wall. We had been very clever so far, and I 
 was full of admiration for ourselves. But a bullet 
 whizzing very near my head, struck the basket with 
 
 lOI
 
 102 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 a vicious "scat," doing no harm, of course, but ex- 
 tending to us an urgent invitation to get out of range, 
 that was not to be disregarded. 
 
 Irma was close beside me, following with her eyes 
 the mounting crackle of the beacon, the sudden jet- 
 ting of the tall pale flames that ran upward into the 
 velvet sky of night. For from a pale and haunting 
 grey the firmament had all of a sudden turned black 
 and solid. Middle shades had been ruled out in- 
 stantly. It was a world of ink and fire. 
 
 But that sharp dash of danger cooled admiration 
 in my heart. I caught Irma by the shoulders and, 
 roughly enough, pulled her down beside me on the 
 platform behind the stone ramparts. For a moment 
 I think she was indignant, but the next thankful. 
 For half-a-dozen balls clicked and whizzed about, 
 passing through the square gaps that went all round 
 the tower, as if the wall had had a couple of teeth 
 knocked out at regular distances every here and 
 there. 
 
 Very cautiously we crawled to the stair-head, leav- 
 ing our invisible enemies cracking away at the fire 
 basket, knocking little cascades of sparks out of it, 
 indeed, but doing no harm. For the beacon was 
 thoroughly well alight, and the chain good and 
 strong. 
 
 As we descended the ladder I went first so as to 
 help Irma. She was a little upset, as indeed she 
 might well be. For it was quite evident that the 
 number of our assailants had singularly increased, 
 and we did not in the least know whether our signal 
 would do us any good or not. 
 
 "It may waken Boyd Connoway," I thought, "but 
 that will be all. He will come sneaking through the 
 wood to see what is the matter so as to tell about it.
 
 A WORLD OF INK AND FIRE 103 
 
 but he never used a weapon more deadly than a jack- 
 knife with a deer-horn handle." 
 
 As Irma's foot slipped on the bottom rung of the 
 ladder, I caught her as she swayed, and for a moment 
 in that dark place I held her in my hands like a posy, 
 fresh and sweet smelling, but sacred as if in church. 
 She said, without drawing herself away, at least not 
 for a moment longer than she need, "Duncan, you 
 saved my life ! " 
 
 I had it on my tongue tip to reply, "And my 
 owm at the same time, for I could not live without 
 
 you ! " 
 
 When one is young it is natural to talk like that, 
 but my old awe of Miss Irma preserved me from the 
 mistake. It was too early days for that, and I only 
 said, " I am glad ! " And when we got down there 
 was Agnes Anne, with her finger on her lip, watch- 
 ing little Sir Louis sleeping. She whispered to me to 
 know why we had made such a noise firing on the top 
 of the tower. 
 
 "It isn't like down in the cellar," she said, "you 
 came as near as you can think to wakening him ! " 
 
 I was so astonished that I could not even tell Agnes 
 Anne that she would soon find it was not we who had 
 done the tiring. The most part of the guns were 
 in the cellar any way, as she might have remembered. 
 Besides, what was the use ? She had caught that fell 
 disease, which is baby-worship. 
 
 Instead, I posted myself in the window, my body 
 hidden in the red rep curtain, and only my eyes show- 
 ing through a slit I made with my knife as I peered 
 along the barrel of "King George." I had resolved 
 that with an arm of such short "carry," I would not 
 fire till I had them right beneath the porch, or at least 
 coming up the steps of the mansion.
 
 104 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 It was in my mind that there would be a brutal 
 rush at the door, perhaps with pickaxes, perhaps with 
 one of the swinging battering-rams I had read of in 
 the Roman wars, that do such wondrous things when 
 cradled in the joined hands of many men. 
 
 But in this I w-as much mistaken. The assailants 
 were indeed rascals of the same tarry, broad-breeched, 
 stringfasted breed as Galligaskins of the cellar door. 
 But Galligaskins himself I saw not. From which I 
 judge that Agnes Anne had sorted him to rights with 
 the contents of "King George," laid ready for her 
 pointing at the top of the steps by which an enemy 
 must of necessity appear. 
 
 But they had a far more powerful w'eapon than any 
 battering-ram. We saw them moving about in the 
 faint light of a moon in her last quarter just risen 
 above the hills — a true moon of the small hours, ruddy 
 as a fox and of an aspect exceedingly weariful. 
 
 Presently there came toward the door two men with 
 a strange and shrouded figure walking painfully be- 
 tween them, as if upon hobbled feet. I could see 
 that one of the men was the tall man of the cave, 
 he in whose hand I had smashed the lantern. I knew 
 him by a wrist that was freshly bandaged, and also 
 by his voice when he spoke. The other who accom- 
 panied him was a sailor of some superior grade, a 
 boatswain or such, dressed in good sea cloth, and 
 wath a kind of glazed cocked hat upon his head. 
 
 It was a very weird business — the veiled woman, 
 the dim skarrow of the beacon, the foxy old moon 
 sifting an unearthly light between the branches, 
 everything fallen silent, and our assailants each keep- 
 ing carefully to the back of a tree to be out of reach 
 of our muskets. 
 
 They came on, the two men leading the woman by
 
 A WORLD OF INK AND FIRE 105 
 
 the arms till they were out of the flicker of the flames 
 both outside and under the shadow of the house. 
 
 Then the tall man, whom in my heart I made sure 
 to be Lalor Maitland, as Irma said, held up his 
 bandaged hand as a man does when he is about to 
 make a speech and craves attention. 
 
 "I have been ill-received," he cried, "in this the 
 house of my fathers " 
 
 "Because you have striven to enter it as a thief and 
 a robber ! " cried Irma's voice, close beside me. She 
 had passed behind me, slid the bolt of the window, 
 and was now leaning out, resting upon her elbows 
 and looking down at the men below. She was 
 apparently quite fearless. The appearance of her 
 cousin so near seemed somehow to sting her. 
 
 "Your brother and yourself are both under my care 
 — I suppose. Mademoiselle Irma, you will not deny 
 that?" 
 
 "We were," Irma answered, in a clear voice; "but 
 then, Lalor Maitland, I heard what the fate was you 
 were so kindly destining for me after having killed my 
 brother " 
 
 "And I know who put that foolishness into your 
 head," said Lalor Maitland; "she regrets it at this 
 moment, and has now come of her own will to tell 
 you she lied ! " 
 
 And with a jerk he loosened the apron which, as I 
 now saw, had been wrapped about the head of the 
 swathed figure. I shall never forget the face of the 
 woman as I saw it then. The uncertain flicker of the 
 flames and sparks from our beacon (which, though 
 itself invisible, darkened and lightened like sheet 
 lightning), the dismal umbery glimmer of the waning 
 raoon, and the pale approach of day over the moun- 
 tains to the east, made the face appear almost ghastly.
 
 106 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 But I was quite unprepared for the effect which the 
 sight produced upon Irma. 
 
 "Kate," she cried, "Kate of the Shore ! " 
 
 The woman did not reply, though there was an 
 obvious effort to speak — a straining of the neck 
 muscles and a painful rolling of the eyes. 
 
 "Yes," said Lalor calmly, as if he were exhibit- 
 ing a curiosity, "this is your friend to whom you owe 
 your escape. She was doubtless to have received a 
 reward, and in any case we shall give her a fine one. 
 But if you will return to your protector, and come with 
 me immediately on board the good ship Golden Hind, 
 which in some considerable danger, is beating off and 
 on between the heads of Killantringen — then I 
 promise you, you will save the life of our friend Kate 
 here. If not " (He waved his hand expressively.) 
 
 "You dare not kill her," cried Irma; "in an hour 
 the country will be up, and you will be hunted like 
 dogs." 
 
 "Oh, it is not I," said Lalor calmly, "I do not love 
 the shedding of blood, and that is why I am here 
 now. But consider those stout fellows yonder. They 
 are restive at having to wait for their pay, and the 
 loss of their captain, wounded in aiding me in obtain- 
 ing my rights in a quiet and peaceable manner, has 
 by no means soothed them. I advise you. Mistress 
 Irma, to bring down the boy and let us get on board 
 while there is yet time. No one in the house shall be 
 harmed. But listen to Kate — Kate of the Shore. 
 She will speak to you better than I ! But first we 
 must perform a little surgical operation ! " 
 
 And with that he whipped out a bandanna handker- 
 chief, which had been knotted and thrust into her 
 mouth in the manner of a gag. 
 
 "Now then," he said, "put a pistol to her head,
 
 A WORLD OF INK AND FIRE 107 
 
 Evans ! Now, Kate, you have told many lies about 
 your master, the late Governor of the fortress of 
 Dinant. Speak the truth for once in a way. For if 
 you do not tell these foolish children that they have 
 nothing to fear — nay more, if you cannot persuade 
 them to quit their foolish conduct and return to their 
 rightful duty and obedience, it will be my painful 
 duty to ask Evans there, who does not love you as I 
 do, to — well, you know what will happen when that 
 pistol goes off ! " 
 
 But even in such straits Kate of the Shore was not 
 to be frightened. 
 
 "You hear me. Miss Irma," she said, "I know this 
 bad man. He is only seeking to betray you as he 
 betrayed me. Defend your castle. Open not a win- 
 dow — keep the doors barred. They cannot take the 
 place in the time, for they have the tide to think of." 
 
 "I expected this," said Lalor, with a vaguely pen- 
 sive air, "it has ever been my lot to be calumniated, 
 my motives suspected. But I have indeed deserved 
 other things — especially from you, Irma, whom 
 (though your senior in years, and during the minority 
 of my ward Sir Louis, the head of the house), I have 
 alw^ays treated with affectionate and, perhaps, too 
 respectful deference ! " 
 
 "Miss Irma," cried Kate of the Shore, "take care 
 of that man. He has a pistol ready. I can see the 
 hilt of it in his pocket. You he will not harm if he 
 can help it, but if that be your brother whom I see at 
 the fold of the window-hanging, bid him stand back 
 for his life." 
 
 "Drop your pistol, Evans," commanded Lalor Mait- 
 land, "this part of the play is played out. She will 
 not speak, or rather what she says will do us no good. 
 Women are thrawn contrary things at the best, Evans.
 
 108 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 as I dare say you have noticed in your Principality 
 of Wales. But take heed, you and your precious de- 
 fenders, I warn you that in an hour the house of 
 Marnhoul shall be flaming over your heads with a 
 torch that shall bring out, not your pitiful burghers 
 from their rabbit-holes, but also the men of half a 
 county. 
 
 "Hear me," he raised his voice suddenly to a 
 strident shout, "hear me all you within the house. 
 Give up the girl and the child to their legal protectors, 
 and no harm shall befall either life or property. W^e 
 shall be on shipboard in half-an-hour. I shall see 
 to it that every man within the castle is rewarded from 
 the Maitland money that is safe beyond seas, out of 
 the reach of King George ! Of that, at least I made 
 sure, serving twice seven years for it in the service of 
 a hard master. I offer a hundred pounds a-piece to 
 whoever will deliver the boy and the maid ! " 
 
 This was a speech which pleased me much, for it 
 showed that from the stoutness of our defence, and 
 the many guns which had been shot off, Lalor was 
 under the impression that the house was garrisoned 
 by a proper force of men — when in truth there was 
 only Miss Irma and me — that is, not counting Agnes 
 Anne.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE WHITE FREE TRADERS 
 
 But the country was by no means so craven as 
 Lalor supposed. There were bold hearts and ready 
 saddles still in Galloway. The signal from the top 
 of the beacon tower of Marnhoul was seen and under- 
 stood in half-a-dozen parishes. 
 
 Not that the young fellows who saw the flame con- 
 nected it with the two children who had taken refuge 
 in the old place of the Maitlands. In fact, most knew 
 nothing about their existence. But their alacrity was 
 connected with quite another matter — the great cargo 
 of dutiable and undutied goods stored away in the 
 cellars of Marnhoul ! 
 
 There was stirring, therefore, in remote farms, 
 rattling on doors, hurried scrambling up and down 
 stable ladders. Young men on the outskirts of vil- 
 lages might have been seen stealing through gardens, 
 stumbling among cabbage-stocks and gooseberry 
 bushes as they made their way by the uncertain flicker 
 of our far-away beacon to the place of rendezvous. 
 
 Herds rising early to "look the hill" gave one 
 glance at the red dance of the flames over the tree-tops 
 of Marnhoul great wood, and anon ran to waken their 
 masters. 
 
 For in that country every farmer — aye, and most of 
 the lairds, including a majority of the Justices of the 
 Peace — had a share in the "venture." Sometimes the 
 value of the cargo brought in by a single run would 
 be from fifty to seventy thousand pounds. All this 
 great amount of goods had to be scattered and con- 
 cealed locally, before it was carried to Glasgow and 
 
 109
 
 110 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Edinburgh over the wildest and most unfrequented 
 tracks. 
 
 The officers of the revenue, few and ill-supported, 
 could do little. Most of them, indeed, accepted the 
 quiet greasing of the palm, and called off their men to 
 some distant place during the night of a big run. But 
 even when on the spot and under arms, a cavalcade 
 of a couple of hundred men could laugh at half-a- 
 dozen preventives, and pass by defiantly waving their 
 hands and clinking the chains which held the kegs 
 upon their horses. The bolder cried out invitations 
 to come and drink, and the good-w-ill of the leaders of 
 the Land Free Traders was even pushed so far that, if 
 a Surveyor of Customs showed himself pleasantly 
 amenable, a dozen or more small kegs of second-rate 
 Hollands would be tipped before his eyes into a con- 
 venient bog, so that, if it pleased him, he could pose 
 before his superiors as having effected an important 
 capture. 
 
 The report which he was wont to edit on these occa- 
 sions will often compare with the higher fiction — as 
 followeth : — 
 
 "Supervisor Henry Baskett, in charge of the Lower 
 Solway district, reports as follows under date June 
 30th : Found a strong body of smugglers marching 
 between the wild mountains called Ben Tuthor and 
 Blew Hills. They were of the number of three hun- 
 dred, all well mounted and armed, desperate men, 
 evidently not of this district, but, from their talk and 
 accoutrement, from the Upper Ward of Lanerickshire. 
 Followed them carefully to note their dispositions and 
 discover a favourable place for attack. I had only 
 four men with me, w^hereof one a boy, being all the 
 force under my command. Nevertheless, at a place
 
 THE WHITE FREE TRADERS 111 
 
 called the Corse of Slakes I advanced boldly and sum- 
 moned them, in the King's name and at the peril of 
 their lives, to surrender. 
 
 "Whereat they turned their guns upon us, each 
 man standing behind his horse and having his face 
 hidden in a napkin lest he should be known. But we 
 four and the boy advanced firmly and with such resolu- 
 tion that the band of three hundred law-breakers broke 
 up incontinent, and taking to flight this way and that 
 through the heather, left us under the necessity of pur- 
 suing. We pursued that band which promised the 
 best taking, and I am glad to intimate to your Excel- 
 lencies, His Majesty's Commissioners, that we were 
 successful in putting the said Free Traders to flight, 
 and capturing twenty-five casks best Hollands, six 
 loads of Vallenceen, etc., etc., as per schedule ap- 
 pended to be accounted for by me as your lordship's 
 commissioners shall direct. In the hope that this will 
 be noted to our credit on the table of advancement (and 
 in this connect I may mention the names of the three 
 men, Thomas Coke, Edward Loval, Timothy Pierce, 
 and the boy Joseph McDougal, whom I recommend as 
 having done their duty in the face of peril), I have the 
 honour to sign myself, 
 " My Lords and Hon. Commissionersof H.M. Excise, 
 "Your obedient, humble servant, 
 
 "Henry Baskett (Supervisor)." 
 
 The other view of this transaction I find more con- 
 cisely expressed in a memorandum written in an old 
 note-book belonging to my Uncle Tom. 
 
 "Baskett held out for forty best French, but we 
 fobbed him off with twenty-five low-grade Rotterdam 
 — the casks being leaky, and some packs of goods too 
 long left at Rathan Cave, which is at the back of the
 
 112 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 isle, and counted scarce worth the carrying farther. 
 The night fine and business most successful — thanks 
 to an ever-watchful Providence." 
 
 The reader of these family memoirs will perhaps 
 agree with me that, if any one could do without an 
 ever-watchful Providence troubling itself about him, 
 that man was my Uncle Tom. 
 
 While, therefore, we in the House of Marnhoul were 
 in the wildest alarm — at least Agnes Anne was — forces 
 which could not possibly be withstood were mustering 
 to hasten to our assistance. The tarry jackets of the 
 Golden Hind would doubtless have rushed the front 
 door with a hurrah, as readily as they would have 
 boarded a prize, but Lalor Maitland ordered them to 
 bring wood and other inflammable material. At least, 
 so I judge, for presently I could see them running to 
 and fro about the edges of the wood. They had now 
 learned the knack of keeping in shelter most of the 
 way. But I did not feel really afraid till I saw some 
 of them with kegs of liquor making towards the porch. 
 There they stove them in, and proceeded to empty the 
 contents on the dry branches and fuel they had col- 
 lected. The matter was now beginning to look really 
 serious. To make things worse, they were evidently 
 digging out the bottom of our cellar-stair barricade, 
 and if they succeeded in that they would turn our 
 position and take us in the rear. 
 
 So I sent down Agnes Anne (she not being good for 
 much else) to the cellar to see how things were looking 
 there, bidding her to be careful of the lantern, and 
 to bring back as many of the five muskets as she could 
 carry, so that I might keep the fellows in check above. 
 
 Agnes Anne came flying back with the worst kind of 
 news. A great flame of fire was springing up out of 
 the well of the staircase into which we had tumbled
 
 THE WHITE FREE TRADERS 113 
 
 the barrels and boxes. It threatened, she said, to blow 
 us sky-high, if there were any barrels of powder among 
 the goods left by the smugglers. 
 
 At any rate, the flame was rapidly spreading to the 
 other packages which had formed our breastwork of 
 defence, and was now like to become our ruin. 
 
 For, once fairly caught, the spirit would flame high 
 as the rigging of Marnhoul, and we should all be 
 burnt alive, which was most likely what Lolar Mait- 
 land meant by his parting threatening. 
 
 "And it is more than likely," Agnes Anne added, 
 "that some of the barrels burst as we threw them 
 down the stairs, and so, with the liquor flowing among 
 their feet, the assailants got the idea of thus burning 
 us out." 
 
 At all events something had to be done, and that 
 instantly. So I had perforce to leave Agnes Anne 
 in charge of "King George" again, cautioning her 
 not to pull the trigger till she should see the rascals 
 actually bending to set fire to the pile underneath the 
 porch of the front door. I also told her not to be 
 frightened, and she promised not to. 
 
 Then I went down to the cellar. The heat there was 
 terrible, and I do not wonder that Agnes Anne came 
 running back to me. A pillar of blue flame was 
 rising straight up against the arched roof of the cellar. 
 I could hear the cries of the m.en working below in 
 the passage. 
 
 " Hook it away — give her air — she will burn ever 
 the brisker and smoke the land-lubbers out ! " 
 
 Some few of the boxes in the front tier were already 
 on fire, and still more were smouldering, but the 
 straightness of the vent up which the flame was 
 coming, together with the closeness and stillness of 
 the vault, made the flame mount straight up as in a
 
 114 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 chimney. I therefore divined rather than saw what 
 remained for me to do. I leaped over and began, at 
 the risk of a severe scorching, to throw back all the 
 boxes and packages which were in danger. It was 
 lucky for me that the smugglers had piled them 
 pretty high, and so by drawing one or two from near 
 the foundation, I was fortunate enough to overset the 
 most part of it in the outward direction. 
 
 But the fierceness of the flame was beginning to tell 
 upon the building-stone of Marnhoul, which was of a 
 friable nature — at least that with which the vault was 
 arched. 
 
 Lucklv some old tools had been left in the corner, 
 and it struck me that if I could dig up enough of the 
 earthen floor or topple over the mound of earth which 
 had been piled up at the making of the underground 
 passage, the fire must go out for lack of air; or, better 
 still, would be turned in the faces of those who were 
 digging away the barrels and boxes from the bottom 
 of the stair-well. 
 
 This, after many attempts and some very painful 
 burns, I succeeded in doing. The first shovelfuls did 
 not seem to produce much effect. So I set to work on 
 the large heap of hardened earth in the corner, and 
 was lucky enough to be able to tumble it bodily upon 
 the top of the column of fire. Then suddenly the 
 terrible column of blue flame went out, just as does a 
 Christmas pudding when it is blown upon. And for 
 the same reason. Both were made of the flames of the 
 French spirit called cognac, or brandy. 
 
 Then I did not mind about my burns, I can assure 
 you. But almost gleefully I went on heaping mould 
 and dirt upon the boxes in the well of the staircase, 
 stamping down the earth at the top till it was almost 
 like the hard-beaten floor of the cellar itself. I
 
 THE WHITE FREE TRADERS 115 
 
 left not a crevice for the least small flame to come up 
 through. 
 
 Then I bethought me of what might be going on 
 above, and the flush of my triumph cooled quickly. 
 For I thought that there was only Agnes Anne, and 
 who knows what weakness she may not have com- 
 mitted. She would never have thought, for instance, 
 of such a thing as covering in the flame with earth to 
 put it out. To tell the truth, I did think very master- 
 fully of myself at that moment, and perhaps with some 
 cause, for not one in a thousand would have had the 
 "engine " to do as I had done. 
 
 When I got to the top of the stairs, I heard cries 
 from without, which had been smothered by the deep- 
 ness of the dungeon in which I had been labouring to 
 put out the fire. For a moment I thought that by the 
 failure of Agnes Anne to fire off "King George" at 
 the proper moment, the door had been forced and we 
 utterly lost. Which seemed the harder to be borne, 
 that I had just saved all our lives in a way so original 
 and happy. 
 
 But I was wrong. The shouting came not from the 
 wicked crew of the privateersman, but from the shout- 
 ing of a vast number of people, most of them mounted 
 on farm and country horses, with some of finer limb 
 and better blood, managed by young fellows having 
 the air of laird's sons or others of some position. 
 None of these had his face bare. But in place of the 
 black highwayman masks of the followers of Galligas- 
 kins, these wore only a strip of white kerchief across 
 the face, though, as I could see, more for the form of 
 the thing than from any real apprehension of danger. 
 
 Indeed, in the very forefront of the cavalcade I saw 
 our own two cart horses, Dapple and Dimple, and the 
 lighter mare Bess, which my grandfather used for 
 
 I 2
 
 116 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 riding to and fro upon his milling business. I had 
 not the least doubt that my three uncles were bestrid- 
 ing them, though I never knew that there were any 
 arms about the house except the old fowling-piece 
 belonging to grandfather, with which on moonlight 
 nights he killed the hares that came to nibble the 
 plants in his cabbage garden. 
 
 Soon the sailors and their abettors were fleeing in 
 every direction. But, what took me very much by 
 surprise, there was no firing or cutting down, though 
 there was a good deal of smiting with the flat of the 
 sword. And at the entrance of the ice-mound I saw 
 a great many very scurvy fellows come trickling out, 
 all burned and scorched, to run the gauntlet of a row 
 of men on foot, who drubbed them soundly with 
 cudgels before letting them go. 
 
 Seeing this, I opened the window, and shouted with 
 all my might. 
 
 "Apprehend them ! They are villains and thieves. 
 They have broken into this house and tried to kill us 
 all, besides setting fire to the cellar and everything in 
 it ! " 
 
 The men without, both those on foot and those on 
 horseback, had been calm till they heard this, and 
 then, lo ! each cavalier dismounted and all came run- 
 ning to the door, calling on us to open instantly. 
 
 "Not to you any more than to the others ! " I cried. 
 For, indeed, I saw not any good reason. It appeared 
 to me, since there was no real fighting, that the two 
 parties must be in alliance, or, at least, have an under- 
 standing between them. 
 
 But Agnes Anne called out, "Nonsense, I see 
 Uncle Aleck and Uncle Ebenezer. I am going to 
 open the door to them, whatever you say ! " 
 
 So all in a minute the house of Marnhoul, long so
 
 THE WHITE FREE TRADERS 11 
 
 If 
 
 desolate and silent, wherein such deeds of valour and 
 strategy had recently been wrought, grew populous 
 with a multitude all eager to win down to the cellar. 
 But Agnes Anne brought up my three uncles (and 
 another who was with them) and bade them watch 
 carefully over the safety of Louis and IMiss Irma. 
 (For so I must again call her now that she had, as it 
 were, come to her own again.) 
 
 As for me they carried me down with them, to tell 
 all about the attempt to burn the goods in the cellar. 
 And angry men they were when they saw so many 
 webs of fine cloth, so many bolts of Flanders lace, so 
 many kegs of rare brandy damaged and as good as 
 lost. But when they understood that, but for my 
 address and quickness, all would have been lost to 
 them, they made me many compliments. Also an 
 old man w-ith a silver-hilted sword, who carried him- 
 self like some great gentleman, bade me tell him my 
 name, and wrote it down in his note-book, saying that 
 I was of too good a head and quick a hand to waste 
 on a dominie. 
 
 And, indeed, I was of that mind (or something very 
 much like it) myself. An old haunted house like 
 Marnhoul to defend, a young maid of high family 
 to rescue (and adopt you as her brother for a 
 reward) did somehow take the edge off teaching the 
 Rule of Three and explaining the De Bello Gallico to 
 imps who cannot understand, and would not if they 
 could.
 
 PART II 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MY GRANDMOTHER SPEAKS HER MIND 
 
 "There is no use talking" (said my grandmother, 
 as she always did when she was going to do a great 
 deal of it), "no, listen to me, there is no use talking ! 
 These two young things need a home, and if we 
 don't give it to them, who will? Stay longer in that 
 great gaol of a house, worse than any barn, they shall 
 not — exposed day and night to a traffic of sea rascals, 
 thieves and murderers, they shall not — — " 
 
 "What I want to know is who is to keep them, and 
 what the safer they will be here ? " 
 
 It was the voice of my Aunt Jen which interrupted. 
 None else would have dared — save mayhap my grand- 
 father, who, however, only smiled and was silent. 
 
 "Ne'er you mind that, Janet," cried her mother, 
 "what goes out of our basket and store will never be 
 missed. And father says the same, be sure of that ! " 
 
 My grandfather did say the same, if to smile quietly 
 and approvingly is to speak. At any rate, in a matter 
 which did not concern him deeply, he knew a wiser 
 way than to contradict Mistress Mary Lyon. She 
 was quite capable of keeping him awake two-thirds 
 of the night arguing it out, without the faintest hope 
 of altering the final result. 
 
 "The poor things," mourned my grandmother, 
 "they shall come here and welcome — that is, till better 
 
 be. Of course, they might be more grandly lodged 
 
 "ii8
 
 GRANDMOTHER SPEAKS HER MIND 119 
 
 by the rich and the great — gentlefolk in their own 
 station. But, first of all, they do not offer, and if they 
 did, they are mostly without experience. To bring up 
 children, trust an old hen who has clucked over a 
 brood of her own ! " 
 
 "Safer, too, here," approved my grandfather, nod- 
 ding his head; "the tarry breeches will think twice 
 before paying Heathknowes a visit — with the lads 
 about and the gate shut, and maybe the old dog not 
 quite toothless yet ! " 
 
 This, indeed, was the very heart of the matter. 
 Irma and Sir Louis would be far safer at the house of 
 one William Lyon, guarded by his stout sons, by his 
 influence over the wildest spirits of the community, in 
 a house garrisoned by a horde of sleepless sheep-dogs, 
 set in a defensible square of office-houses, barns, 
 byres, stables, granaries, cart-sheds, peat-sheds and 
 the rest. 
 
 "And when the great arrive to call," said Aunt Jen, 
 with sour insight, "you, mother, will stop the churn- 
 ing just when the butter is coming to put on your 
 black lace cap and apron. You will receive the lady 
 of the manse, and Mrs. General Johnstone, and " 
 
 "And if I do, Jen," cried her mother, "what is that 
 to you ? " 
 
 "Because I have enough to do as it is," snapped 
 Jen, "without your butter-making when you are play- 
 ing the lady down the house ! " 
 
 Grandmother's black eyes crackled fire. She turned 
 threateningly to her daughter. 
 
 "By my saul. Lady Lyon," she cried, "there is a 
 stick in yon corner that ye ken, and if you are insolent 
 to your mother I will thrash you yet — woman-grown 
 as ye are. Ye take upon yourself to say that which 
 none of your brothers dare set their tongue to ! "
 
 120 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 And indeed there is little doubt but that Mary Lyon 
 would have kept her word. So far as speech was 
 concerned, my Aunt Jen was silenced. But she was a 
 creature faithful to her prejudices, and could express 
 by her silence and air of injured rectitude more than 
 one less gifted could have put into a parliamentajy 
 oration. 
 
 Her very heels on the stone floor of the wide kitchen 
 at Heathknowes, where all the business of the house 
 was transacted, fell with little raps of defiance, curt 
 and dry. Her nose in the air told of contempt louder 
 than any words. She laid down the porridge spurtle 
 like a queen abdicating her sceptre. She tabled the 
 plates like so many protests, signed and witnessed. 
 She swept about the house wuth the glacial chill which 
 an iceberg spreads about it in temperate seas. Her 
 displeasure made winter of our content — of all, that is, 
 except Mary Lyon's. She at least went about her 
 tasks with her usual humming alacrity, turning work 
 over her shoulder as easy as apple-peeling. 
 
 Being naturally lazy myself (except as to the read- 
 ing of books), I took a great pleasure in watching 
 grandmother. Aunt Jen would order you to get some 
 work if she saw you doing nothing — malingering, she 
 called it — ^}^es, and find it for you too, that is, if Mary 
 Lyon were not in the house to tell her to mind her 
 own business. 
 
 But you might lie round among grandmother's feet 
 for days, and, except for a stray cuff in passing if she 
 actually walked into you— a cuff given in the purest 
 spirit of love and good-will, and merely as a warning 
 of the worse thing that might happen to you if you 
 made her spill the dinner "sowens" — you might spend 
 your days in reading anything from the Arabian 
 Nights in Uncle Eben's old tattered edition to the
 
 GRANDMOTHER SPEAKS HER MIND 121 
 
 mighty Josephiis, all complete with plans and plates 
 — over which on Sundays my grandfather was wont 
 to compose himself augustly to sleep. 
 
 Well, Miss Irma and Sir Louis came to my grand- 
 mother's house at Heathknowes. Yes, this is the 
 correct version. The house of Heathknowes was Mary 
 Lyon's. The mill in the wood, the farm, the hill 
 pastures — these might be my grandfather's, also the 
 horses and wagons generally, but his power — his 
 "say" over anything, stopped at the threshold of the 
 house, of the byre of cows, at the step of the rumbling 
 little light cart in w'hich he was privileged to drive 
 my grandmother to church and market. In these 
 places and relations he became, instead of the unques- 
 tioned master, only as one of ourselves, except that he 
 was neither cuffed nor threatened wdth "the stick in 
 the corner." All the same, this immunity did not do 
 him much good, for many a sound tongue-lashing 
 did he receive for his sins and shortcomings — indeed, 
 far more so than all the rest of us. For with us, my 
 grandmother had a short and easy way. 
 
 " I have not time to be arguing with the likes of 
 you ! " she would cry. And upon the word a sound 
 cuff removed us out of her path, and before we had 
 stopped tingling Mary Lyon had plunged into the 
 next object in hand, satisfied that she had successfully 
 wrestled with at least one problem. But with grand- 
 father it was difTerent. He had to be convinced — if 
 possible, convicted — in any case overborne. 
 
 To accomplish this Mary Lyon would put forth all 
 her powers, in spite of her husband's smiles — or per- 
 haps a good deal because of them. Upon her excel- 
 lent authority, he was stated to be the most irritating 
 man betwixt the Brigend of Dumfries and the Braes 
 of Glenap.
 
 122 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "Oh, man, say what you have to say," she would 
 cry, when reduced to extremities by the obvious un- 
 fairness of his silent mode of controversy, "but don't 
 sit there girning like a self-satisfied monkey ! " 
 
 "Mother ! " exclaimed Aunt Jen, horrified. For she 
 cherished a secret tenderness for my grandfather, 
 perhaps because their natures were so different, " How 
 can you speak so to our father ? " 
 
 "Wait till you get a man of your ain, Janet," my 
 grandmother would retort, "then you will have new 
 light as to how it is permitted for a woman to speak." 
 
 With this retort Aunt Jen was well acquainted, and 
 had to be thankful that it was carried no further, as 
 it often was in the case of any criticisms as to the 
 management of children. In this case Aunt Jen was 
 usually invited not to meddle, on the forcible plea 
 that what a score of old maids knew about rearing a 
 family could be put into a nutshell without risk of 
 overcrowding. 
 
 The room at Heathknowes that was got ready for 
 the children was the one off the parlour — "down-the- 
 house," as it was called. Here was a little bed for 
 Miss Irma, her washstand, a chest of drawers, a brush 
 and comb which Aunt Jen had "found," producing 
 them from under her apron with an exceedingly guilty 
 air, while continuing to brush the floor with an air of 
 protest against the whole proceeding. 
 
 From the school-house my father sent a hanging 
 bookcase — at least the thing was done upon my sug- 
 gestion. Agnes Anne carried it and Uncle Ebie nailed 
 it up. At any rate, it was got into place among us. 
 The cot of the child Louis had been arranged in the 
 parlour itself, but at the first glance Miss Irma turned 
 pale, and I saw it would not do. 
 
 "I have always been accustomed to have him with
 
 GRANDMOTHER SPEAKS HER MIND 123 
 
 me," she said; "it is very kind of you to give us such 
 nice rooms — but — would you mind letting him sleep 
 where I can see him ? " 
 
 It was Aunt Jen who did the moving without a 
 word, and that, too, with the severe lines of dis- 
 approval very nearly completely ruled off her face. 
 It was, in fact, better that they should be together. 
 For while the parlour looked by two small-paned win- 
 dows across the wide courtyard, the single casement of 
 the little bedroom opened on the orchard corner which 
 my grandfather had planted in the first years of his 
 taking possession. 
 
 The house of Heathknowes was of the usual type of 
 large Galloway farm — a place with some history, the 
 house ancient and roomy, the office houses built 
 massively in a square, as much for defence as for 
 convenience. You entered by a heavy gate and you 
 closed it carefully after you. From without the walls 
 of the quadrangle frowned upon you unbroken from 
 their eminence, massy and threatening as a fortress. 
 The walls were loopholed for musketry, and, in places, 
 still bore marks of the long slots through which the 
 archers had shot their bolts and clothyard shafts in 
 the days before powder and ball. 
 
 Except the single gate, you could go round and 
 round without finding any place by which an enemy 
 might enter. The outside appearance was certainly 
 grim, unpromising, inhospitable, and so it seemed to 
 Miss Irma and Sir Louis as they drove up the loaning 
 from the ford. 
 
 But within, everything was different. What a smil- 
 ing welcome they received, my grandfather standing 
 with his hat off, my grandmother with the tears in her 
 motherly vehement eyes, gathering the two wanderers 
 defiantly to her breast as if daring all the world to
 
 124 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 come on. Behind a little (but not much) was Aunt 
 Jen, asserting her position and rights in the house. 
 She did not seem to see Miss Irma, but to make up, 
 she never took her eyes off the little boy for a moment. 
 
 Then my uncles were ranged awkwardly, their 
 hands lonesome for the grip of the plough, the driving 
 reins, or the water-lever at the mill in the woods. 
 
 Uncle Rob, our dandy, had changed his coat and 
 put on a new neckcloth, an act which, as all who know 
 a Scots farm town wull understand, cost him a multi- 
 tude of flouts, jeers and upcasting from his peers. 
 
 I was also there, not indeed to welcome them, but 
 because I had accompanied the party from the house 
 of Marnhoul. The White Free Traders had estab- 
 lished a post there to watch over one of their best 
 "hidie-holes," even though they had removed all their 
 goods in expectation of the visit of a troop of horse 
 under Captain Sinclair, known to have been ordered 
 up from Dumfries to aid the excise supervisor, as 
 soon as that zealous officer was sure that, the steed 
 being stolen, it was time to lock the stable door. 
 
 But when the dragoons came, there was little for 
 them to do. Ned Henderson, the General Surveyor 
 of the Customs and head of the district in all matters 
 of excise, was far too careful a man to allow more to 
 appear than was "good for the country." He knew 
 that there was hardly a laird, and not a single farmer 
 or man of substance who had not his finger in the pie. 
 Indeed, after the crushing national disaster of Darien, 
 this was the direction which speculation naturally took 
 in Scotland for more than a hundred years. 
 
 In due time, then, the dragoons arrived, greatly to 
 the interest of all the serving lasses — and some others. 
 There was, of course, a vast deal of riding about, 
 cantering along by-ways, calling upon this or that
 
 GRANDMOTHER SPEAKS HER MIND 125 
 
 innocent to account for his presence at the back of a 
 dyke or behind a whin-bush- — which he usually did in 
 the most natural and convincing manner possible. 
 
 The woods were searched — the covers drawn. Many 
 birds were disturbed, but of the crew of the Golden 
 Hind, or the land smugglers by whose arrival the 
 capture and burning of Marnhoul had been prevented, 
 no trace was found. Even Kate of the Shore's present 
 address was known to but few, and to these quite 
 privately. There was no doubt of her faithfulness. 
 That had been proven, but she knew too much. There 
 were questions which, even unanswered, might raise 
 others. 
 
 Several young men, of good family and connections, 
 thought it prudent to visit friends at a distance, and 
 at least one was never seen in the country more. 
 
 One of his Majesty's frigates had been sent for to 
 watch the Solway ports, much to the disgust of her 
 officers. For not only had they been expected at the 
 Portsmouth summer station by numerous pretty ladies, 
 but the navigation between Barnhourie and the Back 
 Shore of Leswalt was as full of danger as it was entirely 
 without glory. If they were unlucky, they might be 
 cashiered for losing the ship. If lucky, the revenue 
 men would claim the captured cargo. If they secured 
 the malefactors they would sow desolation in a score 
 of respectable families, with the daughters of which 
 they had danced at Kirkcudbright a week ago. 
 
 In Galloway, though a considerable amount of reck- 
 lessness mingled with the traffic, and there were occa- 
 sional roughnesses on the high seas and about the ports 
 and anchorages of Holland and the Isle of Man, there 
 was never any of the cruelty associated with smug- 
 gling along the south coast of England. The 
 smugglers of Sussex killed the informer Chater with
 
 126 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 blows of their whips. A yet darker tragedy enacted 
 farther west, brought half-a-dozen to a well-deserved 
 scaffold. But, save for the losses in fair fight occa- 
 sioned by the intemperate zeal of some new broom of 
 a supervisor anxious for distinction, the history of 
 Galloway smuggling had, up to that time, never been 
 stained with serious crime. 
 
 Meantime the two Maitlands, Sir Louis and Miss 
 Irma, were safely housed within the defenced place of 
 Heathknowes, guarded by William Lyon and his three 
 stout sons, and mothered by all the hidden tenderness 
 of my grandmother's big, imperious, volcanic heart. 
 
 Only my Aunt Jen watched jealously with a half- 
 satisfied air and took counsel with herself as to what 
 the end of these things might be.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CASTLE CONNOWAY 
 
 Meanwhile Boyd Connoway was in straits. Torn 
 between two emotions, he was pleased for once to 
 have found a means of earning his hving and that 
 of his family — especially the latter. For his own 
 living was like that of the crows, "got round the 
 country somewhere ! " But with the lightest and 
 most kindly heart in the world, Boyd Connoway 
 found himself in trouble owing to the very means of 
 opulence which had brought content to his house. 
 
 On going home on the night after the great attack 
 on Marnhoul, weary of directing affairs, misleading 
 the dragoons, whispering specious theories into the 
 ear of the commanding officer and his aides, he had 
 been met at the outer gate of his cabin by a fact that 
 overturned all his notions of domestic economy. 
 Ephraim, precious Ephraim, the Connoway family 
 pig, had been turned out of doors and was now grunt- 
 ing disconsolately, thrusting a ringed nose through 
 the bars of Paradise. Now Boyd knew that his wife 
 set great store by Ephraim. Indeed, he had frequently 
 been compared, to his disadvantage, with Ephraim 
 and his predecessors in the narrow way of pigs. 
 Ephraim was of service. What would the "poor 
 childer," what would Bridget herself do without 
 Ephraim ? Bridget was not quite sure whether she 
 kept Ephraim or whether Ephraim kept her. At any 
 rate it was not to Boyd Connoway that she and her 
 offspring were anyways indebted for care and 
 
 sustenance. 
 
 127
 
 128 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "The craitur," said Bridget affectionately, "he 
 pays the very rint ! " 
 
 But here, outside the family domain, was Ephraim, 
 the beloved of his wife's heart, actually turned out 
 upon a cold and unfeeling world, and with carefully 
 spaced grunts of bewilderment expressing his dis- 
 content. If such were Ephraim's fate, how would the 
 matter go with him ? Boyd Con noway saw a prospect 
 of finding a husband and the father of a family turned 
 from his own door, and obliged to return and take up 
 his quarters with this earlier exile. 
 
 The Connoway family residence was a small and 
 almost valueless leasehold from the estate of General 
 Johnstone. The house had always been tumbledown, 
 and the tenancy of Bridget and her brood had not 
 improved it externally. The lease was evidently a 
 repairing one. For holes in the thatch roof were 
 stopped with heather, or mended with broad slabs 
 of turf held down with stones and laboriously 
 strengthened w'ith wattle — a marvel of a roof. It is 
 certain that Boyd's efforts were never continuous. He 
 tired of everything in an hour, or sooner — unless 
 somebody, preferably a w'oman, was watching him 
 and paying him compliments on his dexterity. 
 
 The cottage had originally consisted of the usual 
 "but-and-ben " — that is to say, in well regulated 
 houses (which this one was not) of a kitchen— and a 
 room that was not the kitchen. The family beds 
 occupied one corner of the kitchen, that of Bridget 
 and her husband in the middle (including accommo- 
 dation for the latest baby), while on either side and at 
 the foot, shakedowns were laid out "for the childer," 
 slightly raised from the earthen floor on rude trestles, 
 with a board laid across to receive the bedding. There 
 was nothing at either side to provide against the occu-
 
 CASTLE CONNOWAY 129 
 
 pants rolling over, but, as the distance from the 
 ground did not average more than four inches, the 
 young Connoways did not run much danger of acci- 
 dent on that account. 
 
 Disputes were, however, naturally somewhat fre- 
 quent. Jerry or Phil would describe himself as "lying 
 on so many taturs " — Mary or Kitty declare that her 
 bedfellow was "pullin' every scrap off of her, that 
 she was ! " 
 
 To quell these domestic brawls Bridget Connoway 
 kept at the head of the middle bed a long peeled 
 willow, which was known as the "Thin One." The 
 Thin One settled all night disputes in the most even- 
 handed way. For Bridget did not get out of bed to 
 discriminate. She simply laid on the spot from 
 which the disturbance preceded till that disturbance 
 ceased. Then the Thin One returned to his corner 
 while innocent and guilty mingled their tears and 
 resolved to conduct hostilities more silently in future. 
 
 In the daytime, however, the "Thick One" held 
 sway, which was the work-hardened palm of Mistress 
 Bridget Connoway's hand. She was ambidextrous in 
 correction — "one was as good as t'other," as Jerry 
 remarked, after he had done rubbing himself and 
 comparing damages with his brother Phil, who had 
 got the left. "There's not a fardin' to pick between 
 us ! " was the verdict as the boys started out to find 
 their father, stretched on his favourite sunny mound 
 within sight of the Haunted House of Marnhoul — now 
 more haunted than ever. 
 
 But on this occasion Boyd Connoway was on his 
 return, when he met the exiled Ephraim. His medita- 
 tions on his own probable fate have led the historian 
 into a sketch of the Connoway establishment, which, 
 indeed, had to come in somewhere. 
 
 K
 
 130 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 For once Boyd wasted no time. With his wife wait- 
 ing for him it was well to know the worst and get it 
 over. He opened the door quickly, and intruding his 
 hat on the end of his walking stick, awaited results. 
 It was only for a moment, of course, but Boyd Con- 
 noway felt satisfied. His Bridget was not waiting 
 for him behind the door with the potato-beetle as she 
 did on days of great irritation. His heart rose — his 
 courage returned. Was he not a free man, a house- 
 holder ? Had he not taken a distinguished part in a 
 gallant action ? Bridget must understand this. 
 Bridget should understand this. Boyd Connoway 
 would be respected in his own house ! 
 
 Nevertheless he entered hastily, sidling like a dog 
 which expects a kick. He avoided the dusky places 
 instinctively — the door of the "ben" room was shut, 
 so Bridget could not be lying in wait there. Was it 
 in the little closet behind the kitchen that the danger 
 lurked ? The children were in bed, save the two 
 youngest, all quiet, all watching with the large, 
 dreamy blue (Connoway) eyes, or the small, very 
 bright ones (Bridget's) what his fate would be. 
 
 He glanced quaintly, with an interrogative lift of 
 his eyebrows, at the bed to the left. Jerry of the 
 twinkling sloe-eyes answered with a quick upturn of 
 the thumb in the direction of the spare chamber. 
 
 Boyd Connoway frowned portentously at his eldest 
 son. The youth shook his head. The sign was well 
 understood, especially when helped out with a grin, 
 broad as all County Donegal 'twixt KilHbegs and 
 Innishowen Light. 
 
 The "Misthriss" was in a good temper. Re- 
 assured, on his own account, but inwardly no little 
 alarmed for his wife's health in these unusual circum- 
 stances, Boyd began to take off his boots with the
 
 CASTLE CONNOWAY 131 
 
 idea of gliding safely into bed and pretending to be 
 asleep before the wind had time to change. 
 
 But Jerry's mouth was very evidently forming 
 some words, which were meant to inform his father 
 as to particulars. These, though unintelligible indi- 
 vidually, being taken together and punctuated with 
 jerks in the direction of the shut door of "doon-the- 
 hoose," constituted a warning which Boyd Connoway 
 could not afford to neglect. 
 
 He went forward to the left hand bed, cocked his 
 ear in the direction of the closed door, and then 
 rapidly lowered it almost against his son's lips. 
 
 "She's gotten a hurt man down there," said Jerry, 
 "she has been runnin' wi' white clouts and bandages 
 a' the forenight. And I'm thinkin' he's no very 
 wise, either — for he keeps cry in' that the deils are 
 comin' to tak' him ! " 
 
 "What like of a man?" said Boyd Connoway. 
 
 But Jerry's quick ear caught a stirring in the room 
 with the closed door. He shook his head and 
 motioned his father to get away from the side of his 
 low truckle bed. 
 
 When his wife entered, Boyd Connoway, with a 
 sober and innocent face, was untying his boot by the 
 side of the fire. Bridget entered with a saucepan in 
 her hand, which, before she deigned to take any 
 notice of her husband, she pushed upon the red ashes 
 in the grate. 
 
 From the "ben " room, of which the door was now- 
 open, Boyd could hear the low moaning of a man in 
 pain. He had tended too many sick people not to 
 know the delirium of fever, the pitiful lapses of sense, 
 then again the vague and troubled pour of words, 
 and at the sound he started to his feet. He was not 
 good for much in the way of providing for a family. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 He did a great many foolish, yet more useless things, 
 but there was one thing which he understood better 
 than Bridget — how to nurse the sick. 
 
 He disengaged his boot and stood in his stocking 
 feet. 
 
 "WHiat is it?" he said, in an undertone to Bridget. 
 
 "No business of yours!" she answered, with a 
 sudden hissing vehemence. 
 
 " I can do that better than 3^ou ! " he answered, for 
 once sure of his ground. 
 
 His wife darted at him a look of concentrated scorn. 
 
 "Get to bed!" she commanded him, declining to 
 argue with such as he — and but for the twinkling eyes 
 of Jerry, which looked sympathy, Boyd would have 
 preferred to have joined the exiled Ephraim under the 
 dark pent among the coom of the peat-house. 
 
 He looked to Jerry, but Jerry was sound asleep. So 
 was Phil. So were all the others. 
 
 "Very well, daarlin' ! " said Boyd Connoway to 
 himself as his wife left the room. "But, sorrow am 
 I for the man down there that she will not let me 
 nurse. She's a woman among a thousand, is Bridget 
 Connoway. But the craitur will be after makin' the 
 poor man eat his poultices, and use his beef tay for 
 outward application only ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE MAN " DOON-THE-HOOSE " 
 
 t 
 
 But Bridget Connoway, instant and authoritative 
 as she was, could not prevent her down-trodden hus- 
 band from thinking. Who was the mysterious 
 wounded man "down-the-house " ? One of the White 
 Smugglers? Hardly. Boyd had been in the thick 
 of that business and knew that no one had been hurt 
 except Barnboard Tam, whose horse had run away 
 with him and brushed him off, a red-haired Absalom 
 in homespuns, against the branches in Marnhoul 
 Great W^ood. 
 
 One of the crew^ of the Golden Hind, American- 
 owned privateersman with French letters of marque ? 
 Possibly one of the desperate gang they had landed 
 called the Black Smugglers, scum of the Low Dutch 
 ports, come to draw an ill report upon the good and 
 wholesome fame of Galloway Free Trade. 
 
 In either case, Boyd Connoway little liked the 
 prospect, and instead of going to bed, he remained 
 swinging his legs before the fire in a musing attitude, 
 listening to the moaning noises that came from the 
 chamber he was forbidden to enter. He was resolved 
 to have it out with his wife. 
 
 He had not long to wait. Bridget appeared in the 
 doorway, a bundle of dark-stained cloths between her 
 palms. She halted in astonishment at the sight which 
 met her eyes. At first it seemed to her that she was 
 dreaming, or that her voice must have betrayed her. 
 She gave her husband the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 "I thought I tould ye, Boyd Connoway," she said
 
 134 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 in a voice dangerously low and caressing, "to be get- 
 ting off to your bed and not disturbin' the childer' ! " 
 
 " Who is the man that had need of suchlike ? " 
 demanded Boyd Connoway, suddenly regaining his 
 lost heritage as the head of a house, "speak woman, 
 who are ye harbouring there?" 
 
 Bridget stood still. The mere unexpectedness of the 
 demand rendered her silent. The autocrat of all the 
 Russias treated as though he were one of his own 
 ministers of state could not have been more dumb- 
 founded. 
 
 With a sudden comprehension of the crisis Bridget 
 broke for the poker, but Boyd had gone too far now 
 to recoil. He caught at the little three-legged stool 
 on which he was wont to take his humble frugal 
 meals. It was exactly what he needed. He had no 
 idea of assaulting Bridget. He recognized all her 
 admirable qualities, which filled in the shortcomings 
 of his shiftlessness with admirable exactitude. He 
 meant to act strictly on the defensive, a system of 
 warfare that was familiar to him. For though he had 
 never before risen up in open revolt, he had never 
 counted mere self-preservation as an insult to his 
 wife. 
 
 " Whack ! " down came the poker in the lusty hand 
 of Bridget Connoway. ''Crack!" the targe in the 
 lifted arm of Boyd countered it. At arm's-length 
 he held it. The next attack was cut number two 
 of the manual for the broad-sword. Skilfully with 
 his shield Boyd Connoway turned it to the side, so 
 that, gliding from the polished oak of the well-worn 
 seat, the head of the poker caught his wife on the 
 knee, and she dropped her weapon with a cry of pain. 
 Jerry and the other children, in the seventh heaven of 
 delight at the parental duel, were sitting up in their
 
 THE MAN 'DOON-THE-HOOSE' 135 
 
 little night-shirts (which for simplicity's sake were 
 identical with their day-shirts) ; their eyes, black and 
 blue, sparkled unanimous, and they made bets in low 
 tones from one bed to another. 
 
 "Tw^o to one on Daddy ! " 
 
 "Jerry, ye ass, I'll bet ye them three white chuckles ^ 
 he'll lose ! " 
 
 " Hould your tongue, Connie — mother '11 win, sure. 
 The Thick 'Un will get him ! " 
 
 Such combats were a regular interest for them, and 
 one, in quiet times, quite sympathized in by their 
 father, who would guide the combat so that they 
 might have a better view. 
 
 "Troth, and why shouldn't they, poor darlints? 
 Sure an' it's little enough amusement they have ! " 
 
 He had even been known to protract an already 
 lost battle to lengthen out the delectation of his off- 
 spring. The Caesars gave to their people "Bread and 
 the circus ! " But they did not usually enter the 
 arena themselves — save in the case of the incompar- 
 able bowman of Rome, and then only when he knew 
 that no one dared stand against him. But Boyd 
 Connow^ay fought many a losing fight that his small 
 citizens might wriggle with delight on their truckles. 
 "The Christians to the lions ! " Yes, that was noble. 
 But then they had no choice, while Boyd Connoway, 
 a willing martyr, fought his lioness with a three- 
 legged stool. 
 
 This time, however, the just quarrel armed the 
 three-legged, while cut number two of Forbes's Manual 
 fell, not on Boyd Connoway's head, for which it was 
 intended, but on Bridget's knee-cap. Boyd of the 
 tender heart (though stubborn stool), was instantly 
 
 ' "Chuckles," white pebbles used, in these primitive times, in- 
 stead of marbles.
 
 136 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 upon his knees, his buckler flung to the ground and 
 rubbing with all his might, with murmurings of, 
 "Does it hurt now, darlint? — Not baad, sure? — Say 
 it is better now thin, darlint ! " 
 
 Boyd was as conscience-stricken as if he had per- 
 sonally wielded the poker. But the mind of Bridget 
 was quite otherwise framed. With one hand she 
 seized his abundant curly hair, now with a strand or 
 two of early grey among the straw-colour of it, and 
 while she pulled handfuls of it out by the roots (so 
 Boyd declared afterwards), she boxed his ears heartily 
 with the other. Which, indeed, is witnessed to by 
 the whole goggle-eyed populace in the truckle bed. 
 
 "Didn't I tell ye, Jerry, ye cuckoo," whispered 
 Connie, "she'd beat him? He's gettin' the Thick 
 'Un, just as I told ye ! " 
 
 "But it's now-ays fair rules," retorted Jerry; "father 
 he flung down his weepon for to rub her knee when 
 she hurt it herself wid the poker ! " 
 
 Jerry had lost his bet, as indeed he usually did, 
 but for all that he remained a consistent supporter of 
 the losing side. Daily he acknowledged in his body 
 the power of the arm of flesh, but the vagrant 
 butterfly humour of the male parent w-ith the dreamy 
 blue eyes touched him where he lived — perhaps be- 
 cause his, like his mother's, were sloe-black. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of mishandling and a scandal- 
 ous disregard of the rules of the noble art of self- 
 defence (not yet elaborated, but only roughly under- 
 stood as "Fair play to all "), Boyd Connoway carried 
 his point. 
 
 He saw the occupant of the bed "doon-the-hoose." 
 
 He was a slim man with clean-cut features, very 
 pale about the gills and waxen as to the nose. He lay 
 on the bed, his head ghastly in its white bandages
 
 THE MAN ' DOON-THE-HOOSE ' 137 
 
 rocking from side to side and a stream of curses, thin 
 and small of voice as a hill-brook in drought, but 
 continuous as a mill-lade, issuing from between his 
 clenched teeth. 
 
 These adjurations were in many tongues, and their 
 low-toned variety indicated the swearing of an 
 educated man. 
 
 Boyd understood at once that he had to do with no 
 vulgar Tarry-B reeks, no sweepings of a couple of 
 hemispheres, but with "a gentleman born." And in 
 Donegal, though they may rebel against their servi- 
 tude and meet them foot by foot on the field or at the 
 polling-booths, they know a gentleman when they see 
 one, and never in their wildest moods deny his 
 birthright. 
 
 Boyd, therefore, took just one glance, and then 
 turning to his wife uttered his sentiment in three 
 words of approval. "I'm wid ye ! " he said. 
 
 Had it been Galligaskins or any seaman of the 
 Golden Hind, Boyd would have had him out of the 
 house in spite of his wife and all the wholesome 
 domestic terror she had so long been establishing. 
 
 But a Donegal man is from the north after all, and 
 does not easily take to the informer's trade. Besides, 
 this was a gentleman born. 
 
 Yet he had better have given hospitality to Galli- 
 gaskins and the whole crew of pirates who manned 
 the Golden Hind than to this slender, clear-skinned 
 creature who lay raving and smiling in the bed-room 
 of Boyd Connoway's cabin.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE TRANSFIGURATION OF AUNT JEN 
 
 Never was anything seen like it in our time. I 
 mean the transformation of Aunt Jen, the hard crab- 
 apple of our family, after the entrance of the INIait- 
 land children into the household of Heathknowes. 
 Not that my aunt had much faith in Irma. She had 
 an art, which my aunt counted uncanny, indeed 
 savouring of the sin of witchcraft. It mattered not 
 at all what Irma was given to wear — an old tartan 
 of my grandmother's Highland Mary days when she 
 was a shepherdess by the banks of Cluden, a severe 
 gown designed on strictly architectural principles by 
 the unabashed shears of Aunt Jen herself, a bodice 
 and skirt of my mother's, dovelike in hue and carry- 
 ing with them some of her own retiring quality in 
 every line. It was all the same, with a shred or two 
 of silk, with a little undoing here, a little tightening 
 there, a broad splash of colour cut from one of my 
 Uncle Rob's neckcloths — not anywhere, but just in 
 the right place — Irma could give to all mankind the 
 impression of being the only person worth looking at 
 in the parish. With these simple means she could 
 and did make every other girl, though attired in 
 robes that had come all the way from Edinburgh, 
 look dowdy and countrified. 
 
 Also she had the simple manner of those who stand 
 in no fear of any one taking a liberty with them. 
 Her position was assured. Her beauty spoke for it- 
 self, and as for the old tartan, the slab-sided merino, 
 the retiring pearl-grey wincey, their late owners did 
 
 138
 
 TRANSFIGURATION OF AUNT JEN 139 
 
 not know them again when they appeared in the 
 great square Marnhoul pew in the parish church, 
 which Irma insisted upon occupying. 
 
 I think that a certain scandal connected witli this, 
 actually caused more stir in the parish than all the 
 marvel of the appearance of the children in the 
 Haunted House. And for this reason. Heathknowes 
 was a Cameronian household. The young men of 
 Heathknowes were looked upon to furnish a suc- 
 cessor to their father as an elder in the little meeting- 
 house down by the Fords. But with the full per- 
 mission of my grandmother, and the tacit sympathy 
 of my grandfather, each Sabbath day Miss Irma and 
 Sir Louis went in state to the family pew at the parish 
 kirk (a square box large enough to seat a grand 
 jury). The children were perched in the front, Irma 
 keeping firm and watchful guard over her brother, 
 while in the dimmer depths, seen from below as three 
 sturdy pairs of shoulders against the dusk of a garni- 
 ture of tapistry, sat the three Cameronian young men 
 of Heathknowes. 
 
 Nothing could so completely and fully have certi- 
 fied the strength of my grandmother's purpose than 
 that she, a pillar of the Covenant, thus complacently 
 allowed her sons to frequent the public worship of 
 an uncovenanted and Erastian Establishment. 
 
 But there was at least one in the house of Heath- 
 knowes not to be so misled by the outward graces of 
 the body, 
 
 "Favour is vain and the eye of Him that sitteth 
 in the heavens regardeth it not," she was wont to 
 say, "and if Rob and Thomas and Ebenezer come to 
 an ill end, mother, you will only have yourself to 
 thank for it ! " 
 
 "Nonsense, Jen," said her mother, "if you are pre-
 
 140 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 vented by your infirmities from talkin' sense, at least 
 do hold your tongue. Doctor Gillespie is a Kirk- 
 man and a Moderate, but he is — well, he is the 
 Doctor, and never a word has been said against him 
 for forty year, walk and conversation both as be- 
 cometh the Gospel " 
 
 "Aye, but is it the Gospel?" cried Jen, snipping 
 out her words as with scissors; "that's the question." 
 
 "When I require you, Janet Lyon, to decide for 
 your mother what is Gospel and what is not, I'll let 
 ye ken, "said my grandmother, "and if I have accepted 
 a responsibility from the Most High for these 
 children, I will do my best to render an account of 
 my stewardship at the Great White Throne. In the 
 meantime, you have no more right to task me for it, 
 than — than — Boyd Connoway ! " 
 
 "There," cried Jen, slapping down the last dish 
 which she had been drying while her mother washed, 
 "I declare, mother, I might just as well not have a 
 tongue at all. Whatever I say you are on my back. 
 And as if snubbing me were not enough, down you 
 must come on me with the Great White Throne ! " 
 
 Her aggrieved voice made my grandmother laugh. 
 
 " Well-a-well ! " she said, in her richly comfort- 
 able voice of a mother of consolation, "you are of the 
 tribe of Marthas, Jen, and you certainly w'ork hard 
 enough for everybody to give your tongue a right to 
 a little trot now and then. You will have all the 
 blessings, daughter Janet — except that of the peace- 
 maker. For it's in you to set folk by the ears and 
 you really can't help it. Though who you took it 
 from is more than I can imagine, with a mother as 
 mild as milk and a father " 
 
 "Well, what about the father — speak of the — um- 
 um — father and he will appear, I suppose ! "
 
 TRANSFIGURATION OF AUNT JEN 141 
 
 It was my grandfather who had come in, his face 
 bronzed with the sun and a friendly shaving tucked 
 underneath his coat collar at the back, witnessing that 
 some one of his sons, in the labours of the pirn-mill, 
 had not remembered the first commandment with 
 promise. 
 
 His wife removed it with a smile, and said, "I'll 
 wager ye that was yon rascal Rob. He is always at 
 his tricks ! " 
 
 "Well, what were you saying about me, old wife? " 
 said grandfather, looking at his wife with the quiet 
 fondness that comes of half-a-century of companion- 
 ship. 
 
 "Only that Jen there had a will-o'-the-wisp of a 
 temper and that I knew not how she got it, for you 
 only go about pouring oil upon the waters ! " 
 
 "As to that, you know best, guidwife," he answered, 
 smiling, "but I think I have heard of a wife up about 
 the Heathknowes, who in some measure possesses the 
 power of her unruly member. It is possible that Jen 
 there may have picked up a thorn or two from that 
 side ! " 
 
 William Lyon caught his daughter's ear. 
 
 "Eh, lass, what sayest thou?" he crooned, looking 
 down upon her with a tenderness rare to him with one 
 of his children. "What sayest thou?" 
 
 "I say that you and mother and all about this house 
 have run out of your wits about this slip of a girl ? 
 I say that you may rue it when you have not a son 
 to succeed you at the Kirk of the Covenant down by 
 the Ford." 
 
 The fleeting of a smile came over my grandfather's 
 face, that quiet amusement which usually showed 
 when my grandmother opposed her will to his, and 
 when for once he did not mean to give in.
 
 142 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "It's a sorrowful thing — a whole respectable house- 
 hold gone daft about a couple of strange children ; " 
 he let the words drop very slowly. "Specially I was 
 distressed to hear of one who rose betimes to milk a 
 cow, so that the cream would have time to rise on the 
 morning's milk by their porridge time ! " 
 
 "Father," said Jen, "that was for the boy bairn. 
 He has not been brought up like the rest of us, and 
 he does not like warm milk with his porridge." 
 
 " Doubtless— ah, doubtless," said William Lyon; 
 "but if he is to bide with us, is it not spoiling him 
 thus to give w-ay to suchlike whims ? He will have 
 to learn some day, and when so good a time as now ? " 
 
 Aunt Jen, who knew she was being teased, kept 
 silence, but the shoulder nearest my father had an 
 indignant hump. 
 
 "Wheesht, William," interposed grandmother 
 good-naturedly, "if Jen rose betimes to get milk for 
 the bairn, ye ken yoursel' that ye think the better 
 of her for it. And so do I. Jen's not the first whose 
 acts are kindlier than her principles." 
 
 But Jen kept her thorns out and refused to be 
 brought into the fold by flattery, till her father said, 
 "Jen, have ye any of that fine home-brewed left, or 
 did the lads drink it a' to their porridges? I'm a 
 kennin' weary, and nothing refreshes me like that ! " 
 
 Jen felt the artfulness of this, nevertheless she could 
 not help being touched. The care of the still-room 
 was hers, because, though my grandmother could go 
 through twice the work in the day that her daughter 
 could, the brewing of the family small beer and 
 other labours of the still-room were of too exact and 
 methodical a nature for a headlong driver like Mary 
 Lyon. 
 
 My grandfather got his ale, of the sort Just then 
 beginning to be made — called "Jamaica," because a
 
 TRANSFIGURATION OF AUNT JEN 143 
 
 quantity of the cheap sugar refuse from the hogs- 
 heads was used in its production. In fact, it was the 
 ancestor of the "treacle ale" of later years. But to 
 the fabrication of this beverage, Jen added mysterious 
 rites, during which the door of the still-room w^as 
 locked, barred, and the keyhole blinded, while Eben 
 and Rob, my uncles, stood without vainly asking for 
 a taste, or simulating by their moans and cries the 
 most utter lassitude and fatigue. 
 
 William Lyon sat sipping his drink while Jen eyed 
 him furtively as she went about the house, doing her 
 duties with the silence and exactitude of a well-oiled 
 machine. She was a difficult subject, my aunt Jen, 
 to live with, but she could be got at, as her father well 
 knew, by a humanizing vanity. 
 
 He sat back with an air of content in his great wide 
 chair, the chair that had been handed down as the 
 seat of the head of the house from many generations 
 of Lyonses. He sipped and nodded his head, look- 
 ing towards his daughter, and lifting the tankard with 
 a courtly gesture as if pledging her health. 
 
 Jen was pleased, though for a while she did not 
 allow it to be seen, and her only repentance was taking 
 up the big empty goblet without being asked and 
 going to the still-room to refill it. 
 
 During her absence my grandfather shamelessly 
 winked at my grandmother, while my grandmother 
 shook her fist covertly at her husband. Which panto- 
 mime meant to say on the part of William Lyon that 
 he knew how to manage women, while on his wife's 
 side it inferred that she would not demean herself 
 to use means so simple and abject as plain flattery 
 even with a "camsteary" daughter. 
 
 But they smiled at each other, not ill-content, and 
 as my grandmother passed to the dresser she paused 
 by the great oak chair long enough to murmur, "She's
 
 14^ THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 coming round ! " But my grandfather only smiled 
 and looked towards the door that led to the still-room, 
 pantries and so forth, as if he found the time long 
 without his second pot of sugar ale. 
 
 He was something of a diplomat, my grandfather. 
 
 It was while sitting thus, with the second drink of 
 harmless "Jamaica" before him, my aunt and grand- 
 mother crossing each other ceaselessly on silent feet, 
 that a knock came to the front door. 
 
 Now in Galloway farm houses there is a front door, 
 but no known use for it has been discovered, except 
 to be a door. Later, it was the custom to open it to 
 let in the minister on his stated visitations, and later 
 still to let out the dead. But at the period of which 
 I write it was a door and nothing more. 
 
 Both of these other uses are mere recent inventions. 
 The shut front door of my early time stood blistering 
 and flaking in the hot sun, or soaking — crumbling, 
 and weatherbeaten — during months of bad weather. 
 For, with a wide and noble entrance behind upon the 
 yard, so well-trodden and convenient, so charged with 
 the pleasant press of entrants and exodants,~so popu- 
 lous with affairs, from which the chickens had to be 
 "shooed" and the moist noses of questing calves 
 pushed aside twenty times a day — why should any 
 mortal think of entering by the front door of the 
 house. First of all it was the front door. Next, no 
 one knew whether it would open or not, though the 
 odds were altogether against it. Lastly, it was a 
 hundred miles from anywhere and opened only upon 
 a stuffy lobby round which my grandmother usually 
 had her whole Sunday wardrobe hung up in bags 
 smelling of lavender to guard against the moths. 
 
 Nevertheless, the knock sounded distinctly enough 
 from the front door. 
 
 "Some of the bairns playing a trick," said my
 
 TRANSFIGURATION OF AUNT JEN 145 
 
 grandmother tolerantly, "let them alone, Janet, and 
 they will soon tire o't ! " 
 
 But Jen had showed so much of the unwonted milk 
 of human kindness that she felt she must in some 
 degree retrieve her character. She waited, therefore, 
 for the second rap, louder than the first, then lifted 
 a wand from the corner and went "down-the-house," 
 quietly as she did all things. 
 
 Aunt Jen concealed the rod behind her. Her 
 private intention was to wait for the third knock, and 
 then open suddenly, with the deadly resolve to teach 
 us what we were about — a mental reservation being 
 made in the case of Baby Louis, who (if the knocker 
 turned out to be he) must obviously have been put 
 up to it. 
 
 The third knock fell. Aunt Jen leaped upon the 
 door-handle. Bolts creaked and shot back, but 
 swollen by many rainy seasons, the door held stoutly 
 as is the wont of farm front doors. Then suddenly 
 it gave way and Aunt Jen staggered back against the 
 wall, swept away by the energy of her own effort. 
 The wand fell from her hand, and she stood with the 
 inner door handle still clutched in nervous fingers 
 before a slight dapper man in a shiny brown coat, 
 double-breasted and closely buttoned, even on this 
 broiling day — while the strident ''weesp-weesp " of 
 brother Tom down in the meadow, sharpening his 
 scythe with a newly fill "strake," made a keen top- 
 note to the mood of summer. 
 
 "Mr. Poole," said the slim man, uncovering and 
 saluting obsequiously, and then seeing that my aunt 
 rested dumb-stricken, the rod which had been in 
 pickle fallen to the floor behind her, he added with 
 a little mincing smile and a kind of affected heel-and- 
 toe dandling of his body, "I am Mr. Wrighton Poole, 
 of the firm of Smart, Poole, and Smart of Dumfries." 
 
 L
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 LOADED-PISTOL POLLIXFEN 
 
 Now Aunt Jen's opinion of lawyers was derived 
 from two sources, observation and a belief in the 
 direct inspiration of two lines of Dr. Watts, his 
 hymns. 
 
 In other words, she had noticed that lawyers sat 
 much in their offices, twiddling with papers, and that 
 they never went haymaking nor stood erect in carts 
 dumping manure on the autumnal fields. So two 
 lines of Dr. Watts, applicable for such as they, and 
 indeed every one not so aggressively active as herself, 
 were calculated to settle the case of Mr. Wrighton 
 
 Poole. 
 
 " Satan finds some mischief 
 For idle hands to do." 
 
 Indeed, I had heard of them more than once my- 
 self, when she caught me lying long and lazy in the 
 depths of a haymow with a book under my nose. 
 
 At any rate Aunt Jen suspected this Mr. Poole at 
 once. But so she would the Lord Chancellor of Eng- 
 land himself, for the good reason that by choice and 
 custom he sat on a woolsack ! 
 
 "I'd woolsack him ! " Aunt Jen had cried when this 
 fact was first brought to her notice; "I'd make him 
 get up pretty quick and earn his living if he was my 
 man ! " 
 
 My grandfather had pointed out that the actual Lord 
 Chancellor of the moment was a bachelor, whereupon 
 Aunt Jen retorted, "Aye, and doubtless that's the 
 reason. The poor bodv has nobody to do her duty by 
 
 him ! " 
 
 146
 
 LOADED-PISTOL POLLIXFEN 147 
 
 For these excellent reasons my Aunt Jen took a 
 dislike to Mr. Wrighton Poole (of the firm of Smart, 
 Poole, and Smart, solicitors, Dumfries) at the very 
 first glance. 
 
 And yet, when he was introduced into the state 
 parlour with the six mahogany-backed, haircloth- 
 seated chairs, the two narrow arm-chairs, the four 
 ugly mirrors, and the little wire basket full of odds and 
 ends of crockery and foreign coins- — covered by the 
 skin of a white blackbird, found on the farm and pre- 
 pared for stuffing — he looked a very dapper, respect- 
 able, personable man. But my Aunt Jen would have 
 none of his compliments on the neatness of the house 
 or the air of bien comfort that everything about the 
 farm had worn on his way thither. 
 
 She drew out a chair for him and indicated it with 
 her hand. 
 
 "Bide there," she commanded, "till I fetch them 
 that can speak wi' you ! " An office which, had she 
 chosen, Jen was very highly qualified to undertake, 
 save for an early and deep-rooted conviction that busi- 
 ness matters had better be left to the dealinsf of man 
 and man. 
 
 This belief, however, was not in the least that of 
 my grandmother. She would come in and sit down in 
 the very middle of one of my grandfather's most 
 private bargainings with the people to whom he sold 
 his spools and "pirns." She had her say in every- 
 thing, and she said it so easily and so much as a 
 matter of course that no one was ever offended. 
 
 Grandfather was at the mill and in consequence it 
 was my grandmother who entered from the dairy, still 
 wiping her hands from the good, warm buttermilk 
 which had just rendered up its tale of butter. There 
 was a kind of capable and joyous fecundity about my 
 
 L 2
 
 148 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 grandmother, in spite of her sharp tongue, her master- 
 ful ways, the strictness of her theology and her old- 
 fashioned theories, which seemed to produce an effect 
 even on inanimate things. So light and loving was 
 her hand — the hand that had loved (and smacked) 
 many children, brooded over innumerable hatchings 
 of things domestic, tended whole byrefuls of cows, 
 handled suckling lambs with dead mothers lying up 
 on the hill— aye, played the surgeon even to robins 
 with broken legs, for one of which she constructed a 
 leg capable of being strapped on, made it out of the 
 whalebone of an old corset of her own for which she 
 had grown too abundant ! 
 
 So kindly was the eye that could flash fire on an 
 argumentative Episcopalian parson — and send him 
 over tW'O pounds of butter and a dozen fresh-laid eggs 
 for his sick wife — that (as I say) even inanimate 
 objects seemed to respond to her look and conform 
 themselves to the wish of her finger tips. She had 
 been known to "set" a dyke which had twice resolved 
 itself into rubbish under the hands of professionals. 
 The useless rocky patch she had taken as a herb 
 garden blossomed like the rose, bringing forth all 
 manner of spicy things. For in these days in Gallo- 
 way most of the garnishments of the table were grow-n 
 in the garden itself, or brought in from the cranberry 
 bogs and the blaeberry banks, where these fruits grew 
 among a short, crumbly stubble of heather, dry and 
 elastic as a cushion, and most admirable for resting 
 upon while eating. 
 
 Well, grandmother came in wiping her hands. It 
 seems to me now that I see her — and, indeed, when- 
 ever she does make an entry into the story, I always 
 feel that I must write yet another page about the dear, 
 warm-hearted, tumultuous old lady. 
 
 She saw the slender lawyer with the brown coat
 
 LOADED-PISTOL POLLIXFEN 149 
 
 worn shiny, the scratch wig tied with its black wisp 
 of silk, and the black bag in his hand. He had been 
 taking a survey of the room, and started round quickly 
 at the entrance of my grandmother. Then he made a 
 deep bow, and grandmother, who could be very grand 
 indeed when she liked, bestowed upon him a curtsey 
 the like of which he had not seen for a long while. 
 
 "My name is Poole," he said apologetically. "I 
 presume I have the honour of speaking to Mistress 
 Mary Lyon, spouse and consort of William Lyon, 
 tacksman of the Mill of Marnhoul with all its lades, 
 weirs, and pendicles " 
 
 "If you mean that William Lyon is my man, ye are 
 on the bit so far," said my grandmother; "pass on. 
 What else hae ye to say? I dinna suppose that ye 
 cam' here to ask a sicht o' my marriage lines." 
 
 "It is, indeed, a different matter which has brought 
 me thus far," said the lawyer man, with a certain 
 diffidence, "but I think that perhaps I ought to wait 
 till — till your husband, in fact " 
 
 "If you are waiting for Weelyum," said Mary 
 Lyon, "ye needna fash. He is o' the same mind as 
 me — or will be after I have spoken wi' him. Say 
 on ! 
 
 "Well, then," the lawyer continued, "it is difficult 
 — but the matter resolves itself into this. I under- 
 stand — my firm understands, that you are harbouring 
 in or about this house a young woman calling herself 
 Irma Sobieski Maitland, and a child of the male sex 
 whom the aforesaid Irma Sobieski affirms to be the 
 rightful owner of this estate — in fact. Sir Louis Mait- 
 land. Now, my firm have been long without direct 
 news of the family whom they represent. Our intelli- 
 gence of late years has come from their titular and 
 legal guardian, Mr. Lalor Maitland, Governor of the 
 district of the Upper Meuse in the Brabants. Now we
 
 150 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 have recently heard from this gentleman that his wards 
 — two children bearing a certain resemblance to those 
 whom, we are informed, you have been harbour- 
 ing " 
 
 Aly grandmother's temper, always uncertain with 
 adults with whom she had no sympathy, had been 
 gradually rising at each repetition of an offending 
 word. 
 
 "Harbouring," she cried, "harbouring — let me 
 hear that word come out o' your impident mouth 
 again, ye upsettin' body wi' the black bag, and I'll 
 gie ye the weight o' my hand against the side o' your 
 face. Let me tell you that in the house of Heath- 
 knowes we harbour neither burrowing rats nor creepin' 
 foumarts, nor any manner of unclean beasts — and as 
 for a lawvier, if lawvier ye be, ye are the first o' your 
 breed to enter here, and if my sons hear ye talkin' o' 
 harbourin' — certes, ye stand a chance to gang oot the 
 door wi' your feet foremost ! " 
 
 "My good woman," said the lawyer, "I was but 
 using an ordinary word, in perfect ignorance of 
 any " 
 
 "Come na, nane o' that crooked talk ! Mary Lyon 
 is nae bit silly Jenny Wren to be whistled off the waa' 
 wi' ony siccan talk. Dinna tell me that a lawvier 
 body doesna ken what ' harbouring rogues and vaga- 
 bonds ' means— the innocent lamb that he is — and 
 him reading the Courier every Wednesday ! " 
 
 "But," said the Solicitor, with more persistent firm- 
 ness than his emaciated body and timorous manner 
 would have led one to expect, "the children are here, 
 and it is my duty to warn you that in withholding 
 them from their natural guardian you are defying the 
 law. I come to require that the children be given 
 up to me at once, that I may put them under their 
 proper tutelage."
 
 LOADED-PISTOL POLLIXFEN 151 
 
 "Here, William," my grandmother called out, re- 
 cognizing the footsteps of her husband approaching, 
 "gae cry the lads and lock the doors! There's a 
 body here that will need some guid broad Scots 
 weared on him." 
 
 But the lawyer was not yet frightened. As it ap- 
 peared, he had only known the safe plainstones of 
 Dumfries — so at least Mary Lyon thought. For he 
 continued his discourse as if nothing were the matter. 
 
 "I came here in a friendly spirit, madam," he said, 
 "but I have good reason to believe that every male of 
 your household is deeply involved in the smuggling 
 traffic, and that several of them, in spite of their pro- 
 fessions of religion, assaulted and took possession of 
 the House of Marnhoul for the purpose of unlawfully 
 concealing therein undutied goods from the proper 
 officers of the crown ! " 
 
 "Aye, and ken ye wha it was that tried to burn 
 doon your Great House," cried my grandmother — "it 
 was your grand tutor — your wonderfu' guardian, even 
 Lalor iNIaitland, the greatest rogue and gipsy that ever 
 ran on two legs. There was a grandson o' mine put 
 a charge o' powder-and-shot into him, though. But 
 here come the lads. They will tell ye news o' your 
 tutor and guardian, him that ye daur speak to me 
 aboot committing the puir innocent bairns to — what 
 neither you nor a' the law in your black bag will ever 
 tak' frae under the rooftree o' Mary Lyon. Here, 
 this way, lads — dinna be blate ! Step ben ! " 
 
 And so, without a shadow of blateness, there stepped 
 "ben " Tom and Eben and Rob. Tom had his scythe 
 in his hand, for he had come straight from the meadow 
 at his father's call, the sweat of mowing still beading 
 his brow, and the broad leathern strap shining wet 
 about his waist. Eben folded a pair of brawny arms 
 across a chest like an oriel window, but Rob, always
 
 152 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 careful for appearances, had his great-grandfather's 
 sword, known in the family as "Drumclog," cocked 
 over his shoulder, and carried his head to the side 
 with so knowing an air that the blade was cold against 
 his right ear. 
 
 Last of all my grandfather stepped in, while I kept 
 carefully out of sight behind him. He glanced once 
 at his sons. 
 
 "Lads, be ashamed," he said; "you, Thomas, and 
 especially you, Rob. Put away these gauds. We are 
 not ' boding in fear of weir.' These ill days are done 
 with. Be douce, and we will hear what this decent 
 man has to say." 
 
 There is no doubt that the lawyer was by this dis- 
 play of force somewhat intimidated. At least, he 
 looked about him for some means of escape, and 
 fumbled with the catch of his black hand-bag. 
 
 "Deil's in the man," cried Mary Lyon, snatching 
 the bag from him, "but it's a blessing I'm no so easy 
 to tak' in as the guidman there. Let that bag alane, 
 will ye, na ! Wha kens what may be in it ? There — 
 what did I tell you ? " 
 
 Unintentionally she shook the catch open, and 
 within were two pistols cocked and primed, of which 
 Eben and Tom took instant possession. Meanwhile, 
 as may be imagined, my grandmother improved the 
 occasion. 
 
 "A lawvier, are you, Master Wringham Poole o' 
 Dumfries," she cried? "A bonny lawvier, that does 
 his business wi' a pair o' loaded pistols. Like master, 
 like man, I say ! There's but ae kind o' lawvier that 
 does his business like that — he's caa'ed a cut-purse, a 
 common highwayman, and ends by dancing a bonny 
 saraband at the end o' a tow-rope ! Lalor Maitland 
 assaulted ]\Iarnhoul wi' just such a band o' thieves 
 and robbers— to steal away the bairns. This will be
 
 LOADED-PISTOL POLLIXFEN 153 
 
 another o' the gang. Lads, take hold, and see what 
 he has on him." 
 
 But with one bound the seemingly weak and slender 
 man flung himself in the direction of the door. Before 
 they could move he was out into the lobby among 
 the lavender bags containing Mary Lyon's Sunday 
 wardrobe, and but for the fact that he mistook the 
 door of a preserve closet for the front door, he might 
 easily have escaped them all. But Rob, who was 
 young and active, closed in upon him. The slim man 
 squirmed like an eel, and even when on the ground 
 drew a knife and stuck it into the calf of Rob's leg. 
 A yell, and a stamp followed, and then a great silence 
 in which we looked at one another awe-stricken. Mr. 
 Wringham Poole lay like a crushed caterpillar, inert 
 and twitching. It seemed as if Rob had killed him ; 
 but my grandfather, with proper care and precautions 
 drew away the knife, and after having passed a hand 
 over the body in search of further concealed weapons, 
 laid him out on the four haircloth chairs, with a foot- 
 stool under his head for a pillow. 
 
 Then, having listened to the beating of the wounded 
 man's heart, he reassured us with a nod. All would 
 be right. Next, from an inner pocket he drew a 
 pocket-book, out of the first division of which dropped 
 a black mask, like those worn at the assault upon 
 Marnhoul, with pierced eyeholes and strings for 
 fastening behind the ears. There were also a few- 
 papers and a card on which was printed a name — 
 
 "Wringham Pollixfen Poole"; and then under- 
 neath, written in pencil in a neat lawyer-like hand, 
 were the words, "Consultation at the Old Port at 
 midnight to-morrow." 
 
 At this we all looked at one another with a renewal 
 of our perturbation. The firm of Smart, Poole and 
 Smart had existed in Dumfries for a long time, and
 
 154 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 was highly considered. But in these troubled times 
 one never knew how far his neighbour might have 
 been led. A man could only answer for himself, 
 and even as to that, he had sometimes a difficulty in 
 explaining himself. One of the firm of lawyers in 
 the High Street might have been tempted out of his 
 depth. But, at any rate, here was one of them 
 damaged, and that by the hasty act of one of the 
 sons of the house of Heathknowes — which in itself 
 was a serious matter. 
 
 My grandfather, therefore, judged it well that the 
 lawvers in Dumfries should be informed of what had 
 befallen as soon as possible. But Mr. Wringham 
 Pollixfen Poole, if such were his name, was certainly 
 in need of being watched till my grandfather's return, 
 specially as of necessity he would be in the same 
 house as Miss Irma and Sir Louis. 
 
 None of the young men, therefore, could be spared 
 to carry a message to Dumfries. My father could not 
 leave his school, and so it came to pass that I was 
 dispatched to saddle my grandfather's horse. He 
 would ride to Dumfries with me on a pillion behind 
 him, one hand tucked into the pocket of his blue coat, 
 while with the other I held the belt about his waist 
 to make sure. I had to walk up the hills, but that 
 took little of the pleasure away. Indeed, best of all 
 to me seemed that running hither and thither like a 
 questing spaniel, in search of all manner of wild 
 flowers, or the sight of strange, unknown houses 
 lying in wooded glens^one I mind was Goldielea — 
 which, as all the mead before the door was one mass 
 of rag-w-eed (which only grows on the best land), 
 appeared to me the prettiest and most appropriate 
 name for a house that ever was. 
 
 And so think I still.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE REAL MR. POOLE 
 
 So in time we ran to Dumfries. And my grand- 
 father put up at a hostelry in EngHsh Street, where 
 were many other conveyances with their shafts canted 
 high in the air, the day being Wednesday. He did 
 not wait a moment even to speak to those who saluted 
 him by name, but betook himself at once (and I with 
 him) to the lawyers' offices in the High Street — 
 where it runs downhill just below the Mid Steeple. 
 
 Here we found a little knot of people. For, as it 
 turned out (though at the time we did not know it), 
 Messrs. Smart, Poole and Smart were agents for half 
 the estates in Dumfriesshire, and our Galloway Marn- 
 houl was both a far cry and a very small matter to 
 them. 
 
 So when we had watched a while the tremors of the 
 ingoers, all eager to ask favours, and compared them 
 with the chastened demeanour of those coming out, 
 my grandfather said to me with his hand on my 
 shoulder, "I fear, Duncan lad, we shall sleep in 
 Dumfries Tolbooth this night for making so bauld 
 with one of a house like this ! " 
 
 And from this moment I began to regard our 
 captive Mr. Poole with a far greater respect, in spite 
 of his pistols — which, after all, he might deem neces- 
 sary when travelling into such a wild smuggling 
 region as, at that day and date, most townsbodies 
 pictured our Galloway to be. 
 
 We had a long time to wait in a kind of ante- 
 chamber, where a man in a livery of canary and black 
 
 155
 
 156 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 stripes, with black satin knee-breeches and paste 
 buckles to his shoes took our names, or at least my 
 grandfather's and the name of the estate about which 
 we wanted to speak to the firm. 
 
 For, you see, there being so many to attend to on 
 market day, they had parted them among themselves, 
 so many to each. And when it came to our turn it 
 was old Mr. Smart we saw. The grand man in 
 canary and black ushered us ben, told our name, add- 
 ing, "of Marnhoul estate," as if we had been the 
 owners thereof. 
 
 We had looked to see a fine, noble-appearing man 
 sitting on a kind of throne, receiving homage, but 
 there w-as nobody in the room but an old man in a 
 dressing-gown and soft felt slippers, stirring the fire 
 — though, indeed, it was hot enough outside. 
 
 He turned towards us, the poker still in his hand, 
 and with an eye like a gimlet seemed to take us in at 
 a single glance. 
 
 "What's wrong? What's wrong the day?" he 
 cried in an odd sing-song; "what news of the Holy 
 Smugglers? More battle, murder, and sudden death 
 along the Solway shore ? " 
 
 I had never seen my grandfather so visibly per- 
 turbed before. He actually stammered in trying to 
 open out his business — which, now I come to think 
 of it, was indeed of the delicatest. 
 
 "I have," he began, "the honour of speaking to 
 Mr. Smart the elder?" 
 
 "It is an honour you share with every Moffat Tam 
 that wants a new roof to his pigstye," grumbled the 
 old man in the dressing-gown, "but such as it is, say 
 on. My time is short ! If ye want mainners ye must 
 go next door ! " 
 
 "Mr. Smart," said my grandfather, "I have come
 
 THE REAL MR. POOLE 157 
 
 all the way from the house of Heathknowes on the 
 estate of Marnhoul to announce to you a misfortune." 
 
 "What?" cried the old fellow in the blanket dress- 
 ing-gown briskly, "has the dead come to life again, 
 or is Lalor Maitland turned honest?" 
 
 But my grandfather shook his head, and with a 
 lamentable voice opened out to the head of the firm 
 what had befallen their ]\Ir. Poole, how he had come 
 with pistols in his bag, and gotten trodden on by 
 Rob, my reckless uncle, so that he was now lying, 
 safe but disabled, in the small wall cabinet of Heath- 
 knowes. 
 
 I was expecting nothing less than a cry for the 
 peace officers, and to be marched off between a file of 
 soldiers — or, at any rate, the constables of the town 
 guard. 
 
 But instead the little man put on a pair of great 
 glasses with rims of black horn, and looked at my 
 grandfather quizzically and a trifle sternly to see if 
 he were daring to jest. But presently, seeing the 
 transparent honesty of the man (as who would not ?), 
 he broke out into a snort of laughter, snatched open 
 a door at his elbow, and cried out at the top of his 
 voice (which, to tell the truth, was no better than a 
 screech), "Dick Poole — ho there, big Dick Poole! — 
 I want you, Dickie ! " 
 
 I could see nothing from the next room but a haze 
 of tobacco smoke, which presently entering, set the 
 old man in the dressing-gown a-coughing. 
 
 "Send away thy rascals, Dick," he wheezed, "and 
 shut that door, Dickie. That cursed reek of yours 
 would kill a hog of the stye. Hither with you, good 
 Dick ! " 
 
 And after a clinking of glasses and the trampling 
 of great boots on the stairs, an immense man came
 
 158 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 in. His face was a riot of health. His eyes shone 
 blue and kindly under a huge fleece of curly black 
 hair. There was red in his cheeks, and his lips were 
 full and scarlet. His hand and arm were those of a 
 prizefighter. He came in smiling, bringing with him 
 such an odour of strong waters and pipe tobacco that, 
 between laughing and coughing, I thought the old 
 fellow would have choked. Indeed, I made a step 
 forward to pat the back of his dressing-gown of 
 flannel, and if Mary Lyon had been there, I am sure 
 nothing would have stopped her from doing it. 
 
 Even when he had a little recovered, he still stood 
 hiccoughing with the tears in his eyes, and calling 
 out with curious squirms of inward laughter, "Dick, 
 lad, this will never do. Thou art under watch and 
 ward down at the pirn-mill of Marnhoul ! And it was 
 a wench that did it. Often have I warned thee, Dick ! 
 Two pistols thou hadst in a black bag. Dick — for 
 shame, Dick — for shame, thus to fright a decent 
 woman ! And her son, Rob (I think you said was 
 the name of him), did trample the very life out of you 
 — which served you well and right, Dickie ! Oh, 
 Dickie, for shame ! " 
 
 The big man stood looking from one to the other 
 of us, with a kind of comical despair, when, hearing 
 through the open door between the old gentleman's 
 room and his own, the sounds of a noisy irruption 
 and the clinking of glasses beginning again, he went 
 back, and with a torrent of rough words drove the 
 roysterers forth, shutting and locking the door after 
 them. 
 
 Then he came strolling back, leaned his arm on the 
 mantelpiece, and bade my grandfather tell him all 
 about it. I can see him yet, this huge ruddy man, 
 spreading himself by the fireplace, taking up most of
 
 THE REAL MR. POOLE 159 
 
 the room with his person, while he of the flannel 
 dressing-gown wandered about tee-heeing with 
 laughter — and, round one side or the other, or be- 
 tween the legs of the Colossus, making an occasional 
 feeble poke at the fire. 
 
 It was curious also to see how my grandfather's 
 serene simplicity of manner and speech compelled 
 belief. I am sure that at first the big man Dick had 
 nothing in his mind but turning us out into the street 
 as he had done the roysterers. But as William Lyon 
 went on, his bright eye grew more thoughtful, and 
 when my grandfather handed him the slip with the 
 name of Mr. Wringham Pollixfen Poole upon it, he 
 absolutely broke into a hurricane of laughter, which, 
 however, sounded to me not a little forced and hollow 
 — though he slapped his leg so loud and hard that 
 the little man in the dressing-gown stopped open- 
 mouthed and dropped his poker on the floor. 
 
 "It seems to me," he cried shrilly, "that if you hit 
 yourself like that, Dick Poole, you will split your 
 buckskin breeches, which appear to be new." 
 
 But the big man took not the least notice. He only 
 stared at the scrap of paper, and then started to laugh 
 again. 
 
 "Oh, don't do that ! " cried his partner. "You will 
 blow my windows out, and you know how I hate a 
 draught ! " 
 
 And indeed they were rattling in their frames. 
 Then the huge Dick went forward and took my 
 grandfather by the hand. 
 
 "You are sure you have got him?" he inquired; 
 "remember, he is slippery as an eel." 
 
 "My wife is looking after him — my three sons 
 also," said William Lyon, "and I think it likely that 
 the stamp he got from Rob will keep him decently
 
 160 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 quiet for a day at least. You see," he added apolo- 
 getically, "he drave the knife into the thick of the 
 poor lad's leg ! " 
 
 "Wringham?" cried the big man, "why, I did not 
 think he had so muckle spunk ! " 
 
 "Is he close freend of yours?" my grandfather 
 inquired a little anxiously. For he did not wish 
 to land himself in a blood-feud with the kin of a 
 lawyer. 
 
 "Friend of mine!" cried the big man, "no, by 
 no means a friend — but, as it may chance, some sort 
 of kin. However that may be, if you have indeed got 
 Pollixfen safe, you have done the best day's work that 
 ever you did for yourself and for King George, God 
 bless him ! " 
 
 "Say you so?" said my grandfather. "Indeed, I 
 rejoice me to hear it. I have ever been a loyal subject. 
 And as to the Maitland bairns — you see no harm in 
 their making their home with my goodwife, where 
 the lads can take care of them— in the unsettled state 
 of the country ! " 
 
 The senior partner at last got in a poke at the fire, 
 for which he had been long waiting his chance. 
 
 "And you. Master Lyon, that are such a good 
 kingsman," he kekkled, "do you never hear the 
 blythe Free Traders go clinking by, or find an anker 
 of cognac nested in your yard among the winter- 
 kail ? " 
 
 "Mr. Smart," said the big man, "this is a market 
 day, but I shall need to ride and see if this is well 
 founded. You will put on your coat decently and take 
 my work. Abraham has already as much as he can 
 do. Be short with them — they will not come wanting 
 / to drink with you as they do with me ! If what this 
 
 good Cameronian says be true at this moment, as I
 
 THE REAL MR. POOLE 161 
 
 have no doubt it was when he left Marnhoul, the 
 sooner I, Richard Poole, am on the spot the better." 
 
 So he bade us haste and get our beast out of the 
 yard. As for him he was booted and spurred and 
 buckskinned already. He had nothing to do but 
 mount and ride. 
 
 All this had passed so quickly that I had hardly 
 time to think on the strangeness of it. Our Mr. 
 Poole, he to whom my uncle Rob had given such a 
 stamp, was not the partner in the ancient firm of 
 Smart, Poole and Smart of the Plainstones. Of these 
 I had seen two, and heard the busy important voice 
 of the third in another room as we descended the 
 stairs. They were all men very different from the 
 viper whom my grandmother had caught as in a bag. 
 Even Mr. Smart was a gentleman. For if he had a 
 flannel dressing-gown on, one could see the sparkle 
 of his paste buckles at knee and instep, and his hose 
 were of the best black silk, as good as Doctor Gilles- 
 pie's on Sacrament Sabbath when he was going up 
 to preach his action sermon. But our Mr. Wringham 
 PoUixfen Poole — I would not have wiped my foot on 
 him — though, indeed, Uncle Rob had made no bones 
 about that matter. 
 
 M
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 WHILE WE SAT BY THE FIRE 
 
 Through the deep solitude of Tereggles Long 
 Wood, past lonely lochs on which little clattering 
 ripples were blowing, into a west that was all barred 
 gold and red islands of fire, we rode. Or rather 
 grandfather and I went steadily but slowly on our 
 pony, while beside us, sometimes galloping a bit, 
 anon trotting, came big Mr. Richard Poole on his 
 black horse. Sometimes he would ride off up a loan- 
 ing to some farm-town where he had a job to be seen 
 to, or rap with the butt of his loaded whip at the door 
 of some roadside inn — the Four Mile house or Crocket- 
 ford, where he would call for a tankard and drain it 
 off, as it were, with one toss of the head. 
 
 It was easy to be seen that, for some reason of his 
 own, he did not wish to get to Heathknowes before 
 us. Yet, after he had asked my grandfather as to the 
 children, and some details of the attack on the house 
 of Marnhoul (which he treated as merely an affair 
 between two rival bands of smugglers) he was pretty 
 silent. And as we got nearer home, he grew alto- 
 gether absorbed in his thoughts. 
 
 But I could not help watching him. He looked so 
 fine on his prancing black, with the sunset glow mel- 
 lowing his ruddy health, and his curious habit of con- 
 stantly making the thong of his horsewhip whistle 
 through the air or smack against his leg. 
 
 I had met as big men and clever men, but one so 
 active, so healthy, so beautiful I had never before seen. 
 And every time that a buxom wife or a well-looking 
 
 162
 
 WHILE WE SAT BY THE FIRE 163 
 
 maid brought him his ale to the door of the change- 
 house, he would set a forefinger underneath her chin 
 and pat her cheek, asking banteringly after the child- 
 ren or when the wedding was coming oflf. And though 
 they did not know him or he them, no one took his 
 w^ords or acts amiss. Such was the way he had with 
 him. 
 
 And about this time I began to solace myself greatly 
 with the thought of the meeting there would be be- 
 tween these two — the false Poole and the true. 
 
 At last we came in the twilight to the Haunted 
 House of Marnhoul, and Mr. Richard made his horse 
 rear almost as high as the unicorn does in the sign 
 above the King's Arms door, so suddenly did he 
 swing him round to the gate. He halted the beast 
 with his head against the very bar and looked up the 
 avenue. The grass in the glade was again covered 
 with dew, for the sky was clear and it was growing 
 colder every minute. It shone almost like silver, and 
 beyond was the house standing like a dim dark-grey 
 patch between us and the forest. 
 
 "This gate has been mended," he remarked, tap- 
 ping the new wooden post that had come down from 
 the mill a day or two before. 
 
 "I saw to that myself, sir," said my grandfather. 
 "I also painted it." 
 
 " Ha, well done — improving the property for your 
 young guests ! " said Mr. Richard, and then quite 
 suddenly he turned moodily away. All at once he 
 looked at my grandfather again. "You had better 
 know," he said, "that the girl will have no money. 
 So she ought to be taught dairymaking. I am partial 
 to dairymaids myself ! If she favours the Maitlands, 
 she ought to make a pretty one." 
 
 My grandfather said nothing, for he did not like 
 
 M 2
 
 164 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 this sort of talk, and was utterly careless whether 
 Miss Irma were penniless or the greatest heiress in 
 the country. 
 
 Then the long whitewashed rectangle of the Heath- 
 knowes office-houses loomed above us on their hill. In 
 a minute more we were at the gate. My grandfather 
 called, and through the door of the kitchen came a 
 long: vertical slab of lis^ht that fell in a broad beam 
 across the yard. Then one of the herd-lads hurried 
 across to open the barred "yett" and let us in. 
 
 "Is all safe?" said my grandfather. 
 
 "As ye left him," was the answer. "The mistress 
 and the lads have never taken their eyes off him for 
 a moment ! " 
 
 " Take this gentleman's horse, Ben," said my grand- 
 father. But Mr. Richard preferred to be his own 
 hostler, nor did he offer to go near the house or speak 
 a word of his business till he had seen his splendid 
 black duly stalled. 
 
 Then my grandmother was summoned, the children 
 brought down, and immediately stricken. Sir Louis 
 with an intense admiration of the great strong man 
 in riding boots^ and Miss Irma with a dislike quite as 
 intense. I could see her averting her eyes and trying 
 to hide it. But over all the other women in the house 
 he established at once a paramount empire. Even my 
 Aunt Jen followed him with her eyes, so much of the 
 room did he take up, so large and easy were his 
 gestures, and with such a matter-of-course simplicity 
 did he take the homage they paid him. 
 
 Yet he seemed to care far more about Miss Irma 
 than even my grandmother, or the fellow of his name 
 whom he had ridden so far to see. 
 
 He asked her whether she would rather stay where 
 she was or come to Dumfries, to be near the theatre
 
 WHILE WE SAT BY THE FIRE 1G5 
 
 and Assembly balls. As for a chaperon, she could 
 make her choice between Mrs. Hope of the Abbey and 
 the Provost's lady. Either would be glad to oblige 
 the daughter of a Maitland of Marnhoul— and perhaps 
 also Mr. Richard Poole. 
 
 Then, after hearing her answer, he asked for pen 
 and paper and wrote a few lines — 
 
 "As Miss Irma Maitland urgently desires that her 
 brother and she should remain under the care of Mr. 
 William Lyon and his wife at Heathknowes, and as 
 the aforesaid William and Mary Lyon are able and 
 willing to provide for their maintenance, we see no 
 reason why the arrangement should not be an excel- 
 lent and suitable one, at least until such time as Sir 
 Louis must be sent to school, when the whole question 
 will again come up. And this to hold good whatever 
 may be the outcome of this interview with the person 
 calling himself Wringham Pollixfen Poole, 
 "For Smart, Poole and Smart, 
 
 "R. Poole." 
 
 He handed the paper across to my grandmother, in 
 whom he easily recognized the ruling spirit of the 
 household. 
 
 "There, madam," he said, "that will put matters on 
 a right basis with my firm whatever may happen to 
 me. And now, if you please, I should like to see my 
 double at once. I suspect a kinsman, but do not be 
 afraid of a vendetta. If Master Robin, of whose 
 prowess I have already heard, has crushed in a rib or 
 two, so much the better. Even if he had broken my 
 worthy relative's back, I fear me few would have worn 
 mourning ! " 
 
 They found the three young men still in the room, 
 and my grandmother did no more than assure herself
 
 166 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 of the presence of the still white-wrapped figure on the 
 shakedown in the corner, before leading Mr. Richard 
 into the parlour. 
 
 He went out from us with a jovial nod to my father, 
 a low bow to Miss Irma, and mock salutation to little 
 Sir Louis, his head high in the air, his riding whip 
 swinging by its loop from his arm, and as it seemed, 
 a vigour of blood sufficient for a dozen ordinary people 
 circulating in his veins. 
 
 "Thank you, gentlemen," he said to my uncles, as 
 soon as he had looked at the bed and lifted the kerchief 
 which Mary Lyon had laid wet upon the brow. "I 
 recognize, as I had reason to expect, a scion of my 
 house, however unworthy, with whom it will be neces- 
 sary for me to communicate privately. But if you will 
 retire to the kitchen, I shall easily signal you should 
 your services become again necessary." 
 
 He stood with the edge of the door in his hand, and 
 with a slight bow ushered each of my uncles out. I 
 was there, too, of course, seeing what was to be seen. 
 His eye lighted on me, and a slinking figure I must 
 have presented in spite of my usual courage, for he 
 only turned one thumb back over his shoulder with a 
 comical smile, and bade me get to bed, because when 
 he was young he, too, knew what keyholes were good 
 for. 
 
 The word "too" hurt me, for it meant that he 
 thought I was going to eavesdrop, whereas I was 
 merely, for the sake of Irma and the family, endeav- 
 ouring to satisfy a perfectly legitimate curiosity. 
 
 I did, however, hear him say as he shut and locked 
 the parlour door, "Now, sir, the play is played. Sit 
 up and take off that clout. Let us talk out this affair 
 like men ! " 
 
 It was now night, and we were gathered in the
 
 WHILE WE SAT BY THE FIRE 167 
 
 kitchen. I do not think that even Rob took much 
 supper. I know that but for my grandfather the horses 
 would have had to go without theirs — and this, the 
 most sacred duty of mankind about a farm, would for 
 once have been neglected. We sat, mainly in the 
 dark, with only the red glow of the fire in our faces, 
 listening to the voice of a man that came in stormy 
 gusts. The lamp had been left on the parlour table to 
 give them light, and somehow we were so preoccupied 
 that none of us thought of lighting a candle. 
 
 The great voice of Mr. Richard dominated us — so 
 full of contempt and anger it was. We could not in 
 the least distinguish what the impostor said in reply. 
 Indeed, Rob and I could just hear a kind of roopy 
 clattering like that of a hungry hen complaining to 
 the vague Powers which rule the times and seasons of 
 distribution from the "daich " bowl. 
 
 There was something very strange in all this — so 
 strange that when my grandfather came back, for the 
 first time in the history of Heathknowes, no chapter 
 was read, no psalm sung or prayer read. Somehow it 
 seemed like an impiety in the face of what was going 
 on down there. Mr. Richard talked far the most. At 
 first his mood was all of stormy anger, and the replies 
 of the other, as I have said, almost inaudible. 
 
 But after a while these bursts of bellowing became 
 less frequent. The low replying voice grew, if not 
 louder, more persistent. Mr. Richard seemed to be 
 denying or refusing something in short gruff gasps 
 of breath. 
 
 "No, no — no! By heaven, sir, NO!" we heard 
 him cry plainly. And somehow hearing that, Irma 
 crept closer to me, and slid her hand in mine, a thing 
 which she had not done since the night of watching 
 in the Old House of Marnhoul.
 
 168 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Somehow both of us knew that it was a question of 
 herself. 
 
 Then suddenly upon this long period of to-and-fro, 
 there fell (as it were) the very calmness of reconcilia- 
 tion. Peace seemed to be made, and I think that all 
 of us were glad of it, for the suspense and an increas- 
 ing tension of the nerves were telling on us all. 
 
 "They are shaking hands," whispered my grand- 
 mother; "Mr. Richard has brought him to his senses. 
 Fine I knew he would." 
 
 "I wonder if they will put him in prison or let him 
 off because of the family?" said Rob, adjusting the 
 bandage about his wounded leg. "Anyway, I am 
 glad of the bit tramp he got from my yard clogs ! " 
 
 "Wheesht!" whispered my grandfather, inclining 
 his ear in the direction of the parlour door. We all 
 listened, but it was nothing. Not a murmur. 
 
 "They w-ill be writing something — some bond or 
 deed, most likely." 
 
 "They are long about it," said William Lyon 
 uneasily. 
 
 The silence endured and still endured till an hour 
 was passed. My grandfather fidgeted in his chair. 
 At last he said in a low tone, "Lads, we have endured 
 long enough. We must see what they are at. If we 
 are wrong, I will bear the weight ! " 
 
 As one man the four moved towards the door, 
 through the keyhole of which a ray of light was steal- 
 ing from the lamp that had been left on the table. 
 
 " Open ! " cried my grandfather suddenly and loudly. 
 But the door remained fast. 
 
 "Is all right there. Master Richard?" he shouted. 
 Still there was silence within. 
 
 "Put your shoulders to it, lads ! " Eben and Tom 
 were at it in a moment, while strong Rob, springing
 
 WHILE WE SAT BY THE FIRE 169 
 
 from the far side of the passage, burst the lock and 
 sent the door back against the inner wall, the hinges 
 snapped clean through. 
 
 Mr. Richard was sitting in a quiet room, his head 
 leaning forward on his hands. His loaded riding 
 whip was flung in a corner. The window was wide 
 open, and the night black and quiet without. Sweet 
 odours of flowers came in from the little garden. The 
 lamp burned peacefully and nothing in the room was 
 disturbed. But j\Ir. Wringham Pollixfen was not 
 there, and when we touched him, Mr. Richard Poole 
 was dead, his head dropped upon his arms.
 
 PART III 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 BOYD CONNOWAY'S EVIDENCE 
 
 The loop of the riding-whip on Mr. Richard's 
 wrist was broken, and behind his ear there was a 
 lump the size of a small hen's egg. There were no 
 signs of a struggle. The two men had been sitting 
 face to face, eye to eye, when by a movement which 
 must have been swift as lightning, one had disarmed 
 and smitten the other. 
 
 Tom, Eben and Rob armed themselves and went 
 out. But the branches of Marnhoul wood stood up 
 against the sky, black, serried and silent. The fields 
 beneath spread empty and grey. The sough of the 
 wind and the fleeing cloud of night was all they saw 
 or heard. They were soon within the house again, 
 happy to be there and the door barred stoutly upon 
 them. 
 
 Except for little Louis, who was already in bed on 
 the other side of the house where his chamber w^as, 
 and so knew nothing of the occurrence till the morn- 
 ing, there was no sleep for any that night at Heath- 
 knowes. At the first clear break of day Tom and 
 Eben took the cart-horses and rode over to tell Dr. 
 Gillespie, General Johnstone, and Mr. Shepstone 
 Oglethorpe, who were all Justices of the Peace, of 
 what had happened. They came, the General the 
 most imposing, with a great army cloak and a star 
 showing beneath the collar. 
 
 In the little detached sitting-room, which till the 
 coming of the Maitlands had been used as a cheese- 
 
 170
 
 BOYD CONNOWAY'S EVIDENCE 171 
 
 room, Mr. Richard Poole sat, as he had been found, 
 his head still bowed upon his arms, but on his face, 
 when they raised it to look, there was an absolute 
 terror, so that even the General, who had seen many 
 a day of battle, was glad to lay it down again. 
 
 They took such testimony as was to be had, which 
 was but little, and all tending to one startling conclu- 
 sion. Suddenly, swiftly, noiselessly, within hearing 
 of eight or nine people, in a defensible house, with 
 arms at hand, Mr. Richard Poole, of the firm of 
 Smart, Poole and Smart, had been done to death. 
 
 Yet he had known something, though perhaps not 
 the full extent of his danger. We recalled his 
 silences, his moodiness as he approached the farm — 
 the manner in which he had at once put aside all 
 claims, even on a market Wednesday, that he might 
 ride and speak w'ith a man who, if he were not a 
 felon, was certainly no honourable acquaintance for 
 such as Mr. Richard. 
 
 The three gentlemen looked at each other and took 
 snuff from the Doctor's gold box. 
 
 "Very serious, sir!" said Mr. Shepstone tenta- 
 tively. For indeed he had not many ideas — a fact 
 which the others charitably put down to his being an 
 Episcopalian. Really he wanted to find out what they 
 thought before committing himself. 
 
 "Tempestuous Theophilus ! " cried the General, 
 who in the presence of the Doctor always swore by 
 unknown saints — to relieve himself, as was thought — 
 "but 'tis more serious than you think, A fellow like 
 this alive, at large, in our parish " 
 
 "In my parish " corrected the Doctor, who was 
 
 the only man alive with a legal right to speak of 
 Eden Valley parish as his own. 
 
 About noon the Fiscal, responsible law officer of 
 the Crown, arrived from Kirkcudbright escorted by
 
 172 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Tom and Eben. The evidence was all heard over 
 again, the chamber — ex-cheese room, present parlour 
 — again inspected, but nothing further appeared likely 
 to be discovered, when a shadow fell across the 
 threshold. 
 
 For some time, indeed, I had sat quaking in my 
 corner, all cold with the fear of a flitting figure, 
 appearing here and there, seen with the tail of the 
 eye, and then disappearing like the black cat I see in 
 corners when my eyes are overstrained with Greek. 
 
 Of course I thought at once of the murderer 
 Wringham Pollixfen lurking catlike among the 
 office-houses in the hope of striking again, perhaps at 
 Miss Irma — perhaps, also, as I now see, at Sir Louis. 
 But indeed I never thought of him, at least not at the 
 time. It was not the pretended Poole, however. It 
 was a presence as quick, as agile, but more perfectly 
 acquainted with the hidie-holes of the farmyard — in 
 fact, Boyd Connoway. 
 
 Long before the others I got my eyes on him, and 
 with the joy of a boy when a visitor enters the school 
 at the dreariest hour of lessons, I rushed after him. 
 To my surprise he went round the angle of the barn 
 like a shot. But I had played at that game before. 
 I took one flying leap into the little orchard from the 
 window of the parlour which had been given up to the 
 Maitlands, Louis and Miss Irma. Then I glided 
 among the trees, choosing those I knew would hide 
 me, and leaped on Master Boyd from behind as he 
 was craning his neck to peer round the corner in the 
 direction of the house door. 
 
 To my utter amaze he dropped to the ground with 
 a throttled kind of cry as if some one had smitten him 
 unawares. Here was surely something that I did not 
 understand. 
 
 "Boyd, Boyd," I said in his ear, for I began to
 
 BOYD CONNOWAY'S EVIDENCE 173 
 
 grow a little concerned myself — not terrified, you 
 know, only anxious — "Boyd, it is only Duncan — 
 Duncan MacAlpine from the school-house." 
 
 He turned a white, bewildered face to me, cold 
 sweats pearling it, and his jaw worked in spasms. 
 "Oh yes," he muttered, "Agnes Anne's brother! " 
 
 Now I did not see the use of dragging Agnes Anne 
 continually into everything. Also I was one of the 
 boys who had gone with Boyd Connoway oftenest to 
 the fishing in Loch-in-Breck, and he need not have 
 been afraid of me. But I think that he was a little 
 unsettled by fear. 
 
 He did not explain, however, only bidding me 
 shudderingly, "not to come at him that way again ! " 
 So I promised I would not, all the more readily that 
 I heard him muttering to himself, "I thought he had 
 me that time — yes, sure ! " 
 
 Then I knew that he too was afraid of the man who 
 called himself Wringham Pollixfen Poole and had 
 killed the real Mr. Richard in our old cheese-room. 
 But I was not a bit afraid, for had I not jumped 
 through the orchard window, and run and clapped 
 my hand on his shoulder without a thought of the 
 creature ever crossing my mind. 
 
 At any rate I took him in with me — that is, Boyd 
 Connoway. I cannot say that he wanted very much 
 to go "before them Justices," as he said. But at least 
 he preferred it to stopping outside. I think he was 
 frightened of my coming out again and slapping 
 down my hand on his shoulder. Lord knows he need 
 not have been, for I promised not to. At any rate 
 he came, which was the main thing. 
 
 He did not enjoy the ceremony, but stood before 
 them with his blue coat with the large rolling collar, 
 which had been made for a bigger man, buttoned 
 about his waist, and his rig-and-furrow stockings of
 
 174 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 green, with home-made shoes called "brogues," the 
 secret of making which he had brought with him from 
 a place called Killybegs in County Donegal. He was 
 all tashed with bits of straw and moss clinging to 
 him. His knees too were wet where he had knelt in 
 the marsh, and there was a kind of white shaking 
 terror about the man that impressed every one. For 
 Boyd Connoway had ever been the gayest and most 
 reckless fellow in the parish. 
 
 When he was asked if he knew anything about the 
 matter he only stammered, "Thank you kindly, 
 Doctor, and you, General, and hoping that I have the 
 honour of seein' you in good health, and that all is 
 well with you at home and your good ladies and the 
 childer ! " 
 
 The General, who thought that he spoke in a mood 
 of mockery, cautioned him that they were met there on 
 a business of life and death, and were in no mood to be 
 trifled with. Therefore, he, Boyd Connoway, had 
 better keep his foolery for another time ! 
 
 But the Doctor, being by his profession accustomed 
 to diagnose the moods of souls, discerned the laboured 
 pant of one who has been breathed by a long run 
 from mortal terror— who has, as my father would 
 have said, "ridden a race with Black Care clinging to 
 the crupper"— and took Boyd in hand with better 
 results. He agreed to tell all he knew, on being pro- 
 mised full and certain protection. 
 
 And it was something like this that he told his 
 story, as it proved the only direct evidence in the 
 case, at least for many and many a day. 
 
 "Doctor dear," he began, "ye are a married man 
 yourself, and you w'ill not be misunderstanding me 
 when I ask that anything I may say shall not be used 
 against me ? " 
 
 The Fiscal looked up quickly.
 
 BOYD CONNOWAY'S EVIDENCE 175 
 
 "I warn you that it will," he said, "if you have had 
 any hand in this murder ! " 
 
 "Murder, is it?" — (Boyd Connoway gave a short 
 grunting laugh) — "Aye, maybe, but 'tis not the mur- 
 der that has been, but the murder that will be, if my 
 wife Bridget gets wind of this ! That's why I ask 
 that it should be kept between ourselves — so that 
 Bridget should not know ! " 
 
 "Women," said the Fiscal oracularly, "must not 
 be allowed to interfere with the evenhanded and fear- 
 less administration of justice." 
 
 "Then I take it," said Boyd, with a twinkle of the 
 old mirth flickering up into his white and anxious 
 face, "that your honour is not a married man ! " 
 
 "No," said the Fiscal, with a smile. 
 
 "Then, if I may make so bould, your honour knows 
 nothing about how it is 'twixt Bridget and me. His 
 riverence the Doctor now " 
 
 "Tell us what you know^ without digressions," said 
 the Fiscal; "no use will be made of your evidence 
 save in pursuing and bringing to justice the criminal." 
 
 "He's gone," said Boyd Connoway solemnly, "and 
 a good riddance to the parish ! " 
 
 "Wha-a-at?" cried the three magistrates simul- 
 taneously. And the Fiscal started to his feet, 
 
 "Who has gone?" he cried, and mechanically he 
 drew from his pocket a silver call to summon his con- 
 stables from the kitchen, where my uncles and they 
 were having as riotous a time as they dared while so 
 many great folk sat pow-wowing in the parlour near 
 at hand. 
 
 "Who?" repeated Boyd Connoway, "well, I don't 
 know for certain, but perhaps this little piece of paper 
 will put you gentlemen on the track." 
 
 And he handed over a letter, much stained with 
 sea-water and sand. The heel of a boot had trodden
 
 176 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 upon and partly obliterated the writing, the ink 
 having run, and the whole appearance of the docu- 
 ment being somewhat draggle-tailed. 
 
 But there was no doubt about the address. That 
 was clearly written in a fine flowing English hand, 
 "To His Excellency Lalor Maitland, late Governor of 
 the Meuse, Constable of Dinant, etc., etc. These " — 
 
 We all looked at each other, and the Fiscal began 
 to doubt whether the new evidence as to the suspected 
 murderer would prove so valuable after all. 
 
 "Your Excellency" (the letter ran), "according to 
 the promise made to you, the lugger Bloomendahl, 
 of Walchern, Captain Vandam, has been cleared of 
 cargo and is exclusively reserved for your Excellency's 
 use. It will be well, therefore, to dispatch your 
 remaining business in Scotland, as it is impossible to 
 send back the Golden Hind or a vessel of similar size 
 without causing remark. At the old place, then, a little 
 after midnight of Thursday the i8th, a boat will be 
 waiting for you at the eastern port or the western of 
 Portowarren according to the wind. The tide is full 
 about one." 
 
 " How came you by this ? " the Fiscal demanded. 
 
 "Shall I tell ye in bits, sorr?" said Boyd, "or will 
 ye have her from the beginning ? " 
 
 "From the beginning," said the Fiscal, "only with 
 as few digressions as possible." 
 
 "Sure," said Boyd innocently, "I got none o' them 
 about me. Your honour can saarch me if ye like ! " 
 
 "The Fiscal means," said the Doctor, "that you are 
 to tell him the story as straightly and as briefly as 
 possible." 
 
 "Straightly, aye, that I will," said Boyd, "there 
 was never a crooked word came out of my mouth ; 
 but briefly, that's beyond any Irishman's power — least 
 of all if he comes from County Donegal ! "
 
 BOYD CONNOWAY'S EVIDENCE 177 
 
 "Go on ! " cried the Fiscal impatiently. 
 
 "As all things do in our house, it began with 
 Bridget," said Boyd Co n noway ; "ye see, sorr, she 
 took in a man with a wound — powerful sick he was. 
 The night after the ' dust-up ' at the Big House was 
 the time, and she nursed him and she cured him, the 
 craitur. But, whatever the better Bridget was, all that 
 I got for it was that I had to go to Portowarren at dead 
 of night, and that letter flung at me like a bone to a 
 dog, when I told him that I might be called in ques- 
 tion for the matter of my wife." 
 
 "'Aye, put it on your wife,' says he, 'they will 
 let you off. You have not the pluck of a half-drowned 
 flea! ' 
 
 " But when I insisted that I should have wherewith 
 to clear me and Bridget also, he cast the letter down, 
 dibbling it into the pebbles and sand with his heel 
 just as he was going aboard. 
 
 " ' There,' he cried, ' now you can put it on me ! ' " 
 
 "Lalor Maitland," said the Fiscal, ruminating, with 
 his brow' knit at the letter in his hand. "Where is 
 that maid? Bring her here ! " 
 
 I sprang away at once to knock on Irma's door, and 
 bid her come, because the great folk were wanting 
 her. And it seemed as if she had been expecting the 
 summons too, for she was sitting ready close by little 
 Louis. She cast a white shawl about her shoulders, 
 crossed the kitchen and so into the room where the 
 four gentlemen were sitting about the table — the 
 Fiscal with his papers at the end, and behind the 
 curtains drawn close about the press-bed where lay 
 that which it was not good for young eyes to see. 
 
 "Miss Maitland, will you describe to us your 
 cousin, Lalor Maitland, of whom you have already 
 spoken to me ? " 
 
 It was the Doctor who took her hand, while on the 
 
 N
 
 178 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 other side Boyd Connoway in his flapping clothes of 
 antique pattern with brass buttons stood waiting his 
 turn. Irma took one look about which I intercepted. 
 And I think my nod together with the presence of my 
 grandmother gave her courage, for she answered — 
 
 '* Lalor M^itland ? What has he to do with us ? 
 He shall not have us. We would kill ourselves if we 
 could not run away. You would never think of giving 
 us up to him ? " 
 
 "Never while I am alive ! " cried my grandmother, 
 but Dr. Gillespie signed to her to be silent. 
 
 "Will you describe him to us?" suggested the 
 Doctor suavely, "what sort of a man, dark or fair, 
 stout or spare, how he carries himself, what he came 
 over to this country for, and where he is likely to have 
 gone, if we find that he has left it ? " 
 
 Irma thought a moment and then said, "Perhaps I 
 shall not be quite just because I hated him so. But 
 he w-as a man whom most call handsome, though to 
 me there was always something dreadful about his 
 face. His hair was dark brown mixed with grey. His 
 features were cut like those of a statue, and his head 
 small for his height. He was slender, light on his 
 feet, and walked silently— w^/i — yes, like a cat." 
 
 The Fiscal looked an interrogation at Boyd Con- 
 noway. 
 
 "That is the man," he answered unhesitatingly, 
 "though most of the time while he stayed with Bridget 
 and me he kept his bed. Only from the way he got 
 along the cliff by Portowarren, I judge he was only 
 keeping out of sight and by no means so weak with 
 his wound as he would have had us believe." 
 
 "And tell us what you saw of him yesterday, 
 Wednesday ? " 
 
 It was the Fiscal who asked the question, but I 
 think all of us held out breaths to catch Boyd Conno-
 
 BOYD CONNOWAY'S EVIDENCE 179 
 
 way's answer. He shook his head with a discon- 
 certed air like a boy who is set too hard a problem. 
 
 "I was from home most of the day, and when I 
 came in, with a hunger sharp-set with half-a-dozen 
 hours struggling with the wind, Bridget bade me be 
 off at once to the Dutchman's Howff, which is in Col- 
 vend, just where the Boreland march dyke comes 
 down to the edge of the cliff. I was to wait there on 
 the edge of the heugh till one came and called me by 
 name. When I complained of hunger, she put some 
 dry bread into my hand, crying out that I might seek 
 meat where I had worked my work. 
 
 " I saw that the ' ben ' room was empty, and the 
 blankets thrown over the three chair backs. But when 
 I asked where the sick man was, Bridget stamped her 
 foot and bade me attend to my business and she would 
 take care of hers. But Jerry, my oldest boy, had a 
 word with me before I left for tTie march dyke. He 
 told me that the man ' down-the-house ' had gone that 
 morning as soon as my back was turned, after paying 
 his mother in gold sovereigns, which she had immedi- 
 ately hidden. 
 
 "So I went and waited by the Boreland march 
 dyke — a wild place where even the heather is laid 
 flat by the wind. The gulls and corbies were calling 
 down the cliff, and at the foot the sea was roaring 
 through a narrow gully and spreading out fan-shaped 
 along the sands of the Dutchman's Howff. 
 
 " I waited long, having nought to eat except the 
 sheaf of loaf bread I gat with such an ill grace from 
 Bridget, and at the end I was beginning to lose 
 patience, when from the other side of the gully I 
 heard a crying and a voice bade me follow the dyke 
 upwards and stand by to help. 
 
 "So upon the top of the wall I got, and there be- 
 neath me was the man I had last seen lying in 
 
 N 2
 
 180 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Bridget's best bed, cossetted and cared for as if he 
 were a prince. But for all that he was short and 
 angry, bidding me dispatch and help him or he would 
 lose his tide." 
 
 "And did he wear the same clothes as when last 
 you saw him?" said Shepstone Oglethorpe, with a 
 shrewd air. 
 
 At which Boyd Connoway laughed for the first 
 time since he had come into the presence of his 
 betters. 
 
 "No," he said, "for the last time I saw him he was 
 under the sheets with one of my sarks on, and 
 Bridget's best linen sheet tied in ribbons about his 
 head." 
 
 "And how, then, was he dressed?" said the Fiscal, 
 with a glance of scorn at Shepstone. 
 
 "Oh," answered Boyd Connoway, "just like you or 
 me. I took no particular notice. More than that, it 
 was an ill time for seeing patterns, being nigh on to 
 pit mirk. He bade me lead the way. And this, to 
 the best of my knowledge and ability, I did. But the 
 track is not canny even in the broad of the day. Mickle 
 worse is it when the light of the stars and the glimmer 
 o' the sea three hunder feet below are all that ye hae 
 to guide ye ! But the man that had been hidden in 
 our ' ben ' room was aye for going on faster and 
 faster. He stopped only to look down now and then 
 for a riding light of some boat. And I made so bold, 
 seeing him that anxious, as to tell him that if it were 
 a canny cargo for the Co'en lads, waiting to be run 
 into Portowarren, never a glim would he see." 
 
 "' You trust a man that kens,' I said to him, ' never 
 a skarrow will wink, nor a lantern swing. The Isle 
 o' Man chaps and the Dutchmen out yonder have 
 their business better at their fingers' ends than that. 
 But I will tell ye what ye may hear when we get down
 
 BOYD CONNOWAY'S EVIDENCE 181 
 
 the hill by the joiner's shop — and that's the clink o' 
 the saddle irons, and the waff o' their horses' lugs as 
 they shake their necks — them no liking their heads 
 tied up in bags.' 
 
 "' Get on,' he said, ' I wish your head were tied up 
 in a bag ! ' And he tugged at my tail-coat like to rive 
 it off me, your honour. ' Set me on the shore there 
 at Portowarren before the hour of tw^o, or maybe ye 
 will get something for 3'our guerdon ye will like but 
 ill.' 
 
 "This was but indifferent talk to a man whose bread 
 you have been eating (it is mostly porridge and saps, 
 but no matter) for weeks and weeks ! 
 
 "We climbed down by the steep road over the 
 rocks — the same that Will of the Cloak Moss and 
 Muckle Sandy o' Auchenhay once held for two hours 
 again the gaugers, till the loaded boats got off clear 
 again into deep water. And when we had tramped 
 down through the round stones that were so hard on 
 the feet after the heather, we came to the edge of the 
 sea water. There it is deep right in. For the tide 
 never leaves Portowarren — no, not the shot of a pebble 
 thrown by the hand. Bending low^ I could see some- 
 thing like the sail of a ship rise black against the 
 paler edge of the sea. 
 
 "Then it was that I asked the man for something 
 that might clear me if I was held in suspicion for this 
 night's work — as also my wife Bridget. 
 
 "After at first denying me with oaths and curses, 
 he threw down this bit paper that I have communi- 
 cated to your worship, and in a pet trampled it into 
 the pebbles among which the sea was churning and 
 lappering. He pushed off into the boat, sending it 
 out by his weight. 
 
 "' There,' he cried back, ' let them make what they 
 will of that if ye be called in question. And, hear ye,
 
 182 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Boyd Connoway, this I do for the sake of that hard- 
 working woman, your wife, and not for you, that are 
 but a careless, idle good-for-nothing ! ' " 
 
 "Deil or man," broke in my grandmother, who 
 thought she had kept silence long enough, "never 
 was a truer word spoken ! " 
 
 Boyd Connoway looked pathetically about. He 
 seemed to implore some one to stand up in his 
 defence. I would have liked to do it, because of his 
 kindness to me, but dared not before such an assembly 
 and on so solemn an occasion, 
 
 " I put it to the honourable gentlemen now 
 assembled," said Boyd Connoway, "if a man can 
 rightly be called a lazy good-for-nothing when he 
 rose at four of the morning to cut his wife's fire- 
 wood " 
 
 "Should have done it the night before," interrupted 
 my grandmother, 
 
 "And was at Urr kirkyard at ten to help dig a 
 grave, handed the service of cake and wine at twelve, 
 rung the bell, covered in the corp, and sodded him 
 down as snug as you, Mr. Fiscal, will sleep in your 
 bed this night ! " 
 
 "That will do," said the Fiscal, who thought Boyd 
 Connoway had had quite enough rope. "Tell us what 
 happened after that — and briefly, as I said before." 
 
 "Why, I went over to Widow AlcVinnie's to milk 
 her cow. It calved only last Wednesday, and I am 
 fond of ' beesten cheese.' Besides, the scripture says, 
 ' Help the widows in their afflictions ' — or words to 
 that effect." 
 
 "After this man Lalor Maitland had got into the 
 boat, what happened ? " 
 
 The Fiscal spoke sharply. He thought he was 
 being played with, when, in fact, Boyd was only let- 
 ting his tongue run on naturallv.
 
 BOYD CONNOWAY'S EVIDENCE 183 
 
 "Nothing at all, your honour," said Boyd promptly. 
 "The men in the boat just set their oars to the work 
 and were round the corner in a jiffey. I ran to the 
 point by the narrow square opening into the soft sand- 
 stone rock, and lying low on my face I could see a 
 lugger close in under the heugh of Boreland, where 
 she would never have dared to go, save that the wind 
 was off shore and steady. But after the noise of the 
 oars in the rowlocks died away I heard no more, and 
 look as I would, I never saw the lugger slip out of 
 the deep shadow of the heughs. So, there being 
 nothing further to be done, I filled my pockets with 
 the dulse that grows there, thin and sweet. For 
 nowhere along the Solway shore does one get the 
 right purple colour and the clean taste of the dulse as 
 in that of Portowarren, towards the right-hand nook 
 as you stand looking up the brae face." 
 
 Having tendered this very precise indication to 
 whom it might concern, Boyd bowed to the company 
 and took his leave. 
 
 The Fiscal was for holding him in ward lest he 
 should escape, being such a principal witness. But 
 the three Justices knew well that there was no danger 
 of this, and indeed all of them expressed their willing- 
 ness to go bail for the appearance of Boyd Connoway 
 whenever he should be wanted. 
 
 "And a great many times when he is not ! " added 
 my grandmother, with tart frankness.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE SHARP SPUR 
 
 Though, therefore, the mystery remained as im- 
 penetrable as ever, I think that the fact of the absence 
 of Lalor Maitland put new vigour into all of us. 
 Richard Poole was buried in Dumfries, where all the 
 "good jovial fellows" of a dozen parishes gathered 
 to give him an impressive funeral. The firm closed 
 up its ranks and became merely Messrs. Smart and 
 Smart. There was a new and loquacious tablet in 
 St. Michael's relating in detail (with omissions) the 
 virtues and attainments of the deceased Mr. Richard. 
 But of the other Mr. Poole, calling himself Wring- 
 ham Pollixfen, not a trace, not a suggestion, not a 
 suspicion of his whereabouts had he left behind since 
 he stepped out of our window into the dark. 
 
 But, nevertheless, in Eden Valley the air was 
 clearer, the summer day longer and brighter, and the 
 land had rest. It was an impressive day when Irma 
 brought Louis to my father's school. The Academy 
 remembers it yet. 
 
 The morning had opened rather desolately. With 
 
 the dawn the slate-grey fingers of the rain clouds had 
 
 reached down, spanning from Criffel to Screel. The 
 
 sea mist did what faith also can do. It removed 
 
 mountains. One after another they faded and were 
 
 not. A chillish wind began to blow up from the 
 
 Solway, and even in Eden Valley was heard the 
 
 distant roar of the surf, through the low pass which 
 
 is called the Nick of Benarick. The long grass first 
 
 stood in beads and then began to trickle. Flowers 
 
 184
 
 THE SHARP SPUR 185 
 
 drooped their heads if of the harebell sort, or stood 
 spikily defiant like the yellow whin and the pink 
 thistle. 
 
 I had got ready cloaks and hoods, you may be 
 sure. I was on the spot at my grandmother's door 
 a full hour before the time. Within I found Mary 
 Lyon raging. Neither of the bairns should go out of 
 her house on such a day ! What for could they not 
 be content to take their learning from Duncan and 
 Agnes Anne? Miss Irma, she was sure, was well able 
 to teach the bairn. It was all a foolishness, and very 
 likely would end in something uncanny. If it did — 
 well, let nobody blame her. She had lifted up her 
 testimony, and thrown away her wisdom on deaf ears. 
 
 Which, indeed, was something not unlike the case. 
 
 For just then the sun shone out. The clouds 
 divided to right and left, following the steep purpling 
 ridges on either side of Eden Valley — and in the 
 middle opening out a long sweet stream of brightness. 
 Little Louis clapped his hands. He ached for the 
 company of his kind. He talked "boys." He 
 dreamed "boys" — not grown-up boys like me, but 
 children of his own age. He despised Irma because 
 she was a girl. Only Agnes Anne could anyways 
 satisfy him, when she put on over her dress a pair 
 of her grandfather's corduroy trousers, buttoned them 
 above her shoulder, and pretended to give orders as 
 in the pirn-mill. Even then, after a happy hour with 
 the toys which Agnes Anne contrived for him, all at 
 once Louis grew whimpering disappointedly, stared 
 at her and said, "You are not a real little boy." 
 
 And I, who had the pick of the Eden Valley boys 
 on my hand every time I went near my father's (and 
 knew them for little beasts), wondered at his taste, 
 when he could have Irma's company, not to speak
 
 186 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 of Agnes Anne's. But I resolved that I should keep 
 a bright look-out and make the little villains behave. 
 For at an early age our Eden Valley boys were just 
 savages, ready to mock and rend any one of them- 
 selves who was a little better dressed, who wore boots 
 instead of clogs with birch-wood soles, or dared to 
 speak without battering the King's English out of 
 all recognition. 
 
 My father and Miss Huntingdon would, of course, 
 be ready to protect our small man as far as was in 
 their power. But they, especially my father, were 
 often far removed in higher spheres of work, while 
 Miss Huntingdon was never in the boys' playground 
 at all. But I had none of these disabilities. I was 
 instructed, sharp-eyed, alw^ays on the spot, w'ith fists 
 in good repair— armed, too, with a certain authority 
 and the habit of using it to the full. 
 
 So little Louis found himself among his boys. I 
 picked him out half-a-dozen of the most peaceable to 
 play with, after he had received his first lesson from 
 a very proud and smiling Miss Huntingdon-. Miss 
 Irma, after being formally introduced to the school, 
 left the sort of throne which had been set for her 
 beside my father, to go and sit beside Agnes Anne 
 at the top of the highest form of girls. 
 
 Her presence made a hush among the elder boys, 
 and such of the young men as happened to be there 
 that day. For though we had scholars up to the age 
 of twenty, most of these were at work during the 
 summer and came only in the winter season — though 
 in the interval betwixt sowing and hay-harvest and 
 between that again and the ripening of the corn we 
 would receive stray visits from them, especially in 
 the long wet spells of weather. 
 
 It was at noon and the girls were walking in their
 
 THE SHARP SPUR 187 
 
 playground talking with linked arms, apart from the 
 noisy sportings of the boys, when I caught my first 
 glimpse of Uncle Rob. He was standing right oppo- 
 site the school in the big door of the Eden Valley 
 Mill. I wondered what he was doing there, for it 
 was not the season for grinding much corn. Besides, 
 it would have been handier to send it down and 
 call for it again during such a busy season on the 
 farm. 
 
 So I ran across and asked him what he was doing 
 there. I could hardly hear his answer, for the loud 
 plash-plash of the buckets of water as they fell into 
 the great pool underneath the wheel. 
 
 I understood him, however, to say that it was open 
 to me to attend to my own business and leave him to 
 look after his. 
 
 In a moment the demon of jealousy entered into my 
 soul. Could it be that he came there to be near Irma 
 — Irma, whom I had fought for and saved half-a- 
 dozen times over all by myself — for it is not worth 
 while going back to what Agnes Anne did, as it were, 
 accidentally. I was so angry at the mere thought 
 that there and then I charged him with his perfidy. 
 He laughed a short, contemptuous laugh. 
 
 "And what for no," he answered; "at least I have 
 a trade at my finger-ends. I can drive a plough. I 
 can thresh a mow. At a pinch I can even shoe a 
 horse. But you — you have quit even the school- 
 mastering ! " 
 
 I do not know whether or not he said it unwit- 
 tingly or with intent to sting me. But at any rate 
 the thrust went home. I could hardly wait till my 
 father had got through with his work that night, and 
 was stretched in his easy-chair, his long pipe in one 
 hand and a volume of Martial in the other. I broke
 
 188 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 in upon him with the words, " Father, I want to go 
 to college with Freddie Esquillant ! " 
 
 My father looked at me in surprise. I can see him 
 still staring at me bemazed with his pipe half-way to 
 his mouth, and the open book laid face downward 
 upon his knee. 
 
 "Go to college — you?" His surprise was more 
 cutting than Uncle Rob's mockery. Because, you 
 see, my father knew. That is, he knew my scholar- 
 ship. What he did not know was how much of my 
 grandmother's spirit there was in me, and how I could 
 keep working on and on if I had the chance. 
 
 "You have thought of this long?" he asked. 
 
 "No, father!" 
 
 "Ah, well, what put it into your head?" he asked 
 kindly. 
 
 This I could hardly tell him without entering into 
 my furious foolish jealousy of Uncle Rob, his wait- 
 ing at the mill, and our exchange of words. So I 
 only said, "It just came to me that I would like to 
 get learning, father ! " 
 
 "Ah, yes," he meditated, "that is mostly the way. 
 It is like heavenly grace. It comes to a man when he 
 least expects it — the desire for learning. We seek 
 it diligently with tears. It comes not. We wake in 
 the morning and lo ! it is there!" 
 
 It is characteristic of my father that even then he 
 did not concern himself about ways and means. For 
 at the colleges of our land are "bursaries" provided 
 by pious patrons, once poor themselves, and often 
 with a thirst for knowledge unquenched — boys put 
 too early to the bench or the counter. Now my father 
 had the way of winning these for his pupils. He 
 did not teach them directly how to gain them, but he 
 supplied the inspiration.
 
 THE SHARP SPUR 189 
 
 "Read much and well. Get the spirit. Learn the 
 grammar, certainly. But read Latin — till you can 
 speak Latin, think Latin. It is more difficult to think 
 Greek. Our stiff-necked, stubborn Lowland nature, 
 produce of half-a-score of conquering nations, has 
 not the right suppleness. But if there is any poetry 
 in you, it will find you out when you read Euripides." 
 So though certainly I never got so far — the verbs 
 irregular giving me a distaste for the business — at 
 least I fell into line, and in due time — but there I am 
 anticipating. I am writing of the day, the wonderful 
 day when the sharp spur of Uncle Rob's reproach 
 entered into my soul and I resolved to be — I hardly 
 knew what. A band of little boys, all eager to see 
 the pirn-mill in the Marnhoul wood, volunteered to 
 accompany Louis home. They went on ahead, 
 gambolling and shouting. Agnes Anne would have 
 come also, but I suggested to her that she had better 
 stay and help her mother. 
 
 She gave me one look — not by any means of anger. 
 Rather if Agnes Anne had ever permitted herself to 
 make fun of me, I should have set it down to that. 
 But I knew well that could not be. She stayed at 
 home, contentedly enough, however. 
 
 I went home with Irma. I did so because I had 
 the cloaks and hoods to carry. Also I had something 
 to tell her. It seemed something so terrible, so 
 mighty, so full of risk and danger that my heart 
 failed me in the mere thinking of it. I was to go 
 away and leave her, for many years, seeing her only 
 at intervals. It seemed a thing more and more im- 
 possible to be thought upon. 
 
 At the least I resolved to make myself out a martyr. 
 It would be a blow to Irma also, and the thought that 
 she would feel it so almost made up to me for my
 
 190 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 own pain, an ache which at the first moment had 
 been of the nature of a sudden and deadly fear. 
 
 Yet I might have saved myself the trouble. Irma 
 looked upon the matter in a very different light. She 
 was not moved in the least. 
 
 "Yes, of course," she said, "you are only wasting 
 your time here. Men must go out and see things 
 in the world, that afterwards they may do things 
 there. Here it is very well for us who have no friends 
 and nowhere else to go. But as soon as Louis is at 
 school or has to leave me — oh, it will happen in time, 
 and I like looking forward — I shall go too." 
 
 "But what could you do?" I cried in amazement, 
 for such a thing as a girl of her rank finding a place 
 for herself was not dreamed of then. Only such as 
 my grandmother and Aunt Jen worked "in the sphere 
 in which Providence had placed them," as the 
 minister said in his prayer. 
 
 "Never trouble your head," said Irma, "there never 
 was a Maitland yet but gat his own will till he met 
 with a ^Maitland to counter him ! " 
 
 "Lalor!" I suggested. At the name she twisted 
 her face into an expression of great scorn. 
 
 "Lalor!" she said; "well, and have I not coun- 
 tered him ? " 
 
 She had, of course, but as far as I remembered 
 there was something to be said about another person 
 who had at least helped. Now that is the worst of 
 girls. They are always for taking all the credit to 
 themselves. 
 
 It was a grave day when I quitted Eden Valley 
 for the first time. Every one was affected, the women 
 folk, my mother, my grandmother, even Aunt Jen, 
 went the length of tears. That is, all with only two 
 exceptions, my father and Miss Irma. My father was
 
 THE SHARP SPUR 191 
 
 glad and triumphant— confident that, though never 
 the scholar Freddie Esquillant Avas bound to be, I was 
 yet stronger in the more material parts of learning 
 — those which most pleased the ordinary run of 
 regents and professors. 
 
 I had already seen Irma early in the morning in 
 that clump of trees beyond the well where the flower- 
 ing currants made a scented wall, and in the midst 
 the lilac bushes grow up into a cavern of delicately 
 tinted, constantly tremulous shade. 
 
 I told her of my fears, whereat she scorned them 
 and me, bidding me go forward bravely. 
 
 "I have never promised to be anybody's friend 
 before," she said; "I shall not break my word! " 
 
 "But, Irma," I urged, for indeed I could not keep 
 the words back, they being on the tip of my tongue, 
 "what if in the meantime, when I am away so far 
 and seeing you so little, you should promise some- 
 body else to be more than a friend ! " 
 
 She stood a moment W'ith the severe look I had 
 grown to fear upon her face. Then she smiled at me, 
 at once amused and forgiving. 
 
 "You are a silly boy," she said; "but after all, you 
 are but a boy. You will learn that I do not say one 
 thing one day and another the next. There — I 
 promised you a guerdon, did I not? That is the 
 picture of my mother. You can open the back if you 
 like! " 
 
 I set my thumb-nail to it, and there, freshly cut 
 and tied with a piece of the very blue ribbon she was 
 wearing, lay a lock of her hair, a curl curiously and 
 as it seemed wilfully twisted back upon itself, as if 
 it had refused to be so imprisoned — just, in fact, like 
 Irma herself. 
 
 I should have kissed her hand if I had known how,
 
 192 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 but instead I kissed the lock of hair. When I looked 
 up I am afraid that there was most unknightly water 
 in my eyes. 
 
 "Come," she said, "this will never do. There must 
 be none of that if you are to carry Irma Sobieski's 
 pledge. Stand up — smile — ah, that is better. Look 
 at me as if I were Lalor Maitland himself, rather than 
 cry about it. You have my pledge, have you not — 
 signed, sealed, and delivered ? There ! " 
 
 But how the legal formula was carried out by Miss 
 Irma is nobody's business except our own — hers and 
 mine, I mean. But at all events I went forth from 
 the lilac clump by the well, and picked up my full 
 w'ater cans with a heart wondrously strengthened, and 
 so up the path to Heathknowes with a back straight 
 as a ramrod, because of the eyes that I knew were 
 watching me through the chinks in the wall of 
 summer blossom.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE COLLEGE OF KING JAMES 
 
 I ARRIVED at Edinburgh with the most astonishing 
 ache in my heart (or, at least, in the parts adjoining), 
 and had I met with the least pitifulness I think I 
 should have broken down entirely. But I found a 
 very necessary stimulus in the details of the examina- 
 tion for the bursary. I had no doubt as to being 
 nominated, but when the results were posted I felt 
 shame to be whole three places in front of Freddie 
 Esquillant, my master in all real scholarship, almost 
 as much as my father was — but who, on the day of 
 trial, had spent his time in answering thoroughly half- 
 a-dozen questions without attempting the others. 
 
 At any rate it was none such bad news to send by 
 the carrier, who put up at the Black Bull in the Grass- 
 market, down to my mother and grandmother in Eden 
 Valley. I wrote to them separately, but to my father 
 first, because he understood such things and I knew 
 that his heart was set on Freddie and myself, though 
 he thought (and rightly) that I was a mere clodhopper 
 at my books compared to Fred. As far as the classics 
 went, my father was in the right of it. But then 
 Freddie could not write English, except in a kind of 
 long-winded, elaborate way, as if he were translating 
 from Cicero, which very likely was the case. 
 
 Well, the need of keeping my head for the exam- 
 iners' questions, the mending of my pens, the big 
 barren room with the books about and the other 
 fellows scribbling away for dear life, the landladies in 
 this close and that square, with faces hardened and 
 o 193
 
 194 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 tempers sharpened by generations of needy students, 
 out of whom they must nevertheless make their scanty 
 livings, the penetrating Edinburgh airs, the thinness 
 of my cloak and the clumsiness of my countrified rig — 
 these all kept me singularly aware of myself, and pre- 
 vented any yielding to the folly of homesickness, or, 
 as in my case, "Irma-sickness," to give the trouble its 
 proper name. 
 
 After long search I took up my lodging in a new 
 house at the end of Rankeillor Street, in a place where 
 there was the greenness of fields every way about, 
 except behind in the direction of the college. It was 
 the very last house, and from my garret window I 
 could see the top of Arthur's Seat and the little break- 
 neck path feeling its way round the foot of the Salis- 
 bury Crags, afterwards to be widened into the "Radi- 
 cals' Road." Southward all was green and whaup- 
 haunted to the grey hip of Pentland, and we saw the 
 spread of the countryside when we — that is, Freddie 
 and I — went down the Dalkeith Road to the red-roofed 
 hamlet of Echobank. Here, four times a week we 
 bought a canful of milk that had to do us two days. 
 For there was something about the taste of the town 
 milk that scunnered us — Freddie especially being 
 more delicately stomached than I. 
 
 Here, too, was a red-cheeked serving maid who pro- 
 voked us — but more especially poor Fred, who asked 
 nothing better than that the wench should let him 
 alone. But I cared not so greatly — though, of course, 
 she was nothing to me. How could she be with the 
 gage of Miss Irma hard under my armpit, just where 
 the Eden Valley tailor had placed my inside pocket ? 
 
 Which reminds me that Fred, fluttering the leaves 
 of his lexicon, or mooning over his beloved Greek 
 verses (which the professor discouraged because he
 
 THE COLLEGE OF KING JAMES 195 
 
 could not make as good himself), would sigh a little 
 ghost of a sigh as often as he saw me take it out and 
 lay it on the table beside me like a watch. For long I 
 thought it was because he feared it would make me 
 neglect my work, but now, looking back, I can see 
 with great clearness that it was because he felt that 
 love and suchlike were ruled out of his life. It was 
 quite a year before I first mentioned Irma to him by 
 name. Yet he never asked, nor showed that he noticed 
 at all, save for that quick, gentle sigh. 
 
 As portrayed in the miniature, Irma's mother was a 
 gentle fair-haired woman, with a face like a flower 
 sheltered under a broad-brimmed white beaver hat, the 
 very mate and marrow of those I have since seen in 
 the pictures by the great Sir Joshua. She had a 
 dimpled chin that nested in a fluffy blurr of lace. She 
 was as unlike as possible to my dear brave Irma, with 
 her curls like shining jet, and the clean-cut, decisive 
 profile. But I saw at once from whom Baby Louis 
 had gotten his fair soft curls, his blue eyes, and the 
 wistful appeal of his smile. They were always before 
 me as I sat with my elbows on the ink-splattered table, 
 and I did all my work conscious of the rebellious twist 
 of raven curl that was on the other side. I did not 
 open this often, only when by myself, and then with 
 extreme care, for the glass, being old, was a little 
 loose, and it seemed as if the vivid life in the swirl of 
 hair actually moved it out of its place. For even so 
 much of Irma as a curl of her locks perforce retained 
 something of her extraordinary vitality. 
 
 It often used to come to me that Irma must be like 
 
 her father over again, only with all his faults turned to 
 
 good, strengthened by the determination he lacked. 
 
 She had his restlessness, his brilliancy, his power over 
 
 men and women. Only along with these she had 
 o 2
 
 196 THE DEW OF THEIR YOuTH 
 
 strength to guide herself (which he, poor man, never 
 had), and enough over for me also. And I have my 
 father's word and my own consciousness that I needed 
 that guidance. 
 
 College life is strange and solitary at these northern 
 universities — especially at those in the two great cities 
 of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The lad comes up know- 
 ing perhaps one other of his age and standing. If he 
 has a family one or two elder students will be ordered 
 by their people to look him up. Seldom do they 
 repeat the visit. Their circle is formed. They want 
 no "yellow nebs." 
 
 For the rest he is alone, protected from the devil and 
 the young lusts of the flesh by the memory of his 
 mother, perhaps by the remembrance that about that 
 time his father is striving hard to pinch to pay his 
 fees, but lastly, chiefly and most practically by those 
 empty pockets. 
 
 If he have a family in the town, he is hardly a 
 student like the others. He has his comrades within 
 cry, his houses of call, girls here and there whom he 
 has met at dances in friendly houses, sisters and 
 cousins of his own or of his friends — in short, all the 
 machinery of social life to carry him on. 
 
 But for the great majority life is other and sterner. 
 As Milton lamenting his blindness, the stranger 
 student mourns wisdom and life "at one entrance quite 
 shut out." The influence of women, sweeter than 
 that of the Pleiades, is absent, save in the shape 
 of seamy-faced grim-mouthed landladies, or, in a 
 favourable case, which was ours (or might have been), 
 our red-cheeked, frank-tongued, oncoming wench in 
 the milk-house at Echobank, and the baker's daughter 
 across the way. 
 
 The first result of this is a great outbreak of senti- 
 mentality among the callowlings. They have pictures
 
 THE COLLEGE OF KING JAMES 197 
 
 (oh, such caricatures !) to carry in breast-pockets — or 
 locks of hair, like mine. Their hearts are inflammable 
 as those of the flaxen-haired youths I met afterwards 
 in the universities of Germany, only living on oat- 
 meal, without sausages, and less florid with beer. 
 Yet on the whole, the aforesaid empty purse aiding, 
 we were filled with not dishonest sentiment, keen as 
 sleuth-hounds on the track of knowledge, and dis- 
 putatious as only lads of Calvinistic training can be. 
 
 Our landladies were much alike, our rooms fur- 
 nished with the same Spartan plainness. Only in 
 Mistress Craven I happened on a good one, and abode 
 with her all the days of my stay at College, till the 
 way opened out for me to wider horizons and a 
 humaner life. 
 
 But I can see the room yet, and the narrow passage 
 which led to it. Here, close to the door, was a clock 
 with a striking apparatus of surprising shrillness to 
 warn us of the flight of the half-hours. "Ting!" 
 another gone ! Then, as the hour drew near, this 
 academic clock cleared its decks for real action —   
 almost it might be said that it cleared its throat, such 
 a roopy gasping crow did it emit. This was technic- 
 ally called "the warning." 
 
 And three times a day at the sound of it we rose, 
 gathered our books and fled fleetfoot for the college. 
 The clock at Mistress Craven's was set ten minutes 
 fast, so as to leave us time to flee down the Pleasance, 
 dodge through a side alley, cut Simon's Square diagon- 
 ally, debouch upon Drummond Street (shunning 
 Rutherford's change-house, with its "kittle" step 
 down into the cellar), and lo ! there, big, barren, grey, 
 grave, cauldrife as a Scots winter, was the College of 
 King James — with the bell, unheard in the side-streets, 
 fairly "gollying" at us — an appalling volume of 
 sound — yet one which, on the whole, we minded less
 
 198 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 than the skirl and rasp of Mistress Craven's family 
 clock. 
 
 I have been speaking for myself. Fred Esquillant 
 was always in time, easy, quiet, letting nothing inter- 
 fere with his duty. But for me I was not built so. I 
 watched for adventure and followed it. The dog I 
 had met yesterday looked not in vain for a pat. A 
 girl waved a kerchief to the student passing with the 
 books under his arm. She did not know me, nor I 
 her. But in the general interests of my class I had to 
 wave back — without prejudice, be it said, to the black 
 lock behind the miniature in my pocket. 
 
 We came back, as we had occasion, from our classes 
 to the crowded stair of our "land" — with its greasy 
 handrail, and the faint whiff of humanity clinging 
 about the numbered doorways. Our key grated in the 
 lock. Mrs. Craven opened the kitchen door with a 
 cry that our dinners would be ready in a jiffey. We 
 were done with the world for the day. Henceforth 
 four walls contained us. Many books lay tumbled 
 about, or had to be heaped on the floor whenever the 
 half of the table was laid for a meal. 
 
 I sat farthest from the fire, but facing it. Above 
 and directly before my eyes was a full-rigged ship, 
 sailing among furious painted billows directly against 
 the lofty cliffs of a lea-shore, the captain on the bridge 
 regarding this manoeuvre with the utmost complais- 
 ance. Beneath was a china shepherdess without the 
 head — opposite a parrot with a bunch of waxen 
 cherries in its beak. 
 
 When we took the room, the backs of the chairs 
 had been covered with newly-washed embroidery in 
 raspy woollens and starched linen thread. There had 
 also been a table-cloth, and upon it (neatly arranged 
 by Mrs. Craven's daughter Amelia) a selection of the 
 family "good books" — to wit, the Holy Bible con-
 
 THE COLLEGE OF KING JAMES 199 
 
 taining entries of the Craven family, with the dates of 
 birth ahered or erased, Josephus with steel pictures, 
 the Saint's Rest and some others. These had at once 
 been removed, according to agreement made before 
 taking possession, and now, wrapped in the table- 
 cloth, reposed in a cupboard. 
 
 Only The Cloud of Witnesses and Fox's Martyrs 
 were spared at my special request. As for Freddie, 
 he needed no other literature than his text-books, and 
 set himself to win medals like one who had been fitted 
 by machinery for that purpose. 
 
 Mrs. Craven was an Englishwoman who had 
 brought herself to this by marrying a carter from 
 Gilmerton. So she retained a pleasant habit of curt- 
 seying which her daughter, born in Edinburgh 
 and given to snuffing up the east wind, did not in the 
 least strive to imitate, so far at least as we were con- 
 cerned. 
 
 But on the whole those rooms in Rankeillor Street 
 were pleasant and even model lodgings. Many a fine 
 gentleman settled in the new town fared worse, even 
 artistically. We had on the wall in little black frames 
 many browned prints by a man of whom we had never 
 heard, one Hogarth by name, some of the details of 
 which made Freddie blush and me laugh aloud. But 
 these doubtful subjects were counterbalanced by an 
 equal number illustrative of the Pilgrim's Progress, 
 beginning at the sofa-back with the Slough of De- 
 spond, going through the Wicket Gate, past fierce 
 Giant Pope and up craggy Hills of Difficulty to a 
 flaming Celestial City apparently being destroyed by 
 fire with extreme rapidity. 
 
 In a glass-fronted corner cupboard were memorials 
 of the late Mr. Craven. To wit, a large punch-bowl, 
 remarkable for having melted down a flourishing busi- 
 ness in the "carrying" way, four pair of horses with
 
 200 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 wagons to match, a yard and suitable stabling, and, 
 finally, Mr. Craven, late of Gilmerton, himself. 
 
 On the top shelf was all that remained of the tea- 
 service he had presented to his "intended" when he 
 was still at the head of the Gilmerton "yard" — she 
 being at the time lady's-maid at Dalkeith Palace and 
 high in favour with "her Grace." Much art was 
 needed in dusting these and arranging them to make 
 cups and saucers stand so that their chipped sides 
 would not show. 
 
 I was strictly forbidden ever to dance, flap my long 
 arms, or otherwise disport myself near this sacred 
 enclosure, as I sometimes did when the blood ran high 
 or the temperature low. As for Freddie, he could do 
 no wrong. At least, he never did. I was in despair 
 about him, and foresaw trouble. 
 
 As to situation, we had the Meadows behind us, 
 and (except the Sciennes and Merchiston), all was 
 free and open as far as Bruntsfield and the Borough 
 Muir. But towards Holyrood and the College, what 
 a warren ! You entered by deep archways into 
 secluded yards. Here was a darksome passage where 
 murder might be (and no doubt had been) done. Here 
 was an echoing gateway to a coaching inn, with a 
 watchman ready to hit evil boys over the head with 
 his clapper if they tried to ring his bell, the bell that 
 announced the arrival of the Dumfries coach "Glad- 
 iator " after thirty hours' detention at the Beeftub in 
 Moffatdale, or the shorter breathed "four" from Sel- 
 kirk and Peebles that had changed horses last at 
 Cockmuir Inn at the back of Ringside. 
 
 All this I describe so minutely, once for all, because 
 there is more to come of it, and these precincts on the 
 southern border of Edinburgh, where Cromwell had 
 once encamped, were mightily familiar to me before 
 all was done.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 SATAN FINDS 
 
 Of course Christmas time soon came, when we 
 collegers had our first vacation, and Fred and I footed 
 it down to Eden Valley. They had been preparing 
 for us, and the puddings, white and black, hung in 
 rows along the high cross-bars in the kitchen. 
 
 Everybody was glad to see us, except, as it appeared 
 at first. Miss Irma. I called her Irma when I thought 
 of the round locket with the hair and her mother's 
 picture in it, also the letters she had sent me — though 
 these were but few, and, for all that was in them, 
 might have been written to the Doctor. But when 
 I returned and met her full in the doorway of my 
 grandmother's house, she gave me her hand as calmly 
 as if she had clean forgotten all that had ever been 
 between us. 
 
 For me, I was all shaken and blushing — a sight to 
 be seen. So much so that Aunt Jen, coming in with 
 the milk for the evening's porridge, cocked an eye at 
 me curiously. But if Irma felt anything, I am very 
 sure that it did not show on her face. And that is 
 one of the greatest advantages girls have — care or not 
 care, they can always hide it. 
 
 My mother shed tears over me. My father took 
 stock of my progress, and asked me for new light on 
 certain passages we had been reading, but soon 
 deserted me with the familiar contemptuous toss of 
 the head, which meant that he must wait for Fred 
 Esquillant. He might have learned by this time. 
 At anything practical I was miles ahead of Freddie, 
 who had no world outside of his classical books. But 
 then my father was of the same type, with, in addition, 
 
 20 1
 
 202 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 the power of imparting and enthusing strong in him — 
 his practical side, which Freddie did not possess — 
 indeed, never felt the lack of, much less the ambition 
 to possess. He was content to know. He had no 
 desire to impart his knowledge. 
 
 I spent six mornings and five evenings out of my 
 scanty twenty days at the little thicket by the well. But 
 the lilac was leafless now, and the path which led back 
 to the house of Heathknowes empty and deserted. 
 
 Once while I was in hiding my Uncle Rob came 
 and stood so long by his water-pails, looking across 
 the hills in the direction of the Craig Farm, that I 
 made sure he had found me out, or was trying for a 
 talk with Miss Irma on his own account. 
 
 But Rob, as I might have known, was far too incon- 
 stant. As the saying went, *' He had a lass for ilka 
 day in the week and twa for the Sabbath." It is more 
 than likely that his long rumination at the well was 
 the result of uncertainty as to whether it was the turn 
 of Jeannie at the Craig or Bell down by at Parkhill. 
 
 At any rate, it had no connection with me, for he 
 went off home with his burden, where presently I 
 could hear him arranging with Eben as to the fodder- 
 ing of the "beasts " and the "bedding " of the horses. 
 For my three uncles kept accounts as to exchanges 
 of work, and were very careful as to balancing them, 
 too — though Rob occasionally "took the loan" of 
 good-tempered Eben without repayment of any sort. 
 
 After my fifth solitary vigil among the rustling of 
 the frozen stems and the dank desolation of the ice- 
 bound copse on the edge of the marsh, I began to go 
 about with a huge affectation of gloom on my face. 
 It was clear that I was being played with. For this 
 I had scorned the red-cheeked dairy-lass at Echobank, 
 and the waved kerchiefs of the baker's daughter oppo- 
 site. And the more unhappy and miserable I looked.
 
 SATAN FINDS 203 
 
 the closer I drew my inky cloak about me, the gayer, 
 the more Hght-hearted became Miss Irma. 
 
 I plotted deep, dark, terrible deeds. She urged me 
 to yet another help of dumpling. She had made the 
 jam herself, she said. Or the shortbread — now there 
 was something like shortbread, made after a recipe 
 learned in Brabant ! (I wondered the word did not 
 choke her, thinking of Lalor — but, perhaps, who 
 knew? she would not after all be so unwilling!) I 
 had shed my blood for naught — not that I had really 
 shed any, but it felt like that. I had gone forth to 
 conquer the world for the sake of a faithless girl — 
 though, again, I had not even done quite that, seeing 
 that Freddy Esquillant bade fair to beat me in all the 
 classes — except, perhaps, in the Mathematic, for 
 which he had no taste. But the principle was the 
 same. I was deserted, and my whole aspect became 
 so dejected that my mother spoke to my father about 
 my killing myself in Edinburgh with study, which 
 caused that good (and instructed) man to exclaim, 
 "Fiddlesticks ! " Then she went to my grandmother, 
 who prescribed senna tea, which she brewed and stood 
 by till I had drunk. I resolved to wear my heart a little 
 less on my sleeve, and always after that assured my 
 grandmother that I was feeling very well indeed. Also 
 I made shift to eat a little, even in public, contriving 
 it so, however, that the effort to appear brave and gay 
 ought to have been evident even to Miss Irma. 
 
 Every day Louis and she went to the Academy, 
 and I went with them, one of the uncles — generally 
 Eben, the universally disposable — following to the 
 village with a loaded pistol in his tail-coat pocket. 
 
 For though there had been, as yet, no more than 
 the ordinary winter traffic by the well-recognized 
 Free Traders of the Solway board, no man could tell 
 when the lugger from the Texel, or even the Golden
 
 204 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Hind herself might try again the fortune of our coasts. 
 The latter vessel had been growing famous, multiply- 
 ing her captures and cruelties; indeed, behaving little 
 otherwise than if she carried the black flag with the 
 skull and cross-bones. And though a large part of 
 his Majesty's navy had been trying to catch her, 
 hardly a monthly number of the Scots Magazine came 
 to my father without some new exploit being deplored 
 in the monthly chronicle over near the end. 
 
 Nearer home, Messrs. Smart and Smart had offered 
 by post to occupy themselves with the future of the 
 young baronet Sir Louis, on condition that he should 
 be given up to them to be sent to school, but in their 
 communication nothing was said about Miss Irma. 
 So my grandfather sent word that, subject to the law 
 of the land, he would continue to protect both the 
 children whom Providence had placed in his care. 
 And this was doubtless what the Dumfries lawyers 
 expected. The care and culture of the estate during 
 a long minority was what they thought about as being 
 most to their advantage, and it was quite evident that 
 little Louis, for the present, could hardly be better 
 situated than at Heathknowes. Messrs. Smart and 
 Smart sent a man down to spy out the land, on pretext 
 of offering compensation, but his report must have 
 been favourable both as to the security of the farm- 
 town and as to my grandfather's repute for generosity 
 and open-handedness. For he did not return, and as 
 to payment, nothing more was ever heard at Heath- 
 knowes about the matter. 
 
 The young people were now quite fixtures there, 
 and though they were spoken of as Miss Irma and 
 Master Louis, Irma had carried her main point, which 
 was that they should be treated in all respects as of 
 the family. The sole difference made was that now 
 the farm lads and lasses, and the two men from the
 
 SATAN FINDS 205 
 
 pirn-mill (whom my grandfather's increasing trade 
 with the English weavers had compelled him to take 
 on), had their meals at a second table, placed cross- 
 wise to that at which the family dined and supped. 
 But this was chiefly to prevent little Louis from occu- 
 pying himself with watching to see when they would 
 swallow their knives, and nudging his neighbours 
 Irma and Aunt Jen to "look out," at any particular 
 dangerous and intricate feat of conjuring. 
 
 As for me, I could not at all understand why Irma 
 cold-shouldered me during these first Christmas vaca- 
 tions, and indeed I had secretly resolved to return no 
 more to the house of Heathknowes till I had made 
 sure of a better reception. I began to count it a ce;r- 
 tainty that Irma, feeling that she had gone too far 
 and too fast with me before I went off, was now 
 getting out of the difficulty by a regime of extraordi- 
 nary coldness and severity. And if that were the 
 case, I was not the man to baulk her. 
 
 For about this time a man I began to count myself. 
 
 Worst of all, going home to the school-house there 
 came into my head one of the most stupid ideas that 
 had ever got lodging there — though, according to my 
 grandmother, I am rather a don at harbouring such- 
 like. 
 
 It occurred to me that a plan I had read of in some 
 book or other might suit my case. If I could only 
 make Irma jealous, the tables might be turned, and 
 she become as anxious and desirous of making up as 
 I was. 
 
 It seemed to me a marvellously original idea. Irma 
 had cared enough to give me her mother's miniature. 
 She had cut off a lock of her hair, which she had not 
 done for all the world of her admirers — else she would 
 long have gone bald. 
 
 Now it happened that though there were a good
 
 206 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 many dressmakers in Eden Valley, including some 
 that worked out for so much a day, there was only 
 one Ladies' Milliner and Mantua-maker. This was 
 the sister of our infant-mistress. Miss Huntingdon. 
 Her establishment was in itself a kind of select 
 academy. She had an irreproachable connection, and 
 though she worked much and well with her nimble 
 fingers, she got most of her labour free by an 
 ingenious method. 
 
 She initiated into her mysteries none of the poorer 
 girls of the place, who might in time be tempted to 
 "set up for themselves," and so spoil their employer's 
 market. She received only, as temporary boarders, 
 daughters of good houses, generally pretty girls look- 
 ing forward with some confidence to managing houses 
 of their own. At that time every girl who set up 
 to be anything in our part of the country aspired to 
 make her own dresses and build the imposing fabric 
 of her own bonnets. 
 
 So Miss Huntingdon had a full house of pretty 
 maidens who came as "approvers" — a fanciful varia- 
 tion of "improvers" invented by Miss Huntingdon 
 herself, and used whenever she spoke of "My young 
 ladies," which she did all day long — or at least as 
 often as she was called into the "down-stairs parlour," 
 where (as in a nunnery) ordinary business was 
 transacted. 
 
 A good many of the elder girls whom I had known 
 at the Academy had migrated there at the close of 
 their period of education — several who, though great 
 maidens of seventeen or eighteen, had hardly appeared 
 upon my father's purely classical horizon — seen by 
 him only at the Friday's general review of English 
 and history, and taught for the rest of the week by 
 little Mr. Stephen, by myself — and in sewing, fancy- 
 work, and the despised samplers by Miss Huntingdon,
 
 SATAN FINDS 207 
 
 the ever diligent, who, to say the truth, acted in this 
 matter as jackal to her elder sister's lion. 
 
 In return she got a chamber, a seat at the table 
 with the young ladies, and a home. Nor will I say 
 that Miss Seraphina, Ladies' Milliner and Mantua- 
 maker, was not a good and kind sister to Miss 
 Rebecca, the little teacher at thirty pounds a year 
 in the Infant Department at the Academy of Eden 
 Valley. 
 
 But my mother in her time — Aunt Janet, even — had 
 passed that way, though Miss Huntingdon considered 
 Jen one of her failures because she had not "married 
 from her house." Most of the well-to-do farmers 
 within ten miles sent their daughters to complete their 
 education at Miss Huntingdon's academy of the 
 needle and the heavy blocking-iron. My father, when 
 he passed, did not know them, so great in his eyes 
 was their fall. Yet by quiet persistence, of which she 
 had the secret, my mother wore him down to winking 
 at her sending Agnes Anne there for three hours a day. 
 
 "I'm sure," she said, "I used to watch for you every 
 time you went by to school, and one day the frill of 
 your shirt sleeve was hanging down, torn on a nail. 
 I was sorry, and wished that I could have run out 
 and mended it for you ! " 
 
 What this reminiscence had to do with Agnes 
 Anne's being allowed to go to Miss Huntingdon's 
 I do not quite see. But learned men are much like 
 others, and somehow the little speech softened my 
 father. So Agnes Anne went, as, indeed, my mother 
 had resolved from the beginning that she should. 
 And it was through Agnes Anne that my temptation 
 came. 
 
 She made a friend there, Agnes Anne always must 
 have one bosom friend of her own sex. For this Irma 
 was too old, as well as too brilliant, too fitful, fairy-
 
 208 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 like, changeful in her mood to serve long. Besides, 
 she awed Agnes Anne too much to allow her to con- 
 fide in her properly. And without hour-long confes- 
 sions all about nothing, Agnes Anne had no use for 
 any girl friend. There was an unwritten convention 
 that one should listen sympathetically to the other's 
 tale of secrets, no matter how long and involved, 
 always on the supposition that the service should be 
 mutual. 
 
 Charlotte Anderson was the name of Agnes Anne's 
 friend. In a week's time these two were seldom 
 separate, and wandered about our garden, and under 
 the tall pine umbrellas with bent heads and arms 
 lovingly interlaced. Charlotte was a pretty girl, 
 blooming, fresh, rosy, with a pair of bold black eyes 
 which at once denied and defied, and then, as it were, 
 suddenly drooped yieldingly. I was a fool. I might 
 have known — only I did not. 
 
 Now my idea was to make just as much love to 
 Charlotte as would warn Miss Irma that she was in 
 danger of losing me and to assist me in this (though 
 I did not reveal my intention of merely baiting my 
 trap with her) who more willing than Charlotte Ander- 
 son ! 
 
 But I had counted without two somewhat important 
 factors — Miss Irma, and Miss Seraphina Huntingdon. 
 I was utterly deceived about the character of Irma, and 
 I had no idea of the extreme notions of rigid propriety 
 upon which Miss Seraphina conducted her business, 
 nor of the explanation of the large proportion of suc- 
 cessful weddings in which the lady mantua-maker had 
 played the part of subordinate providence. 
 
 Indeed, certain of the light-minded youth of Eden 
 Valley called the parlour with the faded red velvet 
 chairs by the name of "Little Heaven" — because so 
 many marriages had been made there.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 PERFIDY, THY NAME IS WOMAN ! 
 
 Old Robert Anderson of Birkenbog was known to 
 me by sight — a huge, jovial, two-ply man, chin and 
 waistcoat alike testifying to good cheer. He wore a 
 large horse-shoe pin in his unstiffened stock. A 
 watch that needed an inch-thick chain to haul up its 
 sturdy Nuremburg-egg build, strained the fob on his 
 right side, as if he carried a mince-pie concealed 
 there. His laugh dominated the market-place, and 
 when he stood with his legs wide apart pouring a 
 sample of oats slowly from one hand into the palm 
 of the other, his red face with the cunning quirks in 
 it had always a little gathering of admirers, eager 
 for the next high-spiced tale. He had originally 
 come from the English border, and in his "burr" and 
 accent still bore token of that nationality. 
 
 Nevertheless, he had his admirers, some of them 
 fervent as well as constant. 
 
 Cochrane of the Holm would be there, his hand 
 on the shoulder of Blethering Johnny from the Din- 
 nance. These two always laughed before a word was 
 uttered. They thought Birkenbog so funny that 
 everything he said was side-splitting even before he 
 had said it. 
 
 I remember being a great deal impressed myself 
 by Old Birkenbog. He was a wonderful horseman 
 as a boy, and when he came to the market alone he 
 rode a big black horse of which even the head ostler 
 stood in awe in the yard of the King's Arms. Once 
 he had thrashed a robber who had assailed him on 
 p 209
 
 210 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 his way to pay his rent, and had brought him into 
 town trotting cross-handed at his horse's tail, the 
 captive of his loaded whip and stout right arm. 
 It is doubtful if this draggled Dick Turpin, lying in 
 Bridewell, appreciated Birkenbog's humour quite so 
 much as did Cochrane and Blethering Jock when he 
 told them the story afterwards. 
 
 If I had any common-sense I might have seen that 
 Birkenbog was not a safe man to trouble in the matter 
 of an only daughter, without the most serious inten- 
 tions in the world. But, truth to tell, I never thought 
 of him knowing, which was in itself a thing quite 
 superfluous and altogether out of my calculations. I 
 had had some small experience of girls even before 
 Miss Irma came to change everything. And the fruit 
 of my observations had been that, though girls tell 
 each other's secrets freely enough, they keep a mid- 
 dling tight grip on their own. Nay, they can even 
 be trusted with yours, in so far as these concern them- 
 selves — until, of course, you quarrel with them — and 
 then — well, then look out ! 
 
 Certainly I found lots of chances to talk to 
 Charlotte. In fact Agnes Anne made them for me, 
 and coached me on what to say out of books. Also 
 she cross-examined Charlotte afterwards upon my 
 performances, and supplemented what I had omitted 
 by delivering the passage in full. My poor version, 
 however, pleased Charlotte just as much, for merely 
 being "walked out" gave her a standing among Miss 
 Seraphina's young ladies, who asked her what it felt 
 like to be engaged. 
 
 All had to be gone about in so ceremonious a 
 manner, too, at least at first — when I made my formal 
 call on Miss Huntingdon, who received me in her 
 parlour with prim civility, as if I had come to order 
 a leghorn hat of the best.
 
 PERFIDY, THY NAME IS WOMAN! 211 
 
 "My mother's compliments, and might Miss Char- 
 lotte Anderson be allowed to accompany Agnes Anne 
 to tea at four hours that day ? I would be responsible 
 — yes, I knew Miss Huntingdon to be most particu- 
 lar upon this point — for the convoy of the young 
 ladies to the school-house, and would see Miss 
 Anderson safe home again." 
 
 My mother winked at these promenades, because 
 in her heart of hearts she was more than a little 
 jealous of Irma. Charlotte Anderson she could 
 understand. She was of her own far-off kin, but Irma 
 and her brother had descended upon us, as it were, 
 from another world. 
 
 Why Agnes Anne meddled I cannot so well make 
 out, unless it were the mania which at a certain age 
 attacks most nice girls — that of distributing their 
 brothers among their dearest friends — as far, that is, 
 as they will go round. 
 
 So Charlotte and I w-alked under the tall firs of the 
 Academy wood in the hope that Irma might be pass- 
 ing that way. I escorted her home in full sight of 
 all Eden Valley — that was always on the look-out for 
 whatever might happen in the way of courtship about 
 the shop of the famous mantua-maker. 
 
 And yet (I know people will think I am lying) 
 never, I say, did I find Miss Irma so desirable in 
 my eyes as when I saw her at Heathknowes during 
 these days of folly. It was not that she was kinder 
 to me. She appeared not to think of me either one 
 way or the other. She curtsied to me, like a bird, 
 flirting the train of her gown like a wagtail on a stone 
 by the running stream. One forenoon she met us, 
 strolling with little Louis by the hand, her black hair 
 crowned with scarlet hips — those berries of the wild 
 dog-rose which grow so great in our country lanes. 
 She waved us a joyous little salute from the top of 
 
 P 2
 
 212 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 a stile, on which she perched as lightly as if joyful 
 graces were fluttering about her, and she herself ready 
 to take wing. 
 
 But she never so much as looked wistful, but let 
 me go my way with a single flirt of a kerchief she 
 was adjusting about her brother's neck. As for me 
 I was ready to hang myself in self-contempt and 
 hatred of poor innocent Charlotte Anderson, who 
 smiled and imagined, doubtless, that she was ful- 
 filling the end for which she had come to Miss 
 Huntingdon's. 
 
 After we had separated I went to thinking sadly 
 on the stupidity of my performances. This field of 
 thought was a large one and the consideration of it, 
 patch by patch, took some time. It was market day. 
 The bleating of flocks was about me, a pleasant smell 
 of wool and tar and heather — and of bullocks blow- 
 ing clouds of perfumed breath that condensed upon 
 the frosty air. I was leaning my arms upon the 
 stone dyke of the Market Hill and thinking of Irma, 
 now by my ow^n act rendered more inaccessible than 
 ever — when a hand, heavy as a ham falling from a 
 high ceiling, descended upon my shoulder. A voice 
 of incomparable richness, a little husky perhaps with 
 the morning's moistening at the King's Arms, cried 
 out, "So ho, lad! thou dost not want assurance! 
 Thinking on the lasses at thy age ! You're the chap, 
 they tell me, that's been walkin' out my daughter in 
 broad daylight ! Well, well, cannot find it in my 
 heart to be too hard — did the like mysel' thirty years 
 ago, and never regretted it. School-master's son, 
 aren't ye ? Thought I kenned ye by sight 1 Student 
 lad at the College of Edinburgh ? Yes, yes — knew 
 thy father any time ever since he came from the 
 North. No man has anything to say again thy
 
 PERFIDY, THY NAME IS WOMAN! 213 
 
 father I Except that he does not lay on the young 
 rascals' backs half heavily enough ! I dare say thou 
 would be noways the worse of a dressing down thy- 
 sel' ! " 
 
 All this time he was thumping me on my back, and 
 I was standing before him with such a red face, and 
 (I doubt not) such a compound of idiocy and black 
 despair upon it, that I might have been listening to 
 my doom being pronounced by the mouth of some 
 full-blooded, jovial red judge, with a bunch of seals 
 the size of your fist dangling from his fob and the 
 loaded whip with which he had brought down the 
 highwayman, under his arm. 
 
 "Come thou up to the King's Arms!" he cried; 
 "don't stand there looking like a dummy. Let's have 
 the matter out ! Thour't noan shamed, sure-ly I 
 There's no reason for why. At thy age, laddie — 
 hout-hout — there's no wrong as young folks go. 
 Come thy ways, lad ! " 
 
 Obediently I followed in his wake as he elbowed 
 a way through the crowd, salutations pouring in upon 
 him on every side. 
 
 "Ah, Birkenbog, what's brought you into the 
 market this day — sellin' lambs?" 
 
 "That's as may be — buyin' calves more belike! " 
 
 This was for my benefit, and the old brute, tasting 
 his sorry jest, turned and slapped me again, winking 
 all the time with his formidable brows in a spasmodic 
 and horrible manner, that was like a threat. 
 
 Now, I did not mind Lalor Maitland or Galli- 
 gaskins when my blood was up. But now it was 
 down — far down — indeed in my very boots. 
 
 All the time and every step of the way, I was try- 
 ing in a void and empty brain to evolve plans of 
 escape. I could only hear the rich port-wine chuckle
 
 214 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 of that great voice, and watch the gleam of those huge 
 silver spurs. 
 
 And so presently we came to the King's Arms. 
 Never was bold wooer in a more hopeless position. 
 Whichever way I turned the case was desperate — 
 if I resisted, I could not expect to fare better than 
 Tam Haggart, whom that whip shank had beaten to 
 the ground on the Corse o' Slakes. If I let myself 
 drift, then farewell all hope of Irma Maitland. 
 
 I hesitated and was lost. But who in my place 
 could have bettered it — save by not being such a por- 
 tentous fool to begin with ? But when that is in a 
 man, it will out. 
 
 I entered the King's Arms meekly, and before I 
 knew what I was doing I had been presented to three 
 or four solid-thighed, thick-headed, stout-legginged 
 farmers as "Our Lottie's intended." They laughed, 
 and came near to shaking my hand off. I felt that if 
 I backed out after that, I never could show my face 
 in Eden Valley again. 
 
 Then we proceeded to business. I had not been 
 accustomed to drink anything stronger than water, 
 and I was not going to begin now — so much of sense 
 I had left in me. So as often as the mighty farmer 
 of Birkenbog had his tankard pointed at the cornice 
 of the commercial room of the King's Arms, I poured 
 the contents of mine carefully among the sawdust on 
 the floor. 
 
 And then my formidable "future" father-in-law got 
 to the root of the matter. 
 
 "Father know about this? " He shot out the ques- 
 tion as from a catapult. 
 
 "No, sir," said I, "I did not think of troubling him 
 just yet— till " 
 
 "Till what?"
 
 PERFIDY, THY NAME IS WOMAN! 215 
 
 "Till things were a bit more settled," I faltered. 
 He put his loosely clenched fist on my knee. It 
 appeared as large as the flat part of a pair of smith's 
 bellows. 
 
 "Well, that's what we are here now for, eh?" he 
 said. "I doan't blame ye, you young dog. Now I 
 like a fine up-standing wench myself, well filled out, 
 none o' your flails done up in a bean-sack, nor yet 
 a tea-pot little body that makes the folk laugh as they 
 see her trotting alongside a personable man like me. 
 Lottie will do ye fine. She's none great at the books 
 — takes after her mother in that, but she's a good 
 girl, and I'll warrant ye, she will keep up her end 
 of an argument well enough after a year or two's 
 practice. But, mind you, lad, there's to be nothing 
 come of this till I see you safe through college as a 
 doctor. Fees ? Nonsense ! Go to the hospitals, 
 man, I'll pay for that part. It can come off what 
 I have put aside to give the man that took Lottie off 
 my hands ! A doctor — yes, that's the business, and 
 one sore needed here in this very Eden Valley ! 
 Whisht — there — who think ye bought old Andrew 
 Leith's practice and house? Who keeps the lads from 
 the college there and sends them packing at the end 
 of every six months? Why, me — Anderson of 
 Birkenbog. So haste ye fast, and when ye are ready, 
 the house is ready, and the practice and the tocher — 
 and as for the lass ye have made it up with her your- 
 self, as I understand." 
 
 Never was there a poorer-spirited wooer ! No, 
 never one. The very pour of words stunned me. 
 Had it not been for the coming and going of Dutch- 
 girthed brother-farmers, dumping bags of "samples" 
 on the table, and hauling at purses tied with leathern 
 strings out of tight breeches pockets, the "What's
 
 216 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 your will, sir?" of Tom the drawer, and the clink 
 of cannikins, I must have been found out even then. 
 
 But the part of the trouble which was to be mine 
 personally was coming to an end. After all, his 
 daughter's future was only an item in Birkenbog's 
 programme of the day. 
 
 " Well, then, lad " — he clapped me again on the 
 shoulder (I sitting there with the soul of an oyster) — 
 "we have arranged everything comfortable — eh? 
 Now you can go and tell Lottie. Aye, and ye can 
 say to Miss — what's her name — Thimbolina, the old 
 dowager with the corkscrews — with my compliments, 
 that there's a sweet-milk cheese ripening on the dairy 
 shelves for her at Birkenbog. Hear ye that, lad?" 
 
 I took my leave as best I could. I felt I had hope- 
 lessly committed myself. For though I had not said 
 a word, I had not dared to reveal to this fierce father, 
 that being in love with another, I had been using 
 his daughter as a stalking horse. 
 
 *'And, look here, Duncan lad," he said, "I'll just 
 step up and have a word with your father. The 
 clearer understanding there is between families on 
 such like arrangements, the less trouble there will be 
 in the future ! " 
 
 And he strode away out into the yard, halting, 
 however, at the door to call out in a voice that could 
 be heard all over the neighbourhood, "Come thy ways 
 up to Birkenbog on Sunday and take a bit o' dinner 
 wi' us ! Then thou canst see our Lottie and tell her 
 how many times sweeter she is than a sugar-plum ! 
 Ho, ho ! " 
 
 He was gone at last and I fairly blushed myself 
 down the street, pushing my way between the ranks 
 of the market stalls and the elbowing farmers. 
 
 "Are ye blind or only daft?" one apple wife called
 
 PERFIDY, THY NAME IS WOMAN! 217 
 
 out, as I shook her rickety erection of trestles and 
 boards. She was as red in the face as Birkenbog 
 himself, for a cur with a kettle tied to its tail had 
 taken refuge under her stall, and she had been serv- 
 ing a writ of ejectment with the same old umbrella 
 with which she whacked thievish boys and sheltered 
 her goods on rainy days. 
 
 But I heeded not. I was seeking solitude. I felt 
 that I wanted nothing from the entire clan of human 
 beings. I had lost all that I should ever really love. 
 Irma — Irma ! And here was I, settled for life with 
 one for whom I cared not a penny ! 
 
 By the time I had reached this stage, I had come 
 out upon the bare woods that mount the path by the 
 riverside. I came to the great holly, a cave of green 
 shade in summer, and now a warm shelter in these tall 
 solitudes of wattled branches standing purple and 
 black against the winter sky. 
 
 Ah, there was some one there already. I stepped 
 out again quickly, but not too fast to see that it was 
 Charlotte Anderson herself I had stumbled upon — 
 and that she xvas crying!
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 "then, heigh-ho, the molly I " 
 
 "Charlotte!" said I, taking in a sudden pity a 
 step nearer and holding out my hand; but she only 
 snatched her arm away fretfully and cried the more 
 bitterly. 
 
 "Has your father been speaking unkindly to you ? " 
 I asked her, being much surprised. 
 
 She shook her head, and a wet handkerchief plashed 
 on my hand like a sob as she shook it out. 
 
 " What is it, then ? " I asked, more and more amazed 
 at the turn things were taking. Never had I thought 
 for a moment that Charlotte would not be as pleased 
 and happy to have me as I was the reverse. 
 
 "Oh," she burst out at last, sobbing between each 
 hurried phrase, "I don't blame you, Duncan. It's 
 all that horrid old cat. Miss Seraphina — Diabolina, the 
 girls call her — she writes everything we do to our 
 people at home. She's alw^ays writing, and she spies 
 on us, too, and listens — opens our letters ! She has 
 brought all this on me " 
 
 "Brought what on you?" I inquired blankly. 
 
 "Having to marry you and all ! " she said, and had 
 recourse to her wet handkerchief again. But that 
 being altogether too sodden to afford her any relief, 
 she signalled to me, as if I had been Agnes Anne or 
 another girl, to pass her mine. Fortunately for once 
 I could do so without shame. For Miss Irma had 
 been teaching me things — or at least the desire to 
 appear well in her eyes. 
 
 Charlotte Anderson did not appear to notice, but 
 went on crying. 
 
 "And don't you want to marry me, Lottie? " I said 
 
 218
 
 *THEN, HEIGH-HO, THE MOLLY!' 219 
 
 softly, taking her hand. She let me now, perhaps 
 considered as the proprietor of the handkerchief. 
 
 "Of course I don't," said she. "Oh, how could I ? " 
 
 Now this, considered apart, was certainly hurtful to 
 my pride. For, having frequently considered my 
 person, as revealed in my mother's big Sunday mirror, 
 I thought that she could very well. On my side there 
 was certainly nothing to render the matter impossible. 
 Moreover, how about our walks and talks ! She had, 
 then, merely been playing with me. Oh, Perfidy, 
 thy name is Woman ! 
 
 I was silent and paused for an explanation. I soon 
 got it, considered as before, as the sympathetic owner 
 of the handkerchief. 
 
 "It's Tam Galaberry," she said, "my cousin, you 
 know, Duncan. He used to come to see me . . . be- 
 fore . . . before you ! But his sister went to Dum- 
 fries to learn the high-class millinery, and since then 
 Miss Seraphina cannot thole him. As if he had any- 
 thing to do with that. And she wrote home, and my 
 father threatened Tam to shoot him with the gun if 
 he came after me — all because we were cousins — and 
 only seconds at any rate. Oh-h-h-h ! What shall 
 I do ? " 
 
 I had to support Charlotte here — though merely as 
 handkerchief-holder and in the purest interests of the 
 absent Mr. Thomas Gallaberry. 
 
 But the relief to my own mind, in spite of the hurt 
 to my pride, was immediate and enormous. But a 
 thought leaped up in my heart which cooled me con- 
 siderably. 
 
 "Oh, Lottie," I said, as sadly as I could, "you have 
 been false and deceitful. You have come near to 
 breaking my heart " 
 
 "I ken I have — I ken I have!" she cried. "Oh, 
 can you ever forgive me ? "
 
 220 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "Only, Charlotte," I answered nobly, "because I 
 care for your happiness more than for my own ! " 
 
 "Oh, Duncan, but you are good!" She threw 
 herself into my arms. I really think she mistook me 
 for Agnes Anne for the moment. But any consola- 
 tions I applied were, as before, in the interests of Tarn 
 Gallaberry. 
 
 " I knew I was wicked and wrong all the time," 
 she said, "but when we walked out, you remember the 
 dyke we used to lean against " (she glanced up at me 
 with simple child-like eyes, tear-stained), "you must 
 remember? Well, one of the stones was loose. And 
 Tam used to put one letter there, and I took it out 
 and slid it in my pocket, and put mine back the same ! 
 Agnes Anne was looking the other way, of course, and 
 you — you " 
 
 "Was otherwise employed than thinking of such 
 deceit! " I said grandly. 
 
 "You were kissing me ! And I let you — for Tarn's 
 sake," Charlotte murmured, smiling. "Otherwise the 
 poor fellow would have had five miles to come that 
 next day, and I could not bear that he should not find 
 his letter ! " 
 
 "No! " I answered dryly, "it would certainly have 
 been a pity." 
 
 She looked at me curiously. 
 
 "Do you know," she said, "I always thought that 
 you were playing, too ! " 
 
 " Playing ! " I exclaimed tragically. " Is it possible ? 
 Oh, Lottie ! " 
 
 "Oh, I just thought it," she said remorsefully. "I 
 am sorry if it was true — if you do really care about 
 me so much — as all that ! " 
 
 I was still thinking of Tam Gallaberry. So appar- 
 ently was she. 
 
 Virtue is its own reward, and so is mutual consola-
 
 'THEN, HEIGH-HO, THE MOLLY!' 221 
 
 tion. It is very consoling. Half the happy love 
 stories in the world begin that way — just with telling 
 about the unhappy ones that went before. You take 
 my word for it — I^ Duncan MacAlpine, know what I 
 am talking about. Charlotte Anderson too. 
 
 So finally, after a while, I became very noble and 
 said what a fine thing it was to give up something 
 very precious for others. And I asked her if she could 
 think of anything much nobler than willingly to give 
 up as fine a girl as herself — Charlotte Anderson — for 
 the sake of Tam Gallaberry ? She thought av.'hile and 
 said she could not. 
 
 So I told her we must keep up appearances for a 
 time, till we had made our arrangements what to do. 
 Charlotte said that she had no objections as long as 
 Tam Gallaberry did not know. So I said that she 
 could write a long letter that very night, and give it 
 to Agnes Anne in the morning, and I would go out 
 to the stone, and put it underneath. 
 
 Then she cried, "Oh, will you ? " And thanked me 
 ever so sweetly, asking if, when I was about it, would 
 I bring back the one I found there and send it to her 
 by my sister, in another envelope — "just over the top, 
 you know, without breaking the seal. Because such 
 letters were sacred." 
 
 I said she need not trouble herself. I was only 
 doing all this for her sake. I did not want to see 
 what another man had to say to her ! 
 
 And, if you will believe me, she was delighted, and 
 said, "Now I know that you were not all pretending, 
 but do care for me a little wee bit ! " 
 
 Indeed, Charlotte was so delighted that it was per- 
 haps as well for the smooth flowing of their love story 
 that Tam Gallaberry was at that moment investigating 
 their joint post office. For Lottie was a generous girl 
 when her heart was moved, and though she kept the
 
 222 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 grand issues clear, she often confused details — as, for 
 instance, whether the handkerchief was mine or my 
 sister's, and whether I was myself or Tarn Gallaberry. 
 
 But I considered such slips as these pardonable at 
 twenty. At that age forgetfulness is easy. After- 
 wards the prison doors close, and now I am not mis- 
 taken for Tam Gallaberry any more — and what is 
 more, I don't want to be. However, after a while I 
 brought Charlotte to earth again, out of the exaltation 
 of our mutual self-sacrifice, by the reminder that at 
 that moment our fathers would be arranging as to our 
 joint future — and that without the least regard for our 
 present noble sentiments, or those of the happily 
 absent Mr. Thomas Gallaberry. 
 
 She got down and looked at me, affrighted, her lips 
 apart, and all panting like a bird newly ta'en in the 
 hand. 
 
 "Oh, Duncan," she cried, "you will help me, won't 
 you ? You see how fond I am of you ! " 
 
 I saw, exactly, but refrained from telling Her that 
 she had a strange way of showing it. 
 
 "I would do anything in the world for you," she 
 added, — "only I want to marry Tom. Ye see? I 
 have always meant to marry Tom ! So I can't help 
 it, can I?" 
 
 Her logic had holes in it, but her meaning was 
 starry clear. I thanked her, and said that the best 
 thing we could do was to take counsel together. 
 Which we did there under the shelter of the great 
 holly-bush. So much so that any one passing that way 
 might have taken us for foolish lovers, instead of two 
 people plotting how to get rid the one of the other. 
 
 What helped the illusion greatly was that it was a 
 cold day, with every now and then a few driving 
 flecks of snow. I had on a great rough Inverness 
 cloak of my father's, far too large for me. I asked
 
 'THEN, HEIGH-HO, THE MOLLY!' 223 
 
 Charlotte if she were warm. She said she was, but 
 did not persist too much in the statement. So we left 
 Tom Gallaberry out of the question, and set ourselves 
 to arrange what we were to say to our two fathers. 
 
 "It will be terrible hard to pretend ! " I said, shak- 
 ing my head. 
 
 "It will be a sin — at least, for long ! " she answered. 
 
 I exposed the situation. There was to be no imme- 
 diate talk of marriage. Even her father had allowed 
 that I must get through college first. He was to pay 
 my fees as a doctor. I did not want to be a doctor. 
 Besides, I could not take her father's money 
 
 Here Charlotte turned with so quick a flounce that 
 she nearly landed herself in the little gutter which I 
 had made with my stick to carry off the drainage of 
 the slope behind. 
 
 "Not take the money? Nonsense!" she cried. 
 "Father has more than he knows what to do with !" 
 
 She paused a while, finger on lip, meditating, the 
 double ply of calculation, stamped on her father's 
 brow, very strongly marked on hers. 
 
 "Look here, Duncan," she said caressingly, like a 
 grown woman wooing to get her own way, so deep her 
 voice was, "daddy is giving you that money because 
 you are going to marry me, isn't he?" 
 
 I signed, as well as I could, that Mr. Robert Ander- 
 son of Birkenbog considered himself as so doing. 
 
 She clapped her hands and cried out, as if she had 
 stumbled on the solution of some exceedingly difficult 
 problem, "Why, then, take the money and give it to 
 Tom! He needs it for his farm — oh, just dreadful. 
 He says the hill is not half stocked, and that a hundred 
 or two more ewes would just be the saving of him ! " 
 
 "But," said I, "I shall be entering into an agree- 
 ment with your father, and shall have to give him 
 receipts ! "
 
 224 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "Well," she continued boldly, "Thomas will enter 
 into an agreement with you, if he doesn't marry me — 
 that is, if I am left on your hands — he will pay you 
 the money back — or else give you the sheep ! " 
 
 It will hardly be believed the difficulty I had to 
 make Charlotte see the impossibility — nay, the dis- 
 honesty of an arrangement which appeared so simple 
 to her. She thought for a while that I was just doing 
 it out of jealousy, and she sulked. 
 
 I reasoned with her, but I might as well have 
 tried logic on the Gallaberry black-faced ewes. She 
 continued to revolve the project in her own 
 mind. 
 
 " Whatever you — I mean we — can get out of father 
 is to the good," she said. "He will never miss it. If 
 you don't, I will ask him for the money for your fees 
 myself and give it to Tom " 
 
 "If you do!" I cried in horror,— "oh— you don't 
 know what you are talking about, girl ! " 
 
 "You don't love me a bit," she said. "What would 
 it matter to you ? Besides, if it comes to giving a 
 receipt, I can imitate your signature to a nicety. 
 Agnes Anne says so." 
 
 "But, Charlotte, it would be forgery," I gasped. 
 "They hang people for forgery." 
 
 "No, they don't— at least, not for that sort," she 
 argued, her eyes very bright with the working of her 
 inward idea. "For how can it be forgery when it is 
 your name I write, and I've told you of it before- 
 hand? It's my father's money, isn't it, and he gives 
 it to you for marrying me ? Very well, then, it's yours 
 — no, I mean it's Tom's because he means to marry 
 me. At least I mean to marry him. Anyway, the 
 money is not my father's, because he gives it freely to 
 you (or Tom) for a certain purpose. Well, Tom is 
 going to be the one who will carry out that purpose.
 
 *THEN, HEIGH-HO, THE MOLLY!' 225 
 
 So the money is his. Therefore it's honest and no 
 forgery ! " 
 
 These arguments were so strong and convincing to 
 Charlotte that I did not attempt to discuss them 
 further, salving my conscience by the thought that 
 there remained his Majesty's post, and that a letter 
 addressed to her father at the Farmers' Ordinary 
 Room, in care of the King's Arms, would clear me of 
 all financial responsibility. But this I took care not 
 to mention to Lottie, because it might have savoured 
 of treachery and disturbed her. 
 
 On the other hand, I began urging her to find 
 another confidant than Agnes Anne. She would do 
 well enough for ordinary letters which I was to send 
 on to Cousin Tom. But she must not know they were 
 not for me. She must think that all was going on 
 well between us. This, I showed her, was a necessity. 
 Charlotte felt the need also, and suggested this girl 
 and that at Miss Seraphina Huntingdon's. But I 
 objected to all. I had to think quick, for some were 
 very nice girls, and at most times would have served 
 their country quite well. But I stuck to it that they 
 were too near head-quarters. They would be sure to 
 get found out by Miss Huntingdon. 
 
 " It is true," she meditated, " she is a prying old cat." 
 
 "I don't see anybody for it but Miss Irma, over at 
 my grandmother's ! " I said, boldly striking the blow 
 to which I had been so long leading up. 
 
 Charlotte gazed at me so long and so intently that 
 I was sure she smelt a rat. But the pure innocence 
 of my gaze, and the frank readiness with which I 
 gave my reasons, disarmed her. 
 
 "You see," I said, "she is the only girl quite out of 
 the common run to whom you have access. You can 
 go to Heathknowes as often as you like with Agnes 
 Q
 
 226 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Anne. Nobody will say a word. They will think it 
 quite natural — to hear the latest about me, you know. 
 Then when you are alone with Miss Irma, you can 
 burst into tears and tell her our secret " 
 
 <i 
 
 'All ?" she questioned, with strong emphasis. 
 
 "Well," I hastened to reply, "all that is strictly 
 necessary for a stranger to know— as, for instance, 
 that you don't want to marry me, and that / never 
 wanted to marry you " 
 
 "Oh," she cried, moving in a shocked, uneasy 
 manner, "but I thought you did ! " 
 
 "Well, but — ," I stammered, for I was momentarily 
 unhinged, "you see you must put things that way to 
 get Miss Irma to help us. She can do anything with 
 my father, and I believe she could with yours too if 
 she got a chance." 
 
 "Oh, no, she couldn't! " 
 
 "Well, anyway, she would serve us faithfully, so 
 long as we couldn't trust Agnes Anne. And you 
 know we agreed upon that. If you can ..think of 
 anything better, of course I leave it to you ! " 
 
 She sat a long while making up her mind, with a 
 woman's intuition that all the cards were not on the 
 table. But in the long run she could make no better 
 of it. 
 
 "Well, I will," she said; "I always liked her face, 
 and I don't believe she is nearly so haughty as people 
 make out." 
 
 "Not a bit, she isn't " I was beginning joyously, 
 
 when I caught Lottie's eye; "I mean — " I added 
 lamely, "a girl always understands another girl's 
 affairs, and will help if she can — unless she has herself 
 some stake in the game ! " 
 
 And in saying this, I believe that for once in a way 
 I hit upon a great and nearly universal truth.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 LOVE AND THE LOGICIAN 
 
 I KNEW that the Yule Fair was going on down in 
 the village, and that on account of it all Eden Valley 
 was in an uproar. The clamour was deafening at the 
 lower end of the "clachan," where most of the show 
 folk congregated. The rooks were cawing belatedly 
 in the tall ashes round the big square — into which, in 
 the old times of the Annandale thieves, the country 
 folk used to drive the cattle to be out of the way of 
 Johnstones and Jardines. 
 
 I skirted the town, therefore, so as not to meet with 
 the full blast of the riot. With such an unruly gang 
 about, I kept Charlotte Anderson well in sight till I 
 saw her safe into Miss Seraphina's. Of course, 
 nobody who knew her for a daughter of Fighting Rob 
 of Birkenbog would have laid hand upon her, but at 
 such a time there might be some who did not know 
 the repute of her father. 
 
 The great gong in front of the "Funny Folks" 
 booth went "Bang! bang! " Opposite, the fife and 
 drum spoke for the temple of the legitimate drama. 
 At the selling-stalls importunate vendors of tin-ware 
 rattled their stock-in-trade and roared at the world in 
 general, as if buyers could be forced to attend to the 
 most noisy — which, indeed, they mostly did. 
 
 From the dusky kennels in which the gipsies told 
 fortunes and mended the rush-bottomed chairs of the 
 Valley goodwives came over the wall a faint odour 
 of mouldy hay, which lingered for weeks about every 
 apartment to which any of their goods were admitted, 
 y 2 227
 
 228 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 As for me, I had had enough of girls for one day, 
 and I was wondering how best to cut across the fields, 
 take a turn about the town, and so get home to my 
 father's by the w'ood of pines behind the school, when 
 suddenly a voice dropped upon me that fairly stunned 
 me, so unexpected it was. 
 
 "Mr. Duncan MacAlpine," it said, "I congratulate 
 you on your choice of a father-in-law. You could not 
 have done better ! " 
 
 It w'as Miss Irma herself, taking a walk in a place 
 where at such a time she had no business to be — on 
 the little farm path that skirts the woods above the 
 town. Louis was with her, but I thought that in the 
 far distance I could discern the lounging shadow of 
 the faithful Eben. 
 
 I stood speechless straight before her, but she 
 passed on, lightly switching the crisped brown stalks 
 of last year's thistles with a little wand she had 
 brought. I saw that she did not mean to speak to me, 
 and I turned desperately to accompany her. 
 
 "I will thank you to pass your way," she said 
 sharply. "I am glad you are to have such a wife and 
 such a dowry. Also a father-in-law who will be at 
 the kind trouble of paying your college fees till you 
 are quite ready to marry his daughter. It is a thing 
 not much practised among gentlefolk, but, what with 
 being so much with your mantua-makers, you will 
 doubtless not know any better ! " 
 
 "Irma — Irma," I cried, not caring any more for 
 Eben, now in the nearer distance, "it is all a mistake 
 — indeed, a mistake from the beginning ! " 
 
 "Very possibly," she returned, with an airy haughti- 
 ness; "at any rate, it is no mistake of mine ! " 
 
 And there, indeed, she had me. I had perforce to 
 shift my ground.
 
 LOVE AND THE LOGICIAN 229 
 
 "I am not going to marry Charlotte iVnderson," I 
 said. 
 
 "Then the more shame of you to deceive her after 
 all ! " she cried. "It seems that you make a habit of 
 it ! Surely I am the last person to whom you ought 
 to boast of that ! " 
 
 "On the contrary, you are the first ! " 
 
 But she passed on her way, her head high, an in- 
 vincible lightness in the spring of every footstep, a 
 splash of scarlet berries making a star among her dark 
 hair, and humming the graceless lilt which told how — 
 
 "Willie's ga'en to Melville Castle, 
 Boots an' spurs an' a' — ! " 
 
 As for me, I was ready to sink deep into the ground 
 with despondency, wishful to rise never more. But I 
 stopped, and though Uncle Eben was almost opposite 
 to me, and within thirty yards, I called after her, "The 
 day will come, Irma Maitland, when you will be sorry 
 for the injustice you are doing ! " 
 
 For I thought of how she would feel when Charlotte 
 told about her cousin Tam Gallaberry and all that I 
 had done for them — though, indeed, it was mostly by 
 accident. Only I could trust Charlotte to keep her 
 thumb upon that part of it. 
 
 I did not know what she felt then, nor, perhaps, do 
 I quite know yet ; but she caught a tangle of wild cut- 
 leafed ivy from a tree on which I had long watched it 
 grow, and with a spray of small green leaves she 
 crowned herself, and so departed as she had come, 
 singing as if she had not a care in the world, or as if 
 I, Duncan MacAlpine, were the last and least of all. 
 
 And yet I judged that there might be a message for 
 me in that very act. She had escaped me, and yet 
 there was something warm in her heart in spite of all. 
 Perhaps, who knows, an angel had gone down and
 
 230 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 troubled the waters; nor did I think, somehow, that 
 any other would step in there before me. 
 
 After that I went down to see Fred Esquillant, who 
 listened with sad yet brilliant eyes to my tangled tale. 
 
 "You are the lucky one," I said, "to have nothing 
 to do with the lasses. See what trouble they lead you 
 into." 
 
 He broke out suddenly. 
 
 "Be honest, Duncan," he said, "if you must boast! 
 If you are bound to lie, let it not be to me. You 
 would not have it otherwise. You would not be as 
 I am, not for all the gold of earth. No " — he held his 
 breath a long while — "no, and I, if I had the choice, 
 would I not give all that I have, or am ever likely to 
 have, for — but no, I'm a silent Scot, and I canna 
 speak the word " 
 
 "I'm the other sort of Scot," I cried, "and I'll speak 
 it for you. Man, it's the first decent human thing I 
 have ever heard come out o' your mouth. You would 
 give all for LOVE ! " 
 
 "Oh, man," he cried, snatching his fingers to his 
 ears as if I blasphemed, "are ye not feared? " 
 
 "No, I'm not," I declared, truly enough; "what 
 for should I be feared ? Of a lassie ? Tell a lassie —   
 that ye — that ye " 
 
 "No, no," cried Fred Esquillant, "not again!" 
 
 "Well, then, that ye 'like' her — we will let it go 
 at that. She will want ye to say the other, but at 
 least that will do to begin on. And come, tell me 
 now, what's to hinder ye, Fred ? " 
 
 "Oh, everything," he said; "it's just fair shameless 
 the way folk can bring themselves to speak openly of 
 such-like things ! " 
 
 "And where would you have been, my lad, if once 
 on a day your faither had not telled your mither that 
 she was bonny? "
 
 LOVE AND THE LOGICIAN 231 
 
 "I don't know, and as little do I care," he cried. 
 
 "Well, then," said I, "there's Amaryllis — what 
 about her ? " 
 
 "That's Latin," said Fred, waving his arm. 
 
 "And there's Ruth, and the lass in the Song of 
 Solomon ! " 
 
 "That's in the Bible," he murmured, as if he 
 thought no better of the Sacred Word for giving a 
 place to such frivolities. 
 
 "Fred," I said, "tell me what you would be at? 
 Would you have all women slain like the babes of 
 Bethlehem, or must we have you made into a monk 
 and locked in a cell with only a book and an inkhorn 
 and a quill ? " 
 
 "Neither," he said; "but — oh, man, there is some- 
 thing awesome, coarse-grained and common in the 
 way the like o' you speak about women." 
 
 "Aye, do ye tell me that?" I said to try him; 
 "coarse, maybe, as our father Adam, when he tilled 
 his garden, and common as the poor humanity that 
 is yet of his flesh and blood." 
 
 "There ye go!" he cried; "I knew well that my 
 words were thrown away." 
 
 "Speak up, Mr. Lily Fingers," I answered; "let us 
 hear what sort of a world you would have without 
 love — and men and women to make it." 
 
 "It would be like that in which dwell the angels of 
 heaven — where there is neither marrying nor giving 
 in marriage ! " 
 
 "Well," said I, "speaking for myself and most lads 
 like me, we will mend our ways before we get a chance 
 of trying that far country ! And in the meantime 
 here we are — our feet in the mire, and our heads not 
 so very near the sky. Talk of angels — where are we 
 to get their society? And the likest to them that I 
 have ever heard tell of are just women — g )od women,
 
 232 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 innocent lasses, beginning to feel the stir of their own 
 power — and all the better and the stronger are they 
 for that ! Oh, Fred, I saw an angel within the last 
 half-hour ! There she stood, her eyes shooting 
 witcheries, poised for flight like a butterfly, the 
 dimples playing hide-and-seek on her face, and her 
 whole soul and body saying to the sons of men, 
 ' Come, seek me on your knees — you know you can't 
 help loving me ! It is very good for you to worship 
 me!" 
 
 "And you are not ashamed, Duncan MacAlpine, 
 to speak such words ? " 
 
 "Oh, ye Lallan Scot!" I cried; "ye Westland 
 stot I Is there no hot blood of the Celt in you ? What 
 brought you to Galloway, where the Celt sits on every 
 hill-top, names every farm and lea-rig, and lights his 
 Baal-fires about the standing stones on St. John's 
 Eve?" 
 
 "Man," said Fred, shaking his head, "I aye thought 
 ye were a barbarian. Now I know it. If you had 
 your way, you would raid your neighbours' women- 
 folk and bring them in by the hair of their heads, 
 trailing them two at a time. For me, I worship them 
 like stars, standing afar off." 
 
 "Aye," said I, "that would be a heap of use to the 
 next generation, and the lasses themselves would like 
 it wee! ! " 
 
 But what Freddy Esquillant said about the next 
 generation was unworthy of him, and certainly shall 
 not sully this philosophic page^ Besides, he spake in 
 his haste. 
 
 All the same, I noticed that, if ever any of the stars 
 came near to his earth, it would be a certain very 
 moderately brilliant planet, bearing the name of Agnes 
 Anne or, more scientifically, MacAlpine Minima, 
 which woul 1 attract Master Fred's reluctant worship.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE AVALANCHE 
 
 And now there was a second and longer probation 
 in that gaunt town of Edinburgh, without any minia- 
 ture to He beside me on my work-table like a tickless 
 watch, and help along the weary hours. And though 
 the session before I had thought but little of the letters 
 (and indeed there was nothing in them), yet this time 
 there were none at all, which suited me far worse. 
 For, as it seemed, the mere sight of the hand-of- 
 write w^ould have cheered me. 
 
 Henceforward I could only learn, as it w-ere, by 
 ricochet what was going on. My grandmother never 
 set pen to paper. Her tongue to guide was trouble 
 enough to her without setting down words on paper 
 to rise up in judgment against her. True, my father 
 wrote regularly to inquire if my professor had any 
 new light on the high things of Plato, the Iberian 
 flavour in Martial's Epigrams, and such like subjects 
 which were better fitted to interest a learned dominie 
 who had lost the scholar of his choice than to 
 comfort a young fellow who has only lost his sweet- 
 heart. 
 
 For her part Agnes Anne wrote me reams about 
 Charlotte, but never mentioned a word as to the Mait- 
 lands, though she did say that Charlotte was a good 
 deal at Heathknowes, and (a trifle spitefully, perhaps) 
 that she did not know what took her there unless it 
 were to see Uncle Rob ! This poor Uncle Rob of 
 ours — his reputation was in everybody's mouth, cer- 
 tainly. He had been, so they said, a runagate, a 
 
 233
 
 234 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 night-raker, and in the days of his youth a trifle wild. 
 But now with the shadows of forty deepening upon 
 him, it was not fair that all the hot blood of his teens 
 and twenties should rise up in judgment against 
 him. Still so it was. And the reason of it was, he 
 had not, as he ought, married and settled. For which 
 sin of omission, as the gossips of Eden Valley said, 
 "there was bound to be a reason ! " 
 
 Charlotte herself did not send a line, excepting 
 always the letters I was to forward to Tom Galla- 
 berry at his farm of Ewebuchts on the Water of Ae. 
 This at the time I judged unkind, but afterwards I 
 found that Cousin Tom had insisted upon it, on the 
 threat of going to her father and telling him the whole 
 affair. For, in spite of all, Cousin Thomas was 
 jealous — as most country lads are of college-bred 
 youths, and he pinned Charlotte carefully down in 
 her correspondence. However, I made him pay his 
 own postages, which was a comfort, and as Agnes 
 Anne and often my father would slip their letters into 
 the same packet, after all I had only the extra weight 
 to pay. 
 
 Still, I did think that some of them might have told 
 me something of Irma. But none did, till one great 
 day I got a letter — from whom think you ? I give 
 you fifty guesses — well, from my Aunt Jen. And it 
 contained more than all the rest put together, though 
 all unconsciously, and telling me things that I might 
 have gone a long time ignorant of — if she had 
 suspected for a moment I was keen about them. 
 
 Hcathknotues, this the thirteenth Aprile. 
 
 "Dear Nephew Duncan, 
 
 "Doubtless you will be having so many letters 
 that you will not be caring for one from a cross auld
 
 THE AVALANCHE 235 
 
 maid, who is for ever finding fault with you when 
 ye are at home. But who, for all that, does not for- 
 get to bear ye up in the arms of her petitions before 
 the Throne — no, night and morning both. 
 
 "This is writ to tell you that I have sent ye, by 
 the wish of my mither, one cheese of seven pounds 
 w^eight good, as we are hearing that you are thinking 
 to try and find something to do in Edinburgh during 
 the summer time. Which will be an advisable thing, 
 if it be the Lord's will — for faint-a-hait do ye do here 
 except play ill pranks and run the country. 
 
 "However, what comes o't we shall see. Also there 
 is a pig of butter. It may be the better of a trifle 
 more salt, that is, if the weather is onyway warm. 
 So I have put in a little piece of board and ye can 
 work the salt in yourself. Be a good lad, and mind 
 there are those here that are praying for ye to be 
 guided aright. Big towns are awful places for 
 temptation by what they say, and that ye are about 
 the easiest specimen to be tempted, that I have yet 
 seen with these eyes. Howsomever, maybe ye will 
 have gotten grace, or if not that, at least a pickle 
 common-sense, whilk often does as well — or better. 
 
 "It's a Guid's blessing that ye have been led to 
 stop where ye are. For that lassie Charlotte Ander- 
 son is going on a shame to be seen. Actually she is 
 never off our doorstep — fleeing and rinning all hours 
 of the day. At first I thought to mysel', it was to 
 hear news of you. But she kens as weel as us when 
 the posts come in, besides the letters she gets from 
 Agnes Anne — some that cost as muckle as sevenpence 
 — a ruination and a disgrace ! " [Tom Gallaberry must 
 have been prolix that week.] "Then I thought it was 
 maybe some of the lads — for, like it or no, ye had 
 better ken soon as syne, that maiden's e'e is filled
 
 236 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 with vanity and the gauds o' grandeur, disdaining 
 the true onputting of a meek and quiet spirit ! 
 
 "But, for your comfort, if ye are so far left to your- 
 self as to take comfort in the like— and the bigger fool 
 you— it is no the lads after all. It's just Irma Mait- 
 land! 
 
 "I declare they two are never sindry. They will 
 be out talk-talking, yatter-yattering when the kye 
 are being milked in the morning. Irma makes her 
 carry the water, that's one comfort. But I wonder 
 at that silly auld clocking hen, Seraphina Hunting- 
 don. It's a deal of work she will be getting, but I 
 suppose the premium pays for all, and she will not 
 care a farthing now that Charlotte's market is made. 
 Not that I would trust you (or any student lad) the 
 length of my stirabout potstick — or indeed (not to 
 shame my own father) anything that wears hose and 
 knee-breeches. And maybe that's the reason every 
 silly birkie thinks he has the right to cast up to me 
 that I am an auld maid. Faith, there's few that wear 
 the wedding ring with whom I would change places. 
 But what of that ? 
 
 "The folk are all well here, both bairns and grown 
 folk, and we will be blithe to hear from you, and if 
 you have the time to send a scraps of your pen to 
 your auld maiden aunt, that mony a time (though 
 Lord knows not half often enough) has garred your 
 lugs ring for your misdeeds — she will be pleased to 
 hear if the butter and cheese were some kitchen to 
 your tasteless town's bread. 
 
 "Your obdt. servt. and affectionate aunt, 
 
 "Janet Lyon." 
 
 From this information I hoped great things — at 
 least a letter demanding pardon from Irma, or an 
 account of how she had confessed all from that grace-
 
 THE AVALANCHE 237 
 
 less and thankless forgetful besom Charlotte. But I 
 heard nothing further till, one day going past after 
 another, about a twelvemonth after amazing word 
 came. It was when I was busy with some literary 
 work I had gotten from one of the printers in the 
 town — correcting proofs and looking out for mis- 
 spellings in the compositions of an eminent hand. 
 I will be plain — it was poor work, and as poorly 
 paid. But I could live on it, and in any case it was 
 better than slaving at tutoring. That is, as tutoring 
 was at that time in Edinburgh — a dull boy whom 
 none could make anything of, insolent servants, 
 sneering elder sisters and a guinea a month to pay 
 for all. However, I tried it and made some of them 
 stop sneering — at least the sisters. 
 
 I was, I say, in the Rankeillor Street lodgings and 
 Amelia was going out at the door with my tea-things 
 — as usual calling me names for "idling within 
 doors " when Fred was out at his classes. Freddie 
 had private permission from one of the professors to 
 read in his library, so often did not come home till 
 late. But I stuck to my arm-chair and my printer's 
 slips like a burr to homespun. Suddenly there was 
 a great noise on the stairs. "There," cries Amelia, 
 "that's one of your countrymen, or I'm no judge of 
 the Galloway bray ! " 
 
 For, as I have indicated before, Amelia was far 
 from imitating her mother's English politeness. 
 
 The next moment the front door was driven in with 
 a mighty brange against the wall (for Amelia had 
 been out the moment before on the landing to throw 
 some turnip-tops on the ash "backet"). A huge man 
 in many swathes of riding-coat dashed in and caught 
 me by the throat. Amelia had the two-pronged 
 carving fork in her hand, and seeing her mother's 
 lodger (as she thought) in danger of being choked to
 
 238 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 death, without having regulated his week's bill, she 
 threw herself upon my assailant and struck vehe- 
 mently with the fork. 
 
 The huge man in the many capes doubtless suffered 
 no grievous harm. It had hardly been possible for 
 a pistol-ball to penetrate such an armature, but still 
 the sudden assault from behind, and perhaps some 
 subtle feminine quality in Amelia's screams, made 
 him turn about to see what was happening. 
 
 The man was Fighting Anderson of Birkenbog 
 himself, and he kept crying, "Where have you hidden 
 her, rascal, thief? I will kill you, villain of a 
 scribbler ! It was because you were plotting this that 
 you dare not show your face in the country ! " 
 
 But every time he threw himself upon me, Amelia, 
 who did not want for spunk, dug at him with the two- 
 pronged fork, and stuck it through so many plies of 
 his mantle till he was obliged to cry out, "Here, 
 lassie, lay down that leister, or ye will hae me like 
 miller Tamson's riddle, that the cat can jump through 
 back-foremost." 
 
 After adjusting his coat collar he turned to me and 
 demanded, in a more sensible and quiet way, what 
 had become of his daughter. 
 
 At the question, Amelia went into one of her foolish 
 fits of laughter and cried out, "What, anither of 
 them ? " 
 
 Whereupon to prevent misunderstandings, I ex- 
 plained that the young lady was my landlady's 
 daughter, and a friend of Freddy Esquillant's. 
 
 "Oh, you students," he said, and sat down to wipe 
 his brow, having seen from the most cursory examina- 
 tion of our abode, wholly open to the view, and 
 exiguous at the best, that certainly Charlotte was not 
 hidden there.
 
 THE AVALANCHE 239 
 
 "She left home three days syne as if to go to Miss 
 Huntingdon's," he said, "and ever since her mother 
 has gone from one hysleric to another. So, icnowing 
 nothing better to do, and maybe judging you by 
 myself in my own young days (for which I am sure 
 I ask your pardon) I started out to make sure that 
 everything had been done decently and in order. 
 Though as sure as my name is Robert Anderson, I 
 cannot think why you did not come and wed the lass 
 decently at home " 
 
 We were at this point in our explanation, Amelia's 
 ear was (doubtless) close to the back of the door, and 
 Birkenbog was relapsing into his first belief, when 
 I heard the key in the lock and the light foot of 
 Freddy in the passage. 
 
 It came as a huge relief, for here was my witness. 
 
 He entered, and, seeing the visitor, bowed and 
 deposited his books in the corner. He was for going 
 out again, doubtless thinking that Charlotte's father 
 and I were at business together. So, indeed, we were 
 — but not such as I wished to keep anyways private 
 between us. I could not, with any self-respect, go on 
 depending any longer on Amelia's two-pronged fork. 
 
 So I said, "Freddy, bear me witness that I have not 
 been out of the house this week, except to go to the 
 printer's with my work " 
 
 "Fegs," cried a voice through the jar of the door^ 
 "there is no need for Freddy to bear ye out in that. 
 You have only to look at the carpet under the legs 
 of your chair. It has gotten a tairgin', as if all the 
 hosts of King Pharaoh had trampled over it down 
 to the Red Sea ! " 
 
 But I would not keep the old man any longer in 
 suspense. 
 
 "I fear, Birkenbog," I said, "that you have given.
 
 240 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 yourself a bootless journey. From what I suspect, 
 your flown bird will be nested nearer home." 
 
 "Where?" he cried; "tell me the scoundrel's 
 name." 
 
 "Fairly and soothly, Birkenbog," said I, "peace 
 is best among near friends — not to speak of kins- 
 folk ! " 
 
 "Aye," said he, "fairly and soothly be it! But 
 I have to ken first that it is fairly and soothly. Who 
 is the man ? " 
 
 "I do not know for certain," I said, "but I have 
 every reason to believe that your daughter is at this 
 moment Mistress Thomas Gallaberry of Ewebuchts, 
 on the Water of Ae ! " 
 
 "Oh, the limmer," he cried, and started up as if to 
 fly at me again. His face was indeed a study. First 
 there appeared the usual hot wrath, overlapping in 
 ruddy fold on fold, and revealing the owner's full- 
 fed intent to punish. This gradually gave way to a 
 look of humorous appreciation, and then all of a 
 sudden, he slapped his thigh in an agony of joyous 
 appreciation. 
 
 "Oh, the limmer," he cried, "only a week since 
 my kinsman Tam Gallaberry asks me brave and 
 canny for the lend of five hundred to stock his Back 
 Hill. He offered decent enough security, and as 
 usual I took Charlotte's opinion on the business. 
 For it's her that has the great head for the siller. 
 Oh yes, she has that. And as soon as they gat the 
 tocher, he's off' wi' the lassie. Certes, but he is the 
 cool hand." 
 
 "If you allow me to judge, I should say the cool 
 hand was Charlotte ! " I ventured. 
 
 "Right, man," he cried, "little do I doubt it ! Tam 
 Gallaberry has led a grey mare to his stable that will
 
 THE AVALANCHE 241 
 
 prove the better horse, and that he will ken before he 
 is a fortnight older." 
 
 Then he turned upon me, short and sharp. 
 "You have kenned this some while, I'm 
 jaloosin' ? " 
 
 "Yes," said I, for I felt that he might have me awk- 
 wardly trapped if he went on, "that is one of the 
 reasons why I did not come home. I knew that 
 Charlotte had made up her mind never to marry 
 
 me " 
 
 "And ye took it like that?" he cried; "man, ye 
 havena muckle spunk ! " 
 
 "It was not generally so thought at the time of the 
 assault on the great house of Marnhoul," I answered; 
 "and indeed I remember one old gentleman about 
 your figure, with a white crape over his nose, that 
 shook me by the hand and took my name down in 
 
 his book " 
 
 " Wheesht — wheeslit," he said, looking about un- 
 easily, "siccan things are better never minted so close 
 to the Parliament House where bide the Red 
 Fifteen ! " 
 
 "Well," said I, "that's as may be, but I cannot 
 have it said by you or any man that I lack spunk ! " 
 
 "Oh," said he, "though I never was troubled that 
 gate mysel' — there's mony a bold man has turned 
 hen-hearted when it came to a question of the lasses. 
 There's Freddy here, one wad never think it of him, 
 but there has he gotten yon lass that nearly did for 
 me with her twa-pronged fork. She's a smart hizzy, 
 and will make a lively wife to some man. But I 
 maun e'en be riding back to put a question or so to 
 the man that has stown awa' my bit ewe-lamb and 
 put her in fold by the Water of Ae." 
 
 At that moment Amelia came in with a triumphant 
 
 R
 
 242 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 smile. "It's a laddie from the post, and he winna 
 gie up the letter unless you pay him sevenpence for 
 postage dues and a penny for himself ! " 
 
 "There's the sevenpence, and clash the door in 
 his face ! " 1 cried. For I was bravely well ac- 
 quainted with the exigencies of these post-ofhce 
 "keelies." 
 
 But Birkenbog, who was in good humour at the 
 way he had been done by his daughter, threw a 
 handful of copper "bodies" across the table to 
 Amelia. 
 
 "There's for the messenger!" he said. And I 
 could see that he looked at the letter when it came 
 with some anxiety. 
 
 As I supposed, it was from Charlotte, and the thin- 
 nest and least bulky of her billets that had ever come 
 up these stairs. I handed it across to him, where he 
 sat newly glooming at me. 
 
 "Open it! " I said. 
 
 "Since when has Robert Anderson of Birkenbog 
 taken to opening letters addressed to other men ? " 
 
 "Never heed — not till this very minute, maybe. 
 Open that one, at any rate ! " And I ran my finger 
 along the sealed edge. 
 
 This was Charlotte's letter to me. 
 
 From our home at Ewebiichts, Tuesday. 
 
 "Dear Duncan, 
 
 " How can we ever make it up to you ? We 
 were married yesterday by Mr. Torrance, the 
 minister at Ouarrelwood, and came home here in 
 time for the milking of the cows. My father has 
 kindly given my Thomas five hundred on account 
 of my marriage portion, but he does not know it yet. 
 I left all well. Thomas joins in kind messages to all
 
 THE AVALANCHE 243 
 
 inquiring friends. He is looking over my shoulder 
 now, as perhaps you may be already aware from the 
 style of composition. 
 
 "Yours truly, 
 
 "Charlotte Gallaberry. 
 
 "P.S. — Oh, I forget to tell you, it will be as well 
 to barricade your door. For I left word with one of 
 the servant lasses that I was off to Edinburgh. Father 
 will likely call to see you, and he is sure to have with 
 him the whip wherewith he downed the highwayman. 
 But I know well your bravery, and do sincerely thank 
 you for all you may have to undergo for me. 
 
 "Charlotte." 
 
 "Humph," said her father, as he flung it across 
 the table to me, "in my opinion ye are well shut of 
 her ! She will twist that Tam Gallaberry round her 
 finger and then — whizz — she will make him spin like 
 a peerie ! " 
 
 He rose, and without any adieus stamped his way 
 down the stairs, sniffing as he went at every landing. 
 We stood at the window watching his progress along 
 the street — capes swaying, broad bonnet of blue 
 cocked at an angle on top, red double-chinned face 
 looking straight ahead. Amelia came over to my 
 shoulder and looked too. 
 
 But all she said was, "And now, when it's past and 
 gone, will ye tell me if Yon is what you learned folk 
 caa' an avalanche ? " 
 
 R 2
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE VANISHING LADY 
 
 During the next three years (and that is a long 
 driech time) I made many excuses for not going down 
 to Eden Valley. I cannot say whether I managed to 
 get myself believed or not. But the fact of the matter 
 is, that, as things were, I could not bring myself to 
 face Irma again and so bring back the pain. My 
 father had come up to see me twice. Once he had 
 brought my mother, of whom Mrs. Craven had made 
 much, recognizing a kindred refinement of spirit. But 
 Amelia and my Aunt Jen (who came at the time of 
 the General Assembly) learned to respect one another 
 — all the more that they had been highly prejudiced 
 before meeting. 
 
 "She seems a weel-doing lass, wi' no feery-faries 
 aboot her ! " declared my aunt, speaking of Amelia 
 Craven. While that young woman, delivering her 
 mind after the departure of Miss Janet Lyon, declared 
 that she was a "wiselike woman and very civil — but 
 I'll wager she came here thinking that I was wanting 
 ye. Faith, no, I wadna marry any student that 
 ever stepped in leather — / ken ower muckle ahoot 
 them!'' 
 
 "There's Freddie ! " I suggested. 
 
 "Oh," said Amelia shortly, "he's different, I allow. 
 But then, there's a medium. One doesna want a man 
 with his nose aye in a book. But one that, when ye 
 spit at him, will spit back ! " 
 
 "Try me!" I said, daring her in conscious 
 
 security. 
 
 244
 
 THE VANISHING LADY 245 
 
 "Goliah of Oath," cried she, "but I wad be sair left 
 to mysel' ! " 
 
 We continued, however, to be pretty good friends 
 always, and in a general way she knew about Irma. 
 She had seen ^ the oval miniature lying on the table. 
 She had also closely interrogated Freddy, and lastly 
 she had charged me with the fact, which I did not 
 deny. 
 
 Freddy was now assistant to the professor of 
 Humanity, which is to say of the Latin language, 
 while besides my literary work on the Universal 
 Review I was interim additional Under-secretary to 
 the University Court. In both which positions, 
 literary and secretarial, I did the work for which 
 another man pocketed the pay. 
 
 But after all I was not ill-off. One way and another 
 I was making near on to a hundred pounds a year, 
 which was a great deal for the country and time, and 
 more than most ministers got in country parts. I 
 wrote a great many very learned articles, though I 
 signed none. I even directed foreign affairs in the 
 Review, and wrote the most damaging indictments 
 against "the traditional policy of the house of 
 Austria." 
 
 Then the other man, the great one in the public eye, 
 he who paid me — put in this and that sonorous phrase, 
 full of echoing emptiness, launched an antithesis 
 which had done good service a time or two on the 
 hustings or in the House of Commons, and — signed 
 the article. Well, I do not object. That was what I 
 was there for, and after all I made myself necessary 
 to the Universal Review. It would never have 
 appeared in time but for me. I verified quotations, 
 continued articles that were too short by half-a-dozen 
 pages, found statistics where there were blanks in the
 
 246 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 manuscript, invented them if I could not find them, 
 generally bullied the printers and proof-readers, saw 
 to the cover, and never let go till the "Purple-and- 
 Green," as we were called, was for sale on all the 
 counters and speeding over Britain in every post- 
 boy's leathers. 
 
 Now one of my employers (the best) lived away 
 among the woods above Corstorphine and another out 
 at the Sciennes — so between them I had pretty long 
 tramps — not much in the summer time when nights 
 hardly existed, but the mischief and all when for 
 weeks the sun was an unrealized dream, and even the 
 daylight only peered in for a morning call and then 
 disappeared. 
 
 But at the time of which I write the days were 
 lengthening rapidly. I was deep in our spring number 
 of the Universal. Only the medical students were 
 staying on at the University, and the Secretary's 
 spacious of!ice could safely be littered with all sort of 
 printing debris. My good time was beginning. 
 
 Well, in one of my walks out to Corstorphine, I 
 was aware, not for the first time, of the figure of a 
 girl, carefully veiled, that at my approach — we were 
 always meeting one another — slipped aside into a 
 close. I thought nothing of this for the first two or 
 three times. But the fourth, I conceived there was 
 something more in it than met the eye. So I made 
 a detour, and, near by the end of George Street — 
 unfinished at that time like all the other streets in that 
 new neighbourhood — I met my vanishing lady face 
 to face as she emerged upon the Queensferry Road. 
 She had lifted her veil a little in order the better to 
 pick her way among the building and other materials 
 scattered there. 
 
 It was Irma — Irma Maitland herself, grown into a
 
 THE VANISHING LADY 247 
 
 woman, her eyes brighter, her cheeks paler, the same 
 Irma though different — with a fittle startled look cer- 
 tainly, but now not proud any more, and — looking 
 every day of her twenty-two years. 
 
 "Irma ! " I gasped, barring the way. 
 
 She stopped dead. Then she clutched at her skirt, 
 and said feverishly, "Let me pass, sir, or I shall call 
 for help ! " 
 
 "Call away," I answered cheerfully. "I will only 
 say that you have run off from the home which 
 has sheltered you for many years, and that your 
 friends are very anxious about you. Where are you 
 staying? " 
 
 I glanced at her black dress. It was not mourning 
 exactly, but then Irma never did anything like any 
 one else. A fear took me that it might be little Louis 
 who was dead, and yet for the life of me I dared not 
 ask, knowing how she loved the child. 
 
 When I asked where she was staying, she plucked 
 again at her skirt, lifting it a little as when she was 
 being challenged to run a race. But seeing no way 
 clear, she answered as it were under compulsion, 
 "With my Aunt Kirkpatrick at the Nun's House! " 
 
 At first I had the fear that this might prove to be 
 some Catholic place like the convent to which she had 
 been sent in Paris. But it turned out to be only a fine 
 old mansion, standing by itself in a garden with a 
 small grey lodge to it, far out on the road to the Dean. 
 
 "Take me there!" I said, "for I must tell my 
 grandmother what I have seen of you, or she will be 
 up here by the coach red and angry enough to dry 
 up the Nor' Loch ! " 
 
 Irma walked by my side quite silent for a while, 
 and I led her cunningly so as not to get too soon to 
 our destination. I knew better than to ask why she
 
 248 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 had left Heathknowes. If I let her alone, she would 
 soon enough begin to defend herself. And so it 
 was. 
 
 "The lawyers took Louis away to put him to a 
 school here," she said. "It was time. I knew it, but 
 I could not rest down there without him. So I came 
 also. I left them all last Wednesday. Your grand- 
 mother came herself with me to Dumfries, and there 
 we saw the lawyers. They had not much to say to 
 
 your grandmother, while she " 
 
 "I understand," said I; "she had a great deal to 
 say to them ! " 
 
 Irma nodded, and for the first time faintly smiled. 
 "Yes," she answered, "the little old man in the 
 flannel dressing-gown, of whom you used to tell us, 
 forgot to poke the fire for a long time ! " 
 
 "So you left them all in good heart about your 
 coming away?" I said. 
 
 "Oh, the good souls," she cried, weeping a little at 
 the remembrance, "never will I see the like till I am 
 back there again. I think they all loved me — even 
 your Aunt Jen. She gave me her own work-basket 
 and a psalm book bound in black leather when I came 
 away." 
 
 And at the remembrance she wept afresh. 
 "I must stop this," she said, dabbing her eyes with 
 a very early-April smile, "my Aunt Kirkpatrick will 
 think it is because of meeting you. She is always free 
 with her imagination, my Lady Kirkpatrick — a clever 
 woman for all that — only, what is it that you say, 
 ' hard and fyky ! ' She has seen many great people 
 and kings, and was long counted a great beauty with- 
 out anything much coming of it." 
 
 I thought I would risk changing the subject to 
 what was really uppermost in my mind.
 
 THE VANISHING LADY 249 
 
 "And Charlotte?" I ventured, as blandly as I 
 could muster. 
 
 " I wonder you are not shamed ! " she said, with a 
 glint in her eye that hardly yet expressed complete 
 forgiveness. "I know all about that. And if you 
 think you can come to me bleating like a sore wronged 
 and innocent lamb, you are far mistaken ! " 
 
 So this was the reason of her long silence. Char- 
 lotte had babbled. I might have known. Still, I could 
 not charge my conscience wdth anything very grave. 
 After all, the intention on both sides — Charlotte's as 
 well as mine, — had been of the best. She wanted to 
 marry her Tam of the Ewebuchts, which she had 
 managed — I, to wed Irma, from which I was yet as 
 far off as ever. 
 
 So I made no remark, but only walked along in a 
 grieved silence. It was not very long till Irma re- 
 marked, a little viciously, but with the old involun- 
 tary toss of her head which sent all her foam-light 
 curls dipping and swerving into new effects and 
 combinations — so that I could hardly take my eyes 
 off her — *' Would you like to hear more about 
 Charlotte ? " 
 
 "Yes ! " said I boldly. For I knew the counter for 
 her moods, which was to be of the same, only 
 stronger. 
 
 "Well, she has two children, and when the second, 
 a boy, was born, she claimed another five hundred 
 pounds from her father to stock a farm for him — the 
 old man called it ' a bonny bairn-clout ' for our 
 Lottie's Duncan ! " 
 
 "What did you say the bairn's name was? " 
 "Duncan — after you!" This with an air of 
 triumph, very pretty to see. 
 
 "And the elder, the girl?" I asked— though, in-
 
 250 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 deed, that I knew — from the old letters of my Aunt 
 Jen. 
 
 "Irma ! " she answered, some little crestfallen. 
 
 "After you?" 
 
 She had barely time to nod when we passed in at 
 the lodge gate of the Nun's House. The old porter 
 came to the gate to make his reverence, and no doubt 
 to wonder who the young lady, his mistress's kins- 
 woman, had gotten home with her. 
 
 I found the Lady Kirkpatrick — Lady by courtesy, 
 but only known thus by all her circle — to be a little 
 vivid spark of a white-haired woman, sitting on a sofa 
 dressed in the French fashion of forty years ago, and 
 with a small plume of feathers in a jewelled turban 
 that glittered as she moved. At first she was kind 
 enough to me. 
 
 "Hey, Master-of-Arts Duncan MacAlpine, this is 
 a bonny downcome for your grandfather's son, and 
 you come of decent blood up in Glen Strae — to be 
 great with the Advocate, and scribbling his blethers ! 
 A sword by your side would have suited ye better, 
 I'm thinking ! " 
 
 "Doubtless, my lady," I answered, "if such had 
 been my state and fortune. Nevertheless, I can take 
 a turn at that too, if need be." 
 
 "Aha, ye have not lost the Highland conceit, in 
 drawing water from the wells of Whiggery ! " 
 
 "If I mistake not," I replied, "your ladyship did 
 not care to bide always about a king's court when she 
 had the chance." 
 
 For I knew her history, as did everybody in Edin- 
 burgh — a little gossiping town at that time — now, 
 they say, purged of scandal — which is a Heaven's 
 miracle if ever there was one. 
 
 "Och, hear him ! " she cried, throwing up her fan
 
 THE VANISHING LADY 251 
 
 with a jerk to the end of its tether with a curious 
 flouting disdain, "poHtics are very well when it is 
 ' Have at them, my merry men a' ! ' But after, when 
 all is done and laid on the shelf like broken bairns'- 
 plaiks, better be a Whig in the West Bow than a 
 Jesuit in a king's palace abroad ! " 
 
 And, like enough (so at least it was whispered), the 
 choice had been offered her. 
 
 Then all in a moment she turned to me with a 
 twinkle in her eye that was hardly less than impish. 
 Indeed, I may say that she flew at me much like an 
 angry wasp when a chance of your walking-stick stirs 
 its nest. 
 
 "It's prophesied," she said, "that some day a Kirk- 
 patrick of Closeburn will be greater than a queen. 
 For me it was, ' Thank you kindly ! I would rather 
 dwell in the Nun's House of the Dean than possess 
 the treasures of Egypt ! ' But this lass is a Kirk- 
 patrick too, though only through her grandmother, 
 and I troth it may be her that's to wear the crown. 
 At any rate, mind you, no dominie's son with his 
 fingers deep in printer's ink, and in the confidence of 
 our little Advocate that rideth on the white horse — 
 only it's a powny — must venture any pretensions " 
 
 "You mistake me," said I, suddenly very dignified, 
 "my family " 
 
 "Fiddlesticks," cried the old lady; "there's Bellman 
 Jock wha's faither was a prince o' the bluid. But 
 what the better is he o' that ? Na, na, there's to be 
 no trokin', nor eyesdropping, nor yet slipping of 
 notes into itching palms, nor seeing one another to 
 doors ! — Och, aye, I ken the gait o't fine. Mony is 
 the time I have seen it travelled. This young leddy is 
 for your betters, sirrah, and being but the son of a 
 village dominie, and working for your bread among
 
 252 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 Leein' Johnny's hundred black men in Padiament 
 Close, ye may — an it please ye, and if ye please, gie 
 this door a wide gae-by. For if ye come a second 
 time, Samuel Whan, the porter, will have his orders 
 to steek the yett in your face ! " 
 
 "Madame," said I, very fine, "it shall not be done 
 twice ! " 
 
 I stole a glance at Irma, who was standing with 
 her face white and her lips trembling. 
 
 "No," said she, "nor yet once. I came here at your 
 request. Aunt Kirkpatrick. For years and years my 
 brother and I have sorned on the family of this gentle- 
 man — you yourself grant he is that " 
 
 "No such thing!" snapped my lady Kirkpatrick, 
 "gentleman indeed — a newsmonger's apprentice! 
 That's your gentrice ! " 
 
 "We dwelt there, my brother and I," Irma went 
 on, "none of my family troubling their heads or 
 their purses about us, yet without a plack we were 
 treated as brother and sister by all the family." 
 
 "Be off, then, with your brother, since you are 
 so fond of him ! " cried the fiery old lady, rising 
 with a long black cane in her hand, a terrier yelp- 
 ing and snapping at her heels. "I am for London 
 next week, and I cannot be at the chairge of a 
 daft hempie, especially one of such low, common 
 tastes." 
 
 At these words, so unexpected and uncalled for, 
 Irma put out her hand and took mine. She spoke 
 very gently. 
 
 "Duncan," she said, "we are not wanted here. Let 
 us be going ! " 
 
 "But — Irma ! " I gasped, for even then I would 
 
 take no advantage. "Whither shall I conduct you? 
 Have you other friends in Edinburgh ? "
 
 THE VANISHING LADY 253 
 
 "Before a minister ! " she said. "That will be best. 
 I have no friends but you ! " 
 
 "Aye, there ye are!" cried the old lady, "I was 
 sure there was something at the back of this sudden 
 flight to Edinburgh. The dear little brother — oh, but 
 we were that fond of him — the poor, poor innocent 
 bairn. Such a comfort for him to know his sister 
 near at hand ! Yet, though I have done with you, 
 Mistress Irma Sobieski, I may say that I wish you 
 no ill. Make a better use of your youth than maybe 
 I have done. If ye need a helping hand, there's my 
 sister Frances out at the Sciennes. She's fair crammed 
 like a Strasburg goose wi' the belles-lettres. She will 
 maybe never let ye within the door, but a shilling a 
 week of outdoor relief ye are sure of — for she sets up 
 for being full of the milk of human kindness. She 
 set her cap at John Home when he came home from 
 London. She would never even allow that Davie Hume 
 was an atheist, whilk was as clear as that I hae a nose 
 
 to my face ! Off with you to Fanny's at the 
 
 Sciennes. And a long guid day to the pair of ye — ye 
 are a disobedient regardless lassock, and ye are 
 heapin' up wrath again the day of wrath, but for all 
 that I'm no sayin' that I'll forget you in my will ! 
 There are others I like waur nor you, when all's said 
 and done ! " 
 
 "I would not take a penny of yours if I were starv- 
 ing on the street ! " cried Irma. 
 
 "Save us ! " said the old lady, lifting up her black 
 wand, "ye will maybe think different when ye are real 
 hungrysome. The streets are nae better than they are 
 caa*ed. But ofif wi' ye, and get honestly tied up ! Bid 
 Samuel Whan shut the yett after ye I "
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 TWICE MARRIED 
 
 Now I have never to this day been able to make up 
 my mind whether the Lady Kirkpatrick was really 
 stirred with such anger as she pretended, whether she 
 was only more than a little mad, or if all was done 
 merely to break down Irma's reserve by playing on 
 her anger and pride. 
 
 If the last was the cause of my lady's strange 
 behaviour to us, it was shiningly successful. 
 
 "We will not go a step to find my Lady Frances," 
 said Irma when we were outside; "if she be so full of 
 all the wisdoms, she would ver}^ likely try to separate 
 us." 
 
 And certainly it was noways my business to make 
 any objections. So, hardly crediting my happiness, 
 I went southwards over the Bridges, with Irma-by my 
 side, my heart beating so rarely that I declare I could 
 hardly bethink me of a minister to make me sure of 
 Irma before she had time to change her mind. As 
 was usual at that hour at the Surgeon's Hall, we met 
 Freddy Esquillant coming from the direction of Simon 
 Square. Him I sent off as quickly as he could to 
 Rankeillor Street for Amelia Craven. I felt that this 
 was no less than Amelia's due, for many a time and 
 oft must she have been wearied with my sighs and 
 complaints — very suitable to the condition of a lover, 
 but mightily wearisome to the listener. 
 
 Irma said nothing. She seemed to be walking in a 
 dream, and hardly noticed Freddy — or yet the errand 
 upon which I sent him. 
 
 It came to me that, as the matter was of the sudden- 
 
 254
 
 TWICE MARRIED 255 
 
 est, Amelia Craven might help us to find a small 
 house of our own where we might set up our house- 
 hold gods — that is, when we got any. 
 
 An unexpected encounter preceded the one expected. 
 I was marching along to our rendezvous with Freddy 
 and Amelia at the crossing from Archers' Hall to the 
 Sciennes, when all of a sudden whom should we meet 
 right in the face but my rosy-cheeked, bunchy little 
 employer — my Lord Advocate in person, all shining 
 as if he had been polished, his face smiling and smirk- 
 ing like a newly-oiled picture, and on his arm, but 
 towering above him, a thin, dusky-skinned w'oman, 
 plainly dressed, and with an enormous bonnet on her 
 head, obviously of her own manufacture — a sort of 
 tangle of black, brown and green which really had 
 to be seen to be believed. 
 
 "Aha ! " cried my Lord Advocate; "whither away, 
 young sir? Shirking the proofs, eh, my lad? And 
 may I have the honour to be presented to your sister 
 from the country — for so, by her fresh looks, I divine 
 the young lady to be." 
 
 "If you will wait a few minutes till we can find a 
 minister, I will say, * This, sir, is my wedded wife,' " 
 I declared manfully. 
 
 "And is the young lady of the same mind? " quoth 
 my Lord, with a quick, gleg slyness. 
 
 "I am, sir — if the business concerns you!" said 
 Irma, looking straight at him. 
 
 " What, and dare you say that you will take a man 
 like this for your wedded husband ? " he demanded, 
 with the swift up-and-down play of his bushy brows 
 which was habitual to him. 
 
 "I see not what business it is of yours," Irma an- 
 swered, as sharply, "but I do take him for my 
 husband."
 
 256 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "There!" cried the lawyer, pulling out his snuff- 
 box and tapping it vehemently, "it is done. I have 
 performed my first marriage, and all the General 
 Assembly, or the Gretna Green Welder himself, could 
 not have done it neater or made a better job. Declara- 
 tion before witnesses being sufficient in the eye of the 
 law of Scotland, I declare you two man and wife ! " 
 
 Irma looked distressed. 
 
 "But I do not feel in the least married," she said; 
 "I must have a minister!" 
 
 "You can have all the ministers in Edinburgh, my 
 lass, but you have been duly wedded already in the 
 presence of the first legal authority of your kingdom, 
 not to mention that of the Lady Frances Kirk- 
 patrick " 
 
 "My aunt Frances, after all ! " cried Irma, suddenly 
 flushing. 
 
 "Who may you be?" said the tall lady, with the 
 face like sculptured gingerbread. 
 
 "Who %vas she, you mean, my Lady Frances?" 
 said the Advocate blandly, helping himself to a pinch 
 of 'snuff. "I can tell you who she is — Mrs. Duncan 
 MacAlpine, wife of my private assistant and the sub- 
 editor of the Universal Review." 
 
 It was the first time he had given me that title, 
 which pleased me, and led me to hope that he meant 
 to accompany the honour by a rise in salary. 
 
 "I am — I was — Irma Sobieski Maitland," the answer 
 was rather halting and faint, for Irma was easily 
 touched, and it was only when much provoked that 
 she put on her " No-one-shall-touch-me-with-impunity " 
 air. 
 
 "If the bride be at all uneasy in her mind," said the 
 Lord Advocate, "here we are at Mr. Dean's door. I 
 dare say he will step down-stairs into the chapel and
 
 TWICE MARRIED 257 
 
 put on his surplice. From what I judge of the lady's 
 family, she will probably have as little confidence in 
 a Presbyterian minister as in a Presbyterian Lord 
 Advocate ! " 
 
 Freddy and Amelia were waiting across the street. 
 I beckoned to them, and they crossed reluctantly, 
 seeing us talking with my Lord Advocate, whom, of 
 course, all the world of Edinburgh knew. I was not 
 long in making the introductions. 
 
 "Miss Craven, late of Yorkshire, and ]\Ir. Frederick 
 Esquillant, assistant to Professor Greg at the College." 
 
 "Any more declarations before witnesses to-day?" 
 said my Lord, looking quaintly at them. "Ah — the 
 crop is not ripe yet. Well, well — we must be content 
 for one day." 
 
 And he vanished into a wide, steeply-gabled house, 
 standing crushed between higher "lands." 
 
 "The Dean will officiate, never fear," said Lady 
 Frances. "So you have been staying with my sister, 
 and of course she turned you out. Well, she sent you 
 to me, I'll wager, and you were on your way. You 
 could not have done better than come direct to 
 me." 
 
 "Indeed it was quite an accident," said Irma, who 
 never would take credit for what she had not deserved ; 
 "you see, I did not know you, and I thought that one 
 like my Lady Kirkpatrick was quite enough " 
 
 "Hush, hush," said the tall brown woman; "per- 
 haps she means better than you give her credit for. 
 She is a rich woman, and can afford to pay for her 
 whimsies. Be sure she meant some kindness. But, 
 at any rate, here comes the Advocate with our good 
 Dean." 
 
 We mounted into a curiously arranged house. At 
 first one saw nothing but flights on flights of stairs,
 
 258 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 range above range apparently going steeply up to the 
 second floor, without any first floor rooms at all. 
 
 Mr. Dean was a handsome old man with white hair, 
 and he took our hands most kindly. 
 
 "My friend here," he said, smiling at my Lord 
 Advocate, "tells me that he has not left very much for 
 me to do from a legal point of view. But I look 
 upon marriage as a sacrament, and though the bride- 
 groom is not, as I hear, of our communion, I have no 
 difficulty in acceding to the request of my Lord — 
 especially since our good Lady Frances has deigned 
 to be present as a near relative of the bride." 
 
 He called something into a sort of stone tube. Then 
 bidding us to be seated, he went into another room 
 to array himself in his surplice, from which, presently, 
 he came out, holding a service-book in his hand. 
 
 We followed him down-stairs — I with Lady Frances 
 on my arm, the Lord Advocate preceding us with 
 Irma, whom he was to give away. He appeared to 
 take quite a boyish interest in the whole affair, from 
 which I augured the best for our future. 
 
 We were rather hampered at the turning of the 
 stair, and had to drop into single file again, when 
 Irma clutched suddenly at my hand, and in the single 
 moment we had together in the dusk, she whispered, 
 "Oh, I am so glad! " 
 
 Lady Frances told me as we passed into the little 
 half-underground chapel, low and barrel-shaped as to 
 the roof, with the candles ready alight on the altar, 
 that all this secrecy had come down from the time 
 when the service according to the Episcopal form had 
 been strictly forbidden in Edinburgh — at least in any 
 open way. 
 
 I cannot describe what followed. I must have stood 
 like a dummy, muttering over what I was prompted
 
 TWICE MARRIED 259 
 
 to say. But the responses came to Irma's lips as if 
 she had many times rehearsed them — which perhaps 
 was the case — I know now that she had always kept 
 her father's King Edward prayer-book, and read it 
 when alone. We stood by the rails of what I now 
 know to have been the altar. All about was hung 
 with deep crimson, and the heavy curtains were looped 
 back with golden cord. A kind of glory shone behind 
 the altar, in the midst of which appeared, in Hebrew 
 letters, the name of God. Irma, who was far more 
 self-possesstd than I, found time to wonder and even 
 to ask me what it meant. And I, translating freely 
 (for I had picked up somewhat of that language from 
 Freddy Esquillant), said, "Thou, God, seest me." 
 
 Which, at any rate, if not exactly correct, was true 
 and apt enough. 
 
 "Well, are you well married now, babes? " said the 
 Advocate, and I tried to answer him as we made our 
 way to the vestry — I stumbling and self-abased, Irma 
 with the certainty and calmness of a widow at least 
 thrice removed from the first bashfulness of a bride. 
 
 We signed the register, in which (the Advocate took 
 care to inform us) were some very distinguished names 
 indeed. Which, however, was entirely the same to 
 me. 
 
 Then as I thanked Mr. Dean for his kindness, not 
 daring to offer any poor fee, the Advocate chatted 
 with Amelia Craven with great delicacy and under- 
 standing, inquiring chiefly as to Freddy's attainments 
 and prospects. 
 
 But what was my surprise when, as soon as we were 
 on the cobble stones, the Lady Frances turned sharply 
 upon Irma, and said, quite in the style of my Lady 
 Kirkpatrick, "And now, Irma Maitland, since your 
 husband has no house or any place to take you to, 
 
 S 2
 
 2C0 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 you had better come to my house in the Sciennes till 
 he can make proper arrangements. It is not at all 
 suitable that a Maitland should be on a common stair 
 like a travelling tinker looking for lodgings." 
 
 Hearing which the neat, shining, dimpling little 
 Advocate turned his bright eyes from one to the other 
 of us, and tapped his tortoise-shell snuff-box with a 
 kind of elvish joy. It was clear that we were better 
 than many stage-plays to him. 
 
 As for Irma, she looked at me, but now sweetly and 
 innocently, as if asking for counsel, not haughty or 
 disdainful as had been her wont. The accusation of 
 poverty touched me, and I was on the point of telling 
 her to choose for herself, that I would find her a house 
 as soon as possible, when Amelia Craven thrust her- 
 self forward. 
 
 Up to this point she had kept silent, a little awed 
 by the great folk, or perhaps by the church, with the 
 red hangings and twinkling, mysterious candles on 
 the altar. 
 
 "I do not know a great deal," she said, "but this 
 I do know, that a wife's place is with her husband — 
 and especially when the ' love, honour and obey ' is 
 hardly out of her mouth. She shall come home to my 
 mother's with me, even if Duncan MacAlpine there 
 has not enough sense to bid her." 
 
 Upon which the Advocate strove (or at least ap- 
 peared to strive) to please everybody and put every- 
 body in the right. It was perhaps natural that, till 
 arrangements were completed, so young a bride should 
 remain with her family. But, on the other hand, 
 young people could not begin too soon to face the 
 inevitable trials of life. The feelings of the young 
 lady who had expressed her mind in so lively a man- 
 ner — Miss — Miss — ah yes, Craven — Miss Amelia
 
 TWICE MARRIED 261 
 
 Craven — did her all honour. It only remained to hear 
 the decision of — of (a smirk, several dimples and a 
 prolonged tapping on the lid of his snuff-box) — 
 Mistress Duncan Mac Alpine." 
 
 "I will go with my husband," said Irma simply. 
 
 "There's for you, Frances!" cried the Advocate, 
 turning to his companion with a little teasing "hee- 
 hee " of laughter, almost like the neigh of a horse ; 
 "there spoke all the woman." 
 
 But Lady Frances had very deliberately turned 
 about and was walking, without the least greeting or 
 farewell, in the direction of her own house of Sciennes. 
 
 "There goes a Kirkpatrick," said the Advocate, tap- 
 ping his box cynically; "cry with them, they will hunt 
 your enemies till they drop. Cry off with them, and 
 it's little you will see of them but the back of their 
 hand." 
 
 He touched my Irma on her soft cheek with the tips 
 of his fingers. "And I wish, for your goodman's 
 sake," he said, "that this little lady's qualities do not 
 run in the female line." 
 
 "I hope," said Irma, "that I shall always have grace 
 to obey my husband." 
 
 "Graces you have — overly many of them, as it is 
 easy to see," quoth the gallant Advocate, taking off 
 his hat and bowing low, "but it is seldom indeed that 
 ladies use either Grace or their graces for such a 
 purpose ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THE LITTLE HOUSE ON THE MEADOWS 
 
 Irma and I had a great seeking for the little house, 
 great enough for two, with such convenience as, at 
 the time, could be called modern, and yet within reach 
 of our very moderate means. First of all Freddy and 
 I had gone to the Nun's House to ask for Irma's box 
 and accoutrement. These made no great burden. 
 Nevertheless, we borrowed a little "hurley," or hand- 
 cart, from the baker's girl opposite, who certainly 
 bore no malice. I had our marriage lines in my 
 pocket, lest any should deny my rights. But though 
 we did not see the Lady Kirkpatrick, the goods were 
 all corded and placed ready behind the door of the 
 porter's lodge. We had them on the "hurley" in a 
 minute. The Lady Frances passed in as we were 
 carrying out the brass-bound trunk of Irma's that had 
 been my grandmother's. She went by as if she had 
 not seen us, her curiously mahogany face more of the 
 Punchinello type than ever — yet somehow I could not 
 feel but that most of this anger was assumed. These 
 women had shown Irma no kindness, indeed had 
 never troubled themselves about her existence, all the 
 long time she had stayed at Heathknowes. Why, 
 then, begin so suddenly to play upon the sounding 
 strings of family and long descent? 
 
 Indeed, we two thought but little more about the 
 matter. Our minds were fully enough occupied. The 
 wonder of those new days — the unexpected, unfore- 
 seen glory of the earth — the sudden sweetness of love, 
 
 262
 
 LITTLE HOUSE ON THE MEADOWS 263 
 
 unbelievable, hardly yet realized, overwhelmed and 
 confounded us. 
 
 And, more than all, there was the search for a 
 house. The Advocate met me every day with his 
 queer smile, but though he put my salary on a more 
 secure basis, and arranged that in future I should be 
 paid by the printer and not by himself, the sum total 
 of my income was not materially altered. 
 
 "What's enough for one is abundance for two!" 
 was his motto. And the aphorism rang itself out to 
 his tiny rose-coloured nails on the lid of the tortoise- 
 shell snufTbox. Then he added a few leading cases 
 as became one learned in the law. 
 
 "I began the same way myself," he said, "and 
 though I have a bigger house now and serving men in 
 kneebreeks and powder in their hair, I never go by 
 that cottage out by Comely Bank without a ' pitter- 
 patter ' of my sinful old heart ! " 
 
 He thought for a while, and then added, "Aye, 
 aye — there's no way for young folk to start life like 
 being poor and learning to hain on the gowns and 
 the broadcloth ! What matter the trimmings, when 
 ye have one another ? " 
 
 As to the house, it was naturally Irma who did 
 most of the searching. For me, I had to be early at 
 the secretary's office, and often late at the printer's. 
 But there was always some time in the day that I had 
 to myself — could I only foresee it before I left home 
 in the morning. "Home" was, so far, at Mrs. 
 Craven's, where the good Amelia had given us up her 
 chamber, and Freddy rose an hour earlier, so that his 
 wall-press bed might be closed and the "room " made 
 ready for Irma's breakfast parlour. 
 
 All the three begged that we might stay on. We 
 were, they declared with one voice, not putting them
 
 264 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 to the smallest inconvenience. But I knew different, 
 and besides, I had a constant and consuming desire 
 for a house of mine own, however small. 
 
 Ever since I first knew Irma, a dream had haunted 
 me. In days long past it had come, when I was only 
 an awkward laddie gazing after her on the Eden 
 Valley meadows. Often it had returned to me during 
 the tedious silences of three years — when, quite against 
 the proverb, love had grown by feeding upon itself. 
 
 And my dream was this. 
 
 I was in a great city, harassed by many duties, 
 troubled by enemies open and concealed. There was 
 the drear emptiness of poverty in my pocket, present 
 anxiety in my heart, and little hope in the outlook. 
 But I had work — I did not know in my dre'am what 
 that work was — only that it sufficed to keep body and 
 soul together, but after it was done I was weak and 
 weary, a kind of unsatisfied despondency gnawing at 
 mv heart. 
 
 ml 
 
 Then I got loose for an hour or so from my un- 
 known tasks. My path lay across a kind of open 
 place into which many narrow streets ran, while some 
 dived away into the lower deeps of the city. People 
 went their ways as I was doing mine, dejected and 
 sad. But always, as I crossed toward the opening of 
 a wide new street, where against the sky were tall 
 scaffoldings and men busy with hod and mortar, I 
 saw Irma coming towards me. She was neat and 
 youthful, but dressed poorly in plain things — home- 
 spun, and in my dream, I judged, also home-made. 
 
 I saw her afar off, and the heart within me gave a 
 great leap. She came towards me smiling, and lo ! 
 I seemed to stand still and worship the lithe carriage 
 and elastic step. The world grew all sweet and gay. 
 The lift above became blue and hisrh. The sun shone
 
 LITTLE HOUSE ON THE MEADOWS 265 
 
 no longer grey and brown, but smiling and brilliant — 
 as — as the face of Irma. 
 
 Strangely enough she did not greet me nor hold out 
 her hand as acquaintances do. She came straight up 
 to me as if the encounter were the merest matter-of- 
 course, while as I stood there, with the hunger and 
 the wretchedness all gone out of me, the weariness 
 and misery melted in the grace of that radiant smile, 
 she uttered just these words, "I have found the Little 
 House Round the Corner ! " 
 
 Now I will tell of a strange thing — so strange that I 
 have consulted Irma about it, whether I should write 
 it down here or keep it just for ourselves. 
 
 And she said, " It is true — so why not set it down ? " 
 Well, this is what happened. One day I had arranged 
 to meet Irma at the corner of the quaint little village 
 of Laurieston, which, as all the world knows, looks 
 down on the saughs of the Meadows and out upon the 
 slopes of Bruntsfield where, among the whins, the 
 city golfers lose their balls. 
 
 At that time, as all the world knows, there was 
 undertaken a certain work of opening out that part of 
 the ancient wall which runs westward from Bristo Port 
 at the head of the Potter Row. Some great old houses 
 had gone down, and I mind well that I was greatly 
 attracted by the first view of the Greyfriars Kirk that 
 ever I had from that quarter. (It was soon lost again 
 behind new constructions, but for a time it was worth 
 seeing, with its ancient "through" stones, and the 
 Martyrs' Monument showing its bossy head over the 
 low wall.) 
 
 So much taken up with this was I, that I did not 
 notice the altered aspect of the place. Yet I looked 
 about me like one who is suddenly confronted by 
 something very familiar. There was the wide space.
 
 266 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 There were the narrow streets I knew so well. Yonder 
 was the Candlemaker Row diving down into the 
 bowels of the earth. Away towards the Greyfriars 
 were the tall "lands" which the masons were pulling 
 down. Nearer were men climbing up ladders with 
 hods on their shoulders. Highest of all, against the 
 blue sky, naked as a new gibbet, stood out the frame- 
 work of a crane. 
 
 It was the very place of my dream. I knew it well 
 enough, indeed, but never until that day it had looked 
 so. And there, coming smiling down the midst, 
 easily as one might down the aisle of an empty church, 
 was Irma herself, as plain and poor in habiliment as 
 my dream, but smiling — ah, with a smile that turned 
 all my heart to water, so dear it was. It was good of 
 God to let us love each other like that — and be poor. 
 
 And as she came nearer, she did not hold out her 
 hand, nor greet me — but when she was quite close she 
 said, exactly as in the dream, "I have found the Little 
 House round the Corner ! " Yet she had never heard 
 of my dream before. 
 
 That this is true, we do solemnly bear witness, each 
 for our own parts, thereof, and hereto append our 
 names — 
 
 Duncan MacAlpine. 
 Irma MacAlpine. 
 
 Irma had found it, indeed, but as I judged at the 
 first sight of the house, it was bound to be too ex- 
 pensive for our purses. I immediately decided that 
 something must be wrong somewhere, when I heard 
 that we could have this pleasant cottage with its scrap 
 of garden, long and narrow certainly, but full of shade 
 and song of birds, for the inconsiderable rent of ten 
 pounds a year. We thought of many dangers and
 
 LITTLE HOUSE ON THE MEADOWS 267 
 
 inconveniences, but Irma was infinitely relieved when 
 it came out to be only ghosts. Servants, it appeared, 
 could not be got to stay. 
 
 "Is that all?" said Irma scornfully. "Well, then, 
 I don't mean to keep any servants, and as for ghosts, 
 Louis and I have lived in a big house in a wood full 
 of them from cellar to roof-tree ! You let ghosts 
 alone, they will let you alone ! ' Freits follow them 
 that look for them ! "
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 AND THE DOOR WAS SHUT 
 
 We were poor, very poor indeed in these days. 
 Irma had many a wrinkled brow and many an anxious 
 heart over the weekly expenses — so much to be set 
 aside for rent, so much for mysterious things called 
 taxes — which, seeing no immediate good arise from 
 them, my little rebel hated with all her heart, and 
 devised all sorts of schemes to evade. 
 
 But every week there was the joy of a victory won. 
 Untoward circumstances had been vanquished — the 
 butcher, the baker had been settled with or — done 
 without. For sometimes Amelia Craven came to give 
 us a day's baking, and an array of fragrant scones 
 and girdle-cakes, which I was taken into the kitchen 
 to see on my return home, gave us the assurance of 
 not having to starve for many days yet. 
 
 I was glad, too, for it was my busy season, and I 
 had to be much from home. There was, indeed, a 
 certain nondescript Mistress McGrier, who came to 
 help with the heavier duties of the house. She was 
 the daughter of one janitor at the college, the wife of 
 yet another (presently suspended for gross dereliction 
 of duty), and she did some charing to earn an honest 
 penny. But there was little human to be found about 
 her. Whisky, poor food, neglect, and actual ill treat- 
 ment had left her mind after the pattern of her coun- 
 tenance, mostly blank. Yet I was not sorry when she 
 stayed, especially as the autumnal days shortened, till 
 near the time of my return. Mrs. McGrier frankly 
 tarried for her tea, and her conversation was not en- 
 
 268
 
 \ 
 
 AND THE DOOR WAS SHUT 269 
 
 livening, since she could talk of little save her sorrows 
 as a wife, and how she was trusting to some one in 
 the office (meaning me) for the future reinstatement of 
 her erring janitor. 
 
 Sometimes, on Sundays, she would bring him, as it 
 were framed and glazed to a painful pitch of perfec- 
 tion. His red hair was plastered with pomatum, 
 identical with that which had been used upon his 
 boots. Janitor McGrier had been a soldier, and 
 always moved as if to words of command unheard to 
 other mortals. If he had only two yards to go, he 
 started as if from the halt. His pale blue eyes were 
 fixed in his head, and he chewed steadily at lozenges 
 of peppermint or cinnamon to hide the perfume of the 
 glass of "enlivener" with which his wife had bribed 
 him as an argument for submitting to get up and be 
 dressed. 
 
 It was only on such show occasions that Mrs. 
 McGrier was voluble. And that, solely, because 
 "Pathrick " said nothing. Even as I remembered him 
 in the days of his pride at the door of the Greek class- 
 room, Pathrick had always possessed the shut mouth, 
 the watery, appealing eye, and the indicative thumb 
 which answered the question of a novice only with a 
 quick jerk in the requisite direction. 
 
 I think Pathrick sometimes conceived dark sus- 
 picions that I had changed Irma in the intervals of his 
 visits. You see, this small witch had but two dresses 
 that were any way respectable — that is to say, street- 
 going or Sabbath-keeping. But then she had naturally 
 such an instinct of arrangement that a scrap of ribbon, 
 or the lace scarf my grandmother had given her, made 
 so great a difference that she seemed to have an entire 
 wardrobe at her command. No doubt a woman would 
 have picked out the fundamental sameness at a glance.
 
 270 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 But it did very well for men, who only care for the 
 effect. 
 
 Even the Advocate would look in on his way to or 
 from the Sciennes for a cup of tea from Irma. And 
 in our little parlour he would sit and rap on his Snuff- 
 box, talking all the while, and forgetting to go till it 
 was dark — as gentle and human as any common man. 
 
 When Freddy and Amelia Craven came in he would 
 give the student advice about his work, or ask Amelia 
 when she was going to call in his assistance to get 
 married — which was his idea of jocularity, and, I must 
 admit, also, that of Amelia. Indeed, we were wonder- 
 fully glad to see him, and he brightened many a dull 
 afternoon for Irma. 
 
 Sometimes, if I got away early, I would find him 
 already installed, his hat stuck on his gold-headed 
 cane in the corner — as it were, all his high authority 
 laid aside, while he regarded with moist eyes the work- 
 basket in which Irma kept her interminable scraplets 
 of white things which I would not have meddled with 
 the tip of one of my fingers, but which the Advocate 
 turned over with an ancient familiarity, humming a 
 tune all the while — a tune, however, apt to break off 
 suddenly with a "Humph," and an appeal to the much- 
 enduring lid of the tortoise-shell snuffbox. 
 
 But I think the dearest and best remembered of all 
 these early experiences happened one winter's evening 
 in the midst of the press and bustle which always 
 attended the opening of the autumn session. The 
 winter number of the Universal was almost due, and 
 we were backward, having had to wait for the copy of 
 an important contributor, whose communication, in 
 the present state of affairs, might even overturn a 
 policy — or, at least, in the opinion of the Advocate, 
 could not be done without. I need not say that the
 
 AND THE DOOR WAS SHUT 271 
 
 article in question represented his own views with 
 remarkable exactitude, and he looked to it to further 
 his rising influence in London. As he grew greater, 
 he was more often in the south, and we saw less and 
 less of him. On the other hand, the practical work 
 of the Review fell more and more upon me. 
 
 So this night, as I say, I was late, and on turning 
 out into the south-going street which leads past the 
 Surgeons' Hall and St. Patrick's Square — my mind 
 being busy with an extra article which I must write 
 to give our readers the necessary number of sheets — 
 for the first and certainly for the last time in my life I 
 continued my train of thought without remembering 
 either that I was a married man, or that my little Irma 
 must be tired waiting for me. 
 
 In mitigation of sentence I can only urge the day- 
 long preoccupations in which I had been plunged, 
 and the article, suddenly become necessary, which I 
 must begin to write instanter. But at any rate, excuse 
 or no excuse, it is certain that I woke from my day- 
 dream to find myself in Rankeillor Street, almost at 
 the foot of the old Craven stairs which, as a bachelor, 
 I had climbed so often. 
 
 Then, with a sudden shamed leap of the heart and 
 a plunge of the hand into my breeches pocket for my 
 door key, I turned about. I had forgotten, though 
 only for a moment, the little wife working among her 
 cloud of feathery linen and trimmings, and the little 
 white house round the corner above the Meadows. 
 You may guess whether or no I hurried along between 
 ash "backets" of the most unparklike Gifford Park, 
 how sharply I turned and scudded along Hope Park, 
 dodging the clothes' posts to the right, from which 
 prudent housewives had removed the ropes with the 
 deepening of the twilight.
 
 272 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 The dark surface of the Meadows spread suddenly 
 before me in an amphtude of bleakness. A thin, 
 sleety scuff of passing snow-cloud beat in my face, A 
 tall man wrapped in a cloak edged suspiciously nearer 
 as if to take stock of me, but my haste, and perhaps 
 a certain wildness in the disorder of my dress and hat 
 made him think better of it — that is, if indeed he ever 
 thought ill of it — and with a muttered " Good-e'en to 
 5'e," he passed upon his way. 
 
 I could see it now. The light in the window, the 
 two candles that were always set at the elbow of the 
 busy little housewife, the supper, frugal but well-con- 
 sidered, simmering on the hob, the table spread white 
 and dainty, with knives and forks of silver (the Advo- 
 cate's gift) laid out in order. 
 
 Then all the warm and loving things that sleep in 
 the breast of a man rose up within me. The long, 
 weary day was forgotten. The article I must write 
 was shoved into a corner out of the way. For this 
 one hour, in spite of w^histling wintry winds and 
 scouring sleet-drifts, the little light yonder in the 
 window was sufficient. 
 
 Two farthing dips, a hearth fire, and a loving heart ! 
 Earth had nothing more to give, and my spirit seemed 
 glorified within me. I had a curious feeling of melt- 
 ing within me, which was by no means a desire to 
 weep, but rather as if all the vital parts of the man 
 I was had been suddenly turned to warm water. I 
 cannot tell if any one has ever felt the like before, but 
 certainly I did that night, and "warm water" comes 
 as near to the real thing as I can find words to express. 
 
 It seemed an age while I was crossing the short, 
 stubbly grass of the Meadows. The light within 
 ibeaconed redder and warmer. On the window-blind 
 I saw a gracious silhouette. Then there was the put-
 
 AND THE DOOR WAS SHUT 273 
 
 ting aside the edge of the bHnd with exploring finger 
 — sure sign that my little wife had been regarding the 
 clock and finding me a little late in getting home. 
 
 As I ran up the short path to the gate I blew into 
 my key. The latch of the garden-gate clicked in the 
 blast which swept across from the Blackfords. But 
 there at last before me was the door. The key glided, 
 well-accustomed, into its place, not rattling, but with 
 the slide of long-polished and intimate steel — soft, 
 like silk on silk. 
 
 But the key never turned. The door opened, seem- 
 ingly of itself, and, gloriously loving, a candle held 
 high in her hand, her full, white house-gown sweep- 
 ing to her feet, the little wife stood waiting. 
 
 I said nothing about the overplus of work that had 
 filled my head as I turned from the high, bleak portals 
 of the University — nothing of how, all unknowing, 
 my traitor feet had carried me to the stairway in 
 Rankeillor Street — nothing of the long way, or the 
 suspicious man in the cloak, of the blast and the bent 
 and the sting of the sleet in my face. 
 
 I was at home, just she and I — the two of us alone. 
 And upon us two the door was shut.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 A VISIT FROM BOYD CONNOWAY 
 
 "I WONDER," said Irma one Saturday morning 
 when, by a happy accident, I had no pressing need to 
 go from home, so could stay and Hnger over breakfast 
 with my little wife like a Christian, " I wonder what 
 that man is doing down there ? He has been sitting 
 on the step outside our gate ever since it was light, 
 and he looks as if he were taking root there ! " 
 
 I made but one bound from the table to the window. 
 For I remembered the cloaked man who had crossed 
 me in the Meadows the other night. Also my inbred, 
 almost instinctive curiosity as to the purposes and 
 antecedents of lurking folk of all kinds, pricked me. 
 We were easy enough to get on with in Eden Valley 
 once you knew us, but our attitude towards strangers 
 was distinctly hostile. 
 
 This man was muffled to the nose in a cloak, and 
 might very well have been my inquiring friend of the 
 other night. But when I had opened the door and 
 marched with the firm ringing steps of a master down 
 the paven walk towards the gate, the face I saw turned 
 to my approach, altered my mood in a second. 
 
 "Why, Boyd Connoway," I cried, "who would have 
 thought of seeing you here ? What are you doing in 
 Edinburgh ? But first come in — there is a friend here 
 who will be glad to see you ! " 
 
 "Eh, Mr. Duncan, but I am not sure that I dare 
 
 venture. 'Tis no more than decent I am, and the 
 
 young lady, your wife — oh, but though to see her 
 
 sweet face would be a treat for poor Boyd Connoway, 
 
 274
 
 A VISIT FROM BOYD CONNOWAY 275 
 
 what might she not be sayin' about me dirtying her 
 carpets, the craitur? And as for sittin' in her fine 
 arm-chairs " 
 
 "Come your ways in, Boyd," I cried. "Have you 
 had any breakfast? No — then you are just in time I 
 And you will find that our chairs are only wood, and 
 you would not hurt our fine carpets, not if you danced 
 on them with clogs ! " 
 
 "D'ye tell me, now?" said Boyd, much relieved. 
 "Sure, and it's a told tale through the whole parish 
 that you are livin' in the very lap of luxury — with 
 nothing in the world to do for it but just make scratch- 
 scratches on paper with a quill-pen ! " 
 
 By this time Irma was at the door, hiding herself a 
 little, for she had still the morning apron on — that in 
 which she had been helping Mrs. Pathrick. But she 
 was greatly delighted to see Boyd, who, if the truth 
 must be told, made his best service like an Irishman 
 and a gentleman — for, as he said, "Even five-and- 
 thirty years of Galloway had not wiped the sclate of 
 his manners ! " 
 
 Now Boyd was always a favourite with Irma, and I 
 fear that she was fonder of him than she ought to have 
 been, instead of pitying his hard-driven Bridget — just 
 because Bridget had not his beautiful manners. Pre- 
 sently, as his mouth ceased to fill and empty itself so 
 wonderfully expeditiously, Boyd began to talk. 
 
 "As to what fetched me. Miss Irma," he said, in 
 answer to questions, "faith, I walked all the road, 
 taking many a house on the way where kenned folk 
 dwelt. Here were pigs to kill and cure. And I killed 
 and cured them. Farther on there were floors to lay, 
 and I laid them, or fish-hooks to busk, and I busked 
 them." 
 
 I put a question here. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "Oh, Bridget," he said, shrugging his shoulders 
 with a wearied air, "Bridget doesn't know when she's 
 well off. Och, the craitur ! It began with the night 
 of the September Fair. Now, it is known to all the 
 countryside that Boyd Connoway is no drinker. He 
 will sit and talk, as is just and sociable, but nothing 
 more. No, Miss Irma. And so I told Bridget. But 
 it so chanced that Fair Monday was a stormy day, 
 which is the most temptations for poor lads in from 
 the country, with only two holidays in the year, most 
 of them. And what with the new watch and the 
 councilmen being so strict against disorder — why, I 
 could not let a dog get into trouble if I could help it. 
 So I spent the most of the night seeing them home out 
 of harm's way — and if ever there was a work of neces- 
 sity and mercy, that was. 
 
 "But Bridget, she thought different, and declared 
 that I had never so much as thought of her and the 
 childer all day, but left her at the wash-tub, while 
 they, the poor craiturs, were poppin' out and in of 
 the stalls and crawlin' under the slatting canvas of 
 the shows, as happy as larks, having their fun all for 
 nothing, and double rations of it when they were 
 caught, cuffed, and chased out. Well, Bridget kept it 
 up on me so long and got so worked up that she would 
 not have a bite ready for me when I came home tired 
 and weary, bidding me go and eat my meat where I 
 had worked my work. So it seemed a good time for 
 me to be off somewhere for my health. But — such 
 was my consideration, that not to leave Bridget in 
 distress I went asking about till I got her the washin' 
 at General Johnstone's — the minister's she had before 
 • — so there was Bridget well provided for. Miss Irma 
 — and here am I, Boyd Connoway, a free man on my 
 travels ! "
 
 A VISIT FROM BOYD CONNOWAY 277 
 
 We asked news of friends and acquaintances — the 
 usual Galloway round of questions. 
 
 "Faith," said Boyd, "but there's just one cry among 
 them — when are ye coming down to let us have a 
 look at your treasure, Mister Duncan ? Sure, it's sel- 
 fish ye are, now, to keep her all this long time to your- 
 self ! The little chap's holidays ! Ah, true for you. 
 We had forgotten him. And ye are sure that he is 
 well done to, and safely lodged where they have put 
 him. Miss Irma? " 
 
 "If you bide a minute or two, Boyd," said Irma, 
 smiling, well-pleased, "you may very likely have the 
 chance of judging for yourself. For it is almost his 
 time to be here, for to-day is a holiday ! " 
 
 In fact, it was not a quarter of an hour before a 
 shout, the triumphal opening of the outer gate with a 
 rush and a clang, and a merciless pounding on the 
 front door announced the arrival of Sir Louis. He 
 had grown out of all knowledge, declared the visitor, 
 "but no doubt the young gentleman had forgotten old 
 Boyd Connoway." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Louis; "come and show me some 
 more cat's cradles ; I know two more ' liftings ' 
 already than any boy in the school. But you can 
 do at least a dozen ! " 
 
 And so, with the woven string about his long clever 
 fingers, Louis watched the deft and sure manipulation 
 of Boyd Connoway as he "lifted " and wove, changing 
 the pattern indefinitely. For the time being the vil- 
 lage "do-nothing" — in the sense that he was the busi- 
 est man in the place about other folk's business — was 
 merely another boy at Louis's school. And as he 
 worked, he talked, delightfully, easily, dramatically. 
 Fie made the old life of Eden Valley pass before us. 
 We heard the brisk tongue of my grandmother from
 
 278 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 the kitchen, that of Aunt Jen ruHng as much of the 
 roost as was permitted to her, but constantly made 
 aware of herself by her mother's dominating person- 
 ality. 
 
 With equal facility he recalled my father in his 
 classes, looking out for collegers to do him credit, my 
 mother passing silently along her retired household 
 ways, Agnes Anne dividing her time between helping 
 her mother in the house, and teaching the classes for 
 which I used to be responsible in the school. 
 
 It was a memorable day in the little house above 
 the Meadows. Louis played with Boyd Connoway all 
 the time, learning infinite new tricks with string, with 
 knife-blades, perfecting himself in the art of making 
 fly-hooks, of kite manufacture, and the art of lighting 
 a fire. 
 
 He had presented to him Boyd's spare "sulphur" 
 box, in which were tinder, flint and steel, matches 
 dipped in brimstone, and a pair of short thick candles 
 which could be set one at a time in a socket formed by 
 the box itself, the raised lid sheltering the flame from 
 the wind. 
 
 Never was a happier boy. And when the Advocate 
 looked in, the surprising boyishness of Boyd rubbed 
 off even on him. We did not inform our old friend 
 of the high place which "the Advocate" held in the 
 judicial hierarchy of his country. For we knew well 
 that nothing Boyd said in our house would ever be 
 used as evidence against him. 
 
 But no doubt my lord gained a great deal of useful 
 information as to the habits of smugglers, their car- 
 goes, destinations, ports of call and sympathizers. 
 Boyd crowned his performances by inviting the Advo- 
 cate down to undertake the defence of the next set of 
 smugglers tried at the assizes, a task which the Advo-
 
 A VISIT FROM BOYD CONNOWAY 279 
 
 cate accepted with apparent gratitude and humility. 
 For from the Httle man's snuff-taking and easy-going, 
 idhng ways, Boyd had taken him for a briefless 
 advocate. 
 
 "Faith, sir, come to Galloway," he cried open- 
 heartedly — "there's the place to provide work for 
 the like of you lads. And it's Boyd Connoway will 
 introduce you to all the excise-case defendants from 
 Annan Port to Loch Ryan. It's him that knows every 
 man and mother's son of them ! And who, if ye 
 plaise, has a better right ? "
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 
 
 "The strongest mental tonic in the world is soli- 
 tude, but it takes a strong mind, fully equipped with 
 thoughts, aims, work, to support it long without 
 suffering. But once a man has made his best com- 
 panion of his own mind, he has learned the secret 
 of living." 
 
 So I had written in an essay on Senancour during 
 the days when the little white house was but a dream, 
 and Irma had never come to me across the cleared 
 space in front of Greyfriars Kirk amid the thud of 
 mallets and the "chip" of trowels. But Irma taught 
 me better things. She knew when to be silent. She 
 understood, also, when speech would slacken the 
 tension of the mind. As I sat writing by the soft 
 glow of the lamp I could hear the rustle of her house- 
 dress, the sharp, almost inaudible, tick-tick of her 
 weedle, and the soft sound as she smoothed out her 
 seam. Little things that happen to everybody, but 
 — well, I for one had never noticed them before. 
 
 It seemed as if this period of contentment would 
 always continue. The present was so good that, save 
 a little additional in the way of income, I asked for 
 no better. 
 
 But one day the Advocate rudely shook my equa- 
 nimity. 
 
 "You must have some of your family — some good 
 woman — to be with Irma. Write at once ! " 
 
 I could only look at him in amazement. 
 
 "Why, Irma is very well," I said; "she never 
 
 looked better in her life." 
 
 280
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 281 
 
 "j\Iy boy," said the Advocate, laying his hand 
 gently on my arm, "I have loved a wife, and I have 
 lost a wife who loved me ; I do not wish to stand by 
 and let you do the same for the want of a friend's 
 word. Write to-night ! " 
 
 And he turned on his heel and marched off. At 
 twenty steps' distance he turned. "Duncan," he 
 said, "we will need all your time at the Review; you 
 had better give up the Secretary's office. I have 
 spoken to Morrison about it. I shall be so much in 
 London for a year or two that you will be practically 
 in charge. We will get a smart young colleger to take 
 your place." 
 
 That night I wrote to my Aunt Janet. It was after 
 Irma, fatigued more easily than was usual with her, 
 had gone to bed. Four days afterwards, I was look- 
 ing over some manuscript sheets which that day had 
 to go to the printer. Mistress Pathrick, who had just 
 arrived to prepare the breakfast (I had lit the kitchen 
 fire when I got up), burst in upon me with the 
 announcement that there was "sic a g-atheringf o' 
 folk" at the door, and a "great muckle owld woman 
 
 coming m 
 
 r " 
 
 I hastened down, and there in the little lobby stood 
 — my grandmother. She was arrayed in her oldest 
 black bombazine. A travel-crushed beaver bonnet 
 was clapped tightly on her head. The black velvet 
 band about her white hair had slipped down and now 
 crossed her brow transversely a little above one bushy 
 eyebrow, giving an inconceivably rakish appearance 
 to her face. She held a small urchin, evidently from 
 the Grassmarket or the Cowgate, firmly by the cuff 
 of his ragged jacket. She was threatening him with 
 her great blue umbrella. 
 
 "If ye hae led me astray, ye skirmishing blastie, 
 I'll let ye ken the weight o' this ! "
 
 282 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 The youth was guarding himself with one hand and 
 declaring alternately that, "This is the hoose, mem," 
 and, " I want my saxpence ! " 
 
 A little behind two sturdy porters, laden with a box 
 apiece, blocked up the doorway, and loomed large 
 across the garden. 
 
 "Eh, Duncan, but this is an awesome place," cried 
 my grandmother. "So many folk, and it's pay this, 
 and so much for that ! It's a fair disgrace. There's 
 no man in Eden Valley that wadna hae been pleased 
 to gie me a lift from the coach wi' my bit boxes. But 
 here, certes, it's sae muckle for liftin' them up and 
 sae muckle more for settin' them doon, and to crown 
 a' a saxpence to a laddie for showin' me the road to 
 your house ! It's a terrible difference to Heathknowes, 
 laddie. Now, I wadna wonder if ye hae to pay for 
 your very firewood ! " 
 
 I assured her that we had neither peat nor wood- 
 cutting privileges on the Meadows, and to change the 
 subject asked her if she would not go up and see Irma. 
 
 "A' in guid time," she said. "I hae a word or two 
 to ask ye first, laddie. No that muckle is to be expected 
 o' a man that wad write to puir Janet Lyon instead 
 o' to me, Duncan MacAlpine ! " 
 
 As I did not volunteer anything, she exclaimed, 
 stamping her foot, "Dinna stand there glowering at 
 me. Man alive, Duncan lad, ye can hae no idea how 
 like an eediot ye can look when ye put your mind 
 to it ! " 
 
 I had been reared in the knowledge that it was a 
 vain thing to argue with my grandmother, so I 
 listened patiently to all she had to say, and I answered, 
 to the best of my ability, all the questions she asked. 
 Most she seemed to have no need to ask at all, for she 
 knew the answers before they were out of my mouth,
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 283 
 
 and paid no attention to my words when I did get in 
 a word. 
 
 "Humph, you are stupider than most men, and 
 that's saying no trifle ! " was her comment when all 
 was finished. 
 
 I asked Mary Lyon if there was nothing I could do 
 to assist her — help with her unpacking, or any trifle 
 like that. 
 
 "Aye, there is," she answered, with her old verve, 
 "get out o' the house, man, and leave me to my work 
 while you do yours." 
 
 I took my hat, the cane which the Advocate had 
 given me, and with them my way to the office of the 
 Universal Reviezv. I had a busy day, which perhaps 
 was as well, for all the time my mind was wandering 
 disconsolate about the little white house above the 
 Meadows. 
 
 I returned to find all well, my supper laid in the 
 kitchen and the contents of grandmother's trunks 
 apparently filling the rest of the house. Irma gave 
 me a little, perfunctory kiss; said, "Oh, if you could 
 only ! " and so vanished to where my grand- 
 mother was unfolding still more things and other 
 treasures to the rustle of fine tissue paper, and the 
 gasps and little hand-clappings of Irma. 
 
 Those who know my grandmother do not need to be 
 told that she took possession of our house and all that 
 was therein, of Irma so completely that practically I 
 was only allowed to bid my wife "Good-morning" 
 under the strictest supervision, and of Mistress Path- 
 rick — who, after one sole taste of my grandmother's 
 tongue, had retired defeated with the muttered criti- 
 cism that "that tongue o' the auld leddy's could ding 
 a' the Luckenbooths— aye, and the West Bow as 
 weel." However, once subjected, she proved a kindly
 
 284 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 and a willing slave. I have, however, my suspicions 
 that in these days Mr. Pathrick McGrier, ex-janitor of 
 the Latin class-room, had but a poor time of it so far 
 as the preparation of his meals went, and as to house- 
 keeping she was simply not there. 
 
 For she slept now under the stairs in a lair she had 
 rigged up for herself, which she said was "rale com- 
 fortable," but certainly to the unaccustomed had an 
 air of great stuffiness. 
 
 But I need not write at large what, after all, is no 
 unique experience. One night, upon my grand- 
 mother's pressing invitation, I walked out on Brunts- 
 field Links, and kicked stones into the golfers' holes 
 for something to do. It was full moon, I remember, 
 and away to the north the city slept while St. Giles 
 jangled fitfully. I had come there to be away from 
 the little white house, where Irma was passing through 
 the first peril of great waters which makes women's 
 faces different ever after — a few harder, most softer, 
 none ever the same. 
 
 Ten times I came near, stumbling on the short turf, 
 my feet numb and uncertain beneath me, my limbs 
 flageolating, and my heart rent with a man's helpless- 
 ness. I called upon God as I had not done in my life 
 before. I had been like many men — so long as I 
 could help myself, I saw no great reason for troubling 
 the Almighty who had already so much on His hands. 
 But now I could do nothing. I had an appalling 
 sense of impotence. So I remembered that He was 
 All-powerful, and just because I had never asked 
 anything with true fervour before, He would the more 
 surely give this to me. So at least I argued as I 
 prayed. 
 
 And, sure enough, the very next time I coasted the 
 northern shore of the Meadows, as near as I dared,
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 285 
 
 there came one running towards me, clear in the 
 moonlight — Mistress Pathrick it was and no other. 
 
 "A laddie — a fine laddie!" she panted, waving 
 both her hands in her enthusiasm. 
 
 "And Irma?" I cried, for that did not interest me 
 at that moment, no, not a pennyworth. 
 
 "A bhoy — as foine a bhoy " 
 
 "Tell me, how is Irma? " I shouted— "quick ! " 
 
 "Wud turn the scale at eleven, divil a ounce 
 less " 
 
 "Woman, tell me how is my wife!" I thundered, 
 lifting up my hands, "or I'll twist your foolish neck ! " 
 
 "Keep us!" said Mrs. Pathrick, "why, how 
 should she be ? Did ye expect she would be up and 
 bating the carpets ? " 
 
 In half-a-dozen springs, as it seemed, I was within 
 the gate. Then the clear, shrill wail with which a new 
 soul prisoned in an unfamiliar body trumpets its dis- 
 content with the vanities of this world stopped me 
 dead. Scarce knowing what I dlcl, I took off my boots. 
 I trod softly. 
 
 There was a hush now in the house — a sudden 
 stoppage of that shrill bugle-note. I came upon my 
 grandmother, as it seemed, moulding a little ruddy 
 bundle, with as much apparent ease and absence of 
 fuss as if it had been a pat of butter in the dairy at 
 home. 
 
 And when she put my firstborn son into my arms, 
 I had no high thoughts. I trembled, indeed, but it 
 was with fear lest I should drop him. 
 
 Presently his nurse took him again, grumbling at 
 the innate and incurable handlessness of men. Could 
 I see Irma? Certainly not. What would I be doing, 
 disturbing the poor thing? Very likely she was 
 asleep. Oh, I had promised to go, had I ? Well,
 
 286 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 she had nothing to do with that. But Irma would be 
 expecting me ! Oh, as to that, lad, lad, do not trouble 
 yourself. She will be resting in a peace like the peace 
 of the Lord, as you might know, if ever a man could 
 know anything about such things. 
 
 Just for a minute ? Well, then — a minute, and 
 no more. Mind, she, Mary Lyon, would be at the 
 door. I was not to speak even. 
 
 As I went in, Irma lifted her arms a little way and 
 then let them fall. There was a kind of shiny dew on 
 her face, little but chill to the touch of my lips. And, 
 ah, how wistful her smile ! 
 
 "Your . . . little . . . girl," she whispered, "has 
 deserved . . . well ... of her country. I hope he 
 will be brave . . . like his father. I prayed all might 
 be well ... for your sake, my dear. His name is to 
 be Duncan. . . . Yes, Duncan Louis Maitland ! " 
 
 I had been kneeling at the bedside, kneeling and, 
 well — perhaps sobbing. But at that moment I felt a 
 hand on my collar. The next I was on my feet, and 
 so, with only one glimpse of Irma's smile at my fate, 
 I found myself outside the room. 
 
 "What was it I telled ye? — Not to excite her I 
 Was it no ? " 
 
 And Mary Lyon showed me the way down to the 
 kitchen, which I had forgotten, where, on condition of 
 not making a noise, I was to be permitted for the 
 present to abide. 
 
 "But mind you," she added, threateningly, "not a 
 foot-sole are ye to set on thae stairs withoot my per- 
 mission. Or, my certes, lad, but ye will hear aboot 
 it!" 
 
 Decidedly I was a man under authority. The 
 extraordinary thing was that I was cautioned to make 
 no noise, and there in the next room was that red
 
 THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 287 
 
 imp yelling the roof off, yet neither of his female 
 relatives seemed to mind in the least, though his 
 remarks interfered very seriously with the article on 
 "Irrigation Systems of Southern Europe," which I 
 was working up for the Universal. 
 
 But when was a mere man (and breadwinner) con- 
 sidered at such times ? 
 
 In all truly Christian and charitable cities refuges 
 should be built for temporarily dispossessed, home- 
 less, and hungry heads of families.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 THE SUPPLANTER 
 
 Never did I realize so clearly the difference between 
 what interests the people in a great city and those 
 inhabiting remote provinces as when, in mid-August, 
 I took Irma and my firstborn son down to the whole- 
 some breath, and quiet pine shadows of Heathknowes. 
 I had seen the autumnal number of the Universal 
 safe into its wrapper of orange and purple. In Edin- 
 burgh the old town and the new alike thrilled and 
 hummed with the noise of a contested election. There 
 were processions, hustings, battles royal everywhere, 
 the night made hideous, the day insupportable. 
 
 But here, looking from the door out of the shelter- 
 ing arms of Marnhoul wood into the peace of the 
 Valley, the ear could discern only the hum of the 
 pirn-mill buzzing like a giant insect in the greenest 
 of the shade, and farther off the whisper of the sea on 
 the beaches and coves about Killantringan. 
 
 Now we had taken rather a roundabout road and 
 rested some nights on the way, for I had business 
 at Glasgow — a great and notable professor to visit 
 at the college, and in the library several manuscripts 
 to consult. So Irma remained with the Wondrous 
 Duncan the Second at the inn of the White Horse, 
 where the coach stopped. 
 
 When I came back I thought that Irma's face 
 looked a trifle flushed. I discovered that, having 
 asked the hostler to polish her shoes, he had refused 
 with the rudeness common to his class when only 
 rooms of the cheaper sort are engaged. Whereupon 
 
 288
 
 THE SUPPLANTER 289 
 
 Irma, who would not let her temper get the better of 
 her, had forthwith gone down to the pantry, taken 
 the utensils and done them herself. 
 
 I said not much to her, but to the landlord and 
 especially to the man himself I expressed myself with 
 fulness and a vigour which the latter, at least, was 
 not likely to forget for some time. 
 
 It was as well, however, that my grandmother was 
 not there. For in that case murder might have been 
 done, had she known of the scullion's answer and 
 what Irma had done. Well also, on the whole, for 
 us that she had refused to keep us company. For 
 having been only once in a great city in her life, and 
 never likely to be there again, Mary Lyon made the 
 most of her time. She had had two trunks when she 
 came to our gate. Four would not have held all that 
 she travelled with on her way back. And when we 
 remonstrated on the cost, she said, "Oh, fidget ! 'Tis 
 many a day since I cost anything to speak of to the 
 goodman. He can brave and weel afford to pay for 
 a trifle o' luggage." 
 
 Accordingly she never passed a fruit stall without 
 yearning to buy the entire stock-in-trade "for the 
 neighbours that have never seen siccan a thing as a 
 sweet orange in their lives — lemons being the more 
 marketable commodity in Eden Valley." 
 
 She had also as many commissions, for which she 
 looked to be paid, as if she had been a commercial 
 traveller. There were half-a-dozen "swatches" to be 
 matched for Aunt Jen — cloth to supply missing 
 "breadths," yarn to mend the toes of stockings, 
 ribbons which would transform the ancient dingy 
 bonnet into a wonder of beauty on the day of the 
 summer communion. She had "patterns" to buy 
 dress-lengths of — from the byre-lasses brown or drab 
 u
 
 290 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 to stand the stress of out-of-door — checked blue and 
 white for the daintier dairy-worker among her sweet 
 milk and cheese. 
 
 Even groceries, and a taste of the stuff they sell 
 in town for "bacon ham" — to be sniffed at and to 
 become the butt for all the goodwives in the parish — 
 no tea, for Mary Lyon knew where that could be got 
 better and cheaper, but a Pilgrim's Progress for a 
 neighbour lad who was known to be fond of the 
 reading and deserved to be encouraged — lastly, as a 
 vast secret, a gold wedding-ring which could not be 
 bought without talk in Eden Valley itself. Grand- 
 mother did not tell us for whom this was intended. 
 Nor did we know, till the little smile lurking at the 
 corner of her mouth revealed the mystery, when 
 Agnes Anne came home from the kirk and named 
 who had been "cried" that day. It was no other 
 than our sly Eben — and Miss Gertrude Greensleeves 
 was the name of the bride — far too young for him, 
 of course, but — he had taken his mother into his con- 
 fidence and not a man of us dared say a word. Doubt- 
 less the women did, but even they not in the hearing 
 of Mary Lyon. 
 
 But now we were at rest, and quite ten days ago 
 grandmother had arrived with her cargo. The com- 
 missions were all distributed. The parish had had a 
 solid week to get over its amazement. And, to put 
 all in the background, there had been a successful 
 run into Portowarren and another the same night to 
 Balcary — a thing not often done in the very height 
 of summer. Yet, because the preventive men were 
 not expecting it, perhaps safer then than at any other 
 time. 
 
 And above all and swamping all the endless talk 
 of a busy, heartsome farm-town ! Ah, how good it
 
 THE SUPPLANTER 291 
 
 was. Even the little god in the "ben" room, Master 
 Duncan Maitland INIacAlpine, had times and seasons 
 without a worshipper, all because there was a young 
 farmer's son in the kitchen telling of his experiences 
 "among the hills," with the gangers behind them, 
 and the morn breaking fast ahead. 
 
 How they must get to a place where they could 
 hide, a place with water, where they could restore 
 their beasts and repose themselves, a place of great 
 shadowing rocks in a weary land. For of a certainty 
 the sun would smite by day, even if the moon afforded 
 them guidance over the waste by night. 
 
 Or Boyd Connoway would tell of the Golden Hind 
 having been seen out in the channel, of rafts of 
 "buoyed" casks sunk to within three foot of the 
 bottom, to be fished up when on a dark night the 
 herring craft slipped out of Balcary or the Scaur, 
 silent as a shadow. 
 
 Or mayhap (and this, married or single, Irma liked 
 best of all) there came in some shy old farmer from 
 the uplands, or perhaps a herd, to whose boy or girl 
 "out at service" the mistress of Heathknowes had 
 brought home a Bible. These had come to thank 
 Mary Lyon, but could not get a word out. They 
 sipped their currant wine as if it were medicine and 
 moved uneasily on the edges of their chairs. They 
 had excellent manners stowed away somewhere — the 
 natural well-bredness of the hill and the heather, but 
 in a place like that, with so many folk, it seemed as 
 if they had somehow mislaid them. 
 
 Then was Irma's time. She would glide in, her 
 face still pale, of course, but with such a gracious 
 sweetness upon it that the shyest was soon at his ease. 
 Here was a cup, an embarrassment to the hand. She 
 would fill its emptiness, not with Aunt Jen's currant 
 
 U 2
 
 292 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 wine, but with good Hollands — not to the brim, be- 
 cause the owner would spill it over and so add the 
 finishing touch to his bashfulness. She sat down by 
 the oldest, the shaggiest, the roughest, and in a 
 moment (as if, like a fairy of Elfland, she had waved 
 her wand) old Glencross of Saltflats, who only talked 
 in monosyllables to his own wife, was telling Irma 
 all about the prospects of his hay crop, and the bad 
 look-out there was along the Colvend shore owing to 
 the rabbits breeding on the green hill pastures. 
 
 "Oh, but I'll thin them, missie," he affirmed, in 
 response to her look of sympathy, "ow aye, there 
 are waur things than hare soup and rabbit pie. 
 Marget " (his wife) "is a great hand at the pie. Ye 
 maun come ower some day and taste — you and your 
 guidman. I will send ye word by that daft loon 
 Davie." 
 
 Then with hardly an effort, now that the ice was 
 broken, turning to my grandmother, "Eh, mistress, 
 but it was awesome kind and mindfu' o' you to fetch 
 the laddie a Bible a' the road frae Enbra. I hae 
 juist been promising him a proper doing, a regular 
 flailing if he doesna read in it every nicht afore he 
 says his prayers." 
 
 Needless to say Davie had promised — but as to 
 Davie's after performance no facts have been put on 
 record. Still, he had his Bible and was proud of it. 
 
 Then Irma, safe in her married state, w'ould set her- 
 self down by some shy, horny-fisted fellow, all nose 
 and knuckles. She would draw him away from his 
 consciousness of the Adam's apple in his throat 
 (which he privately felt every one must be looking 
 at) and give him a good sympathetic quarter of an 
 hour all to himself. She would smile and smile and 
 be a villain to her heart's content, till the lad's tongue 
 would at last be loosened, and he would tell how he
 
 THE SUPPLANTER 293 
 
 tried for first prize at the last ploughing match, and 
 boast how he would have been first only for his 
 "coulter blunting on a muckle granite stane." He 
 would relate with exactness how many queys his father 
 had, the records of mortality among the wintering 
 sheep, the favourable prospects of the spring lambs 
 — "abune the average — aye, I will not deny, clean 
 abune the average." 
 
 So he would sit and talk, and gaze and gaze, till 
 there entered into his soul the strong desire to work, 
 to rise up and conquer fate and narrow horizons — so 
 that in time, like a certain Duncan MacAlpine (whom 
 very likely, as a big country fellow, he had thrashed 
 at school), it might happen to him to have by his 
 fireside something dainty and sw-eet and with great 
 sympathetic eyes and a smile — like that! 
 
 We had only a little while of this, however, for 
 on the morrow Louis was to arrive from school, 
 safely escorted by Freddy Esquillant and half-a-dozen 
 students, who had made a jovial party all the way 
 from Edinburgh. 
 
 Now I may write myself down a selfish brute by 
 the confession I am going to make. But all the same, 
 the thing is true and had better be owned up to, all 
 the more in the light of what afterwards happened. 
 I had no great wish that Louis should join our little 
 party, which with the advent of little Master Red 
 Knuckles, had been rendered quite complete. It was, 
 I admit, an unworthy jealousy. But I thought that 
 as Irma had always been so passionately devoted to 
 Louis — and also because she had, as I sometimes 
 teased myself by imagining, only come to me because 
 she had lost Louis — his coming back would — might, 
 I had the grace to say on second thoughts, deprive 
 me of some part of my hard-earned heritage — the love 
 of the woman who was all to me. For with me, his
 
 294 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 unworthy father, even Duncan Maitland had not yet 
 begun to count. With a man that comes later. 
 
 This is my confession, and once made, let us pass 
 on. I had even then the grace to be ashamed — at 
 least, rather. 
 
 Louis arrived. He had grown into a tall lad with 
 long hair of straw-coloured gold, that shone with 
 irregular reflections like muffled moonlight on a still 
 but gently rippling sea. He was quieter, and seemed 
 somehow different. He was now all for his books 
 and solitude, and sat long in the room that had been 
 given him for a bedroom and study — that with the 
 window looking out on the wood. It w^as the quietest 
 in the house — not only because of our youthful bull 
 of Bashan and his roaring, but because it was at the 
 farthest end of the long rambling house, away from 
 the stables and cattle sheds. 
 
 However, he seemed delighted to see Irm.a, and sat 
 a long time with her hand in his. But I, who knew 
 her well, noticed that there was not now on her face 
 the old strained attention to all that her brother said 
 or did. It was in another direction that her ears and 
 thoughts were turned, and at the first cry from baby's 
 cot she rose quietly, disengaging her hand without 
 remark before disappearing into the bedroom-nursery. 
 In another moment I could see my grandmother pass 
 the window drying her hands on her apron. I knew 
 from the ceasing of the plunging thud of the dasher 
 that she had called a substitute to the churning. The 
 dasher was now in the hands of Aunt Jen, who 
 handled it with a shorter, more irrascible stroke. 
 
 Left alone with him, I talked to Louis a while of 
 his studies, of the games the boys played at school, 
 of the length of the holidays. But to all these open- 
 ings and questionings he responded in a dull and 
 uninterested fashion, I could not but feel that he
 
 THE SUPPLANTER 295 
 
 resented bitterly the marriage which had come be- 
 tween his sister and himself. He had had, of course, 
 a place to come to on Saturdays and Sunday after- 
 noons, but I had seen little of him then. My work 
 was generally absorbing, and when I had time to 
 give to Irma, I wanted her all to myself. So I had 
 fallen into a habit, neither too kind nor yet too wise, 
 of taking to my writing or my proofs as often as 
 Louis came to our house. 
 
 Now, from the glances he cast at the door by which 
 Irma had gone out, I saw that he too was suffering 
 from jealousy — even as I had done. He was jealous 
 of that inarticulate Jacob which comes into so many 
 houses as a tiny Supplanter — the first baby ! 
 
 After a quarter of an hour he rose and got out of 
 the room quickly. I could hear him go to his own 
 room and shut the door. When Irma and Mary 
 Lyon had reduced our small bundle of earthquake to 
 a sulky and plaintive reason, she came back to talk 
 to her brother. Finding him gone, she asked where 
 Louis was, and immediately followed him to his 
 chamber, doubtless to continue their conversation. 
 
 But she returned after a while with a curious gleam 
 on her face, saying that doubtless travel had given 
 her brother a headache. He had shut his door with 
 the bolt, and was lying down. 
 
 I was on the point of asking Irma if he haJ 
 answered when she called to him, but remembered in 
 time that I had better not meddle in what did not 
 concern me. If Louis behaved like a bear, it would 
 only throw Irma the more completely upon me. And 
 this, at the time, I was selfish enough to wish for. 
 
 Afterwards— well, I had, as all men have, many 
 things to reproach myself for— this stupid jealousy 
 being by no means the least or the lightest. 
 
 Still, on the whole I had a great deal of peace and
 
 296 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 the composure of the quiet mind during these first 
 days at Heathknowes. My father, almost for the 
 first time in his life, withdrew himself from his desk, 
 and took a walk beyond the confines of the Academy 
 Wood to see his grandson, keeping, however, his 
 hands still behind him according to his custom in 
 school. My mother, even, arranged with Agnes 
 Anne to take the post-office duties during her absence, 
 and seemed pleased in her quiet way to hold the boy 
 in her arms. In this, however, she was not en- 
 couraged by Mary Lyon, who soon took Duncan 
 away on the plea that he cried, except with her. 
 Duncan the Second certainly stopped as soon as he 
 felt my grandmother's strong, well-accustomed hands 
 grasp him. Yet she was not in the least tender with 
 him. On the contrary, she heaved him, as it were 
 promiscuously, over one shoulder with his head hang- 
 ing down her back, and tucking his swathed legs 
 under one arm-pit she proceeded about her household 
 business, as if wholly disembarrassed — all the while 
 Duncan never uttering a word. 
 
 But through all the talk of the weather and the 
 crops, the night runs to Kirk Anders and the Borgue 
 shore, the capture made by the preventives at the 
 Hass of the Dungeon, the misdoings of Tim Cleary 
 who had got seven days for giving impudence to 
 the Provost of Dumfries in his own court-room, there 
 pierced the strange sough of politics. 
 
 The elections were upon us also in Galloway, and 
 the Government candidate was reported to be staying 
 at Tereggles with the Lord Lieutenant. He had not 
 yet been seen, but (it was, of course, Boyd Connoway 
 who brought us word) his name was the Honourable 
 Lalor Maitland, late Governor of the Meuse — a 
 province in the Low Countries.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 THE RETURN OF THE SERPENT TO EDEN VALLEY 
 
 I DID not tell Irma, and I enjoined silence on all 
 about the house. But there was no keeping such a 
 thing, and perhaps it was as well. Jo Kettle's father, 
 always keen to show his wit at the expense of his 
 betters, cried out to me in the hearing of Irma, "How 
 much, besides his pardon, has that uncle of yours 
 gotten in guineas for his treachery ? " 
 
 And when I protested ignorance, he added, "I mean 
 the new grand Government candidate, that has been 
 sae lang in the Netherlands, and was a rebel not so 
 long ago — many is the braw lad's head that he has 
 garred roll in the sawdust, I warrant." 
 
 For it was currently reported of Lalor in his own 
 day that he had been a spy for the King of France as 
 well as for King George — aye, and afterwards against 
 the emigrants at Coblentz in the service of the Revolu- 
 tion. Indeed, I do think there is little doubt but that, 
 at some time of his life, the man had been in such a 
 desperate way that he had spied and betrayed whoever 
 trusted him to whomsoever would pay for his treachery. 
 
 "Lalor Maitland — is he, then, in the country? " said 
 Irma, with a white and frightened look. "I must get 
 home — to Baby ! " 
 
 So completely had her heart changed its magnetic 
 pole. Poor Louis, small wonder he was jealous — and 
 rightly, not of me, but of the small and leathern- 
 lunged person who from his cot ruled the order of the 
 house, and made even the cheerful hum of the fireside, 
 the yard cock-crowing of the fowls, and the egg-kek- 
 
 297
 
 298 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 kling in the barn yield to his imperious will. For he 
 had them banished the precincts and shut up till his 
 highness should please to awaken. 
 
 But when we got to the Heathknowes road-end, we 
 beheld a yellow coach, with four horses, a coachman 
 and two outriders, all three in canary-coloured suits. 
 
 It was early days for such equipages to be seen in 
 Galloway, where, excluding the post-road on which 
 the Irish mail ran from Dumfries to Stranraer, there 
 were few roads and fewer bridges which would bear 
 a coach-and-four. Owing to the pirn-mill, our bridges 
 were a little stronger than usual, though the roads 
 were worn into deep ruts by the "jankers," or great 
 two-wheeled wagons for the transport of trees out of 
 the woods. 
 
 The carriage drove right up to the outer gate of the 
 yard of Heathknowes, half the idle laddies of Eden 
 Valley running shouting after it. The "yett," as 
 usual, was barred, and it is more than doubtful 
 whether, even if open, the coach could safely have 
 passed within — so narrow was the space between post 
 and post. 
 
 But the man inside put his head out of the window 
 and gave a short, sharp order. Whereupon the 
 postilions leaped down and stood to their horses' 
 heads. The canary coachman held his hands high, 
 with the reins drooping upon his knees. A footman 
 jumped out of a little niche by the side of one window 
 in which his life must have been almost shaken out 
 of him. He opened the door with the deepest respect, 
 and out there stepped the bravest and finest-dressed 
 gentleman that had ever been seen. 
 
 He was middle-sized and slight, no longer young, 
 but of an uncertain age. He wore a powdered wig, 
 with sky-blue coat and shorts, a white waistcoat em-
 
 THE RETURN OF THE SERPENT 299 
 
 broidered with dainty sprig patterns of lavender and 
 forget-me-not. He had on white silk stockings and 
 the most fashionable shoes, tied with blue-and-gold 
 governmental favours instead of ordinary buckles. By 
 his side was a sword with a golden hilt — in short, such 
 a cavalier had never been seen in Galloway within 
 living memory. 
 
 And at the sight of him Louis ran forw^ard, calling, 
 "Uncle, uncle ! " But Irma sank gently down on my 
 shoulder, so that I had to take her in my arms and 
 carry her to her chamber. 
 
 At first I stood clean dumfounded, as indeed well I 
 might. When Lalor came last to Eden Valley he had 
 been one of the Black Smugglers, a great man on the 
 Golden Hind — little better, to be brief, than a common 
 pirate. He and his had assaulted the house of Marn- 
 houl, with a pretence of legal purpose, no doubt, but 
 really merely levying war in a peaceful country. 
 
 Now here he was back, arrayed sumptuously, the 
 favourite of the Government at London, the guest of 
 the Lord Lieutenant of the county. 
 
 I could not explain it, and, indeed, till Irma came 
 to herself, I had little time or inclination to think the 
 matter out. But afterwards many things which had 
 been dark became clear, while others, though still 
 remaining mysterious, began to have a certain dim 
 light cast upon them. 
 
 What seemed clear was that Lalor had all along 
 benefited by mysterious protections, and the authori- 
 ties, though apparently anxious for his capture, never 
 really put themselves about in the least. They did 
 not want to catch or imprison Lalor Maitland. He 
 was much more useful to them elsewhere. Whereas 
 the children of a disaffected rebel, considered as claim- 
 ants to the Maitland estates, were of little account.
 
 300 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 But the action of Louis Maitland for the first time 
 opened my eyes to another matter. A corner of the 
 veil which had hid a plot was lifted. During all the 
 time that Irma had been with her Aunt Kirkpatrick, 
 ever since Louis entered Sympson's Classic Academy 
 (kept by Dr. Sympson, grandson of the old Restora- 
 tion Curate of Kirkmabreek), Lalor had been in Edin- 
 burgh, pursuing his plans in secret, perhaps (who 
 knows ?) with the learned assistance and council of 
 Mr. Wringham Pollixfen Poole, that expert with the 
 loaded riding-whip. 
 
 We had been far too busy with our own affairs — the 
 marriage, the little house, my work at the Review, 
 and more recently the appearance and providing for 
 of Duncan the Second. We had seen Louis on Satur- 
 days, and on Sundays, too, at times. But, to our 
 shame be it said, we knew very little about his life 
 at school, who were his friends, what his actual 
 thoughts. For this I shall never cease to reproach 
 myself — at least occasionally, when I think about 
 it. 
 
 But Lalor had appeared in splendour at Dr. Symp- 
 son's, had introduced himself as an uncle from abroad. 
 He was in high favour with the Government. He 
 had the most magnificent coach in the city, and, ap- 
 parently, plenty of money. He had early warned 
 Louis that w-e — that is, Irma and I — must hear nothing 
 of his visits, otherwise these pleasant jaunts would be 
 stopped — the afternoon treats to Duddingstone and 
 Lochend, the sails on the Firth with young Walter, 
 the Doctor's son, as his companion. For Lalor was so 
 wise that he never asked him out alone. So Louis 
 had been silent, bribed by the liberty and the golden 
 guineas, which were as plentiful with Lalor as they 
 were scarce wuth Irma and myself. The Doctor was
 
 THE RETURN OF THE SERPENT 301 
 
 charmed with his visitor, the ex-governor of a great 
 province in the Netherlands (which he looked out in 
 the Encyclopaedia and lectured upon) — and as for 
 Walter, his son, at that date he would have bartered 
 his soul for five hours' absence from the paternal 
 academy and a dozen sticks of toffee. 
 
 Then with what unwonted and flattering deference 
 the boy's entertainer had treated him. To him he was 
 Sir Louis, the head of the house. He would heir its 
 great properties, the value and extent of which had 
 been hidden from him by Irma and myself. Doubt- 
 less we had our own reasons for thus concealing the 
 truth, but Uncle Lalor's position with the Government 
 enabled him to assure Sir Louis that, through his 
 influence, all its ancient dignities would be restored 
 to the family. 
 
 Hence it was that, at the first sight of the slim man 
 with the powdered wig tied in a gay favour behind his 
 back, Louis had run and flung himself into his arms. 
 Perhaps, also, it had something to do with his dis- 
 appointment in Irma, and it was in this open way that 
 he chose to punish her. 
 
 Yet when Lalor Maitland had come into the parlour, 
 and I had spoken with him, the man's frank and 
 smilins: recognition of the circumstances, his high, 
 easy manner, an old-world politeness as of one 
 long familiar with courts, yet a kindly gentleman 
 withal, prepossessed me in his favour even against 
 
 myself. 
 
 "Well," he said, with that rare smile which distin- 
 guished him, "here we have the fortune of war. You 
 and I have met before, sir, and there are few that have 
 faced me as you did, being at the time only a boy— 
 and not myself only, but Dick, the boldest man on the 
 Golden Hind."
 
 302 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 He tapped a careless tattoo on the table with his 
 fingers. 
 
 "Ah, they were good days, after all," he said; "mad 
 days — when it was win ten thousand or walk the plank 
 every time the brig put her nose outside the harbour 
 bar ! " 
 
 "It turned out the ten thousand, I presume?" I 
 said, without too much unbending. 
 
 "Oh," he answered lightly, "as to myself, I was 
 never very deeply entered. I had ever an anchor out 
 to windward. It was rare that I acted without orders, 
 and, having been in a high official position, it was in 
 my power to render certain important services to the 
 Government of this country — for which, I may say, 
 they have not proved themselves less ungrateful than 
 is the way of governments." 
 
 "So it would seem," I answered. 
 
 "But," he continued, "I called chiefly to renew my 
 acquaintance with my sometime wards — though one 
 of them has sought another and a better guardian " 
 (here he bowed very gracefully to me), "and the other 
 — well, Louis lad, what have you to say to your old 
 uncle?" 
 
 The boy came bounding up, and stood close by his 
 chair, smoothing the lace of Lalor's sleeve, his eyes 
 full of happiness and confidence. It was a pretty 
 sight, and for a moment I confess I was baffled. 
 Could it be that after all Louis was right and Irma 
 wrong? Could this man have supposed that the chil- 
 dren were being held against their will and interest, 
 or at least fraudulently removed from their legal 
 guardian, when he assaulted the old house of Marn- 
 houl? 
 
 Perhaps, as I began to surmise, we had on that occa- 
 sion really owed our lives to him. For had the Golden
 
 THE RETURN OF THE SERPENT 303 
 
 Hinds all come on at a time, they would undoubtedly, 
 being such a crew of cut-throats, have rushed us and 
 eaten us up in no time. 
 
 Women, I tried to persuade myself, had dislikes 
 even more inexplicable than their likings. Some 
 early, unforgiven, childish prejudice, perhaps. Women 
 do not easily forgive, except those whom they love, 
 and even these only so long as they continue to love 
 them. For many women the phrase in the Lord's 
 Prayer, "as we forgive them that trespass against us," 
 had better be expunged. It is a dead letter. The 
 exceptions are so rare as to prove the rule — and even 
 they, though they may forgive their enemies, draw 
 the line at forgiving their neighbours. 
 
 "And am I not to see my fair enemy, Madame — ah, 
 Duncan MacAlpine ? I wish to have the honour of 
 felicitating her infinite happiness, and I have taken 
 the liberty of bringing her an old family jewel for her 
 acceptance." 
 
 "My wife, sir," I said, "is not yet well. She is 
 subject to sudden shock, and I fear " 
 
 "Ah, I understand," he said, bowing gravely, and 
 with a touch of melancholy which became him vastly ; 
 "I never had the good fortune to please the lady — as 
 you have done." 
 
 He smiled again, and waved away a clumsy attempt 
 of mine to reply. 
 
 "But that is my misfortune — perhaps, though un- 
 consciously, my fault. Still, there is the trinket. I 
 leave it in your hands, in trust for those of your wife. 
 My respectful duty and service to her and — to the heir 
 of your house ! Come, Louis, will you have a ride 
 in the coach as far as the bridge and back ? I have 
 left my Lord Lieutenant there visiting some of his 
 doubtful tenants. I will pick him up when he is
 
 304 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 ready, and then bring this Httle friend of mine 
 back." 
 
 That night Louis wept and stamped in a black 
 anger. 
 
 "I don't want to stop here," he said; "I want to go 
 with Uncle Lalor in the gilded coach."
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 BY WATER AND THE WORD 
 
 During my holidays at Heathknowes I found my- 
 self necessarily in frequent communication with my 
 Lord Advocate. For though I was the actual, he 
 was the ultimate editor of the Universal Review. I 
 felt that he had done so much for me, and that we 
 were now on such terms that I might without pre- 
 sumption ask him a private question about Lalor 
 Maitland. Because, knowing the man to have been 
 mixed with some very doubtful business, I wondered 
 that a man of such honour and probity as the Advo- 
 cate would in any circumstances act by such means — 
 much less countenance his being put forward in the 
 Government interest at a contested election. 
 
 I will give the text of the Advocate's reply in so far 
 as it deals with Lalor: "Have as little as possible to 
 do in a private capacity with ' your Connection by 
 Marriage ' " (for so he continued to style him). "In 
 public affairs we must often use sweeps to explore 
 dark and tortuous passages. Persons who object to 
 fyle themselves cannot be expected to clean drains. 
 You take my metaphor? Your 'Relative by Mar- 
 riage ' has proved himself a useful artist in cesspools. 
 That is all. He has not swept clean, but he has 
 swept. He has, on several occasions, been useful to 
 the Government when a better man would never have 
 earned salt to his kail. Publicly, therefore, he is an 
 estimable servant of the Government. Privately I 
 would not touch him with the point of my shoe. For 
 in personal relations such men are always dangerous. 
 X 305
 
 306 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 See to it that you and yours have as little to do with 
 him as possible." 
 
 There in a nutshell was the whole philosophy of 
 politics. "For dirty jobs use dirty tools" — and of 
 such undoubtedly was Lalor Maitland. 
 
 But I judged that, having come through so many 
 vicissitudes, and moving now with a certain name 
 and fame, he would, for his own sake, do us no open 
 harm. Rather, as witness little Louis, he would ex- 
 ploit the ancient renown of the Maitlands, their stand- 
 ing in Galloway, and his friendship with the heir of 
 their estates. 
 
 It seemed to me that Louis was entirely safe, espe- 
 cially in the good hands of the Lord Lieutenant, and 
 that the great rewards which Lalor Maitland had 
 received from the Government constituted in some 
 measure the best security against any dangerous 
 plotting. 
 
 And in all the electoral campaign that followed, cer- 
 tain it is that Lalor showed only his amiable side, 
 taking all that was said against him with a smiling 
 face, yet as ready with his sword as with his tongue, 
 and so far as courage went (it must be allow^ed) in no 
 way disgracing the old and well-respected name of the 
 Maitlands of Marnhoul. But I must tell you of the 
 fate which befell the jewel he had left in my hands for 
 Irma. Whether it had ever belonged to the family 
 of Maitland or not, I should greatly doubt. It was 
 a hoop of rubies set with brilliants, which at will 
 could make a bracelet for the wrist, or a kind of tiara 
 for the hair. It was placed in a lined box of morocco 
 leather, called an "ecrin," and stood out as beautifully 
 against the faded blue of the velvet as a little tangled 
 wisp of sunset cloud lost in an evening sky. 
 
 But Irma flashed out when I showed it her.
 
 BY WATER AND THE WORD 307 
 
 " How dare you ? " she cried, and seizing the box 
 she shut it with a snap like her own white teeth. 
 Then, the window being open, she threw it into the 
 low shrubbery at the orchard end, whence, after she 
 had gone to baby, I had no great trouble in recovering 
 it. For it seemed to me too good to waste, and would 
 certainly be of more use to me than to the first yokel 
 who should pass that way. 
 
 Under ordinary circumstances Lalor would cer- 
 tainly have been defeated. First of all, though doubt- 
 less belonging to an ancient family of the country, he 
 was, with his gilded coach and display of wealth 
 gotten no one could just say how or where, in speech 
 and look an outsider. His opponent. Colonel j\Iac- 
 Taggart of the Stroan, called familiarly "The Cornel " 
 was one of the brave, sound, stupid, jovial country 
 gentlemen who rode once a week to market at Dum- 
 fries, never missed a Court day at Kirkcudbright, did 
 his duty honourably in a sufficiently narrow round, 
 and was worshipped by his tenantry, with whose 
 families he was on terms of extraordinary fondness 
 and friendship. Altogether, to use the vulgar idiom, 
 "The Cornel" was felt to be a safe man to "bring 
 back Galloway fish-guts to Galloway sea-maws." 
 Or, in other words, he would see to it that patron- 
 age, like charity, should begin at home — and stop 
 there. 
 
 To set off against this, there was a strong feeling 
 that Galloway had been long enough in opposition. 
 There appeared to be (and indeed there was) no chance 
 of overturning the Government. Why, then, should 
 Galloway dwell for seven more years in the cold and 
 hungry shades of opposition — able to growl, but quite 
 unable to get the bone? 
 
 Lalor was brim-full of promises. He had been, if not 
 
 X 2
 
 308 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 a smuggler, at least an associate of smugglers, and all 
 along Solwayside that was no disadvantage to him — 
 in a country where all either dabbled in the illicit 
 traffic, or, at best, looked the other way as the jingling 
 caravans went by. 
 
 Briefly, then, his Excellency Lalor Maitland, late 
 Governor of the Province of the Meuse, now a law- 
 abiding subject of King George, was duly elected and 
 sent to Westminster to take his seat as representing 
 the lieges. The excitement calmed down almost at 
 once. The gold coach was seen no more. The pre- 
 ventive men and supervisors of excise were neither up 
 nor down. Galloway felt vaguely defrauded. I think 
 many of those who voted for Lalor imagined that the 
 excisemen and coastguards would at once be recalled, 
 and that henceforward cargoes from the Isle of Man 
 and Rotterdam would be unloaded in broad daylight, 
 instead of by the pale light of the moon, without a 
 single question being asked on behalf of the revenue 
 officers of King George. 
 
 After Lalor's disappearance Louis Maitland was 
 heavy and depressed for several days, staying long in 
 his room and returning the shortest answers when 
 spoken to. Suddenly one morning he declared his 
 intention of going to Dumfries, and so on the follow- 
 ing Wednesday my grandfather and he drove thither 
 by the coach road while I follow^ed behind on horse- 
 back. It was the purpose of Louis Maitland to have 
 speech with the lawyers. So, knowing the temper in 
 which he had been since his uncle's departure, I let 
 him go up alone, but afterwards had speech with the 
 younger Mr. Smart on my own account. 
 
 He smiled when I mentioned Sir Louis and his 
 mission. 
 
 "He wishes to go up to London to his cousin — he
 
 BY WATER AND THE WORD 309 
 
 calls him his uncle, Mr. Lalor, your fine new Govern- 
 ment member for the county ! " 
 
 "I judged as much," said I, "but I hope you have 
 not given him any such permission." 
 
 "He can take all the permission he wishes after he 
 is twenty-one," said Mr. Smart; "at present he has a 
 good many years before him at Sympson's Academy. 
 There he may occupy himself in turning the old 
 curate's Three Patriarchs into Latin. As to his holi- 
 days, he can spend them with his sister or stay on in 
 Edinburgh with the Doctor. But London is not a 
 place for a young gentleman of such exalted notions 
 of his own importance — ' You bury me at a farmhouse 
 with a family of boors ! ' — was what he said. Now, 
 that smells Mr. Lalor a mile off. But the lad is not 
 much to blame, and I hope you will not let it go any 
 farther." 
 
 "Certainly not," said I, "the boy was only quot- 
 ing! " 
 
 I returned from this interview considerably relieved, 
 but for some days Sir Louis was visibly cast down. 
 
 However, I said nothing to Irma, only advising her 
 to devote herself a little more to her brother, at times 
 when the exigencies of Duncan the Second would 
 leave her time and opportunity. 
 
 "Why ! " she said, with a quick gasp of astonish- 
 ment, " I never forget Louis — but of course baby 
 needs me sometimes. I can't help that ! " 
 
 If I had dared, I should have reminded her that 
 baby appeared to need every woman about the house 
 of Heathknowes — to whom may be added my mother 
 from the school-house, Mrs. Thomas Gallaberry (late 
 Anderson), and a great and miscellaneous cloud of 
 witnesses, to all of whom the commonest details of 
 toilet — baby's bath, his swathing and unbandaging,
 
 310 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 the crinkling of his face and the clenching of his fists, 
 the curious curdled marbling upon his fat arms, even 
 the inbending of his toes, were objects of a cult to 
 which that of the Lama of Thibet was a common and 
 open secret. 
 
 Even fathers were excluded as profane on such 
 occasions, and the gasps of feminine delight at each 
 new^ evidence of genius were the only sounds that 
 might be heard even if you listened at the door, as, I 
 admit, I was often mean enough to do. Yet the mani- 
 festations of the object of worship, as overheard by 
 me, appeared sufificiently human and ordinary to be 
 passed over in silence. 
 
 I admit, how'ever, that such was not the opinion 
 of any of the regular worshippers at the shrine, and 
 that the person of the opposite sex who was permitted 
 to warm the hero's bath-towel at the fire, became an 
 object of interest and envy to the whole female com- 
 munity. As for my grandmother, I need only say 
 that while Duncan the Second abode within the four 
 walls of Heathknowes, not an ounce of decent edible 
 butter passed out of her dairy. Yet not a man of us 
 complained. We knew better. 
 
 There still remained, however, a ceremony to be 
 faced which I could not look forward to with equa- 
 nimity. It had been agreed upon between us, that, 
 though by the interference of our good friend the 
 Advocate, we had been married in the old private 
 chapel attached to the Deanery, we should defer the 
 christening of Duncan the Second till "the Doctor" 
 could perform the office — there being, of course, but 
 one "Doctor" for all Eden Valley people — Doctor 
 Gillespie, erstwhile Moderator of the Kirk of Scotland. 
 
 I had long been under reproach for my slackness in 
 this matter. Inuendoes were mixed with odious com-
 
 BY WATER AND THE WORD 311 
 
 parisons upon Mary Lyon's tongue. If her daughter 
 had only married a Cameronian, the bairn would 
 have been baptized within seven days ! Never had 
 she seen an unchristened bairn so long about a house ! 
 But for them that sit at ease in an Erastian Zion — she 
 referred to my father, who was not only precentor but 
 also session-clerk, and could by no means be said to 
 sit at ease — she supposed anything was good enough. 
 It was different in her young days. She, at least, 
 had been properly brought up. 
 
 Finally, however, I went and put the case to the 
 Doctor. He was ready to come up to Heathknowes 
 for the baptism. Aher his usual protest that according 
 to rule it ought to be performed in sight of all the 
 congregation, he accepted the good reason that my 
 grandfather and grandmother, being ardent Came- 
 ronians, could not in that case be present. The Doctor 
 had, of course, anticipated this objection. For he 
 knew and respected the "kind of people" reared by 
 four generations of "Societies," and often (in private) 
 held them up as ensamples to his own flock. 
 
 So to Heathknowes, the house of the Cameronian 
 elder, there came, with all befitting solemnity. Doctor 
 Gillespie, ex-Moderator of the Kirk of Scotland. 
 Stately he stepped up the little loaning, followed by 
 his session, their clerk, my father at their head. At 
 the sight of the Doctor arrayed in gown and bands, 
 his white hair falling on his neck and tied with a black 
 ribbon, the whole family of us instinctively uncovered 
 and stood bareheaded. My grandfather had gone 
 down to the foot of the little avenue to open the gate 
 for the minister. The Doctor smilingly invited him 
 to walk by his side, but William I yon had gravely 
 shaken his head and said, "I thank you, Doctor, but 
 to-day, if you will grant me the privilege, I will
 
 312 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 walk with my brethren, the other elders of the Kirk 
 of God." 
 
 And so he did, and as they came within sight of the 
 house I took Irma by the hand. For she trembled, 
 and tears rose to her eyes as she saw that simple but 
 dignified procession (like to that which moved out of 
 the vestry on the occasion of the Greater Sacrament) 
 approaching the house. The lads stood silent with 
 bared heads. For once Duncan lay quiet in the arms 
 of Mary Lyon — who that day would yield her charge 
 to none, till she gave him to the mother, when the 
 time should come, according to the Presbyterian rite, 
 to stand up and place the firstborn in his father's 
 arms. 
 
 There was only one blank in that gathering. Louis 
 had gone to his own room, pretexing a headache, but 
 really (as he blurted out afterwards) because his Uncle 
 Lalor had said that Presbyterianism was no religion 
 for a gentleman. 
 
 However, it was only afterwards that he was missed. 
 
 The Doctor was great on such occasions. A sur- 
 prising soft radiance, almost like a halo, surrounded 
 his smooth snowy locks. A holy calm, exhaling from 
 half a century of spotless life lived in the sight of 
 all men, spoke in every word, moved in every gesture. 
 The elders stood about grave and quiet. The great 
 Bible lay open. The psalm of dedication was sung — 
 of which the overword is, "Lo, children are God's 
 heritage," and the conclusion the verse which no Scot 
 forgets the world over, perhaps because it contains, 
 quite unintentionally, so delightful a revelation of his 
 own national character — 
 
 " O happy is the man that hath 
 His quiver filled with those : 
 They unashamed in the gate 
 Shall speak unto their foes J^
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 THE WICKED FLAG 
 
 "There's Boyd Connoway has been sitting on my 
 front doorstep," cried my Aunt Jen, "and if I've telled 
 the man once, I've telled him twenty times! " 
 
 "But how do ye ken, Janet?" said her mother out 
 of the still-room where she was brewing nettle-beer. 
 "He is not there now ! " 
 
 "How do I ken — fine that ! " snapped Jen. "Do I 
 no see my favourite check pattern on his trousers ! " 
 said Jen, which, indeed, being plain to the eye of 
 every beholder, admitted of no denial — except per- 
 haps, owing to point of view, by the unconscious 
 wearer himself. He had sat down on these mystic 
 criss-crossings and whorls dear to the Galloway house- 
 wife for her floor ornaments, while the whiting was 
 still wet. 
 
 "It's no wonder," Jen pursued vengefully, "they 
 may say what they like. An I were that man's wife, 
 I wad brain him. Here he has been the livelong day. 
 Twa meals has he eaten. Six hours has he hung 
 about malingering. He came to roof the pigstye. He 
 tore off the old thatch, and there it lies, and there will 
 lie for him. If there is frost, Girzie's brood will be 
 stiff" by the morning. Then he ' had a look ' at my 
 roasting-jack and . . . there it is ! " 
 
 She indicated with an indignant sweep of the hand 
 what she designated "a rickle o' rubbish" as the net 
 proceeds of Boyd's industry. 
 
 The artist explained himself between the mouthfuls 
 at his third repast. 
 
 313
 
 3U THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 "Ye see, Miss Lyon, there's nocht that spoils good 
 work like worry on the mind. The pigs will do fine. 
 I'll put a branch or two over them and a corn-sack 
 over that. If a drap o' rain comes through it will 
 only harden the wee grunties for the trials o' life. 
 Aye" (here Boyd relapsed into philosophy), "life is 
 fu' o' trials, for pigs as weel as men. But men the 
 worst — for as for pigs, their bread is given them and 
 their water is sure. Now as for myself " 
 
 "Yourself," cried Aunt Jen, entering into one of 
 her sudden rages, "if ye were half as much worth 
 to the world as our old sow Girzie, ye wad be 
 salted and hanging up by the heels now ! As it 
 is, ye run the country like Crazy, our collie, a 
 burden to yourself and a nuisance to the world at 
 lairge ! 
 
 "Eh, Miss Jen, but it's the word ye have, as I was 
 sayin' to Rob McTurk up at the pirn-mill last Tuesday 
 week. ' If only our Miss Jen there had been a man,' 
 says I, ' it's never Lalor Maitland that would have 
 been sent to sit in King George's High House o' 
 Parliament.' " 
 
 Again Boyd Connoway took up his burden of testi- 
 mony. 
 
 "Aye, Miss Jen, there's some that's born to trouble 
 as the sparks fly upward. That's me, Miss Jen. Now 
 there's my brother that's a farmer in County Donegal. 
 Niver a market night sober — and yet he's not to say 
 altogether content. An' many is the time I say to our 
 Bridget, ' What would you do if I was Brother Jerry 
 of Ballycross, coming home to ye in the box of the 
 gig, and the reins on the horse's neck ? ' 
 
 "* Ye never had a horse,' says she, and thinks that 
 an answer! Women's heads are born void of logic, 
 and what they fill them with — axing your pardon, Mis-
 
 THE WICKED FLAG 315 
 
 tress Lyon, ah, if they were all like you — 'tis a happier 
 place this world would be ! " 
 
 "Finish, and let us get the dishes cleared away! " 
 said my grandmother, who did not stand upon 
 fashions of speech, least of all with Boyd Connoway. 
 
 Boyd hastened to obey, ladling everything within 
 reach into his mouth as fast as knife and spoon could 
 follow each other. 
 
 He concluded, crooning over his eternal ditty, by 
 way of thanksgiving after meat — 
 
 " If I was in bed and fast asleep 
 I wouldn't get up for a score of sheep." 
 
 This distich had the gift of always infuriating Aunt 
 Janet. 
 
 "You may well say so," she cried, clattering away 
 with an armful of dishes in a way that was a protest 
 in itself; "considering all you are good for when you 
 do get up, you might just as well be in bed fast asleep, 
 and " 
 
 "Now there you're wrong, Miss Janet," said Boyd. 
 "It was only last Sunday that I gave up all my evil 
 courses and became one of Israel Kinmont's folk. My 
 heart is changed," he added solemnly; "I gave it to 
 the Lord, and He seen fit to convart me ! " 
 
 The whole household looked up. Anything bearing 
 on personal religion instantly touched Scots folk of 
 the humble sort. But Aunt Jen was obdurate. Long 
 experience had rendered her sceptical with regard to 
 Boyd Connoway. 
 
 "We'll soon see if you are converted to the Lord," 
 she said. "He is a hard worker. There are no idlers 
 on His estates. If it's true, we may get these pigs 
 covered in to-night yet." 
 
 "Never trouble your head about the pigs. Miss 
 Janet," said Boyd, "they will surely sleep safe under
 
 316 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 a roof this night. Strive to fix your mind on higher 
 things, Miss Jen. There's such a thing as makin' a 
 god of this here transient evil world, as I said to 
 Bridget when the potatoes went bad just because I 
 got no time to ' pit ' them, having had to play the 
 fiddle at four kirns' ^ in different parishes during 
 potato-lifting week ! " 
 
 "Never mind about that," said my grandfather from 
 his seat in the chimney corner, "tell us about your 
 ' conversion ' ! " 
 
 For the word was then a new^ one in Galloway, and 
 of no good savour either among orthodox Cameron- 
 ians or pillars of the Kirk as by law established. But 
 Israel Kinmont had been a sailor to far ports. In his 
 youth he had heard Whitefield preach. He had fol- 
 lowed Wesley's folk afar off. The career of a humble 
 evangelist attracted him, and when in his latter days 
 he had saved enough to buy the oldest and worst of 
 all luggers that ever sailed the sea, he devoted him- 
 self, not to the gainful traffic of smuggling, but to 
 the unremunerative transport of sea-coal and lime from 
 Cockermouth and Workington to the small ports and 
 inlets of the Galloway coast. 
 
 No excisemen watching on the cliffs gave more than 
 a single glance at "Israel's Tabernacle," as, without 
 the least irreverence, he had named his boat. But, 
 using the same ports as the smugglers, he was often 
 brought into close relations with them. They asked 
 him for information which was freely given, as from 
 one friend to another. They trusted him, for though 
 often interrogated by the supervisor and riding 
 officers, Israel could develop upon occasion an extra- 
 ordinary deafness, so that the questions to which he 
 
 ^ Harvest home merrymakings.
 
 THE WICKED FLAG 317 
 
 could give a clear answer were never such as to commit 
 any one. In exchange for this the smugglers would 
 go aboard the Tabernacle and allow Israel to 
 preach to them. And woe betide the irreverent on 
 these occasions ! Black Rob o' Garlics or Roaring 
 Imrie from Dougias-ha' thought nothing of taking 
 such a one by convenient parts of his clothing and 
 dropping him overboard. 
 
 "Aye," said Boyd, encouraged by my grandfather's 
 request, "Israel Kinmont has made a new man of 
 many a hardened sinner ! " 
 
 "I dare you to say so," cried my grandmother; 
 "only the Lord that is on High can do that." 
 
 "But He can make use of instruments," argued 
 Boyd, who had learned his lesson, "and Israel Kin- 
 mont is one of them. He has showed me where to 
 get grace." 
 
 "Maybe," snapped Jen, that unswerving Calvinist, 
 "seeing is believing. Boyd Connoway may have got 
 grace. I put no limit to the Almighty's power. But it 
 takes more than grace to convert a man from lazi- 
 ness ! " 
 
 Boyd lifted his hand with a gesture so dignified that 
 even from the good-for-nothing it commanded respect. 
 
 "'Tis from the Lord, Miss Jen, and it behoves us 
 poor mortals noways to resist. Israel Kinmont never 
 would smuggle, as ye know, and yet he never had any 
 luck till the highest tide of the year brought the ' Old 
 Tabernacle ' up, with a cargo of sea-coal in her, half- 
 way between Killantringan Village and the Nitwood. 
 
 "'She's settling, Israel,' said his son Jacob, that's 
 counted soft, but can raise the tune at meeting — none 
 like him for that. 
 
 "'Even so,' said Israel, 'the will of the Lord be 
 done ! '
 
 318 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 " ' She's settling fast ! Both my feet are wet ! ' said 
 Jacob, holding on to a rope. 
 
 "'Amen! ' cried Israel, 'if it only were His will 
 that she should come ten yards higher up, she would 
 be on the very road-side. Then I would open a door 
 into the hold of her after the coal is out, and you and 
 I, Jacob, could rig up seats and windows like a proper 
 Tabernacle — fit for Mr. Whitefield himself to preach 
 in ! Truly the service of the Lord is joyful. His law 
 doth rejoice the heart.' 
 
 "So said Israel, and, just as I am tellin' you, there 
 came a great inward swirling of the tide, a very 
 merracle, and lo ! the Tabernacle was laid down as by 
 compass alongside the Nitwood road, whence she will 
 never stir till the day of Final Judgment, as the scrip- 
 ture is. And Israel, he cuts the door, and Jacob, he 
 gets out the coals and sells them to the great folk, 
 and the supervisor, he stands by, watching in vain till 
 he was as black as a sweep, for the brandy that was 
 not there. But he petitioned Government that Israel 
 should have a concession of that part of the foreshore 
 — being against all smuggling and maybe thinking to 
 have him as a sort of spiritual exciseman. 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Lyon," Boyd went on, gratified by the 
 interest in his tale, " 'tis wonderful, when you think 
 on't. Empty from stem to stern she is, with skylights 
 in her deck and windows in her side ! Why, there 
 are benches for the men and a pulpit for Israel. As 
 for Jacob, he has nothing but his tuning-fork and a 
 seat with the rest. 
 
 "And indeed there's more chance that Israel will 
 put a stop to the Free-trading than all the preventives 
 in the land. He preaches against it, declaring that it 
 makes the young men fit for nothing else, like every 
 other way of making money without working for it."
 
 THE WICKED FLAG 319 
 
 "Ah, Israel's right there!" came from my grand- 
 father. 
 
 "But every Hght has its shadow, and he's made a 
 failure of it with Dick Wilkes, and may do the like 
 with my wife, Bridget. 
 
 "For Bridget, she will be for ever crying at me 
 these days, ' Here, you Tabernacle man, have you 
 split the kindling wood?' Or 'No praise-the-Lord 
 for you, lad, till your day's work is done ! Go and 
 mend that spring-cart of the General's that his man 
 has been grumbling about for a month ! ' 
 
 "And sometimes I have to fill my mouth with the 
 hundred and twenty-first psalm to keep from answer- 
 ing improper, and after all, Bridget will only ask if I 
 don't know the tune to that owld penny ballad. 'Tis 
 true enough about the tune" (Boyd confessed), "me 
 having no pitch-pipe, but Bridget has no business to 
 miscall scripture, whether said or sung ! 
 
 "As to Dick Wilkes, that got his lame leg at the 
 attack on — well, we need not go opening up old 
 scores, but we all know where — has been staying with 
 us, and that maybe made Bridget worse. Aye, that 
 he has. There's no one like Bridget for drawing all 
 the riff-raff of the countryside about her — I know 
 some will say that comes of marrying me. But 'tis 
 the ould gennleman's own falsehood. You'll always 
 find Boyd Connow^ay in the company of his betters 
 whenever so be he can ! 
 
 "But Dick Wilkes had our * ben ' room, and there 
 were a little, light, active man that came to see him — 
 not that I know much of him, save from the sound of 
 voices and my wife Bridget on the watch to keep me 
 in the kitchen, and all that. 
 
 "But Old Israel would never give up Dick Wilkes. 
 He kept coming and coming to our house, and what
 
 320 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 he called ' wrestling for Dick's soul.' Sometimes he 
 went away pleased, thinking he had gotten the upper 
 hand. Then the httle Hght man would come again, 
 and there was Dick just as bad as ever. ' Back- 
 sHding ' was what Israel called it, and a good name, 
 I say, for then the job was all to do over again from 
 the beginning. But it was the Adversary that carried 
 off Dick Wilkes at the long and last." 
 
 "xA.h ! " came a subdued groan from all the kitchen. 
 Boyd gloomily nodded his head. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "'tis a great and terrible warning 
 to Bridget, and so I tell her. 'Twas the night of the 
 big meeting at the Tabernacle, when Israel kept it up 
 for six hours, one lot coming and another going — 
 the Isle o' Man fleet being in — that was the night of 
 all nights in the year that Dick Wilkes must choose 
 for to die in. Aught more contrary than that man 
 can't be thought of. 
 
 " It happened just so, as I say. About four o'clock 
 we were all of us shut up in the kitchen, and by that 
 we knew (Jerry and I, at least) that Dick Wilkes had 
 company — also that so far as repentance went, old 
 Israel's goose was cooked till he had another turn at 
 his man. And then after six we heard him shouting 
 that he was going to die — which seemed strange to us. 
 For we could hear him tearing at his sea-chest and 
 stamping about his room, which is not what is ex- 
 pected of a dying man. 
 
 "But Dick knew better. For when we went down 
 and peeped at the keyhole, he heard us, and called on 
 us all to come our ways in. And — you will never 
 guess in a thousand years— he had routed a flag out of 
 his sea-chest. The ' Wicked Flag ' it was,— the 
 pirates' flag— black, with the Death's Head and cross- 
 bones done in white upon it, the same that he had
 
 THE WICKED FLAG 321 
 
 hoisted on seas where no questions were asked, when 
 he commanded the old Golden Hind. And wrapping 
 himself in that, he said, ' Tell old Israel that I died 
 so! ' And we, thinking it was, as one might say, 
 braving the Almighty and his poor old servant, kept 
 silence. And then he shouted, ' Promise, ye white- 
 livered rascals, or I've strength to slit your wizzards 
 yet. Tell him I died under the Black ! ' 
 
 "And Bridget, who was feared herself, said, 
 * Whist, for God's sake, do not bring a curse on the 
 house ! ' 
 
 "And then he just cursed the house from flooring 
 to roof-tree, and so went to his own place ! 
 
 "Dead? Well, yes — dead and buried is old Dickie 
 Wilkes. But poor Israel Kinmont is quite broken- 
 hearted. He says that Dick was the first that ever 
 broke away, and that he is not long for this world 
 himself now that he has lost Dick. It was always 
 cut-and-come-again when you w'ere converting Dick. 
 
 "But Israel has an explanation, poor old fellow. 
 
 "' It was not Grace that missed fire,' he says, ' but 
 me, the unworthy marksman. And for that I shall 
 be smitten like the men who, with unanointed eyes, 
 looked on the ark of God that time it went up the 
 valley from Ekron to Bethshemish, with the cows 
 looking back and lowing for their calves all the way. 
 I W'ere always main sorry for them cows ! ' old Israel 
 says."
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE GREAT " TABERNACLE" REVIVAL 
 
 Though Boyd Connoway had not said anything 
 directly threatening the house of Heathknowes or its 
 inmates, his story of his own "conversion" and the 
 death of Dick Wilkes under the Black Flag somehow 
 made us vaguely uneasy. The door of the house was 
 locked at eight. The gates of the yard barricaded 
 as in the old time of the sea raids from the Golden 
 Hind. 
 
 So strong was the feeling that Irma would gladly 
 have returned before our time to the little White 
 House above the meadow flats, and to the view of the 
 Pentlands turning a solid green butt towards the 
 Archers' Hall of the Guid Toon of Edinburgh. 
 
 But it was not so easy to quit Heathknowes. My 
 grandmother held tightly to Duncan the Second. I 
 found myself in good case, after the fatigues of the 
 town, to carry out some work on my own account. 
 This, of course, for the sake of my wife's happiness, 
 I would have given up, but after all Irma's plans 
 went to pieces upon the invincible determination of 
 Sir Louis to remain. He was now a lad of seven- 
 teen, but older looking than his age. He had his 
 own room at Heathknowes, his books, his occupations. 
 Indeed we seldom saw him except at meals, and even 
 then often in the middle of dinner he would rise, bow 
 haughtily to the company, and retire without utter- 
 ing a word. He had learned the lesson from Lalor 
 that plain farm people were no society for such as 
 he. He went as far as he could in the way of in- 
 
 322
 
 GREAT 'TABERNACLE' REVIVAL 323 
 
 science, making us pay for the refusal of the lawyers 
 to let him go to London with the member for the 
 county. 
 
 I could see the blush rise crimson to Irma's neck 
 and face after such a performance. But by some 
 mysterious divine law of compensation, no sooner had 
 she Baby in her arms, than she forgot all about the 
 sulky boy, sitting moping among his books in the 
 wood parlour, looking out on the red-boled firs of 
 Marnhoul forest. 
 
 Israel Kinmont used io frequent us a good deal 
 about this time. He never preached to us, nor indeed 
 would he talk freely of his "experiences" amongst 
 such Calvinists as my grandfather and grandmother. 
 "The gold of the kingdom doth not need the re- 
 finer's art ! " he had said once when this remissness 
 was made a reproach to him. Since the loss of his 
 boat, the Tabernacle, he had bought first one donkey 
 and then two with his little savings. These he loaded 
 with salt for Cairn Edward and the farms on the 
 way, and so by a natural transition, took to the trade 
 of itinerant voyager on land instead of on the sea, 
 bringing back a store of such cloths and spices as 
 were in most request among the goodwives of the 
 farm-towns. 
 
 He had been so long a sailor man that he could not 
 help it, if a certain flavour of the brine clung to him 
 still. Besides, there were jerseys and great sea-boots 
 to be worn out. Neddy and Teddy, his two fine 
 donkeys, weie soon fitted with "steering gear," 
 among the intricacies of which their active heels often 
 got "foul." They "ran aground" with alarming 
 frequency, scraping their pack-saddles against the 
 walls of narrow lanes. Their master knew no peace 
 of mind till, having passed the narrows, he found on 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 some moor or common "plenty o' sea-room," notwith- 
 standing the danger that "plenty o' sea-room " might 
 induce the too artful Teddy to "turn topsails under," 
 or in other words indulge in a roll upon the grass. 
 
 Finally, Neddy and Teddy were "brought to 
 anchor " in some friendly stable, in none oftener than 
 in ours of Heathknowes, where cargo was unloaded 
 and sometimes even the ships themselves "docked" 
 and laid up for repairs. For this merciful Israel was 
 merciful to his beasts, and often went into repairing 
 dock for a saddle gall, which another would never 
 have even noticed. 
 
 When the pair were browsing free in the field he 
 would call them "to receive cargo," and hoist the 
 Blue Peter by a sounding, "Neddy, ahoy! Ahoy 
 there, Teddy ! " And if, as was likely, they only 
 flourished their heels and refused with scorn to come 
 and be saddled, he uttered his sternest summons, 
 "Ship's company, all hands on deck! " which meant 
 that his son Jacob — starboard watch, must come and 
 help port watch — Israel himself, to capture Teddy 
 and Neddy. 
 
 Neddy was generally willing enough, unless when 
 led from the plain course of maritime duty by Teddy. 
 On these occasions Israel used to quote from the 
 "articles" relating to the Mutiny Act, and has even 
 been known to go so far as threaten Teddy with "a 
 round dozen " at the main-mast as soon as he could 
 lay hands on a "rope's end." 
 
 The which was all the same to Teddy. 
 
 It was beautiful to see the flotilla navigating the 
 level surface of Killantringan moor — level, that is, by 
 comparison. For first there were the little waves of 
 the sheep-tracks, then the gentle rollers of the moss- 
 hags, and, last of all, certain black dangerous Ma^l-
 
 GREAT 'TABERNACLE' REVIVAL 325 
 
 stroms from which last year's peats had been dug, 
 in which a moment's folly on the part of Neddy or 
 Teddy might engulf the Armada for ever. 
 
 As they set sail Jacob Kinmont was first and second 
 mate, but in particular, look-out-man. He went 
 ahead, keeping a wary eye for dangers and obstacles, 
 and on the whole the donkeys followed docilely 
 enough in his wake. Israel's post as captain was 
 behind at the tiller-ropes, whence he shouted exact 
 instructions with nautical exactitude, such as "A point 
 to the west, Neddy! " Or, pathetically, "DID I say 
 nor'-nor'-east, Teddy, or didn't I ? " 
 
 This last had a ring of affection in it, for, in spite 
 of his naughty habits (or because of them) Teddy was 
 distinctly the favourite. Also he had a habit of 
 nuzzling his moist nose into the breast of the old 
 man's reefer coat in search of sweet things, a trick 
 which the more patient and reliable Neddy never 
 acquired. And if Teddy forgot to come inquiring 
 after the hidden sweets, Israel was quite heart-broken. 
 
 At first the boys from the village would follow and 
 perhaps imitate these naval manoeuvres — in the hope, 
 never fulfilled, of catching "Ranter Israel" using 
 some nautical language, such as old Pirate Wilkes 
 had made but too familiar to their ears. But they 
 never caught him, for Israel's "yea" remained "yea" 
 and his "nay" "nay," even when navigating donkeys 
 over the trackless waste of Killantringan Common. 
 But in revenge, every now and then, Israel would get 
 hold of a village lad and lead him triumphantly to his 
 meeting, whence he would not come forth till, as like 
 as not, "he had gotten the blessin'." 
 
 The fathers of Eden Valley held in utter contempt 
 the theology of "Old Tabernacle Israel," but the 
 mothers, seeing a troublesome boy forsaking the error
 
 326 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 of his ways and settling down to be the comfort of 
 his folk — looked more to results, and thanked God 
 for old Israel and his Tabernacle. After a while the 
 fathers also came to be of his opinion. And on one 
 memorable occasion, the great Doctor Gillespie him- 
 self went in by the door of Israel's tar-smelling Taber- 
 nacle, and seated himself in all the glory of his black 
 coat and ruffled shirt on the back seat among the riff- 
 raff of the port, just as if he were nobody at all. 
 
 At first Israel did not see him, so quietly had he 
 entered. He went on with his prayer that "sinners 
 might be turned from their way, and saints confirmed 
 in their most holy faith." 
 
 But when he had opened his eyes, and beheld the 
 white head and reverend countenance of Doctor 
 Gillespie the human soul within him trembled a little. 
 Nevertheless, commanding himself, he descended the 
 narrow aisle till he came to where the minister was 
 seated. Then with head humbly bent and a voice 
 that shook, he begged that "the Doctor might to- 
 day open up the Word of Life to them." Which 
 accordingly, with the simplest directness, the Doctor 
 did, using as his pulpit the middle section of a long- 
 boat, which had been sawn across and floored for 
 Israel. The Doctor told the story of Peter walking 
 on the waters, and of the hand stretched out to save. 
 And this the Doctor, as Israel said afterwards, "fast- 
 ened into them with nails." 
 
 "Some of you will believe anything except the 
 Gospel," was one of these. Yet all he said was the 
 simplest evangel. The Doctor was a Justice of the 
 Peace, but this time he spoke of another peace— that 
 of believing. He had an audience of smugglers, but 
 he never mentioned C^sar. He only advised them 
 to "Render unto God the things that are God's."
 
 GREAT 'TABERNACLE' REVIVAL 327 
 
 And when he finished, after the last solemn words 
 of exhortation, he added very quietly, "I will again 
 preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Parish Kirk, 
 next Sabbath at noonday." 
 
 And so when the Sabbath came and in the Taber- 
 nacle those of Israel's sowing and gleaning were 
 gathered together, the old Ranter addressed them 
 thus: "All hands on deck to worship with the 
 Doctor ! He hath kept his watch with us — let us do 
 the like by him ! " 
 
 And so the astonishing thing was seen. The great 
 Spence gallery of Eden Valley Parish Kirk was filled 
 with such a mixed assembly as had never been seen 
 there before. Smugglers, privateersmen, the sweep- 
 ings of ports, home and foreign, some who had blood 
 on their hands — though with the distinction that it 
 had been shed in encounters with excisemen. But the 
 blessing had come upon some of them — others a new 
 spirit had touched, lighted at the fire of an almost 
 apostolic enthusiasm. 
 
 It w^as the proudest moment in Israel Kinmont's life 
 when he heard the Doctor, in all the panoply of his 
 gown and bands, hold up his hands and ask for a 
 blessing upon "the new shoot of Thy Vine, planted 
 by an aged servant of Thine in this parish. Make it 
 strong for Thyself, that the hills may be covered with 
 the shadow of it, and that, like the goodly cedar, 
 manv homeless and w^ayfaring men under it may rest 
 and find shelter." 
 
 And in the Spence gallery these sea- and way- 
 faring men nudged each other, not perhaps finding 
 the meaning so clear as they did at the Tabernacle, 
 but convinced, nevertheless, that "He means us — and 
 our old Israel ! " 
 
 And so in faith, if not wholly in understanding.
 
 328 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 they listened to the sermon in which the Doctor, all 
 unprepared for such an invasion, inculcated with 
 much learning the doctrine of submission to the civil 
 magistrate with the leading cases of Saint Paul and 
 Saint Augustine illustrated by copious quotations 
 from the original. 
 
 They sat with fixed attention, never flinching even 
 when the Doctor, doing his duty, as he said, both as 
 a magistrate and as a Christian man, gave the Free 
 Traders many a word to make their ears sing. They 
 were in his place, and every man had the right to 
 speak as he chose in his own house. But when Israel 
 led them back to the old Tabernacle, with its pleasant 
 smell of tar obscuring the more ancient bilge, and had 
 told them that they were all "a lot of hell-deserving 
 sinners who, if they missed eternal damnation, it 
 would be with their rags badly singed," they sighed 
 a blissful sigh and felt themselves once more at home, 
 sitting under a man who understood them and their 
 needs. 
 
 Nevertheless, when Israel gave out the closing 
 hymn it was one which, as he explained, "prays for 
 the Church of God visible upon the earth, as well in 
 the Parish Kirk as in their own little Tabernacle. 
 "Now then, men," he concluded, "let us have it with 
 a will. Put all that you have got between your beards 
 and your shoulder-blades into it. If I see a man 
 hanging in stays, he shall sing it by himself ! " 
 
 So the Ranters sang till the sound went from the 
 
 little dissenting Bethel on the shore up to the stately 
 
 Kirk of the parish cinctured with its double acre of 
 
 ancient grave-stones — 
 
 " I love Thy Kingdom, Lord, 
 The house of Thine abode : 
 The Church our blest Redeemer saved 
 With His own precious blood.
 
 GREAT 'TABERNACLE' REVIVAL 329 
 
 For her my tears shall fall, 
 
 For her my prayers ascend : 
 To her my cares and toils be given 
 
 Till toils and cares shall end ! " 
 
 ^' And three cheers for the Doctor ! " shouted swear- 
 ing Imrie, who had been worked up by the events of 
 the day to such a pitch of excitement that only the 
 sound of his own thunderous voice had power to 
 calm him. 
 
 And douce Cameronians coming over Eden Valley 
 hill stood still and wondered at the profanation of the 
 holy day, not knowing. Even sober pillars of the 
 Kirk Erastian going homeward smiled and shook 
 their heads pityingly. 
 
 "It was doubtless a good thing," said my father 
 to a fellow elder, a certain McMinn of the Croft, "to 
 see so many of the wild and regardless at the Kirk, 
 but I'm sore mistaken if there's not some of the old 
 Adam left in the best of them yet, to judge by the 
 noise they are making down yonder." 
 
 "Except Israel himsel' ! " said McMinn of the Croft, 
 "man, dominie, since he converted Jock, my plough- 
 man, he hasna been drunk yince, and I get twice the 
 work oot o' the craitur for the same wage." 
 
 Which, being the proof of the pudding, settled the 
 question.
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 IN THE WOOD PARLOUR 
 
 On the 19th of October the sky overhead was clear 
 as sapphire, but all round the circle of the horizon 
 the mists of autumn blurred the landscape. The hills 
 stood no more in their places. Gone were the Kips, 
 with their waving lines. Of the Cruives, with the 
 heather thick and purple upon them, not a trace. 
 Gone the graceful swirl of the Cooran Hill, which 
 curls over like a wave just feathering to break. 
 
 To Irma it had been a heavy and a sorrowful day. 
 She had actually wept, and even gone on her knees to 
 her brother to beg him tell her what strange thing 
 had come between them. He would only, answer, 
 "You have chosen your path without consulting me. 
 Now I choose mine." 
 
 She charged him with listening to one who had 
 always been an enemy of all who had been good to 
 him ever since he was a little child — of setting himself 
 against those on whose bounty they had lived. 
 
 He replied, "If I have lived on their bounty, they 
 know very well that they will not lose by it." 
 
 She mentioned Lalor Maitland's name, and told him 
 the history of the early attacks on the house of Marn- 
 houl. Louis answered, "He has explained all that. 
 It was done to save me from these people who were 
 already besetting me, in order to rob roe." 
 
 When she mentioned all that I had done for him, 
 he put on an air of frigid detachment. 
 
 "You are right, no doubt, to stand up for your
 
 IN THE WOOD PARLOUR 331 
 
 husband," he said; "but, then, I have not the same 
 reasons. I can judge for myself." 
 
 Then she went on to show that there was no motive 
 for the Lyons of Heathknowes showing them any inter- 
 ested kindness. As for me, she had only brought me 
 herself and her love — no money, nor would she ever 
 have any money — I had married her for herself. 
 
 "So would Lalor Maitland," he retorted, "and he is 
 a gentleman." 
 
 After this Irma discussed no more. She felt it to 
 be useless. Naturally, also, she was hurt to the heart 
 that Louis, once her own little Louis, should compare 
 her husband to Lalor Maitland. Well, for that I do 
 not blame her. 
 
 All day long Louis stayed in the Wood Parlour 
 with his books. I was busy with an important article 
 on the "Moors in Spain," suggested by my recent 
 researches into the history of the irrigation of fields 
 and gardens in the south of Europe. 
 
 Louis came down to dinner at twelve, or a few 
 minutes after. He seemed somewhat more cheerful 
 than was usual with him, and actually spoke a little 
 to me, asking me lend him my grandfather's shot- 
 gun, to put it in order for him, and that powder and 
 ball might be placed in his chamber. He had seen 
 game-birds feeding quite close, and thought that by 
 opening the window he might manage to shoot some 
 of them. 
 
 I did as he asked me before going back to my work. 
 Irma smiled at me, being well pleased. For it seemed 
 to her that Louis's ill-temper was wearing away. Now 
 my grandmother and Aunt Jen were inveterate tea- 
 lovers, which was then not so common a drink in the 
 country as it is now. Irma sometimes took a cup 
 with them for company, and, because it also refreshed
 
 332 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 me in my labours, I also joined them. But witli me 
 it was done chiefly for the sake of the pleasant talk, 
 being mostly my grandmother's reminiscences, and 
 sometimes for a sight of my mother, who would run 
 across of a sunny afternoon for a look at baby. 
 
 That day we sat and talked rather longer than 
 usual. A certain strain seemed to have departed from 
 the house. I think all of us believed that the humour 
 of Louis, execrable as it had been, was the effect of 
 the insinuations of a wicked man, and that after a 
 time he would be restored to us again the simple, 
 pleasant-faced boy he had been in former years. 
 
 He did not come down to tea, but then he seldom 
 did so. Indeed, none of the men-folk except myself 
 had taken to the habit, and I (as I say) chiefly for the 
 sake of the talk, which sharpened my wits and re- 
 freshed my working vocabulary. But as I passed 
 back to my writing-den I could hear my brother-in-law 
 moving restlessly about his room, and talking to him- 
 self, which was a recently-acquired habit of his. How- 
 ever, I took this as a good sign. Anything in the 
 way of occupation was better than his former chill 
 indifference to all that went forward about Heath- 
 knowes. 
 
 It was, as it chanced, a busy day at the pirn-mill. 
 The labours of the farm being fairly over for the year, 
 the mill had been shut down for hasty repairs, which 
 Alec McQuhirr had come down from Ironmacannie 
 to superintend. He was, so they said, the best mill- 
 wright in the half-dozen counties of the south and 
 west. He had, however, the one fault common to all 
 his tribe, that of dilatoriness. So my grandfather, 
 who had his "pirn " contracts to be shipped for Eng- 
 land on certain days, used to call his sons about him, 
 and devote himself and all of them to the service of
 
 IN THE WOOD PARLOUR 333 
 
 repairing. Boyd Connoway, also, usually gave us the 
 benefit of his universal genius for advice, and, when 
 he chose, for handiness also. 
 
 After tea some provisions had been carried to the 
 mill by my mother on her way home. "One of the 
 boys" — meaning my uncles — was to bring back the 
 basket. 
 
 That night, also, supper was somewhat later than 
 usual. Up in the mill men were still crawling about 
 along the machinery with carefully protected lanterns. 
 Buckets of water stood handy. For a pirn-mill is no 
 place in which to play with fire. The sound of male 
 voices and the thud of wooden mallets did not cease 
 till long after dark. Supper was, therefore, later than 
 usual, and the moon had risen before the sound of 
 their footsteps was heard coming down among the 
 tree-roots in the clearing which they themselves had 
 made. The kitchen, which was also the living-room 
 of Heathknowes, glowed bright, and the supper-table 
 was a-laying. Aunt Jen bustled about. I had laid 
 aside my writing, satisfied with a goodly tale of sheets 
 to my credit. My grandmother was in the milk-house, 
 but every now and then made darts out to the fire on 
 which the precious "het supper" was cooking — roast 
 fowl, bacon, and potatoes — traditional on occasions 
 when the men had been "working late at the mill and 
 had brought home company." 
 
 It was a bright and cheerful sight. The high 
 dresser, the kitchen pride of Galloway, was in a state 
 of absolute perfection. Aunt Jen despised men, but 
 she had a way of reproving their congenital untidiness 
 by the shine of her plates and the mirror-like polish 
 of her candlesticks. She had spent a couple of hours 
 over the dresser that afternoon, answering all the 
 taunts of her mother as to her occupation, "It's true,
 
 334 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 mither, they will never ken the difference; but, then, 
 1 will I " 
 
 "Go up, Irma, and tell your brother that we are 
 waiting," said my grandmother. But as Irma was 
 busy with Duncan the Second, I offered myself in- 
 stead. I remember still the long corridor, and 1 won- 
 dered at the moment why no ray of light penetrated 
 through the key-hole of Sir Louis's door. He must 
 be sitting in the dark, and I smiled to myself as I 
 thought how I had been wasting a couple of my 
 grandmother's best candles for an hour. The ex- 
 planation was that Louis, in fear of being spied upon, 
 had carefully plugged up the keyhole and every crack 
 of the door. But this I only knew later. 
 
 I stood a moment in the passage, keeping very still. 
 I could hear his voice. He seemed in some way in- 
 dignant. But the sound was dulled by the thickness 
 of the walls and the care with which the chinks of the 
 door had been "made up." Then I also heard — what 
 sent the blood chill to my heart — another voice, 
 shorter, harsher, older. For a moment I was struck 
 dumb, and then — I laughed at myself. Of course the 
 lad was simply stage-struck. For some time he had 
 been reading and declaiming Hamlet, Julius Caesar, 
 and anything he could lay his hands upon, as well as 
 scraps of the Greek tragedies he had learnt at school. 
 
 But as I leaned nearer, there pierced sharp as a pang 
 to my heart the certainty that the other voice which I 
 heard was not that of any of the characters of Julius 
 Cccsar. A trembling horror of what I had once seen 
 in that very room, and a memory of the great hearty 
 Richard Poole entering there in all his amplitude of 
 vivid life, quickly arrested me. 
 
 I rapped and called vehemently, trying the latch 
 and feeling that the door resisted. I could hear a
 
 IN THE WOOD PARLOUR 335 
 
 trampling beneath me. Men were on the way to my 
 assistance. At the door I sprang. The bolts were 
 as old as the door, and the nails ot the lintel fastening 
 only knocked in after its former rough handling. 
 
 1 got one waft of light as the door opened, half from 
 the candle on the table, half from the moonlight fall- 
 ing dim without. 1 saw something that crouched — 
 manlike indeed, but with bearded face and head held 
 between its shoulders — leap from the window into the 
 darkness. I did not see Louis clearly. His head 
 was lying on the table, and immediately all the cir- 
 cumstances of the former drama came back to me. But 
 this time I wasted no time. Something glittered on the 
 table, hilt towards me — knife or sword, I hardly knew 
 which. I only knew that with it in my hand I was 
 armed. I sprang through the window and gave chase. 
 
 Then very loud in my ears I heard the crack of a 
 pistol, but felt no wound. I now think it had not even 
 been fired at me. I pursued with the energy of a young 
 stag. My mornings on the hills with Eben looking for 
 the sheep now stood me in good stead— that is, good 
 or bad according as to whether the man in front of 
 me had another loaded pistol ready or not. 
 
 Behind me, but alas, too far to be any help, I could 
 hear the shouting of men. Heathknowes was alarmed. 
 Then came the pounding of feet, but I knew that none 
 of them could run with me, while the thing or man 
 in front proved fresher, and, as I feared at first, 
 fleeter. 
 
 But, after all, 1 was young, and though I panted, 
 and had a burning pain in my side, I held to it till I 
 began to get my second wind. Then I made sure that, 
 barring accidents, I could run him down. What 
 should happen then I did not know. 1 had a vision, 
 only for a moment but yet very clear and distinct,
 
 336 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 of Irma in the black gown of a young widow. But 
 even this did not make me slacken in my stride. 
 
 Somehow the shine of the steel in my hand gave 
 me courage, as also the crying of the men behind, 
 albeit they did not seem to gain but rather to lose 
 ground. Thirty yards ahead I could see my man run- 
 ning, his head very low, his arms close to his sides, a 
 slender figure with a certain look of deformity. A 
 long beard of some indeterminate colour like hay was 
 blown back over one shoulder. Ever and anon he 
 glanced round as he ran to measure my progress. 
 
 Suddenly the root of a tree tripped him and he went 
 headlong. But he was agile too, for before I could be 
 upon him, he was up again, and with something that 
 shone like a long thin dagger in his hand, he threw 
 himself upon me as if to take me by surprise. Now, it 
 is very difficult when running hard to put oneself at 
 once into a proper position of defence. And so, as it 
 happened, I was nearly done. But I had been carry- 
 ing the sword in my hand almost at arm's length. I 
 was conscious of no shock. Only all suddenly my 
 assailant doubled and lay writhing, his dagger still 
 shining in his hand. 
 
 I stopped and kept wide circling about him, fearing 
 a trick. The moon was shining full on the open clear- 
 ing of the glade where he had fallen. It was the little 
 lawyer — he who had called himself Wringham Pollix- 
 fen Poole. Yet somehow he was different. His beard 
 had grown to be of a curious foreign fashion and 
 colour — but that perhaps might be the effect of the 
 moonlight. 
 
 He never took his eyes off the shining steel in my 
 hand. 
 
 "It is poisoned," he groaned, his hand clapped to 
 his breast, " I am a dead man— poisoned, poisoned ! "
 
 IN THE WOOD PARLOUR 337 
 
 And looking more carefully at what I had simply 
 snatched in haste, I saw that I had in my hand the 
 golden-hilted sword of honour which Lalor Maitland 
 had given to the boy Louis to seal their friendship. 
 
 But immediately a greater wonder oppressed me, 
 and rendered speechless those who now came pant- 
 ing up — my uncles and Boyd Connoway. The hay- 
 coloured beard and disguises came away, snatched ofl 
 in the man's death-agony. The shiny brown coat 
 opened to show a spotless ruffled shirt beneath. The 
 wounded man never ceased to exclaim, " It is poisoned ! 
 It is poisoned ! I am a dead man ! " The wig fell 
 off, and as life gave place to the stillness of death, 
 out of the lined and twisted lineaments of the half- 
 deformed lawyer Poole emerged the pale, calm, clear- 
 cut features of Lalor Maitland.
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 THE PLACE OF DREAMS 
 
 The key of the mystery was brought us by one who 
 seemed the most unHkely person in the world, Boyd 
 Connoway. 
 
 "And her to come of decent folk down there by 
 Killibegs," he exclaimed in opening the matter; "no 
 rapparees out of Connemara — but O'Neil's blood to 
 a man, both Bridget and all her kindred before her ! " 
 
 "What's the matter now?" said the Fiscal, who 
 with much secret satisfaction had come to have that 
 made plain which had troubled him so sorely before. 
 So Boyd and Jerry brought Bridget Connoway in to 
 the outhouse where the dead man lay. 
 
 "'Tis all my fault — my fault," wailed Bridget, "yet 
 'twas because him that's me husband gave me no help 
 with the arning of money to bring up the childer. So 
 I was tempted and took in this man after the Black 
 Smugglers had tried to burn the great house of Marn- 
 houl. 
 
 "Well might I think so, indeed, your honours. 
 For wounded the man was right sore, and I nursed 
 him for the sake of the goold he gave me. Lashin's 
 of goold, and the like had never been seen in our 
 house since before Boyd Connoway there, that now 
 has the face to call himself a convarted man, was the 
 head of it." 
 
 " What did this man call himself ? " the Fiscal 
 demanded. 
 
 "Sure, he called himself Wringham Pollixfen 
 Poole, my lord, and it was not for me to be dis- 
 believin' him." 
 
 338
 
 THE PLACE OF DREAMS 339 
 
 "And after, when he was under strong suspicion of 
 having wilfully made away with Mr. Richard Poole of 
 Dumfries, why did you say nothing?" 
 
 "Now, your honour," exclaimed Bridget, holding 
 up her hands, "wad I be telling aught like that to 
 bring worse and worse on the head of any man in 
 trouble ? If it had been yourself, now, how wad you 
 have liked that, your honour?" 
 
 "Leave me alone, Bridget. Answer what you are 
 asked," said the Fiscal; "when did you find out that 
 this man was not what he pretended to be? " 
 
 "Is it the name he gave you mean, sorr?" said 
 Bridget. 
 
 "Yes," said the Fiscal, watching her. 
 "Faith, then, just when he towld it me ! " was the 
 unexpected answer. And then, moving a little nearer, 
 she added confidentially in the Fiscal's ear, "Would 
 you have believed yourself, my lord, that a Black 
 Smuggler, newly ofiF the Golden Hind, and a shipmate 
 of old Dick Wilkes, that died under the Wicked Flag, 
 would be likely to give his true name and address? " 
 "Then, by your story, you never knew that the 
 deceased was in truth Mr. Lalor Maitland, a member 
 of his Majesty's present loyal parliament ? " 
 
 "Faith, as to that, no," said Bridget, "and it's the 
 saints' own pity, for if I had known that in time — it's 
 independent I would have been. No more wash-tubs 
 for Bridget Connoway ! " 
 
 "For shame on you, Bridget, you that are an 
 O'Neil, and the wife of a Connoway ! " cried Boyd 
 indignantly. 
 
 "And the less you say of that, the better will the 
 
 butter lie on your bread ! " said Bridget, advancing a 
 
 step towards him threateningly. "Your lordship, 
 
 hearken to me — not an honest day's work has that 
 
 z 2
 
 340 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 man done from January to December — nay, nor dis- 
 honest either, for the matter o' that ! 'Tis ashamed 
 of himself he ought to be." 
 
 "Well," said the Fiscal, "it is a very good thing for 
 you, Mrs. Connoway, that young Sir Louis is likely 
 to recover after the knock on the head he got from 
 your friend. But the wonder to me is that you did 
 not speak more plainly when there was a former fatal 
 assault in the same place." 
 
 "Now, I put it to ye, sorr, what was a poor woman 
 like me to know about the affairs of the great, my 
 lord?" said Bridget. "Now, in my country, two 
 gentlemen sit late at the wine, and maybe there's a 
 little difference of opinion, the cartes, or politics, or 
 a lady — or maybe just a differ for the sake of a differ. 
 And wan gives t'other a skelp on the side of the head, 
 and if the man's skull's sound, where's the harm? 
 'Tis done every day in Donegal and nobody a bit the 
 worse ! For it's O'Neil's country, my lord, and the 
 skulls there are made thicker on purpose — such being 
 the intintion of a merciful providence that created 
 nothing in vain." 
 
 "And can you give us no light on why Mr. Lalor 
 Maitland wished harm to Mr. Richard Poole ? " 
 
 Bridget shook her head slowly. 
 
 "Doubtless," she said, "'twas something about 
 property and a lass. For if money's the root of all 
 evil, as the Book says, sure and t'other — (that's the 
 woman) is the trunk and branches, the flowers, and 
 the fruit ! " 
 
 The mystery of the death of Mr. Richard Poole was 
 never wholly cleared up. If anything was found 
 among the private correspondence of the late member 
 of the firm of Smart, Poole and Smart, certainly the 
 firm did not allow it to transpire. It is practically
 
 THE PLACE OF DREAMS 341 
 
 certain that Bridget told all she knew. But, poring 
 over the mystery afterwards, and putting all things 
 carefully together, I became convinced that, under the 
 name of Wringham Pollixfen Poole, Mr. Richard 
 had mixed himself up in some highly treasonable 
 business, which put his life within the power of the 
 informer and traitor Lalor. 
 
 Consequently when the latter, an expert in dis- 
 guises, found it necessary to take refuge with Bridget 
 Connoway after the failure of the attack on Marnhoul, 
 he could not have chosen a safer name or disguise. 
 
 Mr. Richard, he knew, could not betray him. If any 
 trouble befell he would come at once and see him. So, 
 in fact, when Richard Poole arrived, he demanded 
 that, by the influence of his firm, the children should 
 be at once returned to his tutelage. That Lalor 
 dreamed of marrying Irma is evident, and what he 
 meant to do with little Louis is equally clear — for his 
 death would leave him heir to the properties. 
 
 But Richard proved unexpectedly stubborn. He re- 
 fused flatly to have anything to do with Lalor's 
 schemes — whereupon the wild beast in the man broke 
 loose. He struck and escaped. But it was a sudden 
 fit of anger, probably repented of as soon as done, 
 because it rendered unsafe a useful disguise. 
 
 In the case of Sir Louis the plot was deeper laid. 
 From the boy's borrowing of the gun, I believe that 
 Louis had made up his mind to escape with his so- 
 called uncle. But some condition or chance word of 
 Lalor's had caused a shadow of suspicion to arise in 
 Louis's mind. He had drawn back at the last moment. 
 Whereupon, exasperated by failure, and possibly 
 shaken by hearing me thundering at the door, Lalor 
 had smitten, just as he had done in the case of Mr. 
 Richard. Happily, however, with less result. The
 
 342 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 necessary weapon was not to his hand. The poisoned 
 sword, with which he no doubt expected the boy to 
 play till he pricked himself, was lying with the handle 
 turned away from him. 
 
 At any rate he missed his stroke. But it was only 
 by a hair's breadth, and had it not been for his own 
 sword and my fleetness of foot, the false Wrinc^- 
 ham Pollixfen might for the second time have vanished 
 as completely as before, while if Louis had died, no 
 one would have suspected as his murderer a man so 
 important as his Excellency Ealor Maitland, Member 
 of Parliament for the county, and presently carrying 
 out the commission of the lieges within the precincts 
 of the citv of Westminster. 
 
 As to Sir Louis, it was many months before we 
 could obtain any account of his experiences from him, 
 and even then he shrank from all reference to that 
 night in the Wood Parlour. Indeed, he grew up to 
 be a silent, rather moody young man, and as soon as 
 he could obtain permission from the lawyers he went 
 abroad, where at the University of Heidelberg he 
 settled himself with his books and fencing foils. All 
 this happened ten years ago, yet he manifested not the 
 least desire to come home. His affairs are safe in the 
 hands of the Dumfries lawyers, while my grandfather, 
 not to all appearance aged by a day, cares on the 
 spot for his more immediate concerns. Sir Louis has, 
 however, made Duncan the Second laird of the farm 
 and lands of Heathknowes, on the condition that 
 during the tenancy of my grandfather and grand- 
 mother they are to sit rent free. Irma and I are still 
 in the house above the meadows, and Duncan has just 
 begun to attend Dr. Carson at the High School. We 
 have been able to buy the Little White House, and 
 have made many improvements, including a couple
 
 THE PLACE OF DREAMS 343 
 
 of servants' bedrooms. But we were just as happy 
 when 1 rose to make the hre in the morning, and Mrs. 
 Pathrick came over early on washing days to "get 
 them clothes out on the line at a re-spectable hour I " 
 
 My father still teaches his Ovid, and looks to Freddy 
 Esquillant to succeed him. He is now hrst assistant 
 and has taken a house for Agnes Anne. In a year or 
 two they expect to begin thinking about getting mar- 
 ried, but really there is no hurry. They have only 
 been engaged twelve years, and an immediate purpose 
 of marriage would be considered quite indecent haste 
 in Eden Valley. And Aunt Jen ... is still Aunt 
 Jen. No man, she says, has ever proved himself 
 worthy of her, but 1 myself think that, if there is no 
 infringement of the table of consanguinity on the first 
 page of the Bible after "James, by the Grace of God, 
 King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland," she has 
 an eye on Duncan the Second, when he shall shed the 
 trappings of the school-boy and endue himself with 
 the virility of knee-breeches, cocked hat, and a coat 
 with adult tails. 
 
 At least she certainly shows more partiality to him 
 than to any one, and wonders incessantly how he 
 managed to pick up so unworthy and harum-scarum 
 a father. 
 
 For the rest, Heathknowes stands where it did, 
 excepting always the Wood Parlour, which m_y 
 grandfather had pulled down. And where it stood 
 the full-rounded corn-stacks almost lean against the 
 blind wall, so that the maids will not pass that way 
 unattended — for fear of VVringham PoUixfen, or poor 
 hot-blooded, turbulent Richard, his victim, or perhaps 
 more exactly the victim of his own unstable will. 
 
 And as for Irma, years have not aged her. She 
 has the invincible gift of youth, of lightsome, winsome,
 
 344 THE DEW OF THEIR YOUTH 
 
 buoyant youth. She still has that way of poising her- 
 self for flight, like a tit on a thistle, or a plume of 
 dandelion-down, ready to break off and float away on 
 any wind, which I tell her is not respectable in a 
 married woman of her age and standing. But my 
 Lord Advocate does not agree with me. He rests 
 from his labours — not in the grave, thank goodness, 
 but in his house on the bright slopes of Corstorphine. 
 
 Also the Dean sings an "x-Ymen" to his praises of 
 Irma, but neither of the Kirkpatricks has ever deigned 
 to cross our doorstep. 
 
 "They were glad to be rid of you ! " I tell Irma. 
 
 "Dear place!" she answers. And she does not 
 mean either the house at Sciennes or the Kirkpatrick 
 mansion near the Water of Leith. She is thinking 
 of that once open space by the Greyfriars where, to 
 the accompaniment of keen chisel-stroke and dull 
 mallet-thud, once on a day she came to me, more 
 dream-like than my dream, and said, "/ have found it, 
 the Little White House!" 
 
 THE END 
 
 Richard Clay &' Sons, Litnited, London and Bungay. 
 
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