\ 
 
 
 
 
 
 -W^
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 JAMES J. MC BRIDE
 
 Love Idylls 
 
 By S. R. CROCKETT 
 
 Author of " The, Raiders" " The Lilac 
 Sunbonnet" "Joan of the Sword Hand" etc. 
 
 » 9 ^i 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 2DoDD, speaD anij Company 
 
 1 90 1
 
 Copyright, 1900, 1901, 
 By S. R. Crockett 
 
 Copyright, 1901, 
 By Dodd, Mead and Company
 
 s- 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 The Fitting of the Peats. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Bonnet Laird, I 
 
 II. The First Fitting of the Peats, ... 8 
 
 III. Pretty Mistress Bell, 15 
 
 IV. A Lesson in Architecture, .... 22 
 V. "God Save King George !".... 29 
 
 VI. The Secret of the Plastered Door, . 34 
 
 VII. Will Begbie Has a Sore Heart, . . 42 
 
 VIII. A Seed for Next Year's Garden, . . 48 
 
 IX. The Bridge of Avignon, 55 
 
 X. The Second Fitting of the Peats, . 64 
 
 XI. The Proposal, 68 
 
 XII. The Other Plan 7 6 
 
 XIII. The Capture, 82 
 
 The Count and Little Gertrude. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Daisy-Chain, 105 
 
 II. The Convict Gang, no 
 
 III. The Bird of Hope, 117 
 
 IV. A Rosebud of Tenty-one, 121 
 
 V. The Siege of the Chalet, 129 
 
 VI. Who Shall Save, 138 
 
 VII. The Cleft of St. Martin, 145 
 
 i
 
 iv Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves, 157 
 
 The Purple Mountains, 191 
 
 A Golden Mountain, 207 
 
 BlLLIAM, 217 
 
 Vernor the Traitor. 
 
 Part I. The Outcast, 249 
 
 " II. The Love of Enemies, 268 
 
 That Popish Parson Fellow, 289 
 
 The Exercise Book of Field-Marshal Prince 
 
 Ilantz, . . ... ... . . ... ... .. ... ... . ... ... ... ... 303
 
 THE 
 FITTING OF THE PEATS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BONNET LAIRD 
 
 Ninian Mac Lurg, Laird of Millwharchar, in the 
 hill country of Galloway, took off his broad blue 
 bonnet and wiped his brow. It was customary for 
 lairds at that time to wear broad-brimmed hats 
 which came from Edinburgh, or even as far as Lon- 
 don, according to the standing of their territorial 
 sasine upon the rolls of the county sheriff. 
 
 But there are lairds and lairds, bonnets and bon- 
 nets. So Ninian Mac Lurg wore a blue broad-piece 
 almost as heavy as a steel cap, with a checked band 
 of red and white Rob Roy tartan and a round button 
 the brightest scarlet on the top, which to the initiate 
 meant that the headgear had been manufactured no 
 farther away than Kilmarnock in the neighbouring 
 shire of Ayr. The Laird of Millwharchar's bonnet
 
 Love Idylls 
 
 was no mere common bonnet, new coft from the 
 shop of Rob Rorrison on the Plainstanes of Dum- 
 fries. It did not dazzle the beholder with the 
 brilliance of its checked pattern. No flaunting 
 feather cocked restlessly at an angle upon its right 
 side, as was too much the fashion among the unhal- 
 lowed young callants who roamed the country side 
 after the lasses. 
 
 No — many times no, indeed. Ninian Mac Lurg's 
 bonnet was a sober, serious, responsible piece of 
 headgear, well befitting its stern wearer. Generally 
 it was drawn firmly down on either side till the band 
 touched the tips of the wearer's ears. It was worn 
 doggedly, belligerently, almost insolently. For that 
 was the way in which Ninian Mac Lurg wore all his 
 garments, till even when lying upon a chair by his 
 box-bed at nights they seemed able and willing at 
 any moment to expound the catechism, contradict 
 an opinion upon any subject by whomsoever ad- 
 vanced, or to deal either any unlicensed night-raker 
 or Episcopalian dissenter a most discomposing buf- 
 fet on the side of his head for the good of his soul. 
 
 Ninian Mac Lurg was looking for his daughter 
 Bell. He had three other younger daughters and 
 two sons, out somehow Bell took more looking 
 after than all the others. 
 
 'The de'il's in the lassie," was his unpaternal way
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 
 
 of explaining and denouncing this fact. "I declare 
 I canna gang to the house o' God on the Lord's 
 great day but it's 'Where's Mistress Bell?' 'What 
 for brocht ye no Miss Isobel wi' ye, Laird?' — as if 
 the feckless helicat lassie had been the minister 
 himsel' !" 
 
 But after all there is no accounting for taste, and 
 so the matter stood. Then not only was this 
 strange popularity of his daughter a trouble to the 
 laird at kirk or market; it was equally troublesome 
 when he abode on his own acres. 
 
 Two stout sons he had, Alec and John by name, 
 who laboured all day at plough and flail to satisfy 
 their father, but at the gloaming went off on their 
 own visitations at other farm towns, where the 
 gloom was less pronounced than within the sphere 
 of influence dominated by the severe Laird of Mill- 
 wharchar. 
 
 "The man that shall tak' daughter o' mine frae 
 aboot the hoose," he was wont to proclaim loud 
 enough to be heard between kirk-door and market- 
 cross, "maun hae three hunder pound o' coined 
 siller and three hunder acres o' good plow land 
 besides. He shall satisfy me upon three points o' 
 doctrine according to the Presbyterian standards 
 of our faith, and lastly he shall stand up to me, 
 Ninian Mac Lurg, with a stieve cudgel of oak in
 
 Love Idylls 
 
 his fist, and therewith he shall break my head. 
 Then after that I will speak with him in the gate 
 concerning my daughter." 
 
 All the same Bell Mac Lurg took a good deal of 
 trouble inseparable from the task of finding such a 
 paragon out of the laird's hands; and used her fine 
 eyes so resolutely and to such purpose among the 
 faithful on Sabbath mornings at kirk, that young 
 bloods from distant parishes, who for years had 
 systematically neglected the stated assembling of 
 themselves together, became constant and devout 
 attenders upon ordinances at the Kirk of Dullarg. 
 Moreover, some curious and recondite motive in- 
 duced them to congregate along the west wall — a 
 spot not much in favour with the general body of 
 the faithful, inasmuch as not only was it hot in 
 summer and cold and draughty in winter, but what 
 was worse — from the seats along the west wall one 
 could not watch the minister's movements during 
 time of sermon, nor yet make certain that on the 
 top of the shut pulpit Bible there was not room for 
 the most microscopic of written "notes." All the 
 same these highly undesirable benches were now 
 generally better filled than the rest of the kirk. 
 And it has really nothing to do with the matter to 
 add that the square black-lettered pew of the Mac 
 Lurgs was placed at the lower angle of the west
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 
 
 wall, and that Bell Mac Lurg never passed a sprig 
 of thyme or sleep-dispelling southernwood to her 
 sisters without having a whole battery of admiring 
 eyes directed upon her movements. 
 
 One famous Lord's Day as Ninian Mac Lurg 
 opened the small pew door to marshal his family in 
 before him, he stopped suddenly aghast. All four 
 seats were piled high with branches of sweet- 
 scented "sidderwood," and as the laird said after- 
 wards, "What with flowering thyme and other 
 playactin' trash, the decent Millwharchar pew was 
 steaming like a haystack that had heated." 
 
 Ninian Mac Lurg was not, however, a man with- 
 out common sense. He had been, as the country 
 side expressed it, a "gye boy" in his youth — which, 
 being interpreted, meant that he had had some 
 repute of wildness before the arrival of that inward 
 grace which in the Bonnet Laird had now so en- 
 tirely gained the mastery over original sin and 
 actual transgression. 
 
 The Laird of Millwharchar, casting back into his 
 own unhallowed youth, instantly divined whence 
 the "rubbish" had come, and correctly estimated 
 its meaning and purport. With a haughty gesture 
 of his left hand he kept his family, as it were, at bay, 
 while he entered the square "seat." Then, with an 
 action exactly like a binder on the harvest-field, he
 
 6 Love Idylls 
 
 took up the southernwood, the thyme, and yet rarer 
 growths in his arms, pressed them into small com- 
 pass, and strode with them to the bench along the 
 west wall, which was already filled with the bache- 
 lordom, eligible or otherwise, of three parishes. 
 Then, like to a sower on a windy day, he swept his 
 mighty arm along the astonished row — and lo, 
 their offerings to Venus, as one might say, the 
 frankincense and mixed spices and myrrh were 
 scattered in the very faces of those who had 
 brought them to the temple. Thereafter Ninian 
 Mac Lurg passed slowly down the west wall with 
 his oaken staff in his hand ("thick as a bullock's 
 hind leg," said Rob Gregory of the Boreland), and 
 held it a moment under every young man's nose, 
 giving him ample time to inhale the perfume of its 
 polished knobs and sinewy compacted strength. 
 
 After that the western wall was more thickly 
 populous than ever with daring and worshipful 
 swains, but the Millwharchar "box-seat" remained 
 for ever empty and swept — but wholly ungar- 
 nished. 
 
 "Bell — Bell Mac Lurg — oh, ye besom, wait till 
 I lay hands on ye! The kye are yet on the hill. 
 'Tis not an hour to milking time! The lads are 
 wauling their suppers, and gin ye dinna come, ye'll 
 miss the worship o' God — and I'll daud the head 
 a IT ye, my lass!"
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 7 
 
 This comprehensive denunciation Ninian ad- 
 dressed to the waving broom and nodding gowans 
 of the "park" pastures which lay like a bright green 
 fringe outside the gardens and orchards of Mill- 
 wharchar. But only the girdling woods of Lar- 
 brax and his own white barn wall gave back the 
 echo. 
 
 Thwarted outside, Ninian Mac Lurg went into 
 the house, and relieved his feelings by subjecting 
 his younger daughters to wholesome spiritual dis- 
 cipline. Then, being sore by reason of Bell's im- 
 pudent evasion, he yet further regained his self- 
 respect by going to the hay-field in order to tell 
 Alec and John that they were lazy good-for-noth- 
 ings, who would not sleep that night with whole 
 bones unless they worked twice as hard as they had 
 been doing. 
 
 But these projects, agreeable and delightsome as 
 they appeared, were instantly banished by a sight 
 which fairly dumb-foundered the Laird of Mill- 
 wharchar. 
 
 On the face of a brae some three hundred yards 
 from the farmhouse his daughter Bell appeared, in 
 the broad light of day, unblasted by the lightnings 
 of heaven, calmly walking towards him with a 
 young man on either side of her.
 
 8 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE FIRST FITTING OF THE PEATS 
 
 This is how it happened. As usual in such cases 
 it was in no sense the lady's fault. 
 
 Bell Mac Lurg had gone out to the moor 
 avowedly to "fit" such peats as had been drying on 
 the heather, after being carried out of the "face," 
 or wet bank of fibrous fuel, from which her father's 
 strong arms had cut and "cast" them. It was a 
 hot day, so Bell took with her a white summer bon- 
 net of linen framed on wire, the materials for which 
 she had bought out of her butter-money last Rood 
 Fair — without, however, thinking it necessary to 
 consult her father on the transaction. It was a 
 becoming article of attire, but nevertheless the lady 
 wore it mostly in her hand, or drooping over her 
 shoulders by the strings. 
 
 Isobel Mac Lurg arrived at the peat-moss in due 
 time, and sat down to recover herself upon a con- 
 venient tussock of dry heather, when she saw an 
 apparition strange to be discerned in that wild 
 place — that is, save and except when Mistress Bell
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 
 
 by chance wandered thither. A tall young man 
 was coming over the moss towards her. 
 
 Bell Mac Lurg shaded her brow with her bonnet. 
 She did not need to lift it very high in order to do 
 this, for the sun was already quickening his pace 
 for the final plunge beneath the horizon. 
 
 "It cannot be Will Begbie," she mused. "Will is 
 not so slender, and he always comes through the 
 wood at any rate. It cannot be Allan of the Hill. 
 He walks too fast for Allan. It must be someone 
 new, someone I do not know. How interesting 
 that will be ! But ought I to have ventured so far 
 away from home? My father says that there are 
 some of my Lord Dalmarnock's rebels lurking in 
 the moss-hags yet! Shall I run home?" 
 
 She rose to her feet and kilted her coats with a 
 pretty action of her hands at either side her already 
 attenuated kirtle. 
 
 "No, I will not," she said; "upon second 
 thought he does not look like a rebel — from a 
 distance, that is !" Then she fell on her knees and 
 began to "fit" the peats with the most intense and 
 abstracted concentration, added to many turnings 
 of her head to this side and that, besides divers 
 pauses, finger on lip, to consider abstruse problems 
 of architecture, drying and ventilation. 
 
 "It seems a difficult job, this which engrosses
 
 io Love Idylls 
 
 you so entirely, madam," said a voice close behind 
 her. "Pardon me for enquiring if I can be of any 
 assistance to you?" 
 
 Bell rose instantly to her feet with a little cry 
 and — yes, explain it who will — the blushful colour 
 of an infinite surprise mustered most becomingly 
 upon her neck and cheeks. She could not have 
 looked more astonished if the speaker had suddenly 
 dropped from the new moon, which, like a blown 
 leaf of autumn, floated already high above the 
 horizon. 
 
 "I have startled you," said the new-comer, re- 
 gretfully; "pray pardon me. I should be more 
 sorry than I can say to discompose so fair a 
 maiden." 
 
 In the first burst of surprise, Bell had placed one 
 hand on her breast below her throat, as if to recover 
 herself — Eve's attitude when Adam caught her that 
 first time looking at the apple. Then she put her 
 other hand up beside it with charming uncon- 
 sciousness of her pose, and looked at him through 
 her mantling eyelashes. 
 
 He was tall — taller even than she had thought 
 when she diagnosed him from Will Begbie. He 
 was, as it seemed at a first glance, somewhat shab- 
 bily dressed, yet he wore every article with such 
 distinction that, as Bell put it to herself, "after a
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 1 1 
 
 little you came quite to think him better put on 
 than my Lord Queensberry himself." He was a 
 young man, but yet not so very young either, a 
 little on the shady side of thirty perhaps. But his 
 face was so pale and thin that he looked older than 
 his years, and when he took the military hat with 
 its binding of tarnished gold lace off his head, Bell 
 could see a frosting of early grey at his temples. 
 His surcoat, unbuttoned all the way down the 
 front, and dotted irregularly with gold buttons or 
 the threads which had once attached them to it, was 
 also white — or rather had once been white. The 
 undercoat, belted easily at the waist, had likewise, 
 doubtless, at the same time been red. It was still 
 faced with gold lace, and had large silk pockets, 
 from one of which the ear of a dead hare projected 
 with a curious suggestion of listening to what was 
 going on. 
 
 But by this time Bell had quite recovered herself. 
 A brief, comprehensive glance at once reproachful, 
 playful, tragic, and coquettish, had told her all that 
 the pen has been able to pack into a longish para- 
 graph. She decided that she would not be fright- 
 ened any more — for the present, that is. 
 
 "And please, sir, who are you?" she asked, look- 
 ing up again at the man in the white coat with the 
 straggling gold buttons,
 
 i 2 Love Idylls 
 
 The young man laughed, and before answering 
 glanced about him uneasily as if looking for some- 
 one. 
 
 "Glenmorrison would never forgive me if he 
 knew I had told you, but I am called Adam 
 
 Home!" 
 
 "How strange I never had one — I mean I never 
 knew any one of that name," said Bell instantly. 
 "It must be very awkward." 
 
 "And why awkward?" queried Adam Home, 
 smiling down at this pretty rustic who yet spoke so 
 like a lady. 
 
 "Because," said Bell slowly, "if there were any 
 one you liked very much — any one who liked you, 
 that is, there is no nice 'little name' for them to call 
 you by." 
 
 She seemed to turn the whole subject of this 
 second transgression of Adam over in her mind. 
 Then she shook that small dark head of hers, with 
 the scarlet snood bound low about it, so vigorously 
 that one or two crisp brown ringlets escaped from 
 that slender band as gladly as children getting 
 loose from school. 
 
 "No," she repeated emphatically, "it would not 
 
 be nice at all!" 
 
 Adam Home stood smiling before her, his hat 
 
 still in his hand.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats i 3 
 
 "And may I ask what names fulfil these severe 
 conditions sufficiently to be eligible for your 
 favour?" 
 
 "Why," said Bell to herself, "I declare he talks 
 like Fontinbras, in that book I hide from father, 
 writ by Mistress Aphra Something or other." 
 
 But aloud she said, "Well, I like William, 
 though it is common, but Charles and Francis are 
 best of all. Willie, Charlie, and Frank are so sweet 
 to say !" 
 
 And she looked as if she had experience of 
 them all. 
 
 The young man bowed. 
 
 "I am fortunate enough to be able to oblige you 
 with two of these. My full name happens to be 
 Adam Charles Francis Charteris Home !" 
 
 "You are not deceiving me!" she said, looking 
 up at him with an innocence which added without 
 words, "for I could not possibly deceive you !" 
 
 "On my honour, no !" he cried, with a quick re- 
 bound from the somewhat formal gravity of de- 
 meanour he had hitherto observed. "I would not 
 attempt to deceive one on whose countenance 
 Nature has marked both sweetness of disposition 
 and trustful innocence, in addition to a delicate 
 beauty all its own." 
 
 "Lord, Lord," cried the girl, clapping her hands,
 
 14 Love Idylls 
 
 "it is wonderful! How well you know me, and 
 without ever setting eye on me before !" 
 
 But if Mr. Home of the many praenomens had 
 been at all an observant man, he would have 
 noticed a very roguish smile lurking about the 
 corners of Mistress Bell's mouth, which might have 
 caused him to modify at least one clause of his 
 somewhat flowery eulogium. 
 
 But at that moment his eyes were ranging the 
 heather and trying to pierce into the dark woods 
 which edged the Millwharchar Moss to the east- 
 ward.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 15 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PRETTY MISTRESS BELL 
 
 "You do not ask me my name — it must be be- 
 cause you know it already," said Bell, who did not 
 approve of young men looking over her head at 
 fine scenery, still less as if they were looking out for 
 some one else. It was a trait of male character to 
 which she had been little accustomed. So to the 
 spoilt little beauty this grave young man with his 
 stately periods, his tantalising errant eyes, his tar- 
 nished clothes, and his noble bearing, was like a 
 spur in the flank of a mettlesome steed. 
 
 Adam Home's eyes returned slowly to his pretty 
 companion's, lingering by the way on hillock and 
 hollow with a sedulous and anxious regard. 
 
 "Nay," he said, "but indeed I know not your 
 name ! Will you tell me to to whom I have the 
 honour of speaking?" 
 
 "Is it not usual for gentlemen to ascertain that 
 first, before speaking at all?" said Bell tartly 
 enough. 
 
 At this Master Adam Home started as if a wasp 
 had stung him.
 
 1 6 Love Idylls 
 
 "By Heaven, you are right, madam," he said, 
 lifting his hat ceremoniously; "still I think the cir- 
 cumstances may plead for me. This is, if I mistake 
 not, Millwharchar Moor, and these brown shaggy 
 hillocks at the back are denominated Lamachan 
 and the Black Craig of Dee." 
 
 Bell inclined her head, hoping that if he went on 
 in such language as that she might be preserved 
 from smiling too obviously. But she replied 
 gravely enough : "Indeed they are, and the effort 
 to denom — I cannot mind that most excellent 
 word — proves you a Scot and a countryman. It is 
 as good as an introduction at the Assembly Rooms 
 of the town of Edinburgh. If it please your High- 
 ness" (she made him a low curtsey), "I am nomi- 
 nate — thank you, denominate — Bell, or otherwise 
 Isobel Mac Lurg, eldest surviving daughter of 
 Ninian, Laird of Millwharchar." 
 
 The young man bowed again, with yet more 
 humble and respectful observance. 
 
 "Mistress Isobel," he said, "I come to you with 
 something more than the commonplaces of intro- 
 duction. Your kindness or cruelty may mean my 
 life or death. So fair a lady must needs in this 
 amorous country of ours have had such a sentence 
 addressed to her before — but never by a man in 
 such a case as I."
 
 The Fitting of the Peats \j 
 
 The mirth gradually died out of Bell's eyes as 
 he spoke. 
 
 "The fact is," he went on, "that I and a com- 
 panion have had a small difficulty with the Hanov- 
 erian Government, in which we have come off 
 somewhat at the worse. There is a price upon our 
 humble heads which would make you safe of new 
 bonnets to the end of your life, and which if he 
 chose, it would greatly enrich your father to ob- 
 tain. For our sins we have been compelled to take 
 refuge with certain wild outlaws of these inmost 
 hills, headed by one Hector Faa, who calls himself 
 of the Honest Party, but who in fact is ready to be 
 honest or dishonest just as may suit him best ! 
 
 "Now there is pressing need for my friend and 
 myself to get to France, both on account of the 
 cause which we have at heart, and because the 
 search for us grows daily more hot and close. 
 Also for my own part I am greatly weary of a damp 
 and dreary cave in the rocks, and of the society of 
 Hector Faa, the hill gipsy, and his ignorant tatter- 
 demalions." 
 
 "You are not a murderer?" cried Bell, standing 
 a little farther off defensively; "you have never 
 taken human life?" 
 
 The grave young man, Adam Home, laughed a 
 little self-contemptuous ironic laugh. "Indeed, I
 
 18 Love Idylls 
 
 cannot flatter me that I have. I was never in but 
 one affair, and that was a ravelled, unsatisfactory 
 piece of business. It took me all my time to keep 
 the swords of King George's Hessians off my own 
 crown." 
 
 "Then you are a rebel," she said, panting a little 
 — "how lovely !" 
 
 "I am very glad you think so," he said. "I am 
 in hopes that in that capacity I may make a simi- 
 larly favourable impression upon your father, and 
 mayhap induce him to accommodate us with 
 horses, and conduct us privately to some cove on 
 the southern shore of Galloway, whence we may 
 obtain boat for France." 
 
 As he had been speaking, Bell's countenance had 
 gradually been falling. As soon as he had finished 
 she came a step nearer him, and held up her clasped 
 hands with a sweet penitential innocence which 
 was not on this occasion all assumed. 
 
 "Oh, do not!" she cried, "do not! For God's 
 dear sake — yes, and your own, never dream of go- 
 ing to my father. If you are of the Pretender's 
 party, or favourable to my Lord Kenmure, he will 
 have no pity upon you — not though your case were 
 ten times as needful." 
 
 "Mistress Isobel," said Adam gravely, "I will not 
 conceal from you that we have heard some such
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 19 
 
 reports of the laird of this bleak heritage as dis- 
 couraged us from approaching him directly. But 
 that was before we knew that he owned a jewel so 
 rare that to possess it, nay even to gaze upon it — 
 were worth — were worth " 
 
 "Who may you be calling it?" inquired Bell 
 pointedly, as he stammered and paused for a fitting 
 price with which to round his phrase. 
 
 The unexpected interrogatory knocked the bot- 
 tom out of his compliment. Adam Home laughed, 
 coloured, and finally said: "I'faith, Mistress Bell, 
 you have not your wit to seek. We will be having 
 you at Versailles yet, clattering up the great gallery 
 upon the prettiest of red heels, and parrying and 
 reposting with each courtier as you go." 
 
 "Indeed I were better employed fitting the 
 peats," said Bell; "but to your needs. I am con- 
 cerned, sir, for your necessities and those of your 
 friend. But I do urgently dissuade you from ap- 
 proaching my father. He would of a surety hand 
 you over to the Government, without question or 
 pity, being a strong friend of their party." 
 
 "But he is a gentleman, a laird on his own 
 property. He would surely have some compas- 
 sion on misfortunate men whose heads are already 
 forfeit to the executioner's axe !" 
 
 Bell shook her own pretty head, and felt her neck
 
 20 Love Idylls 
 
 with a little shudder as if to make sure that it was 
 rightly attached at top and bottom. 
 
 "Ah," she cried, again interrupting him, "you 
 do not know my father when you speak so. He is 
 a strong, fierce man, a Covenant man of the stern- 
 est sort, and he hath sworn that if ever he catch any 
 of the Pretender's folk, he will slay them like so 
 many rats in a trap !" 
 
 "That he might not find so easy," said the youth. 
 "We are at least men of our hands, we rebels of the 
 moss and cave !" 
 
 "I see, sir, that you know not my father," she 
 answered, not without a certain satisfaction; "he 
 could break a dozen" (she was about to say "of 
 you," but refrained), "a dozen men in his fingers at 
 once. There is none in all the countryside can 
 stand against him for a moment — no, not even Sir 
 Alexander Gordon himself." 
 
 Then a quaintly wilful look stole over her face 
 as she looked at the young man in the frayed coat. 
 
 "But there may be a way," she said; "my father 
 goeth to Wigton to-morrow. I know where there 
 are horses on the moors which you can catch with 
 a feed of corn at any time. Saddles there are in 
 the stable, and that shall be unlocked. I will put 
 plenty of providing for man and beast behind the 
 park dyke in a hollow of the rock which I shall
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 21 
 
 show you. I myself will set you on your way, and, 
 it may be, provide a safe escort who will hold his 
 tongue — a neighbour lad who will do the thing I 
 tell him, and who will guide you to the shore at a 
 place where a boat may be obtained." 
 
 It was now the young man's turn to shake his 
 head, which he did slowly and sadly enough. 
 
 ''Nay, my fairest lady," he said sententiously, "I 
 thank you from my heart, but it cannot be. It 
 shall never be said that Adam Home took another 
 man's horse and provend without asking his leave." 
 
 "Is not this somewhat nice in a man who by his 
 own account came over to take a king's crown?" 
 
 "You little Whig!" he cried admiringly. "I 
 knew not that you had been so well trained in 
 your father's opinions." 
 
 "Nay," she answered, "'tis all the same to me — 
 one way or the other. But I acknowledge your 
 side hath the prettiest fashions in dress, and also the 
 most glosing tongues. So for the safety of other 
 poor innocent maids I ought to help you all out of 
 the country as fast as needs be."
 
 22 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A LESSON IN ARCHITECTURE 
 
 Bell told herself that she liked to flout this sober- 
 sides of a cavalier, because he took every saucy 
 saying with a little quick uplift of the head which 
 showed him unaccustomed to be so treated by any 
 woman. And ever as soon as she had got in her 
 shot, she knelt down and fell to fitting peats with 
 much becoming earnestness and innocence. Adam 
 Home was longer this time in finding anything to 
 say in reply. 
 
 At last he broke silence, as if he had finished 
 reviewing the whole field. 
 
 "Nay, Mistress Bell," he said, "I sincerely thank 
 you for your kind and courteous offer. It is well 
 intended. But I am sure that Glenmorrison would 
 never agree to it. It would not consort well with 
 the spirit of a gentleman." 
 
 Bell looked up sharply. 
 
 "Doth it consort with the spirit of a gentleman 
 to stand with his thumbs in his pocket-holes while 
 a girl fits peats on her knees?" 
 
 Again there came over the grave face the startled
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 23 
 
 look which the minx had so quickly learned to try 
 for as a sufficient reward. 
 
 "My dear lady," he cried, with a quick change of 
 mood, "I crave a thousand pardons. To my un- 
 dying shame I had not observed your occupation, 
 so intent was I on yourself and my wretched affairs. 
 Permit me " 
 
 He knelt down beside her, and at the first at- 
 tempt succeeded in knocking over no less than five 
 of the "fittings" which Bell had been engaged so 
 busily in constructing before his arrival, and which 
 she had persevered with in spite of so many inter- 
 ruptions. 
 
 The girl gave a little cry of horror on thus be- 
 holding her work undone. 
 
 "Hold — hold !" she cried, "you mistake. These 
 are not ninepins. This is Millwharchar peat moor, 
 not a skittle alley. That is not the way to fit peats, 
 but thus — and thus." 
 
 And seizing his wrists she showed him how to 
 take the first peat, set it angle-wise on its stronger 
 base, face and balance it with a second, buttress it 
 with a third, and finally, having built a fort after 
 the manner of stooked sheaves in a harvest-field, 
 how to put the all-important "crown" upon the 
 work — "to turn the rain," as Bell explained tech- 
 nically.
 
 24 Love Idylls 
 
 "Now," she said, "take care that you do it. 
 exactly right after this, and when you turn round 
 see that you knock no more of my 'fittings' down, 
 or else they will say — 'What blundering bullock 
 has been among the peats?' " 
 
 " 'Tis the first time that ever I was called a 
 blundering bullock," said the young man, starting 
 half round as on a pivot at her speech. 
 
 "It will not be the last if you do not keep more 
 watch over your feet," said the girl with a vicious 
 click of her pretty teeth; "pray endeavour to finish 
 one fair job without whirling round every moment 
 like a teetotum." 
 
 The young man worked a while in silence, feel- 
 ing a little sullen at being thus thwarted and tanta- 
 lised by one whom he had thought to be no more 
 than an ignorant pretty maiden of the country. 
 But Bell's saucily unconscious air of command 
 piqued him, and he resolved to excel in the occupa- 
 tion to which he had been set. 
 
 It was not long before she looked again. 
 
 "Ah, that is better — much better," she cried, 
 sitting upon her own knees and letting the wide 
 summer bonnet fall back from her head, so that the 
 latter stood out against the sky with a certain 
 comely and shapely determination. Adam Home
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 25 
 
 thought he had never seen the like anywhere 
 before. . 
 
 He did not feel the necessity of leaving the 
 country to be so pressing or immediate as it had 
 been. 
 
 But he was to be quickly and somewhat un- 
 pleasantly reminded of the duty on which he had 
 come. For at the very moment when Bell had 
 again taken his wrist to help him with a "fitting" 
 of peats whose moist slipperiness prevented them 
 from being easily "set," a shadow fell between 
 them, and there, within three yards, stood the 
 figure of a man, silently and, as it appeared, some- 
 what contemptuously regarding their occupation. 
 Bell's first instinct was to start up to her feet and 
 apologise for having been the means of causing her 
 companion to be discovered at so trivial a task. 
 But after one glance at the regardant intruder, the 
 young man on his knees went calmly on with his 
 peat-fitting, turning his head to the side and study- 
 ing the architecture after the manner of his mis- 
 tress, and "hefting" the peats in his hand as if his 
 whole soul were in the work before him. 
 
 The new-comer was a smallish man with a thin 
 moustache, which he kept twisting assiduously, 
 black eyebrows, which, thick in the middle, turned 
 sharp at the outer corners and flashed defiantly up-
 
 26 Love Idylls 
 
 wards like feathers in a Highland bonnet, with an 
 air at once conceited and insolent. 
 
 But the amateur in peat-fitting was not intimi- 
 dated by his attitude. 
 
 "Ah, Hector !" was all that he said, and went on 
 calmly with his work — so different is the effect of a 
 supercilious regard in man and in woman. Adam 
 Home had responded like a tuned instrument of 
 strings to Bell's disdainful eyes and petulant words, 
 but now he laboured, apparently unconscious as 
 any hind, at his menial occupation under the con- 
 temptuous stare of another man. 
 
 The figure addressed as "Hector" retained its 
 first attitude of disapproving reserve for some 
 minutes, but as neither of the objects of contempt 
 appeared at all affected, he was at last forced to 
 break the silence. 
 
 "My lord," he said, "you seem to have forgotten 
 in congenial employment the purpose for which 
 you came hither !" 
 
 Adam Home glanced sharply up at him. 
 
 "Keep the 'my-lording' for the next campaign in 
 Flanders!" he said; "I am no lord of yours!" 
 
 Bell Mac Lurg rose to her feet. What had she 
 been doing? A lord — and she tried to think over 
 all she had said to him. The tally did not turn out 
 a very suitable or a very respectful one.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 27 
 
 The olive-skinned, dark-moustached man made a 
 little impatient movement with his foot. 
 
 "No man is the lord of Hector Faa — that is well 
 enough known in Galloway. And indeed, if I may 
 venture to remark, it ill becomes your — I mean it is 
 ill befitting one in your situation to bandy compli- 
 ments or waste precious time when the scaffold is 
 as near you and your friend as that heather buss is 
 near me." 
 
 And he stamped on a tussock of heather-bells 
 with an angry gesture. 
 
 Adam Home now rose to his feet and deliber- 
 ately dusted his hands. 
 
 "You are right," he said; "I did wrong to forget 
 Glenmorrison in the time of trouble which he 
 shares with me. I crave your pardon, Hector Faa 
 — now let us go down to the house of Millwharchar 
 and speak with the laird." 
 
 The man addressed as Hector Faa started back. 
 
 "Nay," he cried, "not I. There is still some 
 sense left under my bonnet. Hector Faa is not 
 going to venture his life, unattended, near such an 
 old heathenish Cromwell as Ninian Mac Lurg of 
 Millwharchar!" 
 
 "Then," said Adam Home tranquilly, "I will go 
 alone — or at least with this lady, if she will deign to 
 accompany me."
 
 28 Love Idylls 
 
 The little dark man hesitated a moment. Then 
 with great deliberation he pulled out a pistol, half- 
 cocked it, looked to the priming, and anon restored 
 it to his side pocket. Next he set his hand upon 
 his thigh and half drew a dagger therefrom, as if 
 to ascertain that it worked easily in its sheath. 
 
 "Lead on," he said, "you shall not cast it up that 
 Hector Faa was afraid of any man that breathes. 
 But mind you, if there be a 'tulzie,' each of us will 
 look only to the safety of his own life. This is no 
 quarrel or occasion of mine !" 
 
 And this is the reason that Bell Mac Lurg came 
 into the presence of her father Ninian, Laird of 
 Millwharchar, with a young man walking doucely 
 on either side of her.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 29 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 "god save king george!" 
 
 The trio arrived at the little loaning shaded with 
 irregular alders and birches which led between the 
 two "parks" pertaining to the house of Millwhar- 
 char. The two first acquainted were maintaining 
 a brisk conversation on the merits of various wild 
 flowers, Bell preferring the wild white rose, and 
 Adam Home holding out for the modest gowan, 
 while a step behind them, Hector Faa, with his 
 hand in the flap of his right pistol-pocket, listened 
 with a smile as incredulous as it was contemptuous. 
 
 Suddenly a turn of the loaning brought them 
 face to face with a startling apparition. 
 
 "Halt there where ye stand, or prepare forthwith 
 to meet your Maker!" exclaimed a voice stern as 
 the law and all the prophets. 
 
 The young people looked up from their pleasant 
 converse of word with word and glance with 
 glance. Close to them, and elevated a little 
 on the broad stone steps of the farmhouse, 
 stood a striking and almost tremendous figure. 
 Coat of blue, ancient steeple-crowned Puritan
 
 30 Love Idylls 
 
 hat towering above, steel breastplate winking 
 beneath, buff knee-breeches covering limbs sturdy 
 as an average man's body, shoon buckled with 
 huge clasps of hammered iron — thus before them, 
 instant and minatory, stood Ninian Mac Lurg. 
 His long-stocked brown "Queen Anne" musket 
 was levelled directly at Adam Home, a second 
 piece stood contiguous to his hand, and the 
 bare blade of an Andre Ferrara glittered against 
 the wall of rough harled masonry whereon it leaned 
 hilt upwards. 
 
 Six foot six in height stood Ninian Mac Lurg, 
 tough as an ancient oak, keen-eyed as an eagle, 
 irascible and indomitable as in all Scotland only 
 he could be. 
 
 "Oh, father," cried Bell, "for God's sake put 
 down your gun. These gentlemen are in trouble 
 and have come to beg your assistance !" 
 
 "Out of my gate, lassie," cried her father, glanc- 
 ing down the barrel of his piece. "Gentlemen, for- 
 sooth. They are rebels, cave-lurkers, sheep-steal- 
 ers. Make your peace with God, gentlemen. It 
 was an ill day that you thought to cozen Ninian 
 Mac Lurg with your traitorous speeches." 
 
 Then Bell, white with terror, threw herself in 
 front of Adam Home, and cried to her father : "Do 
 not shoot — it was my fault. I brought him here.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 31 
 
 He hath a sick companion who needs your help. 
 You would not refuse it, for your heart is kind. 
 Oh, father, be forbearing with him !" 
 
 The eye of Ninian Mac Lurg never wavered 
 along the levelled tube. 
 
 "Take your hand out of your pocket-hole, little, 
 ugly, gipsy man — one, two, three — out with it ! I 
 thank you. Now, long man with the tashed coat, 
 say after me, with your hands held up to heaven, 
 'God save King George and confound Jamie the 
 Pretender! You have till I count thirty to save 
 your life !" 
 
 Hector Faa's hand, which, obedient to the first 
 invitation, had been reluctantly withdrawn from 
 the vicinty of his pistol, now began to return even 
 more stealthily. But he reckoned without his 
 host. 
 
 "Your hands above your head, little man — so ! — 
 as you hope for a moment's longer life keep them 
 there. Now, sir to your catechism. Say after me, 
 'God save King George.' " 
 
 Up to this moment Adam Home's fingers had 
 been busy with the gowan which he had pulled to 
 illustrate his argument with Bell. But he turned 
 to that maiden now, as her father began to count 
 slowly, "One — two — three," in an audible voice, he 
 said: "Mistress Bell, you were right; will you give
 
 32 Love Idylls 
 
 me that rose from your neck in exchange for my 
 go wan? I think after all it is the finer and fairer 
 flower. At least, I love the better to wear it." 
 
 "Fourteen — fifteen — sixteen," came the steady 
 count, and the shining barrel never wavered. 
 
 "Oh, take it," cried Bell, "take it and say what 
 he tells you — for my sake say it. My father is a 
 man of his word. I will never be saucy again; I 
 will do anything you wish if only this once you will 
 say 'God save King George.' " 
 
 The young man smiled patiently and a little 
 wistfully. 
 
 "For your sake I would if I could at all, sweetest 
 maid," he said, but the true King is more to me 
 than life — more even than love !" 
 
 "Twenty-three — twenty-four — twenty-five." 
 
 Adam Home instinctively put his petitioner at 
 arm's length from him, and with a quiet and as- 
 sured mein fitted the white rose to his button-hole, 
 first reverently kissing the emblem of the Stewart 
 race, which was now also a lady's favour. 
 
 He was adjusting it to his satisfaction, and giv- 
 ing a little pat to the lapel of his coat, when the 
 inexorable voice from the doorstep counted on 
 level and monotonous, "Twenty-eight — twenty- 
 nine " 
 
 "Crash !" went the Queen Anne musket, the
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 33 
 
 sound echoing loudly against the barn and byres 
 of Millwharchar, and presently, after an appreciable 
 interval, being tossed back from the dark recesses 
 of the wood. 
 
 The young man Adam Home stood for a 
 moment after the report in his ordinary attitude of 
 careless ease. Then all suddenly he swayed, 
 clapped his hand on his right side, gripped himself, 
 as it were, and turning to Bell with his other hand 
 he raised his hat. 
 
 "I fear that I need not trouble you any longer," 
 he said courteously, "but I am infinitely indebted 
 to you — indebted to you — indebted " 
 
 And the hand that had held the hat aloft sinking 
 heavily down, its owner slowly pitched forward 
 rather than fell, and lay motionless on his face 
 among the straw which cumbered the yard.
 
 34 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE PLASTERED DOOR 
 
 At the first pull of Ninian Mac Lurg's finger on 
 the trigger Hector Faa had dodged like a weasel 
 behind a red-bodied mountain cart, and now his 
 pistol barrel glanced over the back bar with the 
 sharp eye of the hill gipsy twinkling small and 
 bright behind it like the eye of a bird. 
 
 The Laird of Millwharchar had not, however, 
 expended his whole magazine at one shot. He 
 seized the gun which stood against the wall by the 
 barrel, and cocking it, he advanced resolutely 
 towards the fugitive entrenched behind the trail- 
 cart. 
 
 Hector Faa's teeth gradually uncovered, and he 
 waited till his assailant was within a dozen paces 
 and then fired; the bullet, being well aimed, struck 
 the second musket upon the side of the lock, 
 glancing off, however, and flattening itself against 
 the wall without doing any damage. 
 
 "The God of battles hath delivered the wicked 
 into my hands!" cried Ninian Mac Lurg, as he 
 caught the trail-cart suddenly by the pole and
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 35 
 
 turned it over, almost but not quite upon the top 
 of Hector Faa. For that active man of the hills, 
 seeing his position, and acknowledging defeat as 
 readily as victory, instantly fled, leaving his dis- 
 charged pistol on the ground, so anxious was he to 
 avoid underlying the tender mercies of the Laird of 
 Millwharchar. He sped across the courtyard, 
 almost bowed to the ground, and ran with all his 
 power for the heather. 
 
 Ninian turned about for his Ferrara blade. He 
 had a score of steps to go back to recover it, which 
 gave the nimble fugitive a considerable start. But 
 in a moment it was in his hand, and, with his great 
 body thrown forward and every nerve strained, the 
 laird took up the chase as eagerly and determinedly 
 as if twenty-six instead of sixty-two had been the 
 number of his years. 
 
 But Hector Faa had a long start, and strain as he 
 would, Ninian could not overtake him nor reduce 
 by an appreciable inch the distance between them. 
 Nevertheless, he held staunchly on in this fashion, 
 and, separated by an interval of no more than a 
 hundred yards, pursuer and pursued plunged into 
 the dark shades of the wood of Larbrax. 
 
 Bell, overwhelmed with shame and pity, was left 
 alone with the wounded man. With a great effort 
 of strength she turned him over, till his head rested
 
 36 Love Idylls 
 
 on her shoulder. She was surprised to feel how 
 light and supple he was. She thought that she 
 could almost carry him in her arms. 
 
 But at this moment her two brothers, Alec and 
 John, came into the courtyard, and stood as- 
 tonished to find their eldest sister with the head of 
 a wounded man on her shoulder. 
 
 "Bell," the two lads cried simultaneously, "what 
 in the world are you doing with the man?" 
 
 "Come and help this instant, great gomerils," 
 replied that acrid maiden; "think you that I am 
 playing 'J 00 ^ mv J oe ' about the stacks on Hal- 
 loween?" 
 
 Alec and John approached gingerly, looking 
 around for their father as they did so, with a glance 
 which told much of the Spartan nature of their 
 upbringing. 
 
 "Who is he? And what are you going to do 
 with him?" 
 
 "He is a young lord who came to ask a favour of 
 my father," said Bell, "and he has shotten him. 
 And, oh, if he dies, our father will hang. Come — 
 help me with him to the old stable-laft of Larbrax. 
 Will Begbie will hide him there, or I shall know 
 the reason why." 
 
 The lads demurred. It was a good half mile to 
 the deserted steading of Larbrax. Their father
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 37 
 
 might return. What would they say to him when 
 he came back and found the wounded man gone? 
 
 "Leave all that to me," cried Bell; "say not a 
 word to the other lasses. They would only throw 
 up their hands and fall over in dwawms* — every 
 way at once, like heavy corn on a wet day. Take 
 hold of him, I say." 
 
 And so with their imperious sister at the head, 
 Alec in the midst, and John at the feet, they laid 
 Adam Home on a dismounted door which stood at 
 the back of the byre, and prepared to carry him to 
 the stable loft of Larbrax. 
 
 As the lads paced slowly with their burden down 
 the loaning and across the green pasture-lands, 
 there came back to them no sight or sound of the 
 chase. Not a tree-top waved nor a smooth swell 
 of hazel copse parted before the rush of pursuer and 
 pursued. 
 
 Alec and John soon tired of their burden, and 
 Bell had to threaten and cajole them time about, to 
 make them keep to their work. At last to shame 
 them she took a turn at the foot of the door, re- 
 lieving John, who sulked along after them. Her 
 arms were almost dragged from their sockets, and 
 there was a tearing stitch in her side which threat- 
 ened to deprive her of breath altogether. 
 
 ♦Fainting Fits.
 
 38 Love Idylls 
 
 As she looked at the young man, he appeared to 
 wear the self-same smile with which he had thanked 
 her for the white rose, and her heart prayed that 
 he might not be dead, and the dishonour for ever 
 laid upon her fathers head that he had shot down 
 an unarmed and unresisting man upon his own 
 doorstep. 
 
 Even as she stumbled along, biting her lips with 
 the effort not to cry out and drop the board on 
 which Adam Home lay stretched out, the eyes of 
 the wounded man were slowly opened. Con- 
 sciousness struggled back into them. Seeing Bell 
 at his feet, he strove to raise himself, but with a 
 determined shake of the head she motioned him to 
 lie still where he w r as. 
 
 Then John, who had been gradually growing 
 ashamed of himself, craved that she should let him 
 back to his place, but Bell, with a new strength in 
 her veins from the knowledge that he was alive, 
 would not surrender her post, and permitted him 
 only to help in Alec's place at the side. 
 
 In this wise came the procession into the silent 
 courtyard of the old farm town of Larbrax. Now 
 the "stable-laft" into which Bell proposed to con- 
 vey Adam Home was of peculiar construction, and 
 had obviously been built to suit the needs of diffi- 
 cult and dangerous times.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 39 
 
 It was, in fact, not upon the top of the stable at 
 all, but over the barn. That storehouse of fodder 
 and sheaves had been originally built with a double 
 roof, the inner being of less steep slant than the 
 outer, leaving a space of some five feet high all 
 along the length of the barn. This was entered 
 from the real stable-loft by a wall-press, of which 
 the back was composed of wood roughly plastered 
 over to imitate stone. 
 
 This had been for many years the hiding-place 
 to which resorted a former goodman of Larbrax, 
 one Gideon Begbie, the grandfather of young Will, 
 present tenant of the farm, during the days of 
 Charles's persecution. 
 
 It was with some pain and no small difficulty 
 that Adam Home was carried up the narrow ladder 
 which led to the outer loft. From thence the road 
 was easier, but the wounded man had to endure 
 many a pang before he found himself deposited on 
 a bed of clean straw, with the little green skylight 
 carefully extracted and placed among the thatch in 
 order to let in the air and a glimpse of the blue sky. 
 
 Then at last, sending off the lads Alec and John, 
 lest her father should have arrived home before 
 them, Bell kneeled beside Adam Home, and cut 
 away the waistcoat and fine shirt from the wound, 
 the locality of which was all too easily discoverable
 
 40 Love Idylls 
 
 by the oozing red which dyed with a fresher scarlet 
 the faded red of his military undercoat. 
 
 Bell found it necessary to descend from the loft, 
 to find a basin, to fill it at the spring, tear a piece 
 of soft material from her kirtle, before again re- 
 turning to find her patient propped higher on his 
 bolster of straw. 
 
 "This is kind of you," he said, but she could 
 only answer him with her tears, as she bent ten- 
 derly to bathe the wound. The bullet, she found, 
 had made a long, tearing cut, glancing along the 
 rib, but turning off through the coat before reach- 
 ing the backbone. 
 
 "Will you tell me exactly what it looks like?" said 
 Adam Home. "I am enough of a surgeon to know 
 whether or not it is dangerous." 
 
 Bell checked her sobs in order to obey him. 
 
 "That is well," he said cheerfully, "yet I fear much 
 I shall be a trouble to you for some time. But where 
 am I at this moment?" 
 
 The girl told him that he was at the old and de- 
 serted farm-steading of Larbrax and in perfect 
 safety — that no one but the owner, Will Begbie, ever 
 came there. "And," added Bell, "I can readily make 
 Will see matters as he ought." 
 
 The wounded man took a swift glance at her as 
 she attentively bound up the wound with strips of
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 41 
 
 her kirtle, till she had extemporised as good a dress- 
 ing as was possible in the circumstances. 
 
 Then, leaving the last strip of cloth she could 
 spare wet upon his brow, and promising soon to re- 
 turn, Bell tripped down the ladder and carefully 
 closed the door behind her which separated the two 
 lofts above the stable and barn of the deserted home- 
 stead.
 
 42 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 WILL BEGBIE HAS A SORE HEART 
 
 Arrived at the outer air, Bell went in search of 
 Will Begbie. She would find him, she was sure, at 
 the new farm town, where he resided with an old 
 housekeeper, by name Tibby Lee, and a shepherd or 
 two, whose duties kept them all day on the hill. But 
 upon her arrival there she found silence in the wide 
 spaces of the yard, broken only by the "chunnering" 
 of the hens in their dust baths under the bank. 
 Silence dominated the house when Bell stood on the 
 steps and called "Will I" Then, when at last she 
 mustered courage to open the door by lifting the iron 
 latch with its new-fangled, broad thumb-piece, her 
 call of "Will, I want you !" was answered only by the 
 pushing back of a wooden chair as Yarrow, his half- 
 blind old collie, rose from beneath the kitchen table 
 and came enquiringly to the door. 
 
 But Yarrow could not inform Bell where his mas- 
 ter was, though he thrust a moist nose of sympathy 
 into her hand, so she had to seek further. On a 
 bench in the new barn was a tankard from which the
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 43 
 
 ale had been so recently drained that the yellow froth 
 bubbles had not yet had time to reach the bottom. 
 The girl's voice rang through the wide dusky spaces 
 from threshing-floor to rafters. 
 
 "Will— Will— O Will— I want you!" 
 
 But through the open door which looked out 
 among the late blossoming trees of the orchard, the 
 echo answered mockingly "Want you!" 
 
 Bell next skirted the office houses to a little rocky 
 knoll from which she could discern both the old and 
 the new farm towns of Larbrax, and also the house 
 of Millwharchar lying higher up the valley. 
 
 But Will Begbie was not to be seen. The sound 
 of a gun or pistol, dull and far away, alarmed her, 
 and she set her hand to her heart. Was the guilt 
 of shedding innocent blood to fall twice in one day 
 upon her father? Or had the violent man perished 
 in his own violence, as Bell had often heard it proph- 
 esied in the kirk. 
 
 The girl was heartsick and distressed. She 
 thought with a sharp self-reproach, mingled with a 
 wild pleasure of how the young man in the tarnished 
 officer's dress had helped her with the peat-fitting. 
 She recounted to herself (after the manner of 
 women) how often their hands had touched each 
 other, and especially she recalled again that quick, 
 backward fling of the head as often she broke the
 
 44 Love Idylls 
 
 crust of his formality with her daring pleasan- 
 tries. 
 
 "It is all Will Begbie's fault — he ought to be here 
 when I want him — Lord knows he is often enough in 
 the way when I don't !" 
 
 "Will Begbie is here, Mistress Isobel !" said a tall, 
 fresh-complexioned youth attired in the sober cos- 
 tume of a well-doing yeoman. "In what can I serve 
 you?" 
 
 "Indeed, Will Begbie, there is much that you can 
 do," said Bell, dashing into her explanation before 
 she lost courage. "My father shot a young rebel, 
 and I have had him carried to the old barn over by 
 there. He lies in the secret laft. You do not mind, 
 do you?" 
 
 Bell lifted up beseeching eyes wet with recent tears 
 to the youth who stood before her. He in his turn set 
 his fingers underneath his bonnet sideways, and tilt- 
 ing it a little, scratched his head with a quaint per- 
 plexity. 
 
 "A dead man — a murdered man in my barn, and 
 your father did it?" he said with an appreciable in- 
 terval between each statement. 
 
 "Neither a dead man nor yet, even if he had been 
 dead, a man murdered by my father. He is a rebel 
 officer, and came to ask succour and safe conduct.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 45 
 
 It was my fault. I brought him. But my father, 
 being an angry, hot man, would not listen to a word, 
 and gave him only half a minute to cry 'God save 
 King George.' Then when he would not thus be 
 hurried into loyalty, my father shot him down. So 
 I have brought him to you, that you may look after 
 him and then help him to escape from the country." 
 
 Will Begbie shifted from one foot to the other 
 uneasily. "Bell," he said doubtfully, "you know not 
 what you ask. It is rank treason to conceal a rebel, 
 and it might go against my neck were it known. Be- 
 sides I am a good King George's man, and so was 
 my father before me." 
 
 Bell flashed a small key from her pocket, and leap- 
 ing to her feet and thrusting it under his nose, she 
 cried out indignantly, "Here, take it — there is the 
 key of the secret laft. Go and betray the man that 
 trusted you, betray me that thought better of you 
 than of any of her own folk. Go and bring the red 
 soldiers up from Creebridge. But never from this 
 day forth look the road Bell Mac Lurg is on, till the 
 day you die the death of a traitor and a spy !" 
 
 The colour faded gradually from the fresh rustic 
 face with its honesty of purpose and plainness of 
 intent. 
 
 "Nay, Bell," he stammered, "I meant nothing of
 
 46 Love Idvlls 
 
 the kind. I was just a little taken aback at the first 
 go off. I will never betray any that trusted me. I 
 will go and see the man now. Will you accompany 
 me?" 
 
 "Thank you, Will. I knew you would see reason. 
 You always can be convinced. But before you go, 
 can you think of any kindly silent man with the skill 
 of a surgeon? There is none that I can remember 
 but Dominie Duncan Robison over at the clachan. 
 He has the name of great skill. Can you advise 
 me if with his official position we could count on his 
 holding his tongue in the matter of the rebel ?" 
 
 The slower wits of Will Begbie revolved the prob- 
 lem a while and looked at it from all points. "I think 
 it would do," he said. "They whisper cannily that 
 Duncan, being a Highlandman himself, hath a warm 
 side to the King ower the water. At least I am sure 
 he would deal kindly with the old man." 
 
 "I said not that the rebel was an old man, Will," 
 said Bell quickly; "he is not so very old." 
 
 "I will go and see him," said the farmer of Lar- 
 brax with less exuberance of spirits than he had hith- 
 erto shown. And this time he did not invite Bell to 
 accompany him. 
 
 They walked together, however, to the old farm 
 town, and then Will Begbie went up alone. When
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 47 
 
 he came down ten minutes after his face was altered. 
 It was sterner, older, as if he himself had been 
 wounded to the death. 
 
 "I will do it, Bell," he said, ''but mind it is for your 
 sake I will help this man to escape out of the coun- 
 try." 
 
 "And partly for my own !" he added to himself.
 
 48 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 A SEED FOR NEXT YEARNS GARDEN 
 
 Bell's father did not return to Millwharchar till 
 late at night, and when he came in none dared ask a 
 question of him as he set himself down by the fire, 
 now gloomily staring at the sullen glow of the peat 
 ashes and now rubbing briskly at the blade of his 
 Andrea. 
 
 Suddenly he flung a question at Bell, and the lads, 
 who sat by the slender illumination of a candle pre- 
 tending to read, trembled till their chap books shook 
 like willow leaves in a westerly wind. 
 
 "What came of the young rebel that I shot?" 
 
 Bell had been expecting the question ever since she 
 had heard her father's step on the threshold, and she 
 had been prepared for it long before that. 
 
 "Some ill-looking gangrel lads came down from 
 the hills and carried him off, we know not where," 
 she answered, looking at Alec and John, daring them 
 to say a word. 
 
 "Some of Hector Faa's crew of rascals, I doubt 
 not," grumbled her father. "Hark ye, Mistress Bell,
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 49 
 
 never let me hear of you passing word of mouth with 
 any belonging to that gang, or I will banish you from 
 my fireside, never to return." 
 
 "Yes, father," said Bell meekly, thinking that in 
 certain circumstances she could imagine worse fates 
 than such perpetual exile. 
 
 Under the skilful leechdom of the dominie, who 
 proved as silent and willing as Will Begbie had fore- 
 told, and the bright occasional visits of Bell to his 
 lonely garret, the wounded man recovered quickly. 
 But Will Begbie never went from home to kirk or 
 market all the time that Adam Home lay in the secret 
 loft above the old barn. And only on one occasion 
 did Bell see her invalid alone. So anxious was Will 
 to preserve him from intrusion, and guard him from 
 all excitement, that he frequented the old farm town 
 more than he had done in twenty years, and his ap- 
 petite became so insatiable and abnormal that his an- 
 cient housekeeper Betty was heard to declare that 
 "she kenned na what had ta'en Maister Willie — for 
 that it wasna ae meal o' meat that he could eat, but 
 three a' at a doonsittin' — and never a crumb left to 
 show for it !" 
 
 The solitary exception to Will Begbie's unsleeping 
 watchfulness chanced on the afternoon of the day be- 
 fore Adam Home and his friend Glenmorrison were 
 to sail as castaway foreign sailors of no particular
 
 50 Love Idylls 
 
 nationality in a lugger which was putting out from 
 the Ferry Port of Cree. Will had been called away 
 suddenly by a message that one of his horses had 
 fallen into a moss-hole on the march between Lar- 
 brax and Millwharchar Moor. The message was 
 brought by John Mac Lurg, and its genuineness was 
 somewhat suspect, owing to the fact that John was 
 seen to spend one silver crown on a new thistle 
 buckle for his bonnet, and another on parti-coloured 
 ribands for the lasses over at the clachan that night, 
 where, as it happened, a travelling chapman was dis- 
 playing his wares, and driving a brisk trade. 
 
 At any rate, the horse was definitely and indubi- 
 tably in the bog, and had to be extricated with ropes. 
 Nevertheless, so strange is chance, that before Will 
 was over the hill, Bell Mac Lurg had set John to 
 guard the approaches of the old farm-steading, and 
 had gone up to say farewell to Adam. 
 
 She found him wearing a coat of Will Begbie's, 
 while his own, carefully mended and brushed, hung 
 on a nail behind him. He was pale, but was able to 
 rise so far as the low rafters would allow him to 
 greet her entrance. 
 
 "You are going to leave us to-morrow," said Bell, 
 after the pause that follows most salutations; "how 
 glad you must be!" 
 
 "I shall indeed be glad that I am again to see the
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 51 
 
 sky and breathe the unconditioned air," he said, 
 dropping into his old ornate diction; "but I grieve 
 that I can receive no more such angel visits as this. 
 I can never repay that which you have done for me. 
 But neither will I ever forget. In happier times I 
 shall return. There are even now good friends in 
 high place who urge me to make my peace with the 
 Government. Also I think that they themselves will 
 soon have had enough of the axe to satisfy even 
 Hanoverian tastes." 
 
 Bell and Adam Home sat on two stools looking at 
 each other, awkward as a couple of school-children 
 left alone when the master is out and they know not 
 when he will return. 
 
 A light quizzical smile came over Adam's face. 
 
 "If I come back next year in time for the peat- 
 fitting, will you give me the rest of my lesson?" 
 
 Bell was silent, but a deep flush slowly covered her 
 face. 
 
 "Do not " she said ; "be a little generous. You 
 
 are a great man. I heard Hector Faa call you 'my 
 lord.' And though after a fashion you explained his 
 words, yet I have not seen you so much without 
 knowing that you belong to a different world from 
 that in which we simple folk of Galloway dwell. 
 Leave us alone to our dull lives. We have done our 
 best to help you to life again, as one Christian should
 
 52 Love Idylls 
 
 help another. But do not come back, I pray you do 
 not come back !" 
 
 There were tears in her eyes now, and Adam 
 Home thought he had never seen them so large and 
 beautiful, deep as the cloudless zenith before the sun- 
 rising. He came forward and took both her hands. 
 
 There came a whistle up the stairs. 
 
 "Haste ye — haste ye, Bell," cried her brother from 
 the ladder foot; "they have shifted the horse beast 
 out of the mire!" 
 
 Adam Home stood by the plastered door. He 
 held Bell's hands a moment in his. "I have not the 
 right now!" he said, looking down at her lips and 
 blushful face, "but when the roses bloom and the 
 peats are fitted, I will come again, and ask for what 
 I dare not take !" 
 
 "Ah, do not !" she began, but could get no 
 
 further. For, with a courtesy such as she had only 
 dreamed of, he lifted the fingers of the Bonnet 
 Laird's daughter to his lips and respectfully kissed 
 them. Then with a resolute hand he shut the door 
 after her. 
 
 Next day at the fair at Cree Bridge, as Bell stood 
 by the little jetty which protruded into the brown 
 tidal water, a tanned foreign sailor with a red knitted 
 cap on his head came limping past.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 53 
 
 "Will you buy a purse, pretty lady?" he said in 
 broken English. 
 
 Bell knew the voice at once. It was that of Adam 
 Home. But she could not find a word with which to 
 answer him. 
 
 "I thank you," he said aloud, as if he had re- 
 ceived a price, and, touching his cap, he moved away. 
 She saw him get on board the lugger, which 
 looked so slight and frail a craft in which to cross 
 the wide seas to France, yet had proved herself 
 capable by many a successful voyage to Fecamp and 
 Le Havre. 
 
 The tide being full, the rope was immediately cast 
 off, and with a favourable wind the boat moved off, 
 while the wake whitened and followed like a furrow 
 after a plough. 
 
 Bell stood on the quay and watched. The foreign 
 sailor took off his red cap and swung it about his 
 head. Bell's hand wavered piteously up in reply, but 
 dropped again in a moment, as if ashamed of its own 
 daring. Then, as she turned away, she eagerly 
 opened the purse. It contained nothing but a with- 
 ered white rose. 
 
 "What have you got there in that old purse, Bell ?" 
 said Will Begbie cheerily in her ear. 
 
 He had rid himself of the rebel officer, and, since
 
 54 
 
 Love Idylls 
 
 he knew nothing of John Mac Lurg's vigil, his heart 
 pulsed light and secure within his bosom. 
 
 "Tell me — what have you stowed away so secretly 
 and anxiously in that old purse?" he cried again. 
 
 "Nothing but a seed for next year's garden!" 
 answered Mistress Isobel Mac Lurg.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats $5 
 
 PART II 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BRIDGE OF AVIGNON 
 
 Adam stretched himself wearily as he rose and 
 looked about him. He had been sitting beneath the 
 arid and insufficient shade of a grey olive, whose 
 dustily silver leaves shivered and rustled and rubbed 
 their edges together even in the windless noon of 
 May with a certain curious suggestion of life not 
 wholly vegetable. 
 
 "I wonder what keeps Glenmorrison," he said to 
 himself ; "he is always late nowadays !" 
 
 Adam Home heaved a long sigh. 
 
 "After all," he continued, "he has nothing else 
 to do, so he may just as well take up procrastination 
 as a business. There is no other advantage in being 
 in this horrible place!" 
 
 And yet there were few scenes more beautiful 
 within the bounds of the world than that upon which 
 Adam Home looked down, as he shrugged his shoul- 
 ders and blinked with eyes half closed in order to
 
 56 Love Idylls 
 
 shut out the heat and the dust of that high glorious 
 day in early summer. 
 
 He saw a red-roofed sunny city, full of Oriental 
 suggestion, with wide balconies of scrolled iron- 
 work and closed sun-blinds. He looked upon a rip- 
 pling river, spanned by an ancient bridge, somewhat 
 ruinous indeed, upon whose broken arches the chil- 
 dren joined hands and sang a quaint and moving 
 ditty. And as the burgher folk went past. upon the 
 river bank and heard them, husbands and wives 
 clasped hands instinctively and smiled at each other, 
 always saying the same words and always moved 
 with memories of the days when they too sang — 
 
 Upon the Bridge of Avignon, 
 We're dancing round, 
 Dancing round ! 
 
 Beyond, lifting its yellow-white masses of build- 
 ing against a sky which was just beginning to take 
 on its summer look of brass towards the zenith, ex- 
 tended the castle and palace of the Popes of Avignon. 
 
 But Adam Home was tired of the brilliant little 
 southern city. He had grown to hate Rome en 
 poche. He was tired even of the loyalty that kept 
 him there, tired of drawing money drop by drop 
 from a poor tenantry to lend it to a Prince, who, 
 though far from ungrateful, immediately forgot that
 
 The Fitting of the Peats $y 
 
 he had received it, and went off to expose his dis- 
 tresses to some other adherent suspected of having 
 received a more recent remittance from home. 
 
 "At last!" cried Adam, without moving from the 
 sparse edgewise shade of the dry-rustling olive 
 leaves, and making a trumpet of his hands. "Glen- 
 morrison, what news of him to-day?" 
 
 A tall, ruddy-faced, elderly man was stepping 
 liesurely up the rocky path towards him, leaning 
 somewhat heavily upon a stick, and occasionally 
 stopping to wipe his brow with a great brown ker- 
 chief of the pattern of a Paisley shawl. 
 
 So soon as he came within the radius of retort, 
 "Him," he panted indignantly, ''him — as you call 
 your Prince, sir, is for a wonder in the best of health 
 and the worst of tempers." 
 
 "What," said Adam Home, smiling, and making 
 room for his friend under the olive, "has he been 
 fretted by the Government order to remove himself 
 from Avignon, or has he not been able to borrow the 
 money to pay his last week's market bill?" 
 
 "Neither and both, sir," said Glenmorrisun 
 grandly, and then, quite suddenly becoming familiar 
 and dialectal, he added, "sit farther over, Aidam — 
 ye are takkin' up every bit o' the caller shade — no 
 that this God- forsaken whin buss gies us ony thing 
 that can be rightly named a shadow. I wish to peace
 
 58 Love Idylls 
 
 I was sittin' aneath a decent Scots fir in the forest o' 
 Glenmorrison, watchin' the reel deer com in' troopin' 
 bonny ower the Balloch ! Aidam, Aidam, what 
 garred ns no stick to that douce solid man, King 
 George, and so sit siccar on our lands and heritages 
 a' our days ?" 
 
 "Glenmorrison," said Adam Home, clapping his 
 hand on his friend's knee, as they sat close together 
 in their doubtful patch of coolness, and watched the 
 yellow sunlight in which the landscape simmered 
 with the Palace of the Popes rising stern and 
 dignified in the midst, "Who was it that persuaded 
 me first to join? Who brought me hither? Who 
 pinches and screws that 'him' down yonder may have 
 three pennies and a bawbee out of every good Scot's 
 groat that comes his way — who but Glenmorrison? 
 Aye, and who would give up that last bawbee for a 
 clap on the shoulder and a careless kindly word from 
 Ye-Ken-Wha?" 
 
 "I ken — I ken," said the ruddy-faced man, shaking 
 his head; "it's true, Aidam. But it's fair heart- 
 breakin' to see him this day sittin' cheek by jow wi' 
 the Dowager's waitin'-maid, and cryin' every quarter 
 hour for 'A bottle o' wine and fresh glasses !' Wi' 
 never a thocht o' his faithfu' servants that have 
 weared their a' on him, but only colloguin' wi' Irish 
 rapparees and penniless French rogues. It's a' that
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 59 
 
 woman! We maun kidnap her, I'm tellin' ye, and 
 send her aff to King Louis. He has sae money sic- 
 like already aboot him that an odd yin or twa mair 
 wad never be kenned ! But she plays the mischief wi' 
 oor laddie." 
 
 "And think ye/' said Adam Home, "that if the 
 Walkinshaw were away that we wad get back the lad 
 that fought at Gaeta like ten men and stood like a tall 
 pine beneath the gathering banner at Glenfinnan? 
 No, no, let the lass be, lest a worse thing befall !" 
 
 The elder man looked up with some surprise at 
 his companion. 
 
 "Aidam!" he said, "what's gotten ye, Aidam? 
 Has she been at ye hersel* ? I thought that ye were 
 wi' us in separatin' the Prince f rae that woman ?" 
 
 Then Adam Home spake more sharply than be- 
 fore — nay, even sternly. "The lass has paid her price 
 for him, and a bonny bargain she has of it! Glen- 
 morrison, I am sick of all this. I am going home 
 to Scotland — aye, though I put my neck in the hemp 
 for it. Even Tower Hill were better than this mis- 
 erable life of feckless plots abroad and universal cat- 
 and-dog at home !" 
 
 "Tut, tut, Aidam," said Glenmorrison, "this will 
 never do! Ye need to be lanced, Aidam. Mac- 
 Wheem maun see to ye. Nocht like blood-lettin' for 
 curin' the megrims ! Preserve us — you to speak o'
 
 60 Love Idylls 
 
 gaun hame to the gallows wi' a score o' ill-set cousins 
 at Henry Pelham's elbow, and that good uncle him- 
 sel' aboot to be inducted into your estates and kindly 
 heritages !" 
 
 "Glenmorrison," said Adam Home, "my life here 
 is not worth a docken leaf. I am sick of it — sick 
 also, God forgive me, of the Prince !" 
 
 Glenmorrison rose in a fume. 
 
 "I see — I see," he said; "you would play 'booty.' 
 You would make your private peace. You have been 
 in communication with the butchers of Drummossie. 
 That is the secret of your defence of the Walkin- 
 shaw. Perhaps you have gotten the Dowager's wait- 
 ing-maid to speak a word to her mistress for you. 
 But, sir, you shall not go to England without feeling 
 the point of a true man's sword. Heavens, sir, I will 
 fight you here and now for the words you have 
 spoken !" 
 
 And the red-faced man strode to and fro, snorting 
 and nodding his great head, and with his hand 
 clapped threateningly on his sword. The young man 
 sat still, leaning his back indolently against the 
 gnarled trunk of the olive, and for answer he cast 
 one shapely leg over the other and stared at his silver 
 shoe-buckle. 
 
 "Sit down, Glen," he said ; "you and I cannot 
 quarrel. We lay over long together in the cave on
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 61 
 
 Millwharchar Muir. The stead of your elbow is in 
 my ribs yet. Man, ye just could not find it in your 
 heart to pink Adam Home with the selfsame hand 
 that used to be laid about my neck in the night time !" 
 
 The ruddy man, who had been fanning - himself 
 haughtily, flung down his hat in the dust and held 
 out both his hands. 
 
 "Aidam," he cried, "ye hae seen baith a mad dog 
 this day and a silly one too! Give me your hand, 
 if ye can forgive me for my temper. It's a' my mith- 
 
 er's faut for marryin' a d d reid-headed Heelant- 
 
 man!" 
 
 Then the young man, suddenly losing his noncha- 
 lance, rose to his feet with a bright smile on his 
 face. He took his friend's hand, pressed it with a 
 quick enthusiasm very unlike his previous uncon- 
 cern, and drew him down again upon the roots of the 
 olive. 
 
 "Sit down, Glen," he said; "this day is some- 
 what overhot for the emotions. If you are a fool, 
 I am a whole company of them — and a merry- 
 andrew to boot. For I know as well as you that I risk 
 my neck by going back to Scotland. I have nothing 
 to gain but the gallows. Yet, O man, I can hear in 
 my sleep the grouse craw in the heather as he fills 
 his crappan, and the lang-nebbit whaup willy- 
 whaain' doon to his nest in the gloamin' ! Man, I'm
 
 62 Love Idylls 
 
 away back to the cave on the Black Craig o' Dee. 
 My heart is fair sick to see a trout loup in a pool, and 
 to sit where the birks are bonniest and sweetest 
 scented, and when the larches are hanging out their 
 green tassels like ladies' favours." 
 
 Adam Home uttered the last words with a kind 
 of rapture, and Glenmorrison gazed at him in dumb 
 astonishment, which, however, slowly merged into 
 an eye-twinkling kind of humour. But he did not 
 speak. 
 
 "Good-day, Glen," cried the young man, waving 
 his hand; "I'm off to pack my hat-box. Make my 
 adieus and obeisances to the Prince, will you, if ever 
 he asks for me; I will not interrupt him now!" 
 
 Glenmorrison watched him go, with a careless 
 grace of carriage that had something almost dainty 
 and womanish about it. Then the smile broadened 
 on his face. 
 
 "Oho! Aidam, lad!" he murmured, "ye are sick 
 to hear the whaup birlin' at his wild sang doon the 
 wind, are ye? And every grouse cock that chunners 
 in a heather buss is happier than you ! An' it's the 
 springtime on Millwharchar Muir, is it? And the 
 Walkinshaw, doon there" (he pointed with his 
 hand), "is a puir lass that has paid her price, and 
 your heart is sore vexed for her. Aye, aye ! Aidam ! 
 Ow aye, Aidam !"
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 63 
 
 And Glenmorrison, sitting with his elbows on his 
 knees, leaned forward till his broad, smooth-shaven 
 chin rested on the ebony handle of his cane, and 
 watched the young man till he lost sight of the tall 
 slender figure in the press of the country folk on 
 mules and donkeys, all coming out of the city laden 
 with their purchases or rattling the empty baskets of 
 their ingoing merchandise. 
 
 "Aye, aye," he communed with himself, well- 
 pleased at his own penetration, "I ken. I thocht it 
 would come. And it will tak'him the sairer noowhen 
 it has. There never was a Kilpatrick that could 
 stand against a petticoat. And this yin has been 
 lang in catchin' the fever. It will gang the harder 
 wi' him for that ! And a bit slip o' a country lass 
 too — after haein' escapit a' the braw dames o' King 
 Louis' Court!" 
 
 He rose after a while, stretched himself carefully, 
 and with a stiff halt in his gait began to descend. 
 
 "Aweel," he mused as he went, "it's nae mainner 
 o' use speakin' to the lad. He doesna ken what is 
 the trouble wi' him. And faith, Guid forgie ye, 
 Glenmorrison, ye are ower fond o' a bonny bit 
 craitur yoursel' to hae the richt to flyte him! Aye," 
 he added, chuckling, "and fond too o' the whaup 
 willy-whaain' doon to his nest in the gloamin' !"
 
 64 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE SECOND FITTING OF THE PEATS 
 
 It was a June morning. Mistress Bell Mac Lurg 
 was out fitting the peats on the Millwharchar Muir. 
 This is how she did it. 
 
 It was yet early. The dew was pearled on the grass, 
 and Bell walked slowly from the little heather-girt 
 farm-steading, and down the birch-tree glade. Then 
 still more slowly she passed along the side of the burn 
 that gurgled half-hid in the bent grass till she 
 reached the black hags on the edge of the muir. 
 
 At this place, having looked at the peats her father 
 had cast, and shaken her head over the delicate prob- 
 lem of where she was to begin, Bell sat down on a 
 knoll of dry heather and gave herself up to the con- 
 sideration of that and of other problems more or less 
 remotely connected therewith. 
 
 "Here," she said, "was the very spot where I 
 had been kneeling, when !" 
 
 "No," she added, correcting herself, finger on 
 lip, "it was there!" But it was neither. For more 
 of the peat-face had been cast, and the spot where 
 the sacred and unutterable event thus vaguely al-
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 65 
 
 ludecl to had happened, was lying all about her in 
 narrow black oblongs, of the shape and size of two 
 bricks fastened together by their ends. 
 
 He had promised — but — it simply could not be! 
 The laws against straggling rebels were more strictly 
 administered than ever, the red soldiers more fre- 
 quent visitors in the glen. She was glad, therefore, 
 that there was no chance of her being interrupted at 
 her work — so glad that as she looked downwards 
 towards the Black Craig of Dee, along the line by 
 which he had come last year (was it only a year 
 ago?) the landscape appeared curiously enough to 
 dissolve, running edgewise in both directions, and 
 a dry lump which had been hardening in her throat 
 broke with a sound like a sob. 
 
 This was that same Bell Mac Lurg who had made 
 a jest and a mocking of the rows of young men along 
 the west wall of the kirk on Sabbaths, and even 
 turned on her heel when the young Laird of Duchrae 
 told her that he had seen no girl so pretty in the As- 
 sembly Rooms of Edinburgh, asking him if by any 
 chance he thought that was any news to her. 
 
 Yet it was this very girl who thus saw the land- 
 scape waver and melt into a grey blur, like a sum on 
 a boy's slate at close of school. 
 
 What — it was raining! Thunder- rain too, for 
 the drops splashing down flat and large were more
 
 66 Love Idylls 
 
 than lukewarm. Bell glanced up at the sky. The 
 sunlit blue ran every way, though still a little blurred 
 and dim. The drops must come from somewhere 
 else. It did not occur to her that she had been crying 
 till a shadow fell across the yellow bent and dulled 
 the ruby-hearted heather. She started to her feet, 
 her heart drummed in her ears, and the tears were 
 raining down undisguisedly now. A figure, tall and 
 darkly masculine, was striding swiftly over the peat 
 hags within a score of feet of her. She could not 
 see his face. So silly it was ! She darted up her 
 apron, a pretty one with flowers speckled on it which 
 she had put on (one never knows!), and dashed the 
 water out of her eyes. 
 
 Some one had hold of her hands. Some one was 
 whispering words in her ear. Will Begbie! No — 
 not Will Begbie — by no manner of means Will 
 Begbie ! 
 
 "Love — little love," he was saying (Will Begbie 
 forsooth!) "I have come back to you — a thousand 
 miles back for my lesson. Have you forgot that you 
 promised to teach me how to fit the peats?" 
 
 But in spite of his cheering words Bell could only 
 sob and sob and hold down her face. She had not 
 really wanted him to come. She had hoped that he 
 would stay away. She was very angry with him for 
 coming. She would tell him so and send him away.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 67 
 
 Besides it was very wrong. What would her father 
 say ! And at any rate he could never mean it, but 
 only to make sport of her. He was a great man. 
 She would tell him now to go away and leave her. 
 So she set her hands against his breast, for he was 
 drawing her dangerously near to him and saying — 
 well, things that her ears ached to hear and her heart 
 bounded to listen to. 
 
 Then with a tremendous effort Bell lifted her face 
 to speak. She was just opening her mouth to tell 
 him that he must not — when — when something cata- 
 clysmic happened. The sky went round and round, 
 the world span like a top. The earth heaved under 
 her feet. All the wide spaces seemed to grow full of 
 honeysuckle and balm and sweet spices. Odours of 
 the divine and human floated dizzying about her. 
 She trod on the viewless air. Rosy clouds upbore 
 her, and she found herself held very close to a blue 
 silk vest, underneath which a man's heart was beat- 
 ing very loud. Her hands, which she could have 
 sworn that she had raised for the purpose of keep- 
 ing him at a proper distance, were clasped about his 
 neck. It was no use to pretend any more. Also it 
 was much nicer.
 
 68 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE PROPOSAL 
 
 "But you should not have come at all. You 
 know you should not. I did not mean you to come. 
 And you are in danger. You must go away at once, 
 or else I shall not love you !" 
 
 The young man, whose face now wore a very dif- 
 ferent expression to that which we had seen upon it 
 under the olive tree over against the Bridge of Avig- 
 non, felt himself held tighter as the tender voice 
 murmured reproachfully, "You must go away 
 again !" 
 
 Once on a time, and not so long ago either, Adam 
 Home had thought that his life was over. With a 
 kind of relief he had felt (as he believed) his pulses 
 beat slower and steadier. He had looked cold and 
 unmoved upon the fascinations of the easy beauties 
 of two Courts. So he was sure that his youth had 
 indeed passed away. But now, held in the light of 
 Bell Mac Lurg's eyes, exultation took hold of him 
 to find that his heart had never played so rare a tune 
 for any woman, and that this Bonnet Laird's daugh-
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 69 
 
 ter had taught him that there was a sweeter cup to 
 set to his lips than he had ever dreamed of draining 
 on his life's journey. 
 
 "You knew you were in danger — yet you have 
 come back to me!" 
 
 To Bell there was something acutely, even pain- 
 fully, exquisite in the thought. Fire as well as blood 
 ran in the girl's veins. 
 
 "Oh, but you should not — you ought not!" she 
 cried; "you must go back at once — if any one should 
 see you, what should I do ? Go ! Go !" 
 
 But, nevertheless, Adam Home felt himself held 
 tighter, for the face that looked up at him was at 
 once radiant with a maid's love and fierce with a 
 mother's anxiety. 
 
 Smiles ran rippling across the girl's lips as often 
 as they were disengaged — while each time she held 
 him at a distance in order to search his face (to see 
 if he really meant it), tears welled in her eyes till 
 they grew large and deep and suffused, being filled 
 with a kind of glorified mist. 
 
 And then Adam Home told his tale at length. To 
 do it he bade her sit down beside him on a tussock 
 of "ling" in the lea of a great face of peat. Before 
 she did so Bell cast her eye around the horizon and 
 her mind over the possibilities. Her father was at 
 Cairn Edward. He would likely go on to Dumfries.
 
 jo Love Idylls 
 
 It was market day there and he might be long de- 
 tained — might indeed not return that night. 
 
 Will Begbie — well, it did not much matter where 
 Will was. She held Will in the hollow of her hand. 
 So she thought as she settled herself down on the 
 great tussock of dry purple heather. There were 
 no King's soldiers in the neighbourhood ever since 
 Ligonier's Horse had been called abroad, and with 
 them had marched that young ensign who had come 
 "once-errand," as the country folk say, from Dum- 
 fries, just to see whether Bell's eyes were as glori- 
 ously blue as had been reported of them. He went 
 back, declaring that the half had not been told him 
 — but adding that her heart was as flinty as her eyes 
 were blue. 
 
 And there and thus Adam Home told his tale and 
 settled the aching of his heart, feasting his eyes on 
 their desire till the sun rose to the zenith and began 
 to sink again, and still on the wide Millwharchar 
 Muir not a peat was fitted. 
 
 Moreover Bell began to grow hungry. As for 
 Adam, he did not care whether or not he ever tasted 
 food again. Indeed, the very thought jarred upon 
 him. But not so Bell. For, rising at last after many 
 attempts out of the encircling fortress, she extracted 
 from under the lip of a moss-hag a white-wrapped
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 71 
 
 bundle and a brown jug. With these she spread be- 
 fore him her frugal midday meal — scones of flour 
 and farles of cake, in quantity scantly enough for one 
 and a laughing-stock for two — yet very bread of 
 the gods when administered in finger-lengths with 
 spices and condiments thus : — 
 
 "Open your mouth, sir — no, you don't! There! 
 Now eat that ! Did you ever get anything so nice 
 in France? You know you never did. You know it 
 in your heart, sir. I suppose you have been drink- 
 ing such rare and expensive wines that you turn up 
 your nose at honest buttermilk. But I will teach 
 you, sir, to play your whimsies off on me ! Another 
 bite? Ah, would you! One thing at a time, if you 
 please, Master Adam Francis Charles Home ! Oho, 
 sir, I have not forgotten your name, you see! Not 
 that I believe a syllable of the Charles Francis, any 
 more than I do of all the other nonsense you have 
 been talking this morning!" 
 
 All at once she clasped her hands with a pathetic 
 little gesture of dramatic despair. 
 
 "Adam," she cried, "we have forgotten to fit a 
 single peat ! What will my father say to me when 
 he comes home? (Thank heaven, he is at Dumfries 
 by now!)" 
 
 Adam Home indicated that he cared not even an
 
 72 Love Idylls 
 
 infinitesimal coin of the realm what her father said, 
 and that he had not come a thousand mile and a 
 thousand to the back of that only to fit peats all 
 day. 
 
 At this Bell's mouth dropped, and she glanced up 
 at him with shocked reproach. 
 
 "But you told me when you first arrived that you 
 had come for your lesson, and if that is not true, how 
 can I believe anything else you have told me since?" 
 
 Adam Home hastened to supply her with an ad- 
 ditional and confirmatory evidence. 
 
 "Well, if that be true," said Bell, daintying her- 
 self after eating, "you must help me with my peats. 
 I must have something to show, you know, or John 
 and Alec will wonder!" 
 
 "Let them wonder!" said Adam Home. "Bell, 
 will you come away with me? I want you to leave 
 all this. Can you take a landless and moneyless man, 
 one without country or kin ? Would you leave your 
 people to wander the earth with him?" 
 
 Bell put out her hand. 
 
 Her eyes were downcast and smiling, yet she did 
 not answer for a while. Then she glanced up quickly 
 at him. 
 
 "What do you think yourself?" she said, daring 
 him with her eyes. 
 
 He did not heed her light mood, but went on
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 73 
 
 more earnestly and boldly. "Will you, Bell ? Take 
 time before you answer, for it means all to me." 
 
 "Aye, truly," said Bell, suddenly growing as pale 
 as himself, "I will go with you the world over ! You 
 know well that you have made me love you !" 
 
 "And I," said Adam Home, taking her hand, "will 
 faithfully serve you, will give my life to keep you 
 safe, my love, my wife! I will joy to do your bid- 
 ding " 
 
 Bell glanced up with a sudden light in her demure 
 eye and a rush of red back to her pale cheek. "I 
 would far rather that you made me do your bid- 
 ding!" 
 
 "I may have to do that, too, madam !" said Adam 
 Home, with an answering spark of fire in his eye. 
 "And faith, Mistress Bell, I had better begin now. 
 I have found a safe way out of the country. A French 
 ship sails a week hence from Loch Ryan. She calls 
 at Isle Rathan, whence a boat may be put out to her 
 under cloud of night. My friend, Patrick Heron, 
 though a great King George's man, has there a good 
 Jacobite clergyman in hiding with him — a man, like 
 myself, somewhat tainted in the recent troubles. He 
 will marry us — that is, if between times you do not 
 change your mind. Patrick's wife will welcome you 
 for my sake, for she, too, wears the white rose in her 
 heart. And as for Pat, he will welcome you for
 
 74 Love Idylls 
 
 your own. For, having wedded one of them him- 
 self, he naturally loves all pretty, scornful lasses. 
 Bell, what say you to my plan ? Will you come ?" 
 
 "I cannot even if I would. I shall not have any 
 wedding-dress!" she objected, feeling that he was 
 taking things rather too much for granted. Her 
 pretty lips pouted and her foot kicked at a tuft of 
 grass. "And I had thought it all out during the 
 winter. It was to be white silk with gold broidering 
 — long in the waist, short in the skirt — so pretty 
 over a quilted petticoat of blue, with black stockings 
 and buckled shoes. Bess Kerr told me of one she 
 saw in Edinburgh at the Assembly Rooms, but I 
 knew I could better it. And now I cannot. I won't 
 be married in my old taffeta. It is a shame. But 
 men do not care. I suppose you would be glad if I 
 had only my apron." 
 
 "I would indeed be well content," said Adam 
 gravely ; "I want only you, you see. I did not come 
 from France to marry a 'grande costume' !" 
 
 "But I shall not look at all pretty! You will be 
 ashamed of me. In France you will go out with 
 your great ladies and leave me. Are you sure you 
 never will? Tell me — tell me at once!" 
 
 Adam told her several times, being held tightly by 
 the lapels of his coat while he did so. 
 
 "No, do not bend your head ; hold it up. So ! I
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 75 
 
 want to see by your eyes if you are speaking the 
 truth. You really love me in this old gown better 
 than all the fine ladies of the Court? And will you 
 always love me just as much, and never, never, never 
 grow tired of me?"
 
 76 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE OTHER PLAN 
 
 While Adam was engrossed in the long-contin- 
 ued business of satisfying these and other reasonable 
 inquiries and doubts of his sweetheart, it was natural 
 enough that both of them should be wholly absorbed 
 in their own affairs. 
 
 Had either of them turned their heads, all the rest 
 of this story might have run differently. But neither 
 moved, so they did not notice that behind them a man 
 was crouched on the top of the peat bank looking 
 directly down upon them. He could hear the low 
 murmur of their voices. He could see Bell's face 
 turned tenderly and smilingly up, with that look 
 upon it which means happiness to but one man — for 
 it is the unmistakable look of a woman's glad sur- 
 render and resignation. He could see — and after 
 that he turned away — Adam Home's face bowed 
 down to silence with a long kiss a pair of appealing 
 and petitionary lips. 
 
 Will Begbie went down Millwharchar Muir like a 
 man stricken with a deadly wound, who yet can just 
 stagger home to die. He had come up to the hill
 
 The Fitting of the Peats jy 
 
 with purpose to see Bell Mac Lurg, and, it might be, 
 help her with her peat-fitting. He had watched her 
 that day as he had done every day since the man 
 whose life he had saved had gone to France. And 
 though, for a little while after the lugger sailed from 
 the Water of Fleet with the red-capped sailor on 
 board, Bell had seemed pensive, of late all had 
 changed, and her voice was once more heard gay- 
 carrolling in the morn, like the mavis in little bursts 
 of song, as she swung her milking-pail or tripped 
 up the loaning to summon home the pasturing kine 
 with the old melodious call — 
 
 "Hurley, Hurley, hie away hame!" 
 
 Will Begbie had loved Bell a long time — indeed, 
 ever since he could remember her, a little dainty dot- 
 ting thing of two or three whom he used to carry 
 afield to gather gowans on the knowes while he 
 mowed the rushy hollows, or to lose herself in the 
 cornfield where the tall poppies waved scarlet like a 
 thousand soldiers' coats. 
 
 For years he had counted her as surely, his watch- 
 ing her as she grew up, rejoicing in her beauty, glad 
 when the suitors came flocking, and chuckling to 
 himself with a quiet smile as he saw them betake 
 themselves out of the glen, riding sullenly on their 
 steeds, yet nevertheless turning in their saddles to
 
 78 Love Idylls 
 
 take a last look at Bell, as she stood in the doorway 
 waving them off into the great world again. 
 
 He had never spoken of love to Bell. But he had 
 depended upon her knowing. And he had liked her 
 to count upon him in all things. It was, "Will, do 
 this!" and Will had done it already. "Will, come 
 here !" and Will came like a dog. At kirk and mar- 
 ket, if there happened to be nobody newer or better, 
 Will was at hand to escort Bell home, never in- 
 trusive or in the way, ready to recognise the interests 
 of sport and keep discreetly in the background so 
 long as he was not wanted, but all the same — there — 
 ready and happy to be whistled up on occasion like 
 his own faithful Bawty. 
 
 In short, the relation into which Bell and Will had 
 dropped was precisely that most unlikely to be 
 favourable to the intentions of either. 
 
 For Will never doubted but that Bell, when she 
 had tired of novelty and the exercise of her power, 
 would turn to him. Bell, on her part, when she 
 thought of the matter at all, had an idea of making 
 good old Will, faithful Will, happy — by loving him 
 as a sister. This appeared to her an ambition so 
 new, so untried, so laudable, and moreover one so 
 likely to meet Will's own views (when properly ex- 
 plained to him), that she never doubted but that all 

 
 The Fitting of the Peats 79 
 
 was for the best between them. So she took Will 
 Begbie's arm with a sister's freedom, and patted him 
 on the head, as he sat by the fire watching her with 
 adoring eyes, like a big dog. Once at Halloween 
 she had even let him kiss her when the nuts were 
 cracking merrily on the hearth, and kissing was in 
 the very air. 
 
 Will thought of that every night. He was too 
 proud of it ever to try for another. But to marry 
 Will Begbie! Why, Bell never thought of such a 
 thing. 
 
 But Will did, and now as he stumbled blindly 
 down the hill, his heart clay-cold and dead within 
 his breast, the whole bright summer landscape, 
 running in glorious red and green and purple 
 from verge to horizon verge, gay with flowers under- 
 foot, white-winged with clouds above — all suddenly 
 went ashen grey and lifeless about him. 
 
 He looked angrily up at the muir fowl, the clam- 
 orous peesweeps, the whinnying snipe, the wailing 
 curlew. They vexed him. He wished he could twist 
 their necks and silence them forever. Bell had been 
 taken from him. Now she never could be his. He had 
 seen it. He had never before surprised that look on 
 a woman's face. Now he never would see it for him- 
 self. But he knew its meaning on Bell's all too well.
 
 80 Love Idylls 
 
 So he stumbled dully into the stable. It seemed 
 the safest refuge. He would escape from the clamour 
 and the brightness there. 
 
 Blossom, Pet Blossom, the little grey mare he had 
 been keeping as a surprise for Bell, turned and whin- 
 nied to him. He was used to bring her a piece of 
 sugar in his pocket, concealing it from his house- 
 keeper, who did not approve of luxuries. Now Pet 
 Blossom vexed him, and as she nuzzled against his 
 coat, he thrust her fiercely from him, as if she had 
 been responsible for the faithless, cruel girl who 
 should have been her mistress. Then, his heart re- 
 lenting, he bent his head on Blossom's mane, and 
 did what many a man has done before and since, 
 though that which none will ever own to. 
 
 Slowly he came to himself, an angry and desperate 
 bitterness rising in his heart. This man, he knew, 
 was a great lord — an exile truly, but still in spite of 
 that a great lord. He could mean no good to Bell. 
 He was deceiving her. It might soon be too late. 
 This man had used his hospitality to win away his 
 sweetheart from him. But at this point, with a quick 
 revulsion his heart refused to give up all hope. Even 
 now it might be possible. All was not yet lost He 
 might still save Bell. 
 
 Even as he thought these things in his heart he was 
 saddling Blossom. That mettlesome little lady threw
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 81 
 
 up her head and moved her feet rejoicingly and ex- 
 pectantly on the hard earthen floor of the stable. 
 
 He had suddenly remembered that Ninian Mac 
 Lurg would be at market that day. He would warn 
 him of the traitor within his gates. But in the back- 
 ground of Will Begbie's heart there was another 
 and less worthy thought. He told himself that he 
 was a good King's man with a duty to his country — 
 even if there was an extra loft above the barn at the 
 old farm-steading. 
 
 He had heard that there was to be a troop of horse 
 that day in Cairn Edward, under young Ensign Pel- 
 ham. His herd Jock had seen them riding two by 
 two yestere'en along the military road from the 
 Shire. They could not yet have gone. He could 
 make up his mind on the way what he would do if 
 he found them. 
 
 So Will Begbie mounted at the stable-door, and 
 the next moment, with a glad clatter of hoofs and a 
 ring of bridle-iron, Blossom was flying down the 
 glen towards Cairn Edward.
 
 82 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE CAPTURE 
 
 It was late afternoon upon Milhvharchar Muir. 
 The sun began to cast long, slaty shadows thwart- 
 wise across the ruddy purple and golden brown. 
 The moss-hags acquired threatening eyebrows as 
 their overhanging summits shut off the sunshine 
 from their gloomy deeps. 
 
 Seven times had Bell remarked that it was time 
 to be going homewards, lest one of her brothers — 
 or perhaps Will Begbie — might take it into his 
 head to come that way looking for her. 
 
 Besides, the peats were fitted — as many as two 
 rows of stooks — work for half an hour at least. 
 But then Bell had had to wait till the casting was 
 dry enough. Other things also had interfered. 
 At last, however, after an eighth declaration, she 
 rose determinedly to her feet. This time there 
 must be no dallying. She must be going. No, 
 she would not sit down again and think it over. It 
 was time, and high time, too. And he ought to 
 know better than to ask her, considering the 
 danger to them both; and what would she do if 
 anything happened to him?
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 83 
 
 Well, just a minute then. There ! Was he 
 
 satisfied now? 
 
 ******* 
 
 So in the quiet, peaceful-seeming evening these 
 two walked slowly towards the little copse which 
 erected its crest of birch and fir over the edge of 
 the moor. They went hand in hand, and discussed 
 the flight to Isle Rathan. Adam was to arrange 
 through a faithful retainer that Gideon Lamb, 
 outed clergyman and good Jacobite, was to be in 
 readiness. Mistress Patrick Heron (erstwhile May 
 Maxwell) was to be warned. Bell's heart throbbed 
 at the thought of meeting her, reassured, however, 
 by the news that she had once been a farmer's 
 daughter. Bell's father was a laird. 
 
 "Now, little love," said Adam, "we must say 
 good-night. Good angels keep you — till to-mor- 
 row, fove, till to-morrow ! And then, on the third 
 day — why then, there will begin to be no more to- 
 morrows for ever and ever !" 
 
 "Good-night, Adam!" 
 
 "Why do you not say Charles Francis?" he said, 
 smiling. 
 
 "I like Adam best now. You are my Adam!" 
 
 "Good-night, little Eve !" 
 ******* 
 
 "In the King's name, stand!"
 
 84 Love Idylls 
 
 The voice rang out like a trumpet, imperious 
 and commanding, yet with a certain amount of the 
 weakness of self-conscious youth in it. 
 
 Adam Home lifted his head and confronted a 
 score of dismounted King's troopers. An officer 
 was at their head with his sword drawn in his hand. 
 Their carbines were at the ready, and the black 
 muzzles approached within a dozen yards of his 
 breast. 
 
 Very haughtily Adam Home — another Adam 
 Home from him who had spoken these last words 
 to his love — looked at his captors, his head high and 
 his eyes straight and unabashed. He did not take 
 his arm from about his sweetheart's waist under the 
 gaze of so many men, but rather, as it seemed, kept 
 it there with a kind of prideful ostentation. 
 
 So they stood, the red tunics of the dragoons 
 almost black against the sunset, the last rayS glint- 
 ing on sword blade and gun barrel and looking 
 fair into the dark and angry face of Adam Home 
 and the wild eyes of Bell, the plighted wife of the 
 man whose life was forfeit. 
 
 Behind the troop stood Will Begbie, despair and 
 remorse already tugging at his heartstrings. But 
 it was too late. 
 
 "Kilpatrick — you!" cried the young officer of 
 dragoons in sheer and unfeigned astonishment.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 85 
 
 "Ah, Harry !" was all that Adam Home replied. 
 
 There was a pause. The young ensign sheathed 
 his sword with a sharp click,- but his men remained 
 fixed with their muskets pointed at the rebel. 
 
 "Cousin Adam," said the lad, his face colouring, 
 "this is a deucedly awkward business for me. I de- 
 clare I must take you prisoner !" 
 
 Adam Home smiled, and removing his arm from 
 his sweetheart's waist he took her hand instead. 
 He could feel that her bosom was heaving tumultu- 
 ouslv, the storm not far off. He resolved it 
 should noj" break if he could help it. 
 
 "Certainly, Harry lad," he cried cheerfully, "I 
 am your prisoner. But I am this lady's prisoner 
 first. I present you to my wife !" 
 
 "Your wife!" repeated the officer, obviously 
 mystified. 
 
 "Yes, my wife, or almost," said Adam Home. 
 "His Highness the Elector of Hanover permitting, 
 we are to be married the day after to-morrow at 
 the house of Mr. Patrick Heron of Isle Rathan, 
 Justice of the Peace in this Stewartry of Kirkcud- 
 bright." 
 
 "That's worse still, Adam," said the lad, "for 
 there's a warrant out for your arrest on a charge of 
 high treason. And Uncle Harry is in Cairn Ed- 
 ward to meet with my Lord Galloway !"
 
 86 Love Idylls 
 
 "Content, my boy," said Adam Home calmly, 
 "it will be quite a family gathering! All I ask is 
 that you march your men round by the house of 
 Millwharchar which your guide (he looked at Will 
 Begbie with a dry smile) doubtless pointed out to 
 you in the valley as you came up. I would desire 
 your leave to place in safety this lady who is so 
 dear to me." 
 
 "Of course I will," cried the boy brightening. 
 "It is a shift most damnable that I am in. Pity 
 me, Adam, and tell me what you would do if you 
 were in my shoes !" 
 
 "Why," said Adam Home, "do what you must 
 do — your duty. Besides, you are my uncle's 
 favourite and next heir, and when they stick my 
 head on Tower Hill, it will all be for the best." 
 
 The poor boy's distress was evident, but in 
 another direction Adam Home had gone too far. 
 At the image which his light words called up but 
 too easily in her heart, Bell clasped him about the 
 neck. 
 
 "Oh, Adam," she cried, "I have brought you to 
 this ! Wicked girl that I am — I am the cause of 
 your death ! You will hate me. You will curse 
 the day you saw me. You must. I will not 
 love you if you do not !" 
 
 She turned upon the young officer.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 87 
 
 "Oh, good sir, I know you are kind. Do, I pray 
 you, release him. I beg you from my heart to let 
 him go. Indeed, he was not plotting nor doing 
 any harm to the King. He only came to see me. 
 All the way from France he came. And I love 
 him. And I hate you, Will Begbie. Yes, I hate 
 you; I could kill you, crush you like a serpent 
 under my foot ! I know why he has done this, 
 gentlemen; it is because I would not marry him. 
 Ugh ! the wretch. I always knew what he was. 
 It always made me feel as if a toad hopped into my 
 hand every time he shook it. And now he has 
 wickedly betrayed my love — my life. But you will 
 let him go, good gentleman. Sir Captain, I will 
 do anything you ask. I will be indebted to you 
 all my life. Do take me to prison in his place. I 
 alone am the guilty one if there is any harm. He 
 came all the way only to see me. Would not you 
 have done the same?" 
 
 "Indeed that I would !" cried the boy eagerly. 
 
 "If you had been my sweetheart, I mean !" 
 
 "Whether or no !" cried the boy, with enthusi- 
 asm. He had never seen so pretty a girl, he 
 thought. 
 
 "Then you will let him go !" 
 
 The lad clasped his hands in despair as she smiled 
 hopefully into his face. But Adam answered for
 
 88 Love Idylls 
 
 him, tenderly caressing Bell's hand with his right, 
 all the while keeping it firm in his left. 
 
 "He cannot, dearest heart!" he said; "he has his 
 duty to perform. He is an officer of King George. 
 I would do the same in his place. Indeed, he can- 
 not let me go ! My uncle could, but he will not !" 
 He added the last sentence in an undertone. 
 
 "But they will kill you. I am sure I shall never 
 see you again. And — the day after to-morrow was 
 so near !" 
 
 At the sound of her sobs the lad bowed his head 
 in a burst of boyish sorrow. 
 
 "This is hard, Adam," he moaned. "Heavens 
 and earth, I declare if you say the word you can run 
 for it when my troop is at the farmhouse. I will 
 not let them fire. They can only break me. They 
 won't shoot me. My uncle Henry would not let 
 them to do that, much as he hates you. And I haven't 
 got any sweetheart!" 
 
 "My boy," said Adam Home gently, "I would 
 not think of it for a moment. They will not hang 
 me. At least, I do not think so. They are all for 
 conciliation now. They say that the Prince has 
 been in London, and that the Government knew 
 of it." 
 
 "Do not be too sure! My uncle is very angry 
 with you for rebelling. He never had any favour
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 89 
 
 for you. And now he swears that you nearly 
 loaded him with the King." 
 
 ''And then, after all, he would have my estates if 
 I were to hang, while the King would get them if 
 they were only confiscated," said Adam in a whis- 
 per. "But cheer up, boy, and let us keep up this 
 lady's spirits !" 
 
 They were come by this time to the little green 
 loaning which leads through an orchard of crab- 
 apple and gooseberries to the house of Millwhar- 
 char. 
 
 Bell had walked quietly the last part of the way, 
 holding her lover's hand while he talked with his 
 cousin. She dried her eyes and listened. There 
 seemed to be some hope. His uncle, they said, was 
 a great man in whose hand were the powers of life 
 and death. 
 
 Surely he would not order to the scaffold his own 
 nephew — just for coming home to see one who 
 loved him. 
 
 "Say 'good-bye' to me here, little one," said 
 Adam at the gate, gently, "I will soon be back to 
 you. And though the day after to-morrow can- 
 not bring me all the happiness I had hoped, yet 
 to-night I shall sleep happier than ever before, 
 knowing that you love me. Be not afraid. We 
 must put the other off a little — but, please God,
 
 90 Love Idylls 
 
 only for a little. God bless you, Bell. Be mind- 
 ful of me — a worthless fellow enough, but one that 
 truly loves you !" 
 
 "Good-night then — and not 'good-bye,' Adam !" 
 said Bell, brightly holding up her face to be kissed 
 unashamed before them all. 
 
 And so, with a wave of his hand and a look out 
 of his eyes for her alone, Bell's lover marched off to 
 prison, smiling and dcbonnairc as ever — though 
 the road he went might be even to the scaffold. 
 
 Bell stood on the doorstep and watched them 
 go. Then, in a moment, her mood changed from 
 resignation to alertness. 
 
 "John," she cried, "saddle me Brown Bess! 
 And be quick! Don't ask why. You will know 
 in good time. I will answer to my father when he 
 comes home. Do as I bid you !" 
 
 And as John obediently departed stablewards, 
 his imperious sister ran upstairs to her own little 
 room to array herself in her daintiest dress, her 
 whitest and fleeciest lace, her smartest shoes, and 
 to don the pretty low-sitting hat over her sunny 
 curls, which, when duly settled in its place, made 
 her the most ravishing vision man could look upon. 
 After that she stole into her brother's room, and 
 securing a rowel spur, fixed it carefully upon the 
 heel of her shoe.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 91 
 
 By the time she was finished and had dabbed her 
 eyes free of all traces of tears, Brown Bess was at 
 the door. And once more as Bell mounted, John 
 besought her to tell him whither she was going. 
 
 "To Cairn Edward," she cried, as she sent the 
 rowels home with absolute disregard for Brown 
 Bess's feelings, and started at a tearing gallop 
 down the brae. 
 
 At the loaning foot, where she had looked her 
 last upon the man she loved, the man who only 
 loved her stood full in her path. 
 
 "Bell, listen to me, Bell !" he cried. "Do not go 
 till I have had speech with you ! I could not help 
 it ! He but played with you, while I had loved you 
 all my life." 
 
 He spoke piteously, wildly, with a hoarse bark of 
 despair in his voice. But he spoke in vain. Bell 
 was of that nature which can forgive all things that 
 do not touch the beloved. But there, the wolf 
 guards not her young with fiercier tooth. She had 
 found her love. Now she would fight for him. 
 Rich or poor, peer of the realm or condemned 
 traitor, Bell Mac Lurg cared no jot. He was hers. 
 He was her all. What mattered a lifetime's devo- 
 tion in any other? 
 
 "Out of my way, treacherous hound !" she cried, 
 and, as he tried in desperation to seize her bridle
 
 92 Love Idylls 
 
 rein, she pulled Brown Bess sharply round and sent 
 in the spur a second time. Even then Will Begbie 
 stood his ground, but the pretty vixen on horse- 
 back cut him sharply across the cheek with her 
 whip. 
 
 "That is all I have for traitors !" she cried as she 
 passed him. She meant one who was a traitor to 
 her love — King George or King James she cared 
 nothing for. Why should she? She had but one 
 king, and even now they were taking him to his 
 death. 
 
 Will Begbie fell back with a red line across his 
 face and his heart broken, while Bell swept down 
 the Cairn Edward road in a tumult of angry exul- 
 tation. 
 
 "This for a lifetime's devotion !" he said, with his 
 hand touching his stinging cheek. 
 
 "That for betraying my love to his enemies !" she 
 said, and inconsistently bestowed a little of the 
 same upon Brown Bess, who at least was wholly 
 innocent. 
 
 For love is a fire that eats up all, and there is no 
 fuel that it burns faster than bygone kindnesses 
 which are awkward to remember. 
 
 A grave-faced man of middle age sat writing in
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 93 
 
 the best parlour of Mistress Douglas's change- 
 house in the town of Cairn Edward. He had laid 
 aside his wig for greater ease, and now sat occa- 
 sionally rubbing his cropped poll of badger grey 
 with one hand, while he made the other to travel 
 rapidly over the blue official sheets of foolscap 
 which a secretary had placed on the table before 
 him. 
 
 Occasionally he took snuff from a golden box 
 with the royal arms on the lid, and then again he 
 would look out of the low window before which a 
 crowd of loafers was assembled. They were trying 
 to get a glimpse of the man of quality within, who 
 had come with so great a retinue to meet my Lord 
 Galloway. It was even reported that he was one 
 of the Royal Princes travelling in disguise. 
 
 Suddenly there was a noise in the passage. The 
 clear determined demand of a feminine voice pre- 
 dominated. Then came the lower tones of a man 
 refusing some request. Both of these were iter- 
 ated and reiterated, growing every moment more 
 insistent, till with a gesture of annoyance, the man 
 at the table went to the door and flung it wide 
 open. 
 
 "What is this unseemly brawl?" he cried in the 
 tone of one accustomed to be obeyed.
 
 94 Love Idylls 
 
 At sight of him his secretary and the valet who 
 had been barring the way fell back, and between 
 them their master found himself gazing at one of 
 the loveliest maidens it had ever been his lot to be- 
 hold. She was dressed in a short-pleated kirtle, 
 over which was a silken overskirt prettily draped 
 to show a tiny foot and the turn of a handsome 
 ankle. 
 
 The girl's colour was vivid, her eyes at once 
 brimful of tears and brilliant with indignation. 
 
 "A girl of spirit," thought Mr. Henry Pelham, 
 First Lord of the Treasury of King George II., and 
 at present in that august monarch's absence abroad 
 Lord Justice of the three kingdoms as well. 
 
 As soon as Bell saw her way plain before her, 
 she ran to Pelham and clasped his arms as if for 
 protection. 
 
 "I knew I would see him. I knew he would 
 listen to me !" she cried triumphantly. "My lord, 
 will you protect me from these — domestics? 
 They would not let me see you ! You will not per- 
 mit them to drag me away. They would not dare, 
 when you are by !" 
 
 "No, no," said my Lord Justice; "come in, 
 madam, and tell me what it is you wish with me !" 
 
 Mr. Henry Pelham was embarrassed at being 
 taken without his wig, in which, like the locks of
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 95 
 
 Sampson, abode much of the formal dignity of his 
 age. 
 
 "Place a chair for the young lady, Benson," he 
 commanded, and as the valet obsequiously did so 
 and Bell followed him, with her eyes on the floor, 
 my Lord Justice endued himself swiftly with his 
 wig, and then, standing in a dignified attitude by 
 the mantel-piece, looked at the vision of loveliness 
 which had so suddenly burst in upon his seclusion. 
 
 "You need not wait," said Mr. Pelham gravely 
 to his servant Benson. The door closed instantly, 
 and he turned towards his visitor. She had risen 
 also to her feet, and after regarding him a moment 
 with a troubled countenance, all suddenly she took 
 two or three swift steps and fell on her knees be- 
 fore him. At the same time her hat slipped over 
 backward and hung upon her shoulders by its 
 ribband. 
 
 The First Lord of His Majesty's Treasury stood 
 aghast. His very wig trembled with amazement 
 in every hair. 
 
 "Oh, will you forgive your nephew," she cried; 
 "he has been a rebel, I know, and he should not 
 have come from France. But I made him. I am 
 a wicked, wicked girl (though you might not think 
 it to look at me). But he loved me, and he had 
 not seen me for so long. And so would you have
 
 g6 Love Idylls 
 
 returned if you had loved me as he did. You 
 know you would. For you are just like him; your 
 eyes are the same. So you won't hang him. I 
 rode at a gallop all the way to tell you first before 
 any one else — and oh, you won't let them put him 
 in prison, or kill him. Indeed, he only came to 
 see me " 
 
 Tears were running fast down her face by this 
 time, and every sentence was punctuated with her 
 sobs. She had taken possession of Mr. Pelham's 
 hand, and now held it fast in both of hers. 
 
 "What — what," quoth my Lord Justice, stam- 
 mering in sheer amazement, "what is this? I do 
 not understand. What nephew of mine? My 
 nephew Harry is an officer in the King's army, and 
 at this moment has gone out to capture a lurking 
 rebel of Lord Dalmarnock's forces who has re- 
 turned at the peril of his life to this country-side!" 
 
 "That is he — that is he!" cried Bell, loosening 
 her grasp and holding up her hands clasped before 
 him in the attitude of the sweetest and most 
 pathetic supplication; "the rebel he went to take 
 was your nephew Adam Home. And he found 
 him on the moor — with me. I was teaching him 
 to fit peats. And he never plotted any against 
 King George or anybody. He never so much as 
 mentioned his name."
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 97 
 
 "Adam Home — my nephew? You mean Lord 
 Kilpatrick. That is the only rebel nephew I 
 have," said Mr. Pelham. "He is in France — in, 
 let me see, Avignon, with the Young Pretender; 
 that was the last news we had of him !" 
 
 Bell passed this absolute declaration of her 
 lover's quality without a heart-beat. She was hard 
 on the track of something else — his life. 
 
 "But it is the same," she said, repossessing her- 
 self of the great man's hand. "He came straight 
 from Avignon to see me. And we were to be mar- 
 ried on Thursday, and then go away again. Oh, 
 do let us go, and we will never trouble you or the 
 King again." 
 
 "Ha — ahem!" said my Lord Justice, "this is 
 grave indeed. My nephew Adam, a proscribed 
 rebel and companion of the Young Pretender, in 
 Scotland, and being brought here in custody!" 
 
 "Yes, but in your custody and your kind 
 nephew's! Nobody else will be the wiser. And 
 he is so sorry for rebelling, and he will never 
 do it any more. I will see to it myself that he does 
 not!" 
 
 "Rise, my good girl!" said Mr. Henry Pelham, 
 thinking how awkward it would be if my Lord 
 Galloway should happen to come in at that 
 moment. "Allow me to assist "
 
 98 Love Idylls 
 
 "No ! I will not rise from my knees till you have 
 promised me his life. You will not let them hang 
 him. Send him away anywhere — only let me go 
 with him. He will get into no more mischief then, 
 I warrant you !" 
 
 "There ! There ! — We will see what can be 
 done !" said Mr. Pelham, touching Bell's curls in a 
 fatherly way, and finding pleasure in the task. 
 
 "But promise ! I will kiss your foot if you will 
 only promise!" Bell spoke vehemently now. 
 
 "That is not necessary. Indeed, not my foot on 
 any account when you are about it. Your hand ! 
 No, they shall not hang Adam for a traitor. I 
 promise you they shall not. Gad, I did not 
 think that the dog had the spirit in him to make a 
 girl like this so much in love with him !" 
 
 Bell was now on her feet and stood before my 
 Lord Pelham, looking down and twisting her 
 slender fingers. 
 
 "I wish any one so pretty loved me half as 
 much !" said my Lord Justice, taking snuff. He 
 was rather pleased with himself now that he had 
 passed his word. 
 
 "You are very like your nephew. The same 
 figure of a man — only a little more mature !" said 
 the sly minx, looking with a certain admiration at 
 the portly figure of the First Lord.
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 99 
 
 "Ahem !" ejaculated Mr. Pelham, brushing down 
 his lace ruffles daintily, "Gad, it is true. That 
 young rascal's mother, my poor sister, always said 
 so. Well, well, you shall have your lover, though 
 I am not at all sure that he deserves you !" 
 
 Then he looked again at her under his shaggy 
 brows. 
 
 "But pray who may you be, young lady, who 
 have thus captured and tamed so shy a bird as 
 Adam Home?" 
 
 "I am called Bell Mac Lurg. My father is a 
 laird in this county of Galloway. But I have no 
 money of my own. So we shall be very poor un- 
 less" — she went close up to him and laid her 
 hand on the sleeve of his coat, caressing it softly as 
 if she had been accustomed to do it all her life — 
 "unless you think there is any chance of Adam 
 getting back some of his property. Do you think 
 there is, Uncle?" 
 
 The stern features of the First Lord relaxed into 
 something approaching geniality. "You would 
 make a fool of me between you. I warrant Adam 
 put you up to all this." 
 
 "Oh no, he did not," asserted Bell hurriedly; "he 
 does not know I am here. He will be very angry. 
 But I can soon make it up with him. Now, can 
 he have his estates back — or some of them?"
 
 ioo Love Idylls 
 
 She faltered a little, and showed symptoms of 
 relapsing again into tears. My lord, alarmed and 
 thinking of my Lord Galloway, approached her 
 side. 
 
 "Do not cry, like a good girl. And we shall see 
 — we shall see. But," he hesitated, "the King had 
 as good as promised them in reversion to me. 
 And indeed I do not see what I am to get out of all 
 this if I give back the estates." 
 
 He took his fair petitioner by the soft, rounded 
 chin and turned up her face. He saw two blue 
 eyes looking into his through a mist of unshed 
 tears. 
 
 "I am an old fool, I know," he growled, "to let 
 myself be cozened by a brat like you out of some- 
 thing like ten thousand a year." 
 
 Bell clapped her hands joyously. 
 
 "Can he have them then? Will you promise? 
 If you do — I — I will give you a kiss. I never gave 
 a man a kiss before." 
 
 "What, not Adam?" 
 
 "No, not Adam!" 
 
 She forgot to say that he had taken one or two. 
 
 "By Gad, it is tempting — I will ! It makes a 
 man young again ! But it must be with all the 
 forms. No dab on the nose for Harry Pelham !"
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 101 
 
 "Besides," said Bell, casting down her eyes and 
 hesitating. 
 
 "Besides what, you baggage?" cried my lord, 
 looking admiringly at her. 
 
 Bell hesitated a moment, and then, warned by a 
 noise on the street, said quickly, with a dangerous 
 upward glance at the First Lord of the Treasury, 
 "besides, you will like having me for a niece. Even 
 at Court it is permitted to kiss one's uncle!" 
 
 The door of Mistress Douglas's best parlour was 
 suddenly opened. Without were my Lord Gallo- 
 way, Lord-Lieutenant of the County, with Ensign 
 Henry Pelham, of his Majesty's Fifth Dragoons, 
 and between them, a prisoner, stood Adam Francis 
 Charles Home, eighth Lord Kilpatrick. 
 
 This is what these three saw. 
 
 Henry Pelham, Lord Justice and Prime Minister 
 of the Realm, was bending from the heights of an 
 austere dignity to lay on the smiling lips of beauty 
 a chaste salute — nay, as it seemed, to repeat one 
 that had already been offered upon the same altar. 
 
 "Ha!" cried my Lord of Galloway; "ha, Pelham, 
 fairly landed this time, Pelham, my boy !" 
 
 "Uncle!" said Ensign Harry Pelham, aghast. 
 
 "Bell !" cried Adam Home, yet more aghast.
 
 io2 Love Idylls 
 
 "Gad, Pelham, I must have a Garter at least for 
 holding my tongue about this. It is too good to 
 keep from the coffee-houses ! Horace will crack 
 fifty jests on this !" laughed jovial Galloway. 
 
 "I did not know that the old fellow went in for 
 this!" murmured his nephew who had been 
 lectured about his behaviour at the last Assembly 
 Ball. 
 
 Adam Home said nothing more, but kept his 
 eyes on Bell, who stood with her hands clasped 
 demurely about his uncle's arm, looking down and 
 blushing becomingly, yet with a pretty air of pro- 
 prietorship very clearly marked indeed. 
 
 "Ahem !" said Mr. Pelham, at last recovering 
 himself, "you mistake. You do not know this very 
 remarkable young lady. Not even you, Adam, 
 you rascal, can lay claim to knowing her. This is 
 — what is your first name again, my dear? — This 
 is my niece, the Lady Bell, eighth Viscountess Kil- 
 patrick. And if any man of you has a word to say 
 to it, or any quarrel with the innocent kinsmanly 
 privilege of which you have been witness, damme, 
 let him step out into Mistress Douglas's inn-yard, 
 where Harry Pelham's sword is very much at his 
 service !" 
 
 And the old gentleman stood patting the little 
 hand of his companion, all the while frowning and
 
 The Fitting of the Peats 103 
 
 browbeating his three interrupters, throwing out 
 his chest and nodding with his head till his bushy 
 eyebrows became as threatening as those of 
 Majesty itself. 
 
 "And now, Adam, you dog, come here!" he 
 cried; "this is the young lady who saved not only 
 your life but your lands. One was forfeit to the 
 King's laws, the other to my breeches' pocket. I 
 have given both into this young lady's hand. You 
 must beg them from her. You do not deserve 
 either. You have behaved abominably to the best 
 of uncles, sir, and to the most paternal of sov- 
 ereigns. But we will say nothing more about that, 
 if — ahem — if you gentlemen will give me your 
 word of honour to say nothing about the — ah — 
 little ceremony it was your good fortune to witness. 
 Galloway will not, I warrant. I know a thing or 
 two too many about him. Harry, by the Lord I'll 
 break you if you peach. And as for you, Adam 
 Home, you will have job enough on your hands to 
 keep this young lady out of mischief !" 
 
 "Mischief!" said Bell, innocently, lifting her eyes 
 for the first time from the floor. 
 
 "Yes, madam, mischief!" frowned Mr. Pelham; 
 "I repeat it — mischief. Making a fool of men who 
 ought to know better, men more than thrice your 
 age ! Adam, your rebelling days are over, my lad.
 
 104 Love Idylls 
 
 Willy-nilly, you must join the Government. I 
 
 hear that you are to be married on Thursday! 
 
 Well all I can say is — God help you!" 
 
 ******* 
 
 "Adam !" said Bell, three days after, when all was 
 over, "What a blessing it was not your aunt I had 
 to deal with in the inn-parlour at Cairn Edward ! 
 In that case you would have been hanged instead 
 of wed!"
 
 THE COUNT AND LITTLE 
 GERTRUD: 
 
 A STORY OF THE SEVEN WEEKS' WAR 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DAISY-CHAIN 
 
 The Count St. Polten-Vassima was walking 
 slowly along one of his forest paths. He was not in 
 the least thinking where he was going. He had quite 
 recently and unexpectedly come into both the title and 
 the property, and he was, for the time being, staying 
 in one of the smaller rooms of the great unfinished 
 castle which his father had begun and his brother 
 had continued. The new Count St. Polten was tall, 
 dark, meditative — a soldier, yet nevertheless consti- 
 tutionally inclined to a certain graceful melancholy. 
 Even his recent dignities had not very obviously 
 cheered him. It was now that still hour of the after-
 
 io6 Love Idylls 
 
 noon when Nature takes her summer siesta, and St. 
 Polten walked along the woodland glade, sober as a 
 funeral to look upon, but nevertheless happily and 
 conscientiously sad within. It pleased him to ob- 
 serve the absence of elation in himself. As he saun- 
 tered, his mind far away, he did not observe that he 
 had approached close to one of the cottages of his 
 people — that of Alt Karl, his ancient Jagdmeister, 
 whom many years ago his father had ordained to 
 teach him all the mysteries of the hunt and the se- 
 crets of the wood, while yet he was but a wild 
 younger son of the great house of the Counts of St. 
 Polten. 
 
 "Cuckoo! cuckoo!" called suddenly a bird-voice 
 above his head. Something whirled lightly through 
 the air and settled about his neck. The Count looked 
 up quickly and caught just one glimpse of a girl's 
 laughing face vanishing at the window above him. 
 Then he looked down and found a daisy-chain caught 
 round his neck and hanging about his shoulders. 
 
 The Count St. Polten- Vassima stood awhile in 
 wonder, not ill pleased, only fingering the ring of 
 flowers, and smiling quietly to himself. Presently 
 there came along the forest path towards him a 
 stern-faced erect old man, who carried himself with 
 a curious mixture of forest freedom and soldierly 
 precision.
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 107 
 
 It was Alt Karl, the tenant of the house under 
 which the Count stood. He looked curiously at the 
 daisy-chain, but said nothing. The Count noticed 
 the question in the old man's eyes. 
 
 "No, Karl, I do not wear one of these chaplets 
 as a rule," he said; "but the fact is, either an angel 
 from heaven crowned me with flowers, or else " 
 
 And he paused and looked up. 
 
 "It was my minx of a Trudchen !" cried Alt Karl, 
 finishing his master's sentence; "I saw her busy at 
 the making of it. I cannot control her since her 
 mother died. She will do nothing but play pranks 
 or scour the hills with a gun, and boasts that she is 
 as good a jager as there is in all the forest (which 
 is a thing most true) — besides being as good a 
 mountaineer as there is on the mountains, as if these 
 were worthy ambitions for a young girl. But it is a 
 good thing that she goes to-morrow to her aunt's 
 school in Breslau; there of a surety she will learn 
 something more befitting a modest maiden." 
 
 "I trust," said the Count pleasantly, "that you 
 will convey to the young lady my sense of the great 
 honour she has done me by bestowing upon me this 
 flowery token of her favour." 
 
 "On the contrary," cried Alt Karl, "I shall be- 
 stow upon her a great scolding whenever I catch her, 
 minx that she is!"
 
 io8 Love Idylls 
 
 And so with a mutual salute of military exactness 
 the Count and his old and privileged Jagdmeister 
 parted, the nobleman to return to his vast and lonely 
 barracks, Alt Karl to enter angrily the cottage with 
 the roses crowding about the porch. 
 
 "Gertrud !" Alt Karl called sternly, stamping his 
 foot a little. He had stopped to listen, standing just 
 within the door of the quiet, dusky sitting-room. 
 
 No one answered to his call. He could hear the 
 two clocks ticking loudly, one on the wall of the salon 
 and the other over the mantel-piece in the kitchen. 
 
 "Cuckoo!" all suddenly cried a voice behind him. 
 
 Alt Karl could not restrain a violent start. The 
 bird seemed so near him — at his very ear, in fact. 
 He looked up just as the Count had done, and in- 
 stantly he found himself bepelted from head to foot 
 with a shower of roses, which a tall, bright-faced girl 
 of thirteen or fourteen poured out of her apron upon 
 his upturned face. She had been standing on tiptoe 
 all the time upon a chair set behind the sitting-room 
 door. 
 
 The tricksy maid clapped her hands and laughed 
 merrily. 
 
 "A forfeit ! a forfeit !" she cried. "It is the fete 
 day of the flowers. And the new Count owes me a 
 forfeit also!"
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 109 
 
 "I would have you understand that it is not the 
 custom — " began her father sternly. 
 
 "A forfeit or a kiss, father!" she cried; "and if 
 you scold me a single word I declare I shall ask the 
 Count for a kiss too!" 
 
 And launching a random salute at her father, 
 which alighted on the top of his nose, she danced 
 out among the sunlit summer flowers as lightly and 
 irresponsibly as a gossamer blown by the winds.
 
 iio Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 the convict gang 
 
 "Halt!" 
 
 It was Under-Officer Richter who spoke. And in 
 war time this same stiff Alt Karl did not speak with- 
 out reason. Never had the discipline of the Imperial 
 White Coats showed better than now, when, defeated 
 and decimated, the weary remnants of the great 
 army of the double empire stood at bay just long 
 enough to allow Feldzeugmeister von Benedek to 
 rally and reorganise his scattered forces under the 
 guns of Olmutz and Vienna. 
 
 "Halt! The enemy!" muttered Under-Officer 
 Alt Karl. 
 
 'The brushwood is good enough for me," said his 
 colonel, the Count of St. Polten-Vassima. And with 
 the alertness of a mountaineer he betook himself to 
 cover till the enemy should develop his strength. It 
 was the Count's duty to protect the hill-road which 
 crosses the Austrian Alps to Verona, to mask the 
 weakness of the fortresses of Moelk and Neustadt, 
 to forward supplies from the Tyrol, and generally 
 to retrieve an irretrievable misfortune with which he
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 1 1 1 
 
 and his men had had nothing whatever to do. He 
 had now but twenty-seven men to do all these things 
 with. Also these twenty-seven were hungry men, 
 for in the sullen retreat from the stricken field of 
 Koniggratz there had been no time for more than a 
 mouthful of "wurst" out of the knapsack, and the 
 hasty draught of water as they passed over a brook. 
 The Count had commanded well nigh five hun- 
 dred men when the big guns first spoke across the 
 valley on the morning of the 3d of July. Five hun- 
 dred gallant fellows had lain among the wet corn, 
 all night and arisen with hope in their hearts out of 
 the crushed and muddy rye. Then first of all St. 
 Polten's command had been flung out across the 
 Prussian skirmish line, and the deadly fire of the 
 needle-guns had wrought him sore havoc. After 
 that the grape-shot from the orchards of Sadowa 
 had left many of his brave Tyrolers dead among the 
 silent water-mills of the village. His five hundred 
 were barely three when Chlum was taken, and when 
 with the Field-marshal at their head the Imperial 
 White Coats dashed at the intrenched Prussian 
 Guards of the army of the Crown Prince. There 
 St. Polten left two out of his three hundred, on the 
 bare slopes which were swept by the needle-gun of 
 the North, even as the broad Danube is swept by the 
 slantwise western rain.
 
 i i 2 Love Idylls 
 
 And when the pursuit quickened, and the retreat 
 bade fair to become a rout, was it not the Count St. 
 Polten-Vassima who pushed his war-worn hundred 
 across and across the line of advance, and with the 
 scanty ammunition at his command dulled with des- 
 perate valour the edge of the victory-hunger of the 
 3d Prussian Army Corps? For though their guns 
 were but few, the aim of the Tyrolers was deadly. 
 So now, with belts tightened and grey set faces, St. 
 Polten's men kept, as was their duty, the lonely hill- 
 road to Verona with but twenty-five bayonets — and 
 Under-Officer Alt Karl. 
 
 Already this remnant of the Imperial White Coats 
 had been forty-eight hours without food or sleep, 
 and even the hardest old chamois-poacher of the Inn 
 valley owned himself done up. 
 
 From the dense covert of the brushwood the 
 Count, with Alt Karl at his elbow, watched the road 
 beneath. Certainly a large party of some kind was 
 marching southward. A jabber of hoarse voices 
 rose through the still air. The Prussians must have 
 risen betimes, thought the Count, to be here ere the 
 dew was off the grass this morning in mid-July. 
 Then a gun cracked. The sound came with a little 
 jar upon the party in the brushwood. They were 
 discovered, so each man of them thought, and auto- 
 matically he counted the precious rounds of ammu-
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 113 
 
 nition which remained to him. Then for a moment 
 his heart went pitifully out to the lass away in the 
 Tyrol village whose cheek, like so many others dur- 
 ing the terrible seven weeks, would pale at the sight 
 of the next list posted at the village Rathhaus. 
 
 But Under-Officer Alt Karl rose erect. "Dumm- 
 Kopf ! Convicts ! Assassins !" he exclaimed, with the 
 contempt of a soldier for the bands of criminals from 
 the southern penal settlements, whom the policy of 
 weakening and withdrawing the military guards had 
 encouraged to escape, and who now constituted at 
 once a difficulty to the authorities and a danger to 
 the inhabitants of the provinces. 
 
 A loose-marching rabblement of men, carrying 
 guns and slung wallets of various patterns, hurried 
 southward along the road beneath the Tyrolers. 
 Leaders there were manifestly none, for the quarrel- 
 ling and noise were past telling. The nostril of Un- 
 der-Officer Richter curled. 
 
 "Shall we stop these swine-cattle?" he said; "they 
 are here for no good. Murderers, likely; thieves, 
 certainly." 
 
 The Count nodded. 
 
 "March!" said Alt Karl, hardly above his breath. 
 And the command strung stealthily down the hill, 
 taking advantage of every scrap of cover, in order 
 to reach the narrows of the pass before the head of
 
 i 14 Love Idylls 
 
 the convict column should come up. Rollicking 
 songs rose joyously from the rascals beneath, lilting 
 along the hillside with an abandon which spoke not 
 of war but of wine. The nose of Alt Karl mounted 
 ever higher and higher. 
 
 "Calf-heads! Stupid kerls! Worse than scoun- 
 drels !" he muttered. "Would that I had them in the 
 barrack-yard for three months." 
 
 At last the twenty-seven were in position. Of this 
 Alt Karl informed the Count with an upward move- 
 ment of his head, somewhat like a duck giving 
 thanks to a kind Providence. Then up rose St. 
 Polten. 
 
 "Stop!" he cried loudly to the men beneath. "To 
 what penal establishment do you belong; and where 
 is the officer in charge?" 
 
 The convicts, in Austrian prison uniform, stood 
 still with open mouths on the road beneath ; but so 
 astonished were they that no one answered. Only 
 from far back in their straggling ranks a rifle 
 cracked, and a twig spat close by the Count's ear. 
 
 "Pigs of the city slums !" muttered the Under- 
 Officer under his breath. And he kept his eyes alert 
 to catch the Count's every movement. 
 
 "Shoot me that man who fired !" cried the Count ; 
 "and those two at the head of the column — no more. 
 We cannot afford to waste ammunition on rascals !"
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 115 
 
 Crack ! Crack ! Crack ! rang out the three shots. 
 The man with the smoking gun fell prone upon it. 
 The leader of the advance leaped into the air and 
 collapsed in a heap on the ground, while a third man 
 suddenly reeled and grasped his leg as though a 
 wasp had stung him. 
 
 The twenty-seven White Coats rose from the 
 brushwood. 
 
 "Ready!" cried Under-Officer Alt Karl. 
 
 The convicts from the settlements started to run, 
 but the commanding voice of Under-Officer Karl 
 suddenly brought them up all standing. 
 
 "Halt! pigs, and eaters of pigs' meat! Put down 
 the guns, which are the property of the Kaiser-like 
 Apostolic Majesty ! Ground arms! Pile arms!" 
 
 The rascals beneath, held by the threatening muz- 
 zles of the guns of the twenty-seven veteran marks- 
 men, reluctantly piled their arms in obedience to the 
 threatening accents of the voice which spoke as hav- 
 ing authority. 
 
 "I was not ten years a guard of such scoundrels 
 for nothing," said Alt Karl as he saluted stiffly. 
 
 The Count smiled. He had hunted and cam- 
 paigned too long with Alt Karl to take any offence 
 at his abrupt speeches and dictatorial ways. 
 
 "And now," said Alt Karl, "what does your Ex-
 
 i i 6 Love Idylls 
 
 cellency wish done with these escaped thieves ? Shall 
 we shoot them and be done?" 
 
 "God forbid !" cried the Count, who was more 
 tender of heart, and had seen enough killing of late; 
 "they may have those that love them. Even as you, 
 Alt Karl, have the little Gertrud in the cottage by 
 the pine-wood." 
 
 "Wolves and swine have not Trudas," muttered 
 Alt Karl rebelliously. "They had been safer shot, 
 for they are the very spawn of death and full of the 
 treachery of the devil !" 
 
 "Speak to them," said the Count wearily, "and tell 
 them that they are free to return to their homes. We 
 have not force to hold them and do our duty also. 
 The play is played. Let the supers go home." 
 
 So Alt Karl erected himself once more to bid the 
 ex-prisoners dismiss to their homes and settlements, 
 and be grateful for the clemency of the commander. 
 And right gladly the cowed rascals, who had doubt- 
 less had their fears of Karl's solution of the matter, 
 bent their heads to the ground and scoured away to 
 the south.
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 1 1 7 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE BIRD OF HOPE 
 
 So day by day the Count of St. Polten-Vassima 
 kept the road which leads to Verona, and day nor 
 night none came near him. For all the peasant folk 
 were fled, the barns were exhausted or plundered, 
 and all the fields were desolate. It was not long be- 
 fore there came a day when the men wanted food. 
 So the Count bade Under-Officer Richter, who was 
 also Alt Karl and his own Jagdmeister, to serve five 
 rounds of ammunition to each of the best five shots 
 and let them go out to kill wood-pigeons, where a 
 few corn-patches were not quite trampled down and ' 
 the wheat began to be ruddy. 
 
 It happened as the five soldiers set out to leave the 
 camp that the note of the cuckoo came through the 
 trees, rough and stammering now with the lateness 
 of the season. Then first one, then another, and at 
 last half-a-dozen of the long, grey, ashen-breasted 
 birds swooped noiselessly down, flying their short 
 flights from tree to tree, and occasionally uttering 
 the call which, though rough and raucous now, still 
 carried the eternal freshness of spring along with it.
 
 1 1 8 Love Idylls 
 
 "Let us try if the 'kuckuck' is good eating/' cried 
 Alt Karl. And one of the White Coats lifted his gun 
 to fire at the bird as it flashed past. But the Count 
 of St. Polten-Vassima sprang to his feet. His face 
 had suddenly grown pale. 
 
 "Down with your guns !" he cried, in a voice that 
 had more of the war rasp in it than even that of Alt 
 Karl. "If one of you so much as fires a shot at a 
 cuckoo, I will give him the contents of my revolver!" 
 
 The men stopped, open-mouthed with wonder- 
 ment. Alt Karl was so astonished that he forgot to 
 put down the boot which he had been tying, and so 
 held it for a long moment suspended in the air. 
 
 But the Colonel did not choose to give any expla- 
 nation of his strange manifestation of temper, and 
 the five White Coats saluted and betook themselves 
 wonderingly to their several quests. Alt Karl also 
 went about his business of gathering together a 
 small cairn of stones for the camp kettle, and the 
 cooking of the provision with which he expected the 
 marksmen to return. But he collected first the stones 
 and then the fuel mechanically, for in his heart he 
 was busily conning reasons for the strange behaviour 
 of his officer and master the Count. 
 
 For an hour St. Polten sat on the trunk of a fallen 
 pine, deep in thought. Then raising his head he 
 summoned Alt Karl to him.
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 119 
 
 "Karl," he said, "do you remember the illness 
 that brought you to a shadow and the gates of the 
 dead?" 
 
 "Remember!" said Alt Karl; "do I forget it for a 
 day, or your most noble kindness?" 
 
 "And do you remember how, one morning in the 
 spring when the leaves were greening, I came to you 
 in the little chalet under the hill?" 
 
 " 'Ah,' you said, 'it is over, Count Rudolph, all 
 over; I shall never hear the "kuckuck" again.' Then 
 at that moment the little Trudchen came running in. 
 'Father,' she said, with a voice like sleigh-bells ring- 
 ing over the snow, heard from the other side of a 
 lake, 'father, I hear the "kuckuck" calling.' So we 
 two that were men listened like little children for 
 the voice of the bird — ay, as it had been for the sen- 
 tence of the Angel of Life and Death. But we could 
 not hear the sound. So in my arms I took you up 
 and carried you out till I set you, all rolled in the 
 blankets of the great bed-chair I had given you, 
 blinking like a great white owl there in the sunshine 
 of the morning. Then there came two cuckoos, 
 courting the same mate to grant them her favours, 
 and the gladsome cry of 'kuckuck' went round the 
 forest. 
 
 " 'Now you know, father,' said your little Truda, 
 'that you will certainly get better. For to-day you
 
 i 20 Love Idylls 
 
 have heard the "kucktick," and the spring is here.' 
 And that is the reason why I would not permit the 
 shooting of a cuckoo. No, Karl, nor ever shall while 
 I am Rudolph, Graf St. Polten-Vassima and colonel 
 even of a broken regiment." 
 
 Alt Karl went and stood before his master. He 
 bent his stiff grey head uncovered and took the 
 Count's hand. He raised it to his lips and, as the 
 manner of the Austrian Tyrolers is, he kissed de- 
 voutly the signet-ring upon it. 
 
 "Master," he said, and the tears were not far from 
 his eyes, "master, God has given me a good pupil, 
 in other things than the learning of the Jagd. Sav- 
 ing your great honour and high nobleness, I that am 
 but a poor huntsman love you as a son for the 
 gracious words spoken to Alt Karl this day."
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 1 2 1 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A ROSEBUD OF TWENTY-ONE 
 
 The war of the Seven Weeks was over, and the 
 twenty-seven Tyrolers disbanded till the regiment 
 should be reorganised. The sudden quarrel of South 
 and North had been as suddenly made up. The 
 Count went back to his corner of the great house of 
 St. Polten. His heart was yet more heavy within 
 him, for the pride of his nation had been trampled 
 upon by the strong rude feet of the invaders from 
 the north — iron-cast Prussians, as he called them, 
 bullocks from grey Pomerania. 
 
 But when the Count had taken one look at the 
 gaunt unfinished mass of his chateau he turned away 
 with genuine sadness, dragging at his moustache 
 — for the third army corps of the enemy had come 
 that way on its swoop for Vienna. Horses had 
 been stalled in the billiard-room and field-guns stored 
 in the chapel. In the dining-hall the surgeons had 
 done their abhorred divine work. The garden was 
 a mere waste, and a wild pig was rooting there 
 among the untended flowers even as he looked. The 
 panelled front door had been used as a target for the 
 revolver bullets of the Northern officers.
 
 122 Love Idylls 
 
 So the Count of St. Polten turned away, he hardly 
 knew whither. He was a lonely man, with no one in 
 the world genuinely to love him, and it was much the 
 same to him where he went. So at least he told him- 
 self. He would see his lawyers, his land-agent, his 
 Jagdmeister, and then set out for Paris. This was 
 his resolve as he strode away from St. Polten with 
 a sense of solitude and desolation settling like lead 
 about his heart. 
 
 His feet rather than his will carried him to a sunny 
 south-looking glade, with a cottage that stood 
 banked against the sheltering pine-wood. It was the 
 chalet of Alt Karl, but how unlike the other chalets 
 of the forest people ! Roses over-clambered it, creep- 
 ers dominated the walls and roof, a vine cast its 
 snaky tendrils round the chimney, the gravel walk 
 was of hard-packed sand, and carefully swept. 
 
 "Cuckoo! cuckoo!" 
 
 It was the same bird's voice he had heard there 
 years ago, but with a new elan, a fresh brightness in 
 it. The Count paused a while in the leafy shadow 
 of the porch, for it was pleasant there out of the heat. 
 Suddenly there came a soft rustle as of wings or 
 summer draperies, a patter down the stairs, a rush 
 out of a door, and a clear voice exclaiming, "Why 
 don't you answer, old curmudgeon of a father? Do
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 123 
 
 you really think I cannot see you hiding there in the 
 porch?" 
 
 Two arms were thrown impulsively about the 
 Count's neck, and then turning he found himself 
 closely face to face with the dismayed, terrified eyes 
 of the fairest maid it had ever been his lot to see. 
 The girl stood before him crimsoning from brow 
 to bosom. Her hands had fallen from his shoulders 
 to her sides, and had again been half-way lifted to 
 her eyes as if to cover her face from the shame. She 
 took her breath short, panting like a captured bird 
 that fears mishandling. The Count St. Polten was 
 equally surprised. His heart certainly jolted within 
 him in a manner strange and unwonted. And when 
 he awoke to himself he had his dirty campaigner's 
 cap in his hand, and was bowing over the girl's hand 
 as though she had been the Empress-Queen herself. 
 
 But suddenly, with a startled recognition of her 
 tardy dutifulness, the girl knelt before him and set 
 his hand to her lips, kissing the signet of the Count's 
 ring as her father had done. 
 
 "The Count !" she murmured. "I have been rude 
 to the Count, my father's gracious lord !" 
 
 Rudolf St. Polten raised the maid, and for the first 
 time in his life he resented the homage which was 
 his unquestioned right as grand seigneur. "And
 
 124 Love Idylls 
 
 you?" he said, as if he had answered a previous 
 question of hers as to his own identity. 
 
 "I am only little Gertrud Richter, daughter of 
 your Jagdmeister Karl." 
 
 "Not the little Truda whom I used to set on my 
 knee and feed with sweetmeats and brown spiced bis- 
 cuits! Not little Truda who called 'kuckuck,' and 
 threw the flowers about my neck!" The Count 
 looked at the bright young girl from head to foot 
 as if his mind could not compass the greatness of the 
 change. 
 
 "Even so," she said, blushing yet again, for the 
 sense of his greatness was fresh upon her. "I have 
 been for five years in Breslau at school, and have just 
 come home to take care of my father." 
 
 A swift sense of the happiness of Alt Karl broke 
 in upon the lonely Count. His Jagdmeister had this 
 to come home to when his day's work was done. For 
 himself he had only the mildewed walls of the great 
 barracks over yonder, defiled by the Prussians and 
 wasted by the wild boar out of the wood. 
 
 Suddenly the maid clapped her hands together 
 with a pretty gesture of despair. 
 
 "What have I done?" she cried. "I am dumb and 
 stupid with your so unexpected coming. I had well- 
 nigh forgotten to bring you in and offer you refresh- 
 ment."
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 125 
 
 And she led the way into a cool room, with green 
 blinds set at an angle to keep out the sun's heat. In 
 the corner of the room there was a bower of greenery 
 — ferns and flowers, and a little jetted spray of water 
 that tinkled and laughed in the midst. Behind were 
 bright love-birds and Japanese sparrows, in a cage 
 which nearly filled one entire end of the little salon. 
 A piano was set thwartwise in the angle. Music was 
 strewn here and there. A paper-covered book lay 
 face down on the window seat, and a mighty wolf- 
 hound aroused himself from the fireplace to sniff 
 the new-comer all over. Then with silent, reluctant 
 approval the beast went back, and lay down with a 
 sigh of regret that the intrusion needed no hostile 
 intervention on his part. Pervading everything 
 about the chalet there was the charming sense of 
 feminine occupancy, that delicate refinement alien 
 to man, which, is yet the more delightful to him on 
 that account. 
 
 The Count sat down in wonder. Alt Karl's house 
 as he remembered it in his boyhood, had been a bare, 
 clean place in which a strong-handed, plain-favoured 
 old peasant woman perpetually washed and baked 
 and scolded. He could hear the ring of her voice 
 still as she called a certain ragged, coltish, long- 
 limbed lass away from the sweet sawdusty smells of 
 the sawmill down by the St. Polten water, or sent
 
 126 Love Idylls 
 
 her voice up the hill to bring the same unlicensed 
 wanderer down out of the resinous silences of the 
 pine-wood, where she had been all too happily play- 
 ing bo-peep with the squirrels. 
 
 While he thus dreamed Truda stood by the win- 
 dow, her instinctive reverence for the Count of St. 
 Polten — her father's master, whom she had watched 
 and worshipped many a day as he strode past to the 
 hunting — struggling with her training in the free 
 scholastic commonwealth of the far-off Silesian city. 
 
 With quick intuition the girl caught the wonder 
 in the face of the Count as he looked about him. 
 
 "It is my aunt," she said timidly. "She had been 
 very kind — too kind. She wished to keep me with 
 her in Breslau, but I could not leave my father for 
 a longer time. So she gave me the piano and these 
 other things to remind me of the school in Breslau 
 which had been my home for five years." 
 
 The Count felt a sudden and infinitely curious 
 jealousy of the city. This maid was a flower of his 
 own gloomy forest, a plant of the free pine-woods 
 and the dashing highland brooks. What had she to 
 do with pianos and school-mistresses and scholastic 
 cities? 
 
 "Not that I am likely to forget sweet Silesia," she 
 said and sighed. 
 
 The Count felt his gloom return yet more fully
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 127 
 
 upon him. He looked out of the window at the 
 squirrels cracking the juicy young cones of the 
 larches and biting the tops of the young trees. The 
 plain-faced, strong-armed woman he used to see in 
 the house of Alt Karl moved across the glade 
 towards the door with a basket in her hand. It 
 seemed not a day since he had seen her last. Her 
 hair might be a little greyer, that was all. "If you 
 will not sit down," said the Count at last, "I must 
 stand up also and then I must go." 
 
 Obediently Gertrud sat down by the window and 
 leaned against the sill the heavy coil of fair hair she 
 had wound carelessly round her head, instead of 
 allowing it, as was the local custom, to hang down 
 her back. A spray of scarlet creeper fell over it as 
 the wind blew softly in, and a tangle of swaying 
 vine leaves cast flickering shadows upon its flat, 
 dull, golden mass. 
 
 The Count thought of his journey to Paris with 
 a sudden dismay and a sense that he was leaving 
 something infinitely more desirable behind him. 
 The Count was thirty-five, and to-day he felt twenty 
 years older. The brief seven weeks' campaign had 
 touched the dark hair above his temples with grey. 
 His life also seemed all grey and wearisome, ever 
 since the eagles of Austria had gone down at Konig- 
 gratz before the carrion vultures of the North. The
 
 i 28 Love Idylls 
 
 Count awoke from a kind of day-dream, to find him- 
 self calculating how old this girl might be who sat so 
 innocently with him in the house of Alt Karl. 
 
 'Twenty-one and a rosebud?' : ' he quoted, think- 
 ing aloud.
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 129 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SIEGE OF THE CHALET 
 
 But Gertrud did not seem to hear. She was look- 
 ing at something across the open grassy space, with 
 parted lips and eager wide-open eyes. 
 
 "Look!" she cried, manifestly troubled; "look! 
 there are two or three men hiding yonder in the 
 shadow. They are not folk of St. Polten nor of the 
 neighbourhood." 
 
 The Count rose quickly from his chair and came 
 to her side. She pointed with her finger to the edge 
 of the pine-wood. For a minute his less accustomed 
 eyes could discern nothing — only the shadowed 
 spaces of the glade interspersed with the staring sun- 
 light and the blue wash of cool shadows. 
 
 "Quick!" she cried breathlessly. "I see another 
 and another. They have guns and curiously marked 
 dresses. They are crouching in the dusk behind the 
 trees. Do you not see them just there behind the 
 oleander?" 
 
 And now the Count St. Polten saw a man with a 
 convict's jacket and a peaked forage cap set cross- 
 wise on his head, lying in the dark of the bushes,
 
 130 Love Idylls 
 
 and behind him two or three others. Instinctively 
 he felt for his revolver. He knew the rascals now. 
 It was a section of the band of escaped criminals 
 whose leaders he had killed, and from whom he had 
 taken the guns on the way to Verona. He knew in 
 a moment that they were seeking his life. But very 
 calmly he picked up his own cap which he had let 
 fall by his side. 
 
 "I must bid you adieu, Mademoiselle," he said; 
 "it is time that I went away." For as he said to him- 
 self, it was no use bringing this young girl into a 
 matter which concerned himself alone. 
 
 "I will go and find your father," said the Count. 
 
 But the maiden never moved, watching eagerly 
 from the open window. She put out one hand a little 
 behind her as if to command his silence. Then very 
 calmly she walked to the window, set her elbows on 
 the sill, looked listlessly and carelessly up and down 
 the green glade, and finally broke into a gay folk- 
 song, the notes of which rang jauntily across the 
 silent spaces of the wood. She stretched her arms 
 slightly and yawned, as if she were weary of 
 the sleepiness of the heavy day and listless with the 
 stirless air of noon. 
 
 Then quite slowly she drew herself back into the 
 room, pulling the green sparred wooden shutters 
 after her and bolting them within.
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 1 3 1 
 
 "Run quickly," she said to the Count; "close the 
 back door, bolt it, and also the little wicket window 
 in the angle. I will attend to the front door." 
 
 Whereupon she vanished, and the Count, smiling 
 a little at taking his orders from little Gertrud Rich- 
 ter, hastened to do her bidding. He passed through 
 the kitchen, where old Elizabeth stood speechless 
 at the unwonted apparition of the noble Count St. 
 Polten marching through her kitchen and banging 
 and double-locking her back door. Then going 
 quickly to the angle behind the staircase, St. Polten 
 almost thrust his hand into the face of a dark-browed 
 man who was staring keenly in through the wicket. 
 But at the sight of the Count's revolver, then a com- 
 paratively rare weapon, and much feared in Austria 
 and the Quadrilateral, the spy turned and fled. 
 
 "Now they are warned of our preparations," said 
 the Count, "we shall have the storm presently." 
 
 He went back through the kitchen into the little 
 salon and there he found Gertrud. She had a dozen 
 guns out of her father's presses ranged on the table, 
 and several boxes of cartridges stood open beside 
 them. The ancient Elizabeth, with a somewhat be- 
 wildered look, but with ready capable obedience, was 
 charging the older muzzle-loaders which had been 
 used for years at the chamois shooting — guns whose 
 every trick and kick were known to the Count, who
 
 132 Love Idylls 
 
 had cuddled them to his shoulder 011 many a perilous 
 ridge and remote deer-pass among the mountains. 
 
 "Count," said little Truda as soon as he entered, 
 "if you will take the wicket in the angle, you will 
 have under observation both the sides which are 
 nearest the wood. I shall go to the gable window 
 above, whence I shall be able to see any one who 
 may attack us across the grass." 
 
 "But why trouble yourself at all?" the Count St. 
 Polten began, a little proudly. "I can account for 
 any dozen of these dogs of the prisons." 
 
 "Ah! but.*' said little Truda wisely, "they are 
 too many for you. I have counted ten already, and 
 such rascals as they would never fight fair but would 
 shoot you in the back." 
 
 And she almost pushed him to his position in the 
 angle at which he had seen the face of the spy. 
 
 Then there occurred a strange, still pause before 
 anything happened. The sunshine slept white-hot 
 in the open spaces, not a twig moved in the wood. 
 In the grass the cicadas shrilled like the sharpening 
 of scythes in a far-off meadow. The Count St. Pol- 
 ten- Vassima had all the high-born Austrian's con- 
 tempt for the rascal sweepings of the gaols, but 
 nevertheless he recognised his peril. Doubtless the 
 band of desperate men would do their best to revenge
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 133 
 
 the death of their leaders and the loss of their 
 weapons. 
 
 While the Count was still meditating, "crack" 
 went little Truda's first shot in the room above. It 
 was answered by the cry of a man in angry pain, and 
 then came the soft trample of many rushing feet over 
 greensward. 
 
 Crack ! crack ! The swift double report rang out 
 again from the room where the schoolgirl of Breslau 
 kept her vigil. 
 
 The Count was on the point of rushing up to suc- 
 cour his ally when she called down imperatively, 
 "Keep your place, Count! They will attack you 
 next. I can keep them back on this side." 
 
 And she spoke no more than the truth, for half a 
 dozen muskets spoke from the woods, and then with 
 a rush as many men sprang out of the covert of 
 leaves and ran hard for the back porch of Alt Karl's 
 chalet. If once they got safely within its shelter, it 
 might have been difficult to reach them with bullets. 
 Four of the men carried a long straight section of 
 tree trunk, to be used as a battering-ram to force the 
 door. 
 
 The Count's rifle cracked, and the nearer end of 
 the tree dropped promptly to the ground. The man 
 who had been carrying one side of the log gripped
 
 134 Love Idylls 
 
 his hand to his thigh and roared aloud. The Count 
 laid down one smoking weapon and lifted another. 
 With this he took aim at the nearer of the two dark- 
 faced men who, with muskets in their hands, were 
 by this time much closer to the porch than those who 
 had to bear the burden of the tree. Again the 
 Count's rifle was heard, and the men broke for the 
 wood without waiting for more. The leaves closed 
 about them, and there was a great and instant still- 
 ness. 
 
 As Count St. Polten-Vassima stood at his wicket 
 he could hear Gertrud Richter in the room above, 
 loading her artillery and laying each gun as it was 
 ready in order on her little dressing-table. He him- 
 self hastened to do likewise. Then all suddenly a 
 new turn was given to the situation, for Alt Karl 
 strode out of the wood and across the wide green 
 towards the front door. His daughter saw him first, 
 for that was her chosen side of the house. 
 
 "Run," she cried, "run for the door, father! I 
 will open it." But Alt Karl was an Under-Offker 
 of the Apostolic Kaiser, and it was not his habit to 
 run till he saw cause. So he faced about and looked 
 calmly all about him. A gun went off to the right 
 and a waft of white smoke arose. Alt Karl took the 
 fowling-piece from his shoulder and laid it to his 
 ear ready for action. Then steadily, as if he had
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 135 
 
 given himself the order to charge, he went at the 
 double straight for the place from whence the bullet 
 had come. But before he had gone a dozen yards a 
 second shot was fired from the left. Alt Karl 
 wavered, stumbled, and went over on his face with a 
 swirl, his gun exploding as he fell. 
 
 By this time Truda had the front door open, and 
 was on the point of rushing forth to succour her 
 father. . But Count St. Polten took her by the shoul- 
 der roughly and thrust her behind him. 
 
 "Stay where you are," he commanded; "he is too 
 heavy for you to carry." 
 
 And he laid down his gun on the sparred rustic 
 seat in the porch, and rushed across the lawn bare- 
 headed. Bullets whistled about him as he ran. But 
 in a moment he had reached the side of the fallen 
 man. He stooped and raised Alt Karl in his arms. 
 A crowd of men broke from the coverts on right and 
 left, and with fierce howls of rage rushed towards 
 the Count, who stumbled under his heavy burden. 
 
 Nevertheless he carried his Jagdmeister swiftly 
 enough in his arms towards the open door. As he 
 came he saw Gertrud kneeling upon one knee behind 
 the trellis of the porch. Swiftly she fired one gun 
 and then another till she had exhausted her battery. 
 Then she stood up with her father's revolver in her 
 hand, and as he approached the door with his uncon-
 
 136 Love Idylls 
 
 scious burden on his shoulder, he could hear the 
 sharp crack of the report, and simultaneously the spit 
 and whistle of the bullets as they passed on either 
 side of him, first over one shoulder and then over the 
 other. So accurate was the young girl's aim that 
 the charge of the convicts was retarded, though not 
 wholly prevented. As Gertrud clanged the door and 
 shot the bolts, two men flung themselves against it, 
 and one fired his gun into the keyhole. But the solid 
 oak and the good iron bolts stood the stress. 
 
 "To your wicket!" cried Truda; "I shall go back 
 to my window." 
 
 She only reached her station in time to see the dis- 
 appointed assailants running back to cover. But the 
 lawn was fairly sprinkled with the wounded, some 
 limping, some crawling, and a few more lying deadly 
 still. All was safe for a little, so having again loaded 
 her rifles, Gertrud ran swiftly down to look after her 
 father. 
 
 Alt Karl lay with his head supported on the 
 Count's arm. His daughter cut away his coat deftly. 
 The bullet had gone clean through his shoulder, be- 
 tween the joint of the right arm and the spring of 
 the neck, but very near the surface — too near to have 
 touched any vital part. It was the shock more than 
 the wound which had felled Alt Karl. Presently he 
 looked up.
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 137 
 
 "Trudchen," he said, "have they killed your father 
 at last?" 
 
 But his daughter smilingly answered him, " 'Tis 
 but a little blood-letting and will do thee good, Father 
 Karl. It is not for gallows thieves to make an end 
 of such a soldier as thou art." 
 
 So when they were somewhat reassured, and the 
 bleeding stanched, Alt Karl bade them to lay him 
 along a couch by an open window and give him a 
 gun or two, for it was natural that he also should 
 desire to have his chance at the scoundrels. 
 
 But for a long time there came no sign of further 
 attack. The peace of an utter quiet settled on the 
 little chalet and its encompassing ring of sombre 
 woodlands. In the long glades where the confedera- 
 tion of the flowers strove with the green pigmy 
 armies of the grass which should be the greater, not 
 a blade waved, not a petal nodded, so wonderful a 
 silence brooded over all. The sun smote overbear- 
 ingly down upon them, so that the humming of the 
 bees and the shrill whistle of the cicadas almost 
 ceased as the performers retired to take their siestas 
 till the sun should creep a little lower in the white- 
 hot sky.
 
 138 Love Idylls 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHO SHALL SAVE 
 
 "I like this not," said Alt Karl; "it goes not 
 soundly right. I would rather see the scoundrels 
 storming up to the doors of the house, yelling for 
 our blood, than abide this uncanny quiet." 
 
 The Count St. Polten had relapsed into his cus- 
 tomary lassitude, save that his eyes sometimes rested 
 with a peculiar expression of astonishment on the 
 returned schoolgirl from Breslau. Gertrud, on the 
 other hand, seemed wholly unconscious that she had 
 done anything remarkable. The repulse of an or- 
 ganised band of convicts might have formed part of 
 the ordinary curriculum of ladies' schools in Silesia, 
 so calm and well accustomed, so demure and uncon- 
 scious sat the little Truda at her window. But she 
 listened eagerly enough to the talk of her elders. 
 
 "Doubtless they are waiting for the night, to steal 
 upon us with the firebrand and the drench of petro- 
 leum," said Alt Karl ; "that is the way we burn the 
 villages from which the sharpshooters fire upon our 
 line of march." 
 
 "There is part of a cavalry regiment, Hussars of
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 139 
 
 the Black Eagle, lying in St. Polten," said the Count. 
 "If by any means we could get the news taken down 
 there we might have succour within an hour. It is 
 but three miles, and if there were a man of courage 
 in the neighbourhood, he might run with the news." 
 
 Alt Karl shook his head. 
 
 "It needs more than courage, and our men of sense 
 are mostly lying between here and Koniggratz," he 
 said. "Besides, the woodchoppers and peasants will 
 doubtless think that we of the chateau amuse our- 
 selves with firing at the mark." 
 
 Alt Karl held those low views of the intelligence 
 of the countryfolk about St. Polten, which are the 
 birthright of the true hillman of the Tyrol. 
 
 The Count lay back in his chair, deep in medita- 
 tion. He drew out of his breast pocket a silver cig- 
 arette case. He was on the point of lighting one, 
 when his eyes fell on Gertrud Richter. 
 
 "With your permission, Mademoiselle," he said, 
 bowing courteously. 
 
 The words brought a grim smile to the face of 
 Alt Karl, a smile which ended in a little twitch of 
 pain as his wounded shoulder nipped him. 
 
 " 'Tis just my little Truda home from school in 
 Breslau, and no Mademoiselle at all," he explained. 
 For often in the Austrian Tyrol, with regard to the 
 meaning of words, things are not what they seem. ...
 
 14° Love Idylls 
 
 The Count looked more than a little annoyed and 
 glanced at Truda, but she had taken to her knitting, 
 with the muskets ready on the table beside her all the 
 time. 
 
 "Your permission, Fraulein Gertrud?" he said 
 politely. 
 
 Gertrud smilingly nodded and said that indeed, 
 with her father's habits, she was well enough accus- 
 tomed to tobacco. 
 
 'To the grand pipe, not to the whiffing of straws," 
 said Alt Karl contemptuously, pointing to the array 
 of noble bowls and six-foot stems on the wall. 
 
 So with the Count smoking and Gertrud making 
 occasional reconnaisances to the upper windows, the 
 still, breathless afternoon wore on into the cooler 
 stillness of the evening sunshine. 
 
 All the while little Gertrud was busily thinking. 
 It was the Count and her father whose death the 
 convicts aimed at. For herself, not knowing the 
 hearts of the human wild beast, she had no fear. In- 
 deed, had she known all, the worst would not have 
 affrighted her so long as within the chambers of her 
 father's revolver there slumbered an alternative. 
 
 From childhood Gertrud had dwelt in this place. 
 For fifteen years she had tried every path, tested 
 every hiding-place and descended into every hollow 
 in all the jagged tangle of honeycombed limestone
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 141 
 
 country about St. Polten. She remembered especially 
 the long ravine cleft of St. Martin, which began so 
 mysteriously just beyond the grassy slope of the 
 glade. The little Trudchen thought deeply, and her 
 thoughts were of what she and she alone could do. 
 
 Would it not be possible for her to run across the 
 lawn, drop into the ravine and there lie hid while 
 the convicts were searching for her? From thence 
 she might be able to make her way down the bed 
 of the stream to Martin's Loch, where, in rainy 
 weather, the streamlet spouted through an archway 
 of stone down the cliff side. She had clambered 
 there many a time in search of frost-gentian and saf- 
 fron dandelion, and had indeed descended half-way 
 to St. Polten along the side of the cliff. It was true 
 the foothold was exceedingly precarious, even in 
 daylight, consisting of the merest projections of the 
 limestone rock. But no one had ever attempted it in 
 the twilight, still less at night, at which time alone 
 she could now hope for success. 
 
 All this kept passing and re-passing in the busy 
 little brain while Gertrud proceeded with her knit- 
 ting, or went her rounds above and below stairs. 
 
 "I wonder if they have really gone," she said to 
 herself, "or if they are only lying in hiding. I shall 
 try. I shall give the real 'Mademoiselle' a chance to 
 distinguish herself."
 
 142 Love Idylls 
 
 And she set the hunter's Tyrolese hat, in which she 
 had been accustomed to roam the woods, upon the 
 head of the dressmaker's wooden model, which, like 
 a thrifty landward damsel, she used in the making of 
 her attire. She set ''Mademoiselle" upon a chair 
 with a cloak about her and pushed her to the win- 
 dow. There she swayed idiotically forward and 
 leaned against the sill as if looking out. A jet of 
 white smoke sprang promptly out of an oleander 
 bush on the far side of the lawn. There followed 
 the sharp report of a stolen needle-gun, and a bullet 
 pitted itself in the thick beam above the window. 
 
 "Well done, Mademoiselle," said Truda smiling. 
 
 And she withdrew the decoy back again into her 
 bedchamber. 
 
 Thereupon Gertrud went down and explained her 
 scheme for bringing relief, telling them what she had 
 done with Mademoiselle. But the men, knowing 
 what they knew, would not hear of her plan for a 
 moment. If any one was to go for help it must be 
 himself, that was St. Poltcn's solution. "If we are 
 to die, why die we must," was that of Alt Karl. 
 
 But in her heart the girl refused to accept either. 
 The Count certainly could not go, because he did not 
 know the only practicable way to St. Polten, that 
 through Martin's Loch. Her father might be ready 
 and willing to die — but not so she, nor, if she
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 143 
 
 judged aright, the Count either. So Truda looked 
 carefully to her revolver, which had been her father's 
 during the war, and slipped it loosely into the pocket 
 of her hunter's coat, ready to her hand. Then she 
 put on the short mountaineer's kilt in which she had 
 so often gone to the hunt with her father, and set- 
 ting the man's Tyrolese hat firmly on her head she 
 stood ready. After all it was only fifty steps or so 
 across the grass, and fifty through the wood to the 
 beginning of the cleft, and in the quick-coming dusk 
 she would be there in a moment. 
 
 The dark comes swiftly enough among the wooded 
 foothills of St. Polten. The sun was already set 
 and the brown shades were cooling into blue with 
 the rising of the night mist out of the hollow places. 
 
 Truda laid her plans rapidly. She arranged her 
 half-dozen guns in a row and then discharged them 
 one after the other, lifting them in turn to her shoul- 
 der and firing them into the belt of woodland 
 through which she meant to run. The Count came 
 anxiously upstairs to see if she had precipitated a 
 general engagement. But all was still and quiet, not 
 even the shaking of a branch betrayed the presence 
 of the lurking foe. 
 
 The girl asked the Count to accompany her down- 
 stairs for a moment. There was something to be 
 done with which he alone could help her. So they
 
 144 Love Idylls 
 
 went below, and Gertrud very swiftly undid the 
 fastenings of the back door of the chalet. Then 
 standing on the doorstep she said, "Now I mean to 
 go down to St. Polten by Martin's Loch to bring 
 up the cavalry. Shut the door swiftly after me!" 
 And with that she was gone out of his sight before 
 he could lay a hand on her, melting into the dusk 
 like a shadow.
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 145 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CLEFT OF ST. MARTIN 
 
 The Count stood a moment where she had left 
 him in speechless amazement. Then he took a hur- 
 ried step or two in the direction of the wood, as 
 though to follow and bring the madcap back, but 
 the folly of this proceeding immediately forced itself 
 on him. He could not hope to catch her. He knew 
 nothing of the way by which she had gone. He 
 would be leaving the chalet open and undefended, 
 with no one but a wounded man within. 
 
 He bolted the door therefore and ran up to the 
 higher window which had been Gertrud's embrasure. 
 Cautiously he looked out and listened. The night 
 was very still. Not a breath of air whispered among 
 the pine trees. 
 
 "Cuckoo ! cuckoo !" 
 
 The voice of the bird came clearly and cheerfully 
 from the direction in which the girl had vanished. 
 The Count took it for a good omen, and the prayer 
 of his heart became a thanksgiving. 
 
 "That was little Trudchen's voice," said Alt Karl, 
 when the Count St. Polten re-entered the room 
 where, in the darkness, the old man still kept his keen
 
 146 Love Idylls 
 
 vigil, peering out of the open window across the nar- 
 row space which divided them from the woods. 
 
 Then the Count told Alt Karl all that his Gertrud 
 had done. But the old soldier showed no sign of 
 emotion. 
 
 "It is in the hands of God," he said. "Did she take 
 the revolver?" 
 
 "It is at least gone from its place," replied the 
 Count. 
 
 "Then she may indeed die, as may we all," said 
 her father; "but otherwise I am not greatly afraid 
 for little Truda." 
 
 Rarely had Gertrud's heart beat so wildly as when 
 she dashed across the lawn into the thick blackness of 
 the woods. Her hand was on her pistol, for she 
 knew that she risked infinitely more than her own 
 life upon the issue of her quest. She might, for in- 
 stance, for all she knew, have run straight into the 
 arms of the cruel and lurking foe. She might chance 
 upon the very spot at which a score of them lay hid- 
 den. Nevertheless she sped swift-foot towards the 
 wall of leaves, and in a moment she was stooping 
 low to take the plunge. 
 
 Suddenly out of the darkness, a little way to the 
 right, two men emerged and looked towards the 
 chalet. Their eyes caught the flash of her figure 
 darting past. Without a word they closed in upon
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 147 
 
 her, compelling her to enter the woods a little more 
 to the right than she had intended. So that instead 
 of having thick woods all the way to the cleft's 
 mouth, she had to cross an open space of twenty 
 yards of flower-sprinkled grass. 
 
 When Gertrud emerged upon this little woodland 
 cirque, where a thousand times as a child she had 
 spread her cups and baked her mudpies in her girlish 
 housewifery, she almost tripped over half a dozen 
 men all lying on the grass. She swerved to the right 
 in order to avoid them. One or two sprang after 
 her with growls like wild beasts, and to avoid these 
 new assailants Truda had to dodge between her first 
 pursuers. She could hear them crashing after her 
 in the wrong direction. So she bent her head till 
 she was running almost double. Truda kept along 
 the side of Martin's cleft for a hundred yards before 
 plunging into it, letting herself down by the branches 
 of trees and bushes into its depths, and clinging per- 
 ilously with her knees to every jutting crag and point 
 of limestone rock. 
 
 Her pursuers came blundering after. She could 
 hear them calling in prison slang the one to the 
 other. But they searched in vain, for not one of 
 them was a true mountain man or trained in the 
 ways of the woods. 
 
 When Gertrud Richter reached the gravelly bot-
 
 148 Love Idylls 
 
 torn of the cleft of St. Martin she found the rivulet 
 wholly dried up by the long heats of summer. Here 
 in a secure recess she waited full five minutes to let 
 the heat of pursuit pass by overhead, and then in the 
 stillness which ensued she cried twice "Cuckoo !" It 
 was the note of hope which had cheered the heart 
 of the Count, hearing- it from the window of the 
 beleaguered chalet. 
 
 Very swiftly the girl made her way along the cleft, 
 which, as in the manner of such places in limestone 
 districts, now opened out into a ravine with precip- 
 itous sides, now contracted into a passage little wider 
 than a tunnel, and anon debouched quite unexpect- 
 edly upon the bare side of a precipitous cliff. 
 
 But not unexpectedly to Gertrud Richter. Many 
 a time had she clambered down to the steep break- 
 neck path, which led almost to the roofs of St. Pol- 
 ten. There it was at last. Through the narrow, half 
 overgrown opening of St. Martin's Loch Truda could 
 see the lights of St. Polten glimmering beneath her. 
 She even heard the band playing — that of the regi- 
 ment which she was risking her life to summon. It 
 seemed as if she could almost cry down to them, they 
 were so near. She could see the bright lights of the 
 cafe, and the officers sitting in front of it at the little 
 round tables, smoking with crossed legs and no 
 doubt talking infinite scandal.
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 149 
 
 But there was a hard climb yet to come — and what 
 made it much more difficult, she had to climb down, 
 not upwards. 
 
 But little Gertrud grasped the edge of the rocky 
 sill of St. Martin's Loch and let herself drop with 
 confidence over the bare scarp of the cleft. Her 
 feet did not quite reach the next ledge, so she let go, 
 with a catch in her throat lest in the years since last 
 she had been there, the foothold beneath her might 
 have been knocked away either by the weather or by 
 some random mountaineer. 
 
 No, it was still there. Her feet gripped the broad 
 firm edge, and she tiptoed out upon it to feel for 
 the rowan tree which used to grow from a cleft to 
 the right. It was gone, and Truda's heart for the 
 first time fluttered wildly. It would be terrible 
 should she be fixed all night on this bare limestone 
 ledge, like a beetle pinned to a wall, while the fiends 
 above were making an end of the one most Hear to 
 her on earth — that is, of her father. 
 
 But Truda did not hesitate more than a moment. 
 She remembered that the ledge immediately beneath 
 her was very broad, and that the rock sloped a little 
 towards it. So without a moment's hesitation she 
 swung herself over, and stretching to the full extent 
 of her arms, she let go. She slid downward bodily, 
 snatching at every smallest prominence which would
 
 150 Love Idylls 
 
 break her fall, and in doing so bruising herself most 
 cruelly upon the rocks. But what of that, thought 
 Truda, when once she stood safely upon the ledge, 
 and the worst was over ? She called to mind that a 
 goat's track led down a tail of debris to the back 
 of the Rathhaus of St. Polten. So in a moment 
 she was digging her heels into the sliding banks of 
 shale, and descending recklessly towards the lights 
 of the town. 
 
 In five minutes more Gertrud Richter, dishevelled 
 and bleeding from a dozen scratches on her hands 
 and arms, was telling her tale to the Colonel of the 
 Hussars of the Black Eagle. 
 
 "The Count of St. Polten besieged by formats — 
 impossible!" said he, looking at the wares of a seller 
 of matches and automatically selecting the one with 
 the prettiest picture. 
 
 Nevertheless, in spite of the impossibility, the 
 bugles sounded, the saddles filled, and the hoofs clat- 
 tered merrily up the road towards the chateau of St. 
 Polten. 
 
 The path led uphill all the way, but the men 
 set themselves light-heartedly to their task. And 
 first of them all, with the Colonel a little way be- 
 hind her, rode the Breslau schoolgirl upon a cavalry 
 saddle. 
 
 And as they went they came in sight of that which
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 151 
 
 made them spur yet faster and more fiercely — the 
 flames of a burning house mounting redly to the 
 skies. The heart of the maid throbbed violently. 
 Was the deed which she had done to be all in vain ? 
 Were the rescuers after all to arrive too late? 
 
 Not till the white coats of the cavalry had sur- 
 mounted the last rise could the men see the source 
 of the flames. But they heard the rattling of small 
 arms, the crackling of timbers, and the hoarse shout- 
 ing of many men. 
 
 The tall columns of soaring fire made an awful 
 flickering twilight among the gloomy forest glades. 
 Presently, with anxious hearts, the Hussars of the 
 Black Eagle topped the brae, and there before them 
 was the great house of St. Polten, which so long had 
 stood unfinished, flaming to the skies, and the con- 
 victs running every way with torches and blazing 
 pine-faggots, like ants in a disturbed hillock of dry 
 fir needles. 
 
 But the chalet of Alt Karl was still dark and un- 
 touched. 
 
 A pile of faggots had indeed been laid down in 
 the porch under Truda's roses, and was just begin- 
 ning to flame up. The rattle of musketry rang about 
 the house in a circle of fiery flashes. For it was evi- 
 dent that the convicts had found more arms and am- 
 munition in the burning chateau.
 
 IS 2 Love Idylls 
 
 A solitary gun replied fitfully from the windows 
 of the chalet. 
 
 So busy were the besiegers that the cavalry were 
 actually among them with the sword before they 
 were aware. And then with what wild yells of terror 
 the wretched men fled for the shelter of the woods, 
 the horsemen riding them down mercilessly, so that 
 but few escaped. For the marvellous light of the 
 burning palace shone every way, even into the 
 densest thickets. And all that night the pursuers 
 rode hither and thither, striking and killing along 
 the woodland ways as far as the spring of St. Mar- 
 tin's cliff. 
 
 Thus ended the leaguer of St. Polten. For several 
 days the soldiers hunted high and low, until the 
 whole band of the escaped convicts had in divers 
 fashions been accounted for. 
 
 Within the chalet there had been desperate work. 
 Late in the engagement the Count had been wounded 
 on the brow by a chance bullet ; it was a flesh wound 
 and he made little of it for his own sake. But fierce 
 anger at the indignity came upon him, and not for 
 all the entreaties of Alt Karl would he for a moment 
 resign his place at the windows. So that at last the 
 Jagdmeister, tied to his couch, had to content him- 
 self with preparing the guns for his master to fire.
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 153 
 
 This he did with an ever darker and more silent fury 
 as the night went on, and the light of the burning 
 chateau made his enemies plain in its fierce glare. 
 
 The Count as he fired winged every bullet with a 
 silent curse. 
 
 "This for her who gave herself for our sakes," 
 he said below his breath. 
 
 And at each discharge an enemy dropped, out 
 there in the green flamelit fairway of the glade. 
 
 Presently there came to the ears, through the rat- 
 tle of the musketry and the shouts of the incendia- 
 ries, the unmistakable cavalry cheer of the Aus- 
 trian horse, and the clatter of disciplined steeds, then 
 last of all the heady elation of the charge. But one 
 there was that rode straight up to the door of the 
 chalet and dismounted swiftly, minding neither 
 friend nor foe. 
 
 The Count St. Polten-Vassima ran to open the 
 door. 
 
 It was only the little Truda who stood there, clear 
 and fair in the great light which shone from his 
 burning castle. She looked down at her short kirtle, 
 and the girl who had ridden the cavalry charger at 
 the head of the detachment stood blushing and 
 ashamed before him whom she had risked life and 
 honour to save.
 
 154 Love Idylls 
 
 "I brought them as soon as I could," she sajd 
 weakly, and then began to cry as if her heart were 
 broken. 
 
 But the Count of St. Polten-Vassima clasped the 
 daughter of his Jagdmeister in his arms without a 
 word. 
 
 * * # * Jjc * ■%. 
 
 It was a fortnight later, and the Count had re- 
 turned from Vienna. Ostensibly he had gone to 
 have the plans prepared for the new house, which he 
 was to build by the heights near Martin's Loch, upon 
 the plateau whence one can look down upon the red 
 roofs of St. Polten. 
 
 Yet as fast as his feet would carry him he hastened 
 to the cottage, which had resumed its perennial quiet 
 after the terrors of the seige to which it had been 
 exposed. As the Count came near he heard the rip- 
 ple of a piano in the little salon. Little Gertrud was 
 singing a love song, quaint and old, and the sound 
 of her voice brought back again the lonely feeling 
 into the heart of the Count. 
 
 Gertrud came sedately to the door and asked him 
 to enter, and would have gone forthwith to find her 
 father. But he took her hand and kept it, as he 
 looked away over to the crest of the hill, where his 
 new chateau was to stand. 
 
 "Truda," he said, "I have come all the way from
 
 The Count and Little Gertrud 155 
 
 Vienna to ask if a girl, beautiful and young, can love 
 a glum useless fellow like me." 
 
 Gertrud's eyes were on the ground, and for a 
 moment she did not answer, but her hand shook in 
 his. 
 
 ''You must marry a great lady," she began at last, 
 her voice quavering. 
 
 "A Count St. Polten-Vassima can wed where 
 he chooses. The Emperor himself has said it." 
 
 "But," faltered Truda, compelling her rebellious 
 heart to be still, "there are ladies, beautiful and 
 clever, in Vienna, in Paris, in all the cities where you 
 will go." 
 
 The Count laughed a little, and pointed up to the 
 frees which nodded over the defile, at the bottom of 
 which lay the perilous pass through which she had 
 passed so lately. 
 
 "Beautiful ladies — clever ladies — without doubt 
 many, little one. But which of these beautiful ladies 
 would have risked Martin's Loch at blackest night 
 for me? And which would have thrown herself 
 down, bruising her fair hands on the white cliffs of 
 St. Polten, all to save my worthless life?" 
 
 "But it was for my father," whispered Truda, 
 glancing at him just once, with a spark of the an- 
 cient mischief quick in her eye.
 
 LOVE AMONG THE BEECH 
 
 LEAVES 
 
 "Elizabeth Macandrew! Saw ye ever the 
 make o' that lassie? I declare, there she is at the 
 barn-end wi' the laddies again ! I'll fetch her in by 
 oot o' that." Thus hopefully from the kitchen door, 
 to whomsoever it might concern, Mistress Robin 
 MacAndrew, the goodwife of Pitlarg. 
 
 A fine sunny afternoon in the heart of summer it 
 was at Pitlarg. The hens were scraping in the hot 
 roadway and scattering dustbaths over their backs, 
 clucking low to themselves for very content in the 
 holes in the hedges. Pitlarg dreamed a dream, and, 
 as it were, turned over in its deep sleep. Nothing 
 stirred about it anywhere — except Donald, that 
 ancient black pet lamb, now grown into a great 
 sheep; and even he only moved restlessly about the 
 farmyard, and thrust his nose into every pail and 
 bucket in quest of something to eat. It was never 
 too hot or too cold for Donald to want to eat. He 
 had been out with the cows, it was true; but there
 
 158 Love Idylls 
 
 are limits to the society of cows, for one so enterpris- 
 ing as Donald. 
 
 ''Elizabeth MacAndrew!" cried the goodwife 
 again from the kitchen door. Now, Elizabeth is not 
 an easy name to cry aloud, which is a reason why 
 dogs and horses are not called Elizabeth. So that the 
 herald at the kitchen door had to do her best with 
 MacAndrew. 
 
 But name and surname thus cried aloud in the 
 farmyard both returned, void as an echo to the her- 
 ald in the white baking apron. Only a sleepy hen 
 rooped lazily in a hole under the hedge, and a ban- 
 tam cock exerted himself just enough to crow de- 
 risively. 
 
 "Betsy MacAndrew — my certie, gin I come to ye, 
 ye hempie !" 
 
 The words lengthened themselves out, still with- 
 out effect. Donald, the pet sheep, came lumbering 
 awkwardly to his mistress, and stuck his cold moist 
 nose into her hand. It was certainly a strange time 
 for her to feed him, he thought ; but Donald was not 
 the sheep to miss a chance. One never knows. On 
 this occasion, however, he had assuredly drawn a 
 blank. 
 
 "Gae 'way, beast!" said Mistress MacAndrew, 
 shaking her baking apron at him with one hand, 
 whilst she shaded her eyes with the other from the
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 159 
 
 sun and looked along the road. There was a chang- 
 ing group at the end of the barn, on that smooth 
 open space called the Playing Green, before every 
 Galloway farmhouse, on which many generations of 
 children have played and maidens danced, 
 
 "It's thae Beattie lads an' Rab Christie, the new 
 loon, playin' at the bools — an' that daft lassie, Eliza- 
 beth, encouragin' them an' playin' wi' them, nae 
 less." 
 
 Mistress MacAndrew ran in suddenly, struck 
 with a wild fear that her last girdleful of crumpy 
 fades of cake had overbalanced and fallen into the 
 grate. 
 
 Being satisfied on this point (by finding that it 
 was only a hen which had passed her outer guard, 
 and was stalking about the kitchen making a high- 
 pitched and wearisome plaint in a minor key), she 
 shooed the fowl out. It hastened away in a foolish 
 fluster, and continued to make remarks on the sub- 
 ject all across the yard with hurrying footsteps and 
 drooping rufflings of wing. 
 
 Then, with an access of determination in her eye, 
 Mistress MacAndrew took a hasty survey of her 
 kitchen and of the cake drying in the fireplace. It 
 seemed to her that no accident could happen for five 
 minutes. So she went to the door.
 
 160 Love Idylls 
 
 She would try once more. 
 
 "Bess!" she cried. But neither is Bess a good 
 name to carry, specially to those who do not want to 
 hear, on a slumberous afternoon when the sun and 
 the sleepy air drown the voice. 
 
 The monosyllabic adjunction only sounded like a 
 goose trying to bark. Mistress MacAndrevv took 
 the life of her precious cake in her hands and walked 
 towards the scattering and changing group at the 
 loaning head. 
 
 "I'll fetch that lassie in a hurry, I'll wager ye!" 
 she said. 
 
 She was a woman of some firmness of character, 
 but her husband's brother's daughter was almost 
 too much for her. Niece is a vain word in Galloway. 
 
 "James MacAndrew's lassie," was what, in hours 
 of ease, Elizabeth was called — with an accent on her 
 parent's name which intimated that James had not 
 been a success in life. At other times, and they 
 were the more numerous, she was addressed with 
 simplicity, as "Bess, ye hem pie!" 
 
 Mistress MacAndrew had the dramatic sense. She 
 drew near to the absorbed group along the covered 
 way of the orchard wall, that she might take them 
 red-handed in the midst of their iniquity. Presently 
 she stood in the shade looking upon their play almost
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 1 6 1 
 
 from striking distance. There was a supple willow 
 wand in her hand. Nemesis hovered imminent — in 
 a baking apron. 
 
 They were four who were playing that game of 
 marbles which is known in the simple dialect of the 
 place as Ringie. Four marbles or "bools" lay in the 
 ring, at the four cardinal points of the circle. The 
 "playing bools" or taws of three urchins lay at vary- 
 ing distances from the ring, each watched over by 
 its owner; while a slim, long-limbed girl of fifteen 
 knelt on one knee and shot, with swift and accurate 
 jerk of the thumb and forefinger, her taw towards 
 the ring. She knocked one off, pocketed it and tried 
 again. The second time she missed, and it was Wull 
 Beattie's turn. His marble did not reach the ring, 
 but lay immediately outside. 
 
 The next boy, Jock Beattie the name of him, 
 played with equal lack of success. The girl regarded 
 him with an air of contempt, and scratched the dust 
 with her bare toe — an unseemly thing in a great lass 
 of fifteen. There was now but one other to play, 
 and he seemed uncertain. He was the tallest of the 
 three, but he seemed to walk in a maze. The sight 
 of him awakened the worst passions in the breast of 
 the white-aproned watcher by the barn-end. He 
 was the "new loon" of the farm, hired for summer 
 work, and set to cut thistles at a penny an hour. Yet
 
 1 62 Love Idylls 
 
 here he was playing at "the bools" with the Beatties 
 and Elizabeth MacAndrew! The willow wand 
 twitched and turned in the hand — not, as in the case 
 of the spring finder, to indicate the proximity of 
 water, but rather that of fire. The fire was glowing 
 in the breast of the mistress of the "new loon," and 
 was soon to be transferred to various convenient 
 outliers of his person. 
 
 But the "new loon," whose turn it was to play, 
 did unexpectedly well. The Beatties, indeed, 
 laughed at him for his way of holding his "bool," 
 and Bess gave him a little shove behind with her 
 foot at the moment of playing. Nevertheless, his 
 marble performed the notable feat of "skinning the 
 ring." It knocked off all the three marbles that lay 
 round. The two Beatties yelled with disgust. 
 
 But Bess MacAndrew was more practical. Also 
 she was an entirely shameless young woman. She 
 bent down suddenly, scooped up the three marbles 
 that had been on the ring, the new loon's playing 
 taw, and that which of rights belonged to the elder 
 of the Beatties, and fled fleetfoot for the kitchen 
 door with flutter of high-kilted skirt. 
 
 The Beatties gave instant chase, though they 
 might quite as well have hunted the summer wind. 
 Only the new loon stood still, wondering in his slow 
 way what had happened. He had no satisfaction on
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 163 
 
 that point, but he found out very soon what was go- 
 ing to happen. For it was just then that his mis- 
 tress made her appearance. She had missed the 
 psychological moment, owing to the crisis which the 
 unexpected act of Bess MacAndrew had precipi- 
 tated; but at the instant when the kitchen door 
 clashed to and the lock clicked in the inside, the 
 willow wand fell on the dusty jacket of the new loon, 
 and his mistress began to explain his duties to him. 
 
 It was a somewhat distracting lecture for the 
 loon ; for in the background the Beatties were fling- 
 ing themselves on the kitchen door with baffled 
 howlings, and in the intervals of carpet-beating upon 
 his jacket the mistress of Pitlarg was telling him 
 where he would go to. The new loon said he did not 
 care: anything for a change; and, indeed, a worse 
 time for a lecture on moral philosophy could hardly 
 be conceived. 
 
 When it was over the new loon went back in a 
 dazed condition to the pasture field, where, with a 
 hook freshly sharpened at the grindstone, he had 
 been set at dinner-time to cut thistles. He had only 
 come to Pitlarg that day; and when Bess MacAn- 
 drew summoned him to come and play marbles with 
 the Beatties he had been of opinion that this was part 
 of his daily duties. The willow wand induced him 
 to think otherwise.
 
 i 64 Love Idylls 
 
 Then, justice being so far satisfied, Mistress Mac- 
 Andrew turned her attention to the Beatties, who 
 were still trying to get in at the kitchen door. They 
 had not seen what happened to the new loon; so 
 that when the wrathful voice of the mistress of the 
 farm arose suddenly behind them, and the first sharp 
 touches of the willow wand fell upon their appointed 
 place, it is little wonder that they turned and fled, 
 leaving their bags in the hands of the enemy. Miss 
 Elizabeth MacAndrew stood at the kitchen window 
 and made faces at them as they ran. She held up 
 the captured marbles in her hand, threw them in the 
 air and caught them as they fell. The thoughts of 
 the Beatties were prayers — taken from the Psalms. 
 
 But the new loon only rubbed himself and thought 
 what a strange place Pitlarg was. He had come 
 from the heathery hillside above the laird's planta- 
 tions, where his father had been a gamekeeper, and 
 Pitlarg was his first place. His mother was now a 
 widow, and he had come away from home in order 
 to help to keep her. He was seventeen, though he 
 did not look so much. 
 
 Bess MacAndrew listened with due deference to 
 her aunt's hortatory lecture. She put on her shoes 
 and stockings. Then she went and set all the 
 marbles in a row under the glass case of the clock in 
 the "room," where the new loon could see them, but
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 165 
 
 _ __ ^ ■_■■_■■■•■ m   ■■» u   ^ a^ a h^ a ubmbb»>bbb ^ b^ via 
 
 where, owing to his subordinate position, he would 
 have no right to go. Bess meant to make it interest- 
 ing for the new loon. 
 
 His name was Robert Christie, and he had grown 
 six inches during the year, but his clothes had not 
 accompanied him. His joints looked like knots on 
 beech branches, and his long neck gave him the look 
 of a jack heron that has just alighted. He had a 
 Globe Shakespeare in his pocket, Macaulay's His- 
 tory in his box upstairs, a Milton, and three volumes 
 of the cheap edition of Carlyle (blessed treasure of 
 Providence for boys in their teens during the sixties 
 and seventies!) and, besides these, a Bible which his 
 mother had given him. He had also a change of 
 everything. So he promised his mother to read his 
 Bible. And Rab Christie was a boy of his word, 
 even when he only passed it to himself : much more 
 when he passed it to his mother. 
 
 But the terms of his engagement were unfortu- 
 • nate. In the meantime he was just at Pitlarg on 
 trial, and the master was from home for the day. 
 He was to cut thistles at a penny an hour, and after 
 a week's experience at his work William MacAn- 
 drew would tell the new loon whether he wished him 
 to remain. He had thus come in between terms, ow- 
 ing to Pate Tamson, the late Pitlarg boy, running 
 away to join the play-actors, with whom he learned
 
 1 66 Love Idylls 
 
 to swing naphtha lamps and sleep on a sack, instead 
 of playing Hamlet as he had expected. So Robert 
 Christie had his comfortable bed in the stable loft 
 and reigned in his stead. 
 
 But for all that it was not yet decided whether the 
 new loon was to stop about the place. 
 
 William Mac Andrew, decent man, came home 
 from the town over in the afternoon, and took a 
 walk round the fields (he called it "a dawner") to 
 see how things were going. He looked over the 
 croft dyke to observe how the new loon was con- 
 quering the thistles at a penny an hour — and good 
 money. The new loon was reading Measure for 
 Measure at a penny an hour, prone on his face, with 
 his ragged straw hat over his eyes and his feet from 
 the knees flailing in the air to warn off the flies. 
 
 In a moment the scene changed to "The Tem- 
 pest," and that without warning. William Mac- 
 Andrew was a decent man and quiet, but this was 
 too much for him. 
 
 "Aye, my man," he said, "an' what's this o't ye 
 are at? Is this cuttin' my thistles, ye lazy whalp? 
 D'ye ken what comes o' cheatry? D'ye ken whaur 
 cheats gang to?" 
 
 "My mither says they gang to be drovers an' 
 packmen, an' mak' sillar like slate stanes!" said the 
 new loon. "But if ye please, Pitlarg, I'm no a cheat,
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 1 67 
 
 though I was readin' my buik for a meenit. See, I 
 hae my faither's watch, an' I was readin' juist five 
 meenits by it. Then I wad gang screevin' ower the 
 field and cut doon the thistles like mawin' meadow 
 hay. Yince roond and come back for five meenits 
 mair. Ye see, sir, I mak' up for't, an' it's juist like 
 takkin' a drink!" 
 
 Pitlarg smiled grimly. 
 
 "An' what micht it be that ye are readin', my 
 man?" he asked. 
 
 "It's Shakespeare, sir," said the new loon with 
 shamefacedness. Pitlarg was an elder, and there 
 was no saying what he might think of Shakespeare. 
 
 "Ay," said Pitlarg, "I was jaloosin'* that it wad- 
 na be your Bible. But ye micht read waur. Let us 
 see. 
 
 The new loon handed him the book. 
 
 "It's ower sma' prent for me!" said Pitlarg, "but I 
 think you and me will fettle fine yet. Only till we 
 'gree aboot a price, I am thinking that we'll work by 
 the piece an' no by the hour. I'll pay ye a penny a 
 rig for the thistles, and then ye can read Shakespeare 
 in your ain time." 
 
 It was a bad, backward year, and Pitlarg was a 
 little anxious about his rent; but he was a hard- 
 working and honest man, and trusted in Providence. 
 
 * Guessing.
 
 1 68 Love Idylls 
 
 For many years he had been harassed by the game 
 of the neighbouring landlords "eating off" him; 
 especially the rabbits and hares from the carefully 
 preserved coverts on two sides of his farm, in which 
 a brace of landlords bred game by the hundred to 
 feed upon his crofts. 
 
 It so happened that Pitlarg' s farm lay by itself, 
 apart from the estate of his own laird, and was sur- 
 rounded by the lands of gentlemen sportsmen, 
 whose grouse fed freely on his stooks, and whose 
 rabbits and hares wasted his turnips. 
 
 But it was the year of the "ground game," and 
 there was a better prospect for the future. Only the 
 two next rent days were hard fences for the farmers 
 of Pitfour to take. 
 
 "The Lord will provide a deliverer," said Pitlarg, 
 with genuine piety. 
 
 And He did — the new loon. 
 
 When Rab Christie came in that night he had 
 done a good day's work on the new terms of work- 
 ing by the piece. He was satisfied with himself, and 
 some sonorous lines from Shakespeare were sound- 
 ing in his head. 
 
 He took his porridge quietly at the kitchen table 
 and looked about him. The mistress was bustling 
 about, clattering dishes. Pitlarg was lying with his 
 In >< »ts off on the sofa in the "room," reading the "wee
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 169 
 
 paper" — lamb sales were his first subjects, then the 
 synopsis of the Rabbits and Hares Bill. 
 
 Miss Elizabeth MacAndrew sat demurely at her 
 uncle's side near the window. She was working a 
 sampler. The new loon looked at her. She had 
 shoes on now, also stockings, and her long legs were 
 crooked up under her chair out of sight. She caught 
 him looking, and put out her tongue at him. Then 
 she pointed out the marbles under the clock-case to 
 him, counting upon her fingers — one, two, three, 
 four, and her thumb for his own stolen "taw," 
 which was a fine sphere of alabaster. 
 
 But the new loon did not even look annoyed. He 
 rose calmly and walked into the sacred "room," 
 where no farm loon had ever been before, except at 
 worship. Bess watched him with stupefaction. 
 Mistress MacAndrew stopped as suddenly as if a 
 hen had flown in her face, and even Pitlarg himself 
 put down his paper and his jaw dropped with won- 
 der. 
 
 Rab Christie calmly lifted the glass shade off the 
 clock, took out the marbles, counted them leisurely, 
 and put them in his pocket. Then he walked back to 
 the kitchen table, and set about finishing his por- 
 ridge. It was some time before the three in the room 
 recovered themselves. The mistress came first to her
 
 i jo Love Idylls 
 
 senses. She had followed the audacious loon to the 
 room door. 
 
 "Hoo daur ye," she said, "to meddle wi' my 
 clock, an' to come ben to my room withoot biddin' ?" 
 
 "They were my bools," said Rab calmly, taking 
 bite and sup time about. 
 
 Bess thought she had never admired any one so 
 much — not even the man at the fair that rode three 
 horses at a time, whose shining example had drawn 
 off Rab's predecessor. 
 
 "Your bools!" said Mistress MacAndrew, gasp- 
 ing; "an' hoo cam' your bools under my crystal 
 clock case, that hasna been lifted or dusted for 
 twenty year?" 
 
 "That," answered the new loon indifferently, "I 
 dinna ken, but they war my bools." 
 
 "Losh preserve us ! that fair cowes Co'en !" said 
 Mistress MacAndrew, holding up her hands. 
 
 But Pitlarg only laughed, and took up his paper. 
 "It's Shakespeare that does it. He's gotten it on 
 him, guidwife! Ye canna help it!" 
 
 "Eh — what? what has he gotten — whatna a 
 trouble did ye say the laddie had on him? Is't smit- 
 table,* think ye. He'll no bide aboot Pitlarg gin it 
 be. Let me see, laddie." 
 
 And the cautious goodwife of Pitlarg, who feared 
 
 ♦Infectious.
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 171 
 
 not the face of man, but stood in deadly terror of 
 "onything smittable," examined Rab Christie's brow 
 and the back of his ears for spots, and his hair for 
 possibilities. 
 
 "Na," she said, "he's clean and weel-keepit, at ony 
 rate. I see nae sign o' trouble aboot the boy. What 
 said ye he had gotten, guidman?" 
 
 "Hoot, nocht ava, mistress; I juist said that he 
 had gotten a Shakespeare," said Pitlarg over his 
 paper. 
 
 "A what, William — I wush ye wad speak plain 
 Scots, an' nane o' yer langnebbit yins. What's 
 Shakespeare? — Is't a swallin' or a 'luppen shin- 
 nin' ?'* I've heard o' folks haein' an income in their 
 knee, an' a brither o' my auntie's had a white swell- 
 in', but never in a' my days did I hear o' ony body 
 haein' a Shakespeare — guidelife, no!" 
 
 "Hoot na, woman: d'ye no ken?" said Pitlarg — 
 who had kept perfectly serious, for he loved to hear 
 the wife talk : "Shakespeare's juist a book." 
 
 "A book ! — guidman, ye are no richt in the mind ! 
 What harm could a book do him to gar him come 
 clamperin' in howking bools oot o' my clock case? 
 Guidman, ye are gettin' to hae less an' less sense in 
 yer auld age." 
 
 "Aweel, aweel!" said Pitlarg good-naturedly, 
 
 ♦Sprung sinew.
 
 172 Love Idylls 
 
 "it's no lost what a freend gets. Ye' re gettin' a' the 
 sense that is aboot Pitlarg, and to them that hae shall 
 be given, ye ken." 
 
 "Lord save us, guidman! did ye ever see sic a 
 boy?" said the mistress of Pitlarg that night, when 
 the new loon had gone off to the stable loft, and 
 Elizabeth MacAndrew was in bed but not asleep in 
 her own room ; "d'ye think that we'll be able to keep 
 him?" 
 
 The goodman, who was sitting having his last 
 smoke before bedding, lifted a glowing peat from 
 the hearth, and fitted the end of it into his pipe, hold- 
 ing that grimy cutty sideways, so that he might be 
 able to survey the operation with a wary eye. Not 
 till his pipe was drawing well did he answer his wife. 
 He was a cautions man, Pitlarg. The operation 
 when thus performed gives time for consideration. 
 Several promising reputations for wisdom have been 
 built up on it. 
 
 "He may do no that ill, gin there's somebody to 
 owerlook his wark." 
 
 "Deed, then, guidman, Pitlarg is the very bit* 
 
 for him. Ye were a graund ower-looker a' the days 
 
 o' ye. There's few in this countryside can keep 
 
 steeks wi' you at a day's gafferin' !" 
 
 Which was Mrs. MacAndrew's way of saying 
 
 *Place.
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 173 
 
 that her husband did not love hard work. Perhaps 
 that might be the reason that there was an anxiety 
 about the rent. 
 
 William MacAndrew did not enter into the sub- 
 ject. Instead he put a new coal in his pipe. 
 
 "He's a guid boy to his mither, an' the herd says 
 that he sees him at his prayers nicht an' mornin'," 
 he said at last. 
 
 Pitlarg wanted the boy to stay, so that he touched 
 his wife's preferences on their weak side, as he well 
 knew how. 
 
 Next morning when the goodwife of Pitlarg came 
 into the kitchen, the new loon came in, and threw a 
 pair of fat rabbits down on a chair. 
 
 "Whar gat ye thae?" said Mrs. MacAndrew. 
 
 "In the kail yaird," said Rab Christie. 
 
 "Deed, aye, they hae been sair on the plants, the 
 vermin ; and they'll mak' a graund denner ; but how 
 did ye get them ?" 
 
 "I made a gin o' a steeker," said the youth, simply 
 enough, but using highly technical language. 
 
 He meant that he had constructed a snare of an 
 old bootlace, and that he had so fixed it with a little 
 fall beneath that the rabbits had committed felo de 
 se. 
 
 "I canna bear skinnin' rabbits," said Mistress 
 MacAndrew. "I wonder wha'll do it for me."
 
 174 Love Idylls 
 
 "Skin the rabbits — that nocht ava," returned the 
 loon, to whom the matter was as simple as peeling 
 a potato. In ten minutes the rabbits were clean and 
 ready for the pot. 
 
 When Bess reached home from school, next day 
 she came into the yard swinging her green bag of 
 books. There were three great beeches standing in 
 the old courtyard, making a dream of rustling 
 leaves, and sprinkling a pleasant shade over the 
 great iron bar to which the horses were yoked when 
 the mill was to be set agoing. As she passed under 
 the trees something fell at her feet, narrowly miss- 
 ing her head. Bess MacAndrew sprang her own 
 length aside, with a shrill cry. There was some- 
 thing moving among the leaves, and that which had 
 fallen at her feet was a book. 
 
 From overhead came the voice of the new loon. 
 
 "Lassie fetch me up that book. It'll save me corn- 
 in' doom" 
 
 "I daresay," said Bess. "Come doon and get the 
 book. It'll save me comin' up." 
 
 "Verra weel," said crafty Rab, "I can do withoot 
 it; but it's juist graund up here!" 
 
 "What are ye doin' there?" continued Bess, stand- 
 ing on tiptoe and peering up. She could see noth- 
 ing, however, except a pair of legs waving in the air. 
 It was certainly very mysterious and attractive.
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 175 
 
 ' "I can see CrifTel an' the three Cairnsmores, an' 
 the dominie at the schule, an' a' the boys playin' 
 'Steal the Bonnets' ! Oh, it's graund !" 
 
 "I wish I could see!" said Bess MacAndrew wist- 
 fully. 
 
 "There's made a bonny seat up here where ye can 
 sit and swing, and the wind rocks ye, an' the leaves 
 birl aboot ye and tell ye stories, an' ye can sit an' 
 read — splendid stories — ghosts and murders and 
 fairies an' " 
 
 "I'm comin' up," said Bess. 
 
 "Wi, than !" said the invisible in the tree; "fetch 
 the book wi ye!" 
 
 Soon Rab and Bess were seated side by side far 
 up in the great beech tree. Rab had fixed a slate in 
 a curious but perfectly safe position between two 
 thick branches ; and, with her back to the main trunk 
 and her feet on a bough, Bess MacAndrew stated it 
 as a fact that she would not call the Queen her 
 grandmother. 
 
 The loon swung beside her in a manner appar- 
 ently far more perilous, but so accustomed was he to 
 arboreal life that he often went to sleep hooked on 
 to three branches like a great grey homespun squir- 
 rel. Perhaps it was heredity that did it. Or more 
 likely adaptation to the habits of Mistress MacAn- 
 drew.
 
 176 Love Idylls 
 
 "Now read me about the murders and the 
 ghosts!" commanded Bess. 
 
 The new loon had never heard of Mr. Lamb's 
 "Tales from Shakespeare," but Bess considered that 
 nothing could beat Rab Christie's. Indeed, the man- 
 ner in which he illustrated his points with quotations 
 and dramatic utterances sometimes threatened his 
 equilibrium. For instance, on the occasion when as 
 Lady Macbeth he endeavoured at once to wash his 
 hands, to balance himself on the top of a tree, and to 
 keep the leaf of the Globe Shakespeare from flap- 
 ping over in the wind, it became necessary for Bess 
 to catch him by the hair and bring him to his poise 
 again with a tug of great dexterity. Indeed, after 
 this she considered it her duty to keep a hand twisted 
 permanently in the crisp curls at the back of his 
 head. 
 
 Rab did not mind at all, except when he wanted to 
 emphasise a striking point in a dramatic way. This 
 somewhat shortened his dramatic tether. Think of 
 Mr. Irving being so controlled ! But Bess would not 
 let go, however interested she might be. She looked 
 upon it as a duty. 
 
 William MacAndrew, on his evening tour of in- 
 spection, turned into the yard a little while after 
 this. He most certainly heard voices in the earth or
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 177 
 
 in the air, but he had not the least idea where to 
 look for Ariel. 
 
 Now, it was the wide-awake Miss Elizabeth who 
 first saw her uncle, and put her hand over the 
 reader's mouth, causing an abrupt hiatus in the 
 drama at the thrilling announcement, "Thrice the 
 brindled cat hath mewed !" 
 
 "Davert!" said William MacAndrew, "but I 
 could hae sworn I heard that boy." 
 
 Two pairs of eyes watched him from aloft. The 
 "hempie" put aside the branches to have a better 
 view. This was as good as hide-and-seek and going 
 to church all in one. But a tell-tale green bag lay 
 on the path. When Elizabeth started to climb the 
 great beech she had not taken her schoolbag with 
 her. Her uncle now found it, and took it in his 
 hand. 
 
 "That careless lassie !" he said, "she never thinks 
 that a' her books cost siller. Let us see!" 
 
 And with that William MacAndrew sat him down 
 on the iron bar of the mill and proceeded to open 
 out Bess's schoolbag of green frieze. 
 
 Up among the tree branches there was an agita- 
 tion. The owner shook with anger and indignation. 
 "The horrid wretch — to open my bag!" she said. 
 
 Uncle William adjusted his glasses and opened 
 the first book. It was a Bible.
 
 178 Love Idylls 
 
 " 'Steal not this book for fear of shame.' Dear 
 me! that's what I wrote on my ain, forty year 
 syne!" said the searcher, not ill pleased. 
 
 He opened another. Various hieroglyphics were 
 drawn over it — ladies of the hourglass-and-parasol 
 persuasion, houses with curly smoke proceeding 
 from all the chimneys, and fronted with gravel 
 walks of alarming precision. 
 
 All was as it had been forty years ago. Children 
 are the true Conservatives : 
 
 "Elizabeth MacAndrew is my name, 
 Scotland is my nashun, 
 Pitlarg is my dwelling-place — 
 A pleesant habitation." 
 
 Uncle William slapped his leg as he sat on the mill 
 bar. He thought this very excellent poetry indeed. 
 And truly the sentiment was unexceptionable. It 
 beat Shakespeare for real contentment. 
 
 But the author was exceedingly indignant, 
 though, owing to temporary circumstances, she was 
 unable to state her grievances. The trees rustled and 
 shook irregularly above Uncle William's head, and 
 a leaf or two fell ; but the goodman of Pitlarg was 
 content to think that the wind must be rising, and so 
 read stolidly on. 
 
 He took out next a grimy twist of greyish-brown 
 paper. The trees shook more than ever.
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 179 
 
 Up in the top branches, Bess took the new loon 
 by the collar and said, "Do something to make him 
 stop! Oh, the wretch, the horrid wretch !" 
 
 The new loon at that moment could not think of 
 anything. 
 
 Uncle William looked within the twist of paper. 
 Six bull's-eyes were there, aromatic and exceed- 
 ingly adherent. A paper lay on the top of them. 
 
 Uncle William read aloud, with great apparent 
 enjoyment : 
 
 '"Lisbeth MacAndrew, I luv you — 
 The rose is red, the vilet's blew, 
 Sugar's sweet, 
 
 And so are you ! 
 Wulliam Baittie, wrote with a new pen." 
 
 Up in the tree, Miss Elizabeth MacAndrew was 
 blushing the red of the rose aforesaid. 
 
 "It's that great softie Wull Beattie," she whis- 
 pered. "He's aye slippin' things in my bag when I 
 am no lookin'." 
 
 But the new loon sat a little farther off, in spite of 
 the explanation. 
 
 "I didna ken it was there," said Elizabeth, whose 
 shame was great and real. 
 
 But something else came to light — a brass curtain 
 ring, that Uncle William put upon his little finger.
 
 8o Love Idylls 
 
 Leaning back, he chuckled to himself. He foresaw 
 that in a year or two Pitlarg would be a lively place. 
 
 Up in the tree Elizabeth dug her hands into the 
 side of her companion. "Do something, can ye no, 
 or I'll throw doon your Shakespeare at him !" 
 
 Then the new loon began to call softly with his 
 hand to his mouth. 
 
 Sitting beneath, on the iron bar of the mill, 
 William MacAndrew, who was a little deaf, cocked 
 his ear to listen. Surely he heard the bleating of 
 sheep in distress — the deeper cry of the ewes, the 
 shrill, sweet treble of the lambs. It was not for 
 nothing that Rab Christie had been a gamekeeper's 
 son. There was no sound in nature that with his 
 hands and mouth he could not imitate, and that well 
 enough to deceive the wild things themselves. It 
 was, therefore, easy for him to take in an old farmer 
 rather hard of hearing. 
 
 The impression which Pitlarg got as he sat and 
 listened was that the lambs recently weaned had 
 again got in among their mothers. So he set down 
 the bag where he had found it ; and, taking his staff 
 and whistling on his dogs, he set off briskly up the 
 hill road. Before he was round the corner, Eliza- 
 beth was at the foot of the tree, and had reclaimed 
 her violated treasure.
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 1 8 1 
 
 She shook her clenched fist at her uncle's back as 
 he hastened up the road. 
 
 "Horrid, mean old wretch!" she cried. 
 
 "Eh! what was that ye said?" queried her aunt, 
 at the door. "Ye surely warna' speaking that gate 
 to your uncle, Elizabeth?" 
 
 "It was that new loon," said the ungrateful young 
 lady. 
 
 "Oh!" said the mistress of Pitlarg, satisfied. 
 
 Rab Christie had a fine plan for catching the 
 hares and rabbits which infested Pitlarg from the 
 neighbouring preserves. He first invested a con- 
 siderable sum in the common material for wires and 
 snares. Then he interested his master in the ven- 
 ture. Finally, he excited Miss MacAndrew to such 
 an extent that she petitioned that she might be per- 
 mitted to assist him. Rab was nothing loath. 
 
 So the next night, after her aunt had looked in 
 upon her sleeping-room and seen her wrapped safely 
 up in the bed-clothes for the night, who but the 
 "hempie" stole out fully dressed, raised the sill of 
 her bedroom window, and met Rab at the corner of 
 the byre? There was a sharp chill in the air, and 
 Elizabeth shuddered. The loon of Pitlarg observed 
 this, and threw his coat about the girl's neck, tying 
 it about her throat by the arms.
 
 i 82 Love Idylls 
 
 "Hae, carry that!" he said, handing her a rabbit 
 net. "Ye'll hae mair to carry or ye come hame." 
 So they went out into the grey twilight of the night. 
 
 Soon they were at the march dyke. At every hare 
 run and rabbit track Rab placed a snare, as they went 
 round the irregular marches of Pitlarg. In many 
 cases, so constant was the traffic, that Rab and Bess 
 could hear them being filled up only a few hundred 
 yards from where they were working. Rab made 
 Bess put on a pair of mittens, so that her hands 
 would not touch the snares. It took them two hours 
 to go round. 
 
 Then Rab saw Elizabeth back to her window. She 
 was safe within in a moment. But he never thought 
 of thanking her for coming. The shoe was alto- 
 gether on the other foot, and Elizabeth felt it to 
 be so. 
 
 "May I come an' help ye to bring them hame?" 
 she said meekly. 
 
 "Weel, if ye are wakkin' at five, ye may," said the 
 youth coolly, as he walked away. 
 
 Elizabeth was again at the corner of the barn at 
 five by the clock, and in an hour Rab and she had 
 every snare lifted and nearly a hundred rabbits and 
 hares lying at the barn door. Then Bess slipped 
 quickly to her room, watching her aunt as she went 
 into the byre to milk the cows.
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 183 
 
 "An' what wull we do wi' a' thae?" said the 
 farmer of Pitlarg, in amazement. He had never 
 seen so much fur together in all his life. 
 
 The new loon was practical. 
 
 "Lend me the powny an' the cairt," he said, "an' 
 I'll tak' them to Cairnochan, the game-dealer in the 
 toon." 
 
 He had been at that job before. 
 
 But before he went he made a practical proposal 
 to the master of Pitlarg for a penny for each rabbit 
 that he should catch and get to market. 
 
 So Rab drove off to the town with his loaded cart 
 of ground game. At the gate he passed the game- 
 keeper of the Dullarg estate, who looked curiously at 
 the heap under the sacking. But Rab passed with- 
 out giving him any information. At the town he 
 made a most favourable arrangement with the game- 
 dealer to take all the rabbits and hares from Pitlarg. 
 Cairnochan wanted them to send to Newcastle. 
 They were not poached, but sold altogether "on the 
 square," so Rab got the best price for them. They 
 were to be driven down every morning, that they 
 might be entirely fresh. They were to be exclusively 
 in the hands of Cairnochan, and nothing was to be 
 said to the surrounding gamekeepers. The loon re- 
 turned triumphant. 
 
 So night after night it went on, and day after
 
 i 84 Love Idylls 
 
 day the light cart drove to the town. In three 
 months the rent was paid and Rab was a capitalist. 
 He offered the half of the pennies to his trained 
 assistant, but Bess rejected the offer with scorn. To 
 take money for her help would be to spoil all the ro- 
 mance of the ploy.* 
 
 But the neighbouring gamekeepers waxed sus- 
 picious. They lay in watch, and finally found Rab 
 setting his traps one night. There was a storm of 
 language, but the action was perfectly legal ; and, as 
 Rab put it, it would be years before Pitlarg could 
 trap from the Dullarg and Craigley a tenth of what 
 the game of the Dullarg had eaten off Pitlarg. 
 
 In a day or two there was a wire netting round 
 the better part of the Pitlarg march dyke, and the 
 gamekeepers rubbed their hands. They had done 
 that atrocious new loon at Pitlarg to rights this time. 
 But they did not know that, with a broomstick for a 
 lever, that boy and his capable trained assistant had 
 been at the trouble to raise the netting at all the runs, 
 and engineer passages through the blocking furze. 
 And on the morrow the pile at the barn door was not 
 much less than usual. When Rab is away, Bess can 
 do it herself, for she is not a bit afraid of the brown 
 moor, the colourless night, the dewy fields, or the 
 cries of the wild things on the hills before the dawn- 
 ing comes. 
 
 ♦Adventure.
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 185 
 
 Pitlarg thought, and with good reason, that there 
 never was such a boy, and at last the goodwife 
 agreed with him. Rab had been promoted to taking 
 his meals in the room along with his master and mis- 
 tress, which never boy was allowed to do before. 
 
 By the following autumn Rab had so much money 
 between his wages and his percentage (much in- 
 creased now by the grateful Pitlarg) that he thought 
 of taking a year at college, for the loon who reads 
 Shakespeare has ambitions, and the world does not 
 end for him with rabbit-catching. 
 
 So he went away, and Bess MacAndrew accom- 
 panied him to the gate upon his departure. There 
 was a sense of emptiness somewhere, and her heart 
 was welling rebelliously within her at the desertion. 
 
 "You are glad to go away," she said, scraping the 
 ground with her foot, as they stood before parting at 
 the black gate of the loaning. 
 
 "Yes," said Rab, his heart full of his future, and 
 with the sublime selfishness of youth and excellent 
 intentions ; "yes, ye see I want to get on, Bess." 
 
 ""You are a nasty, horrid, deceitful thing, and I'll 
 never speak to you again as long as I live!" said 
 Elizabeth; and, lest she should ignominiously burst 
 into tears she turned and fled, leaving Rab standing 
 dumbfoundered at the gate, looking after her. 
 
 She ran straight into the byre, and putting her
 
 i 86 Love Idylls 
 
 arms round the neck of her favourite red-and-white 
 cow, she sobbed her girl's heart out, sore and hurt 
 with the cruel desertion of her comrade and com- 
 panion. 
 
 "Love!" she said to herself — "not such a thing. 
 That is all nonsense; but it is a horrid shame of him, 
 all the same." 
 
 The loon meant to come back next year, but the 
 year lengthened into two, and Rab had taken a col- 
 lege bursary and been through three sessions at col- 
 lege before he came back to Pitlarg. He was now 
 twenty, and Elizabeth MacAndrew was nearly eigh- 
 teen. But nothing was changed when he came up 
 the loaning. He was to bide with the MacAndrews 
 all the summer, and help with the hay and harvest ; 
 but he had arranged to have time also for his study- 
 ing. 
 
 The gate was hanging on one hinge when he tried 
 to open it. He resolved that he would come out and 
 mend it at once. The stable was grimy and dull : he 
 would begin to give the whole place a coat of white- 
 wash to-morrow. But the kitchen doorstep was 
 scoured, and the windows winked like jewels. The 
 neglect was only apparent in what had been his own 
 department. He would soon set that to rights. The 
 new loon had come to his own again. But here was 
 some one approaching.
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 187 
 
 A tall and sedate young lady moved towards him, 
 book in hand. She was dressed in black. Rab 
 Christie took off his hat, for amongst other things he 
 had learnt manners in Edinburgh town. The quietly 
 graceful young woman bowed. 
 
 "A visitor!" thought the new loon. 
 
 He came nearer. 
 
 "Mercy me, Bess — I mean Miss MacAndrew!" 
 stammered Rab. 
 
 The young lady extended her hand calmly. 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Christie?" she said, with 
 great self-possession. 
 
 The loon, now come to his regality, only to find all 
 things new, walked through the yard by her side, 
 more dazed than when, in the slumberous summer 
 afternoon of long ago, Mistress MacAndrew had 
 laced his jacket for playing "bools" in working 
 hours, and Bess had run off with the stakes to put 
 them in the clock-case. There, too, was the window 
 out of which she had got to help him with the rab- 
 bits. It was all a dream. This tall young lady never 
 swung her feet over a tree branch, sitting on a slate 
 stool. 
 
 "It is a fine day," she said at last, keeping her 
 eyes demurely on the ground. 
 
 "It is that!" said the new loon, becoming con-
 
 1 88 Love Idylls 
 
 scious of the size of his feet and the fact that his 
 hands hung by his side like hams. 
 
 They passed under the tree of climbing. Its leaves 
 rustled invitingly. Rab sighed as he looked up. 
 Then just for a moment he caught the glint of an- 
 cient mischief in the eye of Bess MacAndrew. 
 
 "Will ye try it, Bess?" he said audaciously. 
 
 For one quivering moment it seemed as if Bess 
 would, but her eye drooped again upon the ground. 
 
 "You will want to see my aunt," she said meekly. 
 
 "Aye!" said Mr. Robert Christie, who had, of 
 course, come so far solely for that purpose. 
 
 They were passing the corner of the hedge in 
 which the hawthorn tree, carefully trained, stooped 
 across and made about them a fragrant dusk of 
 shade. They were going calmly underneath, when 
 the new loon paused to pick a spray. No, he did not 
 stop — he only ceased advancing. With a little sigh 
 Elizabeth MacAndrew ceased also, and reached up 
 to pick another spray. 
 
 "Let me do it," said the loon. 
 
 So Bess let him; but the audacious loon, wicked 
 thoughts working in him, suddenly, and of course 
 unexpectedly, stooped and kissed her. 
 
 For a long moment she stood, four great roaring 
 oceans swirling in her ears. Then the old Bess as-
 
 Love Among the Beech Leaves 189 
 
 serted herself. She gave the loon as sound a cuff on 
 the ear as she would have done before he went away. 
 
 "Now let us go in and see my aunt," she said, with 
 great content. 
 
 So they went in together, but took hands as they 
 went. 
 
 And the rest is an old story.
 
 THE PURPLE MOUNTAINS 
 
 Roger Marchbanks dwelt on a hilltop. She 
 who had once been Alice his daughter abode with 
 her three children in the valley at the hill's foot. 
 And there was bitter anger between them twain. 
 For once Alice Marchbanks had been as the apple 
 of her father's eye, and as he went about his scanty 
 properties he had drawn his coat of grey homespun 
 more closely about him in order that his Alice 
 might be arrayed in garments of the newest and the 
 best, cut after a fashion all undreamed of in the 
 valley of the Dee. 
 
 "And at the first call of the stranger she left me, 
 at the first whistle of his pipe, left me for the son of 
 the man that robbed me of my fair acres, that took 
 from me the dainty Long Croft, the Sandyknowes, 
 bonny with the brairded corn whenever the spring 
 nights lengthen, sweet Nunholm, and the Lady- 
 land, where the white-thorn bushes are dotted like 
 posies about the braes." 
 
 As he spoke thus to himself, Roger Marchbanks
 
 192 Love Idylls 
 
 thrust with his staff's point more deeply into the 
 earth, so that the shod of it delved a series of little 
 wells, into which the spring showers fell and filled 
 them full. 
 
 Roger Marchbanks had been all his life a stern, 
 unworldly man of the simplest nature. As a mid- 
 dle-aged man, he had spent all his affection upon 
 the young wife who had not long outlived the birth 
 of her first child. And more recently, as he grew 
 old, he had watched his daughter shoot up like a 
 tender plant by his muirland fireside. 
 
 He was a Cameronian, and high in the esteem 
 of the faithful — a man wholly without guile, and 
 slow to suspect it in others — even in members of 
 the Establishment. Still less was it likely that 
 Roger Marchbanks would watch suspiciously a 
 fellow-elder of the elect folk. It was in this way 
 that sleek Doctor James Tod, the orthodox physi- 
 cian of Cairn Edward, desiring to set up a carriage 
 and build a house (as well as to obtain money for 
 other purposes less patent to the public), urged it 
 upon Roger Marchbanks, of Lochryan, to set his 
 name to certain documents written upon stamped 
 paper. It was a form — nothing more, he told 
 him. And between the diets of worship one Mon- 
 day, after communion, Roger wrote his name 
 twice, and immediately forgot all about it.
 
 The Purple Mountains 193 
 
 "Honour the physician," he said, as he laid down 
 the pen gravely, "with that honour which is due 
 unto him because of necessity : for the Lord hath 
 created him." 
 
 "Amen !" said James Tod sanctimoniously, for 
 he thought that the words came from Holy Writ — 
 as indeed they did, though not from the portion of 
 that Writ included between the boards of his 
 Bible. 
 
 But if the Lord had created James Tod, the devil 
 had certainly taken him in hand shortly after, and 
 never again removed his power far from him. 
 
 For, suddenly, with the flaming exposure of an 
 evil life, double as a serpent's tongue, James Tod 
 disappeared, and with him most of Roger March- 
 banks' fair patrimony. The old "bonnet laird" saw 
 the fields pass from him, concerning which his 
 father had spoken words solemn as a National 
 League to him. "Six hundred years have they 
 been in the hold of the Marchbanks. Keep them 
 for your children like a covenant of the Lord." 
 
 So into the breast of the old man there entered 
 such a hatred of James Tod and all his works that 
 his black prayer for the destruction of the accursed 
 stock came between him and his God, and his ven- 
 geance breathed from him like a psalm of David. 
 
 When the destruction delayed, he felt justified in
 
 194 Love Idylls 
 
 asking, Could there be a God of doing justly and 
 a God of withholding punishment? If God were 
 the jealous God, concerning whom Roger March- 
 banks had been taught, would He not ere now have 
 cut down the wicked, as Roger had himself up- 
 rooted the stubborn whin roots out of the fair acres 
 of the Ladyland? 
 
 It was this time that Roger Marchbanks' only 
 daughter, Alice, chose for running away to marry 
 Allan, the son of Doctor James Tod. True, they 
 had loved one another ever since they had been 
 young lad and lass, linking together lightfoot on 
 the sunny leas which the ill-doing of the father of 
 one of them had reft from the father of the other. 
 Allan Tod had, to the knowledge of all, had no part 
 in his father's iniquity. But Roger Marchbanks, 
 as might have been foretold of him, cursed the 
 young pair with the Cameronian equivalent for 
 bell, book, and candle. 
 
 But Allan and Ailie had expected nothing better. 
 Allan Tod had nothing for it but to set up as a 
 solicitor in a small town, where already there were 
 lawyers to spare. And for seven years he kept his 
 head well up in the unequal struggle. For his 
 father's ill-name and his wife's ill-health both 
 weighed upon him.
 
 The Purple Mountains 195 
 
 "He comes o' a bad stock," said the curious folk 
 of the Ferrytown. 
 
 Nothwithstanding all this, when Allan Tod died 
 in the eighth year of their marriage, he left Ailie 
 Marchbanks and her three bairns none so ill pro- 
 vided for. There was an insurance on his own 
 life, which oftentimes it had gone hard with him to 
 pay. There was the house that he had built in the 
 Ferrytown, and (a last remnant of his father's 
 holdings) there was the little cottage of Craiglee, 
 on the verge of the property of Lochryan, under- 
 neath the hill, at the top of which Roger March- 
 banks dwelt. 
 
 It was to the latter that Ailie retired. She could 
 easily dispose of the red free-stone house near the 
 railway station of the Ferrytown, for luckily houses 
 of that size happened to be scarce that year. So to 
 Craiglee, the whitewashed cottage under the 
 shaggy brow of Cairn Ryan, Ailie went and nestled 
 down with her brood of three. 
 
 The first night, after Miriam and Gregor and 
 little Rob had all been long laid down to sleep, the 
 young widow went herself quietly to a window that 
 gave upon the hill. It was at the corner of the 
 children's sleeping-room, and she listened intently 
 for their breathings, as only a mother does, before 
 she entered. But as she came half-way across the
 
 196 Love Idylls 
 
 floor, she saw something at the window which 
 made her heart spring within her. A small, white- 
 robed figure was kneeling on a chair. Ailie 
 Marchbanks laid her hand on her side, and 
 stopped with a short, gasping indraw of her breath. 
 
 "Mother !" said the figure at the window. And 
 in a moment Ailie the widow was herself again. 
 She had thought for a moment that the white- 
 sheeted figure might portend some ill to her treas- 
 ures. 
 
 "Miriam," she said, "what are you doing there? 
 Why are you not in bed?" 
 
 "Mother," said the little lass, "there is a star up 
 there; I have been watching it. It burns so 
 steadily, brighter than all the rest. See, mother, 
 just by the edge of the wood." 
 
 Ailie, the widow of Allan Tod, looked forth. 
 And lo, in a moment she became again the daugh- 
 ter of Roger Marchbanks the Cameronian. For 
 that was the light in her father's sitting-room 
 window. And even as she looked, the shining 
 light went down to a pin-point. It was her father 
 "taking the book" up at Lochryan. When he had 
 done with the reading of Scripture, and ere he 
 kneeled to begin the prayer of intercession, very 
 reverently it was his custom to turn the lamp low. 
 Those who knew not the spirit of the man and of
 
 The Purple Mountains 197 
 
 the people might have supposed that the thing was 
 clone from motives of economy. But the wiser 
 knew that it was a part of the Cameronian worship, 
 and betokened the chastened light which shone 
 upon the spirit, and the shutting out of earthly 
 things ere the soul of man ventured into the im- 
 mediate Presence. 
 
 So even as Ailie looked, the light went down. 
 And she read the meaning of it as well as if she had 
 been up there. Her father's silver-rimmed spec- 
 tacles were lying at that moment upon the closed 
 Bible. He was kneeling at his great oaken chair 
 in prayer. Yet she felt that her father could pray 
 no real prayer that night, for the forgiveness of 
 others' trespasses for Christ's sake had no part in it. 
 
 "It is a bonny star!" said little Miriam Tod; "I 
 wish it would shine brightly again." 
 
 And even as she spoke Roger Marchbanks rose 
 from his praying unsatisfied, and his lamp went up 
 again. 
 
 Down in the children's room at Craiglee a little 
 white-clad figure danced and clapped hands. 
 
 "The star is shining again," she cried. And her 
 mother prayed long and quietly by her side. 
 Meantime, up in the house on the hill, Roger 
 Marchbanks thought a long time on his daughter 
 ere he took his lonely candle and paced sternly
 
 198 Love Idylls 
 
 along the echoing passages to his room. But yet 
 a while God hardened his heart until it should be 
 the time of the latter rain. 
 
 The next day Ailie was walking along the wood- 
 land paths near the top of the hill, and for a while 
 she stood wistfully by the open gate through which 
 the road led to the house of Lochryan. It was an 
 old gate, once painted blue, and she knew exactly 
 the way it had of lurching to the side when you 
 swung too far back on it. Gregor and little Bob 
 ran here and there by her side, toddling and pulling 
 flowers. But light-foot Miriam scoured the woods 
 in search of rarer blossoms and wilder adventures. 
 
 As Ailie Marchbanks stood regarding, her father 
 came striding solemnly up a by-path to the blue 
 gate, and without a word or a look he shut it in her 
 face. Then he turned away towards the house of 
 Lochryan, and not a quiver of his eyelids betrayed 
 that he had seen his only child. 
 
 But ere he had gone a dozen yards he met little 
 Miriam coming flashing like a winged fairy along 
 the sunlit spaces. 
 
 "See, mother," she was crying, "I have found the 
 beautiful flower that you love. At sight of the tall, 
 stern, grey-headed man with the blue coat and the 
 broad buttons upon it she stopped short. Also 
 she saw in a moment that the gate was shut. But
 
 The Purple Mountains 199 
 
 it was not Miriam's way to be afraid of anything 
 that lived. "Open the gate for Miriam, kind man- 
 nie," she said imperiously, "and I was give you 
 flowers — nice, nice flowers." 
 
 Roger Marchbanks dropped the sternness of his 
 glance upon her. It might as well have been warm 
 sunshine. He frowned a little at her familiar 
 words. He might just as well have smiled. 
 
 Perhaps that was the reason why he turned 
 abruptly, and with measured footsteps paced back 
 again to the gate, opened it and stood aside like a 
 courteous gentleman to let the little maid pass. 
 
 As she went out she thrust a handful of flowers 
 into his hand. 
 
 "Thank you, kind mannie," she said; "here are 
 the nice flowers I promised you." 
 
 Roger Marchbanks resumed his sedate walk 
 towards his lonely house of Lochryan. The flow- 
 ers were still in his hand when he arrived at the 
 turn of the avenue where his daughter Ailie used 
 in old days to come running to meet him. He 
 looked at the blossoms between his fingers. 
 
 "Forget-me-not !" he said bitterly. 
 
 And with that he took little Miriam's flowers 
 and cast them from him as far as he could into the 
 wood. 
 
 The young widow wept silently as she went
 
 2oo Love Idylls 
 
 homeward. But Miriam danced like a snowflake 
 every way about the copses, and ran races with 
 Gregor, shrieking with laughter, till the blackbirds 
 in the hedges shrilly scolded at the unseemly riot. 
 
 That night, as Miriam was saying her prayers in 
 the window, and her mother was putting Gregor to 
 bed, the child stopped in the midst of her petitions. 
 
 "O mother," she cried, with wonder in her voice, 
 "come and see; the star up yonder has broken loose 
 and lost its way." 
 
 "Nonsense, child! Say your prayers and get 
 into bed out of the cold," said her mother. But 
 all the same she went to the window, and saw that 
 there was a light flickering hither and thither along 
 the hillside. 
 
 Up aloft, under the scattered leaves at the home- 
 ward end of the avenue of Lochryan, an old man 
 was wandering about with a lantern, holding the 
 light near the ground. It was Roger Marchbanks. 
 
 "Hae ye lost your pocket-book?" said his grieve 
 to him, after watching him for a little, "an' can I 
 help ye to look for it?" 
 
 "Go to your bed and be ready to rise betimes to- 
 morrow morning. That will fit you better!" said 
 his master, shortly. For the grieve was no early 
 riser. 
 
 It was quite half-an-hour after before Roger
 
 The Purple Mountains 201 
 
 Marchbanks found what he had been seeking — a 
 handful of scattered Forget-me-nots thrown over 
 the avenue hedge and scattered athwart the dewy 
 grass. He carried them tenderly home and placed 
 them, all wet as they were, within the covers of the 
 familv Bible. 
 
 From that day, though Roger Marchbanks 
 never spoke to his daughter nor she to him, little 
 Miriam was often to be seen with her hand in her 
 grandfather's, tripping and dancing by his side, her 
 tongue running all the time like a mill-hopper, and 
 her clear laughter plashing like water over a weir. 
 
 But there came a day — a day that shall not soon 
 be forgotten on Lochryanside, and up to the hill- 
 top, where sits the lonely house of the March- 
 banks. A runaway horse, frantic with the clatter 
 of the broken shafts behind him and the thresh of 
 trailing harness, tore round a corner upon the 
 children as they played together. Miriam sprang 
 to draw little Bob out of danger. But a hoof 
 struck her even as she clutched him. And so they 
 brought the young child home and gave her to 
 her mother. 
 
 It was by the window that looked upon the 
 western sea that they laid her down, and she lay 
 there a little time silent and very white. But 
 by-and-by there came the morning and the dawn.
 
 202 Love Idylls 
 
 For it was June, and the daysprings are early 
 then. 
 
 "Look, mother,"said Miriam, "look out of the 
 nursery window for me, and see if there is any star 
 on the hill to-night?" 
 
 "No, no, Miriam," whispered her mother; "hush 
 thee, dearest, and rest, for the stars are long ago 
 gone to bed." 
 
 "But go and look, mother," said the child. 
 
 And her mother, willing to pleasure her in all, 
 went. And lo, as she looked, she was aware of a 
 tall figure like a grey shadow, that stood under the 
 tree by the gate, and looked steadfastly towards the 
 house. 
 
 It was her father, and Ailie's heart stood still. 
 
 She went back. 
 
 "Well, mother, did you see the star?" 
 
 "Childie," she said, bending over the cot, "there 
 are no stars. It is coming bright day." 
 
 "And did you see nothing, mother?" persisted 
 Miriam. 
 
 "I saw a man standing by the gate." 
 
 "Mother," said the little one, "lift me up in bed 
 a little wee bit." 
 
 Propped on pillows she looked out over the sea. 
 A light sprang to her face as she gazed. "Mother," 
 she said in a hushed, eager voice, "why did you
 
 The Purple Mountains 203 
 
 never show me the purple mountains over the sea 
 before? Was I never awake at this time before? 
 See, they are over yonder. The sun is shining so 
 bright upon them. Look, look quickly, mother 
 dear." 
 
 And a cry sprang from the mother's heart as she 
 looked, for there were no hills for many a 
 thousand miles across that wide western sea. 
 
 "There are no mountains there, my lamb," she 
 said; "only the sea as it has always been. Lie 
 down now and sleep, dear one." 
 
 "But, mother," said Miriam, "I see them; I see 
 them so plainly. It is a fine morning there, and 
 all the children will be going out to play and gather 
 the flowers. Let me get up too, mother, and go 
 out with the others to pick the flowers on the 
 purple mountains." 
 
 And her mother hid her face very deep in the 
 pillow. 
 
 There stole a little hand to her head. 
 
 "That was grandfather's step on the gravel by 
 the gate," she said. "Go out and fetch him in. 
 Say little Miriam wants him. Perhaps he will see 
 the purple mountains !" 
 
 And without a word her mother went. And 
 without a word the old man came in. Father and 
 daughter stood at opposite sides of the bed.
 
 204 Love Idylls 
 
 "Look, grandfather," said Miriam. "Isn't it 
 funny? Mother says she cannot see the purple 
 mountains over the sea there. And I see them so 
 plain. Why, I can see the sun on their tops, and 
 the little dimply valleys where the children play, 
 and the woods. Oh, I can almost hear the birds 
 sing. There are no sick children or sad folk any- 
 where. Look over the sea, grandfather, and tell 
 me if you can see the purple hills with the sun 
 shining on them. You will tell me true, won't 
 you, grandfather?" 
 
 And she took the old man's hand. He stooped 
 gravely over the bed, and his eyes followed along 
 the direction of her finger. 
 
 "I see them," he said. "I see them plainly, little 
 Miriam." 
 
 She clapped her hands and cried aloud, "I knew 
 you would, grandfather. Now, mother, you see." 
 
 Miriam reached up a hand to either side of the 
 bed. 
 
 "Mother," she said, "it is growing a little dark 
 again; I cannot find your hand — give it to me into 
 mine." She had taken the old man's hand already. 
 
 "Grandfather," she said, "take mother to the 
 window and let her see the purple mountains. She 
 cannot see them by herself!" 
 
 And father and daughter withdrew to the win-
 
 The Purple Mountains 205 
 
 dow, and clasped each other for the first time in 
 ten years. 
 
 But when they turned, little Miriam had gone 
 out to play with the other children upon the purple 
 mountains far beyond the sea, whereon the sun- 
 shine lies for ever and ever.
 
 A GOLDEN MORNING 
 
 Sweetheart and I had had many adventures to- 
 gether, but there was one pleasure which I had 
 hitherto kept to myself with a niggardliness quite 
 unworthy of Sweetheart's broadminded generosity : 
 I had never yet let her see the sunrise. 
 
 Now, I am a professional seer of sunrises, not 
 having missed above a dozen or so in as many 
 years. There were few tales that Sweetheart likes 
 so well as to hear me tell of some of these in various 
 quarters of the world. 
 
 "Tell about the man in Africa what wouldn't put 
 the photograph box on his camel ! No, that isn't 
 the way — it begins, 'His name was Muhmmed Ali 
 Mustapha Ibharim el Raschid' — yes, indeedy, you 
 said so last time, and you mustn't make it up as you 
 go along, but tell it right." 
 
 Or it might chance to be, "The story of the man 
 who climbed the cocoanut-tree to get you some 
 milk when you were thirsty — or, no, about how
 
 208 Love Idylls 
 
 Dog Royal took you in swimming and made you 
 play truant. That is the best of all !" 
 
 "Sweetheart," said I, with a sudden flash of reck- 
 lessness at the sight of her bright face, "if it is a fine 
 morning to-morrow AND you go to sleep early 
 to-night AND you are a good girl all day AND 
 you promise that you won't tell " 
 
 "Yes — yes, father — I will — I mean I won't — tell 
 me what it is we are going to do and I'll be as 
 good, as oh — that!" 
 
 And Sweetheart opened her arms to their fullest 
 extent in order to express the measure of her 
 goodness. 
 
 "Perhaps— I don't say I will. But if " 
 
 "Get on, father. You speak so slow when a 
 little girl is waiting!" 
 
 "Perhaps to-morrow you might see a sunrise for 
 yourself!" 
 
 "OO-oo-ooh! can I? I wish it were now, I 
 shan't never sleep — not a wink, with thinkin' 
 about it!" 
 
 "But you must, or I shall not take you. So be 
 calm!" 
 
 "Shall I ever be as calm as you, father? You 
 don't really care for sweets or bread and sugar, or 
 gooseberry tart, or candied cocoanut, or anything 
 just dreadful nice."
 
 A Golden Morning 209 
 
 Sweetheart and I were away for a little cheap trip 
 on our own accounts. Our shining steed, a tri- 
 cycle emphatically built for two (Sweetheart being 
 a gentlewoman passenger), was being oiled up and 
 its chain mended in the blacksmith's shop down in 
 the village. It was very nearly the prettiest vil- 
 lage in Scotland, where there are, out of Fife and 
 Galloway, not many pretty villages. I love to call 
 it Whinnyliggate, and Sweetheart likes to think 
 that "Mr. Father" went to school down there in 
 that little low school-room with the wall round it. 
 
 The adventure came off just as it was planned, 
 which things very seldom do in this world. Sweet- 
 heart had been "good" (but not too good). It was 
 a fine morning, flattering the turnip-shaws as well 
 as the mountain tops — the sort of morning you 
 want to drink, and then smack your lips and say, 
 "How refreshing!" 
 
 I waked Sweetheart by rolling her up in her 
 blanket and carrying her to the window. 
 
 "Oh, father," she said, her eyes still dusked with 
 sleep, "is it review day?" 
 
 For whenever she is waked suddenly and taken 
 to the window she always thinks that it is to see the 
 soldiers pass, as she does once a year when in mid- 
 summer the volunteers march through our village
 
 2 1 o Love Idylls 
 
 (our real for-true home village) on their way to 
 summer camp. 
 
 "No, Sweetheart," I say. "It is morning and 
 you are going out to see the sun rise. But don't 
 make a noise. Nobody will be up for hours yet, 
 and so we must go out on tiptoe !" 
 
 Sweetheart is dressed to the accompaniment of 
 little gurgles of sound expressive of intense de- 
 light. Sometimes when I have a safety-pin in my 
 mouth she would give my arm a quick impulsive 
 hug, and say, "De-e-ear father!" for no particular 
 reason except that she considered her own a par- 
 ticularly nice thing in fathers. 
 
 When all was finished, we began a raid on the 
 pantry with enormous caution (Indians on the war- 
 trail !) and captured bread, butter, and slices of 
 ham sufficient for half-a-dozen sandwiches. Pres- 
 ently we were outside the door, and the dewy cool- 
 ness dropped upon us like the first dip in the sea. 
 
 "It's like having your face washed without 
 water!" said Sweetheart, as we made our way up 
 the garden walk between the gooseberry bushes 
 and over the wall. Here I mounted Sweetheart on 
 my shoulders, for the big grass was long and dewy. 
 Bees big and brown were already booming in the 
 foxgloves, and pearls sparkled on the gossamer 
 suspension bridges that spanned the path. The
 
 A Golden Morning 211 
 
 swifts were busily arranging their family affairs in 
 long screaming swoops. A little breeze came to 
 ns filtered through miles of dewy woodland. It 
 was a good breeze and smelt of many pleasant 
 things. Sweetheart on my shoulders clutched my 
 hair and gave it little involuntary tugs as she 
 looked all round the horizon. We were mounting 
 the heathery hillside, and there was no trace of the 
 sun to be seen anywhere. 
 
 I think that, even at the last moment, Sweet- 
 heart expected that he might outwit us. But no, 
 he had not stolen a march upon us this time. Only 
 away to the east there was a kind of fire-coloured 
 wash in the hollow between two hills. 
 
 "I know," said Sweetheart, who always ex- 
 plained everything, "that's his bath getting ready 
 for him. He's going to pop up just there !" 
 
 I think she expected the sun to shoot suddenly 
 upward like a shuttlecock well hit. At last we had 
 climbed high on the hill-crest where the rocks were 
 dry and crisp for the feet. I set Sweetheart down. 
 The wash of fire had grown rapidly larger. It 
 spread to the higher clouds, which were flaked with 
 sea-shell pink. Bars of crimson gathered across 
 the sun's path — "as if the horrid things would 
 keep him down if they could !" she said. Then she
 
 212 Love Idylls 
 
 grew a little frightened at the image she had con- 
 jured up. 
 
 "But they won't— will they, father?" 
 
 This little girl has always a fear lest some great 
 pleasure, long looked forward to, should escape her 
 at the pinch. Presently a new terror struck her. 
 
 "Does he go off with a bang — like the gun on 
 the Castle at lunch-time?" she asked, and she 
 caught my hand and held it very firmly to be ready 
 "in case." 
 
 I reassured her on this score and we waited. 
 We had not, however, long to wait now. A red 
 rim, a sort of hush as the hilltop whirled into the 
 westerly-bound wave of light, our shadows rushing 
 out thirty yards behind us — and the sun rose. At 
 the same moment a black cloud of rooks was flung 
 high into the air from the woods about the hall, and 
 drifted noisily away towards the turnip-fields. 
 
 Sweetheart did not say a word till all was over, 
 then she drew a long long breath of raptest 
 pleasure. 
 
 "How quietly he does it !" she said. 
 
 I could not help it — I never can when Sweet- 
 heart speaks like that. I am bound to improve the 
 occasion. It must be some of the Westminister 
 Catechism in my blood — the "Reasons Annexed" 
 as it were.
 
 A Golden Mornin 
 
 g 2I 3 
 
 "All the great things in the world are quiet," I 
 said very sententiously — "dawn, spring, sleep, 
 love" — (I was going to add death, but refrained). 
 
 "But the birds sing," objected Sweetheart in a 
 cavalier manner, "and please, if you don't mind, so 
 would I. I didn't have time to say my prayers this 
 morning, you see. So this is instead." 
 
 "You can say them now," I suggested. 
 
 "No-o." Sweetheart gave the matter due con- 
 sideration. "No — but I'll sing a little song in- 
 stead!" 
 
 "And what shall it be, Sweetheart?" 
 
 Sweetheart paused, finger on lip, telling over, 
 as I thought, her roll-call of morning hymns. 
 
 "I think 'Bonny Dundee' is best!" she said at 
 last. 
 
 Alas ! that such a thing should be in a Round- 
 head and Covenanting household ! But certain it 
 is that Sweetheart's prayers were compounded for 
 by the stirring strains of Sir Walter's ballad. 
 
 To the Lords of Convention 'twas Claverhouse spoke, 
 
 Ere the King's crown shall fall there are crowns to be broke ; 
 
 So let each cavalier who loves honour and me 
 
 Come follow the bonnet o' bonny Dundee. 
 
 After all it did not greatly matter. The child's 
 voice carried the intent of worship where many 
 matin hymns do not reach.
 
 214 Love Idylls 
 
 "And now," said Sweetheart, with a sharp stop, 
 'Tse hungry." 
 
 We sat down by a crystal spring in the high 
 brave morning air, and never did breakfast taste 
 better. We took bite about of the sandwiches, 
 and when it came to drinking-time I hollowed my 
 palms and Sweetheart drank daintily out of that 
 cup as a bird drinks at a fountain edge. 
 
 Then we went down, shouting aloud to awake 
 the mountain echoes. The great things of the 
 world are quiet. But we did not want to be great, 
 only to be happy. So we climbed into the road, 
 with its fine dust drenched and laid with the dew. 
 
 At the turn of the road, on a little patch of grass, 
 a tramp family had encamped. There was a father, 
 a mother with a young baby that wailed upon her 
 breast, and a little girl who rose at sight of us and 
 ran towards Sweetheart. 
 
 "We are awfu' hungry," she said; "we have had 
 nothing to eat since yesterday morning." 
 
 "The shops are not open," said Sweetheart, 
 rising to the occasion, "but come with me and I'll 
 steal you something out of the pantry. Father 
 won't tell !" 
 
 This shows how badly Sweetheart has been 
 brought up, and how little she thinks of a parent's 
 honesty.
 
 A Golden Morning 215 
 
 So the ragged little girl trotted along after us, 
 Sweetheart looking over her shoulder every now 
 and then with a reassuring air, as much as to say, 
 "He's all right. He looks very imposing, but, 
 bless you, it's all put on !" 
 
 In this manner we came to the house of our 
 lodgment. The door was as we left it. Not a soul 
 stirred within. This was strange. It seemed the 
 middle of the forenoon to us. Sweetheart entered, 
 and after a while emerged with the ham bone, 
 knuckly, but in spots capable of repaying atten- 
 tion. To this was added half a loaf, a large pat of 
 butter, and an unopened tin of caviare — all the 
 necessaries and luxuries of life. 
 
 "Now, can I give the little girl my Saturday's 
 money? Let me, father!" she pleaded. 
 
 And whatever was thought by the Recording 
 Angel of "Bonny Dundee," considered as a morn- 
 ing hymn, there can be no doubt of his opinion of 
 this act of worship. For Sweetheart had cast into 
 the treasury all that she had. 
 
 But as she watched the small tramp rush off with 
 the ham bone and the loaf against her breast, and 
 the sixpence of sterling silver clutched in her palm, 
 Sweetheart heaved a long sigh. 
 
 "And I did so want a new dolly's bonnet for 
 Isobel !" she said.
 
 BILLIAM 
 
 "No, father," said Billiam, with decision; "I am 
 not half good enough to make a parson of. You 
 must give the living to Harry. He will make a first- 
 rater. He is all the time mousing about among 
 books !" 
 
 Billiam and his father were standing together in 
 the rectory garden, which looked over the beautiful 
 vale of St. John. Helvellyn slept above them, 
 stretched out like a lion with his head low between 
 his paws. The lake glimmered beneath all, dreamy 
 in the light midsummer haze. Bees hummed in the 
 old garden, and the flowers on which they made 
 themselves drunken reeled and shook with the press 
 of the revellers. 
 
 The old rector of Applethwaite was dead. This 
 day of midsummer had been his funeral day. An 
 old man full to the brim of years and dignities, he 
 had lived all his life under the wing of his brother 
 the squire, rooted safely in the family living, dining 
 every Sunday and Thursday at the Hall, and read-
 
 2 1 8 Love Idylls 
 
 ing his hundred sermons in a rotation as settled and 
 regular as that of the crops. But now the old order 
 was changed, and, according to the squire's provi- 
 dential arrangement, the new order was to be — 
 Billiam. 
 
 His real name was William, with something very 
 distinguished after it. Yet nobody thought of call- 
 ing him anything but Billiam — except only the 
 squire when, as at present, Billiam and he differed 
 in opinion. Then he said, "William Reginald Se- 
 toun Ormithwaite, will you dare to disobey your 
 father?" And Billiam hung his head, for he knew 
 that a day was coming when he would. 
 
 At school he had been called Billiam, for the 
 reason that a "Yorker" is called a "Yorker," because 
 it was obvious that he could be called nothing else. 
 The boy whose Latin verses he did said to him, 
 "Now, go on, old Billiam, hurry up ! I want to go 
 out to the playing fields to smite that young toad, 
 Scott minor, for making faces at me and making me 
 laugh in chapel !" So to save time Billiam gave him 
 his own copy of verses, and saw the plagiarist pass 
 to the head of the form next day, on the strength of 
 Billiam's iambics. Yet that boy never even thought 
 of thanking the author and origin of his distinction. 
 Why should he ? It was "only old Billiam." 
 
 Billiam failed also in gaining the love and respect
 
 Billiam 2 1 9 
 
 of his masters, to the extent which, upon his merits, 
 was his due. For one thing, he was forever bring- 
 ing all manner of broken-down sparrows, maimed 
 rabbits, and three-legged dogs into the school — and, 
 if possible, even into the dormitory. Then smells of 
 diverse kinds arose, and bred quarrelsome dissension 
 of a very positive kind. The house-master came up 
 one night to find Billiam with an open knife in his 
 hand, driving fiercely into a throng of boys armed 
 with cricket bats and wickets. Whereupon he 
 promptly dashed at the young desperado, and 
 wrested the knife out of his hands. 
 
 "Do you wish to murder somebody?" cried the 
 house-master, shaking him. 
 
 "Yes," said Billiam stoutly, "if Lowther throws 
 my white mice out of the window." 
 
 No further proceedings were taken, because, upon 
 examination, Billiam proved to be scored black and 
 blue with the wickets of his adversaries. He was, 
 however, from this time forth given a bedroom upon 
 the ground floor, with a little court in front which 
 looked upon the laundry. And here Billiam, still 
 unrepentant, was allowed to tend his menagerie in 
 peace, provided always that it did not entirely de- 
 stroy the sanitation of the school. But when the 
 governing committee came to inspect the premises, 
 the head-master carefully piloted them past the
 
 220 Love Idylls 
 
 entrance of the court wherein dwelt Billiam, keeping 
 well to windward of it. 
 
 Anybody else would have been promptly expelled, 
 but Billiam' s father was a very important person 
 indeed, and the head-master had known him inti- 
 mately at college. Besides, no one could possibly 
 have expelled Billiam. The very ruffians who 
 whacked him with cricket bats would straightway 
 have risen in mutiny. 
 
 By-and-by Billiam's father tried him at Oxford, 
 but, though Billiam stayed his terms, he would have 
 none of it. So when the Rectory fell vacant, it 
 seemed all that could be done to make arrangements 
 by which Billiam would succeed his uncle. The 
 Right Honourable Reginald Setoun Ormithwaite, 
 Billiam's "pater," saw no difficulty in the matter. 
 He had been at Eton and Christchurch with the 
 Bishop of Lakeland, and the matter lent itself nat- 
 urally to this arrangement. Every one felt this to 
 be the final solution of a most difficult problem. 
 Everybody even remotely connected with the family 
 was consulted, and all expressed their several de- 
 lights with relief and alacrity. But in the meantime 
 nothing was said to Billiam, who had a setter with 
 a broken leg upon his mind, and so lived mostly 
 about the kennels and smelled of liniment. 
 
 But when his father told the proximate rector
 
 Billiam 221 
 
 that he must begin to prepare for the Bishop's ex- 
 amination, and go into residence for some months at 
 St. Abb's famous theological college (called in cleri- 
 cal circles ''The Back Door"), Billiam most unex- 
 pectedly refused point blank to have anything to do 
 with the plan. He would be no parson ; he was not 
 good enough, he asserted. Harry could have it. 
 The Right Honourable Reginald Setoun Ormi- 
 thwaite, ex-Cabinet Minister and P. C, broke into a 
 rage almost as violent as when his party leader pro- 
 claimed a new policy without consulting him. He 
 informed Billiam (under the designation of William 
 Reginald Setoun) how many different kinds of fool 
 he was, and told him as an ultimatum that if he re- 
 fused this last chance to establish himself in life, he 
 need expect no further help or consideration from 
 him. 
 
 Billiam listened uneasily, and with a deep-seated 
 regret obvious upon his downcast face. It was piti- 
 ful, he thought privately, to see so dignified and re- 
 spectable a man as his father thus losing control of 
 himself. So Billiam fidgeted, hoping that the pain- 
 ful scene would soon be over, so that he might get 
 back again to the lame setter at the kennels. 
 
 When Billiam's father had at once concisely and 
 completely expressed his opinions as to Billiam's 
 sanity, Billiam's ingratitude, Billiam's disgraceful
 
 222 Love Idylls 
 
 present conduct and unparalleled future career, and 
 when he had concluded with a vivid picture of 
 Billiam's ultimate fate (which was obviously not to 
 be drowned) he paused, partly in order to recover 
 his breath and partly to invite suggestions from the 
 culprit. Not that he expected Billiam to answer. 
 Indeed he held it almost an insult for one of his chil- 
 dren to attempt to answer one of his questions at 
 such a moment. 
 
 "What have you to say to that, sir ? What excuse 
 have you to make? Answer me that, sir. Silence, 
 sir, I will not listen to a single word. You may well 
 stand abashed and silent. Have I brought a son 
 into the world for this — kept you, given you an 
 expensive education only for this?" 
 
 So Billiam kept silence and thought hard of the 
 setter down at the kennels. Those bandages ought 
 to be wet again. It was an hour past the time. He 
 kept changing from one foot to the other upon the 
 gravel walk. 
 
 "Don't insult my by jumping about like a hen on 
 a hot girdle," cried his father; "tell me what you 
 think of doing with yourself, for I will no longer 
 support y<»u in idleness and debauchery." 
 
 "I should like to be a veterinary surgeon, sir," 
 said Billiam, scraping with his toe. 
 
 "Let that gravel alone, will you — a veterinary
 
 Billiam 223 
 
 devil — an Ormithwaite a damned cow doctor ! Get 
 out of my sight, sir, before I strike you !" 
 
 And accordingly Billiam went — down to the ken- 
 nels to visit the setter, wondering all the way 
 whether, as the skin was not broken, he ought to 
 use an embrocation or stick to the cold water band- 
 ages. 
 
 ******* 
 
 And this is briefly why Billiam found himself in 
 Edinburgh, and established in a nest of unfurnished 
 garret rooms which he had discovered by chance at 
 the end of Montgomery Street, in the Latin quarter 
 of the city. Billiam had a hundred and thirty 
 pounds — a hundred of which had been given him by 
 his father with the information that it must see him 
 through a year, and thirty which his elder brother 
 Herbert (captain in the 110th Hussars) had sent 
 him. 
 
 "Young fool, Billiam — always was!" said Captain 
 Herbert; "guess he's pretty tightly off." And with 
 that he stuffed into the envelope the thirty pounds 
 which he had set apart as a sedative for his tailor. 
 
 "The young blackguard will need the money more 
 than old Moses!" said the Hussar. 
 
 Billiam had, to save appearances, compromised on 
 the question of the veterinary surgeon. He was to 
 study hard in order to become an ordinary surgeon
 
 224 Love Idylls 
 
 and physician of humans. He was only to be allowed 
 to come home once a year. He had agreed not to 
 pester his father with requests for more money. In 
 every way Billiam was made to feel that he was the 
 prodigal son and a disgrace to the stock of the Or- 
 mithwaites of Ormithwaite. "One of the families, 
 sir," said his father, "which have constituted for 
 three hundred years the governing classes of these 
 islands." 
 
 So it was in this manner that Billiam took the 
 very modest portion of goods which pertained to 
 him, and departed to the far country of Montgomery 
 Street, South Side, just where that notable thor- 
 oughfare gives upon the greasy gloom of the Pleas- 
 ance. How Billiam spent his living, and upon 
 whom, this history is intended to tell. 
 
 Day by day the student of medicine scorned de- 
 lights. Day and night were to him alike laborious. 
 For Billiam, all unknown to his father, was also tak- 
 ing classes at the Veterinary College upon a most 
 ingenious system of alternative truantry. He at- 
 tended his medical professors upon such days as it 
 was likely that cards would be called for. And in 
 addition to this he procured a certain interim con- 
 tinuity in his studies by "getting a look at another 
 fellow's notes." 
 
 Billiam's "piggery" in Montgomery Street, as it
 
 Billiam 
 
 225 
 
 was called by the few of his comrades who had ever 
 seen its secrets, was something to wonder at. In- 
 stead of taking a comfortable sitting-room and bed- 
 room in a well-frequented and sanitary neighbour- 
 hood, Billiam entered into the tenancy of an entire 
 suite of rooms upon the garret floor of one of the 
 high "lands" which are a distinctive feature of the 
 old quarter of St. Leonards. 
 
 Within this tumbledown dwelling Billiam found 
 himself in possession of five large rooms, with wide 
 windows and in some instances with skylights also. 
 He was to pay at the modest rate of eight pounds in 
 the half-year for the lot. Billiam counted down his 
 first quarter's rent, and went out to order a brass 
 plate. This cost him thirty shillings, and he had to 
 pay separately for the lettering, which said, some- 
 what vaguely: 
 
 CONSULTATION FREE 
 
 EVERY MORNING BEFORE NINE, 
 
 AND 
 
 EVERY EVENING AFTER SIX. 
 
 This Billiam burnished up daily with the tail of 
 his dress coat, which he had torn off for the purpose.
 
 226 Love Idylls 
 
 "I don't think I shall need it any more," he said, "so 
 I may as well use it." 
 
 So he used it. It did very well, being lined with 
 silk. 
 
 Then Billiam double-bolted the plate to the door, 
 for he understood the way of Montgomery Street, 
 and sat down to study the monograph of Herr 
 Doctor Pumpenstock of Vienna upon headaches. 
 
 Billiam had three chairs to start with — two stiff- 
 backed chairs for clients and an easy-chair, which 
 cost 2s. u$d. at a cheap sale of furniture in Nichol- 
 son Street. 
 
 Billiam felt that he might go that length in luxury. 
 
 Billiam had once possessed more furniture than 
 this. He had a wooden bed which he had bought in 
 the Cowgate for 4s. and carried up the Pleasance 
 himself, post by post and plank by plank. He only 
 slept upon it one night. The next day he began to 
 cut it up for fire-wood. It was a good bed though, he 
 said, but not for sleeping on. After the first five 
 minutes it began to bite you all over. 
 
 So Billiam burned the 4s. bed, and it turned out 
 all right that way. It crackled like green wood as it 
 burned. Presently the fame of Billiam's brass plate 
 waxed great in the land. Dr. Macfarlane, a short- 
 winded and short-tempered man, came upon the an- 
 nouncement quite unexpectedly as he was puffing his
 
 Billiam 227 
 
 way up the weary, grimy, stone stairs, to visit the 
 sister of the seamstress who lived upon the other 
 side of the landing from Billiam. 
 
 To say simply that Dr. Macfarlane was aston- 
 ished does considerable injustice to his state of mind. 
 He stood regarding the brightly polished, clearly let- 
 tered announcement for fully ten minutes. Then he 
 rang the bell, and an answering peal came from just 
 the other side of the panel. But no one arrived to 
 open, for it was the middle of the day and Billiam 
 was at his classes. Dr. Macfarlane could learn little 
 from the seamstress or her sister, beyond the general 
 suspicion that their neighbour upon the other side of 
 the landing was "maybes no verra richt in his mind." 
 
 It was not the seamstress, but the seamstress's sis- 
 ter, who volunteered this information. 
 
 "But he sent us in these," added the seamstress, 
 who was a pale and exceedingly pretty girl, pointing 
 to some nobly plumped purple grapes which lay on a 
 plate on the little cracked table by the bedside. 
 
 "He'll be a kind o' young doctor seekin' a job, nae 
 doot!" said the seamstress's sister, sinking back on 
 her pillows. For gratitude was not her strong point. 
 
 The suggestion excited the doctor. For he was 
 a man who had worked hard at his most uncertain 
 and unremunerative practice. Besides which, he had 
 a young family growing up about him. If therefore
 
 228 Love Idylls 
 
 he was to have a young interloper settling in the cen- 
 tre of his sphere of influence, it was as well to know 
 with whom he had to contend. 
 
 So he called upon Billiam. 
 
 It was six o'clock in the evening when Dr. Mac- 
 farlane came stumbling up Billiam's stairs. The 
 door stood slightly ajar, and there came from the 
 other side a confused murmur of voices, a yelping of 
 dogs, with sundry other sounds which even the 
 doctor's trained ear could not distinguish. But 
 above all there rose fitfully the shrill cry of an infant. 
 Upon hearing this last the doctor pushed the door 
 with the brass plate open, and entered unceremoni- 
 ously. He found himself in a large unfurnished 
 room, which, when he stepped within, seemed at first 
 nearly full of people. It was brightly enough lighted, 
 for the broad flame of a No. 6 gas-burner hissed 
 with excess of pressure above the bare mantel-piece. 
 A fire burned in the grate, which shone cheerfully 
 enough, being heaped high with small lumps of coal. 
 
 Most of the people were ranged along the walls of 
 the room, sitting with their backs against the wall- 
 paper, upon which their shoulders had made a glossy 
 brown strip all round — young lads with dogs be- 
 tween their knees, girls holding cats in baskets, mid- 
 dle-aged women nursing birds in cages. 
 
 They talked to each other in subdued tones, or to
 
 Billiam 229 
 
 their pets in whispers. Sometimes a dog would be- 
 come excited by the voice of a cat complaining of 
 bonds and imprisonments near him, but he would be 
 promptly cuffed into submission by his master; or a 
 canary would suddenly flutter against the bars, 
 warned by instinct of the proximity of so many 
 enemies. 
 
 The doctor stood awhile rooted in amazement, 
 and did not even take any notice when several of his 
 former patients nodded affably across to him. 
 
 Presently, from an inner room, there came forth 
 a hard-featured man, carrying a large book under 
 his arm. Billiam followed behind him, his shock of 
 dark hair tossed and rumpled. He was stooping for- 
 ward, and eagerly explaining something to the man. 
 So intent was he upon the matter in hand, that he 
 passed the doctor without so much as noticing him. 
 
 "And I'll look in and see how the pair of you have 
 got on to-morrow," Billiam said, shaking the hard- 
 featured man warmly by the hand at the door. 
 
 Billiam turned, and, for the first time, looked the 
 doctor fairly in the face. 
 
 "My name is Dr. Macfarlane. I have a practice 
 in this neighbourhood," said the physician, "and I 
 should like the favour of a few words with you." 
 
 "Certainly. By all means — with pleasure," re- 
 plied Billiam. "Come this way."
 
 230 Love Idylls 
 
 t. 
 
 . And they went together into the second of the 
 
 Montgomery Street garrets. It was nearly as bare 
 
 of furniture as the first. There was no more than a 
 
 table, some bottles, and an instrument-case, while 
 
 round the room, arranged so as to make the most of 
 
 themselves, stood Billiam's three chairs. 
 
 "Take one," said the student politely. But Dr. 
 Macfarlane preferred to stand till he knew exactly 
 where he was. 
 
 "I have the honour of addressing " he said, 
 
 and paused. 
 
 ''William Reginald Setoun Ormithwaite," said 
 Billiam quietly. 
 
 "You are a doctor?" queried his visitor. 
 
 "By no means; I am only a student," said Billiam 
 quickly. "But I give these people a hand with any- 
 thing they bring along." 
 
 "Do you possess any qualification?" persisted Dr. 
 Macfarlane. 
 
 "Qualification?" said Billiam, a little perplexed. 
 "Well, I 've been patching up dogs' legs and things 
 all my life." 
 
 "But, sir," cried the doctor indignantly, "this is 
 no better than an equivocation. I heard you with 
 my own ears prescribing for the man who went out 
 just now — an old patient of my own. if T mistake 
 not. And I saw you with these eyes taking a fee
 
 Billiam 
 
 231 
 
 from him as he passed through the door. Are you 
 aware, sir, that the latter is an indictable offence?" 
 
 Billiam smiled with his usual quietly infinite tol- 
 erance. 
 
 "Dr. Macfarlane," he said, "it may sound strange 
 to you, but the fact is that man came to consult me 
 about a separation from his wife. And he brought 
 his family Bible out of the pawnshop to show me the 
 dates of his marriage and birth of his children. I 
 gave him something when he went away, so that he 
 would not need to take the Bible back into pawn, at 
 least not immediately. Do you think I need any 
 qualification for that?" 
 
 "And those people outside?" said the doctor, not 
 yet entirely convinced. 
 
 "Will you go round the wards with me?" said 
 Billiam, smiling brightly and irresistibly. 
 
 Without another word he led the way to the door 
 of the next room. It seemed to the doctor fuller 
 than ever. 
 
 "Lame dogs this way!" said Billiam, in a matter- 
 of-fact manner, and half-a-dozen men slouched 
 after him. Very deftly Billiam laid out a row of 
 small shining instruments upon the table, with salve, 
 lint, and bandages arranged behind them. 
 
 Then he took animal after animal into his hands, 
 set it upon the table, passed his fingers lightly to and
 
 232 Love Idylls 
 
 fro over its head and ears a time or two, listened to 
 the owner's voluble explanations without appearing 
 to notice them, and forthwith proceeded to deliver a 
 little clinical lecture. His deft fingers snipped away 
 the matted hair from a neglected and festering sore. 
 He cleaned the wound tenderly, the dog often in- 
 stinctively turning to snap. Yet all the time Billiam 
 never once flinched, but talked steadily, impartially, 
 and sympathetically to the animal and his master till 
 the sore was dressed and the patient redelivered, 
 with all due directions, to his owner. 
 
 Before long Dr. Macfarlane became so interested 
 that he waited while case after case was disposed of 
 with the unerring accuracy of an hospital expert. 
 Sometimes he would instinctively have the lint or 
 the bandage ready in his hand, just as if he had still 
 been dresser at the old infirmary and waiting for 
 Lister to work off his batch. 
 
 At the end of half-an-hour he had no more re- 
 membrance of Billianrs want of qualifications. He 
 asked him to come round to supper and smoke a pipe. 
 But Billiam only smiled and said, "Thank you a 
 hundred times, doctor, but I have some private cases 
 in the back room to attend to yet, and then I must 
 read up my stuff for to-morrow." 
 
 After a while there came to visit Billiam a minis-
 
 Billiam 233 
 
 ter or two familiar with the district, the young resi- 
 dent missionary from the Students' Hall, a stray 
 lawyer's clerk or two — and the superintendent of 
 police. They all came to cavil, but, one and all, they 
 remained to hold bandages and be handy with the 
 vaseline. 
 
 On one occasion the minister of St. Margaret's 
 offered Billiam the use of a pew in his church. But 
 Billiam said, "Sunday is my day for out-patients, or 
 I should be glad." For Billiam was a gentleman, 
 and always answered even a dissenting clergyman 
 politely. 
 
 "You should think of your immortal soul!" said 
 the minister. 
 
 "Who knoweth," said Billiam, "the spirit of the 
 beast, that goeth downward into the earth?" 
 
 And Billiam could never find out why the minis- 
 ter went away so suddenly, or why he shook his 
 head ever afterward when they met in the street. It 
 never crossed his mind that Mr. Gregson, of St. 
 Margaret's, had taken him for an infidel and a dan- 
 gerous subverter of the system of religion as by law 
 established. Yet so it was. 
 
 In due time Billiam's nest of garrets became 
 known as the "Lame Dogs' Home," and grew 
 famous throughout the entire city — that is, the
 
 234 Love Idylls 
 
 southern city of high lands, steep streets, winding 
 stairs, and odorous closes, with their Arab popula- 
 tion of boys and dogs. 
 
 : 'You let that long lanky chap alone," cried one 
 brawny burglar to another, "or I'll smash your dirty 
 face like a rotten turnip. Now mind me! Don't 
 you know the Dog Missionary?" 
 
 Every policeman befriended Billiam, and the 
 greater number of the policeman's ordinary clients. 
 He could often be seen walking along the Pleasance 
 or past the breweries in the Laigh Calton attended 
 by a dozen dogs, which had followed Billiam far 
 from their wonted haunts, on the chance of a word 
 from him, and which departed obediently, if unwill- 
 ingly, when he bade them return to their own places 
 in peace. 
 
 Year by year Billiam studied and practised, never 
 a penny the richer, but more and more loving and 
 beloved. His garret, however, grew somewhat bet- 
 ter furnished. Through the mediation of his sol- 
 dier brother, his father became so far reconciled to 
 him that he increased his allowance. But Billiam 
 lived in no greater comfort than before. He bought 
 a cheap bedstead, it is true, and for a month or two 
 dwelt in luxury, sleeping upon a real mattress with' 
 a clean sheet, and folding his overcoat for a pillow. 
 But even that came to an end.
 
 Billiam 
 
 2 35 
 
 The circumstances were these : 
 
 Billiam had been down at Ormithwaite seeing his 
 father, and his brother (of the noth Hussars) in- 
 sisted upon returning to Edinburgh with him. 
 
 "You'll have to rough it, mind you," said Billiam, 
 warning him. 
 
 "I'm a soldier," said his brother stoutly, "and I 
 guess your hole can't be worse than some places I've 
 put up in." 
 
 "All right," said Billiam, "mind, I've warned 
 you. Don't grumble when you get there." 
 
 So at their journey's end, Billiam opened the door 
 of the garret and invited his brother to step in. A 
 curious damp smell met them on the threshold. 
 "That's all right," said Billiam, reassuringly. "I 
 washed out the whole blooming shop with chloride 
 of lime the night before I came away. It's healthy 
 no end, if it does stink a bit." 
 
 "Maybe," said his brother the Captain, "but it cer- 
 tainly does smell like stables." 
 
 "Well, I'll have the fire lighted, and we'll have 
 some supper before the people begin to come," said 
 Billiam calmly; "you'll be picking these old rags 
 for lint, and laying out the bandages." 
 
 The Captain and Billiam dined upon a rasher of 
 bacon and eggs which Billiam fried in the pan, along 
 with sliced potatoes and butter. The Hussar, being
 
 236 Love Idylls 
 
 exceedingly hungry, thought he had never tasted 
 anything more delicious. 
 
 "They don't do anything like this at the club. It 
 is such a jolly flavour, too, quite unique," he said 
 with enthusiasm; "seems as if it were seasoned with 
 anchovy or some French sauce — quite Parisian, in 
 fact !" 
 
 "Yes," Billiam answered simply, "that is the red 
 herrings I had in the pan last week. With us com- 
 ing in so quick, I hadn't time to clean him out prop- 
 erly." 
 
 The outer room was rilling up all this time, and 
 the yelping, whistling and mewing grew louder than 
 even the cawing of the rooks in the old trees above 
 Ormithwaite. 
 
 "Tarantara! Tarantara!" cried the Hussar 
 cheerfully. "Turn out for kennel parade." And for 
 two hours he was kept busy enough with his lint and 
 bandages. 
 
 "But where does the money come in!" he said, 
 when it was all finished. He was smoking a cigar- 
 ette, and Billiam was polishing up his instruments. 
 
 "Do it for nothing? — don't they even pay for all 
 that vaseline and plaster? You are a blamed young 
 fool, Billiam, and will die in the workhouse." 
 
 Then the Captain yawned a little. "It's too late 
 for the theatre," he said, "even if you knew where
 
 Billiam 237 
 
 one was, which I don't believe. I'm deuced tired, let 
 us go to bed." 
 
 Billiam looked about him doubtfully, and then 
 suddenly threw up his hands with a gesture of de- 
 spair. 
 
 "I forgot, old chap; on my life and honour, I quite 
 forgot. I lent my bed to Peter Wilkins, the water- 
 colour man. He had pawned his to pay his rent, but 
 he thought he could get it out again before I came 
 back." 
 
 "You bet he couldn't," said the Hussar, twirling 
 his handsome moustache; "I've seen that kind of 
 man; there are several in my regiment." 
 
 "Let's go and look Peter up, anyway," said 
 Billiam; "perhaps we can get the bed after all." 
 
 So the Hussar accompanied Billiam through the 
 dimly-lighted streets, under gloomy archways, past 
 great black chasms yawning between lofty houses, 
 till they arrived at the dwelling of Wilkins, "the 
 water-colour man," as Billiam said. It was a room 
 upon the ground floor with a sunk area in front. 
 
 "It does not look promising," said Billiam; "the 
 beast isn't lighted up. I guess old Wilkins is either 
 drunk or has gone to the country." 
 
 "Perhaps he has pawned your bed, too," said the 
 Hussar bitterly. 
 
 Billiam was hurt at the suggestion.
 
 238 Love Idylls 
 
 "Wilkins is a gentleman," he said, "and it was 
 only last week he sent me his Skye terrier for me to 
 doctor up and have all right for him when he came 
 back. Peter isn't the chap to sell my bed and then 
 bilk." 
 
 They tried Wilkins' door in vain, and rang the 
 bell repeatedly without producing the least effect. 
 Apparently others had done the same, for at the first 
 tug the bell-pull slid out about six inches in a silent, 
 uncanny, unattached manner. 
 
 "That's no use," said Billiam; "let's climb up on 
 the railings." 
 
 "Ah!" he cried, as soon as he had mounted him- 
 self upon the area railings, whence he could look into 
 the room of Wilkins, "there is my bed standing 
 against the wall, and the mattress beside it. You 
 see, good old Wilkins is all right. It is a first-rate 
 bed ; better take a look at it, for it is all you will see 
 of it this night." 
 
 "Come doon oot o' that!" commanded a stern 
 voice. "What for are ye loitering wi' intent there 
 for. I'll hae to tak' ye up." 
 
 A portly policeman was standing behind them 
 with much suspicion on his face. Billiam turned 
 himself about quietly. 
 
 "John," he said, "I wish you could get me my bed. 
 I lent it to Peter Wilkins, and his door is locked."
 
 Billiam 
 
 239 
 
 "Guid save us !" cried the policeman, "it's the Dog 
 Missionary. Is that your bed?" he added, climbing 
 up beside Billiam and looking critically at the object. 
 The rays of a gas lamp upon the pavement shone 
 upon it so that it glowed with a kind of radiance not 
 its own. 
 
 "It looks a guid bed eneuch!" the policeman said 
 as he climbed down. 
 
 "Can you not get it for us, John?" repeated 
 Billiam. 
 
 "Dod, sir, I canna do that withoot hoose-breakin', 
 an' I've been thirty years in the force," answered 
 John; "but there's nae doot that the bed's a guid 
 bed." 
 
 And with that he walked heavily away. 
 
 The Hussar stood on the pavement with his legs 
 very wide, and whistled fitfully. 
 
 "Well," he said, "what do you propose to do 
 about it, Billiam? Say, let's both go to a hotel and 
 get supper. Then we can stop the night there." 
 
 Billiam looked at him with a kind of sad reproach 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "You forget," he answered, "that the new collie's 
 bandages must be changed, and the little Yorkshire 
 will need looking to twice or thrice during the night. 
 But you can go, and I'll call round for you in the 
 morning on my way to college."
 
 240 Love Idylls 
 
 "Get out, you raving young idiot ! On my word, 
 I've heard of all sorts of lunatics, but I'm hanged if 
 I ever heard of anybody before gone dotty on beastly 
 stray dogs." 
 
 "And there's the bull with the bad tear on his jaw. 
 I must see that the stitches are keeping and give him 
 some water," continued Billiam meditatively. 
 
 "Of all the fools !" cried the Captain. "Well, come 
 on, Billiam, I'll be your keeper to-night, and see that 
 you get a neat thing in strait-jackets right away." 
 
 And the Hussar strode on with the air of a man 
 who determines to see a desperate venture through 
 to the bitter end. 
 
 They came in time to the corner of Montgomery 
 Street, and again mounted up the crazy stairs. The 
 fire had died down, and when Captain Ormithwaite 
 went to the coal-box, it was empty. 
 
 "Hello, Billiam," he said, "how do you propose 
 to keep us warm all night. Has somebody taken out 
 your coals on loan as well as your bed ?" 
 
 Billiam threw up his hands again with the same 
 pathetic little gesture of despair. 
 
 "I don't know what you'll think of me, Herbert," 
 he said, "but when I went away I gave all I had to 
 the seamstress next door." 
 
 "Well," said the Captain, "go and see if she can
 
 Billiam 241 
 
 give you any back." But at the suggestion Billiam's 
 pale cheek flushed. 
 
 "I can't quite do that," he said, "but I think I can 
 get some. You wait a minute and I'll run down 
 and see." 
 
 Then Billiam proceeded to array himself in an old 
 ulster, remarkably wide and baggy about the skirts. 
 He opened it and showed the Hussar how ingeni- 
 ously he had sewn two large pockets of strong can- 
 vas to each side. 
 
 "I bring home the coals in these," he said ; "isn't 
 it a prime idea ?" 
 
 "Where do you buy them?" asked the Captain. 
 
 "I don't usually buy them," answered Billiam 
 simply, "I pick them !" 
 
 "Pick them and steal them," said Captain Ormi- 
 thwaite. "You young beggar, what would the gov- 
 ernor say if he knew?" 
 
 Billiam looked up a little wearily, as if the sub- 
 ject had suddenly grown too large for discussion. 
 
 "I shan't be very long," he said, and went on but- 
 toning the ulster about his slim young body. 
 
 "In for a penny, in for a pound," said the soldier. 
 "I'll come and help you to steal coals, if I'm 
 cashiered for it." 
 
 Billiam pointed to an old overcoat which hung 
 upon a nail behind the door.
 
 242 Love Idylls 
 
 "That's got pockets for coals and things, too, if 
 you really want to come along," he said, not very 
 hopefully; "but I think you had better look to the 
 collie till I come back." 
 
 "I'm on it," said the Hussar; "it's my night out. 
 Come on !" he cried, pulling at the coat, which 
 threatened to turn out too small across the shoul- 
 ders for him. 
 
 "What a rum smell it has, though !" he added, lift- 
 ing up one of the lapels and sniffing at it. 
 
 "Oh!" said Billiam, "that's only the dogs. Some- 
 times I wrap the worst cases up in it. But it's all 
 right, old chap," he added hastily. "I always dis- 
 infect it carefully." 
 
 They went down the dimly-lighted greasy stairs 
 without meeting a soul. When they arrived at the 
 foot, Billiam turned sharp to the left, and the Hussar 
 found himself in a darkish wide lane, in which were 
 no gas lamps. At the end of the lane was a great 
 coal station, full of wagons and stacks of coal, black 
 and shining, dimly seen between two tall gate-posts. 
 The latest delivery wagons of the day were just 
 leaving the yard on the way to the city coal stores, 
 there to be ready for the morning demand. They 
 rumbled out in a long procession, manned by men as 
 rough and grim and black as the coal they worked 
 among.
 
 Billiam 243 
 
 The coal carters kept up a brisk interchange of 
 compliments with one another, varying this by an 
 occasional lump of coal. Great wedges and nuts of 
 it were also being jolted continually off the carts as 
 they jostled and lurched through the dark and 
 deeply-rutted lane. 
 
 "Come on," said Billiam. 
 
 And he ran off among the grinding wheels, nip- 
 ping up every piece of coal which lay on the road, 
 and pushing it into his ulster pockets with trained 
 alacrity. His brother endeavoured to imitate him, 
 but he was unaccustomed and clumsy, and got but 
 few pieces, and those small. It was interesting 
 work, however, for the wagons surged and roared 
 like a maelstrom between the high walls and the tall 
 houses. The Hussar found that it needed much 
 quickness to seize the prey and bag it, evading, 
 meanwhile, the succeeding carts, which came on at a 
 pace which was almost a brisk trot. 
 
 Presently a huge coal carter, standing up on his 
 waggon, caught sight of the Captain lifting a piece 
 of coal from the side of the road. He sent a missile 
 after him, which took effect just between his shoul- 
 der-blades. 
 
 "Get oot o' that, ye skulker ye!" he shouted. 
 
 Captain Ormithwaite of the 1 10th Hussars sprang 
 toward his assailant to take him by the throat; but
 
 244 Love Idylls 
 
 the watchful Billiam had his brother promptly by 
 the arm. 
 
 "Mind what you are about!" he said. "See; stand 
 in there, and we'll soon get enough to last us three 
 or four days." 
 
 The brothers took shelter in a cellar doorway, 
 both of them grimed to the eyes. Billiam produced 
 a hideous mask out of his side pocket, and put it on. 
 Then he slid off the doorstep and took up his posi- 
 tion on a little mound of hard trodden earth and 
 engine ash. 
 
 "Ho ! Ha !" he cried. "Ye are a set o' dirty, lazy 
 Gilmerton cairters!" 
 
 Every coalman on the waggons leaped up at the 
 word as if he had been stung, and the rain of coal 
 cobs which fell about Billiam was astonishing and 
 deadly ; but by long practice he evaded every one of 
 them, letting some slip past him, and catching the 
 straight ones as cleverly as ever he had done the ball 
 when he kept wicket on the green playing fields. 
 
 Presently the Captain found Billiam, now a very 
 swollen and bulky Billiam, once more beside him. 
 
 "You go and fill up at the back of the mound 
 where I was guying 'em," he said; "there's quite 
 half a ton there." 
 
 And very obediently the Hussar went, with a 
 grim delight in his heart to think of the fit his C. O.
 
 Billiam 245 
 
 would have if he could only have seen him. Pres- 
 ently he had filled up, and, leaving the roar of 
 the coal avenue for the quiet of the house, Billiam 
 and his brother slunk laboriously upstairs to their 
 garret. 
 
 "Lord! shall I ever be clean again?" groaned the 
 Captain, looking at his hands. "To think what you 
 have led an officer of the Queen into — you blessed 
 young gallows-bird, Billiam !" 
 
 "Empty the coals here," commanded Billiam; and 
 his brother poured out his hoard into a large com- 
 partment built beside the window. How Billiam 
 could have carried so great a load was a puzzle, but 
 certainly there could not have been less than a hun- 
 dredweight of coal in his canvas pockets alone. He 
 hastened to fill a pot with water, and in a little while 
 he had a shallow bath full of warm water. This he 
 set out in a corner, behind a screen made of a grey 
 sheet which hung upon a cord. 
 
 "Go in there," he said, "and get yourself cleaned, 
 you horrible Sybarite !" 
 
 When he came back to take his turn at the bath, 
 a fresh pot full of water was ready, and the room 
 was bright and warm. The Hussar had attended to 
 the fire and had swept the floor. The brothers were 
 in the inner room in which Billiam usually camped. 
 There was a sofa in it now.
 
 246 Love Idylls 
 
 "I'll toss you for the sofa, young 'un," said the 
 Captain. 
 
 "Right!" said Billiam promptly. "Tails!" 
 
 "Heads it is!" cried the Hussar with some relief. 
 
 "Glad of that," quoth cheerful Billiam. "I pre- 
 fer the floor anyway. You can make quite a decent 
 thing out of rugs and overcoats. And besides, sleep- 
 ing on the floor makes you so jolly glad to get up in 
 the morning." 
 
 So they turned in and slept the sleep of the just. 
 Billiam was up by daylight and had a cheerful fire 
 burning when his brother awoke. He brought him a 
 cup of tea and told him to roll over again. But the 
 Captain was now wide awake and eager for talk. 
 
 "Why do you keep on at this kind of thing?" he 
 said, "and why don't you buy your coals like an or- 
 dinary being?" 
 
 "Well," said Billiam, "this is the sort of thing I 
 take to, you see. It's interesting all the time. I 
 suck in oceans of learning all day till I'm tight, and 
 then I practise it all the evening. And as for coals — 
 well, sometimes I do buy them. But £150 a year 
 doesn't spread far in rent, classes, and victuals — 
 not to speak of dressings and lint." 
 
 "See here," said the Captain, "I think I could get 
 over the governor to double your allowance. I've 
 been pretty light on him lately, and he thinks me a
 
 Billiam 247 
 
 good little man. If I do, will you leave off pigging 
 up here and live decent?" 
 
 Billiam seized his hand. 
 
 "You are a good chap, sure," he said. ''Try it on 
 the dad, Heb! I could get proper cubicles for the 
 beasts then, an operating table, and perhaps I might 
 even afford to hire a yard." 
 
 The Captain leaped from his sofa and began to 
 pace up and down in his pajamas. 
 
 "Of all the fools God ever made, Billiam, you are 
 the most confounded! Why in creation didn't you 
 settle down and be a proper parson, if you wanted to 
 do all this kind of thing? It makes me sick !" 
 
 Billiam looked at him a while as if for once he 
 would try to explain. But the hopelessness of the 
 task made him turn away sadly. Nobody ever would 
 understand. He must just go on and on, till they 
 put him in a lunatic asylum. 
 
 "See here," he said, "better put on your clothes, 
 Herbert. You'll be sure to catch cold, prancing 
 about there in your night things. And you don't 
 look pretty," he added, looking at him critically. 
 
 "But why wouldn't you be a parson, Billiam? 
 That beats me dead. You're just the sort of soft 
 chap for a parson." 
 
 "Stuff!" said Billiam; "who ever heard of a par- 
 son just for splicing up dogs and cats and things?
 
 248 Love Idylls 
 
 There's enough of the other kind to go round, 
 surely. And there's only one of Billiam for this sort 
 of parsoning." 
 
 "Well, Billiam," said Captain Ormithwaite a little 
 later, "I'm off up to town. This is all very well for 
 a night, but a little more of it would kill me. I de- 
 clare I shall smell doggy and chloratey for a month. 
 Here's some sinews for you, Billiam. It's all I can 
 spare." 
 
 "Thank you," said Billiam, pocketing the notes 
 without demur. "I may be the prodigal chap in the 
 parable, but I'm blowed if you are the old kind of 
 elder brother, the fellow who would not go in." 
 
 "That's all right," said the Captain. "Let us hear 
 that you keep ribald. I guess you'll slip into heaven 
 ahead of some of the parsons yet, Billiam." 
 
 "It'll be when Peter's not looking, then," said 
 Billiam, shaking his head; "but if they do nick me at 
 the gate, why, I guess there'll always be plenty for a 
 fellow like me to turn his hand to in the Other 
 Place." 
 
 [This is not, however, the end of Billiam. For 
 there was a seamstress across the landing who se- 
 riously interfered with his plans.]
 
 VERNOR THE TRAITOR 
 
 Being the Memoirs of Patrick Vemor, of Iron gray, 
 zvritten by himself, and now published by his brother 
 for the warning of others alike traitorous and malig- 
 nant, and for the encouragement of them that do well. 
 
 PART I 
 
 THE OUTCAST 
 
 I, Patrick Vernor the younger, of Irongray, in 
 Galloway, now private in Colonel Douglas' regiment 
 of Dragoons, take pen in hand in order that I may 
 write, for the easing of my heart, the story of a life 
 wherein the bitter has ever lapped over the sweet, 
 the evil overflowed the good, and the faint visitings 
 of worthy desire been blown away before the blasts 
 of pride and black envy. 
 
 I mind well how it began. It was the day on 
 which there came to visit us that best of ministers, 
 good, simple Mr. John Welsh of Cluden. He hacj 
 been over at the Scaur preaching, and after the ser-
 
 250 Love Idylls 
 
 mon and the scattering of the folks — which as yet 
 was done in peace, for Clavers had not then settled 
 himself down to watch the Galloway hill-folk at the 
 bridge-end of Dumfries — the minister came on with 
 my father, John Vernor, to dine at our house of 
 Irongray. 
 
 On the way he held converse with him concerning 
 duty and privilege. 
 
 " Ye have seven sons, John Vernor ; it behoves you 
 to give one of them to the Lord," said Mr. Welsh to 
 my father. "Ye are a man that, so far as the times 
 have sped, stand as yet in good odour with them that 
 are in high places. You are a man of substance. 
 Well can you afford to spend some of your living on 
 the educating of one of your lads for the preaching of 
 the Word. Now, I have come so far to tell you a 
 thing which it behoves you to give ear to. There are 
 four youths of promise who are going by ship to 
 Rotterdam, on their way to the College of Groningen 
 — William Gordon of Earlstoun, a lad of parts and 
 promise, being one of them. Wherefore, then, having 
 this good chance, John Vernor, do you not send one 
 of yours with them, to skill himself in the humani- 
 ties; and afterward, if so his heart incline, to be 
 exercised in sound divinity by Mr. Brackel of Leeu- 
 warden and the other great divines of the pure re- 
 formed kirk of Holland?"
 
 Vernor the Traitor 251 
 
 And my father lent a not unwilling attendance, 
 and considered of the matter, while I, who had been 
 with him to the conventicle, pricked up my ears and 
 listened. For so soon as I had heard of the journey 
 to Holland, I was smitten with very great desire 
 to go. 
 
 It was not that I had any great call to the preach- 
 ing work — God wot. There was never aught of that 
 about me. But (I may as well tell it out soon as 
 syne), there was a lass over at the Torwood that I 
 was fairly daft upon. She had so twined herself 
 about my heart that in her presence I became but a 
 little wimpling dog, that twists itself and grovels in 
 the dust to draw its mistress's eye. 
 
 Isobel Weir was her name, and a sweet maid she 
 was — bonny, aye, beyond all in that countryside, and 
 with such a serene, persuasive way with her, that 
 there was nothing she would have asked that even 
 a heart of stone could have refused. I loved her 
 more than all this world, and infinitely more 
 than the next. But me she would say no 
 good word to. For I had the name of a wildish 
 lad, and one that was a deal better at the sword-play 
 than at the seventeen points of doctrine. But Isobel, 
 as became a daughter of the Weirs of Torwood, was 
 a true-blue maid of the Covenants. And many was 
 the time she told me that if I wanted aught of her
 
 252 Love Idylls 
 
 favour, I must company with those who sought the 
 good way of her folk, and shun the back-swording 
 and the weapon-showings, where only the ill-exam- 
 pled and the unseemly congregated. 
 
 And so for a while, to the infinite weary trial of 
 my spirit, I did. Yea, for the sake of Isobel Weir 
 I attended the conventicles, and kept watch and ward 
 for the coming of the "persecutors" over the moor. 
 Also sometimes when I sat near her my heart was 
 glad, and methought that I had indeed found some- 
 thing of the religion of which my father and one or 
 two of my brothers were always speaking. But 
 when for a season I saw Isobel no more, and Gib 
 Affleck or Wat Dickson called me in to drink a tass 
 of brandy with them at the change-house, straight- 
 way I forgat. So I was counted as of them that 
 backslid ; and when Isobel met me again, she looked 
 the other way, gave me her hand right coldly, and 
 walked with Robert my younger brother, a callow, 
 fushionless lad that never did wrong openly all the 
 days of him. 
 
 So now on this afternoon when old Mr. Welsh 
 came over with my father to Irongray, and I heard 
 him speak of sending one of us to the college in Hol- 
 land, there came on me a great desire to go. More- 
 over, I felt that 1 had the right of it, for was I not the 
 eldest of John Vernor's seven sons? Above all,
 
 Vernor the Traitor 253 
 
 I knew that merely shaping at the leading-strings of 
 preacherdom would bring me favour in the eyes of 
 Isobel Weir. And already I saw myself saying fare- 
 well to her, and asking of her a kindly word, and it 
 might be a kiss, before I went for the good cause to 
 a foreign land. I saw her eyes lift to mine with 
 willingness and sweet surrender in them. Faith, I 
 would have gone to Holland for less, had it been 
 farther than the moon and aswarm with cannibals. 
 
 "I would see your sons," said Mr. Welsh, after he 
 and my father had arrived at the house door, "and 
 then there may come a message and a sign to me 
 which of them the Lord has chosen for this work !" 
 
 "Content!" said my father. "I will go gather the 
 laddies in, that you may see whether there are signs 
 of grace about any of them." 
 
 Then, setting Mr. Welsh in the great oak chair 
 by the window, and giving him the Bible to divert 
 himself with, my father went to the barn-end, and, 
 making a trumpet of his hands, he cried a far-heard 
 cry up and down the Cluden water. And silent Dun- 
 can at the herding on the hill caught it, and he left 
 his ewes in the charge of Tweed, his wise dog, to 
 keep them from breaking bounds. And Gilbert, the 
 ready of speech, hasted up from the meadow. I 
 could see his scythe glittering as he set it against the 
 dyke, for he had casten his coat and to the work as
 
 254 Love Idylls 
 
 soon as ever he came back from the field-preaching. 
 And the rest, my brothers, were all by this time in 
 the little ben room — all saving Robert, who was my 
 youngest brother, and of little account amongst us. 
 For his mother had spoiled him, making believe that 
 he was delicate, and must not be stirred to rough 
 work, when all the time he was but lazy and petted 
 with being made much of, as the youngest of a house- 
 hold often is. 
 
 "Where is Robert?" said my father, when we were 
 all settled in the room down the house. 
 
 "I ken not that," said my mother, "but I will go 
 and seek him. He will be busy with his learning in 
 some corner, doubtless." 
 
 Then, after she was gone out, the minister asked 
 which amongst us most desired to go to Holland, and 
 be colleged there with the young men who were 
 about to set sail. Most of my brothers hung down 
 their heads, being just come in from their work and 
 having heard nothing of the matter. Besides, some 
 of them had lasses who were fond of them in the 
 countryside, and that made a great difference in their 
 eagerness to adventure forth of the realm. 
 
 But I spoke up and said: "Mr. Welsh, I am the 
 eldest son of this house, and if any ought to go forth 
 to see strange lands and gather lear, it is surely I. 
 If my father give his consent, I am ready to set sail
 
 Vernor the Traitor 255 
 
 with William Gordon and the rest. And I will strive 
 every way to do your bidding, that I may prove no 
 discredit to you either in the Low Countries or on 
 my return. My father knows that I do not lie. And 
 this I promise faithfully." 
 
 Mr. Welsh turned his head toward me as I spoke. 
 He had beautiful white hair, and a broad collar of 
 fair linen came down over his coat. 
 
 "Young man," he said, "ye speak somewhat car- 
 nally, but fairly. What ye say is of a good sound so 
 far as it goes. But whether ye have indeed the root 
 of the matter in ye — that I know not." 
 
 "That," replied I, "I know not either. But at all 
 events I have the will and desire for better things in 
 me. And this, as I see it, is as much as at my age one 
 may expect. I will e'en go to Holland to learn 
 more." 
 
 But my father shook his head. 
 
 ( 'Ye are better foddering the horse, Patrick," he 
 said. "I fear all that ye would learn of divinity at 
 Groningen would not choke a week-old chicken. 
 Mind, I will not spend my good undipped siller to 
 let you play your plays among the Dutch birkies !" 
 
 For this was ever his manner of making light of 
 me. And his words made my heart bitter. For, had 
 I had one to believe in me, all might have been dif- 
 ferent. But if a lad be flouted at home, with none
 
 256 Love Idylls 
 
 to give him credit for good, he will soon seek credit 
 of another sort elsewhere. 
 
 At this, the minister looked more kindly, me- 
 thought, at me. 
 
 "But tell me," he asked, "what is the reason that 
 you so strongly desire to proceed overseas?" 
 
 So I spoke up bluntly, even as the words were 
 given to me. For I never could cloak nor gloze 
 things over prettily. 
 
 "I am weary of the way of life here — of the sta- 
 bling of horse and the milking of kye. I would 
 fain lift my soul above the mixen. And there is a 
 lass that wants me to gather learning over the water 
 and to seek out the better way. I would fain do both 
 for her sake." 
 
 "I hear no word of a leading and overruling prov- 
 idence in this," said my father. "I am not surely to 
 pay good coined siller that you may gain a lass's 
 favour. What would that advantage the cause of 
 the persecuted?" 
 
 The minister raised his hand and gently patted 
 my father on the sleeve of his coat. 
 
 "Patience, good friend," he said : "there have been 
 stranger things than this that have yet fallen out. 
 The Lord's bright jewels have ofttimes been digged 
 out of very black pits. Remember that mighty ser- 
 vant of the Lord, Mr. Richard Cameron, who was
 
 Vernor the Traitor 257 
 
 brought up in the camp of the enemy and served 
 as a bishop's schoolmaster about the wicked town 
 of Falkland in the shire of Fife." 
 
 But just then came in my mother with my young 
 brother Robert in her hand. She was lifting up her 
 eyes and making a mighty phrase about something. 
 We could hear her ere she came within the outer 
 door. 
 
 "Such a marvel — a direct leading — even a prod- 
 igy !" she cried. "Here when I went out to find this 
 blessed lad, to bring him in to the man of God, where 
 think ye I should come upon him, and how em- 
 ployed?" 
 
 "Maybe in the milk-house, talking with the byre- 
 lass, and eating curds with his fingers — that was 
 where I saw him last!" said I, bitterly enough. For 
 I knew what would happen if once my mother got her 
 oar into the water. 
 
 "Silence, sir !" cried my father to me, with a stamp 
 of his foot. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Welsh !" my mother went on, looking 
 at the minister with tears in her eyes, "this is he — 
 this is indeed the chosen vessel. Believe it who will 
 of one so young. I found him even in the orchard 
 under the tree where the Burgundy cherries grow. 
 He kneeled on his knees, praying very preciously for 
 a blessing on this poor Scotland."
 
 258 Love Idylls 
 
 "So," said I, as drily as I could, "methinks he must 
 have gotten a glimpse of the minister coming up the 
 loaning before he set to his petitions." 
 
 "You are a scoffer, Patrick," said my mother, 
 "and will come to no good end. The lad was at his 
 prayers, and among other things I heard him loud 
 and instant that the sins of his brothers might be 
 forgiven to them, and especially the often backslid- 
 ing- of this Patrick, who now takes it on him to flout 
 the good lad for it." 
 
 "Wait till I get the good lad out of hearing of the 
 house. I will make him send up some few other peti- 
 tions," I said, shutting my fists for anger. But I 
 said it low in to myself. Aloud I said : "My broth- 
 ers and I are muckle obliged to Robert for his 
 prayers for our backsliding. It is well there is some- 
 thing that he can do besides hang to his mother's 
 apron-strings and lie about dyke-backs. He never 
 was worth his kail at a day's work in his life !" 
 
 "The lad is delicate and of another mind from 
 these rough lads," said my mother, to whom Robert 
 was as the apple of her eye. "He draws naturally 
 to the quieter ways of the house and the company of 
 women-folk." 
 
 "So," said I, again, "then he will make a brave 
 preacher to the hill-folk — he must thole wind and 
 wet, endure hardness cheerfully, sleep on draggled
 
 Vernor the Traitor 259 
 
 heather roots, and die at the last in the Grassmarket 
 with a tow rope round his neck and a second-hand 
 testimony in his mouth." 
 
 This daunted my mother a little, fearing for her 
 petling. 
 
 "Let us hear what the lad says himself," said the 
 minister, who had been narrowing his eyes and bend- 
 ing the tips of his fingers together upon us as he 
 looked from one to the other. I could see that his 
 mood was one of deep consideration. Yet the loon 
 Robert, being ever the favourite of my parents, so 
 roused my spirit to a very gale of anger, that I could 
 not restrain my tongue — though I well knew that I 
 was playing havoc with my chances of going to Hol- 
 land, as I so greatly desired to do. Yet, as I own, 
 it was no ways for love of sanctity, but all for the 
 sake of winning the favour of Isobel Weir, and also 
 because one that had been there told me there was 
 much gallant sword-play and good comradeship 
 among the young collegers of Groningen. 
 
 Then that young supper-of-sowens, Robert Ver- 
 nor, answered that he forgave me all my ill words 
 of him, because that I knew no better, and spoke but 
 after my kind. If he was judged worthy he was 
 willing to go to Holland, for he had a call to the 
 work and no fellowship with those foul talkers and 
 evil livers that were about him here in Irongray. He
 
 260 Love Idylls 
 
 was willing to give up all and adventure forth, if the 
 minister and his father and mother bade him. He 
 had been, he knew, already called of God. So he 
 spoke meekly and pitifully, till I could have cast him 
 into the horse-pond in fair disgust. 
 
 "Oh ! the blessed lad !" cried my mother. "Pat- 
 rick, there is a lesson for you — with your flouting 
 and jeering. Did ye hear how beautifully he forgave 
 you r 
 
 The minister hung a while on Robert's words. At 
 last he spoke. 
 
 "I suppose the youngest will have to go," he said, 
 "for by his words (at least) he shows much more 
 inclination to the work. And his parents are desir- 
 ous to send him. Yet I am none so sure but that that 
 one" (pointing at me) "might have turned out the 
 better man, if his carnal nature had been in a little 
 better subjection." 
 
 "Ah!" said my mother, "it is my Robert that has 
 the beautiful nature. Patrick was ever proud and 
 upsetting from a boy, and now most cruelly over- 
 rides the lad. It will be better to separate them." 
 
 "Well, since it must be so !" said the minister ; "yet 
 I fear the carnal heart within me leans to the other." 
 
 He spake as a man that knows his mind. 
 
 But at this the devil in me rose, and I felt that in 
 my heart which I must speak out.
 
 Vernor the Traitor 261 
 
 "Wait," I said. "I have a word to say. Hear 
 ye all. Ye have spoken the worst things of me that 
 am the eldest son of this house. They that brought 
 me into being have proclaimed my faults. They 
 have set aside my urgent desire — God knows all I 
 ever asked of them. They have made me of none 
 account — it is well. Now I will take no more than 
 the clothes I wear and go forth. My ten years' 
 labour hath at least earned so much wages as a suit 
 of grey homespun cleading. I bid you farewell. 
 Father and mother, I leave you with your dear son — 
 your perfect son. The black sheep goes forth, lest 
 his foulness should corrupt this white, immaculate 
 lamb." 
 
 "Go then, scoffer!" cried my father, "and never 
 cross the threshold of the door — so long, at least, as 
 the house of Irongray stands by the waters of Clu- 
 den, and John Vernor lives to be the master of it." 
 
 But my mother put her apron to her eyes and wept 
 aloud, whereat Robert went and put his arms about 
 her neck. For of a certainty he had the art of com- 
 forting women-folk, ever phrasing and dandying 
 about them. 
 
 "Do not weep, sweet mother," he said; "you still 
 have one loving son left." 
 
 I looked over at Robert, my brother. 
 
 "Pale wart," said I ; "were it not for the presence
 
 262 Love Idylls 
 
 of those whom I am bound to respect, I would even 
 twist thy neck, thou young hypocrite!" 
 
 My father pointed to the door. 
 
 "Out of my house, sirrah !" he cried, working his 
 brows up and down in a way he had when he was 
 sorely angered. 
 
 So I went out with all my brothers following after 
 me — Duncan and Gilbert first, and after them John, 
 Martin, and Sandy. The five of these good lads said 
 not a word, but came out at my heels, hanging their 
 heads and looking mighty loath and sorrowful. So 
 Robert was left in the room by himself with my 
 father and mother and Mr. Welsh, the minister. And 
 as we were already at the outer door, he called 
 to me in his silky-soft, wheedling voice : 
 
 "Patrick, do not part in anger, my brother. Freely 
 do I forgive you all the ill words ye have spoken of 
 
 me." 
 
 But I turned the back of my hand to him, as I 
 stood for the last time on the threshold of the house 
 of my fathers, from which I was now to be evermore 
 on outcast. 
 
 "That for your forgiveness!" said I. "Keep it to 
 cozen older fools withal ! You cannot take in Pat- 
 rick Vernor with your sugared lies!" 
 
 ******* 
 
 So from the house of Irongray, where I was born
 
 Vernor the Traitor 263 
 
 and which I had counted as mine own, I was thus 
 outlawed and extruded. 'Tis easy to say that I had 
 but mine own self to blame. Had I bidden more 
 at home o' nights and ever been in at the "taking of 
 the Book,"* my father might have looked more 
 kindly upon me. And I should, maybe, have pleased 
 my mother better had I been more complaisant, and 
 made pretence to a little religion of the easily carried 
 kind which comes out in asking long blessings at 
 meal-times and interlarding a sanctified word or two 
 in common speech — such as : "It'll be a fine day 
 the morn, if the Lord will," or, "We'll shear the 
 sheep on Monday, gin a kind Providence spare us!" 
 For many is the sound reputation for godliness 
 which has been built on just as little as that. 
 
 But I never had the art to guide my tongue all the 
 days of me, and ofttimes, alas ! I have permitted it 
 to guide me; and a man lands surely in the mire 
 when he lets his unruly evil take charge. 
 
 At all events, there I was outside the door of my 
 father's house, and presently, being convoyed on my 
 way by my five kindly brothers, whom I had not sus- 
 pected of so much tenderness for their elder, I found 
 myself at the loaning foot. There is a ford near by 
 over the little water of Cluden and a crossing of 
 
 stepping-stones, about which as bairns we had played 
 
 *Family worship.
 
 264 Love Idylls 
 
 the day by the length, before ever we heard a sound 
 of the weary Covenants that have worked so muckle 
 strife in this land. I had my foot on the first stone 
 when Duncan nudged Gilbert to speak. He was a 
 fine, solid lad, Duncan, but not gleg at the talking. 
 
 "Duncan wants me to say, Patie," said Gilbert, 
 taking the signal reluctantly, "that we are heart 
 sorry for this cast oot. And we are a' vexed for ye, 
 and we do not think that ye have been rightly used. 
 But ye are to mind that the Irongray is your ain, and 
 we will work it for you as the rightful heir. There's 
 nane o' us that are Jacobs, or would supplant our 
 brother. Is that no richt, lads?" 
 
 "Aye," gruffly enough responded Duncan. And 
 the others also said, "Aye" with one voice. 
 
 "And ye are no to do onything rash, Patie," he 
 went on, "for we have here some pickle siller that 
 we had laid by us. It's no better than twenty Scots 
 pounds, but ye are welcome, Patie (stop that 
 whingein' and greetin', Martin ; think shame o' your- 
 sel', man!). And ye are to tak' it and look about 
 ye a wee, and no do onything rash that ye would be 
 sorry for after, like!" 
 
 "Lads," I answered them, slowly, for I was near 
 overcome, "I canna tak' your hard-won siller. Ye'll 
 be needing new plaids and bonnets, and I ken Duncan 
 was saving for a Bible."
 
 Vernor the Traitor 265 
 
 "It's a lee — I wasna'," said Duncan. 
 
 "Na, na, so long as Patrick Vernor has a pair of 
 strong hands, the world will no come greatly wrong 
 to him. Fare ye weel, honest lads. See and humour 
 my faither, gin ye can. It was never a thing I was 
 good at mysel'." 
 
 So I shook hands with them all five, and turned 
 away. I could hear poor Martin, that was ever a 
 kenning soft in the heart, break into a passion of 
 tears, at which Duncan took him by the neck of his 
 coat to shake the folly out of him. 
 
 "Have ye no more sense?" he said. "Dinna make 
 it harder than it is for Patie." 
 
 Ah, good lads, kindly lads — praise God for five 
 brothers that are neither time-servers nor hypo- 
 crites ! 
 
 But it was at the kirk-stile, as I went by the 
 village, that I got the heaviest stroke. For there I 
 met Isobel Weir. She came daintily over, lilting at a 
 psalm, and putting up her hand, as she saw me, to 
 the blue maiden's snood that belted her yellow hair. 
 
 "You are bound for Holland, I hear," she said ; 
 "they tell me that Mr. Welsh has gone up to settle 
 the matter with your father." 
 
 "Not I," I made answer, gloomily enough, "but 
 Robert, my brother, goes to Holland in my stead. 
 He, as we all ken, is the lad of grace in our house-
 
 266 Love Idylls 
 
 hold, and keeps himself first in favour with the 
 godly. Who can contend with such a flower of 
 sanctity?" 
 
 ; 'You forget yourself, Patrick Vernor," answered 
 Isobel Weir, holding up her head severely; "better 
 would it be for you to be likewise in favour with 
 things honourable and great with godly men. Your 
 brother Robert is truly a lad of promise " 
 
 "And also of comeliness — a very young David, 
 with his love-locks and ruddy cheeks," said I bitterly. 
 "Well am I aware that he has the favour of all you 
 women, and specially of Isobel Weir of the Tor- 
 wood." 
 
 "And though he hath, what is that to you ? Patrick 
 Vernor?" the girl answered me. And there was fire 
 in her eye, for I saw that she had taken my meaning 
 but too well. Now all my days, though I loved her 
 dear, yet had I never any power to please her. Nor 
 were my words ever agreeable to her, like the cun- 
 ningly patient smiles, the quick observance and 
 deference, of Robert my brother. 
 
 'Truly it is nothing to me: there say you rightly, 
 Isobel Weir," I said. "If you had loved me it might 
 have mattered more. But since you will not, why 
 then, there is no more to the business, but just to 
 shake hands and part. I bid you farewell, Isobel. 
 It is a long day since I carried you over Cluden
 
 Vernor the Traitor 267 
 
 water on my back and ye called me your love, being 
 then but a bairn. I bid you farewell, for when next 
 you see me go by, it is little that you or any 
 honest lass will have to say to Patrick Vernor." 
 
 "What would you do to yourself?" she asked —   
 looking, as I thought, a little dashed at my bitter 
 words and determined air. 
 
 "Faith, I go to Dumfries to take the king's colours 
 and ride merrily a-trooping. Since they will not 
 make a soldier of me on the one side, what better can 
 a landless and kinless loon do than take arms on the 
 other?"
 
 268 Love Idylls 
 
 PART II 
 
 THE LOVE OF ENEMIES 
 
 With that I waved my hand to Isobel Weir, the 
 lass I would have loved better than any other man, 
 if so be she would have let me. For I saw that she 
 would not even shake me by the hand for old sake's 
 sake. And I desired to save her the pain of refusing. 
 
 Now let all men judge if my heart was not full 
 to the brim of dule and waefulness that day as I went 
 down the bonny knowes of the Cluden side. For, 
 saving the brothers whom I had left behind, I had 
 not a friend in the world. And when the heart is 
 sore for a lass and her fickleness, it is not the love 
 of brothers that brings much solid comfort. I 
 thought chiefly indeed that another would kiss the 
 lovely mouth I had longed to kiss, and I felt for my 
 knife to kill him for it. 
 
 By the Red Yetts I heard a pitter-patter on the 
 grass, and there, running behind me, was my dog 
 Royal, racing from side to side of the way and smell- 
 ing at rabbit-holes as if I had been going a little 
 dauner to see the lasses in the gloaming. I bade him
 
 Vernor the Traitor 269 
 
 go home, but he did nothing but sit and look at me, 
 considering, as it were, with his wise head to the side. 
 Nor would he budge an inch when I spoke angrily, 
 but only lay and cowered his head between his paws 
 so meekly that I could not beat him for very pity. 
 
 So, though I feared that they would not abide him 
 at the quarters of the Dragoons in Dumfries, I had 
 perforce to let him follow on. And indeed he abode 
 with me ever after, and is even now with the regi- 
 ment. 
 
 When I came to Claverhouse's lodging I went 
 boldly up to the sentinel and demanded of him to see 
 Cornet Graham. 
 
 "Ho, Bluebonnet," cried he, "it is not often that 
 a Whig comes speering for that name. What might 
 you want of him, my brave Whiggie?" 
 
 "An' you had not that long piece in your hand 
 with the pudding pricker at the end, I would e'en 
 show you to whom you speak," said I, shutting my 
 fists ; "but an' you want to know, I come to enlist 
 in his Majesty's Dragoons." 
 
 When the soldier heard that his mood changed, 
 and very good-naturedly he told me where I should 
 find Cornet Graham, who had charge of the recruit- 
 ing. To him I went, and we agreed so well that in 
 an hour I was being measured for my accoutrement 
 by the regimental tailor.
 
 270 Love Idylls 
 
 Then, when for the first time Trooper Patrick 
 Vernor, eldest son to John Vernor of Irongray, rode 
 out, judge ye what a cry there was in all the country- 
 side. Some there were who said that I did but play 
 the old game of "Heads, I win; tails, my father 
 does." For (said they) if the King keeps his own, 
 Irongray is safe in the hands of that good sol- 
 dier of his Majesty and of Claverhouse's Private 
 Patrick Vernor; but if the wild Whigs triumph in 
 their Whiggery — why, here is a patriot and sufferer, 
 John Vernor, restored to full possession, and, in ad- 
 dition, all his fines and king's dues are remitted. 
 
 But among the folk of the hillside and the field 
 meeting I was outcast and thrice accursed. For soon 
 after my enlisting there ensued the wildest times that 
 we had ever had in Galloway — sudden marches dur- 
 ing the night, moorland houses searched, half a 
 dozen poor, ignorant, praying lads turned out, some 
 to get their quietus at the dyke-back with a charge of 
 powder and a musket-bullet, the rest to go string- 
 ing away to Edinburgh on the backs of sorry nags, 
 their feet tied under the bellies of their horses. It 
 was weary work, and in my own country-side I liked 
 it ill enough. But I was not the man to go back ; 
 and indeed, what, when all was said and done, had 
 I to go back to? 
 
 Then in a while there came better of it. For the
 
 Vernor the Traitor 271 
 
 folk of the Covenant began to gather into disciplined 
 companies and make a stand. And then what riding - 
 and chasing there was between garrison and garrison 
 — Colonel Douglas at Morton borrowing troopers 
 from Captain Bruce of Earlshall at Crichton Peel, 
 and both being drawn upon by John Graham of 
 Claverhouse, who kept at Dumfries the head bees' 
 byke, from which we swarmed out in all directions 
 to win honey from the Whiggish pastures of Gal- 
 loway. 
 
 So we went on, riding and killing, till it happened 
 that we lay, one day, a hot Sabbath, by a hillside, 
 and we had marched all night to take the Conven- 
 ticlers in the midst of their preaching. It was about 
 the noontide, and we were lying idly in the covert, 
 with our horses cropping the coarse, lush grasses of 
 the little forest glades. We could easily hear the 
 sound of the preacher's voice from where we lay, 
 and by crawling to the edge of the coppice we could 
 see him — a tall, thin lad, with a fresh and beautiful 
 countenance. 
 
 "I declare," said Sergeant Driscoll, below his 
 breath, "if I had not seen psalm-singing Pat there 
 lying on his belly and sucking of a straw, I had 
 thought that he had given us the slip and gone back 
 to his old business. That preacher loon is the very 
 moral of him."
 
 272 Love Idylls 
 
 But it was too hot there in the wood to bandy 
 words with a cross-eyed thief of the King's pet 
 Irishry. So I let Driscoll talk on. I heeded not at 
 all what he said concerning the preacher. I had seen 
 too many of the breed, and, barring Ritchie Cam- 
 eron, who had the heart of half a dozen brave men 
 all inside of his one body, I had small enough liking 
 for them, or indeed they for me. Truth to tell, they 
 had spurgawed me over sorely with their catechisms 
 and testimonies when I was young. And since Isobel 
 Weir had given me the go-by, I had looked (God 
 forgive me) at more than one along the shining bar- 
 rel of a King's musket. For which as I say, may the 
 Lord pardon me. For I but carried out the orders 
 of my commander, and, like a soldier, took no 
 account of the rights or wrongs of the matter. 
 
 So presently it was time for us to drive among 
 them. The men awaked and stretched themselves. 
 Then they leaped up from their beds of heather, 
 looked to their equipment, and secured each his own 
 charger. The Colonel divided us into two parties, 
 and we rode out of the wood at opposite ends, to 
 take the Conventiclers in flank and rear. 
 
 Here and there we could see a sentinel standing 
 leaning on his gun, or moodily pacing to and fro. 
 But, one and all, they were paying more attention to 
 the preacher than to walking about Zion and felling
 
 Vernor the Traitor 273 
 
 the enemies thereof. At all events, we were well out 
 of the wood before any alarm was given. But when 
 they saw us come, then indeed there was a buzz and 
 a stir among them like bees swarming. 
 
 Certain of the stronger and more determined men 
 drew themselves together into some sort of disci- 
 plined order about the preacher. But the most part 
 of them ran every way, making specially towards a 
 large wild moss with many quags and green slimy 
 morasses, over which they supposed our heavy 
 horses could not go. 
 
 It so chanced that my own squadron, with Colonel 
 Douglas at its head, was the first to reach the little 
 band of the fanaticals that stood at bay about the 
 preacher. As we came, a tall, grey-headed man 
 among them, whom for the press I could not see 
 clearly, gave the word of command, and they fired 
 irregularly when we were about thirty yards from 
 them. I saw the smoke spring white as it had been 
 under the very nose of my horse. At my elbow Jock 
 Cannon, for ordinary my rear rank man, grunted, 
 fell forward on his horse's neck, and his sword 
 dropped from his hand. Looking about me, I could 
 see several saddles emptied, but whether with bullets 
 that wounded or that killed, I knew not. So there 
 ran the word along the line of our charge that no 
 prisoners were to be taken, except the preacher, on
 
 274 Love Idylls 
 
 whose head there was a price. And in a moment we 
 were among them, and I was striking down the 
 sword-blade of the man who opposed me — a stont 
 countryman, who had a cloak wrapped about his 
 left arm for a guard. But there was no seeing much, 
 for the place where we fought was in a hollow, and 
 what with the lack of wind and the much firing, all 
 was a turmoil and a confused smother of the blue 
 reek of powder. 
 
 Now, mine enemy was a stout lad enough, but 
 with his heavy blade and small experience, he could 
 not hope to keep it up with an exercised soldier of 
 his Majesty. So I had presently his sword out of 
 his hand, and was just about to cleave him to the 
 brisket, when my gentleman, instead of crying 
 "Quarter!" as many of them did, leaped at me with 
 a broad-bladed dagger-knife before I had time to 
 shorten grips on my sword. 
 
 And then, when his face was near enough mine 
 to see clearly through the smoke, and his knife within 
 six inches of my buff coat, I saw who he was — mine 
 own brother Duncan. And at the same moment he 
 knew me. 
 
 "Patrick!" he cried, and let his knife drop. 
 
 "Lord love you — Duncan," I said, stopping my 
 horse. "Get out of this as fast as you may. Are 
 there any more of the Irongray folk among them ?"
 
 Vernor the Traitor 275 
 
 "We are all here together," he said, "all except 
 Martin." 
 
 The tide of battle had somewhat passed us, sweep- 
 ing on over the muir, so I bade him slip away as 
 quietly as he might; for by this time our line had 
 broken, as was usual, into a great number of separate 
 combats. So it was with little difficulty that I let 
 Duncan escape through my fingers, pretending a 
 misunderstanding with my horse, and pursuing after 
 him vainly with a loud outcry. 
 
 When I returned, I found that the skirmish was 
 over, and all the fanaticals either dead or captured. 
 
 I looked carefully at the former, one after another. 
 There were none of them that I knew, till I turned 
 a tall man lying face down in the moss, who had been 
 slain at the first fire. It was the dead body of my 
 father, John Vernor of Irongray. 
 
 Then it was that the enormity of taking part 
 against my name and folk was first fully brought 
 home to me. For mostly I had loved the horseman- 
 ship part of this soldiering business — the clattering 
 gaiety of the march, the mustering in haste, the cool 
 night rides, the constant change of quarters, the 
 thrilling trump of battle, and the companionship of 
 just such brisk, heedless lads as myself. But when I 
 saw my father's dead body lying there, with the moss 
 water running down his beard and mixing itself
 
 276 Love Idylls 
 
 with the blood from his deadly wound, the black side 
 of my trade came over me. I felt like the murderer 
 of my father and the traitor they called me at their 
 Society meetings. 
 
 And of that I was very soon to be remembered. 
 For we had taken the preacher lad. 
 
 "Sure, 'tis Pat Vernor's self we have caught at the 
 conventicling," cried Driscoll the Irishman; "we 
 will even make him deliver himself to Satan for per- 
 secuting the saints, and then shoot himself for field- 
 preaching." 
 
 And with that I went forward, and there, with 
 his hands tied behind his back, stood the conventicle 
 preacher, with a lass clasping him about the neck 
 and the soldiers standing a little way off waiting for 
 the coming of the Colonel. 
 
 Now, though a man is not a good judge of his 
 own likeness, I could not but see that this man was 
 the very moral of me — hair, eyes, and features — 
 aye, even the very way he had of standing with his 
 head thrown back looking over the lass's shoulder 
 with a kind of defiance. 
 
 Presently the maid raised her eyes, as it had been 
 in a prayer to Heaven. For she knew well that it 
 was little use making an appeal to the King's troop- 
 ers on behalf of a field Conventicler. 
 
 Then I saw who they were that stood before me.
 
 Vernor the Traitor 277 
 
 The preacher was my brother, Robert Vernor, home 
 from Holland, a full-fledged minister, and the maid 
 whose arm was about his neck was Isobel Weir. 
 
 Presently my brother's eyes fell on me, and he 
 started like one who sets his foot on a thorn. 
 
 "So, Judas," he cried, "you have slain your father 
 and killed your brother ! God shall judge thee, thou 
 wicked man — thou bloody son. Sorrow shalt thou 
 sup for all the evil thou hast wrought. Patrick Ver- 
 nor, I deliver thee to the judgment of Almighty God 
 for this your deed." 
 
 And as he spoke Isobel Weir turned her about 
 and looked at me, as one would at a very demon of 
 cruelty, so that my heart quailed and turned sick 
 within me at the glance. And even then she kept one 
 arm about my brother's neck, and so for a moment 
 she stood gazing at me. 
 
 "Traitor!" she said at last, with a certain slow, 
 quiet bitterness, exceeding hard to bear; "slayer of 
 your father and heart-breaker of your mother — do 
 not stay your hand till you have taken my blood and 
 that of this poor lad. He is your youngest brother, 
 and little more than a bairn. But that will make it 
 the sweeter to you, and after that we are all under 
 clod, then you may rest happy at last, and receive the 
 reward of your brave soldier deeds in the slaying of 
 women and children."
 
 278 Love Idylls 
 
 To this I answered no word, but with my heart 
 cankered and drowned in the very gall of bitterness 
 I stood and looked at the two. 
 
 Then came Colonel Douglas, and, as was usual 
 with him, his orders were swift and stern. 
 
 "How now!" he said, "what's this? Take away 
 the lass — we cannot shoot women. Let her be going 
 to her own folk — we cannot have such with the 
 troops. And bring the preacher to the tolbooth of 
 Dumfries. He can be shot in the morning. But for 
 the sake of the five hundred marks on the head of 
 him, we must give him a trial and get the due certifi- 
 cate for his death." 
 
 So they gave Isobel Weir leave to go, and, setting 
 Robert into the midst of the company on a masterless 
 horse, we rode into Dumfries. Douglas stayed be- 
 hind to direct that the wounded of his troops should 
 be well cared for in the neighbouring farm-towns, 
 and to leave a visiting guard to see that they were 
 kindly treated bv the country people, who had indeed 
 small reason to love us. 
 
 And as we rode on behind my brother, I had time 
 to bethink me. The words of Isobel Weir pressed 
 hard upon me— harder, as I think, than even the 
 sight of John Vernor, whom T had seen lying dead 
 on the moss. For T never greatly loved my father, 
 and there is, so far as I have seen, no great instinct
 
 Vernor the Traitor 279 
 
 of affection in that relationship. For I find that as 
 many sons hate their fathers as inordinately love 
 them, while most are wholly indifferent as to the 
 matter. 
 
 But whenever I rode within earshot of the 
 preacher, he was crying blood and vengeance on my 
 head, till the lads of the escort fell to the laughing. 
 
 "Come nearer, Pat," they called, when we were 
 out of hearing of the commander ; "he has just taken 
 a new text and is expounding your iniquities under 
 the head of 'fifthly.'" 
 
 But God knows it was no such laughing matter 
 to me. For all the months and years of recklessness 
 and all the riding and killing came back, salt and 
 bitter on me. And my anger and estrangement at 
 them of Irongray melted away. I minded only the 
 early days and the still Sabbath morns at the old 
 house — my mother sitting smelling at a spray of 
 southernwood, and my father standing by her with 
 his Bible under his arm, both of them waiting to 
 take me by the hand and go our ways down the 
 green loan, under the lilac bushes of the spring, to 
 the kirk of Irongray. 
 
 "Ah, God !" I cried in my misery, "keep any other 
 poor soul from so going against his folk. For me 
 there is, I know, no forgiveness. But let none other 
 in blind pride of heart drive devilward as I have
 
 280 Love Idylls 
 
 done. It is true — true what the lad Robert says — 
 my father's blood is on my head !" 
 
 So in this blank despair we came to the prison, 
 and the commander directed the jailer to put Robert 
 in the thieves' hole for safety, and not into the gen- 
 eral room, wherein debtors, ordinary sorners, and 
 all the scourings of south-country rascaldom were 
 put. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon, and as soon as Colonel 
 Douglas had supped, he went over to call upon his 
 crony Robert Grier of Lag, who abode mostly by 
 the White Horse, at the foot of the Vennel ; and hav- 
 ing sent for the Provost of the town and also for 
 a guard to bring the prisoner, they proceeded to try 
 Robert Vernor. It was a simple form, for the lad 
 had gotten some iron in his blood over in Holland 
 and denied nothing. He owned that he had been 
 preaching the doctrine of resistance. He would 
 have none of the Test. He owned not His Majesty 
 King Charles. The Duke was the devil incarnate; 
 in each of his first half-dozen statements there was 
 enough to hang a parish. 
 
 "It is well said," cried Douglas ; "you are a manful 
 laddie, and come, I hear, of good blood. Thou shalt 
 have the estate, Robin Grier," he said, turning to 
 Lag. "It lies contiguous to your own properties
 
 Vernor the Traitor 281 
 
 and policies — for the old man Vernor is killed in the 
 skirmish." 
 
 But at this I stepped forward and saluted. 
 
 "May it please your excellencies," said I, "I have 
 ever been a faithful soldier of His Majesty's. I have 
 now served with the colours four years with hon- 
 our as a private of His Majesty's Dragoons. I am 
 the eldest son of Vernor of Irongray. There is surely 
 no reason why his estates should be forfeit, or that 
 my patrimony should be taken away from me." 
 
 At this Grier of Lag looked sour and strange; 
 but Colonel Douglas beat upon the table with his 
 hand. 
 
 "It is true — and Pat is a good lad — I will not see 
 him wronged. I myself will write of this matter to 
 the council." 
 
 So he bade them to take Robert Vernor back to the 
 prison, and there shoot him instead of hanging him. 
 And this was counted a great favour. 
 
 "To-morrow, at the rising of the sun," said 
 Douglas. 
 
 And so they took my brother out. 
 
 "May it please you," said I to those of the court, 
 "that I may be permitted free access to my brother 
 during these his last hours. For there is much to 
 arrange between him and Andro Gibson, my late 
 father's lawyer."
 
 282 Love Idylls 
 
 "God wot, yes — an' it liketh you — go in and bide 
 with him till he gets the garments for his martyr- 
 dom," said Douglas. I had not known you were 
 so fond of your kith and kin." 
 
 So he wrote me a pass. For the prison was held 
 by a guard of the foot from Tarbat's country, 
 ignorant landwardmen from the North, who had no 
 knowledge of us of the Dragoons and, indeed, no 
 goodwill to our colours. 
 
 So I went away and groomed my horse, but had 
 no stomach for supper. Then I walked a while on 
 the banks of the river on the Galloway side of the 
 bridge. And as I walked, I tried to pray, but the 
 words would not come. I thought of Isobel Weir 
 and her curse of me. So an hour ago I came away in 
 hither to my quarters, and am now set down to add 
 a few words to this story of my worthless and wasted 
 life. God knows there is nothing I can say or do to 
 obtain forgiveness, for Isobel's curse lies justly upon 
 me. My father and her lover will both be cold 
 corpses by the morning. 
 
 I know there is the way of the Scripture — the 
 preacher's way. And as I sit and think the old words 
 come back : repentance — forgiveness — mercy — 
 "Come unto Me. all ye that labour" — how run the 
 words? But all these matter little to me now. They 
 were not meant for a traitor and a parricide. Be-
 
 Vernor the Traitor 283 
 
 sides, what are words out of a book? I would 
 give something to cover my father's face from my 
 sight. 
 
 Yet there is a text something about shedding of 
 blood — if only I could remember it. I heard a min- 
 ister once preach upon it, and thought him weari- 
 some. Would that I could remember it now ! 
 
 I have it. Quite suddenly it has leaped clear into 
 my mind, shining in letters of fire, like that writing 
 on the wall as the king's feast in the Book of Daniel. 
 
 "Without shedding of blood there is no remission 
 of sin." Surely it runs something like that. 
 
 It has come to me. I see a possible chance. I 
 will at least go and speak with my brother. I have 
 the Colonel's pass in my pocket. 
 
 *<%^ ^t* xi* j^ %i^ j* 
 
 *J*- *^ *rx ^^ ^K ^^ 
 
 It is all done now, save one thing, and I may add 
 a word or two to my paper ere the sun rise and they 
 come knocking at my door. I passed the guard with 
 my mandate. They were drinking and carousing 
 — the jailer with them. My brother received me 
 with cursings and hateful words — as, indeed, was 
 his right. But I told him the thing that I had come 
 to do. I bade him put on my clothes and uniform, 
 and give me his clothing in exchange. He could 
 then pass freely with the order which was in my
 
 284 Love Idylls 
 
 hand, for none would be at the shooting that knew 
 me — for our Dragoons of Douglas' regiment were 
 to march at midnight for Galloway. 
 
 "But mark," I said, "this is not for your own sake, 
 Robert Vernor, nor yet because you are my brother. 
 It is for the sake of the lass that put her arm about 
 your neck — even for the sake of Isobel Weir. I pray 
 you tell her this." 
 
 "It shall be done," said he, in the smooth way 
 which I have ever hated and hate now, for his tone 
 changed whenever he knew that there was a chance 
 of safety. 
 
 "And you," he said, "what will you do?" 
 "I will abide the morning — and the opening of the 
 doors," said I, as lightly as I could. 
 
 "And they will find you in preacher's clothes !" he 
 said. "Ah, well, I suppose they have found you too 
 good a tool to punish you very severely for helping 
 a poor field-preacher and your own brother to 
 escape." 
 
 "Likely enough," said I shortly. 
 And when he stood up in the regimental dress, 
 and when I had done the sword and the spurs upon 
 him and put the cloak about him, he looked none so 
 ill a soldier, though not well set up about the shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 I pushed him to the door and heard him tramp
 
 Vernor the Traitor 285 
 
 into the outer hall, where the Northern men sat sing- 
 ing and carousing with the jailer. 
 
 "Never mind your pass — we've seen it before. 
 Open the door, Jock !" cried the jailer, never looking 
 up from the dice, and, as I well understood, with his 
 greedy eyes fixed on the stakes. Then I heard my 
 brother's step die down the street towards the bridge- 
 end and liberty. 
 
 % % % % + :fc 5Jc 
 
 So here I sit. Will they pardon me for this ? For 
 the sake of four years of service. Will John Graham 
 overlook this connivance at rebellion? But what 
 matter, after all — Isobel Weir's curse is on me. She 
 would not take it off, even if I lived to be a hundred, 
 and released to her a score of lovers. 
 
 But there is the text. There may be something 
 in that. "Without shedding of blood there is no 
 remission." Therefore in the shedding of blood there 
 is remission — that seems clear. God help me! I 
 think I can do no better. The east is brightening. 
 They will be coming for me — they are lads of Tar- 
 bat's regiment, who know me not. It is not a long 
 death. I have seen many die. "Make you ready! 
 Present ! Fire !" Half-a-dozen bullets splash on the 
 wall, but, thank God! the other six will be in my 
 sinful heart. 
 
 "Without shedding of blood "
 
 286 Love Idylls 
 
 I can hear them coming. May God forgive me 
 
 — and Isobel Weir! I must hide the paper. 
 ******* 
 
 (Postscript to the Memoir of Vcrnor the Traitor, 
 written by the Reverend Robert Vcrnor, his brother, 
 after the glorious Revolution.) 
 
 This paper and declaration of my elder brother 
 was found in a wall-press in the Thieves' Hole of 
 Dumfries, when it was pulled down by the order of 
 the magistrates at the time when a more commodious 
 and suitable prison was being erected. It purports 
 to have been written by the hand of Patrick Vernor, 
 who of a certainty aided me to escape from the hands 
 of my cruel enemies. He was my brother. I judge 
 him not. He has been for many years in his own 
 place. There are those who think well of him for 
 the manner of his death, and indeed I myself am 
 grateful, and also my wife, Isobel, though she never 
 names his name. 
 
 Yet what hope can any have of his salvation when 
 it is well known that he died with a lie upon his lips 
 — yea, even with blasphemy? For those that saw 
 him put to death by the bullets of Tarbat's footmen 
 declare that when some of them taunted him that he 
 was a dumb dog and died without a testimony, he 
 cried out these words : 
 
 "Sons of dogs, ye lie!" (that was the expression
 
 Vernor the Traitor 287 
 
 he used). "I have a testimony. And it is this: 
 'Without shedding of blood there is no remission of 
 sins.' Tell Isobel Weir I died for her. God have 
 mercy on my soul !" 
 
 . So, with no more said, the officer gave the word. 
 And thus was a wicked man cut off ere he had lived 
 half his days ; as sayeth the Scriptures : "But the 
 horn of the righteous shall be exalted."
 
 THAT POPISH PARSON 
 FELLOW 
 
 "Na, na," said Muckle Rob as he led the way 
 from the quoiting-green, where he had stopped the 
 game, "Na, I dinna haud wi' the Papishes — nor yet 
 wi' the Englishers. And I wadna advise ony ane 
 o' ye to say that I do. But that's nae reason for 
 you to disturb the lad's bit service wi' your sweerin' 
 an' the jingling o' your quoits!" 
 
 The miner folk of Lochfinny were not specially 
 inclined to religion at any time. As Muckle Rob 
 would have said, "they werena juist broadened on 
 it." But no men in Scotland had a clearer sense 
 of what was the right and chivalrous thing to do. 
 
 But the new English "priest" with his daily 
 services and early communion, his incense pot and 
 acolyte, his Fridays for confession and his out- 
 spoken contempt for their own quiet steady-going 
 Presbyterian ministers, was certainly more than a 
 little hard to bear. There had indeed been for a 
 long time a "Catholic Chaypel" cowering back
 
 290 Love Idylls 
 
 among the out-houses in a quiet corner of the 
 village. But as Muckle Rob said, "Frae oot-an'- 
 oot Papishes, ye kenned what to expec' ! So ye 
 looked for nae better!" 
 
 It was therefore, considered as, at the worst, a 
 sort of half-deserved jest that the Lochfmny quoit- 
 ing club should have started four of its youngest 
 and noisiest rinks on a vacant piece of ground just 
 outside the new enclosure of the Englishers. Eu- 
 gene Challoner, priest of the mission church of 
 Saint Ethelreda the Less, celebrated Evensong at 
 the hour when the game was apt to be briskest. 
 And the gravity of the choir-boys, and even of the 
 acolyte (who for many reasons had a bad time of it 
 outside, till the parson made him his gardener and 
 bell-ringer), was liable to be upset by the jests of 
 Wull Sproat, the champion of the village; while 
 the solemnity of the observances was not improved 
 by the "language" of the "shankers" who were 
 sinking the shaft of a new pit. The settled miners 
 looked down a little upon these shankers as wild 
 asses, who are here to-day and away to another job 
 to-morrow. But they make "big money," and 
 expected the license of a cavalry colonel as to 
 language. 
 
 The Reverend Eustace had indeed protested, first 
 mildly and then vehemently, over the wire fence.
 
 That Popish Parson Fellow 291 
 
 But Tarn Galletly and Pate Miller, young and ill- 
 set loons both of them, had stood at the rink end, 
 and, as the village put it, "had set up a' manner o' 
 lip an' back-talk to the man in the white sark." 
 The village did not indeed entirely approve. It 
 considered that "there was nae need for the like 
 o' that." But no active measures of prevention 
 were taken till Muckle Rob came home. It was 
 currently reported that Rob could lick any two 
 men in the village with one hand tied behind his 
 back. It is not clear that this particular wager of 
 battle was ever brought to an issue; but the fact 
 that with his two hands normally free Rob could 
 handle a large proportion of the male population 
 of the village to their damage, was sufficient to give 
 the weight of a full bench of judges to his slightest 
 utterances. 
 
 Muckle Rob had been away on a visit to a place 
 "in the Lowdons," where there was a good job, 
 and had just returned at the end of his contract 
 with full pockets and an air of prosperity which 
 in any other person would have been considered 
 exceedingly offensive. 
 
 When any of the inhabitants went upon a jaunt, 
 it always took a day to accustom them to Loch- 
 finny upon their return, so Rob took the time out 
 in a tour of inspection. He heard that Andrew
 
 292 Love Idylls 
 
 Grieve was lying up again and sending out his wife 
 to do washing. So he called on Andrew and swore 
 by the powers above and below that he would 
 break every bone in his body if he was not found 
 working on the "face" by the first shift to-morrow. 
 Andrew complained of a pain in the sma' of his 
 back. 
 
 "The pain will be in the braid o' your back, gin 
 ye are no forrit wi' your tools as soon as the lave 
 o' us the morn !" said Rob, as he slouched out with 
 elbows very wide of his sides, in the position in 
 which he held them when he was making ready for 
 a fight. 
 
 Towards sundown Rob, in his comprehensive 
 survey of Lochfinny, arrived at the new quoiting- 
 green. He leaned his arms on a dyke and attended 
 to the points of the game with the air of a past 
 master. Tarn Galletly was ringing in the clanking 
 disks, each fair on the pin. Then Pate Miller with 
 his next quoit would "raise him oot o' that !" It 
 was a fine level game, point about, and evens be- 
 tween times. At least twenty miners, mostly 
 shankers, were cheering on their favourites, and 
 the noise was like a menagerie at the time of 
 feeding. 
 
 But through the uproar there stole to the ears 
 of Muckle Rob an unwonted sound. It was
 
 That Popish Parson Fellow 293 
 
 music, and there was something solemn about it — 
 as Rob thought, like the first psalm on Communion 
 Sabbath. He heard it only faintly through the 
 quieter blinks of the roaring quoiters. The high 
 clear voices of boys steadied and weighed by one 
 deep bass. The sound came through the windows 
 of the "Englishy chaypel" beside the rinks. 
 
 "What's that?" queried Muckle Rob, suddenly, 
 like a dog as it pricks its ears, and Gilbert Grey, 
 commonly called "Pow-head Gibby," explained the 
 matter to him, with many chuckles and bursts of 
 open laughter. But curiously enough Muckle 
 Rob did not laugh at all. He was indeed more 
 than ordinarily grave as he listened, so that Gibby 
 wondered, after all, he had not got his pay for the 
 contract "over the water." 
 
 At the end of the story Muckle Rob said never 
 a word. But he slowly took his arms off the dyke 
 and stepped over into the field. He strode forward 
 towards the rinks as if more closely to inspect the 
 game. The players made haste to welcome so 
 mighty a champion, but Rob went solemnly to the 
 tee, and kicked out the steel pins at the end of the 
 rink to the back of which the signal paper was 
 tucked. He sent the quoits spinning on their rims 
 into the distant hedge. He took Tarn Galletly 
 and Pate Miller by the cuff of the neck, and,
 
 294 Love Idylls 
 
 knocking their heads together, he marched them 
 off the field. 
 
 "Deil's buckies!" said he, between every shake, 
 "hae ye no the hale green to play on, that ye maun 
 come here to raise a disturbance? I'll learn ye!" 
 
 It was not often that Muckle Rob took so active 
 a hand in matters ecclesiastical; and while nobody 
 dared to contradict him, all were naturally anxious 
 to come at the explanation of the matter. 
 
 "What's ta'en ye, Rab, since ye gaed awa?" 
 asked one of his mates. "Ye used to be sair again 
 the Papes? Hae ye turned your coat?" 
 
 "Na," said Rob, "I hae neither turned Pape nor 
 yet Methody in my auld age, but for a' that I'm 
 tellin' ye that the man who meddles wi' the Eng- 
 lish)- chiel will ken the smell o' my five knuckles !" 
 
 There was a respectful silence. Several had 
 tried the perfume mentioned but had misliked it. 
 
 "Come your ways to the wood end an' I'll tell ye 
 the tale," said Rob, in a more persuasive manner, 
 as one who is conscious that he has hardly done 
 justice to the softer emotions. 
 
 "Noo, hearken," said Muckle Rob, when all the 
 company had subsided into the convenient posture 
 of attention known as "hunkering," "an' when I 
 hae dune ye'll agree on a new quoitin'-green. Or 
 else — Weel, we'll 'gree on a new quoitin'-green!"
 
 That Popish Parson Fellow 295 
 
 "It was my wee Airchie, him that was ta'en last 
 year when he was thirteen. Ye maybe mind o' 
 him. He keeped the second door on the west side 
 o' No. 4 Pit. He was a boy like the rest o' the 
 reckless loons — could lee and sweer, and aiblins, 
 when I wasna within hearin' tak' a drap drink and 
 smoke his pipe wi' the aulder anes. Fine do I ken 
 that my lad was nae wee white hen that never laid 
 away ! 
 
 "But ae Pay-Saturday, wha should come frae 
 Manchester but the lad's auntie, our Elizabeth's 
 sister, ye ken, wha's man has done so weel at the 
 'pack.' An' she telled Airchie aboot the grand 
 place that the toon was, and the big pays, and the 
 theayturs an' a' the ongauns, till she had the laddie 
 fair by himsel'. I mis-caa'ed her for a daft haverel, 
 pittin' notions into the bit bairn's head. 
 
 "But after that we had nae peace. Airchie 
 fleeched and cried on, till nocht wad serve but he 
 maun gang awa back to Manchester wi' his auntie 
 — her payin' his passage and giein' him his meat, 
 as it were. So that we had no great loss, but only 
 his day's wage. 
 
 "Noo for a woman that was sic a warrior at the 
 eatin' an' drinkin', for her weight was twenty stane 
 an' her customary drink stone ale, Marget was an 
 awsome woman for meetin's an' preachin's — juist
 
 296 Love Idylls 
 
 fair unbelievable — and as for texts, boys-O — , she 
 could rattle them aff like a string o' empties gaun 
 doon the do ok. She never got to the end o' yin o' 
 them afore the ither was at its tail. 
 
 "So I kenned weel what the laddie wad get in 
 Manchester. There was his uncle — a muckle bag- 
 git Englishman that had made a heap o' siller by 
 keepin' nocht but 'prentices to the pack, and 
 sackin' them before their time was oot. He took 
 Airchie to the theaytre the ae nicht — an' the next 
 his auntie Marget garred him trot awa' michty un- 
 willin', to some o' her revival meetin's! 
 
 "But o' them a', there was no yin that Airchie 
 cared a docken for, till on the Saturday Marget 
 gets word o' a terrible genteel kid glove Methody 
 meetin'. The folk were just crazy to gang to it, 
 because it was hadden in the head kirk o' the place, 
 that was caa'ed the Cathedral. Though what for 
 it wasna juist decently caa'ed 'the Kirk' is mair 
 than I can tell ye. 
 
 "Jam-packed it was at ony rate when Marget an' 
 Airchie got there. They were squeezed like her- 
 rings, and it was as warm as lying on your back in 
 the pit an howkin' at the roof. The preacher chap 
 was a' done up in a sheet, wi' a face like chalk, hair 
 like ink, and e'en like holy fire. Marget said when 
 she cam' hame, that she had heard some preachin'
 
 That Popish Parson Fellow 297 
 
 in her life — mair maybe than had done her muckle 
 good — but there was nocht in a' her experience 
 to touch that chap. He mixed the folk up, he 
 twisted them, he garred them laugh or greet juist 
 as if they had been bairns an' him the dominie. 
 
 "Marget was in great fettle (so her man said) 
 when she gat hame to her stone ale an' mutton 
 pies. It was the grandest 'season' she had ever 
 had. But my wee Airchie never said onything, 
 but cam' his way back to Lochfinny an' gaed to 
 his wark at No. 4 as he had done afore. 
 
 "But for a' that he was a different boy, I could 
 see that. He gaed aboot that quiet, the day by the 
 length ye wadna hae heard him lettin' an ill word 
 oot o' the mouth o' him. His mother was fair 
 feared that he was gaun in a decline. I asked 
 Airchie what ailed him. But he looked doon and 
 said, 'Nocht particular, faither.' So as he aye took 
 his meal o' meat regular, I took nae mair heed 
 either. 
 
 "But there cam' that smash in number fower the 
 nicht the engineman got fu' — careless drucken 
 deevil he was — an' we Airchie got the nip. So we 
 took him hame to his mither, mairchin' slow and 
 carefu', ye ken ower weel the way that brings the 
 women doon the road like bees, to ken wha's man 
 or bairn it is they're carryin'.
 
 298 Love Idylls 
 
 "They hought Airchie to the bed, that he had 
 risen frae sae brisk that morning', ta'en his bit can 
 and set oot whistling like a mavis. They laid him 
 doon, and syne oor doctor cam'. He was kind and 
 quiet — touchin' and bandagein', and aye wi' a joke 
 an' a heartsome word " 
 
 'Three cheers for the Doctor!" said some one 
 in the background. But Muckle Rob took no 
 heed, but steadily told his tale. 
 
 "Neel he bade Airchie be a guid lad, to mind his 
 prayers, and do what his mither telled him, an' he 
 wad gaffer the pit some day yet. 
 
 "But, lads, when he gaed oot, he gied yon thraw 
 o' his nose owre his shooder at me, where I was 
 standing like a useles lump in the corner. I saw 
 he wanted me to speak at the door, an' my heart 
 gaed down like lead. 
 
 'Rob,' he said, layin' his hand on my arm, 
 'better let Airchie get what he wants. He will no 
 want it lang.' An' lads, I was near the greetin' — 
 I dinna need to tell ye hoo near, for ye ken. 
 
 "But Airchie wanted naething, only to be letten 
 alane. Sae in the afternune his mither said to him, 
 'Airchie, lad, ye had better ken — ye are gaun to 
 leave us, Airchie — to leave your faither an' your 
 mither. Is there ocht that ye wad like dune?' 
 
 "But Airchie lay still and made nae muir sign
 
 That Popish Parson Fellow 299 
 
 than if she had telled him to gang to 'hush-a-by' 
 when he was a bairn. But in a while he said, 
 'Mither, if I maun dee, I wad like awesome well to 
 see the chap in the white goon that preached 
 when I was wi' Auntie Marget.' 
 
 "But we talked to him an' argufied wi' him, to 
 pit him by the notion, sayin' that the man was some 
 great Englisher, and, besides a' that, it was an awfu' 
 lang road off. And that it wasna to be expected 
 that he could leave his wark an' come awa' to see 
 a collier lad here in Scotland. Sae we asked him 
 gin the minister here wadna do, for he was a decent 
 man and weel liked. 
 
 "But Airchie was michty set in his mind, and he 
 said, 'I ken it's no to be expected, but if I canna 
 hae the chap in the white goon to speak to me, I 
 want naebody,' says he. 
 
 "Sae as I was writing to his Auntie to tell aboot 
 the accident at ony rate, I put in a bit aboot what 
 Airchie had said — never thinkin' but that it wad 
 juist pleasure her to ken that Airchie minded the 
 preachin,' wi' nae thocht ava o' onything mair. 
 
 "But Marget was ever, as ye ken, a forritsome 
 woman. I think it maun hae been wi' companyin' 
 so muckle wi' thae Englishers, for it wasna o' her 
 kind o' folk. Sae as soon as she got the letter, 
 what does the daft woman do, but pits on her bon-
 
 300 Love Idylls 
 
 net an' awa to the graund hoose whaur Maister 
 Cox Noble (for that was the name of the chap), 
 leeved. But he wasna in. He was awa' on his holi- 
 days that verra mornin', awa' in Cornwall where 
 the Methody miners comes frae. He was fair dune 
 wi' workin' at his revivalin', the hoosekeeper said. 
 
 "Then Auntie Marget was gaun awa' disheark- 
 ened like, when the woman cried her back. 
 
 'But,' says she, 'ye micht tell me what ye cam' 
 aboot, if it's no a secret. For the master likes to 
 hear when he comes hame.' Then Marget telled 
 her a' aboot the puir lad that had been hurt awa' 
 in the north. I jaloose she was glad to hae some- 
 body to tell. And sae she gaed her ways back 
 hame. 
 
 "We were a' sittin' up wi' Airchie that night, 
 and I could see that he wadna be lang. It was far 
 ower in the mornin' — on the back o' twa' — that 
 there cam' a canny chappin' at the door. The 
 laddie's mither gaed to it, thinkin' it was aiblins a 
 neebour corned to speir hoo Airchie was. But 
 when she opened it, there on the step, wi' a wee 
 bag in his hand, was the Englishy parson, white as 
 the sheet he had preached in, wi' the e'en o' him 
 fair sunk in his head wi' travel and want o' sleep. 
 Sax hundred mile he had come to see my wee
 
 That Popish Parson Fellow 301 
 
 Airchie. We couldna speak to him, we war that 
 pitten aboot. 
 
 "So he cam' ben, an' ye should hae seen the 
 laddie's face as pleased like as if he had seen an 
 angel frae heeven. 
 
 "I can dee noo !" he said. 
 
 "And there the Englishy chiel sat, wi' my boy's 
 hand in his, a' the nicht till the mornin', whiles 
 speakin' a wee an' whiles no. 
 
 "An' so they sat till Airchie heard the doors 
 opening up and doon the raw, and the men gangin' 
 awa' to the pit wi' their cannies and their lamps. 
 
 " That is the day-shift, minister,' he said; 'I 
 maun gang too !' 
 
 "An' that was the way oor wee Airchie gaed oot 
 wi' the day-shift !" 
 
 And at the road end, there was silence a little 
 when the tale was done, and Muckle Rob sat with 
 his hand covering his brow. 
 
 At last Pete Miller spoke. 
 
 "We'll hae nae mair quoitin' ower by the chay- 
 pel," he said. 
 
 "Na," said all the men, rising together very 
 soberly. "Nae mair quoitin' at the chaypel after 
 this!"
 
 THE EXERCISE BOOK 
 OF 
 FIELD-MARSHAL PRINCE 
 
 ILANTZ 
 
 They buried the Prince Ilantz, Commandant of 
 all the Kaiserlich Armies. With massed battalions 
 of infantry, tramp of cavalry, thunder of artillery, 
 they buried him. The chosen bands of a dozen army 
 corps made the Dead March to rend men's hearts 
 and overflow the eyes of women. The Prince's own 
 Uhlan regiment, of which he was Colonel, escorted 
 his body to the grave. They led his charger behind 
 him, saddle-empty. And because there was no rela- 
 tive to be chief mourner, the King-like, Kaiser-like 
 Majesty in person followed after. 
 
 They laid him away in his Field-Marshal's uni- 
 form, which might have been covered with medals 
 and decorations as thick as plate armour. But be- 
 cause it was his will and custom to wear only the 
 Iron Cross of Valour upon it, which any common 
 soldier might wear, and wear as well as he — even 
 thus they buried him who had been the first soldier
 
 304 Love Idylls 
 
 of his time, and died Field-Marshal the Prince of 
 Ilantz. And between his hands was placed a young 
 girl's exercise-book, for so it was written in his will. 
 Also it had been his last dying command. When the 
 end drew very near, his sovereign stooped to whis- 
 per a word of cheer to the man who had girded his 
 throne with a ring of unconquered swords. 
 
 "Is there aught that I can do, Prince Field-Mar- 
 shal?" asked the Emperor. The eye which had a 
 hundred times set the battle in array flashed a mes- 
 sage and directed his master with a look to his de- 
 sire. 
 
 "The box? — am I to open it?" asked the Emperor 
 gently. 
 
 The dying general nodded. It was a tiny casket 
 of gold, of beautiful inlaid workmanship, which 
 stood beside the bed — sole ornament ox a chamber 
 sternly bare, as had been the great soldier's quarters 
 on active service. 
 
 The Emperor opened the close-fitting, smooth- 
 shutting golden lid. There was a little paper-cov- 
 ered book within. "Will your High Majesty deign 
 to set that book between my hands when I am dead, 
 and so command to bury me?" said the Prince 
 Ilantz. "Wife or child, brother or sister have I 
 none. But if my Kaiser will do this for his servant, 
 I have not lived in vain."
 
 Field-Marshal Prince Ilantz 305 
 
 So the gold box stood for ever afterwards on the 
 Emperor's own table. But the book he placed him- 
 self with honour and observance between the dead 
 man's fingers. So it had remained while he lay in 
 state. So it kept place through the ordered ceremo- 
 nial of the military funeral. There it was, when 
 about the open grave the picked soldiers of a dozen 
 army corps, commanded by the Emperor, wheeled 
 solemnly and inevitably into their places about the 
 bier. For the dead, and he alone, had taught them 
 how. The paper book was there when the artillery 
 thundered the last earth-shaking salute. The dead 
 hand held it when the Emperor took the vacant place 
 at the head of the Field-Marshal's Uhlans regiment, 
 for it was an Imperial rescript that none save the 
 Emperor himself should ever be their Colonel after 
 Herman von Edelwald, Prince of Ilantz and first 
 soldier of the Empire. 
 
 And the girl's grey paper exercise-book abides to 
 
 this day where an Emperor placed it — under the 
 
 piled marble of the monument raised by his country. 
 
 But no one, not even the Emperor himself, knows 
 
 what is in that book — except one old woman whose 
 
 name is Augusta. Yet I will tell the story of the 
 
 paper book of grey in the dead soldier's hand. 
 ******* 
 
 Once in golden weather a young man abode all
 
 306 Love Idylls 
 
 the summer upon the tableland of Ilantz. He was 
 a soldier by profession, but a wound had given him 
 at once promotion and a prolonged furlough. 
 
 Every era has its favourite health resorts. Ilantz 
 was the fashion in the days when the young officer 
 of Uhlans rested his wounded left arm and painted 
 indefatigably with his right. 
 
 Famous men and beautiful women frequented the 
 hotels of Ilantz. But the young soldier-artist passed 
 shy and silent among them. He made friends 
 with no one. He entered no coterie. He was a 
 member of no clique. He was asked to no reception. 
 He had only his modest bedroom and his place at 
 table in the vast caravanserai. But his fellow-guests 
 passed about him like the shadows of the passers- 
 by upon the ceiling of a darkened room. 
 
 In the first burst of summer which arrives with 
 June, there came to the Hotel of the Baths a brother 
 and two sisters. The young officer knew the new- 
 comers by sight, for they came from his own part of 
 the country. They were the Graf von Eulenstein 
 and his sisters Augusta and Margaret, from their 
 castle in grey Pomerania. Very poor the Eulen- 
 steins were; but of lineage old as the Paladins of 
 Charles the Great. The Count was tall and dark, 
 and his poverty made him hide his kindliness under 
 a mantle of reserve. His sister Augusta was like
 
 Field-Marshal Prince Ilantz 307 
 
 him in appearance, stately and dignified, and the 
 faded lace on her shoulders became her like a queen's 
 coronet. 
 
 But Margaret, the second sister, was ten years 
 younger. And something broke like a violin string 
 in the heart of the young painter-lieutenant as he 
 looked at the maid Margaret in the simple beauty of 
 her maidenhood. She was fair of face, white as a 
 lily, and the rose-blush went and came with the 
 breath on her cheek. Her eyes were blue — cool, like 
 wells where clear water is — and the long lashes 
 which shaded them were dark and most modestly 
 lowered. 
 
 The young officer could scarce tear his eyes away 
 from such beauty as he had never seen before. Her- 
 man von Edelwald was a soldier, but he had no sol- 
 dierly boldness with women. He went to his work 
 the next day as usual, and the day after that, and so 
 till the weeks passed by. But he watched the hotel 
 doors for her coming. He waited for the passing of 
 the Eulensteins as they made their daily promenades. 
 The Count and Augusta often walked rapidly be- 
 fore, talking seriously together, while Margaret fol- 
 lowed a little behind, as if she were easily tired, or it 
 might be a little lonely, being younger than the 
 others. 
 
 In the evening the Lieutenant's table was opposite
 
 308 Love Idylls 
 
 to theirs, and the young man allowed himself occa- 
 sionally the shy luxury of a prolonged gaze. But 
 once he caught the Count's eye instead of Mar- 
 garet's, and it seemed to him that its glance was 
 sharp as a sword-blade. 
 
 The next evening Margaret had changed places. 
 The Count was opposite to him, and there was a va- 
 cant place between the two sisters. Presently there 
 came in a young officer, whom Edelwald had seen 
 about headquarters. He was the son of a rich and 
 influential official. He sat down by Margaret Eulen- 
 stein, and, so soon as he began to talk, there re- 
 mained in the artist's mind no doubt of his position. 
 He posed openly as the accepted family suitor for 
 the hand of Margaret. But though her brother 
 talked freely enough and Augusta glanced mean- 
 ingly at her, Margaret sat silent, looking down and 
 eating little. She was pale as marble, and Edel- 
 wald noticed that the rose-leaf flush did not now 
 come and go upon her cheeks of lilies. 
 
 Then the Lieutenant went out, and walked for 
 hours upon the moors. The world was very black 
 that night, and there was no God anywhere. Yet he 
 watched for her every day, and his eyes followed 
 after the party of four, with the brother and sister in 
 front and the silent pair lagging behind. 
 
 Yet when their eyes met again on the stairs, there
 
 Field-Marshal Prince Ilantz 309 
 
 was no brightness of the happy lover on the face of 
 Margaret. 
 
 "I am tired," she would say to her brother; and 
 often, instead of dining, would ask permission to go 
 quietly to her own room. She kissed his ring as she 
 rose from table, and then the men would unconcern- 
 edly go on with their talk. But Augusta would wait 
 a little and quietly glide after her sister. 
 
 Paler and always paler grew the young maid 
 Margaret. Edelwald raged within himself. The 
 scoundrel Seidlitz (he thought) was not treat- 
 ing the girl properly. She was pining for his 
 warmer affection, or afraid that he would give her 
 up because of her delicate health. 
 
 "This girl, who is to me as my life, is dying by 
 inches ; and I cannot help her or even speak to her !" 
 So cried the soul of Edelwald to the flying clouds of 
 the moorlands as he paced the heath. 
 
 One evening in September the Lieutenant had 
 gone down to dine with a number of officers whom 
 he had known in the campaign where he got his 
 wound. Seidlitz was there, and, being flushed with 
 wine, grew volubly thick of speech. 
 
 He was rallied as to his reason for remaining at 
 Ilantz, and made no scruple to declare that it was 
 because his father insisted upon his marrying the 
 younger Eulenstein. But he was determined not to
 
 310 Love Idylls 
 
 marry a sick woman, who might be an encumbrance 
 all her life. He was ready to throw the girl over and 
 fight the brother, if necessary, he said. "I am not 
 
 going to marry a " And the French word he 
 
 used was not a pretty one. 
 
 But the young Lieutenant rose from his place, and 
 without a single syllable of speech he struck the 
 brute Seidlitz on the mouth. They fought outside, 
 and in spite of his wounded arm Edelwald hit his foe 
 on the shoulder, and might, had he chosen, have 
 killed him. After the wound was dressed, the Lieu- 
 tenant went up to Seidlitz. 
 
 "You will not send that letter you spoke of to 
 your father/' he said. "You will continue the ar- 
 rangements for your betrothal to Margaret Eulen- 
 stein." 
 
 "And pray by whose orders am I to do these 
 things?" said Seidlitz scornfully. 
 
 "You will do them," said the Lieutenant, under 
 his breath, "because, if you do not, I, Herman Edel- 
 wald, will follow you over the earth to kill you. I 
 do not swear it. I simply say it. I will kill you if 
 you give a moment's pain to Margaret Eulenstein." 
 
 Yet, in spite of the clear Alpine air, the care of 
 physicians, and the new and evident devotion of 
 Seidlitz, the girl paled and fainted. Bitterly and 
 silently the Lieutenant watched. Seidlitz also saw
 
 Field-Marshal Prince Ilantz 3 1 1 
 
 it. All, save the Count and his sister knew the truth. 
 They, or at least the Count, were intent only on 
 pushing on the betrothal. 
 
 But one morning Margaret did not come down. 
 She lay still on her bed, and her cheek was no paler 
 in death than it had been for many days in life. The 
 Count and Augusta were distracted. The blow had 
 fallen as from God. They knew that Margaret was 
 delicate of constitution. But they had never thought 
 of this. Nevertheless, their sister, for whom they 
 had schemed, lay dead upstairs, and all their schem- 
 ing for her was in ruins below. 
 
 As the brother and sister sat wrapped in their sud- 
 den terror of darkness, a card was brought to them. 
 
 The Lieutenant Herman Freiherr von Edelwald 
 was the antique style of the name. "It is the young 
 painter," said Augusta. "What can he want?" 
 
 "To offer his services, without doubt," said the 
 Count. "But I did not know he was noble." 
 
 So the Lieutenant at last had speech with two of 
 those to whom he had so often desired to speak. 
 
 "I am an artist as well as a soldier," he said to the 
 Count and his sister. "I have heard of your great 
 sorrow. It is also a deep sorrow of mine. I come 
 to ask you to allow me to paint and present to you a 
 picture of your sister as a last memorial." 
 
 The Count was on the point of declining some-
 
 3 i 2 Love Idylls 
 
 what brusquely. It was the intrusion of a stranger, 
 well meant, but impossible and almost intolerable. 
 But as he rose to put an end to the matter, his sister 
 Augusta, whose grey hair seemed greyer than ever, 
 stayed him with her hand. 
 
 "After all," she said, "might not this fall out well? 
 We have had no picture of Margaret of any kind 
 taken since she was a child." 
 
 The Count bent his brows impatiently. His sister 
 continued to look at him. 
 
 "Well," he said, "after all, how do you know that 
 the gentleman could paint the picture to give any 
 likeness of the well-beloved sister we have lost?" 
 
 "I see it in his face," said Augusta. For she also 
 was a woman. 
 
 As the Lieutenant sat down to his work a letter 
 was brought to him. His presence was urgently 
 commanded at the headquarters of his regiment. He 
 hurriedly calculated that he had but six hours to do 
 the work. But when Augusta raised the light linen 
 coverture from the pale face which had now no rose- 
 leaf blush upon it, the beating of his heart won- 
 drously stilled itself. He felt that the first immediate 
 presence of the beloved was to him as the eve of a 
 marriage day. 
 
 He began slowly, looking often at Margaret's
 
 Field-Marshal Prince Ilantz 313 
 
 face, and at the folds of fine coverlet which outlined 
 her limbs. 
 
 But soon Edelwald began to work more swiftly. 
 He looked less often at Margaret's face. His hands 
 seemed hardly to leave the picture. The afternoon 
 lengthened, and the shadows stretched out. 
 
 The bells of the little church sounded the hour of 
 evening worship. It was the Sabbath, and many 
 peasant women-folk went soberly and trustfully 
 towards the pleasant, solemn sound. Their feet clat- 
 tered on the round paving-stones of the village 
 street. The hired carriage Edelwald had ordered 
 jingled to the door. At last the artist looked at his 
 watch and stood back from his picture. 
 
 Augusta came softly from her window-seat and 
 looked also. At the first glance she gave a little cry. 
 "It is herself!" she cried. "Our Margaret as she 
 was when she came from school! How did you 
 know ? You had never seen her thus. How is such 
 a marvel possible?" 
 
 "Ich habc geliebt" said the Lieutenant simply, 
 and bowed his head, and went away. So Augusta 
 was left with the picture of wide-eyed smiling maid- 
 enhood upon the easel, and the other still innocence 
 upon the bed, with the eyelids closed upon the true 
 sweet eyes for ever. Yet when she went to the pil- 
 low to cover the face again with the white linen,
 
 3H Love Idylls 
 
 there was a smile upon it she had never seen before. 
 It seemed the reflected joy which shone in the pic- 
 ture which Herman the soldier had painted "because 
 he loved her." 
 
 Next morning, after the funeral, Augusta found a 
 book — a little grey paper book. It was laid away 
 carefully and sacredly in Margaret's desk, among 
 her simple treasures and books of devotion. Au- 
 gusta opened it a little carelessly. She expected 
 copies of favourite verses, or it might be a few 
 pressed flowers. She read the first page. She shut 
 the book. Then she opened it again, and passed 
 rapidly over the pages to the last, which had been 
 left unfinished. 
 
 'To-day I stood beside him for a moment in the 
 hall when he came in with his painting. His shoul- 
 der touched mine. It is foolish, I know, but if 
 Augusta had not caught me, I should have fallen. I 
 wish now I could have lived a little longer. For I 
 love him — I love him!" 
 
 The words had been written the day before Mar- 
 garet's death. As her sister finished the reading, the 
 Count came in, and Augusta hastily hid the book in 
 the pocket of her dress. 
 
 "After all, the book is for no man's eyes — for no 
 eyes but mine, indeed. And even I shall read no 
 more," Augusta said. So she went back to the
 
 Field-Marshal Prince Ilantz 315 
 
 emptiest room in the world. And even as she 
 
 looked, lo ! there was the light of a new thing in the 
 
 eyes which looked at her out of Edelwald's picture. 
 
 She gazed at it long through her tears, fingering the 
 
 while the little exercise book under her gown. 
 
 "Yes, for the eyes of one other!" she said. And 
 
 she went hastily and made a little parcel. 
 
 ******* 
 
 And that is the story of the grey paper book which 
 the Emperor placed in the dead hands of Field-Mar- 
 shal Prince Ilantz, first soldier of the Empire.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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