GILIAN THE DREAMER

Gilian the Dreamer, His Fancy, His Love and Adventure

By Neil Munro

Author of 'John Splendid' 'The Lost Pibroch' &c. 

1899

GILIAN THE DREAMER

PART I

CHAPTER I--WHEN THE GEAN-TREE BLOSSOMED

Rain was beating on the open leaf of plane and beech, and rapping at theblack doors of the ash-bud, and the scent of the gean-tree flourish hunground the road by the river, vague, sweet, haunting, like a recollectionof the magic and forgotten gardens of youth. Over the high and numeroushills, mountains of deer and antique forest, went the mist, a slattern, trailing a ragged gown. The river sucked below the banks and clamouredon the cascades, drawn unwillingly to the sea, the old gluttonous seathat must ever be robbing the glens of their gathered waters. And thebirds were at their loving, or the building of their homes, flying amongthe bushes, trolling upon the bough. One with an eye, as the sayinggoes, could scarcely pass among this travail of the new year withoutsome pleasure in the spectacle, though the rain might drench him tothe skin. He could not but joy in the thrusting crook of the fern andbracken; what sort of heart was his if it did not lift and swell to seethe new fresh green blown upon the grey parks, to see the hedges burst, the young firs of the Blaranbui prick up among the slower elder pinesand oaks?

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

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

If this were a tale of the imagination, and my task was not a work ofhistory but to pleasure common people about a hearth, who ever love thefamiliar emotions in their heroes, I would credit my hero with grief. For here was his last friend gone, here was he orphaned for ever. Thedoor of Ladyfield, where he was born and where he had slept without anabsent night since first his cry rose there, a coronach in the ears ofhis dying mother, would be shut against him; the stranger would bar thegates at evening, the sheep upon the hills would have another keel-markthan the old one on their fleecy sides. Surely the sobs that sometimesrose up in his throat were the utter surrender of sorrow; were the tearsthat mingled with the rain-drops on his cheek not griefs most bitteressence? For indeed he had loved the old shrunk woman, wrinkled andbrown like a nut, with a love that our race makes no parade of, butfeels to the very core. 

But in truth, as he went sobbing in his loneliness down the river-side, a regard for the manner of his message busied him more than the matterof it. It was not every Friday a boy had a task so momentous had thechance to come upon households with intelligence so unsettling. Theywould be sitting about the table, perhaps, or spinning by the fire, thegood-wife of Ladyfield still for them a living, breathing body, homeamong her herds, and he would come in among them and in a word bring herto their notice in all death's great monopoly. It was a duty to be donewith care if he would avail himself of the whole value of so rare achance. A mere clod would be for entering with a weeping face, toblurt his secret in shaking sentences, or would let it slip out in anindifferent tone, as one might speak of some common occurrence. But Gilian, as he went, busied himself on how he should convey mosttellingly the story he brought down the glen. Should he lead up to hisnews by gradual steps or give it forth like an alarum? It would be afine and rare experience to watch them for a little, as they looked andspoke with common cheerfulness, never guessing why he was there, thenshock them with the intelligence, but he dare not let them think hefelt so little the weightiness of his message that his mind was readyto dwell on trivialities. Should it be in Gaelic or in English he shouldtell them? Their first salutations would be in the speech of the glens;it would be, "Oh Gilian, little hero! fair fellow! there you are! sitdown and have town bread, and sugar on its butter, " and if he followedthe usual custom he would answer in the same tongue. But between "_Thabean Lecknamban air falbh_" and "The wife of Ladyfield is gone, " theremust be some careful choice. The Gaelic of it was closer on the feelingsof the event; the words some way seemed to make plain the emptiness ofthe farmhouse. When he said them, the people would think all at onceof the little brown wrinkled dame, no more to be bustling aboutthe kitchen, of her wheel silent, of her foot no more upon the blueflagstones of the milk-house, of her voice no more in the chamber wherethey had so often known her hospitality. The English, indeed, when hethought of it with its phrase a mere borrowing from the Gaelic, seemedan affectation. No, it must be in the natural tongue his tidings shouldbe told. He would rap at the door hurriedly, lift the sneck before anyresponse came, go in with his bonnet in his hand, and say "_Tha beanLecknamban air falbh_" with a great simplicity. 

And thus as he debated and determined in his mind, he was hasteningthrough a country that in another mood would be demanding hisattention almost at every step of the way. Ladyfield is at the barrenend of the glen--barren of trees, but rich in heather, and myrtle, andgrass--surrounded by full and swelling hills. The river, but for thegluttonous sea that must be sucking it down, would choose, if it might, to linger in the valley here for ever, and in summer it loiters on manypretences, twining out and in, hiding behind Baracaldine and the bushesof Tom-an-Dearc, and pretending to doze in the long broad levels ofKincreggan, so that it may not too soon lose its freedom in so magica place. But the glen opens out anon, woods and parks cluster, and theDuke's gardens and multitudes of roads come into view. The deer stampand flee among the grasses, flowers grow in more profusion than up theglen where no woods shelter. There are trim houses by the wayside, withmen about the doors talking with loud cheerfulness, and laughing in theway of inn-frequenters. A gateway from solitude, an entrance to a regionwhere the most startling and varied things were ever happening, to a boyfrom the glen this town end of the valley is a sample of Paradise forbeauty and interest. Gilian went through it with his blue eyes blurredto-day, but for wont he found it full of charms and fancies. To go underits white-harled archways on a market day was to come upon a newworld, and yet not all a new world, for its spectacles of life andmovement--the busy street, the clanging pavement, the noisy closes, thequay ever sounding with the high calls of mariners and fishers--seemedsometimes to strike a chord of memory. At the first experience of thisbusy community, the innumerable children playing before the school, and the women with wide flowing clothes, and flowered bonnets ontheir heads, though so different from the children of the glen and itsfamiliar dames with piped caps, or maids with snooded locks--all waspleasant to his wondering view. He seemed to know and understand themat the first glance, deeper even than he knew or understood the commonsurroundings of his life in Ladyfield; he felt at times more comfort inthe air of those lanes and closes though unpleasantly they might smell(if it was the curing season and the gut-pots reeked at the quay) thanin the winds of the place he came from, the winds of the wilds, soindifferent to mankind, the winds of the woods, sacred to the ghosts, among whom a boy in a kilt was an intruder, the winds of the hills, thatcome blowing from round the universe and on the most peaceful days arebut momentary visitors, stopping but to tap with a branch at the window, or whistle mockingly in a vent. 

In spite of their mockery of him, Gilian always loved the children ofthe town. At first when they used to see him come through the archeswalking hurriedly, feeling his feet in unaccustomed shoes awkward andunmanageable, and the polish of his face a thing unbearable, they wouldcome up in wonder on his heels and guess at his identity, then taunt himfor the rustic nature of his clothing. 

"Crotal-coat, crotal-coat, there are peats in your brogues!" they wouldcry; or "Hielan'-man, hielan'-man, go home for your _fuarag_ and brose!"

They were strange new creatures to him, foreigners quite, and cruel, speaking freely a tongue he knew not but in broken parts, yet deep inhis innermost there was a strange feeling that he was of their kind. Hewished he could join them in their English play, or better far, that hemight take them to the eagle's nest in Stob Bhan, or the badgers' hamletin Blaranbui, or show them his skill to fetch the deer at a call, in therutting time, from the mud-wallows above Carnus. But even yet, he wasonly a stranger to the boys of the town, and as he went down the streetin the drenching rain that filled the syvers to overflowing and rosein a smoke from the calm waters of the bay, they cried "Crotal-coat, crotal-coat, " after him. 

"Ah, " said he to himself, inly pleased at their ignorance, "if I cared, could I not make them ashamed, by telling them they were mocking a boywithout a home?"

Kept by the rain closer than usual to the shelter of the closes, thescamps to-day went further than ever in their efforts to annoy thestranger; they rolled stones along the causey so that they caught himon the heels, and they ran out at the back ends of their closes as hepassed, and into others still before him, so that his progress down thetown was to run a gauntlet of jeers. But he paid no heed; he was ofthat gifted nature that at times can treat the most bitter insults withindifference, and his mind was taken up with the manner of his message. 

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

"You'll be looking for some one?" said she in Gaelic, knowing him notown boy. 

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

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

"She is dead, " said Gilian hurriedly. 

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

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

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

A little window facing the sea gave light to the interior, that wouldhave been dull and mean but for the brilliant delf upon the dresser rackand the cleanliness of all things and the smiling faces of Jean Clerkand her sister. The hum of Jean's wheel had filled the chamber as heentered; now it was stilled and the spinner sat with the wool pinched inher fingers, as she welcomed her little relative. Her sister--Aliset Dhuthey called her, and if black she was, it had been long ago, for now herhair was like the drifted snow--stood behind her, looking up from hergirdle where oaten bannocks toasted. 

He stood with his bonnet in his hand. Against his will the grief of hisloss swept over him more masterfully than it had yet done, for those twosisters had never been seen by him before except in the company of theirrelative the little old woman with a face like a nut, and the sobsthat shook him were checked by no reflection of the play-actor. He wasincapable of utterance. 

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

And thus my hero, who thought so much upon the way of his message, hadno need to convey it any way at all. 

CHAPTER II--THE PENSIONERS

"Go round, " said Jean Clerk, "and tell the Paymaster; he'll be the sorryman to lose his manager. "

"Will he be in his house?" asked Gilian, eating the last of his townbread with butter and sugar. 

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

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

The pensioners, the officers, ah! when I look up the silent street ofthe town nowadays and see the old houses empty but for weavers, andmerchants, and mechanics, people of useful purposes but little manlyinterest, and know that all we have of martial glory is a dust under ascore of tombstones in the yard, I find it ill to believe that ever warswere bringing trade for youth and valour to our midst. The warriors aregone; they do not fight their battles over any more at a meridian dram, or late sitting about the bowl where the Trinidad lemon floated inslices on the philtre of joy. They are up bye yonder in the shadow ofthe rock with the sea grumbling constantly beside them, and their namesand offices, and the dignities of their battles, and the long number oftheir years, are carved deeply, but not deeply enough, for what is thereof their fame and valour to the fore when the threshing rain and thecrumbling frost have worn the legend off the freestone slab? We are leftstranded high and dry upon times of peace, but the old war-dogs, oldheroes, old gentles of the stock and cane--they had seen the gloriesof life, and felt the zest of it. Bustling times! the drums beat at theCross in those days, the trumpeters playing alluringly up the lanes toyoung hearts to come away; pipers squeezed out upon their instrumentsthe fine tunes that in the time I speak of no lad of Gaelic blood couldhear but he must down with the flail or sheep-hook and on with thephilabeg and up with the sword. Gentlemen were for ever going to warsor coming from them; were they not of the clan, was not the Duke theircousin, as the way of putting it was, and by his gracious offices manya pock-pudding English corps got a colonel with a touch of the Gaelicin his word of command as well as in his temper. They went awayensigns--some of them indeed went to the very tail of the rank and filewith Mistress Musket the brown besom--and they came back Majors-General, with wounds and pensions. "Is not this a proud day for the town withthree Generals standing at the Cross?" said the Paymaster once, lookingwith pride at his brother and Turner of Maam and Campbell of Strachurstanding together leaning on their rattans at a market. It was in theIndies I think that this same brother the General, parading his commandbefore a battle, came upon John, an ensign newly to the front with adraft from the sea. 

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

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

 "Captain Mars, Captain Mars, Who never saw wars, "

said Evan MacColl, the bard of the parish, and the name stuck as thebye-names of that wonderful town have a way of doing. 

"Old Mars, " Paymaster, sat among the pensioners in the change-house ofthe Sergeant More when Gilian came to the door. His neck overflowed inwaves of fat upon a silk stock that might have throttled a man who hadnot worn the king's stock in hot lands over sea; his stockings fittedtightly on as neat a leg as ever a kilt displayed, though the kilt wasnot nowadays John Campbell's wear but kerseymore knee-breeches. He had afigured vest strewn deep with snuff that he kept loose in a pocket (theregiment's gold mull was his purse), and a scratch wig of brown sataskew on his bullet head, raking with a soldier's swagger. He had hislong rattan on the table before him, and now and then he would lift itstasseled head and beat time lightly to the chorus of Dugald MacNicol'ssong. Dugald was Major once of the 1st Royals; he had carried the swordin the Indies, East and West, and in the bloody Peninsula, and camehome with a sabre-slash on the side of the head, so that he was a littleweak-witted. When he would be leaving his sister's door to go for themeridian dram at the quay-head he would dart for cover to the Cross, then creep from close to close, and round the church, and up the FerryLand, in a dread of lurking enemies; yet no one jeered at his want, noboy failed to touch his bonnet to him, for he was the gentleman in thevery weakest moment of his disease. He had but one song in his budget:

 "O come and gather round me, lads, and help the chorus through, When I tell you how we fought the French on the plains of Waterloo. "

He sang it in a high quavering voice with curious lapses in the vigourof his singing and cloudings in the fire of his eyes, so that now andthen the company would have to jolt him awake to give the air morelustily. Colonel Hall was there (of St John's) and Captain SandyCampbell of the Marines, Bob MacGibbon, old Lochgair, the Fiscal witha ruffled shirt, and Doctor Anderson. The Paymaster's brothers werenot there, for though he was the brother with the money they werefield-officers and they never forgot it. 

The chorus was ringing, the glasses and the Paymaster's stick wererapping on the table, the Sergeant More, with a blue brattie tied tightacross his paunch to lessen its unsoldierly amplitude, went out and inwith the gill-stoups, pausing now and then on the errand to lean againstthe door of the room with the empty tray in his hand, drumming on itwith his finger-tips and joining in the officers' owercome. 

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

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

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

"The Paymaster!" cried the landlord, shutting the door of the room erehe said it, and uplifting farmed hands, "God's grace! do not talk of thePaymaster here! He is Captain Campbell, mind, late of his Majesty's 46thFoot, with a pension of £4 a week, and a great deal of money it isfor the country to be paying to a gentleman who never saw of wars butskirmish with the Syke. Nothing but Captain, mind you, and do not forgetthe salute, so, with the right hand up and thumb on a line with theright eyebrow. But could your business not be waiting? If it is MissMary who sent for him it is not very reasonable of her, for he is hereno longer than twenty minutes, and it is not sheepshead broth day, Iknow, because I saw her servant lass down at the quay for herrings anhour ago. Captain, mind, it must be that for him even with old soldierslike myself. I would not dare Paymaster him, it is a name that has atrade ring about it that suits ill with his Highland dignity. Captain, Captain!"

Gilian stood in front of this spate of talk, becoming more diffident andfearful every moment. He had never had any thought as to how he shouldtell the Paymaster that the goodwife of Ladyfield was dead, that was atask he had expected to be left to some one else, but Jean Clerk andher sister had a cunning enough purpose in making him the bearer of thenews. 

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

"Dead!" said John More. "Now is not that wonderful?" He leaned againstthe door as he had leaned many a time against sentry-box and barrackwall, and dwelt a little upon memory. "Is not that wonderful? The firsttime I saw her was at a wedding in Karnes, Lochow, and she was thehandsomest woman in the room, and there were sixty people at thewedding from all parts, and sixty-nine roasted hens at the supper. Well, well--dead! blessings with her; did I not know her well? Yes, and I knewher husband too, Long Angus, since the first day he came to Ladyfieldfor Old Mar--for the Paymaster--till the last day he came down theglen in a cart, and he was the only sober body in the funeral, perhapsbecause it was his own. Many a time I wondered that the widow did sowell in the farm for Captain Campbell, with no man to help her, thesowing and the shearing, the dipping and the clipping, ploughmen andherds to keep an eye on, and bargains to make with wool merchants anddrovers. Oh! she was a clever woman, your grandmother. And now she'sdead. Well, it's a way they have at her age! And the Paymaster must betold, though I know it will vex him greatly, because he is a sort of manwho does not relish changes. Mind now you say Captain; you need not sayCaptain Campbell, but just Captain, and maybe a 'sir' now and then. Isuppose you could not put off telling him for a half-hour or thereaboutslonger, when he would be going home for dinner any way; it is a pityto spoil an old gentleman's meridian dram with melancholy news. No. Youwere just told to come straight away and tell him--well, it is the goodsoldier who makes no deviation from the word of command. Come away inthen and--Captain mind--and the salute. "

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

The singing was done. The Major's mind was wandering over the plains ofWaterloo to guess by the vacancy of his gaze; on his left Bob MacGibbonsmoked a black segar, the others talked of townsmen still in the armyand of others buried under the walls of Badajos. They all turned whenthe Sergeant More spoke, and they saw him push before him into the roomthe little boy of Ladyfield with his bonnet in his hand and his eyesrestless and timid like pigeons at a strange gate fluttering. 

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

"Dead!" said the Paymaster, "Blessings with her!" Then he turned to hiscompanions and in English--"The best woman in the three parishes and thecleverest. She could put her hand to anything and now she's no more. Ithink that's the last of Ladyfield for me. I liked to go up now and thenand go about the hill and do a little bargaining at a wool market, orhaggle over a pound with a drover at the fair, but the farm did littlemore than pay me and I had almost given it up when her husband died. "

He looked flushed and uncomfortable. His stock seemed to fit him moretightly than before and his wig sat more askew than ever upon hisbald head. For a little he seemed to forget the young messenger stillstanding in the room, no higher than the table whereon the glassesranged. Gilian turned his bonnet about in his hand and twisted theribbons till they tore, then he thought with a shock of the scolding hewould get for spoiling his Sunday bonnet, but the thought was quicklyfollowed by the recollection that she who would have scolded him wouldchide no more. 

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

Bob MacGibbon--he was Captain in the 79th--leaned forward and tried toput his hand upon the child's shoulder, not unkindly, but with a roughplayfulness of the soldier. Gilian shrank back, his face flushingcrimson, then he realised the stupidity of his shyness and triedto amend it by coming a little farther into the room and awkwardlyattempting the salute in which the Sergeant More had tutored him. Thecompany was amused at the courtesy, but no one laughed. In a low voicethe Paymaster swore. He was a man given to swearing with no greatvariety in his oaths, that were merely a camp phrase or two at the most, repeated over and over again, till they had lost all their originalmeanings and could be uttered in front of Dr. Colin himself withoutany objection to them. In print they would look wicked, so they mustbe fancied by such as would have the complete picture of the elderlysoldier with the thick neck and the scratch wig. The Sergeant Morehad gently withdrawn himself and shut the door behind him the moreconveniently to hear what reception the messenger's tidings wouldmeet with from the Paymaster. And the boy felt himself cut off mosthelplessly from escape out of that fearful new surrounding. It hauntedhim for many a day, the strong smell of the spirits and the sharpodour of the slices floating in the glasses, for our pensionerswere extravagant enough to flavour even the cold midday drams of theAbercrombie with the lemon's juice. Gilian shifted from leg to leg andturned his bonnet continuously, and through his mind there darted manythoughts about this curious place and company that he had happened upon. As they looked at him he felt the darting tremor of the fawn in thethicket, but alas he was trapped! How old they were! How odd they lookedin their high collars and those bands wound round their necks! They werenot farmers, nor shepherds, nor fishermen, nor even shopkeepers; theywere people with some manner of life beyond his guessing. The Paymasterof course he knew; he had seen him often come up to Ladyfield, to talkto the goodwife about the farm and the clipping, to pay her money twiceyearly that was called wages, and was so little that it was scarcelyworth the name. Six men in a room, all gentle (by their clothes), allwith nothing better to do than stare at a boy who could not stare back!How many things they had seen; how many thoughts they must share betweenthem! He wished himself on the other side of Aora river in the stillnessof Kincreggan wood, or on the hill among the sheep--anywhere away fromthe presence of those old men with the keen scrutiny in their eyes, doubtless knowing all about him and seeing his very thoughts. Had theybeen shepherds, or even the clever gillies that sometimes came to thekitchen of Ladyfield on nights of _ceilidh_ or gossip, he would havefelt himself their equal. He would have been comfortable in feelingthat however much they might know about the hills, and woods, and wildbeasts, it was likely enough better known to himself, who lived amongthem and loved them. And the thoughts of the gillie, and the shepherd, were rarely beyond his shrewd guess as he looked at them; they hadbut to say a word or two, and he knew the end of their story from thebeginning. But these old gentlemen were as far beyond his understandingas Gillesbeg Aotram, the wanderer who came about the glens and wascalled daft by the people who did not know, as Gilian did, that he waswiser than themselves. 

The Paymaster took his rattan and knocked noisily on the table for thelandlord. 

The Sergeant More stepped softly on his tiptoes six steps into thekitchen, then six steps noisily back again and put his head in. 

"What's your will, Captain?" said he, polishing a tray with the cornerof his brattie. 

"Give this boy some dinner, for me, " said the Paymaster. "There isnothing at our place to-day but herrings, and it's the poorest of mealsfor melancholy. Miss Mary would make it all the more melancholy with herweeping over the goodwife of Ladyfield. "

Gilian went out with the Sergeant More and made a feeble pretence ateating his second dinner that day. 

CHAPTER III--THE FUNERAL

All the glen came to the funeral, and people of Lochowside on eitherside from Stronmealachan to Eredine, and many of the folk of Glen Shiraand the town. A day of pleasant weather, with a warm wind from the west, full of wholesome dryness for the soil that was still clogged with therains of spring. It filled the wood of Kincreggan with sounds, with therasping and creaking of branches and the rustle of leaves, and the roadby the river under the gean-trees was strewn with the broken blossom. 

The burial ground of Kilmalieu lies at the foot of a tall hill besidethe sea, a hill grown thick with ancient wood. The roots come sometimesunder the walls and below the old tombstones and set them ajee upontheir bases, but wanting those tall and overhanging companions, the yard, I feel, would be ugly and incomplete. It is in a soothingmelancholy one may hear the tide lapping on the rocks below and thewood-bird call in the trees above. They have been doing so in the earsof Kilmalieu for numberless generations, those voices everlasting butunheard by the quiet folk sleeping snug and sound among the clods. Sunshines there and rain falls on it till it soaks to the very bones ofthe old Parson, first to lie there, and in sun or rain there grow thelaurel-bushes that have the smell of death, and the gay flowers clusterin a profusion found nowhere else in the parish except it be in thegarden of the Duke. The lily nods in the wind, the columbine hangsits bell, there the snowdrop first appears and the hip-rose shows herrichest blossoms. On Sundays the children go up and walk among thestones over the graves of their grandfathers and they smell the flowersthey would not pluck. Sometimes they will put a cap on the side of acherub head that tops a stone and the humour of the grinning face willcreate a moment's laughter, but it is soon checked and they walk amongthe graves in a more seemly peace. 

They buried the goodwife of Ladyfield in her appointed place besideher husband and her only child, Gilian taking a cord at the head of thecoffin as it was lowered into the red jaws of the grave prepared for it. The earth thudded on the lid, the spades patted the mould, the peoplemoved off, and he was standing yet, listening to the bird that shooka song of passionate melody from its little throat as it becked upon atable tombstone. It was a simple song, he had heard it a thousand timesbefore and wondered at the hidden meaning of it, and now it puzzled himanew that it should encroach upon so solemn an hour in thoughtless loveor merriment. 

The men were on their way home over the New Bridge, treading heavily, and yet light-headed, for they had the Paymaster's dram at the "lifting"at Ladyfield in them, and the Paymaster himself was narrating to oldRixa, the Sheriff, and Donacha Breck his story, told a hundred timesbefore, of Long Dan MacIntyre, who never came up past the New Bridge, except at the tail of a funeral, for fear the weight should some daybring the massive masonry down. "Ha! ha! is that not good?" demanded thePaymaster, laughing till his jowl purpled over his stock. "I told him hewould cross the bridge to Kilmalieu one day and instead of being last hewould be first. "

The Fiscal hirpled along in his tight knee-breeches looking down withvain satisfaction now and then at the ruffles of his shirt and thebox-pleated frills that were dressed very snodly and cunningly byBell Macniven, who had been in the Forty-second with her husband thesergeant, and had dressed the shirts of the Marquis of Huntly, who wasColonel. 

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

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

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

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

"Do you speak to me of gentry, Mr. Spencer, " he asked, "with any idea ofmaking distinctions? You are a poor Sassenach person, I daresay, and donot know that my people have been in Blarinarn for three hundred yearsand I am the first man-of-business in the family. "

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

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

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

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

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

They stood in a cluster in the middle of the road, the Paymaster withhis black coat so tight upon his stomach it looked as if every brassbutton would burst with a crack like a gun; Rixa puffing and stretchinghimself; Major Dugald ducking his head and darting his glance about fromside to side looking for the enemy; Mr. Spencer, tall, thin, with thenew strapped breeches and a London hat, blowing his nose with much noisein a Barcelona silk handkerchief. All the way before them the crowd wentstraggling down in blacks with as much hurry as the look of the thingwould permit, to reach the schoolhouse where the Paymaster had laid outthe last service of meat and drink for the mourners. The tide was out;a sandy beach strewn with stones and clumps of seaweed gave its salineodour to the air; lank herons came sweeping down from the trees overCroitivile, and stalked about the water's edge. There was only one soundin nature beyond the soughing of the wind in the shrubbery of the Duke'sgarden, it was the plaintive call of a curlew as it flew over the stablepark. A stopped and stagnant world, full of old men and old plaints, thedead of the yard behind, the solemn and sleepy town before. 

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

Gilian was standing with the weepers off his cuffs and the crape off hisbonnet; he had divested himself of the hateful things whenever he foundhimself alone, and he was listening with a rapt and inexpressive face tothe pensive call of the curlew as it rose over the fields, and the tearswere dropping down his cheeks. 

"Oh, _'ille_, what's the matter with you?" asked the Paymaster inGaelic, struck that sorrow should so long remain with a child. 

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

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

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

The little fellow broke into a stammering torrent of Gaelic. "What doesit say, what does it say?" he asked: "it is calling, calling, calling, and no one will answer it; it is telling something, and I cannotunderstand. Oh, I am sorry for it, and----"

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

Gilian paid no heed to the speaker, but listened with streaming eyes tothe wearied note of the bird that still cried over the field. Then thePaymaster swore a fiery oath most mildly, and clutched the boy by thejacket sleeve and led him homeward. 

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

The two went down the road together, the Paymaster a little wearied withhis years and weight or lazied by his own drams, leaning in theleast degree upon the shoulder of the boy. They made an odd-lookingcouple--dawn and the declining day, Spring and ripe Autumn, illusion andan elderly half-pay officer in a stock and a brown scratch wig upon ahead that would harbour no more the dreams, the poignancies of youth. Some of the mourners hastening to their liquor turned at the Cross andlooked up the road to see if they were following, and they were struckvaguely by the significance of the thing. 

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

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

"You say what is very true, Sheriff, " said Mr. Spencer. "I think thereis something very sad in the spectacle, sir, of an old gentleman withplenty of the world in his possession going down to the bourne with nota face beside him to mind of his youth. "

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

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

"I suppose I'll just stay in my own bed in Lady-field, " said Gilian, apparently little exercised by the thought of his future, and dividingsome of his attention to the Paymaster with the sounds and sights ofnature by the way, the thrust of the bracken crook between the cranniesof the Duke's dykes, the gummy buds of the limes and chestnuts, thestraw-gathering birds on the road, the heron so serenely stalking on theshore, and the running of the tiny streams upon the beach that smokednow in the heat of the sun. 

The Paymaster seemed confounded. He swelled his neck more fully in thestock, cleared his throat with a loud noise, took a great pinch ofsnuff from his waistcoat pocket and spent a long time in disposing of itGilian was in a dream far off from the elderly companion and the smokingshore; his spirit floated over the glen and sometimes farther still, among the hill gorges that were always so full of mystery to him, orfarther still to the remote unknown places, foreign lands, cities, towns, where giants and fairies roamed and outrage happened and kingswere, in the tales the shepherds told about the peat fires on _ceilidh_nights. 

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

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

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

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

The Paymaster spoke in strange words under his breath and put on aquicker pace and went through the town, even past the schoolhouse, where old Brooks stood at the door in his long surtout saying aLatin declension over to himself as if it were a song, and into theCrosshouses past the tanned women standing with their hands rolled upin their aprons, and up to Jean Clerk's door. He rapped loudly with hisrattan. He rapped so loudly that the inmates knew this was no commonmessenger, and instead of crying out their invitation they came togetherand opened the door. The faces of the sisters grew rosy red at the sightof the man and the boy before him. 

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

The Paymaster stepped in, still gripping the boy by the shoulder, butrefused to sit down. He spoke very short and dry in his best travelledEnglish. 

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

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

"And you gave the key to Cameron the shepherd?"

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

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

"Ay, " said he, "and you forgot about the boy. What's to be done withhim? I suppose you would leave him to rout with the kye he was bredamong, or haunt the rocks with the sheep. I was thinking myself comingdown the road there, and this little fellow with me without a friend inthe world, that the sky is a damp ceiling sometimes, and the grass ofthe field a poor meal for a boy's stomach. Eh! what say you, MistressClerk?" And the old soldier heaved a thumbful of snuff from hiswaistcoat pocket. 

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

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

"There's nothing wrong with my heart, Captain Campbell, " said Jeantartly, "but my pocket's empty. If you think the boy's neglected youhave a house of your own to take him into; it would be all the betterfor a young one in it, and you have the money to spend that Jean Clerkhas not. " All this with a very brave show of spirit, but with somethinguncommonly moist about the eyes. 

The Paymaster, still clutching the boy at the shoulder, turned on hisheel to go, but a side glance at Jean Clerk's face again showed himsomething different from avarice or anger. 

"You auld besom you!" said he, dunting the floor with his rattan, "I seethrough you now; you think you'll get him put off on me. I suppose if Irefused to take him in, you would be the first to make of him. "

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

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

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

"Tuts, " said the Paymaster, "Sister Mary's like the rest of you; shewould make a milksop of the boy if I was foolish enough to take him hometo her. He'll want smeddum and manly discipline; that's the stuff tomake the soldier. The uneasy bed to sleep on, the day's task to be doneto the uttermost. I'll make him the smartest ensign ever put baldrickon--that's if I was taking him in hand, " he added hastily, realisingfrom the look of the woman that he was making a complete capitulation. 

"And of course you'll take him, Captain Campbell, " cried Jean Clerk intriumph. "I'm sure you would sooner take him and make a soldier of himthan leave him with me--though before God he was welcome--to grow upharvester or herd. "

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

CHAPTER IV--MISS MARY

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

"There you are, Sandy!" he would call, "doing no trade as usual; you'llnot have sold a parcel of pins or a bolt of tape to-day, I suppose. Where am I to get my rent, I wonder, next Martinmas?"

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

"Pooh, pooh, what's that to the time of war? I'll tell you this, Sandy, I'll have to roup out for my rent yet. " And by he would sail, as red inthe face as a bubbly-jock, swelling his neck over his stock more largelythan ever, and swinging his rattan by its tassel or whacking with it onhis calves, satisfied once more to have put this merchant-body in hisown place. 

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

Gilian thought no one could be more droll than this old man himself. Before indifferent to him, he had, in the past hour, grown to be afraidof him as a new mysterious agent who had his future in his hands. Andto go up the stairs of this great high house, with its myriad windowslooking out upon the busiest part of the street, and others gazingover the garden and the sea, was an experience new and bewildering. Thedwelling abounded in lobbies and corridors, in queer corners where thegloom lurked, and in doors that gave glimpses of sombre bedsteads andhigh-backed austere chairs, of china painted with the most wonderfuldesigns (loot of the old Indian palaces), of swords and sabretaches hungon walls, and tables polished to such degree that they reflected theirsurroundings. 

They went into a parlour with its window open, upon the window-sill apigeon mourning among pots of wallflowers and southernwood that filledthe entering air with sweetness. A room with thin-legged chairs, withcupboards whose lozens gave view to punch-bowls and rummers and silverladles, a room where the two brothers would convene at night while Johnwas elsewhere, and in a wan candle light sit silent by the hour beforecooling spirits, musing on other parlours elsewhere in which spurs hadjingled under the board, musing on comrades departed. It was hung aroundwith dark pictures in broad black frames, for the most part picturesof battles, "Fontenoy, " "Stemming the Rout at Steinkirk, " "BlenheimField, " and--a new one--"Vittoria. " There were pictures of men too, allwith soldier collars high upon the nape of the neck, and epaulettes ontheir shoulders, whiskered, keen-eyed young men--they were the brothersin their prime when girls used to look after them as they went byon their horses. And upon the mantlebrace, flanked by tall silvercandlesticks, was an engraving of John, Duke of Argyll, Field-Marshal. 

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

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

The Paymaster's voice surrendered half its confidence and pride, forhe never liked to be found vaunting before his sister, who knew hisqualities and had a sense of irony. 

"Ay! it's just me, Mary, " he cried back, hastening to the door. "I havebrought a laddie up here to see you. "

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

She was a little thin woman, of middle age, with a lowland cap of lacethat went a little oddly with the apron covering the front of the merinogown from top to toe. She had eyes like sloes, and teeth like pearlsthat gleamed when she smiled, and by constant trying to keep herselffrom smiling at things, she had worn two lines up and down between hereyebrows. A dear fond heart, a darling hypocrite, a foolish bounteousmother-soul without chick or child of her own, and yet with tenement forthe loves of a large family. She fended, and mended, and tended for hersoldier brothers, and they in the selfish blindness of their sex neverrealised her devotion. They sat, and over punch would talk of war, andvalour, and devotion, and never thought that here, within their verydoors, was a constant war in their behalf against circumstances, intheir interest an unending valour that kept the little woman bustling onher feet, and shrewd-eyed over her stew-pans, while weariness and painitself, and the hopeless unresponse and ingratitude of the surroundings, rendered her more appropriate place between the bed-sheets. 

"What _ballachan_ is this?" she asked, relaxing the affected acidity ofher manner and smoothing out the lines upon her brow at the sight ofthe little fellow in a rough kilt, standing in a shy unrest upon thespotless drugget of her parlour floor. She waited no answer, but wentforward as she spoke, as one who would take all youth to her heart, puta hand on his head and stroked his fair hair. It was a touch whollynew to the boy; he had never felt before that tingling feeling that awoman's hand, in love upon his head, sent through all his being. At themessage of it, the caress of it, he shivered and looked up at her facein surprise. 

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

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

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

"A soldier!" she said, casting a shrewd glance at the boy in a redconfusion. "We might make a decenter man of him. Weary be on thesoldiering! I'm looking about the country-side and I see but a horde oflameter privatemen and half-pay officers maimed in limb or mind sittingabout the dram bottle, hoved up with their vain-glory, blustering andblowing, instead of being honest, eident lairds and farmers. I never sawgood in a soldier yet, except when he was away fighting and his namewas in the _Courier_ as dead or wounded. Soldiers, indeed! sittinground there in the Sergeant More's tavern, drinking, and roaring, andgossiping like women--that I should miscall my sex! No, no, if I had ason----

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

She understood in a flash! "And is he coming here?" she asked in anaccent the most pleased and motherly. A flush came over her cheeks andher eyes grew and danced. It was as if some rare new thought had cometo her, a sentiment of poetry, the sound of a forgotten strain of oncefamiliar song. 

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

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

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

"She's a queer body, Mary, " said he to himself, "but she's taking to thebrat I think--oh yes, she's taking to him. " And then he hurried downthe stair and up round the church corner to the schoolhouse where thecompany, wearied waiting on his presence, were already partaking of hisviands. It was a company to whom the goodwife of Ladyfield, the quietdouce widow, had been more or less a stranger, and its solemnity on thisoccasion of her burial was not too much insisted on. They were there notso much mourners as the guests of Captain Campbell, nigh on a dozenof half-pay officers who had escaped the shambles of Europe, with themerchants of the place, and some of the farmers of the glen, the banker, the Sheriff, the Fiscal and the writers of whom the town has ever hadmore than a fair share. Dr. Colin had blessed the viands and gone away;he was a new kind of minister and a surprising one, who had odd viewsabout the drinking customs of the people, and when his coat skirtshad disappeared round the corner of the church there was a feeling ofrelief, and old Baldy Bain, "Copenhagen" as they called him, who wasprecentor in the Gaelic end of the church, was emboldened to fill hisglass up to more generous height than he had ever cared to do in thepresence of the clergyman. The food and drink were spread on twolong tables; the men stood round or sat upon the forms their childrenoccupied in school hours. The room was clamant with the voices of thecompany. Gathered in groups, they discussed everything under heavenexcept the object of their meeting--the French, the sowing, thecondition of the hogs, the Duke's approaching departure for London, thestorm, the fishing. They wore their preposterous tall hats on the backsof their heads with the crape bows over the ears, they lifted up theskirts of their swallow-tail coats and hung them on their arms withtheir hands in their breeches pockets. And about them was the odourof musty, mildewed broadcloth, taken out of damp presses only on suchoccasions. 

Mr. Spencer, standing very straight and tall and thin, so that histrousers at the foot strained tightly at the straps under his insteps, looked over the assembly, and with a stranger's eye could not but bestruck by its oddity. He was seeing--lucky man to have the chance!--thelast of the old Highland burgh life and the raw beginnings of thenew; he was seeing the real _doaine-uasail_, gentry of ancient family, colloguing with the common merchants whose day was coming in; he wasseeing the embers of the war in a grey ash, officers, merchants, bonnetlairds, and tenants now safe and snug and secure in their places becausethe old warriors had fought Boney. The schoolroom was perfumed with thesmoke of peat, for it was the landward pupils' week of the fuelling, and they were accustomed to bring each his own peat under his arm everymorning. The smoke swirled and eddied out into the room and hung aboutthe ochred walls, and made more umber than it was before the map ofEurope over the fireplace. Looking at this map and sipping now and thena glass of spirits in his hand, was a gentleman humming away to himself"Merrily danced the Quaker's wife. " He wore a queue tied with a broadblack ribbon that reached well down on his waist, and the rest of hisattire was conform in its antiquity, but the man himself was little morethan in his prime, straight set up like the soldier he was till he diedof the Yellow in Sierra Leone, where the name of Turner, Governor, isstill upon his peninsula. 

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

Charlie Turner stopped his tune and turned upon the innkeeper. 

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

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

"If I had a wife, Mr. Spencer (and alas! it's my fate to have lostmine), I should make her sit down in weeds or scarlet, after wars, thecolour of the blood that ran. What do you say to that, General?"

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

 * Dregy: The Scots equivalent of the old English _Dirge- ale_, or funeral feast. From the first word of the antiphon in the office for the dead, "_Dirige, Domine meus_, "

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

Turner fingered the seal upon his fob, with its motto "_Tu ne cedemalis_, " and smiled blandly, as he always did when it was brought to hisrecollection that he had won more than soldiers' battles when the oddsagainst him were three to one. 

"I was just telling Mr. Spencer that Waterloo looks like being the lastof the battles, General, and that one bit of Brooks' map here is justas well known to some of us as the paths and woods and waters of GlenShira. "

"I'm not very well acquaint with Glen Shira myself, " was all the Generalsaid, looking at the map for a moment with eyes that plainly had nointerest in the thing before them, and then he turned to a nudge of thePaymaster's arm. 

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

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

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

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

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

"I find them quite the gentlemen, " said the innkeeper. 

Turner laughed again. 

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

Old Brooks, out of sheer custom, sat on the high stool at his desk andhummed his declensions to himself, or the sing-song _Arma virumque cano_that was almost all his Latin pupils remembered of his classics whenthey had left school. The noise of the assembly a little distressed him;at times he would fancy it was his scholars who were clamouring beforehim, and he checked on his lips a high peremptory challenge for silence, flushing to think how nearly he had made himself ridiculous. From hisstool he could see over the frosted glass of the lower window sash intothe playground where it lay bathed in a yellow light, and bare-leggedchildren played at shinty, with loud shouts and violent rushes after alittle wooden ball. The town's cows were wandering in for the nightfrom the common muir, with their milkmaids behind them in vast widepetticoats of two breadths, and their blue or lilac short-gowns tuckedwell up at their arms. Behind, the windows revealed the avenue, the roadoverhung with the fresh leaves of the beeches, the sunlight filteringthrough in lighter splashes on the shade. Within, the drink was runningto its dregs, and piles of oatcake farls lay yet untouched. One byone the company departed. The glen folks solemnly shook hands withthe Paymaster, as donor of the feast, and subdued their faces to a sadregret for this "melancholy occasion, Captain Campbell"; then went overto the taverns in the tenements and kept up their drinking and theirsinging till late in the evening; the merchants and writers had goneearlier, and now but the officers and Brooks were left, and Mr. Spencer, superintending the removal of his vessels and fragments to the inn. Theafternoon was sinking into the calm it ever has in this place, drowsing, mellowing; an air of trance lay all about, and even the pensioners, gathered at the head of the schoolroom near the door, seemed silent ashis scholars to the ear of Brooks. He lifted the flap of his desk andkept it up with his head while he surveyed the interior. Grammars andcopy-books, pens in long tin boxes, the terrible black tawse he neverused but reluctantly, and the confiscated playthings of the children whohad been guilty of encroaching upon the hours of study with the triflesof leisure, were heaped within. They were for the most part the commontoys of the country-side, and among them was a whistle made of youngash, after the fashion practised by children, who tap upon the bark torelease it from its wood, slip off the bark entire upon its sap, and cutthe vent or blow-hole. Old Brooks took it in his hand and a smile wentover his visage. 

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

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

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

"Sandy, I suppose, " said the General, who knew the ingenuities of hisonly son. "At least, I taught him myself to make an ash whistle, andthis may very well be the rogue's contrivance. " He took the pipe in handand turned it over and shrilled it at his lip. "Man, " said he, "thatmakes me young again! I wish I was still at the age when that wouldpipe me to romance. "

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

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

"I never did that, " said the schoolmaster. 

"Well, at least she's the worst that ever deserved it. The wind is notmore variable, nor the sea less careless of constraint She takes itoff her mother, no doubt, who was the dearest madcap, the most darlingwretch ever kept a sergeant's section of lovers at her skirts. Iwish you could do something with her, Mr. Brooks. I do not ask highschooling, though there you have every qualification. I only ask somesobriety put in her so that she may not always be the filly on themeadow. "

Old Brooks sighed. He took the whistle from the General and thought amoment, and put it to his lips and piped upon it once or twice as themoor-fowl pipes in spring. "Do you hear that?" he asked. "It is all, my General, we get from life and knowledge--a very thin and apparentlymeaningless and altogether monotonous squeak upon a sappy stem. Some ofus make it out and some of us do not, because, as it happens, we are notso happily constituted. You would have your daughter a patient Martha ofthe household, and she will be playing in spite of you upon a woodenwhistle of her own contrivance. What you want of me, I think, General, is that I should make her like her neighbours to pleasure you and earnmy fees and Queen Anne's Bounty. I might try, yet I am not sure but whatyour girl will become by her sunny nature what I could not make her bymy craft as a teacher. And this, sir, I would tell you: there is onemischief I am loth to punish in my school, and that's the music that maybe inopportune, even when it takes the poor form of a shrill with anashen stick made by the performer during the morning's sacred exercise. "

The whistle had brought two or three of the company back to see what oldBrooks was doing, and among them was the Paymaster. He was redder in theface than ever, and his wig was almost off his head, it was so slewedaside. 

"Giving the General a lesson?" he asked with some show at geniality. Heleaned a hand upon a desk, and remembered that just on that corner heleaned on he had placed many a shilling as Candlemas and Han'sel Mondayofferings when he was a schoolboy, before the farming, before the armyand India, and those long years at home on the upper flat of the houseup the street where Miss Mary sat the lee-lone homester among herwanderers returned. 

"I was but showing him the handiwork of his daughter Miss Nan, " saidOld Brooks pleasantly. "A somewhat healthy and boisterous lady, I assureyou. "

"Oh! I have heard of her, " said the Paymaster, taking a pinch ofmaccabaw from his pocket, and leisurely lifting it to his nostril withthe indifference of one with little interest in the subject. There wasinsult in the contempt of the action. The General saw it and flamed veryhotly. 

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

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

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

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

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

The General smiled with meaning. 

"----A son; at least I'll make him that, and I'll show you something oftraining!"

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

"I'll train him--I'll train him to hate your very name, " said thePaymaster with an oath. 

"I'm obliged for your cake and wine, " said the General, still smiling, "and I wish you all good day. " He lifted his hat and bowed and left theroom. 

"This is a most unfortunate contretemps, " said Brooks, all trembling. "If I had thought a little whistle, a mere _tibia_ of ash, had power toprecipitate this unlucky and unseemly belligerence I would never haveopened my desk. "

The great bell upon the roof of the church swung upon its arms like anacrobat in petticoats, and loudly pealed the hour of seven. Its hammerboomed against the brassy gown, the town rang from end to end with theclamour of the curfew, and its tale of another day gone rumoured upthe glens. Near at hand the air of the playground and of the streetwas tossed by the sound into tumultuous waves, so that even in theschoolroom the ear throbbed to the loud proclamation. Into the avenuestreamed the schools of crows from their wanderings on the braes ofShira, and the children ceased their shinty play and looked up at theflying companies, and called a noisy song--

 "Crow, crow, fly away home, Your fires are out and your children gone. "

"That's a most haughty up-setting crew, and the queue-haired rover theworst of the lot!" said the Paymaster, still red and angry. "What Isay's true, Brooks; it's true I tell you! You'll not for your life putit out of the boy's head when you have the teaching of him; he must hatethe Turners like poison. Mind that now, mind that now!"

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

CHAPTER V--THE BROTHERS

Gilian, meanwhile, sat on a high chair in Miss Mary's room. She gave himsoup till her ladle scraped against the bottom of the tureen; she cutfor him the tenderest portions of the hen; she gave him most generouslyof cheese--not the plain skim-milk curd cheese of Ladyfield, theleavings of the dairy, but the Saturday kebboch as it was called, madeof the overnight and morning's milk, poured cream and all into theyearning-tub. And as she served him, her tongue went constantly uponthemes of many varieties, but the background of them all, the conclusionof them all, was the greatness of her brothers. Ah! she was a strangelittle woman with the foolish Gaelic notion that an affection bluntlydisplayed to its object is an affection discreditable. 

"You will go far, " said she to Gilian, "before you will come on finermen. They are getting old and done, but once I knew them tall and strongand strapping, not their equals in all the armies. And what they haveseen of wars, my dear! They were ever going or coming from them, andsometimes I would not know where they were out in the quarrelsome worldbut for a line in the _Saturday Post_ or the _Courier_ or maybe an oldhint in the General Almanack itself. Perhaps when you become acquaintedwith the General and the Cornal you will wonder that they are never atany time jocular, and maybe you will think that they are soured at lifeand that all their kindness is turned to lappered cream. I knew themnearly jocular, I knew them tall, light-footed laddies, running aboutthe pastures there gallivanting with the girls. But that, my dear, waslong ago, and I feel myself the old woman indeed when I see them sostiff and solemn sitting in there over their evening glass. "

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

"That they were, " said Miss Mary; "a funeral now is their onlyrecreation. But perhaps you would not know them because they are not atall like the Captain. He was a soldier too, in a way, but they were theancient warriors. Come into the room here and I will show you, if youhave finished your dinner. "

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

Miss Mary pointed to the portraits. "That was Colin and Dugald beforethey went away the second time, " she said. "We had one of James too---hedied at Corunna--but it was the only one, and we gave it to a lady ofthe place who was chief with him before he went away, and dwined a greatdeal after his death. And that's his sword. When it came home from Spainby MacFarlane, the carrier round from Dumbarton, I took it out and itwas clagged in the scabbard with a red glut. It was a sore memorial toan only sister. "

The boy stood in the middle of the floor feeling himself very much olderthan he had done in the morning. The woman's confidences made him almosta man, for before he had been spoken to but as a child, though histhoughts were far older than his years. Those relics of war, especiallythe sheath that had the glut of life in it corrupting when it came backwith the dead man's chest, touched him inwardly to a brief delirium. The room all at once seemed to fill with the tramping of men and theshrilling of pipers, with ships, quays, tumultuous towns, camps, and allthe wonders or the shepherds' battle stories round the fire, and he wasin a field, and it was the afternoon with a blood-red sky beyond thefir-trees, dense smoke floating across it and the cries of men cuttingeach other down. He saw--so it seemed as he stood in the middle of thefloor of the little parlour with the crumbs of his dinner still uponhis vest--the stiff figure of a fallen man in a high collar like theman portrayed upon the wall, and his hand was still in the hilt of areddened sword and about him were the people he had slain. That did notmuch move the boy, but he was stirred profoundly when he saw the swordcome home. He saw Miss Mary open out the chest in the kitchen and pullhard upon the hilt of the weapon, and he saw her face when the terriblelife-glut revealed itself like a rust upon the blade. His nostrilsexpanded, his eyes glistened; Miss Mary hurriedly looked at him withcuriosity, for his breath suddenly quickened and strained till it wasthe loudest sound in the room. 

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

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

She looked more closely at him, at the flush that crept below the fairskin of his neck and more than common paleness of his cheek. "I think, "said she, "I am going to like you very much. I might be telling my poorstory of a sword to Captain John there a hundred times, and he could notonce get at the innermost meaning of it for a woman's heart. "

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

"I know you did, " said she. 

"And I saw him dead. "

"_Ochame!_"

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

"Indeed I did I, " said Miss Mary, all trembling as the past was soplainly set before her. "You are uncanny--no, no, you are not uncanny, you are only ready-witted, and you know how a sister would feel whenher dead brother's sword was brought back to her, and the blood of thebrothers of other sisters was on its blade. That's my only grievancewith those soldier brothers of mine. I said I did not think much of thesoldiers; oh! boy, I love them all. I sometimes grieve that God made mea woman that I might not be putting on the red coat too, and followingthe drum. And still and on, I would have no son of mine a soldier. Three fozy, foggy brothers--what did the armies do for them? They neversharpened their wits, but they sit and dover and dream, dream, even-on, never knowing all that's in their sister Mary's mind. And here you are, a boy, yet you get to my thoughts in a flash. Oh! I think I am going tobe very fond of you. "

Gilian was amazed that at last some one understood him. No one ever didat Ladyfield; his dreams, his fancies, his spectacles of the inner eyewere things that he had grown ashamed of. But here was a shrewd littlelady who seemed to think his fancy and confidence nothing discreditable. He was encouraged greatly to let her into his vagrant mind, so sometimesin passionate outbursts, when the words ran over the heels of eachother, sometimes in shrinking, stammering, reluctant sentences he toldher how the seasons affected him, and the morning and the night, thesmells of things, the sounds of woods and the splash of waters, and themists streaming along the ravines. He told her--or rather he made herunderstand, for his language was simple--how at sudden outer influenceshis whole being fired, and from so trivial a thing as a cast-offhorseshoe on the highway he was compelled to picture the rider, and sethim upon the saddle and go riding with him to the King of Erin's courtthat is in the story of the third son of Easadh Ruadh in the wintertale. How the joy of the swallow was his in its first darting flightsamong the eaves of the old barn, and how when it sped at the summer'send he went with it across shires and towns, along the surface ofwinding rivers, even over the seas to the land of everlasting sun. Howthe sound of the wave on the rock moved him and set him with the shipsand galleys, the great venturers whipping and creaking and tossing inthe night-time under the stars. How the dark appalled or soothed as thehumour was, and the right of a first flower upon a tree would sometimesmake him weep at the notion of the brevity of its period. 

All the time Miss Mary listened patient and understanding. Thehigh-backed chair compassed her figure so fully that she seemed toshrink to a child's size. It was a twelve-window house, and so among thehighest taxed in all the town, but in the parlour there were two blindwindows and only one gave light to the interior, so that as she sat inher chair with her back to the window, her face in the shadow, leaningagainst the chair haffits with the aspect of weariness her brothersnever had revealed to them, it seemed to Gilian the little figure andthe ruddy face of a companion. She was silent for a moment after hisconfessions were completed, as if she had been wandering with him in therealm of fancy, and with wings less practised had taken longer to flyback to the narrow actual world. The boy had realised how much he hadforgotten himself, and how strange all this story of his must be even toa child-companion with her face in the shadow of the chair haffits, andhis eyes were faltering with shame. 

"You are very thin, sweetheart, " said she, with the two lines darklypencilled between her eyebrows. "You are far too white for a countryboy; upon my word we must be taking the Captain's word for it andputting your head in the cream. "

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

"I know, I think I know, " said she; "but look, I'm very old and ancient. Oh, dear! I once had my own fancies, but I think they must havebeen sweat out of me in my constancy to my brothers' oven-grate androasting-jack. It must be the old, darling, foolish Highlands in us, my dear, the old people and the old stupid stories they are telling forgenerations round the fire, and it must be the hills about us, and theconstant complaint of the sea--tuts! am not I foolish to be weepingbecause a boy from Glen Aray has not learned to keep his lips closed onhis innermost thought?"

Gilian looked up, and behold! she was in a little rain of tears, atleast her eyes swam soft in moisture. It comforted him exceedingly, forit showed that after all she understood. 

"If you were a little older, " she said, "so old as the merchants of thetown that are all too much on the hunt for the bawbees and the worldto sit down and commune with themselves, or if you were so old as mybrothers there and so hardened, I would be the last to say my thoughtsever stirred an ell-length out of the customary track of breakfast, beds, dinner and supper. Do not think I do not love and reverence mybrothers, mind you!" she added almost fiercely, rubbing with her lustreapron the table there was nothing to rub from save its polish. "Oh!they are big men and far-travelled men, and they have seen the wonderfulsights. They used to get great thick letters franked from the Governmentwith every post, and the Duke will be calling on them now and then inhis chariot. They speak to me of nothing but the poorest, simplest, meanest transactions of the day because they think I cannot comprehendnor feel. Gilian, do you know I am afraid of them? Not of Johnthe Captain, for he is different, with a tongue that goes, but I'mfrightened when the General and the Cornal sit and look at me sayingnothing because I am a woman. "

"I do not like people to sit looking at me saying nothing, " said Gilian, "because when I sit and look at people without saying anything I amreading them far in. But mostly I would sooner be making up things in mymind. "

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

They moved together out of the parlour and along the lobby that lightedit. With a low sill it looked upon the street that now was thronged withthe funeral people passing home or among the shops, or from tavern totavern. The funeral had given the town a holiday air, and baxters anddealers stood at their doors gossiping with their customers or by-goers. Country carts rumbled past, the horses moving slowly, reluctant to goback from this place of oats and stall to the furrows where the collarpressed constantly upon the shoulder. One or two gentlemen went byon horses--Achnatra and Major Hall and the through-other son of LornCampbell. The sun, westering, turned the clean rain-washed sand in thegutters of the street to gold, and there the children played and theircalls and rhymes and laughter made so merry a world that the boy at thewindow, looking out upon it, felt a glow. He was now to be always withthese fortunate children whom he knew so well ere ever he had changedwords with them. He had a little dread of the magnitude and corners ofthis dwelling that was to be his in the future, and of the old men whosat in it all day saying nothing, but it was strange indeed (thoughthe) if with Miss Mary within, and the sunshine and the throng and thechildren playing in the syver sand without, he should not find life morefull and pleasant than it had been in the glen. All these thoughts madewarp for the woof of his attention to the street as he stood at thewindow. And by-and-by there came a regret for the things lost with thedeath of the little old woman of Ladyfield--what they were his mind didnot pause to make definite, but there was the sense of chances gone withno recalling, of a calm, of a solitude, of a more intimate communionwith the animals of the wilds and the voices of the woods and hills. 

The woman as well as the boy must have been lost in thought, for neitherof them noted the step upon the stair when the General and Cornal cameback from the dregy. The brothers were in the lobby beside them beforeMiss Mary realised their presence. She turned with a flushed face and, as it were, put herself a little in front of the boy, so that half hisfigure found the shelter of a wing. The two brothers between them filledthe width of the lobby, and yet they were not wide. But they were broadat the shoulders and once, no doubt, they filled their funeral suitsthat of their own stiffness seemed to stand out in all their oldamplitude. The General was a white-faced rash of a man with bushyeyebrows, a clean-shaven parchment jowl, and a tremulous hand upon theknob of his malacca rattan; his brother the Cornal was less tall; hewas of a purpled visage, and a crimson scar, the record of a wound fromCorunna, slanted from his chin to the corner of his left eye. 

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

Into Miss Mary's demeanour there had came as great a change as thatwhich came upon the Pay-master when she broke in upon his vaunting. Thelines dashed to her brow; when she spoke it was in a cold constrainedaccent utterly different from that the boy had grown accustomed to. 

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

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

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

"O Dugald, Dugald, you know none of the children of this town everannoyed the Major; it is only the keelies from the low-country who doso. And this is not the boy to make a mock of any old gentleman, I amsure. "

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

"It is a strange cantrip, Mary, " said the General; "I suppose you'll begoing to give him something. It is give, give all the day in this houselike Sergeant Scott's cantiniers. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Fancy that now!" said the Cornal with contempt. "Let me see him, " headded suddenly. 

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

The Cornal looked him deeply in the eyes, caught him by the ear, andwith a twist made him wince, pushed him on the shoulders and made hisknees bend. Then he released him with a flout of contempt. 

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

Miss Mary drew Gilian to her again and stiffened her lips. "You havenothing to do with it, Colin; it's John's house and if he wants to keepthe boy he'll do it. And I'm sure if you but took the trouble to thinkthat he is a poor orphan with no kith nor kin in the world, you would bethe first to take him in at the door. "

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

"Come away into our parlour here, and the General and I will have acrack with you, " said he, leading the way. 

Miss Mary gave the boy's hand a gentle squeeze, and softly pushed him inafter her brother, shut the door behind them, and turned and went downto the kitchen. 

CHAPTER VI--COURT-MARTIAL

Gilian was in a great dread, but revealed none of it in the half dusk ofthe room where he faced the two brothers as they sat at either side ofthe table. The General took out a bottle of spirits and placed it withscrupulous care in the very centre of the table; his brother liftedtwo tumblers from the corner cupboard and put them on each side of thebottle, fastidious to a hair's breadth as if he had been laying outcolumns of troops. It was the formula of the afternoon; sometimes theynever put a lip to the glass, but it was always necessary that thebottle should be in the party. For a space that seemed terribly longto the boy they said no word but looked at him. The eyes of the Cornalseemed to pierce him through; the General in a while seemed to forgethis presence, turning upon him a flat, vacant eye. Gilian leaned uponhis other foot and was on the verge of crying at his situation. Theday had been far too crowded with strangers and new experience forhis comfort; he felt himself cruelly plucked out of his own sufficientcompany and jarred by contact with a very complex world. 

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

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

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

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

"He is not very bulky for his age, " said the General, after a moment'spause as if he were recalling all the boys he knew of that age, orremitting himself to the days before his teens. 

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

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

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

"Anything he likes!" echoed the General, laughing huskily till hecoughed and choked. They both sat smiling grimly with no more sound tillit seemed to the boy he must be in a dream, looking at the creations ofhis brain. The step of a fly could have been heard in the room almost, so sunk was it in silence, but outside, as in another world, a band ofchildren filled the street with the chant of "Pity be"--chant of thetrumpeters of the Lords. 

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

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

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

"You did that, " said Dugald, withdrawing himself again from a muse overthe records of victory. And then he bent a lustreless eye upon his ownportrait, so sombre and gallant upon the wall, with the gold of the laceand epaulettes a little tarnished. 

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

"And it would be on the edge of a wood, " broke in the boy in Gaelic;"the logs would roar and hiss. The fires would be in yellow dots alongthe countryside, and the heather would be like a pillow so soft andspringy under the arm. Round about, the soldiers would be standing, looking at the glow, their faces red and flickering, and behind would bethe black dark of the wood like the inside of a pot, a wood with ghostsand eerie sounds and----"

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

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

 "Pity be on poor prisoners, pity be on them: Pity be on poor prisoners, if they come back again, "

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

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

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

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

"Discipline and reverence for your elders and superiors are the firstlesson you would need, my boy, " said the Cornal, taking a tiny drop ofthe spirits again and touching the glass of his brother, who had donelikewise. "Discipline and reverence; discipline and reverence. I wasonce cocky and putting in my tongue like you where something of sensewould have made me keep it between my teeth. Once in Spain, an ensign, Ifound myself in a wine-shop or change-house, drinking as I shouldnever have been doing if I had as muckle sense as a clabbie-doo, witha dragoon major old enough to be my father. He was a pock-puddingEnglishman, a great hash of a man with the chest of him slipped downbelow his belt, and what was he but bragging about the rich people hecame of, and the rich soil they flourished on, its apple-orchards andhoney-flowers and its grass knee-deep in June. 'Do you know, ' said I, 'Iwould not give a yard's breadth of the shire of Argyll anywhere north ofKnapdale at its rockiest for all your lush straths, and if it comes toantique pedigrees here am I, Clan Diarmid, with my tree going down toDonacha Dhu of Lochow. ' That was insolence, ill-considered, unnecessary, for this major of dragoons, as I tell you, might be my father and I wasbut a raw ensign. "

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

"Was I not?" cried the brother. "'Twas that urged me on. For one of mycompany, just a minute before, had been singing Donacha Ban's song of'Ben Dorain, ' and no prospect in the world seemed so alluring to me thenas a swath of the land I came from. "

"I know 'Ben Dorain, '" said Gilian timidly, "and I think I could telljust the way you felt when you heard the man singing it in a foreignplace. "

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

"This is a real oddity, " said the General, drawing his chair a littlenearer the boy. 

"I heard a forester sing 'Ben Dorain' last Hogmanay at home--I mean inLadyfield; he was not a good singer, and he forgot bits of the wordshere and there, but when he was singing it I saw the sun rise on thehill, not a slow grey, but suddenly in a smother of gold, and thehillside moved with deer. Birds whirred from the heather and the cuckoowas in the wood. "

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

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

As he spoke, Gilian pointed at "The Battle of Vittoria. " The brothersturned and looked as if it was something quite new and strange to them. Up rose the Cornal and went closer to peer at it. 

"Confound it!" said he. "You're there with your tale of a ballant, andyou point at the one picture ever I saw that gave me the day-dreaming. Inever see that smudgy old print but I'm crying on the cavalry that madethe Frenchmen rout. "

From where he sat the boy could make out the picture in every detail. Itwas a scene of flying and broken troops, of men on the wings of terrorand dragoons riding them down. There was at the very front of thepicture, in a corner, among the flying Frenchmen pursued by the horses, the presentment of a Scottish soldier, wounded, lying upon his back withhis elbows propped beneath him so that he had his head up, looking atthe action, a soldier of a thin long habit of body, a hollow face andhigh cheekbones. 

Gilian forgot the two old men in the room with him when he lookedintently on this soldier in the throes; he stood up from the chair, wentforward and put a finger as high as he could to point out the particularthing he referred to. "That's a man, " said he, "and he's afraid. He doesnot hear the guns, nor the people crying, but he hears the horses' feetthudding on the grass, and he thinks they will go over him and crush hisbones. "

"Curse me, " cried the Cornal, "but you have the thing to a nicety. That's the man's notion, for a guinea, for I have been in his casemyself, and the thud of horses was a sound that filled the world. Sitdown, sit down!" he went on sharply, as if he had of a sudden foundsomething to reproach himself with in any complacent recognition of thischild's images. "You are not canny; how old are you?"

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

"It is a cursed lie, " said the Cornal hotly; "you're a hundred; don'ttell me!"

He was actually a little afraid of those manifestations, so unusual andso remarkable. His excitement could with difficulty be concealed. Veryrestlessly he moved about in his chair, and turned his look from theGeneral to the boy and back again, but the General sat with his chin inhis breast, his mind a vacancy. 

"Look at the General there; you're fairly scunnering him with yournotions, " said the Cornal. "I must speak to John about this. A soldierindeed! You're not fit for it, lad; you have only the makings of adominie. Sit you there, and we'll see what John has to say about thiswhen he comes in: it is going on seven, and he'll be back from the dregyin time for his supper. "

Gilian sat trembling in his chair; the brothers leaned back in theirsand breathed heavily and said no word, and never even stretched a handto the bottle of spirits. A solemn quiet again took possession ofthe house, but for a door that slammed in the lower flat, shaking thedwelling; the lulled sound of women's conversation at the oven-grate wasutterly stilled. The pigeons came to the sill a moment, mourned and flewaway; the carts did not rumble any more in the street; the children'schorus was altogether lost. A feeling came over the boy that he had beenhere or somewhere like it before, and he was fascinated, wondering whatnext would happen. A tall old clock in the lobby, whose pendulum swungso slowly that at first he had never realised its presence, at lasttook advantage of the silence and swung itself into his notice with atick-tack. The silence seemed to thicken and press upon his ears;no striving after fancy could bring the boy far enough off from thatstrange convention, and try as he might to realise himself back inhis familiar places by the riverside at Ladyfield, the wings of hisimagining failed in their flight and he tumbled again into that austereparlour sitting with two men utterly beyond his comprehension. 

There was, at last, one sound that gave a little comfort, and checkedthe tears that had begun to gather on the edges of his eyes. It camefrom the direction of the kitchen; it was a creaking of the woodenstairs; it was a faint shuffle of slippers in the lobby; then there wasa hush outside the door deeper even than the stillness within. Gilianknew, as if he could see through the brown panelling, that a woman wasstanding out there listening with her breath caught up and wonderingat the quiet within, yet afraid to open a door upon the mystery. Thebrothers did not observe it; all this was too faint for their old ears, though plainly heard by a child of the fields whose ear against thegrass could detect the marching of insects and the tunnelling of worms. But for that he would have screamed--but for the magic air of friendshipand sympathy that flowed to him through chink and keyhole from the goodheart loud-beating outside; in that kind air of fond companionship (evenwith a door between) there was comfort. In a little the slippers spedback along the lobby, the stair creaked, in the lower flat a doorslammed. Gilian felt himself more deserted and friendless than ever, anda few moments more would have found him break upon the appalling stillwith sobs of cowardly surrender, but the church bell rang. It was thefirst time he had heard its evening clamour, that, however far it mightsearch up the glens, never reached Lady-field, so deep among the hills, and he had no more than recovered from the bewildering influence of itsunexpected alarm when the foot of the Paymaster sounded heavily on thestair. 

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

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

"What--Jamie?"

"No; Charlie. "

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

The Paymaster explained shortly, guardedly, because of Gilian'spresence, and as he spoke the purple of the Cornal's face turned tolivid and the scar became a sickly yellow. He rose and thumped his fistupon the table. 

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

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

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

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

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

"Isn't that what I told him?" said the Paymaster, scooping a great heapof dust into his nostrils, and feverishly rubbing down the front of hisvest with a large handkerchief. "I wish----"

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

"This is a queer callant you've brought us here, " said the Cornal, nudging his brother and nodding in Gilian's direction. "I've seen somereal diverts in my time, but he beats all. And you have a notion tomake a soger of him, they tell me. You heard that yourself, didn't you, General?"

The General made no reply, for he was looking at the portrait of himselfwhen he was thirty-five, and to sit doing nothing in a house would havebeen torture. 

"I only said it in the by-going to Mary, " explained the Paymasterhumbly. "The nature for sogering is the gift of God, and the boy mayhave it or he may not; it is too soon to say. "

"There's no more of the soger in him than there is of the writer in me!"cried the Cornal; "but there's something by-ordinar in him all the same. It's your affair, John, but--" He stopped short and looked again atGilian and hummed and ha'd a little and fingered his stock. "Man, do youknow I would not say but here's your son for you. "

"That's what I thought myself, " said the Paymaster, "and that's what Isaid. I'll make him a soger if I can, and I'll make him hate the name ofTurner whether or not. "

And all this time Gilian sat silently by, piecing out those scraps ofold men's passion with his child's fancy. He found this new world intowhich he had been dragged, noisy, perplexing, interested apparently inthe most vague trifles. That they should lay out his future for warfareand for hate, without any regard for his own wishes, was a littlealarming. Soldiering--with the man before him in the picture, sittingpropped up on his arms, frantic lest the horses should trample onhim--seemed the last trade on earth; as for hate, that might be easierand due to his benefactor, but it would depend very much on the Turners. 

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

"Tuts!" said she, pressing food on him--her motherhood's only cure forall a child's complaints--"they're only haverils. They cannot make asoger of you against your will. As for the Turners--well, they're novery likeable race, most of them in my mind. A dour, sour, up-settingclan of no parentage. Perhaps that does not much matter, so long aspeople are honest and well-doing; we are all equals before God except inhead and heart, but there's something too in our old Hielan' notion thatthe closest kith of the King are aye most kindly, because the habit isborn in them to be freehanded and unafraid. Am not I the _oinseach_ tobe sticking up for pedigrees? Perhaps it is because our own is so good. Kiels was ours three hundred years, and my grandfather was good-brotherto an earl--a not very good nor honest lord they say--and the Turnerswere only portioners and tenants as far back as we ken. "

"I liked the look of the one with his hair in a tail, " said Gilian, andhe wondered if she was angry at his admiration of the enemy, when he sawher face grow red. 

--"Oh! the General!" she exclaimed, but never a word more, good or ill. 

CHAPTER VII--THE MAN ON THE QUAY

It has always happened that the first steps of a boy from the glen havebeen to the quay. There the ships lie clumsily on their bulging sides inthe ebb till the tar steams and blisters in the sun, or at the full theylift and fall heavily like a sigh for the ocean's expanse as they feelthemselves prisoners to the rings and pawls. Their chains jerk and easeupon the granite edges of the wall or twang tight across the quay sothat the mariners and fishermen moving about their business on thisstone-thrust to the sea must lift their clumping boots high to stepacross those tethers of romance. At a full tide one walking down thequay has beside him the dark aspiring bulwarks of the little but braveadventurers, their seams gazing to the heat, their carvel timbersstriped by the ooze and brine of many oceans and the scum of ports. Upontheir poops their den-fire chimneys breathe a faint blue reek; theiron of bilge-pump and pin is rust red; the companions are portals tosmelling depths where the bunks are in a perpetual gloom and the seamenlie at night or in the heat of the day discontent with this period ofno roaming and remembering the tumbling waters and the far-off harboursthat must ever be more alluring than the harbours where we be. From theivy of the church the little birds come chaffering and twitteringamong the shrouds, and the pigeon will perch upon a spar, so that thesea-gull, the far-searcher, must wonder as he passes on a slantof silent leathers at its daring thus to utilise the device of theoutermost seas and the most vehement storms. And side by side withthese, the adventurers, are the skiffs and smacks of the fishermen, drilled in rows, brought bow up, taut on their anchors with theirlug-sails down on their masts to make deck tents for shelter from sunor rain. With those sturdy black gabbarls and barques and those bronzefishers, the bay from the quay to the walls of the Duke's garden, in itsseason, stirs with life. 

More than once when he had come to the town Gilian looked a little wayoff from the Cross upon this busy concourse in the bay and wished thathe might venture on the quay, but the throng of tall, dark-shirtedfishermen and seafarers frightened him so that he must stand aloofguessing at the nearer interest of the spectacle. Now that he was a townboy with whole days in which to muster courage, he spurred himself up towalk upon the quay at the first opportunity. It was the afternoon, thetide lapped high upon the slips and stairs, a heaving lazy roll of waterso clear that the star-fish on the sandy bottom might plainly be seenthrough great depths. The gunnies of the ships o'ertopped by many feetthe quay-wall and their chains rose slanting, tight from the rings. Thefishermen and their boats were far down on Cowal after signs of herring;the bay was given up to barque and gabbart alone. For once a slumberseemed to lie upon the place for ordinary so throng and cheerful; thequay was Gilian's alone as he stepped wonderingly upon it and turnedan eye to the square ports open for an airing to the dens. In all thecompany of the ships thus swaying at the quay-side there was no signof life beyond the smoke that rose from the stunted funnels. The boy'sfancy played among the masts like the birds from the ivy. These werethe galleys of Inishtore, that rode upon the seven seas for a king's sonwith a hauberk of gold. The spicy isles, the silver sands, the songs the_graugach_ sang below the prows when the sea dashed--they came all intohis vision of those little tarred hulks of commerce. He thought how fineit would be to set foot upon those decks and loose the fastenings, anddrop down the sea-slope of the shepherds' stories till he came uponIbrisail, happy isle of play and laughter, where the sun never dropsbelow the ocean's marge. 

In one of the vessels behind him, as he mused, a seaman noiselesslythrust his head out at a companion to look the hour upon the town'sclock, and the boy, pale, fair-haired, pondering, with eyes upon theshrouds of a gabbart, forced himself by his stillness and inaction uponthe man's notice. He was a little, stout, well-built man, with a facetanned by sunshine and salt air to the semblance of Spanish mahogany, with wide and searching eyes and long curled hair of the deepest black. His dress was singularly perjink, cut trim and tight from a blue cloth, the collar of a red shirt rolled over on the bosom, a pair of simplegold rings pierced the ears. As he looked at the boy, he was hummingvery softly to himself a Skye song, and he stopped in the midst of itwith "So '_iile_, have you lost your ship?" A playful scamp was revealedin his smile. 

Gilian turned round with a start of alarm, for he had been on somecoracle of fancy, sailing upon magic seas, and thus to break upon hisreverie with the high Gaelic of Skye was to plunge him in chillingwaters. 

"_Thig an so_--come here, " said the seaman, beckoning, setting an easyfoot upon the deck. 

Gilian went slowly forward, he was amazed and fascinated by thiswondrous seaman come upon the stillness of the harbour without warning, a traveller so important yet so affable in his invitation. Black Duncanthat day was in a good humour, for his owners had released him at lastfrom his weeks of tethering to the quay and this dull town and he was todepart to-morrow with his cargo of timber. In a little he had Gilian'shistory, and they were comrades. He took him round the deck and showedits simple furniture, then in the den he told him mariners' tales of thesea. 

A Carron stove burned in the cabin, dimly, yet enough to throw at timesa flicker of light upon the black beams overhead, the vessel's ribs, thebunks that hung upon them. Sitting on a sea-chest, Gilian felt the floorlift and fall below him, a steady motion wholly new, yet confirmingevery guess he had made in dreams of life upon the wave. A ceaselesssound of water came through the wood, of the tide glucking along thebows, surely to the mariner the sweetest of all sounds when he lies inbenign weather moving home upon the sigh of God. 

Black Duncan but wanted a good listener. He was not quite the world'straveller he would have Gilian believe; but he had voyaged in manyoutlandish parts and a Skyeman's memory is long and his is the islewhere fancy riots. He made his simple ventures round the coast voyagesterrible and unending. The bays, the water-mouths, the rocks, the boskyisles--he clothed them with delights, and made them float in the hazewherein a boy untravelled would envelop them. 

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

"Oh, lad, I have been there, " said the seaman, unabashed, his teeth verywhite in the brown of his smiling face. "You sail and sail in winds anddrift in calms, and there is a place called Erin's Eye and a mountainrock behind it, and then you come upon the town of the king's daughter. It is a town reeling with music; some people without the ears would missit, you and Black Duncan would be jigging to the sound of it. The world, '_ille_ (and here's the sailorman who has sailed the seven seas andknows its worst and best), is a very grand place to such as understandand allow. I was born with a caul as we say; I know that I'll neverdrown, so that when winds crack I feel safe in the most staggering ship. I have gone into foreign ports in the dead of night, our hail for lightbut answered by Sir Echo, and we would be waiting for light, with thesmell of flowers and trees about us, and--"

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

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

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

The seaman laughed till the den rang. He poked the fire and the flamethrust out and made the boy and the man and the timbers and bunks danceand shake in the world between light and shadow. "You are the sharpestboy ever I conversed with, " said he. 

A run of the merriest, the sweetest, the most unconstrained laughterbroke overhead like a bird's song. They looked up and found the squareof blue sky broken at the hatch by a girl's head. A roguish face ina toss of brown hair, seen thus above them against the sky, seemed toGilian the face of one of the fairies with which he had peopled theseaman's isle. 

"There you go!" cried Black Duncan, noway astonished. "Did I not tellyou never to come on board without halloo?"

"I cried, " said the girl in a most pretty English that sounded allthe sweeter beside the seaman's broken and harsh accent in a languageforeign to him. "I cried 'O Duncan' twice and you never heard, so I knewyou were asleep in your dingy old den. " She swung herself down as shespoke and stood at the foot of the companion with the laugh renewed uponher lips, a gush of happy heart. 

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

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

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

The girl peered into the dark of the cabin at the face of Gilian thatseemed unwontedly long and pallid in the half light, with eyes burningin sepulchral pits, repeating the flash of the embers. She was about hisown age--at most no more than a month or two younger, but with a glancebold and assured that spoke of an early maturity. 

"Oh! a Glen Aray boy, " said she. "I never much care for them. You wouldbe telling him some of the tales there is no word of truth in. "

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

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

The glamour of Black Duncan's stories fled for Gilian before thispresence like mist before a morning wind. So healthy, so ruddy, soabrupt, she was so much in the actual world that for him to be dreamingof others seemed a child's weakness. 

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

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

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

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

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

"Oh, I'll sing if----. " She paused and looked doubtfully at Gilian, whowas still open-mouthed at her breezy vehemence. 

"Never mind the boy, " said the seaman, stretching himself to enjoy themusic at his ease; "if you make it 'The Rover' he will understand. "

The afternoon was speeding. The sun had passed the trees that round theTolbooth walls and a beam from his majesty came boldly into the den bythe companion. It struck a slanting passage on the floor and revealedthe figure of a girl at her ease dangling her feet upon a water ankerwith her hair a flood of spate-brown fallen back upon its fasteningband. And the boy saw her again as it were quite differently frombefore, still the robust woman-child, but rich, ripe, blooded atthe plump inviting lip, warm at the throbbing neck. About her hung asearching odour that overcame the common and vulgar odours of the ship, its bilge, its tar, its oak-bark tan, its herring scale, an odour heknew of woods in the wet spring weather. It made him think of shortgrasses and the dewdrop glittering in the wet leaf; then the sky shoneblue against a tremble of airy leaf. The birch, the birch, he had it!And having it he knew the secret of the odour. She had already thewoman's trick of washing her hair in the young birch brewings. 

"I will sing 'The Rover' and I will sing 'The Man with the Coat ofGreen, '" said she, with the generosity of one with many gifts. And shestarted upon her ditty. She had a voice that as yet was only in itsmaking; it was but a promise of the future splendour, yet to Gilian, thehearer, it brought a new and potent joy. With 'The Rover' he lived inthe woods, and set foot upon foreign wharves; 'The Man with the Coatof Green' had his company upon the morning adventures in the islands offairydom. It was then, as in after years she was the woman serious, whenher own songs moved her, with her dalliance and indifference gone. Atear trembled at her eyes at the trials of the folk she sang. 

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

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

"I never did, " said Gilian. 

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

"I like her very much, " said Gilian. 

"Of course you do, " the seaman cried, with a thump of his hard hand onthe edge of his bunk, "and would it not be very curious indeed if youdid not like her? I have heard women sing in many places--bold ones inAmsterdam, and the shy dancers of Bermuda, but never her equal, and sheonly a child. How she does it is the beat of me. "

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

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

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

The seaman laughed. "That same!" said he. "And are you in the familyfeud too? If that is so you'll hear little of Miss Nan's songs, I'mthinking, and that is the folly of feuds. If I was you I would saynothing about the _Jean_, and the lass who sang in her. "

CHAPTER VIII--THE SHERIFF'S SUPPER PARTY

But Gilian was soon to hear the lass again. 

It was a great town for supper parties. To make up, as it were, for thelost peat-side parliaments or supper nights that for their fore-folkmade tolerable the quiet glens, the town people had many occasions ofsocial intercourse in each other's homes, where the winter nights, thatotherwise had been long and dreary, passed in harmless gaiety. The womenwould put on their green Josephs and gaudiest quilted petticoats ortheir tabinet gowns of Waterloo whose splendour kirk or market poorlyrevealed for the shawls that must cover them. The men donned their bestfigured waistcoats and their newest stocks, and cursed the fashions thattook them from their pipes and cards, but solaced themselves mightilywith the bottle in the host's bedroom. From those friendly convocations, jealousies innumerable bred. It was not only that each other's gownsraised unchristian thoughts in the bosoms of the women, but in acommunity where each knew her neighbour and many were on equality, there must be selections, and rancour rose. And it was the true Highlandrancour, concealing itself under a front of indifference and evenpoliteness, though the latter might be ice-cold in degree but burningfiercely at the core. 

A few days after Gilian came to town Miss Mary and her brothers weresubmitted to a slight there could be no mistaking. It came from thewife of the Sheriff, who was a half-sister of the Turners. The Sheriff'sservant had come up to the shop below the Paymaster's house early in theforenoon for candles, and Miss Mary chanced to be in the shop when thispurchase was made. It could signify nothing but festivity, for even inthe Sheriff's the home-made candle was good enough for all but festivenights. 

Miss Mary went upstairs disturbed, curious, annoyed. She had got noinvitation to the Sheriff's, and yet here was the hint of some convivialgathering such as she and her brothers had hitherto always been welcometo. 

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

"Tuts, " said he, "they'll just be out of dips. Or maybe the Sheriff hasan extra hard case at avizandum, not to be seen clearly through with acommon creesh flame. "

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

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

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

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

She was visibly disturbed, yet put on a certain air of indifference thatscarcely deceived even Peggy. The worst of it was there was no onewith whom she could share her annoyance, for, if the Paymaster had nosympathy, the other two brothers were unapproachable. Gilian found herin a little rain of tears. She started with shame at his discovery, andset herself to a noisy handling of dinner dishes that by this time heknew well enough were not in her daily office of industry. And she saidnever a word--she that never heard his foot upon the stair withouta smile of pleasure, or saw his face at the door without a mother'schallenge to his appetite. 

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

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

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

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

Gilian was amazed. 

"I did not think you cared for suppers and teas, " he said. "The lasttime you went to the Sheriffs you said you would far sooner be at home, and--"

"Did I?" said she. Then she smiled to find some one who knew it wasnot the outing she immediately prized. "Indeed, what you say is true, Gilian. I'm an old done dame, and it was wiser for the like of me tobe sitting knitting at the fire than going on diverts to their boheaparties and clashing supper tables. But it's not myself I'm angry for. Oh, no! they might leave me alone for ever and a day and I would carenot a pin-head, but it's Dugald I'm thinking of--a Major-General--one ofthe only three in the shire, and Colin--a Cornal--and both of Keils. TheSheriff's lady might leave me out of her routs if she pleasured it, butshe has no cause to put my brothers to an insult like this. " She said"my brothers" with a high hard sound of stern and proud possession thatwas very fine to hear. Even Gilian, as yet only beginning to know thelove and pride of this little woman, had, at her accent, a sudden deeprevealing of her devoted heart. 

"It is the Turners' doing, " she said, feverishly rubbing a warming panwhose carved lid from Zaandam blinked and gleamed like the shining faceof a Dutch skipper over his dram. "I know them; because my brothermust be quarrelling with them, their half-sister must be taking up thequarrel and shutting her door in our faces. "

"The Turners! Then I hate them too, " cried Gilian, won to thePaymaster's side by the sorrow of Miss Mary. 

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

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

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

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

"Like the mavis, 9' cried Gilian, still in his Gaelic and in a transportof recollection. 

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

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

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

"Oh! she looks like--like--like the _gruagach_ girl in the story, " saidGilian, remembering the tale of the sea-maiden who sat on the shore anddressed her hair with a comb of gold. 

"I hope she's not so uncanny, " said Miss Mary with a laugh, "for the_gruagach_ combed till a sweetheart came (that I should be talking ofsuch daft-like things!), and he was drowned and that was the end ofhim. "

"Still--still, " said Gilian, "the _gruagach_ was worth the drowningfor. "

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

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

The night of the Sheriff's supper party came with heavy showers and asky swept by clouds that let through glimpse of moon nor star. The townlay in pitch darkness, all silent except for the plash of the sea uponthe shore or its long roll on the Ramparts. A deserted and wind-sweptstreet, its white walls streaming with waters, its outer shutters on theground fiats barred to darkness, its gutters running over--it was thelast night on which any one with finery and a notion for comfort wouldchoose for going abroad to parties. Miss Mary, sitting high at herparlour window with Gilian, looked out through the blurred pane withsatisfaction upon all this inclemency. 

"Faith, " said she, "I wish them joy of their party whoever they bethat share it!" Then all at once her mood changed to one of pity as thesolitary street showed a moving light upon its footway. "Oh!" she cried. "There's Donacha Breck's lantern and his wife will be with him. Andto-day she was at me for my jelly for a cold! I wish--I wish she was notover the door this night; it will be the death of her. To-morrow I mustsend her over the last of my Ladyfield honey. "

From the window and in the darkness of the night, it was impossible totell who were for the Sheriffs party, so Miss Mary in the excess of hercuriosity must be out after a time and into the dripping darkness, withGilian by her side for companionship. It was an adventure altogether tohis liking. As he walked up and down the street on its darker side hecould think upon the things that were happening behind the drawn blindsand bolted shutters. It was as if he was the single tenant of a sleepingstar and guessing at the mysteries of a universe. Stories were happeningbehind the walls, fires were glimmering, suppers were set, each familyfor the time being was in a world of its own, split off from itsneighbours by the darkness. 

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

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

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

He awaited her explanation, not greatly interested, for the blankexpanse of the moaning sea round the corner of a tall tenement filledhim with new and moving emotions. 

"There has been a cap there for a week with lilac trimmings for Rixa'ssister, and now it has gone. It was there this morning, and I saw herlassie going by with a bandbox in the middle of the day. That's two pairat least for the Sheriff's party. "

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

She shook his arm with startled affright. 

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

She passed with the boy from tenement to tenement. 

"Major Hall and his sister are there, " she said, showing darkenedwindows. "And the Camerons and the Frasers, " she added later, informedby the same signs of absence. 

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

And yet the town was not all asleep but for the Sheriff's party andMiss Mary and the Paymaster's boy, for there came from the Abercrombie, though the door was shut discreetly, a muffled sound of carousal. Itwas not, this time, the old half-pay officers but a lower plane of theburgh's manhood, the salvage and the wreckage of the wars, privatemenand sergeants, by a period of strife and travel made in some degreeunfit for the tame ways of peace in a stagnant burgh. They told the oldtales of the bivouac; they sang its naughty or swaggering songs. By aplain deal door and some glasses of spirit they removed themselves fromthe dull town drowsing in the night, and in the light of the SergeantMore's cruisie moved again in the sacked towns of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajos and San Sebastian, gorged anew, perhaps, with blood and lust. 

Miss Mary and Gilian passed the door of the Sergeant More hurriedly, shedeaf to its carousal, he remembering all at once and finding wake anewhis first feelings when he stood in the same room before the half-payofficers at their midday drams. He had become a little tired of thisquest all to gratify an old maid's curiosity, he wished he could be homeagain and in his attic room with his candle and his story book, or hisabundant and lively thoughts. But there was one other task before MissMary. She could not forbear so little as a glance at the exterior ofthe Sheriff's dwelling where the enemies of her home (as so she now mustfancy them) were trying to be happy without the company of the Campbellsof Keils. When they were in front of it every window shone across thegrass-plot, some of them open so that the sound of gaiety came clearlyto the woman and the boy. Miss Mary stood woebegone, suffused in tears. 

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

Gilian before this curious sorrow was dumb. Silently he tried to leadthe little lady away from the place, but she would not go, and would notbe comforted. Then there came from the open windows the beginning of asong. At the first note Gilian thrilled in every nerve. 

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

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

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

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

"Oh, the dear! the dear!" sobbed Miss Mary, moved to her inmost by thestrain. "When I heard her first I thought it was her mother, and thattoo her favourite song! Oh, the dear! the dear! and I to be the sinfulwoman here on any quarrel for her!"

The song ceased, a window noisily closed, and Gilian fell back with ashock upon a wet world with roads full of mire and a salt wind from thesea moaning in the trees behind the town. 

"What--what--what are we here for?" said he, beholding for the firsttime the impropriety of this eavesdropping on the part of so genteel andsensitive a dame. 

She blushed in the dark with the shame the query roused. She had thoughthim too young to understand the outrage this must be on her every senseof Highland decency, and yet he could reprove her in a single sentence!

"You may well ask, " she said, moving away from that alluring house-frontwith its inmates so indifferent to the passions in the dark without Andher sobs were not yet finished. "Because I prize my brothers, " saidshe, "and grieve at any slight upon them, must I be spy upon my deadcompanion's child?" She hurried her pace away from that house whosewindows stared in a dumb censure upon her humiliation. Gilian trudgedreluctantly at her side, confounded, but she seemed almost unconsciousthat he was there, till he tugged with a shy sympathy at her gown. Thenshe looked and beamed upon him with the mother-face. 

"Do you like that girl?" said she. 

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

"Oh! it was always that, " she went on helplessly "My poor brothers!They were not to blame, and she was not to blame, at least, not verymuch perhaps; if blame there was, it lay with the providence thatbrought them together. " Then she stopped a moment with a pitifulexclamation: "Oh! I was the instrument of providence in their case; butfor me, that loved them all, it might never have been. What am I doinghere with you? She may have her mother's nature as well as her mother'ssongs. "

For once Gilian found himself with many pieces of a tale he could notput together, for all his ingenuity. He said nothing, but fumbledin many trials at the pieces as he and the little lady walked up thestreet, now deserted but for themselves and a man's footsteps soundingon the flags. The man was on them before Miss Mary realised his coming. It was Mr. Spencer of the New Inn. He stopped with a salutation, comingupon them, as it happened, in the light of the oil-lamp at the CrossWell, and a discreet surprise was in his visage. 

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

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

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

"I think we are not altogether out of the big world you speak of, "said Miss Mary, in a chilly tone. "The mantua-maker tells me the latestfashions are here from London sooner than they are in Edinburgh. " Shesaw in his face the innkeeper's apology for his common sin againstthe Gaelic vanity. "We were just out for an airing, " she added, takingGilian's hand in hers and squeezing it with meaning. 

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

"Oh! there is a party in the Sheriff's, is there?" she said. "That isvery nice; they have a hospitable house and many friends. I musthurry home to my brothers, who, like all old gentlemen, are a littletroublesome and care neither to move out at night, nor to let me leavethem to go out myself. "

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

Mr. Spencer's footsteps sounded more slowly on the flagstone as heresumed his accustomed evening walk, in which for once his mind was noton London town, and old friends there, but upon the odd thing that whilethis old maid had smiled upon him, there was a tear very plain upon hercheek. 

CHAPTER IX--ACADEMIA

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

Old Brooks would perch high on his three-legged stool conning over someexercise while his scholars in their rows behind the knife-hewn inkydesks hummed like bees upon their tasks. The hornbooks of the littleones at the bottom of the room would sometimes fall from their hands inthe languor of that stagnant atmosphere, but the boys of the upper formswere ever awake for mischief. To the teaching of the Dominie they wouldcome with pockets full of playthings, sometimes animals from the woodsand fields about the town--frogs, moles, hedgehogs, or fledgeling birds. Brooks rarely suspected the presence of these distractions in his sacredgrove, for he was dull of vision and preferred to see his scholars abouthim in a vague mist rather than wear in their presence the great hornspectacles that were privy to his room in Crombie's Land. The town'sclock staring frankly in at the school windows conveyed to him noknowledge of the passing enemy, and, as his watch had been for ageneration but a bulge upon his vest, he must wait till the hour struckere he knew it was meridian and time to cross the playground and intoKate Bell's for his glass of waters. "Silence till I return!" he wouldsay, whipping on his better coat and making for the door that had nosooner shut on him than tumult reigned. 

On his way back from the tavern he would meet, perhaps, the Paymastermaking for the house of the Sergeant More. "I cannot understood, "would the Paymaster say, "what makes you take your drams in so commona civilian house as that. A man and a soldier keeps the Abercrombie, afellow who fought for his country. And look at the company! MacNicol andMajor Hall--and--and--myself and some of the best in the burgh; yetyou must be frequenting a low tavern with only merchants and mice andfisherman to say 'Good health' to. "

Master Brooks had always his answer very pat. 

"I get a great abundance of old war tales in my books, " he would saydrily. "And told with a greater ingenuity--not to mention veracity--thanpertain to the legends and histories of you old campaigners. Betweenourselves, I'm not for war at all, but for the far finer and morewholesome rarity called peace. Captain, Captain!" (and here would hegrasp the Paymaster by the coat lapels with the friendly freedom of anold acquaintance, ) "Captain, Captain! it is not a world for war thoughwe are the fools to be fancying so, but a world for good-fellowship, soshort the period we have of it, so wonderful the mind of them about us, so kind with all their faults! I find more of the natural human in theback room of Kate's there where the merchants discourse upon their balesand accounts than I would among your half-pay gentry who would have thecountry knee-deep in blood every day in the calendar if they had theirway of it. "

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

"The boy's made, Captain Campbell, " said the schoolmaster one day atthis. "He was made and his end appointed ere ever he came to your houseor felt my ferule-end. He is of the dream nature and he will be whathe will be. I can no more fashion him to the common standard than I canmake the fir-tree like unto the juniper. I've had many a curious studentyonder, wild and tame, dunce and genius, but this one baffles me. He wasa while up in the glen school, they tell me, and he learned there suchrudiments as he has, but what he knows best was never learned anywherebut as the tinkler learns--by the roadside and in the wood. "

"I know he's a droll one, " said the Paymaster, uneasily, with athoughtful brow, "but you have the reputation, Mr. Brooks, you haveturned out lads who were a credit to you. If it is not in him, thwack itin with your tawse. "

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

"Captain Campbell, " said he, "it is not the tawse that ever put wisdominto a head like yon. The boy is unco, the boy is a _lusus naturo_, thatis all; as sharp as a needle when his interest is aroused, as absent asan idiot when it is not, and then no tawse or ferule will avail. "

And while the Paymaster and the Dominie were thus discussing Gilian, theschool would be in a tumult whereof he was sometimes the leader. To himthe restraints were galling shackles. When the classes would be hummingin the drowsy afternoon and the sharp high voice of old Brooks roseabove the murmur as he taught some little class in the upper corner, theboy would be gazing with vacant eyes at the whitewashed wall in front ofhim, or looking out at the beech branches that tapped in faint breezesat the back windows, or listening with an ecstatic ear to the crispcontact of stone and scythe as the mowers in the fields behind put anew edge on their instruments. Oh! the outer world was ever the worldof charm for him, winter or summer, as he sat in that constrained andhumming school. That sound of scythes a-sharping was more pleasing tohis ear than the poetry Mr. Brooks imposed upon his scholars, showing, himself, how to read it with a fierce high limping accent as if it werea thing offensive. When hail or rain rattled on the branches, when snowin great flakes settled down or droves of cattle for distant marketswent bellowing through the street, it was with difficulty the boy kepthimself to his seat and did not rise and run out where his fancy soperemptorily called. 

If he learned from books at all, it was from the wonderful, dusty, mildewed volumes that Marget Maclean had on her shelves behind thepost-office. She was one of three sisters and they were all so muchalike that Gilian, with many other boys, never learned to know one fromthe other, so it was ever Marget who was behind the counter, a thin oldlady of carefully nurtured gentility, with cheeks like a winter applefor hue, with eyebrows arching high in a perpetual surprise at sohurried and ridiculous a world, and a curled brown wig that wassuspected of doing duty for the three sisters who were never seen butone at a time. Marget Maclean's little shop was the dullest in thestreet, but it was the anteroom of fairydom for Gilian who borrowedbooks there with the pence cozened from Miss Mary. In the choosing ofthem he had no voice. He had but to pay his penny and Marget would peerthrough her glasses at the short rows of volumes until she came upon thebook she thought most suited for her customer. 

"You will find that a good one, " she would say. "The one you mentionis not at all good; it was very fashionable last spring, but it is notasked for now at all. " And in proof that the volume she recommendedwas quite genteel, she would add: "That one was up at the Castle lastSaturday. Lady Charlotte's maid, you will notice, wet all the pagescrying over the places where the lover went to sea another voyage. Itis a very clever book, my dear, and I think there is a moral, I do notremember what the moral is, but I know there is one or else I would notrecommend it. It is in large black type you see, and there is a greatdeal of speaking in parlours in it, which is always informing and nicein a book. "

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

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

She turned her odd thin figure and her borrowed curls bobbed behind herears as she tilted up her head and glanced along the shelves for whatshe knew was not there. 

"No, my boy, " she said. "We have none of Mr. Scott's works at present. There is a demand among some people for Mr. Scott I believe, but, " hereshe frowned slightly, "I do not think you are old enough for poetry. It is too romantic, and--it lingers in the memory. I have not read himmyself though I hear he is clever--in a way. I would not say that Iobject to Mr. Scott, but I do not recommend him to my young customers. "

So off Gilian would go with his book under his arm to the Ramparts. TheRamparts were about the old Tolbooth and kept crime within and the seawithout. Up would the tide come in certain weathers thrashing on thegranite cubes, beating as it might be for freedom to the misunderstoodwithin, beating and hissing and falling back and dashing in again andstreaming out between the joints of masonry in briny jets. Half-way upthe Ramparts was a foot-wide ledge, and here the boy would walk roundthe bastions and in the square face to the sea would sit upon the ledgewith his legs dangling over the water and read his volume. It might bethe "Mysteries of Udolpho, " "Thaddeus of Warsaw, " "Moll Flanders, " or"Belinda, " the story of one Random, a wandering vagabond, or Crusoe, butno matter where the story led, the boy whose feet dangled over the seawas there. And long though the tale might be Gilian pieced it out infancy by many pages. His situation on the Ramparts was an aid to hisimagination, for as he sat there the sea would be sluggishly rollingbelow or beating in petulant waves and he floated, as it were, betweensea and sky, as free from earth's clogging influence as the gannet thatsoared above. 

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

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

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

"Oh! it's only a stupid story, " said Gilian, tearing again at thetreasure, with an agony that could have been no greater had it been hisheart. He had to forego many books from Marget Maclean to make up forthis one, but at least he had escaped the irony of his companions. 

Yet not books were his first lovers and friends and teachers, so much asthe creatures of the wild, and the aspects of nature. Often the Dominiemissed him from his accustomed place at the foot of the class, and therewas no explanation to offer when he returned. He had suffered again thewood's fascination. In the upper part of the glen he had been contentwith little clumps and plantings, the caldine woods of Kincreggan or thehazels whereof the shepherds made their crooks. But the forest lay formiles behind the town, a great land of shade and pillars where the windsroved and tangled. It abounded in wild life, and sounded ever in springand summer with songs and cries. Into its glades he would wander andstand delirious to the solitude, tingling to the wild. The dim vistasabout him had no affrights; he was at home, he was the child of thetranquil, the loving mother, whose lap is the pasture-land and forest. Autumn fills those woods with the very breath of melancholy, no birdswill sing in the multitudinous cloisters except the birds of the nightwhose melody is one doleful and mocking note. The bracken burns andwithers, lush grass rots and whitens above the fir-roots, the birds flitfrom shade to shade with no carolling. And over all will stand the treessleeping with their heads a-nod. 

He would walk among the noisy fallen leaves, posturing the heroes of hisreading or his own imagination about him in the landscape--a pleasantrecreation. He would set Bruce the king himself sitting at a cave-mouth, a young gentleman with a queue like Turner's, pondering upon freedom, while the spiders wrought for his instruction; deer breaking from covertto dash away, or moving in stately herds across the forest openings, became a foreign cavalry. Sometimes he would take a book to the upperhunting-roads, where rarely any intrusion came except from some gillieor fisher of the lochs far back in the moors, and stretched on drybracken he would read and dream for hours. 

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

He gave an halloo that brought Gilian to his feet alarmed, for ithappened to fit in with some passage in his mind where foes cried. Invain the book went behind the Paymaster's boy; Islay saw the raggedpages. 

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

"I had it in my pocket, " said Gilian, in a poor, ineffectiveexplanation, relinquishing the volume with a grudge to the examinationof this cynic. 

"You pretended on the Ramparts you were tearing it up like any otherboy, " said Young Islay, "and I was sure you were doing nothing of thekind. " He turned over the pages with scornful fingers. "It's not aschool-book, there's not a picture in it, it's full of talking--fancybeing here with that rubbish, when you might be fishing with me!"

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

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

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

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

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

"It's the same thing, " said Young Islay, picking up his rod. "You cando nothing with your hands; I--I can do anything. " And he drew up with abantam's vanity. He moved off. The torn book was in his path. He kickedit before him like a football until he reached the ditch beside thehunting road, and there he left it. A little later Gilian saw him in adistant vista of the trees as an old hunter of the wood, with a gunin his hand and his spoil upon his back, breasting the brae with longstrides, a figure of achievement altogether admirable. 

CHAPTER X--ON HIS MAJESTY'S SERVICE

Marget Maclean (or one of her sisters) was accustomed when the mailscontained a letter on His Majesty's Service for the Paymaster, to puton a bonnet, and in a mild flurry cross the street, feeling herself asharer in the great matters of State. So important was the missionthat she had been known even to shut her shop door for the time ofher absence upon eager and numerous youths waiting the purchase of hersuperior "black man, " a comfit more succulent with her than with JennyAnderson in Crombie's Land, or on older patrons seeking the hire of thenew sensation in literature--something with a tomb by Mrs. Radcliffe. 

"Tell your mistress I wish to see her, " she would say on these occasionswith great pomp to Peggy, but even Miss Mary was not sufficiently closeto State to be entrusted with the missive. "Goodday, Miss Campbell, Icalled to see Captain John on important business, " and the blue documentwith its legend and seal would be clutched with mittened hands tight tothe faded bodice. 

Miss Mary shared some of this awe for State documents; at least shehelped out the illusion that they were worth all this anxiety on thepart of the post-office, and she would call the Paymaster fromhis breakfast. His part on the other hand was to depreciate theirimportance. He would take the most weighty and portentous with an air ofcontempt. 

"What's this, Miss Maclean?" he would say impatiently with thesnuff-pinch suspended between his pocket and his nose. "A king's letter. Confound the man! what can he be wanting now?" Then with a carelessforefinger he would break the seal and turn the paper outside in, heedless (to all appearance) as if it were an old copy of the _Courier_. 

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

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

Cornal Colin turned on him a lustreless eye. 

"What havers are you on now, John?" said he, with no pause in thesupping of his porridge. Dugald paid no heed. With a hand a littlepalsied he buttered a scone, and his lower lip was dropped and his eyeswere vacant, showing him far absent in the spirit. Conversation wasnever very rife at the Paymaster's breakfast table. 

"I'm telling you the county corps is coming south, " said Mars, with whatfor him to the field officer was almost testiness. "Here's a command forbilleting three hundred men on Friday night on their way to Dumbarton. "

Up stood the Cornal with a face transfigured. He stretched across thetable and almost rudely clutched the paper from his brother's hand, casta fast glance at the contents and superscription, then sat again andgave a little choked cheer, the hurrah of spent youth and joyfulness. "Curse me! but it's true, " he cried to the General. "The old 91st underCrawford--Jiggy Crawford we called him for his dance in the ken atMadrid before he exchanged--Friday, Friday; where's my uniform, Mary?They'll be raw recruits, I'll warrant, not the old stuff, but--are youhearing, Dugald? Oh! the Army, the Army! Let me see--yes, it says sixpipers and thirty band. My medals, Mary, are they in the shuttle of mykist yet? The 91st--God! I wish it was our own; would I not show them!You are not hearing a word I am saying, Dugald. "

He paused in a feverish movement in his chair, thrust off from himwith a clatter of dishes and a spilling of milk the breakfast stillunfinished, and stared with annoyance at the General. Dugald picked athis fish with no appetite, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, a silent oldman palsied on one side, with a high bald head full of visions. "What'sthat about the Argyls?" he said at last, with a start, brought to by thetone and accent of his brother. 

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

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

"This very Friday. "

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

"I thought, " he muttered, brokenly, "I thought I would never seered-coat again. " Then he straightened his shoulders anew, and flexed thesinews of his knees, and pressed the palsied hand against the breeches'seam. The exertion brought a cough to his throat, a choking resistlesscough of age and clogging humours. It was Time's mocking reminder thatthe morning parade was over for ever, and now the soldier must be atease. He gasped and spluttered, his figure lost its tenseness, and fromthe fit of coughing he came back again an old and feeble man. He lookedat his hand trembling against his waist, at his feet in their large andclumsy slippers; he looked at the picture of himself upon the wall, thenquitted the room with something like a sob upon his lip. 

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

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

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

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

The Paymaster held his anger in leash. He was incapable of comprehendingand he was, too, afraid. With a forced laugh, he pressed the creasesfrom the document. 

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

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

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

"There _you_ are!" said he, "my wan-faced warlock. What would ColinCampbell, Commander of the Bath, not give to be your age again and allthe world before him? Do you say your prayers at night, laddie, beforeyou go to your naked bed in the garret? I'll warrant Mary taught youthat if she taught you nothing else. Pray every night then that Heavenmay give you thew and heart and a touch of the old Hielan' glory thatthis mechanic body by my side has got through the world wanting. Oh, laddie, laddie, what a chance is yours! To hear the drum in the morningand see the sun glint on the line; to sail away and march with pipe orbugle in foreign countries; to have a thousand good companions roundabout the same camp-fires and know the lift and splendour of parades incaptured towns. It's all bye for me; I'm an old pensioner rotting to thetomb in a landward burgh packed with relics like myself, and as; God'sin heaven, I often wish I was with brother Jamie yonder fallen in myprime with a clod stopping the youth and spirit in my throat. "

"Tut, tut, now we're in our flights!" said the Paymaster, not veryaudibly, so that in his transport the Cornal never heard. 

"_Are_ you for the Army?" asked the Cornal, like a recruiting sergeantbringing the question home to a lad at a country fair; and he fixedGilian with an eye there was no baffling. 

"I would--I would like it fine, " said Gilian stammering, "if it was alllike that. "

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

"Like that--" repeated the boy, trembling though Miss Mary's fingerswere on his. "All the morning time, all with trumpets and the samefriends about the camp-fire. Always the lift inside and the notion to goon and on and----"

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

The Cornal looked at him now wistfully. 

"I would not say, Gilian, " said he, "but what there might be the makingsof a soger in you yet. If you have not the sinews for it you havethe sense. You'll see a swatch on Friday of what I talked about andwe'll--Come away this minute, Mary, and look me out my uniform. JiggyCrawford! Young Jiggy that danced in the booze-house in Madrid! He wasEnsign then and now he has his spurs and handles tartan. He is at thevery topmost of the thing and I am going down, down, down, out, out, out, like this, and this, and this, " and so saying he pinched out thecandle flames one by one. The morning swept into the room, no longerwith a rival, lighting up this parlour of old people, showing thewrinkles and the grey hairs and the parchment-covered knuckles, and inits midst the Paymaster's boy with a transfigured face and a head fullof martial glory. 

CHAPTER XI--THE SOUND OF THE DRUM

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

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

"What is wrong in the place to-day?" asked his Grace with a flourish ofhis crop about him to the lounging rascals and the groups at the taverndoors. "Am I paying good day's wages for the like of that?"

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

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

But it was in the Paymaster's house that the fullest stress, the mostnervous restlessness of anticipation were apparent. The Paymaster'ssnuff was now in two vest-pockets and even then was insufficient, ashe went about the town from morning till night babbling in excitedhalf-sentences of war, and the fields he had never fought in, to men whosmiled behind his back. His brothers' slumbers in the silent parlour hadbeen utterly destroyed till "Me-the-day!" Miss Mary had to cry at lastwhen her maid brought back untasted viands, "I wish the army was neverto darken our gates, for two daft men up there have never taken arespectable meal since the billet order came. Dugald will be none thebetter for this. "

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

Listening to those old chronicles, Gilian made himself ever their hero. It was he who took the flag at Fuentes d'Onoro, cutting the Frenchman tothe chin; it was he who rode at Busaco and heard the Marshal cry "Welldone!"; when the shots were threshing like rain out of a black cloud atCiudad Rodrigo, and the soldiers were falling to it like ripe grainin thunderplumps, he was in the front with every "whe--e--et" of thebullets at his ear bringing the moment's alarm to his teeth in a checkedsucking-in of air. Back to the school he went, a head full of dreams, to sit dumb before his books, with unwinking eyes fixed upon thebattle-lines upon the page--the unbroken ranks of letters, or upon theblistered and bruised plaster of the wall to see horsemen at the chargeand flags flying. Then in the absence of Brooks at the tavern ofKate Bell, Gilian led the school in a charge of cavalry, shouting, commanding, cheering, weeping for the desertion of his men at deadlyembrasures till the schoolboys stood back amazed at his reality, andhe was left to come to himself with a shiver, alone on the lid of themaster's desk in the middle of the floor, utterly ashamed before thevexed but sadly tolerant gaze of the dominie. 

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

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

"Sogers, " said the boy most red and awkward. 

"Ay, ay, " said Brooks, releasing his ear and turning his face to himwith a kind enough hand on his shoulder. "Soldiers is it? And theplayground and the play-hour are not enough for a play of that kind. Soldiers! H'm! So the lessons of the gentlemen up-bye are not to be invain. I thought different, could I be wrong now? And you're going tomeet Captain Campbell's most darling wish. Eh? You have begun the tradeearly, and I could well desire you had a better head for the counts. Give me the mathematician and I will make something of him; give me aboy like yourself, with his head stuffed with feathers and the airs ofheaven blowing them about through the lug-holes and--my work's hopeless. Laddie, laddie, go to your task! If you become the soldier you play-actto-day you'll please the Paymaster; I could scarcely wish for betterand--and--I maybe wished for worse. "

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

He woke in the dark. The house was still. A rumour of the sea came upto his window and a faint wind sighed in the garden. Suddenly, as he layguessing at the hour and tossing, there sounded something far-off andunusual that must have wakened half the sleeping town. The boy satup and listened with breath caught and straining ears. No, no, it wasnothing; the breeze had gone round; the night was wholly still; what hehad heard was but in the fringes of his dream. But stay! there it wasagain, the throb of a drum far-off in the night. It faded again inveering currents of the wind, then woke more robust and unmistakable. The drums! the drums! the drums! The rumour of the sea was lost, no morethe wind sighed in the pears, all the voices of nature were dumb to thatthrob of war. It came nearer and nearer and still the boy was all indarkness in a house betraying no other waking than his own, quiveringto an emotion the most passionate of his life. For with the call of theapproaching drums there entered to him all the sentiment of the familyof that house, the sentiment of the soldier, the full proclamation ofhis connection with a thousand years of warrior clans. 

The drums, the drums, the drums! Up he got and dressed and silently downthe stair and through a sleeping household to the street. He of all thatdwelling had heard the drums that to ancient soldiers surely should havebeen more startling, but the town was in a tumult ere he reached theCross. The windows flared up in the topmost of the tall lands, andthe doors stood open to the street while men and women swept along thecauseway. The drums, the drums, the drums! Oh! the terror and the joy ofthem, the wonder, the alarm, the sweet wild thrill of them for Gilian ashe ran bare-legged, bare-headed, to the factor's corner there to standawaiting the troops now marching on the highway through the wood! Therewas but a star or two of light in all the grudging sky, and the sea, abeast of blackness, growled and crunched upon the shore. The drums, thedrums, the drums! Fronting that monotonous but pregnant music by thedrummers of the regiment still unseen, the people of the burgh waitedwhispering, afraid like the Paymaster's boy to shatter the charm ofthat delightful terror. Then of a sudden the town roared and shook toa twofold rattle of the skins and the shrill of fifes as the corpsfrom the north, forced by their jocular Colonel to a night march, sweptthrough the arches and wheeled upon the grassy esplanade. Was it a trickof the soldier who in youth had danced in the ken in Madrid that heshould thus startle the hosts of his regiment, and that passing throughthe town, he should for a little make his men move like ghosts, sayingno word to any one of the aghast natives, but moving mechanically in thedarkness to the rattle of the drums? The drums, the drums, the drums!Gilian stood entranced as they passed, looming large and innumerable inthe darkness, unchallenged and uncheered by the bewildered citizens. Itwas the very entrance he could have chosen. For now they were ghosts, legions of the air in borrowed boots of the earth, shades of some armycut down in swathes and pitted in the fashion of the Cornal's bloodieststories. And now they were the foreign invader, dumb because they didnot know the native language, pitying this doomed community but movingin to strike it at the vitals. 

CHAPTER XII--ILLUSION

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

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

"What!" cried the Cornal, when he heard the news. "They came here thismorning and this is the first we have of it. " He was in a fever ofannoyance. "Dugald, Dugald, are you hearing? The Army's in the town, itmoved in when we were snoring and only the boy heard it. I hope JiggyCrawford does not make it out a black affront to him that we were notthere to welcome him. My uniform, Mary, my uniform, it should be airedand ironed, and here at my hand, and I'll warrant it's never out of thepress yet. It was the boy that heard the drums; it was you that heardthe drums, Gilian. Curse me, but I believe you'll make a soger yet!"

For the next few days, Gilian felt he must indeed be the soldier thePaymaster would make him, for soldiering was in the air. The red-coatsgaily filled the street; parade and exercise, evening dance and thecontinuous sound of pipe and drum left no room for any other interest inlife. Heretofore there was ever for the boy in his visions of the Army abackground of unable years and a palsied hand, slow decay in a parlour, with every zest and glamour gone. But here in the men who stepped alwaysto melody there was youth, seemingly a singular enjoyment of life, andwatching them he was filled with envy. 

When the day came that they must go he was inconsolable though he madeno complaint. They went in the afternoon by the lowlands road that bendsabout the upper bay skirting the Duke's flower gardens, and with theCornal and the Paymaster he went to see them depart, the General leftat home in his parlour, unaccountably unwilling to say good-bye. Thecompanies moved in a splendour of sunshine with their arms bedazzling tolook upon, their pipers playing "Bundle and Go. "

"Look at the young one!" whispered the Cornal in his brother's ear, nudging him to attention. Gilian was walking in step to the corps, hisshoulders hack, his head erect, a hazel switch shouldered like a musket. But it was the face of him that most compelled attention for it revealeda multitude of emotions. His fancy ran far ahead of the tramping forcethudding the dust on the highway. He was now the Army's childindeed, stepping round the world to a lilt of the bagpipes, with the_currachd_--the caul of safety--as surely his as it was Black Duncan theseaman's. There were battles in the open, and leaguering of towns, but his was the enchanted corps moving from country to country throughvictory, and always the same comrades were about the camp-fire at night. Now he was the foot-man, obedient, marching, marching, marching, allday, while the wayside cottars wondered and admired; now he was thefugleman, set before his company as the example of good and honest andhandsome soldiery; now he was Captain--Colonel--General, with a horsebetween his knees, his easy body swaying in the saddle as he rode amongthe villages and towns. The friendly people ran (so his fancy continued)to their close-mouths to look upon his regiment passing to the roll andthunder of the drums and the cheery music of the pipes. Long days ofmarch and battle, numerous nights of wearied ease upon the heather, ifheather there should be, the applause of citadels, the smile of girls. The smile of girls! It came on him, that, with a rush of blood to hisface and a strange tingling at the heart as the one true influence tomake the soldier. For what should the soldier wander but to come againhome triumphant, and find on the doorstep of his native place thesmiling girls?

"Look at him, look at him!" cried the Cornal again with a nudge at hisbrother's arm. They were walking over the bridge and the pipes stillwere at their melody. Jiggy Crawford's braid shone like moving torchesat his shoulder as the sun smote hot upon his horse and him. The treesupon the left leaned before the breeze to share this glory; far-offthe lonely hills, the great and barren hills, were melancholy that theycould not touch closer on the grandeur of man. As it were in a story ofthe shealings, the little ones of the town and wayside houses patteredin the rear of the troops, enchanted, their bare legs stretching to therhythm of the soldiers' footsteps, the children of hope, the childrenof illusion and desire, and behind them, sad, weary, everythingaccomplished, the men who had seen the big wars and had many timesmarched thus gaily and were now no more capable. 

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

The Paymaster walked between him and Gilian, a little more robust andyouthful, altogether in a different key, a key critical, jealous of thesoldier lads that now he could not emulate. They were smart enough, heconfessed, but they were not what the 46th had been; Crawford had a goodcarriage on his horse but--but--he was not----

"Oh, do not haver, Jock, " said the Cornal, angrily at last; "donot haver! They are stout lads, good lads enough, like what we wereourselves when first the wars summoned us, and Crawford, as he sitsthere, might very well be Dugald as I saw him ride about the bend of theroad at San Sebastian and look across the sandy bay to see the rock wehad to conquer. Let you and me say nothing that is not kind, Colin; havewe not had our own day of it with the best? and no doubt when we were atthe marching there were ancients on the roadside to swear we were nevertheir equal. They are in there in the grass and bracken where you andI must some day join them and young lads still will be marching out toglory. "

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

But Crawford, like the best that have humour, had pity and pathos too. "Slow march!" he cried to his men, and the pipers played "Lochaber NoMore. "

"He's punctilious in his forms, " said the Paymaster, "but it'sthoughtful of him too. "

"There was never but true _duine uasail_ put on the tartan of Argyll, "said the Cornal. 

The pipes ceased; the drums beat again, echoing from the Sgornach rockand the woody caverns of Blaranbui, Glenshira filled to the lip withrolling thunder, the sea lulled to a whisper on the shore. Gilian andthe children were now all that were left to follow the soldiers, for theoldsters had cheered feebly and gone back. And as he walked close up onthe rear of the troops, his mind was again on the good fortune of thosethat from warfare must return. To come home after long years, and go upthe street so well acquaint, sitting bravely on his horse, paled inthe complexion somewhat from a wound, perhaps with the scar of it asperpetual memorial, and to behold pity and pride in the look of themthat saw him! It would be such a day as this, he chose, with the sunupon his braid and the sheen upon his horse's neck. The pipers wouldplay merrily and yet with a melancholy too, and so crowded the causewaysby the waiting community that even the windows must be open to theiroverflowing. 

And as thus he walked and dreamt saying no word to any of the chatteringbairns about him he was truly the Army's child. The Paymaster was right, and generous to choose for him so fine a calling; the Cornal madeno error, the soldier's was the life for youth and spirit. He hadno objection now to all their plans for his future, the Army was hischoice. 

It was then, at the Boshang Gate that leads to Dhuloch, Maam, Kilblaanand all the loveliness of Shira Glen, that even his dreaming eyes foundNan the girl within the gates watching the soldiers pass. Her face wasflushed with transport, her little shoes beat time to the tread of thesoldiers. They passed with a smile compelled upon their sunburnt faces, to see her so sweet, so beautiful, so sensible to their glory. Andthere was among them an ensign, young, slim, and blue-eyed; he wafteda vagabond kiss as he passed, blowing it from his finger-tips as hemarched in the rear of his company. She tossed her hair from her templesas the moon throws the cloud apart and beamed brightly and merrily andsent him back his symbol with a daring charm. 

Gilian's dream of the Army fled. At the sight of Nan behind the BoshangGate he was startled to recognise that the girls he had thought ofas smiling on the soldier's return had all the smile of this one, thenut-brown hair of this one, her glance so fearless and withal so kindand tender. At once the roll of the drums lost its magic for his ear;a caprice of sun behind a fleck of cloud dulled the splendour of theColonel's braid; Gilian lingered at the gate and let the soldiers gotheir way. 

For a little the girl never looked at him as he stood there withthe world (all but her, perhaps) so commonplace and dull after thesplendours of his mind. Her eyes were fixed upon the marching soldiersnow nearing the Gearron and about her lips played the smile of wonderand pleasure. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I do not understand you a bit, " said Nan, with a puzzled look in herface. "Oh, you mean to pretend to yourself, " she added immediately. "That might be good enough for a girl, but surely it would not be goodenough for you. You are to be a soldier, my father says, and he laughsas if it were something droll. "

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

"One of them Captain Mars, Captain Mars, Who never saw scars!" said thegirl mischievously, familiar with the town's song. "I hope you do notthink of being a soldier like Mars. Perhaps that is what my fatherlaughs at when he says the Paymaster is to make you a soldier. "

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

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

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

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

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

"I daresay, " said Nan, "but no more than my father. I cannot but wonderat you; with the chance to be a soldier like my father or--or theGeneral, being willing to sit at home pretending or play-acting it inschool or----"

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

"I believe you would sooner do it that way than the other, " she said, standing back from him, and looking with shrewd scrutiny. "Oh, I don'tlike the kind of boy you are. "

"Except when you are singing, and then you like to have me listeningbecause I understand, " said Gilian, smiling with pleasure at his ownastuteness. 

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

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

"Never mind that, " said she abruptly. "I was not speaking of singing orof eyes, but I'm telling you I like men, men, men, the kind of men whodo things, brave things, hard things, like soldiers. Oh, I wish I wasthe soldier who kissed his hand to me! What is pretending and thinking?I can do that in a way at home over my sampler or my white seam. But tobe commanding, and fighting the enemies of the country, to be good withthe sword and the gun and strong with a horse, like my father!"

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

"You are a far nicer boy than I thought you were, " said she enjoyingthe compliment. "Only--only--I think when you can pretend so muchto yourself you cannot so well do the things you pretend. You can besoldiering in your mind so like the real thing that you may never gosoldiering at all. And of course that would not be the sort of soldiermy father is. "

A mellowed wail of the bagpipe came from Strone, the last farewell ofthe departing soldiers; it was but a moment, then was gone. The windchanged from the land, suddenly the odours of the traffics of peace blewfamiliarly, the scents of gathered hay and the more elusive perfume ofyellowing corn. A myriad birds, among them the noisy rooks the blackestand most numerous, sped home. In the bay the skiffs spread out theirpinions, the halyards singing in the blocks, the men ye-hoing. For aspace the bows rose and fell, lazy, reluctant to be moving in theirweary wrestle with the sea, then tore into the blue and made a featherof white. Gilian looked at them and saw them the birds of night and sea, the birds of prey, the howlets of the brine, flying large and powerfulthroughout the under-sky that is salt and swinging and never lit by moonor star. And as the boats followed each other out of the bay, a gallantcompany, the crews leaned on tiller or on mast and sang their Gaelic_iorrams_ that ever have the zest of the oar, the melancholy of thewave. 

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

Beyond the Boshang Gate is an entrance to the policies, the parks, thegardens, of the Duke, standing open with a welcome, a trim roadway edgedwith bush and tree. Into it Nan and Gilian walked, almost heedless, itmight seem, of each other's presence, she plucking wild flowers as shewent from bush to bush, humming the refrain of the fishers' songs, hewith his eyes wide open looking straight before him yet with some vaguecontent to have her there for his companion. 

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

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

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

He led her a little from the path to the base of a tall tree with itstrunk for many yards up as bare as a pillar. 

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

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

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

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

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

Nan stamped her foot angrily. "You are daft, " said she. "I don't believeyou ever saw them yourself. "

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

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

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

"Well, " said he, "I did not climb the tree. What is the good when I knowwhat is there? It is a heron's nest. "

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

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

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

CHAPTER XIII--A GHOST

I think that in the trees, the dryads, the leaf-haunters invisible, sosad in childlessness, ceased their swinging to look upon the boy andgirl so enviable in their innocence and happiness. Gilian knelt andgathered up the flowers. It was, perhaps, more to hide his vexation thanfrom courtesy that he did so, but the act was so unboylike, so deferringin its manner, that it restored to Nan as much of her good humour as herlaughter had not brought back with it. As he lifted the flowers and putthem together, there seemed to come from the fresh lush stalks of themsome essence of the girl whose hands had culled and grasped them, afeeling of her warm palm. And when handing her the re-gathered flowershe felt the actual touch of her fingers, his head for a second swam. Hewondered. For in the touch there had been something even more potentand pleasing than in the mother-touch of Miss Mary's hand that day whenfirst he came to the town, the mother-touch that revealed a world notof kindness alone--for that was not new, he had it from the little oldwoman whose face was like a nut--but of understanding and sympathy. 

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

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

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

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

She nodded. 

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

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

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

"See, " said Gilian, pointing to the reflection at their feet. "Does itnot look like a piece of the sky tumbled among the grasses? I sometimesthink, to see it like that, that to fall into it would be to tangle withthe stars. "

Nan only laughed and stooped to lift a stone. 

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

"I never thought I could throw into the sky so far, " she saidmischievously, pleased as it seemed to spoil the illusion in so suddenand sufficient a manner. 

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

"What is the story?" she said, sitting and looking down upon thetroubled pool. 

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

"Once upon a time, " said he, in the manner of the shealing tales, "therewas a lady with eyes like the sea, and hair blowing like the tassel ofthe fir, and she was a daughter of the King in Knapdale, and she lookedupon the world and she was weary. There came a little man to her fromthe wood and he said, 'Go seven days, three upon water and four uponland, and you will come to a place where the moon's sister swims, andthere will be the earl's son and the husband. ' The lady travelled sevendays, three upon water and four upon land, and she came to the Linnwhere the sister of the moon was swimming. 'Where is my earl's sonthat is to be-my husband?' she asked: and the moon's sister said he washunting in the two roads that lie below the river bed. The lady, who wasthe daughter of the King of Knapdale, shut her eyes that were like thesea, and tied in a cushion above her head her hair that was like thetassel of the fir, and broke the crystal door of dream and reached thetwo hunting roads in the bed of the river. 'We are two brothers, ' saidthe watchers, standing at the end of the roads, 'and we are the sons ofearls. ' She thought and thought 'I am Sir Sleep, ' said the younger. 'Andwill you be true?' said she. 'Almost half the time, he answered. Shethought and thought. 'I am very weary, ' she said. 'Then come withme, ' said the other, 'I am the Older Brother. ' She heard above her theclanging at the door of dream as she went with the Older Brother. Andshe was happy for evermore. "

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I like them well enough, " she answered dubiously, "though I like betterthe stories where people are doing things. "

They rose from their seat of illusion beside the Linn where the King ofKnapdale's daughter broke the gate of sleep and dream. They walked intothe Duke's flower garden. And now the day was done, the sun had gonebehind Creag Dubh while they were sitting by the river; a grey-browndusk wrapped up the country-side. The tall trees that were so numerousoutside changed here to shorter darker foreign trees, and yews thatnever waved in winds, but seemed the ghosts of trees, to thicketsprofound, with secrets in their recesses. In and out among theseunfamiliar growths walked Nan and her companion, their pathway crookingin a maze of newer wonders on either hand. One star peered from the sky, the faint wind of the afternoon had sunk to a hint of mingled and movingodours. 

Gilian took the girl's hand, and thus together they went deeper into thegarden among the flowers that perfumed the air till it seemed druggedand heavy. They walked and walked in the maze of intersecting roadswhose pebbles grated to the foot, and, so magic the place, there seemedno end to their journey. 

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

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

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

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

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

Their gravelled path had ceased abruptly; before them the lawn spreadlike a lake, and they were shy to venture on its surface. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

At the confession, Nan's mood of fear that Gilian had conferred on herwas gone. She drew back and laughed with as much heartiness as at hisstory of the heron's nest. The dusk was all around and they were allalone, lost in a magic garden, but she forgot all in this new revelationof her companion's strange belief. She turned and ran across the lawn, crying as she went, "Follow me, follow me!" and Gilian, all the ecstasyof that lingering moment on the edge of fancy gone, ran after her, feeling himself a child of dream, and her the woman made for action. 

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

"Who's this?" said he abruptly. 

Gilian hesitated, vaguely fearing to reveal her identity, and Nan shrankback, all her memories of conversation in Maam telling her that here wasan enemy. 

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

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

"'It _is_ Nan, " said Gilian. 

"It is her breathing image, " said the old man. "It is Nan, no doubt, butnot the Nan I knew. "

She turned and sped home by the seaside, without farewell, alarmed atthis oddity, and Gilian and the Cornal stood alone, the Cornal lookingafter her with a wistfulness in his very attitude. 

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

Gilian explained. 

"In the flower garden? Ay! ay! A lassie on the roadside met your fancymore than Geordie's men of war. Thank God, I was never like that! AndTurner's daughter above all! If she's like her mother in her heartas she's like her in the face, it might be a bitter notion for yourfuture. "

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

CHAPTER XIV--THE CORNAL'S LOVE STORY

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

"I am very angry, oh, I am terribly angry with you!" she cried. "Do notspeak a word to me. " She pushed him into a chair and spread thick butteron a scone and thrust it in his hand. "To frighten us like this! TheCaptain is all over the town for you, and the General has sent men todrag for you about the quay. "

Peggy the maid smiled over her mistress's shoulder at the youth. He atehis scone with great complacency, heartened by this token that somethingof Miss Mary's vexation was assumed. Not perhaps her vexation--for wereher eyes not red as with weeping?--but her anger, if she had really beenangry. 

"You are a perfect heartbreak, " she went on

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

"Would that vex you?" asked Gilian. 

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

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

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

"Will it not do in the morning?" asked Miss Mary, all shaking, dreadingher darling's punishment. 

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

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

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

They went up the stair together and entered the parlour, to find theGeneral half-sleeping in his lug-chair. He started at the apparition ofthe entering youth. 

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

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

"It's a fine carry-on this, " said the Cornal, breaking the silence. "Ay, it's a fine carry-on. " He stretched the upper part of his body over thelow table with his arms spread out, and looked into the boy's eyes witha glance more judicial than severe. "Here are we doing our best to makea man of you, more in a brag against gentry that need not be named inthis house than for human kindness, though that is not wanting I assureyou, and what must you be at but colloguing and, perhaps, plottingwith the daughter of the gentry in question? I will not exactly sayplotting, " he hastened to amend, remembering apparently that before himwere but the rudiments of a man. "I will not say plotting, but at leastyou were in a way to make us a laugh to the whole community. Do you knowanything of the girl that you were with?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The room, it seemed to Gilian, was a vault, a cavern of melancholy, withonly the flicker of the coal to light it up in patches. These old mensighing were its ghosts or hermits, and he himself a worldling falleninvisible among their spoken thoughts. To him the Cornal no longer spokedirectly; he was thinking aloud the thoughts alike of the General andhimself--the dreams, the actions, the joys, the bitterness of youth. He sat back in his chair, relaxed, his hand wrinkled and grey, with nolusty blood rushing any more under the skin; upon the arms his fingersbeating tattoo for his past. 

"You'll be wondering that between the Turners and us is little lovelost, though no doubt Miss Mary with her clinking tongue has given youa glisk of the reason. He'll be wondering, Dugald, he'll be wondering, I'll warrant. And, man, there's nothing by-ordinar wonderful in it, forare we not but human men? There was a woman in Little Elrig who tookDugald's fancy (if you will let me say it, Dugald), and he was willingto draw in with her and give her a name as reverend as any in the shire, for who are older than the Campbells of Keils? It's an old story, and ina way it was only yesterday: sometimes I think it must be only a dream. But, dream or waking, I can see plainly my brother Dugald there, home onleave, make visitation to Glen Shira. I have seen him ambling up therehappy on his horse (it was Black Geordie, Dugald, --well I mind him), andcoming down again at night with a glow upon his countenance. Miss Mary, she would be daffing with him on his return, with a 'How's her leddyshipto-day, Dugald?' and he would be in a pleasant vexation at this guessingof what he thought his secret. It was no secret: was ever such a thingsecret in the shire of Argyll? We all knew it. She was Mary's friendand companion; she would come to our house here on a Saturday; I see herplainly on that chair at the window. "

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

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

He paused and stretched to fill his glass, but as he seized the bottlethe hand shook so that he laid the vessel down in shame. The boystood entranced, following the story intimately, guessing every comingsentence, filling up its bald outline with the pictures of his brain;riding with the General, almost in his prime and almost handsome, andhearing the woman sing in the window chair; feeling the soldier's returnto a reception so cruel. The General said nothing, but sat musing, hiseyes, wide and distant, on the board. And out in the street there wasthe traffic of the town, the high calls of lads in their boisterousevening play, the laugh of a girl. From the kitchen came the rattle ofPeggy's operations, and in a low murmur Miss Mary's voice as she hummedto herself, her symptom of anxiety, as she was sieving the evening milkin the pantry. 

The Cornal gulped the merest thimbleful of spirits and resumed in adifferent key. 

"Then, then, " said he, "then I became the family's fool. Oh, ay!"--andhe laughed with a crackle at the throat and no merriment--"I was thefamily fool; there was aye a succession of them in our house, one afteranother, dancing to this woman's piping. For a while nobody saw it;Dugald never saw it, for he was sitting moping, wearying for somework anywhere away from this infernal clime of rain and sleep and oldsorrows; Mary never noticed it--at least not for a little; she could noteasily fancy her companion the character she was. But I would be meetingthe girl here and there about the country, in the glen, in the town, as well as here in this very parlour where I had to sit and lookindifferent, though--though my heart stounded, and I never met her butI felt a traitor to my brother. You will believe that, Dugald?" said he, recognition for a moment flashing to his eye. 

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

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

The Paymaster's house was grown very still. Gilian ceased to make thepictures in his mind. 

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

"You did not dare, you did not dare!" cried his brother, an apple-redupon his check, and half rising in his chair. 

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

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

"'This is the man for me. ' Turner stood beside her, looking with anadmiration, but to do him justice, ill at case, and with some--withsome--with some pity for me. Oh! that stunned me! 'Is it so indeed?' Isaid in a little when I came to myself, feeling for the first time old. 'And must it be farewell with me as with my brother Dugald?'"

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

"I daresay not; I daresay not, " said the Cornal slowly, pondering on it. "But, mind you, I was in a curious position, finding myself the secondfool of a family that had got fair warning. She birked up and took hergallant's arm. Said I then, 'We'll maybe get you yet; I have a youngerbrother still. ' It was a stupid touch of bravado. 'Jock!' said she, laughing, all her sorrow for her misdoing gone; 'Jock! Not the three ofyou together; give me youth and action. ' Then she went away with her newfancy, and I was left alone. I was left alone. I was left alone. "

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

Up got the General. "Never mind, never mind, Colin, " said he as it wereto a vexed child. "We took our scuds gamely, and there was no more todo. God knows we have had plenty since--made wanderers for the King, illfed for the King, wounded and blooded for the King. What does it matterfor one that was a girl and is now no more but a clod in Kilmalieu? I'mforgetting it all fast I would never be minding it at all but for youand Miss Mary there, and that picture of the man I was once, on thewall. I mind more of Badajos and San Sebastian--that was the roaring, the bloody, the splendid time!--than of the girl that played us onher string--three brothers at a single cast--a witch's fishing. Whatnonsense is this to be bringing up at our time of life? In the hearingof a wean too. "

A cough choked him and he stopped. At Gilian, sitting still andseemingly uncomprehending, the Cornal looked as at a stranger. "Soit is, " said he; "just a wean! I forgot, some way. How old areyou--sixteen? Nonsense! By the look of you I would say a hundred. Oh, you're an old-farrent one, sitting there with your lugs cocked. And whatdo you think is the moral of my story? Eh?--the moral of it? The lessonof it? What? What? What?"

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

"What?" cried the Cornal. "That's the moral? To be younger than theother man. No more than that? To be young? Old Brooks never put you toyour Æsops when that's all you can make of it. "

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

"That's all havers, " said the Cornal; "all havers. I was as jocular atthe time as Jiggy Crawford himself. It did not come natural, but I couldforce myself to it. The blame was not with us. She was a wanton hussyfirst and last, and God be with her!"

He gripped the boy by the jacket collar. "Up and away, " said he. "If mytale's in vain, there's no help for it. I cannot make it plainer. Donot be a fool, wasting the hours that are due to your tasks in loiteringwith the daughter of a woman who has her mother's eye and her mother'ssongs, and maybe her mother's heart. "

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

CHAPTER XV--ON BOARD THE "JEAN"

Gilian went up to his attic, stood looking blankly from the window atthe skylights on the other side of the street, his head against thecamecil of the room. He was bewildered and pleased. He was bewilderedat this new candour of the Cornal that seemed to rank him for the firsttime more than a child; he was pleased to have his escapade treated inso tolerant a fashion, and to be taken into a great and old romance, though there was no active feud in it as in Marget Maclean's books. Besides, the sorrow of the old man's love story touched him. To find asoft piece in that old warrior so intent upon the past and a splutterof glory was astonishing, and it was pitiful too that it should be atragedy so hopeless. He 'listed once more on the Cornal's side in thefeud against Maam, even against Nan herself for her likeness to hermother, forgetting the charm of her song, the glamour at the gate, andall the magic of the garden. He determined to keep at a distance if hewas to be loyal to those who had adopted him. There was no reason, he told himself, why he should vex the Paymaster and his brothers byindulging his mere love of good company in such escapades as he had inthe ship and in the Duke's garden. There was no reason why---- His headunexpectedly bumped against the camceil of the room. He was startled atthe accident. It revealed to him for the first time how time was passingand he was growing. When he had come first to the Paymaster's thatdrooping ceil was just within the reach of his outstretched hand; now hecould touch it with his brow. 

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

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

Miss Mary gave him his supper. For a time she bustled round him, withall her vexation gone, saying nothing of his sederunt with her brothers. Peggy was at the well, spilling stoup after stoup to make her eveninggossip the longer, and the great flagged kitchen was theirs alone. 

"What--what was the Cornal saying to you?" at last she queried, busyingherself as she spoke with some uncalled-for kitchen office to show theindifference of her question. 

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

"I did not think he would be, " she said. Then in a little again, reluctantly: "But what was he talking about?"

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

"Did you understand?" she said, stopping her fictitious task andgasping, at the same time scrutinising him closely. 

"Oh, yes--no, not very well, " he stammered, making a great work with hisplate and spoon. 

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

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

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

"That was the one, " said he. 

Miss Mary wrung her hands. "Oh!" she cried piteously, "that they shouldbe thinking about that yet! wiser-like would it be for them to besitting at the Book. Poor Nan! Poor Nan! my dear companion! Must theybe blaming her even in the grave? You understand it very well. I know byyour face you understand it. She should not have all the blame. Theydid not understand; they were older, more sedate than she was; theirmerriment was past; there was no scrap left of their bairnhood thateven in the manliest man finds a woman's heart quicker than any otherquality. I think she tried to--to--to--like them because they were mybrothers, but the task beat her for all her endeavour. It is an old, dait story. I am wondering at them bringing it up to you. What doyou think they would bring it up to you for?" And she scrutinised himshrewdly again. 

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

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

There was not, for once, the response of understanding in Gilian's face. She could say no more. Was he not a boy yet, perhaps with the impulseshe and the Cornal feared, all undeveloped? And at any rate she dare notgive him the watchword that all their remembrances led up to--the wordBeware. 

But Gilian guessed the word, and his assumption of ignorance was toprevent Miss Mary from guessing so much. Only he misunderstood. He lookedupon the desire to keep him from the company of the people of Maam asdue to the old rancours and jealousies, while indeed it was all in hisinterest. 

But in any case he respected the feelings of the Paymaster's family, and thereafter for long he avoided as honestly as a boy might allintercourse with the girl, whom circumstance the mischievous, thehenchman of the enemy, put in his way more frequently almost than anyof her sex. He must be meeting her in the street, the lane, themarket-place, in the highway, or in walks along the glen. He kept aloofas well as he might (yet ever thinking her for song and charm the mostinteresting girl he knew), and the days passed; the springs would bebut a breath of rich brown mould and birch, the summers but a flashof golden days growing briefer every year, the winters a lesseninginterlude of storm and darkness. 

Gilian grew like a sapling in all seasons, in mind and fancy as in body. Ever he would be bent above the books of Marget Maclean, getting deeperto the meaning of them. The most trivial, the most inadequate and commonstory had for him more than for its author, for under the poor batteredphrase that runs through book and book, the universal gestures ofbookmen, he could see history and renew the tragedies that suggestedthem at the outset. He was no more Brooks' scholar though he sat uponhis upper forms, for, as the dominie well could see, he was launchingout on barques of his own; the plain lessons ot the school were withoutany interest as they were without any difficulty to him. He roamed aboutthe woods, he passed precious hours upon the shore, his mind plangentlike the wave. 

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

"A remarkable young gentleman, " said Mr. Spencer one day to thePaymaster. "I am struck by him, sir, I am struck. He has an air ofcleverness, and yet they tell me he is--"

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

"They tell me he is not so great a credit to old Brooks as he mightexpect, " said the innkeeper, who was not lacking in boldness or plainspeaking if pushed to it. 

"Ay, they say that?" repeated the Paymaster, pinching his snuffvigorously. "Maybe they're right too. I'll tell you what. The lad's headis stuffed with wind. He goes about with notions swishing round insidethat head of his, as much the plaything of nature as the reed thatwhistles in the wind at the riverside and fancies itself a songster. "

Mr. Spencer tilted his London hat down upon his brow, fumbled with hisfob-chain, and would have liked to ask the Paymaster if his well-knownintention to send Gilian on the same career he and his brothers hadfollowed was to be carried into effect But he felt instinctively thatthis was a delicate question. He let it pass unput. 

Bob MacGibbon had no such delicacy. The same day at their meridian inthe "Abercrombie" he broached the topic. 

"I'll tell you what it is, Captain: if that young fellow of yours isever to earn salt for his kail, it is time he was taking a crook in hishand. "

"A crook in his hand?" said the Paymaster. "Would you have nothing elsefor him but a crook?"

"Well, " said MacGibbon, "I supposed you would be for putting him intoLadyfield. If that is not your notion, I wonder why you keep it on for. "

"Ladyfield!" cried the Paymaster. "There was no notion further from mymind. Farming, for all Duke George's reductions, is the last of tradesnowadays. I think I told you plain enough that we meant to make him asoger. "

MacGibbon shrugged his shoulders. "If you did I forgot, " said he. "Itnever struck me. A soger? Oh, very well. It is in your family: yourinfluence will be useful. " And he changed the subject. 

At the very moment that thus they discussed him, Gilian, a truant fromschool, which now claimed his attention, as Brooks sorrowfully said, "when he had nothing else to do and nowhere else to go, " was on anexcursion to the Waterfoot, where the Duglas in a sandy delta unravelsat the end into numerous lesser streams, like the tip of a knotlessfishing-line. It was a place for which he had an exceeding fondness. For here in the hot days of summer there was a most rare seclusion. Noliving thing shared the visible land with him except the sea-birds, thewhite-bellied, the clean and wholesome and free, talking like childrenamong the weeds or in their swooping essays overhead. A place of isletsand creeks, where the mud lay golden below the river's peaty flow;he had but to shut his eyes for a little and look upon it lazily, and within him rose the whole charm and glamour of oceans and isles. Swimming in the briny deeps that washed the rocks, he felt in thatsolitude so sufficient, so much in harmony with the spirit of the place, its rumination, its content, its free and happy birds, as if he wereEllar in the fairy tale. The tide caressed; it put its arms round him;it laughed in the sunshine and kissed him shyly at the lips. Intothe swooping concourse of the birds he would send, thus swimming, hisbrotherly halloo. They called back; they were not afraid, they need notbe--he loved them. 

To-day he had come down to the Waterfoot almost unknowing where hewalked. Though the woods were bare there was the look of warmth in theirbrown and purple depths; only on the upper hills did the snow lie inpatches. Great piles of trunks, the trunks of old fir and oak, lay abovehigh-water mark. He turned instinctively to look for the ship they werewaiting for, and behind him, labouring at a slant against the wind, was the _Jean_ coming from the town to pick her cargo from this narrowestuary. 

He was plucked at the heart by a violent wish to stay. At the poop hecould see Black Duncan, and the seaman's histories, the seaman's fablesall came into his mind again, and the sea was the very highway ofcontent. The ship was all alone upon the water, not even the tan of afisher's lug-sail broke the blue. A bracing heartening air blew fromFrench Foreland And as he was looking spellbound upon the little vesselcoming into the mouth of the river, he was startled by a strain ofmusic. It floated, a rumour angelic, upon the air, coming whence hecould not guess--surely not from the vessel where Black Duncan and twoothers held the deck alone?

It was for a time but a charm of broken melody in the veering wind, distinct a moment, then gone, then back a faint echo of its firstclearness. It was not till the vessel came fairly opposite him that thesinger revealed herself in Nan sitting on a water-breaker in the lee ofthe companion hatch. 

For the life of him he could not turn to go away. He rebelled againstthe Paymaster's service, and remained till the ship was in the rivermouth beside him. 

"Ho '_ille 'ille!_" Black Duncan cried upon him, leaning upon his tarrygunnle, and smiling to the shore like a man far-travelled come upon afriendly face in some foreign port. The wooded rock gave back the callwith interest. Round about turned the seaman and viewed the southernsky. A black cloud was pricked upon the spur of Cowal. "There's windthere, " said he, "and water too! I'm thinking we are better here thanbelow Otter this night. Nan, my dear, it is home you may get to-day, butnot without a wetting. I told you not to come, and come you would. "

She drummed with her heels upon the breaker, held up a merry chin, andsmiled boldly at her father's captain. "Yes, you told me not to come, but you wanted me to come all the time. I know you did. You wantedsongs, you wanted all the songs, and you had the ropes off the pawlbefore I had time to change my mind. "

"You should go home now, " said the seaman anxiously. "Here is our youngfellow, and he will walk up to the town with you. "

She pretented to see Gilian for the first time, staring at him boldly, with a look that made him certain she was thinking of the many times hehad manifestly kept out of her way. It made him uneasy, but he was moreuneasy when she spoke. 

"The Paymaster's boy, " said she. "Oh! he would lose himself on the wayhome, and the fairies might get him. When I go I must find my own way. But I am not going now, Duncan. If it will rain, it will rain and bedone with it, and then I will go home. "

"Come on board, " said Duncan to the boy. "Come on board, and see myship, then; she is a little ship, but she is a brave one, I'm tellingyou; there is nothing of the first of her left for patches. "

Gilian looked longingly at the magic decks confused with ropes, and theopen companion faced him, leading to warm depths, he knew by the smokethat floated from the funnel. But he paused, for the girl had turnedher head to look at the sea, and though he guessed somehow she might bewilling to have him with her for his youth, he did not care to venture. 

Then Black Duncan swore. He considered his invitation too much of afavour to have it treated so dubiously. Gilian saw it and went upon thedeck. 

Youth, that is so long (and all too momentary), and leaves for ever sucha memory, soon, forgets. So it was that in a little while Gilian and Nanwere on the friendliest of terms, listening to Black Duncan's stories. As they listened, the girl sat facing the den stair, so that her eyeswere lit to their depths, her lips were flaming red. The seaman and theboy sat in shadow. The seaman, stretched upon a bunk with his feet tothe Carron stove, the boy upon a firkin, could see her every wave offancy displayed upon her countenance. She was eager, she was piteous, she was laughing, in the right key of response always when thestories that were told were the straightforward things of a sailor'sexperience--storms, adventures, mishaps, passion, or calm. She had grownas Gilian had grown, in mind as in body; and thinking so, he was pleasedexceedingly. But the tales that the boy liked were the tales that werenot true, and these, to Gilian's sorrow, she plainly did not care for;he could see it in the calmness of her features. When she yawned at atale of Irish mermaidens he was dashed exceedingly, for before him againwas the sceptic who had laughed at his heron's nest and had wantonlybroken the crystal of the Lady's Linn. But by-and-by she sang, and oh!all was forgiven her. This time she sang some songs of her father's, oddairs from English camp-fires, braggart of word, or with the melodiouslongings of men abroad from the familiar country, the early friend. 

"I wish I was a soldier, " he found himself repeating in his thought. "Iwish I was a soldier, that such songs might be sung for me. "

A fury at the futility of his existence seized him. He would giveanything to be away from this life of ease and dream, away where thingswere ever happening, where big deeds were possible, where the admirationand desire were justified. He felt ashamed of his dreams, his pictures, his illusions. Up he got from his seat upon the firkin, and his head wasin the shadows of the smoky timbers. 

"Sit down, lad, sit down, " said the seaman, lazy upon his arm upon theshelf. "There need be no hurry now; I hear the rain. "

A moan was in the shrouds, the alarm of a freshening wind. Some dropstrespassed on the cabin floor, then the rain pattered heavily on thedeck. The odours of the ship passed, and in their place came the smellof the cut timber on the shore, the oak's sharpness, the rough sweetnessof the firs, all the essence, the remembrance of the years circledupon the ruddy trunks, their gatherings of storm and sunshine, of dew, showers, earth-sap, and the dripping influence of the constant stars. 

"I cannot stay here, I cannot stay here! I must go, " cried the lad, andhe made to run on deck. 

But Duncan put a hand out as the lowest step was reached, and set himback in his place. 

"Sit you there!" said he. "I have a fine story you never heard yet And afighting story too. "

"What is it? What is it?" cried Nan. "Oh! tell us that one. Is it a trueone?"

"It is true--in a way, " said the seaman. "It was a thing that happenedto myself. "

Gilian delayed his going--the temptation of a new story was too much forhim. 

"Do you take frights?" Black Duncan asked him. "Frights for things thatare not there at all?"

Gilian nodded. 

"That is because it is in the blood, " said the seaman; "that is the kindof fright of my story. "

And this is the story Black Duncan told in the Gaelic. 

CHAPTER XVI--THE DESPERATE BATTLE

"Black darkness came down on the wood of Creag Dubh, and there was Ilost in the middle of it, picking my way among the trees. Fir and oakare in the wood. In the oak I could walk straight with my chin in theair, facing anything to come; in the fir the little branches scratchedat my neck and eyes, and I had to crouch low and go carefully. 

"I had been at a wedding in the farm-house of Leacann. Song and storyhad been rife about the fire; but song and story ever have an end, andthere was I in the hollow of the wood after song and story were by, thedoor-drink still on my palate, and I looking for my way home. It wasnut-time. I had a pouch of them in my jacket, and I cracked and ate themas I went. Not a star pricked the sky; the dark was the dark of a pot ina cave and a snail boiling under the lid of it. I had cracked a nut andthe kernel of it fell on the ground, so I bent and felt about my feet, though my pouch was so full of nuts that they fell showering in thefin dust. I swept every one with a shell aside, hunting for my crackedfellow, and when I found him never was nut so sweet!

"Then came to me the queerest of notions, that some night before in thissame wood I had lost a nut, and the darkness was the dark of a pot ina cave and a snail under the lid of it. And yet the time or season thatever I cracked nuts in Creag Dubh was what I could never give name to. 

"'Where was it? When was it?' said I to myself, bent double creepingunder the young larch with my plaid drawn up to fend my eyes, and theblack fright crept over me. An owl's whoop would have been cheery, orthe snort of a hind--and Creag Dubh is in daytime stirring with birdand beast--but here was I stark lonely in the heart of it, never a soundabout, far from the hunting road, and my mind back among the terrors ofa thousand years ere ever the Feinne were sung. 

"In this dreamy quirk of the mind I felt I was a hunter and a man ofarms. I was searching for a something here in this ghostly wood. Thecudgel and knife of folks I could not understand were coming on me!Fast, fast, and hard I crunched my nuts, chewing shell and meat fiercelybetween my teeth to fill the skull of my head with noise and shut outthe quietness. Never a taste of what I ate, sour or sweet. But so hardand fast I crunched that soon my store of nuts was done, and there Iwas helpless with my ears open to the roaring wave of sound that we callsilence. I stood a little, and though my back grewed at the chill of thedreadful spaces behind me, I held my breath to study the full frightof the hour. Something was coming to me; I knew it. When this thinghappened before, when a skin was my kilt and my shanks were bare, whatever I had to meet had met me in the round space among thecandle-wood roots. The hair on my wrists stirred, a cry came to mythroat and was over the edge of it and into the dark night like a man'sheart scurrying craven to the door. 

"Through the wood went that craven roar, the wood all its own and, astranger, I listened to my own voice wake up Echo far off on Ben Dearg. 

"The doors of Echo shut on the only thing I knew and was half friendlywith in the Duke's wood, and down on me again came the quietestquietness. 

"'Be taking thy feet from here' said I to myself, taking out mysailor-knife and scrugging my bonnet well on my brow. And there was nowind, not a breath, on Creag Dubh. The stars black out, the rough groundbroken to my foot, the branches scraping unfriendly, I went on throughthe trees. 

"When one goes up from the Leacann hunting road into the farm-landshe comes in a while on a space among the trees, clean shorn like theshearing of a hook but for white hay that lies there thick and rustlingin the spring of the year. 'Black Duncan, ' said I, 'be pulling thyselftogether, gristle and bone, for here's the fright that stirs about thedark with fingers and claws. ' I was the first man (said my notion) whoever set foot on the braes of Argyll, newly from Erin and Argyll thickwith ghosts; daytime or dark the woods were full of things that hate thestranger. Under my feet the rotting dust of the fir-trees felt soft andclogging, like the banks of new-delved graves. My back shivered againto the feel of the space behind me; in my bonnet stirred my hair. I wentinto the glade with a dry tongue rasping on the roof of my mouth. 

"When the Terror came up against me, I could have laughed in my suddenease of mind, for here at last was something to be sure of, in a way. And I gripped back as it gripped fast at me, feeling it hairy at theneck and the crook of the arms--a breathing and lusty body. 

"'What have I here?' I asked, but never an answer. At my throat went tenclawed fingers, and there was Duncan at dismal battle, fighting for lifewith what he could not see, in his own home woods, but they so strangeand never a friend to help!

"For a time I had no chance with the knife; but at last 'Steel, mydarling!' said I, and I struck low in the soft spaces. 'Gloop, ' said theknife, and Death was twisting at my feet. 

"Did Duncan put hurry on his heels and fly? The hurry was not in mebut the deep heart's wonder. My first dead thing that in life had everstruck back held me till the morning with a girl's enchantment I wentdown on a knee in the grass and felt him, a soft lump, freezing slowlyfrom the heel to the knee, from the knee to the neck. Some rags ofcostume were on him, a kilt of coarse plaiding and a half-shirt of skin, soaked in sweat at the armpits and wet with blood at the end. 

"I waited till the morning to see what I had. 'This, ' said I, hunchedon a mound, 'is all as it was before. ' The first sound I heard was thesqueal of a beast caught at the throat among the bracken, then a hindsnored among the grass. The morning walked solemn among the trees, stopping at every step to listen; birds put their claws down and shookthemselves free of sleep and dew; a polecat slinking past me startedat my eye and went back to his hole. Began the fir-trees waving in thewind, and then the day was open wide and far. 

"In the dark I had strained my eyes to see what was at my feet till myeyeballs creaked in their hollows, yet now I had no desire to turnabout from the cheerful dawn and look behind, but I did it with my heartthudding. 

"Nothing was there to see, lappered blood, nor mark of body on grass!

"My knife, without a stain on the steel of it, was still in my hand. I wiped it with a tuft of bracken, and I laughed with something of abitterness. 

"'So!' said I, 'the old story, the old story! It happened me before, andin a hundred years from now Black Duncan will be at the killing again. '"

CHAPTER XVII--THE STORM

The vessel, straining at the rope that bound her to the shore, lay witha clumsy shoulder over the bank that shelved abruptly into the greatdepths where slimy weeds entangled. Her sails were housed and snug, themen in the bows lay under the flapping corner of the jib and played atcards, though the noise of the raindrops on their canvas roof might welldisturb them. Gilian made no pause; he ran up at the tale's conclusion, at a bound he was on the shore, staggering upon the rocks and slippingupon the greasy weeds till he came to the salt bent grass, and withfirmer footing ran like a young deer for the shelter of the wood. Therain battered after him, the wind rose. In front, the wood, so still anhour before, in its winter slumber, with no birds now to mar its dreams, had of a sudden roused to the rumour of the storm. As by an instinct, the young trees on the edge seemed to shudder before the winds came tothem. Their slim tips could not surely be bowing, even so little, to thegale that was yet behind Gilian. But he passed them and plunged underthe tall firs, and he felt secure only when the ruddy needles of otheryears were a soft carpet underfoot It was true he found shelter herefrom the rain that slanted terrifically, but it was not for sanctuaryfrom the elements he sought the rude aisles, though now he appreciatedthe peace of them. It was for escape from himself, from his sense ofhopeless, inexplicable longing, from some tremendous convulsion of hismind created by Black Duncan's fable. 

The wood was all a wood of fir, not old nor very young, but at that midage when it has to all of country blood an invitation to odorous dusksand pathless wanderings below laced branches. The sun never could reachthe heart of it, except at the hour of setting, when it flamed bloodythrough the pillars. The rain never seemed to penetrate, for thefir-needles underfoot grew more dusty year by year. But when the rainbeat as it did now, through the whole of it went a sound of gobblingand drumming, and the wind, striking upon the trunks as if they were thestrings of Ossian, harped a great and tremendous tune, wanting start orending. And by-and-by there came company for Gilian as he shelteredin the wood. Birds of all kinds beat hurriedly through the trees andsettled upon the boughs with a shudder of the quill, pleased to be outof the inclement open and cosily mantled in. 

The boy went into the very inmost part of the wood without knowingthe reason why thus he should fly from the ship that so recently hadenchanted him, from the tales he loved. But in the soothing presence ofthe firs and the content of the animals sheltering from the storm, he found a momentary peace from the agitation that had set up in him, roused at the song of the girl, the story of the mariner. The emotions, the fears, longings, discontents that jangled through him as they hadnever done before relapsed to a mood level and calm, as if they, too, had sheltered from the storm like the birds upon the trees. 

But by-and-by he became ashamed of his action, that must seem so foolishto the friends he had left in the ship without a word of explanation. His face flamed hotly at the thought of his rude departure. He wouldgive a world to be able to go back again as if nothing had happened andsit unchallenged in the cosy den of the Jean. And musing thus he wentthrough the wood till he came upon the bank of the Duglas, roaring greyand ragged, a robber from the hills, bearing spoil of the upper reaches, the town-lands, the open and windswept plains. It carried the trunks ofgreat trees that had lain since other storms upon its banks, and with agreat chafing and cracking no less than the wooden bridge from Clonarywhich the children were wont to cross from those parts on their way toschool. 

"That will go battering on the vessel, " he thought, looking amazedat its ponderous beams flicking through the water and over the littlecascades as if they had been feathers blown by an evening breeze. "Thatwill go battering on the _Jean_" he thought, and of a sudden it seemedhis manifest duty to warn the occupants of the ship to defend themselvesfrom the unexpected attack. 

He followed the bridge for a little, fascinated, wondering what was tobecome of it next in the tumult of waters till he came to the falls, where he had looked for a check to it. But it stayed no more than amoment on the lip of the precipice swung up a jagged edge above thedeep, then crashed into the linn, where it seemed to swerve and turn, giddy with its adventure. Gilian stood spellbound on the banks lookingat it so far down, then he turned, and cutting off the bend of theriver, made for the shore. 

He crashed through bracken and bramble and through the fir-wood again, startling the sheltering birds by his hurry, emerging upon the faceof the brae in sight of the _Jean_ and the sea. In his absence a greatchange had come upon the wave, upon the hilly distance, upon the wholecountenance of nature. The rain was no longer in drumming torrents, butin a soft and almost imperceptible veil; but if the rain had lost thewind had gained. And as he passed from the edge of the wood, all thetrees seemed to twang and creak, or cracked loudly, parting perhaps atsome dear nerve where sap and beauty would no longer course. In everybush along the edge of the wood there seemed a separate chorus ofvoices, melodious and terrific, whistle and whoop, shriek and moan. Eventhe grass nodding in the wind lent a thin voice to the chorus, a voicesuch as only the sharp and sea-trained ear may comprehend, that beastshear long before the wind itself is apparent, so that they removethemselves to the bieldy sides of the hills before tumult breaks. 

But it was the aspect of the sea that most surprised the boy, for wherebefore there had been but a dreaming plain of smiles there was the riotof waters. The black lips of the wave parted and showed the white fangsunderneath, or spat the spume of passion into the face of the day. Itlooked as if every glen and every gully, every corry and eas on thatmountainous coast was spending its breath upon the old sea, the poorold sea that would be let alone to dream and rest, but must suffer thehumours of the mischievous winds. 

It was but for a moment Gilian lent his eye to the open and troubledexpanse. He saw there no sign of ship, but looking lower into shorehe beheld the _Jean_ in travail at the Duglas mouth. The tide had comefully in while he was absent, the delta that before had been so muchlagoon and isle was become an estuary, where, in the unexpected tideand rush of the river, the logs of fir and oak were all adrift about thesides of the vessel. Every hand was busy. They poled off as best theymight the huge trunks that battered at the carvel planks and pressedupon the twanging cable. Forward of the mast Black Duncan stoodcommanding in loud shouts that could not reach the boy through thewind's bellowing, and as he shouted, he lent, like a good seaman, vigourto a spar and pushed off the besieging timbers, all his weightaslant upon the wood, his arms tense, a great and wholesome figure ofendeavour. 

But not Black Duncan nor his striving seamen so busy in that confusionof wind and water were the first to catch the boy's eye. It was Nan, struggling by her captain's side at the unshipped tiller, and in thestaggering ship seeking to send it home in the avoiding helm-head. Herhair blew round her with the vaunting spirit of a banner, her body inevery move was rich with a sort of exaltation. 

As yet the bridge had not reached them. It might have been checkedaltogether in the linn, or it might still be slowly grinding its wayround the great bend of the river, that Gilian had cut off by his plungethrough the wood. But at least he was there to alarm, for its assault, borne down on the spate, would be worse by far than that of the timber. He beat his way again, bent, through the wind, to the water-edge nowso far in and separate from the ship, and cried out a loud warning. Itseemed to himself as he did so the voice of an infant, so weak was it, so shrill and piping, buffeted about by Heaven's large and overwhelmingutterance. They paid no heed at first, but by-and-by they heard him. 

"The bridge! God! do you tell me?" cried Black Duncan in a visibleconsternation. "Is it far up?"

Gilian put his hand to his mouth and trumpeted his response. 

"The bend! My sorrow! she's as good as on us then. We must be at ourdepartures. "

The mariners scurried about the deck; Black Duncan threw off theprisoning cable; there were shouts, swift looks, and a breathless pause;the _Jean_ swung round before the corner of her jib laboured clumsilyfor a moment unbelieving of her release, then drifted slowly from theriver mouth, her little boat and her tiller left behind, the firstcaught by the warring tree-trunks, the latter dashed from Nan's handsby the swing of an unfastened boom. As helpless as the logs she had beenencountering, she was loose before the wind that drove her parallel withthe shore at no safe distance from its fringe of rocks. 

Gilian, scarcely knowing what he did, ran along the shore, followingher course, looking at her with a wild eye. The men were calling tohim, waving, pointing, but what they meant he could not surmise; all hisinterest was in the girl who stood motionless, seemingly aghast at hermishap, with her hair still blowing about her. 

To the north where he was running, black masses of clouds were piling, and the sea, so far as the eye could reach, was weltering more cruellythan before. Seagulls screamed without ceasing, and the human imitationof their calls roused uncanny notions that they welcomed the vessel toher doom. She seemed so helpless, so hopeless, dashed upon by the spumeof those furious lips, bit by the grinding teeth. 

But yet he ran on and on over the salt grass or the old wrack that thesea-spray wet to a new slime, never pausing but for a moment now andthen to try and understand what the men on deck were shouting to him. 

Off the shore north of the Duglas is a rock called Ealan Dubh, or theBlack Island, a single bare and rounded block without a blade of grasson it, that juts out of the sea in all weathers and tides and is grownon thickly with little shell-fish. To-day it could not be seen, but thesituation of it was plain in the curling crest of the white waves thatbent constantly over it Straight for this rock the _Jean_ was drivingand a great pity came over Gilian, a pity for himself as he anticipatedthe sickening crash upon the rock, the rip of the timber, the gurgle atthe holes, the sundering of the bolted planks, the collapse of the mast, the ultimate horrible plunge. He was Black Duncan, the swimmer, fightinghard for life between the ship and the shore; he was the girl, with wethair flapping blindly at the eyes, clinging with bleeding finger-nailsto the rough shells that clustered on the rock. It was horrible, horrible! And then many tales from the shelves of Marget Maclean cameto his memory where one in such circumstances had done a brave thing. Tosave the girl and bring her from the rock ashore--that was the thingto be done--but how? Even the sea fairy, as he had said, might be worthdrowning for. Helplessly he looked up and down the shore. There wasnothing to see but the torn fringe of the tide, the waving branches ofthe coast He had no more than grasped the solitude of the country-side(feeling himself something of God's proxy thus to be watching thedestruction of the ship) when the _Jean_ went upon the rock. Her shockupon it was not to be heard from the shore, and she did not break upall at once as he had anticipated; she paused as it might seem, quitewillingly, in her career before the wind and slewed round a tarrybroadside to the crested wave. She began to settle in the water by herriven quarter, but Gilian did not see that, for it came about slowly. All he could see was that Black Duncan and his men upon the higher partof the slanted deck were calling to him more loudly than before andpointing with frenzied gestures back in the direction whence they hadcome. 

He looked back, he could not comprehend. 

More loudly yet they called. They clustered, the three of them on theshrouds, and in one voice tried to bellow down the gale. 

He could not understand. He turned a pitiful figure on the shore, hismind tumultuous with wrestling thoughts and dreads, with images of therough depths where the girl's hair would sway like weed in a green hazein an everlasting stillness. 

Again the seamen called, and it seemed, as he looked at theirmeaningless gesticulations, that the bowsprit of the vessel now pointedhigher than before. The appalling story thus told to him had barely gothome when he saw a change in the conduct of the seamen. They ceased tocry and wave; they looked no longer at him but in the direction whencehe had come, and turning, he saw the vessel's little boat bobbing inthe sea-troughs. It had an occupant too, a lad not greatly older thanhimself, using only a guiding oar, who so was directing the boat in thedrifting waves towards the Ealan Dubh and the counter of the _Jean_. 

Then the whole folly of his conduct, the meaning of the seamen's cries, the obvious and simple thing he should have done came to Gilian--hediscovered himself the dreamer again. A deep contempt for himself cameover him and he felt inclined to run back to the solace of the woodswith a shame more burdensome than before, but the doings of the lad whohad but to wade to pick up the lost boat and was now bearing down on thedoomed vessel prevented him. He watched with a fascination the thingsbeing done that he should have done himself, he made himself, indeed, the lad who did them. It was as if in a dream, looking upon himself witha stranger's admiration, he saw the little boat led dexterously besidethe vessel in spite of the tumbling waves, and Black Duncan, outupon her bowsprit, board her, lift his master's daughter in, and rowlaboriously ashore. Then Gilian turned and made a poor, contemptuousretreat. 

CHAPTER XVIII--DISCOVERY

The town was dripping at its eaves and glucking full of waters atrone-mouths and syvers when he got into it after his disgraceful retreatHe was alone in the street as he walked through it, a wet woebegonefigure with a jacket-collar high up to the ears to meet the nip of theelements. Donacha Breck, leaning over his counter and moodily looking atthe hens sheltering their wind-blown feathers under his barrow, saw himpass and threw over his shoulder to his wife behind a comment upon theeccentricity of the Paymaster's boy. 

"He's scarcely all there, " said he, "by the look of him. He's wanderingabout in the rah as if it was a fine summer day and the sun shining. "

Crossing from the school to his lodging, an arm occupied by a greatbundle of books, the other contending with an umbrella, was the dominie, and he started at the sight of his errant pupil who nearly ran againsthim before his presence was observed. 

"Well, Gilian?" said he, a touch of irony in his accent, himself lookinga droll figure, hunched round his books and turning like a weathercockjerkily to keep the umbrella between him and the wind that strained itswhalebone ribs till they almost snapped. 

Gilian stopped, looked hard at the ground, said never a word. And oldBrooks, over him, gazed at the wet figure with puzzlement and pity. 

"You beat me; you beat me quite!" said he. "There's the making of a fineman in you; you have sharpness, shrewdness, a kind of industry, or whatmay be doing for that same; every chance of a paternal kind--that's tosay a home complete and comfortable--and still you must be acting likea wean! You were not at the school to-day. I'm keeping it from MissCampbell as long as I can, but I'll be bound to tell her of your truancythis time. "

He risked the surrounding hand a moment from his books, bent a littleand tapped the boy's jacket pocket. 

"Ay! A book again!" said he slyly. "What is it this time? But nevermind; it does not matter. I'll warrant it is not Mr. Butter's Spellingsnor Murray the Grammarian, but some trash of a novelle. Any exercise for_your_ kind but the appointed task! I wish--I wish--Tuts! laddie, youare wet to the skin, haste ye home and get a heat. "

Gilian did not need a second bidding; but ran up the street, withoutslacking his pace till he got to the foot of the Paymaster's stair, where the wind from the pend-close was howling most dismally. Helingered on the stair, extremely loth to face Miss Mary with a shameso plain upon his countenance as he imagined it must be. No way that hecould tell the story of the _Jean's_ disaster would leave out his sorryshare in it. A quick ear heard him on the stair; the door opened. 

"Oh, you rascal!" cried Miss Mary, her anxious face peering down at him. "You were never in the school till this time. " She put her hand uponhis bonnet and his sleeve and found them soaking. "Oh, I knew it! I knewit!" she cried. "Just steeping!"

He found an unexpected relief in her consternation at his condition andin her bustle to get him into dry clothing. After the experience he hadcome through, the storm and the spectacle he had seen as in a dreamfrom the shore, he indulged in the cordiality and cosiness of thewarm kitchen for a little with selfish gladness. But it was only for alittle; the disaster to the vessel and the consciousness that his ownpart in the business would certainly come to light, overwhelmed himagain, and it was a most dolorous face that looked at Miss Mary over theviands she had just put before him. 

"What ails the callant?" she demanded in a tremble, staring at him. 

He burst into tears, the first she had seen on his face since ever hehad come to her house, and all her mother's heart was sore. 

"What mischief were you in?" she asked, putting an arm about his neck, and her troubled face down upon his hair as he shook in his chair. "I amsure you were not to blame. It could not have been much, Gilian. Tuts! tuts!" And so she went on in a ludicrous way, coaxing him toindifference for the sin she fancied. 

At last he told her the beginnings of his tragedy, that he had seen the_Jean_ wrecked on Ealan Dubh, and the girl Nan on board of her. She wasfor a moment dumb with horror, believing the end had come to all uponthe vessel, but on this Gilian speedily assured her, and "Oh, am n't Iglad!" said she with a simple utterance and a transport on her visagethat showed how deep was her satisfaction. 

"How did they get ashore?" she asked, "In the small boat, " said Gilian uncomfortably. "It caught on the logsat the mouth of the river when she drifted off, and--and--"

"And a boy went out in it and brought them help!" she cried, finelyuplifted in a delight that she had guessed the cause of his trepidation. "Oh, you darling! And not to say a word of it! Am not I the proud womanthis day? My dear companion Nan's girl!"

She caught him fervently as he rose ashamed from his seat to explainor to make an escape from the punishment that was in her error, apunishment more severe than if he had been blamed. She was one neverprone to the displays of love and rapture, but this time her joyovercame her, and she kissed him with something of a redness on herface. It was to the boy as if he had been smitten on the mouth. He drewback almost rudely in so great a confusion that it but confirmed herguess. "You must come and tell my brothers, " said she, "this verymoment. Don't say anything about the lass, but they'll be keen to hearabout the vessel They sit there hearing nothing of the world's news, unless it comes to the fireside for them, and then I've noticed they'reas ready to listen as Peggy would be at the Cross well. "

She had him half way to the parlour before he thought of a protest, hehad found such satisfaction in being relieved from her mistaken pridein him. Then he concluded it was as well to go through with it, thinkingthat if the rescue of the girl was not to be in the story, his ownshortcomings need not emerge. She pushed him before her into the room;her brothers were seated at the fire, and they only turned when hervoice, in a very unaccustomed excitement, broke the quietness of thechamber. 

"Do you hear this?" she cried, and her hand on Gilian's shoulder; "avessel's sunk on the Ealan Dubh. "

"I knew there would be tales to tell of this, " said the General. "Thewind came too close on the frost. I mind at Toulouse----"

"And Gilian was down at the Waterfoot and saw it all, " she broke in uponthe reminiscence. 

"Was he, faith?" said the Cornal. "I like my tales at first hand. Tellus all about it, laddie; what vessel was she?"

He wheeled his chair about as he spoke, and roused himself to attention. It was a curious group, too much like his old court-martial to bealtogether to the boy's taste. For Miss Mary stood behind him, with anair of proud possession of him that was disquieting, and the two menseemed to expect from him some very exciting history indeed. 

"Well, well!" said the Cornal, drumming with his fingers on hischair-arm impatiently, "you're in no great hurry with your budget. Whatvessel was it?"

"It was the _Jean_, " said Gilian, bracing himself up for a plunge. 

"Ye seem to be a wondrous lot mixed up with the fortunes of thatparticular ship, " said the Cornal sourly. "What way did it happen?"

"She was in the mouth of the river, " said Gilian, "and the spate of theriver brought down the wooden bridge at Clonary. I saw it coming, and Icried to them, and Black Duncan cast off, leaving boat and tiller. Shedrove before the wind and went on Ealan Dubh, and sunk, and--that wasall. "

The story, as he told it, was as bald of interest as if it were a pagefrom an old almanack. 

"What came of the men?" said the Cornal. "The loss of the _Jean_ doesnot amount to muckle; there was not a plank of her first timbers left inher. "

"They got ashore in the small boat, " said Gilian. 

"Which was left behind, I think you said at first, " said the Cornal, annoyed at some apparent link a missing in the chain of circumstance. "If the boat was left behind as well as the tiller--I think youmentioned the tiller--how did they get ashore in it? Did you see themget ashore?"

"I saw Black Duncan and the girl, but not the others, " answered Gilian, all at once forgetting that some caution was needed here. 

Up more straightly sat the Cornal, and fixed him with a stern eye. 

"Oh, ay!" said he; "she was in the story too, and you fancied youmight hide her. I would not wonder now but you had been in the vesselyourself. "

Gilian was abashed at his own inadvertence, but he hastened to explainthat he was on the shore watching the vessel when she struck. 

"But you were on the vessel some time?" said the Cornal, detecting somereservation. 

"Oh, Colin, Colin, I wonder at you!" cried Miss Mary, now in arms forher favourite, and utterly heedless of the frown her brother threw ather for her interference. "You treat the boy as if he was a vagabondand--"

"--Vagabond or no vagabond, " said the Cornal, "he was where he shouldnot be. I'm wanting but the truth from him, and that, it seems, is notvery easy to get. "

"You are not just at all, " she protested. Then she went over andwhispered something in his ear. His whole look changed; where hadbeen suspicion came something of open admiration, but he gave it noexpression on his tongue. 

"Take your time, Gilian, " said he; "tell us how the small boat got tothe vessel. "

"The boy went down to the river mouth, " said Gilian, "and--"

"--The boy?" said the Cornal. "Well, if you must be putting it thatidiotic way, you must; anyway, we're waiting on the story. "

"--The boy went down to the river mouth and got into the small boat. She was half full of water and he baled her as well as he could with hisbonnet, then pushed her off! She went up and down like a cork, and hewas terrified. He thought when he went in first she would be heavy torow, but he found the lightness of her was the fearful thing. The windslapped like a big open hand, and the water would scoop out on eitherside--"

"Take it easy, man, take it easy; slow march, " said the Cornal. ForGilian had run into his narrative in one of his transports and the wordscould not come fast enough to his lips to keep up with his imagination. His face was quivering with the emotions appropriate to the chronicle. 

"--Then I put out the oar astern----"

"--Humph! _You_ did; that's a little more sensible way of putting it. "

"I put the oar astern, " said Gilian, never hearing the comment, butcarried away by his illusion; "and the wind carried us up the way ofEalan Dubh. Sometimes the big waves would try to pull the oar from myhands, wanting fair play between their brothers and the ship. ('Havers!'muttered the Cornal. ) And the spindrift struck me in the eyes like handsfull of sand. I thought I would never get to the vessel. I thoughtshe would be upset every moment, and I could not keep from thinking ofmyself hanging on to the keel and my fingers slipping in weariness. "

"A little less thinking and more speed with your boat would be welcome, "said the Cornal impatiently. "I'm sick sorry for them, waiting there ona wreck with so slow a rescue coming to them. "

Gilian hesitated, with his illusion shattered, and, all unnerved, brokefor the second time into tears. 

"Look at that!" cried Miss Mary pitifully, herself weeping; "you arefrightening the poor laddie out of his wits, " and she soothed Gilianwith numerous Gaelic endearments. 

"Tuts! never mind me, " said the Cornal, rising and coming forward toclap the boy on the head for the very first time. "I think we can guessthe rest of the story. Can we not guess the rest of the story, Dugald?"

The General sat bewildered, the only one out of the secret, into whichMiss Mary's whisper to the Cornal has not brought him. 

"I am not good at guessing, " said he; "a man at my time likes everythingstraight forward. " And there was a little irritation in his tone. 

"It's only this, Dugald, " said his brother, "that here's a pluckieryoung fellow than we thought, and good prospects yet for a soger in thefamily. I never gave Jock credit for discretion, but, faith, he seems tohave gone with a keen eye to the market for once in his life! If it wasnot for Gilian here, Turner was wanting a daughter this day; we couldhardly have hit on a finer revenge. "

"Revenge!" said the General, a flash jumping to his eyes, then dyingaway. "I would not have said that, Colin; I would not have said that. Itis the phrase of a rough, quarrelsome young soldier, and we are elderswho should be long by with it. "

"Anyhow, " said the Cornal, "here's the makings of a hero. " And he beamedalmost with affection on Gilian, now in a stupor at the complexity hisday's doings had brought him to. 

The Paymaster's rattan sounded on the stair, and "Here's John, " said hissister. "He'll be very pleased, I'm sure. "

It was anything but a pleased man who entered the room, his face puffedand red and his eyes searching around for his boy. He pointed a shakingfinger at him. 

"What, in God's name, do you mean by this?" he asked vaguely. 

"Don't speak to the boy in that fashion, " said the Cornal in asurprising new paternal key. "If he has been in mischief he has got outof it by a touch of the valiant--"

"Valiant!" cried the Paymaster with a sneer. "He made an ass of himselfat the Waterfoot, and his stupidity would have let three or four peopledrown if Young Islay, a callant better than himself had not put out aboat and rescued them. The town's ringing with it. "

The scar on the Cornal's face turned almost black. "Is that true that mybrother says?" said he. 

Gilian searched in a reeling head for some answer he could not find; hisparched lips could not have uttered it, even if he had found it, so henodded. 

"Put me to my bed, somebody, " said the General, breaking in suddenlyon the shock of the moment, and staggering to one side a little as hespoke. "Put me to my bed, somebody. I am getting too old to understand!"

CHAPTER XIX--LIGHTS OUT!

AS he spoke he staggered to the side, and would have fallen but for hissister's readiness. About that tall rush of a brother she quicklyplaced an arm and kept him on his feet with infinite exertion, thewhile uttering endearments long out of fashion for her or him, but comesuddenly, at this crisis, from the grave of the past--the past where sheand Dugald had played as children, with free frank hearts loving eachother truly. 

"Put me to my bed, " said he again thickly, and his eyes blurred with theutmost weariness. "Put me to my bed. O God! what is on me now? Put me tomy bed. "

"Dugald! Dugald! Dugald!" she cried. "My darling brother, here is Marywith you; it is just a turn. " But as she said the flattering thing herface was hopeless. The odour of the southernwood on the window-sillchanged at once to laurel, rain-drenched, dark, and waving over tombsfor the boy spellbound on the floor. All his shameful perturbationvanished, a trifling thing before the great Perturber's presence. 

The brothers went quickly beside their sister, and took him tohis bedroom, furnished sparsely always by his own wish that deniedindulgence in anything much beyond a soldier's campaign quarters. 

Dr. Anderson came, and went, shaking hands with Miss Mary in the lobbyand his eyes most sternly bent upon the inside of his hat "Beforemorning at the very most, " he said in his odd low-country voice. No morethan that, and still it thundered at her soul like an infernal doom. Upshe gathered her apron, up to her face, and fled in among her pots andpans, and loudly she moved among them to drown her lamentation. 

Dr. Colin came later and prayed in the two languages over a figure onthe bed, and then went home to write another sermon than the one alreadystarted. The room he left was silent for a while, till of a sudden theeyes of the General opened and he looked upon the sorry company. 

"Bring me MacGibbon, " said he in a voice extremely sensible. 

Gilian ran up the street and fetched the old comrade, who put his handupon the General's head. 

"Dugald, do you ken me?" said he. 

"Do I ken you?" said the General with an unpractised smile. "You're theladdie that burned the master's cane. I would know your voice if youwere in any guise, and what masquerade is this that you should be soold? We're to be the first to move in the morning, under arms at screamof day. . . . Lord, but I'm tired! Bob, Bob, they're not thinking of usat home in the old place I'll warrant, and to-morrow we may be strickencorpses for the king without so much as Macintyre's stretching-board togive us a soger's chest and shoulders. "

"Was there anything I could do, Dugald?" said the comrade, a ludicrousman with his paunch now far beyond the limit of the soldier's belt heused to buckle easily, wearing in a clownish notion of deference to thissoldier's passing a foolish small Highland bonnet he had donned in oldcampaigns. 

"There was something running in my mind, " said the man in the bed. "I think I would be wanting you to take word home in case anythinghappened. I was thinking of--of--of--what was her name, now? You knowthe one I mean--her ladyship in Glen Shira. Am I not stupid toforget it? that's the worst of the bottle! What was her name, now?. . . _Battalion will form an hollow square_. . . . The name, the name, what wasit?. . . _On the center companies, 'kwards wheel_. . . . I'm wearied to themarrow of my bones, all but the right arm, that's like a feather, that'slike a. . . _By the right angle of the front face; sub-divisions to theright and left half wheel. Re-form the square. Hall! Dress!_. . . What'sthat piper doing out there? MacVurich, come in! This is not a reel ata Skye wedding. . . . Let me see, I have the name on the tip of mytongue--what could it be, now? _Steady, men!_"

The door of the chamber was pushed in a little, and to Gilian's mouthhis heart rose up at the manifestation, for what was this with nofootstep on the wooden stair? About him he felt of a sudden cold airswaft, and the door ajar with no one entering glued his gaze upon itspanels. The others in the room had not perceived it. Miss Mary, grownof a sudden plain and old, looked up in the Cornal's face, craving therefor something for the ease of sorrow, as if he that had wandered so farand seen the Enemy so often and so ugly had some secret to share withher whereby this ancient trouble could be marred. There she found noconsolation. No magician but only the brother looked over an untidyscarf and a limp high collar at the delirious man in bed. The Paymasterstood at the window frowning out upon the street; MacGibbon coughedin short dry jerky coughs, patted with a bony hand upon the coverlet, turned his head away. A stillness that was like a swoon came over all. 

"Is that you, mother?" It was the General who broke the quiet, and hiseyes were on his sister. A flush had fallen like a sunset on his face, his eyes were very clear and full, and, with his shaven cheeks, he mightin the mitigate light of the chamber have been a lad new waked from anunpleasant dream. His sister put her head upon the pillow beside him andan arm about his shoulders. 

"Oh, Dugald, Dugald!" said she, "it is not mother yet, but only Mary. "And the bedstead shook with the stress of her grief. 

"Mary, is it?" said he, shutting his eyes again. "What are you laughingat? I was not up there at all; I never saw her to-day, upon my word;I was just giving Black George an exercise no further than the BoshangGate. . . . I'm saying, though, you need not let on about it to Colin. . . Colin, Colin, Colin, I wish we were home; the leaf must be fine andgreen upon Dunchuach. . . . They're over the river at Aldea Tajarda, andwe push on to Cieudada. . . . What's that, Mackay? let go the girl! And youthe Highland gentleman! _Lo sien--sien--siento mucho, Senora_. "

"I am at your shoulder, Dugald, do you not know me?" asked the Cornal, gently putting his sister aside. His brother looked and smiled again, but did not seem to see him. 

"What was her name? and I'll send her my love and duty, for, man, between us, I was fond of her, . . . There was a song she had:

 The Rover went a-roving far upon the foreign seas, Oh, hail to thee, my dear, and fare-ye-weel. 

Only it was in the Gaelic she sung it"

His voice, that was very weak and thin now, cracked, and no sound camethough his lips moved. 

Miss Mary took a cup and wet his lips. He seemed to think it aCommunion, for again he shut his eyes, and "God, " said he, "I am asinful man to be sitting at Thy tables, but Thou knowest the soldier'strade, the soldier's sacrifice, and Thou art ready to forgive. "

And still Gilian was in his bewilderment and fear about the open door. Had anything come in that was there beside them at the bed? Down in thekitchen Peggy poked the fire with less than her customary vigour, butbetween her cheerful and worldly occupation and this doleful room, feltGilian, lay a space--a stairway full of dreads. All the stories he hadheard of Death personified came to him fast upon each other, and theyare numerous about winter fires in the Highland glens. He could fancyalmost that he saw the plaided spectre by the bedside, arms akimbo, smiling ghastly, waiting till his prey was done with earthlyconversation. It was horrible to be the only one in that chamber to knowof the terrific presence that had entered at the door, and the boy'smouth parched with old, remote, unreasonable fears. 

They did not disappear, those childish terrors, even when a kittenmoved across the floor and began to toy with the vallance of the bed, explaining at once the door's opening. For might not the kitten, hethought, be more than Peggy's foundling be the other Thing disguised?He watched its gambols at the feet of that distressed household, watchedits pawing at the fringe, turning round upon itself in playfulness, emblem surely of the cruel heedlessness of nature. 

MacGibbon moved to the window and stood beside the Paymaster, saying noword, but looking out at the vacant street, its causeway still shiningwith the rain. They were turning their backs, as it were, on a sorrowirremediable. Miss Mary and the Cornal stood alone by the dying man. Helay like a log but that his left hand played restlessly on the coverlet, long in the fingers, sinewy at the wrist. Miss Mary took it in hersand put palm to palm, and caressed the back with her other hand with anoverflowing of affection that murmured at her throat. 

And now that MacGibbon did not see and the Cornal had blurred eyes uponhis brother's boyish countenance, she felt free to caress, and she laidthe poor hand against her cheek and coyly kissed it. 

The General turned his look upon her wet face with a moment'scomprehension. "Tuts! never mind, Mary, my dear, " said he, "it mighthave been with Jamie yonder on the field, and there--there you have ason--in a manner--left to comfort you. " Then he began to wander anew. "Ason, " said he, "a son. Whose son? Turner threw our sonlessness in ourJock's face, but it was in my mind there was a boy somewhere we expectedsomething of. "

Miss Mary beckoned on Gilian to come forward to the bedside. He rosefrom the chair he sat on in the farthest corner with his dreads andfaltered over. 

"What boy's this?" said the General, looking at him with surmising eyes. "He puts me in mind of--of--of--of an old tale somewhere with a sunnyday in it. Nan! Nan! Nan!--that's the name. I knew I would come onit, for the sound of it was always like a sunny day in Portugal orSpain--_He estado en Espana_. "

"This is the boy, Dugald, " said Miss Mary; "this is just our Gilian. "

"I see that. I know him finely, " said the General, turning upon him aroving melancholy eye: "Jock's recruit. . . . Did you get back from yourwalk, my young lad? I never could fathom you, but perhaps you have yourparts. . . . Well, well. . . What are ye dreaming on the day?. . . Eh? Ha! ha!ha! Aye dreaming, that was you; you'll be dreaming next that the lassielikes you. Mind, she jilted Jock, she jilted Colin, she jilted me; werewe not the born idiots? yet still-and-on. . . . Sixty miles in twenty-fourhours; good marching, lads, good marching, for half-starved men, and notthe true heather-bred at that. "

The voice was becoming weaker in every sentence, the flush was palingon the countenance. Standing by the bedside, the Cornal looked upon hisbrother with a most rueful visage, his face hoved up with tears. 

"This beats all!" said he, and he turned and went beside the men at thewindow, leaving Miss Mary caressing still at the hand upon the coverlet, and with an arm about the boy. 

"He was a strong, fine, wiry man in his time, " said MacGibbon, lookingover his shoulder at this end of a stormy life. "I mind him at Talavera;I think he was at his very best there. "

The Paymaster looked, too, at the figure upon the bed, looked with abent head, under lowered eyebrows, his lip and chin brown with snuffytears. 

"At sixteen he threw the cabar against the champion of the three shires, and though he was a sober man a bottle was neither here nor there withhim, " said the Cornal. 

Miss Mary was upon her knees. 

"The batteries are to open fire on San Vincent; seven eighteen-poundersand half a dozen howitzers are scarcely enough for that job. TellMackellar to move up two hundred yards farther on the right. "

The General babbled again of his wars in a child's accent, that rose nowand then stormily to the vehemence of the battle-field. "_Columns deployon the right centre company. . . . No, no, close column on the rear of theGrenadiers_. . . . I wish, I wish. . . . Jock, Jock, where's your boy now? Icannot see him, I'm sore feared he's hiding in the sutler's vans. I knewhim for a dreamer from the first day I saw him. . . . That's Williams goneand my step to Major come. God sain him! we could have better sparedanother man. . . . _Halt, dress!_"

He opened his eyes again and they fell upon Gilian. "You mind me of aboy I once knew, " said he. "Poor boy, poor boy, what a pity of you! Mysister Mary would have liked you. I think we never gave her her due, andindeed she had a generous hand. "

"Here she's at your side, dear Dugald, " said his sister, and her headwent down upon his breast. 

"So she is, " said he, arousing to the fact; "I might be sure she wouldbe there!" He disengaged the hand she had in hers, and wearily placedit for a moment on her hair with an awkward effort at fondling. "Areyou tired, my dear?" he said, repeating it in the Gaelic. "It's a dreichdreich dying on a feather bed. " He smiled once more feebly, and Gilianscreamed, for the kitten had touched him on the leg. 

"Go downstairs, this is no place for you, my dear, " said Miss Mary; andhe went willingly, hearing a stertorous breathing in the bed behind him. 

PART II

CHAPTER XX--THE RETURN

When the General died, the household in the high burgh land suffered achange marvellous enough considering how little that old man musing inhis parlour had had to do for years with its activities. Cornal Colinwould sit of an evening with candles extravagantly burning more numerousthan before to make up for the glowing heart extinguished; the longwinter nights, black and stifling and immense around the burgh town, andthe wind with a perpetual moan among the trees, would find him abandonedto his sorry self, looking into the fire, the week's paper on his kneesunread, and him full of old remembrances and regrets. It had become forhim a parlour full of ghosts. He could not, in October blasts, butthink of Jamie yonder on the cold foreign field with no stone for hismemorial; Dugald, so lately gone, an old man, bent and palsied, wouldreturn in the flicker of the candle, remitted to his prime, the verycounterpart of the sturdy gallant on the wall. Sometimes he would talkwith these wraiths, and Miss Mary standing still in the lobby, her hearttortured by his loneliness, would hear him murmuring in these phantomvisitations. She would, perhaps, venture in now and then timidly, andtake a seat unbidden on the corner of a chair near him, and embarkon some topic of the day. For a little he would listen almost with abrightness, but brief, brief was the mood; very soon would he let hischin fall upon his breast, and with pouted lips relapse into hisdoleful meditation. 

All life, all the interests, the activities of the town seemed to driftby him; folk saw him less and less often on the plain stones ofthe street; children grew up from pinafores to kilts, from kilts tobreeches, never knowing of his presence in that community that at lasthe saw but of an afternoon in momentary glimpses from the window. 

On a week-end, perhaps, the veterans would come up to cheer him if theycould; tobacco that he nor any of his had cared for in that formwould send its cloud among Miss Mary's dear naperies, but she nevercomplained: they might have fumed her out of press and pantry ifthey brought her brother cheer. They talked loudly; they laughedboisterously; they acted a certain zest in life: for a little he wouldrouse to their entertainment, fiddling heedlessly with an empty glass, but anon he would see the portrait of Dugald looking on them wonderingat their folly, and that must daunten him. It would not take long tillsome extravagance of these elders made him wince, and there was CornalColin again in the dolours, poor company for them that would harbourany delusion of youth. It was pitiful then to see them take theirdepartures, almost slinking, ashamed to have sounded the wrong note inthat chamber of sober recollections. Miss Mary, lighting them to thedoor with one of her mother's candlesticks, felt as she had the lightabove her head and showed them down the stair as if she had been thelast left at a funeral feast. Her shadow on the wall, dancing before heras she returned, seemed some mockery of the night. 

Only Old Brooks could rouse the Cornal to some spirit of liveliness. In a neighbourly compassion the dominie would come in of a Sunday or aFriday evening, leaving for an hour or two the books he was so fond ofthat he must have a little one in his pocket to feel the touch of whenhe could not be studying the pages. Seated in the Cornal's chair, he hada welcome almost blithe. For he was a man of great urbanity, sobered bythought upon the complexities of life, but yet with sparkling courage. 

He found the brothers now contemptuous of the boy who showed no signof adaptability or desire for that gallant career that had been theirs. These, indeed, were the cold days for Gilian in a household indifferentto him save Miss Mary, who grew fonder every day, doting upon him like alover for a score of reasons, but most of all because he was that raritythe perpetual child, and she must be loving somewhere. 

"I have not seen the lad at school for a week now, " Brooks said, compelled at last by long truancies. 

"So?" said the Cornal, showing no interest "It is not my affair. Johnmust look after his own recruit, who seems an uncommon tardy one, Mr. Brooks--an uncommon tardy. "

"But I get small satisfaction from the Captain. "

"I daresay, I daresay; would you wonder at that in our Jock? He's mybrother, but some way there is wanting in him the stuff of Jamie andof Dugald. Even in his throes upon his latter bed Dugald could see whatJock could never see--the doom in this lad's countenance. As for me, Iwas done with the fellow after the trick he played us in his story ofthe wreck on Ealan Dubh. I blame him, in a way, for my brother Dugald'sstroke. "

The dominie looked in a startled remonstrance. "I would not blame himfor that, Cornal, " he said: "that was what the Sheriff calls _damnumfatale_. Upon my word, though Gilian has been something of a heart-breakto myself, I must say you give him but scant justice among you here. "

"I can see in him but youth wasted, and the prodigal of that isspendthrift indeed. "

"I would not just say wasted, " protested the dominie. "There's themakings of a fine man in him if we give him but a shove in the rightdirection. He baffles me to comprehend, and yet"--this a littleshamefacedly--"and yet I've brought him to my evening prayers. Iwould like guidance on the laddie. With him it's a spoon made or a hornspoiled. Sometimes I feel I have in him fine stuff and pliable, and I'llbe trying to fathom how best to work it, but my experience has alwaysbeen with more common metal, and I am feared, I'm feared, we may bebotching him. "

"That was done for us in the making of him, " said the Cornal. 

"I would not say that either, Cornal, " said the dominie firmly. "But I'mwae to see him brought up on no special plan. The Captain seems to havegiven up his notion of the army for him. "

"You can lead a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. What's to be made of him? Here's he sixteen or thereabouts, and just abairn over lesson-books at every chance. "

Brooks smiled wistfully. "It is not the lesson-books, Cornal, not thelesson-books exactly. I wish it was, but books of any kind--come now, Cornal, you can hardly expect me to condemn them in the hands of youth, "He fondled the little Horace in his pocket as a man in company maysqueeze his wife's hand. "They made my bread and butter, did the books, for fifty years, and Gilian will get no harm there. The lightest ofnovelles and the thinnest of ballants have something precious for a ladof his kind. "

The Cornal made no response; the issue was too trivial to keep him fromhis meditation. His chin sunk upon his chest as it would not have donehad the dominie kept to the commoner channels of his gossip, that wasgenerally on universal history, philosophy of a rough and ready ruralkind, and theology handled with a freedom that would have seriouslyalarmed Dr. Colin if he could have heard his Session Clerk in theoperation. 

"Eh? Are you hearing me, Cornal?" he pressed, eager to compel somethingfor the youth whose days were being wasted. 

"Speak to Miss Mary, " was all the Cornal would say. "I have nothing todo with him, and John's heedless now, for he knows his plan for the armyis useless. "

The dominie shook his head. "Man!" he cried. "I cannot even tell of histruancy there, for her heart's wrapped up in the youth. When she speaksto me about him her face is lighted up like a day in spring, and I darenot say cheep to shatter her illusion. "

Gilian, alas! knew how little these old men now cared for him. TheCornal had long since ceased his stories; the Paymaster, coming in fromhis meridian in the Sergeant More, would pass him on the stair with aslittle notice as if he were a stranger in the street. Miss Mary was hisonly link between his dreams, his books, and the common life of the day, and it was she who at last made the move that sent him back to Ladyfieldto learn with Cameron the shepherd--still there in the interests of thePaymaster who had whimsically remained tenant--the trade that was notperhaps best suited for him, but at least came somehow most convenientlyto his practice. But for the loss of her consoling and continual companythere would have been almost joy on his part at this returning to thescene of his childhood. He went back to it on a summer day figuring tohimself the content, the carelessness that had been his there before, and thinking, poor fool, they were waiting where he had left them. 

Ladyfield was a small farm of its kind with four hundred sheep, sevencows, two horses, a goat or two and poultry. When the little old womanwith a face like a nut was alive she could see the whole tack at onesweep of the eye from the rowan at the door, on the left up to theplateau where five burns were born, on the right to the peak ofDrimfern. A pleasant place for meditation, bleak in winter for the wantof trees, but in other seasons in a bloom of colour. 

Though he was there 'prentice to a hard calling, Gilian's life was morethe gentle's than the shepherd's. He might be often on the hill, but itwas seldom to tend his flock and bring them to fank for clip or keeling, it was more often to meditate with a full pagan eye upon the mysteriesof the countryside. A certain weeping effect of the mists on theravines, one particular moaning sound of the wind among the rocks, hada strange solace for his ear, chording with some sweet melancholy of hisspirit He loved it all, yet at times he would flee from the place as ifa terror were at his heels and in a revolt against the narrowness of hislife, hungering almost to starvation for some companionship, for somesalve to an anxious mind, and, in spite of his shyness, bathe in thesociety of the town--an idler. The people as he rode past wouldindicate him with a toss of the head over their shoulders, and say, "ThePaymaster's boy, " and yet the down was showing on his lip. He would goup the street looking from side to side with an expectancy that had noobject; he stared almost rudely at faces, seeking for he knew not what. 

It was not the winters with their cold, their rain, their wind anddarkness, that oppressed him most in his banishment, but the summers. Inthe winter the mists crowded so close about, and the snow so robbedthe land of all variety, that Ladyfield house with its peats burningceaselessly, its clean paven court, its store of books he had gatheredthere, was an enviable place for compactness and comfort, and he couldfeel as if the desirable world was in his immediate neighbourhood. Downin the street he knew the burgh men were speeding the long winter nightswith song and mild carousal; the lodges and houses up the way, eachwith its spirit keg and licence, gave noisiness to the home-returning oftenants for Lochow from the town, and as they went by Ladyfield in thedark they would halloo loudly to the recluse lad within who curled, norshot, nor shintied, nor drank, nor did any of the things it was youth'smanifest duty to do. 

But the summer made his station there in Ladyfield almost intolerable. For the roads, crisp, yellow, straight, demanded his going on them;the sun-dart among distant peaks revealed the width and glamour of theworld. "Come away, " said the breezes; passing gipsies all jangling withtins upon their backs awoke dreams poignant and compelling. When thesummer was just on the turn at that most pitiful' of periods, theautumn, he must go more often down to town. 

CHAPTER XXI--THE SORROWFUL SEASON

It was on a day in a month of August he went to town to escape thelamentation of the new-weaned lambs, that made the glen sorrowfulfrom Camus to Kincreggan. A sound pleasant in the ears of Cameron theshepherd, who read no grief in it, but the comfortable tale of progress, growth, increasing flocks, but to Gilian almost heartrending. Theseparation for which the ewes wailed and their little ones wept, seemeda cruelty; that far-extending lamentation of the flocks was part of someuniversal coronach for things eternally doomed. Never seemed a landscapeso miserable as then. The hills, in the morning haze, gathered inupon his heart and seemed to crush it. A poor farmer indeed to be thusaffected by short brute sorrows, but so it was with Gilian, and on someflimsy excuse he left Ladyfield in the afternoon and rode to town. He had grown tall and slim in those latter days; his face would haveseemed--if not handsome altogether--at least notable and pleasant toany other community than this, which ever preferred to have its menfull-cheeked, bronzed, robust. He had an air of gentility oddly out ofplace with his immediate history; in his walk and manner men never sawanything very taking, but young women of the place would feel it, puzzle themselves often as to what the mystery of him was that made hisappearance on the street or on the highway put a new interest in theday. 

The Paymaster was standing gossiping at the inn door with Mr. Spencer, Rixa, and General Turner himself--no less, for the ancient rancour atthe moment was at rest. 

"Here he comes, " said old Mars sourly, as Gilian turned round the Archesinto the town. "He's like Gillesbeg Aotram, always seeking for somethinghe'll never find. "

"Your failure!" said Turner playfully, but with poor inspiration, as ina moment he realised. 

The Paymaster bridled. He had no answer to a truth so manifest tohimself. In a lightning-flash he remembered his boast in the schoolroomat the dregy, and hoped Turner had not so good a memory as himself. Hecould only vent his annoyance on Gilian, who drew up his horse witha studied curvet--for still there was the play-actor in him to somedegree. 

"Down again?" said he with half a sneer. There is a way of leaning ona stick and talking over the shoulder at an antagonist that can be verytrying to the antagonist if he has any sense of shyness. 

"Down again, " agreed Gilian uncomfortably, sorry he had had the courtesyto stop. The others moved away, for they knew the relations of the manand his adopted son were not of the pleasantest. 

"An odd kind of farm training!" said the old officer. "I wish I couldfathom whether you are dolt or deep one. "

Gilian might have come off the horse and argued it, for he had an answerpat enough. He sat still and fingered the reins, looking at the oldman with the puffed face, and the constricted bull neck, andself-satisfaction written upon every line of him, and concluding it wasnot worth while to explain to a nature so shallow. And the man, afterall, was his benefactor: scrupulous about every penny he spent onhimself, he had paid, at Miss Mary's solicitations, for the very horsethe lad bestrode. 

"Do you know what Turner said there?" asked the Paymaster, still withhis contemptuous side to the lad. "He called you our failure. God, andit's true! Neither soldier nor shepherd seems to be in you, a mucklebulrush nodding to the winds of Heaven! See that sturdy fellow at thequay there?"

Gilian looked and saw Young Islay, a smart ensign home on leave from thecounty corps that even yet was taking so many fine young fellows fromthat community. 

"There's a lad who's a credit to all about him, and he had not half yourchances; do you know that?"

"He seems to have the knack of turning up for my poor comparison eversince I can mind, " said Gilian, good-humouredly. "And somehow, " headded, "I have a notion that he has but half my brains as well as halfmy chances. " He looked up to see Turner still at the inn door. "GeneralTurner, " he cried, his face reddening and his heart stormy, "I hearthat in your frank estimate I'm the Paymaster's failure; is it so bad asthat? It seems, if I may say it, scarcely fair from one of your years toone of mine. "

"Shut your mouth!" said the Paymaster coarsely, as Turner came forward. "You have no right to repeat what I said and show the man I took hisinsolence to heart. "

"I said it; I don't deny, " answered the General, coming forward fromthe group at the door and putting his hand in a friendly freedom on thehorse's neck and looking up with some regret in Gilian's face. "Onesays many things in an impetus. Excuse a soldier's extravagance. I nevermeant it either for your ear or for unkindness. And you talk of ages:surely a man so much your senior has a little privilege?"

"Not to judge youth, sir, which he may have forgotten to understand, "said Gilian, yet very red and uneasy, but with a wistful countenance. "If you'll think of it I'm just at the beginning of life, a little moreshy of making the plunge perhaps than Young Islay there might be, oryour own son Sandy, who's a credit to his corps, they say. "

"Quite right, Gilian, and I ask your pardon, " said the General, puttingout his hand. "God knows who the failures of this life are; some of themgo about very flashy semblances of success. In these parts we judge bythe external signs, that are not always safest; for my son Sandy, wholooks so thriving and so douce when he comes home, is after all a scampwhose hands are ever in his simple daddy's pockets. " But this he saidlaughing, with a father's reservation. 

The Paymaster stared at this encounter, in some ways so much beyond hiscomprehension. "Humph!" he ejaculated; and Gilian rode on, leaving inthe group behind him an uncomfortable feeling that somehow, somewhere, an injustice had been done. 

Miss Mary's face was at the window whenever his horse's hooves cameclattering on the causeway--she knew the very clink of the shoes. "There's something wrong with the laddie to-day, " she cried to Peggy;"he looks unco dejected;" and her own countenance fell in sympathy withher darling's mood. 

She met him on the stair as if by accident, pretending to be goingdown to her cellar in the pend. They did not even shake hands; it isa formality neglected in these parts except for long farewells orunexpected meetings. Only she must take his bonnet and cane from him andin each hand take them upstairs as if she were leading thus two littlechildren, her gaze fond upon the back of him. 

"Well, auntie!" he said, showing at first no sign of the dejection shehad seen from the window. "Here I am again. I met the Captain up at theinn door, and he seems to grudge me the occasional comfort of hearingany other voice than my own. I could scarcely tell him as I can tellyou, that the bleating of the lambs gave me a sore heart. The very hillsare grieving with them. I'm a fine farmer, am I not? Are you notvexed for me?" His lips could no longer keep his secret, their cornerstrembled with the excess of his feeling. 

She put a thin hand upon his coat lapel, and with the other pickedinvisible specks of dust from his coat sleeve, her eyes revealing bytheir moisture a ready harmony with his sentiment. 

"Farmer indeed!" said she with a gallant attempt at badinage; "you're aslittle for that, I'm afraid, as you're for the plough or the army. "She led him into her room and set a chair for him as if he had been aprince, only to have an excuse for putting an arm for a moment almostround his waist. She leaned over him as he sat and came as close as shedared in contact with his hair, all the time a glow in her face. 

"And what did you come down for?" she asked, expecting an old answer henever varied in. 

He looked up and smiled with a touch of mock gallantry wholly new. "Tosee you, of course, " said he, as though she had been a girl. 

She was startled at this first revelation of the gallant in what tillnow had been her child. She flushed to the coils above her ear. Then shelaughed softly and slapped him harmlessly on the back. "Get away withyou, " she said, "and do not make fun of a douce old maiden!" She drewback as she spoke and busily set about some household office, fearing, apparently, that her fondness had been made too plain. 

"Do you know what the Captain said?" he remarked in a tone less hearty, moving about the room in a searching discontent. 

"The old fool!" she answered irrelevantly, anticipating someunpleasantness. "He went out this morning in a tiravee about a buttonwanting from his waistcoat. It's long since I learned never to heed himmuch. "

It was a story invented on the moment; in heavenly archives that sin oflove is never indexed Her face had at once assumed a look of anxiety, for she felt that the encounter had caused Gilian's dejection as he rodedown the street. 

"What was he saying?" she asked at last, seeing there was no sign ofhis volunteering more. And she spoke with a very creditable show ofindifference, and even hummed a little bar of song as she turned someairing towels on a winter-dyke beside the fire. 

"Do you think I'm a failure, auntie?" asked he, facing her. "That waswhat he called me. "

She was extremely hurt and angry. 

"A failure!" she cried. "Did any one ever hear the like? God forgive mefor saying it of my brother, but what failure is more notorious than hisown? A windy old clerk-soger with his name in a ballant, no more likehis brothers than I'm like Duke George. "

"You do not deny it!" said Gilian simply. 

She moved up to him and looked at him with an affection that was atransfiguration. 

"My dear, my dear!" said she, "is there need for me to deny it? What areyou yet but a laddie?"

He fingered the down upon his lip. 

"But a laddie, " she repeated, determined not to see. "All the world'sbefore you, and a braw bonny world it is, for all its losses and itscrosses. There is not a man of them at the inn door who would notwillingly be in your shoes. The sour old remnants--do I not know them?Grant me patience with them!"

"It was General Turner's word, " said Gilian, utterly unconsoled, and hewondered for a moment to see her flush. 

"He might have had a kinder thought, " said she, "with his own affairs, as they tell me, much ajee, and Old Islay pressing for his loans. I'llwarrant you do not know anything of that, but it's the clavers of theCrosswell. " She hurried on, glad to get upon a topic even so little awayfrom what had vexed her darling. "Old Islay has his schemes, they say, to get Maam tacked on to his own tenancy of Drimlee and his son out ofthe army, and the biggest gentleman farmer in the shire. He has the earof the Duke, and now he has Turner under his thumb. Oh my sorrow, what aplace of greed and plot!"

"That Turner said it, showed he thought it!" said Gilian, not a whitmoved from bitter reflection upon his wounded feelings. 

"Amn't I telling you?" said Miss Mary. "It's just his own sorrowssouring him. There's Sandy, his son, a through-other lad (though I ayeliked the laddie and he's young yet), and his daughter back from herschooling in Edinburgh, educated, or polished, or finished off as theycall it--I hope she kens what she's to be after next, for I'm sure herfather does not. "

Gilian's breast filled with some strange new sense of sudden relief. Itwas as if he had been climbing out of an airless, hopeless valley, andemerged upon a hill-crest, and was struck there by the flat hand ofthe lusty wind and stiffened into hearty interest in the rolling andvariegated world around. In a second, the taunt of the General of Maamwas no more to him than a dream. A dozen emotions mastered him, and hetingled from head to foot, for the first time man. 

"Oh, and _she's_ back, is she?" said he with a crafty indifference, asone who expects no answer. 

Miss Mary was not deceived. She had moved to the window and was lookingdown into the street where the children played, but the new tone of hisvoice, and the pause before it, gave her a sense of desertion, and shegrieved. On the ridges of the opposite lands, sea-gulls perched andpreened their feathers, pigeons kissed each other as they moved aboutthe feet of the passers-by. A servant lass bent over a window in thedwelling of Marget Maclean and smiled upon a young fisherman who went upthe middle of the street, noisily in knee-high boots. The afternoon wasglorious with sun. 

CHAPTER XXII--IN CHURCH

If the lambs were still wailing when Gilian got back to Ladyfield henever heard them. Was the glen as sad and empty as before? Then he wasabsent, indeed! For he was riding through an air almost jocund, and hisspirit sang within him. The burns bubbled merrily among the long grassesand the bracken, the myrtle cast a sharp and tonic sweetness all around. The mountain bens no more pricked the sky in solemn loneliness, butlooked one to the other over the plains--companions, lovers, touched towarmth and passion by the sun of the afternoon. It was as if an emptyworld had been fresh tenanted. Gilian, as he rode up home, woke towonder at his own cheerfulness. He reflected that he had been called afailure--and he laughed. 

Next day he was up with the sun, and Cameron was amazed at this newzeal that sent him, crook in hand, to the hill for some wanderers of theflock, whistling blithely as he went. Long after he was gone he couldsee him, black against the sky, on the backbone of the mountain, notvery active for a man in search of sheep. But what he could not see sofar was Gilian's rapture as he looked upon the two glens severed by somany weary miles of roadway, but close together at his feet. And thechimneys of Maam (that looks so like an ancient castle at Dim Loch head)were smoking cheerily below. Looking down upon them he made a pretenceto himself after a little that he had just that moment remembered whowas now there. He even said the words to himself, "Oh! Nan--Miss Nan isthere!" in the tone of sudden recollection, and he flushed in the coldbreeze of the lonely mountain, half at the mention of the name, half athis own deceit with himself. 

He allowed himself to fancy what the girl had grown to in her threeyears' absence among Lowland influences, that, by all his reading, mustbe miraculous indeed. He saw her a little older only than she had beenwhen they sat in the den of the _Jean_ or walked a magic garden, thetoss of spate-brown hair longer upon her shoulders, a little moresedateness in her mien. About her still hung the perfume of young birch, and her gown was still no lower than her knees. He met her (still in hisimagination upon the hill-top) by some rare chance, in the garden wherethey had strayed, and his coolness and ease were a marvel to himself. 

"Miss Nan!" he cried. "They told me you were returned and----" What wasto follow of the sentence he could not just now say. 

She blushed to see him; his hand tingled at the contact with hers. Sheanswered in a pleasant tone of Edinburgh gentility, like Lady Charlotte, and they walked a little way together, conversing wondrously upon lifeand books and poems, whose secrets they shared between them. He was ableto hold her fascinated by the sparkle of his talk; he had never beforefelt so much the master of himself, and his head fairly hummed with highnotions. They talked of their childhood----

Here Gilian dropped from the clouds, at first with a sense of someunpleasant memory undefined, then with shivering, ashamed, as his lastmeeting with the girl flashed before him, and he saw himself againfleeing, an incapable, from the sea-beach at Ealan Dubh. 

If she should remember that so vividly as he did! The thought was one tofly from, and he sped down the hill furiously, and plied himself busilyfor the remainder of the day with an industry Cameron had never seen himshow before. Upon him had obviously come a change of some wholesome andcompelling kind. He knew it himself, and yet--he told himself--he couldnot say what it was. 

Sunday came, and he went down to church in the morning as usual, butdressed with more scruples than was customary. Far up the glen the belljangled through the trees of the Duke's policies, and the road was busywith people bound for the sermon of Dr. Colin. They walked down the glenin groups, elderly women with snow-white piped caps, younger oneswith sober hoods, and all with Bibles carried in their napkins andsouthernwood or tansy between the leaves. The road was dry and sandy;they cast off their shoes, as was their custom, and walked barefoot, carrying them in their hands till they came to the plane-tree at thecross-roads, and put them on again to enter the town with fit decorum. The men followed, unhappy in their unaccustomed suits of broad-cloth orhodden, dark, flat-faced, heavy of foot, ruminant, taming their secularthoughts as they passed the licensed houses to some harmony with thesacred nature of their mission. The harvest fields lay half-garnered, smoke rose indolent and blue from cot-houses and farm-towns; very highup on the hills a ewe would bleat now and then with some tardy sorrowfor her child. A most tranquil day, the very earth breathing peace. 

The Paymaster and Miss Mary sat together in Keils pew, Gilian with them, conscious of a new silk cravat. But his mind almost unceasingly was setupon a problem whose solution lay behind him. Keils pew was in front, the Maam pew was at least seven rows behind, in the shadow of the loft, beneath the cushioned and gated preserve of the castle. One must not atany time look round, even for the space of a second, lest it should bethought he was guilty of some poor worldly curiosity as to the occupantsof the ducal seat, and to-day especially, Gilian dared not showan unusual interest in the Turner pew. His acute ear had heard itsoccupants enter after a loud salutation from the elder at the plate tothe General, he fancied there was a rustle of garments such as had notbeen heard there for three years. All other sounds in the church--theshuffle of feet, the chewing of sweets with which the worshippers inthese parts always induce wakefulness, the noisy breathing of Rixa ashe hunched in his corner beside the pulpit--seemed to stop while a skirtrustled. A glow went over him, and unknowing what he did he put forwardhis hand to take his Bible off the book-board. 

Miss Mary from the corners of her eyes, and without turning her face inthe slightest degree from the pulpit where Dr. Colin was soon to appear, saw the action. It was contrary to every form in that congregation; itwas a shocking departure from the rule that no one should display signof life (except in the covert conveyance of a lozenge under the napkinto the mouth, or a clearance of the throat), and she put a foot withpressure upon that of Gilian nearest her. Yet as she did so, no part ofher body seen above the boards of the pew betrayed her movement. 

Gilian flushed hotly, drew back his hand quickly, without having touchedthe book, and bent a stern gaze upon the stairs by which Dr. Colin woulddescend to his battlements. 

It was a day of stagnant air, and the church swung with sleepyinfluences. The very pews and desks, the pillars of the loft and thestar-crowned canopy of the pulpit, seemed in their dry and mouldyantiquity to give forth soporific dry accessions to that somnolentatmosphere, and the sun-rays, slanted over the heads of the worshippers, showed full of dust. Outside, through the tall windows, could be seenthe beech-trees of the Avenue, and the crows upon them busy at theirdomestic affairs. Children in the Square cried to each other, a man'sfootsteps passed on the causeway, returned, and stopped below thewindow. Everybody knew it was Black Duncan the seaman, of an olderchurch, and reluctant, yet anxious, to share in some of the Sabbathexercises. 

Gilian, with the back of the pew coming up near his neck, wishedfervently it had been built lower, for he knew how common andundignified his view from the rear must thus be made. Also he wishedhe could have had a secret eye that he might look unashamed in thedirection of his interest He tingled with feeling when he fanciedafter a little (indeed, it was no more than fancy) that there was aperceptible odour of young birch. Again he was remitted to his teens, sitting transported in the _Jean_, soaring heavenward upon a song by abold child with spate-brown hair. He put forward his hand unconsciouslyagain, and this time he had the Bible on his knee before Miss Mary couldcheck him. 

She looked down with motionless horror at his fingers feverishlyturning over the leaves, and saw that he had the volume upside down. Her pressure on his foot was delayed by astonishment. What could thisconduct of his mean? He was disturbed about something; or perhaps he wasunwell. And as she saw him still holding the volume upside down on hisknee and continuing to look at it with absent eyes she put her mittenedhand into the pocket of her silk gown, produced a large peppermintlozenge, and passed it into his hand. 

This long unaccustomed courtesy found him awkwardly unprepared, and hisfingers not closing quickly enough on the sweet it fell on the floor. It rolled with an alarming noise far to the left, and stirred thecongregation like a trumpet. Though little movement showed it, everyeye was on the pew from which this disturbance came, and Miss Maryand Gilian knew it. Miss Mary did not flinch; she kept a steadfast eyestraight in front of her, but to those behind her the sudden colour ofher neck betrayed her culpability. Gilian was wretched, all the morebecause he heard a rustle of the skirts behind in Turner's pew, and hisimagination saw Miss Nan suppressing her laughter with shaking hair andquite conscious that he had been the object of Miss Mary's attention. He felt the blood that rushed to his body must betray itself behind. Allthe gowk in him came uppermost; he did not know what he was doing; heput the Bible awkwardly on the book-board in front of him, and it, too, slid to the floor with a noise even more alarming than that of therolling sweet. 

The Paymaster, clearing his throat harshly, wakened from a dover tothe fact that these disturbances were in his own territory, and saw thelad's confusion. If that had not informed him the mischievous smile ofYoung Islay in Gilian's direction would have done so. He half turned hisface to Gilian, and with shut lips whispered angrily:

"Thumbs! thumbs!" he said. "God forgive you for a gomeral!" And then hestared very sternly at Rixa, who saw the movement of the swollenneck above the 'kerchief, knew that the Paymaster was administeringa reproof, and was comforted exceedingly by this prelude to the day'sdevotions. 

Gilian left the book where it lay to conceal from those behind that hehad been the delinquent. But he felt, at the same time, he was detected. What a contrast the lady behind must find in his gawkiness compared withthe correct and composed deportment of the Capital she had come from! Hemust be the rustic indeed to her, handling lollipops yet like a child, and tumbling books in a child's confusion. As if to give more acutenessto his picture of himself he saw a foil in Young Islay so trim andmanly in the uniform old custom demanded for the Sunday parade, a shrewdupward tilt of the chin and lowering of the brow, his hand now and thenat his cheeks, not so much to feel its pleasing roughness, as to showthe fine fingers of which he was so conscious. It demanded all hisstrength to shake himself into equanimity, and Miss Mary felt ratherthan saw it. 

What ailed him? Something unusual was perturbing him. An influence, anair, a current of uneasiness flowed from him and she shared his anxiety, not knowing what might be its source. His every attitude was a new andunaccustomed one. She concluded he must be unwell, and a commotion setup in her heart, so that Dr. Colin's opening prayer went sounding pasther a thing utterly meaningless like the wind among trees, and lovethat is like a high march wall separated her and her favourite from theworld. 

She surrendered even her scruples of kirk etiquette to put out a handtimidly as they stood together at the prayer, and touched Gilian softlyon the sleeve with a gush of consolation in the momentary contact. 

But he never felt the touch, or he thought it accidental, for he wasalmost feverishly waiting till that interminable prayer was ended thathe might have the last proof of the presence of the girl behind him. The crimson hangings of the canopy shook in the stridor of Dr. Colin'ssupplication, the hollows underneath the gallery rumbled a sleepy echo;Rixa breathed ponderously and thought upon his interlocutors, but noother life was apparent; it was a man crying in the wilderness, andoutside in the playground of the world the children were yet calling andlaughing content, the rooks among the beeches surveyed, carelessly, therich lush policies of the Duke. 

Gilian was waiting on the final proof, that was only in the girl's ownvoice. He remembered her of old a daring and entrancing vocalist, inthe harmony one thread of gold among the hodden grey of those simpleunstudied psalmodists. 

The prayer concluded, the congregation, wearied their long stand, relapsed in their hard seats with a sense of satisfaction, the psalm wasgiven out, the precentor stuck up on the desk before him the two tabletsbearing the name of the tune, "Martyrs, " and essayed at a beginning. Hebegan too high, stopped and cleared his throat. "We will try it again, "said he, and this time led the voices all in unison. Such a storm wasin Gilian's mind that he could not for a little listen to hear what heexpected. He had forgotten his awkwardness, he had forgotten his shame;his erratic and fleet-winged fancy had sent him back to the den ofthe Jean, and he was in the dusk of the ship's interior listening to agirl's song, moved more profoundly than when he had been actuallythere by some message in the notes, some soothing passionate melancholywithout relation to the words or to the tune, some inexplicable andmellow vibration he had felt first as he stood, a child, on the roadfrom Kilmalieu, and a bird solitary in the winds, lifting with curioustilt of feathers over the marshy field, had piped dolorously somemystery of animal life man must have lost when he ceased to sleep starknaked to the stars. In his mind he traced the baffling accent, failingoften to come upon it, anon finding it fill all his being with anemotion he had never known before. 

Miss Mary was now more alarmed than ever. For he was not singing, andhis voice was for wont never wanting in that stormy and uncouth unisonof sluggish men's voices, women's eager earnest shrilling. It was as ifhe had been absent, and so strong the illusion that she leaned to theside a little to touch him and assure herself he was there. 

And that awakened him! He listened with his workaday ears to separatefrom the clamour, as he once had done, the thread of golden melody. Fora moment he was amazed and disappointed; no unusual voice was there. IfMiss Nan was behind him, she was taking only a mute part in the praise, amused mildly perhaps--he could not blame--by this rough contrast withthe more tuneful praise she was accustomed to elsewhere. 

And then--then he distinguished her I No, he was wrong; no, he wasright, there it was again, not so loud and clear as he had expected, butyet her magic, unmistakably, as surely as when first it sounded tohim in "The Rover" and "The Man with the Coat of Green. " A thrill wentthrough him. He rose at the close of the psalm, and trod upon cloudsmore airily, high-breastedly, uplifted triumphantly, than Ronaig of Gaulwho marched, in the story, upon plunging seas from land to land. 

"He has been eating something wrong, " concluded Miss Mary, findingease of a kind in so poor an excuse for her darling's perturbation. Itaccounted to her for all his odd behaviour during the remainder of theservice, for his muteness in the psalmody, his restless disregard of thesermon, his hurry to be out of the straight-backed, uncomfortable pew. 

As he stood to his feet to follow the Paymaster she ventured a handfrom behind upon his waist, pretending to hasten the departure, but inreality to get some pleasure from the touch. Again he never heeded; hewas staring at the Maam pew, from which the General and his brother wereslowly moving out. 

There was no girl there!

He could scarcely trust his eyes. The aisle had a few women in it, moving decorously to the door with busy eyes upon each other's clothes;but no, she was not there, whose voice had made the few psalms of theday the sweetest of his experience. When he got outside the door andupon the entrance steps the whole congregation was before him; hisglance went through it in a flash twice, but there was no Miss Nan. Herfather and his brother walked up the street alone. Gilian realised thathis imagination, and his imagination only, had tenanted the pew. She wasnot there!

CHAPTER XXIII--YOUNG ISLAY

"The clash in the kirkyard is worth half a dozen sermons, " say theunregenerate, and though no kirkyard is about the Zion of our parish, the people are used to wait a little before home-going and talk of acareful selection of secular affairs; not about the prices of hoggsand queys, for that is Commerce, nor of Saturday night's songs in thetavern, for that (in the Sabbath mind) is Sin. But of births, marriages, courtships, weather, they discourse. And Gilian, his head dazed, stoodin a group with the Paymaster and Miss Mary, and some of the people ofthe glens, who were the ostensible reason for the palaver. At first hewas glad of the excuse to wait outside, for to have gone the few yardsthat were necessary down the street and sat at Sunday's cold viands evenwith Peggy's brew of tea to follow would be to place a flight of stairsand a larch door between him and---- And what? What was he reluctantto sever from? He asked himself that with as much surprise as if he hadbeen a stranger to himself. He felt that to go within at once would beto lose something, to go out of a most agreeable atmosphere. He was nothungry. To sit with old people over an austere table with no flowerson it because of the day, and see the Paymaster snuff above his tepidsecond day's broth, and hear the Cornal snort because the mince-collopshis toothless-ness demanded on other days of the week were not availableto-day, would be, somehow, to bring a sordid, unable, drab and wearyworld close up on a vision of joy and beauty. He felt it in his flesh, in some flutter of the breast It was better to be out here in the sunamong the chattering people, to have nothing between him and Glen Shirabut a straight sweep of wind-blown highway. From the steps of the churchhe could see the Boshang Gate and the hazy ravines and jostling elbowsof the hills in Shira Glen. He saw it all, and in one bound his spiritvaulted there, figuring her whose psalm he had but heard in the delusionof desire. 

The Duke came lazily down the steps, threw a glance among his clanand tenantry, cast his plaid, with a fine grace, about his shoulders, touching his bonnet with a finger as hat or bonnet rose in salutation, and he went fair up in the middle of the street. 

The conversation ceased, and people looked after him as on an Emperor. 

"He's going to London on Tuesday, I hear, " said Major Hall to Mr. Spencer. It was the Majors great pride to know the prospective movementsat the Castle sooner than any one else, and he was not above exchangingsnuff-mulls with Wat Thomson, the ducal boot-brusher, if ducal newscould only be got thereby. 

"London, London; did you say, London, sir?" said the innkeeper, lookingagain with an envy after his Grace, the name at once stirring in him theclime from which he was an exile. And the smell of peaty clothes smotehim on the nostril for the first time that day. He had been so manySundays accustomed to it that as a rule he no longer perceived it, butnow it rose in contrast to the beefy, beer-charged, comfortable odoursof his native town. 

"Ah! he's going on Tuesday, " said the Paymaster, "but when Duke George'sgone, there are plenty of Dukes to take his place. Every officer in hiscorps will be claiming a full command, quarrelling among themselves. There'll be Duke Islay----"

"Hus--s--sh!" whispered Major Hall discreetly from the corner of hismouth. "Here's his young fellow coming up behind. " Then loudly, "It's avery fine season indeed, Captain Campbell, a very fine season. "

Young Islay came forward with a salute for the Captain and his sister. He was Gilian's age and size, but of a different build, broader at theshoulder, fuller at the chest, black of hair, piercing of eye, withjust enough and no more of a wholesome conceit of himself to give hisMajesty's uniform justice. When he spoke it was with a clear and manlytone deep in the chest. 

He shook hands all round, he was newly come home from the lowlands, histunic was without speck or crease, his chin was smooth, his stronghands were white; as Gilian returned his greeting he felt himself in anenviable and superior presence. 

Promptly, too, there came like a breath upon glass a remembrance of theensign of the same corps who kissed his hand to Nan on just such anotherday of sunshine at Boshang Gate. 

"Glad to see you back, Islay, " said the Paymaster, proffering hisSabbath snuff-mull. "Faith, you do credit to the coat!" And he cast anadmiring eye upon the young soldier. 

Young Islay showed his satisfaction in his face. 

"But it's a smaller coat than yours, Captain, " said he, "and easierfilled nowadays than when fighting was in fashion. I'm afraid the oldschool would have the better of us. "

It was a touch of Gaelic courtesy to an elder, well-meant, pardonable;it visibly pleased the old gentleman to whom it was addressed, and helooked more in admiration than before upon this smart young officer. 

"Up the Glen yet, Gilian?" said Islay, with the old schoolboy freedom, and Gilian carelessly nodded, his eyes once more roving on the roadto Boshang Gate. Young Islay looked at him curiously, a little smilehovering about the corners of his lips, for he knew the dreamer'sreputation. 

The Paymaster gave a contemptuous "Humph!" "Up the Glen yet. You maywell say it, " said he. "And like to be. It's a fine clime for stirks. "

Gilian did not hear it, but Miss Mary felt it sting to her very heart, and she moved away, pressing upon her favourite's arm to bring him withher. "We must be moving, " said she; "Peggy will be scolding about thedinner spoiled with waiting. "

But no one else seemed willing to break up the group. Young Islay hadbecome the centre of attraction. MacGibbon and Major Hall, the Sheriff, Mr. Spencer and the dominie, listened to his words as to a sage, gratified by his robust and handsome youth, and the Turners had himby the arm and questioned him upon his experience. Major Mac-Nicol, ludicrous in a bottle-green coat with abrupt tails and an English beaverhat of an ancient pattern, jinked here and there among the people, tip-toeing, round shouldered, with eyes peering and alarmed, jerkinghis head across his shoulder at intervals to see that no musket barrelthreatened, and at times, for a moment or two, he would hang upon theoutskirts of Young Islay's _levée_, with a hand behind an ear to listento his story, filled for a little space with a wave of vague and bitterrecollection that never broke upon the shore of solid understanding, enchanted by a gleam of red and gold, the colours of glory and of youth. 

"Let us go home, " whispered Miss Mary, pulling gently at Gilian's coat. 

"Wait, wait, no hurry for cold kail hot again, " said the Paymaster, every instinct for gossip alert and eager. 

"And you showed him the qualities of a Highland riposte! Good lad! Goodlad! I'm glad that Sandy and you learned something of the art of fencebefore they tried you in the Stirling fashion, " General Turner wassaying. "You'll be home for a while won't you? Come up and see us atMaam; no ceremony, a bird, a soldier's jug, and----"

"And a soldier's song from Miss Nan, I hope, " continued the youngofficer, smiling. "That would be the best inducement of all I hear she'shome again from the low country, and thought she would have been inchurch to-day. "

"City ways, you know, Islay, city ways, " said Turner, tapping the youngfellow playfully on the shoulder with his cane. "She did not come downbecause she must walk! I wonder what Dr. Colin would say if he found meyoking a horse to save a three miles Sabbath daunder to the kirk. Comeup and have your song, though, any day you like; I'll warrant you neverheard better. "

"I'm certain I never did, " admitted Young Islay heartily. 

"And when I think, " said the General softly, more closely pressing theyoung fellow's arm, "that there might be no song now at all but for yourreadiness with an oar, I'm bound to make a tryst of it: say Tuesday. "

"Certainly!" said Young Islay. "About my readiness with an oar, now, that was less skill than a boy's luck. I can tell you I was prettyfrightened when I baled--good heavens, how long ago I--the water fromthe punt, and felt the storm would smother me!" He was flushing to speakof a thing so much to his credit, and sought relief from his feelings bya random remark to the Paymaster's boy. 

"You mind?" said he, with a laughing look at Gilian, who wished now thathe were in the more comfortable atmosphere of the Paymaster's parlourfor he was lamentably outside the interests of this group. "You mind?"he pressed again, as if the only victim of that storm and strandingcould ever forget!

"I remember very well, " said Gilian in an Anglified accent that renewedall Miss Mary's apprehension, for it showed an artificial mood. "I cameout of that with small credit, " he went on, sparing himself nothing. "Isuppose I would have risked my life half a dozen times over to be of anyservice; what was wanting was the sense to know what I should do. Thereyou had the advantage of me. And did you really bail the boat with yourbonnet?"

"Faith I did!" said Young Islay, laughing. 

"I knew it, " said Gilian. "I knew your feelings and your acts as wellas if it had been myself that had been there. I wish my comprehension ofthe act to be done was as ready as my imagination. I wish--"

A shyness throttled the words in his mouth when he found all the companylooking upon him, all amused or a little pitiful except the dominie, whose face had a kindly respect and curiosity, and Miss Mary, who waslooking wistfully in his eyes. 

"There are two worlds about us, " said Brooks; "the manifest, that is asplain as a horn-book from A to Ampersand; the other, that is in the mindof man, no iota less real, but we are few that venture into it furtherthan the lintel of the door. " And he had about his eyes an almostfatherly fondness for Gilian, who felt that in the words were somejustification for him, the dreamer. 

The street was emptying, one by one the people had dispersed. YoungIslay's group broke up, and went their several ways. The Paymaster andMiss Mary and Gilian went in to dinner. 

"What's the matter with you, my dear?" whispered Miss Mary at the turnof the stair when her brother had gone within. 

"Matter?" said Gilian, surprised at her discovery. "Nothing that I knowof. What makes you think there is anything the matter with me?"

She stopped him at the stair-head, and here in the dusk of it she wasagain the young companion. "Gilian, Gilian, " said she, with stress inher whisper and a great affection in the face of her. "Do you think Ican be deceived? You are ill; or something troubles you. What were youeating?"

He laughed loudly; he could not help it at so prosaic a conclusion. 

"What carry-on is that on the stair on a Lord's day?" cried thePaymaster angrily and roughly from his room as he tugged short-temperedat the buckle of his Sabbath stock. 

"Then there's something bothering you, my dear, " said Miss Mary again, paying no heed to the interruption. And Gilian could not release his armfrom her restraint. 

"Is there, Auntie?" said he. "Perhaps. And still I could not name it. Come, come, what's the sense of querying a man upon his moods?"

"A man!" said Miss Mary. 

"On the verge at least, " said he, with a confidence he had never had inhis voice before, taking a full breath in his chest. 

"A man!" said she again. And she saw, as if a curtain had fallen frombefore her eyes, that this was no more the fair-haired, wan-faced, trembling child who came from Ladyfield to her heart. 

"I wish, I wish, " said she all trembling, "the children did not grow atall!"

CHAPTER XXIV--MAAM HOUSE

Maam House stands mid-way up the Glen, among pasture and arable landthat seems the more rich and level because it is hemmed in by gaunthills where of old the robber found a sequestration, and the hunter ofdeer followed his kingly recreation. The river sings and cries, almostat the door, mellow in the linns and pools, or in its shallow linkscheerily gossiping among grey stones; the Dhu Loch shines upon itssurface like a looking-glass or shivers in icy winds. Round about thebulrush nods; old great trees stand in the rains knee-deep like thecattle upon its marge pondering, and the breath of oak and hazel hangsfrom shore to shore. 

To her window in the old house of Maam would Nan come in the mornings, and the beauty of Dhu Loch would quell the song upon her lips. Ittouched her with some melancholy influence. Grown tall and elegant, her hair in waves about her ears, in a rich restrained tumult abouther head, her eyes brimming and full of fire, her lips rich, her bosomgenerous--she was not the Nan who swung upon a gate and wished thathers was a soldier's fortune. This place lay in her spirit like atombstone--the loneliness of it, the stillness of it, the dragging daysof it, with their dreary round of domestic duties. She was not a weekhome, and already sleep was her dearest friend, and to open her eyesin the morning upon the sunny but silent room and miss the clangour ofEdinburgh streets was a diurnal grief. 

What she missed of the strident town was the clustering round of fellowcreatures, the eternal drumming of neighbour hearts, the feet upon thepavement and the eager faces all around that were so full of interestthey did not let her seek into the depths of her, where lay the oldHighland sorrows that her richest notes so wondrously expressed. Thetumult for herl Constant touch with the active, the gay! Solitudeoppressed her like a looming disease. Sometimes, as in those morningswhen she looked abroad from her window upon the Glen, she felt sickof her own company, terrified at the pathetic profound to which thelandscape made her sink. Then she wept, and then she shook the moodfrom her angrily and flashed about the house of Maam like a sunbeamnew-washed by the rain. 

Her father used to marvel at those sudden whims of silence and of song. He would come in on some poor excuse from his stable or cunningly listenabove his book and try to understand; but he, the man of action, the soldier, the child of undying ambitions, was far indeed fromcomprehension. Only he was sure of her affection. She would come and situpon his knee, with arms around his neck, indulgent madly in a child'scaresses. Her uncle James, finding them thus sometimes, would startat an illusion, for it looked as if her mother was back again, and herfather, long so youthful of aspect, seemed the sweetheart husband oncemore. 

"Ah! you randy!" he would say to his niece, scowling upon her; "thesooner you get a man the better!"

"If there is one in the world half so handsome as my father--yes, " shewould answer merrily, nestling more fondly in the General's breast, tillhe rose and put her off with laughing confusion. 

"Away! away!" he would cry in pretended annoyance. "You make my greyhairs ridiculous. "

"Where are they?" she would say, running her white fingers over his headand daintily refastening the ribbon of that antiquated queue that madehim always look the chevalier. She treated him, in all, less like afather than a lover, exceedingly proud of him, untiring of his countlesstales of campaign and court, uplifted marvellously with his ambitiousdreams of State preferment. For General Turner was but passing thetime in Maam till by favour promised a foreign office was found for himelsewhere. 

"And when the office comes, " said he, "then I leave my girl. It is theone thing that sobers me. "

"Not here! not here!" she cried, alarm in eye and tone. So he found, for the first time, her impatience with the quiet of Maam. He was, for alittle, dumb with regret that this should be her feeling. 

"Where better, where safer, my dear?" he asked. 

"Come up to the bow-window. " And he led her where she could see theirnative glen from end to end. 

In the farm-towns the cots were displayed; smoke rose from theirchimneys in the silent air, grey blue banners of peace. "Bide at home, my dear, " said he softly, "bide at home and rest. I thought you wouldhave been glad to be back from towns among our own kindly people in theland your very heart-blood sprang from. Quiet, do you say? True, true, "and still he surveyed the valley himself with solemn eyes. "But thereis content here, and every hearth there would make you welcome if it wasonly for your name, even if the world was against you. "

She saw the reapers in the fields, heard their shearing songs that aresung for cheer, but somehow in this land are all imbued with melancholy. Loud, loud against that sorrow of the brooding glen rose up in herremembrance the thoughtless clamour of the lowland world, and sheshivered, as one who looks from the window of a well-warmed room upona night of storm. Her father put an arm about her waist. "Is it nothomely?" said he, dreading her reply. "I can bear it--with you, " sheanswered pitifully. "But if you go abroad, it would kill me. I must havesomething that is not here; I must have youth and life--and--life. "

"At your age I would not have given Maam and the glen about it for myshare of Paradise. "--"But now?" said she. 

He turned hastily from the window and nervously paced the room. 

"No matter about me, " he answered in a little. "Ah! you're your mother'schild. I wish--I wish I could leave you content here. " He felt athis chin with a nervous hand, muttered, looked on her askance, pitiedhimself that when he went wandering he must not have the consolingthought that she was safe and happy in her childhood's home. 

"I wish I had never sent you away, " he said. "You would have been morecontent to-day. But that's the manner of the world, we must pay our wayas we go, in inns and in knowledge. "

She ran up with tripping feet and kissed him rapturously. 

"No lowland tricks!" he cried, pleased and yet ashamed at a displayunusual in these parts. "Fancy if some one saw you!"

"Then let them look well again, " she said, laughingly defiant, and hehad to stoop to avoid the assault of her ripe and laughing lips. Thelittle struggle had brought a flame to her eye that grew large andlambent; where her lower neck showed in a chink of her kerchief-souffleit throbbed and glowed. The General found himself wondering if this was, indeed, his: child, the child he had but the other day held in the crookof his arm and dandled on his knee. 

"I wish, " said he again, while she neatly tied the knot upon his queue, "I wish we had a husband for you, good or--indifferent, before I go. "

"Not indifferent, father, " she laughed. "Surely the best would not betoo good for your daughter! As if I wanted a husband of any kind!"

"True, true, " he answered thoughtfully. "You are young yet. The bestwould not be too good for you; but I know men, my dear, and the woman'swell off who gets merely the middling in her pick of them. And thatminds me, I had one asking for you at the kirk on Sunday. A soldier, noless. Can you guess him?"

"The Paymaster's Boy, " said she promptly, curiosity in her countenance. 

Her father laughed. 

"Pooh!" he exclaimed. "Is that all you have of our news here that youdon't know Gilian's farming, or making a show of farming, in Ladyfield?He never took to the Army after all, and an old brag of Mars is veryhumorous now when I think of it. "

"I told him he never would, " said Nan, with no note of triumph in theaccuracy of her prediction. "I thought he could play-act the thing inhis mind too well ever to be the thing itself. "

"It was Young Islay I meant, " said her father. "A smart fellow; he'shome on leave from his corps, and he promises to come some day this weekto see the girl whose father has some reason to be grateful to him. "

She flushed all at once, overtaken by feelings she could not havedescribed--feelings of gratitude for the old rescue, of curiosity, pleasure, and a sudden shyness. Following it came a sudden recollectionof the old glamour that was about the ensign--such another, no doubt, asYoung Islay--who had given her the first taste of gallantry as he passedwith the troops in a day of sunshine. She looked out at the window toconceal her eyes, and behold! the glen was not so melancholy as it wasa little ago. She wished she had put on another gown that afternoon, therustling one of double tabinet that her Edinburgh friends considered tooimposing for her years, but that she herself felt a singular complacencein no matter what her company might be. 

"A smart fellow, " repeated her father musingly, flicking some dust fromhis shoes, unobserving of her abstraction. "I wish Sandy took a lessonor two from him in application. "

"Ah!" she cried, "you're partial just because----"

And she hesitated. 

--"Just because he saved my lassie's life, " continued Turner, and seizedby an uncommon impulse he put an arm round her and bent to kiss hernot unwilling lips. He paused at the threshold, and drew back with ahalf-shamed laugh. 

"Tuts!" said he. "You smit me with silly lowland customs. Fancy your oldHighland daddie kissing you! If it had been the young gentleman we speakof----"

A loud rap came to the knocker of the front door, and Nan's hands wentflying to her hair in soft inquiries; back to her face came its colour. 

It was Young Islay. He came into the room with two strides from thestair-head and a very genteel obeisance to the lady, a conceit offashion altogether foreign to glens, but that sent her back in one dartof fancy to the parlour of Edinburgh, back to the warm town, back toplaces of gaiety, and youth, and enterprise, back to soft manners, thelip gossiping at the ear, shoes gliding upon waxen floors, music, dance, and mirth. Her heart throbbed as to a revelation, and she could havetaken him in her arms for the sake of that brave life he indicated. 

His eyes met hers whenever he entered, and he could not draw them awaytill hers, wavering before him, showed him he was daring. He turned andshook hands with the General, and muttered some commonplace, then backagain he came to that pleasant face so like and yet so unlike the facehe had known when a boy. 

"You'll hardly know each other, " said the father, amused at this commoninterest. "Isn't she a most elderly person to be the daughter of soyoung and capable a man?"

Young Islay ranged his mind for a proper compliment, but for once he wasdumb; in all the oft-repeated phrases of his gallant experiences therewas no sentiment to do justice to a moment like this. "I am delighted tomeet you again, " he said slowly, his mind confused with a sense of theinadequacy of the thing and the inexplicable feelings that crowded intohim in the presence of a girl who, three years ago, would have no moredisturbed him than would his sister. She was the first to recover fromthe awkwardness of the moment. 

"I was just wishing I had on another gown, " she said more frankly thanshe felt, but bound to give utterance to the last clear thought in hermind. "I had an idea we might have callers. "

"You could have none that became you better, " said the lad boldly, feasting upon her charms of lip and eye. And now he was thesoldier--free, bold, assured. 

"What? In the way of visitors, " laughed her father, and she flushedagain. 

"I spoke of the gown, " said Young Islay (and he had not yet seen it, it might have been red or blue for all he could tell). "I spoke of thegown; if it depends on that for you to charm your company, you shouldwear no other. "

"A touch of the garrison, but honest enough to be said before thefather!" thought General Turner. 

Nan laughed. She courtesied with an affected manner taught in Edinburghschools. 

"Sir, " she said, "you are a soldier, and of course the gown at themoment in front of you is always the finest in the world. Don't tell meit is not so, " she hastened to add, as he made to protest, "because Iknow my father and all the ways of his trade, and--and--and if you werenot the soldier even in your pleasantries to ladies I would not thinkyou the soldier at all. "

The General smiled and nudged the young fellow jocosely. "There, " saidhe, "did I not tell you she was a fiery one?"

"I hope you did not discuss me in that fashion, " said Nan, pausing withannoyance as she moved aside a little, all her pride leaping to herface. 

"Your father will have his joke, " said Young Islay quickly. "He barelylet me know you were here. "

The General smiled again in admiration of the young fellow's astuteness, and Nan recovered. 

They went to the parlour. Through the window came the songs of thereapers and the twitter of birds busy among the seeds at the barn-door. Roses swinging on the porch threw a perfume into the room. Young Islayfelt, for the first time in his life, a sense of placid happiness. Andwhen Nan sang later--a newer, wider world, more years, more thoughts, more profound depths in her song--he was captive. 

To his aid he summoned all his confidence; he talked like a prince (ifthey talk head-up, valiantly, serene and possessing); he moved about theroom studiously unconscious and manly; he sat with grace and showed hishand, and all the time he claimed the girl for his. "You are mine, youare mine!" he said to himself over and over again, and by the flush onher neck as she sat at the harpsichord she might be hearing, throughsome magic sense, his bold unspoken thought. 

Evening crept, lights came, the father went out to give some orders atthe barn; they were left alone. The instrument that might have been aheavenly harp at once lost its dignity and relapsed to a tinkling wire, for Nan was silent, and there crowded into Young Islay's head all thepassion of his people. He rose and strode across the room; he put an armround her waist and raised her, all astounded, from the chair. 

She turned round and tried to draw back, looking startled at his eyesthat were wide with fire. 

"What do you mean?" she gasped. 

"Need you ask it?" he said in a new voice, raising an arm round hershoulder. His fingers unexpectedly touched her warm skin beneath thekerchief-souffle. The feeling ran to his heart, and struck him therelike an earthquake. Down went his head, more firm his hold upon thelady's waist; she might have been a flower to crush, but yet he must berude and strong; he bent her back and kissed her. Her lips parted as ifshe would cry out against this outrage, and he felt her breath upon hischeek, an air, a perfume maddening. "Nan, Nan, you are mine, you aremine!" said he huskily, and he kissed her again. 

Out in the fields, a corncrake raised its rasping vesper and a shepherdwhistled on his dogs. The carts rumbled as they made for the sheds. Thesound of the river far off in the shallows among the saugh-trees came ona little breeze, a murmur of the sad inevitable sea that ends all loveand passion, the old Sea beating black about the world. 

In the room was an utter silence. She had drawn back for a momentstupefied, checking in her pride even the breathing of her struggle. Hestood bent at the head a little, contrite, his hat, that he hadlifted, in his hand. And they gazed at each other--people who had foundthemselves in some action horribly rude and shameful. 

"I think you must have made a mistake, or have been drinking, " she saidat last, her breast now heaving stormily and her eyes ablaze with anger. "I am not the dairy-maid. "

"I could not help it, " he answered lamely. "You--you--you made me do it. I love you!" She drew back shocked. 

He stepped forward again, manly, self-possessed again, and looked herhungrily in the eyes. "Do you hear that?" he said. "Do you hear that? Ilove you! I love you! There you look at me, and I'm inside like a fire. What am I to do? I am Highland; I am Long Islay's grandson. I am asoldier. I am Highland, and if I want you I must have you. "

She drew softly towards the door as if to escape, but heard her father'svoice without, and it gave her assurance. A pallor had come upon hercheek, only her lips were bright as if his kiss had seared them. 

"You are Highland, you are Highland, are you?" she said, restraining hersobs. "Then where is the gentleman? Do you fancy I have been growing upin Maam all the years you were away among canteens for you to come homeand insult me when you wished?"

He did not quail before her indignation, but he drew back with respectin every movement. 

"Madame, " he said, with a touch of the ballroom, "you may miscall meas you will; I deserve it all. I have been brutal; I have frightenedyou--that would not harm a hair of your head for a million pounds; Ihave disgraced the hospitality of your father's house. I may have ruinedmyself in your eyes, and to-morrow I'll writhe for it, but now--butnow--I have but one plea: I love you! I'll say it, though you struck medumb for ever. "

She recovered a little, looked curiously at him, and "Is it notsomething of a liberty, even that?" she asked. "You bring the manners ofthe Inn to my father's house. " The recollection of her helplessness inhis grasp came to her again, and stained her face as it had been withwine. 

He turned his hat in his hand, eyeing her dubiously but more calmly thanbefore. 

"There you have me, " he said, with a large and helpless gesture, "I amnot worth two of your most trivial words. I am a common rude soldierthat has not, as it were, seen you till a moment ago, and when I was atyour--at your lips, I should have been at your shoes. "

She laughed disdainfully a little. 

"Don't do that, " said he, "you make me mad. " Again the tumult of hispassion swept him down; he put a foot forward as if to approach her, butstopped short as by an immense inward effort. "Nan, Nan, Nan, " he criedso loudly that a more watchful father would have heard it outside. "Nan, Nan, Nan, I must say it if I die for it: I love you! I never felt--Ido not know--I cannot tell what ails me, but you are mine!" Then all atonce again his mood and accent changed. "Mine! What can I give? What canI offer? Here's a poor ensign, and never a war with chances in it!"

He strode up and down the room, throwing his shadow, a feverish phantom, on the blind, and Nan looked at him as if he had been a man in a play. Here was her first lover with a vengeance! They might be all like that;this madness, perhaps, was the common folly. She remembered that to himshe owed her life, and she was overtaken by pity. 

"Let us say no more about it, " she said calmly. "You alarmed me verymuch, and I hope you will never do the like again. Let me think I myselfwas willing"--he started--"that it was some--some playful way of payingoff the score I owe you. "

"What score?" said he, astonished. "You saved my life, " she answered, all resentment gone. "Did I?" said he. "It would be the last plea Iwould offer here and now. That was a boy's work, or luck as it might be;this is a man before you. I am not wanting gratitude, but something farmore ill to win. Look at me, " he went on; "I am Highland, I'm a soldier, I'm a man. You may put me to the door (my mother in heaven would notblame you), but still you're mine. "

He was very handsome as he stood upon the floor resolute, something ofthe savage and the dandy, a man compelling. Nan felt the tremor of anadmiration, though the insult was yet burning on her countenance. 

"Here's my father, " she said, quickly sitting at the harpsichord again, with her face away from it and the candle-light. Into the room steppedthe General, never knowing he had come upon a storm. Their silencesurprised him. He looked suspiciously at the lad, who still stood on thefloor with his hat in his hand. 

"You're not going yet, Islay?" said he, and there was no answer. 

"Have you two quarrelled?" he asked, again glancing at his daughter'saverted face. 

Young Islay stammered his reply. "I have been a fool, General, that'sall, " said he. "I brought the manners of the Inn, as your daughter says, into your house, and--"

The father caught him by the sleeve and bent a most stern eye. 

"Well, well?" he pushed. 

"And--the rest, I think, should be between yourself and me, " said YoungIslay, looking at Nan now with her back to them, and he and the fatherwent out of the room. 

CHAPTER XXV--THE EAVESDROPPER

There was no moon, but the sky hung thick with stars, and the eveningwas a rare dusk where bush and tree stood half revealed, thingssinister, concealing the terrific elements of dreams. Over the hillscame Gilian, a passionate pilgrim of the night. The steeps, the gullies, the hazel thickets he trod were scarcely real for him, he passed themas if in a swoon, he felt himself supreme, able to step from ben to ben, inspired by the one exaltation that puts man above all toils, fears, weariness and doubts, brother of the April eagle, cousin-german of theremote and soaring star. 

He approached the house of Maam by a rough sheep-path along the side ofthe burn, leaped from boulder to boulder to keep the lights of the housein view, brushed eagerly through the bracken, ran masterfully in theflats. When he came close to the house, caution was necessary lest lateharvesters should discover him. He went round on the outside of theorchard hedge, behind the milk-house wall, and stood in the concealmentof a little alder planting. The house was lit in several windows, itstruck--thought he--warm upon a neck and flashed back in a melting eyewithin; his heart drummed furiously. 

In the farmyard the workers were preparing to depart for the night fromtheir long day of toil. All but the last of the horses had been stabled;the shepherds were returning from the fanks; two women, the weariness oftheir bodies apparent in their attitudes even in the dusk, stood fora little in the yard, then with arms round each other's waists wenttowards the cot-house, singing softly as they went. The General's voicein Gaelic rose over all but the river's murmur, as he called acrossthe wattle gate to a herd-boy bearing in peat for the night and morningfires. And the night was all wrapt in an odour of bog myrtle andflowers. 

That outer world, for once, had no interest for Gilian; his eyes were onthe windows, and though the interior of Maam was utterly unknown to himfrom actual sight, he was fancying it in every detail. He knew the upperroom where Nan slept; he had watched the light come to it and disappear, every night since she had returned, though he could not guess how inthat eminent flame she was reading the memorials, the letters, thediaries of her lost lowland life and weeping for her solitude. 

The light was not there now; it was too early in the evening, so shemust be in the room whose two windows shone on the grass betweenthe house and the barn. He could see them plainly as he stood in theplanting, and he busied himself, forgetting all the outside interests ofthe house, in picturing its interior. Nan, he told himself, sat sewingor reading within, still the tall lady of his day-dreams, for he had notyet seen her since her return. 

And then he heard her harpsichord, its unfamiliar music amazing him byits relation to some world he did not know, the world from which shehad just returned. She was playing the prelude of the simplest song thatever had been taught in an Edinburgh academy, yet these ears, accustomedonly to rough men's voices, the song of birds, now and then a harshfiddle grating for its life about the country-side, or the pipe of thehills, imbued the thin and lonely symphony with associations of lifegenteel and wide, rich and warm and white-handed. Never seemed Miss Nanso far removed as then from him, the home-staying dreamer. Up rose hisstartled judgment and called him fool. 

But hark! her voice came in and joined the harpsichord--surely this timehe was not mistaken? Her voice! it was certainly her voice! He held hisbreath to listen for fear he should lose the softest note as it camefrom her lips. Now he was well repaid for his nights of traverse on thehills, his watching, his disappointment! The very night held breath tolisten to that song, not the song that had been sung in the _Jean_, butanother, the song of a child no more, but of a woman, full of passion, antique love and sorrow, of the unsatisfied and yearning years. 

The music ceased; the night for a space swooned into a numb and desolatesilence. Then in the field behind, the last corncrake harshly called; ashepherd whistled on his dogs; a cart rumbled over the cobbles, makingfor the shed. The sound of the river as it came to him among thealder-trees seemed the sound the wave makes in the ears of the sinkingand exhausted swimmer. 

Gilian turned over in his pocket a lucky flint arrowhead, and wished fora glimpse of Nan. 

He had no sooner done so than her shadow showed upon the blind, hurriedand nervous as in some affright. 

His heart leaped; he made a step forward as if he would storm thatcitadel of his fancy, but he checked himself on a saner thought that hewas imbuing the shadow with fears that were not there. He drew a deepbreath and turned his lucky arrowhead again. For a second or two therewas no response. Then another shadow came upon the blinds--a man's, striding for a little back and forward, as if in perturbation. Who couldit be? the trembling outsider asked himself. Not the father; there wasno queue to the shadow, and a vague suggestion of the General's voicehad come but a moment before from another part of the steading. Not theuncle? This was no long, bent, bearded apparition, but the figure ofyouth. Gilian promptly fancied himself the substance of the shadow inthat envied light and presence, seeing the glow of fire and candlein Nan's eyes as she turned to the accepted lover. "Nan, Nan!" hewhispered, "I love you! I love you!"

A faint breath from a new point came through the trees, the dryadssighing for all this pitiful illusion. It struck chill upon his face;he shivered and prepared to set off for home across the hill. A lastreluctant glance was thrown at the window, and he had turned towards themilk-house wall when a sound of opening doors arrested him. Now he couldnot escape unobserved; he withdrew into the shadow of the trees again. 

The General and another came out and stood midway between the houseand the planting. There they spoke in constrained words that did not atfirst reach him. Against the grey dun of the sky he could separate theirfigures, but he could not guess the identity of the General's companion. 

In a second or two they moved nearer and he was an unwilling listener, though a keenly interested one. 

"Come, come, " said the General, in a tone of some annoyance, "you had meout to hear your explanation, and now I'm to be kept chittering in thenight air till you range your inside for words. "

The other murmured something in a voice that did not intelligently reachthe planting. 

"Ay, you did, did you?" said the General in reply, very dryly, and thenhe paused. "I'll warrant you found a tartar, " he said in a little. 

The other answered softly in a word or two. 

There was another pause, and then the General laughed, not with muchgeniality. "That was all the news you brought me out here for?" said he. "Come, come, the lady can look after herself so far as that goes. Eitherthat or she's not her mother's child. And yet--and yet, I would notbe saying. Edinburgh and all their low-country notions make somedifference; I see them in her. This is not the girl I sent off southon a mail-gig--just like a parcel. Curse the practice that we must berisking the things of our affection among strangers!"

There was no more than the brief and muffled answer, like that of a manashamed. 

"I've seen that before, " said the General stiffly. "It's not uncommon atthe age, but it's unusual to take the old gentleman into the garden atnight without his bonnet to tell him so little as that. "

The answer, still muffled to the listener in the planting, poured forthquickly. 

"Highland, " said the General, "queer Highlands! And it must be now ornever with us, must it? Well, young gentleman, you have nerve at least, "and he quoted a Gaelic proverb. He put his hand on the shoulder of theother and leaned to whisper. Gilian could make the action out againstthe sky. Then "Good-night" and the father's footsteps went back to thedoor and the unknown proceeded down the glen. 

On an impulse irresistible, Gilian followed at a discreet distance, keeping on the verges of the grass beside the road, so that hisfootsteps might not betray him. All the night was tenantless but forthemselves and some birds that called dolefully in the woods. The river, broadened by the burns on either hand that joined it, grew soon to arapid and tumultuous current washing round the rushy bends, and the DhuLoch when they came to it had a ripple on its shore, so that theywere at the bridge and yet the one who led was not aware that he wasfollowed. He leaned upon the crenelated parapet and hummed a strain ofsong as Gilian came up to him with a swinging step, now on the footway. 

Young Islay started at this approach without warning, but he was notafraid. He peered into Gilian's face when he had come up to him. 

"Oh, you!" said he. "I got quite a start, I thought at first it wasDrimmin dorran's ghost. " This, laughingly, of a shade with a reputationfor haunting these evening solitudes. 

"You're late on the road?" he went on curiously. 

"No later than yourself, " answered Gilian, vaguely grieving to find thatthis was the substance of his shadow on the blind and the audience forMiss Nan's entertainment. 

"Oh! I was--I was on a visit, " said Young Islay. He went closer up toGilian and added eagerly, as one glad to unbosom, "Man! did you everhear--did you ever hear Miss Nan sing?"

"Long ago, " said Gilian; "it's an old story. " "Lucky man!" said YoungIslay enviously, "to be here so long to listen when I was far away. "

"She was away herself a good deal, " said Gilian, "but when we heard herwe quite appreciated our opportunities, I assure you. "

"Did you, faith?" said Young Islay, with a jealous tone. "You seem, " hewent on, "to have made very little use of them. I wonder where the eyesof you could be. I never saw her, really, till an hour or two ago. Inever heard her sing before, but yet, some way----" He hesitated inembarrassment. 

Gilian made no answer. He felt it the most natural thing in the worldthat any one seeing and hearing Nan should appreciate herself and hersinging. There was no harm in that. 

The night was solemn with the continual cry of the owls that abound inthe woody shoulder of Duntorvil; a sweet balmy influence loaded the air, stars gathered in patches between drifts of cloud. For some distance theyoung men walked together silent, till Young Islay spoke. 

"I've been away seeing the world, " said he hurriedly, like a man at aconfession, "not altogether with my father's wish, who would sooner Istayed at home and farmed Drimlee; moving from garrison to garrison, giving my mind no hearth to stay at for more than a night at a time, andI've been missing the chance of my life. I went up the way there an houror two since--Young Islay, a soldier, coarse, ashamed of sentiment, andnow I go down another man altogether. I would not say it to any one butyourself; you're a sort of sentimental person in a wholesale way;you'll understand. Eh, what? You'll understand!" He threw out his chest;breathed fully. "I'm a new man, I'm telling you. I wonder where the eyesof you fellows were?"

Even yet Gilian did not grudge Young Islay the elation that was somanifest. 

"You understand, we did not see much of her in these parts lately, muchmore than yourself. I have not seen her myself since she returned. Hasshe changed much?"

"Much!" exclaimed Young Islay, laughing. "My son! she is not the girl Iknew at all. When I went in there--into the room up, there you know, Iwas--I was--baffled to know her. I think I expected to see the same girlI had--I had--you mind, brought the boat out to, the same loose hair, the same--you know, I never expected to see a princess in Maam. Aprincess, mind you, and she looked all the more that because her unclemet me at the stair-foot as I was going in. A sour old scamp yon! He wasteasing out his beard, and, 'A nice piece there, ' said he, nodding atthe door, 'and I'm sure her father would be glad to have her off hishands. ' I laughed and----"

"I would have struck him on the jaw, " said Gilian with great heat. 

"Oh!" said Young Islay, astonishment in his voice. He said no more for alittle. Then, "I was not very well pleased myself with the remark whenI went into the room and saw the lady it referred to. You're not--you'renot chief in that quarter, are you?"

"Chief!" repeated Gilian. "You're ahead of me even in seeing the lady. "

"Oh well, that's all right, " said Young Islay, seemingly relieved. "Lookhere; I'm gone, that's the long and the short of it! I'm seeing a weekor two of hard work before me convincing her ladyship that a youngensign in a marching regiment is maybe worth her smiling on. "

Gilian turned cold with apprehension. This, indeed, was a revelation oflove-making in garrison fashion. 

"You don't know the girl at all, " he said. 

"So much the better, " said Young Islay; "that means that she does notknow me, and that's all the better start for me, perhaps. It's a greatadvantage, for I've noticed that they're all the most interested--thesex of them--in a novelty. I have a better chance than the best man inthese parts, that has been under her eye all the time I was away. I'llhave stiff work, perhaps, but I want her, and between ourselves, and notto make a brag of it, I'll have her. Youll not breathe that, " he added, turning in apprehension, stopping opposite Gilian and putting his handon his coat lapel. "I am wrong to mention it at all even to you, but Imust out with what I feel to somebody. The thing is dirling in myblood. Listen, do you hear that?" He threw out his chest again, heldhis breath, and Gilian could almost swear he heard his heart throb withfeeling. 

"Does she want you? That's the question, I suppose, " said Gilian weakly. 

"That is not the question at all, it's do I want her? There must be abeginning somewhere. Look at me; I'm strong, young, not very ugly (atleast they tell me), I'm the grandson of Long Islay, who had a name forgallantry; the girl has no lover--Has she?" he asked eagerly, suddenlydropping his confidence. 

"Not that I'm aware of, " said Gilian. 

"Well, there you are! What more is to be said? In these things one hasbut to wish and win--at least that's been my training and my conviction. Here she's lonely--I could see it in her; the company of her father isnot likely to be long for her, and her Uncle Jamie is not what you wouldcall a cheerful spark. Upon my soul, I believe I could get her if I wasa hunchback. . . . Mind, I'm not lightlying the lady; I could not do thatin this mood, but I'm fair taken with her; she beats all ever I saw. Youknow the feeling? No, you don't; you're too throng at book notions. God!God! God! I'm all ashake!"

He looked at Gilian, trying in the dark to make out how he was takingthis, to make sure he was not laughing at him. Gilian, on the contrary, was feeling very solemn. He felt that this was a dangerously effectivemood for a lover, and he knew the lad before him would always bringit to actual wooing if it got that length. He had no answer, and YoungIslay again believed him the abstracted dreamer. 

"I have this advantage, " he went on, unable to resist. "She likessoldiers; she said as much; it was in her mother and in her; she likesaction, she likes spirit. She has them herself in faith! she almostboxed my ears when--when--but I could swear she was rather tickled at myimpudence. "

"Your impudence!" repeated Gilian, "were you in that mood?"

"Oh, well, you know--I had the boldness to----

"To what?" said Gilian; apprehending some disaster. 

"Just a trifle, " said Young Islay, shrewdly affecting indifference. "Asoldier's compliment; we are too ready with them in barrack-yards, youknow. " And he sighed as he remembered the red ripe lips, the warm breathon his face, and the tingling influence of the skin he touched under thekerchief. 

They walked on in silence again for a while. The night grew dark withgathering clouds. Lights far out at sea showed the trailing fishers; aflaring torch told of a trawler's evening fortune made already. And soonthey were at the Duke's lodge and Gilian's way up Glen Aray lay beforehim. He was pausing to say good-night, confused, troubled by what he hadheard, feeling he must confess his own regard for the girl and not letthis comparative stranger so buoyantly outdo him in admiration. 

"Now, " said he, hesitating, "what would you think I was in Glen Shiramyself for?"

"Eh?" said Young Islay, scarcely hearing, and he hummed the refrain ofthe lady's song. 

"In Glen Shira; what was I doing there?" repeated Gilian. He wanted noanswer. "It was on the odd chance that I might see Miss Nan. We arenot altogether without some taste in these parts, though wanting theadvantage of travel and garrison gallantry. I was in the garden when youwere inside. I heard her singing, and I think I got closer on herselfand her song than you did. "

"My dear Gilian, " said Young Islay, "I once fought you for less thanthat. " He laughed as he said it. "If you mean, " he went on, "that youare in love with Miss Nan, that's nothing to wonder at, the miraclewould be for you to be indifferent. We're in the same hunt, are we then?Well, luck to the winner! I can say no fairer than that. Only you'llhave to look sharp, my boy, for I'm not going to lose any time, I assureyou. If you're going to do all your courtship of yon lady from outsideher window, you'll not make much progress, I'm thinking. Good-night;good-night!" He went off laughing, and when he had gone away a few yardsGilian, walking slowly homewards, heard him break whistling into the airthat Nan had sung in the parlour of Maam. 

CHAPTER XXVI--AGAIN IN THE GARDEN

Only for a single sleepless night was Gilian dashed by this evidencethat the world was not made up of Miss Nan and himself alone. Depressions weighed on him as briefly as the keener joys elated, andin a day or two his apprehension of Young Islay had worn to a thingossamer, and he was as ardent a lover as any one could be with whatstill was no more than a young lady of the imagination. And diligentlyhe sought a meeting. It used to be the wonder of Mr. Spencer of theInns, beholding this cobweb-headed youth continually coming through theArches and hanging expectant about the town-head, often the only figurethere in these hot silent days to give life to the empty scene. There isa stone at Old Islay's corner that yet one may see worn with the feet ofGilian, so often he stood there turning on his heel, lending a gaze tothe street where Nan might be, and another behind to the long road overthe bridge whence she must sometime come. Years after he would stopagain upon the blue slab and recall with a pensive pleasure those oldhours of expectation. 

For days he loitered in vain, the wonder of the Inns and itsfrequenters. Nan never appeared. To her father a letter had come; theDuke had come up on the back of it; there had been long discourse anda dram of claret wine in the parlour; the General came out when hisGrace's cantering horse had ceased its merry hollow sound upon thedry road to Dhu Loch, and breathed fully like one relieved from anoppression. Later Old Islay had come up, crabbed and snuffy, to gloweron Nan as he passed into the house behind her father, and come out anonsmiling and even joco with her, mentioning her by her Christian namelike the closest friend of the family. Then for reasons inscrutable herfather would have her constant in his sight, though it was only, as itseemed, to pleasure an averted eye. 

By-and-by Gilian turned his lucky flint one morning in a fortunateinspiration, and had no sooner done so than he remembered a veryplausible excuse for going to a farm at the very head of Glen Shira. Hestarted forth with the certainty, somehow, that he should meet the ladyat last. 

He had transacted his business and was on his way to the foot of theglen when he came upon her at Boshang Gate. Her back was to him; shewas looking out to sea, leaning upon the bars as if she were a wearyprisoner. 

She turned at the sound of his footstep, a stranger utterly to his eyesand imagination, but not to his instinct, her hair bound, her apparelmature and decorous, her demeanour womanly. And he had been looking allthe while for a little girl grown tall, with no external difference butthat!

She took an impulsive step towards him as he hesitated with his handdubious between his side and his bonnet, a pleasant, even an eager smileupon her face. 

"You are quite sure you are you?" she said, holding out her hand beforehe had time to say a word. "For I was standing there thinking of you, alittle white-faced fellow in a kilt, and here comes your elderly wraithat my back like one of Black Duncan's ghosts!"

"I would be the more certain it was myself, " he answered, "if you hadnot been so different from what I expected. "

"Oh! then you had not forgotten me altogether?" she said, waitingher answer, a mere beginner in coquetry emboldened to practice by theslightly rustic awkwardness of the lad. 

"Not--not altogether, " said he, unhappily accepting the common locutionof the town, that means always more than it says. 

A spark of humour flashed to merriment in her eyes and died to a demureember again before he noticed it. "Here's John Hielan'man, " she said toherself, and she recalled, not to Gilian's credit in the comparison, theeffrontery of Young Islay. 

The situation was a little awkward, for he held her hand too long, taking all the pleasure he could from a sudden conviction that in allthe times he had seen Glen Shira it had never seemed fully furnished andhabitable till now. This creature, so much the mistress of herself, anddainty and cheerful, made up for all its solitude; she was the one thing(he felt) wanting to make complete the landscape. 

Her blush and a feeble effort to disengage her hand brought him tohimself. 

"I am pleased to see you back, " said he shyly, as he released her. "Ihad not forgotten--oh no, I had not forgotten you. It would be easy toconvince you of that, I think, but in all my recollection of Miss NanI had more of the girl in the den of the _Jean_ in my mind than theEdinburgh lady. "

"You'll be meaning that I am old and--and pretty no longer, " said she. "Upon my word, you are honestly outspoken in these parts nowadays. " Shepouted, with lines of annoyance upon her brow, which seriously disturbedhim, and so obviously that she was compelled to laugh. 

Not a word could he find to say to raillery which was quite new to him, and so for the sake of both of them as they stood at the gate Miss Nanhad to ply an odd one-sided conversation till he found himself at hisease. By-and-by his shyness forsook him. 

The sun was declining; the odours of the traffic of peace blew from theland; one large and ruddy star lit over Strone. The fishers raised theirsails, and as their prows beat the sea they chanted the choruses of thewave. 

A recollection of all this having happened before seized them together;she looked at him with a smile upon her lips, and he was master of herthought before she had expressed it. 

"I know exactly what you are thinking of, " he said. 

"It was the odd thing about you that you often did, " she replied. "It'sa mercy you do not know it always, John Hielan'man, " she thought. 

"You are remembering the evening we walked in the Duke's garden, " hesaid. "It looks but yesterday, and I was a child, and now I'm as old--asold as the hills. " He looked vaguely with half-shut eyes upon thelooming round of Cowal, where Sitbean Sluaidhe was tipped with brass. "As old as the hills, " he went on, eager to display himself, and alsoto show he appreciated her advantages. "Do you know I begin to find themirksome? They close in and make a world so narrow here! I envy you theyears you have been away. In that time you have grown, mind and body, like a tree. I stunt, if not in body, at least in mind, here in theglens. "

She looked at him covertly with her face still half averted, and foundhim now more interesting than she had expected, touched with somethingof romance and mystery, his eyes with that unfathomed quality that tosome women makes a strange appeal. 

"One sees much among strangers, " she confessed. "I thought you had beenout of here long ago. You remember when I left for Edinburgh they talkedof the army for you?"

"The army, " he said, wincing imperceptibly. "Oh! that was thePaymaster's old notion. Once I almost fell in with it, and as odd athing as you could imagine put an end to the scheme. Do you know what itwas?" He glanced at her with a keen scrutiny. 

"No, tell me, " she said. 

"It was the very day we were here last, when the county corps movedoff to Stirling. I was in the rear of them very much a soldier indeed, shouldering a switch, feeling myself a Major-General at the very least, when a girl sitting on the gate there, waving a tiny shoe, caught myeye, drew me back from the troops I was following, and extinguished mymartial glory as if it were a flambeau thrown in the sea. I think thatwas the very last of the army for me. "

"I don't understand it, " she said. 

"Nor I, " he confessed frankly; "only there's the fact! All I know isthat you cut me off from every idea of the army then and there. I forgotall about it, and it had been possessing my mind for a week before, night and day. "

"I think I remember now that I told you, did I not, that you were notlikely to be a soldier because you could pretend it too well ever to bethe thing in actuality. "

"I remember that too. _Dhe!_ how the whole thing comes back! I wonder--"

"Well!" she pressed. 

"I wonder if we walked in the Duke's garden again, if we could restorethe very feelings of that time--the innocence and ignorance of it?"

"I don't know that I want to do so, " said she, laughing. 

"Might we not----" He paused, afraid of his own temerity. 

"Try it, you were going to say, " she continued. 

"You see I have little of your own gift. I'm willing. I am going to thetown, and we might as well go through the grounds as not. "

Something in his manner attracted her; even his simple deference, thoughshe was saying "John Hielan'man, John Hielan'man!" to herself most ofthe time and amused if not contemptuous. He was but a farmer--littlemore, indeed, than a shepherd, yet something in his air and all hisspeech showed him superior to his circumstances. He was a god-send toher dreariness in this place Edinburgh and the noisy world had made herfretful of, and she was in the mood for escapade. 

They walked into the policies, that were no way changed. Still theflowers grew thick on the dykes; the tall trees swayed their boughs:still the same, and yet for Gilian there was, in that faint tinge ofyellow in the leaves, some sorrow he had not guessed in the day theywere trying to recall. 

"It is all just as it was, " said she. "All just as it was; there are thevery flowers I plucked, " and she bent and plucked them again. 

"We can never pluck our flowers twice, " said he. "The flowers yougathered then are ghosts. "

"Not a bit, " said she. "Here they are re-born, " and she went as beforefrom bush to bush and bank to bank, humming a strain of sailor song. 

They went under the trees on which he had fancied his heron's nest, andthey looked at each other, laughing. 

"Wasn't I a young fool?" he asked. "I was full of dream and conceit inthose days. "

"And now?" she asked, burying her face in the flowers and eyeing himwonderingly. 

"Oh, now, " said he, "I have lost every illusion. " "Or changed themfor others, perhaps. " He started at the suggestion. "I suppose you areright, after all, " he said. "I'm still in a measure the child of fancy. This countryside moves me--I could tenant it with a thousand tales;never a wood or thicket in it but is full of song. I love it all, andyet it is my torture. When I was a child the Paymaster once got me onthe bridge crying my eyes out over the screech of a curlew--that hasbeen me all through life--I must be wondering at the hidden meaningsof things. The wind in the winter trees, the gossip of the rivers, thetrail of clouds, waves washing the shore at night--all these things havea tremendous importance to me. And I must laugh to see my neighboursmaking a to-do about a mercantile bargain. Well, I suppose it is the oldHighlands in me, as Miss Mary says. " "I have felt a little of it in asong, " said Nan. "You could scarce do otherwise to sing them as you do, "he answered. "I never heard you yet but you had the magic key for everygarden of fancy. One note, one phrase of yours comes up over and overagain that seems to me filled with the longings of thousand years. "

He turned on her suddenly a face strenuous, eyes led with passion. 

"I wish! I wish!" said he all fervent, "I wish could fathom the womanwithin. "

"Here she's on the surface, " said Nan, a little impatiently, arrangingher flowers. And then she looked him straight in the eyes. "Ladyfieldseems a poor academy, " she said, "if it taught you but to speculate onthings unfathomable. I always preferred the doer to the dreamer. Themind of man is a far more interesting thing than the song of the riverI'm thinking, or the trailing of mist. And woman----" she laughed andpaused. 

"Well?" He eyed her robust and wholesome figure. 

"Should I expose my sex, John Hielan'man, or should I not?" shereflected with an amused look in her face yet. "Never bother to lookbelow the surface for us, " she said. "We are better pleased, and youwill speed the quicker to take us for what we seem. What matters of usis--as it is with men too--plain enough on the surface. Dear, dear! whatnonsense to be on! You are far too much of the mist and mountain for me. As if I had not plenty of them up in Maam! Oh! I grow sick of them!" Shebegan to walk faster, forgetting his company in the sudden remembranceof her troubles; and he strode awkwardly at her heels, not verydignified, like a menial overlooked. "They hang about the place like amenace, " said she. "No wonder mother died! If she was like me she musthave been heart-broken when father left her to face these solitudes. "

"It is so, it is so, " confessed the lad. "But they would not bewearisome with love. With love in that valley it would smile like anIndian plain. "

"How do _you_ ken?" said she, stopping suddenly at this. 

"It would make habitable and even pleasant, " said he, "a dwelling whereage and bitterness had their abode. "

"Faith, you're not so blate as I thought you!" she said, setting asidethe last of her affected shy simplicity. 

"Blate!" he repeated, "I would not have thought that was my failing. AmI not cracking away to you like an old wife?"

"Just to hide the blateness of you, " she answered. "You may go to greatdepths with hills and heughs and mists--and possibly with women too whenyou get the chance, but, my dear Gilian, you're terribly shallow to anywoman with an eye in her head. "

"Did you say 'Gilian'?" he asked, stopping and looking at her with ahigh colour. 

"Did I?" she repeated, biting her lips. "What liberty!"

"No, no, " he cried----

"I thought myself young enough to venture it; but, of course, if youobject----"

He looked at her helplessly, realising that she was making fun of him, and she laughed. All her assurance was back to her, she knew the younggentleman was one she could twist round her little finger. 

"Well, well, " she went on after a silence, "you seem poorly providedwith small talk. In Edinburgh, now, a young man with your chances wouldbe making love to me by this time. "

He stared at her aghast. "But, but----"

"But I would not permit it, of course not! We were brought up veryparticularly in Miss Simpson's, I can assure you. " This with a primtightening of her lips and a severity that any other than our dreamerwould have understood. To Nan there came a delight in this play withan intelligence she knew so keen, though different from her own. It waswith a holiday feeling she laughed and shone, mischievously eyeinghim and trying him with badinage as they penetrated deeper into thepolicies. 

They reached the Lady's Linn, but did not repeat old history to theextent of seating themselves on the banks, though Gilian half suggestedit in a momentary boldness. 

"No, no, " said she. "We were taught better than that in Miss Simpson's. And fancy the risks of rheumatism! You told me one of Gillesbeg Aotram'sstories here; what was it again?"

He repeated the tale of the King of Knapdale's Daughter. She listenedattentively, sometimes amused at his earnestness, that sat on himgaukily, sometimes serious enough, touched with the poetry he could putinto the narrative. 

"It is a kind of gruesome fable, " she said when he was done, and sheshuddered slightly. "The other brother was Death, wasn't he? When youtold it to me last I did not understand. "

They walked on through the intersecting paths whose maze had sobewildered them before: "After all, it is not a bit like what it was, "said she. "I thought it would take a wizard to get out of here, and nowI can see over the bushes and the sea is in sight all the time. "

"Just so, " he answered, "but you could see over no bushes in those days, and more's the pity that you can see over them now, in the Duke's gardenas well as in life, for it's only one more dream spoiled, my dear Nan. "

"Oh! there is not much blateness there! You are coming on, JohnHielan'man. " But this was to herself. 

"Then to you this is just the same as when we lost our way?"

"The same and not all the same, " he admitted. "I can make it exactly thesame if I forgot to look at you, for that means sensations I never knewthen. I cannot forget the place has been here night and day, summerand winter, rain and sun, since we last were in it, and time makes nodifference; it is the same place. But it is not the same in some otherway, some sad way I cannot explain. "

The night was full of the fragrance of flowers and the foreign trees. There was no breath of wind. They were shades in some garden of dreamcompelled to stand and ponder for ever in an eternal night of numerousbeneficent stars. No sound manifested except the lady's breathing, thatto another than the dreamer would have told an old and wholesome Panicstory, for her bosom heaved, that breath was sweeter than the flowers. And the dryads, no whit older as they swung among the trees, still allchildless, must have laughed at this revelation of an age of dream. Thanthat sound of maiden interest, and the far-off murmur of the streamsthat fell seaward from the woody hills, there was at first no otherrumour to the ear. 

"Listen, " said Gilian again, and he turned an anxious ear towards thatgrey grassy sea. His hand grasped possessingly the lady's arm. 

"Faith, and you are _not_ blate, " said she whimsically, but indifferentto remove herself from a grasp so innocent. 

She listened. The far bounds of the lawn were lost in gloom, in itsmidst stood up vague in the dusk a great druidic stone. And at last shecould distinguish faintly, far-away, as by some new sense, a murmur ofthe twilight universe, the never-ending moan of this travailing nature. A moment, then her senses lost it, and Gilian yet stood in his raptattention. She withdrew her arm gently. 

"Hush, hush!" he said. "Do you not fancy you hear a discourse?"

"I do?" she answered a little impatiently, but not without a kindlysense of laughter as at a child "Bees and midges, late things likeourselves. You are not going to tell me they are your fairies. "

"They are, of course they are, " he protested, laughing. "At least asecond ago I could have sworn they were the same that gave me my dreadon the night the Cornal met us. Even yet"--his humour came back--"evenyet I fear to interrupt their convocations. Let us go round by the otherpath. "

"What, and waste ten minutes more!" she cried "Follow me, follow me!"

And she sped swiftly over the trim grass, bruising the odours of thenight below her dainty feet He followed, chagrined, ashamed of himself, very much awake and practical, realising how stupid if not idiotic allhis conversation must seem to her. Where was the mutual exchange ofsentiments on books, poetry, life? He had thrown away his opportunity. He overtook her in a few steps, and tore the leaves from his story bookagain to please or to deceive the Philistine. 

"I thought we could bring it all back again--that was the object of myrhapsody, and you seem to have kept good memory of the past. "

They were under the lamps of the lodge gates. She eyed him shrewdly. 

"And you do not believe these things yourself? So? I have my own notionsabout that. Do you know I begin to think you must be a poet. Have youever written anything?"

He found himself extremely warm. Her question for the first timesuggested his own possibilities. No, he had never made poetry, heconfessed, though he had often felt it, as good as some of the poetry hehad read in Marget Maclean's books that were still the favourites of hisleisure hours. 

"It'll be in that like other things, " she said with some sense of herown cruelty. "You must be dreaming it when you might be making it. "

"I never had the inspiration----"

"What, you say that to a lady who has been talking fair to you!" shepointed out. 

"But now, of course---"

"Just the weather, Gilian, " she hastened to interject. "A bonny nightwith stars, the scent of flower, a misty garden--I could find someinspiration in them myself for poetry, and I make no pretence at it. "

"There was a little more, " he said meaningly; "but no matter, that maywait, " and he proceeded immediately to the making of a poem as he went, the subject a night of stars and a maiden. They had got into the darkupper end of the town overhung by the avenue trees, the lands werespotted with the lemon lights of the evening candles, choruses came fromthe New Inns where fishermen from Cowal met to spend a shilling ortwo in the illusion of joy. Mr. Spencer saw them as he passed and wassuffused by a kindly glow of uncommon romance. He saw, as he thought, apair made for each other because they were of an age and of a size (asif that meant much); what should they be but lovers coming from thegardens of Duke George in such a night and the very heavens twinklingwith the courtship of the stars? He looked and sighed. Far off in thesouth was an old tale of his own; the lady upstairs eternally whiningbecause she must be banished to the wilds away from her roaring nativecity was not in it. "Lucky lad!" said he to himself. "He is not so shyas we thought him. " They came for a moment under the influence of theswinging lamp above his door, then passed into the dusk. He went intohis public room, and "Mary, " he cried to a maid, "a little drop of theFrench for Sergeant Cameron and me. You will allow me, Sergeant? I feela little need of an evening brace. " And he drank, for the sake of bygonedusks, with his customer. 

Nan and Gilian now walked on the pavement, a discreet distance apart. She stopped at the mantua-makers door. He lingered on the parting, eagerto prolong it. The street was deserted; from the Sergeant More's camethe sound of song; some fallen leaves ran crisp along the stones, blownby an air of wind. He had her by the hand, still loath to leave, whensuddenly the door of the mantua-maker's opened and out came a littlewoman, who, plunging from the splendour of two penny dips into the outermirk, ran into his arms before she noticed his presence. She drew backwith an apology uttered in Gaelic in her hurried perturbation. It wasMiss Mary. 

"Auntie, " he said, no more. 

She glanced at his companion and started as if in fear, shivered, putout a hand and bade her welcome home. 

"Dear me! Miss Nan, " said she, "amn't I proud to see you back? Whata tall lady you have grown, and so like--so like----" She stoppedembarrassed. 

Her hand had gone with an excess of kindness upon the girl's arm ere sheremembered all that lay between them and the heyday of another Nan thanthis. Of Gilian she seemed to take no notice, which much surprised himwith a sense of something wanting. 

At last they parted, and he went up with Miss Mary to the Paymaster'shouse. 

CHAPTER XXVII--ALARM

Nan's uncle, moving with hopeless and dragging steps about the sidesof Maam hill, ruminating constantly on nature's caprice with sheep andcrop, man's injustice, the poverty of barns, the discomforts of seasons, nourishing his sour self on reflections upon all life's dolours, wouldbe coming after that for days upon the girl and Gilian gathering berriesor on some such childish diversion in the woods behind the river. Agaunt, bowed man in the decline of years, with a grey tangle of beard--afashion deemed untidy where the razor was on every other man's face--helooked like a satyr of the trees, when he first came to the view ofGilian. He saw those young ones from remote vistas of the trees, or fromabove them in cliffs as they plucked the boughs. In lanes of greenwoodhe would peer in questioning and silent, and there he was certain tofind them as close as lovers, though, had he known it, there was neverword of love. And though Gilian was still, for the sake of a worn-outfeud with the house of the Paymaster, no visitor to Maam, that saturnineuncle would say nothing. For a little he would look, they uncomfortable, then he would smile most grim, a satyr, as Gilian told himself, morethan ever. 

He came upon them often. Now it would be at the berries, now among thebulrushes of Dhu Loch. They strayed like children. Often, I say, forGilian had no sooner hurried through his work in these days than he wasoff in the afternoon, and, on some pretence, would meet the girl on atryst of her own making. She was indifferent--I have no excuse for her, and she's my poor heroine--about his wasted hours so long as she hadher days illumined by some flicker of life and youth. He never knewhow often it was from weeping over a letter from Edinburgh, or a songfamiliar elsewhere, upon the harpsichord, she would come out to meethim. All she wanted was the adventure, though she did not understandthis herself. If no one else in a bonnet came to Maam--and Young Islaywas for reasons away in the Lowlands--this dreamer of the wild, withthe unreadable but eloquent face and the mysterious moods would do verywell. I will not deny that there might even be affection in her trysts. So far as she knew they were no different from trysts made by reallovers elsewhere since the start of time, for lovers have ever beenmeeting in the woods of these glens without saying to each other why. 

Gilian went little to town in that weather, he was getting creditwith Miss Mary, if not with her brothers, for a new interest in hisprofession. Nor did Nan. Her father did not let her go much withouthimself, he had his own reasons for keeping her from hearing the gossipof the streets. 

A week or two passed. The corn, in the badger's moon, yellowed andhung; silent days of heat haze, all breathless, came on the country;the stubble fields filled at evening with great flights of birds movingsouth. A spirit like Nan's, that must ever be in motion, could not butirk to share such a doleful season; she went more than ever aboutthe house of Maam sighing for lost companions, and a future not to beguessed at. Only she would cheer up when she had her duties done for theafternoon and could run out to the hillside to meet Gilian if he werethere. 

She was thus running, actually with a song on her lips, one day, whenshe ran into the arms of her uncle as he came round the corner of thebarn. 

"Where away?" said he shortly, putting her before him, with his handsupon her shoulders. 

She reddened, but answered promptly, for there was nothing clandestinein her meetings on the bare hillside with Gilian. 

"The berries again, " she said. "Some of the people from Glen Aray arecoming over. "

"Some of the people, " he repeated ironically; "that means one particulargentleman. My lassie, there's an end coming to that. "

He drew a large-jointed coarse hand through his tangled beard andchuckled to himself. 

"Are you aware of that?" he went on. "An end coming to it. Oh! I seethings; I'm no fool: I could have told your father long ago, but he'sputting an end to it in his own way, and for his own reasons. "

"I have no idea what you mean, " she said, surprised at the portentoustone. She was not a bit afraid of him, though he was so little insympathy with her youth, so apparently in antagonism to her. 

"What would you say to a man?" he asked cunningly. 

"It would depend, uncle, " she said readily and cheerfully, though asudden apprehension smote her at the heart. "It would depend on what hesaid to me first. "

The old man grinned callously as the only person in the secret. 

"Suppose he said: 'Come away home, wife, I've paid a bonny penny forye'?"

"Perhaps I would say, if I was in very good humour at the time, 'You'vegot a bonny wife for your bonny penny. ' More likely I would be throwingsomething at him, for I have my Uncle Jamie's temper they say, but I'mnobody's wife, and for want of the asking I'm not likely to be. "

"Well, we'll see, " said the uncle oracularly. Then abruptly, "Have youheard that your father's got an appointment?"

"I--I heard just a hint of it, of course he has not told me all aboutit yet, " she answered with a readiness that surprised herself when shereflected on it later, for the news now so unexpectedly given her in themomentary irritation of the old man was news indeed, and though she wasunwilling to let him see that it was so, a tremendous oppression seizedher; now she was to be lonely indeed. Half uttering her thoughts shesaid, "I'll sooner go with him than stay here and----"

"Oh, there's no going yonder, " said the uncle. "Sierra Leone is not ahealthy clime for men, let alone for women. That's where the man comesin. He could hardly leave you alone to stravaige about the hills therewith all sorts of people from Glen Aray. "

"The white man's grave!" said she, appalled. 

"Ay!" said he, "but he's no ordinary white man; he's of good stock. "

"And--and--he has found a man for me, " she said bitterly. "Could I notbe left to find one for myself?"

Her uncle laughed his hoarse rude laugh again, and still combed histangled beard. 

"Not to his fancy, " he answered. "It's not every one who would suit. " Hesmiled grimly--a wicked elder man. "It's not every one would suit, " herepeated--as if he was anxious to let the full significance of whathe meant sink to her understanding. And he combed his rough beard withlarge-jointed knotted fingers, and looked from under his heavy eyebrows. 

"Seeing the business is so commercial, " said she, "I'm sure that betweenthe two of you you will make a good bargain. I am not sure but I mightbe glad to be anywhere out of this if father's gone and I not withhim. " She said it with outer equanimity, and unable to face him a momentlonger without betraying her shame and indignation, she left him andwent to the corn-field where Black Duncan was working alone. 

That dark mariner was to some extent a grieved sharer of her solitudein Maam. The loss of the _Jean_ on Ealan Dubh had sundered him for everfrom his life of voyaging. The distant ports in whose dusks wild beastsroared and spices filled the air were far back in another life forhim; even the little trips to the Clyde were, in the regrets of memory, experiences most precious. Now he had to wear thick shoes on the hill ofMaam or sweat like a common son of the shore in the harvest-fields. At night upon his pillow in the barn loft he would lie and mourn forunreturning days and loud and clamorous experience. Or at morning erehe started the work of the day he would ascend the little tulloch behindthe house and look far off at a patch of blue--the inner arm of theocean. 

Nan found him in one of his cranky moods, fretful at circumstances, and at her father who kept him there on the shore, and had no word ofanother ship to take the place of the _Jean_. Of late he had been worsethan usual, for he had learned that the master was bound for abroad, andthough he was a sure pensioner so long as Maam held together, it meanthis eternal severance from the sea and ships. 

Nan threw herself upon the grass beside him as he twisted hay-bands forthe stacks, and said no more than "Good afternoon" for a little. 

He gloomed at her, and hissed between his teeth a Skye pibroch. For atime he would have her believe he was paying no attention, but ever andanon he would let slip a glance of inquiry from the corner of hiseyes. He was not too intent upon his own grievances to see that she wastroubled with hers, but he knew her well enough to know that she mustintroduce them herself if they were to be introduced at all. 

He changed his tune, let a little more affability come into his face, and it was an old air of her childhood on the _Jean_ he had at hislips. As he whistled it he saw a little moisture at her eyes; she wasrecalling the lost old happiness of the days when she had gone aboutwith that song at her lips. But he knew her better than to show that heperceived it. 

"Have you heard that father's going away, Duncan?" she asked in alittle. 

"I have been hearing that for five years, " said he shortly. He had notthought her worries would have been his own like this. 

"Yes, but this time he goes. "

"So they're telling me, " said Black Duncan. 

He busied himself more closely than ever with his occupation. 

"Do you think he should be taking me?" she asked in a little. 

He stopped his work immediately, and looked up startled. 

"The worst curse!" said he in Gaelic. "He could not be doing that. Hegoes to the Gold Coast. Do I not know it--the white man's grave?"

"But this Glen Shira, " said she, pretending merriment, "it's the whitegirl's grave for me, Duncan. Should not I be glad to be getting outof it?" And now her eyes were suffused with tears though her lips weresmiling. 

"I know, I know, " said he, casting a glance up that lone valley that wasso much their common grief. "And could we not be worse? I'm sure BlackDuncan, reared in a bothy in Skye, who has been tossed by the sea, andbeen wet and dry in all airts of the world, would be a very thanklessman if he was not pleased to be here safe and comfortable, on a steadybed at night, and not heeding the wind nor the storm no more than if hewas a skart. "

"Oh! you're glad enough to be here, then?" said she. 

"Am I?" said he. And he sighed, so comical a sound from that hardmariner that she could not but laugh in spite of the anxietiesoppressing her. 

"I'm not going with him, " she proceeded. 

"I know, " said he. "At least I heard--I heard otherwise, and I wonderedwhen you said it, thinking perhaps you had made him change his mind. "

"You thought I had made him change--what do you mean?" she pressed, feeling herself on the verge of an explanation, but determined not toask directly. 

Black Duncan became cautious. 

"You need not be asking me anything: I know nothing about it, " said heshortly. "I am very busy--I----" He hissed at his work more strenuouslythan ever. 

Then Nan knew he was not to be got at that way. 

"Oh, well, never mind, " said she; "tell me a story. "

"I have no time just now, " he answered. 

Nan's uncle came round the corner of the dyke, no sound from hisfootsteps, his hands in his pockets, his brows lowering. He looked atthe two of them and surmised the reason of Nan's discourse with BlackDuncan. 

"Women--" said he to himself vaguely. "Women--" said he, pausing fora phrase to express many commingled sentiments he had as to theirunnecessity, their aggravation, and his suspicion of them. He did notfind the right one. He lifted his hand, stroked again the tangled beard, then made a gesture, a large animal gesture--still the satyr--to thesky. He turned and went down to the riverside. Mid-way he paused andstroked his beard again, and looked grimly up at where the maid andthe manservant were blue-black against the evening sky. He shrugged hisshoulders, "Women, " said he, "they make trouble. I wish--I wish----" Hehad no word to finish the sentence with, he but sighed and proceeded onhis way. 

Nan seemed to be lazily watching his figure as she sat in the grass, herself observed by Black Duncan. But she really saw him not. 

"Ah well! never mind the story, Duncan, " she said at last; "I know youare tired and not in the mood for _sguullachd_, and if you like I willsing you my song. "

"You randy!" he said to himself, "you are going to have it out of me, mydear. " And he bent the more industriously to his task. 

"Stop! stop!" he cried before she had got halfway through the old songof "The Rover. " "Stop! stop!" said he. He threw the binding bands fromhim and faced the crimson west, with his back to her. 

"Any port but that, my dear! If you are grieving because you think youare going abroad you need not be anything of the kind, my leddy. Thisis the place for you, about your father's door and him away where thefevers are--aye and the harbours too with diversions in every one ofthem. "

"And Uncle Jamie's going to keep me, is he?" said she. "Lucky me! I wasaye so fond of gaiety, you mind. "

"Whoever it is that's to keep you it might be worse, " said he. 

"Then there's somebody. "

"Somebody, " he repeated; "the cleverest young----"

"Stop! stop!" she cried, rising suddenly to her feet; "do not dare tomention a name; spare me that. "

He looked at her in amazement. 

"Do you think I'm a stone, Duncan?"

"You would not be asking me that twice if I was younger myself, " he saidredly, looking at her fine figure, the blush like a sunset on her neck, the palpitation of her bosom, the flash and menace of her eyes. 

"Well, well, well, go on, tell me more, " she cried when she hadrecovered herself. "What more is there?"

"You are the one that should know most, " said he. 

"I know nothing at all, " she answered bitterly. "It seems thatnowadays the lady is the last to be taken into confidence about her ownmarriage. "

"Are you telling me?" he asked incredulously. 

"I'm swearing it down your throat, " she cried. "If I had a friend inthis countryside he would be pitying my shame that I must be bargainedfor like beast at a fair and not have a word in the bargain. "

"My name's what my name may be, " said he, putting out an arm andaddressing the world, "and you are my master's daughter; I would cut offthat hand to save you a minute's vexation. What did Black Duncan knowbut that you had the picking of the gentleman yourself--and you mighthave picked worse, though I tell you I did not care to hear about themoney in it. "

"The money, " she exclaimed, turning pale to the lips; "then--then--thenthere's money in it?"

"He's a smart young fellow----"

"No name, no name, or you are no friend of mine! Money, you say?"

"I could have picked no better for you myself. "

"Did you say money?"

"I thought once there might be something. "

"Money, money, " she repeated to herself. 

"A tocher should not be all on one side, " said he, "and I know thegentleman would be glad to have you----"

"Perhaps the whole countryside knows more about it than I do; it couldscarcely know less. I wondered why they were looking at me in the churchon Sunday. Oh! I feel black burning shame--shame--shame!"

She put her hands to her face to hide her tears; she trembled in everypart. 

"They know; the cries are in at least, " said Duncan. 

"The cries! the cries!" she repeated. "Is my fate so near at hand asthat?"

"You'll be a married woman before the General takes the road, " said he. 

She took her hands from her face; her eyes froze and snapped, cold asice, the very redness of her weeping cooling pale in her passion. Shehad no words to utter; she left him hurriedly, and ran fast into thehouse. 

CHAPTER XXVIII--GILIAN'S OPPORTUNITY

Her father was at the door when she went in. Now for the first time sheknew the reason for his change of manner lately, for that bustle abouttrivial affairs when she was near, that averted eye when she wasfond and humorous. She went past him, unable to speak more than anindifferent word, and great was his relief at that, for he had beenstanding there bracing his courage to consult her on what she must betold of sooner or later. He looked after her as she sped upstairs. "Iwonder how she'll take it?" he said to himself, greatly perplexed. "Afather has some unco' tasks to perform, and here's a father not verywell fitted by nature for the management of a daughter. " He took off hishat and dried a clammy brow that showed how much the duty postponed hadbeen disturbing him. "It's for the best, but it's a vulgar business eventhen. If it was her uncle, now, he would wake her out of her sleep totell her the news. Poor girl, poor girl! I wish she had her mother. "

He went into the barn, where corn was piling up, the straw filling thegloomy gable-ends with rustling gold. Loud he stormed among some workersthere; loud he stormed, for him a thing unusual; and they bent silentto their work and looked at one another knowingly, sensible that hewas ashamed of himself. Sitting dry-eyed on the edge of her bed, Nanreflected upon her next step. At a cast of her mind round all thecountryside she could think of no woman to turn to in this trouble, andonly with a woman could she share it. Her pride first, and then the fearof her father's anger, left her only certain limits in which to operate. Her pride would not let her even show curiosity in the identity of theman who was to be her doom, nor confess to another that she did not knowhis name. And the whole parish, if it was acquainted with her sale (asnow she deemed it), must be her enemy. Against any other outrage thanthis she would have gone straight to her father. He that she loved andcaressed, on whose knees sometimes even yet she sat, would not be deafto any ordinary plea or protest of hers. She would need but to nestle inhis arms, and loose and tie the antique queue, and perhaps steal akiss willingly surrendered, and all would be well But this, all herinstincts, all her knowledge of her father told her, was no ordinarydecision of his. He had gone too far to draw back. The world knew it;he feared to face her because for once to please her he could not cancelwhat was done. There was no hope, she told herself, in that direction;even if there was she would not have gone there, for the sordid horrorof this transaction put a gulf between them. Feverishly she turned overher lowland letters, and there she found but records of easy heart andgaiety; no sacrificing friends were offering themselves in the pagesshe had mourned over in her moods of evening loneliness. And again shebrought her mind back to her own country, and sitting still dry-eyed, with a burning skin, upon her bed, reviewed her relatives and friends, weighing which would be most like to help her. 

She almost laughed when she found she had reduced all at last to oneeligible--Elasaid, her old Skye nurse, and the mother of Black Duncan, who was in what was called the last of the shealings, by the lochs ofKarnes. Many a time her mother had gone to the shealing a young matronfor motherly counsel, but Nan herself had never been there, thoughElasaid had come to Nan to nurse her when her mother died. In theshealing, she felt sure, there was not only counsel, but concealment ifoccasion demanded that. 

But how was she to get there, lost as it was somewhere miles beyond thecorner of the Salachary hill, in the wild red moors between the two bigwaters?

First she thought of Young Islay--first and with a gladness at the senseof his sufficiency in such an enterprise. His was the right nature forknight-errantry in a case like hers, but then she reflected that he wasaway from home--her father had casually let that drop in conversationat breakfast yesterday; and even if he had been at home, said coolerthought, she would hesitate to enlist him in so sordid a cause. 

Then Gilian occurred--less well adapted, she felt, for thecircumstances; but she could speak more freely to him than to any other, and he was out there in the hazel-wood, no doubt, still waiting forher. Gilian would do, Gilian would have to do. If he could have seen howunimpassioned she was in coming to this conclusion he would have beengrieved. 

She went out at once, leisurely and with her thoughts constrainedupon some unimportant matter, so that her face might not betray hertribulation when she met him. 

In the low fields her uncle was scanning the hills with his hands archedabove his eyes to shield them from the glare of the westering sun, groaning for the senselessness of sheep that must go roaming onaltitudes when they are wanted specially in the plains. She evaded hissupercilious eyes by going round the hedges, and in ten minutes she cameupon Gilian, waiting patiently for her to keep her own tryst. His firstwords showed her the way to a speedy explanation. 

"Next week, " said he, "we'll try Strongara; the place is as full ofberries as the night is full of stars. Here they're not so ripe as onthe other side. "

"Next week the berries might be as numerous as that at the very door ofMaam, " said she, "and I none the better for them. "

"What's the matter?" he cried, appalled at the omen of her face. 

"My father is going abroad at once, " she answered. 

"Abroad?" he repeated. He had a branch of bramble in his hand, pluckedfor the crimson of its leafage. He drew it through his hands and thethorns bled the palms, but he never felt the pain. She was going too!She was going away from Maam! He might never see her again! These latedays of tryst and happiness in the woods and on the hills were to be atan end, and he was again to be quite alone among his sheep with no voiceto think on expectantly in slow-passing forenoons, and no light to shinelike a friendly eye from Maam in evening dusks!

"Well, " she said, looking curiously at him. "My father is going abroad, have you heard?"

"I have not, " he answered; and she was relieved, for in that case he hadnot learned the full ignominy of her story. 

"Can you not say so little as 'good luck' to us?" she asked in herlightest manner. 

"You--you are going with him, then?" said Gilian, and he delighted inthe sharp torture of the thorns that bled his hands. 

"No, " she answered, "it's worse than that, for I stay. You have notheard? Then you are the only one in the parish, I am sure, so ignorantof my poor business. They're--they're looking for a man for me. Is itnot a pretty thing, Gilian?" She laughed with a bitterness that shockedhim. "Is it not a pretty thing, Gilian?" she went on. "I'm wonderingthey did not lead me on a halter round the country and take the bestoffer at a fair I It was throwing away good chances to give me to thefirst offerer, was it not, Gilian?"

"Who is it?" he asked, every nerve jarring at the story. 

"Do you think I would ask?" she said sharply. "It does not matter who itis; and it is the last thing I would like to know, for then I would knowwho knew my price in the market. "

"Your father would never do it!"

"My father would not do but what he thought he must. He is poor, thoughI never thought him so poor as this; and I daresay he would like to seeme settled before he goes. It is the black settling when I'm cried inthe kirk before I'm courted. "

"They can never marry you against your will, " said Gilian in a dull, lifeless way, as if he had no great belief in what he laid forth. 

"And that would be true, " she said, "if I had a friend in the wholecountryside. I have not one except----"

He flushed and waited, and so did she expectantly, thinking hewould make the fervent protest most lads would do under the samecircumstances. But in the moment's pause he could not find the words forhis profound feeling. 

"Except old Elasaid, the nurse on the Kames moor, " she continued. 

"Oh, her!" said he lamely. 

"There's no one else I could think of. "

"Look at me, " he cried; "look at me; am I not your true friend? Iwill do anything in the world for you. " But he still went on torturinghimself with his bramble branch, the most insensible of lovers. 

She was annoyed at his want of the commonest courage or tact. "JohnHielan'man! John Hielan'-man!" she said inwardly, trying a littlecoquetry of the downcast eyes to tempt him. For now she was desolatethat she almost loved this gawky youth throbbing in sympathy with hertribulation. 

"I believe you are my true friend, I believe you arc my true friend, andthere is no one else, " she said, blushing now with no coquetry, and ifhe had not been a fool and his fate against him, he might at a hand'smovement or a word have had her in his arms. The word to say wassounding loud and strong within him; he took her (only, alas! in fancy)to his breast, but what was she the wiser?

"And I can do nothing?" he said pitifully. "Nothing!" said she; "youcan do everything. " "Show me how, then, " he said eagerly. She had beengazing away from him with her eyes on Maam, that looked so sombre ahome, and was certainly now so cruel a home, and she turned then, almostweeping, her breath rising and falling, audible to his ear, the sweetestof sounds. 

"Will you take me away from here?" she asked in entreaty. "I must goaway from here. "

"I will take you anywhere you wish, " said he. 

He held out his hands in a gesture of sudden offering, and she felta happiness as one who comes upon a familiar and kind face allunexpectedly in a strange country. Her face betrayed her gladness. 

"I will take you, and who would be better pleased?" said Gilian. 

She explained her intention briefly. She must leave Maam at the latestto-morrow night without being observed, and he must show her the way toElasaid's shealing. 

"Ah! give me the right, " he said, "and I will take you to the world'send. " He put out his hands and nigh encircled her, but shyness sent himback to a calmer distance. 

"John Hielan'man!" she repeated to herself, annoyed at this tardiness, but she outwardly showed no knowledge of it. 

They planned what only half in fun she called their elopement. He was tocome across to Maam in the early morning. 

CHAPTER XXIX--THE ELOPEMENT

He had ideas of his own as to how this enterprise should be conducted, but on Nan's advice he had gone about it in the fashion of MargetMaclean's novels, even to the ladder. It was not a rope ladder, but acommon one of wood that Black Duncan was accustomed to use for ascent tohis sleep in the loft. 

Gilian, apprised by Nan of its exact situation, crept breathlessly intothe barn, left his lantern at the door, and felt around with searchingfingers. The place was all silent but for the seaman's snores as heslept the sleep of a landsman upon his coarse pallet. Outside a cockcrew; its sudden alarm brought the sweat to Gilian's brow; he clutchedwith blind instinct, found what he wanted, turned and hastened from thedusty barn. 

The house of Maam was jet-black among its trees, no light peeped even inNan's room. 

Carefully he put the ladder against the wall beneath her window, and ashe did so he fancied he heard a movement above. He stood with his handon one of the rungs, dubious, hesitating. For the first time a senseof the risks of the adventure swept into that mind of his, always themonopoly of imagination and the actor. He was ashamed to find himselfhalf-wishing she might not come. He tried to think it was all a dream, and he pinched his arm to try and waken himself. But the blank blackwalls of Maam confronted him; the river was crying in its reeds; it wasa real adventure that must be gone on with. 

He lit the lantern. Through the open door of it as he did so the floodof light revealed his face anxious and haggard, his eyes uncertain. Heclosed the lantern and looked around. 

Through the myriad holes that pierced the tin, pin-points of fire lancedthe night, streaming in all directions, throwing the front of the houseat once into cold relief with a rasping, harled, lime surface. Thebushes were big masses of shade; the trees, a little more remote, seemedto watch him with an irony that made him half ashamed. What an appallingnight! Over him came the sentiments of the robber, the marauder, themurderer. As he held the lantern on his finger a faint wind swung it, and its lances of light danced rhythmic through the gloom. He put itunder his plaid, and prepared to give the signal whistle. For the lifeof him he could not give it utterance; his lips seemed to have frozen, not with fear, for he was calm in that way, but with some comminglingof emotions where fear was not at all. When he gave breath to hishesitating lips, it went through inaudible. 

What he might have done then may only be guessed, for the opening of thewindow overhead brought an end to his hesitation. 

"Is it you?" said Nan's voice, just a little revealing her anxiety inits whisper. He could not see her now that his lantern was concealed, but he looked up and fancied her eyes were shining more lambent than hisown lantern that smelled unpleasantly. 

He wet his lips with his tongue. "The ladder is ready; it's up againstyour window, don't you see it?" he said, also whispering, but astoundedat the volume of his voice. 

"Tuts!" she exclaimed impatiently, "why don't you show a light? How canI see it without a light?"

"Dare I?" he asked, astonished. 

"Dare! dare! Oh dear!" she repeated. "Am I to do the daring and break myneck perhaps?"

Out flashed the lantern from beneath his plaid and he held it up to thewindow. Nan leant over and all his hesitation fled. He had never seenher more alluring. Her hair had become somehow unfastened, and, withoutuntidiness, there lay a lock across her brow; all her blood was in herface, her eyes might indeed have been the flames he had fancied, forto the appeal of the lantern they flashed back from great and rollingdepths of luminousness. Her lips seemed to have gathered up in sleep thewealth of a day of kissing. A screen of tartan that she had placed abouther shoulders had slipped aside in her movement at the window and showedher neck, ivory pale and pulsing. 

"Come along, come along!" he cried in an eager whisper, and he put uphis arms, lantern and all, as if she were to jump. Something in hisfirst look made her pause. 

"Do you really want to go?" he asked, and she was drawing her screenby instinct across her form. An observer, if there had been such, mightwell have been amused to see an elopement so conducted. There was stillno sound in the night, except that the cock crew at intervals over inthe cottars. The morning was heavy with dew; the scent of bog-myrtledrugged the air. 

"Do I really want?" she repeated. "Mercy! what a question. It seemsto me that yesterday would have been the best time to ask it. Are yourueing your bargain?" She looked at him with great dissatisfaction as hestood at the foot of the ladder, by no means a handsome cavalier, ashe carried his plaid clumsily. He was made all the more eager by hercoldness. 

"Come, come!" he cried; "the house will be awake before you are ready, and I cannot be keeping this lantern lighted for fear some one sees it. "

"We are safe for an hour yet, if we cared to waste the time, " she saidcomposedly, "and if you're sure you want it----"

"Want you, Nan, " he corrected, "That's a little more like it, " she saidto herself, and she dropped the customary bundle at his feet He pickedit up gingerly, as if it were a church relic; that it was a possessionof hers, apparel apparently, made him feel a slight intoxication. Noswithering now; he would carry out the adventure if it led to the endof the world! He hugged the bundle under his arm, as if it were awoman, and felt a fictional glow from the touch of it. "Well?" said sheimpatiently, for he was no longer looking at her, no longer, indeed, conceding her so little as the light of the lantern, which he had placedon the ground, so that its light was dissipated around, while none of itreached the top of the ladder. 

"Well, " she repeated sharply, for he had not answered. 

He looked up with a start. "Are you not coming?" he said, with a tone tosuggest that he was waiting impatiently. 

She had the window wide open now; she leaned out on her arms ready todescend; the last rung of the ladder was a foot lower than the sillof the window; she looked in perplexity at her cavalier, for it wasimpossible to put much of grace into an emergence and a descent likethis. 

"I am just coming, " she said, but still she made no other move, and heheld up the lantern for her to sec the better. 

"Well, be careful!" he advised, and he thought how delightful it was tohave the right to say so much. 

"O Gilian!" she said helplessly, "you are far from gleg. "

He gazed ludicrously uncomprehending at her, and in his sense of almostconjugal right to the girl failed to realise her delicacy. 

"Go round to the barn and make sure that Duncan is not moving; he's theonly one I fear, " she said. "Leave the lantern. "

He did as he was told; he put the lantern on the ground; he went roundagain to the barn, put his head in, and satisfied himself that hisseaman was still musical aloft. Then he hurried back. He found thelantern swinging on Nan's finger, and her composed upon the ground, towhich she had made a speedy descent whenever he had disappeared. 

"Oh! I wanted to help you, " said he. 

"Did you?" said she, looking for a sign of the humorist, but he was assolemn as a sermon. 

They might have been extremely sedate in Miss Simpson's school inEdinburgh, but at that moment Miss Nan would have forgiven some apparentappreciation of her cleverness in getting him out of the way while shecame feet first through a window. They stood for a moment in expectancy, as if something was going to happen, she still holding the lantern, trembling a little, as it might be with the cold, he with her bundleunder his arm pressed affectionately. 

"And--and--do we just go on?" she asked suggestively. 

"The quicker the better, " said he, but he made no movement to depart, for his mind was in the house of Maam, and he felt the father's sorrowand alarm at an empty bed, a daughter gone. 

She put out an arm, flushing in the dark as she did so, as if to placeit on his neck, but drew back and put the lantern fast behind her, lesther fervour had been noticed by the ironic and jealous night. He, shesaw, could not notice; the thing was not in his mind. 

"In the stories they just move off, then?" said she shyly. "There wasthe meeting, the meeting--no more, and they just went away?"

"And the sooner the better, " said he, again leading the way atlast, after taking the lantern from her, and "John Hielan'man, JohnHielan'man!" she cried vexatiously within. 

She followed, pouting her lips in the darkness. "It's quite differentfrom what I expected, " she said, whispering as they passed the frontdoor and down by the burn. 

"And with me too, " he confessed. "I had it made up in my mind allotherwise. There should have been moonlight and a horse, and many otherthings. " "It seems to me you are not making so much as you might of whatthere is, " she suggested. "Are you sure it is not a trouble to carry thelantern and the bundle too?"

"Oh! no, no!" he cried softly, but eagerly, every chivalric sentimentroused lest she should deprive him of the pleasure of doing all he couldfor her. She sighed. 

"Are you vexed you have come?" he asked, stopping and turning on her hisyet wan face full of regret and of dubiety too. 

"The thing is done, " she answered abruptly, and they were steppingcarefully over the burn that ran about its boulders in the dark, gurgling. "Are you sure you are not sorry yourself?"

"I am not a bit sorry, " he said, "but--but----"

"Your 'buts' are too late, Gilian, " she went on firmly. "If you rued theenterprise now, I would go myself. " But she relaxed some of the coldnessof her mood as he shifted his lantern to the other hand and put abashful but firm and supporting hand below her arm to secure her footingin the rough ascent. This was a little more like what she had expected, she told herself, though she missed something of warmth in the action. How could she tell that the hand that held her was trembling withpassion, that her shawl fringe as it was blown across his face by thebreeze was something he could have kissed rapturously?

And now they were well up the hillside. The house of Maam, the garden, the plantings, the noisy river, were down in the valley, all surrenderedto the night. Their lantern, swinging on the lad's finger, threw apath of light before them, showing the short cropped grass, the rushypatches, or the gall they trod odorously, or the heather in its rareclumps. No sound came louder than the tumbling waters; their voices, as they spoke even yet guardedly as people will in enterprises themost solitary when their consciences are unresting, seemed strange andunfamiliar to each other. 

Soon they were on the summit of the hill range and below them lay thetwo glens, and the first breath of the morning came behind from Strone, where dawn threw a wan grey flag across the world. They plunged into thecaldine trees of Strongara, sped fast across Aray at Three Bridges, andthe dawn was on Balantyre, where the farm-touns high and low lay likethatched forts, grey, cold, unwelcoming in the morning, with here andthere a stream of peat reek from the _greasach_ of the night's fires. They became, as it might be, children again as they hastened throughthe country. He lost all his diffident dubiety and was anew the boldadventurer, treading loverlike upon the very stars. A passion ofaffection was on him; he would take her unresisting hand and lead heras though she were his, really, and before them was their moated castle. And Nan forgot herself in the fresh zest of the dewy morning that nowwas setting the birds to their singing in the dens that hang above thebanks of the Balantyre burn. 

A rosy flush came to the hills where on the upper edges spread theantlers of deer sniffing the wind, rejoicing in the magnificence of thefine highland country in its autumn time. Nan hummed and broke into astrain of the verse of Donacha Ban that chants the praise of day anddeer-hunting; she charmed her comrade; he felt the passion of thepossessor and stopped and turned upon her and made to kiss. She laughedtemptingly, drew back, warding her lips with the screen that now shehad arranged in a new and pleasing fashion on her shoulders so that shelooked some Gaelic huntress of the wilds. "So, so, Gilian!" said she, "you have found that there might be more in the books than simply totake the girl away with not so much as 'Have you a mouth?' when shestepped out at the window. "

"What a fool I was!" he cried. "I was thinking of it all the time, butdid not dare. " But awakened to the actuality of what he now had dared, he was ashamed to go further. 

Nan laughed. He looked odd indeed standing facing her with the lanternburning yet in his hand though the day was almost wide-awake. He was apoet bearing his own light about the world extravagantly while the sunwas shining for common mortals. 

"Out with your light!" said she. And then she added: "If you dared notdo it in the dark when you met me first, you cannot do it now, " and hewas dashed exceedingly. He puffed out the flame. 

"That's aye me!" he said as they resumed their journey up the secondhill of their morning escapade. "I am too often a day behind the fair. I was--I was--kissing you a score of times in fancy and all the time youwere willing in the actual fact. "

"Was I indeed?" she retorted shortly, with a movement to bring her shawlmore closely round her. "Do not be so flattering. I like you littleover-blate, Gilian, but I like you less over-bold. If you could seeyourself you would know which suits you best. "

He had no answer. He must face his brae with lacerated feelings, now astep removed from the girl who walked with him. But only for a littlewas he depressed. She saw she had vexed him, and soon she was hummingagain, and again they were children of illusion and content. 

They reached the pass that led to the lochs, and now Gilian had toconfess himself in a strange country, but he did not reveal the fact tohis companion. They talked of their coming sojourn in these lovely wildsthat her mother had known and loved. The sun would shine constantly forthem; the lakes--the little and numerous lakes--would be fringedwith dreams and delight, starshine would find them innocent among theheather, remitted to the days of old when they were happy and careless, when no trouble marred their sky. Only now and then, as they sped ontheir way, Gilian wished fervently he knew more of where he was going, and was certain that life in the wilds would be so pleasant and easy asthey pictured it. 

When they came at last upon the slope of Cruach-an-Lochain that revealedthe great valley of the lakes, they stood raptured by the spectaclebefore them. Far off, the great hollow among the hills was hazy andmysterious, but spread before them was the moor, tangled with grass andheather, all vacant in the morning dream. A tremor of wind was in thegrass about their feet, a little mist tarried about the warm side of BenBhreac, caught among the juniper bushes the hunters had put there forshelter. All over brooded calm, a land forgetful of its stormy elements, of the dripping nights, the hail-beat, shrewd ost and hurricane. Theycould not, the pair of them, flying from a world of anxieties, but stopand look at the spectacle, when they came on the face of the Cruach. Fora little they did not speak. 

"My God!" said Gilian at last, a lump somewhere at his throat. "It seemsas if this place had been waiting on us tenantless since the start oftime. Where have we been to be so long and so far away from it? _Mochridhe, mo chridhe!_"

"Now that I see it, " said she doubtfully, "it seems melancholy enough. Iwish----" She hung upon her sentence, with a rueful gaze out of her eyesat the scene. 

"Melancholy!" he repeated. "Of course, of course, " he quickly cameto her reflection, "what could it be but melancholy with all the pastunrecoverable behind it? It must be brooding for its people gone. Empty, empty, but I see all the old peoples roaming in bands over it, the sunsmiting them, the rain drenching, I cannot but be thinking of shealinghuts that spotted the levels, of bairns crying about the doors, ofnights of _ceilidh_ round peat fires dead and cold now, but yet with thesmoke of them hanging somewhere round the universe. "

He stopped, and turned away from her, concealing his perturbation. 

She shivered at the thought and partly from weariness and hunger, witha little sucking in of the breath his ear caught, and he turned, adifferent man. 

"You are tired; will we rest before we go further?" "Is it far?" sheasked. 

He reddened. He cast a fast glance round the country as if to look forsome familiar landmark, but all was strange to him. 

"I do not know, " he confessed humbly. "I was never on the moor before. "

"Mercy!" she said. "I thought there was never a lad from town but hadfished here. "

"But I was different, " he replied. "The woods and waters about the doorwere enough for me. But we'll get to Elasaid's very soon, I'm sure, andfind fire, food, and rest. "

She bit her nether lip in annoyance at a courtier so ill-prepared fortheir adventure. She turned to look back to the familiar country theywere leaving behind them, and for a moment wished she had never come. 

"I wish we could have them now, " she said at last; the words drawn fromher by her weariness. 

"And so we can, " said he eagerly, with a delight at a reflection thatsprung into his mind like a revelation. "We can go down to the waterthere and build a fire, and rest and eat. It will be like what Ifancied, a real adventure of hunters, and I will be the valet, and youwill be the--the queen. "

So they went down to the lake side. Heathery braes rose about it, reflected in its dark water; an islet overgrown with scrub lay inthe middle of it, the very haunt of possible romance; Gilian straightinhabited the same with memories and exploits. Nan sat her down on thespringy heather that swept its scents about her, she leaned a tiredshoulder on it, and the bells of the ling blushed as they swayed againsther cheek. Gilian put down his lantern, a ludicrous companion in broadsunshine, and was dashed by the sudden recollection that though he hadtalked of something to eat, he had really no means of providing it!

The girl observed his perturbation and shrewdly guessed the reason. 

"Well?" she said maliciously, without a smile; "and where are we to getthe food you so nicely spoke of?"

He stood stupefied, and so dolorous a spectacle that she could not butlaugh. 

"You have got none at all, but imagined our feast--as usual, " she said, unfolding her bundle. "It was well I did not depend on your forethought, Gilian, " and she took a flask of milk and some bread from within. He wasas much vexed at the spoiling of his illusion about the contents of thebundle as at the discovery of his thoughtlessness. What he had beenso fervently caressing against his side had been no more romantic thanbread and cheese and some more substantial augmentation for the poortable of the old woman they were going to meet!

The side of the loch bristled with dry heather roots; he plucked themand placed them on the side of a boulder beside Nan, and set fire tothem, and soon a cheerful blaze competed with the tardy morning chill. They sat beside it singularly uplifted by this domestic hearth among thewilds; he felt himself a sort of householder, and to share as he did thefare of the girl was a huge delight. Her single cup passed between them;at first he was shy to touch at all the object her lips had kissed; heshowed the feeling in his face, and she laughed again. 

He joined in the merriment, quite comprehending. Next time the cup camehis way he boldly turned it about so that where last she had sipped cameto his lips, and there he lingered--just a shade too long for the lookof the thing. What at first she but blushed and smiled at, she frownedupon at last with a sparkle of the eye her Uncle Jamie used to call inthe Gaelic the torch of temper. Gilian missed it; that touch of his lipupon her cup had recalled the warmth of her hand upon the flowers he hadgathered when she had let them fall in the Duke's garden, but this wascloser and more stirring. As he knelt on the heather he felt himself aworshipper of ancient days, and her the goddess of long-lost times. Anuplifting was in his eyes; it would have been great and beautiful to anyone that could have understood, but her it only vexed. When he handedback the cup she tossed it from her. It broke--sad omen!--on their firsthearthstone. "That'll do, " said she shortly, "it's time we were going. "And she gathered hastily the remains of their breakfast and made for adeparture. 

He surveyed her dubiously, wondering why she so abruptly checked theadvances he could swear she had challenged. 

"I am sorry I vexed you, " he stammered. She brought down her browsquestioningly. There was something pleasant and tempting thoughqueenlike and severe in her straightened figure standing over him curvedand strong and full, her screen fallen to her waist, a strand of herhair blown about her cheek by a saucy wind. 

"Vexed?" she queried, and then smiled indifferent. "What would I bevexed at? We are finished, are we not? Must we be burdening ourselvesunnecessarily going on a road you neither know the length or nature of?"

And without a word more they proceeded towards the shealing that was tobe the end of their adventure. 

CHAPTER XXX--AMONG THE HEATHER

Old Elasaid met them at the door. She was a woman with eyes profoundand piercing under hanging brows, a woman grey even to the colour of hercheeks and the checks of the gown that hung loosely on her gaunt figure. It was with no shealing welcome, no kind memory of the old nurse even, she met them, but stood under her lintel looking as it were through themto the airt of the country whence they had come. She passed the time ofday as if they had been strangers, puckering her mouth with a sort ofunexpressed disapproval. They stood before her very much put out at areception so different from what they had looked for, and Gilian knewthat there must be something decisive to say but could not find it inhis head. 

"Well, " said the old woman at last, "this'll be the good man, I'mthinking?" But still she had that in her tone, a sour dissatisfactionthat showed she had her doubts. 

Gilian was not unhappy at the assumption, but felt warm, and Nanreddened. 

"Not at all, " she answered with some difficulty. "It's just a friend whoconvoyed me up. "

"Well I kent it, " said the old woman, who spoke English to show she wasdispleased, and there was in her voice a tone of satisfaction with herown shrewdness. "When I saw you coming up the way there I thought therewas something very unlike the thing about this person with you. Theother one would have been a little closer on your elbow, and a lantern'sa very queer contrivance to be stravaiging with on a summer day. "

All her contempt seemed to be for Gilian, and he felt mightilyuncomfortable. 

"Tell me this, " she went on, suddenly taking Nan by the arm and bendinga most condemnatory face on her; "tell mc this: did you run away fromthe other one?"

"Mercy on me!" cried the girl. "Is the story up here already?"

"Oh, we're not so far back, " said the dame, who did not add that her sonthe seaman had told her the news on his last weekly visit. 

"Then I'll need the less excuse for being here, " said Nan, trying tofind in the hard and unapproving visage any trace of the woman who inhappier days used to be so kind a nurse. 

"No excuse at all!" said old Elasaid. "If it's your father's wish you'reflying from, you need not come here. " She stepped within the house, pulled out the wattle door and between it and the fir post stuck adisapproving face. 

"Go away! go away!" she cried harshly, "I have no room for a baggage ofthat kind. " Then she shut the door in their faces; they could hear thebar run to in the staples. 

For a minute or two they stood aghast and silent, and Nan wasplainly close on tears. But the humour of the thing struck her quickenough--sooner than Gilian saw it--and she broke into laughter, subduedso that it might not reach the woman righteous within, and her ear maybeat the door chink. It was not perhaps of the heartiest merriment, butit inspired her companion with respect for her spirit in a moment sotrying. She was pale, partly with weariness, partly with distress atthis unlooked-for reception; but her lips, red and luscious, smiled forhis encouragement. 

"Must we go back?" he asked, irresolute, as they made some slow stepsaway from the door. 

"Back!" said Nan, her eyes flashing. "Am I mad? Are you speaking foryourself? If it must be back for you let me not be keeping you. Afterall you bargained for no more than to take me to old Elasaid's, and nowthat I'm here and there's none of the Elasaid I expected to meet me, I'll make the rest of my way somewhere myself. " But her gaze upon thatrolling and bleak moorland was far less confident than her words. 

Gilian made no reply. He only looked at her reproaching for herbitterness, and humbly took up step by her side as she walked quicklyaway from the scene of the cold reception. 

They had gone some distance when Elasaid opened her door again and cameout to look after them. She saw a most touching helplessness in themanner of their uncertain walk across the heather, with no fixed mindas to which direction was the best, stopping and debating, moving nowa little to the east, now a little to the west, but always further intothe region of the lochs. She began to blame herself for her hastiness. She had expected that, face to face with her disapproval, the foolishyoung people would have gone back the road they came; but here they weregoing further than ever away from the father in whose interest she hadloyally refused her hospitality. She cried loudly after them with ashort-breathed Gaelic halloo, too much like an animal's cry to attracttheir attention. Nan did not hear it at all; Gilian but dreamed it, asit were, and though he took it for the call of a moor-fowl, found it inhis ready fancy alarmingly like the summons of an irate father. But nowhe dared betray no hesitancy; he did not even turn to look behind him. 

Elasaid cried again, but still in vain. She concluded they weredeliberately deaf to her, and "Let them go!" she said crabbedly, flaunting an eloquent arm to the winds, comforting herself with thethought that there was no other house in all that dreary country to givethem the shelter she had denied. 

The sun by this time was pouring into the moor from a sky without aspeck of cloud. Compared with the brown and purple of the moor and thedull colour of Ben Bhreac--the mount away to the southeast--the heavenswere uncommonly blue, paling gradual to their dip. In another hour thanthis distressed and perplexed one, our wanderers would have felt somejocund influence in a forenoon so benign and handsome. 

And now, too, the country began to show more of its true character. Itslittle lochs--a great chain of them--dashed upon their vision in patchesof blue or grey or yellow. The valley was speckled with the tarns. Gilian forgot the hazards of the enterprise and the discomforts to befaced; he had no time to think of what was to be done next for them intheir flight, so full was he with the romance of those multitudinouslakelets lost in the empty and sunny wilds, some with isle, all withshelving heathery braes beside them, or golden bights where the littlewave lapped. He turned to his companion with an ecstasy. 

"Did you ask me if I rued it?" he said. "Give me no better than to stayhere for ever--with you to share it. "

She met his ardour with coolness. "I wish you had been so certain ofthat a little ago, " she said; "you seem very much on the swither. Haveyou thought of what's to be done next? It is all very well to be puttingour backs to the angry Elasaid behind us there, but all the time I'mwondering what's to be the outcome. "

He confessed himself at a loss. She eyed him without satisfaction. Thisyoung gentleman, who seemed so enchanting in circumstances where noreadiness of purpose was needed, looked very inadequate in the actualstress of things, in the broad daylight, his flat bonnet far back onhis brow, his face wan, his plaid awry. And there was something in hiscarriage of the ridiculous lantern that made her annoyed at herself forsome reason. 

She stopped, and they hung hesitating, with the lapwings crying aboutthem, and no other sound in the air. 

"I'm going back, " said she, as if she meant it. His face fell. This timethere was no mistaking his distress. 

"No, no, you cannot, Nan, " he said. "We will get out of it somehow; youcannot return, and what of me? It would be ill to explain. "

"We're neither whaup nor deer, " said she, shrugging her shoulders, "tolive here wild the rest of our days. "

Gilian looked about him rather helplessly, and he started at the sightof a gable wall, with what in a shealing might pass for a window in it, and he knew it for a relic of the old days, when the moor in its levelshere would be spotted with happy summer homes, when the people of Lochowcame from the shores below and gave their cattle the juicy grazing ofthese untamed pastures, themselves living the ancient life, with singingand spinning in the open, gathering at nights for song or dance and talein the fine weather. 

"There's something of shelter at least, " he said, pointing to it. Shelooked dubiously at the dry-stone walls almost tumbling, the cabarsof what had been a byre fallen over half the interior, and at the ranknettles--head-high almost--about the rotten door. 

"Is this home-coming?" she said whimsically, forcing a smile, but shewas glad to see it. By this time she was master of her companion's mind, and could guess that it would be to him a palace for them both. But theywent up towards the abandoned hut, glad enough, both of them, to see anedifice, even in decay, showing man had once been there, where now theworld about seemed given over to vacant sunshine or the wild winds ofheaven, the rains, and doleful birds. It stood between two lochs thatwere separated from each other by but a hundred yards of heather andrush, its back-end to one of the lochs, the door to Ben Bhreac. 

Gilian went first and trod down the nettles, making a path that shemight the more comfortably reach this sanctuary so melancholy. Shegathered up her gown close round her, dreading the touch of these kindplants that hide the shame of fallen lintels and the sorrow of coldhearths, and timidly went to the door, her shawl fallen from one of hershoulders and dragging at the other. She put her head within, and as shedid so, the lad caught the shawl, unseen by her, and kissed the fringe, wishing he could do so to her lips. 

A cold damp air was in the dwelling, that had no light but from the halfopen door and the vent in the middle of the roof. 

She drew back shuddering in spite of herself, though her whole desirewas to seem content with any refuge now that she had brought him so faron what looked like a gowk's errand. 

He ventured an assuring arm around her waist and they went slowlyin together, and stood silent in the middle of the floor where thelong-dead fire had been, saying nothing at all till their eyes had grownaccustomed to the gloom. 

What she felt beyond timidity she betrayed not, but Gilian peopled thehouse at an instant with all its bygone tenants, seeing the peats ruddyon the stones, the smoke curling up among the shining cabars, hearingghosts gossiping in muffled Gaelic round the fire. 

Yet soon they found even in this relic of old long-gone people the airof domesticity; it was like a shelter even though so poor a one; itwas some sort of an end to her quest for a refuge, though the more shelooked at its dim interior the more content she was with the outsideof it. Where doubtless many children had played, on the knowe below asingle shrub of fir-wood beside the loch, Nan spread out the remains ofher breakfast again and they prepared to make a meal. Gilian gatheredthe dry heather tufts, happy in his usefulness, thinking her quitecontent too, while all the time she was puzzling as to what was next tobe done. Never seemed a bleak piece of country so lovely to him as now. As he rose from bending over the heather and looked around, seeingthe moor in its many colours stretch in swelling waves far into thedistance, the lochans winking to the day and over all a kind soft sky, he was thrilling with his delight. 

She summoned him in a little to eat. He looked at her scanty provender, and there was as much of truth as self-sacrifice in his words as hesaid: "I do not care for eating; I am just satisfied with seeing youthere and the world so fine. " And still exulting in that rare solitudeof two he went farther off by Little Fox Loch and sought for whiteheather, symbol of luck and love, as rare to find among the red astrue love is among illusion. Searching the braes he could hear, after alittle, Nan sing at the shealing hut. A faint breeze brought the strainto him faintly so that it might be the melody of fairydom heard at eveson grassy hillocks by the gifted ear, the melody of the gentle otherworld, had he not known that it had the words of "The Rover. " Nan wassinging it to keep up her heart, far from cheerful, tortured indeedwith doubt and fear, and yet the listener found in the notes contentand hope. When he came back with his spray of white heather he was souplifted with the song that he ran up to her for once with no restraintand made to fasten it at her neck. She was surprised at his new freedombut noway displeased. A little less self-consciousness as he fumbledat the riband on her neck would have satisfied her more, but even thatdisappeared when he felt her breath upon his hair and an unconscioustouch of her hand on his arm as he fastened the flower. She let her eyesdrop before his bold rapture, he could have kissed her there and thenand welcome. But he only went halfway. When the heather was fastened, he took her hand and lifted it to his lips, remembering some inadequatetale in the books of Margot Maclean. 

"John Hielan'man! John Hielan'man!" she said within herself, andsuddenly she tore the white spray from her bosom and threw itpassionately at her feet, while tears of vexation ran to her eyes. 

"Forgive me, forgive me, I have vexed you again, " said Gilian, contrite. "I should not be so bold. "

She could not but smile through her tears. 

"If you will take my heather again and say nothing of it, I will nevertake the liberty again, " he went on, eager to make up for his error. 

"Then I will not take it, " she answered. 

"It was stupid of me, " said he. 

"It is, " she corrected meaningly. 

"I never had any acquaintance with--with--girls, " he added, trying tofind some excuse for himself. 

"That is plain enough, " she agreed cordially, and she followed it with asigh. 

For a minute they stood thus irresolute and then the lad bent and liftedthe ill-used heather. He held it in his hand for a moment tenderly as ifit was a thing that lived, and sighed over it, and then, fearing that, too, might seem absurd to her and vexatious, he made an effort andtwirled it between a finger and thumb by its stem like any casualwild-flower culled without reflection. 

"What are you going to do with it now?" she asked him, affectingindifference, but eyeing it with interest; and he made no answer, forhow could he tell her he meant to keep it always for remembrance? "Giveit to me, " she said suddenly, and took it from his fingers. She ran intothe house and placed it in the only fragment of earthenware left by thedeparted tenants. "It will do very well there, " she said. 

"But I meant it for you, " said Gilian ruefully, "It is a sign of goodluck. "

"It is a sign of more than that, I've heard many a time, " she replied, and he became very red indeed, for he knew that as well as she, thoughhe had not said it. "I'll take it for the luck, " she went on. 

"And for mine too, " said Gilian. 

"That's not so blate, John Hielan'man!" said she again to herself. "Andfor yours too, " she conceded, smiling. "When you find that I have takenit away from there you will know it is for your luck too. "

"And it will be at your breast then?" he cried eagerly. 

She laughed and blushed and laughed again, most sweetly and most merrily. "It will be at--at--at my heart, " she said. 

"Ah, " said he, in an instinct of fear that quelled his rapture; "ah, ifthey take you from me!"

"When I take your heather, " said she, "it will be for ever at my heart. "

Oh! then that savage moorland was Paradise for the dreamer, and he wasa coquette's slave, fettered by a compliment. The afternoon passed, forhim at least, in a delirium of joy; she, though she never revealed it, was never at a moment's rest from her plans of escape from her folly. Late in the afternoon she came to a lame conclusion. 

"You will go down to the town to-night, " she said, "and----"

"And you!" he cried, alarmed at the notion of severance. 

"I'll stay here, of course. You'll tell Miss Mary that we--that I amhere, and she will tell you what we--what I, must do. "

"But--but--" he stammered, dubious of the plan. 

"Of course I can go home again to Maam now, " she broke in coldly, andshe was vexed for the alarm and grief he showed at the alternative. 

"I will go; I will go at once, " he cried, but first he went far down onBlaraghour for wood for a fire to cheer her loneliness, and the dusk wasdown on them before he left her. 

She gave him her hand at the door, a hand for once with helplessdependence in the clinging and the confidence of it, and he held it longwithout dissent from her. Never before had she seemed so beautiful orso affable, so necessary to his life. Her trials had paled the colour ofher face and her eyes had a hint of tears. Over his shoulder she wouldnow and then cast a glance of apprehension at the falling night andcheck a shudder of her frame. 

"Good-night!" he said. 

"Good-night!" she answered, and yet she did not loose her prisoned hand. 

He sighed, and brought, in spite of her, an echo from her heart. 

Then he drew her suddenly to his arms and scorched her face with lips offire. 

Nan released herself and fled within. The door closed; she dared notmake her trial the more intense by seeing the night swallow up her onlyliving link with the human world beyond the vague selvedge of the moor. 

And Gilian, till the dawn came over Cruach-an-Lochain, walked by theside of Little Fox Loch, within view of the hut that held his heart. 

CHAPTER XXXI--DEFIANCE

That there was some unusual agitation in the town Gilian could gather assoon as he had set foot within the Arches in the early morning. It wasin the air, it was mustering many women at the well. There they stood inloud and lingering groups, their stoups running over extravagantly whilethey kept the tap running, unconscious what they were about Or they hada furtive aspect as they whispered in the closes, their aprons wrappingtheir folded arms. At the door of the New Inns, Mr. Spencer was layingforth a theory of abduction. He had had English experience, he knewlife; for the first time since he had come to this place of poorhappenings he had found something he could speak upon with authorityand an audience to listen with respect What his theory was, Gilian mighthave heard fully as he passed; but he was thinking of other things, and all that came to him were two or three words, and one of the errantsentences was seemingly about himself. That attracted all his attention. He gave a glance at the people at the door--the inn-keeper, MacGibbon, with an unusual Kilmarnock bonnet on that seemed to have been donnedin a hurry; Rixa, in a great perturbation, having just come out of ashandry-dan with which he had been driving up Glen Shira; Major Paul, and Wilson the writer. The inn-keeper, who was the first to see the lad, stopped his speech with confusion and reddened. They gave him a stareand a curt acknowledgment of his passage of the time of day as thesaying goes, looked after him as he passed round Old Islay's corner, andfound no words till he was out of sight. 

"That puts an end to that notion, at any rate, " said the Sheriff, almostpleased to find the Londoner in the wrong with his surmises. And theothers smiled at Mr. Spencer as people do who told you so. Two minutesago they were half inclined to give some credit to the plausibility ofhis reasoning. 

The inn-keeper was visibly disturbed. "Dear me! I have been doing thelad an injustice after all; I could have sworn he was the man in it ifit was anybody. "

"Pooh!" said Rixa, "the Paymaster's boy! I would as soon expect it ofGillesbeg Aotram. "

They went into the hostelry, and Gilian, halfway round the factor'scorner, was well-nigh ridden down by Turner on a roan horse spatteredon the breast and bridle with the foam of a hard morn's labour. He hadscoured the countryside on every outward road, and come early at thedawn to the ferry-house and rapped wildly on the shutter. But nowherewere tidings of his daughter. Gilian felt a traitor to this man as heswept past, seeing nothing, with a face cruel and vengeful, the flanksof his horse streaked with crimson. The people shrunk back in theircloses and their shop-doors as he passed all covered upon with thefighting passion that had been slumbering up the glen since ever he camehome from the Peninsula. 

It was the breakfast hour in the Paymaster's. Miss Mary was going inwith the Book and had but time to whisper welcome to her boy on the stepof the door, for the brothers waited and the clock was on the stroke. Gilian had to follow her without a word of explanation. He was hungry;he welcomed the little respite the taking of food would give him fromthe telling of a confidence he felt ashamed to share with Miss Mary. 

The Paymaster mumbled a blessing upon the vivours, then fed noisily, looking, when he looked at Gilian at all, but at the upper buttons ofhis coat as if through him, and letting not so little as the edge of hisgaze fall upon his face. That was a studious contempt, and Gilian knewit, and there were many considerations that made him feel no injuryat it. But the Cornal's utter indifference--that sent his eyeroaming unrecognising into Gilian's and away again without a spark ofrecognition--was painful. It would have been an insufferable meal, evenin his hunger, but for Miss Mary's presence. The little lady would besmiling to him across the table without any provocation whenever herbrothers' eyes were averted, and the faint perfume of a silk shawl shehad about her shoulders endowed the air with an odour of domesticity, womanhood, maternity. 

For a long time nobody spoke, and the pigeons came boldly to the sill ofthe open window and cooed. 

At last said the Paymaster, as if he were resuming a conversation: "Imet him out there on horseback; the hunt is still up, I'm thinking. "

"Ay?" said the Cornal, as if he gripped the subject and waited thecontinuance of the narrative. 

"He'll have ranged the country, I'm thinking, " went on his brother. "Icould not but be sorry for the man. "

Miss Mary cast upon him a look he seldom got from her, of warmth morethan kinship, but she had nothing to say; her voice was long dumb inthat parlour where she loved and feared, a woman subjugate to a sex farless worthy than her own and less courageous. 

"Humph!" said the Cornal. He felt with nervous inquiry at his raggedchin, inspired for a second by old dreads of untidy morning parades. 

"I had one consolation for my bachelordom in him, " went on the youngerbrother, and then he paused confused. 

"And what might that be?" asked the Cornal. 

"It's that I'm never like to be in the same scrape with a child ofmine, " he answered, pretending a jocosity that sat ill on him. Thenhe looked at Miss Mary a little shamefaced for a speech so uncommonlyconfidential. 

The Cornal opened his mouth as if he would laugh, but no sound came. 

"I'm minding, " said he, speaking slowly and in a muffled accent he wasbeginning to have always; "I'm minding when that same, cast in your faceby the gentleman himself, greatly put you about Jock, Jock, I mind youwere angry with Turner on that score! And no child to have the samesorrows over! Well--well----" He broke short and for the first time lethis eyes rest with any meaning on Gilian sitting at the indulgence of agood morning's appetite. 

Miss Mary put about the breakfast dishes with a great hurry to befinished and out of this explosive atmosphere. 

"There was an odd rumour--" said the Paymaster. He paused a moment, looking at the inattentive youth opposite him. He saw no reason to stayhis confidences, and the Cornal was waiting expectingly on him. "An oddrumour up the way; I heard it first from that gabbling man Spencer atthe Inns. It was that a young gentleman of our acquaintance might havehad a hand in the affair. I could not say at the first whether thenotion vexed or pleased me, but I assured him of the stupidity of it. "He looked his brother in the eyes, and fixing his attention cunninglydropped a lid to indicate that the young gentleman was beside them. 

The Cornal laughed, this time with a sound. 

"Lord, " he cried. "As if it was possible! You might go far in thatquarter for anything of dare-deviltry so likeable. What's more, is thegirl daft? Her mother had caprice enough, but to give her her due shetook up with men of spirit There was my brother Dugald---- But this one, what did Dugald call him--aye! on his very death-bed? The dreamer, thedreamer! It will hold true! Him, indeed!" And he had no more words forhis contempt. 

All the time, however, Gilian was luckily more or less separate fromhis company by many miles of fancy, behind the hills among the lochswatching the uprising of Nan, sharing her loneliness, seeing her feetbrush the dew from the scented gall. But the Cornal's allusion broughthim to the parlour of his banishment, away from that dear presence. Helistened now but said nothing. He feared his very accent would betrayhis secret. 

"I'll tell you what it is, " said the Cornal again, "whoever is with herwill rue it; mind, I'm telling you. It's like mother like child. "

"I'm glad, " said the Paymaster, "I had nothing to do with the sex ofthem. " He puffed up as he spoke it; there was an irresistible comedyin the complacence of a man no woman was ever like to run after at hisbest. His sister looked at him; his brother chuckled noiselessly. 

"You--you--you----" said the elder brother grimly, but again he did notfinish the sentence. 

The meal went on for a time without any speech, finished, and Miss Marycried at the stair-head for her maid, who came up and sat demurely atthe chair nearest the door while the Cornal, as hurriedly as he might, ran over the morning's sacred exercise from the Bible Miss Mary laidbefore him. The Paymaster took his seat beside the window, looking outthe while and heedless of the Scriptures, watched the fishermen crowdingfor their mornings into the house of Widow Gordon the vintner. Miss Marystole glances at her youth, the maid Peggy fidgeted because she had leftthe pantry door open and the cat was in the neighbourhood. As the oldman's voice monotonously occupied the room, working its way mumblinglythrough the end of Exodus, conveying no meaning to the audience, Gilianheard the moor-fowl cry beside Little Fox. The dazzle of the sunshine, the sparkle of the water, the girl inhabiting that solitary spot, seemedvery real before him, and this dolorous routine of the elderly in aparlour no more than a dream from which he would waken to find himselfwith the girl he loved. Upon his knees beside his chair while the Cornalgruffly repeated the morning prayer he learned from his father, heremained the remote wanderer of fancy, and Miss Mary knew it by theinstinct of affection as she looked at the side of his face througheyelids discreetly closed but not utterly fastened. 

The worship was no sooner over than Gilian was for off after Miss Maryto her own room, but the Paymaster stayed him with some cold businessquery about the farm, and handed him a letter from a low-country woolmerchant relative to some old transaction still unsettled. Gilian readit, and the brothers standing by the window resumed their talk aboutthe missing girl: it was the subject inspired by every glance intothe street where each passerby, each loiterer at a close mouth, wasobviously canvassing the latest news. 

"There's her uncle away by, " said the Paymaster, straining his head tofollow a figure passing on the other side of the street. "If they hadkept a stricter eye on her from the first when they had her they mighthave saved themselves all this. "

"Stricter eye!" said the Cornal. "You ken as much about women as I kenabout cattle. The veins of her body were full of caprice, that's whatailed her, and for that is there any remede? I'm asking you. As if I didnot ken the mother of her! Man, man, man! She was the emblem and type ofall her sex, I'm thinking, wanting all sobriety, hating the thought ofage in herself and unfriendly to the same in others. A kind of a splashon a fine day upon the deep sea, laughing over the surface of greatdepths. I knew her well, Dugald knew her----"

"You had every chance, " said the Paymaster, who nowadays found morecourage to retort when his brother's shortness and contempt annoyed him. 

"More chance, of course I had, " said the Cornal. "I'm thinking you hadmighty little from yon lady. "

"Anyway, here's her daughter to seek, " said the Paymaster, feelinghimself getting the worst of the encounter; "my own notion is that she'son the road to Edinburgh. They say she had aye a crave for the place;perhaps there was a pair of breeches there behind her. Anyway, she'smaking an ass of somebody!"

Gilian threw down the letter and stood to his feet with his face white. "You're a liar!" said he. 

No shell in any of their foreign battles more astounded the veterans hewas facing with wide nostril and a face like chalk. 

"God bless me, here's a marvel!" cried the Cornal when he found voice. 

"You--you--you damned sheep!" blurted the Paymaster. "Do you dare speakto me like that? For tuppence I would give you my rattan across thelegs. " His face was purple with anger; the stock that ran in many foldsabout his neck seemed like a garotte. He lifted up his hand as if tostrike, but his brother caught his arm. 

"Let the lad alone, " said he. "If he had a little more of that in hismake I would like him better. "

Together they stood, the old men, facing Gilian with his hands clenched, for the first time in his life the mutineer, feeling a curious headysatisfaction in the passion that braced him like a sword and astoundedthe men before him. 

"It's a lie!" he cried again, somewhat modifying his accusation. "I knowwhere she is, and she's not in Edinburgh nor on her way to it. "

"Very well, " said the Paymaster, "ye better go and tell Old Islay whereshe is; he's put about at the loss of a daughter-in-law he paid throughthe nose for, they're saying. "

The blow, the last he had expected, the last he had reason to look for, struck full and hard. He was blind then to the old men sneering at himthere; his head seemed charged with coiling vapours; his heart, that hadbeen dancing a second ago on the wave of passion, swamped and sank. Hehad no more to say; he passed them and left the room and went along thelobby to the stair-head, where he stood till the vapours had somewhatblown away. 

CHAPTER XXXII--AN OLD MAID'S SECRET

Miss Mary bustled about her kitchen with a liveliness that mighthave deceived any one but Gilian, who knew her to be in a tremendousperturbation. She clattered among pans, wrestled with her maid overdishes and dusters, and kept her tongue incessantly going on householddetails. With a laughable transparency she turned in a little to the ladand said something about the weather. He sat down in a chair and gloomedinto the fire, Miss Mary watching his every sigh, but yet seeminglyintent upon her duties. 

"Donacha Breck's widow was over before we were up to-day, for somethingfor her hoast, " she said. "She had tried hyssop and pennyroyal masked intwo waters, but I gave her sal prunelle and told her to suck it tillthe cough stopped. There's a great deal of trouble going about just now:sometimes I think----" She stopped incontinent and proceeded to sweepthe floor, for she saw that Gilian was paying no attention to her. Atlength he looked at her and then with meaning to Peggy bent over herjaw-box. 

"Peggy, " said Miss Mary, "go over and tell the mantua-maker that shedid not put the leavings in the pocket of my jacket, and there must havebeen a good deal. "

Peggy dried her arms, tucked up the corner of her apron, and departed, fully aware of the stratagem, but no way betraying the fact When she wasgone, Miss Mary faced him, disturbed and questioning. 

"We had a quarrel in there, " said he shortly, "I am not going to put upwith what they said about any friend of mine. "

She had no need to ask who he spoke of. "Is it very much to you?" saidshe, turning away and busy with her brush that she might be no spectatorof his confusion. A great fear sprang up in her; the boy who had grownup a man for her in the space of a Sunday afternoon was capable of newdevelopments even more rapid and extraordinary. 

"It should be very much to anybody, " said he, "to anybody with the sparkof a gentleman, when the old and the soured and the jealous----"

"I'm thinking you are forgetting, Gilian, " said she, facing him now witha flush upon her face. 

"What? what?" he asked, perplexed. "You think I should be grateful. Icannot help it; you were the kind one and----"

"I was not thinking of that at all, " she rejoined "I was just thinkingyou had forgotten that I was their sister, and that I must be caringmuch for them. If my brothers have said anything to vex you, and thathas been a too common thing--my sorrow!--in this house, you should beminding their years, my dear. It is the only excuse I can offer, and Iam willing to make up for their shortcomings by every kindness. " And shesmiled upon the lad with the most wonderful light of affection in hereyes. 

"Oh, " he cried, "am I not sure of that, Auntie? You are too good to me. What am I to be complaining--the beggarly orphan?"

"Not that, my dear, " she cried courageously, "not that! In this house, when my brothers' looks were at their blackest for you, there has alwaysbeen goodwill and motherliness. But you must not be miscalling them thatshare our roof, the brothers of Dugald and of Jamie. " Her voice broke ina gasp of melancholy; she stretched an arm and dusted from a cornerof the kitchen a cobweb that had no existence, her eyesight dim withunbrimming tears. At any other time than now Gilian would have beensmitten by her grief, for was he not ever ready to make the sorrows ofothers his own? But he was frowning in a black-browed abstraction onthe clay scroll of the kitchen floor, heartsick of his dilemma and thebitterness of the speeches he had just heard. 

Miss Mary could not be long without observing, even in her own troubles, that he was unusually vexed. She was wise enough to know that a freshstart was the best thing to put them at an understanding. 

"What did you come to tell me to-day?" she asked, composing herselfupon a chair beside him and taking up some knitting, for hers were thefingers that were never idle. 

"Come down to tell you? Come down to tell you?" he repeated, in surpriseat her penetration, and in some confusion that he should so sharply bebrought to his own business. 

"Just so, " she said. "Do you think Miss Mary has no eyes, my dear, orthat they are too old for common use? There was something troubling youas you came in at the door; I saw it in your face--ay, I heard it inyour step on the stair. "

He fidgeted and evaded her eyes. "I heard outside that--that Turner'sdaughter had not been got, and it vexed me a little. "

"Turner's daughter!" she said. "It used to be Miss Nan; it was Miss Nanno further gone than Thursday, and for what need we be so formal to-day?You are not heeding John's havers about your name being mixed up withthe affair in a poor Sassanach inn-keeper's story? Eh, Gilian?" And sheeyed him shrewdly, more shrewdly than he was aware of. 

Still he put her off. He could not take her into his confidence so soonafter that cold plunge into truth in the parlour. He wanted to get outof doors and think it all over calmly. He pretended anger. 

"What am I to be talked to like this for? All in this house are on me. Is it wonderful that I should have my share in the interest the whole ofthe rest of the parish has in this young lady lost?"

He rose to leave the room. Miss Mary stopped him with the least touchupon the arm, a lingering, gentle touch of the finger-tips, and yetcaressing. 

"Gilian, " she said softly, "do you think you can be deceiving me?_M'eudail, m'ieudail!_ I know there is a great trouble in your mind, andis it not for me to share?"

"There is something, but I cannot tell you now what it is, though I camehere to tell you, " he answered, making no step to go. 

"Gilian, " said she, standing before him, and the light from the windowtouching her ear so that, beside the darkness of her hair (for she hadoff her cap), it looked like a pink flower, "Gilian, can you notbe telling me? Do you think I cannot guess what ails you, nor fancysomething for its cure?"

He saw from the shyness of her face that she had an inkling of at leastthe object of his interest. 

"But I cannot be mentioning it here, " he said, feebly enough. "It's amatter a man must cherish to himself alone, and not be airing beforeothers. I felt, in there, to have it in my mind before two men who hadworked and fought and adventured all their lives, and come to this atlast, was a childish weakness. "

She caught hold of his coat lapel, and fingered it, and looked as shespoke, not at the face above her, but at some vision over his shoulder. "Before them, my dear, " she said. "That well might be, though even theyhave not always been the hard and selfish veterans. What about me, mydear? Can I not be understanding, think you, Gilian?"

"It is such a foolish thing, " said he weakly, "a thing of interest onlyto the very young. "

"And am I so old, my dear, " she said, "not to have been young once? Doyou think this little wee wife with her hair getting grey--not so greyeither, though--was always in old maid dolours in her garret thinking ofhoasts and headaches and cures for them, and her brothers' slippersand her own rheumatics on rainy days? Oh, my dear, my dear! you used tounderstand me as if it had been through glass--ay, from the first dayyou saw me, and my brother's sword must be sending me to my weeping; canyou not understand me now? I am old, and the lowe of youth is down inits ember, but once I was as young--as young--as--as--as the girl youare thinking of. "

He drew back, overwhelmed with confusion, but she found the grip of hiscoat again and followed up her triumph. 

"Did you think I could not guess so little as that, my dear? Oh, Gilian, sometimes I'll be sitting in there all my lone greeting my eyes out overdarning hose, and minding of what I have been and what I have seen, andthe days that will never come any more. The two upstairs will be mindingonly to envy and to blame--me, I must be weeping as much for my sin asfor my sorrow. Do I look so terrible old, Gilian, that you cannot thinkof me as not so bad-looking either, with a bonny eye, they said, and ajimp waist, and a foot like the honey-bee? It was only yesterday; ah, itwas a hundred years ago! I was the sisterly slave. No dancing for me. Noromping for Mary at hairst or Hogmanay. My father glooming and bindingme motherless to my household tasks, so that Love went by without seeingme. My companions, and she the dearest of them all, enjoying life to thefull, and me looking out at this melancholy window from year to year, and seeing the traffic of youth and all the rest of it go by. "

She released his lapel and relapsed, all tears, upon her chair. 

"Auntie, Auntie!" he cried, "do not let my poor affairs be vexing you. "He put, for the first time in his life, an arm about her waist, bendingover her, with all forgotten for the moment save that she had longed forlove and seemingly found it not. At the touch of his arm she trembledlike a maiden in her teens and forced a smile upon her face. "Let mego, " she said, and yet she gloried in that contact as she sat in thechair and he bent over her. 

"And was there no one came the way?" he asked. "Was I not worth it, doyou think?" she replied, yet smiling in her tears. "Oh, Gilian, not thisold woman, mind you, but the woman I was. And yet--and yet, it is true, no one came; or if they came, they never came that I wanted. " "And he?"said Gilian. 

She paused and sighed, her thin little hands, so white for all theirtoil in that hard barracks, playing upon her lap. "He never had thechance. My father's parlour had no welcome, a soldier's household leftno vacant hours for an only daughter's gallivanting. I had to be contentto look at him--the one I mean--from the window, see him in the churchor passing up and down the street. They had up Dr. Brash at me--I mindhis horn specs, and him looking at my tongue and ordering a phlebotomy. What I wanted was the open air, a chance of youth, and a dance on thegreen. Instead of that it was always 'Hof Mary!' and 'Here, Mary, ' and'What are you wasting your time for, Mary?'" She was all in a tremble, moist no more with tears, but red and troubled at her eyes. "Andthen--then--then he married her. If he had taken any one else it wouldnot have seemed so hard. I think I hated her for it. It was long beforeI discovered they were chief, for my brothers that were out and in keptit from me for their own reasons, and they never kent my feeling. Butwhen she was cried and married and kirked, each time it was a dagger atmy heart. Amn't I the stupid old _cailleach_, my dear, to be talkingof such a thing? But oh! to see them on the street together; to see himcoming home on his furloughs--I am sure I could not be but unfond of herthen! I mind once I wished her dead, that maybe he might--he might seesomething in me still. That was when Nan was born and--"

"What, " cried Gilian, "and was he Nan's father? I--I did not know. "

She turned upon him an old face spoiled by the memories of the moment. "Who else would it be, my dear?" said she, as if that settled it. "Andyou are the first in the world I mentioned it to. He has never seen meclose in the face to guess it for himself, before or since. It mighthave happened if I wished, after, but that was the punishment I gavemyself for my unholy thought about my friend his wife. "

"Ah, little Auntie, little Auntie, " said he in Gaelic "Little Auntie, little Auntie!" No more than that, and yet his person was stormy withgrief for her old sorrow. He put his arm about her neck now--surelynever Highland lad did that before in their position, and tenderly, asif he had practised it for years, he pressed her to his breast and side. 

"And is it all by now but a recollection?" said he softly. 

"All by long syne, " said she, dashing the tears from her face andclearing herself from that unusual embrace. "Sometimes I'll be thinkingit was better as it was, for I see many wives and husbands, and the deadfire they sit at is less cheery than one made but never lighted. Youmustn't be laughing at an old lady, Gilian. "

"I would never be doing that, God knows, " he answered solemnly. 

"And I am sure you would not, my dear, " she said, looking trustfully athim; "though sometimes I must be laughing at myself for such a folly. Lads and lasses have spoken to me about their courtships and theirtrials, and they never knew that I had anything but an old maid's notionof the thing. And that's the way with yourself, is it not, Gilian? Willyou tell me now?"

Still he hung hesitating. 

"Do you--are you fond of the girl?" said she and now it was he who wasin the chair and she was bending over him. 

"Do I not?" he cried, sudden and passionate lest his confidence shouldfail. "Ay, with all my heart. "

"Poor Gilian!" said she. 

"Yes, poor Gilian!" he repeated bitterly, thinking on all that laybetween him and the girl of his devotion. Now, if ever, was the time totell the real object of his visit, how that those old surmisers upstairswere wider of the mark than the innkeeper, and that the person for whomthe hunt was up through half the shire was sequestered in the lonelyshealing hut on the moor of Karnes. 

"I am sorry, " she went on, and there was no mistake about it, for hergrief was in her face. "I am sorry, but you must forget, my dear. It iseasy--sometimes--to forget, Gilian; you must be just throng with workand duty, and by-and-by you'll maybe wonder at yourself having been inthe notion of Nan Gordon's daughter, made like her mother (and God blessher!) for the vexation of youth, but never for sober satisfaction. I amwae for you, Gilian, and I cannot help you, though I would tramp fromhere to Carlisle in my bauchles if it would bring her to you. "

"You maybe would not need to go so far, " he answered abruptly. "There isa hut behind the hill there, and neither press nor fire nor candle norcompanion in it, and Nan--Miss Nan, is waiting there for me to go backto her, and here I'm wasting precious hours. Do you not see that I'mburning like a fire?"

"And you have the girl in the moor?" she cried incredulously. 

"That I have!" he answered, struck by the absolute possession hersentence suggested. "I have her there. I took her there. I took her fromher father's home. She came willingly, and there she is, for me!"

He held out his arms with a gesture indescribable, elate, nervous withhis passion. "Auntie, think of it: you mind her eyes and her hair, yonturn of the neck, and her song? They're mine, I'm telling you. "

"I mind them in her mother, " said the little lady, stunned by thisintelligence. "I mind them in her mother, and they were not at all, inher, for those who thought they were for them. This--this is a terriblething, Gilian, " she said piteously. 

He rose, and "What could I do?" he asked. "I loved her, and was I tolook at her father selling her to another one who never had her heart?"

"Are you sure you have it yourself, Gilian?" she asked, and her face wasexceedingly troubled. 

"It's a thing I never asked, " he confessed carelessly. "Would she bewhere she is without it being so?"

"Where her mother's daughter might be in any caprice of spirit I wouldnot like to guess, " said Miss Mary, dubious. "And I think, if I was theman, it would be the first thing I would be making sure about. "

"What would she fly with me for if it was not for love?" he asked. 

"Ask a woman that, " she went on. "Only a woman, and only some kindsof women, could tell you that. For a hundred reasons good enough forherself, though not for responsibility. "

He bit his lips in perplexity, feeling all at sea, the only thing clearto his mind being that Nan was alone on the moor, her morning firesending a smoke to the sky, expectation bringing her now and then to thedoor to see if her ambassador was in view. 

For the sake of that sweet vision he was bound to put another questionto Miss Mary--to ask her if the reference by her brother to Old Islaybore the import he had given it. He braced himself to it--a mostunpleasant task. 

"It's true, " she said. "Do you mean to tell me you did not know he wasthe man?" "I did not. And the money?" "Oh, the money!" said Miss Maryoddly, as if now a great deal was explained to her. "Did Nan hearanything of that?"

"She knows everything--except the man's name. She was too angry to hearthat. "

"Except the man's name, " repeated Miss Mary. "She did not know it wasYoung Islay. " She turned as she spoke, and busied herself with a dusterwhere there was no need for it. And when she showed him her face again, there were tears there, not for her own old trials, but for his. 

"You must go back there, " she said firmly, though her lips weretrembling, "and you will tell Miss Nan that whatever Old Islay would do, his son would never put that affront on her. At the worst, the money wasno more than a tocher with the lad; it was their start in Drimleeand Maam that are now together for the sake of an old vanity of thefactors. . . . You must tell all that, " she went on, paying no heed to theperplexity in his face. "It would be unfair to do less, my dear; it willbe wiser to do all. Then you will do the other thing--if need be--whatyou should have done first and foremost; youll find out if the girl isin earnest about yourself or only indulging a cantrip like her mother'sdaughter. Ask her--ask her--oh! what need I be telling you? If you havenot the words in your heart I need not be putting them in your mouth. Run away with you now!" and she pushed him to the door like a child thathad been caressed and counselled. 

He was for going eagerly without a word more, but she cried him back. For a moment she clung to his arm as if she was reluctant to part withhim. 

"Oh!" she cried, laughing, and yet with tears in her voice, "abonny-like man to be asking her without having anything to offer. "

He would have interrupted her, but she would not let him. 

"Go your ways, " she told him, "and bring her back with you if you can. Miss Mary has something in a stocking foot, and no long need for it. "

CHAPTER XXXIII--THE PROMISE

When Gilian came down the stair and to the mouth of the pend close, hestood with some of the shyness of his childhood that used to keep himswithering there with a new suit on, uneasy for the knowledge that thecolour and cut of it would be the talk of the town as soon as it wasseen, and that some one would come and ask ofthand if Miss Mary wasstill making-down from the Paymaster's waistcoats. It was for that heused at last to show a new suit on the town by gentle degrees, the firstSunday the waistcoat, the next Sunday the waistcoat and trousers, andfinally the complete splendour. Now he felt kenspeckle, not in any suitof material clothes but in a droll sense of nakedness. He had told hislove and adventure in a place where walls heard and windows peered, and a rumour out of the ordinary went on the wind into every close andsoared straight to the highest tenement--even to the garret rooms. Hefelt that the women at the wells, very busy, as they pretended, overtheir boynes and stoups, would whisper about him as he passed, withoutlooking up from their occupation. 

Down the street towards the church there was scarcely any one to be seenexcept the children out for the mid-day airing from Brooks's school, andold Brooks himself going over to Kate Bell's for his midday waters witha daundering step as if he had no special object, and might as readilybe found making for the quay or the coffee-house. The children werenoisy in the playground, the boys playing at port-the-helm, a foolishpastime borrowed in its parlance and its rule from the seafarers whofrequented the harbour, and the girls more sedately played peeveral-aland I dree I dree! dropped it, their voices in a sweat unison chanting, yet with a sorrow in the cadence. 

Up the street some men sat on the Cross steps waiting the coming of theferry-boat from Kilcatrine, for it was the day of the weekly paper. OldIslay went from corner to corner, looking eager out to sea, his handsdeep in the pockets of his long coat. Major McNicol put his headcautiously out at his door that his servant lass held open and scannedthe deadly world where Frenchmen lay in ambush. He caught a glimpse ofGilian spying from the pend close and darted in trembling, but soon cameout again, with the maid patting him kindly and assuringly on the back. From close to close he made a tactical advance--swift dashes between onhis poor bent old limbs, and he drew up by Gilian's side. 

"All's well!" said he with a breath of relier. "Man! but they're throngto-day; the place is fair botching with them. "

Gilian expressed some commonplace and left the shelter of the pend closeand went up the street round the factor's corner. He looked behind himthere. The ferry-boat from Kilcatrine was in. Young Islay had steppedthe first off the skiff and was speaking--not to his father, but toGeneral Turner, whose horse, spattered with foam and white with autumndust, a boy held at the quay head. The post-runner took a newspaper fromhis pocket and handed it to the men waiting at the Cross; they hastenedinto the vintners, and one of them read aloud to the company with noneed to replenish his glass. Against the breast wall the tide at thefull lapped with a pleasant sound. Mr. Spencer came out to the front ofthe Inns, smoking a segar, very perjink with a brocade waistcoat and acollar so high it rasped his ears. 

Everything visible impressed itself that day acutely on Gilian as hewent out of the town; not only as if he were naked but as if he wereraw and feeling flesh, and he was glad when the turn of the road at theArches hid this place from his view. 

A voice cried behind him, and turning around he found Peggy runningafter him with a basket, Miss Mary's afterthought for the fugitive girlon the moor. 

Very quickly he sped up the hills; Nan ran out to meet him as he came upthe brae from Little Fox. She had been crying in the morning till tearswould come no longer, but now she was composed; at least her eyeswere calm and her cheeks lost the pallor they had from a night almostsleepless in that lonely dwelling. As he saw her running out to meet himhe filled with elation and with apprehension. She was so beautiful, soairy, so seemingly his alone as she ran out thus from their refuge, thathe grudged the hours he had been gone from her. 

"Oh, " she cried, "the Spring was no more welcome to the wood. I hope youhave brought good news, Gilian. " And up she went to him and linked anarm through his with some of the composure of the companion and some ofthe ardour of the sweetheart. 

"I think it's all well, " said he, putting his arm round her as they wentup towards the hut together. 

"Is it only thinking?" she asked with disappointment in her voice, allthe ardour gone from her face, and her arm withdrawn. "I was so certainit would be sureness for once. Will Miss Mary not help me? I am sorry Iasked her. It was not right, perhaps, that my father's daughter shouldbe expecting anything from the sister of the Campbells of Keil. " She wasall tremulous with vexed pride and disappointment. 

"Miss Mary is your very kind friend, Nan, " he protested, "and she willhelp you as readily as she will help me. "

"I am to go down then?" she cried, uplifted again. 

"Well, yes--that is, it is between ourselves. "

"That's what I would be thinking myself, John Hielan'man, " she thought. And still with all her contempt for his shrinking uncertainty there wasa real fondness that might in an hour have come to full blossom in thatsolitude where they so depended on each other. 

"I was to ask you something, " he said. 

"My wise Miss Mary!" said Nan to herself. "Women have all the wits. " Butshe said nothing aloud, waiting for his explanation. 

"I thought there was no need of it myself, but she said she knewbetter. "

"Very likely she was right too, " said Nan. "And now you must tell meall about what is going on down-by. Are they looking for me? What is myfather saying? Do they blame me?"

Gilian told her all he knew or thought desirable, as they went up to thehut and prepared for the first meal Nan had that day. It was good thatthe weather favoured them. No sign of its habitual rain and wind hungover the moorland. Soft clouds, white like the wool of lambs new-washedin running waters, hung motionless where the sky met the moor, but overthem still was the deep blue, greying to the dip. 

They lit a fire in the hut with scraps of candle-fir Gilian had pickedup on the way from the town, and a cheerful flame illumined the meaninterior, but in a while they preferred to go outside and sit by theedge of Little Fox. In a hollow there the wilds seemed more compactabout them; the sense of solitude disappeared; it was just as if oneof their berrying rambles in the woods behind Maam had been prolongeda little farther than usual Lazily they reclined upon the heather, softand billowy to their arms; the kind air fanned them, a melody breathedfrom the rippling shore. 

All the reading in Marget Maclean's books, the shy mornings, thepondering eves, the ruminations lonely by wood and shore, had preparedGilian for such an hour, and now he felt its magic. And as they sat thuson the bank of the little lake, Nan sung, forgetting herself in her songas she ever must be doing. The waves stilled to listen; the birds on theheather came closer; the clouds, like wool on the edge of Ben Bhreac, tarried and trembled. And Gilian, as he heard, forgetting all thatancient town below of unable elders and stagnant airs, illusion goneand glory past, its gossip at well and close, its rancours of clan andfamily, knew the message now of the bird that cried across the swampymeadow-land at Kilmalieu. Love, love, love--and death. It was themessage of bird and flower, of wave and wind, the deep and constant notein Nan's song, whatever the words might be. No more for a moment therustic, the abashed shepherd, but with the secret of the world fillinghis heart, he crept closer to Nan's side as she leaned upon the heather, and put an arm around her waist. 

"Nan, Nan, " he cried, "could we not be here, you and I, alone togetherfor ever?"

The gaudy bubble of her expectation burst; she released herself from hisgrasp with "John Hielan'-man! John Hielan'man!" in her mind. 

"And was that Miss Mary's question? I thought she was a more sensiblefriend to both of us. "

"Never a better, " said he. "She offered her all and----"

"What!" cried Nan, anger flaring in her face, "are you in the markettoo?"

He stammered an excuse. 

"It was not a gift, " said he, "but to you and me; and that, indeed, wasas much as Old Islay meant, to give him his due. "

"Old Islay, Old Islay!" she repeated, turning her face from him to hideits sudden remorse. "Islay, Islay, " she repeated to herself. He noticedthe hand she leaned upon, so soft, so white, so beautiful, trembled inits nest among the heather. He was so taken up with it there among theheather, so much more beautiful than the fairest flower, that he did notnotice how far he had given up his secret. 

He caught the hand and fondled it, and still she repeated to herselflike a coronach, "Islay, Islay. " For once more the rude arm was roundher waist in Maam, and the bold soldier was kissing her on the lips. 

Gilian stood up and "Oh!" he cried, as he looked from her to thelandscape, and back from the landscape to her again, "Oh!" he cried, "Iwondered, when you were gone in Edinburgh, what was wanting here. WhenMiss Mary told me you were come home, I felt it was the first time thesun had shone, and the birds had found a song. "

"Young Islay!" she still was thinking, hearing the dreamer but tocompare him with the practitioner she knew. 

And then the dreamer, remembering that his question was still unput, uttered it shyly and awkwardly. "Do you love me?" said he. 

It was for this she had fled from Young Islay, who knew his mind and hadno fear to speak it!

"Do I love you?" she repeated. "Are you not too hasty?"

"Am I?" he said, alarmed. And she sighed. 

"Oh yes, of course you are! You know so little of me. You have taken mefrom my father's house by a ladder at night, and share a moor with me, and you know I have no friend to turn to in the world but yourself. Youhave eyes and ears, and still you must be asking if it is not hasty tofind out if I love you. It is a wonder you have the boldness to say theword itself. "

"Well, " he pursued gawkily, though he perceived her drift clearly, "hereI am, and I do love you. Oh, what a poor word it is, that love, for thefire I feel inside me. There is no word for that, there is nothing but asong for it that some day I must be making. Love, quo' she; oh, I couldsay that truly of the heather kissing your hand, ay, of the glaur yourfeet might walk on upon a wet day!"

"My best respects to you, Master Gilian!" said Nan. "You have the finetongue in your head after all. What a pity we have been wasting such agrand opportunity for it here!" and there was an indulgence in her eye, though now and then the numb regret of a blunder made came upon herspirit. 

"Will you come down with me?" he went on, far too precipitate for herfancy. 

"When?" she asked, thoughtlessly robbing a heather-tuft bell by bellwith idle fingers. 

"Now; Miss Mary expects us this evening. "

"Miss Mary!" said she, a little amused and annoyed. "You would neverhave come to the bit but for her. "

"Perhaps not, " he confessed, "but here I am, and God bless her forbringing me to it! Will you--will you take my white heather now?" And hestood, something of a lout, with nervous hands upon his hips. 

"It looks very pretty where it is, " she answered playfully. "And forwhat should I be decking myself in the wilderness?"

She wanted the obvious compliment, but this was a stock from a kailgarden, and "Oh, John Hielan'man!" she cried aloud for the first time. 

"You promised, you know, " he said lamely. 

"That was yesterday, and this is to-day, and----" she could not finishfor thinking of Young Islay. 

"Must I be taking it to you?" he went on, making to move to the door ofthe hut where lay the symbol of his love and the token of her surrender. 

"Wait! wait!" she cried, standing to her feet and approaching him. "Isthat all there is in the bargain? Are there no luck-pennies at this sortof market?"

He understood her and kissed her with a heart furious within but in hismovement hesitating, shy and awkward. 

For her life she could not but recall the other--the more confident andpractised one she had fled from. She drew off, red, to give her no morethan her due, for the treachery of her mind. 

"Leave it, " she said to him. "I will get it myself. Does anyone besidesMiss Mary know we are here?"

"No. "

"Then she will tell nobody our secret. You will go down now. We couldscarcely go together. You will go down now, and tell her I will followin the dusk. "

"You have given me no answer, Nan, " he pleaded; "the heather!"

"The heather will be at my heart!" she cried hurriedly. 

It was a promise that sang in his head as he went on his way, the heraldof joy, the fool of illusion. 

CHAPTER XXXIV--CHASE

When he had gone and was no farther than the shoulder of the brae lyingbetween the hut and Little Fox, and there was no longer any chance ofhis turning to repeat his wild adieux, Nan went into the old hut and putthe sprig of white heather at her bosom, and gave way to a torrent oftears. She could not have done so in the sunshine outside, but in thatpoor interior, even with the day spying through the roof, she had thesense of seclusion. She cried for grief and bitterness. No folly shehad ever committed seemed so great as this her latest, that she shouldblindly have fled from a danger unmeasured into a situation thatabounded with difficulties. She blamed herself, she blamed her father, she blamed Gilian for his inability to be otherwise than God had madehim. In contrast to his gawky shyness--the rusticity of the farm andhill, rose up constant in her remembrance the confident young gentlemanshe had run away from without so much as a knowledge of his name. Shecried, and the afternoon came, a blush of fire and flowing gold uponthe hills, the purple of the steeps behind her darkened; upon Big Foxbehind, some wild duck floated and gossiped. 

She was still at her crying, a maiden altogether disconsolate, with nonotion of where next she should turn to, afraid to go home yet neveronce thinking of going to Miss Mary's refuge as she had promised, andthe world was all dolorous round her, when a step sounded near the door. She started in terror and shrank into the darkest corner of the hut. The footstep came not quite close to the door; it was as if the strangerfeared to find a house empty and hesitated before setting foot on thethreshold. From where she stood she could not see him, though his breathwas to be heard, short and panting. The square of the open door wasfilled with green and purple--the green of the rank nettle, the purpleof the bell-heather she had been always careful to spare as she had gonein and out. 

Who could it be? Her first thought was of some fisherman or sportsmanlate upon the hill and attracted by the smoke of the hut that had solong known no fire. Then she thought of her father, more kindly and morecontrite to him than she had ever felt before. If it was her father, what should she do? Would she run out and dare all for his forgivenessof her folly, and take his terms if that were possible now that her nameand his were ridiculous through all the shire? But it could not be herfather. Her father would not be alone and----

Into the square of light stepped Young Islay! He was all blown with thehurry of his ascent after hearing from Black Duncan (who had heard fromElasaid) that Nan had been there in the morning, and now there was nosign of life about the silent hut except the bluereek that rose over themouldering thatch. He was a brave youth, but for once he feared to tryhis fate. 

As he stood in the doorway and looked into the dark interior, where apoor fire smouldered in the centre of the floor, he seemed so woebegonethat Nan could not but smile in spite of her trepidation. He but lookeda second, then turned to seek her elsewhere. 

As he turned away she called faintly, all blushing and all tears, butyet with a smile on her face that never sat so sweetly there as whenher feelings mingled. He started as at the voice of a ghost, and hunghesitating on the threshold till she stepped from her gloomy corner intothe light of the afternoon. As he saw her where a moment before wasa vacancy he could scarcely believe his eyes. But he did not hesitatelong. In an instant, encouraged by her tears and smiles, he had an armround her. 

"Nan! Nan!" he cried, "I have found you! I never was so happy in mylife!"

For a moment she did not put him off; and he took her hesitation forcontent. 

"What did it mean? Were you flying from me?" he asked. 

All her hardships, all the wrong and degradation leaped into herrecollection. She withdrew herself firmly from that embrace that mightbe the embrace of love and possession or of simple companionship intrial. 

"I would never have been here but for you, " said she. "Did you--did youpay much?"

"Ah!" he cried ruefully, "there's where you do me injustice! Did youknow me so little--and indeed you know me but little enough, more's mysorrow--did you know me so little that you must believe me a savage tobe guilty of a crime like that? Must I be saying that before God I didnot know that my father and--and--"

"--And my father. "

"--And your father, though I would be the last to charge him, werescheming in any commercial way on my behalf? Come, come, I was notblate, was I? the last time we were together; my impudence was not inthe style of a man who would go the other way about a wooing, was it?"

"Then you did not know?" She blushed and paused. 

"I knew nothing, " he protested. "I knew nothing but that I loved you, and you know that too if telling can inform you. I told my father that, and he was well enough pleased, and I could not guess he would make afool of me and a victim of you in my absence. "

She stood trembling to this revelation of his innocence, and, once morethe confident lover, Young Islay tried to take her in his arms. 

She ran from him, not the young lady of Edinburgh but a merry-heartedchild, making for the side of Little Fox, the air as she went flappingher gown till it beat gaily like a flag. She ran light-footed, laughingin her sudden ease of mind, and on the more distant of the two slopesof Cruach-an-Lochain, antlers rose inquiring; then a red deer looked andlistened, forgetting to crop the poor grass at his feet. 

For a second or two Young Islay paused, wondering at her caprice;then he caught the spirit of it and followed with a halloo. A pleasantquarry--the temptation of it made his blood tingle as no sport in theworld could do; his halloo came back in echoes from the hill, jocund andhearty echoes, and Sir Deer at a bound went far to the rear among thebracken. 

Nan sped panting yet laughing. Then she heard his cry. "I am coming, Iam coming, " he called. It might have been the pibroch of the dawn, thehopeful conquering dawn on valley rims. She put more vigour into herflight; her lips set hard; she thought if he caught her before shereached the spot where Gilian last had kissed her, she must be his forgood. 

"Run as you like, I am coming, " cried her pursuer, and he was easilyovertaking her. Then he saw how hard and earnestly she strove. With agrimace to himself, he slackened his pace and let her gain ground. "Imust be doing my best for Gilian, " she thought; but as she risked aglance over her shoulder and saw the pursuit decline, saw his facehandsome and laughing and eager, full of the fun of the adventure, across a widening space, saw him kiss his hand to her as he ranleisurely, she forgot that she had meant to run for fair play andGilian, and she, too, slackened her pace. 

A moment more and he caught her, and she relapsed in his arms with asigh of exertion and surrender. 

"Faith, you are worth running for!" said he, turning her to him tosee into her eyes. For a little he looked at the flushed and beautifulcountenance. Her bosom throbbed against his breast; her head thrownback, showed the melting passion of her eyes like slumbering lakes onlyhalf hid by her trembling lids, her lips red and full, tempting, openupon pearls. She was his, he told himself, all his, and yet--and yet, he had half a regret that now he had caught he need chase no more--theregret of the hunter when the deer is home, of the traveller who hasreached the goal after pleasant journeyings. 

His pause was but for a moment, then on her lips he pressed his; on allher glowing face fell the fever of his kisses. 

"Nan, Nan!" he whispered, "you are mine, did I not tell you?"

"I suppose I am, " she whispered faintly. Then to herself, "Poor Gilian!"

"And yet, " said he, "I'm not worth it. "

"I daresay not, " she confessed, nestling the more closely in his arras. "But you won me when you saved my life. "

"Did I?" said he. "How very wise of me! Give me a kiss, then!"

She tried to free herself, and the white heather at her neck fellbetween them. She stooped for it and he to get her kiss, but she wasfirst successful. To him she held out the twig of pale bells. 

"The kiss or that; you can have either, " she said. "One is love and theother is luck. "

"Then, sweetheart, I'll have both, " said Young Islay. 

CHAPTER XXXV--AN EMPTY HUT

The town bell rang, the little shops were shuttered. Miss Mary, with anew cap on to do justice to the occasion, had sat for hours with Gilianat the window, waiting; the Cornal was in bed, and the Paymaster, dubious but not unpleased, was up at MacGibbon's telling the story overa game of dambrod. And still Nan did not appear. There was a sign ofchanging weather above Strone, and Gilian was full of sorrow to think ofthe girl travelling to him through darkness and rain, so he started outto meet her by the only path on which she must come. 

He reached the lochs as the night was drawing in. The moor was soundingloud and eerie with the call of large birds. Very cold and uncharitable, a breeze came from Cruach-an-Lochain, and in the evening dusk thecountry seemed most woefully poor and uninhabitable. So it appeared toGilian for a moment when at last he came to the head of the brae wherehe should have his first sight of the light that could make that wild aswarm and hospitable and desirable as a king's court. There was no lightnow! At first he doubted his eyesight; then he thought he was not at theright point of view; then he was compelled to confess to himself thatdarkness was assuredly where before had been a bright spot like one ofthe stars that shine in murky heavens in the midst of storms to provethat God does not forget. 

She had been kept, the dear heart, he told himself; she had been kept byher modesty waiting for the dusk, and fallen asleep for weariness. 

He went awkwardly off the customary track so that he might reach theshealing the quicker by a short cut that led through boggy grass. Hestumbled in hags and tripped on ancient heather-tufts; the birdswheeled and mocked over him, something in their note most melancholy andmenacing to his ear. 

The loch with the islet was muttering in its sleep, and woke with theshriek of a thousand frightened birds when this phantom stumbled onits solitude. The tiny island even in the dusk rose black like a hearseplume in the water. At his feet he felt upon a stone the tinkle ofbroken glass, and he stooped to feel. His finger came upon the portionsof the broken cup, and he remembered, with shame for his own share inthe scene, how Nan had punished his awkwardness by casting from her thevessel of which this was the fragment She had had her lips to this, herfingers had touched it; it was a gem to put in his pocket, and he putit there. He searched round again as he repeated in his mind all theincidents of that first morning in the moor, and a little farther on hecame upon the ashes of their dead fire. Poor dead fire, grey old ashes, flame quenched, warmth departed, loneliness come--the reflections madehim shiver. 

As he stood there in what was now the dark night, he might have been aphantom mourning for the unrecoverable, the ghost of old revelries, theshade of pleasant bygone hearths and love the ancient. 

He shook himself into the present world, and left behind the ashes oftheir fire and made for the shealing hut, all the way solacing himselfwith fancy. The girl was his, but he never let his mind linger on thenumerous difficulties that lay inevitably between the present hour andhis possession of her. He projected himself into the future with ablank unexplained behind, and saw them at unextinguishable hearths, loveaccompanying them through generations. Through the heather he brushedeagerly now, his eyes intent upon the dim summits of the brae from whichagain he should see the light of the shealing if it was there. LochLittle Fox, and Great Fox, and all the black and sobbing pools amongthe heather he passed on the light feet of love, and when he came to thebrae top and still found no beacon there, he was exceedingly dashed. 

"I hope, I hope there is nothing wrong, " he said aloud. And he hurriedthe faster. 

The sky was full of clouds, all but a patch star-sown over Ben Bhreac, and all through the hollows and hags ran a wail of rain-wind mostmournful. The birds that had been crying over the pools departed, andthere was no sound of animal life. The wind moaned and the pools sobbed. About the black edifice in which he thought was all he prized most dearon earth, blackness hung like a terror. Breathless he stood at the door. It was wide open! It was wide open! It was wide open to the night wind!As if a hand of ice had clutched him at the heart he shook and staggeredback. 

"God of Grace!" he cried in his mother tongue, then "Nan! Nan!" hecalled to the dark within. There was no answer, and a bird flew outabove his head. 

He cried no more there, but out he ran into the vacant moor and loudlyhe called to the night, "Nan! Nan!" till his voice seemed to himselfsome terrific chant of long-dead peoples come first to this strange landand crying for each other in the wilderness where they were lost. 

"Nan! Nan!" he cried, sometimes entreating, sometimes peremptory, asthough she might be hiding in the dark in some childish caprice. "Nan!Nan!" he called plaintively, and he called sharply too and loudly, thepossessor. The sides of Ben Bhreac woke to answer "Anan, " as peoplereply in dreams; and the stars of heaven in their little garden overthe hill had no interest whatever in his crying; they hung out cool andimperturbable, and the wind wailed, but not for his anxieties, on thereeds of Little Fox. 

Then he pressed his hand upon his heart to still its uproar and strainedhis ears to listen. No sound of a girl's voice, no foot upon theheather. He could scarcely believe his senses. In his mind, as heapproached the house she had seemed as essential a part of it as the skywas portion of the universe, and here she was gone!

"After all, she may be in the house asleep, " he thought, cheatinghimself into a moment's comfort; and back he went again. He listened atthe threshold for a breath: no sound came to him; the fire was all out, the air was the air of a dungeon. "Nan!" he called timidly. He got noreply. 

Timidly now he stepped into that chamber that had been sacred to himbefore--the holy of holies--and fumbled with a steel. The sparks showedhim his hands trembling, but at first he did not dare to look behind himfor fears intangible. The dried heather stems caught the flame of thetinder; there was but a handful of them; they flared up in a moment'sred glare on the interior, then died out crackling. It was enough toshow him the place was empty. It showed him, too, his lantern, the poorcompanion of his adventure, lying on the floor as if it had been tumbledthere in some hasty escape; he picked it up and lit it, the gleamlighting a ghastly face. And then he went out again, not knowing why orwhat he might do there, but bound to be moving and away from that emptyshell where had been his kernel untasted. The wind had risen and wasrising higher still. On Little Fox side he stood, a ludicrous object, with the pin-points of light pricking the darkness. He was there thedreamer and the hesitator, his eyes vacant. He wore a short ill-fittingjacket; his vest had come unbuttoned in the haste of his clamber upthe moor; his bonnet was drawn low upon his brow. As he cherished thelantern from the wind with his back bent he was no figure of the ideallover, but yet some tragedy was in the look of him--some great andmoving fate that might have made the night pity him. Down again totheir little knowe he went, and cast himself upon it and surrendered toemotion. It was for him the grave of love, the new-reared mound of hisaffection. Even yet he could see where she had pressed down the heatheras she reclined. Looking at the heather he remembered the white spray ofhis affection that she had said would be the sign of his fate. He wentback quickly to the hut, the wind still puffing at his foolish lantern, and he found the heather gone. It comforted him exceedingly. She hadgone, why or where he could not guess, but she had taken with her thetoken of his love and thereby left him her capitulation. His heather wasat her heart!

Wearied utterly, as much by the stress of his passions as by the ardoursof the day, he took possession of her couch and slept till morning. 

CHAPTER XXXVI--CONCLUSION

Fair day in the town, and cattle roved about the street, bellowing, thered and shaggy fellows of the moors, mourning in Gaelic accent and withmild large eyes pondering on the mysteries of change. Behind them wentthe children, beating them lightly on the flanks with hazel wands, imagining themselves travellers over the markets of the world, andothers, the older ones, the bolder ones, went from shop to shop forfarings, eating, as they went, the parley-man and carvey-cake of theFair day. Farmers and shepherds gossiped and bargained on the footpathsor on the grass before the New Inns; the Abercrombie clattered withconvivial glass and sometimes rose the chorus to a noisy ditty of Lorn. Old Brooks, with his academy shut for holiday, stood at the Churchcorner with a pocket full of halfpence for his bairns, and a littlesilver in his vest for the naughty ones he had thrashed with the feruleand grieved for. "To be good and clever is to be lucky enough, " he said;"I must be kind to my poor dunces. " Some of them, he saw, went with hisgift straight to Marget Maclean's. "Ah, " he said, smiling to himself, "they're after the novelles! I wish Virgil was so much the favourite, oreven the Grammarian. "

All in the pleasant sunshine the people walked abroad on theplain-stones; a piper of the company of Boboon the wanderer, with buttwo drones to his instrument, played the old rant of the clan as DukeGeorge went past on a thoroughbred horse. 

"Do you hear yon?" asked the Paymaster, opening the parlour window tolet in that mountain strain his brother loved so truly. 

The Cornal cocked an ear, drew down shaggy brows on his attention, andstudied, musingly, the tune that hummed from the reeds below. 

"'Baile Inneraora'!" said he. "I wish it was 'Bundle and Go. ' That'sthe tune now for Colin Campbell, for old Colin Campbell, for poor ColinCampbell who once was young and wealthy. I've seen the day that rantwould set something stirring here "--and he struck a bony hand uponhis breast "Now there's not a move"--and he searched still with fingersabove his heart. "Not a move! There's only a clod inside where oncethere was a bird. "

He stood with his head a little to the side, listening to the piper tillthe tune died, half accomplished, at a tavern door. Then the childrenand the bellowing kine had the world to themselves again. The sound ofcarriage wheels came from the Cross, and of the children calling loudfor bridal bowl-money. 

"What's that?" asked the Cornal, waking from his reverie; and hisbrother put his head out at the window. He drew back at once with hisface exceeding crimson. 

"What is't?" said the Cornal, seeing his hesitation. 

"A honeymoon pair, " said the brother, and fumbled noisily with thenewspaper he had in his hand. 

"Poor creatures! And who is it? Though I never get over the door you'lltell me nothing. "

The Paymaster answered shortly. "It's the pair from Maam, " said he, andback to his paper again. 

Up to his brow the Cornal put a trembling hand and seemed amazed andstartled. Then he recollected, and a sad smile came to his visage. "Not a clod altogether yet!" said he, half to himself and half to hisbrother. "I felt the flutter of a wing. But it's not your grief or minethis time, Jock; it's your poor recruit's. "

"He's down in Miss Mary's room, and that's the place for the like ofhim. "

"Is it?" said the Cornal. "Dugald understood him best of any of us; hesaw this coming, and I mind that he grieved for the fellow. "

"He's grieving plenty for himself, and let him!" said the Paymaster, setting aside his journal. "Look what he dropped from his pocket thismorning. Peggy thought it was mine and she took it to me. Mine! Fancythat! I'm jalousing she was making a joke of me. " He produced, as hespoke, a scrap of paper with some verses on it and handed it to hisbrother. 

The Cornal held the document far from his failing eyes and perused thewriting. It was the first of those heart-wrung fancies that went to themaking of the volume that lies before me as I write--the familiar lamentfor the lost "Maid of the Moor" that shepherds still are singing on hisnative hills. 

"A ballant!" said he, wondering, and with some contempt. 

"That's just what it is, " said his brother. "There was never the likebroke out in this family before, I'm glad to say. "

The Cornal screwed his lips firmly. "It's what I would call goingaltogether too far, " he said. "I'm feared your recruit will affront usagain. A song, now! did you ever know the like of it? I'll not put upwith it! Did you say he was down with Miss Mary?"

"I saw her laying the corner of the table, " said the Paymaster, "andI'll warrant it was not to feed herself at this time of day. "

The Cornal looked again at the verses, clearing his eyes with his hand, as if he might happily be mistaken. But no, there were the foolishlines, and some sentiments most unmanly frank of love and idleness amongthe moor and heather. He growled; he frowned below his shaggy brows:"Come down this instant and put an end to it, " said he. 

"He's with Mary, " his brother reminded him, hesitating. 

"I don't care a curse if he was with the Duke, " said the Cornal. "I'llend this carry-on in an honest and industrious family. "

He led the way downstairs, the Paymaster following softly, both in theirslippers. Noiselessly they pushed open the door of Miss Mary's room andgazed within. She and her darling were looking over the window at thetumultuous crowd of children scrambling for Young Islay's bowl-moneyscattered by Black Duncan in the golden syver sand. Miss Mary in thatposition could not but have her arm about his waist, and her handunconsciously caressed the rough home-spun of his jacket. The brothers, unobserved, stood silent in the doorway. 

"That's the end of it!" said Gilian bitterly, as he came wholly intothe room. His face, shone on by the sun that struck above the tall landsopposite from fiery clouds, was white to the lips. Miss Mary looked upinto his eyes, mourning in her very inmost for his torture. 

"I would say 'fair wind to her, ' my dear, and a good riddance, " saidshe, and yet without conviction in her tone. 

"I will say 'fair wind' readily, " he answered, "but I cannot beforgetting. I know she likes--she loves me still. "

Miss Mary showed her pity in her face, but nothing at all had she tosay. 

"You are not doubting it, are you?" he cried eagerly; and, stillunnoticed in the doorway, the Paymaster grimaced his contempt, but hisbrother, touched by some influence inexplicable, put the poem in hispocket and delayed the entry. 

"Are you doubting?" again cried the lad, determined on his answer butdreading a denial. 

"It is not your bowl-money the bairns are gathering at the Cross, " saidMiss Mary simply. 

"True, " he acknowledged; "but she went because she must. She loves mestill, I'm telling you; she has my heather at her heart!"

Miss Mary understood. She looked at her dreamer and stifled a sigh. Thenshe saw her brothers in the doorway, silent, and her hand went down andmet his and fondled it for his assurance as on the day he first stood, the frightened stranger, on that floor, and she had sheltered hisshyness in the folds of her bombazine gown. 

THE END