The

in her wits as well, she had drunk in the | he climb the steep path to it. The woods
glorious traditions of England till they are fringed with rowan-trees; and it is
fired her blood like wine. She was seldom that a townsman or a stranger
prouder of them than ever she would have arrives at the steading with hat or belt
been if she had shared them with her hus- unadorned with the clusters of red berries.
band instead of craving some little title to Theirs, however, is the only color in the
them through him. In that pride she landscape. The woods are gaunt. The
nurtured the lad, sensitive enough, her- outlines of the little hills are not majestic,
self, to any look or word of color thrown or even tender. The farmhouse is a plain,
at her; and a very she-devil if it were cast two-storied building, coom-ceiled.
up against her boy. He little deserved wooden porch faces the hill, and in front
having it cast up to him, being, as I have of it there is a green park girded on every
said, bronzed only as a white face ought side (save that on which the burn rushes
to be by laughing in the eyes of the sun. when there is a spate on the hills) by a
With this he had a lithe Indian build, that garden of vegetables and fruit-bushes.
set him in the forefront of his fellows for The stackyard at the back of the house
feats of limb, in the days when he chased wanders among byres and stables and
the young horses, with the shepherds' corn-lofts. The very fields around are
sons, in the grass-parks round Hawfield, unkindly, and the rock crops quickly to
and later at his school in England and their surface. All this you will find as I
when he joined his regiment. His mother have written it down, if you will take the
watched this, and stroked and fingered trouble to cover the three miles out from
the proud nature with which he had Riverton to Row'tilly; and it was the same
clothed himself, feeling its texture con- thirty years ago, when Mrs. Learmont
stantly and trying its wear, and scarce lived at Hawfield, and John Coulter farmed
able to bear her heart beating with the her twenty acres along with his two hun
consciousness of what she thought was dred acres in Row'tilly.
her husband's race in her boy. I do not
speak from knowledge of him, but only
gather what threads have come to me to a
pattern. It may well be that he was a
battleground of races. At any rate, there
was a look from beneath the black eye-
brows that at times was frank and win-
ning, and at others full of a cunning at
which the country louts wondered and felt
creepy; at all times telling of the pride
swelling the delicate nostril that had not a
trace of his mother's race, drawing the
curves of the mouth taut as a bow high-
strung, and letting his head play freely on
his shoulders like a strong man that feels
his foothold on the rock. All this we
might have noticed when he came home
in the summer and again at Christmas,
and sometimes between; and it was the
very devil to any woman that he looked
on, if she looked on him again.

Now, from Riverton to Hawfield the road runs through Denbrae and sharply to the right, westwards, until, a mile farther on, you come to the first stone pillars at the end of the Hawfield Avenue. Presently the road doubles back on John Coulter's farm; but the nearest way thither from Denbrae village is on the north side, where issues a cart-track that, winding round plantations and through acres of fern and whin, creeps to the upland farm of Row'tilly. The proper name of the farm, indeed, is Rowantilly, and one does not need to ask why if, ou a summer day,

That year Robert Learmont remained at Hawfield late into the autumn. He was there at the Row'tilly harvesting. Harvest was always late, the land being high and silly; and it was especially late that season, as Nell Coulter had occasion to remember, for her marriage with Dave Sturrock, the Denbrae baker, could not come off until the last sheaf was stacked. One day, when there was a sweltering heat for that time of year, and just about the dinner hour, Robert Learmont came across the field among the stooks. Now, a field that is cutting is sacred to the shearers, and whoso trespasses must pay the penalty of "bengie;" that is, he (or she, for that part of it), may be seized by heel and crop, and bumped upon the stubble until he, or she, is tender, unless there is a compounding with money for an exercise few have a mind to. Accordingly, when the word went round the field of Robert's presence in it, they converged on him, and would have seized him, I dare say, for he was not one to send a coin on a fist's errand. But at the moment his eye fell on Kate Coulter, who had come running, with her arms full of the shearers' bread, when she saw the workpeople crowding to one spot. For all that her eyes were young and inquisitive, she had the figure of a woman, as was more plainly seen now that she had come to a stop, with her bosom heaving on her long breaths; her dark eyes shining under

བབ་་

lashes blacker than Robert's own, and all | dow-
the ripeness of her lips and throat show-
ing in the sunlight.

it was my father's window thenand caused us to rise all together, knowing that something very important must ac count for such a precise man going out of his order. Mr. Tosh shook hands with my father first, as his way was ever. There were some folks who said that my mother, being Mr. Tosh's sister, might have looked higher than plain Mr. Shirra in the excise. Mr. Tosh never showed that that was in his mind, although I believe it was there. Being a proud man, with a shrewd eye, he knew that that kind of pride looked best when it was saddled and ridden.

That morning he said to me, passing over these civilities with something of perfunctoriness,

He took a crown-piece from his pocket, be passed through the brown arms still arched to throw him, and pressed the coin between her fingers as, well apart, they clasped her burden. With that he looked through the warm haze of her face into her eyes, and held them for a second, without saying a word, so far as they could see. I suppose she did not hate him, even then, nor had cause to. But it has always seemed to me that a woman's selfprotection is a cruel business at the best. The ammunition of her defence differs from that of men as dynamite differs from gunpowder; his leaving no more than the dirt of battle at the most; hers often "Put on your shoes, David. I'll want shattering herself. She dropped her load; ye this forenoon. It's an errand o' neceshe could see a squall of anger sweep across sity if not o' mercy," he said, turning to her face; and even as he thought it won-my father, who was very particular in the derful that change in her the silver- ways of keeping the Sabbath, "an' the piece stung him, flung full on his cheek kirk maun hang in the head o't, this day." with all the force of the country girl's wrath. Stooping to hide the shot of pain in his eyes, he picked up the crown, to have pocketed it with a compliment, no doubt; but Kate, when he looked for her, was striding across the field to Row'tilly. He spun the coin high in the air- -an action like a sneer and with his face burning round the inflamed spot, as it seemed to the workers, he turned on his heel to Denbrae.

When we got out on the road, "There's news come with the coach this morning that Robert Learmont's killed at the Redan," he said. "The guard's blowing it about like a blast on his tooter, an' we maun break it up at Hawfield before it gets there on coarse tongues."

It was easy to see that it was against the grain in him, this errand, and that my company was just for company's sake. It's a sore business dealing out fortune's blows, even if you know your stroke will be lighter than most. Old Michael knew what the blow would be to the woman the roots of whose life were dug into that body that maybe by this time was long. shuffled underground. But he was not a man to shirk his duty.

Among the farm servants it was the talk of days how the "maister's dochter" had served young Learmont; and many, when they passed him on the road, were curious enough to hold to the right and look for the red spot still visible on his left cheek. By the time the tale was old on their lips, Robert had held Kate in his arms and she had kissed that scar. How, We reached Denbrae when the bells when, where they met, no one ever told were ringing in, and saw the folks popping me, and I believe no one ever knew. But into the kirk, for all the world like rabbits there was no lack of occasion, with the into their burrows. We had passed into harvest carried on under the moon, and the Hawfield road when the Hawfield dogKate going to and fro between the farm-cart came rattling along it, and Mathie house and the field, and Robert with such Oliver, the coachman, looking in a terrible a way with women, as every one knew. way. He was back again in spring; and in the summer a flying visit (to see Kate, he said) before he set out for the front; and Kate the proud, reticent girl whom Tam Sturrock worshipped from afaryielded to him with the wonderful yielding of women.

II.

I WELL remember that Sunday morning when Michael Tosh passed the win

66

Good-morning, Matthew," said Mr. Tosh, holding up his hand no higher than his waist-belt, as if that was high enough to stop a coachman. But Mathie's words tossed up the old man's gentleness as you've seen wind toss the fallen leaves.

"Heist ye, Mister Tosh," said he. "I'm awa' for the doctor. There's news come o' young Robert's death in the Crimee, and the auld lady is taking on something awfu"."

I could see disgust at the turn of affairs creeping up to Mr. Tosh's eyes like a sickness.

"Who-who was it carried the news to Hawfield?" he asked.

512

"Mister Hendry Anderson cam running out an hour syne, and tell't 's

"Oh, yes! Matthew Oliver," replied Mr. Tosh, very precisely, turning on his heel. "Oh, yes! Hairy Anderson was always such a particular demned ass!" With that he set his feet again into the Riverton road, leaving me to follow. And at the bend where the Row'tilly pathway runs into it, I could see Kate Coulter hurrying down it, late for the kirk. I looked to have walked the few steps to the kirkgate with her. Most lads round about were drawn to the Row'tilly girl, less for her beauty than because of her holdingback, proud ways; but Kate hung in the road - because she saw my company, I said to myself, with what would have been vanity had I believed it. And Michael Tosh calling me alongside of him, I fell into his short steps again, and so went home thinking of how the day's business had fallen out, and never dreaming that I was turning my back on the end of it.

gossiping people, and were even more so
in those days; so that when all had come
and gone, many remembered what Lear-
mont said, and what Kate, and what Tam
Sturrock; and told the sayings again.

When the congregation gathered in
Denbraeo kirkyard for the afternoon ser-
vice the bits of the morning's news were
put together. Some declared that Mrs.
Learmont had it by word of mouth passed
on from the coast by the coach, others
that it came by letter. Both were right.
We know the amount of truth that was in
the word-o'-mouth story, and Mrs. Lear-
mont did get a letter. But of all the intri-
cate things in life this is the saddest:
that it is not the truth of a thing that is
going to be of much use to you, but the
knowing it true. The Denbrae gossips
had learned nothing when they had not
learned that the word in the letter can-
celled Henry Anderson's, and told how
Robert Learmont had a wound indeed, but
not a deadly one. We found that out
when it was too late. What we shall never
find out (although I have no doubt on the
point) is, when Mrs. Learmont learned it;
whether or not she had read that letter
before she saw Kate.amon

But it was so, as you shall hear presently. So far, I have told what I can vouch for with my own eyes and ears. The rest is a tale patched like these new fangled counterpanes; pieced out of the odds and ends of folk's talk, and remnants of gossip, without any very certain pattern, but with the suggestion of many. There's a very brisk lad that brings his paint-box down the burnside every summer, who says that that's the kernel of art, and calls himself a Whistlerite, whatever that may be. Perhaps it pleases some folk to pay their money and stake their choice. For my part I would not buy a picture like a pig sin a pock, and have one man say it was the sun that hung in the heaven, and another that it was the moon; or worse, as I have seen happen with this young birkie's own canvases, have whole five men examine it, and not one of them with more than an opinion" Wha had ye this from?" she said which was the right end on. I have nothing quietly, ove now not 300 100 100 2EN to do with art, which seems to me a high- She was gone all pale below her darkd falutin' title taken by a thing that's not skin, as Tam might have seen if he had very sure of its own merit. I have only a not been the honestest man that ever story to tell as plainly as it is to be known stepped, with the dullest eye that ever on this side of the grave. And, if, when worked in an honest man's face. He was you have heard them, you wonder how so not like his brother Dave, who was born many things could come within one man's pawky.adro slowed at so ken, remember I have attended at many" It was Jeems Patton's wife tell'd me," deathbeds. Besides, we are a simple, he said; "and she got it from her guid

It was the habit of the Row'tilly family to spend the interval between sermons at Dave Sturrock's, supping their broth there instead of at the farm; a good arrangement for people who had no leisure for visiting on week-days. It gave time for Kate and her mother to inspect Nell's bairn, and for Row'tilly to advise Dave on his game bantams occupations full of digestive restfulness and not likely to drive away the afternoon's sleep. This day, however, Mr. Coulter and his wife being absent, Dave got through his pipe sooner than usual; and he and Nell and Kate arrived at the kirk in plenty of time to join thes groups that gathered to talk of crops and cattle, and the dead on whose flat gravestones they were sitting. Tam Sturrocke was never behind in seeing Kate's arrival; and it was he who told her the news of Robert's death. Tit

s

man, who met Sandy Milne as he was coming from mending the coke-fire at his maut barns."

"I daursay that's enough voucher for the truth o't," said Kate, the catch in her throat making a chirrup in her voice, which Tam, with the pitiful conceit of men, mistook for the mirth of a woman, who is not ill-pleased to be talking to a man. With that she walked into the kirk and forward to the Row'tilly pew. mont

haste and the farmer's absence. They thought it strange, too, that the darkness should fall so quickly that they did not see her round the farther bend. But Kate never rounded it. She struck across country for Hawfield. She was still running when Rab Cuick saw her at the Silver Wood. So he said. He is a disinterested liar, I admit, and would have made her run although her walking would not have told against his own ends. But on this occasion I could well believe him. When Christian Baxter opened the Hawfield door to Kate, the hall clock was striking four, and before she had closed it she heard the far-off Denbrae bell sounding across the fields. Therefore the girl must have covered those two miles and three-quarters of field-ridge and stubble in less than half an hour. I have had dealings with Christian Baxter since then, and have often probed her memory; but if there was anything more hidden there I never hit it. She let Kate in because there was urgency in her tones. She carried her to Mrs. Learmont's room, and Mrs. Learmont was as calm as a pie. These are Christian's own words; and she said, moreover, that for the hour the two women were together, although she was hovering in the neighboring room, she never heard a word raised higher than ordinarily, nor ever, even on the two occasions when she had to go in beside them, observed so much as a crack in Kate's voice. ebm

Denbrae church is old and dingy, with very deep seats, from which to see the preacher is to strain the neck over the book-boards. The occupants of neighboring pews are hid from one another. Tam, who sat with his brother at the back of the kirk -a position full of all advantage, except that of having a sight of the clock, whose old, yellow face beamed from the front of the gallery benignant with hope gazed at the Bibles before him as if at any moment they might fade from sight and display to his rapturous eyes the flower in Kate's bonnet. That was all of her that peeped above the Row'tilly pew. Jean's bonnet-crown was never so fascinating as on that day; and so Tam thought as the preacher thumped his Bible in the interests of an overruling Providence. That is a doctrine the truth of which va ries a great deal with how the world is using the heareroofsit.Tam, if he heard it at all, was doubtless seeing in the two miles of hill and bracken that was Kate's road home, and in the want of her father's "They were sittin' close thegither, and and her mother's company, an illustration Mrs. Learmont had the lassie's hand in of it; and wondering if he had the cour-hers. I tell ye Kate's hand that was as age to apply it. But the sermon was not red as a haw looked white below thae finished when the gloaming clouded the little windows; and the minister, pausing, said, 90002 Suig ent words dos gyal "It's time the upland folk were getting away home; it's falling dark." sai

It was a usual enough intimation on winter Sunday afternoons; and scarce a sleeper was disturbed by the silence as Kate, and here and there a ploughman or a cottagers from the hills, emerged from their pews. But Tam, his afternoon's ambitions at all the portholes of his sense, was for stealing out too, when Dave caught his coat-tails, and pulled him down.

black fing'rs. But it wasna' Kate Coulter I lot oot that night. It was a girl that wasn't going, but was being sent;pit minded me o' the stories of folks that had seen a sicht." to you 16

Mrs. Learmont's calmness would seem to show that she had read that letter. You may ask why, if that were so, she did not relieve the whole house with its message. I tell you she had no world outside of Robert; the rest was dirt. On the other hand, when Kate came in, all sick with fear, and hope, and shame, drawn to the only other heart in the world that beat to Robert's, why was not the later news, if Mrs. Learmont had it, clapped like a comfortable plaster to her sore? Bah! Why should I beat about the bush? I Clear of the village, Kate was running. have not a point of evidence to go to a The ploughmen in her wake on the Row-jury with. A sheriff would not listen to tilly road saw her run up the first brae, and my story. Yet I know, as well as I know said, "Has Row'tilly a cow in calf the that from the time it flashed upon me I now?" trying thus to account for the girl's | have looked on women differently, that

"Sita quiet, yes nowt!" he whispered. "It's just the Row'tilly fowk." And he held him fast as Kate and his opportunity passed by.

"Dave." The voice was not so musical as when she was Nell Coulter. "Comin'," he replied, continuing his talk with Tam.

"Man, Dave," Tam was saying, "I've felt lonesome sin' ye went and got merrit." "I believe't," replied Dave. "And that cannot be helpit." "No. It cannot be helpit," acquiesced Dave, with the gusto of conviction. "And I'se warrant Kate's the same without Nell?" Maybe.'

Mrs. Learmont damned her soul in that | against her husband's return, with similar hour for her son's sake. She may have fragrances that issued from every couthy had an inkling before that of what Kate fireside in the village. had to tell; she did not require it. Without that great love in her, her cunning and nimbleness of wits would have taken in at a flash what steadier people needed long looking for. Was there no great hate for the girl battened down under her hatches? Yet she sat there playing on Kate as on a harp with the most delicate touch possible; making believe that it was the woman in her that was drawn to the woman in the other; disparaging her color that she might exalt the sacrifice demanded from a girl of her husband's race; fanning the mad flame of Kate's resolve; never disturbing the girl's assurance of Robert's love, yet gently broaching it so that it leaked away. It was the sight of these black fingers on the honest brown, called up by Christian's words, that sent a suspicion through me that has been verified since then to my satisfaction at least, although, to be sure, some folks think otherwise.

III.

MEANWHILE the neighbors whom Kate had left behind, ceasing from their slumberous worship and tumbling out of church as from their beds, had never a thought of the life and honor hanging in the balance at Hawfield. Already Nell Sturrock was back in her own house; Dave and Tam, as was their wont, lingered

at the end of the road.

"I canna' think what they twa get to crack about," Nell said to herself. "They would stand a moon."

But I dare say she could think very well; women are clever. The lawyer trade is a royal road to knowing them, and I tell you that most of them that I have met have the heels of a man in the conduct of affairs, any day. Depend upon it, a woman knows what happens to her when she marries. She may twirl a husband round her little finger. Nell did. I suppose if I denied ability to cite an instance nearer home, it would not be believed. No doubt she does it the more viciously because she knows quite well it does not entail any hold on his inclinations. When you see men very happy hobnobbing to. gether, be it in clubs or at street corners, and yet going home to their wives, find what consolation you can in the thought that the grey mare is the better horse always.

Nell opened her door, mixing the fragrance of the tea and bacon, prepared

There was a pause; then Tam again,"What's to hinder me makin' up to Kate?"

"Ha'e ye considered her worldly standing, Tam?"

"Huts!" said Tam with a great deal of spirit. "Nell was ready enough to tak' you."

"Tam," replied Dave, stung with the truth, and finding it rather pleasant, "if I hadna' behaved myself at Row'tilly you wouldna' daur to show face there."

All the world-all the world of Denbrae, that is - knew how humbly Dave had mounted the Row'tilly road to woo Nell; and Tam acknowledged the fact, as Nell's voice sounded through the night once more.

"Could she put in a word for me?" he said doubtfully, nodding in Nell's direc

tion.

Dave shook his head. "That would be asking a vote o' confidence," he said at length; and evidently he could not risk it. "Na, na, Tam, laad," he said; "we'll let sleepin' dowgs lie."

"But tak' your will o't, Tam," he said at parting. "I'm no saying a word against naebody; but mind, it's the verra deevil when your wife casts her former estate in your teeth."

That night Tam went up the Row'tilly road, whistling, Sabbath though it was, to keep his courage hot. When he reached the steading he saw a light in the byre, and, going inside, found Kate, as he had hoped, alone, milking her cows. started to her feet when she saw him. "What brings you here, Tam Sturrock? Have you any ill word from Dave's folk?" she cried, with a frightened look.

She

He had expected a mischievous glance, a saucy word; but when he shook his head, the scared, white face -- Kate's face -turned wearily away from him.

"It's not with an ill word from Nell,