under your care, I will direct your attention to the following points:--

"Ronald Macdonald is a Scotsman; Francesca disapproves of international
alliances.

"He is a Presbyterian; she is a Swedenborgian.

"His father was a famous old-school doctor; Francesca is a
homoeopathist.

"He is serious; Francesca is gay.

"I think, under all the circumstances, their acquaintance will bear
watching. Two persons so utterly dissimilar, and, so far as superficial
observation goes, so entirely unsuited to each other, are quite likely
to drift into marriage unless diverted by watchful philanthropists."

"Nonsense!" returned Salemina brusquely. "You think because you are
under the spell of the tender passion yourself that other people are in
constant danger. Francesca detests him."

"Who told you so?"

"She herself," triumphantly.

"Salemina," I said pityingly, "I have always believed you a spinster
from choice; don't lead me to think that you have never had any
experience in these matters! The Reverend Ronald has also intimated to
me as plainly as he dared that he cannot bear the sight of Francesca.
What do I gather from this statement? The general conclusion that if it
be true, it is curious that he looks at her incessantly."

"Francesca would never live in Scotland," remarked Salemina feebly.

"Not unless she were asked, of course," I replied.

"He would never ask her."

"Not unless he thought he had a chance of an affirmative answer."

"Her father would never allow it."

"Her father allows what she permits him to allow. You know that
perfectly well."

"What shall I do about it, then?"

"Consult me."

"What shall WE do about it?"

"Let Nature have her own way."

"I don't believe in Nature."

"Don't be profane, Salemina, and don't be unromantic, which is worse;
but if you insist, trust in Providence."

"I would rather trust Francesca's hard heart."

"The hardest hearts melt if sufficient heat be applied. Did I take you
to Newhaven and read you Christie Johnstone on the beach for nought?
Don't you remember Charles Reade said that the Scotch are icebergs, with
volcanoes underneath; thaw the Scotch ice, which is very cold, and you
shall get to the Scotch fire, warmer than any sun of Italy or Spain. I
think Mr. Macdonald is a volcano."

"I wish he were extinct," said Salemina petulantly; "and I wish you
wouldn't make me nervous."

"If you had any faculty of premonition, you wouldn't have waited for me
to make you nervous."

"Some people are singularly omniscient."

"Others are singularly deficient--" And at this moment Susanna Crum came
in to announce Miss Jean Dalziel, who had come to see sights with us.

It was our almost daily practice to walk through the Old Town, and we
were now familiar with every street and close in that densely-crowded
quarter. Our quest for the sites of ancient landmarks never grew
monotonous, and we were always reconstructing, in imagination, the
Cowgate, the Canongate, the Lawnmarket, and the High Street, until we
could see Auld Reekie as it was in bygone centuries. In those days of
continual war with England, people crowded their dwellings as near the
Castle as possible, so floor was piled upon floor, and flat upon flat,
families ensconcing themselves above other families, the tendency
being ever skyward. Those who dwelt on top had no desire to spend
their strength in carrying down the corkscrew stairs matter which would
descend by the force of gravity if pitched from the window or door; so
the wayfarer, especially after dusk, would be greeted with cries of
'Get oot o' the gait!' or 'Gardy loo!' which was in the French 'Gardez
l'eau,' and which would have been understood in any language, I fancy,
after a little experience. The streets then were filled with the debris
flung from a hundred upper windows, while certain ground-floor tenants,
such as butchers and candlemakers, contributed their full share to the
fragrant heaps. As for these too seldom used narrow turnpike stairs,
imagine the dames of fashion tilting their vast hoops and silken
show-petticoats up and down in them!

That swine roamed at will in these Elysian fields is to be presumed,
since we have this amusing picture of three High Street belles and
beauties in the Traditions of Edinburgh:--

'So easy were the manners of the great, fabled to be so stiff and
decorous,' says the author, 'that Lady Maxwell's daughter Jane, who
afterward became the Duchess of Gordon, was seen riding a sow up the
High Street, while her sister Eglantine (afterwards Lady Wallace of
Craigie) thumped lustily behind with a stick.'

No wonder, in view of all this, that King James VI., when about to bring
home his 'darrest spous,' Anne of Denmark, wrote to the Provost, 'For
God's sake see a' things are richt at our hame-coming; a king with a
new-married wife doesna come hame ilka day.'

Had it not been for these royal home-comings and visits of distinguished
foreigners, now and again aided by something still more salutary, an
occasional outbreak of the plague, the easy-going authorities would
never have issued any 'cleaning edicts,' and the still easier-going
inhabitants would never have obeyed them. It was these dark, tortuous
wynds and closes, nevertheless, that made up the Court End of Old
Edinbro'; for some one writes in 1530, 'Via vaccarum in qua habitant
patricii et senatores urbis' (The nobility and chief senators of the
city dwell in the Cowgate). And as for the Canongate, this Saxon gaet
or way of the Holy rood canons, it still sheltered in 1753 'two dukes,
sixteen earls, two dowager countesses, seven lords, seven lords of
session, thirteen baronets, four commanders of the forces in Scotland,
and five eminent men,'--fine game indeed for Mally Lee!

  'A' doun alang the Canongate
     Were beaux o' ilk degree;
   And mony ane turned round to look
     At bonny Mally Lee.
   And we're a' gaun east an' west,
     We're a' gaun agee,
   We're a' gaun east an' west
     Courtin' Mally Lee!'

Every corner bristles with memories. Here is the Stamp Office Close,
from which the lovely Susanna, Countess of Eglinton, was wont to issue
on assembly nights; she, six feet in height, with a brilliantly fair
complexion, and a 'face of the maist bewitching loveliness.' Her seven
daughters and stepdaughters were all conspicuously handsome, and it
was deemed a goodly sight to watch the long procession of eight gilded
sedan-chairs pass from the Stamp Office Close, bearing her and her
stately brood to the Assembly Room, amid a crowd that was 'hushed with
respect and admiration to behold their lofty and graceful figures step
from the chairs on the pavement.'

Here itself is the site of those old assemblies, presided over at one
time by the famous Miss Nicky Murray, a directress of society affairs,
who seems to have been a feminine premonition of Count d'Orsay and our
own M'Allister. Rather dull they must have been, those old Scotch
balls, where Goldsmith saw the ladies and gentlemen in two dismal groups
divided by the length of the room.

  'The Assembly Close received the fair--
   Order and elegance presided there--
   Each gay Right Honourable had her place,
   To walk a minuet with becoming grace.
   No racing to the dance with rival hurry,
   Such was thy sway, O famed Miss Nicky Murray!'

It was half-past nine in the evening when Salemina and I drove to
Holyrood, our humble cab-horse jogging faithfully behind Lady Baird's
brougham, and it was the new experience of seeing Auld Reekie by
lamplight that called up these gay visions of other days,--visions and
days so thoroughly our mental property that we could not help resenting
the fact that women were hanging washing from the Countess of Eglinton's
former windows, and popping their unkempt heads out of the Duchess of
Gordon's old doorway.

The Reverend Ronald is so kind! He enters so fully into our spirit of
inquiry, and takes such pleasure in our enthusiasms! He even sprang
lightly out of Lady Baird's carriage and called to our 'lamiter' to halt
while he showed us the site of the Black Turnpike, from whose windows
Queen Mary saw the last of her kingdom's capital.

"Here was the Black Turnpike, Miss Hamilton!" he cried; "and from
here Mary went to Loch Leven, where you Hamiltons and the Setons came
gallantly to her help. Don't you remember the 'far ride to the Solway
sands?'"

I looked with interest, though I was in such a state of delicious
excitement that I could scarce keep my seat.

"Only a few minutes more, Salemina," I sighed, "and we shall be in the
palace courtyard; then a probable half-hour in crowded dressing-rooms,
with another half-hour in line, and then, then we shall be making
our best republican bow in the Gallery of the Kings! How I wish Mr.
Beresford and Francesca were with us! What do you suppose was her
real reason for staying away? Some petty disagreement with our young
minister, I am sure. Do you think the dampness is taking the curl out
of our hair? Do you suppose our gowns will be torn to ribbons before the
Marchioness sees them? Do you believe we shall look as well as anybody?
Privately, I think we must look better than anybody; but I always think
that on my way to a party, never after I arrive."

Mrs. M'Collop had asserted that I was 'bonnie eneuch for ony court,' and
I could not help wishing that 'mine ain dear Somebody' might see me
in my French frock embroidered with silver thistles, and my 'shower
bouquet' of Scottish bluebells tied loosely together. Salemina wore
pinky-purple velvet; a real heather colour it was, though the Lord High
Commissioner would probably never note the fact.

When we had presented our cards of invitation at the palace doors, we
joined the throng and patiently made our way up the splendid staircases,
past powdered lackeys without number, and, divested of our wraps, joined
another throng on our way to the throne-room, Salemina and I pressing
those cards with our names 'legibly written on them' close to our
palpitating breasts.

At last the moment came when, Lady Baird having preceded me, I handed
my bit of pasteboard to the usher; and hearing 'Miss Hamilton' called in
stentorian accents, I went forward in my turn, and executed a graceful
and elegant, but not too profound curtsy, carefully arranged to suit the
semi-royal, semi-ecclesiastical occasion. I had not divulged that fact
even to Salemina, but I had worn Mrs. M'Collop's carpet quite threadbare
in front of the long mirror, and had curtsied to myself so many times in
its crystal surface that I had developed a sort of fictitious reverence
for my reflected image. I had only begun my well-practised
obeisance when Her Grace the Marchioness, to my mingled surprise and
embarrassment, extended a gracious hand and murmured my name in a
particularly kind voice. She is fond of Lady Baird, and perhaps chose
this method of showing her friendship; or it may be that she noticed my
silver thistles and Salemina's heather-coloured velvet,--they certainly
deserved special recognition; or it may be that I was too beautiful to
pass over in silence,--in my state of exaltation I was quite equal to
the belief.

The presentation over, we wandered through the spacious apartments,
leaning from the open windows to hear the music of the band playing in
the courtyard below, looking at the royal portraits, and chatting with
groups of friends who appeared and reappeared in the throng. Finally
Lady Baird sent for us to join her in a knot of personages more or less
distinguished, who had dined at the palace, and who were standing behind
the receiving party in a sort of sacred group. This indeed was a ground
of vantage, and one could have stood there for hours, watching all sorts
and conditions of men and women bowing before the Lord High Commissioner
and the Marchioness, who, with her Cleopatra-like beauty and scarlet
gown, looked like a gorgeous cardinal-flower.

Salemina and I watched the curtsying narrowly, with the view at first of
improving our own obeisances for Buckingham Palace; but truth to say
we got no added light, and plainly most of the people had not worn
threadbare the carpets in front of their dressing-mirrors.

Suddenly we heard a familiar name announced, 'Lord Colquhoun,' a
distinguished judge who had lately been raised to the peerage, and whom
we often met at dinners; then 'Miss Rowena Colquhoun'; and then in
the midst, we fancied, of an unusual stir at the entrance door--'Miss
Francesca Van Buren Monroe.' I involuntarily touched the Reverend
Ronald's shoulder in my astonishment, while Salemina lifted her
tortoise-shell lorgnette, and we gazed silently at our recreant charge.

After presentation, each person has fifteen or twenty feet of awful
space to traverse in solitary and defenceless majesty; scanned meanwhile
by the maids of honour (who if they were truly honourable, would turn
their eyes another way), ladies-in-waiting, the sacred group in the
rear, and the Purse-Bearer himself. I had supposed that this functionary
would keep the purse in his upper bureau drawer at home, when he was not
paying bills, but it seems that when on processional duty he carries
a bag of red velvet quite a yard long over his arm, where it looks not
unlike a lady's opera-cloak. It would hold the sum-total of all moneys
disbursed, even if they were reduced to the standard of vulgar copper.

Under this appalling fire of inspection, some of the victims waddle,
some hurry; some look up and down nervously, others glance over the
shoulder as if dreading to be apprehended; some turn red, others pale,
according to complexion and temperament; some swing their arms, other
trip on their gowns; some twitch the buttons of a glove, or tweak a
flower or a jewel. Francesca rose superior to all these weaknesses,
and I doubt if the Gallery of the Kings ever served as a background for
anything lovelier or more high-bred than that untitled slip of a girl
from 'the States.' Her trailing gown of pearl-white satin fell in
unbroken lustrous folds behind her. Her beautiful throat and shoulders
rose in statuesque whiteness from the mist of chiffon that encircled
them. Her dark hair showed a moonbeam parting that rested the eye,
wearied by the contemplation of waves and frizzes fresh from the
curling-tongs. Her mother's pearls hung in ropes from neck to waist, and
the one spot of colour about her was the single American Beauty rose
she carried. There is a patriotic florist in Paris who grows these
long-stemmed empresses of the rose-garden, and Mr. Beresford sends some
to me every week. Francesca had taken the flower without permission, and
I must say she was as worthy of it as it of her.

She curtsied deeply, with no exaggerated ceremony, but with a sort
of innocent and childlike gravity, while the satin of her gown spread
itself like a great blossom over the floor. Her head was bowed until the
dark lashes swept her crimson cheeks; then she rose again from the heart
of the shimmering lily, with the one splendid rose glowing against all
her dazzling whiteness, and floated slowly across the dreaded space
to the door of exit as if she were preceded by invisible heralds and
followed by invisible train-bearers.

"Who is she?" we heard whispered here and there. "Look at the rose!"
"Look at the pearls! Is she a princess or only an American?"

I glanced at the Reverend Ronald. I imagined he looked pale; at any rate
he was biting his under lip nervously, and I believe he was in fancy
laying his serious, Scottish, allopathic, Presbyterian heart at
Francesca's gay, American, homoeopathic, Swedenborgian feet.

"It is a pity Miss Monroe is such an ardent republican," he said, with
unconcealed bitterness; "otherwise she ought to be a duchess. I never
saw a head that better suited a coronet, nor, if you will pardon me, one
that contained more caprices."

"It is true she flatly refused to accompany us here," I allowed, "but
perhaps she has some explanation more or less silly and serviceable;
meantime, I defy you to tell me she isn't a beauty, and I implore you
to say nothing about its being only skin-deep. Give me a beautiful
exterior, say I, and I will spend my life in making the hidden things of
mind and soul conform to it; but deliver me from all forlorn attempts to
make my beauty of character speak through a large mouth, breathe through
a fat nose, and look at my neighbour through crossed eyes!"

Mr. Macdonald agreed with me, with some few ministerial reservations. He
always agrees with me, and why he is not tortured at the thought of
my being the promised bride of another, but continues to squander his
affections upon a quarrelsome and unappreciative girl is more than I can
comprehend.

Francesca, escorted by Lord Colquhoun, appeared presently in our group,
but Salemina did not even attempt to scold her. One cannot scold an
imperious young beauty in white satin and pearls, particularly if she is
leaning nonchalantly on the arm of a peer of the realm.

It seems that shortly after our departure (we had dined with Lady
Baird), Lord Colquhoun had sent a note to me, requiring an answer.
Francesca had opened it, and found that he offered an extra card of
invitation to one of us, and said that he and his sister would gladly
serve as escort to Holyrood, if desired. She had had an hour or two of
solitude by this time, and was well weary of it, while the last vestige
of headache disappeared under the temptation of appearing at court with
all the eclat of unexpectedness. She despatched a note of acceptance to
Lord Colquhoun, summoned Mrs. M'Collop, Susanna, and the maiden Boots to
her assistance, spread the trays of her Saratoga trunks about our three
bedrooms, grouped all our candles on her dressing-table, and borrowed
any trinket or bit of frippery which we chanced to have left behind.
Her own store of adornments is much greater than ours, but we possess
certain articles for which she has a childlike admiration: my white
satin slippers embroidered with seed pearls, Salemina's pearl-topped
comb, Salemina's Valenciennes handkerchief and diamond belt-clasp, my
pearl frog with ruby eyes. We identified our property on her impertinent
young person, and the list of her borrowings so amused the Reverend
Ronald that he forgot his injuries.

"It is really an ordeal, that presentation, no matter how strong one's
sense of humour may be, nor how well rooted one's democracy," chattered
Francesca to a serried rank of officers who surrounded her to the
total routing of the ministry. "It is especially trying if one has come
unexpectedly and has no idea of what is to happen. I was agitated at the
supreme moment, because, at the entrance of the throne-room, I had
just shaken hands reverently with a splendid person who proved to be a
footman. Of course I took him for the Commander of the Queen's Guards,
or the Keeper of the Dungeon Keys, or the Most Noble Custodian of the
Royal Moats, Drawbridges, and Portcullises. When he put out his hand I
had no idea it was simply to waft me onward, and so naturally I shook
it,--it's a mercy that I didn't kiss it! Then I curtsied to the Royal
Usher, and overlooked the Lord High Commissioner altogether, having no
eyes for any one but the beautiful scarlet Marchioness. I only hope they
were too busy to notice my mistakes, otherwise I shall be banished
from Court at the very moment of my presentation.--Do you still
banish nowadays?" turning the battery of her eyes upon a particularly
insignificant officer who was far too dazed to answer. "And did you
see the child of ten who was next to me in line? She is Mrs.
Macstronachlacher; at least that was the name on the card she carried,
and she was thus announced. As they tell us the Purse-Bearer is most
rigorous in arranging these functions and issuing the invitations, I
presume she must be Mrs. Macstronachlacher; but if so, they marry very
young in Scotland, and her skirts should really have been longer!"

Chapter XII. Farewell to Edinburgh.

It is our last day in 'Scotia's darling seat,' our last day in
Breadalbane Terrace, our last day with Mrs. M'Collop; and though every
one says that we shall love the life in the country, we are loath to
leave Auld Reekie.

Salemina and I have spent two days in search of an abiding-place, and
have visited eight well-recommended villages with that end in view; but
she disliked four of them, and I couldn't endure the other four, though
I considered some of those that fell under her disapproval as quite
delightful in every respect.

We never take Francesca on these pilgrimages of disagreement, as three
conflicting opinions on the same subject would make insupportable what
is otherwise rather exhilarating. She starts from Edinburgh to-morrow
for a brief visit to the Highlands with the Dalziels, and will join us
when we have settled ourselves.

Mr. Beresford leaves Paris as soon after our decision as he is
permitted, so Salemina and I have agreed to agree upon one ideal spot
within thirty-six hours of our quitting Edinburgh, knowing privately
that after a last battle-royal we shall enthusiastically support the
joint decision for the rest of our lives.

We have been bidding good-bye to people and places and things, and
wishing the sun would not shine and thus make our task the harder.
We have looked our last on the old grey town from Calton Hill, of all
places the best, perhaps, for a view; since, as Stevenson says, from
Calton Hill you can see the Castle, which you lose from the Castle, and
Arthur's Seat, which you cannot see from Arthur's Seat. We have taken a
farewell walk to the Dean Bridge, to gaze wistfully eastward and marvel
for the hundredth time to find so beautiful a spot in the heart of
a city. The soft-flowing Water of Leith winding over pebbles between
grassy banks and groups of splendid trees, the roof of the little temple
to Hygeia rising picturesquely among green branches, the slopes of
emerald velvet leading up to the grey stone of the houses,--where, in
all the world of cities, can one find a view to equal it in peaceful
loveliness? Francesca's 'bridge-man,' who, by the way, proved to be a
distinguished young professor of medicine in the University, says
that the beautiful cities of the world should be ranked
thus,--Constantinople, Prague, Genoa, Edinburgh; but having seen only
one of these, and that the last, I refuse to credit any sliding scale of
comparison which leaves Edina at the foot.

It was nearing tea-time, an hour when we never fail to have visitors,
and we were all in the drawing-room together. I was at the piano,
singing Jacobite melodies for Salemina's delectation. When I came to
the last verse of Lady Nairne's 'Hundred Pipers,' the spirited words had
taken my fancy captive, and I am sure I could not have sung with more
vigour and passion had my people been 'out with the Chevalier.'

  'The Esk was swollen sae red an' sae deep,
   But shouther to shouther the brave lads keep;
   Twa thousand swam owre to fell English ground,
   An' danced themselves dry to the pibroch's sound.
   Dumfounder'd the English saw, they saw,
   Dumfounder'd they heard the blaw, the blaw,
   Dumfounder'd they a' ran awa', awa',
   Frae the hundred pipers an' a', an' a'!'

By the time I came to 'Dumfounder'd the English saw,' Francesca left
her book and joined in the next four lines, and when we broke into the
chorus Salemina rushed to the piano, and although she cannot sing, she
lifted her voice both high and loud in the refrain, beating time the
while with a dirk paper-knife.

  'Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
   Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a',
   We'll up an' gie them a blaw, a blaw,
   Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a'!'

Susanna ushered in Mr. Macdonald and Dr. Moncrieffe as the last 'blaw'
faded into silence, and Jean Dalziel came upstairs to say that they
could seldom get a quiet moment for family prayers, because we
were always at the piano, hurling incendiary sentiments into the
air,--sentiments set to such stirring melodies that no one could resist
them.

"We are very sorry, Miss Dalziel," I said penitently. "We reserve an
hour in the morning and another at bedtime for your uncle's prayers,
but we had no idea you had them at afternoon tea, even in Scotland. I
believe that you are chaffing, and came up only to swell the chorus.
Come, let us all sing together from 'Dumfounder'd the English saw.'"

Mr. Macdonald and Dr. Moncrieffe gave such splendid body to the music,
and Jean such warlike energy, that Salemina waved her paper-knife in a
manner more than ever sanguinary, and Susanna, hesitating outside the
door for sheer delight, had to be coaxed in with the tea-things. On the
heels of the tea-things came the Dominie, another dear old friend of six
weeks' standing; and while the doctor sang 'Jock o' Hazeldean' with
such irresistible charm that we all longed to elope with somebody on the
instant, Salemina dispensed buttered toast, marmalade sandwiches,
and the fragrant cup. By this time we were thoroughly cosy, and Mr.
Macdonald made himself and us very much at home by stirring the fire;
whereupon Francesca embarrassed him by begging him not to touch it
unless he could do it properly, which, she added, seemed quite unlikely,
from the way in which he handled the poker.

"What will Edinburgh do without you?" he asked, turning towards us with
flattering sadness in his tone. "Who will hear our Scotch stories, never
suspecting their hoary old age? Who will ask us questions to which we
somehow always know the answers? Who will make us study and reverence
anew our own landmarks? Who will keep warm our national and local pride
by judicious enthusiasm?"

"I think the national and local pride may be counted on to exist without
any artificial stimulants," dryly observed Francesca, whose spirit is
not in the least quenched by approaching departure.

"Perhaps," answered the Reverend Ronald; "but at any rate, you,
Miss Monroe, will always be able to reflect that you have never been
responsible even for its momentary inflation!"

"Isn't it strange that she cannot get on better with that charming
fellow?" murmured Salemina, as she passed me the sugar for my second
cup.

"If your present symptoms of blindness continue, Salemina," I said,
searching for a small lump so as to gain time, "I shall write you a
plaintive ballad, buy you a dog, and stand you on a street corner! If
you had ever permitted yourself to 'get on' with any man as Francesca is
getting on with Mr. Macdonald, you would now be Mrs.--Somebody."

"Do you know, doctor," asked the Dominie, "that Miss Hamilton shed
real tears at Holyrood the other night, when the band played 'Bonnie
Charlie's noo awa'?'"

"They were real," I confessed, "in the sense that they certainly were
not crocodile tears; but I am somewhat at a loss to explain them from
a sensible, American standpoint. Of course my Jacobitism is purely
impersonal, though scarcely more so than yours, at this late day; at
least it is merely a poetic sentiment, for which Caroline, Baroness
Nairne, is mainly responsible. My romantic tears came from a vision of
the Bonnie Prince as he entered Holyrood, dressed in his short tartan
coat, his scarlet breeches and military boots, the star of St. Andrew on
his breast, a blue ribbon over his shoulder, and the famous blue velvet
bonnet and white cockade. He must have looked so brave and handsome and
hopeful at that moment, and the moment was so sadly brief, that when the
band played the plaintive air I kept hearing the words--

  'Mony a heart will break in twa,
   Should he no come back again.'

He did come back again to me that evening, and held a phantom levee
behind the Marchioness of Heatherdale's shoulder. His 'ghaist' looked
bonnie and rosy and confident, yet all the time the band was playing the
requiem for his lost cause and buried hopes."

I looked towards the fire to hide the moisture that crept again into my
eyes, and my glance fell upon Francesca sitting dreamily on a hassock in
front of the cheerful blaze, her chin in the hollow of her palm, and the
Reverend Ronald standing on the hearth-rug gazing at her, the poker in
his hand, and his heart, I regret to say, in such an exposed position on
his sleeve that even Salemina could have seen it had she turned her eyes
that way.

Jean Dalziel broke the momentary silence: "I am sure I never hear the
last two lines--

  'Better lo'ed ye canna be,
   Will ye no' come back again?'

without a lump in my throat," and she hummed the lovely melody. "It
is all as you say, purely impersonal and poetic. My mother is an
Englishwoman, but she sings 'Dumfounder'd the English saw, they saw'
with the greatest fire and fury."

Chapter XIII. The spell of Scotland.

"I think I was never so completely under the spell of a country as I
am of Scotland." I made this acknowledgment freely, but I knew that it
would provoke comment from my compatriots.

"Oh yes, my dear, you have been just as spellbound before, only you
don't remember it," replied Salemina promptly. "I have never seen a
person more perilously appreciative or receptive than you."

"'Perilously' is just the word," chimed in Francesca delightedly; "when
you care for a place you grow porous, as it were, until after a time you
are precisely like blotting-paper. Now, there was Italy, for example.
After eight weeks in Venice, you were completely Venetian, from your fan
to the ridiculous little crepe shawl you wore because an Italian prince
had told you that centuries were usually needed to teach a woman how
to wear a shawl, but that you had been born with the art, and
the shoulders! Anything but a watery street was repulsive to you.
Cobblestones? 'Ordinario, duro, brutto! A gondola? Ah, bellissima! Let
me float for ever thus!' You bathed your spirit in sunshine and
colour; I can hear you murmur now, 'O Venezia benedetta! non ti voglio
lasciar!'"

"It was just the same when she spent a month in France with the Baroness
de Hautenoblesse," continued Salemina. "When she returned to America, it
is no flattery to say that in dress, attitude, inflection, manner, she
was a thorough Parisienne. There was an elegant superficiality and a
superficial elegance about her that I can never forget, nor yet her
extraordinary volubility in a foreign language,--the fluency with which
she expressed her inmost soul on all topics without the aid of a single
irregular verb, for these she was never able to acquire; oh, it was
wonderful, but there was no affectation about it; she had simply been
a kind of blotting-paper, as Miss Monroe says, and France had written
itself all over her."

"I don't wish to interfere with anybody's diagnosis," I interposed at
the first possible moment, "but perhaps after you've both finished your
psychologic investigation the subject may be allowed to explain herself
from the inside, so to speak. I won't deny the spell of Italy, but I
think the spell that Scotland casts over one is quite a different thing,
more spiritual, more difficult to break. Italy's charm has something
physical in it; it is born of blue sky, sunlit waves, soft atmosphere,
orange sails, and yellow moons, and appeals more to the senses. In
Scotland the climate certainly has nought to do with it, but the
imagination is somehow made captive. I am not enthralled by the past of
Italy or France, for instance."

"Of course you are not at the present moment," said Francesca, "because
you are enthralled by the past of Scotland, and even you cannot be the
slave of two pasts at the same time."

"I never was particularly enthralled by Italy's past," I argued with
exemplary patience, "but the romance of Scotland has a flavour all its
own. I do not quite know the secret of it."

"It's the kilts and the pipes," said Francesca.

"No, the history." (This from Salemina.)

"Or Sir Walter and the literature," suggested Mr. Macdonald.

 "Or the songs and ballads," ventured Jean Dalziel.

"There!" I exclaimed triumphantly, "you see for yourselves you have
named avenue after avenue along which one's mind is led in charmed
subjection. Where can you find battles that kindle your fancy like
Falkirk and Flodden and Culloden and Bannockburn? Where a sovereign
that attracts, baffles, repels, allures, like Mary Queen of Scots,--and
where, tell me where, is there a Pretender like Bonnie Prince Charlie?
Think of the spirit in those old Scottish matrons who could sing--

  'I'll sell my rock, I'll sell my reel,
   My rippling-kame and spinning-wheel,
   To buy my lad a tartan plaid,
   A braidsword, durk and white cockade.'"

"Yes," chimed in Salemina when I had finished quoting, "or that other
verse that goes--

  'I ance had sons, I now hae nane,
     I bare them toiling sairlie;
   But I would bear them a' again
     To lose them a' for Charlie!'

Isn't the enthusiasm almost beyond belief at this distance of time?" she
went on; "and isn't it a curious fact, as Mr. Macdonald told me a moment
ago, that though the whole country was vocal with songs for the lost
cause and the fallen race, not one in favour of the victors ever became
popular?"

"Sympathy for the under dog, as Miss Monroe's countrywomen would say
picturesquely," remarked Mr. Macdonald.

"I don't see why all the vulgarisms in the dictionary should be foisted
on the American girl," retorted Francesca loftily, "unless, indeed, it
is a determined attempt to find spots upon the sun for fear we shall
worship it!"

"Quite so, quite so!" returned the Reverend Ronald, who has had reason
to know that this phrase reduces Miss Monroe to voiceless rage.

"The Stuart charm and personal magnetism must have been a powerful
factor in all that movement," said Salemina, plunging hastily back into
the topic to avert any further recrimination. "I suppose we feel it even
now, and if I had been alive in 1745 I should probably have made myself
ridiculous. 'Old maiden ladies,' I read this morning, 'were the last
leal Jacobites in Edinburgh; spinsterhood in its loneliness remained
ever true to Prince Charlie and the vanished dreams of youth.'"

"Yes," continued the Dominie, "the story is told of the last of those
Jacobite ladies who never failed to close her Prayer-Book and stand
erect in silent protest when the prayer for 'King George III. and the
reigning family' was read by the congregation."

"Do you remember the prayer of the Reverend Neil M'Vicar in St.
Cuthbert's?" asked Mr. Macdonald. "It was in 1745, after the victory at
Prestonpans, when a message was sent to the Edinburgh ministers, in the
name of 'Charles, Prince Regent' desiring them to open their churches
next day as usual. M'Vicar preached to a large congregation, many of
whom were armed Highlanders, and prayed for George II., and also for
Charles Edward, in the following fashion: 'Bless the king! Thou knowest
what king I mean. May the crown sit long upon his head! As for that
young man who has come among us to seek an earthly crown, we beseech
Thee to take him to Thyself, and give him a crown of glory!'"

"Ah, what a pity the Bonnie Prince had not died after his meteor victory
at Falkirk!" exclaimed Jean Dalziel, when we had finished laughing at
Mr. Macdonald's story.

"Or at Culloden, 'where, quenched in blood on the Muir of Drummossie,
the star of the Stuarts sank forever,'" quoted the Dominie. "There is
where his better self died; would that the young Chevalier had died with
it! By the way, doctor, we must not sit here eating goodies and sipping
tea until the dinner-hour, for these ladies have doubtless much to do
for their flitting" (a pretty Scots word for 'moving').

"We are quite ready for our flitting so far as packing is concerned,"
Salemina assured him. "Would that we were as ready in spirit! Miss
Hamilton has even written her farewell poem, which I am sure she will
read for the asking."

"She will read it without that formality," murmured Francesca. "She has
lived and toiled only for this moment, and the poem is in her pocket."

"Delightful!" said the doctor flatteringly. "Has she favoured you
already? Have you heard it, Miss Monroe?"

"Have we heard it!" ejaculated that young person. "We have heard nothing
else all the morning! What you will take for local colour is nothing
but our mental life-blood, which she has mercilessly drawn to stain her
verses. We each tried to write a Scottish poem, and as Miss Hamilton's
was better, or perhaps I might say less bad, than ours, we encouraged
her to develop and finish it. I wanted to do an imitation of Lindsay's

  'Adieu, Edinburgh! thou heich triumphant town,
   Within whose bounds richt blithefull have I been!

but it proved too difficult. Miss Hamilton's general idea was that we
should write some verses in good plain English. Then we were to take
out all the final g's, and indeed the final letters from all the words
wherever it was possible, so that full, awful, call, ball, hall, and
away should be fu', awfu', ca', ba', ha', an' awa'. This alone gives
great charm and character to a poem; but we were also to change all
words ending in ow into aw. This doesn't injure the verse, you see, as
blaw and snaw rhyme just as well as blow and snow, beside bringing tears
to the common eye with their poetic associations. Similarly, if we had
daughter and slaughter, we were to write them dochter and slauchter,
substituting in all cases doon, froon, goon, and toon, for down, frown
gown, and town. Then we made a list of Scottish idols,--pet words,
national institutions, stock phrases, beloved objects,--convinced if
we could weave them in we should attain 'atmosphere.' Here is the first
list; it lengthened speedily: thistle, tartan, haar, haggis, kirk,
claymore, parritch, broom, whin, sporran, whaup, plaid, scone, collops,
whisky, mutch, cairngorm, oatmeal, brae, kilt, brose, heather. Salemina
and I were too devoted to common-sense to succeed in this weaving
process, so Penelope triumphed and won the first prize, both for that
and also because she brought in a saying given us by Miss Dalziel, about
the social classification of all Scotland into 'the gentlemen of the
North, men of the South, people of the West, fowk o' Fife, and the
Paisley bodies.' We think that her success came chiefly from her writing
the verses with a Scotch plaid lead-pencil. What effect the absorption
of so much red, blue, and green paint will have I cannot fancy, but she
ate off--and up--all the tartan glaze before finishing the poem; it had
a wonderfully stimulating effect, but the end is not yet!"

Of course there was a chorus of laughter when the young wretch exhibited
my battered pencil, bought in Princes Street yesterday, its gay Gordon
tints sadly disfigured by the destroying tooth, not of Time, but of a
bard in the throes of composition.

"We bestowed a consolation prize on Salemina," continued Francesca,
"because she succeeded in getting hoots, losh, havers, and blethers into
one line, but naturally she could not maintain such an ideal standard.
Read your verses, Pen, though there is little hope that our friends will
enjoy them as much as you do. Whenever Miss Hamilton writes anything of
this kind, she emulates her distinguished ancestor Sir William Hamilton,
who always fell off his own chair in fits of laughter when he was
composing verses."

With this inspiring introduction I read my lines as follows:--

  AN AMERICAN GIRL'S FAREWELL TO EDINBURGH

  The muse being somewhat under the influence of the Scottish ballad

   I canna thole my ain toun,
     Sin' I hae dwelt i' this;
   To bide in Edinboro' reek
     Wad be the tap o' bliss.
   Yon bonnie plaid aboot me hap,
     The skirlin' pipes gae bring,
   With thistles fair tie up my hair,
     While I of Scotia sing.

   The collops an' the cairngorms,
     The haggis an' the whin,
   The 'Staiblished, Free, an' U.P. kirks,
     The hairt convinced o' sin,--
   The parritch an' the heather-bell,
     The snawdrap on the shaw,
   The bit lam's bleatin' on the braes,--
     How can I leave them a'?

   How can I leave the marmalade
     An' bonnets o' Dundee?
   The haar, the haddies, an' the brose,
     The East win' blawin' free?
   How can I lay my sporran by,
     An' sit me doun at hame,
   Wi'oot a Hieland philabeg
     Or hyphenated name?

   I lo'e the gentry o' the North,
     The Southern men I lo'e,
   The canty people o' the West,
     The Paisley bodies too.
   The pawky folk o' Fife are dear,--
     Sae dear are ane an' a',
   That e'en to think that we maun pairt
     Maist braks my hairt in twa.

   So fetch me tartans, heather, scones,
     An' dye my tresses red;
   I'd deck me like th' unconquer'd Scots,
     Wha hae wi' Wallace bled.
   Then bind my claymore to my side,
     My kilt an' mutch gae bring;
   While Scottish lays soun' i' my lugs
     M'Kinley's no my king,--

   For Charlie, bonnie Stuart Prince,
     Has turned me Jacobite;
   I'd wear displayed the white cockade.
     An' (whiles) for him I'll fight!
   An' (whiles) I'd fight for a' that's Scotch,
     Save whusky an' oatmeal,
   For wi' their ballads i' my bluid,
     Nae Scot could be mair leal!

I fancied that I had pitched my verses in so high a key that no one
could mistake their burlesque intention. What was my confusion, however,
to have one of the company remark when I finished, 'Extremely pretty;
but a mutch, you know, is an article of WOMAN'S apparel, and would never
be worn with a kilt!'

Mr. Macdonald flung himself gallantly into the breach. He is such a dear
fellow! So quick, so discriminating, so warm-hearted!

"Don't pick flaws in Miss Hamilton's finest line! That picture of a fair
American, clad in a kilt and mutch, decked in heather and scones, and
brandishing a claymore, will live for ever in my memory. Don't clip the
wings of her imagination! You will be telling her soon that one doesn't
tie one's hair with thistles, nor couple collops with cairngorms."

Somebody sent Francesca a great bunch of yellow broom, late that
afternoon. There was no name in the box, she said, but at night she wore
the odorous tips in the bosom of her black dinner-gown, and standing
erect in her dark hair like golden aigrettes.

When she came into my room to say good night, she laid the pretty frock
in one of my trunks, which was to be filled with garments of fashionable
society and left behind in Edinburgh. The next moment I chanced to look
on the floor, and discovered a little card, a bent card with two lines
written on it:--

  'Better lo'ed ye canna be,
   Will ye no' come back again?'

We have received many invitations in that handwriting. I know it well,
and so does Francesca, though it is blurred; and the reason for this,
according to my way of thinking, is that it has been lying next
the moist stems of flowers, and unless I do her wrong, very near to
somebody's warm heart as well.

I will not betray her to Salemina, even to gain a victory over that
blind and deaf but much beloved woman. How could I, with my heart
beating high at the thought of seeing my ain dear laddie before many
days?

   Oh, love, love, lassie,
     Love is like a dizziness:
   It winna lat a puir body
     Gang aboot his business.'

Chapter XIV. The wee theekit hoosie in the loaning.

  'Now she's cast aff her bonny shoon
     Made o' gilded leather,
   And she's put on her Hieland brogues
     To skip amang the heather.
   And she's cast aff her bonny goon
     Made o' the silk and satin,
   And she's put on a tartan plaid
     To row amang the braken.'

Lizzie Baillie.

We are in the East Neuk o' Fife; we are in Pettybaw; we are neither
boarders nor lodgers; we are residents, inhabitants, householders, and
we live (live, mind you) in a wee theekit hoosie in the old loaning.
Words fail to tell you how absolutely Scotch we are and how blissfully
happy. It is a happiness, I assure you, achieved through great
tribulation. Salemina and I travelled many miles in railway trains, and
many in various other sorts of wheeled vehicles, while the ideal
ever beckoned us onward. I was determined to find a romantic lodging,
Salemina a comfortable one, and this special combination of virtues
is next to impossible, as every one knows. Linghurst was too much of a
town; Bonnie Craig had no respectable inn; Winnybrae was struggling to
be a watering-place; Broomlea had no golf-course within ten miles, and
we intended to go back to our native land and win silver goblets in
mixed foursomes; the 'new toun o' Fairlock' (which looked centuries old)
was delightful, but we could not find apartments there; Pinkie Leith was
nice, but they were tearing up the 'fore street' and laying drain-pipes
in it. Strathdee had been highly recommended, but it rained when we were
in Strathdee, and nobody can deliberately settle in a place where it
rains during the process of deliberation. No train left this moist and
dripping hamlet for three hours, so we took a covered trap and drove
onward in melancholy mood. Suddenly the clouds lifted and the rain
ceased; the driver thought we should be having settled weather now, and
put back the top of the carriage, saying meanwhile that it was a verra
dry simmer this year, and that the crops sairly needed shoo'rs.

"Of course, if there is any district in Scotland where for any reason
droughts are possible, that is where we wish to settle," I whispered to
Salemina; "though, so far as I can see, the Strathdee crops are up to
their knees in mud. Here is another wee village. What is this place,
driver?"

"Pettybaw, mam; a fine toun!"

"Will there be apartments to let there?"

"I cudna say, mam."

"Susanna Crum's father! How curious that he should live here!" I
murmured; and at this moment the sun came out, and shone full, or at
least almost full, on our future home.

"Pettybaw! Petit bois, I suppose," said Salemina; "and there, to be
sure, it is,--the 'little wood' yonder."

We drove to the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, and, alighting,
dismissed the driver. We had still three good hours of daylight,
although it was five o'clock, and we refreshed ourselves with a
delicious cup of tea before looking for lodgings. We consulted the
greengrocer, the baker, and the flesher, about furnished apartments, and
started on our quest, not regarding the little posting establishment as
a possibility. Apartments we found to be very scarce, and in one or two
places that were quite suitable the landlady refused to do any cooking.
We wandered from house to house, the sun shining brighter and brighter,
and Pettybaw looking lovelier and lovelier; and as we were refused
shelter again and again, we grew more and more enamoured, as is the
manner of human kind. The blue sea sparkled, and Pettybaw Sands gleamed
white a mile or two in the distance, the pretty stone church raised its
curved spire from the green trees, the manse next door was hidden in
vines, the sheep lay close to the grey stone walls and the young lambs
nestled beside them, while the song of the burn, tinkling merrily down
the glade on the edge of which we stood, and the cawing of the rooks in
the little wood, were the only sounds to be heard.

Salemina, under the influence of this sylvan solitude, nobly declared
that she could and would do without a set bath-tub, and proposed
building a cabin and living near to nature's heart.

"I think, on the whole, we should be more comfortable living near to
the innkeeper's heart," I answered. "Let us go back there and pass the
night, trying thus the bed and breakfast, with a view to seeing what
they are like--although they did say in Edinburgh that nobody thinks of
living in these wayside hostelries."

Back we went, accordingly, and after ordering dinner came out and
strolled idly up the main street. A small sign in the draper's window,
heretofore overlooked, caught our eye. 'House and Garden To Let Inquire
Within.' Inquiring within with all possible speed, we found the draper
selling winceys, the draper's assistant tidying the ribbon-box, the
draper's wife sewing in one corner, and the draper's baby playing on the
clean floor. We were impressed favourably, and entered into negotiations
without delay.

"The house will be in the loaning; do you mind, ma'am?" asked the
draper. (We have long since discovered that this use of the verb is a
bequest from the Gaelic, in which there is no present tense. Man never
is, but always to be blessed, in that language, which in this particular
is not unlike old-fashioned Calvinism.)

We went out of the back door and down the green loaning, until we came
to the wee stone cottage in which the draper himself lives most of the
year, retiring for the warmer months to the back of his shop, and eking
out a comfortable income by renting his hearth-stone to the summer
visitor.

The thatched roof on the wing that formed the kitchen attracted my
artist's eye, and we went in to examine the interior, which we found
surprisingly attractive. There was a tiny sitting-room, with a fireplace
and a microscopic piano; a dining-room adorned with portraits of
relatives who looked nervous when they met my eye, for they knew that
they would be turned face to the wall on the morrow; four bedrooms, a
kitchen, and a back garden so filled with vegetables and flowers that we
exclaimed with astonishment and admiration.

"But we cannot keep house in Scotland," objected Salemina. "Think of the
care! And what about the servants?"

"Why not eat at the inn?" I suggested. "Think of living in a real
loaning, Salemina! Look at the stone floor in the kitchen, and the
adorable stuffy box-bed in the wall! Look at the bust of Sir Walter
in the hall, and the chromo of Melrose Abbey by moonlight! Look at the
lintel over the front door, with a ship, moon, stars, and 1602 carved in
the stone! What is food to all this?"

Salemina agreed that it was hardly worth considering; and in truth so
many landladies had refused to receive her as a tenant that day that her
spirits were rather low, and she was uncommonly flexible.

"It is the lintel and the back garden that rents the hoose," remarked
the draper complacently in broad Scotch that I cannot reproduce. He is a
house-agent as well as a draper, and went on to tell us that when he had
a cottage he could rent in no other way he planted plenty of creepers
in front of it. "The baker's hoose is no sae bonnie," he said, "and the
linen and cutlery verra scanty, but there is a yellow laburnum growin'
by the door: the leddies see that, and forget to ask aboot the linen. It
depends a good bit on the weather, too; it is easy to let a hoose when
the sun shines upon it."

"We hardly dare undertake regular housekeeping," I said; "do your
tenants ever take meals at the inn?"

"I cudna say, mam." (Dear, dear, the Crums are a large family!)

"If we did that, we should still need a servant to keep the house tidy,"
said Salemina, as we walked away. "Perhaps housemaids are to be had,
though not nearer than Edinburgh, I fancy."

This gave me an idea, and I slipped over to the post-office while
Salemina was preparing for dinner, and despatched a telegram to Mrs.
M'Collop at Breadalbane Terrace, asking her if she could send a reliable
general servant to us, capable of cooking simple breakfasts and caring
for a house.

We had scarcely finished our Scotch broth, fried haddies, mutton-chops,
and rhubarb tart when I received an answer from Mrs. M'Collop to the
effect that her sister's husband's niece, Jane Grieve, could join us
on the morrow if we desired. The relationship was an interesting fact,
though we scarcely thought the information worth the additional pennies
we paid for it in the telegram; however, Mrs. M'Collop's comfortable
assurance, together with the quality of the rhubarb tart and
mutton-chops, brought us to a decision. Before going to sleep we rented
the draper's house, named it Bide-a-Wee Cottage, engaged daily
luncheons and dinners for three persons at the Pettybaw Inn and Posting
Establishment, telegraphed to Edinburgh for Jane Grieve, to Callander
for Francesca, and despatched a letter to Paris for Mr. Beresford,
telling him we had taken a 'wee theekit hoosie,' and that the 'yett was
ajee' whenever he chose to come.

"Possibly it would have been wiser not send for them until we were
settled," I said reflectively. "Jane Grieve may not prove a suitable
person."

"The name somehow sounds too young and inexperienced," observed
Salemina, "and what association have I with the phrase 'sister's
husband's niece'?"

"You have heard me quote Lewis Carroll's verse, perhaps:--

  'He thought he saw a buffalo
     Upon the chimney-piece;
   He looked again and found it was
     His sister's husband's niece:
  "Unless you leave the house," he said,
    "I'll send for the police!"'

The only thing that troubles me," I went on, "is the question of Willie
Beresford's place of residence. He expects to be somewhere within easy
walking or cycling distance,--four or five miles at most."

"He won't be desolate even if he doesn't have a thatched roof, a
pansy garden, and a blossoming shrub," said Salemina sleepily, for our
business arrangements and discussions had lasted well into the evening.
"What he will want is a lodging where he can have frequent sight and
speech of you. How I dread him! How I resent his sharing of you with us!
I don't know why I use the word 'sharing,' forsooth! There is nothing
half so fair and just in his majesty's greedy mind. Well, it's the way
of the world; only it is odd, with the universe of women to choose from,
that he must needs take you. Strathdee seems the most desirable place
for him, if he has a macintosh and rubber boots. Inchcaldy is another
town near here that we didn't see at all--that might do; the draper's
wife says that we can send fine linen to the laundry there."

"Inchcaldy? Oh yes, I think we heard of it in Edinburgh--at least I have
some association with the name: it has a fine golf-course, I believe,
and very likely we ought to have looked at it, although for my part I
have no regrets. Nothing can equal Pettybaw; and I am so pleased to be a
Scottish householder! Aren't we just like Bessie Bell and Mary Gray?

  'They were twa bonnie lassies;
   They biggit a bower on yon burnbrae,
   An' theekit it ower wi' rashes.'

Think of our stone-floored kitchen, Salemina! Think of the real box-bed
in the wall for little Jane Grieve! She will have red-gold hair, blue
eyes, and a pink cotton gown. Think of our own cat! Think how Francesca
will admire the 1602 lintel! Think of our back garden, with our own
'neeps' and vegetable marrows growing in it! Think how they will envy
us at home when they learn that we have settled down into Scottish
yeowomen!

  'It's oh, for a patch of land!
   It's oh, for a patch of land!
   Of all the blessings tongue can name,
   There's nane like a patch of land!'

Think of Willie coming to step on the floor and look at the bed and
stroke the cat and covet the lintel and walk in the garden and weed the
turnips and pluck the marrows that grow by our ain wee theekit hoosie!"

"Penelope, you appear slightly intoxicated! Do close the window and come
to bed."

"I am intoxicated with the caller air of Pettybaw," I rejoined, leaning
on the window-sill and looking at the stars, while I thought: "Edinburgh
was beautiful; it is the most beautiful grey city in the world; it
lacked one thing only to make it perfect, and Pettybaw will have that
before many moons:--

  'Oh, Willie's rare an' Willie's fair
     An' Willie's wondrous bonny;
   An' Willie's hecht to marry me
     Gin e'er he marries ony.

   'O gentle wind that bloweth south,
     From where my love repaireth,
   Convey a word from his dear mouth,
     An' tell me how he fareth.'"

Chapter XV. Jane Grieve and her grievances.

  'Gae tak' awa' the china plates,
     Gae tak' them far frae me;
   And bring to me a wooden dish,
     It's that I'm best used wi'.
   And tak' awa' thae siller spoons,
     The like I ne'er did see,
   And bring to me the horn cutties,
     They're good eneugh for me.'

Earl Richard's Wedding.

The next day was one of the most cheerful and one of the most fatiguing
that I ever spent. Salemina and I moved every article of furniture
in our wee theekit hoosie from the place where it originally stood to
another and a better place: arguing, of course, over the precise spot
it should occupy, which was generally upstairs if the thing were already
down, or downstairs if it were already up. We hid all the more hideous
ornaments of the draper's wife, and folded away her most objectionable
tidies and table-covers, replacing them with our own pretty draperies.
There were only two pictures in the sitting-room, and as an artist I
would not have parted with them for worlds. The first was The Life of
a Fireman, which could only remind one of the explosion of a mammoth
tomato, and the other was The Spirit of Poetry calling Burns from the
Plough. Burns wore white knee-breeches, military boots, a splendid
waistcoat with lace ruffles, and carried a cocked hat. To have been
so dressed he must have known the Spirit was intending to come. The
plough-horse was a magnificent Arabian, whose tail swept the freshly
furrowed earth, while the Spirit of Poetry was issuing from a
practicable wigwam on the left, and was a lady of such ample dimensions
that no poet would have dared say 'no' when she called him.

The dining-room was blighted by framed photographs of the draper's
relations and the draper's wife's relations; all uniformly ugly. It
seems strange that married couples having the least beauty to bequeath
to their offspring should persist in having the largest families. These
ladies and gentlemen were too numerous to remove, so we obscured them
with trailing branches; reflecting that we only breakfasted in the room,
and the morning meal is easily digested when one lives in the open air.
We arranged flowers everywhere, and bought potted plants at a little
nursery hard by. We apportioned the bedrooms, giving Francesca the
hardest bed,--as she is the youngest, and wasn't here to choose,--me the
next hardest, and Salemina the best; Francesca the largest looking-glass
and wardrobe, me the best view, and Salemina the largest bath. We bought
housekeeping stores, distributing our patronage equally between the two
grocers; we purchased aprons and dust-cloths from the rival drapers,
engaged bread and rolls from the baker, milk and cream from the plumber
(who keeps three cows), interviewed the flesher about chops; in fact, no
young couple facing love in a cottage ever had a busier or happier time
than we; and at sundown, when Francesca arrived, we were in the pink of
order, standing under our own lintel, ready to welcome her to Pettybaw.
As to being strangers in a strange land, we had a bowing acquaintance
with everybody on the main street of the tiny village, and were on terms
of considerable intimacy with half a dozen families, including dogs and
babies.

Francesca was delighted with everything, from the station (Pettybaw
Sands, two miles away) to Jane Grieve's name, which she thought
as perfect, in its way, as Susanna Crum's. She had purchased a
'tirling-pin,' that old-time precursor of knockers and bells, at an
antique shop in Oban, and we fastened it on the front door at once,
taking turns at risping it until our own nerves were shattered, and
the draper's wife ran down the loaning to see if we were in need of
anything. The twisted bar of iron stands out from the door and the ring
is drawn up and down over a series of nicks, making a rasping noise. The
lovers and ghaists in the old ballads always 'tirled at the pin,' you
remember; that is, touched it gently.

Francesca brought us letters from Edinburgh, and what was my joy,
in opening Willie's, to learn that he begged us to find a place in
Fifeshire, and as near St. Rules or Strathdee as convenient; for in that
case he could accept an invitation he had just received to visit his
friend Robin Anstruther, at Rowardennan Castle.

"It is not the visit at the castle I wish so much, you may be sure," he
wrote, "as the fact that Lady Ardmore will make everything pleasant for
you. You will like my friend Robin Anstruther, who is Lady Ardmore's
youngest brother, and who is going to her to be nursed and coddled after
a baddish accident in the hunting-field. He is very sweet-tempered, and
will get on well with Francesca--"

"I don't see the connection," rudely interrupted that spirited young
person.

"I suppose she has more room on her list in the country than she had in
Edinburgh; but if my remembrance serves me, she always enrolls a goodly
number of victims, whether she has any immediate use for them or not."

"Mr. Beresford's manners have not been improved by his residence in
Paris," observed Francesca, with resentment in her tone and delight in
her eye.

"Mr. Beresford's manners are always perfect," said Salemina loyally,
"and I have no doubt that this visit to Lady Ardmore will be extremely
pleasant for him, though very embarrassing to us. If we are thrown into
forced intimacy with a castle" (Salemina spoke of it as if it had fangs
and a lashing tail), "what shall we do in this draper's hut?"

"Salemina!" I expostulated, "bears will devour you as they did the
ungrateful child in the fairy-tale. I wonder at your daring to use the
word 'hut' in connection with our wee theekit hoosie!"

"They will never understand that we are doing all this for the novelty
of it," she objected. "The Scottish nobility and gentry probably never
think of renting a house for a joke. Imagine Lord and Lady Ardmore, the
young Ardmores, Robin Anstruther, and Willie Beresford calling upon us
in this sitting-room! We ourselves would have to sit in the hall and
talk in through the doorway."

"All will be well," Francesca assured her soothingly. "We shall be
pardoned much because we are Americans, and will not be expected to know
any better. Besides, the gifted Miss Hamilton is an artist, and that
covers a multitude of sins against conventionality. When the castle
people 'tirl at the pin,' I will appear as the maid, if you like,
following your example at Mrs Bobby's cottage in Belvern, Pen."

"And it isn't as if there were many houses to choose from, Salemina, nor
as if Bide-a-Wee cottage were cheap," I continued. "Think of the rent we
pay and keep your head high. Remember that the draper's wife says there
is nothing half so comfortable in Inchcaldy, although that is twice as
large a town."

"INCHCALDY!" ejaculated Francesca, sitting down heavily upon the sofa
and staring at me.

"Inchcaldy, my dear,--spelled CALDY, but pronounced CAWDY; the
town where you are to take your nonsensical little fripperies to be
laundered."

"Where is Inchcaldy? How far away?"

"About five miles, I believe, but a lovely road."

"Well," she exclaimed bitterly, "of course Scotland is a small,
insignificant country; but, tiny as it is, it presents some liberty
of choice, and why you need have pitched upon Pettybaw, and brought
me here, when it is only five miles from Inchcaldy, and a lovely road
besides, is more than I can understand!"

"In what way has Inchcaldy been so unhappy as to offend you?" I asked.

"It has not offended me, save that it chances to be Ronald Macdonald's
parish--that is all."

"Ronald Macdonald's parish!" we repeated automatically.

"Certainly--you must have heard him mention Inchcaldy; and how queer
he will think it that I have come to Pettybaw, under all the
circumstances!"

"We do not know 'all the circumstances,'" quoted Salemina somewhat
haughtily; "and you must remember, my dear, that our opportunities for
speech with Mr. Macdonald have been very rare when you were present. For
my part, I was always in such a tremor of anxiety during his visits lest
one or both of you should descend to blows that I remember no details of
his conversation. Besides, we did not choose Pettybaw; we discovered it
by chance as we were driving from Strathdee to St. Rules. How were we
to know that it was near this fatal Inchcaldy? If you think it best, we
will hold no communication with the place, and Mr. Macdonald need never
know you are here."

I thought Francesca looked rather startled at this proposition. At all
events she said hastily, "Oh, well, let it go; we could not avoid each
other long, anyway, although it is very awkward, of course; you see, we
did not part friends."

"I thought I had never seen you on more cordial terms," remarked
Salemina.

"But you weren't there," answered Francesca unguardedly.

"Weren't where?"

"Weren't there."

"Where?"

"At the station."

"What station?"

"The station in Edinburgh from which I started for the Highlands."

"You never said that he came to see you off."

"The matter was too unimportant for notice; and the more I think of his
being here, the less I mind it after all; and so, dull care, begone!
When I first meet him on the sands or in the loaning, I shall say, 'Dear
me, is it Mr. Macdonald! What brought you to our quiet hamlet?' (I shall
put the responsibility on him, you know.) 'That is the worst of these
small countries,--fowk are aye i' the gait! When we part for ever in
America, we are able to stay parted, if we wish.' Then he will say,
'Quite so, quite so; but I suppose even you, Miss Monroe, will allow
that a minister may not move his church to please a lady.' 'Certainly
not,' I shall reply, 'especially when it is Estaiblished!' Then he will
laugh, and we shall be better friends for a few moments; and then I
shall tell him my latest story about the Scotchman who prayed, 'Lord, I
do not ask that Thou shouldst give me wealth; only show me where it is,
and I will attend to the rest.'"

Salemina moaned at the delightful prospect opening before us, while I
went to the piano and carolled impersonally--

  "Oh, wherefore did I cross the Forth,
     And leave my love behind me?
   Why did I venture to the north
     With one that did not mind me?
   I'm sure I've seen a better limb
     And twenty better faces;
   But still my mind it runs on him
     When I am at the races!"

Francesca left the room at this, and closed the door behind her with
such energy that the bust of Sir Walter rocked on the hall shelf.
Running upstairs she locked herself in her bedroom, and came down again
only to help us receive Jane Grieve, who arrived at eight o'clock.

In times of joy Salemina, Francesca, and I occasionally have our
trifling differences of opinion, but in hours of affliction we are as
one flesh. An all-wise Providence sent us Jane Grieve for fear that we
should be too happy in Pettybaw. Plans made in heaven for the discipline
of sinful human flesh are always successful, and this was no exception.

We had sent a 'machine' from the inn to meet her, and when it drew up at
the door we went forward to greet the rosy little Jane of our fancy. An
aged person, wearing a rusty black bonnet and shawl, and carrying
what appeared to be a tin cake-box and a baby's bath-tub, descended
rheumatically from the vehicle and announced herself as Miss Grieve. She
was too old to call by her Christian name, too sensitive to call by her
surname, so Miss Grieve she remained, as announced, to the end of the
chapter, and our rosy little Jane died before she was actually born. The
man took her grotesque luggage into the kitchen, and Salemina escorted
her thither, while Francesca and I fell into each other's arms and
laughed hysterically.

"Nobody need tell me that she is Mrs. M'Collop's sister's husband's
niece," she whispered, "although she may possibly be somebody's
grand-aunt. Doesn't she remind you of Mrs. Gummidge?"

Salemina returned in a quarter of an hour, and sank dejectedly on the
sofa.

"Run over to the inn, Francesca" she said, "and order bacon and eggs
at eight-thirty to-morrow morning. Miss Grieve thinks we had better not
breakfast at home until she becomes accustomed to the surroundings."

"Shall we allow her to become accustomed to them?" I questioned.

"She came up from Glasgow to Edinburgh for the day, and went to see Mrs.
M'Collop just as our telegram arrived. She was living with an 'extremely
nice family' in Glasgow, and only broke her engagement in order to try
Fifeshire air for the summer; so she will remain with us as long as she
is benefited by the climate."

"Can't you pay her for a month and send her away?"

"How can we? She is Mrs. M'Collop's sister's husband's niece, and we
intend returning to Mrs. M'Collop. She has a nice ladylike appearance,
but when she takes her bonnet off she looks seventy years old."

"She ought always to keep it off, then," returned Francesca, "for she
looked eighty with it on. We shall have to soothe her last moments, of
course, and pay her funeral expenses. Did you offer her a cup of tea and
show her the box-bed?"

"Yes; she said she was muckle obleeged to me, but the coals were so poor
and hard she couldna batter them up to start a fire the nicht, and she
would try the box-bed to see if she could sleep in it. I am glad to
remember that it was you who telegraphed for her, Penelope."

"Let there be no recriminations," I responded; "let us stand shoulder to
shoulder in this calamity,--isn't there a story called Calamity Jane? We
might live at the inn, and give her the cottage for a summer residence,
but I utterly refuse to be parted from our cat and the 1602 lintel."

After I have once described Miss Grieve I shall not suffer her to
begloom these pages as she did our young lives. She is so exactly
like her kind in America she cannot be looked upon as a national type.
Everywhere we go we see fresh, fair-haired, sonsie lasses; why should
we have been visited by this affliction, we who have no courage in a
foreign land to rid ourselves of it?

She appears at the door of the kitchen with some complaint, and stands
there talking to herself in a depressing murmur until she arrives at the
next grievance. Whenever we hear this, which is whenever we are in the
sitting-room, we amuse ourselves by chanting lines of melancholy poetry
which correspond to the sentiments she seems to be uttering. It is the
only way the infliction can be endured, for the sitting-room is so small
that we cannot keep the door closed habitually. The effect of this plan
is something like the following:--

She. "The range has sic a bad draft I canna mak' the fire draw!"

  We.  'But I'm ower auld for the tears to start,
        An' sae the sighs maun blaw!'

She. "The clock i' the hall doesna strike. I have to get oot o' my bed
to see the time."

  We.  'The broken hairt it kens
        Nae second spring again!'

She. "There's no' eneuch jugs i' the hoose."

  We.  'I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought--
       In troth I'm like to greet!'

She. "The sink drain isna recht."

  We.  'An' it's oh! to win awa', awa',
        An' it's oh! to win awa'!'

She. "I canna thole a box-bed!"

  We.  'Ay waukin O
        Waukin O an' weary.
        Sleep I can get nane,
        Ay waukin O!'

She. "It's fair insultin' to rent a hoose wi' so few convenience."

  We.  'An' I'm ower auld to fish ony mair,
        An' I hinna the chance to droon.'

She. "The work is fair sickenin' i' this hoose, an' a' for ane puir body
to do by her lane."

  We.  'How can ye chant, ye little birds,
        An' I sae weary, fu' o' care?'

She. "Ah, but that was a fine family I lived wi' in Glasgy; an' it's a
wearifu' day's work I've had the day."

  We.  'Oh why was I spared to cry, Wae's me!'

She. "Why dinna they leave floo'rs i' the garden makin' a mess i' the
hoose wi' 'em? It's not for the knowin' what they will be after next!"

  We.  'Oh, waly waly up the bank,
        And waly waly doon the brae!'

Miss Grieve's plaints never grow less, though we are sometimes at a loss
for appropriate quotations to match them. The poetic interpolations are
introduced merely to show the general spirit of her conversation. They
take the place of her sighs, which are by their nature unprintable. Many
times each day she is wont to sink into one low chair, and, extending
her feet in another, close her eyes and murmur undistinguishable plaints
which come to us in a kind of rhythmic way. She has such a shaking right
hand we have been obliged to give up coffee and have tea, as the former
beverage became too unsettled on its journey from the kitchen to
the breakfast-table. She says she kens she is a guid cook, though
salf-praise is sma' racommendation (sma' as it is she will get nae
ither!); but we have little opportunity to test her skill, as she
prepares only our breakfasts of eggs and porridge. Visions of home-made
goodies had danced before our eyes, but as the hall clock doesna strike
she is unable to rise at any exact hour, and as the range draft is bad,
and the coals too hard to batter up wi' a hatchet, we naturally have to
content ourselves with the baker's loaf.

And this is a truthful portrait of 'Calamity Jane,' our one Pettybaw
grievance.

Chapter XVI. The path that led to Crummylowe.

  'Gae farer up the burn to Habbie's Howe,
   Where a' the sweets o' spring an' simmer grow:
   Between twa birks, out o'er a little lin,
   The water fa's an' mak's a singan din;
   A pool breast-deep, beneath as clear as glass,
   Kisses, wi' easy whirls, the bord'ring grass.'

The Gentle Shepherd.

That is what Peggy says to Jenny in Allan Ramsay's poem, and if you
substitute 'Crummylowe' for 'Habbie's Howe' in the first line, you will
have a lovely picture of the farm-steadin'.

You come to it by turning the corner from the inn, first passing the
cottage where the lady wishes to rent two rooms for fifteen shillings a
week, but will not give much attendance, as she is slightly asthmatic,
and the house is always as clean as it is this minute, and the view from
the window looking out on Pettybaw Bay canna be surpassed at ony money.
Then comes the little house where Will'am Beattie's sister Mary died in
May, and there wasna a bonnier woman in Fife. Next is the cottage with
the pansy-garden, where the lady in the widow's cap takes five-o'clock
tea in the bay-window, and a snug little supper at eight. She has for
the first, scones and marmalade, and her tea is in a small black teapot
under a red cosy with a white muslin cover drawn over it. At eight she
has more tea, and generally a kippered herring, or a bit of cold mutton
left from the noon dinner. We note the changes in her bill of fare as we
pass hastily by, and feel admitted quite into the family secrets. Beyond
this bay-window, which is so redolent of simple peace and comfort that
we long to go in and sit down, is the cottage with the double white
tulips, the cottage with the collie on the front steps, the doctor's
house with the yellow laburnum tree, and then the house where the
Disagreeable Woman lives. She has a lovely baby, which, to begin with,
is somewhat remarkable, as disagreeable women rarely have babies; or
else, having had them, rapidly lose their disagreeableness--so rapidly
that one has not time to notice it. The Disagreeable Woman's house is at
the end of the row, and across the road is a wicket-gate leading--Where
did it lead?--that was the very point. Along the left, as you lean
wistfully over the gate, there runs a stone wall topped by a green
hedge; and on the right, first furrows of pale fawn, then below, furrows
of deeper brown, and mulberry, and red ploughed earth stretching down to
waving fields of green, and thence to the sea, grey, misty, opalescent,
melting into the pearly white clouds, so that one cannot tell where sea
ends and sky begins.

There is a path between the green hedge and the ploughed field, and it
leads seductively to the farm-steadin'; or we felt that it might thus
lead, if we dared unlatch the wicket gate. Seeing no sign 'Private Way,'
'Trespassers Not Allowed,' or other printed defiance to the stranger,
we were considering the opening of the gate, when we observed two female
figures coming toward us along the path, and paused until they should
come through. It was the Disagreeable Woman (although we knew it not)
and an elderly friend. We accosted the friend, feeling instinctively
that she was framed of softer stuff, and asked her if the path were a
private one. It was a question that had never met her ear before, and
she was too dull or too discreet to deal with it on the instant. To our
amazement, she did not even manage to falter, 'I couldna say.'

"Is the path private?" I repeated.

"It is certainly the idea to keep it a little private," said the
Disagreeable Woman, coming into the conversation without being
addressed. "Where do you wish to go?"

"Nowhere in particular. The walk looks so inviting we should like to see
the end."

"It goes only to the Farm, and you can reach that by the highroad; it is
only a half-mile further. Do you wish to call at the Farm?"

"No, oh no; the path is so very pretty that--"

"Yes, I see; well, I should call it rather private." And with this she
departed, leaving us to stand on the outskirts of paradise, while she
went into her house and stared at us from the window as she played with
the lovely undeserved baby. But that was not the end of the matter.

We found ourselves there next day, Francesca and I--Salemina was too
proud--drawn by an insatiable longing to view the beloved and forbidden
scene. We did not dare to glance at the Disagreeable Woman's windows,
lest our courage should ooze away, so we opened the gate and stole
through into the rather private path.

It was a most lovely path; even if it had not been in a sense
prohibited, it would still have been lovely, simply on its own merits.
There were little gaps in the hedge and the wall, through which we
peered into a daisy-starred pasture, where a white bossy and a herd of
flaxen-haired cows fed on the sweet green grass. The mellow ploughed
earth on the right hand stretched down to the shore-line, and a
plough-boy walked up and down the long, straight furrows whistling 'My
Nannie's awa'.' Pettybaw is so far removed from the music-halls that
their cheap songs and strident echoes never reach its sylvan shades, and
the herd-laddies and plough-boys still sweeten their labours with the
old classic melodies.

We walked on and on, determined to come every day; and we settled
that if we were accosted by any one, or if our innocent business were
demanded, Francesca should ask, 'Does Mrs. Macstronachlacher live here,
and has she any new-laid eggs?'

Soon the gates of the Farm appeared in sight. There was a cluster of
buildings, with doves huddling and cooing on the red-tiled roofs,--dairy
houses, workmen's cottages, comely rows of haystacks (towering yellow
things with peaked tops); a little pond with ducks and geese chattering
together as they paddled about, and for additional music the trickling
of two tiny burns making 'a singan din,' as they wimpled through the
bushes. A speckle-breasted thrush perched on a corner of the grey wall
and poured his heart out. Overhead there was a chorus of rooks in the
tall trees, but there was no sound of human voice save that of the
plough-laddie whistling 'My Nannie's awa'.'

We turned our backs on this darling solitude, and retraced our steps
lingeringly. As we neared the wicket gate again we stood upon a bit of
jutting rock and peered over the wall, sniffing the hawthorn buds with
ecstasy. The white bossy drew closer, treading softly on its daisy
carpet; the wondering cows looked up at us as they peacefully chewed
their cuds; a man in corduroy breeches came from a corner of the
pasture, and with a sharp, narrow hoe rooted out a thistle or two that
had found their way into this sweet feeding-ground. Suddenly we heard
the swish of a dress behind, and turned, conscience-stricken, though we
had in nothing sinned.

"Does Mrs. Macstronachlacher live here?" stammered Francesca like a
parrot.

It was an idiotic time and place for the question. We had certainly
arranged that she should ask it, but something must be left to the
judgment in such cases. Francesca was hanging over a stone wall
regarding a herd of cows in a pasture, and there was no possible shelter
for a Mrs. Macstronachlacher within a quarter of a mile. What made
the remark more unfortunate was the fact that, although she had on a
different dress and bonnet, the person interrogated was the Disagreeable
Woman; but Francesca is particularly slow in discerning resemblances.
She would have gone on mechanically asking for new-laid eggs, had I not
caught her eye and held it sternly. The foe looked at us suspiciously
for a moment (Francesca's hats are not easily forgotten), and then
vanished up the path, to tell the people at Crummylowe, I suppose, that
their grounds were invested by marauding strangers whose curiosity was
manifestly the outgrowth of a republican government.

As she disappeared in one direction, we walked slowly in the other; and
just as we reached the corner of the pasture where two stone walls meet,
and where a group of oaks gives grateful shade, we heard children's
voices.

"No, no!" cried somebody; "it must be still higher at this end, for the
tower--this is where the king will sit. Help me with this heavy one,
Rafe. Dandie, mind your foot. Why don't you be making the flag for the
ship?--and do keep the Wrig away from us till we finish building!"

Chapter XVII. Playing Sir Patrick Spens.

  'O lang, lang may the ladyes sit
     Wi' their face into their hand,
   Before they see Sir Patrick Spens
     Come sailing to the strand.'

Sir Patrick Spens.

We forced our toes into the crevices of the wall and peeped stealthily
over the top. Two boys of eight or ten years, with two younger children,
were busily engaged in building a castle. A great pile of stones had
been hauled to the spot, evidently for the purpose of mending the wall,
and these were serving as rich material for sport. The oldest of the
company, a bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked boy in an Eton jacket and broad
white collar, was obviously commander-in-chief; and the next in size,
whom he called Rafe, was a laddie of eight, in kilts. These two looked
as if they might be scions of the aristocracy, while Dandie and the Wrig
were fat little yokels of another sort. The miniature castle must have
been the work of several mornings, and was worthy of the respectful but
silent admiration with which we gazed upon it; but as the last stone
was placed in the tower, the master builder looked up and spied our
interested eyes peering at him over the wall. We were properly abashed,
and ducked our heads discreetly at once, but were reassured by hearing
him run rapidly towards us, calling, "Stop, if you please! Have you
anything on just now--are you busy?"

We answered that we were quite at leisure.

"Then would you mind coming in to help us play 'Sir Patrick Spens'?
There aren't enough of us to do it nicely."

This confidence was touching, and luckily it was not in the least
misplaced. Playing 'Sir Patrick Spens' was exactly in our line, little
as he suspected it.

"Come and help?" I said. "Simply delighted! Do come, Fanny dear. How can
we get over the wall?"

"I'll show you the good broken place!" cried Sir Apple-Cheek; and
following his directions we scrambled through, while Rafe took off his
Highland bonnet ceremoniously and handed us down to earth.

"Hurrah! now it will be something like fun! Do you know 'Sir Patrick
Spens'?"

"Every word of it. Don't you want us to pass an examination before you
allow us in the game?"

"No," he answered gravely; "it's a great help, of course, to know it,
but it isn't necessary. I keep the words in my pocket to prompt Dandie,
and the Wrig can only say two lines, she's so little." (Here he produced
some tattered leaves torn from a book of ballads.) "We've done it many
a time, but this is a new Dunfermline Castle, and we are trying the
play in a different way. Rafe is the king, and Dandie is the 'eldern
knight,'--you remember him?"

"Certainly; he sat at the king's right knee."

"Yes, yes, that's the one! Then Rafe is Sir Patrick part of the time,
and I the other part, because everybody likes to be him; but there's
nobody left for the 'lords o' Noroway' or the sailors, and the Wrig is
the only maiden to sit on the shore, and she always forgets to comb her
hair and weep at the right time."

The forgetful and placid Wrig (I afterwards learned that this is a Scots
word for the youngest bird in the nest) was seated on the grass, with
her fat hands full of pink thyme and white wild woodruff. The sun shone
on her curly flaxen head. She wore a dark blue cotton frock with white
dots, and a short-sleeved pinafore; and though she was utterly useless
from a dramatic point of view, she was the sweetest little Scotch
dumpling I ever looked upon. She had been tried and found wanting in
most of the principal parts of the ballad, but when left out of the
performance altogether she was wont to scream so lustily that all
Crummylowe rushed to her assistance.

"Now let us practise a bit to see if we know what we are going to do,"
said Sir Apple-Cheek. "Rafe, you can be Sir Patrick this time. The
reason why we all like to be Sir Patrick," he explained, turning to me,
"is that the lords o' Noroway say to him--

  'Ye Scottishmen spend a' our King's gowd,
     And a' our Queenis fee';

and then he answers,--

  '"Ye lee! ye lee! ye leers loud,
     Fu' loudly do ye lee!"'

and a lot of splendid things like that. Well, I'll be the king," and
accordingly he began:--

  'The King sits in Dunfermline tower,
     Drinking the bluid-red wine.
  "O whaur will I get a skeely skipper
     To sail this new ship o' mine?"'

A dead silence ensued, whereupon the king said testily, "Now, Dandie,
you never remember you're the eldern knight; go on!"

Thus reminded, Dandie recited:--

  'O up and spake an eldern knight,
     Sat at the King's right knee:
  "Sir Patrick Spens is the best sailor
     That ever sailed the sea."'

"Now I'll write my letter," said the king, who was endeavouring to make
himself comfortable in his somewhat contracted tower.

  'The King has written a braid letter
     And sealed it with his hand;
   And sent it to Sir Patrick Spens,
     Was walking on the strand.'

"Read the letter out loud, Rafe, and then you'll remember what to do."

  '"To Noroway! to Noroway!
     To Noroway o'er the faem!
    The King's daughter of Noroway,
     'Tis thou maun bring her hame,"'

read Rafe.

"Now do the next part!"

"I can't; I'm going to chuck up that next part. I wish you'd do Sir
Patrick until it comes to 'Ye lee! 'ye lee!'"

"No, that won't do, Rafe. We have to mix up everybody else, but it's too
bad to spoil Sir Patrick."

"Well, I'll give him to you, then, and be the king. I don't mind so much
now that we've got such a good tower; and why can't I stop up there even
after the ship sets sail and look out over the sea with a telescope?
That's the way Elizabeth did the time she was king."

"You can stay till you have to come down and be a dead Scots lord. I'm
not going to lie there as I did last time, with nobody but the Wrig for
a Scots lord, and her forgetting to be dead!"

Sir Apple-Cheek then essayed the hard part 'chucked up' by Rafe. It was
rather difficult, I confess, as the first four lines were in pantomime,
and required great versatility:--

  'The first word that Sir Patrick read,
     Fu' loud, loud laughed he:
   The neist word that Sir Patrick read,
     The tear blinded his e'e.'

These conflicting emotions successfully simulated, Sir Patrick
resumed:--

  '"O wha is he has done this deed,
     And tauld the King o' me,--
   To send us out, at this time o' the year,
     To sail upon the sea?"'

Then the king stood up in the unstable tower and shouted his own
orders:--

  '"Be it wind, be it weet, be it hail, be it sleet,
     Our ship maun sail the faem;
    The King's daughter o' Noroway,
     'Tis we maun fetch her hame."'

"Can't we rig the ship a little better?" demanded our stage-manager at
this juncture. "It isn't half as good as the tower."

Ten minutes' hard work, in which we assisted, produced something a
trifle more nautical and seaworthy than the first craft. The ground with
a few boards spread upon it was the deck. Tarpaulin sheets were arranged
on sticks to represent sails, and we located the vessel so cleverly that
two slender trees shot out of the middle of it and served as the tall
topmasts.

"Now let us make believe that we've hoisted our sails on 'Mononday morn'
and been in Noroway 'weeks but only twae,'" said our leading man; "and
your time has come now,"--turning to us.

We felt indeed that it had; but plucking up sufficient courage for the
lords o' Noroway, we cried accusingly,--

  '"Ye Scottishmen spend a' our King's gowd,
     And a' our Queenis fee!"'

Oh but Sir Apple-Cheek was glorious as he roared virtuously:--

  '"Ye lee! ye lee! ye leers loud,
     Fu' loudly do you lee!

   "For I brocht as much white monie
     As gane my men and me,
    An' I brocht a half-fou o' gude red gowd
     Out ower the sea wi' me.

   "But betide me well, betide me wae,
     This day I'se leave the shore;
    And never spend my King's monie
     'Mong Noroway dogs no more.

   "Make ready, make ready, my merry men a',
     Our gude ship sails the morn."'

"Now you be the sailors, please!"

Glad to be anything but Noroway dogs, we recited obediently--

  '"Now, ever alake, my master dear,
     I fear a deadly storm?
     . . . . . . .
    And if ye gang to sea, master,
     I fear we'll come to harm."'

We added much to the effect of this stanza by flinging ourselves on the
turf and embracing Sir Patrick's knees, with which touch of melodrama he
was enchanted.

Then came a storm so terrible that I can hardly trust myself to describe
its fury. The entire corps dramatique personated the elements, and tore
the gallant ship in twain, while Sir Patrick shouted in the teeth of the
gale--

  '"O whaur will I get a gude sailor
     To tak' my helm in hand,
    Till I get up to the tall topmast
     To see if I can spy land?"'

I knew the words a trifle better than Francesca, and thus succeeded in
forestalling her as the fortunate hero--

  '"O here I am, a sailor gude,
     To tak' the helm in hand,
    Till you go up to the tall topmast;
     But I fear ye'll ne'er spy land."'

And the heroic sailor was right, for

   'He hadna gone a step, a step,
     A step but only ane,
    When a bout flew out o' our goodly ship,
     And the saut sea it came in.'

Then we fetched a web o' the silken claith, and anither o' the twine, as
our captain bade us; we wapped them into our ship's side and letna the
sea come in; but in vain, in vain. Laith were the gude Scots lords to
weet their cork-heeled shune, but they did, and wat their hats abune;
for the ship sank in spite of their despairing efforts,

   'And mony was the gude lord's son
     That never mair cam' hame.'

Francesca and I were now obliged to creep from under the tarpaulins and
personate the dishevelled ladies on the strand.

"Will your hair come down?" asked the manager gravely.

"It will and shall," we rejoined; and it did.

   'The ladies wrang their fingers white,
     The maidens tore their hair.'

"Do tear your hair, Jessie! It's the only thing you have to do, and you
never do it on time!"

The Wrig made ready to howl with offended pride, but we soothed her, and
she tore her yellow curls with her chubby hands.

   'And lang, lang may the maidens sit
     Wi' there gowd kaims i' the hair,
    A' waitin' for their ain dear luves,
     For them they'll see nae mair.'

I did a bit of sobbing here that would have been a credit to Sarah
Siddons.

"Splendid! Grand!" cried Sir Patrick, as he stretched himself fifty
fathoms below the imaginary surface of the water, and gave explicit
ante-mortem directions to the other Scots lords to spread themselves out
in like manner.

   'Half ower, half ower to Aberdour,
     'Tis fifty fathoms deep,
    And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens,
     Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.'

"Oh, it is grand!" he repeated jubilantly. "If I could only be the king
and see it all from Dunfermline tower! Could you be Sir Patrick once, do
you think, now that I have shown you how?" he asked Francesca.

"Indeed I could!" she replied, glowing with excitement (and small
wonder) at being chosen for the principal role.

"The only trouble is that you do look awfully like a girl in that white
frock."

Francesca appeared rather ashamed at her natural disqualifications for
the part of Sir Patrick. "If I had only worn my long black cloak!" she
sighed.

"Oh, I have an idea!" cried the boy. "Hand her the minister's gown from
the hedge, Rafe. You see, Mistress Ogilvie of Crummylowe lent us this
old gown for a sail; she's doing something to a new one, and this was
her pattern."

Francesca slipped it on over her white serge, and the Pettybaw parson
should have seen her with the long veil of her dark locks floating over
his ministerial garment.

"It seems a pity to put up your hair," said the stage manager
critically, "because you look so jolly and wild with it down, but I
suppose you must; and will you have Rafe's bonnet?"

Yes, she would have Rafe's bonnet; and when she perched it on the side
of her head and paced the deck restlessly, while the black gown floated
behind in the breeze, we all cheered with enthusiasm, and, having
rebuilt the ship, began the play again from the moment of the gale. The
wreck was more horribly realistic than ever, this time, because of our
rehearsal; and when I crawled from under the masts and sails to seat
myself on the beach with the Wrig, I had scarcely strength enough to
remove the cooky from her hand and set her a-combing her curly locks.

When our new Sir Patrick stretched herself on the ocean bed, she fell
with a despairing wail; her gown spread like a pall over the earth, the
Highland bonnet came off, and her hair floated over a haphazard pillow
of Jessie's wildflowers.

"Oh, it is fine, that part; but from here is where it always goes
wrong!" cried the king from the castle tower. "It's too bad to take
the maidens away from the strand where they look so bonnie, and Rafe
is splendid as the gude sailor, but Dandie looks so silly as one little
dead Scots lord; if we only had one more person, young or old, if he was
ever so stupid!"

"WOULD I DO?"

This unexpected offer came from behind one of the trees that served as
topmasts, and at the same moment there issued from that delightfully
secluded retreat Ronald Macdonald, in knickerbockers and a golf-cap.

Suddenly as this apparition came, there was no lack of welcome on the
children's part. They shouted his name in glee, embraced his legs, and
pulled him about like affectionate young bears. Confusion reigned for
a moment, while Sir Patrick rose from her sea grave all in a mist of
floating hair, from which hung impromptu garlands of pink thyme and
green grasses.

"Allow me to do the honours, please, Jamie," said Mr. Macdonald, when
he could escape from the children's clutches. "Have you been properly
presented? I suppose not. Ladies, the young Master of Rowardennan.
Jamie, Miss Hamilton and Miss Monroe from the United States of America."
Sir Apple-Cheek bowed respectfully. "Let me present the Honourable Ralph
Ardmore, also from the castle, together with Dandie Dinmont and the Wrig
from Crummylowe. Sir Patrick, it is indeed a pleasure to see you again.
Must you take off my gown? I had thought it was past use, but it never
looked so well before."

"YOUR gown?"

The counterfeit presentment of Sir Patrick vanished as the long drapery
flew to the hedge whence it came, and there remained only an offended
young goddess, who swung her dark mane tempestuously to one side,
plaited it in a thick braid, tossed it back again over her white serge
shoulder, and crowded on her sailor hat with unnecessary vehemence.

"Yes, MY gown; whose else could you more appropriately borrow, pray?
Mistress Ogilvie of Crummylowe presses, sponges, and darns my bachelor
wardrobe, but I confess I never suspected that she rented it out for
theatrical purposes. I have been calling upon you in Pettybaw; Lady
Ardmore was there at the same time. Finding but one of the three
American Graces at home, I stayed a few moments only, and am now
returning to Inchcaldy by way of Crummylowe." Here he plucked the gown
off the hedge and folded it carefully.

"Can't we keep it for a sail, Mr. Macdonald?" pleaded Jamie. "Mistress
Ogilvie said it wasn't any more good."

"When Mistress Ogilvie made that remark," replied the Reverend Ronald,
"she had no idea that it would ever touch the shoulders of the martyred
Sir Patrick Spens. Now, I happen to love--"

Francesca hung out a scarlet flag in each cheek, and I was about to say,
'Don't mind me!' when he continued--

"As I was saying, I happen to love 'Sir Patrick Spens,'--it is my
favourite ballad; so, with your permission, I will take the gown, and
you can find something less valuable for a sail!"

I could never understand just why Francesca was so annoyed at being
discovered in our innocent game. Of course she was prone on Mother Earth
and her tresses were much dishevelled, but she looked lovely after all,
in comparison with me, the humble 'supe' and lightning-change artist;
yet I kept my temper,--at least I kept it until the Reverend Ronald
observed, after escorting us through the gap in the wall, "By the way,
Miss Hamilton, there was a gentleman from Paris at your cottage, and he
is walking down the road to meet you."

Walking down the road to meet me, forsooth! Have ministers no brains?
The Reverend Mr. Macdonald had wasted five good minutes with his
observations, introductions, explanations, felicitations, and
adorations, and meantime, regardez-moi, messieurs et mesdames, s'il
vous plait! I have been a Noroway dog, a shipbuilder, and a gallant
sailorman; I have been a gurly sea and a towering gale; I have crawled
from beneath broken anchors, topsails, and mizzenmasts to a strand where
I have been a suffering lady plying a gowd kaim. My skirt of blue drill
has been twisted about my person until it trails in front; my collar is
wilted, my cravat untied; I have lost a stud and a sleeve-link; my hair
is in a tangled mass, my face is scarlet and dusty--and a gentleman from
Paris is walking down the road to meet me!

Chapter XVIII. Paris comes to Pettybaw.

  'There were three ladies in a hall--
     With a heigh-ho! and a lily gay,
   There came a lord among them all--
     As the primrose spreads so sweetly.'

    --The Cruel Brother.

Willie Beresford has come to Pettybaw, and that Arcadian village has
received the last touch that makes it Paradise.

We are exploring the neighbourhood together, and whichever path we
take we think it lovelier than the one before. This morning we drove
to Pettybaw Sands, Francesca and Salemina following by the footpath and
meeting us on the shore. It is all so enchantingly fresh and green on
one of these rare bright days: the trig lass bleaching her 'claes' on
the grass by the burn near the little stone bridge; the wild partridges
whirring about in pairs; the farm-boy seated on the clean straw in the
bottom of his cart, and cracking his whip in mere wanton joy at the
sunshine; the pretty cottages; and the gardens with rows of currant and
gooseberry bushes hanging thick with fruit that suggests jam and tart
in every delicious globule. It is a love-coloured landscape, we know it
full well; and nothing in the fair world about us is half as beautiful
as what we see in each other's eyes. Ah, the memories of these first
golden mornings together after our long separation. I shall sprinkle
them with lavender and lay them away in that dim chamber of the heart
where we keep precious things. We all know the chamber. It is fragrant
with other hidden treasures, for all of them are sweet, though some are
sad. That is the reason why we put a finger on the lip and say 'Hush,'
if we open the door and allow any one to peep in.

We tied the pony by the wayside and alighted: Willie to gather some
sprays of the pink veronica and blue speedwell, I to sit on an old bench
and watch him in happy idleness. The 'white-blossomed slaes' sweetened
the air, and the distant hills were gay with golden whin and broom, or
flushed with the purply-red of the bell heather.

We heard the note of the cushats from a neighbouring bush. They used
to build their nests on the ground, so the story goes, but the cows
trampled them. Now they are wiser and build higher, and their cry is
supposed to be a derisive one, directed to their ancient enemies. 'Come
noo, Coo, Coo! Come noo!'

A hedgehog crept stealthily along the ground, and at a sudden sound
curled himself up like a wee brown bear. There were women working in
the fields near by,--a strange sight to our eyes at first, but nothing
unusual here, where many of them are employed on the farms all the year
round, sowing weeding, planting, even ploughing in the spring, and in
winter working at threshing or in the granary.

An old man, leaning on his staff, came tottering feebly along, and sank
down on the bench beside me. He was dirty, ragged, unkempt, and feeble,
but quite sober, and pathetically anxious for human sympathy.

"I'm achty-sax year auld,' he maundered, apropos of nothing, "achty-sax
year auld. I've seen five lairds o' Pettybaw, sax placed meenisters, an'
seeven doctors. I was a mason, an' a stoot mon i' thae days, but it's a
meeserable life noo. Wife deid, bairns deid! I sit by my lane, an' smoke
my pipe, wi' naebody to gi'e me a sup o' water. Achty-sax is ower auld
for a mon,--ower auld."

These are the sharp contrasts of life one cannot bear to face when one
is young and happy. Willie gave him a half-crown and some tobacco
for his pipe, and when the pony trotted off briskly, and we left the
shrunken figure alone on his bench as he was lonely in his life, we
kissed each other and pledged ourselves to look after him as long as
we remain in Pettybaw; for what is love worth if it does not kindle
the flames of spirit, open the gates of feeling, and widen the heart to
shelter all the little loves and great loves that crave admittance?

As we neared the tiny fishing-village on the sands we met a fishwife
brave in her short skirt and eight petticoats, the basket with its two
hundred pound weight on her head, and the auld wife herself knitting
placidly as she walked along. They look superbly strong, these women;
but, to be sure, the 'weak anes dee,' as one of them told me.

There was an air of bustle about the little quay,--

  'That joyfu' din when the boats come in,
     When the boats come in sae early;
   When the lift is blue an' the herring-nets fu',
     And the sun glints in a' things rarely.'

The silvery shoals of fish no longer come so near the shore as they used
in the olden time, for then the kirk bell of St. Monan's had its tongue
tied when the 'draive' was off the coast, lest its knell should frighten
away the shining myriads of the deep.

We climbed the shoulder of a great green cliff until we could sit on the
rugged rocks at the top and overlook the sea. The bluff is well named
Nirly Scaur, and a wild desolate spot it is, with grey lichen-clad
boulders and stunted heather on its summit. In a storm here, the wind
buffets and slashes and scourges one like invisible whips, and below the
sea churns itself into foaming waves, driving its 'infinite squadrons
of wild white horses' eternally toward the shore. It was calm and blue
to-day, and no sound disturbed the quiet save the incessant shriek
and scream of the rock birds, the kittiwakes, black-headed gulls, and
guillemots that live on the sides of these high sheer craigs. Here the
mother guillemot lays her single egg, and here, on these narrow shelves
of precipitous rock, she holds it in place with her foot until the
warmth of her leg and overhanging body hatches it into life, when
she takes it on her back and flies down to the sea. Motherhood under
difficulties, it would seem, and the education of the baby guillemot is
carried forward on Spartan principles; for the moment he is out of the
shell he is swept downward hundreds of feet and plunged into a cold
ocean, where he can sink or swim as instinct serves him. In a life so
fraught with anxieties, exposures, and dangers, it is not strange that
the guillemots keeps up a ceaseless clang of excited conversation,
a very riot and wrangle of altercation and argument which the
circumstances seem to warrant. The prospective father is obliged to take
turns with the prospective mother, and hold the one precious egg on the
rock while she goes for a fly, a swim, a bite, and a sup. As there are
five hundred other parents on the same rock, and the eggs look to be
only a couple of inches apart, the scene must be distracting, and I have
no doubt we should find, if statistics were gathered, that thousands of
guillemots die of nervous prostration.

Willie and I interpreted the clamour somewhat as follows:--

[Between parent birds.]

"I am going to take my foot off. Are you ready to put yours on? Don't be
clumsy! Wait a minute, I'm not ready. I'M NOT READY, I TELL YOU! NOW!!"

[Between rival mothers.]

"Your egg is so close to mine that I can't breathe---"

"Move your egg, then, I can't move mine!"

"You're sitting so close, I can't stretch my wings."

"Neither can I. You've got as much room as I have."

"I shall tumble if you crowd me."

"Go ahead and tumble, then! There is plenty of room in the sea."

[From one father to another ceremoniously.]

"Pardon me, but I'm afraid I shoved your wife off the rock last night."

"Don't mention it. I remember I shoved off your wife's mother last
year."

We walked among the tiny whitewashed low-roofed cots, each with its
silver-skinned fishes tacked invitingly against the door-frame to dry,
until we came to my favourite, the corner cottage in the row. It has
beautiful narrow garden strips in front,--solid patches of colour in
sweet gillyflower bushes, from which the kindly housewife plucked a
nosegay for us. Her white columbines she calls 'granny's mutches'; and
indeed they are not unlike those fresh white caps. Dear Robbie Burns,
ten inches high in plaster, stands in the sunny window in a tiny box of
blossoming plants surrounded by a miniature green picket fence. Outside,
looming white among the gillyflowers, is Sir Walter, and near him is
still another and a larger bust on a cracked pedestal a foot high,
perhaps. We did not recognise the head at once, and asked the little
woman who it was.

"Homer, the graund Greek poet," she answered cheerily; "an' I'm to have
anither o' Burns, as tall as Homer, when my daughter comes hame frae
E'nbro'."

If the shade of Homer keeps account of his earthly triumphs, I think he
is proud of his place in that humble Scotchwoman's gillyflower garden,
with his head under the drooping petals of granny's white mutches.

What do you think her 'mon' is called in the village! John o' Mary! But
he is not alone in his meekness, for there are Jock o' Meg, Willie
o' Janet, Jem o' Tibby, and a dozen others. These primitive
fishing-villages are the places where all the advanced women ought
to congregate, for the wife is head of the house; the accountant, the
treasurer, the auditor, the chancellor of the exchequer; and though
her husband does catch the fish for her to sell, that is accounted
apparently as a detail too trivial for notice.

When we passed Mary's cottage on our way to the sands next day, Burns's
head had been accidentally broken off by the children, and we felt as
though we had lost a friend; but Scotch thrift, and loyalty to the
dear Ploughman Poet, came to the rescue, and when we returned, Robert's
plaster head had been glued to his body. He smiled at us again from
between the two scarlet geraniums, and a tendril of ivy had been gently
curled about his neck to hide the cruel wound.

After such long, lovely mornings as this, there is a late luncheon under
the shadow of a rock with Salemina and Francesca, an idle chat, or the
chapter of a book, and presently Lady Ardmore and her daughter Elizabeth
drive down to the sands. They are followed by Robin Anstruther, Jamie,
and Ralph on bicycles, and before long the stalwart figure of Ronald
Macdonald appears in the distance, just in time for a cup of tea, which
we brew in Lady Ardmore's bath-house on the beach.

Chapter XIX. Fowk o' Fife.

  'To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
   The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
   The native feelings strong, the guileless ways.'

The Cotter's Saturday Night.

We have lived in Pettybaw a very short time, but I see that we have
already made an impression upon all grades of society. This was not our
intention. We gave Edinburgh as our last place of residence, with the
view of concealing our nationality, until such time as we should choose
to declare it; that is, when public excitement with regard to our
rental of the house in the loaning should have lapsed into a state of
indifference. And yet, modest, economical, and commonplace as has been
the administration of our affairs, our method of life has evidently
been thought unusual, and our conduct not precisely the conduct of other
summer visitors. Even our daily purchases, in manner, in number, and in
character, seem to be looked upon as eccentric, for whenever we leave a
shop, the relatives of the greengrocer, flesher, draper, whoever it may
be, bound downstairs, surround him in an eager circle, and inquire the
latest news.

In an unwise moment we begged the draper's wife to honour us with
a visit and explain the obliquities of the kitchen range and the
tortuosities of the sink-spout to Miss Grieve. While our landlady was
on the premises, I took occasion to invite her up to my own room, with a
view of seeing whether my mattress of pebbles and iron-filings could
be supplemented by another of shavings or straw, or some material less
provocative of bodily injuries. She was most sympathetic, persuasive,
logical and after the manner of her kind proved to me conclusively that
the trouble lay with the too-saft occupant of the bed, not with the
bed itself, and gave me statistics with regard to the latter which
established its reputation and at the same moment destroyed my own.

She looked in at the various doors casually as she passed up and down
the stairs,--all save that of the dining-room, which Francesca had
prudently locked to conceal the fact that we had covered the family
portraits,--and I noticed at the time that her face wore an expression
of mingled grief and astonishment. It seemed to us afterward that there
was a good deal more passing up and down the loaning than when we first
arrived. At dusk especially, small processions of children and young
people walked by our cottage and gave shy glances at the windows.

Finding Miss Grieve in an unusually amiable mood, I inquired the
probable cause of this phenomenon. She would not go so far as to give
any judicial opinion, but offered a few conjectures.

It might be the tirling-pin; it might be the white satin ribbons on the
curtains; it might be the guitars and banjos; it might be the bicycle
crate; it might be the profusion of plants; it might be the continual
feasting and revelry; it might be the blazing fires in a Pettybaw
summer. She thought a much more likely reason, however, was because
it had become known in the village that we had moved every stick
of furniture in the house out of its accustomed place and taken the
dressing-tables away from the windows,--'the windys,' she called them.

I discussed this matter fully with Mr. Macdonald later on. He laughed
heartily, but confessed, with an amused relish of his national
conservatism, that to his mind there certainly was something radical,
advanced, and courageous in taking a dressing-table away from its place,
back to the window, and putting it anywhere else in a room. He would be
frank, he said, and acknowledge that it suggested an undisciplined and
lawless habit of thought, a disregard for authority, a lack of reverence
for tradition, and a riotous and unbridled imagination.

This view of the matter gave us exquisite enjoyment.

"But why?" I asked laughingly. "The dressing-table is not a sacred
object, even to a woman. Why treat it with such veneration? Where there
is but one good light, and that immediately in front of the window,
there is every excuse for the British custom, but when the light is well
diffused, why not place the table where-ever it looks well?"

"Ah, but it doesn't look well anywhere but back to the window," said Mr.
Macdonald artlessly. "It belongs there, you see; it has probably been
there since the time of Malcolm Canmore, unless Margaret was too pious
to look in a mirror. With your national love of change, you cannot
conceive how soothing it is to know that whenever you enter your gate
and glance upward, you will always see the curtains parted, and between
them, like an idol in a shrine, the ugly wooden back of a little oval
or oblong looking-glass. It gives one a sense of permanence in a world
where all is fleeting."

The public interest in our doings seems to be entirely of a friendly
nature, and if our neighbours find a hundredth part of the charm and
novelty in us that we find in them, they are fortunate indeed, and we
cheerfully sacrifice our privacy on the altar of the public good.

A village in Scotland is the only place I can fancy where housekeeping
becomes an enthralling occupation. All drudgery disappears in a rosy
glow of unexpected, unique, and stimulating conditions. I would rather
superintend Miss Grieve, and cause the light of amazement to gleam
ten times daily in her humid eye, than lead a cotillion with Willie
Beresford. I would rather do the marketing for our humble breakfasts and
teas, or talk over the day's luncheons and dinners with Mistress Brodie
of the Pettybaw Inn and Posting Establishment, than go to the opera.

Salemina and Francesca do not enjoy it all quite as intensely as I, so
they considerately give me the lion's share. Every morning, after an
exhilarating interview with the Niobe of our kitchen (who thinks me
irresponsible, and prays Heaven in her heart I be no worse), I put on
my goloshes, take my umbrella, and trudge up and down the little streets
and lanes on real and, if need be, imaginary errands. The Duke of
Wellington said, 'When fair in Scotland, always carry an umbrella;
when it rains, please yourself,' and I sometimes agree with Stevenson's
shivering statement, 'Life does not seem to me to be an amusement
adapted to this climate.' I quoted this to the doctor yesterday, but he
remarked with some surprise that he had not missed a day's golfing for
weeks. The chemist observed as he handed me a cake of soap, 'Won'erful
blest in weather, we are, mam,' simply because, the rain being
unaccompanied with high wind, one was enabled to hold up an umbrella
without having it turned inside out. When it ceased dripping for an
hour at noon, the greengrocer said cheerily, 'Another grand day, mam!'
I assented, though I could not for the life of me remember when the last
one occurred. However, dreary as the weather may be, one cannot be dull
when doing one's morning round of shopping in Pettybaw or Strathdee. I
have only to give you thumb-nail sketches of our favourite tradespeople
to convince you of that fact.

      .  .    .    .

We bought our first groceries of Mrs. Robert Phin, of Strathdee, simply
because she is an inimitable conversationalist. She is expansive, too,
about family matters, and tells us certain of her 'mon's' faults which
it would be more seemly to keep in the safe shelter of her own bosom.

Rab takes a wee drappie too much, it appears, and takes it so often that
he has little time to earn an honest penny for his family. This is bad
enough; but the fact that Mrs. Phin has been twice wed before, and that
in each case she innocently chose a ne'er-do-weel for a mate, makes
her a trifle cynical. She told me that she had laid twa husbands in the
kirk-yard near which her little shop stands, and added cheerfully, as
I made some sympathetic response, 'An' I hope it'll no' be lang afore I
box Rab!'

Salemina objects to the shop because it is so disorderly. Soap and
sugar, tea and bloaters, starch and gingham, lead pencils and sausages,
lie side by side cosily. Boxes of pins are kept on top of kegs of
herrings. Tins of coffee are distributed impartially anywhere and
everywhere, and the bacon sometimes reposes in a glass case with
small-wares and findings, out of the reach of Alexander's dogs.

Alexander is one of a brood, or perhaps I should say three broods, of
children which wander among the barrels and boxes and hams and winceys
seeking what they may devour,--a handful of sugar, a prune, or a
sweetie.

We often see the bairns at their luncheon or dinner in a little room
just off the shop, Alexander the Small always sitting or kneeling on a
'creepie,' holding his plate down firmly with the left hand and eating
with the right, whether the food be fish, porridge, or broth. In the
Phin family the person who does not hold his plate down runs the risk of
losing it to one of the other children or to the dogs, who, with eager
eye and reminding paw, gather round the hospitable board, licking their
chops hopefully.

I enjoy these scenes very much, but, alas! I can no longer witness them
as often as formerly.

This morning Mrs. Phin greeted me with some embarrassment.

"Maybe ye'll no' ken me," she said, her usually clear speech a little
blurred. "It's the teeth. I've mislaid 'em somewhere. I paid far too
much siller for 'em to wear 'em ilka day. Sometimes I rest 'em in the
teabox to keep 'em awa' frae the bairns, but I canna find 'em theer.
I'm thinkin' maybe they'll be in the rice, but I've been ower thrang to
luik!"

This anecdote was too rich to keep to myself, but its unconscious humour
made no impression upon Salemina, who insisted upon the withdrawal of
our patronage. I have tried to persuade her that, whatever may be said
of tea and rice, we run no risk in buying eggs; but she is relentless.

      .    .    .    .

The kirkyard where Rab's two predecessors have been laid, and where Rab
will lie when Mrs. Phin has 'boxed' him, is a sleepy little place set on
a gentle slope of ground, softly shaded by willow and yew trees. It is
enclosed by a stone wall, into which an occasional ancient tombstone
is built, its name and date almost obliterated by stress of time and
weather.

We often walk through its quiet, myrtle-bordered paths on our way to
the other end of the village, where Mrs. Bruce, the flesher, keeps an
unrivalled assortment of beef and mutton. The headstones, many of them
laid flat upon the graves, are interesting to us because of their quaint
inscriptions, in which the occupation of the deceased is often stated
with modest pride and candour. One expects to see the achievements of
the soldier, the sailor, or the statesman carved in the stone that marks
his resting-place, but to our eyes it is strange enough to read that the
subject of eulogy was a plumber, tobacconist, maker of golf-balls, or
a golf champion; in which latter case there is a spirited etching
or bas-relief of the dead hero, with knickerbockers, cap, and clubs
complete.

There, too, lies Thomas Loughead, Hairdresser, a profession far too
little celebrated in song and story. His stone is a simple one, and
bears merely the touching tribute:--

   He was lovely and pleasant in his life,

the inference being, to one who knows a line of Scripture, that in his
death he was not divided.

These kirkyard personalities almost lead one to believe in the
authenticity of the British tradesman's epitaph, wherein his
practical-minded relict stated that the 'bereaved widow would continue
to carry on the tripe and trotter business at the old stand.'

      .    .    .    .

One day when we were walking through the little village of Strathdee
we turned the corner of a quiet side street and came suddenly upon
something altogether strange and unexpected.

A stone cottage of the everyday sort stood a trifle back from the road
and bore over its front door a sign announcing that Mrs. Bruce, Flesher,
carried on her business within; and indeed one could look through
the windows and see ruddy joints hanging from beams, and piles of
pink-and-white steaks and chops lying neatly on the counter, crying,
'Come, eat me!' Nevertheless, one's first glance would be arrested
neither by Mrs Bruce's black-and-gold sign, nor by the enticements of
her stock-in-trade, because one's attention is rapped squarely between
the eyes by an astonishing shape that arises from the patch of lawn
in front of the cottage, and completely dominates the scene. Imagine
yourself face to face with the last thing you would expect to see in
a modest front dooryard,--the figurehead of a ship, heroic in size,
gorgeous in colour, majestic in pose! A female personage it appears to
be from the drapery, which is the only key the artist furnishes as to
sex, and a queenly female withal, for she wears a crown at least a foot
high, and brandishes a forbidding sceptre. All this seen from the front,
but the rear view discloses the fact that the lady terminates in the
tail of a fish which wriggles artistically in mid-air and is of a
brittle sort, as it has evidently been thrice broken and glued together.

Mrs Bruce did not leave us long in suspense, but obligingly came out,
partly to comment on the low price of mutton and partly to tell the
tale of the mammoth mermaid. By rights, of course, Mrs. Bruce's husband
should have been the gallant captain of a bark which foundered at sea
and sent every man to his grave on the ocean-bed. The ship's figurehead
should have been discovered by some miracle, brought to the sorrowing
widow, and set up in the garden in eternal remembrance of the dear
departed. This was the story in my mind, but as a matter of fact the
rude effigy was wrought by Mrs. Bruce's father for a ship to be called
the Sea Queen, but by some mischance, ship and figurehead never came
together, and the old wood-carver left it to his daughter, in lieu of
other property. It has not been wholly unproductive, Mrs. Bruce fancies,
for the casual passers-by, like those who came to scoff and remained
to pray, go into the shop to ask questions about the Sea Queen and buy
chops out of courtesy and gratitude.

      .    .    .    .

On our way to the bakery, which is a daily walk with us, we always
glance at a little cot in a grassy lane just off the fore street. In
one half of this humble dwelling Mrs. Davidson keeps a slender stock of
shop-worn articles,--pins, needles, threads, sealing-wax, pencils, and
sweeties for the children, all disposed attractively upon a single shelf
behind the window.

Across the passage, close to the other window, sits day after day an old
woman of eight-six summers who has lost her kinship with the present and
gone back to dwell for ever in the past. A small table stands in front
of her rush-bottomed chair, the old family Bible rests upon it, and in
front of the Bible are always four tiny dolls, with which the trembling
old fingers play from morning till night. They are cheap, common little
puppets, but she robes and disrobes them with tenderest care. They are
put to bed upon the Bible, take their walks along its time-worn pages,
are married on it, buried on it, and the direst punishment they ever
receive is to be removed from its sacred covers and temporarily hidden
beneath the dear old soul's black alpaca apron. She is quite happy with
her treasures on week-days; but on Sundays--alas and alas! the poor old
dame sits in her lonely chair with the furtive tears dropping on her
wrinkled cheeks, for it is a God-fearing household, and it is neither
lawful nor seemly to play with dolls on the Sawbath!

      .    .    .    .

Mrs. Nicolson is the presiding genius of the bakery, she is more--she
is the bakery itself. A Mr. Nicolson there is, and he is known to be the
baker, but he dwells in the regions below the shop and only issues at
rare intervals, beneath the friendly shelter of a huge tin tray filled
with scones and baps.

If you saw Mrs. Nicolson's kitchen with the firelight gleaming on its
bright copper, its polished candlesticks, and its snowy floor, you would
think her an admirable housewife, but you would get no clue to those
shrewd and masterful traits of character which reveal themselves chiefly
behind the counter.

Miss Grieve had purchased of Mrs. Nicolson a quarter section of very
appetising ginger-cake to eat with our afternoon tea, and I stepped in
to buy more. She showed me a large round loaf for two shillings.

"No," I objected, "I cannot use a whole loaf, thank you. We eat very
little at a time, and like it perfectly fresh. I wish a small piece such
as my maid bought the other day."

Then ensued a discourse which I cannot render in the vernacular, more's
the pity, though I understood it all too well for my comfort. The
substance of it was this: that she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand
to give me a quarter section of cake when the other three-quarters might
gae dry in the bakery; that the reason she sold the small piece on the
former occasion was that her daughter, her son-in-law, and their three
children came from Ballahoolish to visit her, and she gave them a
high tea with no expense spared; that at this function they devoured
three-fourths of a ginger-cake, and just as she was mournfully regarding
the remainder my servant came in and took it off her hands; that she had
kept a bakery for thirty years and her mother before her, and never had
a two-shilling ginger-cake been sold in pieces before, nor was it likely
ever to occur again; that if I, under Providence, so to speak, had been
the fortunate gainer by the transaction, why not eat my six penny-worth
in solemn gratitude once for all, and not expect a like miracle to
happen the next week? And finally, that two-shilling ginger-cakes were,
in the very nature of things, designed for large families; and it
was the part of wisdom for small families to fix their affections on
something else, for she couldna and wouldna tak' it in hand to cut a
rare and expensive article for a small customer.

The torrent of logic was over, and I said humbly that I would take the
whole loaf.

"Verra weel, mam," she responded more affably, "thank you kindly; no, I
couldna tak' it in hand to sell six pennyworth of that ginger-cake and
let one-and-sixpence worth gae dry in the bakery.--A beautiful day, mam!
Won'erful blest in weather ye are! Let me open your umbrella for you,
mam!"

      .    .    .    .

David Robb is the weaver of Pettybaw. All day long he sits at his
old-fashioned hand-loom, which, like the fruit of his toil and the dear
old greybeard himself, belongs to a day that is past and gone.

He might have work enough to keep an apprentice busy, but where would
he find a lad sufficiently behind the times to learn a humble trade now
banished to the limbo of superseded, almost forgotten things?

His home is but a poor place, but the rough room in which he works is
big enough to hold a deal of sweet content. It is cheery enough, too,
to attract the Pettybaw weans, who steal in on wet days and sit on the
floor playing with the thrums, or with bits of coloured ravellings.
Sometimes when they have proved themselves wise and prudent little
virgins, they are even allowed to touch the hanks of pink and yellow and
blue yarn that lie in rainbow-hued confusion on the long deal table.

All this time the 'heddles' go up and down, up and down, with their
ceaseless clatter, and David throws the shuttle back and forth as he
weaves his old-fashioned winceys.

We have grown to be good friends, David and I, and I have been permitted
the signal honour of painting him at his work.

The loom stands by an eastern window, and the rare Pettybaw sunshine
filters through the branches of a tree, shines upon the dusty
window-panes, and throws a halo round David's head that he well deserves
and little suspects. In my foreground sit Meg and Jean and Elspeth
playing with thrums and wearing the fruit of David's loom in their
gingham frocks. David himself sits on his wooden bench behind the maze