The evening world. Newspaper, January 10, 1916, Page 13

A Romance of Love and European War By SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE Author of “SHERLOCK HOLMES,” Fte FRGRGRRR RRR (Copyright, 1892, by A. Conan Doyle), CHAPTER I. The Night of the Beacons. T to strange to me, Jack Calder of West Inch, to feel that though now, in the very centre of the nineteenth century, I am but five- and-fifty years of ago, and though It is only once in & week, por- haps, that my wife can pluck out a little gray bristle from over my ear, yet I have lived in a time when the thoughts and the ‘ways of men were as different as though it were another planet from this, For when I walk. in my fields 1 can see, down Berwick way, the little fluffs of white smoke which tell me of this strange, new, hundred-legged beast with coals for food and a thousand men tn its belly, forever crawling over the border, On a shiny day I can sce the glint of the brasswork as it takes the curve near Corriemuir. the same beast again, or a dozen of And then, as I look out to sea, there is them, maybe, leaving a trail of black in the air and of white in the water, and swimming in the face of the wind as easily as a salmon up the Tweed. Such a sight as that would have etruck my good old father speechiess with wrath as well as surprise, for he was so stricken with the fear offending the Creator that he wi chary of contradicting Nature, and always held the new thing to be near- ly akin to the blasphemous. As long as God made the horse, and a man down Birmingham way the engine, my good old dad would have stuck by the surprised if he had seen the peace and Xindliness which reigns now in the id the talk in tho Papers and at the meetings that thera ig to be no more war—save, of course, with blacks and such like. For when he died we had been fighting with scarce a break, savo for two short years, for very nearly a quarter of a century. Think of it, you who live 4o quietly and peacefully now. Babies who w born in the war grew to men with babies of their nd still the wir continued. who had served and fought in their stalwart prime grew stiff and bent, and yet the ships and the armies were struggling. It was no wonder that folk came at last to look upon it as the natural state, and thought how queer it must seem to be at peace. During that long time we fought the Dutch, we fought the Danes, we fought the Spanish, we fought the ‘Tur fought the Americans, we the Montevideans, until it Seemed that in this universal struggle no race was too near of kin or two far away to be drawn into the quarrel. But most of all it was the French whom we fourht, and the man whom of all others we loathed and feared and admired was the great captain, Napoleon Bonaparte, who ruled them, it was very well to draw pictures of him, and sing songs about him, and make as though he were an im. », but I can tell you that the fear of that man hung like a black shadow over all Europe, and that there was a time when t. Unt of a fire at night upon the coast would set every woman upon her knees and eee an SFipping for his musket. He had always won, That was the terror of it. The fates seemed to be behind him, And now we know that he lay upon the northern coast with a hundred and fifty thousand veterans and the boats for their passage. But it is an old story how @ third of the grown folk of our country took up arms and how our little one-eyed, one-armed man, Nelson, crushed ‘their fleot. ‘There was still to be a land of free thinking and free speaking in Europe. There was a great beacon ready on the bill by Tweedmouth, built up of logs and tar barrels, and 1 can weil remember how night after night I strained my eyes to soe If it were ablage. I was only eight at the time, but it is an when one takes a srief to heart, and I felt as though the fate of the country hung in some fashion upon me and my vigilance, And thet one night as I looked I sud- ny saw a little flicker on the bea- con bill—a single red tongue of flame in the darkness, I remember how I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself and rapped my knuckles against the stone window sill to make sure that I was indeed awake, And then the flame shot higher and higher, and I saw tho red quivering ine upon the water be- yond, and I dashed into the kitchen, screeching to my father that the French had crossed and the Tweed- mouth light was aflame, He had beon talking to Mr. Mitchell, the law-student from Edinburgh, and I can see him now as he knocked his pipe out at the side of the fire, and looked at me from over the top of his horn spectacles. “Are you sure, Jock?” says hg. “Sure as death,” I gasped. He reached out his hand for tho Bible upon the table, and opened it upon his knee as though he meant to read to us, but he shut it again lo silence and hurried out. We went too, the law-student and I, and followed him down to the gate which opens out upon the highway. From there we could see the red light of the big beacon, and the glimmer of a small- er one to the north of us, at Ayton. My mother came down with two f in Edinburgh, and a horse, and away he went down the brae, H “I ken him weel,” sald our student, ! nodding after him. “He's a lawyer braw hand at the stringin’ of verses. Wattle Scott 's his name.” None of us had heard of It then, but It was not long before it was the best-known name in Scot- land, and many a time we thought of how he speered his way of us on the night of the terror, | But early in the morning we had/ our minds set at ease, It was gray and cold, and my mother had gone up to the house to make a pot of tea for us, when there came a gig down the road with Dr. Horscroft, of Ay- ton, In it, and his son, Jim. The collar of the doctor's coat came over his ears, and he looked in a deadly black humor, for Jim, whd was but fifteen years of age, had trooped off to Berwick at the’ first alarm with his father's new fowling, piece, All night his dad had chased him, and now there he was, a prisoner, with the barrel of the stole sticking out from behind the s looked as sulky as his father, with his hands thrust into his side pockets, his brows drawa down, and his lower Up thrust out, “It's all a He," shouted the doctor, As he passed, “There has been no landing and all the folks in Scotland have been gadding about the roads for nothing.” ' His son, Jim, snarled something up at him on this, and bis father struck him @ blow with his clenched fist on the side of his ‘ead, which sent tho boy's chin forward upon his breast a3 though he had been stunned. My father shook his nead, for ho: had a Uking for Jim, but’ we all walked up to the house again, nod- ding and blinking, and hardly able to keep our eyes open, now that we knew. that all was safe, but with a thrill of joy at our hearts such as I have only matched once or twice in my lifetime, Now all this has little enough to do with what I took my pen up to tell about, but when a man has a good memory and ttle skill he cannot draw ‘one qhoushe from bis mind without a dozen others traiii behind it. eater And yet, now that IT come to think of it, this had something to do with it after all, for Jim Horse deadly a q he was packe Berwick Academy, and as my bad long wished me to go the took advantage of this chance t me also, But before I say a word about this school I shall go back to where I should have begun, and give you a hint as to who I am, for it may be that these fow words of mine may be read by some folk beyond the Border country who never heard of the Cald- ers of West Inch. It has a brave sound, West Inch, but {t is not a fine estate with a braw house upon it, but only a great hard bitten, wind swept sheep-run, fringing off into inks along the ‘seasho where a frugal man might with hard work just pay his rent and have but- ter Instead of treacle on Sunday. In the centre there is a gray-stoned, slate-roofed house with a byre behind Mt and "1703" scrawled in stonework over tho lintel of the door. ‘There for more than a hundred years our folk have lived, until, for ali their poverty, they came to take a good place among the people, for in the country parts the old yeoman is often better thought of than the new laird, There was one queer thing about tho house of West Inch, It has been reck- oned by engineers and other know ing folk that the boundary line be- tween the two countries ran right through the middle of it, splitting our second best bedroom into au Eng- lish half and a Scotch half. Now, the cot in which | aiwa pt was 60 placed that my head was to tae north of the line and my feet to tho south of it. My friends say that if I chanced to lie the other way n hair might not have been » nor my mind of so solemn a ¢ 1 know, that more than once Ute, when my Scotch head could s no way out of a danger, my good, thick Snglish legs have come to my help and carried me clear away, But at school 1 never heard tho end of this, for they called me "Half-and- er tha Birtwhistle's » send Half” ‘and “Tho Great Briton" a plaids to keep the chill from us, and sometimes ion Jack.” When there we all stood there until morning, w battle between tho Scotch and speaking little to each other, and that lish boys, one sido would hel Uttle “In @ whisper, The road bad my shins and iho ounen settee ears more folk on it than ever passed . along it at night before, for many of the yeomen up our way had enrolled themselves in the Berwick Volunteer regiments, and were riding now as fast as boof could carry them for the mus- ter, Some had a stirrup cup or two berore parting, aud I cannot forget one who tore past on a huge white horse, brandishing a great rusty sword in the moonlight. ‘They shouted to us, as they passed, that the Nurth Berwick Law-fire was blazing, and that it was thought that the alarm had come from Edinburgh Custle. There were a few who gal- loped the other way, couriers for Ed- inburgh, and the laird’s son, and Mas- ter Clayton, the deputy sheriff, and such like, And among others there was one, a fine-built heavy man on @ roan horse, who pulled up at our gate and asked some questions about the road, He took off his hat to ease himself, and 1 saw that he had a kindly, long- drawn face, and a great high brow that shot away up into tufts uf sandy hair, “I doubt it's a false alarm" eays he. “Maybe I'd ha’ done well to bide where | was, but now I've come so far I'll break my fast with the regi- ment” He clapped spurs to his and then they would both stop laugh as though It were some funny, At first I was very miserable at the Berwick Academy. Birtwhistle was the first master, and Adams the sec- ond, and I had'no love for either of them. I was shy and backward by nature, and slow at making a friend either among masters or boys, It was nine miles as the crow flies, and eleven and a half by road from Berwick to West Inch, and my heart Brew weary at the heavy distance that separated me from my mothe for, mark you, a lad of that age pr tends that no need for mother's caresses, but ah, how sad he is when he is taken at’ his word! At last I could stand it no longer, and I determined to run away from tho school and make my way home ag fast as I might. At the very last moment, however, I had the good fortune to win the praise and admiration of every one from the head master downward, and to find my echool life made ‘very Pleasant and easy tw me. And ail this camo of my falling by accident out of a second floor window. This was how it happened. One evening I bad been kicked by Ned and thing SPRINKLING 8 ths Twe FLOOR For? ARE You LOSING Your MIND 2 — rrr Barton, who was the bully of the school, and this injury coming on the top of all my other grievances caused my little cup to overflow. I vowed that night, as I buried my tear- stained face beneath the blankets, the next morning would either d me at West Inch, or well on the ‘ay to tt Our dormitory was on tho second fioor, but I was a famous climber and had a fine head for heights. I used to think little, young as I was, of sWinging myself, with a rope round my thighs, off the West Inch gable, d that stood three-and-fifty feet ove the ground. There was not much fear, then, but that I could make my way out of Birtwhistle’s dormitory, I waited @ weary while until the coughing and tossing had died away, and there was no sound of wakeful- ness from the long line of wooden Then I very softly rose, slipped n my clothes, took my shoes tn my hand, and walked tiptoe to the win- dow. I opened the casement and looked out. Underneath me lay the garden, and close by my hand was the stout branch of a pear-tree, An active lad could ask no better 4 ladder, Once in the garden, I had but @ five-foot wall to get over, and then t Was nothing but distance be- tween me and home. I took a firm grip of a branch with one hand, placed my knee upon another one, and was about to swing myself out of the window, when in a moment I was as silent and as still as though I had been turned to stone, ‘There was a face looking at mo from over the coping of the wall. A chill of fear struck to my heart at its white- ness and its stillness. The moon shimmered upon it, and the eyeballs moved slowly from side to side. though 1 was hidden from thi hind the screen of the pear-tree, Then in a Jerky fashion this white face ascend- ed until the neck, shoulders, waist, and knees of a man became visible. He sat himself down upon the top of the wall, and with a great heave he pulled up after him a boy about my oWn size, who caught his breath from time to time as though to choke down a sob. The man gave him a shake, with a few rough whispered words, and then the two dropped to- gether down into the garden. I was still standing balanced with one foot upon the bough and one upon the casoment, not daring to budge for fear of attracting their attention, for I could hear thei moving stealthily about in the long shadow of the house. Suddenly, from immediately beneath my feet, I heard a low, grating noise, and the sharp tinkle of falling glass. “That's done it.” said the man’s cager whisper, ‘there is room for you. “But the edge is all Jagged,” erled the other in a weak quaver. The fellow burst into an oath that made my skin pringle. “In with you, you cub," he snarled, or"-+—- I could not see what he did, buk there was @ short, quick gasp of pain. “I'l got Wil gol” erled tha ittle lad, but I heard no more, for my head suddenly swam, my heel shot off the branch, I gave a dreadful yell and camo down with my ninety-five pounds of weight right upon the bent back of the burglar. It you ask me, L ean only say that to this day I am not quite certain whether it was an accident or wheth- er { designed it. It may be that while I was thinking of doing it chance settle! the iatter for me Tha {fellow was stooping with his head | forward, thrusting the boy ‘through @ tiny wincow, when I came 1AM FIXING TO GET WARM SKATES WIFEY ANO GET WARM THE SKATING (S FINe THE COOLEST IN TO SIKATES down upon him just where the neck joins the spine, He gave @ kind of whistling cry, dropped upon his facu and rolled three times over, drumming on the grass with his heels. His little com- panion flashed off in moonlight and was over the wall in a trice. As for me, I sat yelling at the pitch of my lungs, and nursing one of my legs, which felt as if a red-hot ring were welded round it. It was not long, as may be imag- of keeping a straw jn the corner of his mouth, just where he used after- ward to hold bis pipe. Jim was al- ways the same, for good and for bad, since first I knew him. Heavens! How wo all looked up to him! We were but young savages, and had a savage's respect for power. There was Tom Crandale of Appleby, who could write alcaics as well as mere pentameters and hexametet Yet nobody would give a snap r Tom. And there was Willle Earn. ined, before the’ whole household, A from tho headmaster to tho stable shaw. who had every date, trom the boy, was out in tho garden with ni on 8 be a 3 lamps and lanterns, The matter was ne maste em would turn to him if they were in doubt; yet he was but a narrow- chested lad, over-long for his breadth, and what did bis dates help him when Jack Simons, of the lower third, chivied him down the passage with the buckle end of a strap. But you didn't do things lke that with Jim Horscroft, What ¢ales wo used to whisper about his strength; how he put his fist through the oal Panel of the game-room door. How, when Long Merridew was carrying the ball, he caught up Merridew, ball and all, and ran swiftly past every opponent to the goal. It did not seem fit to us that such & one a¥ he should trouble his head about spondees and dactyls, or care to know who signed the Magna Charta, When he sald in open class that King Alfred was the man, we little boys all felt that very likely tt Was so, and that, perhaps, Jim knew more about it than the man who wrote the book, Soon cleared, the man carried off on a shutter, and I borne, in much state 4nd solemnity, to a special bedroom, where the bone of my leg was set by Surgeon Purdie, the younger of the two brothers of that name. As to the robber, It was found that his legs were palsied, and the doctors were of two minds as to wether would recover the use of them or not; but the law never gave them a chance of settling the matter, hanged after Carlisle six weeks later, It Was proved that he was the most perate rogue in the north of Eng- nd, for he had done three murd at the least, and there were charges enough against him upon the sheet to have hanged him ten times over, Well, now, I could not pass over my boyhood without telling you about this, which was the most important thing that happened to me. But I will go off upon no more sidetracks, for when I think of all that Is coming, I can see very well that | shall have more than enough to do before [have | Well, it was this business of the finished, burglar that drew his attention to me, for he patted me on my head, and sald For when a man has only his own little private tale to tell, it that I w often takes: @ spunky little devil, which blew me out with pride for a week on him all his time; but’ when he gets v mixed up in such great matters as end. For two years we were close I shall have to speak about, then itt ftiends, for all the gap that the y is hard on him, if he has not been had made between us, and, thous! brought ‘up to'tt, to get it all wet Passion or in want of thought h down to his liking, But my memory Many @ thing that galled me, yet 1 Js as good as ever, thank God, and { loved him like a brother, and wept ahall try to get it all straight before 8% much as would have filled an lake I finish, It was this busine: that first made a fri ¢ when at last, after two years, nt off to Edinburgh to study his father's profession, the burglar p between Jim Horscroft, the do« nm, and Five years after that did I bide at me. He was cock boy © school Birtwhistle’s, and when I left 1 had from the day he came, for within the become cock mysolf, for I was ax wiry hour he had thrown Barton, who had and as tough as whalebone, though 1 been cock before him, right through ran to weight und sinew, like the big blackboard | assroom ut predecessor, Jim always van to musele and bone, In jubilee year that [ loft and even then he wag square and tall, Birtwhistle’s, and then for three years 4 short of speech, and long I stayed at home, s the ways t much given to lounging 8 of the cattle; but still ships and broad back against walls, and his the armies were and still hands deep in his breeches pockets, the great shadow of Bonaparte lay across the country, ONE OF THE MANY THOUSAND PEOPLE WHO ARE READING THE EVENING WORLD'S Complete Novel Each Week? 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LONG To FREEZE 'N THIS FLAT HELLO FOLKS | We ARE GINING A SIKATING PARTY IN QUR FLAT WE HAVE Breeziest LITTLE SKATING RINKS WN BRING Your NG but she was always watching me and running after me, id then saying, “Ob, here you are!” as if it were a surpri: good in her, too. Sne used sometimes to give me pennies, #o that once had four in my pocket all at the same time. But the best part of her was the stories that she could tell. Sho was sore frightened of frogs; #0 I would bring one to her, and tell her that If would put it down her neck unless she told a story. That always helped her to begin, put when onve she Was started it was wonderful how she would carry on. And the things that had happened to her, they were enough to take your bi There was a Barbary been at Eyemouth, and was comin, back in five years, in a ship full gold, to make her his wi And then qi IT DOESN'T had been there algo, and he bad given her a ring which he said he would re- deem when the time came. She showed me the ring, which was very like the ones upon my bed-curtain, but she said that this one was virgin gold. 1 asked her what the k: do if be mot the Barbary | she told me that he would his head from hia shoulders. What they could ail seo in ber was more than 1 could think. And then she told me that she had been followed on her way to West Inch by disguised prince. I asked her bow she knew it was a prince, and she said by his disguise, Another day she said that ber father Was proparing a riddle, and that when dt was ready it would be put in the papers, and any one who guessed it would bave half bis fortune and his | daughter, 1 said that I was good at riddies, and that she must send it to me when it Was ready. She said it would be in the Berwick Gazette, and wanted to know what I would do with her when I won her. I said that L would sell her by public roup for what she would fetch, but she would tell me no more stories that evening, for sho Was very tetchy about some | things. Jim Horscroft was away when Cousin Edie was with us, but he came back the very week sho went, jand I mind how surprised I was that [he should ask any questions or take ‘any interest in a mere lass: He asked me if sno we tuced, IT WARM: P THe BLoad MLRIGHT | he laughed and calied me a opensd some day. Bur very soon he came to be Interested in something else, and I never gave Edie another thought until, ono day, she just took my life in her bands, and twisted it jas 1 could twist this quill, |. That was in 1813, after I had left | school, when | was already eighteen years of age, With a good forty hairs on my upper lip, au. every hope of more, 1 bad changed since lett school, and Was not so keen on games as 1 bad been, but found myaeit stead lying about on the sunny side ‘of the braes, with my own lips parted as Cousin Ed. user it had satistied me, and filled my whole life, that I could run faster and jump higher than my neighbor, but now all that seemed such @ little thing, and I yearned, and looked up at the big, arching sky, and down at the flat blue sea, and felt that there was something wanting, but could never lay my tongue to what that something was. And I became quick of temper, t for my nerves seemed all of a fro and when my mother would ask me what alled me, or my father would speak of my turning my hand to work, I would break into such sharp, bitter answers as I have often grieved over since, Ah,a man nay have more than one wife, and more than one child, and more than one friend, but he can never have but the one mothe: #o let him cherish her while he may, One day, when I came in from the sheep, there was my father sitting with a letter in his hands, which was @ very rare thing th us, except when the factor wrote for the rent. ‘Then, when I came nearer to him, I w that he was crying and I stood staring, for I had always thought that i! was not a thing that @ man could do, T can see him now, for he had so deep a crease across his brown cheek that no tear could pass it, but must trickle away sideways, and so down to his ear, hopping off onto the sheet of paper, ‘My mother sat beside him, and stroked his hand like she did the cat's back when she would soothe “Aye, Jeannie,” sald he, “ How could 1 syees that I, too, should have @ hand in lifting that shadow fore from our people? CHAPTER II. Cousin Edie of Eyemouth. OME years before, when I Was stil but a lad, there had come over to us, upon } « five weeks’ visit, the only daughter of my fathor's brother, Willie Calder had settled at Eyemouth as a maker of fishing- nots, and he had made more out of twine than ever we were like to do out of the Whin-bushes and sand-links of West Inch. So his daughter, Edie Calder, came over with a braw red frock and a five-shilling bonnet, and 4 Kist full of things that brought my dear mother's eyes out like a parten's, It was wonderful to see her so free with money, and she but a slip of irl, paying the carrier-man all © asked and a whole twopence ove: to which he had no claim, She made no more of drinking ginger-beer than we did of water, and she would have her sugar in her tea and butter with her bread just as if she had been English, 1 took no great stock of girls at that time, for it was hard for me to see what they had been made for, There were none of us at Birt- whistle’s that thought very much of them; but the smallest laddies s ned lie's gone, It's from the lawye! fo have the most sense, for, after they {t was sudden, or they'd h began to grow bigger they were not word af it. Carbuncle, he saya, and a 80 sure about it, We little ones were all of one mind that @ creature that couldn't fight and was carrying tales, and couldn't so much a8 shy a stone without flapping its arm like a rag in the wind, Was no use for anything, And then ‘the airs flush o° blood to the head." “Ab, well, his trouble's over,” sald my mother, iy father rubbed his ears with the tablecloth. je's left a’ his savings td his lassie,” sald he, “and, by gom, if she's not changed from what sho that they would put on, as If they promised to be, ane'll soca gar them were mother and father rolled into fee, You mind what she wald of weak one, foreve into & game tea’ under this ver: f, and it at with, “Jima come through seven shillings the your boot,” « you diny “°liy ‘hother shoo r head, and boy, and cle until the iooked up at the flitches of bacon that very sight of them wan wearisome, — nung trom the ceiling, When this one came to the atead- “ite doesn't say ‘Low much, but ing at Wes Inch I leased to seo her, time she eleven, was not best I was twelve at (it was in the holidays) and thin, tallish girl, with whe'll have enough and to spare, ho ways, And she's to come and bide with us, for that was his last wish.” ‘o pay for her keep,” cried my ge Ler and the que toa mother, sharply. | was sorry that she moment, but then, if she had not been sharp, we should all have been on the roadside In a twelvemonth. saw something came behind eame way, I coulc nderful; but when and looked © nothing but the fi shor the midd S| “Aye, she'll pay, and she's coming tr es] hanging on a pisttens this very day. “Jock, lad, I'l want pare breech is 9 Ayton and meet, the ‘ usin oF And then, if she saw a lump of n fetch her heather or bracken, or any common stuff of that sort, she would imope over it as if it had struck her sick, and ery, “How sweet! how perfect Just as though it had been a painted over to West Inch, And so off I started, at quarter-past five, with Souter Johnnie, the long- haired fifteen-year-old, and our cart picture, She didn't like ga h the new-painted tailboard, that 1 used to make her play “t on great days. such like; but it was no fun, was in, just as T came, H ould always catch her in three and J, likea foolish country lad, taking jumps, and she could never catch me, no heed to the years that had passed, ugh she would come with as looking about among, the folk tp i flutter aa tom boys 3 tha-froat for @ ap of @ girth with rake aia her petticoats just under her knees. When TI used to tell her that she And as I slouched past, and craned was good for nothing, and that her my neck, there came a touch to my father was a fool to bring her up like elbow, and there was @ lady, dressed that, she would begin to ery, and say all in black, standing by the steps, that I was a rude boy, and that she and I knew that it was my cousin would go home that very night, and Edie, never forgive.me as long as she lived. I knew it, T say, and yet, had sho But in five minutes she had forgotten not touched’ me, I might have passed all about it her a score of times and never known Wuat was strange waa, that she it My word, if Jim, Horscroft had liked me a deal better than I did her, asked me'then if she were pretty or and shy Boule never leave me alone, uo, 1 whould Lave knowu how to an~ he Teeth of the Tige By MAURICE LEBLANC But soon I found that there was, there was a wonderful knight, who kiss 'P that moment. mole, and said my eyes would be th, and my eyes beget | A od same try Y fwer him! Sho was dark, much @atk~O- er than is common among our der lassies, and yet with such @ flush of pink breaking th: her dainty color, like the deeper flush at the heart of a sulphur rose. Hor lipa were red and kindly and firm, and even then, at the first I saw that Nght of mischief and ery that danced away at the back her great dark eyes. long and there as 1 he plucked me. in black, dressed in what me to be a wondrous fi black veil pushed up from “Ah, Jacl said she, in English fashion that she had @ the boarding school. “No, are rather old for that"— 1, in my awkward fashion, ing my foolish brown face her, as | had done when I saw her last. “Just hurry up, like fellow, and give @ shilling to ductor, who has been to me during the journey.” I flushed up red to the ears, had only liver fourpenny in pocket. Never had my lack of weighed so heavily upon me But she @ glance, and there, in was @ little mole-skin pt silver clasp thrust into my hand. paid the man, and would have OE a rg but would still have me D it. “You shall be my factor, Jack,” sald loughing. “Is this our car- How funny it looks, And T to sit “On the sacking,” said I nd how am I to get there?” ‘ut your foot on the hub,” and i ae if FEE es il i read an urse ll help you.” 1 took her a, ttle my own. As she came over the her breath blew in my face, weet and rm, and all that vagueness d unrest seemed in a moment to havo been shredded away from my soul. I felt as if that instant had. taken mo out from myself, and made me one of the race, It took but the time of the Micking of the horse's tall, and yet something had hap- pened, a barrier bad gone down somewhere, and I waa leading a wider and a wiser life, I feit it all in’ & gush, but, shy and backward as I was, I could do noth! but out the sacking for he ‘ter: enee wero al the coach which was ter rattling away to Berwick, an sud- oly, she shook her Dandkerentet ta ir. “He took ff bis hat,” think he must have been an + Ho was very distinguished-looking: ‘ pies zon noticed bi eso co 1@ very with a by verte rown overcoat,” J shook my head, with all my flush foolish resen' he | shall never are and the brown, inding game as ever, n't Bee any great ch. either. I hope your mai ter t vy they used to Jeck—t Tae are. won’ put any frogs dow: win yours y down my back, crept all over when I thought such a thing. “We'll do all we Mf to m you hap; playing with “I'm ure It's take a poor, lonel; “I'a very Cousin Edie,” 1 stammered, find it very dull, I fear.” Met Suppose it 1s @ little fy B 3 4 many men about, as “There is Major Eliott, riemuir, He comes down oes ove- ning, @ real bri old soldier, who eae ball in bis knee under Welling- on. ‘Ah, when I ot wi I don't mean old folk. I meant pres . of our own age, that we could friends of, By th ‘o; he'll be home goon, He's still, at Edinburgh, studying.” “Ah, then we'll keep each company until he comes, Jack, I'm very ured, and wish 1 was ag Witnade tld Bouter Johanie the made ol er cover ground as he had never done or since, and in an hour she was seated at the supper table, where my mother had laid out not only butter but @ glass dish of gooseberry which sparkled and looked fine in the apes Tere i = 1 could seo that my parents were as overcome as I was at the difter- ence in her, though not in the same way. My mother was so set back the feather thing that she had rot her neck that she called her Milas Calder instead of Edie, until my cou- sin, in her pretty, Mighty way, would lift her forefinger to her whenever she did It, After supper, when she had gone to her bed, {er coma tale of nothing but her looks and her breeding. “By the way, though,” saya my father, “It does not look as if she were heart-broke about my brothers death.” a And then, for the first time, I ree membered that she had never said word about te matter since 1 ‘hat } met her, CHAPTER Il. The Shadow on the Waters, T was not very long before . Cousin Edie was queen of West Inch, and all her devoted subjects from my father down. She had money and to spare, though none of us knew how much, When my mother said that four shillings the week would cover all that #he would cost, sho fixed on seven shillings and sixpence of her own free will, The south room, which was the sunniest and had the honeysuc! was for her; that Marvel to see the things ught from Berwick to put Twice a week she would drive over, And the car would not do for co) tor gee hired a ee Soma ange M1 ead, whose wm lay 1e And it was seldom she went without bringing something back for one oF * other of us. It was a wooden pipe for my father or a Shetland plaid for my mother, or @ book for me or @ brass collar for Robe, the collie. wee pevera “Cro a Cont ta a Tees 9 °