and
better?"

"It has possibilities, ma'am. Undoubtedly," said Mr. Touris, the Scots
adventurer for fortune, set up as merchant-trader in London, making
his fortune by "interloping" voyages to India, but now shareholder and
part and lot of the East India Company--"undoubtedly the place has
possibilities." He warmed his hands. "Well, it would taste good to
come back to Scotland--!" His words might have been finished out, "and
laird it, rich and influential, where once I went forth, cadet of a
good family, but poorer than a church mouse!"

Mrs. Jardine made a murmur of hope that he _would_ come back to
Scotland. But the laird looked with a kind of large gloom at the
reflection of fire and candle in battered breastplate and morion and
crossed pikes.

Supper was brought in by two maids, Eppie and Phemie, and with them
came old Lauchlinson, the butler. Mrs. Jardine placed herself behind
the silver urn, and Mr. Touris was given the seat nearest the fire.
The boy James appeared, and with him the daughter of the house, Alice,
a girl of twelve, bonny and merry.

"Where is Alexander?" asked the laird.

Strickland answered. "He is not in yet, sir. I fancy that he walked to
the far moor. Bran is with him."

"He's a wanderer!" said the laird. "But he ought to keep hours."

"That's a fine youth!" quoth Mr. Touris, drinking tea. "I marked him
yesterday, casting the bar. Very strong--a powerful frame like yours,
Glenfernie! When is he going to college?"

"This coming year. I have kept him by me late," said the laird,
broodingly. "I like my bairns at home."

"Aye, but the young will not stay as they used to! They will be
voyaging," said the guest. "They build outlandish craft and forthfare,
no matter what you cry to them!" His voice had a mordant note. "I
know. I've got one myself--a nephew, not a son. But I am his guardian
and he's in my house, and it is the same. If I buy Black Hill,
Glenfernie, I hope that your son and my nephew may be friends. They're
about of an age."

The listening Jamie spoke from beyond Strickland. "What's your
nephew's name, sir?"

"Ian. Ian Rullock. His father's mother was a Highland lady, near
kinswoman to Gordon of Huntley." Mr. Touris was again speaking to his
host. "As a laddie, before his father's death (his mother, my sister,
died at his birth), he was much with those troublous northern kin. His
father took him, too, in England, here and there among the Tory crowd.
But I've had him since