made fire and caught it upon touchwood. With this he
kindled the tip of the stick, until it glowed with a ring of red, and
then he breathed forth curls of smoke, blue and smelling on the air
like spice. I had never seen this done before, though acquainted with
tobacco-pipes; and it made me laugh, until I thought of the peril that
must follow it.

"'Cousin, have no fear,' he said; 'this makes me all the safer; they
will take me for a glow-worm, and thee for the flower it shines upon.
But to return--of law I learned as you may suppose, but little; although
I have capacities. But the thing was far too dull for me. All I care for
is adventure, moving chance, and hot encounter; therefore all of law I
learned was how to live without it. Nevertheless, for amusement's sake,
as I must needs be at my desk an hour or so in the afternoon, I took to
the sporting branch of the law, the pitfalls, and the ambuscades; and
of all the traps to be laid therein, pedigrees are the rarest. There is
scarce a man worth a cross of butter, but what you may find a hole in
his shield within four generations. And so I struck our own escutcheon,
and it sounded hollow. There is a point--but heed not that; enough that
being curious now, I followed up the quarry, and I am come to this at
last--we, even we, the lords of Loch Awe, have an outlaw for our cousin,
and I would we had more, if they be like you.'

"'Sir,' I answered, being amused by his manner, which was new to me (for
the Doones are much in earnest), 'surely you count it no disgrace to be
of kin to Sir Ensor Doone, and all his honest family!'

"'If it be so, it is in truth the very highest honour and would heal ten
holes in our escutcheon. What noble family but springs from a captain
among robbers? Trade alone can spoil our blood; robbery purifies it. The
robbery of one age is the chivalry of the next. We may start anew, and
vie with even the nobility of France, if we can once enrol but half the
Doones upon our lineage.'

"'I like not to hear you speak of the Doones, as if they were no more
than that,' I exclaimed, being now unreasonable; 'but will you tell me,
once for all, sir, how you are my guardian?'

"'That I will do. You are my ward because you were my father's ward,
under the Scottish law; and now my father being so deaf, I have
succeeded to that right--at least in my own opinion--under which claim I
am here to neglect my trust no longer, but to lead you away from scenes
and deed