ng as the nut and bramble were
there," said Gilian, rejoicing in her kindly perturbation. "And I could
not be lost anywhere--"

"--Except in the Duke's flower garden, wasting the time with--with--a
woman's daughter," said the Cornal, putting his head in at the kitchen
door. He frowned upon his sister for her too prompt kindness to the
rover, and she hid behind her a cup of new-skimmed cream. "Come upstairs
and have a talk with Dugald and me," he went on to the boy.

"Will it not do in the morning?" asked Miss Mary, all shaking, dreading
her darling's punishment.

"No," said the Cornal, "Now or never. Oh! you need have no fears that I
would put him to the triangle."

"Then I may go too?" said Miss Mary.

The Cornal put the boy in front of him and pushed him towards the
stair-foot. "You stay where you are," he said to his sister. "This will
be a man's sederunt."

They went up the stair together and entered the parlour, to find the
General half-sleeping in his lug-chair. He started at the apparition of
the entering youth.

"You are not drowned after all," said he, "and there's my money gone
that I spent for a gross of stenlock hooks to grapple you."

"Sit down there," said the Cornal, pointing to the chair in which Gilian
had first stood court-martial. The bottle was brought forth from the
cupboard; the glasses were ranged again by the General. In the grate a
sea-coal fire burned brightly, its glance striking golden now and then
upon the polished woodwork of the room and all its dusky corners, more
golden, more warm, more generous, than the wan disheartened rays of
the candles that shook a smoky flame above the board. Gilian waited his
punishment with more wonderment than fear. What could be said to him for
a misadventure? He had done no harm except to cause an hour or two of
apprehension, and if he had been with one whose company was forbidden it
had never been forbidden to him.

"It's a fine carry-on this," said the Cornal, breaking the silence. "Ay,
it's a fine carry-on." He stretched the upper part of his body over the
low table with his arms spread out, and looked into the boy's eyes with
a glance more judicial than severe. "Here are we doing our best to make
a man of you, more in a brag against gentry that need not be named in
this house than for human kindness, though that is not wanting I assure
you, and what must you be at but colloguing and, perhaps, plotting
with the daughter of the gentry in question