? I will not exactly say
plotting," he hastened to amend, remembering apparently that before him
were but the rudiments of a man. "I will not say plotting, but at least
you were in a way to make us a laugh to the whole community. Do you know
anything of the girl that you were with?"

"I met her in the school before she got her governess."

"Oh, ay! they must be making the leddy of her; that was the spoiling of
her mother before her. As if old Brooks could not be learning any woman
enough schooling to carry on a career in a kitchen. And have you seen
her elsewhere?"

"I heard her once singing on her father's vessel," said Gilian.

"She was singing!" cried the Cornal, standing to his feet and thumping
the table till the glasses rang. "Has she that art of the devil too? Her
mother had it; ay! her mother had it, and it would go to your head like
strong drink. Would it not, Dugald? You know the dame I mean."

"It was very taking, her song," said the General simply, playing with
the empty glass, his eyes upon the table.

"And what now did she sing? Would it be----"

"It was 'The Rover' and 'The Man with the Coat of Green,'" said Gilian
in an eager recollection.

"Man! did I not ken it?" cried the Cornal. "Oh! I kent it fine. 'The
Rover' was her mother's trump card. I never gave a curse for a tune, but
she had a way of lilting that one that was wonderful."

"She had, that," said the General, and he sighed.

The room, it seemed to Gilian, was a vault, a cavern of melancholy, with
only the flicker of the coal to light it up in patches. These old men
sighing were its ghosts or hermits, and he himself a worldling fallen
invisible among their spoken thoughts. To him the Cornal no longer spoke
directly; he was thinking aloud the thoughts alike of the General and
himself--the dreams, the actions, the joys, the bitterness of youth.
He sat back in his chair, relaxed, his hand wrinkled and grey, with no
lusty blood rushing any more under the skin; upon the arms his fingers
beating tattoo for his past.

"You'll be wondering that between the Turners and us is little love
lost, though no doubt Miss Mary with her clinking tongue has given you
a glisk of the reason. He'll be wondering, Dugald, he'll be wondering,
I'll warrant. And, man, there's nothing by-ordinar wonderful in it, for
are we not but human men? There was a woman in Little Elrig who took
Dugald's fancy (if you will let me say it, Dugald), and he was willing
to draw