new interest in the
day.

The Paymaster was standing gossiping at the inn door with Mr. Spencer,
Rixa, and General Turner himself--no less, for the ancient rancour at
the moment was at rest.

"Here he comes," said old Mars sourly, as Gilian turned round the Arches
into the town. "He's like Gillesbeg Aotram, always seeking for something
he'll never find."

"Your failure!" said Turner playfully, but with poor inspiration, as in
a moment he realised.

The Paymaster bridled. He had no answer to a truth so manifest to
himself. In a lightning-flash he remembered his boast in the schoolroom
at the dregy, and hoped Turner had not so good a memory as himself. He
could only vent his annoyance on Gilian, who drew up his horse with
a studied curvet--for still there was the play-actor in him to some
degree.

"Down again?" said he with half a sneer. There is a way of leaning on
a stick and talking over the shoulder at an antagonist that can be very
trying to the antagonist if he has any sense of shyness.

"Down again," agreed Gilian uncomfortably, sorry he had had the courtesy
to stop. The others moved away, for they knew the relations of the man
and his adopted son were not of the pleasantest.

"An odd kind of farm training!" said the old officer. "I wish I could
fathom whether you are dolt or deep one."

Gilian might have come off the horse and argued it, for he had an answer
pat enough. He sat still and fingered the reins, looking at the old
man with the puffed face, and the constricted bull neck, and
self-satisfaction written upon every line of him, and concluding it was
not worth while to explain to a nature so shallow. And the man, after
all, was his benefactor: scrupulous about every penny he spent on
himself, he had paid, at Miss Mary's solicitations, for the very horse
the lad bestrode.

"Do you know what Turner said there?" asked the Paymaster, still with
his contemptuous side to the lad. "He called you our failure. God, and
it's true! Neither soldier nor shepherd seems to be in you, a muckle
bulrush nodding to the winds of Heaven! See that sturdy fellow at the
quay there?"

Gilian looked and saw Young Islay, a smart ensign home on leave from the
county corps that even yet was taking so many fine young fellows from
that community.

"There's a lad who's a credit to all about him, and he had not half your
chances; do you know that?"

"He seems to have the knack of turning up for my poor comparison ever
since