ammering torrent of Gaelic. "What does
it say, what does it say?" he asked: "it is calling, calling, calling,
and no one will answer it; it is telling something, and I cannot
understand. Oh, I am sorry for it, and----"

"You must be very hungry, poor boy," said the Paymaster. "Come away
down, and Miss Mary will give you dinner. Did you ever taste rhubarb
tart with cream to it? I have seen you making umbrellas with the rhubarb
up the glen, but I'm sure the goodwife did not know the real use of it."

Gilian paid no heed to the speaker, but listened with streaming eyes to
the wearied note of the bird that still cried over the field. Then the
Paymaster swore a fiery oath most mildly, and clutched the boy by the
jacket sleeve and led him homeward.

"Come along," said he, "come along. You're the daftest creature ever
came out of the glen, and what's the wonder of it, born and bred among
stirks and sheep on a lee-lone country-side with only the birds to speak
to?"

The two went down the road together, the Paymaster a little wearied with
his years and weight or lazied by his own drams, leaning in the
least degree upon the shoulder of the boy. They made an odd-looking
couple--dawn and the declining day, Spring and ripe Autumn, illusion and
an elderly half-pay officer in a stock and a brown scratch wig upon a
head that would harbour no more the dreams, the poignancies of youth.
Some of the mourners hastening to their liquor turned at the Cross and
looked up the road to see if they were following, and they were struck
vaguely by the significance of the thing.

"Dear me," said the Fiscal, "is not Old Mars getting very bent and
ancient?"

"He is, that!" said Rixa, who was Sheriff Maclachlan to his face. "I
notice a glass or two makes a wonderful difference on him this year back
ever since he had his little bit towt. That's a nice looking boy; I like
the aspect of him; it's unusual. What a pity the Paymaster never had a
wife or sons of his own."

"You say what is very true, Sheriff," said Mr. Spencer. "I think there
is something very sad in the spectacle, sir, of an old gentleman with
plenty of the world in his possession going down to the bourne with not
a face beside him to mind of his youth."

But indeed the Paymaster was not even reminded of his own youth by
this queer child on whom he leaned. He had never been like this, a shy
frightened dreaming child taken up with fancies and finding omens and
stories in the piping o