to God
alone, and even his liege lord, Adam Ferris, had to content himself with
a hand carried half military fashion to its weather-beaten brim.

When Adam dined, as he often did, at the bountiful table of Glenanmays,
he also found his horn spoon, his knife and fork beside his plate, and
he was always careful to set his hat, his riding-whip and his gloves and
cape behind the door. Then, bareheaded, he took his place on the right
hand of his host at the long oaken table, to which in due order came
son, daughter, house-maiden, out-lass, ploughman and herd. The only
difference was that when it came to the blessing upon the food to be
partaken of, Adam the Laird stood up, while the others sat still with
bowed heads. Why this was, no one knew, not even Adam or Diarmid. But so
it had been in the time of their fathers, and so it would continue till
there was not a Ferris in Cairn Ferris--a time which neither liked to
consider--for the same thought came to both--how that Patsy being an
heiress, Patsy would marry, and the lands that had so long been those of
Ferris of Cairn Ferris would pass to children of another name.

At the end of the long red-tiled kitchen in which the family meals were
served opened out a sort of back-kitchen to which a wooden extension had
been added. It was a sort of Court of the Young Lions, where herd-boys,
out-workers of the daily-wage sort, turnip-singlers, Irish harvesters,
Stranryan "strappers" and "lifters," crow-boys, and all the miscellany
of a Galloway farm about the end of the Napoleonic wars ate from wooden
platters, with only their own horn spoon and pocket-knife to aid their
nimble fingers. There was no complaint, for Glenanmays was "a grand meat
house," and with the broth served without stint and the meats rent
asunder by the hands of the senior ploughman, the Young Lions did very
well.

If quarrels arose, the senior ploughman kept a stick of grievous
crab-tree handy, and was not loath to use it. Usually, however, his
voice upraised in threatening sufficed. For Rob Dickson could stir the
Logan Stone with his little finger. He had escaped from the press-gang
on his way from Stanykirk Sacrament, and had carried away the slash of a
cutlass with him, the scar of which was plain to be seen of all,
beginning as it did a little below his ear and running to the point of
the shoulder-blade. This made the prestige of Rob Dickson notable,
especially among the Irish. Had he not resisted authority?