n, with a vague idea of Glashgar in his
head. Fergus behind him was growing more and more angry as he
gained upon him but felt his breath failing him. Just at the bridge
to the iron gate to Glashruach, he caught him at last, and sunk on
the parapet exhausted. The smile with which Gibbie, too much out of
breath to laugh, confessed himself vanquished, would have disarmed
one harder-hearted than Fergus, had he not lost his temper in the
dread of losing his labour; and the answer Gibbie received to his
smile was a box on the ear that bewildered him. He looked pitifully
in his captor's face, the smile not yet faded from his, only to
receive a box on the other ear, which, though a contrary and similar
both at once, was not a cure, and the water gathered in his eyes.
Fergus, a little eased in his temper by the infliction, and in his
breath by the wall of the bridge, began to ply him with questions;
but no answer following, his wrath rose again, and again he boxed
both his ears--without better result.

Then came the question what was he to do with the redoubted brownie,
now that he had him. He was ashamed to show himself as the captor
of such a miserable culprit, but the little rascal deserved
punishment, and the laird would require him at his hands. He turned
upon his prisoner and told him he was an impudent rascal. Gibbie
had recovered again, and was able once more to smile a little. He
had been guilty of burglary, said Fergus; and Gibbie smiled. He
could be sent to prison for it, said Fergus; and Gibbie smiled--but
this time a very grave smile. Fergus took him by the collar, which
amounted to nearly a third part of the jacket, and shook him till he
had half torn that third from the other two; then opened the gate,
and, holding him by the back of the neck, walked him up the drive,
every now and then giving him a fierce shake that jarred his teeth.
Thus, over the old gravel, mossy and damp and grassy, and cool to
his little bare feet, between rowan and birk and pine and larch,
like a malefactor, and looking every inch the outcast he was, did
Sir Gilbert Galbraith approach the house of his ancestors for the
first time. Individually, wee Gibbie was anything but a prodigal;
it had never been possible to him to be one; but none the less was
he the type and result and representative of his prodigal race, in
him now once more looking upon the house they had lost by their
vices and weaknesses, and in him now beginning to