"We are a queer lot, what-e-ver!" remarked one of the farmers, with a
deep sigh and a candid smile, as he looked round the company.
The observation was incontrovertible, if charcoaled faces, lank hair,
torn and dripping garments, and a general appearance of drowned-ratiness
may be regarded as "queer."
"My friends," said the laird, digging the carving fork into a cold
turkey, "we are also a hungry lot, if I may judge of others by myself,
so let me advise you to fall to. We can't afford to sit long over our
supper in present circumstances. Help yourselves, and make the most of
your opportunities."
"Thank God," said Giles Jackman, "that we have the opportunity to sit
down to sup under a roof at all."
"Amen to that," returned the laird; "and thanks to you all, my friends,
for the help you have rendered. But for you, this house and all in it
would have been burnt to ashes. I never before felt so strongly how
true it is that we `know not what a day may bring forth.'"
"What you say, sir, is fery true," remarked a neighbouring small farmer,
who had a sycophantish tendency to echo or approve whatever fell from
the laird's lips.
"It is indeed true," returned his host, wiping the charcoal from his
face with a moist handkerchief; "but it is the Word that says it, not I.
And is it not strange," he added, turning with a humorous look to
Barret, "that after all these years the influence of Joan of Arc should
be still so powerful in the Western Isles? To think that she should set
my house on fire in this nineteenth century!"
"I am very glad she did!" suddenly exclaimed Junkie, who, having been
pretty well ignored or forgotten by everybody, was plying his knife and
fork among the other heroes of the fight in a state of inexpressible
felicity.
"You rascal!" exclaimed his father; "you should have been in bed long
ago! But why are you so glad that Joan set the house on fire?"
"Because she gave me the chance to save Blackie's life!" replied Junkie,
with supreme contentment.
The company laughed, and continued their meal, but some of them recalled
the proverb which states that "the boy is father to the man," and
secretly prophesied a heroic career for Junkie.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ten months passed away, during which period Allan Gordon retired to his
residence in Argyllshire while his mansion in the Western Island was
being restored. During the same period Archie produced innumerable hazy
photographs of Kinlossie House in a state of conflagration; Eddie
painted several good copies of the bad painting into which Milly Moss
had introduced a megatherium cow and other specimens of violent
perspective; and Junkie underwent a few terrible paroxysms of intense
hatred of learning in all its aspects, in which paroxysms he was much
consoled by the approval and sympathy of dear little Flo.
During this period, also, Mabberly applied himself to his duties in
London, unaffected by the loss of the _Fairy_, and profoundly interested
in the success of his friend Barret, who had devoted himself heart and
head to natural history, with a view to making that science his
profession, though his having been left a competence by his father
rendered a profession unnecessary, from a financial point of view. As
for Giles Jackman, that stalwart "Woods-and-Forester" returned to his
adopted land, accompanied by the faithful Quin, and busied himself in
the activities of his adventurous career, while he sought to commend the
religion of Jesus alike to native and European, both by precept and
example, proving the great truth that "godliness is profitable unto all
things, having promise of the life which now is, and of that which is to
come." MacRummle, during the same period, spent much time in his study,
writing for publication an elaborate treatise on fishing, with a few
notes on shooting, in the Western Isles. He was encouraged in this work
by a maiden sister who worshipped him, and by the presence of an
enormous stuffed eagle in a corner of his study.
One day, towards the close of this period of ten months, a beautiful
little woman and a handsome young man might have been seen riding in one
of the quiet streets of London. They rode neither on horseback, nor in
a carriage, still less in a cab! Their vehicle was a tricycle of the
form which has obtained the name of "Sociable."
"See, this is the corner, Milly," said the young man. "I told you that
one of the very first places I would take you to see after our marriage
would be the spot where I had the good fortune to run _our_ mother down.
So now I have kept my word. There is the very spot, by the lamp-post,
where the sweep stood looking at the thin little old lady so
pathetically when I was forced to rise and run away."
"Oh, John!" exclaimed Milly, pointing with eager looks along the street;
"and there is the thin little old lady herself!"
"So it is! Well, coincidences will never cease," said Barret, as he
stepped from the "sociable" and hurried to meet Mrs Moss, who shook her
finger and head at him as she pointed to the pavement near the
lamp-post.
"I would read you a lecture now, sir," she said; "but will reserve it,
for here is a letter that may interest you."
It did indeed interest all three of them, as they sat together that
afternoon in the sunshine of Milly's boudoir, for it was a long and
well-written epistle from old Molly Donaldson.
We will not venture to weary the reader with all that the good old woman
had to say, but it may perhaps be of interest to transcribe the
concluding sentence. It ran thus,--"You will be glad to hear that my
dear Ivor is doing well. He was married in March to Aggy Anderson, an'
they live in the old cottage beside me. Ivor has put on the blue
ribbon. The laird has put it on too, to the surprise o' everybody. But
I think little o' that. I think more o' a bit pasteboard that hangs
over my son's mantelpiece, on which he has written wi' his own hand the
blessed words--`_Saved by Grace_.'"