Foes | Page 6

the world's as hot as ever--but there, too, it is
my instinct to ca' canny. But if you talk of trade"--he tapped his
snuff-box--"I will match you, Glenfernie! If there's wrong, pay it back!
Hold to your principles! But do it cannily. Smile when there's smart,
and get your own again by being supple. In the end you'll demand--and
get--a higher interest. Prosper at your enemy's cost, and take repayment
for your hurt sugared and spiced!"
"I'll not do it so!" said Glenfernie. "But I would take my stand at the
crag's edge and cry to Grierson of Lagg, 'You or I go down!'"
Mr. Touris brushed the snuff from his ruffles. "It's a great century!
We're growing enlightened."
With a movement of her fingers Mrs. Jardine helped to roll from her
lap a ball of rosy wool. "Mr. Jardine, will you give me that? Had you
heard that Abercrombie's cows were lifted?"
"Aye, I heard. What is it, Holdfast?"
Both dogs had raised their heads.
"Bran is outside," said Strickland.
As he spoke the door opened and there came in a youth of seventeen,
tall and well-built, with clothing that testified to an encounter alike with
brier and bog. The hound Bran followed him. He blinked at the lights
and the fire, then with a gesture of deprecation crossed the hall to the
stairway. His mother spoke after him.
"Davie will set you something to eat."
He answered, "I do not want anything," then, five steps up, paused and
turned his head. "I stopped at White Farm, and they gave me supper."

He was gone, running up the stairs, and Bran with him.
The laird of Glenfernie shaded his eyes and looked at the fire. Mrs.
Jardine, working upon the gold streak in a tulip, held her needle
suspended and sat for a moment with unseeing gaze, then resumed the
bright wreath. The tutor began to think again of Mother Binning, and,
following this, of the stepping-stones at White Farm, and Elspeth and
Gilian Barrow balanced above the stream of gold. Mr. Touris put up his
snuff-box.
"That's a fine youth! I should say that he took after you, Glenfernie. But
it's hard to tell whom the young take after!"
CHAPTER III
The school-room at Glenfernie gave upon the hill's steepest, most
craglike face. A door opened on a hand's-breadth of level turf across
from which rose the broken and ruined wall that once had surrounded
the keep. Ivy overgrew this; below a wide and ragged breach a pine had
set its roots in the hillside. Its top rose bushy above the stones. Beyond
the opening, one saw from the school-room, as through a window, field
and stream and moor, hill and dale. The school-room had been some
old storehouse or office. It was stone walled and floored, with three
small windows and a fireplace. Now it contained a long table with a
bench and three or four chairs, a desk and shelves for books. One door
opened upon the little green and the wall; a second gave access to a
courtyard and the rear of the new house.
Here on a sunny, still August forenoon Strickland and the three
Jardines went through the educational routine. The ages of the pupils
were not sufficiently near together to allow of a massed instruction.
The three made three classes. Jamie and Alice worked in the
school-room, under Strickland's eye. But Alexander had or took a wider
freedom. It was his wont to prepare his task much where he pleased,
coming to the room for recitation or for colloquy upon this or that
aspect of knowledge and the attainment thereof. The irregularity
mattered the less as the eldest Jardine combined with a passion for

personal liberty and out of doors a passion for knowledge. Moreover,
he liked and trusted Strickland. He would go far, but not far enough to
strain the tutor's patience. His father and mother and all about
Glenfernie knew his way and in a measure acquiesced. He had
managed to obtain for himself range. Young as he was, his indrawing,
outpushing force was considerable, and was on the way, Strickland
thought, to increase in power. The tutor had for this pupil a mixed
feeling. The one constant in it was interest. He was to him like a deep
lake, clear enough to see that there was something at the bottom that
cast conflicting lights and hints of shape. It might be a lump of gold, or
a coil of roots which would send up a water-lily, or it might be
something different. He had a feeling that the depths themselves hardly
knew. Or there might be two things of two natures down there in the
lake....
Strickland set Alice to translating a French fable, and Jamie to
reconsidering a neglected page