Gilian The Dreamer

est merchant whose regular payment of his rent did not prevent the Paymaster, every time he stepped through the close, from dunting with his cane o

you'll not have sold a parcel of pins or a bolt of tape to-day,

, Captain," he would say. "I have six bolls of meal and sev

ould sail, as red in the face as a bubbly-jock, swelling his neck over his stock more largely than ever, and swinging his r

uld be back in a minute to join the dregy, he went up the stairs with Gilian. "I'm going to leave you with my sister Mary,"

its myriad windows looking out upon the busiest part of the street, and others gazing over the garden and the sea, was an experience new and bewildering. The dwelling abounded in lobbies and corridors, in queer corners where the gloom lurked, and in doors that g

in a wan candle light sit silent by the hour before cooling spirits, musing on other parlours elsewhere in which spurs had jingled under the board, musing on comrades departed. It was hung around with dark pictures in broad black frames, for the most part pictures of battles, "Fontenoy," "Stemming the Rout at Steinkirk," "Blenheim Field," and-a new one-"Vittoria." There

oldier. There is not his like in these days. If you should take arms for your king, boy, copy the precept and practice of Duke Joh

in there, John?" cried a high

pride, for he never liked to be found vaunting before hi

ack, hastening to the door. "I have

"I'm wearied of washing sheets and blankets for a corps of wrunkled old brothers

heart, a darling hypocrite, a foolish bounteous mother-soul without chick or child of her own, and yet with tenement for the loves of a large family. She fended, and mended, and tended for her soldier brothers, and they in the selfish blindness of their sex never realised her devotion. They sat, and over punch would talk of war, and valour, and devotion, and never though

ss drugget of her parlour floor. She waited no answer, but went forward as she spoke, as one who would take all youth to her heart, put a hand on his head and stroked his fair hair. It was a touch wholly new to the

t hale enough, and if you stuck his head in a pail of cream once a day you might put mea

he boy who always ran to the hill when I went to Ladyfield. O little hero,

" broke in the Paymaster, carrying his rattan

pay officers maimed in limb or mind sitting about the dram bottle, hoved up with their vain-glory, blustering and blowing, instead of being honest, eident lairds and farmers. I never saw good in a soldier yet, except when he was awa

gain upon this tirade, "here's one to you. If you'll

therly. A flush came over her cheeks and her eyes grew and danced. It was as if some rare new thou

"Peggy, Peggy," and when her servant appeared she said, "Here's our new young gentleman, Peggy," and stroked his h

e have; we will not spoil his dinner. But y

od a moment with his head bent and his fingers among the snuff listening to

farmers of the glen, the banker, the Sheriff, the Fiscal and the writers of whom the town has ever had more than a fair share. Dr. Colin had blessed the viands and gone away; he was a new kind of minister and a surprising one, who had odd views about the drinking customs of the people, and when his coat skirts had disappeared round the corner of the church there was a feeling of relief, and old Baldy Bain, "Copenhagen" as they called him, who was precentor in the Gaelic end of the church, was emboldened to fill his glass up to more generous height than he had ever cared to do in the presence of the clergyman. The food and drink were spread on two long tables; the men s

f the war in a grey ash, officers, merchants, bonnet lairds, and tenants now safe and snug and secure in their places because the old warriors had fought Boney. The schoolroom was perfumed with the smoke of peat, for it was the landward pupils' week of the fuelling, and they were accustomed to bring each his own peat under his arm every morning. The smoke swirled and eddied out into the room and hung about the ochred walls, and made more umber than it was before the map of Europe over the firepl

General, and a little familiarity for the son of a plain Portioner of Glen Shira who was to be seen any

ed his tune and turn

me. My brothers and I saw some of it, Mr. Spencer, from Torres Vedras to the Pyrenees, and I'm but looking at it now to amaze myself with seeing Albuera and Vittoria, Salamanca and Tal

nd very gaudy in her Waterloo blue silks since the rejoicings, and if every war se

mine), I should make her sit down in weeds or scarlet, after wars,

came to dregies * because it was the fashion o

equivalent of the

st. From the first

r the dead, "Dir

g, General Turner

miled blandly, as he always did when it was brought to his recollection that he

f the battles, General, and that one bit of Brooks' map here is just as w

d, looking at the map for a moment with eyes that plainly had no interest in

t that the old gentleman and his brothers were far better acquaint with Glen Shira in my wife's maiden days than I was

"You are a most interesting and sensitive people, and

any simple Sassenach." Then he saw the confusion in the innkeeper's face and laughed. "Upon my word," he said, "h

said the innkeeper. "Capta

at the costs of this dregy. Still, no matter, you'll find the Campbells a good family to have dealings with of a

the gentlemen," s

laughed

ment just exactly that way to them; you might as well

d their blue or lilac short-gowns tucked well up at their arms. Behind, the windows revealed the avenue, the road overhung with the fresh leaves of the beeches, the sunlight filtering through in lighter splashes on the shade. Within, the drink was running to its dregs, and piles of oatcake farls lay yet untouched. One by one the company departed. The glen folks solemnly shook hands with the Paymaster, as donor of the feast, and subdued their faces to a sad regret for this "melancholy occasion, Captain Campbell"; then went over to the taverns in the tenements and kept up their drinking and their singing till late in the evening; the merchants and writers had gone earlier, and now but the officers and Brooks were left, and Mr. Spencer, superintending the removal of his vessels and fragments to the inn. The afternoon was sinking into the calm it ever has in this place

uld like to show you," and he balanced the pipe upon his long

"A whistle," said he

who owns it?"

sh whistle, and this may very well be the rogue's contrivance." He took the pipe in hand and turned it over and shrilled it

facture of it to your daughter Nan? She made it yesterday before my very eyes that she though

wing affection and annoyance. "That's the most h

hat," said the

t, who was the dearest madcap, the most darling wretch ever kept a sergeant's section of lovers at her skirts. I wish you could do something with her, Mr. Brooks.

us do not, because, as it happens, we are not so happily constituted. You would have your daughter a patient Martha of the household, and she will be playing in spite of you upon a wooden whistle of her own contrivance. What you want of me, I think, General, is that I should make her like her neighbours to pleasure you and earn my fees and Queen Anne's Bounty. I might try, ye

rooks was doing, and among them was the Paymaster. He was redder in the fa

d on he had placed many a shilling as Candlemas and Han'sel Monday offerings when he was a schoolboy, before the farming, before the army and India

ter Miss Nan," said Old Brooks pleasantly. "A som

leisurely lifting it to his nostril with the indifference of one with little interest in the su

lady," said he, "remarkably like her handsome

accompanied by never a word. He flicked the surplus of his snuff from his stock and gave this annoying little

ure I'm no judge, but there's a rumour abroad that she's a b

in," said the General, "bachelo

n a temper, and "I have

l smiled w

ke him that, and I'll show

s, a trick picked up abroad and maddening in its influence on a man

m to hate your very name," sa

neral, still smiling, "and I wish you all good da

had thought a little whistle, a mere tibia of ash, had power to precipitat

f the curfew, and its tale of another day gone rumoured up the glens. Near at hand the air of the playground and of the street was tossed by the sound into tumultuous waves, so that even in the schoolroom the ear throbbed

ow, fly a

out and your

ill red and angry. "What I say's true, Brooks; it's true I tell you! You'll not for your life put it out of the

s heels, the Paymaster we