rbour of dead ideals. Doom,
that once was child of the noisy wars, was dead as the Chateau d'Arques
save for the light in its mistress's window. Poor old shell! and yet
somehow he would not have had it otherwise.

He advanced and rapped at the door. The sound rang in the interior, and
presently Mungo's shuffling steps were heard and his voice behind the
door inquiring who was there.

"A friend," answered Count Victor, humouring the little old man's fancy
for affairs of arms.

"A friend!" repeated Mungo with contempt. "A man on a horse has aye
hunders o' frien's in the gutter, as Annapla says, and it wad need to be
somethin' rarer to get into Doom i' the mirk o' nicht. I opened the
door to a frien' the ither nicht and he gripped me by the craig and fair
choked me afore I could cry a barley."

"_Peste!_ Do not flatter my English so much as to tell me you do not
recognise Count Victor's accent through a door."

"Lord keep 's!" cried Mungo, hastily drawing his bolts. "Hae ye changed
ye'r mind already and left the inns? It's a guid thing for your wife
ye're no marrit, or she wad be the sorry woman wi' sic a shiftin' man."

His astonishment was even greater when Count Victor stood before him a
ludicrous figure with his too ample coat.

"Dinna tell me ye hae come through the snaw this nicht like that!"
he cried incredulous, holding up his candle the better to examine the
figure.

Count Victor laughed, and for an answer simply thrust forth a sopping
foot to his examination.

"Man, ye must hae been hot on't!" said the servant, shaking his cowled
head till the tassel danced above his temple. "Ye'r shoon's fair steeped
wi' water. Water's an awfu' thing to rot ye'r boots; I aye said if it
rotted ane's boots that way, whit wad it no' dae to ane's stamach? Oh,
sirs! sirs! this is becomin' the throng hoose, wi' comin's and goin's
and raps and roars and collie-shangies o' a' kin's. If it wasna me was
the canny gaird o't it's Himsel' wad hae to flit for the sake o' his
nicht's sleep."

"You behold, Mungo, the daw in borrowed plumes," said Count Victor as
the door was being barred again. "I hope the daw felt more comfortable
than I do in mine," and he ruefully surveyed his apparel. "Does Master
Mungo recognise these peacock feathers?"

Mungo scanned the garment curiously.

"It's gey like ane I've seen on a bigger man," he answered.

"And a better, perhaps, thought my worthy Mungo. I remember me that
our peacock was a dip