, and it's enough to make me sure the man's as boss as an
empty barrel. He was once a sort of friend of mine, till twenty years
ago my wife grew to hate the very mention of his name. Since then I've
seen enough of him at a distance to read the plausible rogue in his
very step. The man wears every bawbee virtue he has like a brooch in
his bonnet; and now when I think of it, I would not dirty my boots with
him."

Mrs. Petullo's lips parted. She hovered a second or two on a disclosure
that explained the wife's antipathy of twenty years ago, but it
involved confession of too intimate a footing on her own part with the
Chamberlain, and she said no more.

CHAPTER XXXIX -- BETRAYED BY A BALLAD

Some days passed and a rumour went about the town, in its origin as
indiscoverable as the birthplace of the winds. It engaged the seamen
on the tiny trading vessels at the quay, and excited the eagerest
speculation in Ludovic's inn. Women put down their water-stoups at the
wells and shook mysterious heads over hints of Sim MacTaggart's history.
No one for a while had a definite story, but in all the innuendoes the
Chamberlain figured vaguely as an evil influence. That he had slain a
man in some parts abroad was the first and the least astonishing of the
crimes laid to his charge, though the fact that he had never made a
brag of it was counted sinister; but, by-and-by, surmise and sheer
imagination gave place to a commonly accepted tale that Simon had
figured in divers escapades in France with the name Drimdarroch; that
he had betrayed men and women there, and that the Frenchman had
come purposely to Scotland seeking for him. It is the most common of
experiences that the world will look for years upon a man admiringly
and still be able to recall a million things to his discredit when he
is impeached with some authority. It was so in this case. The very folks
who had loved best to hear the engaging flageolet, feeling the springs
of some nobility bubble up in them at the bidding of its player,
and drunk with him and laughed with him and ever esteemed his free
gentility, were the readiest to recall features of his character and
incidents of his life that--as they put it--ought to have set honest men
upon their guard. The tale went seaward on the gabbards, and landward,
even to Lorn itself, upon carriers' carts and as the richest part of the
packman's budget. Furthermore, a song or two was made upon the thing,
that even yet old wome