led to himself as one who knows the reason for
a gentleman's prying. Montaiglon caught that smile once: his chagrin at
its irony was blended with a pleasing delusion that the frank and genial
domestic might proffer a solution without indelicate questioning. But he
was soon undeceived: the discreet retainer knew but three things in this
world--the grandeur of war, the ancient splendour of the house of Doom,
and the excellent art of absent-mindedness. When it came to the contents
of Doom, Mungo Boyd was an oyster.

"It must have been a place of some importance in its day," said Count
Victor, gazing up at the towering walls and the broken embrasures.

"And what is't yet?" demanded Mungo, jealously, with no recollection
that a moment ago he had been mourning its decline.

"_Eh bien!_ It is quite charming, such of it as I have had the honour to
see; still, when the upper stages were habitable------" and Count
Victor mentally cursed his luck that he must fence with a blunt-witted
scullion.

"Oh, ay! I'll alio' I've seen it no' sae empty, if that's what ye mean;
but if it's no' jist Dumbarton or Dunedin, it's still auld bauld Doom,
and an ill deevil to crack, as the laddie said that found the nutmeg."

"But surely," conceded Montaiglon, "and yet, and yet--have you ever
heard of Jericho, M. Boyd? Its capitulation was due to so simple a thing
as the playing of a trumpet or two."

"I ken naething aboot trumpets," said Mungo curtly, distinguishing some
_arriere pensee_ in the interrogator.

"_Fi donc!_ and you so much the old _sabreur!_ Perhaps your people
marched to the flageolet--a seductive instrument, I assure you."

The little man betrayed confusion. "Annapla thrieps there's a ghaistly
flageolet aboot Doom," said he, "but it'll hae to toil away lang or the
wa's o' oor Jericho fa',--they're seeven feet thick."

"He plays divinely, this ghostly flageoleteer, and knows his Handel to a
demi-semi-quaver," said Count Victor coolly.

"O Lord! lugs! I told them that!" muttered Mungo.

"Pardon!"

"Naething; we're a' idiots noo and then, and--and I maun awa' in."

So incontinently he parted from Count Victor, who, to pass the
afternoon, went walking on the mainland highway. He walked to the south
through the little hamlet he and Doom had visited earlier in the day;
and as the beauty of the scenery allured him increasingly the farther
he went, he found himself at last on a horn of the great bay where the
Duke's seat lay s