out that affair last night?" he asked. "I mean
about Crone?"

"Nothing, Sir Gilbert," I answered.

"I hear that the opinion is that the man was struck down by a gaff," he
remarked. "And perhaps killed before he was thrown into the Till."

"So the doctor seemed to think," I said. "And the police, too, I
believe."

"Aye, well," said he, "I don't know if the police are aware of it, but
I'm very sure there's night-poaching of salmon going on hereabouts,
Moneylaws. I've fancied it for some time, and I've had thoughts of
talking to the police about it. But you see, my land doesn't touch either
Till or Tweed, so I haven't cared to interfere. But I'm sure that it is
so, and it wouldn't surprise me if both these men, Crone and Phillips,
met their deaths at the hands of the gang I'm thinking of. It's a notion
that's worth following up, anyway, and I'll have a word with Murray about
it when I'm in the town tomorrow."

Then, with a brief good night, he left me and went into the house, and I
got outside Hathercleugh and rode home in a whirl of thoughts. And I'll
confess readily that those thoughts had little to do with what Sir
Gilbert Carstairs had last talked about--they were not so much of
Phillips, nor of Crone, nor of his suggestion of a possible gang of
night-poachers, as about myself and this sudden chance of a great change
in my fortunes. For, when all is said and done, we must needs look after
ourselves, and when a young man of the age I was then arrived at is asked
if he would like to exchange a clerkship of a hundred and twenty a year
for a stewardship at more than four times as much--as a permanency--you
must agree that his mind will fix itself on what such an exchange means
to him, to the exclusion of all other affairs. Five hundred a year to me
meant all sorts of fine things--independence, and a house of my own, and,
not least by a long way, marriage with Maisie Dunlop. And it was a wonder
that I managed to keep cool, and to hold my tongue when I got home--but
hold it I did, and to some purpose, and more than once. During the half
hour which I managed to get with Maisie last thing that night, she asked
me why I was so silent, and, hard though it was to keep from doing so, I
let nothing out.

The truth was, Sir Gilbert Carstairs had fascinated me, not only with his
grand offer, but with his pleasant, off-hand, companionable manners. He
had put me at my ease at once; he had spoken so frankly and with such
evident