most inveigled into marriage by a
pretty girl he met on the road; and best of all the exciting history of
the brave lass of Langholm, who ran through brooks and bushes to snatch
her lover at the last minute from a rival he was marrying in the
Blacksmith's Shop. This last anecdote had been "the doctor's" favourite.
One chapter of his history was devoted entirely to the Old Glasgow Road.
In it he gave three whole pages to the young man's bet and the two
lassies who were ready to help him win it. "The doctor was romantic at
heart," explained Mrs. James, sighing, and pausing with an ice-cold
chocolate eclair in her hand. "All romance appealed to his imagination,
and in his notes he gave much space to Gretna Green, from the day of
Paisley, the first priest, up to the present time, when couples marry in
the Blacksmith's Shop in fun and not in fear. But," she went on, anxious
to impress the great Somerled, "Doctor James gave space in plenty to the
serious history of the Road: the Raider episodes; the journey of Queen
Mary; the march of Prince Charlie's Highlanders in charge of
Cumberland's soldiers, on their way to prison at Carlisle; the tramping
of many penniless Scottish geniuses seeking their fortune in London
town; the visits of famous men like Scott and Dickens, and Edward Irving
the preacher, who made his bride get down from her carriage on the
bridge, and walk on foot into her adopted country, England."

Mrs. James always grows excited when she talks about the doctor and his
unfinished history of Scotland; and though she'd known Sir S. only a day
and a half, she was mesmerized into telling him secrets Grandma couldn't
have dragged from her with wild horses. She even showed him Doctor
James's photograph, which, in a shut-up velvet case, she had put into
the handbag Sir S. gave her. "Do _you_, an artist, with your great
knowledge of human faces and the souls behind them, believe a man with
those eyes and that forehead would take his own life to escape scandal?"
she appealed to him. "Wouldn't it be more natural to disappear, trusting
to his wife's faith, until he had made a new career somewhere and won
back the honour of his name?"

Very gravely Sir S. examined the photograph, which she had painted in
water colours, rather faded now; and I looked at it, though I've seen it
before. Apparently he was sincerely interested in her story, and in the
picture. But then he seems interested always, in a quiet way, in what
people t