n, or, if you do, only
briefly in unlikelihoods. I am no practised writer, though I might
have acquired the trade, and it is only out of a felt duty, combined
with a personal regard of some durability, that I have set down, for
you, those epistles of my doings far across the sea. Farewell, if it
be farewell, and to Mistress Marget Forbes the like salutation, if she
will accept it, as I am sure she will, when presented through you; and
similarly to Madame Forbes, her mother, my humble duty.

"Always your well-wisher,
"JOCK FARQUHARSON, late of Inverey."

_XVIII--My Garden of Content_

"Said Edom o' Gordon to his men
We maun draw to a close."

That close, whether to a love story or a life, should come in the
quiet, natural way which Providence orders, unexpectedly almost, not in
tumult and trappings.

I am of a family which has been accustomed to storm through the world,
sometimes with all the world could give, at other times with mighty
little. This element has got into our blood, become, you might say, a
habit, and often, myself, I have felt its prickings. After all, it
must be a finely insurgent thing to drive to the devil in a golden
carriage built for two, or more; and the Gordons have never been
accustomed to count their guests, so long as they made good company.

Then I had grown up at a time in our Highlands when the kettle of
history was about to boil over, scalding a great many people in the
process. The fiery cross of war carried its message from one valley to
another and left its embers on new graves wherever it went.

You are asking what this excursion in deep waters has to do with Marget
and myself and the Black Colonel, Jock Farquharson. It has everything
to do with us, because it is the lamp of the road along which we
journeyed. Anybody can count turnings in a path, but it is harder to
catch the other-world glow which sees us past them to our desired haven.

We were in sight of it, and, although we said little, I knew that we
both rejoiced exceedingly over the news which the Black Colonel sent in
his last letter. When we met I looked at Marget as much as to ask,
"Shall I say it?" And she looked at me answering, "No, you need not,
because I understand."

It is a curious state this which, at some time or other, exists between
two loving people cast for each other's welfaring. A delicate mystery
lies in it, and that is an essential strand in every true affection,
but it can