the upstair windows
wondering; 'that we, my mother a widow woman, and I a young man of small
estate, can keep and support all these precious fellows, both yellow
ones, and red ones, until they have taken the Doone Glen?'

'God forbid it, my son!' he replied, laying a finger upon his lip:
'Nay, nay, I am not of the shabby order, when I have the strings of
government. Kill your sheep at famine prices, and knead your bread at
a figure expressing the rigours of last winter. Let Annie make out the
bill every day, and I at night will double it. You may take my word for
it, Master John, this spring-harvest shall bring you in three times
as much as last autumn's did. If they cheated you in town, my lad, you
shall have your change in the country. Take thy bill, and write down
quickly.'

However this did not meet my views of what an honest man should do; and
I went to consult my mother about it, as all the accounts would be made
in her name.

Dear mother thought that if the King paid only half again as much as
other people would have to pay, it would be perhaps the proper thing;
the half being due for loyalty: and here she quoted an ancient saying,--

The King and his staff. Be a man and a half:

which, according to her judgment, ruled beyond dispute the law of the
present question. To argue with her after that (which she brought up
with such triumph) would have been worse than useless. Therefore I just
told Annie to make the bills at a third below the current market prices;
so that the upshot would be fair. She promised me honestly that she
would; but with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes, which she must have
caught from Tom Faggus. It always has appeared to me that stern and
downright honesty upon money matters is a thing not understood of women;
be they as good as good can be.

The yellows and the reds together numbered a hundred and twenty men,
most of whom slept in our barns and stacks; and besides these we had
fifteen troopers of the regular army. You may suppose that all the
country was turned upside down about it; and the folk who came to see
them drill--by no means a needless exercise--were a greater plague
than the soldiers. The officers too of the Devonshire hand were such a
torment to us, that we almost wished their men had dismissed them, as
the Somerset troop had done with theirs. For we could not keep them out
of our house, being all young men of good family, and therefore not to
be met with bars. And havin