ause he had no strength or substance, and
would be no more than a pin-cushion before the great swords of the
Doones.

'"I pray you be not vexed with me," he answered, in a softer voice;
"for I have travelled far and sorely, for the sake of seeing you. I know
right well among whom I am, and that their hospitality is more of the
knife than the salt-stand. Nevertheless I am safe enough, for my foot is
the fleetest in Scotland, and what are these hills to me? Tush! I have
seen some border forays among wilder spirits and craftier men than these
be. Once I mind some years agone, when I was quite a stripling lad--"

'"Worshipful guardian," I said, "there is no time now for history. If
thou art in no haste, I am, and cannot stay here idling. Only tell me
how I am akin and under wardship to thee, and what purpose brings thee
here."

'"In order, cousin--all things in order, even with fair ladies. First,
I am thy uncle's son, my father is thy mother's brother, or at least thy
grandmother's--unless I am deceived in that which I have guessed, and no
other man. For my father, being a leading lord in the councils of
King Charles the Second, appointed me to learn the law, not for my
livelihood, thank God, but because he felt the lack of it in affairs
of state. But first your leave, young Mistress Lorna; I cannot lay down
legal maxims, without aid of smoke."

'He leaned against a willow-tree, and drawing from a gilded box a little
dark thing like a stick, placed it between his lips, and then striking
a flint on steel made fire and caught it upon touchwood. With this he
kindled the tip of the stick, until it glowed with a ring of red, and
then he breathed forth curls of smoke, blue and smelling on the air
like spice. I had never seen this done before, though acquainted with
tobacco-pipes; and it made me laugh, until I thought of the peril that
must follow it.

'"Cousin, have no fear," he said; "this makes me all the safer; they
will take me for a glow-worm, and thee for the flower it shines upon.
But to return--of law I learned as you may suppose, but little; although
I have capacities. But the thing was far too dull for me. All I care for
is adventure, moving chance, and hot encounter; therefore all of law I
learned was how to live without it. Nevertheless, for amusement's sake,
as I must needs be at my desk an hour or so in the afternoon, I took to
the sporting branch of the law, the pitfalls, and the ambuscades; and
of all the t