ng at the
gate of her garden saw his child in the arms of a stranger; and her
face, as it lay against his heart, seemed to her father also to be the
face of a stranger, and not of his child. He recognized in the stranger
the Lord of the Burgh. And he saw that what he had feared had come to
pass, and that his daughter's heart would be no more divided between
her father and her flower, for it was given whole to the lover who had
first assailed it. Hobb came into the garden, and they looked up as the
gate clicked, and their faces grew as red as though one had caught the
reflection from the other. But both looked straight into his eyes. And
his daughter, pointing to her bush, said, "Father, my rose is grown at
last," and he saw that the bush was crowned with a glorious golden
bloom, perfect in every detail. Then it was the turn of the Lord of the
Burgh, and he said, "Sir, I ask leave to rob your garden of its rose."
"Do robbers ask leave?" said Hobb. And he shook his head, adding, "Nay,
when the thief and the theft are in collusion, what say is left to the
owner of the treasure? Yet I do not like this. Sir, have you considered
that she is a gardener's child? Daughter, have you considered that he
is a lord?" And neither of them had considered these questions, and
they did not propose to do so. Then Hobb shook his head again and said,
"I will not waste words. I know when a plant can drink no more water.
And though you pretend to ask my leave, I know that you are prepared to
dispense with it. But by way of consent I will say this: whatever you
may call your other sons, you shall call your first Hobb, to remind you
to-morrow of what you will not consider to-day. For my daughter, when
she is a lord's wife, will none the less still be a gardener's
daughter, and your children will be grafted of two stocks. And if this
seems to you a hard condition, then kiss and bid farewell." And they
both laughed with joy at the lightness of the condition; but the
gardener did not laugh. And so the Lord of the Burgh married the
gardener's daughter, and they called their first son Hobb. He was born
on a first of August, and thirty-five months later Ambrose was born on
the first of July, and in due course Heriot in June, and Hugh in May,
and Lionel in April. And the Lord, loving his sons equally, made them
equal possessors of the Burgh when in time it should pass out of his
hands. Which, since men are mortal, presently came to pass, and there
were