was
deafening at the lower end of the "clachan," where most of the show folk
congregated. The rooks were cawing belatedly in the tall ashes round the
big square--into which, in the old times of the Annandale thieves, the
country folk used to drive the cattle to be out of the way of Johnstones
and Jardines.

I skirted the town, therefore, so as not to meet with the full blast of
the riot. With such an unruly gang about, I kept Charlotte Anderson well
in sight till I saw her safe into Miss Seraphina's. Of course, nobody
who knew her for a daughter of Fighting Rob of Birkenbog would have laid
hand upon her, but at such a time there might be some who did not know
the repute of her father.

The great gong in front of the "Funny Folks" booth went "Bang! bang!"
Opposite, the fife and drum spoke for the temple of the legitimate
drama. At the selling-stalls importunate vendors of tin-ware rattled
their stock-in-trade and roared at the world in general, as if buyers
could be forced to attend to the most noisy--which, indeed, they mostly
did.

From the dusky kennels in which the gipsies told fortunes and mended the
rush-bottomed chairs of the Valley goodwives came over the wall a faint
odour of mouldy hay, which lingered for weeks about every apartment to
which any of their goods were admitted.

As for me, I had had enough of girls for one day, and I was wondering
how best to cut across the fields, take a turn about the town, and so
get home to my father's by the wood of pines behind the school, when
suddenly a voice dropped upon me that fairly stunned me, so unexpected
it was.

"Mr. Duncan MacAlpine," it said, "I congratulate you on your choice of a
father-in-law. You could not have done better!"

It was Miss Irma herself, taking a walk in a place where at such a time
she had no business to be--on the little farm path that skirts the woods
above the town. Louis was with her, but I thought that in the far
distance I could discern the lounging shadow of the faithful Eben.

I stood speechless straight before her, but she passed on, lightly
switching the crisped brown stalks of last year's thistles with a little
wand she had brought. I saw that she did not mean to speak to me, and I
turned desperately to accompany her.

"I will thank you to pass your way," she said sharply. "I am glad you
are to have such a wife and such a dowry. Also a father-in-law who will
be at the kind trouble of paying your college fees till you are