as cautioned to make no noise, and there in the next room was that
red imp yelling the roof off, yet neither of his female relatives
seemed to mind in the least, though his remarks interfered very
seriously with the article on "Irrigation Systems of Southern Europe,"
which I was working up for the _Universal_.

But when was a mere man (and breadwinner) considered at such times?

In all truly Christian and charitable cities refuges should be built for
temporarily dispossessed, homeless, and hungry heads of families.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE SUPPLANTER

Never did I realize so clearly the difference between what interests the
people in a great city and those inhabiting remote provinces as when, in
mid-August, I took Irma and my firstborn son down to the wholesome
breath and quiet pine shadows of Heathknowes. I had seen the autumnal
number of the _Universal_ safe into its wrapper of orange and purple. In
Edinburgh the old town and the new alike thrilled and hummed with the
noise of a contested election. There were processions, hustings, battles
royal everywhere, the night made hideous, the day insupportable.

But here, looking from the door out of the sheltering arms of Marnhoul
wood into the peace of the Valley, the ear could discern only the hum of
the pirn-mill buzzing like a giant insect in the greenest of the shade,
and farther off the whisper of the sea on the beaches and coves about
Killantringan.

Now we had taken rather a roundabout road and rested some nights on the
way, for I had business at Glasgow--a great and notable professor to
visit at the college, and in the library several manuscripts to consult.
So Irma remained with the Wondrous Duncan the Second at the inn of the
White Horse, where the coach stopped.

When I came back I thought that Irma's face looked a trifle flushed. I
discovered that, having asked the hostler to polish her shoes, he had
refused with the rudeness common to his class when only rooms of the
cheaper sort are engaged. Whereupon Irma, who would not let her temper
get the better of her, had forthwith gone down to the pantry, taken the
utensils and done them herself.

I said not much to her, but to the landlord and especially to the man
himself I expressed myself with fulness and a vigour which the latter,
at least, was not likely to forget for some time.

It was as well, however, that my grandmother was not there. For in that
case murder might have been done, had she known of