like charity, should begin at home--and stop there.

To set off against this, there was a strong feeling that Galloway had
been long enough in opposition. There appeared to be (and indeed there
was) no chance of overturning the Government. Why, then, should Galloway
dwell for seven more years in the cold and hungry shades of
opposition--able to growl, but quite unable to get the bone?

Lalor was brim-full of promises. He had been, if not a smuggler, at
least an associate of smugglers, and all along Solwayside that was no
disadvantage to him--in a country where all either dabbled in the
illicit traffic, or, at best, looked the other way as the jingling
caravans went by.

Briefly, then, his Excellency Lalor Maitland, late Governor of the
Province of the Meuse, now a law-abiding subject of King George, was
duly elected and sent to Westminster to take his seat as representing
the lieges. The excitement calmed down almost at once. The gold coach
was seen no more. The preventive men and supervisors of excise were
neither up nor down. Galloway felt vaguely defrauded. I think many of
those who voted for Lalor imagined that the excisemen and coastguards
would at once be recalled, and that henceforward cargoes from the Isle
of Man and Rotterdam would be unloaded in broad daylight, instead of by
the pale light of the moon, without a single question being asked on
behalf of the revenue officers of King George.

After Lalor's disappearance Louis Maitland was heavy and depressed for
several days, staying long in his room and returning the shortest
answers when spoken to. Suddenly one morning he declared his intention
of going to Dumfries, and so on the following Wednesday my grandfather
and he drove thither by the coach road while I followed behind on
horseback. It was the purpose of Louis Maitland to have speech with the
lawyers. So, knowing the temper in which he had been since his uncle's
departure, I let him go up alone, but afterwards had speech with the
younger Mr. Smart on my own account.

He smiled when I mentioned Sir Louis and his mission.

"He wishes to go up to London to his cousin--he calls him his uncle,
Mr. Lalor, your fine new Government member for the county!"

"I judged as much," said I, "but I hope you have not given him any such
permission."

"He can take all the permission he wishes after he is twenty-one," said
Mr. Smart; "at present he has a good many years before him at Sympson's
Academy. There he ma