ightened in spume, and round the brightness came a
circle of umber, making a window of fantastic glory for Dian the queen;
there her white vision peeped for a moment on the world, and the next
she was hid behind a fleecy veil, witching the heavens. Gourlay was
alone with the wonder of the night. The light from above him was
softened in a myriad boughs, no longer mere light and cold, but a spirit
indwelling as their soul, and they were boughs no longer but a woven
dream. He walked beneath a shadowed glory. But he was dead to it all.
One only fact possessed him. He had won the Raeburn--he had won the
Raeburn! The road flew beneath him.

Almost before he was aware, the mean gray streets of Barbie had clipped
him round. He stopped, panting from the hurry of his walk, and looked at
the quiet houses, all still among the gloom. He realized with a sudden
pride that he alone was in conscious possession of the town. Barbie
existed to no other mind. All the others were asleep; while he had a
thrilling consciousness of them and of their future attitude to him,
they did not know that he, the returning great one, was present in their
midst. They all knew of the Raeburn, however, and ere long they would
know that it was his. He was glad to hug his proud secret in presence of
the sleeping town, of which he would be the talk to-morrow. How he would
surprise them! He stood for a little, gloating in his own sensations.
Then a desire to get home tugged him, and he scurried up the long brae.

He stole round the corner of the House with the Green Shutters. Roger,
the collie, came at him with a bow-wow-wow. "Roger!" he whispered, and
cuddled him, and the old loyalist fawned on him and licked his hand. The
very smell of the dog was couthie in his nose.

The window of a bedroom went up with a crash.

"Now, then, who the devil are you?" came the voice of old Gourlay.

"It's me, faither," said John.

"Oh, it's you, is it? This is a fine time o' night to come home."

"Faither, I have--I have won the Raeburn!"

"It'll keep, my mannie, it'll keep"--and the window slammed.

Next moment it was up.

"Did young Wilson get onything?" came the eager cry.

"Nut him!" said John.

"Fine, man! Damned, sir, I'm proud o' ye!"

John went round the corner treading on air. For the first time in his
life his father had praised him.

He peeped through a kink at the side of the kitchen blind, where its
descent was arrested by a flowerpot in the corner