with a greater extravagance than yourself when you had it to give, and nobody sends more gangrels about the house than you.”
“Give the boy his meat and let him go,” said the Cornal roughly.
“He’s not going,” said Miss Mary, turning quite white and taking the pin carefully out of her shawl and as carefully putting it in again. And having done this quite unnecessary thing she slipped her hand down and warmly clasped unseen the fingers of the boy in the folds of her bombazine gown.
“Not going? I do not understand you, Mary; as you grow older you grow stupider. Does she not grow stupider, Dugald?” said the Cornal.
“She does,” said the General. “I think she does it to torment us, just.” He was tired by this discussion; he turned and walked to the parlour.
Miss Mary mustered all her courage, and speaking with great rapidity explained the situation. The boy was the Ladyfield boy; the Paymaster was going to keep him hereafter.
The Cornal stood listening to the story as one in a trance. There was a little silence when she had done, and he broke it with a harsh laugh.
“Ah! and what is he going to make of this one?” he asked.
“That’s to be seen,” said Miss Mary; “he spoke of the army.”
“Fancy that now!” said the Cornal with contempt. “Let me see him,” he added suddenly.
“Let me see the seeds of soldiery.” He put out a hand and—not roughly but still with more force than Gilian relished—drew him from the protection of the gown and turned his face to the window. He put his hand under the boy’s chin; Gilian in the touch felt an abhorrence of the hard, clammy fingers that had made dead men, but his eyes never quailed as he looked up in the scarred face. He saw a mask; there was no getting to the secrets behind that purple visage. Experience and trial, emotions and passions had set lines there wholly new to him, and his fancy refused to go further than just this one thought of the fingers that had made dead men.
The Cornal looked him deeply in the eyes, caught him by the ear, and with a twist made him wince, pushed him on the shoulders and made his knees bend. Then he released him with a flout of contempt.
“Man! Jock’s the daft recruiter,” he said coarsely with an oath. “What’s this but a clerk? There’s not the spirit in the boy to make a drummer of him. There’s no stuff for sogering here.”
Miss Mary drew Gilian to her again and stiffened her lips. “You have nothing to do with it, Colin; it’s John’s house and if he wants to keep the boy he’ll do it. And I’m sure if you but took the trouble to think that he is a poor orphan with no kith nor kin in the world, you would be the first to take him in at the door.”
The Cornal’s face visibly relaxed its sternness. He looked again more closely at the boy.
“Come away into our parlour here, and the General and I will have a crack with you,” said he, leading the way.
Miss Mary gave the boy’s hand a gentle squeeze, and softly pushed him in after her brother, shut the door behind them, and turned and went down to the kitchen.
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