Blair's kinsfolk had long since left the place. He just took a look round the familiar byres and stables, and poked his head into a room whence a fresh-complexioned dairy-maid, in short blue skirts and bare feet, was busily chasing hens. He came out with a reminiscent smile on his face, and they turned down the hill towards Inverkip. He led her by the short cuts his boyish feet had known so well; past the old burying-ground, where the body-snatchers plied their gruesome trade and the village folk sat up night after night to protect their dead; past the gates of Ardgowan to the sea. And so along the shore road, with the waves splashing up among the boulders on one side, and the dark policies on the other, and the great trees meeting overhead; past the sturdy white pillar of the Cloch into Ashton, and so at last home. A honeymoon trip which neither of them ever forgot as long as they lived.
"Well, you two," said Aunt Jannet, when they came in. "We began to think you'd given us the slip and gone across the border without saying goodbye."
"We've been a long round," said Blair, "about——"
"About twelve years," said Jean.
"Then you must be starving. We expected you'd come home ravenous, and provided accordingly."
"We've been living on the fat of the land," laughed Jean; but they both fell to all the same, and proved beyond doubt that high thought and good living were by no means incompatible.
CHAPTER VIII
GOING STRONG
That same evening a burly, middle-aged man came to the house and requested audience of Mr. Blair.