“Faith,” said Boyd, “but there’s just one cry among them—when are ye coming down to let us have a look at your treasure, Mister Duncan? Sure, it’s selfish ye are, now, to keep her all this long time to yourself! The little chap’s holidays! Ah, true for you. We had forgotten him. And ye are sure that he is well done to, and safely lodged where they have put him, Miss Irma?”
“If you bide a minute or two, Boyd,” said Irma, smiling, well-pleased, “you may very likely have the chance of judging for yourself. For it is almost his time to be here, for to-day is a holiday!”
In fact, it was not a quarter of an hour before a shout, the triumphal opening of the outer gate with a rush and a clang, and a merciless pounding on the front door announced the arrival of Sir Louis. He had grown out of all knowledge, declared the visitor, “but no doubt the young gentleman had forgotten old Boyd Connoway.”
“Oh, no,” said Louis; “come and show me some more cat’s cradles; I know two more ‘liftings’ already than any boy in the school. But you can do at least a dozen!”
And so, with the woven string about his long clever fingers, Louis watched the deft and sure manipulation of Boyd Connoway as he “lifted” and wove, changing the pattern indefinitely. For the time being the village “do-nothing”—in the sense that he was the busiest man in the place about other folk’s business—was merely another boy at Louis’s school. And as he worked, he talked, delightfully, easily, dramatically. He made the old life of Eden Valley pass before us. We heard the brisk tongue of my grandmother from the kitchen, that of Aunt Jen ruling as much of the roost as was permitted to her, but constantly made aware of herself by her mother’s dominating personality.
With equal facility he recalled my father in his classes, looking out for collegers to do him credit, my mother passing silently along her retired household ways, Agnes Anne dividing her time between helping her mother in the house, and teaching the classes for which I used to be responsible in the school.
It was a memorable day in the little house above the Meadows. Louis played with Boyd Connoway all the time, learning infinite new tricks with string, with knife-blades, perfecting himself in the art of making fly-hooks, of kite manufacture, and the art of lighting a fire.
He had presented to him Boyd’s spare “sulphur” box, in which were tinder, flint and steel, matches dipped in brimstone, and a pair of short thick candles which could be set one at a time in a socket formed by the box itself, the raised lid sheltering the flame from the wind.
Never was a happier boy. And when the Advocate looked in, the surprising boyishness of Boyd rubbed off even on him. We did not inform our old friend of the high place which “the Advocate” held in the judicial hierarchy of his country. For we knew well that nothing Boyd said in our house would ever be used as evidence against him.
But no doubt my lord gained a great deal of useful information as to the habits of smugglers, their cargoes, destinations, ports of call and sympathizers. Boyd crowned his performances by inviting the Advocate down to undertake the defence of the next set of smugglers tried at the assizes, a task which the Advocate accepted with apparent gratitude and humility. For from the little man’s snuff-taking and easy-going, idling ways, Boyd had taken him for a briefless advocate.