And Mary Lyon showed me the way down to the kitchen, which I had forgotten, where, on condition of not making a noise, I was to be permitted for the present to abide.
“But mind you,” she added, threateningly, “not a foot-sole are ye to set on thae stairs withoot my permission. Or, my certes, lad, but ye will hear aboot it!”
Decidedly I was a man under authority. The extraordinary thing was that I was cautioned to make no noise, and there in the next room was that red imp yelling the roof off, yet neither of his female relatives seemed to mind in the least, though his remarks interfered very seriously with the article on “Irrigation Systems of Southern Europe,” which I was working up for the Universal.
But when was a mere man (and breadwinner) considered at such times?
In all truly Christian and charitable cities refuges should be built for temporarily dispossessed, homeless, and hungry heads of families.
CHAPTER XXXVI
THE SUPPLANTER
Never did I realize so clearly the difference between what interests the people in a great city and those inhabiting remote provinces as when, in mid-August, I took Irma and my firstborn son down to the wholesome breath and quiet pine shadows of Heathknowes. I had seen the autumnal number of the Universal safe into its wrapper of orange and purple. In Edinburgh the old town and the new alike thrilled and hummed with the noise of a contested election. There were processions, hustings, battles royal everywhere, the night made hideous, the day insupportable.