Still, on the whole I had a great deal of peace and the composure of the quiet mind during these first days at Heathknowes. My father, almost for the first time in his life, withdrew himself from his desk, and took a walk beyond the confines of the Academy Wood to see his grandson, keeping, however, his hands still behind him according to his custom in school. My mother, even, arranged with Agnes Anne to take the post-office duties during her absence, and seemed pleased in her quiet way to hold the boy in her arms. In this, however, she was not encouraged by Mary Lyon, who soon took Duncan away on the plea that he cried, except with her. Duncan the Second certainly stopped as soon as he felt my grandmother’s strong, well-accustomed hands grasp him. Yet she was not in the least tender with him. On the contrary, she heaved him, as it were promiscuously, over one shoulder with his head hanging down her back, and tucking his swathed legs under one armpit she proceeded about her household business, as if wholly disembarrassed—all the while Duncan never uttering a word.
But through all the talk of the weather and the crops, the night runs to Kirk Anders and the Borgue shore, the capture made by the preventives at the Hass of the Dungeon, the misdoings of Tim Cleary who had got seven days for giving impudence to the Provost of Dumfries in his own court-room, there pierced the strange sough of politics.
The elections were upon us also in Galloway, and the Government candidate was reported to be staying at Tereggles with the Lord Lieutenant. He had not yet been seen, but (it was, of course, Boyd Connoway who brought us word) his name was the Honourable Lalor Maitland, late Governor of the Meuse—a province in the Low Countries.
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE RETURN OF THE SERPENT TO EDEN VALLEY
I did not tell Irma, and I enjoined silence on all about the house. But there was no keeping such a thing, and perhaps it was as well. Jo Kettle’s father, always keen to show his wit at the expense of his betters, cried out to me in the hearing of Irma, “How much, besides his pardon, has that uncle of yours gotten in guineas for his treachery?”
And when I protested ignorance, he added, “I mean the new grand Government candidate, that has been sae lang in the Netherlands, and was a rebel not so long ago—many is the braw lad’s head that he has garred roll in the sawdust, I warrant.”
For it was currently reported of Lalor in his own day that he had been a spy for the King of France as well as for King George—aye, and afterwards against the emigrants at Coblentz in the service of the Revolution. Indeed, I do think there is little doubt but that, at some time of his life, the man had been in such a desperate way that he had spied and betrayed whoever trusted him to whomsoever would pay for his treachery.