“Lalor Maitland—is he, then, in the country?” said Irma, with a white and frightened look. “I must get home—to Baby!”
So completely had her heart changed its magnetic pole. Poor Louis, small wonder he was jealous—and rightly, not of me, but of the small and leathern-lunged person who from his cot ruled the order of the house, and made even the cheerful hum of the fireside, the yard cock-crowing of the fowls, and the egg-kekkling in the barn yield to his imperious will. For he had them banished the precincts and shut up till his highness should please to awaken.
But when we got to the Heathknowes road-end, we beheld a yellow coach, with four horses, a coachman and two outriders, all three in canary-coloured suits.
It was early days for such equipages to be seen in Galloway, where, excluding the post-road on which the Irish mail ran from Dumfries to Stranraer, there were few roads and fewer bridges which would bear a coach-and-four. Owing to the pirn-mill, our bridges were a little stronger than usual, though the roads were worn into deep ruts by the “jankers,” or great two-wheeled wagons for the transport of trees out of the woods.
The carriage drove right up to the outer gate of the yard of Heathknowes, half the idle laddies of Eden Valley running shouting after it. The “yett,” as usual, was barred, and it is more than doubtful whether, even if open, the coach could safely have passed within—so narrow was the space between post and post.
But the man inside put his head out of the window and gave a short, sharp order. Whereupon the postilions leaped down and stood to their horses’ heads. The canary coachman held his hands high, with the reins drooping upon his knees. A footman jumped out of a little niche by the side of one window in which his life must have been almost shaken out of him. He opened the door with the deepest respect, and out there stepped the bravest and finest-dressed gentleman that had ever been seen.
He was middle-sized and slight, no longer young, but of an uncertain age. He wore a powdered wig, with sky-blue coat and shorts, a white waistcoat embroidered with dainty sprig patterns of lavender and forget-me-not. He had on white silk stockings and the most fashionable shoes, tied with blue-and-gold governmental favours instead of ordinary buckles. By his side was a sword with a golden hilt—in short, such a cavalier had never been seen in Galloway within living memory.
And at the sight of him Louis ran forward, calling, “Uncle, uncle!” But Irma sank gently down on my shoulder, so that I had to take her in my arms and carry her to her chamber.
At first I stood clean dumfounded, as indeed well I might. When Lalor came last to Eden Valley he had been one of the Black Smugglers, a great man on the Golden Hind—little better, to be brief, than a common pirate. He and his had assaulted the house of Marnhoul, with a pretence of legal purpose, no doubt, but really merely levying war in a peaceful country.
Now here he was back, arrayed sumptuously, the favourite of the Government at London, the guest of the Lord Lieutenant of the county.