Since the looting of his house by Laurence's dragoons, Adam Ferris had lived mostly at Abbey Burnfoot, the property of his brother-in-law Julian Wemyss. Julian was not there. He had gone to London upon unknown business. At least if Adam Ferris knew of his kinsman's mission, he would have been the very last man to speak of it.

Nor indeed, did any try to wind the secret out of him. Adam had always been a silent man, distantly smiling and peaceable, but even then there was something about the man which caused his neighbours to be careful how they meddled with him.

But now he brooded darkly, wandering much on the moor and along the shore. Only the old Earl dared to front him, and as there had been enmity between the houses for four hundred years, the first meeting was not without some piquancy.

It happened the first morning after Louis had taken Patsy to Castle Raincy. The old gentleman stood upon the point of etiquette, and though he was stiff with rheumatism, he drilled his shoulders and strode down the glen, crossing by the stile from which he had so often cursed the lands of Cairn Ferris and every soul who dwelt therein. But now that he had called up his men and shut the gates of Castle Raincy upon the heiress of his enemy's house, he passed into Ferris territory as if he carried the white banner of envoy extraordinary.

There was something fresh and almost childish in the delight with which he noted every twist and turn of the long Glen burn, the trouts whisking in the brown pools or floating with their noses just showing under the shade of rugged willow roots which wind and water had undercut. He had observed these things all his life—from above, but his feet had never been set upon Ferris ground. His eyes had never looked (as it were) upon Zion, and now the goodly things were goodlier, the bunches of Eshcol grapes heavier and more purple, the pine trees nobler and higher, the peeps of corn-land more enthralling to the spirit, than ever they had appeared seen from above as if marked on a chart.

Presently he came in sight of the house of Cairn Ferris with its doors and windows wrecked and broken, at the mending of which the joiners of the estate and others from Stranryan were at that moment busy. He passed a heap of broken furniture still huddled together and smoking in a corner, at which he stood still and cursed as he if had been Adam Ferris himself.

He did not love the man nor his family. But Ferris was a gentleman and a neighbour. Only let him get to London. He would make the ears of these Hanover rats lie back when he told them an honest man's opinion of them on some day of great debate. Oh, it was not the first time he had spoken. Hear him they must and hear him they should.

Earl Raincy reached the new house of Abbey Burnfoot in safety. As he came out of the birches of the glen among which the path played hide and seek, he saw the climbing roses and red tropeolum mounting almost to the roof, the full dusky green of the hops twining to the chimney tops and setting a-swing questing tendrils from every balcony. The old man had never before seen such a building, but in an illustrated book of travels he had come across something like it. So his heart expanded when he thought of his own austere baronial keep and the crow-stepped bluestone gables of his ancestors' many additions. The newest of those was four hundred years old, and was only beginning to lose its look of having been finished yesterday.

He shrugged his shoulders at Julian's foreign-appearing palace of pleasure.

"Very well, I dare say," he muttered; "but what will it be after a few hundred winters?"

He did not pause to think what in such circumstances he would be himself. Raincy ground would still uphold Castle Raincy. Raincys would still dwell there, but this little dainty playhouse on the sands of the Abbey Burn would long ago have been swept away by centuries of Solway storms. The thought re-established him in his own esteem, and even the Ferris rule of the coveted Twin Valleys seemed evanescent and fleeting as a cloud on a mountain side beside the invincible eternity of the Raincy dominion.

He knocked at the door and waited. The man who came was Julian's Austrian valet Joseph, courteous, grave, and exquisitely "styled," as was fitting for the house of an ex-ambassador.

"Would his excellency enter? Joseph regretted much that the Earl should not find Mr. Julian. But he had been summoned to London. Yes, certainly, Mr. Adam was somewhere on the beach. He had gone out after breakfast and was still absent. If my Lord would wait, Mr. Adam should be at once informed."

But my Lord greatly preferred to see Mr. Ferris at once, and would walk along the sands till he met with him.

"As his Excellency wills," said Joseph, bowing low, and Earl Raincy went his way, tall, whitehaired and slender, to meet Patsy's father. Within tide-mark they met, at the exact point where the Raincy properties join the valley possessions of the Ferrises. Therefore in the most fitting spot—a true no-man's land, in that the foreshore was the property of the Government, though on the "heuchs" above the butt of the separating march dyke, built with masonry and bound and spiked with iron, testified that the Jews of the hills had no dealings with the Samaritans of the valleys. The lesson, seen close at hand, was a little marred by the fact that Louis and Stair with the assistance of a forehammer had converted certain of the spikes into a very practicable ladder which either of them, when pressed for time, could take at racing pace.

But from the beach below the barrier seemed of the last truculence and efficacy.

The old Earl took off his three-cornered hat with the gold button on a white rosette at the side. Adam did the same with his more modern broad-brimmed, low-crowned white beaver.

"I have the honour to announce to you," said Earl Raincy, bowing formally, "that your daughter is at my house under the care of my daughter-in-law. My grandson Louis, with, I believe, the help of several of your tenants, conveyed her safely back, and I congratulate myself that Louis had the good sense to bring her to Castle Raincy. You will pardon him, I feel sure. He went first to your house of Cairn Ferris, but finding it dismantled, he made up his mind that she could not safely return to Miss Aline's at Ladykirk. So I came off to see you at once, and to say to you how highly I feel myself honoured that one of your name should sojourn under my roof. Time is a great healer, and by gad, sir, if you will permit me to say so, I shall stand by you in this affair, and between us we shall crack the rascals' skulls!"

He held out his hand, which Adam, who had listened sympathetically to the old man's speech, instantly took. Then after one solid grip, they dropped each other's palms with a slight feeling of awkwardness.

"I thank you, my Lord," said Adam Ferris, "I appreciate your coming to me. I knew some time ago by a messenger from Stair Garland that my daughter was safe. I was starting to run down the villains, but my brother-in-law begged that he might be allowed to settle the family quarrel. He was anxious that nothing should appear about my daughter which might hurt her future. Here, of course, in our own country, the poorest and most ignorant would not make any mistake in judgment. But Julian said it would certainly be otherwise in London, especially with those who know the doings of our Royal Dukes. He begged that in the first instance I should leave the affair to him and if he did not settle matters to my satisfaction, I could then take what action I chose. So, because he knew more of these courtly circles than I shall ever know or desire to know, I bade him go."

"Put that way," said my Lord, "you were quite right. The man was, I understand, a guest in the house of Mr. Wemyss. He sent from there to borrow my horses, damn his impudence. He shall answer to me for that some day. Oh, I forgot—yes, your daughter. But I have been in London and at Court. I have been honoured by the King's commands, but I can only say that this new age—these young men—are rotten to the core. Therefore I agree that for Miss Ferris's sake, the less said the better. When, think you, will your brother be back? I should wish to pay my respects to him as soon as might be!"

"That," said Adam, "I cannot say. I wait any summons from London, but as yet I have heard nothing from Mr. Wemyss."

The earl was silent a while, now tapping imaginary dust from his breeches and again patting his flowered waistcoat to settle the long flaps in their places. He looked away across the shore, pale amber and white at the sandy edge and deep blue beyond. Then frowning with the effort, he spoke.

"Sir," he said, "our young people are wiser than we. My boy brought your girl to Castle Raincy as to a city of refuge, and why should not you and I, sir, copy them? Will you do me the honour to walk to Castle Raincy with me and take dinner? 'Zounds, sir, we ought to have thought of this long before. They put us to shame, these helter-skelter youngsters of ours."

"I accept your invitation, my Lord," said Adam gravely.

"Come now, Ferris," cried the Earl, with characteristic impulsiveness, "we are neighbours and gentlemen—I pray you let there be no 'Lordships' between us. Call me 'Raincy,' and be done with it!"

"I fear," said Adam, smiling, "that with the best will in the world it would be difficult for me to get my stubborn Galloway tongue round the word. But I am glad to hear you call me by my name, though I fear me, my Lord, that you must e'en let a thrawn Scots hermit gang his ain gait. If I were to call you 'Raincy' I should feel like a boy who threw a stone at election time. Why, sir, my father would rise from his grave and floor me with the lid of his coffin!"

"By gad, sir," said the Earl, "I believe you are right. That comes of English public schools and all the rest of it. Add to which that small daughter of yours is a witch and will make a man say anything—even a man of my age. But since we are both Galloway men, we may surely call each other by the names of our holdings. If you are 'Cairn Ferris' to everybody—well, I am 'Castle Raincy.'"

"To that I see no objection," said Adam, smiling, "though you wear your rue with a difference!"

"Eh, what's that?" cried the Earl, who did not read Shakespeare—"oh, something out of a book—I thought such things were your brother-in-law's perquisite. But I understand—you mean the handle to my name. That is very well for outside use, but never mind handles to-day. Let us be young again to-day. Come and see Patsy!"

"Patsy!" that young person's father muttered to himself, "so it has come to Patsy! Evidently she does not take after me. I have no doubt that the vixen will be calling him 'Raincy' by the week's end."