West Indies, from America to the borders | must say he never recommended the marof the Celestial Empire, from South Africa riage), and rubbing our eyes of a morn. to Russia and on the whole, for charming, to a terrible Babel of sound in Covent and beauty of nature and for interesting Garden Market worse than the cawing of variety of races, I give the palm to the the rooks at my own back door here. Caucasus. Of the strange medley of costumes which the world's panorama reveals, I think none exceed in picturesque quaintness, at once becoming and exceed ingly convenient, the dress of the majority of the inhabitants of the Caucasus, commonly called the "Circassian costume." Having worn it in the country itself, riding, walking, and mountain climbing, I may claim to have tested its convenience. Heartily do I advise any one to whom it falls, not to lose the opportunity of visiting this part of the dominions of the czar of all the Russias.

From The National Review.
THE ROW'TILLY GIRL.
"He is either himsell a devil frae hell,
Or else his mother a witch maun be."
I.

Tosh and Shirra, Writers, has been upon the office door for thirty years and more, although Mr. Tosh was carried off with a blood-poisoning a quarter of a century ago, and left neither son nor heir to share with me in the business, but just his name that has outlived his memory. In the days I am writing of I was only Mr. Tosh's clerk; but, being his sister's son, I knew his affairs, and other peoples', as well as he did himself. That is saying a great deal, for Michael Tosh was a big man in these days-indeed, the biggest man in the place unless you share Mr. Henry Anderson's opinion of himself holding the confidences of all the gentry for miles around, and down even to St. Brise and the villages on the coast, forby being consulted by lesser folks of all degree, as you could have seen for yourself if you had had my place in the waiting. room on a term day. In one way it's the same now; but it is more a matter of exchange and less an honorable confidence between lawyer and client than it was when those titles and bonds were drawn, which, yellow and faded, I found to-day in the Learmont deed-box.

There was an

it except that he married her. And Mimi

THIS day, ransacking among my old deed-boxes, it all came back to me that story of Kate Coulter-as some in cities have told me that their countryside will rise with the opening of a book upon a faded hedge-leaf. For myself, not being a John Learmont was a sprig of a very townsman, except in so far as I belong to slender branch of a family once mighty in Riverton, which some upsetting bodies in the east end of the county. it would fain call a town, I could never ancestor whom a righteous man in the know that feeling. When I studied the Scots Kirk called the "Frenchiest, Itallaw in Edinburgh I lodged down in Pilrig ianest, jolly gentleman," meaning that as way, which was as good as living in the a reproach, and John Learmont, I have country; although from my high-up win- heard, was not slow to take after him in dows, looking over to the hills of Fife some of his ways. He sailed to India and (which I did just as often as I could), I took a woman of the country, a proceedfelt the masts in the Firth coming being which had nothing uncommon about tween me and them like to make me play the traitor, so able were they to quicken even my peaceful inclination to a longing for the wide worlds they sailed to. But I went back to Riverton early, it was at the August Market before Robert Learmont was given out as dead, and, maybe, in its little compass have seen as many of the tangled and the crooked things of life, as the most venturesome; and since then I have not wakened ten mornings together Even for a dark woman, Mrs. Learmont upon any sight but the uplands towards had no beauty. She was small and squat, the coast and, against them, the tree-tops, and without comeliness of feature. But now bare, now cosy; except, indeed, in she had spirit; and that, I fancy, was why my honeymoon which we spent in Lon- Learmont had come to fancy her and ultidon, putting up at the Tavistock, on the mately to marry her. Being highly edu recommendation of Mr. Tosh (although Icated among her own people, and nimble VOL. LXXIX. 4104

LIVING AGE.

that was how he called her, and how she signed her name neatly enough to these papers - Mimi bore him a child, a boy, that grew up with no more color than any Scotch laird would be proud of in his son. In course of time the father died, and the widow and her boy Robert turned to Learmont's county of Fife, and settled at Hawfield.

arrives at the steading with hat or belt
unadorned with the clusters of red berries.
Theirs, however, is the only color in the
landscape. The woods are gaunt. The
outlines of the little hills are not majestic,
or even tender. The farmhouse is a plain,
two-storied building, coom-ceiled. The
wooden porch faces the bill, and in front
of it there is a green park girded on every
side (save that on which the burn rushes
when there is a spate on the hills) by a
garden of vegetables and fruit-bushes.
The stackyard at the back of the house
wanders among byres and stables and
corn-lofts. The very fields around are
unkindly, and the rock crops quickly to
their surface. All this you will find as I
have written it down, if you will take the
trouble to cover the three miles out from
Riverton to Row'tilly; and it was the same
thirty years ago, when Mrs. Learmont
lived at Hawfield, and John Coulter farmed
her twenty acres along with his two hun-
dred acres in Row'tilly.

in her wits as well, she had drunk in the | he climb the steep path to it. The woods
glorious traditions of England till they are fringed with rowan-trees; and it is
fired her blood like wine. She was seldom that a townsman or a stranger
prouder of them than ever she would have
been if she had shared them with her hus-
band instead of craving some little title to
them through him. In that pride she
nurtured the lad, sensitive enough, her
self, to any look or word of color thrown
at her; and a very she-devil if it were cast
up against her boy. He little deserved
having it cast up to him, being, as I have
said, bronzed only as a white face ought
to be by laughing in the eyes of the sun.
With this he had a lithe Indian build, that
set him in the forefront of his fellows for
feats of limb, in the days when he chased
the young horses, with the shepherds'
sons, in the grass-parks round Hawfield,
and later at his school in England and
when he joined his regiment. His mother
watched this, and stroked and fingered
the proud nature with which he had
clothed himself, feeling its texture con-
stantly and trying its wear, and scarce
able to bear her heart beating with the
consciousness of what she thought was
her husband's race in her boy. I do not
speak from knowledge of him, but only
gather what threads have come to me to a
pattern. It may well be that he was a
battleground of races. At any rate, there
was a look from beneath the black eye-
brows that at times was frank and win-
ning, and at others full of a cunning at
which the country louts wondered and felt
creepy; at all times telling of the pride
swelling the delicate nostril that had not a
trace of his mother's race, drawing the
curves of the mouth taut as a bow high-
strung, and letting his head play freely on
his shoulders like a strong man that feels
his foothold on the rock. All this we
might have noticed when he came home
in the summer and again at Christmas,
and sometimes between; and it was the
very devil to any woman that he looked
on, if she looked on him again.

Now, from Riverton to Hawfield the road runs through Denbrae and sharply to the right, westwards, until, a mile farther on, you come to the first stone pillars at the end of the Hawfield Avenue. Presently the road doubles back on John Coulter's farm; but the nearest way thither from Denbrae village is on the north side, where issues a cart-track that, winding round plantations and through acres of fern and whin, creeps to the upland farm of Row'tilly. The proper name of the farm, indeed, is Rowantilly, and one does not need to ask why if, on a summer day,

That year Robert Learmont remained at Hawfield late into the autumn. He was there at the Row'tilly harvesting. Harvest was always late, the land being high and silly; and it was especially late that season, as Nell Coulter had occasion to remember, for her marriage with Dave Sturrock, the Denbrae baker, could net come off until the last sheaf was stacked. One day, when there was a sweltering heat for that time of year, and just about the dinner hour, Robert Learmont came across the field among the stooks. Now, a field that is cutting is sacred to the shearers, and whoso trespasses must pay the penalty of "bengie;" that is, he (or she, for that part of it), may be seized by heel and crop, and bumped upon the stubble until he, or she, is tender, unless there is a compounding with money for an exercise few have a mind to. Accordingly, when the word went round the field of Robert's presence in it, they converged on him, and would have seized him, I dare say, for he was not one to send a coin on a fist's errand, But at the moment his eye fell on Kate Coulter, who had come running, with her arms full of the shearers' bread, when she saw the workpeople crowding to one spot. For all that her eyes were young and inquisitive, she had the figure of a woman, as was more plainly seen now that she had come to a stop, with her bosom heaving on her long breaths; her dark eyes shining under

lashes blacker than Robert's own, and all | dow it was my father's window thenthe ripeness of her lips and throat show- and caused us to rise all together, knowing ing in the sunlight. that something very important must account for such a precise man going out of his order. Mr. Tosh shook hands with my father first, as his way was ever. There were some folks who said that my mother, being Mr. Tosh's sister, might have looked higher than plain Mr. Shirra in the excise. Mr. Tosh never showed that that was in his mind, although I believe it was there. Being a proud man, with a shrewd eye, he knew that that kind of pride looked best when it was saddled and ridden.

I could see disgust at the turn of affairs creeping up to Mr. Tosh's eyes like a sickness.

"Who - who was it carried the news to Hawfield?" he asked.

"Mister Hendry Anderson cam running out an hour syne, and tell't 's

"Oh, yes! Matthew Oliver," replied Mr. Tosh, very precisely, turning on his heel. "Oh, yes! Hairy Anderson was always such a particular demned ass!"

66

gossiping people, and were even more so in those days; so that when all had come and gone, many remembered what Learmont said, and what Kate, and what Tam Sturrock; and told the sayings again.

When the congregation gathered in Denbrae kirkyard for the afternoon service the bits of the morning's news were put together. Some declared that Mrs. Learmont had it by word of mouth passed on from the coast by the coach, others With that he set his feet again into the that it came by letter. Both were right. Riverton road, leaving me to follow. And We know the amount of truth that was in at the bend where the Row'tilly pathway the word-o'-mouth story, and Mrs. Learruns into it, I could see Kate Coulter hur-mont did get a letter. But of all the intrirying down it, late for the kirk. I looked cate things in life this is the saddest: to have walked the few steps to the kirkgate with her. Most lads round about were drawn to the Row'tilly girl, less for her beauty than because of her holdingback, proud ways; but Kate hung in the road because she saw my company, I said to myself, with what would have been vanity had I believed it. And Michael Tosh calling me alongside of him, I fell into his short steps again, and so went home thinking of how the day's business had fallen out, and never dreaming that I was turning my back on the end of it.

But it was so, as you shall hear presently. So far, I have told what I can vouch for with my own eyes and ears. The rest is a tale patched like these new fangled counterpanes; pieced out of the odds and ends of folk's talk, and remnants of gossip, without any very certain pattern, but with the suggestion of many. There's a very brisk lad that brings his paint-box down the burnside every summer, who says that that's the kernel of art, and calls himself a Whistlerite, whatever that may be. Perhaps it pleases some folk to pay their money and take their choice. For my part I would not buy a picture like a pig in a pock, and have one man say it was the sun that hung in the heaven, and another that it was the moon; or worse, as I have seen happen with this young birkie's own canvases, have whole five men examine it, and not one of them with more than an opinion which was the right end on. I have nothing to do with art, which seems to me a highfalutin' title taken by a thing that's not very sure of its own merit. I have only a story to tell as plainly as it is to be known on this side of the grave. And, if, when you have heard them, you wonder how so many things could come within one man's ken, remember I have attended at many deathbeds. Besides, we are a simple,

that it is not the truth of a thing that is going to be of much use to you, but the knowing it true. The Denbrae gossips had learned nothing when they had not learned that the word in the letter cancelled Henry Anderson's, and told how Robert Learmont had a wound indeed, but not a deadly one. We found that out when it was too late. What we shall never find out (although I have no doubt on the point) is, when Mrs. Learmont learned it; whether or not she had read that letter

before she saw Kate.

It was the habit of the Row'tilly family to spend the interval between sermons at Dave Sturrock's, supping their broth there instead of at the farm; a good arrangement for people who had no leisure for visiting on week-days. It gave time for Kate and her mother to inspect Nell's bairn, and for Row'tilly to advise Dave on his game bantams -occupations full of digestive restfulness and not likely to drive away the afternoon's sleep. This day, however, Mr. Coulter and his wife being absent, Dave got through his pipe sooner than usual; and he and Nell and Kate arrived at the kirk in plenty of time to join the groups that gathered to talk of crops and cattle, and the dead on whose flat gravestones they were sitting. Tam Sturrock was never behind in seeing Kate's arrival; and it was he who told her the news of Robert's death.

"Wha had ye this from?" she said quietly.

She was gone all pale below her dark skin, as Tam might have seen if he had not been the honestest man that ever stepped, with the dullest eye that ever worked in an honest man's face. He was not like his brother Dave, who was born pawky.

"It was Jeems Patton's wife tell'd me," he said; "and she got it from her guid.

man, who met Sandy Milne as he was coming from mending the coke-fire at his maut barns."

"I daursay that's enough voucher for the truth o't," said Kate, the catch in her throat making a chirrup in her voice, which Tam, with the pitiful conceit of men, mistook for the mirth of a woman, who is not ill-pleased to be talking to a man. With that she walked into the kirk and forward to the Row'tilly pew.

haste and the farmer's absence. They thought it strange, too, that the darkness should fall so quickly that they did not see her round the farther bend. But Kate never rounded it. She struck across country for Hawfield. She was still running when Rab Cuick saw her at the Silver Wood. So he said. He is a disinterested liar, I admit, and would have made her run although her walking would not have told against his own ends. But on this Denbrae church is old and dingy, with occasion I could well believe him. When very deep seats, from which to see the Christian Baxter opened the Hawfield door preacher is to strain the neck over the to Kate, the hall clock was striking four, book-boards. The occupants of neighbor- and before she had closed it she heard ing pews are hid from one another. Tam, the far-off Denbrae bell sounding across who sat with his brother at the back of the fields. Therefore the girl must have the kirka position full of all advantage, covered those two miles and three-quarters except that of having a sight of the clock, of field-ridge and stubble in less than half whose old, yellow face beamed from the an hour. I have had dealings with Chrisfront of the gallery benignant with hope tian Baxter since then, and have often - gazed at the Bibles before him as if at probed her memory; but if there was any moment they might fade from sight anything more hidden there I never hit it. and display to his rapturous eyes the She let Kate in because there was urgency flower in Kate's bonnet. That was all of in her tones. She carried her to Mrs. her that peeped above the Row'tilly pew. Learmont's room, and Mrs. Learmont was Jean's bonnet-crown was never so fasci- as calm as a pie. These are Christian's nating as on that day; and so Tam thought own words; and she said, moreover, that as the preacher thumped his Bible in the for the hour the two women were together, interests of an overruling Providence. although she was hovering in the neighThat is a doctrine the truth of which va- boring room, she never heard a word ries a great deal with how the world is raised higher than ordinarily, nor ever, using the hearer of it. Tam, if he heard even on the two occasions when she had it at all, was doubtless seeing in the two to go in beside them, observed so much miles of hill and bracken that was Kate's as a crack in Kate's voice. road home, and in the want of her father's" They were sittin' close thegither, and and her mother's company, an illustration Mrs. Learmont had the lassie's hand in of it; and wondering if he had the courage to apply it. But the sermon was not finished when the gloaming clouded the little windows; and the minister, pausing, said,

"It's time the upland folk were getting away home; it's falling dark."

It was a usual enough intimation on winter Sunday afternoons; and scarce a sleeper was disturbed by the silence as Kate, and here and there a ploughman or a cottager from the hills, emerged from their pews. But Tam, his afternoon's ambitions at all the portholes of his sense, was for stealing out too, when Dave caught his coat-tails, and pulled him down.

"Sit quiet, ye nowt!" he whispered. "It's just the Row'tilly fowk." And he held him fast as Kate and his opportunity passed by.

Clear of the village, Kate was running. The ploughmen in her wake on the Row'tilly road saw her run up the first brae, and said, "Has Row'tilly a cow in calf the now?" trying thus to account for the girl's

hers. I tell ye Kate's hand that was as red as a haw looked white below thae black fing'rs. But it wasna' Kate Coulter I lot oot that night. It was a girl that wasn't going, but was being sent; it minded me o' the stories of folks that had seen a sicht."

Mrs. Learmont's calmness would seem to show that she had read that letter. You may ask why, if that were so, she did not relieve the whole house with its message. I tell you she had no world outside of Robert; the rest was dirt. On the other hand, when Kate came in, all sick with fear, and hope, and shame, drawn to the only other heart in the world that beat to Robert's, why was not the later news, if Mrs. Learmont had it, clapped like a comfortable plaster to her sore? Bah! Why should I beat about the bush? I have not a point of evidence to go to a jury with. A sheriff would not listen to my story. Yet I know, as well as I know that from the time it flashed upon me I have looked on women differently, that