Finally it reaches the third pew from the front, and I am aware of the handsome presence of my friend Eric Bethune, of Buckholm. Beside him, bolt upright, with a critical eye fixed upon Doctor Chirnside, sits his eccentric lady mother. Eric's attitude is more devout, but I observe that his head is turned sideways, and that he is grinning sympathetically at Tommy Milroy over the way, whose little nose is being relentlessly pressed to the book-board by an iron maternal hand encased in a hot black kid glove.

Eric, although he is as old as myself, is still very much of a boy—or perhaps I ought, in strict candour, to say a child. He was a child at school—in his exuberant vitality, his sudden friendships, his petulance. He was a child at Sandhurst; he was a child as a subaltern—at times, almost a baby. But he has been my friend all my life, and I admire him more than any man I know; perhaps because he possesses all the qualities which I lack. He is tall and debonair; I am—well, neither. He is impulsive, frank, and popular; I am cautious, reticent and regarded as a little difficult. (This is not true really, only there is no Eve now to tell me what to say to people.)

But, above all, Eric is a soldier. In the South African War he was Adjutant of our Second Battalion. They were sent out rather late, and only got to work after Paardeburg. I was with the other battalion, and saw nothing of Eric, but his Colonel considered him the smartest Adjutant in the Division, and recommended him for the D.S.O. He got it, but always declared that he had had no chance to earn it, except by instructing the men very thoroughly in what is vulgarly known as the art of "Spit and Polish." Certainly they were the best turned-out crowd I have ever seen, when they marched through the streets of Edinburgh on their return.

Directly after that we both went back to India. We were anxious to go. Eve had died just before I sailed for South Africa; Diana had broken off her engagement with Eric and married Tom Birnie three years earlier. But I did not stay in India very long. I was restless for home again; and, having decided that the Regular Army could now get along without my services, I sent in my papers and settled in London. When Roy was nine years old his mother followed her sister. She had survived Eve only six years, for the same lung trouble had marked them down long ago. After that Eric felt that he could come back to Buckholm. So he came, and they gave him command of the Regimental Depot, with the rank of Major. The Depot is not far away from here, and he is able to join his mother at Buckholm for much of the time. He is quite his old self now, and he has made the Third Battalion a marvel of smartness and efficiency. But there is one house which he never visits—Baronrigg. I do not blame him. His memories there are not like mine. Moreover, besides hating Tom Birnie, he dislikes Roy. I am surprised at this, because the boy is the image of his mother. Still, I suppose a man may be forgiven for disliking a boy who should have been his own son, but is not. Anyhow, I know I shall not meet Eric during my stay at Baronrigg, so I have arranged to lunch at Buckholm after church to-day.

That covers the congregation, I think. (Doctor Chirnside is working up to his peroration, and in a few minutes we shall be erect again.) I look over them once more. Altogether, a sturdy, satisfactory assemblage, from laird to ploughman. We have not changed much in the last two hundred years, nor will during the next two hundred, so far as I can see. We are Conservatives of Conservatives, although we return a Liberal. We shall go on tilling the fat soil, and raising fat cattle, and marrying young, and having big families, and sending a few of the boys into the Army, and a few to the Colonies, and keep the rest at home to marry strapping girls and have more big families, until the end of time.

We are a little disturbed, to be sure, at the present state of the world outside. A street-bred Government, with both eyes on the industrial vote, has recently compelled us, even us, to disburse our hard-earned pennies upon stamps, to be stuck at frequent intervals upon an objectionable card. We are informed that this wasteful and uncongenial exercise is designed to bestow upon us the benefits of insurance against sickness—upon us, who are never either sick or sorry; and if ever we are, are taken care of (under an unwritten compact of immemorial antiquity) by the employers who have known us and ours for generations back. Other political upheavals are agitating the country, but they leave us cold in comparison with this superfluous imposition of benevolence.

But still, politicians are always with us, and must be endured; so what matter? Our valleys stand so thick with corn that they laugh and sing, and even with Income Tax at one and twopence in the pound, things might be worse. After all, we have our health, and perhaps it is our duty to contribute to the insurance of those sickly city folk. A few stamps are not a very high price to pay for peace and prosperity and sleepy contentment in the heart of the British Empire.

IV.

... I think I must have begun to nod a little. It was a warm morning, and the sunshine and the songs of the birds without, and the confidential rumblings of Doctor Chirnside within, had exercised a soporific effect. But I opened my eyes with a jerk, and observed that the Netherby pew was occupied.

Netherby has stood empty so long that it is quite a shock to see its pew inhabited at all. It is a conspicuous pew, in the corner of the church, to the left of the pulpit, and my unregenerate nephews and nieces call it "The Loose Box." It is built in the form of a hollow square, and is surrounded by dingy red rep curtains, which enable its occupants to gaze upon the officiating clergy without themselves being gazed upon by the congregation. However, the pew is overlooked by the Baronrigg gallery.

This morning the Netherby pew contained seven occupants, humped devoutly round the square table in the centre. Upon the table reposed a gentleman's silk hat, or topper. Now, in this part of the country, gentlemen do not wear silk hats on Sunday. They wear bowlers, or Homburg hats, or even motoring caps. Neither do they wear frock-coats, like the obvious proprietor of "The Loose Box." He was a squarely-built man, and from what I could see of his face, he wore mutton-chop whiskers. There was also a middle-aged lady in a rather unsuitable hat. There were two boys of nineteen or twenty. There were two or three small children, constrained and restless. There was an elderly man with a beard like a goat's, gazing upwards at Doctor Chirnside with an air which struck me as critical. One felt that he would have taken the Doctor's place without any pressing whatsoever. I put him down for a visitor of some kind.

And there was a girl. At least, there was a hat—a big black tulle hat—and I assumed that there was a girl underneath it. I could see her frock, which was white. So were her gloves, which extended above her elbows. Her hands were long and slim. I began to feel curious to see her face.

Suddenly I realised that I was not alone in this ambition. On my left, that young rascal Roy was hanging outward and downward at a dangerous and indecorous angle, in a characteristically thorough attempt to look under the brim of the black tulle hat. Needless to say, in romantic enterprises of this kind, competition, especially with the young, makes one feel merely foolish, so I resumed my normal position and closed my eyes with an air