"Poor Charles Lamb!" said Mrs. Douglas, shaking her head. "There _are_ times when one would like to stand still, where we seem to reach a pleasant, rich plain and are at our ease, and friends are many, and life is full of zest.... I don't know whether it was wise to leave Inchkeld. Your grandfather Douglas always regretted it. When he visited us at Kirkcaple one remark he always made was: 'A great pity Mark ever left Inchkeld.' We used to wait for it and the funny way he had of clearing his throat after every sentence." CHAPTER VI November is a poor time to go to a new place, and Kirkcaple certainly looked a most unattractive part of the world when we arrived on a cold, wet afternoon. 'The queer-like smell' from the linoleum factories, the sea drearily grey and strange to my inland eyes, the drive through narrow streets and up the steep Path, past great factories and mean houses, until we reached the road, knee-deep in mud, where the Manse stood, combined to depress me to the earth. It might have been infinitely worse. I saw that in the light of the next morning. There was a field before the Manse, and though there was a factory and a rope-work and a bleach-field and a coal-pit all in close proximity to it, there was also the Den, where hyacinths grew in spring, and where you could dig fern roots for your garden. The Manse itself stood in a large garden, and in time we forgot to notice the factories. The people were very unlike the courteous Inchkeld people--miners and factory workers, who gave one as they passed a Jack's-as-good-as-his-master sort of nod. We grew to understand them and to value their staunch friendship, but at first they were as _fremt_ as the landscape. "When the cab lurched through the ruts to the Manse gate and I got out and saw my new home I quailed. From the front it was a gloomy-looking house--one window on each side of the front door, and three windows above, and the kitchen premises on one side. There was a wide gravelled space in front, with a small shrubbery to shelter us from the road. It was a sombre and threatening place to enter on a dark night, and when alone I always made a mad rush from the gate to the front door. One night when I reached my haven I found a tall man standing against it. I had hardly strength to gasp, 'Who are you?' and the man replied, 'Weelum Dodds. I cam' to see the minister aboot gettin' the bairn bapteezed, but the lassie wadna open the door.' I had told the servants, who were young girls, to keep the chain on the door at night, and the poor patient soul had just propped himself up against the door and awaited developments.... The back of the house, looking to the garden, was delightful. You don't remember the garden?"