"Oh, won't the Flemings be wild," cried Maggie, "when they know it. Ten thousand a year--and maybe more! Ten thousand a year!" As she spoke, she hammered on the table with her wet red hands. "Now go off like a good lad," urged Mrs. Gowdy to her son, "and bring over Alec and the bay horse. Mind ye, the train leaves the junction at ten o'clock the morn." There was little sleep for anyone in Ardnashiel that night, and sunrise saw Jean Gowdy and her bairns clad in their Sunday clothes, driving through the dew-soaked glen, _en route_ to establish their claim to a fortune. CHAPTER VIII The Gowdy family was jogging slowly down the valley, which looked brilliant in the early morning. The impetuous river raced alongside its companion, a steady, rutty road, twisting and swirling, foaming and flashing, rippling under rowan-beeches and tossing between great boulders its white locks on high. Maggie and the river had one impulse in common: they were both eager to escape from the glen; one drawn by the world--the other by the sea. Halfway to the highway the party encountered a boy with a telegram in his hand, which he held up as he announced: "It's for Mistress Gowdy." A horrible idea instantly occurred to the four travellers--it might contain something to put an end to their prospects! Telegrams in their experience invariably brought tidings of ruin, accidents or death. "Give it here," cried Mrs. Gowdy in a hoarse key. "There'll be six shillings to pay!" "Yer daft!" screamed the thrifty matron, "yer telling a lee." "It's no lee--it's the post-office, and I came awa' at six this morning. If yer going yonder ye can ask. But ye mun pay me the noo." "Then giv it to me," said Mrs. Gowdy, and with tremulous fingers she tore open the envelope and read aloud: "Hope you received letter respecting Mrs. James Gowdy's death and are coming to London immediately. Telegraph reply.--MIDDLEMASS." "Oh, well"--with a sigh of relief--"so it's all right. But sax shillings--to think of it!" and to tell the truth, for the remainder of the drive (such is the force of habit), those poor six shillings had a more prominent position in Jean Gowdy's thoughts than the splendid prospect of thousands of pounds. The very next forenoon a four-wheeled cab drove up to the office of Middlemass and Son, and from it descended the Gowdy party--who, after a long and protracted altercation with the cabman, dismissed him routed and grumbling, and then proceeded to enter the office, and present themselves to their man of business.