_If the Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford has not forgotten the rock whence he was hewn, this simple story may give him an hour of entertainment. I offer it to you because I think you have met my friend Dickson McCunn, and I dare to hope that you may even in your many sojournings in the Westlands have encountered one or other of the Gorbals Die-Hards. If you share my kindly feeling for Dickson, you will be interested in some facts which I have lately ascertained about his ancestry. In his veins there flows a portion of the redoubtable blood of the Nicol Jarvies. When the Bailie, you remember, returned from his journey to Rob Roy beyond the Highland Line, he espoused his housekeeper Mattie, "an honest man's daughter and a near cousin o' the Laird o' Limmerfield." The union was blessed with a son, who succeeded to the Bailie's business and in due course begat daughters, one of whom married a certain Ebenezer McCunn, of whom there is record in the archives of the Hammermen of Glasgow. Ebenezer's grandson, Peter by name, was Provost of Kirkintilloch, and his second son was the father of my hero by his marriage with Robina Dickson, eldest daughter of one Robert Dickson, a tenant-farmer in the Lennox. So there are coloured threads in Mr. McCunn's pedigree, and, like the Bailie, he can count kin, should he wish, with Rob Roy himself through "the auld wife ayont the fire at Stuckavrallachan."_ _Such as it is, I dedicate to you the story, and ask for no better verdict on it than that of that profound critic of life and literature, Mr. Huckleberry Finn, who observed of the_ Pilgrim's Progress, _that he "considered the statements interesting, but steep."_ J. B. CONTENTS PAGE PROLOGUE 11 CHAPTER I HOW A RETIRED PROVISION MERCHANT FELT THE IMPULSE OF SPRING 17 II OF MR. JOHN HERITAGE AND THE DIFFERENCE IN POINTS OF VIEW 28 III HOW CHILDE ROLAND AND ANOTHER CAME TO THE DARK TOWER 46 IV DOUGAL 70 V OF THE PRINCESS IN THE TOWER 85 VI HOW MR. McCUNN DEPARTED WITH RELIEF AND RETURNED WITH RESOLUTION 114 VII SUNDRY DOINGS IN THE MIRK 135 VIII HOW A MIDDLE-AGED CRUSADER ACCEPTED A CHALLENGE 154 IX THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES 171 X DEALS WITH AN ESCAPE AND A JOURNEY 189 XI GRAVITY OUT OF BED 209 XII HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY 225 XIII THE COMING OF THE DANISH BRIG 244 XIV THE SECOND BATTLE OF THE CRUIVES 257 XV THE GORBALS DIE-HARDS GO INTO ACTION 286