In changing their home, Tammas and Marget had changed little else. Even after twenty-five years of life at The Home Stretch they still spoke to each other in their native tongue, though to others they often spoke English with their broad brogue. Even then, Scotch words would break in on their English with the suddenness and sweep of a tidal wave flowing in from the firth. Though they could speak English purely, and were well read in their way, their earnestness might always be gauged by the number of Scotch words which crept into their talk. Marget had not yet seen me. I went up the path to the little cottage porch, over which wisteria, in full bloom, hung in purple bunches, and whorls of clustering chimes. As I stood there listening, I seemed to hear their chimes, for the odor of the wisteria is a chime of memory. I heard the melody of other days, faint and yet so clear, memories that were almost legendary, of the little boy, motherless, and who had never seen his father, always a nature-worshiper, and a tree-lover; of his Aunt Lucretia; of his adopted sister, Eloise; of his fighting old grandsire, who had been the right hand to Stonewall Jackson when he swept clean the valley of the Shenandoah; and of these two good Scotch people who had taken him to their hearts even as their own. Here had he dreamed and grown up, loving them and the things they loved, and his dreams had been of writing, of poetry, of music; and not of war, as his grandsire had wished. Young as he was he had seen war with clear eyes. How it took the bravest and the best,—and left the weaklings to reproduce themselves. It reversed all the laws of Nature. If Nature had done the same thing for the flowers, not a larkspur purpling the meadows in blossoming ladders, not a wild lupine in whorls of stars, not a nodding head of clover blossom, not a stone-crop of the early spring, nor the flushes of wild hepatica would have survived to-day. Dog fennel alone would inherit the earth! Marget, her keen black eyes lighting up with that joy I knew so well, came to meet me. She seized my hands in both of hers, and shouted to Tammas: "Tammas, whaur are ye, Tammas? Come quick an’ see whit I hae to show ye!" "Weel, weel, I’m comin’, wumman," said Tammas, wobbling up in his great awkward way, his broad mouth smiling. He grasped both my hands in his. "It’s Jack, oor Jack! Whit wey did ye no’ tell me ye were here? Eh, Marget, but jist see whit a man oor Jack is!" I felt Marget’s keen eyes sweep over me. "Ay, Tammas, but is na he a wee bit shilpit like? I dinna like to see him sae pale like." I laughed. "Oh, Marget, you and Tammas, come, you make me think of the lecture room and the discipline of the German drill-master. I smell those Scotch scones right there upon the table, and the cottage cheese, I haven’t had any for four years."