[89] Much has been written of the derivation and meaning of the word _cowan_, some finding its origin in a Greek term meaning "dog." (See "An Inquiry Concerning Cowans," by D. Ramsay, _Review of Freemasonry_, vol. i.) But its origin is still to seek, unless we accept it as an old Scotch word of contempt (_Dictionary of Scottish Language_, Jamieson). Sir Walter Scott uses it as such in Rob Roy, "she doesna' value a Cawmil mair as a cowan" (chap. xxix). Masons used the word to describe a "dry-diker, one who built without cement," or a Mason without the word. Unfortunately, we still have cowans in this sense--men who try to be Masons without using the cement of brotherly love. If only they _could_ be kept out! Blackstone describes an eavesdropper as "a common nuisance punishable by fine." Legend says that the old-time Masons punished such prying persons, who sought to learn their signs and secrets, by holding them under the eaves until the water ran in at the neck and out at the heels. What penalty was inflicted in dry weather, we are not informed. At any rate, they had contempt for a man who tried to make use of the signs of the craft without knowing its art and ethics. [90] This subject is most fascinating. Even in primitive ages there seems to have been a kind of universal sign-language employed, at times, by all peoples. Among widely separated tribes the signs were very similar, owing, perhaps, to the fact that they were natural gestures of greeting, of warning, or of distress. There is intimation of this in the Bible, when the life of Ben-Hadad was saved by a sign given (I Kings, 20:30-35). Even among the North American Indians a sign-code of like sort was known (_Indian Masonry_, R.C. Wright, chap. iii). "Mr. Ellis, by means of his knowledge as a Master Mason, actually passed himself into the sacred part or adytum of one of the temples of India" (_Anacalypsis_, G. Higgins, vol. i, 767). See also the experience of Haskett Smith among the Druses, already referred to (_A. Q. C._, iv, 11). Kipling has a rollicking story with the Masonic sign-code for a theme, entitled _The Man Who Would be King_, and his imagination is positively uncanny. If not a little of the old sign-language of the race lives to this day in Masonic Lodges, it is due not only to the exigencies of the craft, but also to the instinct of the order for the old, the universal, the _human_; its genius for making use of all the ways and means whereby men may be brought to know and love and help one another.