With equal facility he recalled my father in his classes, looking out for collegers to do him credit, my mother passing silently along her retired household ways, Agnes Anne dividing her time between helping her mother in the house, and teaching the classes for which I used to be responsible in the school. It was a memorable day in the little house above the Meadows. Louis played with Boyd Connoway all the time, learning infinite new tricks with string, with knife-blades, perfecting himself in the art of making fly-hooks, of kite manufacture, and the art of lighting a fire. He had presented to him Boyd's spare "sulphur" box, in which were tinder, flint and steel, matches dipped in brimstone, and a pair of short thick candles which could be set one at a time in a socket formed by the box itself, the raised lid sheltering the flame from the wind. Never was a happier boy. And when the Advocate looked in, the surprising boyishness of Boyd rubbed off even on him. We did not inform our old friend of the high place which "the Advocate" held in the judicial hierarchy of his country. For we knew well that nothing Boyd said in our house would ever be used as evidence against him. But no doubt my lord gained a great deal of useful information as to the habits of smugglers, their cargoes, destinations, ports of call and sympathizers. Boyd crowned his performances by inviting the Advocate down to undertake the defence of the next set of smugglers tried at the assizes, a task which the Advocate accepted with apparent gratitude and humility. For from the little man's snuff-taking and easy-going, idling ways, Boyd had taken him for a briefless advocate. "Faith, sir, come to Galloway," he cried open-heartedly--"there's the place to provide work for the like of you lads. And it's Boyd Connoway will introduce you to all the excise-case defendants from Annan Port to Loch Ryan. It's him that knows every man and mother's son of them! And who, if ye plaise, has a better right?" CHAPTER XXXV THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW "The strongest mental tonic in the world is solitude, but it takes a strong mind, fully equipped with thoughts, aims, work, to support it long without suffering. But once a man has made his best companion of his own mind, he has learned the secret of living." So I had written in an essay on Senancour during the days when the little white house was but a dream, and Irma had never come to me across the cleared space in front of Greyfriars Kirk amid the thud of mallets and the "chip" of trowels. But Irma taught me better things. She knew when to be silent. She understood, also, when speech would slacken the tension of the mind. As I sat writing by the soft glow of the lamp I could hear the rustle of her house-dress, the sharp, almost inaudible, _tick-tick_ of her needle, and the soft sound as she smoothed out her seam. Little things that happen to everybody, but--well, I for one had never noticed them before.