Presently his nurse took him again, grumbling at the innate and incurable handlessness of men. Could I see Irma? Certainly not. What would I be doing, disturbing the poor thing? Very likely she was asleep. Oh, I had promised to go, had I? Well, she had nothing to do with that. But Irma would be expecting me! Oh, as to that, lad, lad, do not trouble yourself. She will be resting in a peace like the peace of the Lord, as you might know, if ever a man could know anything about such things. Just for a minute? Well, then--a minute, and no more. Mind, she, Mary Lyon, would be at the door. I was not to speak even. As I went in, Irma lifted her arms a little way and then let them fall. There was a kind of shiny dew on her face, little but chill to the touch of my lips. And, ah, how wistful her smile! "Your ... little ... girl," she whispered, "has deserved ... well ... of her country. I hope he will be brave ... like his father. I prayed all might be well ... for your sake, my dear. His name is to be Duncan.... Yes, Duncan Louis Maitland!" I had been kneeling at the bedside, kneeling and, well--perhaps sobbing. But at that moment I felt a hand on my collar. The next I was on my feet, and so, with only one glimpse of Irma's smile at my fate, I found myself outside the room. "What was it I telled ye?--Not to excite her! Was it no?" And Mary Lyon showed me the way down to the kitchen, which I had forgotten, where, on condition of not making a noise, I was to be permitted for the present to abide. "But mind you," she added, threateningly, "not a foot-sole are ye to set on thae stairs withoot my permission. Or, my certes, lad, but ye will hear aboot it!" Decidedly I was a man under authority. The extraordinary thing was that I was cautioned to make no noise, and there in the next room was that red imp yelling the roof off, yet neither of his female relatives seemed to mind in the least, though his remarks interfered very seriously with the article on "Irrigation Systems of Southern Europe," which I was working up for the _Universal_. But when was a mere man (and breadwinner) considered at such times? In all truly Christian and charitable cities refuges should be built for temporarily dispossessed, homeless, and hungry heads of families. CHAPTER XXXVI THE SUPPLANTER Never did I realize so clearly the difference between what interests the people in a great city and those inhabiting remote provinces as when, in mid-August, I took Irma and my firstborn son down to the wholesome breath and quiet pine shadows of Heathknowes. I had seen the autumnal number of the _Universal_ safe into its wrapper of orange and purple. In Edinburgh the old town and the new alike thrilled and hummed with the noise of a contested election. There were processions, hustings, battles royal everywhere, the night made hideous, the day insupportable.