On going home on the night after the great attack on Marnhoul, weary of directing affairs, misleading the dragoons, whispering specious theories into the ear of the commanding officer and his aides, he had been met at the outer gate of his cabin by a fact that overturned all his notions of domestic economy. Ephraim, precious Ephraim, the Connoway family pig, had been turned out of doors and was now grunting disconsolately, thrusting a ringed nose through the bars of Paradise. Now Boyd knew that his wife set great store by Ephraim. Indeed, he had frequently been compared, to his disadvantage, with Ephraim and his predecessors in the narrow way of pigs. Ephraim was of service. What would the "poor childer," what would Bridget herself do without Ephraim? Bridget was not quite sure whether she kept Ephraim or whether Ephraim kept her. At any rate it was not to Boyd Connoway that she and her offspring were anyways indebted for care and sustenance. "The craitur," said Bridget affectionately, "he pays the very rint!" But here, outside the family domain, was Ephraim, the beloved of his wife's heart, actually turned out upon a cold and unfeeling world, and with carefully spaced grunts of bewilderment expressing his discontent. If such were Ephraim's fate, how would the matter go with him? Boyd Connoway saw a prospect of finding a husband and the father of a family turned from his own door, and obliged to return and take up his quarters with this earlier exile. The Connoway family residence was a small and almost valueless leasehold from the estate of General Johnstone. The house had always been tumbledown, and the tenancy of Bridget and her brood had not improved it externally. The lease was evidently a repairing one. For holes in the thatch roof were stopped with heather, or mended with broad slabs of turf held down with stones and laboriously strengthened with wattle--a marvel of a roof. It is certain that Boyd's efforts were never continuous. He tired of everything in an hour, or sooner--unless somebody, preferably a woman, was watching him and paying him compliments on his dexterity. The cottage had originally consisted of the usual "but-and-ben"--that is to say, in well regulated houses (which this one was not) of a kitchen--and a room that was not the kitchen. The family beds occupied one corner of the kitchen, that of Bridget and her husband in the middle (including accommodation for the latest baby), while on either side and at the foot, shakedowns were laid out "for the childer," slightly raised from the earthen floor on rude trestles, with a board laid across to receive the bedding. There was nothing at either side to provide against the occupants rolling over, but, as the distance from the ground did not average more than four inches, the young Connoways did not run much danger of accident on that account.