It was October, and the baby had been born in March. I had seen him once or twice at a distance, and that was all. There was a path running through that slope of the thickets which led up towards the house, and this path ended in the pleasant bosky sward known as the “Baby’s Garden” before mentioned. It was a lovely quiet spot, and thither the honourable Master Skene was often carried by his nurse for air and exercise. I could easily at will command a view of them without being seen myself. The life of the wild man had taught me many a trick of cunning concealment, and I never scrupled to practise an espionage which was, after all, only a necessary habit of savage precaution. There was an old dead ash, bordering on the thin fringe of the woods, into whose hollow I could slip from above, and thence observe through a spy-hole in the trunk. It was so close and unregarded in that silent chamber of green, that every word spoken from the latter was audible to me in my eyrie. One morning I was watching thence (for I had a morbid attraction to my successor), when he and his nurse appeared before me. She was singing to him, as she walked in a sort of rhythmical march. An odd pang of jealousy, as always, seized me in their nearness, Was I not his mother’s son, too? I felt a thickness in my throat, and swallowed it down fiercely. Presently the nurse, carrying her charge, went away at the farther end; and I came out of my hiding and stood at the foot of the tree, my eyes bent on the place of their going, though, indeed, my eyes saw little. A feeling of shame and melancholy dimmed them; even obscured their vision so far that it was not for a moment or two I realised that the pair had come back, and that I was discovered. I started, and bent my brow in a fury; and then I saw to my wonder that it was not the nurse who carried the child, but a young woman--a young lady, in fact; a vision of frills, and golden hair, and heliotrope raiment. She had evidently met the nurse on her way out, and taken the baby from her, and returned with it to the garden, the other following. Now all of a sudden she saw me, and came towards me at once, holding out her burden. Her eyes were mirthful and conciliatory; a smile quivered on her lips. “Won’t you kiss your brother?” she said. My brother! I had never yet realised the relationship. My heart drummed thickly. All of a sudden I caught her eyes fixed on mine. “Yes, I am Ira,” she said, “educated, and repentant, and come back to be punished.” Without a word, I turned on my heel and went away through the woods. CHAPTER IV. A YOUNG LADY’S CHASTENING--PHASE ONE