’Now,’ said I, ’take the door sharply, without so much as going to the other side for your bundle or your knife, and then the woods are open to you and the world wide.’ ’I thank you, master,’ he said civilly. ’When you go for the treasure, I counsel you do not call on Sandy by your leasome lane.’ And with that caution he betook himself into the glades of the wood. *CHAPTER XXI* *MINE ANCIENT SWEETHEART* After he was gone I cast about in my mind, and, for the life of me, I could not decide whether the fellow had been lying to me or not. It was indeed a thing to be wondered at, how this chance scoundrel should know (what I had thought known only to my Lord of Cassillis and my master) that after the fight in the barn I had carried away, clenched in my hand, the key of the treasure chest of Kelwood. Now, as was natural after this encounter, the goodwife of the Grieve’s house could not make enough of me. Indeed, if anything, she made too much of me, for, instead of suffering her daughter and Nell to entertain me as before, while she went about her work, she thought it her duty as soon as one of them came in and sat down, to leave that which she was about, and come and sit with us for company. Now Mistress Allison was a good woman and agreeable of her tongue, but I did not feel the necessity for this byordinar kindness. Yet it was not easy to alter it. Then in the evenings came Robert Harburgh to see me. At first he came once a week while my wounds kept me weak and fretful. Then, as I grew better, he came twice. And when I was able to sit up, it came about that he would arrive every night and bide till bedtime—so that at last I was almost shamed to have him sitting there, and feared that he might be burdensome to Kate Allison and her mother. For Robert Harburgh had but little to say, but he ever looked and proved kindly. Also he brought me many things from Maybole and elsewhere—oranges and wine that had been shipped to Irvine from foreign parts, neckerchiefs also for Kate and her mother. A quiet, down-looking fellow was Robert, something dull of the uptake, and with little to say for himself; but a most noble sworder, and wholly without care for his body when it came to the fighting.