"Never mind!" I said. "I shall be none the worse of a holiday for a year or two. If you will kindly take Dolly off our hands as quickly as possible"--he caught his breath at that--"Kitty and I and Phillis will go a trip round the world together. Then I'll come home and fight a by-election, perhaps." "Meanwhile," said Robin, "you will be having no further need of a private secretary." "I'm afraid not," I said. The fact had been tugging at my conscience for the last two hours. "And that raises another question. What are you two going to live on?" "Champion wants me," said Robin. "He has offered me the post of Secretary to that Royal Commission of which he has been appointed Chairman. It is a fine opening." "I should think it was!" I said with whole-hearted joy. "Good luck to you, Robin!" "Thank you!" said Robin. "Still," he added, as he turned to go, "I wish I could have found you twenty-eight more votes." "Between ourselves," I said, "I don't mind very much. I am not the right man for this constituency. It has outgrown me. I have not the knack of handling a big crowd. What I want is a fine old crusted unprogressive seat, where I shan't constantly be compelled to drop my departmental work and rush down to propitiate my supporters with untruthful harangues. I'm a square peg here. Now, if they had wanted a really fit and proper candidate for this Parliamentary Division, Robin, they ought to have approached _you_." "Och!" said Robin carelessly, "they did--a month ago! Good night!" CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. A PROPHET IN HIS OWN COUNTRY. An old woman in a white mutch stands at the door of a farmhouse in a Scottish glen. Her face is wrinkled, and her dim eyes are peering down the track which leads from the steading to the pasture. Being apparently unable to focus what she wants to see she adjusts a pair of spectacles. This action brings into her range of vision a distant figure which is engaged in shepherding a herd of passive but resisting cows through a gap in the dyke. It is a slow business, but the procession gradually nears home; and when the man at the helm succeeds in steering his sauntering charges safely between the Scylla of a hay-rick and the Charybdis of the burn, the old lady takes off her spectacles and relaxes her vigilance. When she looks again, though, she breaks into an exclamation of dismay. The leaders of the straggling procession have safely reached the door of the byre close by; but one frisky young cow, suddenly swerving through an open gate, breaks away down a sloping field of turnips at a lumbering gallop. The herdsman is out of sight round a bend in the road. "The feckless body!" observes the old lady bitterly. Then she raises her voice. "Elspeth!" A reply comes from within the dairy. "Ay, mem?" "You'll need tae leave the butter and help Master Robert. He's no hand with the kye. He's let Heatherbell intill the neeps. And the maister is away at----"