“That’s what I ask myself,” he said, unmoved. “Why should you hate me, if you know nothing about me?--that is what surprises me. You know something about me, eh?--you have a guess who I am? you are not terrified to death when a tramp comes in to your grounds, or a gentleman strays: eh? You call for Andrew. But you haven’t called for Andrew--you know who I am?” “I know what you are not,” she cried, with the energy of despair. “You are no vagrant, nor yet a gentleman astray. You would have gone away when I bid you, either for fear or for right feeling, if you had been the one or the other. I know you not. But go, for God’s sake go, and I will say no word to your hurt, if all the world were clamouring after you. Oh, man, will ye go?” She thought she heard that well-known click of the gate,--the sound which she had listened for, for years--the sound most unwished and unlooked for now--of Robbie coming home. He saw her momentary pause and the holding of her breath, the almost imperceptible turn of her head as she listened. It had now become almost dark, and she was not much more than a shadow to him, as he was to her; but the whiteness of her shawl and cap made her outline more distinct underneath the faintly waving shadows of the surrounding trees. The stranger settled himself into the corner of the bench. He watched her repressed movements and signs of agitation with amusement, as one watches a child. She would not betray him--but even in the dimness of the evening air she betrayed herself. Her eagerness, her agitation, were far more, he judged rightly, being a man accustomed to study the human race and its ways, than any chance accident would have brought about. She was a plucky old lady. A vagrant would have had no terrors for her, still less a gentleman--a gentleman! that name that the English give such weight to. Her appeal to him as being like one had gone deep into his soul. “I will do better,” he said, “mother, than seek a bed in any strange place; you will give me one here.” “I hope you will not force me--to take strong measures,” she said, with consternation which she could scarcely conceal. “There is a constable--not far off. I will have to send for him, loath, loath though I would be to do so, if ye will not go away.” The stranger laughed, and made again that movement towards his pocket. “You will have to provide then for his widow and his orphans: and a country constable has always a large family,” he said. “Man,” cried the little lady with passion, “will ye mock both at the law and at what is right? Then you shall not mock at me. I will put you forth from my door with my own hands.”