222 Winter 



In domestic life Adam was a martinet. He ruled 

 his son Aleck, his red-haired servant Bet, and even 

 his niece Kitty, with a rod of iron. Prompt, quick 

 cheerful obedience was the law of the household. 

 Only Kitty, besides being the smartest, prettiest, and 

 cleverest girl in Blackford, was so wayward and 

 spirited that not even her uncle, who liked her 

 better than he liked anybody else in the world, was 

 able to keep her entirely under control. 



It was a great grief to Adam when he found out 

 that Kitty was in a mood to throw herself away upon 

 Willie Allan. Not that he disliked Willie, nobody 

 could do that, but he thought him unlikely to be a good 

 husband, i.e., a thriving one, able to keep his family 

 comfortable ; for he never gave his mind to his busi- 

 ness, but wasted his time over what Adam sometimes 

 called his menagerie, for the croft-house was almost 

 a Noah's Ark in its way. The chance visitor was 

 certain to find at every season of the year a litter of 

 pups before the kitchen fire, and an old owl and still 

 more ancient magpie carried on an unceasing struggle 

 for the favourite perch above the kitchen clock. What 

 had once been the best bedroom was converted into 

 a flight for canaries, and there were always hanging 

 about cages containing finches, linnets, thiushes, 

 blackbirds, and even sparrows, for Willie was a noted 

 experimentalist in the art of crossing, and could show 

 an assortment of the most strangely marked hybrids. 

 The garden was stocked with bees and the barn with 



