Galloway

“ Now Kirkchrist is one of the farm-towns of Galloway, many of which in the old days have been set like fortilices high on every defenced hill. Indeed, the ancient tower still stands at one angle of the square of houses, where it is used for a peat-shed. But by an outside stair it is possible to get on the roof and view the country for miles round. On one side the Cooran burn runs down a deep ravine full of hazel copses feathering to the meadow-edges, where big bumble bees have their bykes, and where I first courted Rachel, sitting behind a cole of hay on the great day of the meadow ingathering. ”

“ A proud man, a Highland gentleman of old family, was the minister of Dullarg. He kept his head erect, and for any notice he had taken of the Cameronian elders, they might just as well not have been on the boat at all. And in their turn the elders of the Cameronian Kirk compressed their lips more firmly and their eyes seemed deeper set in their heads when their glances fell on this pillar of Erastianism. For nowhere is the racial antipathy of north and south so strong as in Galloway. ”

“ Mr. Galloway waited till they came up. Hamish did not enter, or stop, but went straight home. “They will be so anxious for news,” he exclaimed. Not a word had been exchanged between the brothers. “No wonder that he shuns coming in!” thought Arthur. Roland Yorke threw his hat from him in silence, and sat down in his place at the desk. Mr. Galloway touched Arthur with his finger, motioned him towards the private room, and stood there facing him, speaking gravely.
“Tell me the truth, as before God. Are you innocent or guilty? What you say shall not be used against you.” ”

“ Mr Galloway was a good trencherman. At a very early date he had realized that a man who wishes to make satisfactory braces must keep his strength up. He wanted a good deal here below, and he wanted it warm and well cooked. It was, therefore, not immediately that his dinner with Rollo became a feast of reason and a flow of soul. ”

“ A shade more leisurely they walked on toward the cottonwoods. Here, in the shadows, Galloway stopped and Florrie, although beginning to tremble, stopped with him.
"Men have given me a black name here," he was saying as he faced her. "They've made me somewhat worse than I am. I feel that I have few friends, certainly very few of my own class. I like to think of you as a friend. May I?"
It was distinctly pleasant to have a big man like Galloway, a man whom for good or for bad the whole State knew, pleading with her. It gave a new sort of assurance to her theory that she was "grown up" ”

“ I am going home."
"No," said Galloway steadily. "You are not going home, Florence. You must listen to me. I love you more than anything else In the world, my dear. I want you, want you all for mine."
She saw a sudden light flare up in his eyes and it seemed to her that her heart would beat through the walls of her breast. "I am not a boy, but a man. A strong man, a man who, when he wants a thing, wants it with his whole heart and body and soul, a man who takes what he wants. ”

“ Mr. Galloway doubled the note in four and slipped it between the folds of the letter, putting both into the envelope. He had fastened it down, when a loud noise and commotion was heard in the street. Curious as are said to be antiquated maidens, Mr. Galloway rushed to the window and threw it up, his two clerks attending in his wake.
Something very fine, in a white dress, and pink and scarlet flowers on her bonnetless head, as if attired for an evening party, was whirling round the middle of the road in circles: a tall woman, who must once have been beautiful. ”

“ CHAPTER V. — ROLAND YORKE.
Just without the Boundaries, in a wide, quiet street, called Close Street, was the office of Richard Galloway, Esquire, Proctor, and Steward to the Dean and Chapter. Excepting for this solitary office, the street consisted of private houses, and it was one of the approaches to the cathedral, though not the chief one. Mr. Galloway was a bachelor; a short, stout man, shaped like a cask, with a fat, round face, round, open, grey eyes—that always looked as if their owner was in a state of wonder—and a little round mouth. But he was a shrewd man and a capable ”

“ Galloway, who had come up, and was enjoying a survey of affairs through the open window. Mr. Roland, somewhat taken to, dropped his head and the wafer-box together, and went on with his writing as meekly as poor Jenkins would have done; and Mr. Galloway entered.
“Good day,” said he to Arthur, shortly enough.
“Good day, sir,” was the response. Mr. Galloway turned to his idle clerk.
“Roland Yorke, you must either work or say you will not. There is no time for playing and fooling; no time, sir! do you hear? ”

“ As other days came and slipped by and the weeks grew out of them, Galloway's was a pleasant, untroubled face to be seen on the street, at the post-office, behind his own bar, on the country roads. He ignored any animosity which San Juan might feel for him. If a man looked at him stonily, Galloway did not care to let it be seen that he saw; if a woman turned out to avoid him, no evidence that he understood darkened his eyes. He had a good-humored word to speak always; he lifted his hat to the banker's wife, as he had always done ”

“ Galloway will suspect me, or Mr. Yorke.”
“No, sir, you and Mr. Yorke are different; you are gentlemen. Mr. Galloway would no more suspect you, than he would suspect himself. I am thankful I was absent.”
“Be easy, Jenkins,” smiled Arthur. “Absent or present, every one can trust you.”
Mr. Galloway did not return until nearly one o’clock. He went straight to his own room. Arthur followed him.
“I have seen Hamish, sir. He says no person whatever entered on Friday, while he was here alone.”
Mr. Galloway paused, apparently revolving the news. “Hamish must be mistaken,” he answered. ”

“ Lugging a fellow up for a pitiful, paltry sum of twenty pounds!—who is as much a gentleman as himself!—who, as his own senses might tell him, wouldn’t touch it with the end of his finger! But it was that Butterby’s handiwork, not Galloway’s.”
“Galloway must have given Butterby his instructions,” observed Hamish.
“He didn’t, then,” snapped Roland. “Jenkins says he knows he did not, by the remarks Galloway made to him this morning. And Galloway has been away ever since eleven o’clock, we can’t tell where. ”

“ Hamish tilted himself on to the edge of Mr. Jenkins’s desk, and took up the letter, apparently in absence of mind, which Mr. Galloway had left there, ready for the post. “Mr. Robert Galloway, Sea View Terrace, Ventnor, Isle of Wight,” he read aloud. “That must be Mr. Galloway’s cousin,” he remarked: “the one who has run through so much money.”
“Of course it is,” answered Roland Yorke. “Galloway pretty near keeps him: I know there’s a twenty-pound bank-note going to him in that letter. Catch me doing it if I were Galloway.” ”

“ But when the Galloway men looked again, and saw they were opposed by only one man, they themselves being so many, they cried out that their honor would be lost forever if they did not force their way; and encouraged each other, with loud cries, to plunge through and assault him. But by this time the king's soldiers came up to his assistance, and the Galloway men retreated, and gave up their enterprise. ”

“ Galloway, in the same mocking tone.
“No, I don’t,” said Roland. “But I shall start, sir, before long, and I beg you to believe me. I have talked Lady Augusta over to the plan, and I shall get the money for it from Lord Carrick. I might drum on here all my life and never rise to be anything better than a proctor, besides having my life worked out of me; whereas, if I can get to Port Natal, my fortune’s made. Hundreds and thousands of enterprising spirits are emigrating there, and they are all going to make their fortunes.” ”

“ Galloway, with marked surprise.
“I have had an offer made me, sir, to take the cathedral organ at week-day service. I should very much like to accept it, if it could be managed.”
“Why, where’s Jupp?” uttered Mr. Galloway.
“Jupp has resigned. He is ill, and is going out for his health. I’ll tell you how it all happened,” went on Arthur, losing diffidence now that he was fairly launched upon his subject. “Of course, this failure of the suit makes a great difference to our prospects at home; it renders it incumbent upon us to do what we can to help—”
“Why does it?” ”

“ But, then, the fellows are paid so badly.”
“Do not be so sweeping in your assertions, Roland Yorke,” interposed Mr. Galloway, coming forward from his own room. “How dare you so asperse the letter-carriers? They are a hard-working, quiet, honest body of men. Yes, sir; honest—I repeat it. Where one has yielded to temptation, fingering what was not his own, hundreds rise superior to it, retaining their integrity. ”

“ Do you not think fortunes are made there, Mr. Galloway?”
“I am sure they are not, by such as Roland,” was the reply. “A man who works one hour in the day, and plays eleven, would do less good at Port Natal than he would in his own country. ”

“ Have your friends now in Galloway any thoughts or fears of the French, or other Foreigners coming upon you? They said, No. He rose and went out, being a desart place, to a moss-hag, being the best chamber oft-times that he, Cameron, Renwick, and Shields had in those days, who displayed the public banner of the gospel, after Bothwell-bridge. It was but a short time that he staid in company and converse These two Galloway men said to other friends, in that bounds, who were my very dear acquaintance, who told me, why does the minister speir such a question at us? ”

“ The man responsible for all of to-night's bloodshed, for the disappearance of Florrie, for the death of Billy Norton. "Coming, Jim Galloway!"
Did he say it? Or again was it a voice shouting to him, urging him on? He looked off to the east. Flying forms everywhere with other racing forms pursuing, firing as they ran. Horses jerking back, rearing, breaking away from the few men guarding them. Full defeat for Jim Galloway there. But to the west? Galloway coming on at top speed, shouting as he came, and, upon the mountain's lower slope the others of Galloway's men, armed and bloodthirsty. ”

“ Captain Galloway being much exhausted, and suffering greatly from rheumatism, was at length prevailed upon to go in the pinnace, with as many men as she could possibly carry, and the end of another hawser to be made fast on shore; scarcely, however, had she cleared the lee of the ship, when a sea half filled her; and shortly afterwards she was thrown empty upon a rock, leaving Captain Galloway and his companions no other means of reaching the shore than by clinging to oars and swimming. ”

“ Jenkins turned to Mr. Galloway as soon as they were alone. “Oh, sir, keep him in your office!” he earnestly said. “He will soon be of more value to you than I have ever been!”
“That he will not, Jenkins. Nor any one else.”
“Yes, he will, sir! He will be able to replace you in the chapter house upon any emergency, and I never could do that, you know, sir, not being a gentleman. When you have him to yourself alone, sir, you will see his value; and I shall not be missed. He is steady and thoughtful beyond his years, sir, and every day will make him older.” ”

“ Meanwhile the Galloways will reign, and will assure us that they won their success by the Decalogue and the Golden Rule—and will be believed by all who seek to assure for themselves in advance almost certain failure at material success in the arena of action.
But they will not be believed by men of ambition, pushing resolutely for power and wealth. So Frederick Norman knew precisely what he was facing when Galloway's tall gaunt figure and face of the bird of prey appeared before him. ”

“ Galloway suddenly said, interrupting his own speech and Norman's thought.
"Yes," said Norman.
"Just married, I believe?"
"Just."
Young and old, high and low, successful and failed, we are a race of advice-givers. As for Galloway, he was not one to neglect that showy form of inexpensive benevolence. "Have plenty of children," said he.
"And keep your family in the country till they grow up. Town's no place for women. They go crazy. Women—and most men—have no initiative. They think only about whatever's thrust at them. In the country it'll be their children and domestic things. ”

“ In the calm, mystic sundown of the August evening, after nine hours in the express from Euston, I was driving with Wyman in Fred Fenwick’s Perth-cart up the side of Loch Ken, that long romantic stretch of water hemmed in by the high, heather-clad hills of Galloway. We were covering that seven miles of winding road that lies between New Galloway station and New Galloway burgh.
Southern Scotland surely possesses no wilder or more charming and picturesque district than the Glenkens, and here, in the heart of them, the drive was refreshing, for the air was keen after stifling London ”

“ There is a subtle something, a sort of nebulous charm, as it were, about young men who will be millionaires on the death of their Uncle Andrew which softens the ruggedest misanthrope.
Rollo's mother had been a Miss Galloway, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.; and Andrew Galloway, the world-famous Braces King, the inventor and proprietor of the inimitable 'Tried and Proven', was her brother. His braces had penetrated to every corner of the earth. Wherever civilization reigned you would find men wearing Galloway's 'Tried and Proven'. ”