that she was sent into the world expressly to take care of Steenie,
that devotion to him had grown into a happy habit with her. The waking
mind gave itself up to the sleeping, the orderly to the troubled brain,
the true heart to the heart as true.




CHAPTER V

COLONEL AND SERGEANT


There was no difference of feeling betwixt the father and mother in
regard to this devotion of Kirsty's very being to her Steenie; but the
mother in especial was content with it, for while Kirsty was the apple
of her eye, Steenie was her one loved anxiety.

David Barclay, a humble unit in the widespread and distinguished family
of the Barclays or Berkeleys, was born, like his father and grandfather
and many more of his ancestors, on the same farm he now occupied. While
his father was yet alive, with an elder son to succeed him, David
_listed_--mainly from a strong desire to be near a school-friend, then
an ensign in the service of the East India Company. Throughout their
following military career they were in the same regiment, the one
rising to be colonel, the other sergeant-major. All the time, the
schoolboy-attachment went on deepening in the men; and, all the time,
was never man more respectfully obedient to orders than David Barclay
to those of the superior officer with whom in private he was on terms
of intimacy. As often as they could without attracting notice, the