father was dead of an ague in the Low Countries, and I had to be off
post-haste to Auchencairn to see to the ordering of our little estate.
We were destined to be bitter poor, what with dues and regalities
incident on the passing of the ownership, and I thought it best to
leave my mother to farm it, with the help of Robin Gilfillan the
grieve, and seek employment which would bring me an honest penny. Her
one brother, Andrew Sempill, from whom I was named, was a merchant in
Glasgow, the owner of three ships that traded to the Western Seas, and
by repute a man of a shrewd and venturesome temper. He was single, too,
and I might reasonably look to be his heir; so when a letter came from
him offering me a hand in his business, my mother was instant for my
going. I was little loath myself, for I saw nothing now to draw me to
the profession of the law, which had been my first notion. "Hame's
hame," runs the proverb, "as the devil said when he found himself in
the Court of Session," and I had lost any desire for that sinister
company. Besides, I liked the notion of having to do with ships and far
lands; for I was at the age when youth burns fiercely in a lad, and his
fancy is as riotous as a poet's.

Yet the events I have just related had worked a change in my life. They
had driven the unthinking child out of me and forced me to reflect on
my future. Two things rankled in my soul--a wench's mocking laughter
and the treatment I had got from the dragoon. It was not that I was in
love with the black-haired girl; indeed, I think I hated her; but I
could not get her face out of my head or her voice out of my ears. She
had mocked me, treated me as if I was no more than a foolish servant,
and my vanity was raw. I longed to beat down her pride, to make her
creep humbly to me, Andrew Garvald, as her only deliverer; and how that
should be compassed was the subject of many hot fantasies in my brain.
The dragoon, too, had tossed me about like a silly sheep, and my