illegitimate son, and as such ineligible to the throne. Who could say
what evil act upon the part of a monarch justified his people in setting
him aside? Who was the judge in such a case? Yet, on the other hand,
the man had notoriously broken his own pledges, and that surely should
absolve his subjects from their allegiance. It was a weighty question
for a country-bred lad to have to settle, and yet settled it must be,
and that speedily. I took up my hat and wandered away down the village
street, turning the matter over in my head.

But it was no easy thing for me to think seriously of anything in the
hamlet; for I was in some way, my dear children, though I say it myself,
a favourite with the young and with the old, so that I could not walk
ten paces without some greeting or address. There were my own brothers
trailing behind me, Baker Mitford's children tugging at my skirts, and
the millwright's two little maidens one on either hand. Then, when I
had persuaded these young rompers to leave me, out came Dame Fullarton
the widow, with a sad tale about how her grindstone had fallen out of
its frame, and neither she nor her household could lift it in again.
That matter I set straight and proceeded on my way; but I could not pass
the sign of the Wheatsheaf without John Lockarby, Reuben's father,
plunging out at me and insisting upon my coming in with him for a
morning cup.

'The best glass of mead in the countryside, and brewed under my own
roof,' said he proudly, as he poured it into the flagon. 'Why, bless
you, master Micah, a man with a frame like yours wants store o' good
malt to keep it up wi'.'

'And malt like this is worthy of a good frame to contain it,' quoth
Reuben, who was at work among the flasks.