The Connecticut labor press., 1920-08-21
CHAPTER VII.
The corrtemuir Peel Tower.

The Corriemuir Peel Tower. We'll, it would weary me, and I am very sure that it would weary you also if I were to attempt to tell you how life went with us after this man came under our roof, or the way in which he gradually came to win the affec tfons of everyone of us. With the women it was quick work enough, but soon he had thawed my father, too which was no such easy matter. and had gained Jim Horscroft's good will as we'll as my own.
 One of his first acts was to give my father the boat in which he had come, reserving only the right to have it back in case he should have need of it. The herring were down on the coast that autumn, and my uncle, be fore he died, had given us fine set of nets, so the gift. was worth many a pound to us.s Sometimes De Lapp would go out in the boat alone, and day rowing slowly along, and stopping every haif-dozen strokes to throw over a stone at the end of a string. could not think what he was doing un- til he told me of his own free will.
 "I am fond of studying all that has to do with the military" said he, ''and never lose a chance. I was wondering if 1t would be a difficult matter for the commander of an army corps to throw his men ashore here."
 eff the wind were not from the east" said |
 "Ah, quite so, if the wind were not from the east Have you taken sound ings here?"
 "No."
 "Your rlne-of-battleships would have to lie outside, but there is water enough for forty-gun frigate right up within musket range. Cram your boats with tirailleurs, deploy them be- hind these sand-hills, then back with the launches for more, and a stream of grape oyers their heads from the frig- ate. It could be done! It could be done w His mustaches bristled out more like a cats than ever. and could see by the flash of his eyes that he was ca@ied away by his dream.
 "You forget that our soldiers would be upon the beach," said I indignantly
 ''Ta, ta, ta !" he cried. "Of course, + it takes two sides to make battle. Let us see nowi Let us work it out What could you get together? Shall we say twenty-thirty thousand? A few regiments of good troops. The rest, pouf !-conscripts, bourgeois with arms, how do you call them-voiun- teers."
 Brave men" I shouted
 "Oh yes, very brave men. but i'm beetle; ah. mon Dieu, 1t is incredible how imbecile they would be. Not they alone, I mean, but all young troops. War must be learned, my young friend, just the same as the farming of sheep"
 Pooh P said I, not to be outcrowed by a foreigner. "If we had thirty thousand men on the line of the hill wonder you would come to be very glad that you had your boats behind you."
 Sometimes, when he talked, I thought he was joking, and at other times it was not quite so easy to say. I well remember one evening that summer when he was sitting in the kitchen with my father, Jim, and me, after the women had gone to bed, he began about Scotland and its relation to England.
 You used to have your own king, and your own laws made at Edin- burgh," said he; "does 1t not fill you with rage and despair when you think that it all comes to you from London now?"
 Jim took his pipe out of his mouth. 'It was we who put our king over the English, so if there's any rage it should have been over yonder." said he
 This was clearly news to the stranger, and it siIenced him for the moment.
 "Well, but your laws are made down there, and surely that is not good" he said at last
 ''No; it would be we'll to have A parliament back in Edinburgh" said my father; "but I am kept so busy with the sheep that have little enough time to think of such things"
 Ut is for fine young men like you two to think of it." said De Lapp. "When a country is injured it is to it's young men that 1t looks to avenge it."
 Aye, the English take too much upon themselves sometimes" said Jim.
 "Well, if there are many of that way of thinking about, why should we not form them into battalions and march them upon London?" cried De Lapp.
 ''That would be a rare little picnic" said I, laughing; "and who would lead us?"