Three generations

ALEXANDER KEDDIE 65
credence to the escape till it was confirmed from some
more trustworthy quarter.
When the curious incredulity was removed, the
Durham family proved their gratitude to my grand-
uncle by securing for him one of those Indian cadet-
ships which seemed always at hand in the East of
Fife, and were freely given, whether as the price of
a vote or the reward for an act of bravery and loyalty.
Starting life afresh with the cadetship, and departing
for another hemisphere, the link between Alexander
Keddie and his family was broken, never to be renewed.
It was believed from such stray sources as found their
way to his kindred that he lived and throve in his new
station, and died a rich man, with no reference to his
kith and kin in far-away Scotland. One of them, more
speculative than the others, used to approach my father
with the proposal that the various branches of the
family should combine forces, and empower a reliable
messenger to go out to Calcutta or Bombay and ascer-
tain what had become of the dead man's estate. My
father promptly put down his foot on the suggestion
as idle and foolish, and certain to be barren of result.
I never even heard him mention the lost Alexander
and his vanished riches ; but the story, and that other
fascinating tale of the Spanish doubloons, somehow
reached the children of the house, who caught hold of
them, hugged them, and delighted themselves with
childish fancies of fairy fortunes coming to them, some
day, from the East or from the West — unsolicited, but
not wholly unexpected, and anything rather than un-
welcome.
A cousin of my father's was in a respectable position
in St. Helena when Napoleon was there in exile. I
remember him paying us a short visit, in company
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