_INTRODUCTORY_ GORDON KEITH'S PATRIMONY Gordon Keith was the son of a gentleman.

And this fact, like the cat the honest miller left to his youngest son, was his only patrimony.

As in that case also, it stood to the possessor in the place of a good many other things.

It helped him over many rough places.

He carried it with him as a devoted Romanist wears a sacred scapulary next to the heart.
His father, General McDowell Keith of "Elphinstone," was a gentleman of the old kind, a type so old-fashioned that it is hardly accepted these days as having existed.