a far cry to
Loch Awe,[7] ye ken, and it's a weary long road to Brockburn."

[Footnote 7: "It's a far cry to Loch Awe."--_Scotch Proverb_.]

"Is this your wush?" asked the Man of Peace.

"This is my wush," said the Laird, striking his rung upon the ground.

The words had scarcely passed his lips when the whole homestead of
Brockburn, house and farm buildings, was planted upon the bleak
hill-side.

The astonished Laird now began to bewail the rash wish which had
removed his home from the sheltered and fertile valley where it
originally stood to the barren side of a bleak mountain.

The Man of Peace, however, would not take any hints as to undoing his
work of his own accord. All he said was:

"If ye wush it away, so it'll be. But then ye'll only have one wush
left. Ye've small discretion the nicht, Brockburn, I'm feared."

"To leave the steading in sic a spot is no to be thought on," sighed
the Laird, as he spent his second wish in undoing his first. But he
cannily added the provision:

"And ye may tak me wi' it."

The words were no sooner spoken than the homestead was back in its
place, and Brockburn himself was lying in his own bed, Jock, his
favourite collie, barking and licking his face by turns for joy.

"Whisht, whisht, Jock!" said the Laird. "Ye wouldna bark when I begged
of ye, so ye may hand your peace noo."

And pushing the collie from him, he sat up in bed and looked anxiously
but vainly round the chamber for the Man of Peace.

"Lie doun, lie doun," cried the gudewife from beside him. "Ye're
surely out o' your wuts, Brockburn. Would ye gang stravaging about the
country again the nicht?"

"Where is he?" cried the Laird.

"There's not a soul here but your lawful wife and your ain dear
doggie. Was there ae body that ye expected?" asked his wife.

"The Man o' Peace, woman!" cried Brockburn. "I've ane o' my wushes to
get, and I maun hae't."

"The man's mad!" was the gudewife's comment. "Ye've surely forgotten
yoursel, Brockburn. Ye never believed in the _Daoine Shi_ before."

"Seein's believin'," said the Laird. "I forgathered with a Man o'
Peace the nicht on the hill, and I wush I just saw him again."

As the Laird spoke the window of the chamber was lit up from without,
and the Man of Peace appeared sitting on the window-ledge in his
daisy-lined cloak, his feet hanging down into the room, the silver
shoes glittering as they dangled.

"I'm here, Brockburn!" he cried. "But eh, man! ye've ha