its own garden, the latter sloping in narrow, giddy paths to the very
beach. Sure feet were needed among its vegetables, and its thickets of
gooseberry and currant bushes, and its straying tangles of blackberry
vines. Round the whole plot there was a low stone wall, covered with
wall-flowers, wild thyme, rosemary, and house-leek.

A few beds around the house held roses and lilies, and other floral
treasures, but these were so exclusively Margot's property, and
Margot's adoration, that I do not think she would like me even to
write about them. Sometimes she put a rosebud in the buttonhole of her
husband's Sunday coat, and sometimes Christina had a similar favor,
but Margot was intimate with her flowers. She knew every one by a
special name, and she counted them every morning. It really hurt her
to cut short their beautiful lives, and her eldest son Norman, after
long experience said: "If Mither cuts a flower, she'll ill to live
wi'. I wouldna tine her good temper for a bit rosebud. It's a poor
bargain."

One afternoon, early in the June of 1849, Christine Ruleson walked
slowly up the narrow, flowery path of this mountain garden. She was
heard before she was seen, for she was singing an east coast ballad,
telling all the world around her, that she

--Cast her line in Largo bay,
And fishes she caught nine;
Three to boil, and three to fry,
And three to bait the line.

So much she sang, and then she turned to the sea. The boat of a
solitary fisherman, and a lustrously white bird, were lying quietly on
the bay, close together, and a large ship with all her sails set was
dropping lazily along to the south. For a few moments she watched
them, and then continued her song.

She was tall and lovely, and browned and bloomed in the fresh salt
winds. Her hair had been loosened by the breeze, and had partially
escaped from her cap. She had a broad, white brow, and the dark blue
eyes that dwelt beneath it were full of soul--not a cloud in them,
only a soft, radiant light, shaded by eyelids deeply fringed, and
almost transparent--eyelids that were eloquent--full of secrets. Her
mouth was beautiful, her lips made for loving words--even little
children wanted to kiss her. And she lived the very life of the sea.
Like it she was subject to ebb and flow. Her love for it was perhaps
prenatal, it might even have driven her into her present incarnation.

When she came to the top of the cliff, she turned and gazed again at