y hempies.

Yet Maisie May and I greeted in the morning without observance, but
rather as brothers whom night has not parted. In the day we spoke but
seldom, save to ask what might be needful, as the day's darg and duty
drifted us together. But at even, standing silent, we watched the light
fade from the hills of the west and gather behind those of the east. And
I knew that without speech her heart was trying to comfort mine, because
I had not been judged worthy to ride for the Covenants with her father
and mine, and in especial because Sandy had openly flouted me before
her. This was very precious to me and kept up my manhood in mine own
eyes--a service far above rubies.

Thus they rode away and left the house of the Earlstoun as empty and
unfriendly as a barn in hay harvest. From that day forward we spent as
much time looking out over the moor from the house, as we did at our
appointed tasks. I have already told of the happenings of the night of
the twenty-second of June, and of my mother's strange behaviour--which,
indeed, was very far from her wont. For she seldom showed her heart to
my father, but rather faulted him and kept him at a stick's end,
especially when he came heedlessly into her clean-swept rooms with his
great moss-splashed riding-boots.

Of this time I have one thing more to tell. It was between the hours of
ten and eleven of the day following this strange night, that my mother,
having set all her house maidens to their tasks with her ordinary care
and discretion, took down the bake-board and hung the girdle above a
clear red fire of peat. Sometimes she did this herself, especially when
my father was from home. For she was a master baker, and my father often
vowed that he would have her made the deacon of the trade in Dumfries,
where he had a house. He was indeed mortally fond of her girdle-cakes,
and had wheaten flour ground fine at a distant mill for the purpose of
making them.

"Mary Hope," he used to say to her in his daffing way, "your scones are
better than your father's law. I wonder wha learned ye to bake aboot
Craigieha'--tho', I grant, mony's the puir man the faither o' ye has
keepit braw and het on a girdle, while he stirred him aboot wi' his
tongue."

This he said because my mother was a daughter of my Lord Hope of
Craigiehall, who had been President of the Court of Session in his time,
and a very notable greatman in the State.

So, as I say, this day she set to the baking early, and