now Sandy was the laird, and the
head of the house. She even offered to give up the keys to Jean
Hamilton, my brother's wife. But for all her peevishness Jean Hamilton
knew her place, and put aside her hand kindly.

"No, mother," she said. "These be yours so long as it pleases God to
keep you in the House of Earlstoun."

For which I shall ever owe Jean Hamilton a good word and kindly thought.

The names of the two men that went with me were Hugh Kerr and John
Meiklewood. They were both decent men with families of their own, and
had been excused from following my father and brother on that account.

Now as we went up the hill a sound followed us that made us turn and
listen. It was a sweet and charming noise of singing. There, at the door
of Earlstoun were my mother and her maidens, gathered to bid us farewell
upon our sad journey. It made a solemn melody on the caller morning air,
for it was the sound of the burying psalm, and they sang it sweetly. So
up the Deuch Water we rode, the little birds making a choir about us,
and young tailless thrushes of the year's nesting pulling at reluctant
worms on the short dewy knowes. All this I saw and more. For the Lord
that made me weak of arm, at least, did not stint me as to glegness of
eye.

When we came to where the burn wimples down from Garryhorn, we found a
picket of the King's dragoons drawn across the road, who challenged us
and made us to stand. Their commander was one Cornet Inglis, a rough and
roystering blade. They were in hold at Garryhorn, a hill farm-town
belonging to Grier of Lag, whence they could command all the headend of
the Kells.

"Where away so briskly?" the Cornet cried, as we came riding up the
road. "Where away, Whigs, without the leave of the King and Peter
Inglis?"

I told him civilly that I rode to Carsphairn to do my needs.

"And what need may you have in Carsphairn, that you cannot fit in Saint
John's Clachan of Dalry as well, and a deal nearer to your hand?"

I told him that I went to bury my father.

"Ay," he said, cocking his head quickly aslant like a questing cat that
listens at a mouse-hole; "and of what quick complaint do fathers die
under every green tree on the road to Bothwell? Who might the father of
you be, if ye happen to be so wise as to ken?"

"My father's name was Gordon," I said, with much quietness of
manner--for, circumstanced as I was, I could none other.

Cornet Inglis laughed a loud vacant laugh when I told him my