d this
warld has brought gray into _my_ hair! Father's gane to kirk session,
and Gilian's awa'."

He sat down beside her. Her hands went on paring apples, while her
eyes and tongue were busy elsewhere.

"They say you're gaeing to travel."

"Yes. I'm starting very soon."

"It's na _said oot_--but a kind of whisper's been gaeing around." She
hesitated, then, "Are you gaeing after him, Glenfernie?"

"Yes."

Jenny put down her knife and apple. She drew a long breath, so that
her bosom heaved under her striped gown. A bright color came into her
cheeks. She laughed. "Aweel, I wadna spare him if I were you!"

He sat with her longer than he had done with Mrs. Alison. He felt
nearer to her. He could be friends with her, while he moved from the
other as from a bloodless wraith. Here breathed freely all the strong
vindications! He sat, sincere and strong, and sincere and strong was
the countrywoman beside him.

"Oh aye!" said Jenny. "He's a villain, and I wad gie him all that he
gave of villainy!"

"That is right," said Alexander, "to look at it simply!" He felt that
those were his friends who felt in this as did he.

On the moor, riding homeward, he saw before him Jarvis Barrow.
Dismounting, he met the old man beside a cairn, placed there so long
ago that there was only an elfin story for the deeds it commemorated.

"Gude day, Glenfernie! So that Hieland traitor did not slay ye?"

"No."

Jarvis Barrow, white-headed, strong-featured, far yet, it seemed, from
incapacitating old age, took his seat upon a great stone loosened from
the mass. He leaned upon his staff; his collie lay at his feet. "Many
wad say a lang time, with the healing in it of lang time, since a
fause lover sang in the ear of my granddaughter, in the glen there!"

"Aye, many would say it."

"I say 'a fause lover.' But the ane to whom she truly listened is an
aulder serpent than he ... wae to her!"

"No, no!"

"But I say 'aye!' I am na weak! She that worked evil and looseness,
harlotry, strife, and shame, shall she na have her hire? As, Sunday by
Sunday, I wad ha' set her in kirk, before the congregation, for the
stern rebuking of her sin, so, mak no doubt, the Lord pursues her now!
Aye, He shakes His wrath before her eyes! Wherever she turns she sees
'Fornicatress' writ in flames!"

"No!"

"But aye!"

"Where she was mistaken--where, maybe, she was wilfully blind--she
must learn. Not the learning better, but the old mistake until it is
l