, mounting higher and higher as if
they would have beaten their wings against the sun: the bees made the
heather and the thyme musical as they flew from flower to flower, and
the tinkling of the running rills was like the symphony to a changeful
theme. It was in real truth a transformation, and the new-comer into the
fitful, seductive, disappointing North felt all its beauty, all its
meaning, and gave himself up to his delight as if such a day as
yesterday had never been.

After he had done what he wished to do in the village, he went up the
fell-side road to Windy Brow, and, obeying his instructions, asked when
he got there "if Miss Leonora Darley was at home."

"Na, she bain't," said Jenny, eying poor innocent Alick as a colley
might eye a wolf sniffing about the fold. "T' auld mistress is."

"Say Mr. Corfield, please," said Alick; and Jenny, telling him to "gang
intilt parlor," scuffled off to Keziah, pottering over some pickled red
cabbage, which made the house smell like a vinegar-cask.

"I've heard tell of you," said Miss Gryce as she came in wiping her
hands on a serviceable and by no means luxurious cloth: "Emmanuel wrote
me a letter about you. You're kindly welcome to Monk Grange, but you're
only a haverel to look at. Take a seat, and tell me--how's Emmanuel, my
brother?"

"He was well when I saw him the day before yesterday: at least he said
nothing to the contrary," answered Alick with his conscientious
literalness.

"I like that," said Keziah, also eying him, but as a colley might have
eyed a strange sheep, not a wolf. "A random rory would have made no
difference between now and two days back, and believing and being. You
cannot be over-particular in the truth, I take it."

Alick blushed, shifted his place and looked uneasy. And again, as so
often before, it came across him: had he done right, judged by the
highest law, to conceal the truth as he knew it about Leam?

"Hoot, man! there's no call for you to sit on pins and needles in that
fashion," said Keziah. "It's a daft body that cannot hear a word of
praise without turning as red as a turkey-cock and fidging like a
parched pea on a drum-head. I've not turned much of you over yet, and
maybe I'll come to what I'll have no mind to praise; so keep your fidges
till you are touched up with the other end of the stick. And so you are
to be our new priest, are you?"

"I am going to offer myself for a time," said Alick.

"For a time? That's a thing as h