like the old
ones--not a pretty ring like those in your box, yet you loved it more
than them all, and never stopped turning it about between your finger
and thumb.

"They had let me come up to stay with you, and the men who had
accompanied me were drinking in the clachan. As we sat I seemed to
hear their loud chorus, sounding up from the change-house.

"And you listened and said: 'I wish he would come. He is very long. It
is always long when he is away.' But you never said who it was that
was long away. And I shall not tell you, though I know. Perhaps it was
old Jock Lacklands, who used to be captain of the guard, and perhaps
grouting Peter, from the gate-house by the ford. But somehow I do not
think so. Ah, that is better! Now do not cry again. But listen, else I
will not tell you any more, but go off to sleep instead.

"Perhaps you do not want to hear the rest. Yet--it was such a pretty
dream, and of good omen.

"You _do_ want to hear? Well, then, be good!

"As we sat there we could hear the bumblebees scurrying home, and
every now and then one of the big boom-beetles would sail whirring
past us. We could hear the sheep crying below in the little green
meadows so lonesomely, and the snipe bleating an answer away up in the
sky above their heads, and you said, '_It is all so empty, wanting
him!_'

"Then the maids brought in the cows, and milked them standing at the
gable end, and we could smell the smell of their breath, sweet like
the scent of the flowers they had been eating all day long. Then,
after a while, they were driven out of the yard again, and went in a
string, one after the other, back to their pastures, doucely and
sedately, just like folk going to holy kirk on Sabbath days when it is
summer time in Galloway.

"Then you said, 'I am weary of waiting for him!' And I answered,
'Why,--he has not been gone more than a day. Sometimes I do not see
him for weeks, and _I_ never fret like that!'

"Then you answered (it has all come so clear into my mind), 'Some day
you will know, little one!' And you patted me on the head, and went to
the house end to look into the sunset. You looked many minutes under
your hand, and when you came back you said, as if you had never said
it before, 'He is long a-coming! I wonder what can be keeping him.'

"Then the maidens told us that the supper was ready to put on the
table, whereat you scolded them, telling them that it was too early,
and that they must keep it hot aga