ier in a
moment; and then ye would hear the canny coaxing to get the horses into
the furrow again, and the lost years were all forgotten.

My uncle took the news of the wedding finely.

"I'll not be denying Belle is a clever woman," says he, "a managing
two-handed lass--imphm. There might have been more of a splore," says
he, "and no harm done--a wheen hens and a keg would not have been out
of place."

But my aunt was not in his way of thinking.

"There would surely be no occasion," said she (when Margaret was not
there), "the woman was well enough done by already."

"You would not have him live there in open scandal?" said I.

"An old song now," says she; "we always kind of put a face on things,
but if Dan would be making a decent woman of Belle, there is nothing to
be said."

I rode with Hugh and Margaret to be seeing Dan for the first time, and
he had his soldier garb on him when we sat down to meat; and Margaret
kept close to him at the table, and their talk was of the Low Countries
and a soldier's life, and yet for all that he would be telling her how
the lassies would be dressing themselves, or the manner of the braiding
of their hair, and for Hugh and me he would be giving a great insight
into the working of soils and manures, and the different kinds of
cattle beasts and horse; and very little talk of war we got from him,
unless, maybe, it would be a story he would be telling that would give
us an inkling of the business. He would aye be harping on the waste of
land, and indeed if there was nothing else to be doing, he would be
having good red earth carted from useless places and scattered on his
own fields, which I think the old monks would be doing round their
monasteries long ago, a practice maybe learned from Rome in the early
days, but I have no sure knowledge of it.

It was that day that Helen came to the moor house, and among us, with
word from John of Scaurdale for Dan to be coming to see him, and I saw
that the very sight of her made a difference; for the face of Hugh
flushed as he stood to greet her, and Margaret took to the talking in a
vivacious manner that was not like her.

And Dan had many words for his visitor. "For," says he, in a grand
fashion, "were it not for you, madam, I might be finding myself lying
in harness, with the half o' Europe between me and this bonny place;"
and again, after a quizzing look, "I will not be the one to think you
will be overly religious either"; but I