t night thinking ye
had forgotten the gipsy lass, and would be assourying[1] wi'
red-cheeked, long-legged farmer lassies; and then ye would be coming to
my window and knocking, and I was glad, and listened and listened for
ye to be coming, although ye would not be knowing from me at all, and I
would be cold, cold to ye. . . ."

"My dear, it's news to me," cried he, in great wonder, "for never a
knock did I knock," and his eyes were laughing down at her.

"What!" she cries; "what! And who would be daring?"

"That's just what I cannot say, for the lads think ye're no' canny some
way, but maistly because the weemen hiv them under their thumbs, so I'm
thinkin' it must just have been Hamish."

It was on the tip of my tongue to cry out at that, but I saw by his
face that he could not help hurting gently whatever he liked, and he
had no thought for me at all, but waited for the girl to speak. The
great sombre eyes were looking up at him, and the moon glintin' on her
teeth as, her red lips parted, a brown hand fluttered about the man's
breast.

"You would be knocking. I am wantin' you to be knocking," she cried,
"for I am only a wicked gipsy lass. . . ."

I saw the man stretch her back with a straightening of his arm; I saw
the limber length of him, the lean flank and the curve of his chest, as
he half lay on the hay.

"I am wishing ye to be knocking," he mimicked in a half-fierce,
half-laughing voice, "for I am only a wicked gipsy lass"; and again,
"My dear, my dear, I'm not seeing much wickedness in a' this, and so I
must be creeping out and knockin' on a lass that will not be saying a
civil word to me, let alone a kiss in the gloamin'."

"Oh," she lilted, "oh, so you would be knocking to that unkind lass;"
and then in a far-away voice, "Will you be remembering that place where
I found you, when I would be running a wild thing like a young
foal? . . ."

"Bonnily, Belle, bonnily I mind ye--a long-legged, black-maned filly ye
were, and the big eyes o' ye, I began to love ye then. . . ."

"It would be terrible and you lying in the stall beside your horse at
that place, and them not going near you, and you only a boy. I will be
dreaming of the horse tramping your face yet."

"I'll teach ye something better to be dreaming than that, dear lass,
for I was only a boy then, and I was carrying a man's share o' French
brandy, more shame to me. I had nae sense at all, to be lying beside
the horse, and him a kittle brut