thered horses answered, and
a gaunt figure, white-haired and martial, stalked through the door, and
I knew John, Laird of Scaurdale, waited, he and his man.

I heard a laughing voice on the night wind.

"It's a great thing to have a lass on the saddle wi' ye, Belle, ye can
kiss her at every stride," and Belle's answer must have been kissed
into silence, for I never heard it.

There came Dan on our best horse, an upstanding raking bay, and in
front of him was Belle with the wean in the tartan shawl. The servant
lifted Belle from the saddle, and Dan, looking awkward in the glow from
the window, held the tartan bundle, then handed it to the gipsy, and
all of them went in, and I was left alone on my heather tussock. Maybe
ten minutes passed, and the servant came out and led the horses to the
back, where there was a sheepfold and a well, and I heard him drawing
water, and in a little time he entered the house, an empty sack in his
hand, and I knew the horses were at their feed, and crawled up to the
lighted window and peered in. The Laird was striding up and down the
narrow room, his fierce old face twitching, the body-servant stood by
the door like a wooden man, and Dan, as though the ploy pleased him,
smiled at the gipsy, who held the wean.

The Laird's words came clearly--

"She would have the false knave, she was afraid o' my stern lad and
would have the carpet-knight--the poor wee lass; but she minded her
cousin--she minded my boy at the end o' a' when she hated the
Englishman. I ken fine how her pride suffered before she sent me word,
but the word cam' at the hinder end. Belle," said he, stopping his
march, "ye have done finely wi' your lad an' a'."

"It's not me he'll be lookin' at, sir," wi' a toss of her head.

"The bigger fool him; it was a' grist that cam' to my mill when I was
mowing down the twenties."

"Ay, Laird," says Dan wi' a bold look, "I've heard it said ye kept the
ministers in texts for many a day, and the sins o' the great made the
poor folks' teeth water from wan Sunday till the next."

"I had thought them more concerned wi' brewing their whisky and
poaching than in the inside o' a kirk," growled the Laird, for he was
choleric when reminded of his past by any but his own conscience, which
had turned in on itself, and grown morbid as a result.

"It's a grand place the kirk, sir; I've seen and heard enough there to
keep me cheery a' week. There was the time when we walked there in
drov