cried, 'take the image o' your father and go hence,'
and so I'm clean lost," said Dan, wi' a comical sigh.

I had just time to lay myself flat in the heather before the servant
came out and walked to the top o' the rise. I could see the loom o'
him against the skyline, for the moon was now very low, and then he
whistled, and Dan came leading the horses, and the gipsy carrying the
wean. I crawled to the rise but farther away, and prayed that the dogs
had gone home and would not get wind o' me. For a while they stood,
Dan and the body-servant at the horses' heads, and the Laird a little
apart, and then I heard Dan--

"Yon's him at last," says he, and I saw a light glimmer for a little
away out at sea, and the servant ran back to the hut and brought the
lighted lantern, and three times he covered it with his cloak, and
three times he swung it bare, and I saw the long black shadow of the
horses' legs start away into the darkness, and then away out to sea a
flare glimmered three times and all was dark.

"Easy going," says Dan; "McGilp has nae wind to come close in, and it's
a long pull to the cove."

The Laird swung himself to the saddle, and as the servant mounted,
Belle made to give him the tartan bundle, but John, Laird o' Scaurdale,
trusted none but himself on a night ride over the road to Scaurdale.

"Give me the wean," says he, and loosened his cloak. Belle held the
wee bundle to him, and he put it in the crook of his arm.

"Ye will be a great one and whip the tinkers from your door, my dear,"
whispered Belle to the sleeping infant, "but ye've lain in the heather,
and listened tae the noises o' the hill nights, and the burns, and the
clean growing things, and maybe ye'll mind them dimly in your heart and
be kind when ye come to your kingdom."

At that Scaurdale leant over his saddle.

"Ye'll never be in want if ye knock at my door, so long as the mortar
holds the stanes thegither."

"Good night to you, Sir Churchman; I'm in nae swither whether I would
change places wi' ye the night, but weemen are daft craturs, poor
things, and I've had my day."

Then there came the swish, swish o' galloping hoofs in dry bracken, for
Scaurdale was a bog-trooper and born wi' spurs on, and I heard the
whimper o' the wean, and a gruff voice petting. Belle was greetin'
softly, and as Dan made to lift her in the saddle--

"I will not be sitting that way again," she cried; and I know, because
her heart was sore, she must b