chance to pay my devoirs to the Provost of this burgh and his daughter?"

I put the key behind my back to give colour a little to my words; but
my lady saw it and jumped at my real errand on the stair, with that
quickness ever accompanying eyes of the kind I have mentioned.

"Ceremony here, devoir there!" said she, smiling, "there was surely no
need for a key to our door, Elrigmore---"

"Colin, Mistress Brown, plain Colin, if you please."

"Colin, if you will, though it seems daftlike to be so free with a
soldier of twelve years' fortune. You were for the widow's garret Does
some one wait on you below?"

"John Splendid."

"My mother's in-bye. She will be pleased to see you back again if you
and your friend call. After you've paid the lawing," she added, smiling
like a rogue.

"That will we," said I; but I hung on the stair-head, and she leaned on
the inner sill of the stair window.

We got into a discourse upon old days, that brought a glow to my heart
the brandy I forgot had never brought to my head. We talked of school,
and the gay days in wood and field, of our childish wanderings on the
shore, making sand-keps and stone houses, herding the crabs of God--so
little that bairns dare not be killing them, of venturings to sea many
ells out in the fishermen's coracles, of journeys into the brave deep
woods that lie far and wide round Inneraora, seeking the branch for the
Beltane fire; of nutting in the hazels of the glens, and feasts upon
the berry on the brae. Later, the harvest-home and the dance in green or
barn when I was at almost my man's height, with the pluck to put a bare
lip to its apprenticeship on a woman's cheek; the songs at _ceilidh_
fires, the telling of _sgeulachdan_ and fairy tales up on the mountain
sheiling----

"Let me see," said I; "when I went abroad, were not you and one of the
Glenaora Campbells chief?"

I said it as if the recollection had but sprung to me, while the truth
is I had thought on it often in camp and field, with a regret that the
girl should throw herself off on so poor a partner.

She laughed merrily with her whole soul in the business, and her face
without art or pretence--a fashion most wholesome to behold.

"He married some one nearer him in years long syne," said she. "You
forget I was but a bairn when we romped in the hay-dash." And we
buckled to the crack again, I more keen on it than ever. She was a most
marvellous fine girl, and I thought her (well I mind me n