She remained dumb, and he kissed her again.

"Impidence!" she cried.

"Ay," said he, closing her mouth.

"I wonder at ye, Davie!" she said, surrendering.

* * * * *

After that Maggie must needs give in; and it was well understood, though
nothing definite had been said, that the boy and girl were courting. And
in the Dale the unanimous opinion was that the young couple would make
"a gradely pair, surely."

M'Adam was the last person to hear the news, long after it had been
common knowledge in the village. It was in the Sylvester Arms he first
heard it, and straightway fell into one of those foaming frenzies
characteristic of him.

"The dochter o' Moore o' Kenmuir, d'ye say? sic a dochter o' sic a man!
The dochter o' th' one man in the warld that's harmed me aboon the rest!
I'd no ha' believed it gin ye'd no tell't me. Oh, David, David! I'd no
ha' thocht it even o' you, ill son as ye've aye bin to me. I think he
might ha' waited till his auld dad was gone, and he'd no had to wait
lang the noo." Then the little man sat down and burst into tears.
Gradually, however, he resigned himself, and the more readily when he
realized that David by his act had exposed a fresh wound into which he
might plunge his barbed shafts. And he availed himself to the full
of his new opportunities. Often and often David was sore pressed to
restrain himself.

"Is't true what they're sayin' that Maggie Moore's nae better than she
should be?" the little man asked one evening with anxious interest.

"They're not sayin' so, and if they were 'twad be a lie," the boy
answered angrily.

M'Adam leant back in his chair and nodded his head.

"Ay, they tell't me that gin ony man knew 'twad be David M'Adam."

David strode across the room.

"No, no mair o' that," he shouted. "Y'ought to be 'shamed, an owd mon
like you, to speak so o' a lass." The little man edged close up to his
son, and looked up into the fair flushed face towering above him.

"David," he said in smooth soft tones, "I'm 'stonished ye dinna strike
yen auld dad." He stood with his hands clasped behind his back as if
daring the young giant to raise a finger against him. "Ye maist might
noo," he continued suavely. "Ye maun be sax inches taller, and a good
four stane heavier. Hooiver, aiblins ye're wise to wait. Anither year
twa I'll be an auld man, as ye say, and feebler, and Wullie here'll be
gettin' on, while you'll be in the prime o' yer stren