twa gallons that
she'd carried out full i' the mornin', under her lang, patched cloak, or
hid awa' in the loose kindlin' wood at the bottom o' the ricketin' cart.
It was suspected that Rory Smith, the keeper, was in league wi' auld
Birnie in this sma' still, and that both he an' the o'erseer o' the
quarrymen--a Welsh body o' the name o' Preece--knew weel enough what
went wi' the whisky. The two men were as unlike as a raven and an owl;
Smith bein' suspectit of half gipsy blood--though few men daur say so to
his face, for he'd a heavy hand an' a look in his face that boded
mischief--while Preece was a slow, heavy-eyed, quiet body, short an'
square-built, and wi' a still tongue an' decent, careful ways, that yet
kept his rough men in order, and got him speech of the tradefolk at the
village where he lodged such times as he wasna' up at the quarry.

These were the twa that went each in his own fashion to visit Donald
Miller, and to cast an eye on Maggie; but neither o' them could boast of
much encouragement, least of all the keeper, who saw that the lassie
shrank from him, and would hae no word to say when he tried to win her
wi' owches, an' fairin's, an' even costlier gifs frae Edinbro' itsel',
which she refused, sayin' he maun keep them till he foun' a lassie o'
his ain. Preece thought it mare prudent to wait till Smith was out o'
the way; an' both of them, as I foun' out after long years, were jealous
o' me for seemin' to find mair favour wi' Maggie, an' carryin' her the
little presents that I told ye of, though never a word o' love-making
passed my lips; and perhaps baith o' us thought more o' my cousin Rab
than o' each other, though had it nae been for Rab, mind ye, I'll no say
that there'd been so clear a stage for the other twa if Maggie had been
as winsome when I went to pay my respects to her parents, and laughed
wi' her at the door.

Weel, it was just on one o' the occasions when I was on my way to the
house, one evening in the airly summer, carrying with me a gaudy
necklace o' shining beads that I'd bought of a packman at Farmer Nicol's
shearin', whaur I'd been the day before. I'd shown the toy to my
step-mother, and uncle, and to Rab too, and had asked him to take it to
Maggie himsel'; but he put me off, sayin' that he'd rather not be amang
them that was gi'en and gi'en sma' things, for he'd gied her the best o'
himsel' a'reedy. It was, maybe, to ponder over these words that I took
the way up the steep bye