to begin; but when once she was started it was
wonderful how she would carry on. And the things that had happened to
her, they were enough to take your breath away. There was a Barbary
rover that had been at Eyemouth, and he was coming back in five years in
a ship full of gold to make her his wife; and then there was a
wandering knight who had been there also, and he had given her a ring
which he said he would redeem when the time came. She showed me the
ring, which was very like the ones upon my bed curtain; but she said
that this one was virgin gold. I asked her what the knight would do if
he met the Barbary rover, and she told me that he would sweep his head
from his shoulders. What they could all see in her was more than I
could think. And then she told me that she had been followed on her way
to West Inch by a disguised prince. I asked her how she knew it was a
prince, and she said by his disguise. Another day she said that her
father was preparing a riddle, and that when it was ready it would be
put in the papers, and anyone who guessed it would have half his fortune
and his daughter. I said that I was good at riddles, and that she must
send it to me when it was ready. She said it would be in the _Berwick
Gazette_, and wanted to know what I would do with her when I won her. I
said I would sell her by public roup for what she would fetch; but she
would tell no more stories that evening, for she was very techy about
some things.

Jim Horscroft was away when Cousin Edie was with us, but he came back
the very week she went; and I mind how surprised I was that he should
ask any questions or take any interest in a mere lassie. He asked me if
she were pretty; and when I said I hadn't noticed, he laughed and called
me a mole, and said my eyes would be opened some day. But very soon he
came to be interested in something else, and I never gave Edie another
thought until one day she just took my life in her hands and twisted it
as I could twist this quill.

That was in 1813, after I had left school, when I was already eighteen
years of age, with a good forty hairs on my upper lip and every hope of
more. I had changed since I left school, and was not so keen on games
as I had been, but found myself instead lying about on the sunny side of
the braes, with my own lips parted and my eyes staring just the same as
Cousin Edie's used to do. It had satisfied me and filled my whole life
that I could run faster and j