so hard to understand, or, at least, she was so for a
dull-witted country lad like me. For if I would talk to her of my real
prospects, and how by taking in the whole of Corriemuir we might earn a
hundred good pounds over the extra rent, and maybe be able to build out
the parlour at West Inch, so as to make it fine for her when we married,
she would pout her lips and droop her eyes, as though she scarce had
patience to listen to me. But if I would let her build up dreams about
what I might become, how I might find a paper which proved me to be the
true heir of the laird, or how, without joining the army, which she
would by no means hear of, I showed myself to be a great warrior until
my name was in all folks' mouths, then she would be as blithe as the
May. I would keep up the play as well as I could, but soon some
luckless word would show that I was only plain Jock Calder of West Inch,
and out would come her lip again in scorn of me. So we moved on, she in
the air and I on the ground; and if the rift had not come in one way, it
must in another.

It was after Christmas, but the winter had been mild, with just frost
enough to make it safe walking over the peat bogs. One fresh morning
Edie had been out early, and she came back to breakfast with a fleck of
colour on her cheeks.

"Has your friend the doctor's son come home, Jack?" says she.

"I heard that it was expected."

"Ah! then it must have been him that I met on the muir."

"What! you met Jim Horscroft?"

"I am sure it must be he. A splendid-looking man--a hero, with curly
black hair, a short, straight nose, and grey eyes. He had shoulders
like a statue, and as to height, why, I suppose that your head, Jack,
would come up to his scarf-pin."

"Up to his ear, Edie!" said I indignantly. "That is, if it was Jim.
But tell me. Had he a brown wooden pipe stuck in the corner of his
mouth?"

"Yes, he was smoking. He was dressed in grey, and he has a grand deep
strong voice."

"Ho, ho! you spoke to him!" said I.

She coloured a little, as if she had said more than she meant.

"I was going where the ground was a little soft, and he warned me of
it," she said.

"Ah! it must have been dear old Jim," said I. "He should have been a
doctor years back, if his brains had been as strong as his arm.
Why, heart alive, here is the very man himself!"

I had seen him through the kitchen window, and now I rushed out with my
half-eaten bannock in my hand to greet