I heard a laughing voice on the night wind.
"It's a great thing to have a lass on the saddle wi' ye, Belle, ye can kiss her at every stride," and Belle's answer must have been kissed into silence, for I never heard it.
There came Dan on our best horse, an upstanding raking bay, and in front of him was Belle with the wean in the tartan shawl. The servant lifted Belle from the saddle, and Dan, looking awkward in the glow from the window, held the tartan bundle, then handed it to the gipsy, and all of them went in, and I was left alone on my heather tussock. Maybe ten minutes passed, and the servant came out and led the horses to the back, where there was a sheepfold and a well, and I heard him drawing water, and in a little time he entered the house, an empty sack in his hand, and I knew the horses were at their feed, and crawled up to the lighted window and peered in. The Laird was striding up and down the narrow room, his fierce old face twitching, the body-servant stood by the door like a wooden man, and Dan, as though the ploy pleased him, smiled at the gipsy, who held the wean.
"She would have the false knave, she was afraid o' my stern lad and would have the carpet-knight--the poor wee lass; but she minded her cousin--she minded my boy at the end o' a' when she hated the Englishman. I ken fine how her pride suffered before she sent me word, but the word cam' at the hinder end. Belle," said he, stopping his march, "ye have done finely wi' your lad an' a'."
"It's not me he'll be lookin' at, sir," wi' a toss of her head.
"The bigger fool him; it was a' grist that cam' to my mill when I was mowing down the twenties."
"Ay, Laird," says Dan wi' a bold look, "I've heard it said ye kept the ministers in texts for many a day, and the sins o' the great made the poor folks' teeth water from wan Sunday till the next."
"I had thought them more concerned wi' brewing their whisky and poaching than in the inside o' a kirk," growled the Laird, for he was choleric when reminded of his past by any but his own conscience, which had turned in on itself, and grown morbid as a result.
"It's a grand place the kirk, sir; I've seen and heard enough there to keep me cheery a' week. There was the time when we walked there in droves, and would be takin' a look at the beasts in the parks as we went, and often the beasts would be turned on the roadside, for a man might buy on Monday what he only saw on Sunday. Once, going by Hector's, the lassies wi' their shoon in their hands, were walkin' easier barefit and savin' shoe leather, and a young Embro' leddy, wi' a hooped skirt wi' the braidin' like theek rope on a stack, and high-heeled shoon, looked disdainfu' at them. Well, well, the pigs were on the roadside at Hector's, and they kent the barefit lassies; but the grand lady they didna ken at all, and one caught her gown by the braidin' and scattered away reivin' and tearin', and set the lady spinning like a peerie, and the lassies laughed and cried 'suckie, suckie,' and put on their boots to go into the kirk, well put on, and in a rale godly frame o' mind."