'Ay, do I; his eyes shine and his hair curls.'
'Ye're mistaken there, his hair doesna curl, Jeanie Trim--ye've no' obsairved rightly; his hair is brown and straight; it's his beard and whiskers that curl. Eh! but they're bonny! There's a colour and shine in the curl that minds me of the lights I can see in the old copper kettle when my mither has it scoured and hung up on the nail; but his hair is plain brown.'
'He's a graun' figure of a man!' cried the blithe maid, ever sympathetic.
'Tuts! What are ye saying, Jeanie! He's no' a great size at all; the shortest of my brithers is bigger than him! Ye might even ca' him a wee man; it's the spirit that he has wi' it that I like.'
Thus, by degrees, touch upon touch, the portrait of Kinnaird was painted, and whatever misconceptions they might form of him were corrected one by one. There was little incident depicted, yet the figure of Kinnaird was never drawn passive, but always in action.
'Did my father no' offer to send him home in the spring-cart? It's sair wet for him to be walking in the wind and the rain the day.' Or: 'He had a fine bloom on his cheeks, I'll warrant, when he came in through this morning's bluster of wind.' Or again: 'He'll be riding to the hunt with my father to-day; have they put their pink coats on, Jeanie Trim?'
The relations between Kinnaird and the father and mother appeared to be indefinite rather than unfriendly. There were times, it is true, when he came round by the dairy and gave private messages to Jeanie Trim, but at other times he figured as one of the ordinary guests of a large and hospitable household. No special honour seemed to be paid him; there was always the apprehension in the love-sick girl's heart that such timely attentions as the offer of proper refreshment or of the use of the spring-cart might be lacking. The parents were never in the daughter's confidence. She always feared their interference. There was no beginning to the story, no crisis, no culmination.
'Now tell me when ye first saw Mr. Kinnaird?' asked the maid.
But to this there was no answer. It had not been love at first sight, its small beginnings had left no impression; nor was there ever any mention of a change in the relation, or of a parting, only that suggestion of a long and weary waiting, given in the beginning of this phase of memory, when she refused to touch her food, and said she was 'sair longing' to see him again.