heard o' the blossom o' Tollishill before, an' a bonny flower ye are to
blossom in an auld man's bower; but I find ye modest as ye are bonny,
an' upon one condition will I grant yer request. Ye hae tauld me o' yer
hirsels being buried wi' the drift, an' that the snaw has covered the
May primrose on Leader braes; now it is Martinmas, an' if in June ye
bring me a snowball, not only shall ye be quit o' yer back rent, but ye
shall sit free in Tollishill till Martinmas next. But see that in June
ye bring me the snowball or the rent."

Margaret made her obeisance before the earl, and, thanking him,
withdrew. But she feared the coming of June; for to raise the rent even
then she well knew would be a thing impossible, and she thought also it
would be equally so to preserve a snow-ball beneath the melting sun of
June. Though young, she had too much prudence and honesty to keep a
secret from her husband; it was her maxim, and it was a good one, that
"there ought to be no secrets between a man and his wife, which the one
would conceal from the other." She therefore told him of her journey to
Thirlestane, and of all that had passed between her and the earl. Thomas
kissed her cheek, and called her his "bonny, artless Maggy;" but he had
no more hope of seeing a snowball in June than she had, and he said,
"the bargain was like the bargain o' a crafty Lauderdale."

Again the winter storms howled upon the Lammermoors, and the snow lay
deep upon the hills. Thomas and his herdsmen were busied in exertions to
preserve the remainder of his flocks; but, one day, when the westling
winds breathed with a thawing influence upon the snow-clad hills,
Margaret went forth to where there was a small, deep, and shadowed
ravine by the side of the Leader. In it the rivulet formed a pool, and
seemed to sleep, and there the grey trout loved to lie at ease; for a
high dark rock, over which the brushwood grew, overhung it, and the
rays of the sun fell not upon it. In the rock, and near the side of the
stream, was a deep cavity, and Margaret formed a snowball on the brae
top, and she rolled it slowly down into the shadowed glen, till it
attained the magnitude of an avalanche in miniature. She trode upon it,
and pressed it firmly together, till it obtained almost the hardness and
consistency of ice. She rolled it far into the cavity, and blocked up
the mouth of the aperture, so that neither light nor air might penetrate
the strange coffer in which she had d