s in
all the neighbourhood, it is at the Kenmuir that they will be found."

And she watched us out of sight with her hand to her brows, before
turning inward to the maids--a bonny woman in these years, fair as a
blowing rose, was my mother. Or at least, so the picture rises before me
as I write.

Thus my father, William Gordon of Earlstoun, rode away through these
sweet holms and winding paths south toward the Duchrae. Nowhere is the
world to my thinking so gracious as between the green woodlands of
Earlstoun and the grey Duchrae Craigs. For the pools of the water of Ken
slept, now black, now silver, beneath us. They were deep set about with
the feathers of the birches, and had the green firs standing bravely
like men-at-arms on every rocky knoll. Then the strath opened out and we
saw Ken flow silver-clear between the greenest and floweriest banks in
the world. The Black Craig of Dee gloomed on our right side as we rode,
sulky with last year's heather. And the great Kells range sank behind
us, ridge behind ridge of hills whose very names make a storm of
music--Millyea, Milldown, Millfire, Corscrine, and the haunted
fastnesses of the Meaull of Garryhorn in the head end of Carsphairn. Not
that my father saw any of this, for he minded only his riding and his
prayers; but even then I was ever taken up with what I had better have
let alone. However, I may be held excused if the memory rises unbidden
now, before the dimmer eye of one that takes a cast back into his youth,
telling the tale as best he may, choosing here and there like a dorty
child, only that which liketh him best.

In a little we clattered through the well-thatched roofs of New Galloway
and set Gay Garland's head to the southward along the water-side, where
the levels of the Loch are wont to open out upon you blue and broad and
bonny. All that go that way know the place. Gay Garland was the name of
my father's black horse that many a time and oft had carried him in
safety, and was loved like another child by my mother and all of us. I
have heard it said that in the Praying Society of which he was a grave
and consistent member, my father was once called in question because he
gave so light a name to his beast.

"Ye have wives of your own," was all the answer he made them, "I suppose
they have no freits and fancies, but such as you are ready to be
answerable for this day."

When my mother heard of this she said, "Ay, William, thy excuse was but
old and lam