and for Maisie or my mother to come to me.

And again I remember that she said (for she was a good woman, but of the
troublesome kind that ofttimes do more ill than good--at least when one
is tired and cannot escape them), "William, I fear you never have had
the grip o' the fundamentals that Sandy hath. Take care that you suffer
not with the saints, and yet come to your end as a man of wrath!"

Now this I thought to be an ill-timed saying, considering that I had
ridden at Ayrsmoss while Sandy was braw and snug in the Lowlands of
Holland, disputing in Master Brackel's chamber at Leeuwarden with Rob
Hamilton, her brother, concerning declarations and protests.

"As for me," she went on, liking methinks the sound of her own voice,
"that is, for my corps, I care not gin it were cast up to the heaven,
and keppit upon iron graips, so that my soul had peace!"

"I think that I would even be content to lie at the bottom of this well
if I might have peace!" said I, for the spirit within me was jangled and
easily set on edge with her corncrake crying.

"William, William," she said, "I fear greatly you are yet in the bond of
iniquity! I do but waste my time with you!"

Saying which, she let herself down on the well-edge, lifted her pails
and was gone.

In a little came Maisie Lennox with other two buckets. The sentinel, if
he thought at all, must have set us down for wondrous clean folk about
Earlstoun during these days; but all passed off easily and no notice
taken.

Then when Maisie came, it was a joy to greet her, for she was as a
friend--yes, as David to Jonathan--exceeding pleasant to me. As I have
often said, I am not a man to take the eyes of women, and never looked
to be loved by woman other than my mother. But for all that, I liked to
think about love, and to picture what manner of man he should be to whom
Maisie Lennox would let all her heart go out.

Every night she came in briskly, laughing at having to pull herself up
into the well-chamber, and ever with some new story of cheer to tell me.

"Ken ye what little Jock said this day?" she asked ere her head was well
above the trap-door.

I told her that I knew not, but was eager to hear, for that I ever
counted Jock the best bairn in all the coupe.

"It was at dinner," she said, taking a dish from under her apron, "and I
minded that when you were with us at the Duchrae, you kept a continual
crying for burn-trout. These being served for a first course, I watched