brated for his
strength and daring all athwart the country; and especially among
soldiers and common people, who, as is well known, are never done
talking about feats of strength.

This being completed, he brought me down from my loft and took me into
the house to bid the women folk farewell. They cried out with terror
when he told them what he had done as a noble jest, and how he had bound
the soldiers and put them in the well-bottom. But my mother said sadly,
"It is the beginning of the end! O Sandy, why could you not have been
content with scaring them?"

"It was our lives or theirs, mither," said Sandy. "Had they gotten room
to put steel into me, your first-born son wad hae been at the
well-bottom, wi' his heid doon an' his mooth open, and your second
dangling in a hempen collar in the Grass Market. The eggs are all in one
basket now, mither!"

"Haste ye away!" cried she, "lest the soldiers break lowse and come and
find ye here!"

"They hae somewhat better sense than to break lowse this nicht," said
Sandy, grimly smiling. "I'm gaun nane to tak' the heather withoot my
supper."

So he sat him down on the settle like a man at ease and well content.

"Jean, fetch the plates," he said to his wife; "it's graund to be hungry
an' ken o' meat!"

Maisie Lennox stood quietly by; but I could see that she liked not the
turn of affairs, nor the reckless way that Sandy had of driving all
things before him.

"Haste ye, young lass," he said to her, and at the word she went quietly
to help Jean Hamilton.

"Whither gang ye?" our mother said to us, as we made us ready to flee.
"Mind and be canny wi' that laddie, Sandy, for he has been ill and needs
care and tendance to this day."

And it pleased me to see that Maisie Lennox looked pale and anxious when
she came near me. But no word spoke she.

"Na, mither. I'll no tell ye whaur we gang, for ye micht be put to the
question, and now ye can say ye dinna ken wi' a guid conscience."

I got a word with Maisie at the stair foot as she went up to bring some
plaid or kerchief down, which our mother insisted I should take with me.

"Maisie," I said, "ye'll no forget me, will ye?"

But she would give me no great present satisfaction.

"There are so many gay things in my life to gar me forget a friend!" was
all she said; but she looked down and pulled at her apron.

"Nay, but tell me, my lassie, will ye think every day o' the lad ye
nursed in the well-house chamber?"

"Your