ent the moon
discreetly withdrew herself behind a cloud, mindful, it may be, of her
own youth and of Endymion's greeting on the Latmian steep. So the
chronicler, willing though he be, is yet unable to say how these two
met. He only knows that when the pale light flooded back upon the
hillside and cast its reflection into the dim depths of the hope, they
were evidently well agreed. "It is true what I told you," he is saying
to her, "that my name is Hugh Kennedy, but I did not tell you that I am
Kennedy of Bargany, and yours till death!"

"Then," said the girl, "it is fitter that I should return to the 'Back
of Beyont' till such time as you and your men come back to burn the
thatch about our ears."

The young man smiled and said--"No, Flora, you and I have another road
to travel this night. Over there by the halse o' the pass, there stand
tethered two good horses that will take us before the morning to the
Manse of Balmaclellan, where my cousin, the minister, is waiting, and
his mother is expecting you. Come with me, and you shall be Lady of
Bargany before morning." He stooped again to take her hand.

"My certes, but ye made braw and sure of me with your horses," she said.
"I have a great mind not to stir a foot."

But the young man laughed, being still well pleased, and giving no heed
to her protestations.

* * * * *

So there was a wedding in the early morning at the Manse of the Kells,
and a young bride was brought home to Bargany. As for old Roy Campbell,
he was made the deputy-keeper of the Forest of Buchan, which was an old
Cassilis distinction--and a post that exactly suited his Highland blood.
Time and again, however, had his son to intercede with him not to be too
severe with those smugglers and gangrel bodies who had come to look upon
the fastnesses of the Forest as their own.

"Have ye no fellow-feeling, Roy, for old sake's sake?" Kennedy would
ask.

"Feeling? havers!" growled Roy impolitely, for Roy was spoiled. "I'm a
chief's man noo, and I'll harbour nae gangrel loons on the lands o'
Kennedy."

So the old cateran would depart humming the Galloway rhyme--

"Frae Wigtown to the Toon o' Ayr,
Portpatrick to the Cruives o' Cree;
Nae man need hope to bide safe there,
Unless he court wi' Kennedy."

"Body o' MacCallum More," chuckled the deputy-keeper of the Forest of
Buchan, "but it was Kennedy that cam' coortin' to the 'Back o' Beyont'
that time, whatever,