ll truth and say that I have my inner
differences. But they do not lean toward Pope or prelate.... I am
Christian, where Christ is taken very universally--the higher Self,
the mounting Wisdom of us all.... Some high things you and I may view
differently, but I believe that there are high things."

"And seek them?"

"And seek them."

"You always had the air to me," vouchsafed White Farm, "of one wha
hunted gowd elsewhaur than in the earthly mine." He looked at the red
west, and drew his plaid about him, and took firmer clutch upon his
staff. "But the lassie does not love you?"

"My trust is that she may come to do so."

The elder got to his feet. Alexander rose also.

"It's coming night! Ye will be gaeing on over the muir to the House?"

"Yes. Then, sir, I may come to White Farm, or meet her when I may, and
have my chance?"

"Aye. If so be I hear nae great thing against ye. If so be ye're
reasonable. If so be that in no way do ye try to hurt the lassie."

"I'll be reasonable," said the laird of Glenfernie. "And I'd not hurt
Elspeth if I could!" His face shone, his voice was a deep and happy
music. He was so bound, so at the feet of Elspeth, that he could not
but believe in joy and fortune. The sun had dipped; the land lay
dusk, but the sky was a rose. There was a skimming of swallows
overhead, a singing of the wind in the ling. He walked with White Farm
to the foot of the moor, then said good night and turned toward his
own house.

CHAPTER XII

Two days later Alexander rode to Black Hill. There had been in the
night a storm with thunder and lightning, wind and rain. Huge, ragged
banks of clouds yet hung sullen in the air, though with lakes of blue
between and shafts of sun. The road was wet and shone. Now Black Alan
must pick his way, and now there held long stretches of easy going.
The old laird's quarrel with Mr. Archibald Touris was not the young
laird's. The old laird's liking for Mrs. Alison was strongly the young
laird's. Glenfernie, in the months since his father's death, had
ridden often enough to Black Hill. Now as he journeyed, together with
the summer and melody of his thoughts Elspeth-toward, he was holding
with himself a cogitation upon the subject of Ian and Ian's last
letter. He rode easily a powerful steed, needing to be strong for so
strongly built a horseman. His riding-dress was blue; he wore his own
hair, unpowdered and gathered in a ribbon beneath a three-cornered
hat. There wa