Mother Binning pushed aside the pan of water and rubbed her hand
across her eyes. She took up her bundle of herbs. "Hoot, Glenfernie!
do ye think that's your soul's desire?"

Jock came limping around the house. Alexander could not now abide the
sight of this cripple who had spied, and had not shot some fashion of
arrow! He said good-by and loosed Black Alan from the ash-tree and
rode away. He would not tread the glen. His memory recoiled from it as
from some Eastern glen of serpents. He and Black Alan went over the
moors. And still it was early and he had his body strength back. He
rode to Littlefarm.

Robin Greenlaw was in the field, coat off in the gay, warm weather.
He came to Glenfernie's side, and the latter dismounted and sat with
him under a tree. Greenlaw brought a stone jug and tankard and poured
ale.

The laird drank. "That's good, Robin!" He put down the tankard. "Are
you still a poet?"

"If I was so once upon a time, I hope I am so still. At any rate, I
still make verses. And I see poems that I can never write."

"'Never'--how long a word that is!"

Greenlaw gazed at the workers in the field. "I met Mr. Strickland the
other day. He says that you will travel again."

"'Travel'--yes."

"The Jardine Arms gets it from the Edinburgh road that Ian Rullock
made a daring escape."

"He had always ingenuity and a certain sort of physical bravery."

"So has Lucifer, Milton says. But he's not Lucifer."

"No. He is weak and small."

"Well, look Glenfernie! I would not waste my soul chasing him!"

"How dead are you all! You, too, Greenlaw!"

Robin flushed. "No! I hate all that he did that is vile! If all his
escaping leads him to violent death, I shall not find it in me to
grieve! But all the same, I would not see you narrowed to the
wolf-hunter that will never make the wolf less than the wolf! I don't
know. I've always thought of you as one who would serve Wisdom and
show us her beauty--"

"To me this is now wisdom--this is now beauty. Poets may stay and
make poetry, but I go after Ian Rullock!"

"Oh, there's poetry in that, too," said Greenlaw, "because there's
nothing in which there isn't poetry! But you're choosing the kind
you're not best in, or so it seems to me."

Glenfernie rode from Littlefarm homeward. But the next day he and
Black Alan went to Black Hill. Here he saw Mr. Touris alone. That
gentleman sat with a shrunken and shriveled look.

"Eh, Glenfernie! I am glad to see that you are y