est of the
neighbouring county folk were glad of a rare invitation there. Cairn
Ferris was the ancient home of an ancient family, the house of a
"bonnet" laird, but then the feather in the side of the Ferris bonnet
had always been worn very proudly and gallantly indeed.

Abbey Burnfoot was the picturesque modern fancy of a cultured man of the
world, who had come thither to live his life between his books, his
paintings, his music, and the eternally fresh wash of the sea in the
little white bay of pebble and shell underneath his windows.

But half a mile or a little more over the heuchs stood the farm of
Glenanmays, which, with two or three smaller holdings and his own farm
of Cairn Ferris, constituted the whole landed estate of Adam Ferris. The
Garlands of Glenanmays had been holders of that farm and liegemen of
Cairn Ferris almost from the days when the first Ferris settled on that
noble brace of seaward-looking valleys, through which the Mays Water and
the Abbey Burn trundled, roared and soughed to the sea.

The early years of the nineteenth century looked on no more
characteristic farmhouse than that where dwelt Diarmid Garland and his
brood, on the bank above the swift-running water-race which turned the
corn-mill with such deftness that people came from as far as Stranryan
to admire.

A large farm it was, needing many hands to work it,--byre, stable,
plough-lands, hill pasture, flat and heathery in appearance and outline,
but satisfactory for sheep-feeding--that was Glenanmays. Diarmid had
three sons and four daughters, with most of whom this history must one
time or another concern itself.

Diarmid also was no mean citizen of any state, hard to be driven,
temperate, humorous and dour. He held for the old ways, and each day
presided at meals, his bonnet of blue on his head, broad as a
barrow-wheel, and brought all the way from Kilmarnock. All the rest of
the table sat bareheaded--the sons and daughters whom God had given him,
as well as the hired servant, and even the stranger within his gates.

For at Glenanmays there was no master but old Diarmid Garland. To each
man and maid there was set down a plate of earthenware, a horn spoon, a
knife and fork--that is, for all who fed at the high table, over which
the blue Kilmarnock bonnet of the master presided. For the minute or so
while he said grace or "returned thanks," Diarmid took off his bonnet,
but resumed it the moment after. He doffed his blue crown of his