but a' said, 'Na, na, Piggie, Maister Carmichael is
ower quiet and sensible a lad. He kens as weel as onybody that a
Carnegie wud never dae for a minister's wife. Gin ye said a Bailie's
dochter frae Muirtown 'at hes some money comin' tae her and kens the
principles o' the Free Kirk.'

"Noo a' can speak frae experience, having been terrible fortunate wi'
a' ma wives. . . . Ye'll come up tae tea; we killed a pig yesterday,
and . . . Weel, weel, a wilfu' man maun hae his wy"; and Carmichael,
as he made his way up the hill, felt that the hand of Providence was
heavy upon him, and that any highmindedness was being severely
chastened.

Two days Carmichael tramped the moors, returning each evening wet,
weary, hungry, to sleep ten hours without turning, and on the morning
of the third day he came down in such heart that Sarah wondered whether
he could have received a letter by special messenger; and he
congratulated himself, as he walked round his garden, that he had
overcome by sheer will power the first real infatuation of his life.
He was so lifted above all sentiment as to review his temporary folly
from the bare, serene heights of common sense. Miss Carnegie was
certainly not an heiress, and she was a young woman of very decided
character, but her blood was better than the Hays', and she was . . .
attractive--yes, attractive. Most likely she was engaged to Lord Hay,
or if he did not please her--she was . . . whimsical and . . .
self-willed--there was Lord Invermays' son. Fancy Kate . . . Miss
Carnegie in a Free Kirk manse--Kildrummie was a very . . . homely old
man, but he touched the point there--receiving Doctor Dowbiggin with
becoming ceremony and hearing him on the payment of probationers, or
taking tea at Kildrummie Manse--where he had, however, feasted royally
many a time after the Presbytery, but. . . . This daughter of a
Jacobite house, and brought up amid the romance of war, settling down
in the narrowest circle of Scottish life--as soon imagine an eagle
domesticated among barn-door poultry. This image amused Carmichael so
much that he could have laughed aloud, but . . . the village might have
heard him. He only stretched himself like one awaking, and felt so
strong that he resolved to drop in on Janet Macpherson, Kate's old
retainer--to see how it fared with the old woman and . . . to have Miss
Carnegie's engagement confirmed. The Carnegies might return any day
from the South, and it would be well