the last time I was there, I thoucht it was creepin' in aneth
the bank some fearsome like for what's left o' the auld hoose, an'
the suner it's luikit efter maybe the better. Eh, Sir Gibbie, but
ye sud merry the bonnie leddy, an' tak her back till her ain hoose."

Gibbie gave a great sigh to think of the girl that loved the hill
and the heather and the burns, shut up in the city, and every Sunday
going to the great church--with which in Gibbie's mind was
associated no sound of glad tidings. To him Glashgar was full of
God; the North church or Mr. Sclater's church--well, he had tried
hard, but had not succeeded in discovering temple-signs about
either.

The next day he sent to the city for an architect; and within a week
masons and quarrymen were at work, some on the hill blasting blue
boulders and red granite, others roughly shaping the stones, and
others laying the foundation of a huge facing and buttressing wall,
which was to slope up from the bed of the Glashburn fifty feet to
the foot of the castle, there to culminate in a narrow terrace with
a parapet. Others again were clearing away what of the ruins stuck
to the old house, in order to leave it, as much as might be, in its
original form. There was no space left for rebuilding, neither was
there any between the two burns for adding afresh. The channel of
the second remained dry, the landslip continuing to choke it, and
the stream to fall into the Glashburn. But Gibbie would not consent
that the burn Ginevra had loved should sing no more as she had heard
it sing. Her chamber was gone, and could not be restored, but
another chamber should be built for her, beneath whose window it
should again run: when she was married to Fergus, and her father
could not touch it, the place should be hers. More masons were
gathered, and foundations blasted in the steep rock that formed the
other bank of the burn. The main point in the building was to be a
room for Ginevra. He planned it himself--with a windowed turret
projecting from the wall, making a recess in the room, and
overhanging the stream. The turret he carried a story higher than
the wall, and in the wall placed a stair leading to its top, whence,
over the roof of the ancient part of the house, might be seen the
great Glashgar, and its streams coming down from heaven, and singing
as they came. Then from the middle of the first stair in the old
house, the wall, a yard and a half thick, having been cut through