ejoiced that he had not laid hold of the fact that Glashruach was
Gibbie's, she never mentioned the place to him; for she shrunk with
sharpest recoil from the humiliation of seeing him, upon conviction,
turn from Fergus to Gibbie: the kindest thing they could do for him
would be to marry against his will, and save him from open
tergiversation; for no one could then blame him, he would be
thoroughly pleased, and not having the opportunity of
self-degradation, would be saved the cause for self-contempt.

For some time Fergus kept on hoping. The laird, blinded by his own
wishes, and expecting Gibbie would soon do something to bring public
disgrace upon himself, did not tell him of his daughter's
determination and self-engagement, while, for her part, Ginevra
believed she fulfilled her duty towards him in the endeavour to
convince him by her conduct that nothing could ever induce her to
marry him. So the remainder of the session passed--the laird urging
his objections against Gibbie, and growing extravagant in his
praises of Fergus, while Ginevra kept taking fresh courage, and
being of good cheer. Gibbie went to the cottage once or twice, but
the laird made it so uncomfortable for them, and Fergus was so rude,
that they agreed it would be better to content themselves with
meeting when they had the chance.

At the end of the month Gibbie went home as usual, telling Ginevra
he must be present to superintend what was going on at Glashruach to
get the house ready for her, but saying nothing of what he was
building there. By the beginning of the winter, they had got the
buttress-wall finished and the coping on it, also the shell of the
new house roofed in, so that the carpenters had been at work all
through the frost and snow, and things had made great progress
without any hurry; and now, since the first day the weather had
permitted, the masons were at work again. The bridge was built, the
wall of the old house broken through, the turret carried aloft. The
channel of the little burn they had found completely blocked by a
great stone at the farther edge of the landslip; up to this stone
they opened the channel, protecting it by masonry against further
slip, and by Gibbie's directions left it so--after boring the stone,
which still turned every drop of the water aside into the Glashburn,
for a good charge of gunpowder. All the hollow where the latter
burn had carried away pine-wood and shrubbery, gravel drive and
lawn,