“My dear and only love, I pray
       That little world of thee
     Be governed by no other sway
       Than purest monarchy.”

    “For if confusion have a part,
       Which virtuous souls abhor,
     And hold a synod in thy heart,
       I’ll never love thee more.”

So she sang, like youth daring fortune to give it aught but the best.  The thing thrilled me, so that I stood gaping.  Then she looked aside and saw me.

“Your business, man?” she cried, with an imperious voice.

I took off my bonnet, and made an awkward bow.

“Madam, I am on my way to Edinburgh,” I stammered, for I was mortally ill at ease with women.  “I am uncertain of the road in this weather, and come to beg direction.”

“You left the road three miles back,” she said.

“But I am for crossing the moors,” I said.

She pushed back her hood and looked at me with laughing eyes, I saw how dark those eyes were, and how raven black her wandering curls of hair.

“You have come to the right place,” she cried.  “I can direct you as well as any Jock or Sandy about the town.  Where are you going to?”

I said Kirknewton for my night’s lodging.

“Then march to the right, up by yon planting, till you come to the Howe Burn.  Follow it to the top, and cross the hill above its well-head.  The wind is blowing from the east, so keep it on your right cheek.  That will bring you to the springs of the Leith Water, and in an hour or two from there you will be back on the highroad.”

She used a manner of speech foreign to our parts, but very soft and pleasant in the ear.  I thanked her, clapped on my dripping bonnet, and made for the dykes beyond the garden.  Once I looked back, but she had no further interest in me.  In the mist I could see her peering once more skyward, and through the drone of the deluge came an echo of her song.

     “I’ll serve thee in such noble ways,
        As never man before;
      I’ll deck and crown thy head with bays,
        And love thee more and more.”

The encounter cheered me greatly, and lifted the depression which the eternal drizzle had settled on my spirits.  That bold girl singing a martial ballad to the storm and taking pleasure in the snellness of the air, was like a rousing summons or a cup of heady wine.  The picture ravished my fancy.  The proud dark eye, the little wanton curls peeping from the hood, the whole figure alert with youth and life—­they cheered my recollection as I trod that sour moorland.  I tried to remember her song, and hummed it assiduously till I got some kind of version, which I shouted in my tuneless voice.  For I was only a young lad, and my life had been bleak and barren.  Small wonder that the call of youth set every fibre of me a-quiver.