“I’m sweer to tell it to you,” she began, “but tell I maun, for though it’s just a warning to you and Elspeth no’ to be like them that brought you into the world, it’s all I have to leave you.  Ay, and there’s another reason:  you may soon be among folk wha ken but half the story and put a waur face on it than I deserve.”

She had spoken calmly, but her next words were passionate.

“They thought I was fond o’him,” she cried; “oh, they were blind, blind!  Frae the first I could never thole the sight o’ him.

“Maybe that’s no’ true,” she had to add.  “I aye kent he was a black, but yet I couldna put him out o’ my head; he took sudden grips o’ me like an evil thought.  I aye ran frae him, and yet I sair doubt that I went looking for him too.”

“Was it Aaron Latta?” Tommy asked.

“No, it was your father.  The first I ever saw of him was at Cullew, four lang miles frae Thrums.  There was a ball after the market, and Esther Auld and me went to it.  We went in a cart, and I was wearing a pink print, wi’ a white bonnet, and blue ribbons that tied aneath the chin.  I had a shawl abune, no’ to file them.  There wasna a more innocent lassie in Thrums, man, no, nor a happier one; for Aaron Latta—­Aaron came half the way wi’ us, and he was hauding my hand aneath the shawl.  He hadna speired me at that time, but I just kent.

“It was an auld custom to choose a queen of beauty at the ball, but that night the men couldna ’gree wha should be judge, and in the tail-end they went out thegither to look for one, determined to mak’ judge o’ the first man they met, though they should have to tear him off a horse and bring him in by force.  You wouldna believe to look at me now, man, that I could have had any thait o’ being made queen, but I was fell bonny, and I was as keen as the rest.  How simple we were, all pretending to one another that we didna want to be chosen!  Esther Auld said she would hod ahint the tent till a queen was picked, and at the very time she said it, she was in a palsy, through no being able to decide whether she looked better in her shell necklace or wanting it.  She put it on in the end, and syne when we heard the tramp o’ the men, her mind misgave her, and she cried:  ‘For the love o’ mercy, keep them out till I get it off again!’ So we were a’ laughing when they came in.

“Laddie, it was your father and Elspeth’s that they brought wi’ them, and he was a stranger to us, though we kent something about him afore the night was out.  He was finely put on, wi’ a gold chain, and a free w’y of looking at women, and if you mind o’ him ava, you ken that he was fair and buirdly, wi’ a full face, and aye a laugh ahint it.  I tell ye, man, that when our een met, and I saw that triumphing laugh ahint his face, I took a fear of him, as if I had guessed the end.

“For years and years after that night I dreamed it ower again, and aye I heard mysel’ crying to God to keep that man awa’ frae me.  But I doubt I put up no sic prayer at the time; his masterful look fleid me, and yet it drew me against my will, and I was trembling wi’ pride as well as fear when he made me queen.  We danced thegither and fought thegither a’ through the ball, and my will was no match for his, and the worst o’t was I had a kind o’ secret pleasure in being mastered.