“But, grannie dear, how is it possible that I should ken, when all that I saw of him was but his coat-tails?  It was him that was running away.”

“My certes,” said grannie, “but the times are changed since my day!  When I was as young as ye are the day it wasna sodger or minister ayther that wad hae run frae the sicht o’ me.  But a minister, and a fine, young-looking man, I think ye said,” continued Mistress Walter Skirving anxiously.

“Indeed, grandmother, I said nothing—­” began Winsome.

“Haud yer tongue, Deil’s i’ the lassie, he’ll be comin’ here.  Maybes he’s comin’ up the loan this verra meenit.  Get me my best kep [cap], the French yin o’ Flanders lawn trimmed wi’ Valenceenes lace that Captain Wildfeather, of his Majesty’s—­But na, I’ll no think o’ thae times, I canna bear to think o’ them wi’ ony complaisance ava.  But bring me my kep—­haste ye fast, lassie!”

Obediently Winsome went to her grandmother’s bedroom and drew from under the bed the “mutch” box lined with pale green paper, patterned with faded pink roses.  She did not smile when she drew it out.  She was accustomed to her grandmother’s ways.  She too often felt the cavalier looking out from under her Puritan teaching; for the wild strain of the Gordon blood held true to its kind, and Winsome’s grandmother had been a Gordon at Lochenkit, whose father had ridden with Kenmure in the great rebellion.

When she brought the white goffered mutch with its plaits and puckers, granny tried it on in various ways, Winsome meanwhile holding a small mirror before her.

“As I was sayin’, I renounced thinkin’ aboot the vanities o’ youth langsyne.  Aye, it’ll be forty years sin’—­for ye maun mind that I was marriet whan but a lassie.  Aye me, it’s forty-five years since Ailie Gordon, as I was then, wed wi’ Walter Skirving o’ Craig Ronald (noo o’ his ain chammer neuk, puir man, for he’ll never leave it mair),” added she with a brisk kind of acknowledgment towards the chair of the semi-paralytic in the corner.

There silent and unregarding Walter Skirving sat—­a man still splendid in frame and build, erect in his chair, a shawl over his knees even in this day of fervent heat, looking out dumbly on the drowsing, humming world of broad, shadowless noonshine, and often also on the equable silences of the night.

“No that I regret it the day, when he is but the name o’ the man he yince was.  For fifty years since there was nae lad like Walter Skirving cam into Dumfries High Street frae Stewartry or frae Shire.  No a fit in buckled shune sae licht as his, his weel-shapit leg covered wi’ the bonny ‘rig-an’-fur’ stockin’ that I knitted mysel’ frae the cast on o’ the ower-fauld [over-fold] to the bonny white forefit that sets aff the blue sae weel.  Walter Skirving could button his knee-breeks withoot bendin’ his back—­that nane could do but the king’s son himsel’; an’ sic a dancer as he was afore guid an’ godly Maister Cauldsowans took hand o’ him at the tent, wi’ preachin’ a sermon on booin’ the knee to Baal.  Aye, aye, its a’ awa’—­an’ its mony the year I thocht on it, let alane thocht on wantin’ back thae days o’ vanity an’ the pride o’ sinfu’ youth!”