“Thank ye, mistress,” said Jock, quickly withdrawing with his purchases; “there’s nocht like obleegements for makin’ freends.”

At last Ralph saw Jock coming at full speed over the moor.

He went forward to him anxiously.

“Is it all right?” he asked.

“It’s a’ richt, an’ a’ paid for, an’ mair, gin ye like to send Jock for’t; an’ I wasna to forget Mistress MacMorrine’s compliments to ye intil the bargain.”

Ralph looked mystified.

“Ye wadna see the Laird o’ Balbletherum?  Did ye?” said Jock, cocking his impudent, elvish head to the side.

“Who is he?” asked Ralph.

“Nor yet the Laird o’ Glower—­ower—­’em?”

“I have seen nobody from the time you went away,” said Ralph.

“Then we’ll e’en fa’ to.  For gin thae twa braw gentlemen arena here to partake o’ the guid things o’ this life, then there’s the mair for you an’ Jock Gordon.”

Jock never fully satisfied Ralph’s curiosity as to the manner in which he obtained this provender.  Luckie Morrine bestowed it upon him for services rendered, he said; which was a true, though somewhat abbreviated and imperfect account of the transaction.

What the feelings of the hostess of the Blue Bell were when night passed without the appearance of the two lairds, for whom she had spread her finest sheets, and looked out her best bottles of wine, we have no means of knowing.  Singularly enough, for some considerable time thereafter Jock patronized the “Cross Keys” when he happened to be passing that way.  He “preferred it to the Blue Bell,” he said.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

Under the bed heather.

So refreshed, Ralph and Jock passed on their way.  All the forenoon they plodded steadily forward.  From Moniaive they followed the windings of a flashing burn, daching and roaring in a shallow linn, here and there white with foam and fretting, and again dimpling black in some deep and quiet pool.  Through the ducal village of Thornhill and so northward along the Nithside towards the valley of the Menick they went.  The great overlapping purple folds of the hills drew down about these two as they passed.  Jock Gordon continually scoured away to either side like a dog fresh off the leash.  Ralph kept steadily before him the hope in his heart that before long the deep cleft would be filled up and that for always.

It so happened that it was night when they reached the high summit of the Leadhills and the village of Wanlockhead gleamed grey beneath them.  Ralph proposed to go down and get lodgings there; but Jock had other intentions.

“What for,” he argued, “what for should ye pay for the breadth of yer back to lie doon on?  Jock Gordon wull mak’ ye juist as comfortable ablow a heather buss as ever ye war in a bed in the manse.  Bide a wee!”

Jock took him into a sheltered little “hope,” where they were shut in from the world of sheep and pit-heads.