“Hear! hear! hear! 
          Dear! dear! dear! 
    Far away, far away, far away,
      I saw him pass this way,
    Tirrieoo, tirrieoo! so tender and true,
      Chippiwee, chippiwee, oh, try him and see! 
    Cheer up! cheer up! cheer up! 
      He’ll come and he’ll kiss you,
      He’ll kiss you and kiss you,
    And I’ll see him do it, do it, do it!”

“Go away, you wicked bird!” said Winsome, when the master singer in speckled grey came to this part of his song.  So saying, she threw, with such exact aim that it went in an entirely opposite direction, a quaint, pink seashell at the bird, a shell which had been given her by a lad who was going away again to sea three years ago.  She was glad now, when she thought of it, that she had kissed him because he had no mother, for he never came back any more.

“Keck, keck!” said the mavis indignantly, and went away.

Then Winsome lay down on her white bed well content, and pillowed her cheek on a crumpled piece of paper.

CHAPTER XI

Andrew Kissock goes to school.

Love is, at least in maidens’ hearts, of the nature of an intermittent fever.  The tide of Solway flows, but the more rapid his flow the swifter his ebb.  The higher it brings the wrack up the beach, the deeper, six hours after, are laid bare the roots of the seaweed upon the shingle.  Now Winsome Charteris, however her heart might conspire against her peace, was not at all the girl to be won before she was asked.  Also there was that delicious spirit of contrariness that makes a woman even when won, by no means seem won.

Besides, in the broad daylight of common day she was less attuned and touched to earnest issues than in the red dawn.  She had even taken the poem and the exercise book out of the sacred enclosure, where they had been hid so long.  She did not really know that she could make good any claim to either.  Indeed, she was well aware that to one of them at least she had no claim whatever.  Therefore she had placed both the note-book and the poem within the same band as her precious housekeeping account-book, which she reverenced next her Bible—­which very practical proceeding pleased her, and quite showed that she was above all foolish sentiment.  Then she went to churn for an hour and a half, pouring in a little hot water critically from time to time in order to make the butter come.  This exercise may be recommended as an admirable corrective to foolish flights of imagination.  There is something concrete about butter-making which counteracts an overplus of sentiment—­ especially when the butter will not come.  And hot water may be overdone.