A moment afterwards Ralph bent to lay a hand upon the head of one of the placid queys [Footnote:  Young—­cows.] that had watched the courtship with full, dewy eyes of bovine unconcern.  Instantly the colt charged into the still group with a wild flourish of hoofs and viciously snapping teeth, scattering the black-polled Galloways like smoke.  Then, as if to reproach Ralph for his unfaithfulness, he made a circle of the field at a full, swinging gallop, sending the short turf flying from his unshod hoofs at every stride.  Back he came again, a vision of floating mane and streaming tail, and stopped dead three yards from Ralph, his forelegs strained and taut, ploughing furrows in the grass.  As Ralph moved quietly across the field the colt followed, pushing a cool moist nose over the young man’s shoulder.  When at last Ralph set a foot on the projecting stone which stood out from the side of the grey, lichen-clad stone dyke, the colt stood stretching an eager head over as though desirous of following him; then, with a whinny of disappointment, he rushed round the field, charging at the vaguely wondering and listlessly grazing cattle with head arched between his forelegs and a flourish of widely distributed heels.

Over the hill, Craig Ronald was still wrapped in the lucid impermanence of earliest dawn, when Winsome Charteris set her foot over the blue flag-stones of the threshold.  The high tide of darkness, which, in these northern summer mornings never rose very high or lasted very long, had ebbed long ago.  The indigo grey of the sky was receding, and tinging towards the east with an imperceptibly graded lavender which merged behind the long shaggy outline of the piny ridge into a wash of pale lemon yellow.

The world paused, finger on lip, saying “Hush!” to Winsome as she stepped over the threshold from the serenely breathing morning air, from the illimitable sky which ran farther and farther back as the angels drew the blinds from the windows of heaven.

“Hush!” said the cows over the hedge, blowing fragrant breaths of approval from their wide, comma-shaped nostrils upon the lush grass and upon the short heads of white clover, as they stood face to the brae, all with their heads upward, eating their way like an army on the march.

“Hush! hush!” said the sheep who were straggling over the shorter grass of the High Park, feeding fitfully in their short, uneasy way—­crop, crop, crop—­and then a pause, to move forward their own length and begin all over again.

But the sheep and the kine, the dewy grass and the brightening sky, might every one have spared their pains, for it was in no wise in the heart of Winsome Charteris to make a noise amid the silences of dawn.  Meg Kissock, who still lay snug by Jess in a plump-cheeked country sleep, made noise enough to stir the country side when, rising, she set briskly about to get the house on its morning legs.  But Winsome was one of the few people in this world —­few but happy—­to whom a sunrise is more precious than a sun set —­rarer and more calming, instinct with message and sign from a covenant-keeping God.  Also, Winsome betook her self early to bed, and so awoke attuned to the sun’s rising.