Then the dear old lady touched her eyes with a fine handkerchief which she took out of a little black reticule basket on the table by her side.

As Ralph rose reverently and kissed her hand before retiring, Walter Skirving motioned him near his chair.  Then he drew him downward till Ralph was bending on one knee.  He laid a nerveless heavy hand on the young man’s head, and looked for a minute—­which seemed years to Ralph—­very fixedly on his eyes.  Then dropping his hand and turning to the window, he drew a long, heavy breath.

Ralph Peden rose and went out.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Legitimate sport.

As Ralph Peden went through the flower-decked parlour in which he had met Jess Kissock an hour before, he heard the clang of controversy, or perhaps it is more correct to say, he heard the voice of Meg Kissock raised to its extreme pitch of command.

“Certes, my lass, but ye’ll no hoodwink me; ye hae dune no yae thing this hale mornin’ but wander athort [about] the hoose wi’ that basket o’ flooers.  Come you an’ gie us a hand wi’ the kirn this meenit!  Ye dinna gang a step oot o’ the hoose the day!”

Ralph did not think of it particularly at the time, but it was probably owing to this utilitarian occupation that he did not again see the attractive Jess on his way out.  For, with all her cleverness, Jess was afraid of Meg.

Ralph passed through the yard to the gate which led to the hill.  He was wonderfully comforted in heart, and though Winsome had been alternatively cold and kind, he was too new in the ways of girls to be uplifted on that account, as a more experienced man might have been.  Still, the interview with the old people had done him good.

As he was crossing the brook which flows partly over and partly under the road at the horse watering-place, he looked down into the dell among the tangles of birch and the thick viscous foliage of the green-berried elder.  There he caught the flash of a light dress, and as he climbed the opposite grassy bank on his way to the village, he saw immediately beneath him the maiden of his dreams and his love-verses.  Now she leaped merrily from stone to stone; now she bent stealthily over till her palms came together in the water; now she paused to dash her hair back from her flushed face.  And all the time the water glimmered and sparkled about her feet.  With her was Andra Kissock, a bare-legged, bonnetless squire of dames.  Sometimes he pursued the wily burn trout with relentless ferocity and the silent intentness of a sleuthhound.  Often, however, he would pause and with his finger indicate some favourite stone to Winsome.  Then the young lady, utterly forgetful of all else and with tremulous eagerness, delicately circumvented the red-spotted beauties.