"And if he has passed," said I, "why, then of course he will put up his
plate and have his own house, and we shall be losing our Edie."

I tried to make a jest of it and to speak lightly, but the words still
stuck in my throat.

"Poor old Jim!" said she again, and there were tears in her eyes as she
said it. "And poor old Jock!" she added, slipping her hand into mine as
we walked. "You cared for me a little bit once also, didn't you, Jock?
Oh, is not that a sweet little ship out yonder!"

It was a dainty cutter of about thirty tons, very swift by the rake of
her masts and the lines of her bow. She was coming up from the south
under jib, foresail, and mainsail; but even as we watched her all her
white canvas shut suddenly in, like a kittiwake closing her wings, and
we saw the splash of her anchor just under her bowsprit. She may have
been rather less than a quarter of a mile from the shore--so near that I
could see a tall man with a peaked cap, who stood at the quarter with a
telescope to his eye, sweeping it backwards and forwards along the
coast.

"What can they want here?" asked Edie.

"They are rich English from London," said I; for that was how we
explained everything that was above our comprehension in the border
counties. We stood for the best part of an hour watching the bonny
craft, and then, as the sun was lying low on a cloudbank and there was a
nip in the evening air, we turned back to West Inch.

As you come to the farmhouse from the front, you pass up a garden, with