"What is it, Mother, to have the second sight?"

"It's to see behind the here and now. Why're ye asking?"

"I wish I could buy it or slave for it!" said Strickland. "Over and
over again I really need to see behind the here and now!"

"Aye. It's needed mair really than folk think. It's no' to be had by
buying nor slaving. How are the laird and the leddy?"

"Why, well. Tell me," said Strickland, "some of the things you've
seen with second sight."

"It taks inner ears for inner things."

"How do you know I haven't them?"

"Maybe 'tis so. Ye're liked well enough."

Mother Binning looked at the dappling water and the June trees and the
bright blue sky. It was a day to loosen tongue.

"I'll tell you ane thing I saw. It's mair than twenty years since
James Stewart, that was son of him who fled, wad get Scotland and
England again intil his hand. So the laddie came frae overseas, and
made stir and trouble enough, I tell ye!... Now I'll show you what I
saw, I that was a young woman then, and washing my wean's claes in the
water there. The month was September, and the year seventeen fifteen.
Mind you, nane hereabouts knew yet of thae goings-on!... I sat back on