"But he laid his arm round his wife's neck, and said, 'If all the lairds
in Galloway go heirless, over this door threshold shall you not stir to-
night; and I have said, and I have sworn it; seek not to know why or
wherefore--but, Lord, send us thy blessed mornlight.' The wife looked
for a moment in her husband's eyes, and desisted from further entreaty.

"'But let us send a civil message to the gossips, Sandy; and hadna ye
better say I am sair laid with a sudden sickness? though it's sinful-like
to send the poor messenger a mile agate with a lie in his mouth without a
glass of brandy.'

"'To such a messenger, and to those who sent him, no apology is needed,'
said the austere laird; 'so let him depart.' And the clatter of a
horse's hoofs was heard, and the muttered imprecations of its rider on
the churlish treatment he had experienced.

"'Now, Sandie, my lad,' said his wife, laying an arm particularly white
and round about his neck as she spoke, 'are you not a queer man and a
stern? I have been your wedded wife now these three years; and, beside
my dower, have brought you three as bonnie bairns as ever smiled aneath a
summer sun. O man, you a douce man, and fitter to be an elder than even
Willie Greer himself, I have the minister's ain word for 't, to put on
these hard-hearted looks, and gang waving your arms that way, as if ye
said, "I winna take the counsel of sic a hempie as you;" I'm your ain
leal wife, and will and maun have an explanation.'

"To all this Sandie Macharg replied, 'It is written, "Wives, obey your
husbands"; but we have been stayed in our devotion, so let us pray;' and
down he knelt: his wife knelt also, for she was as devout as bonnie; and
beside them knelt their household, and all lights were extinguished.