mauna think that I canna sympathise wi' ye. Ye mauna think that I
havena been young mysel'. Lang syne, when I was a bit lassie, no twenty
yet - " She paused and sighed. "Clean and caller, wi' a fit like the
hinney bee," she continned. "I was aye big and buirdly, ye maun
understand; a bonny figure o' a woman, though I say it that suldna -
built to rear bairns - braw bairns they suld hae been, and grand I would
hae likit it! But I was young, dear, wi' the bonny glint o' youth in my
e'en, and little I dreamed I'd ever be tellin' ye this, an auld, lanely,
rudas wife! Weel, Mr. Erchie, there was a lad cam' courtin' me, as was
but naetural. Mony had come before, and I would nane o' them. But this
yin had a tongue to wile the birds frae the lift and the bees frae the
foxglove bells. Deary me, but it's lang syne! Folk have dee'd sinsyne
and been buried, and are forgotten, and bairns been born and got merrit
and got bairns o' their ain. Sinsyne woods have been plantit, and have
grawn up and are bonny trees, and the joes sit in their shadow, and
sinsyne auld estates have changed hands, and there have been wars and
rumours of wars on the face of the earth. And here I'm still - like an
auld droopit craw - lookin' on and craikin'! But, Mr. Erchie, do ye no
think that I have mind o' it a' still? I was dwalling then in my
faither's house; and it's a curious thing that we were whiles trysted in
the Deil's Hags. And do ye no think that I have mind of the bonny
simmer days, the lang miles o' the bluid-red heather, the cryin' of the
whaups, and the lad and the lassie that was trysted? Do ye no think
that I mind how the hilly sweetness ran about my hairt? Ay, Mr. Erchie,
I ken the way o' it - fine do I ken the way - how the grace o' God takes
them, like Paul of Tarsus, when they think it least, and drives the pair
o' them into a land which is like a dream, and the world and the folks
in't' are nae mair than clouds to the puir lassie, and heeven nae mair
than windle-straes, if she can but pleesure him! Until Tam dee'd - that
was my story," she broke off to say, "he dee'd, and I wasna at the