Yet it was impossible to rise composedly and take his way
manseward. Ralph wished now that he had gone at the first alarm.
It had become so much more difficult now, as indeed it always does
in such cases. Moreover, he was certain that these two vagabonds
of curs would return. And they would be sure to find him out. Dogs
were unnecessary and inconvenient beasts, always sniffing and
nosing about. He decided to wait. The new-comer of the kilts was
after all no Naiad or Hebe. Her outlines did not resemble to any
marked degree the plates in his excellent classical dictionary.
She was not short in stature, but so strong and of a complexion so
ruddily beaming above the reaming white which filled the blanket
tub, that her mirthful face shone like the sun through an evening
mist.

But Ralph did not notice that, in so far as she could, she had
relieved the taller maiden of the heavier share of the work; and
that her laugh was hung on a hair trigger, to go off at every jest
and fancy of Winsome Charteris. All this is to introduce Miss Meg
Kissock, chief and favoured maidservant at the Dullarg farm, and
devoted worshipper of Winsome, the young mistress thereof. Meg
indeed, would have thanked no one for an introduction, being at
all times well able (and willing) to introduce herself.

It had been a shock to Ralph Peden when Meg Kissock walked up from
the lane-side barefoot, and when she cleared the decks for the
blanket tramping. But he had seen something like it before on the
banks of the water of Leith, then running clear and limpid over
its pebbles, save for a flour-mill or two on the lower reaches.
But it was altogether another thing when, plain as print, he saw
his first goddess of the shining water-pails sit calmly down on