"This is the first time you have been hereaway?" his companion
asked.

Ralph nodded a quick affirmative and smiled.

"Then," said Jess Kissock, the rich blood mantling her dark
cheeks, "I am the first from the Dullarg you have spoken to!"

"The very first!" said Ralph.

"Then I am glad," said Jess Kissock. But in the young man's heart
there was no answering gladness, though in very sooth she was an
exceeding handsome maid.





CHAPTER I.

THE BLANKET-WASHING.


Ralph Peden lay well content under a thorn bush above the Grannoch
water. It was the second day of his sojourning in Galloway--the
first of his breathing the heather scent on which the bees grew
tipsy, and of listening to the grasshoppers CHIRRING in the long
bent by the loch side. Yesterday his father's friend, Allan Welsh,
minister of the Marrow kirk in the parish of Dullarg, had held
high discourse with him as to his soul's health, and made many