return.

While she was thus in an uncertainty, she heard the clatter of a horse's
hoofs, and a well-known voice calling her name. She looked round, and saw
advancing towards her on a pony, whose bare back and halter assorted ill
with the nightgown, slippers, and laced cocked-hat of the rider, a
cavalier of no less importance than Dumbiedikes himself. In the energy of
his pursuit, he had overcome even the Highland obstinacy of Rory Bean,
and compelled that self-willed palfrey to canter the way his rider chose;
which Rory, however, performed with all the symptoms of reluctance,
turning his head, and accompanying every bound he made in advance with a
sidelong motion, which indicated his extreme wish to turn round,--a
manoeuvre which nothing but the constant exercise of the Laird's heels
and cudgel could possibly have counteracted.

When the Laird came up with Jeanie, the first words he uttered
were,--"Jeanie, they say ane shouldna aye take a woman at her first
word?"

"Ay, but ye maun take me at mine, Laird," said Jeanie, looking on the
ground, and walking on without a pause.--"I hae but ae word to bestow on
ony body, and that's aye a true ane."

"Then," said Dumbiedikes, "at least ye suldna aye take a man at _his_
first word. Ye maunna gang this wilfu' gate sillerless, come o't what
like."--He put a purse into her hand. "I wad gie you Rory too, but he's
as wilfu' as yoursell, and he's ower weel used to a gate that maybe he
and I hae gaen ower aften, and he'll gang nae road else."

"But, Laird," said Jeanie, "though I ken my father will satisfy every