There had been no gainsaying such arguments as these; so on the evening of a bright clear day in October, Sandie’s mother was bidding her son and his friend a right hearty welcome in the best parlour.
If ever there was a real city lad, that lad was Willie Munro. His total ignorance of country and farm life was delightfully refreshing to Sandie and his sister. Of course Willie knew that potatoes did not grow on trees, but that was about the extent of his agricultural knowledge; and as to natural history and the lives of birds, moths, beetles, &c., he really knew nothing. Had any one told him that the rook built its nest in a bush of broom, and that the lark built high in a swaying ash-tree, Willie would have taken it for truth.
Willie’s ignorance of country life did not, however, detract in the least from his enjoyment thereof. He had come out from town with the intention of being jolly and happy, and he determined he should be so.
He was not long in confiding to Sandy that his sister Elsie was an angel, and that his mother was an angel’s mother. Elsie was quite as much pleased with Willie as Willie was with her, and it gave her very great pleasure to play the zither and sing to him in the evening.
Well, then, they paid a visit to the manse together. Mackenzie was much pleased to see Sandie once again, and to hear of his success, and Willie seemed to fall head over heels in love with Maggie May. But Maggie May was severely demure, very much to Sandie’s delight, and he felt that the child loved no one half so well as she loved him—that is, after her father, of course.
They all went fishing together, and wonderful to relate, Willie succeeded in catching a trout, a real live trout, that capered and jumped about on the green grassy bank at a fine rate, turning up its silvery sides to the sun till in mercy Sandie put it out of pain.
But Willie was not really happy until, that same evening, he had written home a long account of the capture of that fish and his hopes of catching more.
The day after that was a big day at Kilbuie, for the love-darg in ploughing came off. Almost before the dawn, horses and ploughs and ploughmen began to arrive at the farm from all directions, and when all were assembled, it was found there were no fewer than two-and-twenty pairs. With such a force, long before sundown every ridge of stubble or grass on Kilbuie would be turned over.
Not only the ploughmen themselves, but in many cases the farmer-owners of the horses had come over, and these farmers had made up between them several prizes to be awarded to the men who did the best work.
So the ploughing went merrily on. It was a fine sight too to see all those gallant horses in their light but polished harness, and gay with silken ribbons of every colour, and brass bradoons, walking majestically to and fro the ridges, the gaily dressed honest-faced ploughmen holding the stilts and quietly but earnestly trying to do their best.