"And Anne, a ruddy lass, whispered—
"'Now that you will have the lad you were speaking about through your sleep, Mirren, maybe ye'll be giving me your garters,' and between one and the other o' them, it was a red-faced, brave-looking lass that stood wi' me in my mother's kitchen.
"And my mother, that I had been wearying for a sight o' for three years past, my old mother, kissed the lass first, and then—
"'You will have managed to bring him to his senses at last, Mirren dear,' said she; and then I found that these two had been having the great confabs when I would be away, and my wife has told me since, when she was new-fangled wi' me, and very loving, that she would just be going there to be listening to my mother's stories about me, when I would be a wean; and although I will be telling her that the things I am remembering most are the skelpings I would be getting, she just will be laughing at me.
"'It is not one half of what you would be deserving, my man,' she says.
"So and on, there we sat wi' the red glow of the fire shining on my old mother's face, making her look hearty and well in her white mutch, and glinting on Mirren's eyes when she turned to speak, and lowing in the copper o' her hair, and I would be content to sit and listen to these two, till Mirren had to be going. On the road home she made no complaints when I put my arm round her, for was she not my own lass now. Moreover, it was dark. We were at our first good-night under the rowan-trees beside the byre, for rowans will keep the fairies away, and it is good farming to have them where the beasts will be walking under them every day. We were loath to part, Mirren and me, and she would be lying against my breast, when there came the figure of a man running, and I kent him for Gilchrist the excise-man.
"'Stop a wee, my lad; stop,' says I. 'What will be hurrying ye?'
"'That damned McGilp has escaped us again,' said he, 'and Dan McBride has killed Dol Rob Beag.'
"'Run, Ronny, run,' cried Mirren, and pulled me to the stable. 'Dan will be needing all his friends before the morning,' and she had the bridle on the garron, and I was on his back like a flash, and making for the Quay Inn before she was done speaking."
[1] Coosp=chilblain on the heel.