"Marry! That's a strange, terrible, useless word to me!"
"I don't know...."
"Yes, it is!... Ian, do you ever think that you've lived before?"
"I don't know. I'm living now!"
"Well, I think that we all lived before. I think that the same things happen again—"
"Well, let them—some of them!" said Ian. "Come along, if we're going through the glen."
They left the kirkyard for the village street. Here they sauntered, friends with the whole. They looked in at the tavern upon the drovers, they watched the blacksmith and his helper. The red iron rang, the sparks flew. At the foot of the hill flowed the stream and stood the mill. The wheel turned, the water diamonds dropped in sheets. Their busy, idle day took them on; they were now in bare, heathy country with the breathing, winey air. Presently White Farm could be seen among aspens, and beyond it the wooded mouth of the glen. Some one, whistling, turned an elbow of the hill and caught up with the two. It proved to be one several years their senior, a young man in the holiday dress of a prosperous farmer. He whistled clearly an old border air and walked without dragging or clumsiness. Coming up, he ceased his whistling.
"Good day, the both of ye!"
"It's Robin Greenlaw," said Alexander, "from Littlefarm.—You've been to the wedding, Robin?"
"Aye. Janet's some kind of a cousin. It's a braw day for a wedding! You've got with you the new laird's nephew?—And how are you liking Black Hill?"