"The poor girl's hand, as I spoke, grew colder and colder, and her cheek paler and paler, until she fairly sank on her knees on the auld grey moss-grown stone that covered the muirland grave of the Covenanters, situated about a mile from Lincomdodie, where we happened to be at the time. It was now the gloaming the setting sun was flaming up in the red west, and his last ray fell on the beautifully rounded form of the fair lassie, and sparkled on the tear that stole down her cheek, as she held up one hand to Heaven, and grasped mine with the other.
"'Saunders Skelp, wi' ae leg or twa, or without a leg of ony kind—if ever I prove faithless to you—may'——
"'Hillo, Dominie—Dominie Skelp—you're a nice young man, I don't know.'
"I started—Jessy shrieked, and rising, threw herself into my arms—and as I turned round, who should be ascending the hill, and now within a few yards of us, but the young laird himself—as handsome and buirdly a chiel as you would see in ten thousand!
"'Did that cloud come ower us at the side of the hay-field that day for naething, Jessy?' She could not answer me. The sun set, and one or two heavy drops of rain fell, and the lift darkened—ay, and something darker and drearier stole across my brain than the shadows which now began to settle down on the fair face of external nature. My heart fluttered for a moment, then made long irregular throbs, and finally I became dizzy and faint, and almost fell to the ground with Jessy in my arms. 'Was I, in very truth, in the presence of an evil spirit?' said I to myself.
"'Why,' said the young gentleman, 'what has come over you, Saunders? I won't tell, man—so keep your own secret, and nobody will be a whit the wiser.'
"'Secret, sir!' said I, deeply stung; 'secret—I have nane, sir—nane—that I love the lassie, the haill parish kens, and I am not ashamed of it; but if you—ay, you, sir, or any man, dares'——
"'Heyday—dares! What do you mean by that, Master Skelp?—Dares!'
"My recollection and self-possession returned at this moment.
"'I beg pardon, sir; I have been taken by surprise, and in my anxiety to vindicate Jessy from all suspicion, I have been very uncivil to you. I am sorry for it.'