[ILLUSTRATIONS]
| "WAT'S HAND MOSTLY ON HIS SWEETHEART'S SHOULDER" | [Frontispiece] |
| Facing p. | |
| "'I WILL TAKE MY OWN LOVE-TOKEN'" | [32] |
| "SCARLETT THUNDERED ON THE PANELS WITH THE HILT OF HIS SWORD" | [64] |
| "THE GENTLEMAN INSTANTLY ATTACKED THEM FURIOUSLY" | [90] |
| "THE MAN CARRIED HER EASILY THROUGH THE SURF" | [144] |
| "A COUPLE OF PISTOL-SHOTS RANG OUT LOUDLY" | [176] |
| "THE SELF-SATISFACTION FLICKERED OUT OF HIS FACE" | [204] |
| "THEN THE SWIRLING TIDE-RACE TOOK HOLD OF HER" | [226] |
| "A GIGANTIC HIGHLANDER WITH A NAKED CLAYMORE BY HIS SIDE" | [250] |
| "WAT PUSHED OFF IN THE SMALLER BOAT" | [284] |
| "STRIDING FORWARD FRANKLY AND GIVING A HAND TO EACH" | [338] |
| "HE FELL INWARD AMONG THE WOUNDED" | [362] |
| "WITH HIS LOVE BETWEEN HIS ARMS" | [398] |
[LOCHINVAR]
FOREWORD TO THE TALE, TELLING WHAT BEFELL AT THE HOUSE OF BALMAGHIE IN THE YEAR OF GRACE 1685, AND HOW MY LADY WELLWOOD PARTED TWO YOUNG LOVERS
"Aye," said Mistress Crombie, house-keeper to Roger McGhie, Laird of Balmaghie, a considerable house in the south-lying and better-cultivated part of the wild lands of Galloway—"aye, indeed, ye may well say it, Alisoun Begbie. It is a wondrous and most ungentle thing when the doe seeks the hart—panting and brayin' for a man, as the Guid Buik says. And saw ye ever sic feathers?—I declare they nearly soopit the floor. My Lady Wellwood, or no my Lady Wellwood, I trow she didna come ridin' by the hoose o' Balmaghie only to ask the time o' day, upsetting besom that she is!"
During this harangue Alisoun Begbie was clattering about among her bottles and dishes in the stone-flagged, slate-shelved still-room which constituted her pantry. A few minutes before she had cried mischievously out of the window to Lang Wat, the new under-gardener of Balmaghie, to the effect that "siccan a guid-lookin' chiel should be seen oftener about the house—but that she, Alisoun Begbie, was not wanting anything to do with the likes of him. She could get plenty of lads, and it was weel-kenned that the Glenkens' folk aye took up wi' their ain folk at ony rate." But as soon as the "bauchles"[A] of Mistress Crombie, the shrill-tempered house-keeper, were heard scuffling up the stairs, Alisoun made a pretty warning face of silence at Lang Wat, and tossed her head to intimate that some one approached from behind; so that, without making any verbal answer, the under-gardener resumed his occupation of the moment, which was the pruning and grafting of sundry rose-bushes—the pride and care of Mistress Kate McGhie, the "young leddy" of the great house of Balmaghie.
[A] Certain heelless and shapeless slippers, characteristic of the district.