In the evening it fell to me to make my first endeavours at waiting at table, for though women were safe enough anywhere on the estate, Balmaghie was not judged to be secure for me except within the house itself.
So my mother gave me a great many cautions about how I should demean myself, and how to be silent and mannerly when I handed the dishes.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE BLACK HORSE COMES TO BALMAGHIE.
As Wat and I went towards the great house in the early gloaming, we became aware of a single horseman riding toward us and gaining on us from behind. At the first sound of the trampling of his horse, Wat dived at once over the turf dyke and vanished.
"Bide you!" he said. "He'll no ken you!"
A slender-like figure in a grey cavalry cloak and a plain hat without a feather, came, slowly riding alongside of me, in an attitude of the deepest thought.
I knew at a glance that it was John Graham of Claverhouse, whom all the land of the South knew as "the Persecutor."
"Are you one of Balmaghie's servants?" he asked.