From thence I mocked him, but under my breath, for fear that for ill-doing my mother would not permit me to go to the Duchrae.
"Stable-boy!" I called him, for he loved to be ever among the lowns of the wisp and currying comb, and as my mother said, grew like them even in manners. "Faugh, keep wide from me, mixen-varlet!"
These were no more than our well-accustomed greetings.
"Wait till I catch you, little snipe, down by the water-side!" Sandy cried, shaking his fist at me from the barn-end.
"And that will be a good day for your skin," answered I, "for I shall make you wash your face thoroughly—ay, even behind your ears."
For Sandy, even when in after days he went a-courting, was noways partial to having many comings and goings with a basin of cold water.
So he departed unsatisfied, because that in words I had the better of him.
Then came my father, and as I expected, stooping from the saddle he swung me up before him, supposing that I had already advised my mother. But indeed I had not said so, and happily he asked me nothing.
"A good day and an easy mind, sweetheart," he cried up the stairs to my mother, "I ride to the Duchrae for Conference. William goes with me for company."
And my mother came down the steps to see us ride off. For my father and she were like lad and lass after their years together, though not so as to make a show before strangers.