Upon neighbouring stones, earth-fast, like two islands of an archipelago, in an ocean of heather, sat a boy and a girl, the girl knitting, or, as she would have called it, weaving a stocking, and the boy, his eyes fixed¹ on her face, talking with an animation² that amounted almost to excitement. He had great fluency³, and could have talked just as fast in good English as in the dialect in which he was now pouring out his ambitions—the broad Saxon of Aberdeen.

 

He was giving the girl to understand that he meant to be a soldier like his father, and quite as good a one as he. But so little did he know of himself or the world, that, with small genuine impulse to action, and moved chiefly by the anticipated results of it, he saw success already his, and a grateful country at his feet. His inspiration was so purely⁴ ambition, that, even if, his mood unchanged, he were to achieve much for his country, she could hardly owe him gratitude⁵.

 

‘I’ll no hae the warl’ lichtly (make light of) me!’ he said.

 

‘Mebbe the warl’ winna tribble itsel aboot ye sae muckle as e’en to lichtly ye!’ returned his companion quietly.

 

‘Ye do naething ither!’ retorted the boy, rising, and looking down on her in displeasure. ‘What for are ye aye girdin at me? A body canna lat his thouchts gang, but ye’re doon upo them, like doos upo corn!’

 

‘I wadna be girdin at ye, Francie, but that I care ower muckle aboot ye to lat ye think I haud the same opingon o’ ye ’at ye hae o’ yersel,’ answered the girl, who went on with her knitting as she spoke⁶.

 

‘Ye’ll never believe a body!’ he rejoined, and turned half away. ‘I canna think what gars me keep comin to see ye! Ye haena ae guid word to gie a body!’

 

‘It’s nane ye s’ get frae me, the gait ye’re gaein, Francie! Ye think a heap ower muckle o’ yersel. What ye expec, may some day a’ come true, but ye hae gien nobody a richt to expec it alang wi’ ye, and I canna think, gien ye war fair to yersel, ye wad coont yersel ane it was to be expeckit o’!’

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