It was again midsummer, and just a year since they parted on the Horn, when Francis appeared at Corbyknowe, and found Kirsty in the kitchen. She received him as if nothing had ever come between them, but at once noting he was in trouble, proposed they should go out together. It was a long way to be silent, but they had reached the spot, whence they started for the race recorded in my first chapter, ere either of them said a word.

 

‘Will ye no sit, Kirsty?’ said Francis at length.

 

For answer she dropped on the same stone where she was sitting when she challenged him to it, and Francis took his seat on its neighbour.

 

‘I hae had a some sair time o’ ’t sin’ I shawed ye plain hoo little I was worth yer notice, Kirsty!’ he began.

 

‘Ay,’ returned Kirsty, ‘but ilka hoor o’ ’t hes shawn what the rael Francie was!’

 

‘I kenna, Kirsty. A’ I can say is—’at I dinna think nearhan’ sae muckle o’ mysel as I did than.’

 

‘And I think a heap mair o’ ye,’ answered Kirsty. ‘I canna but think ye upo’ the richt ro’d noo, Francie!’

 

‘I houp I am, but I’m aye fin’in oot something ’at ’ill never du.’

 

‘And ye’ll keep fin’in oot that sae lang ’s there’s onything left but what’s like himsel.’

 

‘I un’erstan ye, Kirsty. But I cam to ye the day, no to say onything aboot mysel, but jist ’cause I cudna du wantin yer help. I wudna hae presumed but that I thoucht, although I dinna deserve ’t, for auld³ kin’ness ye wud say what ye wud advise.’

 

‘I’ll du that, Francie—no for auld kin’ness, but for kin’ness never auld. What’s wrang wi’ ye?’

 

‘Kirsty, wuman, she’s brocken oot again!’

 

‘I dinna won’er. I hae h’ard o’ sic things.’

 

‘It’s jist taen the pith oot o’ me! What am I to du?’

 

‘Ye canna du better nor weel; jist begin again.’

 

‘I had coft her a bonny cairriage, wi’ as fine a pair as ever ye saw, Kirsty, as I daur say yer father has telled ye. And they warna lost upon her, for she had aye a gleg e’e for a horse. Ye min’ yon powny?—And up til yesterday, a’ gaed weel, till I was thinkin I cud trust her onygait. But i’ the efternune, as she was oot for an airin, ane o’ the horses cuist a shue, and thinkin naething o’ the risk til a human sowl, but only o’ the risk til the puir horse, the fule fallow stoppit at a smithy nae farrer nor the neist door frae a public, and tuik the horse intil the smithy, lea’in the smith’s lad at the heid o’ the ither horse. Sae what suld my leddy but oot upo’ the side frae the smithy, and awa roon the back o’ the cairriage to the public, and in! Whether she took onything there I dinna

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