"I can best that fellow, if I have a red head!" said Sylvanus, with some of the old Euroclydon fervour. And he did. Whether it was the red head, of which each individual hair stood up automatically, the clear blue eyes, which were the first thing and sometimes the only thing that most women saw in his face, or the shoulders squared with the axe, that did it, May Chisholm only knows. You can ask her, if you like. But most likely it was his plain, determined way of asking for what he wanted--an excellent thing with women. But, any way, it is a fact that, before eighteen months had gone by, Sylvanus Cobb was settled in the western midlands of Scotland, with the wife whose tangles of hair were only a trifle less distracting than they used to be between the East Cliff and Tantallon. And this is a true tale. VII THE CAIRN EDWARD KIRK MILITANT _Out of the clinging valley mists I stray Into the summer midnight clear and still, And which the brighter is no man may say-- Whether the gold beyond the western hill_ _Where late the sun went down, or the faint tinge Of lucent green, like sea wave's inner curve Just ere it breaks, that gleams behind the fringe Of eastern coast. So which doth most preserve_ _My wistful soul in hope and steadfastness I know not--all that golden-memoried past So sudden wonderful, when new life ran_ _First in my veins; or that clear hope, no less Orient within me, for whose sake I cast All meaner ends into these ground mists wan_. "We've gotten a new kind o' minister the noo at Cairn Edward," said my cousin, Andrew M'Quhirr, to me last Monday. I was down at the Mart, and had done some little business on the Hill. My cousin is a draper in the High Street. He could be a draper nowhere else in Cairn Edward, indeed; for nobody buys anything but in the High Street. "Look, Saunders, there he is, gaun up the far side o' the causeway." I looked out and saw a long-legged man in grey clothes going very fast, but no minister. I said to my cousin that the minister had surely gone into the "Blue Bell," which was not well becoming in a minister.