Often, too, during the winter, there were festivals on the ice, when the men arrayed in thick clothes and the women in their bravest furs came to amuse themselves at this pastime. I went once or twice as a spectator, and when I saw the ease and grace of the motion was straightway smitten with a monstrous desire to do likewise. So I bought a pair of runners and fitted them on my feet. I shall not dwell upon my immediate experiences, of which indeed I have no clear remembrance, having spent the better part of that afternoon on the back of my head in great bodily discomfort. But in time I made myself master of the art and soon was covering the ice as gaily as the best of them. I still remember the trick of the thing, and five years ago, when the floods in Tweed made a sea of the lower part of Manor valley, and the subsequent great frost made this sea as hard as the high-road, I buckled on my runners and had great diversion, to the country folks’ amazement. In all this time I had had many letters from Marjory, letters writ in a cheerful, pleasant tone, praying indeed for my return, but in no wise complaining of my absence. They were full of news of the folk of Tweedside, how Tam Todd was faring at Barns, and what sport her brother Michael was having in the haughlands among the wild-duck. I looked eagerly for the coming of those letters, for my heart was ever at Dawyck, and though I much enjoyed my sojourning in Holland, I was yet glad and willing for the time of departure to arrive. In January of the next year I received a bundle of news written in the gayest of spirits; but after that for three months and more I heard nothing. From this long silence I had much food for anxiety, for though I wrote, I am sure, some half-dozen times, no reply ever came. The uneasiness into which this put me cast something of a gloom over the latter part of the winter. I invented a hundred reasons to explain it. Marjory might be ill; the letters might have gone astray; perhaps she had naught to tell me. But I could not satisfy myself with these excuses, so I had e’en to wait the issue of events. It was not till the month of April that I had news from my love, and what this was I shall hasten to tell. CHAPTER VIII THE COMING OF THE BRIG SEAMAW