"Aye," said Mistress Crombie, house-keeper to Roger McGhie, Laird of Balmaghie, a considerable house in the south-lying and better-cultivated part of the wild lands of Galloway--"aye, indeed, ye may well say it, Alisoun Begbie. It is a wondrous and most ungentle thing when the doe seeks the hart--panting and brayin' for a man, as the Guid Buik says. And saw ye ever sic feathers?--I declare they nearly soopit the floor. My Lady Wellwood, or no my Lady Wellwood, I trow she didna come ridin' by the hoose o' Balmaghie only to ask the time o' day, upsetting besom that she is!" During this harangue Alisoun Begbie was clattering about among her bottles and dishes in the stone-flagged, slate-shelved still-room which constituted her pantry. A few minutes before she had cried mischievously out of the window to Lang Wat, the new under-gardener of Balmaghie, to the effect that "siccan a guid-lookin' chiel should be seen oftener about the house--but that she, Alisoun Begbie, was not wanting anything to do with the likes of him. She could get plenty of lads, and it was weel-kenned that the Glenkens' folk aye took up wi' their ain folk at ony rate." But as soon as the "bauchles"[A] of Mistress Crombie, the shrill-tempered house-keeper, were heard scuffling up the stairs, Alisoun made a pretty warning face of silence at Lang Wat, and tossed her head to intimate that some one approached from behind; so that, without making any verbal answer, the under-gardener resumed his occupation of the moment, which was the pruning and grafting of sundry rose-bushes--the pride and care of Mistress Kate McGhie, the "young leddy" of the great house of Balmaghie. [A] Certain heelless and shapeless slippers, characteristic of the district. "Na, 'deed, Alisoun Begbie," cried Mistress Crombie once more, from the cheek of the door, "believe me when I tell ye that sic a braw city madam--and a widow forbye--doesna bide about an auld disjaskit rickle o' stanes like the Hoose o' the Grenoch withoot haeing mair in her head than just sending warnings to Clavers aboot the puir muirland folk, that keep their misguided conventicles up ayont there, and pray a' nicht in the lirks o' the hills and the black hags o' the peat-mosses." "Aye, ye may say so, 'deed, mistress," agreed Alisoun, keeping an eye upon the window of her pantry, through which she could see Lang Wat bending his back among the rose-bushes. Spite of his good looks, he had proved himself a singularly flinty-hearted fellow-servitor, and ill to set to the wooing. But Alisoun had still hopes of him. She had succeeded with some difficult--indeed, almost hopeless--cases in her time, and the very unresponsive nature of the young Glenkens' gardener stirred her ambition to brighter and more inviting glances, as well as to gayer and ever daintier ribbons.