Peggy Hedderwick, grown up into the bonniest lass for many a mile, was now the acknowledged belle of every rustic merry-making in the parish of Craigture. She was a great deal more and better than such a distinction often implies. She was something else than a blue-eyed, white-skinned, red-cheeked maiden, with a slim yet well-rounded figure, a pretty foot and ankle, though they went bare six days out of the seven--unless in the depth of winter, a trim waist, a slender throat, a delicate chin, a dainty mouth, as good a nose as if she had been born a Ramsay--or, as far as that goes, a Stewart, and a broad enough brow to explain her early attainments in the Psalms and Paraphrases. She was even something more than an innocent creature in whom there was little guile, a modest child to soil whose modesty would be a gross sin and shame in the eyes of every man worthy of the name. She was an industrious, upright, pious soul, the stay--by means of Peggy’s busy wheel principally, of her widowed mother. For the hedger and ditcher, exposed to every inclemency of the weather, had early paid the debt of nature. Peggy discharged faithfully all obligations known to her. She was a reverent, unfailing worshipper--one of the favourite lambs of the flock with the elderly uncouth book-worm of a dominie, who had progressed from the parish school to the parish kirk, and was in either place an excellent man, master, and minister. It was to this fair, sweet, and good young Peggy Hedderwick that Drumsheugh, wilful and masterful in his simple condescension, paid unfailing homage. He sought her out--for she never threw herself in his way--wherever she was to be found. He went with Balcairnie under a hundred pretexts to wherever the laird fancied there was the most distant chance of meeting Peggy. To bleaching-greens, quilting-parties, Handsel-Monday games, even kirk-preachings, her sorely-smitten swain followed Peggy desperately. He made little disguise of his infatuation, and put small restraint on his inclinations in scenes, where, as a welcome visitor from another sphere, he was allowed, it must be confessed, a considerable amount of license. He would dance with no other, he would sit by no other, he would convoy Peggy home when the play was ended. Soon the state of the case was no secret in the neighbourhood, with its various circles, among them that presided over by the old Lady of Drumsheugh. The folly and the danger, with what would come of it all, were commented on and canvassed everywhere. The sole cover to his actions, which Drumsheugh chose to assume, was that he went about in these lower regions under Balcairnie’s wing, as it were. The laird insisted on taking the yeoman with him in all his excursions and escapades.