As the Laird was half-thinking, half-speaking this to himself, the enchanting creature looked back at him with a motion of intelligence that she knew what he was half-saying, half-thinking, and then vanished over the summit of the rising ground before him, called the Birky Brow. "Aye, go your ways!" said the Laird; "I see by you, you'll not be very hard to overtake. You cannot get off the road, and I'll have a chat with you before you make the Deer's Den." The Laird jogged on. He did not sing the _Laird of Windy-wa's_ any more, for he felt a stifling about his heart; but he often repeated to himself, "She's a very fine woman!--a very fine woman indeed!--and to be walking here by herself! I cannot comprehend it." When he reached the summit of the Birky Brow he did not see her, although he had a longer view of the road than before. He thought this very singular, and began to suspect that she wanted to escape him, although apparently rather lingering on him before. "I shall have another look at her, however," thought the Laird, and off he set at a flying trot. No. He came first to one turn, then another. There was nothing of the young lady to be seen. "Unless she take wings and fly away, I shall be up with her," quoth the Laird, and off he set at the full gallop. In the middle of his career he met with Mr. McMurdie, of Aulton, who hailed him with, "Hilloa, Birkendelly! Where the deuce are you flying at that rate?" "I was riding after a woman," said the Laird, with great simplicity, reining in his steed. "Then I am sure no woman on earth can long escape you, unless she be in an air balloon." "I don't know that. Is she far gone?" "In which way do you mean?" "In this." "Aha-ha-ha! Hee-hee-hee!" nichered McMurdie, misconstruing the Laird's meaning. "What do you laugh at, my dear sir? Do you know her, then?" "Ho-ho-ho! Hee-hee-hee! How should I, or how can I, know her, Birkendelly, unless you inform me who she is?" "Why, that is the very thing I want to know of you. I mean the young lady whom you met just now." "You are raving, Birkendelly. I met no young lady, nor is there a single person on the road I have come by, while you know that for a mile and a half forward your way she could not get out of it." "I know that," said the Laird, biting his lip and looking greatly puzzled; "but confound me if I understand this; for I was within speech of her just now on the top of the Birky Brow there, and, when I think of it, she could not have been even thus far as yet. She had on a pure white gauze frock, a small green bonnet and feathers, and a green veil, which, flung back over her left shoulder, hung below her waist, and was altogether such an engaging figure that no man could have passed her on the road without taking some note of her. Are you not making game of me? Did you not really meet with her?"