Waeheartedly enough we left the little white housie behind us, sitting blythsome on its brae above the white stones of the burn. And in my imagination to this very day, whenever I am away from the Minnoch for long, rises a clear picture of the water-side as we saw it that morning—a wide valley filled to the brim with sunshine and the stir of breathing airs, the whaups and peesweeps beginning to build, and keeping up all the time above our heads a brave welter of crying and the whistle of eddying wings. ’I wonder not that sometimes you grow homesick,’ said Nell Kennedy. ’When you are distracted and morose, I shall now know the reason.’ So we came in due season to the house of Culzean, and there we found all well, with James playing tennis contentedly in the court; and Sandy, up at the stables, acting the big man and giving his orders as large as my lord. *CHAPTER XXVIII* *WARM BACKS MAKE BRAW BAIRNS* It was the morning of the 11th of May, and we were on the morrow to take our journey to the town of Edinburgh. I had advertisement the night before that I was to ride to the town of Maybole to meet John Mure of Auchendrayne, and on my master’s account to appoint a tryst with him at the Duppil, not far from the town of Ayr, for my Lord desired not to pass through that place, knowing that many of the faction of Bargany abode there. But Sir Thomas ever believed that Auchendrayne was of those that wished him well, because of the marriage and of all that had passed between them. So I had to ride on this mission that I loved not over well. But I had nought to say. For whenever I spake to the Tutor concerning John Mure, he would clap me on the head and say, ’Ye are overcareful and suspicious, Launcelot. John Mure and I are fathers of the same pair of bairns, wherefore, then, should we not be as one—even as they?’ Poor man—I could not find it in my heart to tell him of the happening beneath the town-gate of Maybole, when James Mure’s wife bade farewell to Gilbert Kennedy of Bargany, as he lay there dead on his enemies’ spears. So at early morning I rode as I was bidden to Maybole to meet the Laird of Auchendrayne, who, as my master knew, had some business there. But it so fell out that I missed him, for he had lodged all night in the town at the Black House, which belongs to one Kennedy of Knockdone, a friend of his and of the Laird of Newark’s.