"As for me," she went on, liking methinks the sound of her own voice, "that is, for my corps, I care not gin it were cast up to the heaven, and keppit upon iron graips, so that my soul had peace!" "I think that I would even be content to lie at the bottom of this well if I might have peace!" said I, for the spirit within me was jangled and easily set on edge with her corncrake crying. "William, William," she said, "I fear greatly you are yet in the bond of iniquity! I do but waste my time with you!" Saying which, she let herself down on the well-edge, lifted her pails and was gone. In a little came Maisie Lennox with other two buckets. The sentinel, if he thought at all, must have set us down for wondrous clean folk about Earlstoun during these days; but all passed off easily and no notice taken. Then when Maisie came, it was a joy to greet her, for she was as a friend--yes, as David to Jonathan--exceeding pleasant to me. As I have often said, I am not a man to take the eyes of women, and never looked to be loved by woman other than my mother. But for all that, I liked to think about love, and to picture what manner of man he should be to whom Maisie Lennox would let all her heart go out. Every night she came in briskly, laughing at having to pull herself up into the well-chamber, and ever with some new story of cheer to tell me. "Ken ye what little Jock said this day?" she asked ere her head was well above the trap-door. I told her that I knew not, but was eager to hear, for that I ever counted Jock the best bairn in all the coupe. "It was at dinner," she said, taking a dish from under her apron, "and I minded that when you were with us at the Duchrae, you kept a continual crying for burn-trout. These being served for a first course, I watched for a time when the servants were taken up at the chamber-end with their serving, and when the bairns were busy with their noses at their plates. "Then, when none observed, I whipped the most part of the dainty platterful of fish underneath my apron and sat very still and innocent, picking at the bones on my plate. "Soon little Jock looked up. 'O mither, mither!' he cried, 'wull ye please to look at Aunty Maisie, she has eaten the hale kane o' trootses, banes, plate an' a', while we were suppin' our broth.' "At this there was great wonderment, and all the children came about, expecting to see me come to some hurt by so mighty a meal. "'Tell me,' cried Jock, being ever the foremost, 'how far doon the platter has gotten. Are ye sure it is not sticking somewhere by the road?' "All the time I sat with the half score of burn-trout on my lap covered by my apron, and it was only by pretending I had burned myself, that I got them at last safe out of the room." With such tales she pleased me, winning my heart all the while, causing me to forget my weakness, and to think the nights not long when I lay awake listening to the piets and hoolets crying about me in the ancient woods of Earlstoun.