An' gi'e't to the Duke o' Hamilton
To be a touting horn."

"Robin Redbreast has a blithe interpreter," said Willy Ray, as he
leaned for a moment against the open door of the dairy in passing out.
Rotha was there singing, while in a snow-white apron, and with arms
bare above the elbows, she weighed the butter of the last churning
into pats, and marked each pat with a rude old mark. The girl dropped
her head and blushed as Willy spoke. Of late she had grown unable to
look the young man in the face. Willy did not speak again. His face
colored, and he went away. Rotha's manner towards Ralph was different.
He spoke to her but rarely, and when he did so she looked frankly into
his face. If she met him abroad, as she sometimes did when carrying
water from the well, he would lift her pails in his stronger hands
over the stile, and at such times the girl thought his voice seemed
softer.

"I am thinking," said Mrs. Ray to her husband, as she was spinning in
the kitchen at Shoulthwaite Moss,--"I am thinking," she said, stopping
the wheel and running her fingers through the wool, "that Willy is
partial to the little tailor's winsome lass."

"And what aboot Ralph?" asked Angus.




CHAPTER II.

THE CRIME IN THE NIGHT.