As for Margaret, she was very happy in the fresh exhilaration of the morning air, in the excitement of what was going on, and in the society of her new friend. Nobody had so much amused her, occupied her, filled her mind with novel thoughts as Rob Glen. To watch him as he worked was an unceasing delight. He had chosen his place on the edge of the little belt of wood which encircled Earl’s-hall. Had the Leslies been well-to-do this would have been a mere flower-garden for beauty and pleasure; but as the Leslies were poor, it was potatoes, a more profitable if less lovely crop. The fir-trees, of which the wood was chiefly composed--for that corner of Fife is not favorable to foliage--sheltered them from the sun, which streamed full upon the old house, with all its picturesque irregularities. The little court, with its well and its old thorn-tree, which lay so deep in shadow in the evening, was now full of light. The door standing open let in a mass of sunshine into the little vaulted passage which led to the lower story, and touched the winding stair with an edge of whiteness; and the huge old “ivy-tree,” as Margaret called it, the branches of which, against the wall which shut in the court on the west side, were like architecture, great ribs of wood, dark, mossy, and ancient, as if they had been carved out of stone--shone and glowed, and sent back reflections from the heavy masses of blunt-leaved foliage, which clad the tower completely from head to foot. Bell’s chair was placed in front of this open door to show where the figure was to be.
“But to pit me there in the forenoon with the sun in my een, and a’ the work of the house lyin’ neglectit!” said Bell. “Well, I wat you’ll never see me sae.”
“It might be Sunday,” suggested Rob, “the day of rest.”
“The Sabbath’s more than a day of rest,” said Bell, reprovingly. “In the morning all right-minded folk are at the kirk, the only place for them; and to gie a stranger to suppose that me, I was letting ony idle lad draw my picture on the Lord’s-day!”
“Never mind,” he said; “I am not offended. Bell can call me an idle lad if she likes--so does my mother, for that matter. She thinks I might as well swing on a gate all day, as do what I am doing now.”