would be pleased with it. For I loved Robert Fraser, and I will not deny that my heart beat with expectation as I went up the little loaning with the rough stone dyke upon either side—aye, as if it had been the way to Nether Neuk, and I going to see my sweetheart. "Come your ways in, Alec, man," his voice came from the inner room, as he heard me pause to exchange banter of a rural sort with the servant lasses in the kitchen; "I have been waitin' for ye. I kenned ye wad come the nicht!" "Come your ways in, Alec, man," his voice came from the inner room, as he heard me pause to exchange banter of a rural sort with the servant lasses in the kitchen; "I have been waitin' for ye. I kenned ye wad come the nicht!" I went in. And there by the little peat fire, drowsing red and looking strangely out of place behind the ribs of the black-leaded "register" grate, I saw the Stickit Minister with a black-and-white check plaid about his knees. He smiled a strange sweet smile, at once wistful and distant, as I entered—like one who waves farewell through a mist of tears as the pier slides back and the sundering water seethes and widens about the ship. I went in. And there by the little peat fire, drowsing red and looking strangely out of place behind the ribs of the black-leaded "register" grate, I saw the Stickit Minister with a black-and-white check plaid about his knees. He smiled a strange sweet smile, at once wistful and distant, as I entered—like one who waves farewell through a mist of tears as the pier slides back and the sundering water seethes and widens about the ship. "You are better, Robert!" I said, smiling too. Dully, and yet with dogged cheerfulness, I said it, as men lie to the dying—and are not believed. "You are better, Robert!" I said, smiling too. Dully, and yet with dogged cheerfulness, I said it, as men lie to the dying—and are not believed. He stretched out his thin hand, the ploughman's horn clean gone from it, and the veins blue and convex upon the shrunk wrist. He stretched out his thin hand, the ploughman's horn clean gone from it, and the veins blue and convex upon the shrunk wrist. "Ave atque vale, Alec, lad!" he answered. "That is what it has come to with Robert Fraser. But how are all at Drumquhat? Ye will be on your road ower to the Nether Neuk?" "
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