S. R. Crockett

“ Elizabeth Chrystie was a free-spoken young woman, and she told her tale generally in the English of the schools, but sometimes in the plain countryside talk she had spoken when, a barefoot, bare-legged lass she had scrieved the hills, the Companion of every questing collie and scapegrace herd lad 'twixt the Bennan and the Butt o' Benetick.
“When I first got to Craignesslin,” said the Hempie, “I thought I had better turn me about and come right back again. And if it had not been for pride, that is just what I should have done.”
“Were they not kind to you?” asked Nance. ”

“ There was a sound like kissing and quiet crying, though for the life of me I cannot tell why there should have been. Perhaps the women who will read this will know. And then the Hempie's voice began again, striving after its kind to be master of itself.
“So of course what could I do, when his father died? He and I were with him night and day. For Betty Hearseman being blind could not handle him at all, and Harry's mother was of no use. Indeed, we did not say anything to alarm her till the last morning. No, I cannot tell even you, Nance, what it was like. But we came through it together. ”

“ The hills ran steeply up on all sides, brown with heather on the knolls, and the bogs yellow and green with bracken and moss. The sheep wandered everywhere, white against the hill breast or black against the sky-line. ”

“ Peter Chrystie of Nether Neuk, if he did not put his hand in his breeches' pocket to some purpose.
“Will Alec let you come?” queried the Hempie. “He will miss you.”
“Oh, I'll tell him it is for the sake of baby's health,” said Nance; “and besides, they are all the better of being left alone occasionally. ”

“ She told me how some years ago her poor husband, Major Fergus, had had a dreadful accident. He was not only disfigured, but the shock had affected his brain.
“'At first,' she said, 'we thought of sending him to an asylum, but we could not find one exactly suited to his case. Besides which, his old nurse, Betty Hearseman, who had always had great influence with him, was wild to look after him. She is not quite right herself, but most faithful and kind. ”