Then ane drew on a fine silken rope, and up
the pole there went a braw silken banner, and it sailed out in the
wind. And there was mair shouting and brandishing. But what think ye
might next befall? That gowden ball, gowden like the sun before it
drops, that topped the pole, it fell! I marked it fall, and the heads
dodge, and it rolled upon the ground.... And then all went out like a
candle that you blaw upon. I was kneeling by the water, and Jock's
sark in my hand, and the lav'rock singing, and that was all."
"I have heard tell of that," said Strickland. "It was near Braemar."
"And that's mony a lang league frae here! Sax days, and we had news of
the rising, with the gathering at Braemar. And said he wha told us,
'The gilt ball fell frae the standard pole, and there's nane to think
that a good omen!' But I _saw_ it," said Mother Binning. She turned
her wheel, a woman not yet old and with a large, tranquil comeliness.
"What I see makes fine company!"
Strickland plucked a rose and smelled it. "This country is fuller of
such things than is England that I come from."
"Aye. It's a grand country." She continued to spin. The tutor looked
at the sun. It was time to be going if he wished another hour with the
stream. He took up his rod and book and rose from the door-step.
Mother Binning glanced aside from her wheel.
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