Ebie went thoughtfully up-stairs, climbing the stable ladder as the first twilight of the dawn was slowly pouring up from beneath into a lake of light and colour in the east, as water gushes from a strong well-eye.
"Ye're a nice boy comin' to yer bed at this time o' the mornin'," said Jock Forrest from his bunk at the other side.
"Nicht-wanderin' bairns needs skelpin'!" remarked Jock Gordon, who had taken up his abode in a vacant stall beneath.
"Sleep yer ain sleeps, ye pair o' draft-sacks, in yer beds," answered Ebie Farrish without heat and simply as a conversational counter.
He did not know that he was quoting the earliest English classic. He had never heard of Chaucer.
"What wad Jess say?" continued Jock Forrest, sleepily.
"Ask her," said Ebie sharply.
"At any rate, I'm no gaun to be disturbit in my nicht's rest wi' the like o' you, Ebie Farrish! Ye'll eyther come hame in time o' nicht, or ye'll sleep elsewhere--up at the Crae, gin ye like."
"Mind yer ain business," retorted Ebie, who could think of nothing else to say.
Down below daft Jock Gordon, with some dim appropriateness was beginning his elricht croon of-"The devil sat on his ain lum-tap, Hech how--black and reeky--"
when Jock Forrest, out of all patience, cried out down to him: "Jock Gordon, gin ye begin yer noise at twa o'clock i' the mornin' I'll come down an' pit ye i' the mill-dam!"
"Maybes ye'll be cryin' for me to pit you i' the mill-dam some warm day!" said Jock Gordon grimly, "but I'se do naething o' the kind. I'll een bank up the fires an' gie ye a turn till ye're weel brandered. Ye'll girn for mill-dams then, I'm thinkin'!"
So, grumbling and threatening in his well-accustomed manner, Jock Gordon returned to the wakeful silence which he kept during the hours usually given to sleep. It was said, however, that he never really slept. Indeed, Ebie and Jock were ready to take their oath that they never went up and down that wooden ladder, from which three of the rounds were missing, without seeing Jock Gordon's eyes shining like a cat's out of the dark of the manger where, like an ape, he sat all night cross-legged.
CHAPTEK XXII.
A SCARLET POPPY.
IT was early afternoon at Craig Ronald. Afternoon is quite a different time from morning at a farm. Afternoon is slack-water in the duties of the house, at least for the womenfolk--except in hay and harvest, when it is full flood tide all the time, night and day. But when we consider that the life of a farm town begins about four in the morning, it will be readily seen that afternoon comes far on in the day indeed for such as have tasted the freshness of the morning.