a favorite of his wealthy and generous master. He had many duties to perform, but he found time from them to woo and win Jean Macduff, the ruddy and buxom daughter of a small farmer in the neighboring parish of New Abbey, and we may imagine him making his way through the rocky passes, across the crooked streams, over the wonderful, wild landscape which Sir Walter Scott tells us about, to call on his Scotch lassie and present her with a fresh bouquet from Mr. Craik’s gardens.
Jean’s family were as old as the Scotch hills and quite as rugged and proud. There were strength and force and energy in the good old stock from which she came, and there was a generous share of these qualities left on hand for the child who came to her later and made her name familiar to all the world.
The marriage of the homely pair took place after the fashion of the simple Scotch country folk, and they settled down on Mr. Craik’s es-
