But, by good St.Valentine, whose holyday will dawn tomorrow, I am so glad to see thee in the bonny city of Perth again that it would be hard to tell the thing I could refuse thee." The smith, for, as has been said, such was the craft of this sturdy artisan, was encouraged modestly to salute the Fair Maid, who yielded the courtesy with a smile of affection that might have become a sister, saying, at the same time: "Let me hope that I welcome back to Perth a repentant and amended man." He held her hand as if about to answer, then suddenly, as one who lost courage at the moment, relinquished his grasp; and drawing back as if afraid of what he had done, his dark countenance glowing with bashfulness, mixed with delight, he sat down by the fire on the opposite side from that which Catharine occupied.
"Come, Dorothy, speed thee with the food, old woman; and Conachar--where is Conachar ?" "He is gone to bed, sir, with a headache," said Catharine, in a hesitating voice.
"Go, call him, Dorothy," said the old glover; "I will not be used thus by him: his Highland blood, forsooth, is too gentle to lay a trencher or spread a napkin, and he expects to enter our ancient and honourable craft without duly waiting and tending upon his master and teacher in all matters of lawful obedience.

Go, call him, I say; I will not be thus neglected." Dorothy was presently heard screaming upstairs, or more probably up a ladder, to the cock loft, to which the recusant apprentice had made an untimely retreat; a muttered answer was returned, and soon after Conachar appeared in the eating apartment.

There was a gloom of deep sullenness on his haughty, though handsome, features, and as he proceeded to spread the board, and arrange the trenchers, with salt, spices, and other condiments--to discharge, in short, the duties of a modern domestic, which the custom of the time imposed upon all apprentices--he was obviously disgusted and indignant with the mean office imposed upon him.
The Fair Maid of Perth looked with some anxiety at him, as if apprehensive that his evident sullenness might increase her father's displeasure; but it was not till her eyes had sought out his for a second time that Conachar condescended to veil his dissatisfaction, and throw a greater appearance of willingness and submission into the services which he was performing.
And here we must acquaint our reader that, though the private interchange of looks betwixt Catharine Glover and the young mountaineer indicated some interest on the part of the former in the conduct of the latter, it would have puzzled the strictest observer to discover whether that feeling exceeded in degree what might have been felt by a young person towards a friend and inmate of the same age, with whom she had lived on habits of intimacy.
"Thou hast had a long journey, son Henry," said Glover, who had always used that affectionate style of speech, though no ways akin to the young artisan; "ay, and hast seen many a river besides Tay, and many a fair bigging besides St.Johnston." "But none that I like half so well, and none that are half so much worth my liking," answered the smith.

"I promise you, father, that, when I crossed the Wicks of Baiglie, and saw the bonny city lie stretched fairly before me like a fairy queen in romance, whom the knight finds asleep among a wilderness of flowers, I felt even as a bird when it folds its wearied wings to stoop down on its own nest." "Aha! so thou canst play the maker [old Scottish for poet] yet ?" said the glover.

"What, shall we have our ballets and our roundels again?
our lusty carols for Christmas, and our mirthful springs to trip it round the maypole ?" "Such toys there may be forthcoming, father," said Henry Smith, "though the blast of the bellows and the clatter of the anvil make but coarse company to lays of minstrelsy; but I can afford them no better, since I must mend my fortune, though I mar my verses." "Right again--my own son just," answered the glover; "and I trust thou hast made a saving voyage of it ?" "Nay, I made a thriving one, father: I sold the steel habergeon that you wot of for four hundred marks to the English Warden of the East Marches, Sir Magnus Redman.