Late June flamed around them.
Ian stayed another hour or two ere he rode back to Black Hill.

With Glenfernie he went over Glenfernie House, the known, familiar rooms.
They went to the school-room together and out through the breach in the old castle wall, and sat among the pine roots, and looked down through leafy tree-tops to the glint of water.

When, in the sun-washed house and narrow garden and grassy court, they came upon men and women they stopped and spoke, and all was friendly and merry as it should be in a land of good folk.

Ian had his crack with Davie, with Eppie and Phemie and old Lauchlinson and others.

They sat for a few minutes with Mrs.Grizel where, in a most housewifely corner, she measured currants and bargained with pickers of cherries.