Yet with all this he made no decision as to his own course.

He was discreet, and in minds like his decisions upon important matters are fruits of slow growth.
He came at last to a farm, a very goodly farm for so hilly a district.
It lay, a fertile flat, in a notch of the green hillside.

When he reached the house yard he asked for Mistress Betty M'Leod, and was led to her presence.

The old dame sat at her spinning-wheel in a farm kitchen.

Her white hair was drawn closely, like a thin veil, down the sides of her head and pinned at the back.