There was no view from here. A man might
have sat upon the Praying Weaver's stone a half century, and seen none
but the Cauldstaneslap children twice in the twenty-four hours on their
way to the school and back again, an occasional shepherd, the irruption
of a clan of sheep, or the birds who haunted about the springs, drinking
and shrilly piping. So, when she had once passed the Slap, Kirstie was
received into seclusion. She looked back a last time at the farm. It
still lay deserted except for the figure of Dandie, who was now seen to
be scribbling in his lap, the hour of expected inspiration having come
to him at last. Thence she passed rapidly through the morass, and came
to the farther end of it, where a sluggish burn discharges, and the path
for Hermiston accompanies it on the beginning of its downward path.
From this corner a wide view was opened to her of the whole stretch of
braes upon the other side, still sallow and in places rusty with the
winter, with the path marked boldly, here and there by the burn-side a
tuft of birches, and - two miles off as the crow flies - from its
enclosures and young plantations, the windows of Hermiston glittering in
the western sun.
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