"A lad and a lass met ower the brae;They blushed rose-red, but they said nae word—The woodbine fair and the milk-white slae:—And frae one to the other gaed a silver bird,A silver bird."A man set his Wish all odds before,With sword, with pen, and with gold he stirredTill the Wish and he met on a conquered shore,And frae one to the other gaed an ebon bird,An ebon bird."God looked on a man and said: ''Tis time!The broken mends, clear flows the blurred.You and I are two worlds that rhyme!'And frae one to the other gaed a golden bird,A golden bird."
"A lad and a lass met ower the brae;They blushed rose-red, but they said nae word—The woodbine fair and the milk-white slae:—And frae one to the other gaed a silver bird,A silver bird.
"A man set his Wish all odds before,With sword, with pen, and with gold he stirredTill the Wish and he met on a conquered shore,And frae one to the other gaed an ebon bird,An ebon bird.
"God looked on a man and said: ''Tis time!The broken mends, clear flows the blurred.You and I are two worlds that rhyme!'And frae one to the other gaed a golden bird,A golden bird."
She sang it through, then sat entirely still against the stem of the thorn, while about her lips played that faint, unapproachable, glamouring smile. Her hands touched the grass to either side her body; her slender, blue-clad figure, the all of her, smote him like some god's line of poetry.
There was in the laird of Glenfernie's nature an empty palace. It had been built through ages and every wind of pleasure and pain had blown about it. Then it had slowly come about that the winds of pain had increased upon the winds of pleasure. The mind closed the door of the palace and the nature inclined to turn from it. It was there, but a sea mist hid it, and a tall thorn-hedge, and a web stretched across its idle gates. It had hardly come, in this life, into Glenfernie's waking mind that it was there at all.
Now with a suddenness every door clanged open. The mist parted, the thorn-wood sank, the web was torn. The palace stood, shining like home, and it was he who was afar, in the mist and the wood, and the web of idleness and oblivion in shreds about him. Set in the throne-room, upon the throne, he saw the queen.
His mood, that May day, had given the moment, and wide circumstance had met it. Now the hand was in the glove, the statue in the niche, the bow upon the string, the spark in the tinder, the seathrough the dike. Now what had reached being must take its course.
He felt that so fatally that he did not think of resistance.... Elspeth, upon the grassy cape, beneath the blooming thorn, heard steps down the glen path, and turned her eyes to see the young laird moving between the birch stems. Now he was level with the holding; now he spoke to her, lifting his hat. She answered, with the smile beneath her eyes:
"Aye, Glenfernie, it's a braw day!"
"May I come into the fairy country and sit awhile and visit?"
"Aye." She welcomed him to a hillock of green rising from the water's edge. "Itisfairyland, and these are the broad seas around, and I know if I came here by night I should find the Good People before me!" She looked at him with friendliness, half shy, half frank. "It is the best of weather for wandering."
"Are you fond of that, too? Do you go up and down alone?"
"By my lee-lane when Gilian's not here. She's in Aberdeen now, where live our mother's folk."
"I have not seen you for years."
"I mind the last time. Your mother lay ill. One evening at sunset Mr. Ian Rullock and you came to White Farm."
"It must have been after sunset. It must have been dark."
"Back of that you and he came from Edinburgh one time. We were down by the wishing-green, Robin Greenlaw and Gilian and I and three or fourother lads and lassies. Do you remember? Mr. Rullock would have us dance, and we all took hands—you, too—and went around the ash-tree as though it were a May-pole. We changed hands, one with another, and danced upon the green. Then you and he got upon your horses and rode away. He was riding the white mare Fatima. But oh," said Elspeth, "then came grandfather, who had seen us from the reaped field, and he blamed us sair and put no to our playing! He gave word to the minister, and Sunday the sermon dealt with the ill women of Scripture. Back of that—"
"Back of that—"
"There was the day the two of you would go to the Kelpie's Pool." Elspeth's eyes enlarged and darkened. "The next morn we heard—Jock Binning told us—that Mr. Ian had nearly drowned."
"Almost ten years ago. Once—twice—thrice in ten years. How idly were they spent, those years!"
"Oh," cried Elspeth, "they say that you have been to world's end and have gotten great learning!"
"One comes home from all that to find world's end and great learning."
Elspeth leaned from him, back against the thorn-tree. She looked somewhat disquietedly, somewhat questioningly, at this new laird. Glenfernie, in his turn, laid upon himself both hands of control. He thought:
"Do not peril all—do not peril all—with haste and frightening!"
He sat upon the green hillock and talked of country news. She met him with this and that ... White Farm affairs, Littlefarm.
"Robin," said Alexander, "manages so well that he'll grow wealthy!"
"Oh no! He manages well, but he'll never grow wealthy outside! But inside he has great riches."
"Does she love him, then?"It poured fear into his heart. A magician with a sword—with a great, evil, written-upon creese like that hanging at Black Hill—was here before the palace.
"Do you love him?" asked Alexander, and asked it with so straight a simplicity that Elspeth Barrow took no offense.
She looked at him, and those strange smiles played about her lips. "Robin is a fairy man," she said. "He has ower little of struggle save with his rhymes," and left him to make what he could of that.
"She is heart-free," he thought, but still he feared and boded.
Elspeth rose from the grass, stepped from beneath the blooming tree. "I must be going. It wears toward noon."
Together they left the flower-set cape. The laird of Glenfernie looked back upon it.
"Heaven sent a sample down.You come here when you wish? You walk about with the spring and summer days?"
"Aye, when my work's done. Gilian and I love the greenwood."
He gave her the narrow path, but kept beside her on stone and dead leaves and mossy root. Though he was so large of frame, he moved with a practised, habitual ease, as far as might be from any savor of clumsiness. He had magnetism, and to-day he drew like a planet in glow. Now he lookedat the woman beside him, and now he looked straight ahead with kindled eyes.
Elspeth walked with slightly quickened breath, with knitted brows. The laird of Glenfernie was above her in station, though go to the ancestors and blood was equal enough! It carried appeal to a young woman's vanity, to be walking so, to feel that the laird liked well enough to be where he was. She liked him, too. Glenfernie House was talked of, talked of, by village and farm and cot, talked of, talked of, year by year—all the Jardines, their virtues and their vices, what they said and what they did. She had heard, ever since she was a bairn, that continual comment, like a little prattling burn running winter and summer through the dale. So she knew much that was true of Alexander Jardine, but likewise entertained a sufficient amount of misapprehension and romancing. Out of it all came, however, for the dale, and for the women at White Farm who listened to the burn's voice, a sense of trustworthiness. Elspeth, walking by Glenfernie, felt kindness for him. If, also, there ran a tremor of feeling that it was very fair to be Elspeth Barrow and walking so, she was young and it was natural. But beyond that was a sense, vague, unexplained to herself, but disturbing. There was feeling in him that was not in her. She was aware of it as she might be aware of a gathering storm, though the brain received as yet no clear message. She felt, struggling with that diffused kindness and young vanity, something like discomfort and fear. So her mood was complex enough, unharmonized, parted between opposing currents. She was a riddle to herself.
But Glenfernie walked in a great simplicity of faeryland or heaven. She did not love Robin Greenlaw; she was not so young a lass, with a rose in her cheek for every one; she was come so far without mating because she had snow in her heart! The palace gleamed, the palace shone. All the music of earth—of the world—poured through. The sun had drunk up the mist, time had eaten the thorn-wood, the spider at the gate had vanished into chaos and old night.
The cows and sheep and work-horses, the dogs, the barn-yard fowls, the very hives of bees at White Farm, seemed to know well enough that it was the Sabbath. The flowers knew it that edged the kitchen garden, the cherry-tree knew it by the southern wall. The sunshine knew it, wearing its calm Sunday best. Sights and sounds attuned themselves.
The White Farm family was home from kirk. Jenny Barrow and Elspeth put away hood and wide hat of straw, slipped from and shook out and folded on the shelf Sunday gowns and kerchiefs. Then each donned a clean print and a less fine kerchief and came forth to direct and aid the two cotter lasses who served at White Farm. These by now had off their kirk things, but they marked Sunday still by keeping shoes and stockings. Menie and Merran, Elspeth and Jenny, set the yesterday-prepared dinner cold upon the table, drew the ale, and placed chairs and stools. Two men, Thomas and Willy, father and son, who drove the plow, sowed and reaped, for White Farm, came from the barn. They were yet Sunday-clad, with very clean, shining faces. "Call father, Elspeth!" directed Jenny, and set on the table a honeycomb.
Elspeth went without the door. Before the house grew a great fir-tree that had a bench built around it. Here, in fine weather, in rest hours and on Sunday, might be looked for Jarvis Barrow. It was his habit to take the far side of the tree, with the trunk between him and the house. So there spread before him the running river, the dale and moor, and at last the piled hills. Here he sat, leaning hands upon a great stick shaped like a crook, his Bible open upon his knees. It was a great book, large of print, read over in every part, but opening most easily among the prophets. No cry, no denunciation, no longing, no judgment from Isaiah to Malachi, but was known to the elder of the kirk. Now he sat here, in his Sunday dress, with the Bible. At a little distance, on the round bench, sat Robin Greenlaw. The old man read sternly, concentratedly on; the young one looked at the purple mountain-heads. Elspeth came around the tree.
"Grandfather, dinner is ready.—Robin! we didn't know that you were here—"
"I went the way around to speak with the laird. Then I thought, 'I will eat at White Farm—'"
"You're welcome!—Grandfather, let me take the Book."
"No," said the old man, and bore it himself withindoors. Spare and unbent of frame, threescore and ten and five, and able yet at the plow-stilts, rigid of will, servant to the darker Calvinism, starving where he might human pride and human affections, and yet with much of both to starve, he moved and spoke with slow authority, lookeda patriarch and ruled his holding. When presently he came to table in the clean, sanded room with the sunlight on the wall and floor, and when, standing, he said the long, the earnest grace, it might have been taken that here, in the Scotch farm-house, was at least a minor prophet. The grace was long, a true wrestling in prayer. Ended, a decent pause was made, then all took place, Jarvis Barrow and his daughter and granddaughter, Robin Greenlaw, Thomas and Willy, Menie and Merran. The cold meat, the bread, and other food were passed from hand to hand, the ale poured. The Sunday hush, the Sunday voices, continued to hold. Jarvis Barrow would have no laughter and idle clashes at his table on the Lord's day. Menie and Merran and Willy kept a stolid air, with only now and then a sidelong half-smile or nudging request for this or that. Elspeth ate little, sat with her brown eyes fixed out of the window. Robin Greenlaw ate heartily enough, but he had an air distrait, and once or twice he frowned. But Jenny Barrow could not long keep still and incurious, even upon the Sabbath day.
"Eh, Robin, what was your crack with the laird?"
"He wants to buy Warlock for James Jardine. He's got his ensign's commission to go fight the French."
"Eh, he'll be a bonny lad on Warlock! I thought you wadna sell him?"
"I'll sell to Glenfernie."
The farmer spoke from the head of the table. "I'll na hae talk, Robin, of buying and selling onthe day! It clinks like the money-changers and sellers of doves."
Thomas, his helper, raised his head from a plate of cold mutton. "Glenfernie was na at kirk. He's na the kirkkeeper his father was. Na, na!"
"Na," said the farmer. "Bairns dinna walk nowadays in parents' ways."
Willy had a bit of news he would fain get in. "Nae doot Glenfernie's brave, but he wadna be a sodger, either! I was gaeing alang wi' the yowes, and there was he and Drummielaw riding and gabbing. Sae there cam on a skirling and jumping wind and rain, and we a' gat under a tree, the yowes and the dogs and Glenfernie and Drummielaw and me. Then we changed gude day and they went on gabbing. And 'Nae,' says Glenfernie, 'I am nae lawyer and I am nae sodger. Jamie wad be the last, but brithers may love and yet be thinking far apairt. The best friend I hae in the warld is a sodger, but I'm thinking I hae lost the knack o' fechting. When you lose the taste you lose the knack.'"
"I's fearing," said Thomas, "that he's lost the taste o' releegion!"
"Eh," exclaimed Jenny Barrow, "but he's a bonny big man! He came by yestreen, and I thought, 'For a' there is sae muckle o' ye, ye look as though ye walked on air!'"
Thomas groaned. "Muckle tae be saved, muckle tae be lost!"
Jarvis Barrow spoke from the head of the table. "If fowk canna talk on the Sabbath o' spiritual things, maybe they can mak shift to haud thetongue in their chafts! I wad think that what we saw and heard the day wad put ye ower the burn frae vain converse!"
Thomas nodded approval.
"Aweel—" began Jenny, but did not find just the words with which to continue.
Elspeth, turning ever so slightly in her chair, looked farther off to the hills and summer clouds. A slow wave of color came over her face and throat. Menie and Merran looked sidelong each at the other, then their blue eyes fell to their plates. But Willy almost audibly smacked his lips.
"Gude keep us! the meenister gaed thae sinners their licks!"
"A sair sight, but an eedifying!" said Thomas.
Robin Greenlaw pushed back his chair. He saw the inside of the kirk again, and two miserable, loutish, lawless lovers standing for public discipline. His color rose. "Aye, it was a sair sight," he said, abruptly, made a pause, then went on with the impetuousness of a burn unlocked from winter ice. "If I should say just what I think, I suppose, uncle, that I could not come here again! So I'll e'en say only that I think that was a sair sight and that I felt great shame and pity for all sinners. So, feeling it for all, I felt it for Mallie and Jock, standing there an hour, first on one foot and then on the other, to be gloated at and rebukit, and for the minister doing the rebuking, and for the kirkful all gloating, and thinking, 'Lord, not such are we!' and for Robin Greenlaw who often enough himself takes wildfire for true light! I say I think it was sair sight and sair doing—"
Barrow's hand came down upon the table. "Robin Greenlaw!"
"You need not thunder at me, sir. I'm done! I did not mean to make such a clatter, for in this house what clatter makes any difference? It's the sinner makes the clatter, and it's just promptly sunk and lost in godliness!"
The old man and the young turned in their chairs, faced each other. They looked somewhat alike, and in the heart of each was fondness for the other. Greenlaw, eye to eye with the patriarch, felt his wrath going.
"Eh, uncle, I did not mean to hurt the Sunday!"
Jarvis Barrow spoke with the look and the weight of a prophet in Israel. "What is your quarrel about, and for what are ye flyting against the kirk and the minister and the kirkkeepers? Are ye wanting that twa sinners, having sinned, should hae their sin for secret and sweet to their aneselves, gilded and pairfumed and excused and unnamed? Are ye wanting that nane should know, and the plague should live without the doctor and without the mark upon the door? Or are ye thinking that it is nae plague at all, nae sin, and nae blame? Then ye be atheist, Robin Greenlaw, and ye gae indeed frae my door, and wad gae were ye na my nephew, but my son!" He gathered force. "Elder of the kirk, I sit here, and I tell ye that were it my ain flesh and blood that did evil, my stick and my plaid I wad take and ower the moor I wad gae to tell manse and parish that Sin, the wolf, had crept into the fauld! And I wad see thae folly-crammed and sinfu' sauls, that had let him in and had his bite,set for shame and shawing and warning and example before the congregation, and I wad say to the minister, 'Lift voice against them and spare not!' And I wad be there the day and in my seat, though my heart o' flesh was like to break!" His hand fell again heavily upon the board. "Sae weak and womanish is thae time we live in!" He flashed at his great-nephew. "Sae poetical! It wasna sae when the Malignants drove us and we fled to the hills and were fed on the muirs with the word of the Lord! It wasna sae in the time when Gawin Elliot that Glenfernie draws frae was hanged for gieing us that word! Then gin a sin-blasted ane was found amang us, his road indeed was shawn him! Aye, were't man or woman!'For while they be folded together as thorns, and while they are drunken as drunkards, they shall be devoured as stubble fully dry!'"
He pushed back his heavy chair; he rose from table and went forth, tall, ancient, gray, armored in belief. They heard him take his Bible from where it lay, and knew that he was back under the fir-tree, facing from the house toward moor and hill and mountain.
"Eh-h," groaned Thomas, "the elder is a mighty witness!"
The family at White Farm ate in silence. Elspeth slipped from her place.
"Where are ye gaeing, hinny?" asked Jenny. "Ye hae eaten naething."
"I've finished," said Elspeth. "I'm going to afternoon kirk, and I'll be getting ready."
She went into the room that she shared withGilian and shut the door. Robin looked after her.
"When is Gilian coming home?"
"Naebody knows. She is sae weel at Aberdeen! They write that she is a great student and is liked abune a', and they clamor to keep her.—Are ye gaeing to second kirk, Robin?"
"I do not think so. But I'll walk over the moor with you."
The meal ended. Thomas and Willy went forth to the barn. Menie and Merran began to clear the table. They were not going to second kirk, and so the work was left to their hand. Jenny bustled to get on again her Sunday gear. She would not have missed, for a pretty, afternoon kirk and all the neighbors who were twice-goers. It was fair and theater and promenade and kirk to her in one—though of course she only said "kirk."
They walked over the moor, Jarvis Barrow and Jenny and Robin and Elspeth. And at a crossing path they came upon a figure seated on a stone and found it to be that of the laird of Glenfernie.
"Gude day, Glenfernie!"
"Good day, White Farm!"
He joined himself to them. For a moment he and Robin Greenlaw were together.
"Do you know what I hear them calling you?" quoth the latter. "I hear them say 'The wandering laird!'"
Alexander smiled. "That's not so bad a name!"
He walked now beside Jarvis Barrow. The old man's stride was hardly shortened by age. Thetwo kept ahead of the two women, Greenlaw, Thomas, and the sheep-dog Sandy.
"It's a bonny day, White Farm!"
"Aye, it's bonny eneuch, Glenfernie. Are ye for kirk?"
"Maybe so, maybe not. I take much of my kirk out of doors. Moors make grand kirks. That has a sound, has it not, of heathenish brass cymbals?"
"It hae."
"All the same, I honor every kirk that stands sincere."
"Wasna your father sincere? Why gae ye not in his steps?"
"Maybe I do.... Yes, he was sincere. I trust that I am so, too. I would be."
"Why gae ye not in his steps, then?"
"All buildings are not alike and yet they may be built sincerely."
"Ye're wrong! Ye'll see it one day. Ye'll come round to your father's steps, only ye'll tread them deeper! Ye've got it in you, to the far back. I hear good o' ye, and I hear ill o' ye."
"Belike."
"Ye've traveled. See if ye can travel out of the ring of God!"
"What is the ring of God? If it is as large as I think it is," said Glenfernie, "I'll not travel out of it."
He looked out over moor and moss. There breathed about him something that gave the old man wonder. "Hae ye gold-mines and jewels, Glenfernie? Hae the King made ye Minister?"
The wandering laird laughed. "Better thanthat, White Farm, better than that!" He was tempted then and there to say: "I love your granddaughter Elspeth. I love Elspeth!" It was his intention to say something like this as soon as might be to White Farm. "I love Elspeth and Elspeth loves me. So we would marry, White Farm, and she be lady beside the laird at Glenfernie." But he could not say it yet, because he did not know if Elspeth loved him. He was in a condition of hope, but very humbly so, far from assurance. He never did Elspeth the indignity of thinking that a lesser thing than love might lead her to Glenfernie House. If she came she would come because she loved—not else.
They left the moor, passed through the hollow of the stream and by the mill, and began to climb the village street. Folk looked out of door or window upon them; kirk-goers astir, dressed in their best, with regulated step and mouth and eyes set aright, gave the correct greeting, neither more nor less. If the afternoon breeze, if a little runlet of water going down the street, chose to murmur: "The laird is thick with White Farm! What makes the laird so thick with White Farm?" that was breeze or runlet's doing.
They passed the bare, gaunt manse and came to the kirkyard with the dark, low stones over the generations dead. But the grass was vivid, and the daisies bloomed, and even the yew-trees had some kind of peacock sheen, while the sky overhead burnt essential sapphire. Even the white of the lark held a friendly tinge as of rose petals mixed somehow with it. And the bell that was ending itsringing, if it was solemn, was also silver-sweet. Glenfernie determined that he would go to church. He entered with the White Farm folk and he sat with them, leaving the laird's high-walled, curtained pew without human tenancy. Mrs. Grizel came but to morning sermon. Alice was with a kinswoman of rank in a great house near Edinburgh, submitting, not without enjoyment, to certain fine filings and polishings and lacquerings and contacts. Jamie, who would be a soldier and fight the French, had his commission and was gone this past week to Carlisle, to his regiment. English Strickland was yet at Glenfernie House. Between him and the laird held much liking and respect. Tutor no longer, he stayed on as secretary and right-hand man. But Strickland was not at church.
The white cavern, bare and chill, with small, deep windows looking out upon the hills of June, was but sparely set out with folk. Afternoon was not morning. Nor was there again the disciplinary vision of the forenoon. The sinners were not set the second time for a gazing-stock. It was just usual afternoon kirk. The prayer was made, the psalm was sung, Mr. M'Nab preached a strong if wintry sermon. Jarvis Barrow, white-headed, strong-featured, intent, sat as in some tower over against Jerusalem, considering the foes that beset her. Beside him sat his daughter Jenny, in striped petticoat and plain overgown, blue kerchief, and hat of straw. Next to Jenny was Elspeth in a dim-green stuff, thin, besprent with small flowers, a fine white kerchief, and a wider straw hat. Robin Greenlaw sat beside Elspeth, and the lairdby Greenlaw. Half the congregation thought with variations:
"Wha ever heard of the laird's not being in his ain place? He and White Farm and Littlefarm maun be well acquaint'! He's foreign, amaist, and gangs his ain gait!"
Glenfernie, who had broken the conventions, sat in a profound carelessness of that. The kirk was not gray to him to-day, though he had thought it so on other days, nor bare, nor chill. June was without, but June was more within. He also prayed, though his unuttered words ran in and out between the minister's uttered ones. Under the wintry sermon he built a dream and it glowed like jewels. At the psalm, standing, he heard Elspeth's clear voice praising God, and his heart lifted on that beam of song until it was as though it came to Heaven.
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-placeIn generations all.Before thou ever hadst brought forthThe mountains great or small,Ere ever thou hadst formed the earthAnd all the world abroad,Ev'n thou from everlasting artTo everlasting God."
"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-placeIn generations all.Before thou ever hadst brought forthThe mountains great or small,Ere ever thou hadst formed the earthAnd all the world abroad,Ev'n thou from everlasting artTo everlasting God."
"Love, love, love!" cried Glenfernie's heart. His nature did with might what its hand found to do, and now, having turned to love between man and woman, it loved with a huge, deep, pulsing, world-old strength. He heard Elspeth, he felt Elspeth only; he but wished to blend with her and go onwith her forever from the heaven to heaven which, blended so, they would make.
"... As with an overflowing floodThou carriest them away;They like a sleep are, like the grassThat grows at morn are they.At morn it flourishes and grows,Cut down at ev'n doth fade—"
"... As with an overflowing floodThou carriest them away;They like a sleep are, like the grassThat grows at morn are they.At morn it flourishes and grows,Cut down at ev'n doth fade—"
"Not grass of the field, O Lord," cried Glenfernie's heart, "but the forest of oaks, but the stars that hold for aye, one to the other—"
The glen was dressed in June, at its height of green movement and song. Alexander and Elspeth walked there and turned aside through a miniature pass down which flowed a stream in miniature to join the larger flood. This cleft led them to a green hollow masked by the main wall of the glen, a fairy place, hidden and lone. Seven times had the two been in company since that morning of the flower-sprinkled cape and the thorn-tree. First stood a chance meeting upon the moor, Elspeth walking from the village with a basket upon her arm and the laird riding home after business in the nearest considerable town. He dismounted; he walked beside her to the stepping-stones before the farm. The second time he went to White Farm, and she and Jenny, with Merran to help, were laying linen to bleach upon the sun-washed hillside. He had stayed an hour, and though he was not alone with her, yet he might look at her, listen to her. She was not a chatterer; she worked or stood, almost as silent as a master painter's subtle picture stepped out of its frame, or as Pygmalion's statue-maid, flushing with life, but as yet tongue-holden. Yet she said certain things, and they were to him all music and wit. The third time had beenby the wishing-green. That was but for a moment, but he counted it great gain.
"Here," she said, "was where we danced! Mr. Ian Rullock and you and Robin and the rest of us. Don't you remember? It was evening and there was a fleet of gold clouds in the sky. It is so near the house. I walk here when I have a glint of time."
The fourth time, riding Black Alan, he had stopped at the door and talked with Jarvis Barrow. He was thirsty and had asked for water, and Jenny had called, "Elspeth, bring the laird a cup frae the well!" She had brought it, and, taking it from her, all the romance of the world had seemed to him to close them round, to bear them to some great and fair and deep and passionate place. The fifth time had been the day when he went to kirk with White Farm and listened to her voice in the psalm. The sixth time had been again upon the moor. The seventh time was this. He had come down through the glen as he had done before. He had no reason to suppose that this day more than another he would find her, but there, half a mile from White Farm, he came upon her, standing, watching a lintwhite's nest. They walked together, and when that little, right-angled, infant fellow of the glen opened to them they turned and followed its bright rivulet to the green hidden hollow.
The earth lay warm and dry, clad with short turf. They sat down beneath an oak-tree. None would come this way; they had to themselves a bright span of time and place. Elspeth looked at him with brown, friendly eyes. Each time she met him her eyes grew more kind; more and more she likedthe laird. Something fluttered in her nature; like a bird in a room with many windows and all but one closed, it turned now this way, now that, seeking the open lattice. There was the lovely world—which way to it? And the window that in a dream had seemed to her to open was mayhap closed, and another that she had not noted mayhap opening.... But Glenfernie, winged, was in that world, and now all that he desired was that the bright bird should fly to him there. But until to-day patience and caution and much humility had kept him from direct speech. He knew that she had not loved, as he had done, at once. He had set himself to win her to love him. But so great was his passion that now he thought:
"Surely not one, but two as one, make this terrible and happy furnace!" He thought, "I will speak now," and then delayed over the words.
"This is a bonny, wee place!" said Elspeth. "Did you never hear the old folks tell that your great-grandmother, that was among the persecuted, loved it? When your father was a laddie they often used to sit here, the two of them. They were great wanderers together."
"I never heard it," said Alexander. "Almost it seems too bright...."
They sat in silence, but the train of thought started went on with Glenfernie:
"But perhaps she never went so far as the Kelpie's Pool."
"The Kelpie's Pool!... I do not like that place! Tell me, Glenfernie, wonders of travel."
"What shall I tell you?"
"Tell me of the East. Tell me what like is the Sea of Galilee."
Glenfernie talked, since Elspeth bade him talk. He talked of what he had seen and known, and that brought him, with the aid of questions from the woman listening, to talk of himself. "I had a strange kind of youth.... So many dim, struggling longings, dreams, aspirings!—but I think they may be always there with youth."
"Yes, they are," said Elspeth.
"We talked of the Kelpie's Pool. Something like that was the strangeness with me. Black rifts and whirlpools and dead tarns within me, opening up now and again, lifted as by a trembling of the earth, coming up from the past! Angers and broodings, and things seen in flashes—then all gone as the lightning goes, and the mind does not hold what was shown.... I became a man and it ceased. Sometimes I know that in sleep or dream I have been beside a kelpie pool. But I think the better part of me has drained them where they lay under open sky." He laughed, put his hands over his face for a moment, then, dropping them, whistled to the blackbirds aloft in the oak-tree.
"And now?"
"Now there is clean fire in me!" He turned to her; he drew himself nearer over the sward. "Elspeth, Elspeth, Elspeth! do not tell me that you do not know that I love you!"
"Love me—love me?" answered Elspeth. She rose from her earthen chair; she moved as if to leave the place; then she stood still. "Perhaps a part of me knew and a part did not know.... I willtry to be honest, for you are honest, Glenfernie! Yes, I knew, but I would not let myself perceive and think and say that I knew.... And now what will I say?"
"Say that you love me! Say that you love and will marry me!"
"I like you and I trust you, but I feel no more, Glenfernie, I feel no more!"
"It may grow, Elspeth—"
Elspeth moved to the stem of the oak beneath which they had been seated. She raised her arm and rested it against the bark, then laid her forehead upon the warm molded flesh in the blue print sleeve. For some moments she stayed so, with hidden face, unmoving against the bole of the tree, like a relief done of old by some wonderful artist. The laird of Glenfernie, watching her, felt, such was his passion, the whole of earth and sky, the whole of time, draw to just this point, hang on just her movement and her word.
"Elspeth!" he cried at last. "Elspeth!"
Elspeth turned, but she stood yet against the tree. Now both arms were lifted; she had for a moment the appearance of one who hung upon the tree. Her eyes were wet, tears were upon her cheek. She shook them off, then left the oak and came a step or two toward him. "There is something in my brain and heart that tells me what love is. When I love I shall love hard.... I have had fancies.... But, like yours, Glenfernie, their times are outgrown and gone by.... It's clear to try. I like you so much! but I do not love now—and I'll not wed and come to Glenfernie House until I do."
"'It's clear to try,' you said."
Elspeth looked at him long. "If it is there, even little and far away, I'll try to bend my steps the way shall bring it nearer. But, oh, Glenfernie, it may be that there is naught upon the road!"
"Will you journey to look for it? That's all I ask now. Will you journey to look for it?"
"Yes, I may promise that. And I do not know," said Elspeth, wonderingly, "what keeps me from thinking I'll meet it." She sat down among the oak roots. "Let us rest a bit, and say no word, and then go home."
The sunlight filled the hollow, the wimpling burn took the blue of the sky, the breeze whispered among the oak leaves. The two sat and gazed at the day, at the grass, at the little thorn-trees and hazels that ringed the place around. They sat very still, seeking composure. She gained it first.
"When will your sister be coming home?"
"It is not settled. Glenfernie House was sad of late years. She ought to have the life and brightness that she's getting now."
"And will you travel no more?"
He saw as in a lightning glare that she pictured no change for him beyond such as being laird would make. He was glad when the flash went and he could forget what it had of destructive and desolating. He would drag hope down from the sky above the sky of lightnings. He spoke.
"There were duties now to be taken up. I could not stay away all nor most nor much of the time. I saw that. But I could study here, and once in a while run somewhere over the earth.... But now Iwould stay in this dale till I die! Unless you were with me—the two of us going to see the sights of the earth, and then returning home—going and returning—going and returning—and both a great sweetness—"
"Oh!" breathed Elspeth. She put her hands again over her eyes, and she saw, unrolling, a great fair lifeif—if—She rose to her feet. "Let us go! It grows late. They'll miss me."
They came into the glen and so went down with the stream to the open land and to White Farm.
"Where hae you been?" asked Jenny. "Here was father hame frae the shearing with his eyes blurred, speiring for you to read to him!"
"I was walking by the glen and the laird came down through, so we made here together. Where is grandfather?"
"He wadna sit waiting. He's gane to walk on the muir. Will ye na bide, Glenfernie?"
But the laird would not stay. It was wearing toward sunset. Menie, withindoors, called Jenny. The latter turned away. Glenfernie spoke to Elspeth.
"If I find your grandfather on the moor I shall speak of this that is between us. Do not look so troubled! 'If' or 'if not' it is better to tell. So you will not be plagued. And, anyhow, it is the wise folks' road."
Back came Jenny. "Has he gane? I had for him a tass of wine and a bit of cake."
The moor lay like a stiffened billow of the sea, green with purple glints. The clear western sky was ruddy gold, the sun's great ball approachingthe horizon. But when it dipped the short June night would know little dark in this northern land. The air struck most fresh and pure. Glenfernie came presently upon the old farmer, found him seated upon a bit of bank, his gray plaid about him, his crook-like stick planted before him, his eyes upon the western sea of glory. The younger man stopped beside him, settled down upon the bank, and gazed with the elder into the ocean of colored air.
"Ae gowden floor as though it were glass," said Jarvis Barrow. "Ae gowden floor and ae river named of Life, passing the greatness of Orinoco or Amazon. And the tree of life for the healing of the nations. And a' the trees that ever leafed or flowered, ta'en together, but ae withered twig to that!"
Glenfernie gazed with him. "I do not doubt that there will come a day when we'll walk over the plains of the sun—the flesh of our body then as gauze, moved at will where we please and swift as thought—inner and outer motion keeping time with the beat and rhythm of thatwhere we are—"
"The young do not speak the auld tongue."
"Tongues alter with the rest."
Silence fell while the sun reddened, going nearer to the mountain brow. The young man and the old, the farmer and the laird, sat still. The air struck more freshly, stronger, coming from the sea. Far off a horn was blown, a dog barked.
"Will ye be hame now for gude, Glenfernie? Lairds should bide in their ain houses if the land is to have any gude of them."
"I wish to stay, White Farm, the greatest part of the year round. I want to speak to you veryseriously. Think back a moment to my father and mother, and to my forebears farther back yet. As they had faults, and yet had a longing to do the right and struggled toward it over thick and thin, so I believe I may say of myself. That is, I struggle toward it," said Alexander, "though I'm not so sure of the thick and thin."
"Your mither wasna your father's kind. She had always her smile to the side and her japes, and she looked to the warld. Not that she didna mean to do weel in it! She did. But I couldna just see clear the seal in her forehead."
"That was because you did not look close enough," said Alexander. "It was there."
"I didna mind your uphawding your mither. Aweel, what did ye have to say?"
The laird turned full to him. "White Farm, you were once a young man. You loved and married. So do I love, so would I marry! The woman I love does not yet love me, but she has, I think, some liking.—I bide in hope. I would speak to you about it, as is right."
"Wha is she?"
"Your granddaughter Elspeth."
Silence, while the shadows of the trees in the vale below grew longer and longer. Then said White Farm:
"She isna what they call your equal in station. And she has nae tocher or as good as nane."
"For the last I have enough for us both. For the first the springs of Barrow and Jardine, back in Time's mountains, are much the same. Scotland's not the country to bother overmuch if the onestream goes, in a certain place, through a good farm, and the other by a not over-rich laird's house."
"Are ye Whig and Kirk like your father?"
"I am Whig—until something more to the dawn than that comes up. For the Kirk ... I will tell truth and say that I have my inner differences. But they do not lean toward Pope or prelate.... I am Christian, where Christ is taken very universally—the higher Self, the mounting Wisdom of us all.... Some high things you and I may view differently, but I believe that there are high things."
"And seek them?"
"And seek them."
"You always had the air to me," vouchsafed White Farm, "of one wha hunted gowd elsewhaur than in the earthly mine." He looked at the red west, and drew his plaid about him, and took firmer clutch upon his staff. "But the lassie does not love you?"
"My trust is that she may come to do so."
The elder got to his feet. Alexander rose also.
"It's coming night! Ye will be gaeing on over the muir to the House?"
"Yes. Then, sir, I may come to White Farm, or meet her when I may, and have my chance?"
"Aye. If so be I hear nae great thing against ye. If so be ye're reasonable. If so be that in no way do ye try to hurt the lassie."
"I'll be reasonable," said the laird of Glenfernie. "And I'd not hurt Elspeth if I could!" His face shone, his voice was a deep and happy music. He was so bound, so at the feet of Elspeth, that he could not but believe in joy and fortune. The sunhad dipped; the land lay dusk, but the sky was a rose. There was a skimming of swallows overhead, a singing of the wind in the ling. He walked with White Farm to the foot of the moor, then said good night and turned toward his own house.
Two days later Alexander rode to Black Hill. There had been in the night a storm with thunder and lightning, wind and rain. Huge, ragged banks of clouds yet hung sullen in the air, though with lakes of blue between and shafts of sun. The road was wet and shone. Now Black Alan must pick his way, and now there held long stretches of easy going. The old laird's quarrel with Mr. Archibald Touris was not the young laird's. The old laird's liking for Mrs. Alison was strongly the young laird's. Glenfernie, in the months since his father's death, had ridden often enough to Black Hill. Now as he journeyed, together with the summer and melody of his thoughts Elspeth-toward, he was holding with himself a cogitation upon the subject of Ian and Ian's last letter. He rode easily a powerful steed, needing to be strong for so strongly built a horseman. His riding-dress was blue; he wore his own hair, unpowdered and gathered in a ribbon beneath a three-cornered hat. There was perplexity and trouble, too, in the Ian complex, but for all that he rode with the color and sparkle of happiness in his face. In his gray eyes light played to great depths.
Black Hill appeared before him, the dark pineand crag of the hill itself, and below that the house with its far-stretching, well-planted policy. He passed the gates, rode under the green elm boughs of the avenue, and was presently before the porch of the house. A man presented himself to take Black Alan.
"Aye, sir, there's company. Mr. Touris and Mrs. Alison are with them in the gardens."
Glenfernie went there, passing by a terrace walk around the house. Going under the windows of the room that was yet Ian's when he came home. Ian still in his mind, he recovered strongly the look of that room the day Ian had taken him there, in boyhood, when they first met. Out of that vividness started a nucleus more vivid yet—the picture in the book-closet of the city of refuge, and the silver goblet drawn from the hidden shelf of the aumry. The recaptured moment lost shape and color, returned to the infinite past. He turned the corner of the house and came into the gardens that Mr. Touris had had laid out after the French style.
Here by the fountain he discovered the retired merchant, and with him a guest, an old trade connection, now a power in the East India Company. The laird of Black Hill, a little more withered, a little more stooped than of old, but still fluent, caustic, and with now and then to the surface a vague, cold froth of insincerity, made up much to this magnate of commerce. He stood on his own heath, or by his own fountain, but his neck had in it a deferential crook. Lacs—rupees—factories—rajahs—ships—cottons—the words fell like the tinkle of a golden fountain. Listening to these twostood, with his hands behind his back, Mr. Wotherspoon, Black Hill's lawyer and man of business down from Edinburgh. At a little distance Mrs. Alison showed her roses to the wife of the East India man and to a kinsman, Mr. Munro Touris, from Inverness way.
Mr. Touris addressed himself with his careful smile to Alexander. "Good day, Glenfernie! This, Mr. Goodworth, is a good neighbor of mine, Mr. Jardine of Glenfernie. Alexander, Mr. Goodworth is art and part of the East India. You have met Mr. Wotherspoon before, I think? There are Alison and Mrs. Goodworth and Munro Touris by the roses."
Glenfernie went over to the roses. Mrs. Alison, smiling upon him, presented him to Mrs. Goodworth, a dark, bright, black-eyed, talkative lady. He and Munro Touris nodded to each other. The laird of Black Hill, the India merchant, and the lawyer now joined them, and all strolled together along the very wide and straight graveled path. The talk was chiefly upheld by Black Hill and the great trader, with the lawyer putting in now and again a shrewd word, and the trader's wife making aside to Mrs. Alison an embroidery of comment. There had now been left trade in excelsis and host and guests were upon the state of the country, an unpopular war, and fall of ministers. Came in phrases compounded to meet Jacobite complications and dangers. The Pretender—the Pretender and his son—French aid—French army that might be sent to Scotland—position of defense—rumors everywhere you go—disaffected and Stewart-mad—. Munro Touris hada biting word to say upon the Highland chiefs. The lawyer talked of certain Lowland lords and gentlemen. Mr. Touris vented a bitter gibe. He had a black look in his small, sunken eyes. Alexander, reading him, knew that he thought of Ian. In a moment the whole conversation had dragged that way. Mrs. Goodworth spoke with vivacity.
"Lord, sir! I hope that your nephew, now that he wears the King's coat, has left off talking as he did when he was a boy! He showed his Highland strain with a warrant! You would have thought that he had beenouthimself thirty years ago!"
Her husband checked her. "You have not seen him since he was sixteen. Boys like that have wild notions of romance and devotion. They change when they're older."
The lawyer took the word. "Captain Rullock doubtless buried all that years ago. His wearing the King's coat hauds for proof."
Munro Touris had been college-mate in Edinburgh. "He watered all that gunpowder in him years ago, did he not, Glenfernie?"
"'To water gunpowder—to shut off danger.' That's a good figure of yours, Munro!" said Alexander. Munro, who had been thought dull in the old days, flushed with pleasure.
They had come to a kind of summer-house overrun with roses. Mr. Archibald Touris stopped short and, with his back to this structure, faced the company with him, brought thus to a halt. He looked at them with a carefully composed countenance.
"I am sure, Munro, that Ian Rullock 'watered the gunpowder,' as you cleverly say. Boys,ma'am"—to Mrs. Goodworth—"are, as your husband remarks, romantic simpletons. No one takes them and their views of life seriously. Certainly not their political views! When they come men they laugh themselves. They are not boys then; they are men. Which is, as it were, the preface to what I might as well tell you. My nephew has resigned his captaincy and quitted the army. Apparently he has come to feel that soldiering is not, after all, the life he prefers. It may be that he will take to the law, or he may wander and then laird it when I am gone. Or if he is very wise—I meant to speak to you of this in private, Goodworth—he might be furnished with shares and ventures in the East India. He has great abilities."
"Well, India's the field!" said the London merchant, placidly. "If a man has the mind and the will he may make and keep and flourish and taste power—"
"Left the King's forces!" cried Munro Touris. "Why—! And will he be coming to Black Hill, sir?"
"Yes. Next week. We have," said Mr. Touris, and though he tried he could not keep the saturnine out of his voice—"we have some things to talk over."
As he spoke he moved from before the summer-house into a cross-path, and the others followed him and his Company magnate. The Edinburgh lawyer and Glenfernie found themselves together. The former lagged a step and held the younger man back with him; he dropped his voice
"I've not been three hours in the house. I'vehad no talk with Mr. Touris. What's all this about? I know that you and his nephew are as close as brothers—not that brothers are always close!"
"He writes only that he is tired of martial life. He has the soldier in him, but he has much besides. That 'much besides' often steps in to change a man's profession."
"Well, I hope you'll persuade him to see the old gunpowder very damp! I remember that, as a very young man, he talked imprudently. But he has been," said the lawyer, "far and wide since those days."
"Yes, far and wide."
Mr. Wotherspoon with a long forefinger turned a crimson rose seen in profile full toward him. "I met him—once—when I was in London a year ago. I had not seen him for years." He let the rose swing back. "He has a magnificence! Do you know I study a good deal? They say that so do you. I have an inclination toward fifteenth-century Italian. I should place him there." He spoke absently, still staring at the rose. "A dash—not an ill dash, of course—of what you might call the Borgia ... good and evil tied into a sultry, thunderous splendor."
Glenfernie bent a keen look upon him out of gray eyes. "An enemy might describe him so, perhaps. I can see that such a one might do so."
"Ah, you're his friend!"
"Yes."
"Well," said Mr. Wotherspoon, straightening himself from the contemplation of the roses, "there's no greater thing than to have a steadfast friend!"
It seemed that an expedition had been planned, for a servant now appeared to say that coach and horses were at the door. Mr. Touris explained:
"I've engaged to show Mr. and Mrs. Goodworth our considerable town. Mr. Wotherspoon, too, has a moment's business there. Alison will not come, but Munro Touris rides along. Will you come, too, Glenfernie? We'll have a bit of dinner at the 'Glorious Occasion.'"
"No, thank you. I have to get home presently. But I'll stay a little and talk to Mrs. Alison, if I may."
"Ah, you may!" said Mrs. Alison.
From the porch they watched the coach and four away, with Munro Touris following on a strong and ugly bay mare. The elm boughs of the avenue hid the whole. The cloud continents and islands were dissolving into the air ocean, the sun lay in strong beams, the water drops were drying from leaf and blade. Mrs. Alison and Alexander moved through the great hall and down a corridor to a little parlor that was hers alone. They entered it. It gave, through an open door and two windows set wide, upon a small, choice garden and one wide-spreading, noble, ancient tree. Glenfernie entered as one who knew the place, but upon whom, at every coming, it struck with freshness and liking. The room itself was most simple.
"I like," said Alexander, "our spare, clean, precise Scotch parlors. But this is to me like a fine, small prioress's room in a convent of learned saints!"
His old friend laughed. "Very little learned, very little saintly, not at all prior! Let us sit inthe doorway, smell the lavender, and hear the linnets in the tree."
She took the chair he pushed forward. He sat upon the door-step at her feet.
"Concerning Ian," she said. "What do you make out of it all?"
"I make out that I hope he'll not involve himself in some French and Tory mad attempt!"
"What do his letters say?"
"They speak by indirection. Moreover, they're at present few and short.... We shall see when he comes!"
"Do you think that he will tell you all?"
Alexander's gray eyes glanced at her as earlier they had glanced at Mr. Wotherspoon. "I do not think that we keep much from each other!... No, of course you are right! If there is anything that in honor he cannot tell, or that I—with my pledges, such as they are, in another urn—may not hear, we shall find silences. I pin my trust to there being nothing, after all!"
"The old wreath withered, and a new one better woven and more evergreen—"
"I do not know.... I said just now that Ian and I kept little from each other. In an exceeding great measure that is true. But there are huge lands in every nature where even the oldest, closest, sworn friend does not walk. It must be so. Friendship is not falsified nor betrayed by its being so."
"Not at all!" said Mrs. Alison. "True friend or lover loves that sense of the unplumbed, of the infinite, in the cared-for one. To do else would be to deny the unplumbed, the infinite, in himself, andso the matching, the equaling, theoneingof love!" She leaned forward in her chair; she regarded the small, fragrant garden where every sweet and olden flower seemed to bloom. "Now let us leave Ian, and old, stanch, trusted, and trusting friendship. It is part of oneness—it will be cared for!" She turned her bright, calm gaze upon him. "What other realm have you come into, Alexander? It was plain the last time that you were here, but I did not speak of it—it is plain to-day!" She laughed. She had a silver, sweet, and merry laugh. "My dear, there is a bloom and joy, avivificationabout you that may be felt ten feet away!" She looked at him with affection and now seriously. "I know, I think, the look of one who comes into spiritual treasures. This is that and not that. It is the wilderness of lovely flowers—hardly quite the music of the spheres! It is not the mountain height, but the waving, leafy, lower slopes—and yet we pass on to the height by those slopes! Are you in love, Alexander?"
"You guess so much!" he said. "You have guessed that, too. I do not care! I am glad that the sun shines through me."
"You must be happy in your love! Who is she?"
"Elspeth Barrow, the granddaughter of Jarvis Barrow of White Farm.... You say that I must be happy in my love. The Lord of Heaven knows that I am! and yet she is not yet sure that she loves me in her turn. One might say that I had great uncertainty of bliss. But I love so strongly that I have no strength of disbelief in me!"
"Elspeth Barrow!"
"My old friend—the unworldliest, the better-worldliest soul I know—do not you join in that hue and cry about world's gear and position! To be Barrow is as good as to be Jardine. Elspeth is Elspeth."
"Oh, I know why I made exclamation! Just the old, dull earthy surprise! Wait for me a moment, Alexander." She put her hands before her eyes, then, dropping them, sat with her gaze upon the great tree shot through with light from the clearing sky. "I see her now. At first I could not disentangle her and Gilian, for they were always together. I have not seen them often—just three or four times to remember, perhaps. But in April I chanced for some reason to go to White Farm.... I see her now! Yes, she has beauty, though it would not strike many with the edge of the sword.... Yes, I see—about the mouth and the eyes and the set of the head. It's subtle—it's like some pictures I remember in Italy. And intelligence is there. Enchantment ... the more real, perhaps, for not being the most obvious.... So you are enchained, witched, held by the great sorceress!... Elspeth is only one of her little names—her great name is just love—love between man and woman.... Oh yes, the whole of the sweetness is distilled into one honey-drop—the whole giant thing is shortened into one image—the whole heaven and earth slip silkenly into one banner, and you would die for it! You see, my dear," said Mrs. Alison, who had never married, "I loved one who died. I know."
Glenfernie took her hand and kissed it. "Nothing is loss to you—nothing! For me, I am moredarkly made. So I hope to God I'll not lose Elspeth!"
Her tears, that were hardly of grief, dropped upon his bent head. "Eh, my laddie! the old love is there in the midst of the wide love. But the larger controls.... Well, enough of that! And do you mean that you have asked Elspeth to marry you—and that she does not know her own heart?"
They talked, sitting before the fragrant garden, in the little room that was tranquil, blissful, and recluse. At last he rose.
"I must go."
They went out through the garden to the wicket that parted her demesne from the formal, wide pleasure-sweeps. He stopped for a moment under the great tree.
"In a fortnight or so I must go to Edinburgh to see Renwick about that land. And it is in my mind to travel from there to London for a few weeks. There are two or three persons whom I know who could put a stout shoulder to the wheel of Jamie's prospects. Word of mouth is better with them than would be letters. Jamie is at Windsor. I could take him with me here or there—give him, doubtless, a little help."
"You are a world-man," said his friend, "which is quite different from a worldly man! Come or go as you will, still all is your garden that you cultivate.... Now you are thinking again of Elspeth!"
"Perhaps if for a month or two I plague her not, then when I come again she may have a greater knowledge of herself. Perhaps it is more generous to be absent for a time—"
"I see that you will not doubt—that you cannot doubt—that in the end she loves you!"
"Is it arrogance, self-love, and ignorance if I think that? Or is it knowledge? I think it, and I cannot and will not else!"
They came to the wicket, and stood there a moment ere going on by the terrace to the front of the house. The day was now clear and vivid, soft and bright. The birds sang in a long ecstasy, the flowers bloomed as though all life must be put into June, the droning bees went about with the steadiest preoccupation. Alexander looked about him.
"The earth is drunk with sweetness, and I see now how great joy is sib to great pain!" He shook himself. "Come back to earth and daylight, Alexander Jardine!" He put a hand, large, strong, and shapely, over Mrs. Alison's slender ivory one. "She, too, has long fingers, though her hand is brown. But it is an artist hand—a picture hand—a thoughtful hand."
Mrs. Alison laughed, but her eyes were tender over him. "Oh, man! what a great forest—what an ever-rising song—is this same thing you're feeling! And so old—and so fire-new!" They walked along the terrace to the porch. "They're bringing you Black Alan to ride away upon. But you'll come again as soon as Ian's here?"
"Yes, of course. You may be assured that if he is free of that Stewart coil—or if he is in it only so deep that he may yet free himself—I shall say all that I can to keep him free or to urge him forth. Not for much would I see Ian take ship in that attempt!"
"No!... I have been reading the Book of Daniel. Do you know what Ian is like to me? He is like some great lord—a prince or governor—in the court maybe of Belshazzar, or Darius the Mede, or Cyrus the Persian—in that hot and stately land of golden images and old rivers and the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer and all kinds of music. He must serve his tyrant—and yet Daniel, kneeling in his house, in his chamber, with the windows open toward Jerusalem, might hear a cry to hold his name in his prayers.... What strange thoughts we have of ourselves, and of those nearest and dearest!"
"Mr. Wotherspoon says that he is fifteenth-century Italian. You have both done a proper bit of characterization! But I," said Alexander, "I know another great territory of Ian."
"I know that, Glenfernie! And so do I know other good realms of Ian. Yet that was what I thought when I read Daniel. And I had the thought, too, that those old people were capable of great friendships."
Black Alan was waiting. Glenfernie mounted, said good-by again; the green boughs of the elm-trees took him and his steed.