Her face grew grave. "And have you not seen what is in mine?" she asked.
"I have seen and rejoiced, and yet I doubt."
"But why?" she asked again. "My life is yours, for you have preserved it. I would be graceless indeed if I did not give my best to you who have given all for me."
"It is not grat.i.tude I want. If you are only grateful, put me out of your thoughts, and I will go away and strive to forget you. There were twenty in the Tidewater who would have done the like."
She looked down on me from the rock with the old quizzing humour in her eyes.
"If grat.i.tude irks you, sir, what would you have?"
"All," I cried; "and yet, Heaven knows, I am not worth it. I am no man to capture a fair girl"s heart. My face is rude and my speech harsh, and I am d.a.m.nably prosaic. I have not Ringan"s fancy, or Grey"s gallantry; I am sober and tongue-tied and uncouth, and my mind runs terribly on facts and figures. O Elspeth, I know I am no hero of romance, but a plain body whom Fate has forced into a month of wildness. I shall go back to Virginia, and be set once more at my accompts and ladings. Think well, my dear, for I will have nothing less than all. Can you endure to spend your days with a homely fellow like me?"
"What does a woman desire?" she asked, as if from herself, and her voice was very soft as she gazed over the valley. "Men think it is a handsome face or a brisk air or a smooth tongue. And some will have it that it is a deep purse or a high station. But I think it is the honest heart that goes all the way with a woman"s love. We are not so blind as to believe that the glitter is the gold. We love romance, but we seek it in its true home. Do you think I would marry you for grat.i.tude, Andrew?"
"No," I said.
"Or for admiration?"
"No," said I.
"Or for love?"
"Yes," I said, with a sudden joy.
She slipped from the rock, her eyes soft and misty. Her arms were about my neck, and I heard from her the words I had dreamed of and yet scarce hoped for, the words of the song sung long ago to a boy"s ear, and spoken now with the pure fervour of the heart--"My dear and only love."
Years have flown since that day on the hills, and much has befallen; but the prologue is the kernel of my play, and the curtain which rose after that hour revealed things less worthy of chronicle. Why should I tell of how my trade prospered mightily, and of the great house we built at Middle Plantation; of my quarrels with Nicholson, which were many; of how we carved a fair estate out of Elspeth"s inheritance, and led the tide of settlement to the edge of the hills? These things would seem a pedestrian end to a high beginning. Nor would I weary the reader with my doings in the a.s.sembly, how I bearded more Governors than one, and disputed stoutly with His Majesty"s Privy Council in London. The historian of Virginia--now by G.o.d"s grace a notable land--may, perhaps, take note of these things, but it is well for me to keep silent. It is of youth alone that I am concerned to write, for it is a comfort to my soul to know that once in my decorous progress through life I could kick my heels and forget to count the cost; and as youth cries farewell, so I end my story and turn to my accounts.
Elspeth and I have twice voyaged to Scotland. The first time my uncle and mother were still in the land of the living, but they died in the same year, and on our second journey I had much ado in settling their estates. My riches being now considerable, I turned my attention to the little house of Auchencairn, which I enlarged and beautified, so that if we have the wish we may take up our dwelling there. We have found in the West a goodly heritage, but there is that in a man"s birth place which keeps tight fingers on his soul, and I think that we desire to draw our last breath and lay our bones in our own grey country-side.
So, if G.o.d grants us length of days, we may haply return to Douglasdale in the even, and instead of our n.o.ble forests and rich meadows, look upon the bleak mosses and the rainy uplands which were our childhood"s memory.
That is the fancy at the back of both our heads. But I am very sure that our sons will be Virginians.
THE END.