Through the trees Winsome saw Ralph long before he saw her. She was a woman; he was only a naturalist and a man. She drew the sunbonnet a little farther over her eyes. He started at last, turned, and came eagerly towards her.
Jock Gordon, who had remained about the farm, went quickly to the gate at the end of the house as if to shut it.
"Come back oot o" that," said Meg sharply.
Jock turned quite as briskly.
"I was gaun to stand wi" my back til"t, sae that they micht ken there was naebody luikin". D"ye think Jock Gordon haes nae mainners?" he said indignantly.
"Staun wi" yer back to a creel o" peats, Jock; it"ll fit ye better!" ooserved Meg, giving him the wicker basket with the broad leather strap which was used at Craig Ronald for bringing the peats in from the stack.
Winsome had not meant to look at Ralph as she came up to him. It seemed a bold and impossible thing for her ever again to come to him. The fear of a former time was still strong upon her.
But as soon as she saw him, her eyes somehow could not leave his face. He dropped his hat on the gra.s.s beneath, as he came forward to meet her under the great branches of the oak-trees by the little pond. She had meant to tell him that he must not touch her --she was not to be touched; yet she went straight into his open arms like a homing dove. Her great eyes, still dewy with the warm light of love in them, never left his till, holding his love safe in his arms, he drew her to him and upon her sweet lips took his first kiss of love.
"At last!" he said, after a silence.
The sun was rising over the hills of heather. League after league of the imperial colour rolled westward as the level rays of the sun touched it.
"Now do you understand, my beloved?" said Ralph. Perhaps it was the red light of the sun, or only some roseate tinge from the miles of Galloway heather that stretched to the north, but it is certain that there was a glow of more than earthly beauty on Winsome"s face as she stood up, still within his arms, and said:
"I do not understand at all, but I love you."
Then, because there is nothing more true and trustful than the heart of a good woman, or more surely an inheritance from the maid-mother of the sinless garden than her way of showing that she gives her all, Winsome laid her either hand on her lover"s shoulders and drew his face down to hers--laying her lips to his of her own free will and accord, without shame in giving, or coquetry of refusal, in that full kiss of first surrender which a woman may give once, but never twice, in her life.
This also is part of the proper heritage of man and woman, and whoso has missed it may attain wealth or ambition, may exhaust the earth--yet shall die without fully or truly living.
A moment they stood in silence, swaying a little like twin flowers in the wind of the morning. Then taking hands like children, they slowly walked away with their faces towards the sunrise. There was the light of a new life in their eyes. It is good sometimes to live altogether in the present. "Sufficient unto the day is the good thereof," is a proverb in all respects equal to the scriptural original.
For a little while they thus walked silently forward, and on the crest of the ridge above the nestling farm Ralph paused to take his last look of Craig Ronald. Winsome turned with him in complete comprehension, though as yet he had told her no word of his projects. Nor did she think of any possible parting, or of anything save of the eyes into which she did not cease to look, and the lover whose hand it was enough to hold. All true and pure love is an extension of G.o.d--the gladness in the eyes of lovers, the tears also, bridals and espousals, the wife"s still happiness, the delight of new-made homes, the tinkle of children"s laughter.
It needs no learned exegete to explain to a true lover what John meant when he said, "For G.o.d is love." These things are not gifts of G.o.d, they are parts of him.
It was at this moment that Meg Kissock, having seen them stand a moment still against the sky, and then go down from their hilltop towards the north, unlocked the stable door, at which Ebie Fairrish had been vainly hammering from within for a quarter of an hour. Then she went indoors and pulled close the curtains of Winsome"s little room. She came out, locked the bedroom door, and put the key in her pocket. Her mistress had a headache. Meg was a treasure indeed, as a thoughtful person about a household often is.
As Winsome and Ralph went down the farther slope of the hill, towards the road that stretched away northward across the moors, they fell to talking together very practically. They had much to say. Before they had gone a mile the first strangeness had worn off, and the stage of their intimacy may be inferred from the fact that they were only at the edge of the great wood of Grannoch bank, when Winsome reached the remark which undoubtedly Mother Eve made to her husband after they had been some time acquainted:
"Do you know, I never thought I should talk to any one as I am talking to you?"
Ralph allowed that it was an entirely wonderful thing--indeed, a belated miracle. Strangely enough, he had experienced exactly the same thought. "Was it possible?" smiled Winsome gladly, from under the lilac sunbonnet.
Such wondrous and unexampled correspondence of impression proved that they were made for one another, did it not? At this point they paused. Exercise in the early morning is fatiguing. Only the unique character of these refreshing experiences induces us to put them on record.
Then Winsome and Ralph proceeded to other and not less extraordinary discoveries. Sitting on a wind-overturned tree- trunk, looking out from the edge of the fringing woods of the Grannoch bank towards the swells of Cairnsmuir"s green bosom, they entered upon their position with great practicality. Nature, with an unusual want of foresight, had neglected to provide a back to this sylvan seat, so Ralph attended to the matter himself. This shows that self-help is a virtue to be encouraged.
Ralph had some disinclination to speak of the terrors of the night which had forever rolled away. Still, he felt that the matter must be cleared up; so that it was with doubt in his mind that he showed Winsome the written line which had taken him to the bridge instead of to the hill gate.
"That"s Jess Kissock"s writing!" Winsome said at once. Ralph had the same thought. So in a few moments they traced the whole plot to its origin. It was a fit product of the impish brain of Jess Kissock. Jess had sent the false note of appointment to Ralph by Andra, knowing that he would be so exalted with the contents that he would never doubt its accuracy. Then she had despatched Jock Gordon with "Winsome"s real letter to Greatorix Castle; in answer to the supposed summons, which was genuine enough, though not meant for him, Agnew Greatorix had come to the hill gate, and Jess had met Ralph by the bridge to play her own cards as best she could for herself.
"How wicked!" said Winsome, "after all."
"How foolish!" said Ralph, "to think for a moment that any one could separate you and me."
But Winsome bethought herself how foolishly jealous she had been when she found Jess putting a flower into Ralph"s coat, and Jess"s plot did not look quite so impossible as before.
"I think, dear," said Ralph, "you must after this make your letters so full of your love, that there can be no mistake whom they are intended for."
"I mean to," said Winsome frankly.
There was also some fine scenery at this point.
But there was no hesitation in Ralph Peden"s tone when he settled down steadily to tell her of his hopes.
Winsome sat with her eyes downcast and her head a little to one side, like a bright-eyed bird listening.
"That is all true and delightful," she said, "but we must not be selfish or forget."
"We must remember one another!" said Ralph, with the absorption of newly a.s.sured love.
"We are in no danger of forgetting one another," said that wise woman in counsel; "we must not forget others. There is your father--you have not forgotten him."
With a pang Ralph remembered that there was yet something that he could not tell Winsome. He had not even been frank with her concerning the reason of his leaving the manse and going to Edinburgh. She only understood that it was connected with his love for her, which was not approved of by the minister of the Marrow kirk.
"My father will be as much pleased with you as I," said Ralph, with enthusiasm.
"No doubt," said Winsome, laughing; "fathers always are with their sons" sweethearts. But you have not forgotten something else?"
"What may that be?" said Ralph doubtfully.
"That I cannot leave my grandfather and grandmother at Craig Ronald as they are. They have cared for me and given me a home when I had not a friend. Would you love me as you do, if I could leave them even to go out into the world with you?"
"No," said Ralph very reluctantly, but like a man.
"Then," said Winsome bravely, "go to Edinburgh. Fight your own battle, and mine," she added.
"Winsome," said Ralph, earnestly, for this serious and practical side of her character was an additional and unexpected revelation of perfection, "if you make as good a wife as you make a sweetheart, you will make one man happy."
"I mean to make a man happy," said Winsome, confidently.
The scenery again a.s.serted its claim to attention. Observation enlarges the mind, and is therefore pleasant.
After a pause, Winsome said irrelevantly.
"And you really do not think me so foolish?"
"Foolish! I think you are the wisest and--"
"No, no." Winsome would not let him proceed. "You do not really think so. You know that I am wayward and changeable, and not at all what I ought to be. Granny always tells me so. It was very different when she was young, she says. Do you know," continued Winsome thoughtfully, "I used to be so frightened, when I knew that you could read in all these wise books of which I did not know a letter? But I must confess--I do not know what you will say, you may even be angry--I have a note-book of yours which I kept."
But if Winsome wanted a new sensation she was disappointed, for Ralph was by no means angry.