"Ever since Christmas Day?"
"Yes. I told him then that I loved you, Mary,--that I wanted to ask you to marry me,--but that I felt I was too poor----"
Her hand stole through his arm.
"Too poor, Angus! Am I not poor also?"
"Not as poor as I am," he answered, promptly possessing himself of the caressing hand. "In fact, you"re quite rich compared to me. You"ve got a house, and you"ve got work, which brings you in enough to live upon,--now I haven"t a roof to call my own, and my stock of money is rapidly coming to an end. I"ve nothing to depend upon but my book,--and if I can"t sell that when it"s finished, where am I? I"m nothing but a beggar--less well off than I was as a wee boy when I herded cattle. And I"m not going to marry you----"
She stopped in her walk and looked at him with a smile.
"Oh Angus! I thought you were!"
He kissed the hand he held.
"Don"t make fun of me, Mary! I won"t allow it! I _am_ going to marry you!--but I"m _not_ going to marry you till I"ve sold my book. I don"t suppose I"ll get more than a hundred pounds for it, but that will do to start housekeeping together on. Won"t it?"
"I should think it would indeed!" and she lifted her head with quite a proud gesture--"It will be a fortune!"
"Of course," he went on, "the cottage is yours, and all that is in it. I can"t add much to that, because to my mind, it"s just perfect. I never want any sweeter, prettier little home. But I want to work _for_ you, Mary, so that you"ll not have to work for yourself, you understand?"
She nodded her head gravely.
"I understand! You want me to sit with my hands folded in my lap, doing nothing at all, and getting lazy and bad-tempered."
"Now you know I don"t!" he expostulated.
"Yes, you do, Angus! If you don"t want me to work, you want me to be a perfectly useless and tiresome woman! Why, my dearest, now that you love me, I should like to work all the harder! If you think the cottage pretty, I shall try to make it even prettier. And I don"t want to give up all my lace-mending. It"s just as pleasant and interesting as the fancy-work which the rich ladies play with You must really let me go on working, Angus! I shall be a perfectly unbearable person if you don"t!"
She looked so sweetly at him, that as they were at the moment pa.s.sing under the convenient shadow of a tree he took her in his arms and kissed her.
"When _you_ become a perfectly unbearable person," he said, "then it will be time for another deluge, and a general renovation of human kind.
You shall work if you like, my Mary, but you shall not work for _me_.
See?"
A tender smile lingered in her eyes.
"I see!" and linking her arm through his again, she moved on with him over the thyme-scented gra.s.s, her dress gently sweeping across the stray cl.u.s.ters of golden cowslips that nodded here and there. "_I_ will work for myself, _you_ will work for _me_, and old David will work for both of us!"
They laughed joyously.
"Poor old David!" said Angus. "He"s been wondering why I have not spoken to you before,--he declared he couldn"t understand it. But then I wasn"t quite sure whether you liked me at all----"
"Weren"t you?" and her glance was eloquent.
"No--and I asked him to find out!"
She looked at him in a whimsical wonderment.
"You asked him to find out? And did he?"
"He seems to think so. At any rate, he gave me courage to speak."
Mary grew suddenly meditative.
"Do you know, Angus," she said, "I think old David was sent to me for a special purpose. Some great and good influence guided him to me--I am sure of it. You don"t know all his history. Shall I tell it to you?"
"Yes--do tell me--but I think I know it. Was he not a former old friend of your father"s?"
"No--that"s a story I had to invent to satisfy the curiosity of the villagers. It would never have done to let them know that he was only an old tramp whom I found ill and nearly dying out on the hills during a great storm we had last summer. There had been heavy thunder and lightning all the afternoon, and when the storm ceased I went to my door to watch the clearing off of the clouds, and I heard a dog yelping pitifully on the hill just above the coombe. I went out to see what was the matter, and there I found an old man lying quite unconscious on the wet gra.s.s, looking as if he were dead, and a little dog--you know Charlie?--guarding him and barking as loudly as it could. Well, I brought him back to life, and took him home and nursed him--and--that"s all. He told me his name was David--and that he had been "on the tramp"
to Cornwall to find a friend. You know the rest."
"Then he is really quite a stranger to you, Mary?" said Angus wonderingly.
"Quite. He never knew my father. But I am sure if Dad had been alive, he would have rescued him just as I did, and then he _would_ have been his "friend,"--he could not have helped himself. That"s the way I argued it out to my own heart and conscience."
Angus looked at her.
"You darling!" he said suddenly.
She laughed.
"That doesn"t come in!" she said.
"It does come in! It comes in everywhere!" he declared. "There"s no other woman in the world that would have done so much for a poor forlorn old tramp like that, adrift on the country roads. And you exposed yourself to some risk, too, Mary! He might have been a dangerous character!"
"Poor dear, he didn"t look it," she said gently--"and he hasn"t proved it. Everything has gone well for me since I did my best for him. It was even through him that you came to know me, Angus!--think of that!
Blessings on the dear old man!--I"m sure he must be an angel in disguise!"
He smiled.
"Well, we never know!" he said. "Angels certainly don"t come to us with all the celestial splendour which is supposed to belong to them--they may perhaps choose the most unlikely way in which to make their errands known. I have often--especially lately--thought that I have seen an angel looking at me out of the eyes of a woman!"
"You _will_ talk poetry!" protested Mary.
"I"m not talking it--I"m living it!" he answered.
There was nothing to be said to this. He was an incorrigible lover, and remonstrances were in vain.
"You must not tell David"s real history to any of the villagers," said Mary presently, as they came in sight of her cottage--"I wouldn"t like them to know it."
"They shall never know it so far as I am concerned," he answered. "He"s been a good friend to me--and I wouldn"t cause him a moment"s trouble.
I"d like to make him happier if I could!"
"I don"t think that"s possible,"--and her eyes were clouded for a moment with a shadow of melancholy--"You see he has no money, except the little he earns by basket-making, and he"s very far from strong. We must be kind to him, Angus, as long as he needs kindness."
Angus agreed, with sundry ways of emphasis that need not here be narrated, as they composed a formula which could not be rendered into set language. Arriving at the cottage they found the door open, and no one in the kitchen,--but on the table lay two sprigs of sweetbriar.
Angus caught sight of them at once.