The next day saw Alec walking by the side of Kate mounted on his pony,
up a steep path to the top of one of the highest hills surrounding the
valley. It was a wild hill, with hardly anything growing on it but
heather, which would make it regal with purple in the autumn: no tree
could stand the blasts that blew over that hill in winter. Having
climbed to the topmost point, they stood and gazed. The country lay
outstretched beneath in the glow of the June day, while around them
flitted the cool airs of heaven. Above them rose the soaring blue of
the June sky, with a white cloud or two floating in it, and a blue peak
or two leaning its colour against it. Through the green grass and the
green corn below crept two silvery threads, meeting far away and
flowing in one--the two rivers which watered the valley of
Strathglamour. Between the rivers lay the gray stone town, with its
roofs of thatch and slate. One of its main streets stopped suddenly at
the bridge with the three arches above Tibbie's cottage; and at the
other end of the bridge lay the green fields.
The landscape was not one of the most beautiful, but it had a beauty of
its own, which is all a country or a woman needs; and Kate sat gazing
about her in evident delight. She had taken off her hat to feel the
wind, and her hair fell in golden heaps upon her shoulders, and the
wind and the sunbeams played at hide-and-seek in it.
In a moment the pleasure vanished from her face. It clouded over, while
the country lay full in the sun. Her eyes no longer looked wide abroad,
but expressed defeat and retirement. Listlessly she began to gather her
hair together.
"Do you ever feel as if you could not get room enough, Alec?" she said,
wearily.
"No, I don't," he answered, honestly and stupidly. "I have always as
much as I want. I should have thought you would--up here."
"I did feel satisfied for a moment; but it was only a moment. It is all
gone now. I shall never have room enough."
Alec had nothing to say in reply. He never had anything to give Kate
but love; and now he gave her more love. It was all he was rich in. But
she did not care for his riches. And so, after gazing a while, she
turned towards the descent. Alec picked up her hat, and took his place
at the pony's head. He was not so happy as he thought he should be.
Somehow she was of another order, and he could not understand her--he
could only worship her.
The whole of the hot afternoon they spent on the grass, whose mottling
of white clover filled the wandering airs with the odours of the honey
of Hymettus. And after tea Kate sang, and Alec drank every tone as if
his soul lived by hearing.
In this region the sun works long after hours in the summer, and they
went out to see him go down weary. They leaned together over the gate
and looked at the level glory, which now burned red and dim. Lamp of
life, it burns all night long in the eternal night of the universe, to
chase the primeval darkness from the great entrance hall of the "human
mortals."
"What a long shadow everything throws!" said Kate. "When the shadows
gather all together, and melt into one, then it is night. Look how the
light creeps about the roots of the grass on the ridge, as if it were
looking for something between the shadows. They are both going to die.
Now they begin."
The sun diminished to a star--a spark of crimson fire, and vanished. As
if he had sunk in a pool of air, and made it overflow, a gentle ripple
of wind blew from the sunset over the grass. They could see the grass
bending and swaying and bathing in its coolness before it came to them.
It blew on their faces at length, and whispered something they could
not understand, making Kate think of her mother, and Alec of Kate.
Now that same breeze blew upon Tibbie and Annie, as they sat in the
patch of meadow by the cottage, between the river and the _litster's
dam_. It made Tibbie think of death, the opener of sleeping eyes, the
uplifter of hanging hands. For Tibbie's darkness was the shadow of her
grave, on the further border of which the light was breaking in music.
Death and resurrection were the same thing to blind old Tibbie.
When the gentle, washing wind blew upon Annie, she thought of the wind
that bloweth were it listeth; and that, if ever the Spirit of God blew
upon her, she would feel it just like that wind of summer sunset--so
cool, so blessed, so gentle, so living! And was it not God that
breathed that wind upon her? Was he not even then breathing his Spirit
into the soul of that woman-child?
It blew upon Andrew Constable, as he stood in his shop-door, the easy
labour of his day all but over. And he said to his little weasel-faced,
_douce_, old-fashioned child who stood leaning against the other
door-cheek:
"That's a fine caller bit blastie, Isie! Dinna ye like to fin' 't
blawin' upo' yer het cheeks, dawtie?"
And she answered,
"Ay, I like it weel, daddie; but it min's me some upo' the winter."
And Andrew looked anxiously at the pale face of his child, who, at six
years old, in the month of June, had no business to know that there was
any winter. But she was the child of elderly parents, and had not been
born in time; so that she was now in reality about twenty.
It blew upon Robert Bruce, who had just run out into the _yard_, to see
how his potatoes and cabbages were coming on. He said
"It's some cauld," and ran in again to put on his hat.
Alec and Kate, I have said, stood looking into the darkening field. A
great flock of rooks which filled the air with their rooky gossip, was
flying straight home to an old gray ruin just visible amongst some
ancient trees. They had been gathering worms and grubs all day, and now
it was bed time. They felt, through all their black feathers, the
coolness of that evening breeze which came from the cloudy mausoleum
already built over the grave of the down-gone sun.
Kate hearing them rejoicing far overhead, searched for them in the
darkening sky, found them, and watched their flight, till the black
specks were dissolved in the distance. They are not the most poetic of
birds, but in a darkening country twilight, over silent fields, they
blend into the general tone, till even their noisy caw suggests repose.
But it was room Kate wanted, not rest. She would know one day, however,
that room and rest are the same, and that the longings for both spring
from the same need.
"What place is that in the trees?" she asked.
"The old Castle of Glamerton," answered Alec. "Would you like to go and
see it?"
"Yes; very much."
"We'll go to-morrow, then."
"The dew is beginning to fall, Kate," said Mrs Forbes, who now joined
them. "You had better come in."
Alec lingered behind. An unknown emotion drew his heart towards the
earth. He would see her go to sleep in the twilight, which was now
beginning to brood over her, as with the brown wings of a lovely
dull-hued hen-bird. The daisies were all asleep, spotting the green
grass with stars of carmine; for their closed red tips, like the
finger-points of two fairy hands, tenderly joined together, pointed up
in little cones to keep the yellow stars warm within, that they might
shine bright when the great star of day came to look for them. The
light of the down-gone sun, the garment of Aurora, which, so short
would be her rest, she had not drawn close around her on her couch,
floated up on the horizon, and swept slowly northwards, lightly upborne
on that pale sea of delicate green and gold, to flicker all night
around the northern coast of the sky, and, streaming up in the heavens,
melt at last in the glory of the uprisen Titan. The trees stood still
and shadowy as clouds, but breathing out mysterious odours. The stars
overhead, half-molten away in the ghostly light that would not go, were
yet busy at their night-work, ministering to the dark sides of the
other worlds. There was no moon. A wide stillness and peace, as of a
heart at rest, filled space, and lying upon the human souls with a
persistent quietness that might be felt, made them know what _might_ be
theirs. Now and then a bird sprang out with a sudden tremor of leaves,
suddenly stilled. But the bats came and went in silence, like feelings
yet unembodied in thoughts, vanishing before the sight had time to be
startled at their appearing. All was marvel. And the marvel of all was
there--where the light glimmered faintly through the foliage. He
approached the house with an awe akin to that with which an old poetic
Egyptian drew near to the chamber of the goddess Isis.
He entered, and his Isis was laughing merrily.
In the morning, great sun-crested clouds with dark sides hung overhead;
and while they sat at breakfast, one of those glorious showers, each of
whose great drops carries a sun-spark in its heart, fell on the walks
with a tumult of gentle noises, and on the grass almost as silently as
if it had been another mossy cloud. The leaves of the ivy hanging over
the windows quivered and shook, each for itself, beneath the drops; and
between the drops, one of which would have beaten him to the earth,
wound and darted in safety a great humble bee.
Kate and Alec went to the open window and looked out on the rainy
world, breathing the odours released from the grass and the ground.
Alec turned from the window to Kate's face, and saw upon it a keen, yet
solemn delight. But as he gazed, he saw a cloud come over it. The
arched upper lip dropped sadly upon the other, and she looked troubled
and cold. Instinctively he glanced out again for the cause. The rain
had become thick and small, and a light opposing wind disordered its
descent with broken and crossing lines.
This change from a summer to a winter rain had altered Kate's mood, and
her face was now, as always, a reflex of the face of nature.
"Shut the window, please Alec," she said, with a shiver.
"We'll have a fire directly," said Alec.
"No, no," returned Kate, trying to smile. "Just fetch me a shawl from
the closet in my room."
Alec had not been in his own room since Kate came. He entered it with a
kind of gentle awe, and stood just within the door, gazing as if
rebuked.
From a pair of tiny shoes under the dressing-table, radiated a whole
roomful of feminity. He was almost afraid to go further, and would not
have dared to look in the mirror. In three days her mere presence had
made the room marvellous.
Recovering himself, he hastened to the cloaet, got the shawl, and went
down the stair three steps at a time.
"Couldn't you find it, Alec?" said Kate.
"Oh! yes; I found it at once," answered Alec, blushing to the eyes.
I wonder whether Kate guessed what made the boy blush. But it does not
matter much now. She did look curiously at him for a moment.
"Just help me with my shawl," she said.