“No, that is when you have it neatly snodded and the firelight plays about your head.”
She laughed, flushing. “You will be forever at your foolishness, Kenn. I thought you meant the tree tips.”
“Is the truth foolishness?”
“You are a lover, Kennie. Other folks don’t see that when they look at me.”
“Other folks are blind,” I maintained, stoutly.
“If you see all that I will be sure that what they say is true and love is blind.”
“The wise man is the lover. He sees clear for the first time in his life. The sun shines for him—and her. For them the birds sing and the flowers bloom. For them the world was made. They——”
“Whiles talk blethers,” she laughed.
“Yes, they do,” I admitted. “And there again is another sign of wisdom. Your ponderous fool talks pompous sense always. He sees life in only one facet. Your lover sees its many sides, its infinite variety. He can laugh and weep; his imagination lights up dry facts with whimsical fancies; he dives through the crust of conventionality to the realities of life. ’Tis the lover keeps this old world young. The fire of youth, of eternal laughing youth, runs flaming through his blood. His days are radiant, his nights enchanted.”
“I am thinking you quite a poet.”
“Was there ever a better subject for a poem? Life would be poetry writ into action if all men were lovers—and all women Aileens.”
“Ah, Kenneth! This fine talk I do not understand. It’s sheer nonsense to tell such idle clavers about me. Am I not just a plain Highland lassie, as unskilled in flattering speeches as in furbelows and patches? Gin you will play me a spring on the pipes I’ll maybe can dance you the fling, but of French minuets I have small skill.”
“Call me dreamer if you will. By Helen’s glove, your dreamer might be the envy of kings. Since I have known you life has taken a different hue. One lives for years without joy, pain, colour, all things toned to the dull monochrome of gray, and then one day the contact with another soul quickens one to renewed life, to more eager unselfish living. Never so bright a sun before, never so beautiful a moon. ’Tis true, Aileen. No fear but one, that Fate, jealous, may snatch my love from me.”
Her laughter dashed my heroics; yet I felt, too, that back of her smiles there was belief.
“I dare say. At the least I will have heard it before. The voice iss Jacob’s voice, but——”
I blushed, remembering too late that my text and its application were both Volney’s.
“’Tis true, even if Jacob said it first. If a man is worth his salt love must purify him. Sure it must. I am a better man for knowing you.”
A shy wonder filled her eyes; thankfulness too was there.
“Yet you are a man that has fought battles and known life, and I am only an ignorant girl.”
I lifted her hand and kissed it.
“You are my queen, and I am your most loyal and devoted servant.”
“For always, Kenn? When you are meeting the fine ladies of London will you love a Highland lassie that cannot make eyes and swear choicely?”
“Forever and a day, dear.”
Aileen referred to the subject again two hours later when we arose from the table at the Manchester ordinary. It was her usual custom to retire to her room immediately after eating. To-night when I escorted her to the door she stood for a moment drawing patterns on the lintel with her fan. A fine blush touched her cheek.
“Were you meaning all that, Kennie?”
“All what, dear heart?”
“That—nonsense—in the forest.”
“Every bit of it.”
Her fan spelt Kenneth on the door.
“Sometimes,” she went on softly, “a fancy is built on moonlight and laughing eyes and opportunity. It iss like sunshine in winter on Raasay—just for an hour and then the mists fall.”
“For our love there will be no mists.”
“Ah, Kenn, you think so now, but afterward, when you take up again your London life, and I cannot play the lady of fashion, when you weary of my simpleness and are wishing me back among the purple heather hills?”
“That will be never, unless I wish myself there with you. I am no London Mohawk like Volney. To tramp the heather after muircocks or to ride to hounds is more my fancy. The Macaronis and I came long since to the parting of the ways. I am for a snug home in the country with the woman I love.”
I stepped to the table, filled a glass with wine, and brought it to her.
“Come, love! We will drink together. How is it old Ben Jonson hath it?
“‘Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth seek a drink divine;
But might I of Jove’s nectar sup
I would not change from thine.’
“Drink, sweetheart.”
She tasted, then I drained the glass and let it fall from my fingers to shiver on the floor.
Before we parted Aileen had one more word for me, “Kennie.”
“Yes, dear heart,” I cried, and was back at her side in a moment.
“What you said in the woods—I am knowing it all true. It is great foolishness, but my heart is singing the same song,” and with that she whipped the door to in my face.
I sauntered into the common room, found a seat by the fireplace, and let my eye wander over the company. There were present some half dozen yokels, the vicar’s curate, a country blood or two, and a little withered runt of a man in fustian with a weazened face like a wrinkled pippin. The moment I clapped eyes on him there came to my mind the dim recollection of a former acquaintance and the prescient fear of an impending danger. That I had seen him I was ready to take oath, yet I could not put my finger upon the circumstances. But the worst of it was that the old fellow recognized me, unless I were much mistaken, for his eyes never left me from the first.
From my mother I have inherited a Highland jauntiness which comes stealing over me when sobriety would set me better. Let the situation be a different one, uncertain of solution, with heads tipping in the balance, and an absurd spirit of recklessness straightway possesses me. But now, with this dear child on my hands, carelessness and I were far apart as the poles. Anxiety gripped me, and I sweated blood. Yet I must play the careless traveller, be full of good stories, unperturbed on the surface and apparently far from alarm. I began to overdo the part, recognized the fact, and grew savage at myself. Trying to conciliate him, I was free with the ale, and again overdid it.
He drank my ale and listened to my stories, but he sat cocking on his seat like an imp of mischief. I rattled on, insouciant and careless to all appearances, but in reality my heart like lead. Behind my smiling lips I cursed him up hill and down dale. Lard, his malicious grin was a thing to rile the gods! More than once I wake up in the night from dreaming that his scrawny hand was clapping the darbies on my wrists.
When we were ready to start next morning the post boy let me know that one of the horses had gone lame. Here was a pretty pickle. I pished and pshawed, but in the end had to scour the town to find another in its place. ’Twas well on toward noon when the boy and I returned to the ordinary with a nag that would serve.
Of other lovers I have scant