deepened suddenly, he stretched his hand towards her again--"you are simply the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
There was no mistaking the ring of reality in his tone, and yet there was nothing emotional about it. He seemed to be asserting the fact as much for his own benefit as for hers; and she also was lost in herself, in her own eagerness, as she looked again at the portrait.
"But it's real bonnie, Mr. Paul! Will it be as bonnie as the Beggar-Maid?"
"Still harping upon kings!" he said, coming back to her lightly. "Take my advice, Jeanie, and be content with commoners."
"But if I'm no content?"
"Uneasy lies the head! Don't you remember my reading that to you the other day?"
She flashed round on him in an instant, superb in her quick response, her quick resentment.
"I mind mony a thing ye've read, mony a thing ye've said, mony a thing ye've done. I've a deal to mind; too much, may be."
It came as a shock to Paul Macleod. For his heart had, as yet, an uncomfortable knack of acknowledging the truth. His head, however, came to the rescue as usual, by swift denial that those long days spent in painting Jeanie's portrait under the rowan tree were hardly wise.
"One can't have too much of a good thing, and it has been pleasant, hasn't it?"
"Mither says it's bin a sair waste o' time," replied the girl, evasively.
"I haven't wasted mine," retorted the young man airily. "Just look at that masterpiece! And I've been as good as a quarter's schooling to you, little one; think of the information I've imparted to my model, the books I've lent, the--the things I've taught----"
"Aye. You've taught me a deal. I ken that fine."
He gave an impatient toss of his head as he turned away to pack up his belongings; the girl helping him silently as if accustomed to the task.
Not a soul was in sight, though a wreath of blue peat smoke behind a neighbouring clump of firs showed the near presence of a cottage. Save for this one sign there was no trace of humanity in the scene except those two in the foreground; both in their way types of youth, health, and beauty--of physical nature at its best. But the solitude was not silent. A breeze coming up with sunsetting rustled the rowan leaves, and surged among the silver firs, in echo, as it were, to the long hush of distant breakers on a rocky shore which came rhythmically to mingle with the nearer rush of the burns streaking the hillside; while far and near the air was filled with the wailing cry of lambs newly separated from the ewes; most melancholy and depressing of all sounds, especially when the sadness of coming night settles over earth and sky, sending the shadows to creep up the hillsides and drive the sunshine before their purple battalions. A veritable battle, this, of assault and defence; each point of vantage, each knoll held by the besieged until, surrounded by the enemy, the sunlight dies by inches, gallantly, hopelessly, and the struggle begins again higher up.
The girl and boy--for Paul Macleod was still in the early twenties--felt oppressed by their surroundings, and after the manner of youthful humanity they resented a feeling which had no foundation in themselves. Were they not happy, alive to the uttermost, ready to face the unknown, eager for the experience which the world seemed to find so dreary? Why should they be saddened by things which were not as they were; which had had their day, or did not care to have it?
"Come with me as far as the gate, Jeanie," he said, impatiently. "Ah! I know you don't generally, but you might to-day. Then you can lock it. If any of old Mackenzie's lambs were to get through to their mothers he would lay the blame on you."
"Why not to you, Mr. Paul?"
He laughed rather contemptuously. "Because the road leads to your croft, not mine; besides, no one ever lays blame to me. I never get into trouble, somehow. I have all the luck that way, it seems, while my brother--who is really no worse, I suppose--is always in hot water. I never saw such a fellow."
"They're saying," began Jeanie--half to cover the fact that she had taken the first step down the sheep track--"that the laird----" she stopped abruptly and looked furtively at her companion.
"You may as well tell me what they are saying, Jeanie," he remarked, coolly. "You always have to in the end, you know, and so there is no use in making a fuss."
She was not a girl to be at every one's command, but sooner or later most women find it pleasant to be under orders, for a time, at any rate; doubtless as the result of that past slavery of which we hear so much nowadays. The feeling will be eradicated in the next generation or so, but it must be allowed for in this.
"They're sayin' Gleneira will have to sell the place, and"--she looked at the face beside her critically, as if to judge how far she might go--"they're sayin' it's a pity you were no the laird, Mr. Paul, for you love every stick and stone about, and he is never coming near it at all, at all."
The young man walked on in silence.
"Did ye know that I've never seen the laird, Mr. Paul, though me an' mither has lived at the croft since I can mind anything; but, then, she is no going down the strath, and he is no carin' for the fishin', as you are; you're knowin' every stone in the river, I'm thinkin'."
He turned to her with a quick laugh as if to dismiss the subject. "And every face beside it; for I like pretty things, and some of them are pretty. I'll tell you what it is, Jeanie, Gleneira's the most beautiful place I ever saw; and you are the most beautiful girl in it. Beggar-Maids haven't a chance, so I shall expect to be invited to your nuptials with King Cophetua; a poor laird's Jock like myself can't compete with a crowned head." The bitterness of his tone had more to do with the prospect of having to let Gleneira go, than to the manifest difficulty of appropriating Jeanie Duncan without offending his head or her heart.
"There's better worth having than crowns, maybe," said the girl, doggedly.
"Right! crowned heads may be penniless; let us say an old monarch wi' siller."
"There's better worth having than siller, maybe."
Paul looked at her curiously. Apparently it was not for nothing that he had amused his sitter by reciting the almost endless repertoire of old ballads and songs in which he had taken delight since his earliest boyhood. For it was part of his rather complex nature that he should admire the romance and sentiment in which, with the easily adopted cynicism of a clever lad, he professed to disbelieve. It suited him as a refuge from himself; and yet the fact that Jeanie Duncan had accepted this admiration as a proof of eternal truth did not displease him.
"Better worth than siller!" he echoed, wilfully provoking the answer which he knew would come. "Why! there is nothing better worth than siller--in the end."
"Aye, there is," she put in confidently, "there's love. You've tell't me the sang, many a time;--It's love that gar's the world gang round."
Was it? They stood at the gate together, she holding it open for him to pass, and the question came upon him suddenly. The old question which comes to most men. Was it worth it? Should he, or should he not, go the commonplace way of the world, and take what he could get? Yes, if he could take it without bringing something into his life for ever, which in all human probability he would not care to keep--for ever. Even memory was a tie; and yet--his heart beat quicker, and the knowledge that passion was beginning to disturb the balance of his reason came home to him, bringing with it the same quick denial with which he had met his own doubt as to the wisdom of the past.
