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His challenge crossed the wide gulf of air above Loch Grannoch, from which in the earliest morning the mists were rising. Ralph Peden heard all three birds. He had a delightfully comfortable bedroom, and the flowers on the little white-covered table have come from the front square of Mistress Kissock's garden.
He seemed to have entirely forgotten what it was that had brought him to Loch Grannoch bridge so early this June morning. Winsome took advantage of his glance to feel that her sunbonnet sat straight, and as her hand was on its way to her clustering curls she took this opportunity of thrusting Ralph's note-book into more complete concealment.
But not the kind of laughter that rang in the open dell which peeped like the end of a great green-lined prospect glass upon the glimmering levels of Loch Grannoch; nor yet the kind of love which in alternate currents pulsed to and fro between the two young people who sat so demurely on either side of the great, many-spiked fir-branch.
He must leave the manse of Dullarg, and with it that solitary white farmhouse on the braeface, the orchard at the back of it, and the rose-clambered gable from which a dear window looked down the valley of the Grannoch, and up to the heathery brow of the Crae Hill. So, unrefreshed, yet unconscious of the need of any refreshment, Ralph Peden rose and took his place at the manse table.
"There was a heavy dew last night," he answered, "but in spite of it they seem quite dry. "We often notice the same thing on Loch Grannoch side," said Winsome. "I thought that is, I was under the impression that I had left a small book with some manuscript notes!" said the young man, tentatively. "It may have dropped among the broom," replied the simple maid.
"Then," said Jess Kissock, the rich blood mantling her dark cheeks, "I am the first from the Dullarg you have spoken to!" "The very first!" said Ralph. "Then I am glad," said Jess Kissock. But in the young man's heart there was no answering gladness, though in very sooth she was an exceeding handsome maid. Ralph Peden lay well content under a thorn bush above the Grannoch water.
"Yet it is most annoying," he said; "I had been quieter in James's Court." Still he smiled a little to himself, for the broom did not grow in James's Court, nor the blackbirds flute their mellow whistle there. Loch Grannoch stretched away three miles to the south, basking in alternate blue and white, as cloud and sky mirrored themselves upon it.
Winsome Peden carries more than ever of the old grace and beauty; and the eyes of her husband, who has been finishing the proofs of his next volume and at intervals looking over the busy fields to the levels of Loch Grannoch, tell her so as she comes. But suddenly from opposite sides of the orchard this girl with the gracious something in her eyes is borne down by simultaneous assault.
Abel had offered him a month ago, would still be at his disposal. That Winsome loved him truly he did not doubt. He gave no thought to that. The cry across the gulf of air from the high march dyke by the pines on the hill, echoing down to the bridge in the valley of the Grannoch, had settled that question once for all.
He resolved that he would go seldomer to the village public o' nights, and that he would no more find cakes and ale sweet to his palate. It was a foregone conclusion that on Saturday night he would be there, yet what he heard and saw on Grannoch Bridge opened his sluggish eyes. Of a truth there was that in the world which had not been there for him before.
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