“Andrew has very strict ideas; you must have found that out, Jamie, and you should not go against them.”
“Andrew is headstrong as the north-wind. He goes clear o’er the bounds both sides. Everything is the very worst, or the very best. I’m not denying I was a bit wrong; but I consider I had a good excuse for it.”
“Is there ever a good excuse for doing wrong, Jamie? But we will let the affair drop out of mind and talk. There are pleasanter things to speak of, I’m sure.”
But the interview was a disappointment. Jamie went continually back to Andrew’s reproof, and Christina herself seemed to be under a spell. She could not find the gentle words that would have soothed her lover, her manner became chill and silent; and Jamie finally went away, much hurt and offended. Yet she followed him to the door, and watched him kicking the stones out of his path as he went rapidly down the cliff-side. And if she had been near enough, she would have heard him muttering angrily:—
“I’m not caring! I’m not caring! The moral pride of they Binnies is ridic’lus! One would require to be a very saint to come within sight of them.”
Such a wretched ending to an evening that had begun with so much hope and love! Christina stood sadly at the open door and watched her lover across the lonely sands, and felt the natural disappointment of the circumstances. Then the moon began to rise, and when she noticed this, she remembered how late her mother was away from home, and a slight uneasiness crept into her heart. She threw a plaid around her head, and was going to the neighbour’s where she expected to find her, when Janet appeared.
She came up to the cliff slowly, and her face was far graver than ordinary when she entered the cottage, and with a pious ejaculation threw off her shawl.
“What kept you at all, Mother? I was just going to seek you.”
“Watty Robertson has won away at last.”
“When did he die?”