It was of Agnes that he next thought, and that evening he took his way to her home. It was late when he reached there for the winter days were still short. A golden light gleamed coldly through the trees, and shone through the door striking Agnes’s auburn hair with a glory as she opened to the lad’s knock. “Ah, come in,” she said, pleased at sight of him. “I’m glad of company, for Polly is doing the milking, father and Mr. Willett are off hunting, and the bairns and I are all alone. Draw up by the fire.”
Archie followed her to the fireside and seated himself on the settle. He looked around the bare, homely little room, at the children playing about the floor, and lastly at Agnes herself. When would he be seeing all this again? What changes would take place before he should return to this country, raw and new and full of dangers and makeshifts? A lump arose in his throat, and he turned his eyes to the fire, gazing into its glowing centre till he should recover his speech.
Agnes felt that something unusual was in the wind. She watched him for a few minutes before she said, saucily, “You’ve lost your tongue, Archie, the little you have.”
He started and faced her, blurting out: “I’m going away. I’m going back to Carlisle.”
“Back to Carlisle?” Agnes looked at him wonderingly. “Oh, Archie, you will see mother and the bairns. I wish I were going with you.”
“I wish in my heart you were,” he said unsteadily. “Will you come there to me after a while, Agnes, if I don’t come back? I’m going to be a meenister.”
“A meenister!” Agnes broke into a laugh. “Then it was no joke when we called you the dominie.” Then her face clouded. “I’ll be missing you, Archie,” she said simply.
“Ah, will ye, Agnes? I’m fain glad to have ye say so. Couldn’t ye go back there now to your mother, you and your father?”
“Oh, no, no; we’ve come here and settled, and there will be enough for them now. Tell them so. I have written them, but who knows if they have the letter, and you will be going straight there, Archie. Tell them they can come now, they must come, and we’ll manage somehow. There’ll need to be more room, and oh, Archie, you’ll not be here to help us build.” The thought of this made the girl’s eyes moist, and she said again, “I’ll be missing ye sorely, Archie.”
“Then if ye’ll not go back now, I’ll come for you. There’ll be other meeting-houses needed as the country fills up, and other meenisters for them, and I’ll no stay in the east.” Archie spoke eagerly.