Mat sprang up, blushing to the roots of his hair, and in the first moment of surprise attempted to return his keepsake to his breast.
Annie was equally unnerved at thus unexpectedly finding Mat in her arbour, but was the first to find her tongue.
“I am so glad that you have all come home safely,” she said; “but, Mat, we have all had breakfast; Tom is still asleep, I thought that you were too. I—”
But Annie saw when she had got thus far, that Mat’s thoughts were not of breakfast, and something in his look caused her to stop. This little speech had given him time to recover himself.
“Annie,” said our hero softly, as his dark eyes looked into hers, “come and sit down, and let me tell you my story in your own arbour,” and gently leading the unresisting girl by the hand, he placed her on the rustic seat which he had just vacated.
“My story is not long,” he pleaded, “but oh, listen to it patiently; and honestly will I lay my thoughts and feelings before you.”
Here Mat came to a pause, for both thoughts and feelings were so surging through his brain, that for a moment he was at a loss how to proceed, but only for one brief moment; for suddenly taking up the lock of Annie’s hair, he placed it in her lap.
Annie was not looking at him, but gazing out far away, with a soft, dreamy look towards the distant blue hills which could be seen through an opening in the creepers. Encouraged by something he saw in her face, our forester proceeded,—
“Annie, when you were a little girl, and I was a rough lad, you gave me a little book which I showed you the other day; you thought nothing of this; I did. I kept it through all my wanderings, as sacredly as I did my old mother’s Bible, and I confess looked at it a great deal more than my Bible. I escaped to Sydney, and saw you again. I thought of you in the wild bush, I have loved you here at the ‘Creek,’ and I have felt a better man since. Annie, will you take the forest gipsy as your husband; to help you, to love and honour you as he always has loved and honoured you? I cannot say more, except, forgive me.” And as he concluded the last sentence, in tender, faltering tones, Mat fell on one knee, and buried his face in Annie’s lap.
A few more moments passed of perfect silence, broken only by the chirruping of the tree-crickets around them, when Mat felt the touch of a gentle hand on his head, and the sweet breath of the girl as she whispered in his ear,—