"Well," he says, "ye're Lord Stair, and if ye choose to marry a gips——"
"Choose!" I cried. "I have no choice. The men who stand balancing as to whether they will or they won't, with 'Would it be wise?' or 'Acceptable to the world?' I have no knowledge of, and want none, as I have told you often."
"Well," said he, "I've always called you crazy, Jock Stair," and here he put his hand lovingly on my shoulder, "but I never discovered until to-night how crazy you are. I'm not denying there's something fine about it; but is it sensible? Think o' Pitcairn," he said, with a laughing devil in his eye.
"Pitcairn may go to perdition," I answered with some heat.
"It's not Pitcairn that's on his way there, I'm thinking," he returned, with a droll look; "but we must all learn by experience, so gang your own gate. We're off at five in the morning. Do you go?"
He saw by my manner that nothing save an earthquake could get me from the house, and whistling, with some significance, "The Deil Has Nae Got all the Fools," he left me without a good-by word. After he had gone I went forth into the open to be alone. The stars were shining brightly through white clouds, which the sea winds drove across the sky, and far down the cliff I could see the great beach fire and catch the laughter and song of the gipsy folk and free-traders.
Tales were not wanting of the men of Stair who had lost their wits when crossed in love; who had run away with other men's wives and had abided with some jauntiness the world's dispraise, cleaving until death did them part to the one woman who seemed God-made for them. I had thought before this, in a slighting manner, of the strange doings of my forebears; but the thing was upon me, and, come life, come death, I knew that there was henceforward for me but one woman in the world, Marian Ingarrach, an Irish gipsy-girl, with a beauty beyond the natural, and a voice of music like the sounding of an old harp.
I stood under the great tree, the blood of a man and a lover pulsing sweet and feverishly through my veins, when I saw her come out on the balcony, over the sea door, where some posies grew, which she had come to move back from the wind. I was not one to lose an opportunity like this, for nature in me was strong and impulse-driven. I crossed the space which divided us and spoke up to her.
"Will you come down?" I called to her; "I have that which I would say to you to-night."
She started at the sound of my voice, hesitated for a moment, and with no answer in words disappeared from the porch, coming out of the door near which I stood.