"Weel, Annie, I think ye're jist like her. But come oot wi' me. I hae a story to tell ye. Gie me yer han', and pit yer fit upo' the seat."
She was over the wall in a moment, and they were soon seated under the trees of the copse near which Annie had met him before. The brown twilight was coming on, and a warm sleepy hush pervaded earth and air, broken only by the stream below them, cantering away over its stones to join the Wan Water. Neither of them was inclined to quarrel with the treeless country about them: they were lapped in foliage; nor with the desolate moorland hills around them: they only drove them closer together.
Time unmeasured by either passed without speech.
"They tell't me," said Alec at length, "that you and Curly had made it up."
"Alec!" exclaimed Annie, and looked up in his face as if he had accused her of infidelity, but, instantly dropping her eyes, said no more.
"I wad hae fun' ye oot afore a day was ower, gin it hadna been for that."
Annie's heart beat violently, but she said nothing, and, after a silence, Alec went on.
"Did my mother ever tell ye about how the barque was lost?"
"No, Alec."
"It was a terrible snow-storm with wind. We couldn't see more than a few yards a-head. We were under bare poles, but we couldn't keep from drifting. All in a moment a huge ghastly thing came out of the gloamin' to windward, bore down on us like a spectre, and dashed us on a floating field of ice. The barque was thrown right upon it with one side stove in; but nobody was killed. It was an awful night, Annie; but I'm not going to tell you about it now. We made a rough sledge, and loaded it with provisions, and set out westward, and were carried westward at the same time on the floe, till we came near land. Then we launched our boat and got to the shore of Greenland. There we set out travelling southwards. Many of our men died, do what I could to keep them alive. But I'll tell you all about it another time, if you'll let me. What I want to tell you noo's this.�-Ilka nicht, as sure as I lay doon i' the snaw to sleep, I dreamed I was at hame. A' the auld stories cam' back. I woke ance, thinkin' I was carryin' you throu' the water i' the lobby o' the schuil, and that ye was greitin' upo' my face. And whan I woke, my face was weet. I doobt I had been greitin mysel'. A' the auld faces cam' roon' me ilka nicht, Thomas Crann and Jeames Dow and my mother�-whiles ane and whiles anither-�but ye was aye there.