She smiled.
“Oh, Sandie!” she said, “I’ve had such a dear delightful dream. I thought that our darling had grown up into such a beautiful child, and that you, and he, and I, were back once more, wandering among the bonnie hills, and over the gowany braes of bonnie Arrandale. I thought that father had forgiven us, Sandie, and kissed and blessed our boy, and was laughing to see him stringing gowans into garlands, and hanging them around the neck of our old and faithful Collie.”
“Cheer up, dear wife,” said the young sergeant, kissing her pale brow. “Oh! if you only knew how much good it does my heart to see you smiling once again. Yes, dear, and I too have good hopes, brave hopes, that all will yet be well with us. I was but a poor corporal when you fell in love with me, Mary; when, despite the wishes of your father, who would have wedded you to the surly old laird of Trona, and to lifelong misery, I made you my wife. Your father knew I had come of gentle blood—that Dunryan belongs by rights to me—but he saw before him only the humble soldier of fortune; and he cursed me and spurned me.
“But see, dear, look at these stripes on my arm, behold the medal. I carry already a sergeant’s sword; that sword I hope to wave and wield on many a field of battle, and with its aid alone, though friendless now, I mean to earn both fame and glory, ay, and with it win my spurs. Then, Mary, the day will come when your father will be glad to own me as a son.
“But sleep now, dear; remember, the doctor says you are not to move. Sleep; nay, you must not even talk. See, I have brought my guitar; I will sit here and sing to you.”
He touched a few chords as he spoke, then sang low, sweet, loving songs to her, and ere long she was back once more in the land of dreams.
The sun sank lower and lower in the heavens, and at last leapt like a fiery ball down behind the waves. A short, very short twilight succeeded, a twilight of tints, tints of pink, and blue, and yellow. Sky and ocean seemed to meet and kiss good-night. Then shadows fell, and the stars shone out in the eastern sky, and twinkled down from above, and finally glittered even over the distant hills of the western horizon: then it got darker and darker.
But no breeze came off the shore, and this was in itself full ominous.
The captain was now on deck with his first lieutenant.
“We cannot be very many miles,” he said, “off the river.”