“Then I wonder you did not stay where you were. The place seems to have been very prosperous.”
Angus answered, half laughing, that there was another kind of intelligence which he wanted, and could not obtain there, or any where but in Garveloch. Ella, seeing Angus’s eyes fixed upon her, rose and bent over Archie’s bed of heather, where the poor lad was still sleeping soundly.
“Your sister’s wheel has never stood still all this while,” said Angus to the lads. “She shames us for being so idle. What shall we do next?”
All bustled about upon this hint, and Ronald and Fergus made haste to their out-door employments, supposing that Angus would accompany them. After letting them go out, however, he softly closed the door, and returned to Ella’s side. He found no great difficulty in removing her feelings of displeasure at his long silence, when it was in his power to prove that he had indeed not been silent while he could persuade himself that he had encouragement to write. When Ella heard that he had been working for her all these five long years; that he had supported his hopes upon their tacit agreement when they parted; that he had returned for her sake alone, having no other tie than the natural love of country; when, moreover, he declared his willingness to settle in this very place, and adopt her sisterly cares as his own; when he kissed Archie’s forehead, and promised to cherish him as tenderly as herself, Ella had nothing to say. She shed tears as if she had been broken-hearted, instead of finding healing to a heart sorely wounded; and the only thing Angus had to afflict him was the thought how much each had suffered.
“They that have called me proud and severe,” said Ella, when she began to return his confidence, “little knew what a humbled spirit I bore within me, and how easily I feared I should forgive at the first word. They little guessed, when they bid me not be so careful and troubled about whatever happened, that all these things were like motes in the sunbeam to me, compared with the hidden thoughts from which my real troubles sprang. When they half laughed at me and half praised me to my father, as being like a mother to these growing lads, they did not know that it was because I spent on them the love I could not spend as a wife, nor how glad I was that my cheek withered, and that years left their marks upon me, that I might fancy myself more and more like their mother indeed. If you see me grow young again, and be made sport of like a girl by these tall youths,” she continued, smiling through her tears, “you will have to answer for it, Angus. Will you take the venture? You were ever the merry one, however, and my part was to be grave for us both. Are we to play the same part still, to keep the brothers in order?”
In the midst of Angus’s reply, the lads burst in, crying,
“The laird’s bark! the laird’s bark! and Mr. Callum is standing at the landing place, with his feet almost in the water, he is so eager to have the first word. You should have seen him waive us off with his cane.”
“He is welcome to the first word,” said Ella: “all that matters to us is, who shall have the last.”