“I am so sorry I surprised you. I did not see you till I was close to you, and then you were abusing somebody so terribly that to stop such language I had to stop and help you. I saw Tam and Jock at a pool a long way down, so they couldn’t hear you, you know.”
“And I’m very much obliged to you. You held it far better than Tam or Jock would have done. But how did you get up here?”
“I climbed up the burn,” said Alice simply, putting up a hand to confine a wandering tress. The young man saw a small, very simply dressed girl, with a flushed face and bright, deep eyes. The small white hat crowned a great tangle of wonderful reddish gold hair. She held herself with the grace which is born of natural health and no modish training; the strong hazel stick, the scratched shoes, and the wet fringes of her gown showed how she had spent the afternoon. The young man, having received an excellent education, thought of Dryads and Oreads.
Alice for her part saw a strong, well-knit being, with a brown, clean-shaven face, a straight nose, and a delicate, humorous mouth. He had large grey eyes, very keen, quizzical, and kindly. His raiment was disgraceful—an old knickerbocker suit with a ruinous Norfolk jacket, patched at the elbows and with leather at wrist and shoulder. Apparently he scorned the June sun, for he had no cap. His pockets seemed bursting with tackle, and a discarded basket lay on the ground. The whole figure pleased her, its rude health, simplicity, and disorder. The atrocious men who sometimes came to her father’s house had been miracles of neatness, and Mr. Stocks was wont to robe his person in the most faultless of shooting suits.
A fugitive memory began to haunt the girl. She had met or heard of this man before. The valley was divided between Glenavelin and Etterick. He was not the Doctor, and he was not the minister. Might not he be that Lewie, the well-beloved, whose praises she had heard consistently sung since her arrival? It pleased her to think that she had been the first to meet the redoubtable young man.
To them there entered the two boys, the younger dangling a fish. “It is the big trout ye lost,” he cried. “We guddled ’um. We wad has gotten ’um afore, but a wumman frichted ’um.” Then turning unabashed to Alice, he said in accusing tones, “That’s the wumman!”
The elder boy gently but firmly performed on his brother the operation known as “scragging.” It was a subdued spirit which emerged from the fraternal embrace.
“Pit the fush in the basket, Tam,” said he, “and syne gang away wide up the hill till I cry ye back.” The tones implied that his younger brother was no fit company for two gentlemen and a lady.
“I won’t spoil your fishing,” said Alice, fearing fratricidal strife. “You are fishing up, so I had better go down the burn again.” And with a dignified nod to the others she turned to go.
Jock sprang forward with a bound and proceeded to stone the small Tam up the hill. He coursed that young gentleman like a dog, bidding him “come near,” or “gang wide,” or “lie down there,” to all of which the culprit, taking the sport in proper spirit, gaily responded.