‘I think they are beautiful lines, so far as I understand them,’ was my verdict. ‘What is “cookin’,” for example? I know it does not mean frying, or anything of that kind, but——’
I stopped, for the girl looked half offended at my poor little attempt to be funny at the expense of a Scotch word.
‘There is no word for it in English, that I know of,’ she said. ‘It means crouching down, contentedly, in a comfortable place. If you saw a hen on a windy day under a stook of corn, you might say it was “cooking” there.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied; ‘I won’t forget. And now I must be off, for I know you came here to read.’
If in my vanity I had hoped for permission to remain, I was disappointed. Nothing of the kind was forthcoming.
‘I hope you have got an interesting book,’ said I, wondering what the old brown-leather volume could be.
‘You might not think it very interesting,’ answered Margaret, raising her lovely eyes to mine, as tranquilly as if she had been speaking of a newspaper. ‘It is only a volume of old sermons. Good-bye till dinner-time, Mr. Blake;’ and so saying she turned to seek her favourite nook, at the side of the waterfall.
‘Old sermons!’ I exclaimed to myself as I left her. ‘What a singular girl she is. Fancy——’
But my reflections were cut short, for I ‘lifted up mine eyes’ and saw a mountain ash—they call them ‘rowan trees’ here—full of berries.
Sophy, such a tree is the most beautiful object in nature; there is no way of describing it, no way of putting its beauty into words. If you doubt what I say, look well at the next one you see, and then tell me if I am wrong. Good-night.