"For these, Thy gifts, we thank Thee, Lord!
Hills, sea, and sky, take up the word,
And thank Thee!—thank Thee!—thank Thee, Lord."
He sat still, gazing out intently at the hills and the sea and the sky, and sat so long without a word that at last she spoke.
"Whose is that, Ken? Surely he must have sat just here, and seen just that."
He turned slowly to her, as though he found it difficult to leave those wonders beyond.
"I really do not know, dear.... They seemed to come of their own accord from somewhere. But whether I recalled them from somewhere else, or whether they came hot from the anvil, I do not know. I do not think I ever made a line of poetry in my life. There has been always so much else to be done."
"I think you must have made them," she said.
Then, in turn, she had her own amusing little monologue. For she began suddenly telling off the lochs and hills, just as he had named them to her that other day—"Loch Goil, Loch Long, Ben More, Ben Lomond, The Cobbler, Ben Ihme, Holy Loch!"
"We shall often think of them when the prospect is a very different one," he said quietly. "You never regret all that you are going to leave behind you, Jean?"
"Never for one moment, dear. I am taking with me, and going to, so very much more than I leave behind, that my heart is full of gladness," she said. "There is not room for the smallest shadow of a shadow of regret."
And they joined hands again and went on along the windings of the path, in and out of the curves and dimples of the mountain's breast, till the bold peaks of Arran rose purple in the distance, and they came to the Sheils Farm.