"But how can I help it?" she asked. "They never let me rest, and, while I hate him, how can I dare disobey my father and my mother? Besides, when the minister came to tea at our house last week, he spoke of it as a thing settled, and said that Willie would soon be made an elder of the kirk. He thought it would be a grand thing for me, I suppose, to be an elder's wife—but how can I—how can I?"
I need not describe at length what followed. The young fellow casting caution to the winds, mapped out his plan, and before parting they arranged to meet again the next day.
On his way back to "Highlands" the conversation which took place between himself and his companions came back to him. He remembered what he had read in the old Encyclopaedia about Scotch marriages, and it possessed him strongly. He believed himself to be in love with this peasant girl. To him she was a creature apart from all the rest of the world—young, romantic, beautiful with a kind of beauty he had never seen in any other. He felt he could not live his life apart from her. He wanted to take her away from this barren farm among the hills and make her life happy. And yet the madness of his thought appealed to him too. How could he make her his wife? How could he introduce her to his friends? Beautiful she might be, but was it not the beauty of a savage? The Poles lay between her and the women into whose society he would be cast in coming days. He was very ambitious for his own future. He dreamed of becoming a popular barrister, of winning fame and renown, of gaining a name throughout the country as a brilliant lawyer and a pleader of eloquence and power. Like every other young law student he had read of famous lawyers who had risen from obscurity to renown, from poverty to wealth. His career at the University had assured him that he had more than average abilities, while his speeches at the Oxford Union had been received with so much applause that he knew he had the gift of public speech in no ordinary degree. What then should hinder him from attaining to high position in the world he had chosen as his sphere? But all this seemed as nothing in comparison with the mad passion which had been aroused in his heart by this beauteous being of the moors. What was law, what was fame, what were riches in comparison with the joy which her presence gave him? Besides, it did not seem to him that the marriage he had in his mind was the same as that in the English churches. It might be legal, but there was something unreal, unstable about it, and who need know? A Scotch marriage! It appealed to him almost as a joke, while at the same time he knew it would satisfy this young girl's conscience. It would make her his wife. And so, although he had many doubts, he made his plans.
All through the night he lay thinking. He wished he had some of his law books with him, so that he could study the matter carefully, for he was strangely ignorant. No minister, no church, no documents, no witnesses—simply taking each other by the hand and declaring that he took her as his wife. It seemed so easy, and surely, surely——
He was not a bad young fellow, this Douglas Graham. Some spoke of him as a kind of dual personality, strong and weak at the same time—but he had never been known to do anything dishonourable, and his career at Oxford had been an unblemished one. To an extent he was cast in a religious mould, and was susceptible to religious influences. He had indeed been a communicant at a Presbyterian church, and thus, while determined to carve out for himself a great career, he always dreamed of acting honourably and conscientiously, and he would do so now, only—— And then he thought out the whole matter again. Yes, it did seem different from a marriage in an English church, but it would satisfy Jean, and it would be a real marriage.
Two days later he left the "Highlands," to walk to Carlisle, he said, and take the train from there. So, packing in his knapsack the absolute necessities of life, he took his departure from his relatives. He did not tell them what he had in his mind—did not give a hint that that afternoon he was to meet Jean Lindsay alone on the moors. He tried to appear calm, but his mind was full of the plans he had made, full of what Jean would say when he met her. Just as he was leaving "Highlands" a servant brought him a letter, but he was too excited to read it; he simply put it in his pocket with the thought that it could wait, and then, bidding his relatives farewell, he started on his walk.
Two hours later Jean and he were walking side by side away from her father's farm. "You are sure it is all right, Douglas?"
"Yes, sure."
"And you love me?"
"I love you more than my own life," he said, and into the girl's eyes came a look of infinite trust and infinite joy. She had no qualms about the Scotch marriage. She had heard of them again and again, and they were mere commonplaces to her. It did seem strange, walking away with him alone, but she had given him her heart's love, and she had a perfection of trust in him.