"Is the path private?" I repeated.
"It is certainly the idea to keep it a little private," said the Disagreeable Woman, coming into the conversation without being addressed. "Where do you wish to go?"
"Nowhere in particular. The walk looks so inviting we should like to see the end."
"It goes only to the Farm, and you can reach that by the highroad; it is only a half-mile farther. Do you wish to call at the Farm?"
"No, oh no; the path is so very pretty that"—
"Yes, I see; well, I should call it rather private." And with this she departed; leaving us to stand on the outskirts of paradise, while she went into her house and stared at us from the window as she played with the lovely undeserved baby. But that was not the end of the matter.
We found ourselves there next day, Francesca and I,—Salemina was too proud,—drawn by an insatiable longing to view the beloved and forbidden scene. We did not dare to glance at the Disagreeable Woman's windows, lest our courage should ooze away, so we opened the gate and stole through into the rather private path.
It was a most lovely path; even if it had not been in a sense prohibited, it would still have been lovely, simply on its own merits. There were little gaps in the hedge and the wall, through which we peered into a daisy-starred pasture, where a white bossy and a herd of flaxen-haired cows fed on the sweet green grass. The mellow ploughed earth on the right hand stretched down to the shore-line, and a plough-boy walked up and down the long, straight furrows whistling "My Nannie's awa'." Pettybaw is so far removed from the music-halls that their cheap songs and strident echoes never reach its Sylvan shades, and the herd-laddies and plough-boys still sweeten their labors with the old classic melodies.
We walked on and on, determined to come every day; and we settled that if we were accosted by any one, or if our innocent business were demanded, Francesca should ask, "Does Mrs. Macstronachlacher live here, and has she any new-laid eggs?"
Soon the gates of the Farm appeared in sight. There was a cluster of buildings, with doves huddling and cooing on the red-tiled roofs,—dairy-houses, workmen's cottages, comely rows of haystacks (towering yellow things with peaked tops); a little pond with ducks and geese chattering together as they paddled about, and for additional music the trickling of two tiny burns making "a singan din" as they wimpled through the bushes. A speckle-breasted thrush perched on a corner of the gray wall and poured his heart out. Overhead there was a chorus of rooks in the tall trees, but there was no sound of human voice save that of the plough-laddie whistling "My Nannie's awa'."