Truelove dimpled once more, took her shoes, and would have gone her way sedately and alone, but MacLean must needs keep her company to the end of the landing and the waiting Ephraim. The latter, as he rowed away from the Fair View store, remarked upon his sister's looks: "What makes thy cheeks so pink, Truelove, and thy eyes so big and soft?"
Truelove did not know; thought that mayhap 'twas the sunshine and the blowing wind.
The sun still shone, but the wind had fallen, when, two hours later, MacLean pocketed the key of the store, betook himself again to the water's edge, and entering a small boat, first turned it sunwise for luck's sake, then rowed slowly downstream to the great-house landing. Here he found a handful of negroes—boatmen and house servants—basking in the sunlight. Juba was of the number, and at MacLean's call scrambled to his feet and came to the head of the steps. "No, sah, Marse Duke not on de place. He order Mirza an' ride off"—a pause—"an' ride off to de glebe house. Yes, sah, I done tol' him he ought to rest. Goin' to wait tel he come back?"
"No," answered MacLean, with a darkened face. "Tell him I will come to the great house to-night."
In effect, the storekeeper was now, upon Fair View plantation, master of his own time and person. Therefore, when he left the landing, he did not row back to the store, but, it being pleasant upon the water, kept on downstream, gliding beneath the drooping branches of red and russet and gold. When he came to the mouth of the little creek that ran past Haward's garden, he rested upon his oars, and with a frowning face looked up its silver reaches.
The sun was near its setting, and a still and tranquil light lay upon the river that was glassy smooth. Rowing close to the bank, the Highlander saw through the gold fretwork of the leaves above him far spaces of pale blue sky. All was quiet, windless, listlessly fair. A few birds were on the wing, and far toward the opposite shore an idle sail seemed scarce to hold its way. Presently the trees gave place to a grassy shore, rimmed by a fiery vine that strove to cool its leaves in the flood below. Behind it was a little rise of earth, a green hillock, fresh and vernal in the midst of the flame-colored autumn. In shape it was like those hills in his native land which the Highlander knew to be tenanted by the daoine shi' the men of peace. There, in glittering chambers beneath the earth, they dwelt, a potent, eerie, gossamer folk, and thence, men and women, they issued at times to deal balefully with the mortal race.
A woman was seated upon the hillock, quiet as a shadow, her head resting on her hand, her eyes upon the river. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, slight of figure, and utterly, mournfully still, sitting alone in the fading light, with the northern sky behind her, for the moment she wore to the Highlander an aspect not of earth, and he was startled. Then he saw that it was but Darden's Audrey. She watched the water where it gleamed far off, and did not see him in his boat below the scarlet vines. Nor when, after a moment's hesitation, he fastened the boat to a cedar stump, and stepped ashore, did she pay any heed. It was not until he spoke to her, standing where he could have touched her with his outstretched hand, that she moved or looked his way.
"How long since you left the glebe house?" he demanded abruptly.
"The sun was high," she answered, in a slow, even voice, with no sign of surprise at finding herself no longer alone. "I have been sitting here for a long time. I thought that Hugon might be coming this afternoon.... There is no use in hiding, but I thought if I stole down here he might not find me very soon."
Her voice died away, and she looked again at the water. The storekeeper sat down upon the bank, between the hillock and the fiery vine, and his keen eyes watched her closely. "The river," she said at last,—“I like to watch it. There was a time when I loved the woods, but now I see that they are ugly. Now, when I can steal away, I come to the river always. I watch it and watch it, and think.... All that you give it is taken so surely, and hurried away, and buried out of sight forever. A little while ago I pulled a spray of farewell summer, and went down there where the bank shelves and gave it to the river. It was gone in a moment for all that the stream seems so stealthy and slow."