"Surely not one, but two as one, make this terrible and happy furnace!" He thought, "I will speak now," and then delayed over the words.
"This is a bonny, wee place!" said Elspeth. "Did you never hear the old folks tell that your great-grandmother, that was among the persecuted, loved it? When your father was a laddie they often used to sit here, the two of them. They were great wanderers together."
"I never heard it," said Alexander. "Almost it seems too bright...."
They sat in silence, but the train of thought started went on with Glenfernie:
"But perhaps she never went so far as the Kelpie's Pool."
"The Kelpie's Pool!... I do not like that place! Tell me, Glenfernie, wonders of travel."
"What shall I tell you?"
"Tell me of the East. Tell me what like is the Sea of Galilee."
Glenfernie talked, since Elspeth bade him talk. He talked of what he had seen and known, and that brought him, with the aid of questions from the woman listening, to talk of himself. "I had a strange kind of youth.... So many dim, struggling longings, dreams, aspirings!—but I think they may be always there with youth."
"Yes, they are," said Elspeth.