Now he remembered her.... He wondered if he had truly ever forgotten her.
When he had received his welcome he sat down upon the door-step. He could have touched Elspeth's skirt. When she lowered her eyes they rested upon his gold-brown head, upon his hand in a little pool of light.
"Eh, laddie!" said Mother Binning, "but ye grow mair braw each time ye come!"
Elspeth thought him braw. The wishing-green where they danced, hand in hand!... Now she knew—now she knew—why her heart had lain so cold and still—for months, for years, cold and still! That was what hearts did until the sun came.... Definitely, in this hour, for her now, upon this stretch of the mortal path, Ian became the sun.
Ian sat daffing, talking. The old woman listened, her wheel idle; the young woman listened. The young woman, sitting half in shadow, half in light, put up her hand and drew farther over her face the brim of her wide hat of country weave. She wished to hide her eyes, her lips. She sat there pale, and through her ran in fine, innumerable waves human passion and longing, wild courage and trembling humility.
The sunlight that flooded the door-stone and patched the cottage floor began to lessen and withdraw. Low and distant there sounded a roll of thunder. Jock Binning came upon his crutches from the bench by the stream where he made a fishing-net.
"A tempest's daundering up!"
Elspeth rose. "I must go home—I must get home before it comes!"
"If ye'll bide, lassie, it may go by."
"No, I cannot." She had brought to Mother Binning a basket heaped with bloomy plums. She took it up and set it on the table. "I'll get the basket when next I come. Now I must go! Hark, there's the thunder again!"