“Yes, you that—what of you, Jeanie? not pledged, you must not say so, to another man.”
“And if I was,” she cried, “what would you have to do with it? it would be but justice. Na, na, that’s no what I’m meaning, as weel ye ken. My heart has never had room but for ane. No—me that should ken better. Oh, dinna, dinna, I canna have it! Me that should have kent better was what I meant to say.”
“Why should you know better? How can we tell what will happen in three years? And till three years are over nothing is settled,” he said, with a secret thrill of anxiety and pain in his heart to remember that this, unlike much that he said, was altogether true.
“It’s true,” she said, shaking her head. “My heart’s that heavy I can think of nothing but harm; we may a’ be dead in three years; and oh, I wish it might be over with me!”
“I cannot have you speak like this,” he said. “I am going to Edinburgh—you don’t seem to care to hear—to a situation Randal Burnside has offered me. I don’t know that I will stay in it long. Very likely it will only be a stepping-stone to something better. I will see you when I come back, which will be often, Jeanie; and indeed I think you might come over to see your friends in Edinburgh—you must have friends in Edinburgh—and see me.”
“I’ll not do that,” said Jeanie, decidedly.
“You’ll not do that? I don’t think that is quite kind. But never mind, I will come home—often—on Saturday, like Randal Burnside.”
“Will you be in the same line as Maister Randal, Rob?”
“I think not just the same line. He pleads, you know, Jeanie, in the Parliament House, before the judges, and I will have to manage cases before they get there. It is a very important business. Failing what I was brought up to—the pulpit, and all that I was trained for— I think my people will be more pleased with the law than anything else. It is always respectable; it is one of the learned professions. I will not deny that it is a very good opening, Jeanie.”
“And when do you go away?”