“Young Islay!” she still was thinking, hearing the dreamer but to compare him with the practitioner she knew.
And then the dreamer, remembering that his question was still unput, uttered it shyly and awkwardly. “Do you love me?” said he.
It was for this she had fled from Young Islay, who knew his mind and had no fear to speak it!
“Do I love you?” she repeated. “Are you not too hasty?”
“Am I?” he said, alarmed. And she sighed.
“Oh yes, of course you are! You know so little of me. You have taken me from my father’s house by a ladder at night, and share a moor with me, and you know I have no friend to turn to in the world but yourself. You have eyes and ears, and still you must be asking if it is not hasty to find out if I love you. It is a wonder you have the boldness to say the word itself.”
“Well,” he pursued gawkily, though he perceived her drift clearly, “here I am, and I do love you. Oh, what a poor word it is, that love, for the fire I feel inside me. There is no word for that, there is nothing but a song for it that some day I must be making. Love, quo’ she; oh, I could say that truly of the heather kissing your hand, ay, of the glaur your feet might walk on upon a wet day!”
“My best respects to you, Master Gilian!” said Nan. “You have the fine tongue in your head after all. What a pity we have been wasting such a grand opportunity for it here!” and there was an indulgence in her eye, though now and then the numb regret of a blunder made came upon her spirit.
“Will you come down with me?” he went on, far too precipitate for her fancy.
“When?” she asked, thoughtlessly robbing a heather-tuft bell by bell with idle fingers.