To Andrew Hamilton, country-born and bred, every day was a delight.
To-day, as he stood with his wife by the low fence at the foot of the gardens and looked across the fields to the hills, he took a long breath of the clean cold air, and said:
"This—after ten years of lodging in Garnethill! Our lives have fallen to us in pleasant places, Kirsty."
"Yes," she agreed contentedly. "I never thought the country could be so nice. I like the feel of the big stacks, and to think that the stick-house is full of logs, and the apples in the garret, and everything laid in for winter. Andrew, I'm glad winter is coming. It will be so cosy the long evenings together—and only one meeting in the week."
Her husband put out his hand to stop her. "Don't, Kirsty," he said, as if her words hurt him.
In answer to her look of surprise, he went on:
"Did you ever think, when this war was changing so much, that it would change things for us too? Kirsty, my dear, I have thought it all out and I feel I must go."
Kirsty was apt to get cross when she was perturbed about anything, and she now said, moving a step or two away, "What in the world d'you mean? Where are you going?"
"I'm going to enlist, with as many Langhope men as I can persuade to accompany me. It's no use. I can't stand in the pulpit—a young strong man—and say Go. I must say Come!"
Now that it was out, he gave a sigh of relief.