CHAPTER XIII THE MAN WITH THE DEVIL'S PRAYER BOOK
"He would gamble on his father's tombstone and play banker with the corpse."—A Kinlochleven Proverb.
The middle of September was at hand, and a slight tinge of brown was already showing on the leaves. We were now working on a farm where the River Clyde broadens out to the waters of the deep ocean. One evening, when supper was over, I went out alone to the fields and sat down on the green sod and looked outwards to the grey horizon of the sea. Beside me ran a long avenue of hazel bushes, and a thrush was singing on a near bough, his amber and speckled bosom quivering with the passion of his song. The sun had already disappeared, trailing its robe of carmine from off the surface of the far water, and an early star was already keeping its watch overhead. All at once the bushes of the hazel copse parted and Norah Ryan stood before me.
"Is it here that ye are, Dermod, lookin' at the sea?"
"I was looking at the star above me," I replied.
Norah had discarded her working clothes, and now wore a soft grey tweed dress that suited her well. Together we looked up at the star, and then my eyes fell on the sweet face of my companion. In the shadow of her hair I could see the white of her brow and the delicate and graceful curve of her neck. Her brown tresses hung down her back even as far as her waist, and the wind ruffled them ever so slightly. Somehow my thoughts went back to the June seaweed rising and falling on the long heaving waves of Trienna Bay. She noticed me looking at her, and she sat down on the sod beside me.
"Why d'ye keep watchin' me?" she asked.
"I don't know," I answered in a lame sort of way, for I am not good at making excuses. I was afraid to tell her that I liked the whiteness of her brow, the softness of her hair, and the wonderful glance of her eyes. No doubt she would have laughed at me if I did.
"Do you mind the night on the 'Derry boat?" I asked. "All that night when you were asleep, I had your hand in mine."
"I mind it very well."