“Kind old ladies, but unmarried, and too old for such a lass. How could they know the heart of a girl who loved a man? It was I who knew that. What did her brother know––her own twin brother? Nothing, because he could see only his own thoughts, never hers, and thought his thoughts were enough for wife or girl. I tell you, lad, men err greatly in that, and right there many of the troubles of life step in. The old man, her father, had left all his money to his son, but with the injunction that she was to be provided for, all her days, of his bounty. It’s a mean way to treat a woman––because––see? She has no right to her thoughts, and her heart is his to dispose of where he wills––not as she wills––and then comes the trouble.
“I ask you, lad, if you loved a girl as fine as silk and as tender as a flower you could crush in your hand with a touch ungentle, and you saw one holding her with that sort of a touch,––even if it was meant in love,––I’ll not be unjust, he loved her as few love their sisters––but he could not grasp her thus; I ask you what would you do?”
“If I were a true man, and had a right to my manhood, I would take her. I’d follow her to the ends of the earth.”
“Right, my son––I did that. I took the little money I had from my labor at the bank––all I had saved, and I went bravely to those two old women––her aunts, and they turned me from their door. It was what they had been enjoined to do. They said I was after the money and 228 without conscience or thrift. With the Scotch, often, the confusion is natural between thrift and conscience. Ah, don’t I know! If a man is prosperous, he may hold out his hand to a maid and say ‘Come,’ and all her relatives will cry ‘Go,’ and the marriage bells will ring. If he is a happy Irishman with a shrunken purse, let his heart be loving and true and open as the day, they will spurn him forth. For food and raiment will they sell a soul, and for household gear will they clip the wings of the little god, and set him out in the cold.
“But the arrow had entered Katherine’s heart, and I knew and bided my time. They saw no more of me, but I knew all her goings and comings. I found her one day on the moor, with her collie, and her cheeks had lost their color, and her gray eyes looked in my face with their tears held back, like twin lakes under a cloud before a storm falls. I took her in my arms, and we kissed. The collie looked on and wagged his tail. It was all the approval we ever got from the family, but he was a knowing dog.
“Well, then we walked hand in hand to a village, and it was near nightfall, and we went straight to a magistrate and were married. I had a little coin with me, and we stayed all night at an inn. There was a great hurrying and scurrying all night over the moors for her, but we knew naught of it, for we lay sleeping in each other’s arms as care free and happy as birds. If she wept a little, I comforted her. In the morning we went to the great house where the aunts lived in the town, and there, with her hand in mine, I told them, and the storm broke. It was the disgrace of having been married clandestinely by a magistrate that cut them most to the heart; and yet, what did they 229 think a man would do? And they cried upon her: ‘We trusted you. We trusted you.’ And all the reply she made was: ‘You thought I’d never dare, but I love him.’ Yes, love makes a woman’s heart strong.
“Well, then, nothing would do, but they must have in the minister and see us properly married. After that we stayed never a night in their house, but I took her to Ireland to my grandfather’s home. It was a terrible year in Ireland, for the poverty was great, and while my grandfather was well-to-do, as far as that means in Ireland, it was very little they had that year for helping the poor.” Larry Kildene glanced no more at Harry King, but looked only in the fire, where the logs had fallen in a glowing heap. His pipe was out, but he still held it in his hand.
“It was little I could do. I had my education, and could repeat poems and read Latin, but that would not feed hungry peasant children. I went out on the land and labored with the men, and gave of my little patrimony to keep the old folks, but it was too small for them all, so at last I yielded to Katherine’s importunities, and she wrote to her brother for help––not for her and me, mind you.
“It was for the poor in Ireland she wrote, and she let me read it. It was a sweet letter, asking forgiveness for her willfulness, yet saying she must even do the same thing again if it were to do over again. She pleaded only for the starving in the name of Christ. She asked only if a little of that portion which should be hers might be sent her, and that because he was her only brother and twin, and like part of her very self––she turned it so lovingly––I never could tell you with what skill––but she had the way––yes. But what did it bring?