But we saw him again. When we were safely on board the barque, and the anchor was up, and the skipper and his men were setting their sails to the breeze, Mary and I stood on the poop and looked anxiously back to the little wood by the water-side. A figure came out of the shadows and waved a hand. We waved back in answer, and the figure disappeared.
CHAPTER XLV
ON THE WINGS OF THE SEA-MEW
The wind and the tides favoured us, and the little barque took to the sea like the bird whose name she bore.
Before us a rosy path, painted by the rising sun, stretched into the distance. The soft winds of the dawn filled the brown sails and carried us onward, and the little waves patted the sides of our boat as though they were the hands of the sea-maidens, come from out of the deep to cheer us on our way.
We sat together in the stern of the boat, our feet resting on a heap of tarry cordage. I had wrapped her plaid about her to keep my Mary warm--and under its folds I had made her hands captive in one of mine.
"I can hardly believe it," she said. "It is amaist ower guid to be true: to ha'e you by my side, my ain man, when I thocht you were deid."
"And I," I answered, "thought that I had lost you for ever. Many a time, of a night, I have looked up at the stars and chosen the brightest of them, and called it Mary's star: because I thought it must be your dwelling-place. And all the while you were not dead at all."
"And were you really very, very sorry when you thocht that I was deid?" she asked, with a twinkle in her eyes.
"Mary!" I exclaimed, "how can you?" And as there was no one to see but a following gull which hung above us, I kissed her. "But tell me," I continued, "what happened to you after we parted on the moors--and how came I to find this among the ashes of Daldowie," and I drew out the fragment of her ring and showed it to her.