"Enjoy?" he repeated, questioningly. "Enjoy? that is a worldly word to use concerning such a privilege."
I looked at him sharply, half suspecting that he had guessed the cause of my appreciation of the field-meeting; but there was nothing in his solemn countenance to make me think he suspected me of duplicity.
"You English folk," he continued, "have queer ways of using your own language. I can understand a hungry man enjoying a hearty meal; but enjoying a privilege seems wrong. One accepts a privilege with a thankful and humble heart." Then he stopped suddenly, stamping his foot upon the ground. "Alexander Main," he said, "ye're wrong. You are misjudging the young man; ye're growing old, and the sap in your heart is drying up. Shame on you that you should ever doubt that a man may rejoice at being privileged to enter the presence of God." Then he stretched out his hand: "Forgive me, young man. We Scots have perhaps lost our sense of joy in our sense of duty, but we are wrong, wrong, wrong!"
His wonted kindliness of heart was bubbling over. My joy had come from a very human source and sorely was I tempted to explain myself: but I held my peace.
We took the path again and plodded along the hillside until we came to the top of a long ridge. As we drew near it the minister signalled to me to crouch down, and on his hands and knees he crawled up and peered long and earnestly over the other side. I knew the reason of his caution. If he stood erect on the brow-top his dark figure, sharp-cut against the sky, might be seen by some patrol of troopers on the moorland. His caution brought me back sharply from the land of dreams. He and I were hunted men.
Apparently his scrutiny satisfied him, for he turned round and, sitting down, said: "We may rest here awhile." I sat beside him and together we scanned the valley that lay below us. It seemed to be a vast solitude, but as I looked I began to pick out here and there a moving figure, and startled, I called his attention to them. He looked and, after a pause, made answer: "They are only the moorland folk making their ways home. See yonder, that is no trooper, but a woman. Poor, harried sheep! May the Great Shepherd guide them all to the fold of home, and in His own good time to the fold abune." I looked again, scanning the moorland with sharpened eyes in the hope that afar I might catch a glimpse of her whose life had touched mine so tenderly that day; but I could not discern her.
I was stirred by a strange desire to talk, and I began to put to my companion questions about some of his flock, and by devious paths I led him to the subject that was really in my heart.
"Mary," he said, "what would you know about Mary?" and then he smiled. "Oh, that is how the land lies, is it? Well, I'm no' surprised. She's a bonnie lass, and as good as she is bonnie, and a likely lass to take a young man's eye. But put her out of your mind. She's no' for you. The dove maunna' mate wi' the corbie."
"She must be a brave woman," I said, "for I understand that she brings us our food."
"Wha tell't ye that?" he exclaimed, turning upon me sharply and lapsing into the fashion of speech which was ever his refuge when he was moved.