"No," she said, laughingly; "no' frae life, but frae love. I'm far far wiser than you"--and she held her hands apart as though to indicate the breadth of her wisdom--"and I learned it a' frae love. For when you knocked at the door o' my he'rt an' it flew open to let you in, a' the wisdom that love cairries in its bosom entered tae. So I'm wiser than you--far wiser." She leaned towards me. "But I'm yer ain wee Mary still--am I no? Let me hear ye say it. Love is like that. It makes us awfu' wise, but it leaves us awfu' foolish. Kiss me again."
Book-learning teaches no man how to answer such a challenge--but love does, and I need not set it down.
Sometimes Mary would read aloud old ballads of love and high adventure--while Andrew and I sat listening, and Jean, as she knitted, listened too. As she read, she had a winsome trick of smoothing back into its place a little lock of hair that would persist in straying over her left ear. That vagrant curl fascinated me. Evening by evening I watched to see it break loose for the joy of seeing her pretty hand restore it to order. I called it the Covenanting curl, and when she asked me why, I stole a kiss, and said, "Because it is a rebel," whereat she slapped me playfully on the cheek, and whispered, "If ye are a trooper ye should make it a prisoner," which I was fain to do, but she resisted me.
Jean took a kindly though silent interest in our love-making, but if Andrew knew, or guessed what was afoot, he made no sign. His fits of depression grew more frequent; but whether they were due to uncertainty as to his own spiritual state or to sorrow and anger at the continued harrying of the hill-folk I was not able to tell, and Jean did not enlighten me, though in all likelihood she knew.
So the happy winter passed, and spring came again rich in promise.
CHAPTER XXII
"THE LEAST OF THESE, MY BRETHREN"
April was upon us--half laughter, half tears--when rumour came to us that the persecutions of the hill-men were becoming daily more and more bitter; but of the troopers we ourselves saw nothing. From what we heard we gathered that their main activities were in a part of the country further west, and we learned that Lag and his dragoons were quartered once again in Wigtown. One morning, when Mary went to the byre to milk the cows, we heard her cry in alarm, and in a moment she came rushing into the house, saying, "Oh, mither, there's a man asleep in Meg's stall."
Her father and I hurried out, and entered the cow-shed abreast. Stretched on a heap of straw beside the astonished Meg lay a young man clad in black. There was such a look of weariness upon his face that it seemed a shame to waken him; but Andrew, whispering to me, "It is ane o' the hill-men," took him by the shoulder and shook him not unkindly. The youth sat bolt upright--fear in his startled eyes. He stared at Andrew and then at me, and in a high-pitched voice exclaimed:
"The Lord is on my side. I will not fear what men can do unto me."