"Out, you fool," I said, for so of custom I spoke to him, being my cousin and playmate. "You had other matter to think of. Say it she did."
He repeated the words which I told him, and I declare even the sound of them seemed to be in danger of throwing him into another rhapsody.
But at last he said, suddenly, "Oh, I ken what she means——" And he drew a long breath. "I suppose we had better go down to the water-side. She will not come out again, if we wait all night." And he went some way along the avenue and looked long and hard at one heavy-browed window of the old house which seemed to be winking at us.
It is a strange thing how love affects different people. You never can tell beforehand how it will be. I could not have believed that the presence of a forward lass with black eyebrows could have made a moonstruck fool of Wildcat Wat of Lochinvar.
He still stood and looked at the window till my patience was ended.
"Come on, man," I cried. "I declare you are not Heather Jock, as she called you, but Heather Jackass!"
At another time he would have knocked my head off, but now my jesting affected him no more than a sermon. And this I took to be the worst sign of all.
"Well, come on then," he said. "You are surely in an accursed sweat of haste to-night!"
And we took our way down to the water-side, having wasted more than an hour. We had not advanced far down the pillared avenue of the beech trees, when suddenly we came in sight of Maisie Lennox. She was coming slowly towards us along one of the forest roads. At the same time I saw my mother, walking away from me down a path which led along the side of the Dee water. She had her back to me, and was going slowly with her head down. To my shame I ran to meet Maisie Lennox. But first ere I reached her she said quietly to me, "Have you not seen your mother?"
"Aye," answered I. "She has gone down the road to the water-side."