"Now, either by chance or because it was the one which could reach farthest, I tendered Rachel my wounded arm, and as soon as she clasped my hand so rude a stound ran up my wrist that it seemed as though I had been pierced through and through with a hot iron. So when at last Rachel leaped lightly upon the wet rock, I was ready to droop like a blown windlestrae in a December gale into her arms—yes, I, that was the strong man, called Strength-o'-Airm, laid my head on her shoulder, and she drew me within the shelter of the cave's mouth, crooning over me as wood doves do to their mates, and whispering soft words to me as a mother doth to a bairn that hath fallen down and hurt itself.
"But in a little the stound of pain passed away, what with the happiness of her coming, the plash of the nearer waters, and the coolness of the night winds which blew to and fro in our refuge place as through a tunnel.
"Then Rachel told me that she had run from the house while they were all searching for me everywhere. Roaring Raif and his brother Peter, together with Gib Maxwell of Slagnaw, Paul Riddick of the Glen, and Black-Browed Macclellane of Gregorie, Will of Overlaw, and Lancelot Lindesay, the tutor of Rascarrel—as bloodthirsty a crew as ever raked the brimstony by-roads of hell.
"Very well I knew that if they lighted on us together there was no hope for me. But Rachel allayed my fear a little by telling me that she did not believe that any in the house knew of the cave beneath the tumble of rocks save only herself. It had long been her custom to seek it for quiet, when the Roaring One brought his crew about the house of Kirkchrist, and none had ever tracked her thither.
"So she examined my wound in the light of the moon, which shone in at one end as we sat on the inmost crutch of the tree. Now Rachel had much skill in wounds, for, indeed, her house was never free of them, her brothers, Peter and the Roaring One, never both being skin-whole at the same time. And so, with a handsbreadth torn from her white underskirt, she bathed and bandaged the wound, telling me for my comfort that the shot appeared to have gone through the fleshy part without lodging, so that most likely the wound would come together sweetly and heal by the first intention.
"Then, after this was done, we arrived at our first difference. For Rachel vowed that she would in no wise go back to the onstead of Kirkchrist, but would stop and nurse me here in the linn; which thing, indeed, would have been mightily pleasant to the natural man. But, being mindful of that which the Little Fair Man had said, and also of the censorious clatter of the countryside, I judged this to be impossible, and told Rachel so; who, in her turn, received it by no means with meekness, but rose and stamped her little foot, and said that she would go and never return—that she was sorry to her heart she had ever come where she was so little thought of, with many other speeches of that kind, such as spirity maids use when they are affronted and in danger of not getting their own sweet way with the men of their hearts.
"Now it went sore against the grain thus to deal with Rachel. And yet I could think of no way of appeasing her, but to feign a dwalm of faintness and pain from my wound. So when I staggered and appeared to hold myself up by the rock with difficulty, she stayed in the full flood of her reproaches, and faltered, 'What is the matter, Harry?'
"Then, because I made no answer, she kneeled down beside me, and, taking my head in both of her hands, she kissed my brow.
"'I did not mean it—indeed, I did not, Harry,' she said, with that delicious contrition which at all times sat so well on her—even after we were married, which is a strange thing and very uncommon.
"So I touched her cheek with my fingers and forgave her, as a man who has been in the wrong forgives a loving woman who has not. (There is ever a touch of superiority in a man's forgiving—in a woman's there is only love and the desire for peace).