So he had asked Sheila to be his wife, and she had given him some timid encouragement as to the future. Many a time within these last few days had he sketched out an imaginative picture of the scene. He was familiar with the passionate rapture of lovers on the stage, in books and in pictures; and he had described himself (to himself) as intoxicated with joy, anxious to let the whole world know of his good fortune, and above all to confide the tidings of his happiness to his constant friend and companion. But now, as he sat in one corner of the room, he almost feared to be spoken to by the two men who sat at the table with steaming glasses before them. He dared not tell Ingram: he had no wish to tell him, even if he had got him alone. And as he sat there and recalled the incident that had just occurred by the side of the little bridge, he could not wholly understand its meaning. There had been none of the eagerness, the coyness, the tumult of joy he had expected: all he could remember clearly was the long look that the large, earnest, troubled eyes had fixed upon him, while the girl's face, grown pale in the moonlight, seemed somehow ghost-like and strange.
CHAPTER VII.
AN INTERMEDDLER.
But in the morning all these idle fancies fled with the life and color and freshness of a new day. Loch Barvas was ruffled into a dark blue by the westerly wind, and doubtless the sea out there was rushing in, green and cold, to the shore. The sunlight was warm about the house. The trout were leaping in the shallow brown streams, and here and there a white butterfly fluttered across the damp meadows. Was not that Duncan down by the river, accompanied by Ingram? There was a glimmer of a rod in the sunshine: the two poachers were after trout for Sheila's breakfast.
Lavender dressed, went outside and looked about for the nearest way down to the stream. He wished to have a chance of saying a word to his friend before Sheila or her father should appear. And at last he thought he could do no better than go across to the bridge, and so make his way down the banks of the river.
What a fresh morning it was, with all sorts of sweet scents in the air! And here, sure enough, was a pretty picture in the early light—a young girl coming over the bridge carrying a load of green grass on her back. What would she say if he asked her to stop for a moment that he might sketch her pretty costume? Her head-dress was a scarlet handkerchief, tied behind: she wore a tight-fitting bodice of cream-white flannel and petticoats of gray flannel, while she had a waistbelt and pouch of brilliant blue. Did she know of these harmonies of color or of the picturesqueness of her appearance as she came across the bridge in the sunlight? As she drew near she stared at the stranger with the big, dumb eyes of a wild animal. There was no fear, only a sort of surprised observation in them. And as she passed she uttered, without a smile, some brief and laconic salutation in Gaelic, which of course the young man could not understand. He raised his cap, however, and said "Good-morning!" and went on, with a fixed resolve to learn all the Gaelic that Duncan could teach him.
Surely the tall keeper was in excellent spirits this morning. Long before he drew near, Lavender could hear, in the stillness of the morning, that he was telling stories about John the Piper, and of his adventures in such distant parts as Portree and Oban, and even in Glasgow.
"And it wass Allan M'Gillivray of Styornoway," Duncan was saying as he industriously whipped the shallow runs of the stream, "will go to Glasgow with John; and they went through ta Crinan Canal. Wass you through ta Crinan Canal, sir?"
"Many a time."
"Ay, jist that. And I hef been told it iss like a river with ta sides o' a house to it; and what would Allan care for a thing like that, when he hass been to America more than twice or four times? And it wass when he fell into the canal, he was ferry nearly trooned for all that; and when they pulled him to ta shore he wass a ferry angry man. And this iss what John says that Allan will say when he wass on the side of the canal: 'Kott,' says he, 'if I wass trooned here, I would show my face in Styornoway no more!' But perhaps it iss not true, for he will tell many lies, does John the Piper, to hef a laugh at a man."