“Ca’ the yowes to the knowes,
Ca’ them where the heather grows,
Ca’ them where the burnie rowes,
My bonnie dear-ie.”
Archie sat down and shaded his eyes with his hand. She turned her head and spoke to him over her shoulder. “Come on, you know the words better than I. That’s right.”
“We’ll gae down by Clouden’s side,
Through the hazels spreading wide,
O’er the waves that sweetly glide,
To the moon sae clearly.
Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear,
Thou’rt to love and Heav’n sae dear,
Nocht of ill may come thee near,
My bonnie dear-ie!”
“We can get on without Landry. Let’s try it again, I have all the words now. Then we’ll have ‘Sweet Afton.’ Come: ‘Ca’ the yowes to the knowes’—”
X
Ottenburg dismissed his taxicab at the 91st Street entrance of the Park and floundered across the drive through a wild spring snowstorm. When he reached the reservoir path he saw Thea ahead of him, walking rapidly against the wind. Except for that one figure, the path was deserted. A flock of gulls were hovering over the reservoir, seeming bewildered by the driving currents of snow that whirled above the black water and then disappeared within it. When he had almost overtaken Thea, Fred called to her, and she turned and waited for him with her back to the wind. Her hair and furs were powdered with snowflakes, and she looked like some rich-pelted animal, with warm blood, that had run in out of the woods. Fred laughed as he took her hand.
“No use asking how you do. You surely needn’t feel much anxiety about Friday, when you can look like this.”
She moved close to the iron fence to make room for him beside her, and faced the wind again. “Oh, I’m well enough, in so far as that goes. But I’m not lucky about stage appearances. I’m easily upset, and the most perverse things happen.”
“What’s the matter? Do you still get nervous?”
“Of course I do. I don’t mind nerves so much as getting numbed,” Thea muttered, sheltering her face for a moment with her muff. “I’m under a spell, you know, hoodooed. It’s the thing I want to do that I can never do. Any other effects I can get easily enough.”