"Do you see the veil that has come over the high peak yonder?" she asked of her companion. "There is rain falling there; and most likely we shall have a shower or two here by and by; and, as you have no waterproof, we may as well push on to a place of shelter where we can have our lunch. I know a pretty little dell up there, just above the Geinig Pool; and it will be quite a new sensation for me to have any one with me, for ordinarily I have my lunch there, in solitary state, and I sit and stare, and sit and stare, until I believe I know every stone in the burn and every spear of grass on the opposite bank."
Even as she spoke there was a slight pattering here in the sunlight, and diamonds began to glitter on the brackan. Then came a cold stirring of wind; there was a sensation of darkness overhead—of impending gloom—of hushed expectancy; finally, just as they reached the little glade, descended into it, crossed the burn, and took refuge beneath some overhanging birch trees, the heavy rattle of the deluge was heard all around them, and they wore glad enough to be under this canopy of trembling leaves. It was only a sharp shower, after all. That universal whir grew fainter; the air became warmer; a kind of watery glow began to show itself in the sky; presently, as they ventured to look up through the dripping, pendulous branches, there was a glimpse of heavenly blue above them; behold, the rain was over and gone!
Then carefully did the handsome old gillie spread out her waterproof on the sloping bank for Miss Honnor to sit on; he brought forth the little parcels neatly tied up in white paper, likewise a bottle of milk and two silver drinking-cups; when he had seen that she was all properly cared for, he handed to Lionel the game-bag which had held the luncheon, so that that might serve as the other seat, if he chose; and then the old man withdrew a few yards down the little hollow, to be within call if he were wanted.
And what had Lionel to say for himself, now that he had been admitted into this secret haunt of the river-maiden? Well, if the truth must be told, he was considerably embarrassed. For one thing, he was mortally afraid that she might suddenly bethink herself of Paul and Virginia, and be annoyed by a situation which was certainly none of his contriving. What was still worse, she might be amused! He could not get it out of his head that there was something dangerously, almost ludicrously, conventional in the whole position; it seemed to suggest some foolish, old-fashioned, sentimental picture. The solitary dell, and the two figures; why, he felt as if blue ribbons were beginning to sprout at his knees; and he feared to turn to his companion lest he should find her with a crook and a kirtle. He did not ask himself why wretched reminiscences of theatrical tradition should thrust themselves upon him here in the lonely wilds of Ross-shire; what he dreaded was that some such idea might occur to her and provoke her resentment—what was still more ghastly, it might make her laugh!
Honnor Cunyngham, for her part, was quietly and contentedly munching her sandwiches of salmon and vinegared lettuce-leaf; and no such idle town-fancies were troubling her. Probably she was thinking that the hot sunlight after the shower made everything intensely vivid—the silver-stemmed birches in this picturesque little dell rising gracefully into the keen blue of the sky; the diamond-starred bracken and grass shining after the wet; the clear, tea-brown water at her feet glancing in the sun; the green and bronze stones and pebbles showing clear at the bottom of the pellucid brook as it chased and danced on its way down to the Geinig. And whatever else she may have been thinking of, she was almost certainly conscious that vinegared lettuce-leaf in a sandwich was a vast improvement.
"Do you come here often?" he said, at length.
"It is my favorite nook," she made answer.
"I confess that I feel horribly like an interloper," he remarked, hesitatingly. "I feel as if I—as if I had no right to be here—as if I were invading a sacred retreat—" and there he stopped; for he would have liked to add, "the sacred retreat of a sylvan goddess or a nymph of the stream," but that he somehow felt that fantastic imagery of that kind would hardly be appropriate.
"You had more need of the shelter than I," said this extremely matter-of-fact young person, "for you had no waterproof, and I had. Come, if you have finished, shall we go up to the Top Pool?—I want you to have a cast over that, for it is an experience; and, though the sun is out, it won't much matter; there is always such a boiling and surging in that caldron."
Old Robert, whose head was just visible above the bracken, was thereupon called to pack up the remains of the simple feast, and then they set forth again—skirting, but not troubling the Geinig Pool, for the sun was too strong. A beautiful pool was this Geinig Pool—the water coming tumbling down over the boulders in masses of chestnut hue and white, then sailing away in a rapid sweep of purplish blue, and then breaking over shallows (whose every ripple was a flashing diamond point) as it went whirling into the rocky channel beyond. The sun lay hot on the steep banks, where not a leaf of the birch-trees stirred now, and on the lichened rocks, and on the long strand of lilac-gray pebbles; altogether a beautiful pool this was, set deep in its cup among the hills, but for their present purposes useless.