Alec Forbes of Howglen

Change had passed upon both since they parted. He was a full-grown man with a settled look. She was a lovely woman, even more delicate and graceful than her childhood had promised.

As she got down from the fence, he got down from his horse. Without a word on either side, their hands joined, and still they stood silent for a minute, Annie with her eyes on the ground, Alec gazing in her face, which was pale with more than its usual paleness.

"I saw Curly yesterday," said Alec at length, with what seemed to Annie a meaning look.

Her face flushed as red as fire. -Could Curly have betrayed her?

She managed to stammer out,

"Oh! Did you?

And then silence fell again.

"Eh! Alec," she said at length, taking up the conversation, in her turn, "we thought we would never see ye again."

"I thought so too," answered Alec, "when the great berg came down on us through the snow-storm, and flung the barque upon the floe with her side crushed in. -How I used to dream about the old school-days, Annie, and finding you in my hut!– And I did find you in the snow, Annie."

But a figure came round the other corner -for the road made a double sweep at this point -and cried -

"Annie, come hame direcly. Ye're wantit."

"I'm coming to see you again soon, Annie," said Alec. "But I must go away for a mouth or two first."

Annie replied with a smile and an outstretched hand -nothing more. She could wait well enough.

How lovely the flowers in the dyke-sides looked as she followed Mrs Gordon home! But the thought that perhaps Curly had told him something was like the serpent under them. Yet somehow she had got so beautiful before she reached the house, that her aunt, who had come to see her, called out,

"Losh! lassie! What hae ye been aboot? Ye hae a colour by ordinar'."

"That's easy accoontet for," said her mistress roguishly. "She was stan'in' killoguin wi' a bonnie young lad an' a horse. I winna hae sic doin's aboot my hoose, I can tell ye, lass."

Margaret Anderson flew into a passion, and abused her with many words, which Annie, so far from resenting, scarcely even heard. At length she ceased, and departed almost without an adieu. But what did it matter?– What did any earthly thing matter, if only Curly had not told him?

Now, all that Curly had told Alec was that Annie was not engaged to him.

So the days and nights passed, and Spring, the girl, changed into

Summer, the woman; and still Alec did not come.

One evening, when a wind that blew from the west, and seemed to smell of the roses of the sunset, was filling her rosy heart with joy -Annie sat in a rough little seat, scarcely an arbour, at the bottom of a garden of the true country order, where all the dear old-fashioned glories of sweet-peas, cabbage-roses, larkspur, gardener's garters, honesty, poppies, and peonies, grew in homely companionship with gooseberry and currant bushes, with potatoes and pease. The scent of the sunset came in reality from a cheval de frise of wallflower on the coping of the low stone wall behind where she was sitting with her Milton. She read aloud in a low voice that sonnet beginning "Lady that in the prime of earliest youth." As she finished it, a voice, as low, said, almost in her ear,

"That's you, Annie."

Alec was looking over the garden wall behind her.

"Eh, Alec," she cried, starting to her feet, at once shocked and delighted, "dinna say that. It's dreidfu' to hear ye say sic a thing. I wish I was a wee like her."

"Weel, Annie, I think ye're jist like her. But come oot wi' me. I hae a story to tell ye. Gie me yer han', and pit yer fit upo' the seat."

She was over the wall in a moment, and they were soon seated under the trees of the copse near which Annie had met him before. The brown twilight was coming on, and a warm sleepy hush pervaded earth and air, broken only by the stream below them, cantering away over its stones to join the Wan Water. Neither of them was inclined to quarrel with the treeless country about them: they were lapped in foliage; nor with the desolate moorland hills around them: they only drove them closer together.

Time unmeasured by either passed without speech.

"They tell't me," said Alec at length, "that you and Curly had made it up."

"Alec!" exclaimed Annie, and looked up in his face as if he had accused her of infidelity, but, instantly dropping her eyes, said no more.

"I wad hae fun' ye oot afore a day was ower, gin it hadna been for that."

Annie's heart beat violently, but she said nothing, and, after a silence, Alec went on.

"Did my mother ever tell ye about how the barque was lost?"

"No, Alec."

"It was a terrible snow-storm with wind. We couldn't see more than a few yards a-head. We were under bare poles, but we couldn't keep from drifting. All in a moment a huge ghastly thing came out of the gloamin' to windward, bore down on us like a spectre, and dashed us on a floating field of ice. The barque was thrown right upon it with one side stove in; but nobody was killed. It was an awful night, Annie; but I'm not going to tell you about it now. We made a rough sledge, and loaded it with provisions, and set out westward, and were carried westward at the same time on the floe, till we came near land. Then we launched our boat and got to the shore of Greenland. There we set out travelling southwards. Many of our men died, do what I could to keep them alive. But I'll tell you all about it another time, if you'll let me. What I want to tell you noo's this. -Ilka nicht, as sure as I lay doon i' the snaw to sleep, I dreamed I was at hame. A' the auld stories cam' back. I woke ance, thinkin' I was carryin' you throu' the water i' the lobby o' the schuil, and that ye was greitin' upo' my face. And whan I woke, my face was weet. I doobt I had been greitin mysel'. A' the auld faces cam' roon' me ilka nicht, Thomas Crann and Jeames Dow and my mother -whiles ane and whiles anither- but ye was aye there.

"Ae mornin', whan I woke up, I was my lane. I dinna ken richtly hoo it had happened. I think the men war nigh-han' dazed wi' the terrible cauld and the weariness o' the traivel, and I had sleepit ower lang, and they had forgotten a' aboot me. And what think ye was the first thocht i' my heid, whan I cam' to mysel', i' the terrible white desolation o' cauld and ice and snaw? I wantit to run straucht to you, and lay my heid upo' yer shouther. For I had been dreamin' a' nicht that I was lyin' i' my bed at hame, terrible ill, and ye war gaein aboot the room like an angel, wi' the glimmer o' white wings aboot ye, which I reckon was the snaw comin' throu' my dream. And ye wad never come near me; and I cudna speak to cry to ye to come; till at last, whan my hert was like to brak 'cause ye wadna luik at me, ye turned wi' tears i' yer een, and cam' to the bedside and leaned ower me, and -"

Here Alec's voice failed him.

"Sae ye see it was nae wonner that I wantit you, whan I fand mysel' a' my lane i' the dreidfu' place, the very beauty o' which was deidly.

"Weel, that wasna a'. I got mair that day than I thocht ever to get. Annie, I think what Thomas Crann used to say maun be true. Annie, I think a body may some day get a kin' o' a sicht o' the face o' God. -I was sae dooncast, whan I saw mysel' left ahin', that I sat doon upon a rock and glowered at naething. It was awfu'. An' it grew waur and waur, till the only comfort I had was that I cudna live lang. And wi' that the thocht o' God cam' into my heid, and it seemed as gin I had a richt, as it war, to call upon him- I was sae miserable.

"And there cam' ower me a quaietness, and like a warm breath o' spring air. I dinna ken what it was- but it set me upo' my feet, and I startit to follow the lave. Snaw had fa'en, sae that I could hardly see the track. And I never cam' up wi' them, and I haena heard o' them sin' syne.

"The silence at first had been fearfu'; but noo, somehoo or ither, I canna richtly explain 't, the silence seemed to be God himsel' a' aboot me.

"And I'll never forget him again, Annie.

"I cam' upo' tracks, but no o' oor ain men. They war the fowk o' the country. And they brocht me whaur there was a schooner lyin' ready to gang to Archangel. And here I am."

Was there ever a gladder heart than Annie's? She was weeping as if her life would flow away in tears. She had known that Alec would come back to God some day.

He ceased speaking, but she could not cease weeping. If she had tried to stop the tears, she would have been torn with sobs. They sat silent for a long time. At length Alec spoke again:

"Annie, I don't deserve it -but will you be my wife some day?"

And all the answer Annie made was to lay her head on his bosom and weep on.