Bog-Myrtle and Peat | Page 8

women of the people. Hitherto he had done this chiefly in his imagination, but here certainly was material attractive to his hand.
"Do you work at nothing else?" he repeated, for the girl was uncomplimentarily intent upon her gripper-iron. How deftly she lifted it just at the right moment, when it was in danger of being caught upon the revolving wheel! How exactly she exerted just the right amount of strength to keep the chain running sweetly upon its cogs! How daintily she stepped back, avoiding the dripping of the water from the linked iron which rose from the bed of the loch, passed under her hand, and dipped diagonally down again into the deeps! Gregory had never seen anything like it, so he told himself.
It was not until he had put his question the third time that the girl answered, "Whiles I take the boat over to the waterfoot when there's a cry across the Black Water."
The young man was mystified.
"'A cry across the Black Water!' What may that be?" he said.
The girl looked at him directly almost for the first time. Was he making fun of her? She wondered. His face seemed earnest enough, and handsome. It was not possible, she concluded.
"Ye'll be a stranger in these parts?" she answered interrogatively, because she was a Scottish girl, and one question for another is good national barter and exchange.
Gregory Jeffray was about to declare his names, titles, and expectations; but he looked at the girl again, and saw something that withheld him.
"Yes," he said, "I am staying for a week or two over at Barr."
The boat grounded on the pebbles, and the girl went to let down the hinged end. It had seemed a very brief passage to Gregory Jeffray. He stood still by his mare, as though he had much more to say.
The girl placed her cleek in the corner, and moved to leave the boat. It piqued the young man to find her so unresponsive. "Tell me what you mean by 'a cry across the Black Water,'" he said.
The girl pointed to the strip of sullen blackness that lay under the willows upon the southern shore.
"That is the Black Water of Dee," she said simply, "and the green point among the trees is the Rhonefoot. Whiles there's a cry from there. Then I go over in the boat, and set them across."
"Not in this boat?" he said, looking at the upturned deal table swinging upon its iron chain.
She smiled at his ignorance.
"That is the boat that goes across the Black Water of Dee," she said, pointing to a small boat which lay under the bank on the left.
"And do you never go anywhere else?" he asked, wondering how she came by her beauty and her manners.
"Only to the kirk on the Sabbaths," she said, "when I can get some one to watch the boat for me."
"I will watch the boat for you!" he said impulsively.
The girl looked distressed. This gay gentleman was making fun of her, assuredly. She did not answer. Would he never go away?
"That is your way," she said, pointing along the track in front. Indeed, there was but one way, and the information was superfluous.
The end of the white, rose-smothered boathouse was towards them. A tall, bowed woman's figure passed quickly round the gable.
"Is that your aunt?" he asked.
"That is my aunt Annie," said the girl; "my aunt Barbara is confined to her bed."
"And what is your name, if I may ask?"
The girl glanced at him. He was certainly not making fun of her now.
"My name is Grace Allen," she said.
They paced together up the path. The bridle rein slipped from his arm, but his hand instinctively caught it, and Eulalie cropped crisply at the grasses on the bank, unregarded of her master.
They did not shake hands when they parted, but their eyes followed each other a long way.
"Where is the money?" said Aunt Barbara from her bed as Grace Allen came in at the open door.
"Dear me!" said the girl, frightened: "I have forgotten to ask him for it!"
"Did I ever see sic a lassie! Rin after him an' get it; haste ye fast."
But Gregory was far out of reach by the time Grace got to the door. The sound of hoofs came from high up the wooded heights.
Gregory Jeffray reached the Barr in time for late breakfast. There was a large house company. The men were prowling discontentedly about, looking under covers or cutting slices from dishes on the sideboard; but the ladies were brightly curious, and eagerly welcomed Gregory. He at least did not rise with a headache and a bad temper every morning. They desired an account of his morning's ride. But on the way home he had changed his mind about telling of his adventure. He said that he had