IT was late in the afternoon when Archie drew near by the hill path to the Praying Weaver's stone.The Hags were in shadow.But still, through the gate of the Slap, the sun shot a last arrow, which sped far and straight across the surface of the moss, here and there touching and shining on a tussock, and lighted at length on the gravestone and the small figure awaiting him there.The emptiness and solitude of the great moors seemed to be concentrated there, and Kirstie pointed out by that figure of sunshine for the only inhabitant.His first sight of her was thus excruciatingly sad, like a glimpse of a world from which all light, comfort, and society were on the point of vanishing.And the next moment, when she had turned her face to him and the quick smile had enlightened it, the whole face of nature smiled upon him in her smile of welcome.Archie's slow pace was quickened; his legs hasted to her though his heart was hanging back.The girl, upon her side, drew herself together slowly and stood up, expectant; she was all languor, her face was gone white; her arms ached for him, her soul was on tip-toes.But he deceived her, pausing a few steps away, not less white than herself, and holding up his hand with a gesture of denial.
"No, Christina, not to-day," he said."To-day I have to talk to you seriously.Sit ye down, please, there where you were.Please!" he repeated.
The revulsion of feeling in Christina's heart was violent.To have longed and waited these weary hours for him, rehearsing her endearments - to have seen him at last come - to have been ready there, breathless, wholly passive, his to do what he would with - and suddenly to have found herself confronted with a grey-faced, harsh schoolmaster - it was too rude a shock.She could have wept, but pride withheld her.She sat down on the stone, from which she had arisen, part with the instinct of obedience, part as though she had been thrust there.What was this?
Why was she rejected? Had she ceased to please? She stood here offering her wares, and he would none of them! And yet they were all his! His to take and keep, not his to refuse though! In her quick petulant nature, a moment ago on fire with hope, thwarted love and wounded vanity wrought.The schoolmaster that there is in all men, to the despair of all girls and most women, was now completely in possession of Archie.He had passed a night of sermons, a day of reflection; he had come wound up to do his duty; and the set mouth, which in him only betrayed the effort of his will, to her seemed the expression of an averted heart.It was the same with his constrained voice and embarrassed utterance; and if so - if it was all over - the pang of the thought took away from her the power of thinking.
He stood before her some way off."Kirstie, there's been too much of this.We've seen too much of each other." She looked up quickly and her eyes contracted."There's no good ever comes of these secret meetings.They're not frank, not honest truly, and I ought to have seen it.People have begun to talk; and it's not right of me.Do you see?""I see somebody will have been talking to ye," she said sullenly.
"They have, more than one of them," replied Archie.
"And whae were they?" she cried."And what kind o' love do ye ca' that, that's ready to gang round like a whirligig at folk talking? Do ye think they havena talked to me?""Have they indeed?" said Archie, with a quick breath."That is what Ifeared.Who were they? Who has dared - ?"Archie was on the point of losing his temper.
As a matter of fact, not any one had talked to Christina on the matter;and she strenuously repeated her own first question in a panic of self-defence.
"Ah, well! what does it matter?" he said."They were good folk that wished well to us, and the great affair is that there are people talking.My dear girl, we have to be wise.We must not wreck our lives at the outset.They may be long and happy yet, and we must see to it, Kirstie, like God's rational creatures and not like fool children.
There is one thing we must see to before all.You're worth waiting for, Kirstie! worth waiting for a generation; it would be enough reward." -And here he remembered the schoolmaster again, and very unwisely took to following wisdom."The first thing that we must see to, is that there shall be no scandal about for my father's sake.That would ruin all; do ye no see that?"Kirstie was a little pleased, there had been some show of warmth of sentiment in what Archie had said last.But the dull irritation still persisted in her bosom; with the aboriginal instinct, having suffered herself, she wished to make Archie suffer.