Alec Forbes of Howglen

"Well, you see—I can't bear him. And I can't understand my mother.

It's not like her."

In a moment more they were in a gentle twilight of green, flashed with streaks of gold. A forest of delicate young larches crowded them in, their rich brown cones hanging like the knops that looped up their dark garments fringed with paler green.

And the scent! What a thing to invent—the smell of a larch wood! It is the essence of the earth-odour, distilled in the thousand-fold alembics of those feathery trees. And the light winds that awoke blew murmurous music, so sharply and sweetly did that keen foliage divide the air.

Having gazed their fill on the morning around them, they returned to breakfast, and after breakfast they went down to the river. They stood on the bank, over one of the deepest pools, in the bottom of which the pebbles glimmered brown. Kate gazed into it abstracted, fascinated, swinging her neckerchief in her hand. Something fell into the water.

"Oh!" she cried, "what shall I do? It was my mother's."

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when Alec was in the water. Bubbles rose and broke as he vanished. Kate did not scream, but stood, pale, with parted lips, staring into the pool. With a boiling and heaving of the water, he rose triumphant, holding up the brooch. Kate gave a cry and threw herself on the grass. When Alec reached her, she lay sobbing, and would not lift her head.

"You are very unkind, Alec," she said at last, looking up. "What will your mother say?"

And she hid her face and began to sob afresh.

"It was your mother's brooch," answered Alec.

"Yes, yes; but we could have got it out somehow."

"No other how.—I would have done that for any girl. You don't know what I would do for you, Kate."

"You shouldn't have frightened me. I had been thinking how greedy the pool looked," said Kate, rising now, as if she dared not remain longer beside it.

"I didn't mean to frighten you, Kate. I never thought of it. I am almost a water-rat."

"And now you'll get your death of cold. Come along."

Alec laughed. He was in no hurry to go home. But she seized his hand and half-dragged him all the way. He had never been so happy in his life.

Kate had cried because he had jumped into the water!

That night they had a walk in the moonlight. It was all moon—the air with the mooncore in it; the trees confused into each other by the sleep of her light; the bits of water, so many moons over again; the flowers, all pale phantoms of flowers: the whole earth, transfused with reflex light, was changed into a moon-ghost of its former self. They were walking in the moon-world.

The silence and the dimness sank into Alec's soul, and it became silent and dim too. The only sound was the noise of the river, quenched in that light to the sleepy hush of moon-haunted streams.

Kate felt that she had more room now. And yet the scope of her vision was less, for the dusk had closed in around her.

She had ampler room because the Material had retired as behind a veil, leaving the Immaterial less burdened, and the imagination more free to work its will. The Spiritual is ever putting on material garments; but in the moonlight, the Material puts on spiritual garments.

Kate sat down at the foot of an old tree which stood alone in one of the fields. Alec threw himself on the grass, and looked up in her face, which was the spirit-moon shining into his world, and drowning it in dreams.—The Arabs always call their beautiful women moons.—Kate sat as silent as the moon in heaven, which rained down silence. And Alec lay gazing at Kate, till silence gave birth to speech:

"Oh Kate! How I love you!" he said.

Kate started. She was frightened. Her mind had been full of gentle thoughts. Yet she laid her hand on his arm and accepted the love.—But how?

"You dear boy!" she said.

Perhaps Kate's answer was the best she could have given. But it stung Alec to the heart, and they went home in a changed silence.—The resolution she came to upon the way was not so good as her answer.

She did not love Alec so. He could not understand her; she could not look up to him. But he was only a boy, and therefore would not suffer much. He would forget her as soon as she was out of his sight. So as he was a very dear boy, she would be as kind to him as ever she could, for she was going away soon.

She did not see that Alec would either take what she gave for more than she gave, or else turn from it as no gift at all.

When they reached the house, Alec, recovering himself a little, requested her to sing. She complied at once, and was foolish enough to sing the following

BALLAD

It is May, and the moon leans down all night
Over a blossomy land.
By her window sits the lady white,
With her chin upon her hand.

"O sing to me, dear nightingale,
The song of a year ago;
I have had enough of longing and wail,
Enough of heart-break and woe.

O glimmer on me, my apple-tree,
Like living flakes of snow;
Let odour and moonlight and melody
In the old rich harmony flow."

The dull odours stream; the cold blossoms gleam;
And the bird will not be glad.
The dead never speak when the living dream—
They are too weak and sad.

She listened and sate, till night grew late,
Bound by a weary spell.
Then a face came in at the garden-gate,
And a wondrous thing befell.

Up rose the joy as well as the love,
In the song, in the scent, in the show!
The moon grew glad in the sky above,
The blossom grew rosy below.

The blossom and moon, the scent and the tune,
In ecstasy rise and fall.
But they had no thanks for the granted boon,
For the lady forgot them all.

There was no light in the room except that of the shining air. Alec sat listening, as if Kate were making and meaning the song. But notwithstanding the enchantment of the night, all rosy in the red glow of Alec's heart; notwithstanding that scent of gilly-flowers and sweet-peas stealing like love through every open door and window; notwithstanding the radiance of her own beauty, Kate was only singing a song. It is sad to have all the love and all the mystery to oneself—the other being the centre of the glory, and yet far beyond its outmost ring, sitting on a music-stool at a common piano old-fashioned and jingling, not in fairyland at all in fact, or even believing in its presence.

But that night the moon was in a very genial humour, and gave her light plentiful and golden. She would even dazzle a little, if one looked at her too hard. Sho could not dazzle Tibbie though, who was seated with Annie on the pale green grass, with the moon about them in the air and beneath them in the water.