ness for him. If, also, there ran a tremor of feeling that it
was very fair to be Elspeth Barrow and walking so, she was young and
it was natural. But beyond that was a sense, vague, unexplained to
herself, but disturbing. There was feeling in him that was not in her.
She was aware of it as she might be aware of a gathering storm, though
the brain received as yet no clear message. She felt, struggling with
that diffused kindness and young vanity, something like discomfort and
fear. So her mood was complex enough, unharmonized, parted between
opposing currents. She was a riddle to herself.
But Glenfernie walked in a great simplicity of faeryland or heaven.
She did not love Robin Greenlaw; she was not so young a lass, with a
rose in her cheek for every one; she was come so far without mating
because she had snow in her heart! The palace gleamed, the palace
shone. All the music of earth--of the world--poured through. The sun
had drunk up the mist, time had eaten the thorn-wood, the spider at
the gate had vanished into chaos and old night.
CHAPTER X
The cows and sheep and work-horses, the dogs, the barn-yard fowls, the
very hives of bees at White Farm, seemed to know well enough that it
was the Sabbath. The flowers knew it that edged the kitchen garden,
the cherry-tree knew it by the southern wall. The sunshine knew it,
wearing its calm Sunday best. Sights and sounds attuned themselves.
The White Farm family was home from kirk. Jenny Barrow and Elspeth put
away hood and wide hat of straw, slipped from and shook out and folded
on the shelf Sunday gowns and kerchiefs. Then each donned a clean
print and a less fine kerchief and came forth to direct and aid the
two cotter lasses who served at White Farm. These by now had off their
kirk things, but they marked Sunday still by keeping shoes and
stockings. Menie and Merran, Elspeth and Jenny, set the
yesterday-prepared dinner cold upon the table, drew the ale, and
placed chairs and stools. Two men, Thomas and Willy, father and son,
who drove the plow, sowed and reaped, for White Farm, came from the
barn. They were yet Sunday-clad, with very clean, shining faces. "Call
father, Elspeth!" directed Jenny, and set on the table a honeycomb.
Elspeth went without the door. Before the house grew a great fir-tree
that had a bench built around it. Here, in fine weather, in rest hours
and on Sunday, might be looked for Jarvis Barrow. It was his habit to
take the far side of
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