, but in a while they preferred to go outside and sit by the
edge of Little Fox. In a hollow there the wilds seemed more compact
about them; the sense of solitude disappeared; it was just as if one
of their berrying rambles in the woods behind Maam had been prolonged
a little farther than usual Lazily they reclined upon the heather, soft
and billowy to their arms; the kind air fanned them, a melody breathed
from the rippling shore.

All the reading in Marget Maclean's books, the shy mornings, the
pondering eves, the ruminations lonely by wood and shore, had prepared
Gilian for such an hour, and now he felt its magic. And as they sat thus
on the bank of the little lake, Nan sung, forgetting herself in her song
as she ever must be doing. The waves stilled to listen; the birds on the
heather came closer; the clouds, like wool on the edge of Ben Bhreac,
tarried and trembled. And Gilian, as he heard, forgetting all that
ancient town below of unable elders and stagnant airs, illusion gone
and glory past, its gossip at well and close, its rancours of clan and
family, knew the message now of the bird that cried across the swampy
meadow-land at Kilmalieu. Love, love, love--and death. It was the
message of bird and flower, of wave and wind, the deep and constant note
in Nan's song, whatever the words might be. No more for a moment the
rustic, the abashed shepherd, but with the secret of the world filling
his heart, he crept closer to Nan's side as she leaned upon the heather,
and put an arm around her waist.

"Nan, Nan," he cried, "could we not be here, you and I, alone together
for ever?"

The gaudy bubble of her expectation burst; she released herself from his
grasp with "John Hielan'-man! John Hielan'man!" in her mind.

"And was that Miss Mary's question? I thought she was a more sensible
friend to both of us."

"Never a better," said he. "She offered her all and----"

"What!" cried Nan, anger flaring in her face, "are you in the market
too?"

He stammered an excuse.

"It was not a gift," said he, "but to you and me; and that, indeed, was
as much as Old Islay meant, to give him his due."

"Old Islay, Old Islay!" she repeated, turning her face from him to hide
its sudden remorse. "Islay, Islay," she repeated to herself. He noticed
the hand she leaned upon, so soft, so white, so beautiful, trembled in
its nest among the heather. He was so taken up with it there among the
heather, so much more beautiful than the faires