Part 27 (1/2)
”What are you going to do with that rod?”
”Whip Isla for a yellow trout for you.”
”Isla?”
”Not our Loch, but the quick water yonder.”
”You know,” she said, ”to a Yankee girl those moors appear rather--rather lonely.”
”Forbidding?”
”No; beautiful in their way. But I am in awe of Glenark moors.”
He smiled, lingering still to loop on a gossamer leader and a cast of tiny flies.
”Have you--” she began, and smiled nervously.
”A gun?” he inquired coolly. ”Yes, I have two strapped up under both arms. But you must come too, Yellow-hair.”
”You don't think it best to leave me alone even in your own house?”
”No, I don't think it best.”
”I wanted to go with you anyway,” she said, picking up a soft hat and pulling it over her golden head.
On the way across Isla bridge and out along the sheep-path they chatted unconcernedly. A faint aromatic odour made the girl aware of broom and whinn and heath.
As they sauntered on along the edge of Isla Water the lapwings rose into flight ahead. Once or twice the feathery whirr of brown grouse startled her. And once, on the edge of cultivated land, a partridge burst from the heather at her very feet--a ”Frenchman” with his red legs and gay feathers brilliant in the sun.
Sun and shadow and white cloud, heath and moor and hedge and broad-tilled field alternated as they pa.s.sed together along the edge of Isla Water and over the road to Isla--the enchanting river--interested in each other's conversation and in the loveliness of the sunny world about them.
High in the blue sky plover called en pa.s.sant; larks too were on the wing, and throstles and charming feathered things that hid in hedgerows and permitted glimpses of piquant heads and twitching painted tails.
”It is adorable, this country!” Miss Erith confessed. ”It steals into your very bones; doesn't it?”
”And the bones still remain Yankee bones,” he rejoined. ”There's the miracle, Yellow-hair.”
”Entirely. You know what I think? The more we love the more loyal we become to our own. I'm really quite serious. Take yourself for example, Kay. You are most ornamental in your kilts and heather-spats, and you are a better Yankee for it. Aren't you?”
”Oh yes, a hopeless Yankee. But that drop of Scotch blood is singing tunes to-day, Yellow-hair.”
”Let it sing--G.o.d bless it!”
He turned, his youthful face reflecting the slight emotion in her gay voice. Then with a grave smile he set his face straight in front of him and walked on beside her, the dark green pleats of the McKay tartan whipping his bared knees. Clan Morhguinn had no handsomer son; America no son more loyal.
A dragon-fly glittered before them for an instant. Far across the rolling country they caught the faint, silvery flash of Isla hurrying to the sea.
Evelyn Erith stood in the sunny breeze of Isla, her yellow hair dishevelled by the wind, her skirt's edge wet with the spray of waterfalls. The wild rose colour was in her cheeks and the tint of crimson roses on her lips and the glory of the Soleil d'or glimmered on her loosened hair. A confused sense that the pa.s.sing hour was the happiest in her life possessed her: she looked down at the brace of wet yellow trout on the bog-moss at her feet; she gazed out across the crinkled pool where the Yankee Laird of Isla waded, casting a big tinselled fly for the accidental but inevitable sea-trout always encountered in Isla during the season--always surprising and exciting the angler with emotion forever new.
Over his shoulder he was saying to her: ”Sea-trout and grilse don't belong to Isla, but they come occasionally, Lady Yellow-hair.”