"You're not worried, are you, Yellow-hair?"
"About the Boche?"
"I meant that."
"No, Kay, I'm not uneasy."
And when the girl had said it she knew that she had meant a little
more; she had meant that she felt secure with this particular man
beside her.
It was a strange sort of peace that was invading her--an odd courage
quite unfamiliar--an effortless pluck that had suddenly become the
most natural thing in the world to this girl, who, until then, had
clutched her courage desperately in both hands, commended her soul
to God, her body to her country's service.
Frightened, she had set out to do this service, knowing perfectly
what sort of fate awaited her if she fell among the Boche.
Frightened but resolute she faced the consequences with this
companion about whom she knew nothing; in whom she had divined a
trace of that true metal which had been so dreadfully tarnished and
transmuted.
And now, here in this ancient garden--here in the sun of earliest
summer, she had beheld a transfiguration. And still under the spell
of it, still thrilled by wonder, she had so utterly believed in it,
so ardently accepted it, that she scarcely understood what this
transfiguration had also wrought in her. She only felt that she was
no longer captain of their fate; that he was now; and she resigned
her invisible insignia of rank with an unconscious little sigh that
left her pretty lips softly parted.
At that instant he chanced to look up at her. She was the most
beautiful thing he had ever seen in the world. And she had looked at
him out of those golden eyes when he had been less than a mere brute
beast.... That was very hard to know and remember .... But it was
the price he had to pay--that this fresh, sweet, clean young thing
had seen him as he once had been, and that he never could forget
what she had looked upon.
"Kay!"
"Yes, Lady Yellow-hair."
"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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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