But now at long and last we were won clear, and ever as we rode we caught hands and laughed and loosed them again—all for gladness to be alone. And we looked in one another’s eyes, and nigh brought ourselves and our horses to destruction by thus looking and overlooking. Till I felt mine old Dom Nicholas, a horse that loves not philandering, grow restive and sulky under my thigh, tossing his head up as one slighted for the unworthy. And ever as we went she charged it upon me that then and then, and at such another time, I loved her not. And ever I swore that I did. Thereafter, being beaten on that point, she fell to declaring that she had loved me first and most—but I only reluctantly and, as it had been, at second-hand. Thus we made the miles and the hours go by, redding up all our past life and planning our future, wondering the while if the stir and clangour of war had indeed passed away for ever. For already there had come a new look upon the land. Whether it was the union of the crowns and the new English wealth which made money more plenty, I know not, at any rate certain it is that there had arrived a security to which we in the lands of Carrick had been strangers for many generations. Then it was that the farmer began to set his oxen to the plough in teams of a dozen or more, not fearing any longer that there might come a glint of steel-harnessed riders over the hill, who should drive his cattle before them and leave himself lying in the furrow a-welter in his blood. The wind blew sweet about us. It seemed that never had there been a spring like this one since the world began, never such delicatest airs as those that stirred the crisps about Nell’s white neck when she bent it sideways to hearken to my speeches. I declare that were I not an unlearned Scot, who takes to his pen only when work for the sword waxes slack, I could praise my love in similitudes of Arabian birds and ferny sprays, as well as Euphues’ Delight or even as in the gentle Sydney his Arcadia. But as it is I waste time, for already I have spoke too long, and must haste me to the end. Though this is a part of my life that I could love to linger on. For what is pleasanter than sunshine after storm and the bolts of ruin. I declare it was five years since I had had time to look at a robin. But there seemed to be time for everything this fine May day. And ever as we went, it seemed that we had been a long time alone, and that it would soon come time to be turning back again. Then to which soever of us the thought came, that we were now on the long lane that has no turning (save that which turns in at the kirkyaird loaning), there would also come the desire to touch and to look. And even thus did Nell Kennedy often, reaching her hand across to me from her gentle, equal-pacing steed. Then would she fall back on the things that had been, and which now were passed away.