"What for at all?"
"I don't know. I wish I did."
"If I give you my advice, will you take it?"
"I will."
"Then for once--if you don't want Braelands to win Sophy from you--put your lover's fears and shamefacedness behind your back. Just remember who and what you are, and what you are like to be, and go and tell Sophy everything, and ask her to marry you next Monday morning. Take gold in your pocket, and buy her a wedding gift--a ring, or a brooch, or some bonnie thing or other; and promise her a trip to Edinburgh or London, or any other thing she fancies."
"We have not been 'cried' yet. And the names must be read in the kirk for three Sundays."
"Oh man! Cannot you get a licence? It will cost you a few shillings, but what of that? You are too slow, Andrew. If you don't take care, and make haste, Braelands will run away with your wife before your very eyes."
"I'll not believe it. It could not be. The thing is unspeakable, and unbearable. I'll face my fate the morn, and I'll know the best--or the worst of what is coming to me."
"Look for good, and have good, that is, if you don't let the good hour go by. You, Andrew Binnie! that can manage a boat when the north wind is doing its mightiest, are you going to be one of the cony kind, when it comes to a slip of a girl like Sophy? I can not think it, for you know what Solomon said of such--'Oh Son, it is a feeble folk.'"
"I don't come of feeble folk, body nor soul; and as I have said, I will have the whole matter out with Sophy to-morrow."
"Good--but better do than say."
The next morning a swift look of intelligence passed between Andrew and Christina at breakfast, and about eleven o'clock Andrew said, "I'll away now to Largo, and settle the business we were speaking of, Christina." She looked up at him critically, and thought she had never seen a handsomer man. Though only a fisherman, he was too much a force of nature to be vulgar. He was the incarnation of the grey, old village, and of the North Sea, and of its stormy winds and waters. Standing in his boots he was over six feet, full of pluck and fibre, a man not made for the town and its narrow doorways, but for the great spaces of the tossing ocean. His face was strong and finely formed; his eyes grey and open--as eyes might be that had so often searched the thickest of the storm with unquailing glance. A sensitive flush overspread his brow and cheeks as Christina gazed at him, and he said nervously:-"I will require to put on my best clothes; won't I, Christina?"