At Love's Cost

A poet would instantly have thought that it was a vision of the Spirit

of the Mountains; Stafford only thought it was the most lovely piece of

girlhood he had ever looked at. She did not see him for a moment, all

her attention being engrossed by the sheep which were now wandering up

the valley; then suddenly, as if she felt his presence rather than saw

it, her dark eyes flashed round upon him and she pulled up the big

horse on its haunches with a suddenness which ought to have sent her

from the saddle like a stone from a catapult; but she sat back as firm

as a rock and gazed at him steadily, with a calmness which fascinated

Stafford and kept him staring back at her as if he were the veriest

plough-boy.

And to put it frankly, it was something like fascination. She had come

upon him so suddenly, her feat of horsemanship had been so audacious,

her beauty was so marvellous that Stafford, perhaps for the first time

in his life, found himself unable to utter a word in the presence of

one of the opposite sex. It was only for a moment or two, of course,

that he lost his presence of mind; then he pulled himself together and

raised his cap. She gave him the very slightest of bows. It was the

faintest indication only of response to his salute; her eyes rested on

his face with a strange, ungirlish calm, then wandered to the last

trout which lay on the bank.

Stafford felt that something had to be said, but for the life of him,

for the first time in his experience, he couldn't hit upon the thing to

say. "Good-afternoon" seemed to him too banal, commonplace; and he

could think of nothing else for a moment. However, it came at last.

"Will you be so good as to tell me if I am far from Carysford?" he

asked.

"Four miles and three-quarters by the road, three miles over the hill,"

she replied, slowly, as calmly as she had looked at him, and in a voice

low and sweet, and with a ring, a tone, in it which in some indefinable

way harmonised with her appearance. It was quite unlike the

conventional girl's voice; there rang in it the freedom of the lonely

valley, the towering hills, the freedom and unconventionality of the

girl's own figure and face and wind-tossed hair; and in it was a note

of dignity, of independence, and of a pride which was too proud for

defiance. In its way the voice was as remarkable as the beauty of the

face, the soft fire of the dark eyes.