Low and distant there sounded a roll of
thunder. Jock Binning came upon his crutches from the bench by the
stream where he made a fishing-net.
"A tempest's daundering up!"
Elspeth rose. "I must go home--I must get home before it comes!"
"If ye'll bide, lassie, it may go by."
"No, I cannot." She had brought to Mother Binning a basket heaped with
bloomy plums. She took it up and set it on the table. "I'll get the
basket when next I come. Now I must go! Hark, there's the thunder
again!"
Ian had risen also. "I will go with you. Yes! It was my purpose to
walk through to White Farm. I sent Fatima around with Peter Lindsay."
As they passed the ash-tree there was lightning, but yet the heavens
showed great lakes of blue, and a broken sunlight lay upon the path.
"There's time enough! We need not go too fast. The path is rough for
that."
They walked in silence, now side by side, now, where the way was
narrow, one before the other. The blue clouded over, there sprang a
wind. The trees bent and shook, the deep glen grew gray and dark.
That wind died and there was a breathless stillness, heated and heavy.
Each heard the other's breathing as they walked.
"Let us go more quickly! We have a long way."
"Will you go back to Mother Binning's?"
"That, too, is far."
They had passed the cave a little way and were in mid-glen.
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