In the perfect silence (for the humming of the bees in the
heather was hardly a sound at all) he could hear every soft modulation
of her voice--though, to be sure, it was not lovers' talk that passed
between them. "Mr. Moore, won't you have the rest of this soda-water?"
or, "Yes, one of those brown biscuits, thank you," or, "Please, Mr.
Moore, will you crush those bits of paper together and bury them in a
hole? Nothing is so horrid as to come upon traces of a pic-nic on a
hillside or along a river." Already those long days of constant
companionship seemed to be becoming remote. It was the black
night-journey between Inverness and Perth that had severed that shining
time from the dull and commonplace hours he had now entered
upon. He looked out of the window as the train thundered
along--Preston--Wigan--Warrington--everywhere squalor, hurry, and noise,
with a smoke-laden sky lowering over the sad and dismal country,
different, indeed, from that other world he knew of, with its crimson
slopes of heather, its laughing waters, its lonely solitudes in their
noonday hush, the fair azure of the heavens becoming paler and paler
towards the horizon until it touched the distant peaks and shoulders of
Assynt.
Pages:
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399