The Opal Ring

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20126, 23 February 1937, Page 4

The Opal Ring

By ROSALINE MASSON.

Author of “ The Transgressors,” “ Leslie Farquhar,” etc., etc. j

CHAPTER XXXV. Land of Our Fathers. A beautiful valley, with a river running through it over rocks and shallows, the hills on either side carpeted on their higher slopes with shades of heather, their lower slopes a mass of different shades of green—brilliant dark beeches, a great many oaks, soft plantations of little scrubby birches, dark patches of Scotch llrs, pines, pale larches with soft, feathery Angers. Tumbling and forming down the hillsides, on either side of the valley, little burns—narrow strips of silver foam catching the sunshine, breaking the line of trees; and where eaoh burn reached the level, before it met the river—there, always a cottage beside the burn, with its garden and its peat-stack, and little signs of life —a tub and clothes washing ,at the burnside, or a goat tethered, and usually a rowan tree in full berry, round trees like bouquets, very bright. As the valley narrowed and grew wilder, no sign of habitation except two farms, some miles apart, each half-hidden in trees. Presently these too, were lost to sight, and the path became narrow and rough, and on either side of it the heather and moss very boggy.

‘We’ll come back here,” he said, ‘To Druimdaroch.”

Jim and Mora, little Tinker close at heel, left the path and tried to climb up, but immediately found themin a bog. The beautifully tinted dumps .of soft, tall heather, pierced through with dark red spears of sorrel, were terribly misleading, as were the masses of bog-myrtle which Ailed the air with aromatic scent.

There had been heavy rain in the night, and the patches of water among the marshy bogs gleamed blue or sliver as they caught the sun or reflected cloud or sky.

After some misadventures, rapturously shared by Tinker, Mora and Jim emerged on Arm ground and began the ascent, keeping up the side of a little burn that fell singing over ils stones, one side of it. rich with, ferns. The distant hills, coming one by one into view as they climbed higher, were glorious, ethereal, and today were free of clouds, presenting grey faces of cliffs shining in the sun, and soft greens between blue shadows falling into the valleys. Above, the i sky was deep blue, with only here and' there a fleecy white cloud floating idly. High up tiie burn, close to ils hidden source, they found a little sheltered level ground, with a view over the top of the hill into the next valley, and across it to the further hills. A little breeze met them, welcome after their climb. Here they sat and rested, Mora leaning back against a heathery tussock. Tinker, soaking, miry, clotted with bits of moss and heather, leant affectionately against her knee, gazing at her with his whole soul in his expressive eyes. Jim dislodged him, kindly but firmly, and Tinker, after bestowing on him a pained and reproachful glance, turned his hack on them and took up his position at a little distance, his nose on his paws, contemplating the possibility of rabbits.

Jim sat down by Mora, slipping his firm between her and the heather for her to rest on it; and Mora, who had pulled off her hat and thrown it on the heather beside her, nestled into his arm, her cheek against the rough Harris tweed of his coat, her dark little head on his shoulder—than which no more comfortable restingplace for a woman's head has yet been discovered.

They sat a few minutes in silence, looking at. tlie scene spread below them and all around. Jim, his eyes

on the hills and valleys, was trying to gauge their distances, finding it a different, matter on these hazy, moist, misleading heights than on his own familiar plains. Mora began to point out the peaks, and to tell him their names, and where each sweeping valley led to. Sometimes they could truce the Jittlo tracks high on the hillsides, crossing over into the lands of another elan—west to the sea—the Campbells and the Macdonalds, the Camerons, (lie Macleans—eastward to Forfar and Aberdeen, to the Ogilvies and the Gordons—north to the Grants. Many another proud name everywhere, and every one, and the names of hills and valleys, and of little old towns, recalling the unforgettable past—great heroes, great faiths, bloody feuds, mighty battles, tales of love and death. . . . Jim’s heart thrilled. “Our land!’’ he exclaimed. She turned her head, and her eyes met this. Those beautiful, quiet eyes that had always hidden her feelings—and now such a wonderful softness, such a depth of love in them, that Jim caught his breath, and his heart seemed to stop beating. “Mora,” he said, almost timidly, in the presence of this wonderful thing he reverenced. “Mora—l can’t believe it yet—it seems too marvellous to be true. But it is true?” He looked at her hungrily. “Oh, Jim I I have been, such a little fool 1” “And I such a big one!” “Yes—why did you go away—why didn’t you tell me?” He made no answer. They both remembered an unhappy figure, and a shadow fell over them. “Jt was my fault,” siie murmured. "But —Jim—l never guessed that you —you never made me understand—and then you went away—and Australia seemed for life.” lie looked down at the little pointed face, the beautiful eves, the soft hair, the sweet mouth “Mora,” he whispered, “I worship you!” “Oh, but you mustn’t do that, Jim !” She sat up, and pushed back a little dark curl that Ihe wind had blown across her eyes. “I* don’t want to he worshipped, dear. 1 want to be your comrade—your—what is it you call him?—Your ‘mate.’ I want lo share everything. Jim. When we go to Australia ” “When we—what! Morn! Do you mean you’ll go out to Australia with • Why, of course, Jim! Don't you suppose I’m longing lo see it—vour home—all your life there—the places you love! 1 don’t mean I’d like us lo live there, dear— you see, there’s father, and Aunt Ally—we couldn't —” “No. darling—you belong here, as much as I belong I here—more, for 1 belong here 100. Hut oh. Mora! If you only knew how often I’ve, pictured you there—so often—in my lonely davs—thought, of you sitting by me—darling, is it, lo come true?” •Yes. Jim. Oh, I want lo see it all ! The great places you have described, nil the plnees you know, where vou were a hoy, and the rooms where you spent, your “lonely days,” and the “I’d like lo show you In Tom Martin.” Jim said, gravely. She looked at him with a little smile of tender umubement, ’Yea, I

should like to be shown to Tom Martin,’ she said. “Will he he jealous, Jim? Likewise, please, I want to meet all your beloved sheep,” she added, demurely.

“My word! —that'll take us shifting our, scenery for a day or two! Mora—darling! To think of your sitting with me to my veranda, where I’ve thought of you so often—where I’ve been so wretched—God! It’s wonderful!— And you’ll like the sunshine Mora, and the star-light nights—but you’ll miss the green.” He looked round him, the haze gathering over the hills, the rich colours of heather and grass, and trees.

“That’s right.” “What is Tom Martin’s wife like, Jim?’ she asked. “Oh, she's a dinkum little woman! And there's my godson, their eldest—and there’s a girl there—l’d like to do something for her. I meant to, and then I came away so suddenly. She’s the orphan daughter of one of those poor chaps who are only too familiar out with us—a gentleman swagman. Torn and his wife have adopted this girl, but she’s a cut above them, and there’s no sort of life for her there.”

Mora clicked her Angers to Tinker, who got up and trotted to her. “What is the girl like, Jim?” she asked.

“A pretty creature,” Jim told her. Mora bent down and pulled Tinker’s ears.

“Mora—do you think we could go a (trip to Australia for our honeymoon? And when would that be, sweetheart?”

Mora loked up into the blue eyes, wistful, honest, devoted—eyes that looked so straightly into hers.

“Jim dear,” she said, a little tremulously, “I think you do more than worship me, I* think you love me very much.”

He got up quickly, and knelt on the heather in front of her. where she sat enthroned on her tussock, and he put his arm round her.

“I’ve loved you ever since the first moment I saw you! Do you remember it? Uncle John and I came up together—we had been out seeing his sheep run—and you were standing on the verandah with Aunt Ally and—you took my breath away.”

“Yes. I remember that you seemed rather breathless!” She laughed softly at the memory.

“But it was worship,'too, T never dreamt—and to-day!” He stood up, and looked down at her. “Mora, my queen—it seems incredible that you should care for a poor simple commonplace chap like me! Hut I’ll spend my life in making you happy, if you'll trust me, my beloved—l’m strong enough to guard you—to shelter you —your dear head from the heat of the sun, and your little feet from the rough earth! Oh, Mora- —to think you are 'mine! It was the first moment with me—but you—when did you first—" Mora looked far away, at the distant fleecy clouds, which had now drifted and gathered together in soft masses, showing great deep blue spaces lie tween. “When Charles Stewart flung your ring over the bridge into the Garbh bui*n,” she said. It was the first time she had mentioned Charles to him. “My ring?—do you mean the opal ring I gave you? Did he? Why? “I was wearing it.” Jim’s lips set. “Poor devil!” he said, soberly, and turned his head, looking down one of the great valleys below them. “But, Jim!—that was only when T found it out—when I realised what I felt. But suddenly I knew then that I had loved you, and you only, for a long time —without knowing It.” “Moral —since when?” “Well, Jim dear, if you must know —ever since you fell full length on the ice that Christmas Day—and Charles laughed.” THE END.