It was October now, and many a Sunday evening had Elspie walked with Donald alone down to Spruce Wharf, and lingered there watching the last curl of steam from the “Heather Bell” as she rounded the point, bearing Donald away.  Elspie could not doubt why Donald came.  Soon she would wonder why he came and went so many times silent; that is, silent in words, eloquent of eye and hand,—­even the touch of his hand was like a promise.

No one was defter and more successful in this handling of the flax over the fire than Elspie.  It had sometimes happened that she, with the help of one brother, had dried the whole crop.  It was not thought safe for one person to work at it alone for fear of accident with the fire.  But it fell out on this October afternoon, a Saturday, that Elspie, feeling sure of Donald’s being on his way to spend the Sunday with her, had walked down to the wharf to meet him.  Seeing no signs of the boat, she went back to the flax camp, lighted the fire, and began to spread the flax on the slats.  There was not much more left to be dried,—­“not more than three hours’ work in all,” she said to herself.  “Eh, but I’d like to have done with it before the Sabbath!” And she fell to work with a will, so briskly to work that she did not realize how time was flying,—­did not, strangest of all, hear the letting off of steam when the “Heather Bell” moored at the wharf; and she was still busily turning and lifting and separating the stalks of flax, bending low over the frame, heated, hurrying, her whole heart in her work, when Donald came striding up the field from the wharf,—­striding at his greatest pace, for he was disturbed at not finding Elspie at the landing to meet him.  He turned his head toward the spruce grove, thinking vaguely of the June picnic, and what had come of his walking away from the dance that morning, when suddenly a great column of smoke and fire rolled up from the grove, and in the same second came piercing shrieks in Elspie’s voice.  The grove was only a few rods away, but it seemed to Donald an eternity before he reached the spot, to see not only the spruce boughs and flax on fire, but Elspie tossing up her arms like one crazed, her gown all ablaze.  The brave, foolish girl, at the first blazing of the stalks on the slats, had darted into the corner of the house and snatched an armful of the piled flax there to save it; but as she passed the flaming centre the whole sheaf she carried had caught fire also, and in a twinkling of an eye had blazed up around her head, and when she dropped it, had blazed up again fiercer than ever around her feet.

With a groan Donald seized her.  The flames leaped on him, too, as if to wrestle with him; his brown beard crackled, his hair, but he fought through it all.  Throwing Elspie on the ground, he rolled her over and over, crying aloud, “Oh, my darlin’, if I break your sweet bones, it is better than the fire!” And indeed it seemed as if it must break her bones, so fiercely he rolled her over and over, tearing off his woollen coat to smother the fire; beating it with his tartan cap, stamping it with his knees and feet “Oh, my darlin’! make yourself easy.  I’ll save ye!  I’ll save ye if I die for it,” he cried.