“Thy coat is new,” said Truelove, with downcast eyes.  “The earth will stain the good cloth.”

MacLean laughed.  “Then will I wear it stained, as ’tis said a courtier once wore his cloak.”

“There is lace upon it,” said Truelove timidly.

MacLean turned with a smile, and laid a fold of her cloak against his dark cheek.  “Ah, the lace offends you,—­offends thee,—­Truelove.  Why, ’tis but to mark me a gentleman again!  Last night, at Williamsburgh, I supped with Haward and some gentlemen of Virginia.  He would have me don this suit.  I might not disoblige my friend.”

“Thee loves it,” said Truelove severely.  “Thee loves the color, and the feel of the fine cloth, and the ruffles at thy wrists.”

The Highlander laughed.  “Why, suppose that I do!  Look, Truelove, how brave and red are those holly berries, and how green and fantastically twisted the leaves!  The sky is a bright blue, and the clouds are silver; and think what these woods will be when the winter is past!  One might do worse, meseems, than to be of God’s taste in such matters.”

Truelove sighed, and drew her gray cloak more closely around her.

“Thee is in spirits to-day, Angus MacLean,” she said, and sighed once more.

“I am free,” he answered.  “The man within me walks no longer with a hanging head.”

“And what will thee do with thy freedom?”

The Highlander made no immediate reply, but, chin in hand, studied the drifts of leaves and the slow-moving water.  “I am free,” he said at last.  “I wear to-day the dress of a gentleman.  I could walk without shame into a hall that I know, and find there strangers, standers in dead men’s shoon, brothers who want me not,—­who would say behind their hands, ’He has been twelve years a slave, and the world has changed since he went away!’ ...  I will not trouble them.”

His face was as sombre as when Truelove first beheld it.  Suddenly, and against her will, tears came to her eyes.  “I am glad—­I and my father and mother and Ephraim—­that thee goes not overseas, Angus MacLean,” said the dove’s voice.  “We would have thee—­I and my father and mother and Ephraim—­we would have thee stay in Virginia.”

“I am to stay,” he answered.  “I have felt no shame in taking a loan from my friend, for I shall repay it.  He hath lands up river in a new-made county.  I am to seat them for him, and there will be my home.  I will build a house and name it Duart; and if there are hills they shall be Dun-da-gu and Grieg, and the sound of winter torrents shall be to me as the sound of the waters of Mull.”

Truelove caught her breath.  “Thee will be lonely in those forests.”

“I am used to loneliness.”

“There be Indians on the frontier.  They burn houses and carry away prisoners.  And there are wolves and dangerous beasts”—­

“I am used to danger.”

Truelove’s voice trembled more and more.  “And thee must dwell among negroes and rude men, with none to comfort thy soul, none to whom thee can speak in thy dark hours?”