Book 2 - Chapter 12

It was a time of new things - that winter when I saw the end of my
fifteenth year. Then I began to enjoy the finer humours of life in
Faraway - to see with understanding; and by God's grace - to feel.

The land of play and fear and fable was now far behind me and I
had begun to feel the infinite in the ancient forest' in the
everlasting hills, in the deep of heaven, in all the ways of men.
Hope Brower was now near woman grown. She had a beauty of
face and form that was the talk of the countryside. I have travelled
far and seen many a fair face hut never one more to my eye. I have
heard men say she was like a girl out of a story-book those days.

Late years something had come between us. Long ago we had
fallen out of each other's confidence, and ever since she had
seemed to shun me. It was the trip in the sledgehouse that' years
after, came up between us and broke our childish intimacy. Uncle
Be had told, before company, how she had kissed me that day and
bespoke me for a husband, and while the others laughed loudly she
had gone out of the room crying. She would have little to say to me
then. I began to play with boys and she with girls. And it made me
miserable to hear the boys a bit older than I gossip of her beauty
and accuse each other of the sweet disgrace of love.

But I must hasten to those events in Faraway that shaped our
destinies. And first comes that memorable night when I had the
privilege of escorting Hope to the school lyceum where the
argument of Jed Feary - poet of the hills - fired my soul with an
ambition that has remained with me always.

Uncle Be suggested that I ask Hope to go with me.

'Prance right up to her,' he said, 'an' say you'd be glad of the
pleasure of her company.

It seemed to me a very dubious thing to do. I looked thoughtful
and turned red in the face.

'Young man,' he continued, 'the boy thet's 'fraid o' women'll never
hev whiskers.'

'How's that?' I enquired.

'Be scairt t' death,' he answered,' 'fore they've hed time t' start Ye
want t' step right up t' the rack jes' if ye'd bought an' paid
fer yerself an' was proud o' yer bargain.'

I took his advice and when I found Hope alone in the parlour I
came and asked her, very awkwardly as I now remember, to go
with me.

She looked at me, blushing, and said she would ask her mother.

And she did, and we walked to the schoolhouse together that
evening, her hand holding my arm, timidly, the most serious pair
that ever struggled with the problem of deportment on such an
occasion. I was oppressed with a heavy sense of responsibility in
every word I uttered.

Ann Jane Foster, known as 'Scooter Jane', for her rapid walk and
stiff carriage, met us at