I loved him, loved him as women have loved, and will love,
from the beginning to the end of time."
"Dear mother, there was no wrong in that. But why did you let the world
think you loved a man beneath you? an uneducated shepherd like my
reputed father? That wronged not only you, but those behind and those
after you."
"We were afraid of many things, and we wished to spare the friendship
between our fathers. There were many other reasons, scarcely worth
repeating now."
"And what became of the shepherd?"
"He was not Cumberland born. He came from the Cheviot Hills, and was
always fretting for the border life: so he gladly fell in with the
proposal your father made him. One summer morning he said he was going
to herd the lambs on Latrigg Fell, but he went to Egremont. Your father
had gone there a week before; but he came back that night, and met me at
Ravenglass. We were married in Egremont church, by Parson Sellafield,
and went to Whitehaven, where we lived quietly and happily for many a
week. Pattison witnessed our marriage, and then, with gold in his
pocket, took the border road. He went to Moffat and wed the girl he
loved, and has been shepherding on Loch Fell ever since."
"He is alive, then?"
"He is at the Salutation Inn at Ambleside to-night. So, also, is Parson
Sellafield, and the man and woman with whom we staid in Whitehaven, and
in whose house you were born and lived until your fourth year.
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