In a short time the men and women scattered to their work, and Cluny, turning his bright face to Jane's, took both her hands in his and said with eager delight,
"Dear Jane! Darling Jane! Oh, how I love you!"
The words came without intent. He caught his breath with fear when he realised his presumption, for Jane stood silent and trembling, and he did not at first understand that it was for joy which she hardly comprehended and did not at once know how to express. But the heart is a ready scholar when love teaches, and as they slowly passed through the fields of yellow fulness, finding their happy way among the standing sheaves, Jane heard and understood that heavenly tale which Cluny knew so well how to tell her. The moon's face, warm and passionate, shed her tender influence over them, and their hearts grew great and loving in it. For this one hour the bewitching moonlight of _The Midsummer Night's Dream_ was theirs, and they did well to linger in it, and to fill their souls with its wondrous radiance. None just as heavenly would ever shine for them again; never again, oh, surely never again, would they thread the warm, sweet harvest fields, and feel so little below the angels!
Not until they reached Swaffham did they remember that they two were not the whole round world. But words of care and wonder and eager inquiry about war, and rumour of war, soon broke the heavenly trance of feeling in which they had found an hour of Paradise. Mrs. Swaffham was exceedingly anxious. The country was full of frightsome expectations. Reports of Charles Stuart's invasion of England were hourly growing more positive. Armed men were constantly passing northward, and no one could accurately tell what forces they would have to meet. It was said that Charles had not only the Highland Clans, but also Irish, French and Italian mercenaries; and that foreign troops had received commissions to sack English towns and villages, in order to place a popish king upon the throne. For there were not any doubts as to Charles Stuart's religious predilections. His taking of the Covenant was known to be a farce, at which he privately laughed, and the most lenient judged him a Protestant, lined through and through with Popery.