But the stiffest struggle Miss Carry ever had with any salmon was mere child’s play compared with the fight she had with Ronald himself over this matter. At first he was exceedingly angry that she should have been told; but then he laughed, and said to her that there were plenty of folk in Scotland as elsewhere who wrote idle verses, but that they had the common sense to say nothing about it. If she wanted a memento of her stay in the Highlands to take back with her to America, he would give her her choice of the deer-skins he had in the shed; that would be appropriate, and she was welcome to the best of them; but as for scribblings and nonsense of that kind—no, no. On the other hand she was just as persistent, and treated him to a little gentle raillery, wondering that he had not yet outgrown the years of shyness; and finally, when everything else had failed, putting her request as a grace and courtesy to be granted to an American stranger. This was hardly fair; but she was very anxious about the matter; and she knew that her demand was founded far less on mere curiosity than on an honest desire to do him a service.
Of course he yielded; and a terrible time he had of it the night he set about selecting something to show to her. For how could she understand the circumstances in which these random things were written—these idle fancies of a summer morning—these careless love songs—these rhymed epistles in which the practical common sense and shrewd advice were much more conspicuous than any graces of art? And then again so many of them were about Meenie; and these were forbidden; the praise of Meenie—even when it was the birds and the roses and the foxgloves and the summer rills that sang of her—was not for alien eyes. But at last he lit upon some verses supposed to convey the sentiments of certain exiles met together on New Year’s night in Nova Scotia; and he thought it was a simple kind of thing; at all events it would get him out of a grievous difficulty. So—for the lines had been written many a day ago, and came upon him now with a new aspect—he altered a phrase here or there, by way of passing the time; and finally he made a fair copy. The next morning, being a Sunday, he espied Miss Carry walking down towards the river; and he overtook her and gave her this little piece to redeem his pledge.