face close to his and her arms round him: "I could be kissing your hurt
till it was healed.  I am wanting your head _here_, here at my heart,
for I am yours--I will be yours--I will be yours."

"Some day," said Bryde in a soft whisper, with amazement in his
tones--"some day you will find a man worthy of that great love. . . ."

But she was at her wheedling now.

"Will you tell me, Bryde--will you tell me truly?" and she put her lips
to his ear.  "I love you, Bryde--did ye not know?  Am I not a shameless
lass?"

"There never was maiden like you before, Margaret," said he.  "I am
always loving you, always. . . ."

"But tell me," she cried--"tell me," and she put her ear close to his
mouth, and her eyes were closed and a smiling gladness on her face.

"Love you," he cried in a great voice.  "The good God will maybe be
knowing the love in my heart for you," and his face was grey with pain,
but at his words she pressed her face to his gently.

"Now," she said, "I will be happy again."

And when I came into the room there was the lass standing very proud
with her hand on his brow.

"Is he not a restless boy, our Bryde?" said she, and there was pride
and love and tears and laughter in her tones, and she left us together.

"Hamish," said he, "you will not be bringing her here again ever--I
will not be strong enough lying here . . ." and then in a lower voice,
"My mother has a ring," said he.  "I could not be asking her, my
mother, and who is there to turn to but you," and I told him of the
messenger who came from the Low Countries with Dan's letters and his
mother's ring.

"And your baby fist closed on the sword," said I.

"The sword," said he.  "Where is my father's gift?"

At that I went to the old byre where the heathen had sat that day, and
I digged the cobbles from a corner of a biss close to the trough, and
there, wrapped in a sheep's skin in a box, was the sword as I had
buried it long ago, and I brought it to Dan's son.

He took it with a kind of joy, and his eyes all lit up.

"My father would be knowing," said he, and drew the blade.  "This will
clear the tangles."

There were flowers very beautifully let into the blade in thin gold.
"Is she not a maiden richly dowered?" said Bryde--"a slim grey maiden,
a faithful maiden, who will be lying at my side, and fierce to be
defending me?"

Belle hated that sword from the first day, but Bryde had it by him at
his bedside always.

There were many folk coming and going these days, and Ronny McKinnon
and McGilp would be sitting with Bryde, and they would have the great
tales of ships and the sea, and whiles Ronny would have his fiddle and
play, and whiles it would be the old stories they would be telling.

There was a day too when Hugh McBride and Helen came a-riding on the
moors, and the thought came to me that both were a little sobered, and
the lass had not the same gaiety about her; but I was thinking maybe
she would be anxious about the Laird of Scaurdale, for there was word
that he would not be keeping so very well of late.

There was a sternness about Hugh as of a man that would be carrying a
grim load, but Bryde made very much of him always, and I am thinking
that was not the least of his troubles, for there were some words
between us after the fight.

"Yon was a dirty business," said Hugh.  "I am not fit to stand in the
same park with my cousin, and I will have told him that," for his
mother would aye be warning Bryde never to lay hands on Dol Beag all
his days.

CHAPTER XXIII.

HELEN AND BRYDE McBRIDE REST AT THE FOOT OF THE URIE.

There was a long time that Bryde was lame and weak, for he had lost
much blood, but his strength came back to him, and it is droll to think
that he had grown in his bed.  When he was out he could not be having
enough of the hills, and the fields and the sun.  He would be talking
to the very beasts about the place in his gladness, and Hugh would be
giving him an arm, and they would often be at the laughing like
brothers; but for long was Margaret, his sister, cold to Hugh.

And in the month of May, Bryde came down to the big house, and the
Laird and his Lady welcomed him at the door, and Margaret behind them
very sedate by her way of it.

And the Laird gave Bryde a good word that day in my hearing.

"You will not be minding that tale, my lad," said he, with his hand on
Bryde's shoulder.  "We will whiles be a little careless in the
marrying, our folk," said he, "but the blood is strong enough, and we
hold together."

But for all that I kent that there would be something strange about
Dan's son since he rose from his bed, and I think that Margaret kent it
too, for I would be seeing a wistful look in her eyes when no one would
be near her.

And then there was a day when Hugh brought Helen to the house, and she
was closeted a long time with Margaret.

"Your cousin Bryde will be leaving us ver' soon," said she.

I will never be the one to deny that Mistress Helen came fast to the
bit.

"Will Hugh have been telling you that?" said Margaret in a certain tone.

"Hugh--no.  I meet Bryde ver' often.  He is good to be meeting--there
is a fire and dash about him," and at that she spread out her white
hands with a fine gesture, and took a turn to the window, her
riding-switch at her teeth.

Now there was an intolerance about Margaret which you will find often
with a proud spirit, and that Bryde should be happy away from her hurt
her like a lash.  The women maybe will have a name for it, for there
was a smile in Helen's eyes as Margaret spoke--

"I am glad," said she, "he will have so good a friend as you.  Maybe he
will be staying if you were to ask him."

"And you, Margaret?"

"I do not come of folk who ask," said Margaret, with great unconcern;
then for no reason seemingly (but maybe thinking of a certain time when
she all but asked) her neck and face and forehead grew dark with
mantling blood.

"Is he then not of your people who are slow to ask--favours?" said
Helen.  "I think so, yes.  Do you remember I ride with him a little way
from Scaurdale?  There is a moon, and the hills ver' clear and we
gallop."

"I am minding," said Margaret.

"'It is Romance,' I say to him, and he will be carrying me away off to
the hills, and he is laughing.

"'An unwilling captive,' he says.

"'Not ver' unwilling,' I say, for he looked ver' gallant.

"'But a willing captive, she would kiss me,' said Bryde, your cousin,
and then I make no movement of my head, but my eyes are looking at his
laughing down at me--_asking favours_, ma belle, and still I not move,
and he throw back his head (comme ça), and say--

"'I do not beg--even kisses,' very proudly he looks, ma belle, and his
blue eyes laughing. . . ."

"I am remembering that the charm was working, Helen," said Margaret, in
a voice like the north wind for coldness.

"Ah oui," cried Helen, "backwards it work--I kiss _him_ la la," and she
laughed like silver bells a-tinkle.

Now that was a daftlike tale to be telling, but Margaret was for ever
cleaving me with Helen after that.  "She is beautiful," she would tell
me, "and merry and a great lady, and I think any man will be loving
her," but there were many nights when Margaret lay wide-eyed, for all
that she drove Bryde from her with jest and laughter.  But I think it
was well that she never kent of the meeting of Bryde and Helen
Stockdale at the ford in the burn yonder at the foot of the Urie.

On a summer morning that was, with the heat-haze hardly lifted and long
slender threads of spider webs clinging to the leaves of the birches by
the burnside, and the bracken green and strong, with the white cuckoo
spittals on them that will leave a mark like froth on the knees of a
horse.  To the pebbly ford above the "Waulk Mill" came Bryde, riding
loosely with slack rein, for he was thinking much these days.  In the
burn his horse halted to drink, and then rested a little from the
water--his head high and his ears forward--Bryde looking to his path
for the South End, for he was on some errand of grazing beasts.  Then
there came that fine sound, the distant neigh of a horse, and the horse
in the burn answered gallantly, and came splashing on, passaging and
side-stepping a little, with curved crest.  And there by the burnside
they met, Bryde and Helen.

Their words at the meeting were formal enough, for there were houses at
a little distance from the crossing; but you will only be seeing the
founds of them now, and the plum-trees gone to wood, and the straggling
hawthorns and the heather growing to the very burnside by the
Lagavile.[1]  But at the meeting there was a rich glowing colour in the
face of the maid, and her lips were parted in a little smile, and her
great eyes, sombre often, but now alight with love a-laughing in them,
rested on the man like a caress.

"Ha, well met, my swarthy dragoon," said she, "or are we sailors this
merry morning?"

"There's aye the night for dreams, Mistress Helen, but in the daytime I
will be but a plain farming body, concerned about bestial. . . ."

"Bestial," quo' she, as they rode in the old track by the burnside that
you'll see yet from the other road, "my horse is a-lathered, and I too
am concerned about bestial.  We will let us down," said she, "in the
shade yonder, and rest the horses, and be good farmers together--yes?"

Bryde slacked the girths and tied the horses, and then joined the lass
on a little mound of green like a couch.

"And now," cried Helen Stockdale--"now, sir, here are we in the green
wood with neither page nor groom--squire and dame--and I am loving it,"
said she, and her little brown capable hand took one of his great hard
ones.

[1] Laga vile=hollow of the tree.

"You have fine hands, M'sieu Bryde," said she, her fingers over his to
be comparing them, "great and strong and well-tried."

And there fell a silence between them, and as both strove to break that
silence their eyes met, and there came a quick changing of colour on
the face of Helen, and Bryde's hand closed over hers.  And as she sat
by his side her eyes lowered, and the curling lashes sweeping her
cheek, it came to the man how very beautiful she was, her pride all
forgotten.  He felt her hand trembling in his, and then she raised her
head with a questioning little sound at her lips, and looked at him,
and smiled, pouting.

"And must _I_ beg," she whispered.

"I think," said Bryde, "that the horses are rested."

The light left her eyes, as the sea darkens when a cloud comes over the
sun.  Red surged the blood over throat and face and brow.  She sprang
to her feet, twisting her whip in her brown hands.  By the horses she
turned--

"Am I lame, or blind, or ugly?" she cried.  "Oh, man, I could kill you
. . . but some day, Monsieur, some day I shall laugh when that proud
Mistress Margaret flouts your love . . ."  She laughed, mocking.

"'It will be no concern of mine whether Bryde McBride goes or stays,'
says the Lady Margaret.  'I do not beg--and what is he to me.'"

"You are a droll lass," said Bryde, with a frown on his face--"a droll
lass, and very beautiful--so Mistress Margaret . . ." but Helen broke
into his talk.

"Am I beautiful to you, M'sieu?  I am honoured," but her eyes were
soft--"but what would the proud Margaret say to that?"

"We will forget her, Mistress Helen--what have I to be doing except to
be a loyal kinsman to her?" and here the drollest laughing came over
Helen.

"I am sure she will be loving _that_," said she, "a loyal kinsman."

And although her breath was still flurried with her swift rage, her
eyes were laughing at the man.

"I can never be in anger with you, Bryde," said she.  "I wish it were
not so."

"Are you wishing to be angry with me now?" said he in a deep voice,
with one great arm round her shoulder, and his face bent to her.  And
as she looked at him a sort of fierceness came over Helen.  She flung
her arms round the man, and stood on tiptoe to be reaching up to him.

"Some day I will be forgetting my convent teaching," said she, "and
then I will make you love me, and you will be mine _altogether_."

"There will be something in that," said Bryde, and laughed a loud
ringing laugh, as the drollness of the business came on him.  And when
he looked down, there was the lass all humbled, and tears standing in
her eyes, and a pitiful little mouth on her.

"You are laughing at me, Bryde," said she in a little voice, shakily.

"No, dear, no," said he, "I would be thinking of the Laird of Scaurdale
if he kent, and me with a name to be making.  Do not be greetin'," said
he, "there will be nothing at all to be greeting for," and he set her
on her horse gently, and they rode on by the burnside, and watched the
brown trout flash in below the boulders, and darting across the amber
pools, just as they do to-day.

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE HALFLIN'S MESSAGE.

I mind that there was a good back-end that year, as we say, with plenty
of keep for the beasts, and the stacks under thatch of sprits by the
end of September, and I would be standing in the stackyard as a man
will, just pleased to be seeing things as they were, and swithering if
I should be taking a step to the Quay Inn, when the halflin lad from
Bryde's place came up to me.

"He is not yonder," said he, in a daft-like way.  "He will not be in
his own place any more."

And then I got at him with the questions.

"The mother will be sitting all day and not greeting terrible," says
he, "and Betty will be oching and seching like a daith in the house;
and I came to be telling you--and he will have the thin sword with him."

And the lad lisped and boggled at the English, till I shook the Gaelic
into him--and there was the story.

It would be two nights ago that Bryde McBride came into the loft where
the halflin was sleeping, and bade him dress.

"He would be all in his good claes," said the lad, "and the sword on
him," and he told me how the two of them had carried a kist through the
hill and down behind the Big House--"there would still be a light in
the young leddy's chamber," for Bryde McBride had stood looking at it,
and talking in the Gaelic.  "And," said the lad, looking over his
shoulder half fearfully, "he said, 'If ever there is a word comes out
of your mouth about this, Homish, I will be ramming three feet o' blue
steel through your gizzard,' and we would be carrying the kist down to
the herrin' slap (Bealach an agadan) and to the shore.  There was a
skiff lying there all quiet and three men waiting, and when we would be
among them they took the kist, and wan of the sailors wass saying they
would be in Fowey soon, but the master turned on me, and he had money
for me.

"'You will be minding the place until I come back to you,' he said, 'or
I'll reive the skin from you for a bridle,' and he made me go away from
the rocks and to be going back, but I lay among the trees, and I would
be seeing the men put the kist on board, and then they rowed away with
the master sitting at the stern and looking back, for I would be seeing
his face white in the moon," and at that the poor lad was so near the
greetin' that I took him to the kitchen for a meal of meat, and it all
came plain to me as I sat there among the serving bodies and the dogs.

I minded the way the boy had taken the sword from me, as he lay in his
bed.  "This will be clearing the way," he had said, and now he would be
started to the clearing, and then there was Margaret.

"You will not be bringing her here again, for I am not strong enough
lying here."

That would be at the time he would be lying with Hugh's sword-stroke in
his thigh, and calling himself a misbegot, and not fit to be speaking
to decent folk.  And I minded the pride of him, and kent the very
feelings that had sent him away, but I was wishing he could have stayed
for all that, for his mother's sake.

At that time I had no word of what had happened at the ford of the burn
at Lagavile, or that Mistress Helen in her rage had turned Margaret's
words to her own purpose, but that I got later from Margaret herself.

Well, I went into the house and told them, and there was the tiravee;
and Margaret like to go out at the rigging, for indeed she was a little
spoiled.  And Hugh it was that got the rough edge of her tongue, until
"I will go and fetch him back," said he.

"You!" says she, "you!  As well might the hoodie-craw bring back the
kestrel," and at that the mother bridled.

"What kind of talk is this in my house?" said she, "and to your
brother.  Mend your manners, mistress.  What is this fly-by-night (to
say nothing worse) to you?"

"He will be all the man ever I will have," said Margaret, standing up,
and her eyes flashing, and at that her father, roused by her bravery,
laughed aloud.

"Capital," he cried, "capital,"--and then, "Hoot, my wee lass," said
he, "you're young yet.  Come away wi' me," and she went out with him,
leaving us sitting mumchance.

"The best thing that could have happened," said the mistress, and made
her way to the kitchen, for if things were not right she must have some
work on her hands.

The very next day I made my way to the stable and found Margaret's
horse gone.

"She is away like the devil spinning heather," said old Tam.  "She'll
be at Bothanairidh by noo," and so it was, for when I came to the farm
on the moor there was Margaret, thrang at the talking to the halflin,
and looking blither than I had thought to see her; and thinks I to
myself, he will have been telling her about Bryde and the lighted
window--and that I was right I know, although Margaret would never be
telling me what it was that Bryde said that night; and the halflin I
would not be asking, but I would be telling the lass about the three
feet of blue steel in the lad's gizzard, and at that she would laugh at
me.

"I will be giving him a golden guinea for every foot o' blue steel,"
said she, "and when I will have Bryde back he will be giving him the
double of it, for telling me these good words," and I believe the daft
lassie did just that.

But Belle would be fit for nothing but sitting and mourning.  "Oh, why
did I leave my own folk and the tents and the horses, the laughter o'
the little ones, and the winding roads, to be left desolate on this
weary moor--desolate, desolate, and mourning like the Israelitish
women--the father is not, and now is the son gone from me."

And when Margaret would have comforted her, "Are not you of the same
folk, maiden?" she cried, turning her eyes bright and hard and dry on
the lass, "the same cruel proud breed"; and then again, "He was a good
son--there never was woman blessed with such a son, kind and brave and
loving, the very beasts would come to his whistle."

"But this will not be the finish," said I; "the dogs are not howling,"
and at that old Betty brisked herself.

"Yess, yess, the dogs will not be greeting Belle, woman, and that is a
sure sign," said she, wonderfully cheered.  "Bryde will be coming back
a great man, and bringing old Betty a silk dress and good whisky--yess."

"Where is Fowey, Hamish?" said Margaret.

"On the coast of England, a place the smugglers frequent," said I.

"Bryde will be with the smuggling laads," cried Betty, clapping her
hands.  "Is he not the brisk lad, and he will be bringing the whisky
sure--maybe it will be brandy moreover."

And we left them a little cheered that day, and Margaret still looked
happy with her thoughts.

It was in October, the fair day, that Mistress Helen came to visit
Margaret, and Hugh had carried her the news of Bryde's going.

"Your cousin has gone to his tall ships," said she to Margaret, "the
tall ships and the black cannon and the cutlasses, you remember, ma
belle."

"Bryde has gone away truly," said Margaret, and then the two retired to
their confidences.  But the next day it was that Margaret told me of
the meeting by the ford.

"I am hating that woman, Hamish," said she, "with her bravery and her
beauty, and her charms that will be working backwards. . . ."

"Who was it that started these same spells?" says I.  "Was it not in
your mind to be trying these havers on Bryde yourself?"

"It was not in my mind that Helen Stockdale should be trying them on
him," said she, "at any rate."

And at my laughing she left me in a pet, but not long after she would
be telling me--

"There is something fine and brave about that woman, too, Hamish," she
would say, "for she would be telling lies to Bryde McBride of what I
had said about his going, and yet she told me all these lies.  I could
not be doing that," said Margaret.  "No, I could not be owning to a
thing like that--myself."

CHAPTER XXV.

I RIDE AGAIN TO McALLAN'S LOCKER.

There came a weariness of the spirit over me that long dreary winter,
and all nature was there to be seconding my dismal thoughts.  For
months never did I awake but my first thought would be, "What is there
not right?" and then I would be remembering that Bryde was not any more
on the moorlands.

It seemed to me that always there was a drizzle of soft rain and a
blanket of cold mist, that would be half hiding the friendly places,
that the very hills were become the abode of strange uncanny beasts
instead of decent ewes and fat wethers, and that the mists would be
hiding the revels of the folk a man does not care to be speaking of.
The trees would be dreary and sad--the sea always grey and gurly and
ochone, the very roads had the look of bareness and emptiness, as
though all a man's friends had marched over them, never to return.

Margaret, the Flower of Nourn, had taken to walking alone in the rain,
under the trees by the burnside, or maybe I would be seeing her on the
shore, and looking to the sea, and her songs were sad--ay, when she
tried to be at her gayest.  And once I am minding, when she was with me
on the shore-head watching the men at the wrack-carting--

"I am wondering," said she, dipping her hands in the little waves, "I
am wondering if these little waves will maybe once have swirled under
the forefoot of his ship," and I had not the heart to be giving her a
lesson on physics, and a little understanding of the laws that will be
governing the waves.

And Hugh that was the gallant would be interesting himself in all the
matters of farming, and seldom riding out with his clean stirrups and
polished leathers, and there were times when I was sore put to it to be
keeping my hands off him, because he would be so douce and agreeable.

I would be trying the drink often, and took my glass with the Laird, my
uncle, but it would not be bettering me any, and a man that drink will
not be making merrier company of is in no good way.

At the farm in the hills the halflin would be doing finely--a little
lavish with the feeding, as a body will be when the keep is not his
own, but the beasts would be looking well, and the steading clean and
tidy.  Belle, it seemed to me, was a little dazed for many a long day,
and whiles I would be finding her with some wee childish garb of
Bryde's, and greeting and laughing at it in her hands, and old Betty
yammering by the fireside, mixing her stories of bawkins and wee folk,
and the ploys she would be having in her young days at the peats.

There was a moon at the New Year, I mind, and me standing in front of
Belle's house, and Belle herself at the open door, with the light
behind her, when there came to my ears the sound of a shod beast
walking, and, thinks I to myself, this will be a horse broke loose.
Then I saw the beast, and after a little wheedling and coaxing I was
able to get my hand on his bridle.  He was a great horse, bigger than
any of ours, and a weight-carrier; but it was the gear on him that I
could not be understanding, for there was on him a heavy saddle with a
high pommel and cantle, and his bridle would have strange contrivances
on it, but especially a spare curb chain strapped to the headpiece, and
the bit was altogether new to me, resembling the bit with the long
curving bars that the old crusaders would be using long ago.

He was thin and drawn up at the belly, but his eye was full and fiery,
and I kent this was no serving-man's beast, but I took him to the
stable and gave him a stall, with dry bracken for a bedding, and a
measure of corn and peas, and the halflin came from the loft and got at
the rubbing of him down, gabbling all the time about pasterns and
withers, and Belle watched me, saying no word.

"There will be word for him in the morning," said I; "this will surely
be a beast from the Castle," and at that Belle went into the house, and
I left the halflin still watching the strange horse and made my way on
foot across the hill.  The peewits were circling over me with eerie
cries, and now and then on the moor-side the curlews would be crying
into the night--lonely as I was lonely; and in every heather tussock I
would be seeing shapes, and dreading the thought of the Nameless Man
and his brindled hunter, till my hair was like to rise on my head, and
I would feel it in my legs to be running, but that I kent my folk, dead
and gone, would be laughing at me, in their own place, for our past
folk are not so much dead as just away, and maybe watching; and maybe I
would be comforting myself with the thought that the Killer would be
dead long syne in the course of nature--he and his great dog--but for
all that I had a twig of rowan in my hand, for the night was not canny.
And there came a kind of lifting of my spirit when I got the glint of
the lights of the Big House, and kent there would be folks to be
talking to and dogs to give a man heart.

When I was come to the stable door, there was old Tam, thrang with his
bottles of straw for the horses' last bite (a thing to bring a man to
himself it is to listen to horse beasts riving at straw and crunching
into turnips), but Tam laid down his bundle and came close to me.

"There was a man here," says he, "in the gloaming after you would be
leaving for your ceilidhing, and he would be giving me a _festner_,"
says he, with a toothless grin and his old eyes gleaming; "ay, a noble
_festner_," says he, "_from the bottle_.  He would be wanting speech
with you."

"Whatna man was he?" said I.

"A red-faced man and very clean," says he, "and his face shining like a
wean's.  Och, he might be wan of the Elect but for the glint in the
eyes o' him and free wi' the bottle--a great _performer_ with the
bottle."

"Would he be leaving any word?" said I, for I would be wearying to come
at the man's business.

"He kind o' let on tae some knowledge o' a place McEilin's Locker or
that," says Tam.  "Ye would be expected there the night.  I am minding
he would be calling himself McNeilage--the mother o' him was Sassenach."

"Would he be speaking o' the _Gull_?" said I.

"No, man, but a party told me," said the old rascal, "a party told me
that the skiffs were below Bealach an sgadan before the moon was up,
and Tam is thinking that there will be some fine, fine water on the
mainland side before the morning--afore the more-nin," says he.

There was a strange thumping at my ribs when I had the garron at the
door, and would be tramping the long yellow straw from his forefeet,
and I led him out of the yard and we were on the shoulder of the black
hill when the moon was beginning to go down.  And now there were no
thoughts of ghosts or bawkins in my head, and I would be laughing when
the moor-birds would be rising with a quick whirring of wings under the
horse's feet in the heather.  At a long loping canter we crossed the
peat hags, and slithered into the valley on the other side and made the
burn.  I mind I stood the horse in the burn to his knees, and he cooled
a little, and then started to be pawing at the water, and snoring at it
glinting past his legs, and tinkling and laughing down the glen.  The
heather was dark and withered, and at the banks of the stream I am
seeing yet the long tufts of white grass, like an old man's beard,
shaking with a dry rustle, and there was the sparkle of the last of the
moon making a granite boulder gleam into jewel points, and then we made
our way to the Locker.  I was not very sure of the place, but I made
the three long whistles on my fingers that the boys will be using when
there is help needed.  From the hillside I got the answer, clear and
piercing like a shepherd's, and then all would be silent except for the
swishing of the heather and the thumping at the ribs of me, for I would
be sure now that Bryde was in the Locker on some mad ploy.  When I was
come near the entrance I dismounted and left the beast loose, for I
kent he would make his way home to his stable.  As I was clambering up
the last of it, a voice came to me.

"Oh man, Hamish, hurry," and it was not the voice of Bryde, but I kent
the voice, and the eagerness of it and the gladness.

"Dan," I cried, "och, Dan," and after that I am not remembering.  How I
came to be sitting in the Locker with Dan beside me, and the smoke
eddying up, and the droll-shaped pond and the queer carving all there,
as it would be yon daft night twenty years ago, I am not remembering.

But there was Dan McBride with a sabre slash from his ear to the point
of his chin, and a proud set to his head, and a way of bending from his
hips like a man reared in the saddle.  A great martial moustache curled
at the corners of his mouth.  Dan McBride that was away for twenty
years, and mair.  He was arrayed in some outlandish soldier rig, with
great boots and prodigious spurs.

"The lass," says he at the first go-off, "what came o' the lass that
will be my wife?" says he, with a great breath.  "Is all things right
with Belle?"

"Finely," says I; "you will be seeing her with the daylight."

"Man, I will have been needing that word," says he.

"What am I to be calling ye, man?"

"Hooch," says he, and his words were sharper and fiercer than of yore.
"My father's rank will be good enough for me, but ye will call me Dan
McBride and naething else.  Major I was in the Low Countries, and the
warrant's in my saddle-bags," says he.  "Wae's me, for I've lost that,
horse and all."

But I had a word to say to that.

"The horse will be sleeping in the stable," said I, "and I will be the
man that's put him there," and told him about the strange horse.

"Yon crater, Dol Beag, didna just dee," says he after a while.

"Nor a drop out of his lug," says I, "if ye will be overlooking a
crooked back.  I sent ye that word with the heathen."

"The heathen--the skemp--yon was the last o' the heathen--hilt or hair
o' him that I saw, and me mixed up wi' daftlike wars--it was a packet
that reached me--in Dantzig," says he, "after lying a year, frae some
sensible wench calling hersel' Helen Stockdale. . . ."

I was dumb at that, but I was remembering the lass asking of the Scot
that took the Pagan to the mouth of the Rouen river.  "Ay, a priest
gave the packet to a Scots friend o' mine in Rouen, and then it came to
me at a tavern in Dantzig.  I didna bide long there.  I was landed wi'
the smugglers at Fowey," says he, "and McNeilage put me ashore last
night at the Point and was to leave word for ye.  It was a thought
gruesome here," says he, "wi' McAllan and the dog among the bones ben
there--deid?  Ay, deid twenty years, Hamish, by the look o' things.
Tell me about Belle," said he, "Belle and the boy, Hamish.  The lass
that wrote had a great word o' the boy, and she wanted me hame.  I am
not sure why--weemen are such droll . . .  Is she religious?" says he.

"Ye'll be seeing," says I.

And then again, "I had to have a crack wi' ye, Hamish, before I could
be doing anything; it's no' canny coming in on folk after a matter o'
twenty years."

All that night we sat before a fire with no other light, and many a
time I would be thinking of the Killer dying in there in the dark, and
the dog beside him; the Nameless Man was not in Dan's mind, but the
length of the night.

"Belle and the boy--'a likely lad,' ye say.  Hoch, he'll come hame,
Hamish, never fear--the lasses will be taking him hame at his age."

And when we were stretched before the red glow of the fire he would
still be at the talking, and the last I am minding was his voice.

"I will have lain beside the fire on the battlefield and seen the eyes
o' the wolves glowering through the lowes, Hamish; but, man, it was a
king to this weary waiting, a king to this."

CHAPTER XXVI.

A WEDDING ON THE DOORSTEP.

It was at the drakes' dridd that Dan roused me, and we left McAllan's
Locker behind us with its gruesome keepers, and came down the hillside
to the burn.  I mind that there was a raven above us in the morning
air, and his vindictive croak-croak was the only living sound that came
to us as we marched.

At the burn I saw the track of the garron where he had crossed in the
night, and at the burnside Dan stopped.

"Many a time have I wearied for the sight o' a burn, Hamish, cold and
sweet and clean, when we would be drinking water that was stinking,"
and he made preparations to splash his face; and it was droll to see
the bronze of his face stop at the throat, and the skin below like a
leek for whiteness.

There were many things to be telling the wanderer--that he had got some
notion of from McNeilage of the _Seagull_, but for the most part it was
hard to talk to a man walking fast.

We came up over the last of the three lonely hills, with bare moorlands
and peat hags fornent us, and away below the sea, and I held on for the
house on the moor that once was McCurdy's hut.  The first beast we saw
was a raddy, a droll sheep with four daft-like horns, and there came a
great crying of curlews; and then, when we came near to the house
without yet seeing it, there was a look of wonder in Dan's face.

"There was nae grass here when I left hame," says he; "this will be
your work, Hamish.  Ye were aye a great hand for grass."

As he spoke, it seemed to me that the voice was the same voice that I
kent when I was a boy, but I was at the walking now and hurried him on.

"Grass," said I; "look at yon," and I pointed to the parks and the
steading, with the smoke rising straight from the lums into the frosty
morning air.

"That was the young lad's work," said I.

"He will be a farmer at all events . . ." and there was on Dan's face
as he spoke a look of pride and pity all mixed.

"Belle will not be knowing you are here."

"Ay, but she will that, Hamish--ye don't ken Belle; look, man, look,
she's at the doorstep now."  And if ever a man had it in his bones to
run it was Dan, and at the door they met--the very door where the woman
had kissed her man and smote him on the cheek, when I lay in the
heather, and the Laird of Scaurdale rode with the wean in the crook of
his arm--the same Helen that had brought them there then, had brought
also this happy meeting.  It was a picture I would be aye wishing I
could be painting--Belle, her dark face flushed, her eyes suffused, the
pride, the love, the longing of her, and her hands twisting and
clasping, and her lips trembling, without words coming to them.  The
heaving breast and the little flutter at the delicate nostril, what man
can be telling of these things; and Dan, his brows pulled down, and the
scar red on his cheek, and his arms half outstretched--Dan took his
woman into his arms as a man lifts a wean, and I saw his head bend to
her face, and the wild clasp of her arms round him, and her lips
parting as she raised them to his.

I did a daftlike thing then, for I put the saddle on the great
horse--and he was a mettle beast, with many outlandish capers--and I
rode through the hill to the kirk, and left word that the minister
would be doing well to ceilidh at the house on the moor.

And indeed it was well on in the afternoon when that grave man
dismounted a little stiffly from his pony, and I made bold to search
for Dan and Belle, and tell my errand.  It would maybe be a chancy
business, but these two were like bairns then--and on the doorstep they
were married.  And when the minister's little pony was on its road
home, and the sun still red to the west, and we three still standing at
the door, Belle with with her two hands on Dan's arm, said he--

"I had clean forgot, my dear, but Hamish would always be remembering
the due observances o' the sacraments."

A wedding, it seems to me, will be waking the devil of speech in all
women, and old Betty would be havering like all that.

"What would I be telling ye?" she would say.  "Has he not had the wale
of all the weemen, and never the wan could be keeping him but you.  And
you a young thing yet--there will be time for a scroosch of weans; it
is Betty that kens, and Bryde the lad will be daidlin' his brother on
his knee.

"Ye could have been waiting," says she, "till the lad would be home,
and standing under his mother's shawl before the minister, but ye would
be that daft to be at the marrying--hoot, toot."

Dan came back to his farming as a boy returns to his play, and it was
droll whiles at the head-rig to see him straighten his back from the
plough stilts, with also a quick far-seeing look to right and left of
him, and an upward tilt to his chin that brought back the soldier in a
moment; and then ye would hear the canny coaxing to get the horses into
the furrow again, and the lost years were all forgotten.

My uncle took the news of the wedding finely.

"I'll not be denying Belle is a clever woman," says he, "a managing
two-handed lass--imphm.  There might have been more of a splore," says
he, "and no harm done--a wheen hens and a keg would not have been out
of place."

But my aunt was not in his way of thinking.

"There would surely be no occasion," said she (when Margaret was not
there), "the woman was well enough done by already."

"You would not have him live there in open scandal?" said I.

"An old song now," says she; "we always kind of put a face on things,
but if Dan would be making a decent woman of Belle, there is nothing to
be said."

I rode with Hugh and Margaret to be seeing Dan for the first time, and
he had his soldier garb on him when we sat down to meat; and Margaret
kept close to him at the table, and their talk was of the Low Countries
and a soldier's life, and yet for all that he would be telling her how
the lassies would be dressing themselves, or the manner of the braiding
of their hair, and for Hugh and me he would be giving a great insight
into the working of soils and manures, and the different kinds of
cattle beasts and horse; and very little talk of war we got from him,
unless, maybe, it would be a story he would be telling that would give
us an inkling of the business.  He would aye be harping on the waste of
land, and indeed if there was nothing else to be doing, he would be
having good red earth carted from useless places and scattered on his
own fields, which I think the old monks would be doing round their
monasteries long ago, a practice maybe learned from Rome in the early
days, but I have no sure knowledge of it.

It was that day that Helen came to the moor house, and among us, with
word from John of Scaurdale for Dan to be coming to see him, and I saw
that the very sight of her made a difference; for the face of Hugh
flushed as he stood to greet her, and Margaret took to the talking in a
vivacious manner that was not like her.

And Dan had many words for his visitor.  "For," says he, in a grand
fashion, "were it not for you, madam, I might be finding myself lying
in harness, with the half o' Europe between me and this bonny place;"
and again, after a quizzing look, "I will not be the one to think you
will be overly religious either"; but I am thinking I was the only one
that would be getting the meaning of that saying.

"But why did you not return--many years?" said Helen.

"Just precisely that I would never be the one to see one o' my name
dangling at the end o' a cart tether," said Dan, "or jingling at a
cross-roads on a wuddy.  Many a night I would be at this place," says
he, with a smile to his wife, "but there was no word for me, and the
years came and went, and there would be fighting to be going on
with--och, it was a weary waiting when there was no little war
somewhere, but it's by wi' now, the great thing is that it's by
with. . . ."

Hugh and Mistress Helen went their own road, and we watched them from
the doorstep, and Dan himself put the saddle gear on Margaret's little
horse, and walked a bit of the way with us on the home road.

"I am liking that man too," said Margaret, when we were alone, "but I
am thinking there was a liking for the wandering, and the fighting in
him, or else he had been back long syne."

"He would have his happy days these twenty years," said she, "in new
towns and among new folk, and Belle kind of chained to the moor
here--it is that silent woman I will be liking the best of all, Hamish."

"My dear," said I, "you are not understanding the pride of your ain
folk.  Yon was the God's truth and nothing else he told Mistress Helen;
the hangman's rope is no decent to be coiled about a man's folk.  It's
just the cleverness of Helen Stockdale I will be made up with--the
simple sending of a screed of news; what beats me is why she did it."

"And that's easy to me," says Margaret.  "It would just be a gift to
Belle, Hamish."

"To Belle," says I.

"There are maybe more ways o' killing a cat than choking it with
butter," said the lass, "but that will be a very effective way, and
even the cat might like it, I am thinking.  Ye'll mind, Hamish, that
Belle is the mother o' Bryde McBride, and what could not but be
pleasing to the mother, would be like enough to please the lad, that
doted on her a' his days."

"I think I am seeing it," said I.

"Ay, but Helen never would be seeing it like that, Hamish.  She saw it
like a flash, and sent the letter that brought back Dan, and I am not
sure but Bryde would be here yet, if the mail had but come to hand
sooner."

"Margaret," said I, "are there none among the young sparks coming about
the place that you could be tholing about ye?"

"No," says she, with a smile; "there is a word among the kitchen
wenches that whiles comes into my mind, Hamish."

"The kitchen wenches' conversation will be doing finely for me," says
I, a little put out.

"It is none such a bad saying either, Hamish.  This is it," said she,
"and there's no great occasion to be in a black mood with a lass--

"A clean want, Hamish, is better than a dirty breakfast.  That's what
the lassies say, whiles, in the kitchen."

CHAPTER XXVII.

MARGARET McBRIDE KISSES HELEN.

It would always be a great pleasure for me to be watching Dan, the way
he would be toiling against the heather, and draining in the moss in
the seasons, and rearing his horses, for his great war-horse sired many
foals, and maybe to this day you will see the traces of that breed in
the little crofts where the horses and cattle beasts are as long bred
as the names of the folk that own them.  They were black for the most
part, the breed of the war-horse, and very proud in their bearing, but
bigger beasts than the native breed, and not so much cow-hocked
(although that is a hardy sign), nor so scroggy at the hoof--ay, and
they would trot for evermore.  You will maybe hear to this day a farmer
saying of a mare of that strain: "She is one of the old origineels."
But whiles the twenty years of his soldiering would come over the man,
and ye would be hearing him at his camp-songs in the French language,
and there would come a prideful swing to his body, and a quick way of
speech, and an overbearing look, as though maybe the common work was
galling, and the sheep and beasts nothing better than for boiling in a
soldier's camp-kettle.  These times would maybe be after a fair or a
wedding, and indeed he was not to be interfered with except by his own
native folk, for he would ride at a ganger or an exciseman for the
pleasure of seeing them run like dafties when the mood was on him--or a
drop too much in him--and for no ill-nature whatever; but it was
fearsome to see the big black horse stretch to the gallop, with flying
mane and wicked eye a-rolling.  But Belle could tame her man, and she
kent his every mood and his every look.  It was droll and laughable too
to see her hand his little son to Dan (for old Betty was right: there
was another son to Belle--not a "scroosch," as the old one said, but
one boy, and they put Hamish on him for a name: Hamish Og they called
him, and he ruled that house).

"Here is your son to be holding for a little, my man," that dark woman
Belle would be saying, and Dan, in his big moods, would be answering--

"Have I not held the sword in my hand for twenty years, and what were
weans to me in these days?"

"Very little--I am hoping, Dan," his wife would answer with a straight
dark look, and the beginning of a laugh in her eyes, for always Dan
would be remembering the first boy this wife of his had reared in those
years, and a kind of shame would come over him, and Belle would laugh
for that she had her man back, and her laughter was a thing to gladden
the heart, and Dan would never be tired of hearing it.  So the big mood
would pass, and the hard-fighting farmer would be at work again; but
whiles, after the laughing, the old longing, half-fierce look would be
in Belle's eyes, and I kent it was not Dan or Hamish Og she was
thinking of, but her first-born, Bryde.

And as the years wore on there was another thing to be watching in
Belle.  She would take the wean in a shawl swathed round her limber
figure, and only the little head of him outside of it, and his eyes
seeing things, like a young bird, and she would walk to the rise where
old John of Scaurdale's man waved the lanthorn to McGilp on the night
when I chased the deer, and there she would stand for long, looking
seaward and crooning to the wean.  This she would be doing every night
before the gloaming.

"He will come on yon road," she would sometimes be telling Hamish Og,
and point to the grey sea away to the suthard.

Now these freits are very catchy, and will follow folks that put faith
in them, and there are many such folk to this day; and even Margaret
McBride would always be putting great faith in the crowing of a cock--a
noble fellow he was, of the Scots Grey breed.  At the feeding-time
Margaret would be thrang with her white hands in a measure of grain,
and I would be hearing her speaking to the chanticleer.  If he would be
crowing once, it was not good, and she would be coaxing him.

"Have you not better word than that?" she would flyte at him at the
second cry; and if the bird would crow the three times, she would be
lavish with the feeding and grow cheerful.  And there was a time when
Mistress Helen was with her at this task, and curious at all the
talking.

"If he will cry three times--is it that something happens?" said Helen.

"It will be good news."

"Perhaps a lover comes?"

"I am not to have a man, it seems," says Margaret.

"If my lover comes," murmured Helen softly, with her slow smile, "I
will know--another way."

"In what way?" says Margaret, throwing the last of the grain to the
fowls about her feet.

"Something will _leap up_ here, ma belle, where my heart is."

And for some reason Margaret, the Flower of Nourn, dropped her grain
dish and kissed her guest.

Now there is little to be telling when little things only are in the
memory, and yet the days with little to be remembering are the happy
days, that go past quickly like youth, and leave but vague memories of
sunshine and laughter--of nights, and song, and dance.  And there were
great nights of happiness, for in these days the folk had the time to
be knowing one the other, and neighbourly.  And maybe in an evening
there would be gathered at Dan's place all the old friends of his
youth.  You would be seeing Ronald McKinnon and Mirren, sitting in the
circle round the fire, thrang at the knitting--both man and
wife--kemping as they called it: that is, each would tie a knot in the
worsted and make a race of it, who would be finished first.  And Jock
McGilp too would be there, standing off and on, between the stories of
his wild seafaring days and the ghost stories of his youth; and Robin
McKelvie and his sister that met us on the shore head of the isle that
night the Red Laird passed; and there was no Red Roland in her mind
these days, for she had weans to her oxter.  And maybe, perched on a
table like a heathen god, the tailor would be working; and if there
were young lassies with their lads, ye would have the fiddle going, and
the hoochin' and the dancing.

And even in the cottars' houses the good-wife would have a meal on such
a night, and it would be pork and greens, or herring and potatoes; and
then when it was bedtime in the morning, the ceilidhers would take the
road, with maybe a piper at the head of them, and it would be at
another house they would be meeting on the next night.  Wae's me, these
days are fast going, and there are bolts and bars on the doors now.
The story of a winter's ceilidhing would be a great book for fine
stories.

And into a meeting of this kind, when the evening was well on, came
Hugh McBride, and there was the great scraping of chairs and stools
back from the fire, and Belle would have been putting a fire in a
better room; but Dan had been too long in the field for these capers,
for all that Hugh would be Laird and very grand above common folk.  Dan
waved him to a chair in his polite way, and made him very welcome.  But
Hugh was not seeing chairs that night, much less sitting quietly.
There was a sparkle in his eye and a flush on his cheeks, and his smile
was for everybody, and when the lave of the folk were on the road he
told us the news.

"Mistress Helen will be having me," says he.  "Och, I will have been
singing every love-song I was remembering since I left the gate at
Scaurdale."

And we made a great "to-do" about it, and we were not any the better
maybe for what we drank to his luck, and the lass's luck; and on the
hill-road home he was at the singing again.

"She is a fine lass, Hamish--my wife that will be; is she no'?"

"A fine lass."

"For a while--a long while the night,--it was in my mind that she would
not be caring to have me, for she has the wale of brisk Ayrshire lads
to pick from, and she swithered long."

"'We were babies together,' says she, 'in your mother's house?'

"I heard tell of that from my mother."

"'And Bryde, he was not born yet--Bryde, your relative?'"

"He was born in the hill house yonder, beside the 'three lonely ones,'
Helen."

"'Three lonely ones, Hugh,' said she, very low--'three lonely ones.  I
feel it in my bones that always there will be three lonely ones.'

"Till the frost and the rain of a million years level the hills," said
I.

"'A million years, Hugh!  It is long to wait.'

"It will not be so long as I have waited, Helen; and she smiled at
that, Hamish, and then--

"'You have a very old name in this place, my guardian says.'

"Ay, an old name, Helen.

"'Then,' said she, 'I think--I think I will be, what they say, "all in
the family."'"

"What would she mean by that, Hugh?"

"I am not sure," said he, "but I ken that John o' Scaurdale and my
father are set on a weddin', and the lass kens it too, and I am
thinking it is the land she is thinking of; it will be all in the
family when we make a match of it."

"Just that," said I; but in my mind there was another thought that I
never was telling, and this was it--

Mistress Helen was thinking that Bryde would never have Margaret,
because of a fault that was none of his making, and that would leave
two lonely ones; and maybe, too, she was thinking that she herself
would never be having Bryde (for another reason), and that would make
three lonely ones.  As for being all in the family--well, if she could
not be having Bryde, she could be having his cousin, and I'm thinking
that not the half of an acre of land was even in her mind at all.  But
it would not do to be telling that to a man that would just have left
his trysted wife.

When Margaret had the word there were tears standing in her eyes.

"I am wondering if there would be something to leap up when Helen
promised herself to our Hugh," said she.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

IN WHICH BETTY COMPLAINS OF GROWING-PAINS.

It was the Halflin that brought me word that Betty was not so well, and
would I be coming to see her.

"What is her complaint?" said I.

"It iss the growing-pains, in her old legs, and in the top of her
oxters--wild, bad, ay, terrible bad."

There was a great change in the old one, it seemed to me, when I was
seeing her.  She would be so very wee-looking in her bed, and her
spirits so low.  She looked at the lotions and mixtures I had fetched
with me, and then shook her head sadly, and cried in the Gaelic, "The
hour of my departure is come.  Hamish, Hamish, is the whisky to be not
any more use?"

"There are the good words I could be saying," says she in a whisper,
"but the minister is no' for them."

"Whatna good words?"

"Och, chust to be calling on the saints, St Peter and St Paul--mora,
but Paul wass the lad," and she brisked up a wee at that, and
whispered, "There are them I could be naming, Hamish, that St Paul
would be curing.  Ay, bodies and beasts I have seen the good words
working a cure on, but wae's me, Hamish, I will never be hearing the
cuckoo again.  I am loath to part wi' this bonny place, calm and
peaceful for a body's old age, and I will be missing the fine smell of
the grass when it will be newly cut, and the clink of the stones on the
cutting-hooks."

"Well, Betty, it will be the road we all must go at the hinder end--a
fine road, Betty, from the point at the Gorton to the Island; for it
was in her mind to be in the old burial-ground, and you will be lying
there among your folk, on yon holy place, with the sun beating down and
the cool blue sea at your feet, and all the friends sitting on the
Mount of Weeping above the Brae, thrang at the greeting; and maybe on
an east-wind night the spirit of ye will be hearing the rattle of
halyards and the plash of the anchors, when the boats come in for
shelter--and Bryde's among them. . . ."

"Bryde, Hamish--och, the limber lad. . . .  Are you thinking it is all
over wi' Betty, Hamish?"

"Ay, Betty."

"_Well, it's no'_--give me a little spirits," said she, a look of
indomitable courage on her face, and pursing her lips into a thin line.

When I put the spirits into her hand she sipped a little, and coughed
politely at the strength of it, and then turned herself towards me.

"A grain o' water," said she.  "You will be liking it plain yourself,
but I would aye be liking a little water--after it.  Many's the day
have I been waiting for the coming of Bryde, the dear one, the limber
lad, and I will be tholing yet a wee, for I will be seeing him before I
will be going to my own place."

And with that Margaret came to be speaking to the old one, and for
myself I made my way outside to where I could be laughing in comfort,
for the sight of Betty's face when she had made up her mind to be
tholing a little longer was too much for me.

It was after this visit to Betty that Margaret would be asking me to be
taking the dogs and catching her a pair or two, maybe, of young
rabbits, for they were well grown, and she took butter in the blade of
a kail, and such-like truck, and went to see Mhari nic Cloidh.

She was come of a great race this Mhari nic Cloidh, a race that has
given the old names to glens and to burns, a race that led the
Brandanes of the Kings; but she was old and lived alone, except maybe
when the young lassies would be doing the scouring of her blankets,
tramping like all that, and among the lassies was the saying that Mhari
nic Cloidh had the gift.

Well, for that I will not be saying, but she would aye have a dram for
kent folk, and Dan McBride took me with him there many a time.  Well,
well, the young boys would be tormenting the old lady--they would be
lighting green branches in the fire in her sleeping-place, to smeek her
out, not meaning any ill, but just for a ploy, and to see her lindging
at them with the stick from her bed, and craking and raging at them
time about, to be taking the divot off the top of the lum.  And that
was the great diversion for them; but when Margaret went to her this
time she was thrang at the building of her stack of peat, and there was
with her a younger woman, and Mhari nic Cloidh was not in good wind,
for the first of her words came to us: "A traill," says she to her
helper.  "Traill," it seems to me, would be meaning in the English,
"lazy, useless, bedraggled"; but there is no word in English that would
be giving the contempt of that word, which I am thinking would have
some connection with the Norse word "troll," but I am not sure of it.
But there was no end to her kindness for Margaret.

"It was in me that you would be coming, mo leanabh, fresh and beautiful
like the bloom on the hawthorn, a maiden of the morning, bringing gifts
in her hands."

So I left them in the house, and tried my hand at the building of the
peats till I was seeing that the traill was well contented to be
sitting watching me and doing nothing; and at that I left the rick, for
I cannot put up with idleness; besides, I was not making a very good
hand at the building.  When I put my head into the room again, Mhari
nic Cloidh was thrang at the talking in a droll sing-song voice, and
this was the air of it--

"The word will come over the water--soon it will be coming--ay,
soon--there will be one coming from the sea."

Now I was jalousing that Margaret was like the lave of lassies, very
keen to be at the probing into the future, a thing that is not canny to
be having any belief in, and not in accordance with the Scriptures; but
for all that--

"What havers was it the old one would be telling you, and me outside at
the peats?"

"She will be getting old and thinking droll thoughts, Hamish--just old
wives' havers, about the crops and the wars that will be coming. . . ."

"And the word from the sea, Margaret?  Will that be news of a battle
maybe?"

"I am not sure I was understanding that," said she, looking away.  "I
am thinking that would be not anything at all," but I could see her
hiding a smile.

"I am hoping there is no harm come to Bryde," said I, "and the word
coming home on a ship."

At that the sly smile (for it was sly) was quick to vanish from the
lass's face, and she turned to me then.

"I am hating you when you croak like a raven, wishing evil," she
cried--"there will be no harm to Bryde.  I will be having news of him
soon, and I will be going on a journey with him. . . ."

"Well, my lass, could you not have been telling me" (for she was angry
and nearly weeping), "instead of talking about crops and wars," said I.

"Are you not always telling me it is havers," she cried out, "and not
for sensible folk to be listening to, and putting belief in.  I am
thinking you are worse than me," and at that she left me in a fine
flare of temper.

Now on the shore from Bealach an sgadan till you come well below the
rise of the hill of the fort there is a roughness of grass and sprits
that will put a fine skin on grazing beasts, maybe from the strength of
the salt in the ground and the wrack, for with high tides the place is
often flooded.  We would graze young beasts there all the summer with a
herd-boy at the watching of them.  A lonely eerie place for a night
vigil, with nothing but waterfowl and cushies for company; and on a
Sabbath I went there (for a man must see his beasts, no matter for the
evil example of stravaging on the Lord's Day), and when I would be
through with the queys I walked on the little path, on the short turf
well past the grazing, to the place where the rocks on the shore are
very large, and set in droll positions, as though maybe a daft giant of
the old days had cocked them up for his play, and at this place, lying
curled between the smaller boulders, was a man twisting a bit of
tattered rope into fantastic knots, and eyeing his work with a droll
half-pleased look, and his head a little to one side.

I gave him good-day, and he started round suddenly all alert, like a
man well used to handling himself.

"Ay," said he, "there will be mackerel there," and he pointed to the
sea, all a-louping with the fish, and then he unravelled his knots, and
smoothed the strands with hands brown as a bark sail, and hard-looking
as an oak.

"You will be following the sea?"

"Just that," said he, "this long while--seven years maybe.  I was at
the herdin' before that with my father--it is a homely thing to be
hearing the crying o' the sheep in the hills.  Many's the time I would
be thinking on that when the fog would be round us, and naething to be
listening for but the creaking o' a block in the rigging.  Maist
sailor-men have the notion o' a farm," says he, "when they will be at
sea.  I am thinking it will come to that wi' me too, when my father is
old and my mother."

"Where is your place?" said I.  "Are you from these parts?" for there
was a look about him I kent, and yet could not be naming it.

"Ronald McKinnon is my father," said he.

"And you went to sea years ago," I cried at him, "just before the fair
on the green.  You are Angus McKinnon, and Ronald, your father, will be
the proud man."

"Yea, I was thinking you would be kennin' me soon," said he, laughing;
"and my father was telling me you would be walking here on a Sunday.
It will be very sedate in our house this day, and McGilp, that was
master of the _Gull_, waling the Bible for stories of sailing craft;
and my father reading about Jacob, and yon droll tricks he would be
doing with the cattle o' his mother's brother--yon was sailin' near the
win'.

"I was seein' beasts like yon, speckled and spotted and runnin' wild"
(he would be thinking of Laban's herd), "in an island in the Indies,"
said Ronald's son after a while.

"A herd?"

"A herd--ay, kye in legions.  We made a slaughter o' them and
smoke-cured the flesh for the harnish casks--the Frenchmen are the
clever ones at that work--'boucan,' they would be saying; and, man, it
aye minded me o' a bochan wi' the smoke and that"; and I was thinking
while Angus McKinnon was speaking of the wee black huts that our folk
will be calling bochans to this day, and wondering if the French had
put that name on them, for smoky they are indeed.

"It was _that_ I was coming to," said the sailor; "it would be there I
fell in with your kinsman."

"Ay," said I, sitting up and thinking of Mhari nic Cloidh; "is it Bryde
McBride you are meaning?"

"Just that," said he, looking far to sea; "a devil o' a man yon, with
eyes that would drill a hole in an oak timber.  He came there in a
privateer--Captain Cook, I think, was master of her, Bryde McBride
mate--lieutenant, the crew would be saying, for the schooner carried
letters o' marque--a fast ship and well found; the _Spray_ was the name
of her."

"And Bryde McBride--had you speech with him?"

"I had that--ay, we yarned for long and long, him in his fine clothes
an' all, and very pressing with the rum.  He would be speaking about
you, and telling me if I was seeing you ever to be saying he would be
doing finely, and very full of notions about growing fine crops when he
would be back again.  It was droll to be listening to him yarning about
his crops, and me with all the stories I would be hearing from the crew
of his schooner."

"Ay, man; but what like is the boy?"

"The boy," says he, and laughed.  "Lord, he is a boy, ye may weel say
it, quiet and smiling, and fond of throwing back the head of him and
laughing.  He will aye be doing that; but there is no man will run foul
o' him, drunk or sober, in these seas, and there are bold sailor-men in
the Indies, ay, bold stark men.  He carries a long lean sword wi' a
bonny grip--the maiden, he will be calling her,--she will have kissed
many, they were saying. . . ."

"And is he coming home?"

"He would be settling that," said the sailor; "but there were stories
o' bonny bright eyes in Jamaica and the towns there-away--ay there is
dancing and devilry in these bonny places"; and McKinnon's son sighed
in a way that would have brought no pleasure to the ears of his mother,
Mirren Stuart, that used to ride the Uist pony in her young days.

The grass was wet with dew when I left the sailor and made my road
home, and I mind that I looked away to the suthard for a sail, and
there was a queer gladness and a sorrow in me, and a grave doubt about
that old woman Mhari nic Cloidh and her havers.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE RAKING BLACK SCHOONER.

I met Belle and Dan with the boy with them at the big stones away below
the peat hags where the sea lies open to a man's look, and I took the
young boy on my shoulder and laughed at Belle when she would be saying
he was too big to be carried, and there was the look of pride in the
swarthy face, pride and tenderness, as she stood, her hand on the arm
of her man.  But Dan kent me better.

"Out with it, Hamish.  What good news gars ye giggle like a lass?"

"Man," I said, "have ye no' heard?--McKinnon's son is home, and has
word o' Bryde.  Betty will be seeing him with this boy in his arms yet.
Bryde is coming home."

Belle's hands came to her heart for a little, and then her arms were
round Dan like a wild thing.

"Oh, man, man, are you not glad?" she cried--"are you not glad?"

"Glad!" said Dan, and swallowed hard.  "Ay, lass, glad is not the
word," and then he kept shaking my hand, and looking at me without
words, but Belle was afire.

"Hamish," she cried, clinging to me with her daftlike foreign ways,
"will you always be bringing me good news till I am old and ugly?"

That night old Betty forgot her growing-pains and sang to the boy,
Hamish Og, and it was a mercy that he had not much of the Gaelic so
far, for the songs were not very douce, and not what a body might be
expecting from an old woman that had seen much sorrow; but I am often
thinking that she would have her good days too, for she would be
enjoying her biting, and putting a pith into it that made Dan himself
stare in wonder.

And I told my uncle and my aunt the news when Margaret was not by, for
I kept mind of her talk of old wives' havers, and I kent the mother of
Margaret would not be telling her, nor the Laird either for that part,
for he was a good deal under her thumb in these matters; but for all
that I might have been sparing myself the bother, for this is what came
of it.

We were gathered for the reading and Hugh a little late, as was usual
when he went 'sourrying--God forbid that he should--when he went
courting, and after the reading there was a little time to talk, and,
said he, stretching his legs--

"Helen was telling me Bryde will be home one of these days."

Now here, thinks I, is a bonny kettle of fish, for Margaret was sitting
with us, but for all the suddenness of it she never geed her beaver,
and I kent then that she had word some way.

"Mistress Helen has quick news," said I.

"She has a maid yonder, Dol Beag's lass, and she brought the word frae
McKinnon's son, it seems; Kate Dol Beag had the news."

"Imphm," said I, for Margaret was looking down and smiling in a way
that angered me a little--"imphm," said I.  "Did she say was he
bringing his wife with him?"

"Wife?" said Hugh with a start.

Margaret was not smiling now, but I will say this; she was making a
brave try at it.

"Some lady in Jamaica," said I, "wi' bonny bright eyes, young McKinnon
was thinking."

At that Hugh left us, smiling.

"Hamish," said Margaret, "you are not being kind to me any more--it is
not true."

"Margaret, when did you see Ronald's son?"

"Oh, I was looking for a sailor coming home," said she, "since yon day
we went to old Mhari nic Cloidh's, and then the lassies told me
Ronald's boy was home--and--and the night you were at Dan's they
brought him here--a nice quiet boy--and I _happened_ to go into the
kitchen when he was there . . . and, Hamish, it is not nice to be
unfriends like this, you and me, and I would not be meaning yon I said
to you about old wives' havers--_now_," and after that she came and sat
beside me, and put an arm round my neck.

"Will you tell me this, Hamish?" says she in her wheedling voice.
"Will you tell me truly?"

"What is it?" said I.

"Did McKinnon's son say anything about bonny bright eyes?"

"He said there were bonny bright eyes in Jamaica and the towns
thereabout, Margaret, and he kind o' looked as though maybe he was
wearying to be back there."

"Poof!" said she, "and was that all.  I am thinking I would maybe be
like that myself, if the Lord had made me a boy."

"Well, my lass, there's nane will deny that Bryde was a little that way
himself--he would aye have a quick eye for a likely lass from what I
can mind."

"Well," said she, being very merry and bold, and showing herself before
me, "am not I a likely lass, Hamish, my dear?"

Now the old folk will use that expression with a very definite meaning,
and when I thought of that I was feeling my face smiling, and me trying
not to, as I looked at the lass.

"Hamish," she cried, "did you ever look at a lass like that before--it
is a wonder to me you are not married long ago," and then with a frown
on her face, but half laughing yet, "I ken," she cried, "she was
married already, poor Hamish--was it Belle?"

But I was thinking it was time to be putting an end to her daffing.

"Listen, my dear," said I; "I ken another likely lass."

"Oh?"

"Helen," said I.

"Likely," she cried--"likely, the likeliest lass I will ever be seeing,
Hamish--_for a sister_."

But for all that she would be jibing at Hugh and his marriage.
"Hughie," she would cry, "the fine sunny days are passing.  When I get
a man I am thinking it will be half the joy of it to be out with him on
the hills and among the trees, and maybe on the sea.  You will be
waiting till the rainy days come, and that will not be so lucky."

"Och," said Hugh, "I will be sitting inside with the lass I marry on
the wet days."

"Yes, Hugh; but I would be liking to be out with him in the rain and
laughing at it and loving it, because I would be with him."

"The Lord should have made you a man," said I, "for you would be
kissing your lass on some hill-top with the rain in her brown face and
clinging to her curls, Margaret."

"Brown face and curls," she cried.  "I wonder.  Would my lass have been
like that, Hamish, like Belle, or with a look--like Mistress Helen
maybe; but I would be loving the kissing anyway," said she.

And Helen Stockdale was often with us, whiles, to my thinking, a little
skeich[1] with Hugh, as though maybe she would rouse the temper in him,
for that she seemed to delight in, but never would she be telling us
what her man should be like.

"Husban'," she would say, with a shrug of her shoulder, "_il faut
necessaire_--one must, I think, be sensible; is it not so?--perrhaps in
anozer world one may know from the beginning," and I often wondered if
she had forgotten how something should leap up at her heart.  She would
talk to Margaret about her gowns, using terms that never before had I
heard tell of, and sending as far as Edinburgh for her braws, which, I
am thinking, was a waste of good money, but I kept my thumb on that.
For the wedding was to come off at the back-end, and I would be hoping
that the weather would keep up, and the harvest be well got, wedding or
not.

And in these long summer evenings very often I would be taking one of
the men with me and a net, and taking the boat from the beach we would
go out with the splash-net, for I would be fond of the sport as well as
of the daintiness of the eating in salmon trout.  In the dusk we would
be leaving, and whiles not coming in till it was two or three o'clock
in the morning.

I am thinking that maybe long ago the folk on the island would be
watching for an enemy landing from the water, for with the sea as calm
as a mill-pond and just the loom of the land--maybe through a haze--the
senses will become very alert, and any little noise without the boat a
man will be hearing, and wondering about, as well as listening to the
splash of a fish falling into the water after a gladsome leap, and the
noise of splashing of the oars to frighten the salmon-trout into the
meshes.

On an August evening we were in the little bay near the rock at the
mouth of the wee burn that passes the great granite stone on the
shore--for that is a namely place for trout.  There was a bright golden
gleam as the oars dipped, and a swirl of phosphor fire at the stern
like little wandering stars, when I heard the noise of oars and the
creak of thole-pins, and I turned to look, thinking maybe some other
was at the fishing, but the boat was heading for the port at the
Point--wrack-grown now, and only to be seen at low tide.

In the bay at anchor was a schooner, a low raking black schooner, with
the gleam of her riding light reflecting a long way over the water
toward the shore--a sign of rain, we say.  In a little I heard a gruff
voice in the English, for the words came to me plainly--

"Easy, starbo'd; easy, all," and then the scrunch of a keel on sand,
and after a little time I heard a boat being shoved off and the thrust
of oars, and then the same voice again--

"Give way together," and it came to me that the quick command had the
ring of a Government ship, and I was wondering if the _Gull_ was making
for her home port, for my heart somehow warmed to the _Gull_, and
McNeilage, when I would be looking at the loom of that raking black
schooner, and hearing the quick short strokes of the oars of the
row-boat with no singing or any laughter.  We had a good catch of fish
when we got started to row back to the place where we beached the
little boat, and it would be the best of an hour's rowing to get there.
Little we spoke passing round the Point, except maybe to voice a wonder
that a boat should come in there.  And never another word was said till
such times as we would be going gently, feeling, as it were, for the
little gut in the rock, where we made a habit of coming ashore.

The sky was clearing to the eastward, the light giving a droll shape to
the bushes, and showing a little mist hanging low when the keel grated
on the gravel, and there on the shore-head was a man standing, a
sea-coat, as I think they name it, round him.  The eeriness of the dim
light, the wild squawks of the sea-birds in the ears, and that great
dark figure standing motionless, put a dread on the serving-man.

"In the name of God," said he, "cho-sin (who is it)?"

"If he is Finn himself," said I, trying to be bold, "he will be giving
us a hand with the skiff whatever."

There came a ringing laugh from the stranger.

"Well done, Hamish; ye'll aye make good your putt--a bonny lan' tack
they would make wanting you."

"It is he," cried the serving-man.

"Bryde," I cried, "what is it makes you come back this way and at this
time of the night?"

These were the daftlike words I had for him, and me holding his hand
and clapping him on the back, as if he were a wean again.

"It was a notion I had," said he, "to come back the way I would be
leaving yon time--in the dark."

[1] Frisky.

CHAPTER XXX.

TELLS WHERE BRYDE MET HAMISH OG.

What would you be having me tell you now?--of how we carried the fish
home from the skiff, of how we walked slowly up the shore road, with
Bryde standing to look at the places he would have been remembering.

"I have been in many places," said he, "but I am not remembering so
bonny a place as this."

Would it be pleasing you to hear that when we came to the Big House,
Bryde left me standing, and went through the wood behind the stackyard
and stood on the knowe and looked at the window where the Flower of
Nourn slept.

"Now," said he after that, "I will go to my mother."

"She will be awaiting," said I, "your mother and the boy Hamish--your
brother."

"And who," said he stopping, "who is the father of my brother?" and
there was a whistling of his breath in his nostrils.

"Your father," said I.

"Ah," said he, "is that man home?" and his pace was quicker and there
was a line deep in his brows.  "How long has my father been in this
place?"

"It would be soon after you would be following the seas, and they were
married."

"He was a little behind the fair, it seems," and the bitterness in his
voice was not good to be hearing.  We were silent until we came in
sight of the white stone below the house on the moor on the road to the
three lonely ones, and then I cried, pointing--

"She is waiting."

"I see her," said he, "and the boy with her," and I looked at the
far-seeing sailor eyes with the little wrinkles at the corners that
seamen and hillmen have, and he left me.  When I reached the stone they
were there, the son comforting the mother, and the little boy Hamish
standing a little way off, affrighted.

"Take me," he cried, his arms out, "Hamish is feared of the great black
man," and I would have taken him, but Bryde was before me.

"Come, little dear," said he, and smiled, and the boy came to him
slowly, the mother watching, and then Bryde swung his little brother on
his shoulder.

"We will be doing finely now," said he; "and you kent I was coming,"
said he to the mother, smiling at her.

"I saw her sailing in the Firth, your black schooner, the neatness of
her, and the pride, and I said, 'It is my son's ship you are'; and when
she was at an anchor in the calm water I was watching for the little
boat to be coming to the shore, but the darkness was down and your
father took me away.  Morning and evening," said she, "rain or fine, I
would be looking for you since Angus McKinnon came home."

"What--is he home then?  I forgathered with him, I mind.  I was mate on
the _Spray_," said Bryde.  "Well, he would be telling you I was lucky.
I have word that I can be sailing a King's ship if I will be going
back."

At the door of the place that was old McCurdy's hut, Dan McBride was
standing.  The white was streaking in the redness of his face, and he
was shaking.  Bryde put the boy in his mother's arms, and it is droll,
but Belle went to the side of her man.

"Dan," said she, "I have brought you your son," and she looked from one
to the other, her lips quivering.  Bryde opened his mouth to speak,
looking at his father--a long level look.

"You are a fine man," said he, "my father."

At the words Dan took a great gulp of a breath and his eyes were
filling.

"I will have a great son," said he, and cried aloud on his Maker.  "My
son, oh, my son, can you be forgiving your father?"

"There is no ill in my heart for you," said the son, "only pity and a
strange love since the day that Hamish put your gift to me into my
hand.  I will have been carving my own name with that sword, and it is
kindness in you to be lending your name to me."

"My name and all that I have," cried the father, and took his son into
the house.

Well, well, it is easy to be writing of that meeting, but the dread of
it that was on me I kent afterwards when we were at meat, when we had
all laughed together.  It would be Betty that brought the laughing on
us, for she would be crying to us to ken who was the stranger.

And when Bryde went to her bedside, she scrambled up among her pillows.

"Will you have been fetching a silk dress for Betty?" she cried at him.

"Silk and lace and more," said Bryde.

"Not brandy," says she, her lips pursed up.

"Just brandy."

"Come and be kissing me first," said she, a little tremulously, "and
then we will maybe be having a drop of it."

The halflin, a stout man now, and clever with horse, came in to the
house to be seeing Bryde.

"Ye can be riving the skin off my bones," said he, "for I was telling
her about yon."

"About what?" said Bryde, but I think that he kent, for his face was
dark.

"About the words ye would be telling her yon night ye left wi' the
kist, and her not there to be hearing.  She would be giving me siller,"
said the halflin.

I am thinking he would get mair siller.  And most of that day, it would
be nothing but questions, Bryde sitting with his brother on his knee,
and Dan going out of himself with little kindnesses.

"Hugh is not married, ye tell me.  What ails the man?"

"Och," said I, "his days o' freedom will be getting fewer, for they
will be at the marrying soon."

"We will be having a spree then," said Bryde.  "I am thinking I have a
present for Mistress Helen in my traps."

And his kists and bags and droll cases came from the stone quay in the
evening, and I was greatly taken with the cunningness of the cases of
leather, fashioned likely from a cow belly, and with the hair still
sticking, although maybe a little bare and worn, and the corners
clamped with iron, making a box of leather of a handy shape for a pack
beast, or easy to be stored in a ship.

And the cries of Betty when she had her dress (all of fine black silk
with much lace, fine like cobwebs), the cries of her were heartening in
a body so old, but maybe a little foolish.  For his mother he had a
host of things--a chain of fine gold with a pearl here and there at
intervals, and a watch for me of chased silver, very large and
handsome.  To his father he gave a bridle of plaited hair and
ornamented with silver, a very fine bit of work, and too beautiful for
everyday use, but Dan sat with it on his knee, and indeed it was hung
in the place of honour beside his great sword.

And we sat long listening to Bryde when the strangeness wore off him,
and he was telling us of how he came on board a King's ship and worked
and fought until his officers were proud of him, and of how he became
an officer on board a frigate, a position most difficult to attain to
in those days (although there are other men from the island who have
done the like, as a man can be reading in the records).  He told us of
his sailing days in the privateer _Spray_ in the Indies, and of his
meeting with Angus McKinnon, but of these things I will not be writing
at any length in this story.

The father and son left me a good way on the home road, and I made my
way indoors with no noise, and there was not so much as a dog barking,
and when I was in my own place I sat thinking for a long time.

And it came on me that Bryde was the wise one to be going away with his
sword, and to be making a name for himself, and siller.  For the Bryde
that was fit to command a King's ship would be far different from the
boy on a moorside farm, and I was weaving dreams like a lass at her
spinning when the door was opened behind me and Margaret stood looking
in, a light held high in her hand and her arm bare.

"When will he be coming?" said she.  It would likely be the man that
was with me at the splash-net that would be telling her the news.

"He has been here already," said I, "and you sound sleeping."

"I will be easy wakened, Hamish; a chuckle stone at the window would
not have been putting you out of your road.  Will he be changed in his
features?" says she, "and was he asking for all of us?"

"Indeed he was all questions," said I; "but I am not remembering that
he spoke of you, my lass."

"My motherless lass! am I clean forgot then?"

"I would not say that either," said I, and told her about the window
gazing.

"He will be a little blate for such a namely man," said Margaret, but I
could see there was a glow of pleasure over her.

"It will be long past time for the bedding," said I.

"There is no sleep will come to me this night"; and then, "I wonder
will the daylight never be coming?"

"Margaret," said I, and I am glad always that I said this--"Margaret,"
said I, "Bryde will be coming here in the morning; you will be meeting
your kinsman on the road," said I, "and that will be doing him a
kindness.

"Maybe he will not be for me to be meeting him, Hamish?"

"There's aye that, Margaret, but I would be risking it."

CHAPTER XXXI.

BRYDE AND MARGARET.

I think truly there was not much sleep for Margaret, even as she said,
for did not I hear her moving, and I would be thinking of her turning
and twisting fornent the image-glass.

And I will tell you where the place is that they met, Bryde and
Margaret, on the hill where the cairn stands and no man knows who would
be the builders.  For the lass walked easy and slow to the Hill of the
Fort, as we will be calling it, and then turned to the ridge that runs
to the right hand, for that way one can be seeing all the valley.  And
she sat by the foot of the cairn.  I am thinking that the far-seeing
blue eyes of Bryde would be watching every rise and hollow, or why else
would he have made the cairn, for that is not just the nearest road to
the Big House.

To her he came there and stood before her, and she rose to be meeting
him, but had no words of greeting.  It is like she would be rehearsing
in her mind how this meeting should go, but for all that she rose, and
her hands clasped and pressed themselves hard at her heart, and she
turned herself a little away from him, only her eyes holding his.

"Br--Bryde," was the word that came softly between her lips like a
whisper.

But the man took two strides and was at her side, his hands not yet
touching her, and there came a trembling on the lass.

"If you cannot be loving me and keeping me for ever," said she, "do not
be touching me, for if you will be touching me I am lost," and there
was a dignity in her bearing, although her lips were quivering.

"I am not fit to be touching you, for I have no right folk," said he.

"Do you think it is heeding _that_ I will be, if it is me and no other
that has your heart?"

"But that has aye been yours, little lass, from the beginning, for
there is sunshine and gladness where you are."

"Then," she cried, "then, my darling, I will not can wait any longer,"
and he held her close and looked down into her eyes.  There was a place
of flat rocks a little way off, and he carried her there, and a white
swirl of mist hung around them, and the wind blowing it away, and the
sun licking up the trailing white wreaths.

"We are on the high ground," he cried; "look, my dear, the sea below
us, and the woods and the heather, the sun and the mist and the winds
are round us--it is here that I would be loving to kiss you."

"Kiss me, then," she cried, "for I have been dreaming of such?"

Always when I am on the hill I will be looking at that little rocky
place, and seeing these two, brave and proud and young and loving,
seeing them clasped heart to heart on that high wind-swept space
against the sky, with the little curls and whirls of mist and the sun
licking up the floating wreaths.  So must the young gods have loved.

And they sat there with the wild-fowl only and the sheep to be seeing
them.

"Bryde," cried the girl, looking at her man with great starry eyes and
her cheeks aglow, "Bryde, will it anger you if I will be telling
something."

For answer he smiled down at her.

"Mhari nic Cloidh did tell me this would come, and there is more to
come.  There is to be a journey we will be making together--and listen,
for these will be her words, 'And his hand will be over yours at the
rough places, and he will lead you to the land of the pleasant ways,
the wide green meadows, starred with flowers and the blue of sparkling
seas,'--are not these good words?"

"My heart would be in such a land," said he.  "My dear, could you be
trusting yourself to me in the great new land, for the farming is in
the very marrow of my bones.  Would you be grieving for your own folk,
and your own hills, in that new land, where the cattle would be grazing
knee-deep in grass, and the horses roaming in herds, long-tailed and
with great tangled manes--roaming on the great pastures?"

"I would be loving that place!" she cried.

"There would be the house-building.  By a stream the house would be,
where there would be fishing, and the byres and the stables and the
dykes to be building, and you would be loving to see the little foals
near to you, and the young calves in the joy of living, running
daftlike races in the sunshine."

"Bryde, is it not the land of the Ever Young you will be showing me?"

"It is a young land, a land for strong youth.  I could be getting
ground there," said he, "in that far America; but would you not be
vexed when the years went by--vexed at the strange faces, and yearning
for the cold splash of the sea in summer, and the green of the waving
bracken, the purple of the hills, and the sound of voices that you
would be knowing?"

"Would I not be having you, Bryde?  Is there anything I could be
wishing for more than that?  I am loving that land, and," she
whispered, snuggling her head close to his side, "when we are grown old
and our--our--children gone from us, maybe if you would be wearying for
this place, we could be coming back and lying down yonder," said she,
pointing to the old kirk, "among our folk."

"There would maybe be some of the boys here coming with us,--Angus
McKinnon and Guy Hamilton and Pate Currie," says Bryde, "and we could
be talking of this place and remembering it when it would be New Year,
and telling the old stories again."

"Do you know who I think will be coming?" cried Margaret.  "I am
thinking Hamish will be coming too."

When they rose to leave the place--and they were loath to leave--the
face of Margaret was changed; there was a glamour of joy over her, and
her eyes were not seeing very well, but rather looking away into that
happy future, and she clung to Bryde.

"Will I be too happy?" she whispered fearfully, and made the sign that
wards off the spirit of evil.  "Bryde, we will not be telling this for
a wee while,--I am to be holding my happiness in my hands, holding it
to my heart, and nobody knowing."

It will whiles make me smile to think of the coming of Bryde and
Margaret to the Big House that day, for with all her cleverness the
eyes of Margaret could not be leaving her man, and her mouth would
tremble into a smile, and her cheeks glow at a word; but Bryde that day
was all-conquering.

To my aunt--the Leddy, as they will be naming her--to her he was all
courtesy, all deference, yet he would be surprising her into quick
laughing--indeed, I will always be remembering her words.

"My dear," said she, and her voice trembling, "I am glad to welcome
you--I am glad to be proud of you, for I will have loved you like my
own son," and she kissed him very heartily and wept a little, and the
Laird, my uncle, broke out--

"Hoots, what is it for--this greetin'; the lad kens he's welcome.
King's ship or no', and we will be having a bottle of the wine of
Oporto," says he, and came back with it himself, handling the dusty
age-crusted bottle with great skill, and we drank Bryde McBride his
health.  "'To the day when you will be slaying a deer,'" said the
Laird, "'and to the day when you will not be slaying a deer,' and I'm
thinking, Bryde, to-day you will have had a very good hunting."

And at that we drained our glasses, and Mistress Margaret and the
mother of her would be looking with new eyes at the Laird, for there
was a double twist to the thrust, and so it was that Bryde took up his
life among us again, after his wandering to the sea.  But he would be
better for the wandering, having made himself a milled man in the hard
school of the world.

You will be thinking of him on the farm on the moor, with that great
red man his father and the brother Hamish that came so late, and Belle,
that silent woman, watching with dark soft eyes.  Margaret, the Flower
of Nourn, was there often and none to gainsay her, for Bryde did not
long keep his love a secret, but bearded the Laird, and won, for all
that the old man opened the business with a great sternness.

"You will be over sib to the lass," says he at the first go-off, "but
her mother will be telling me she will have set her heart on you, and,
Bryde McBride," said he, at the finish of it, "as you do to the lass,
so may God deal wi' you."

And in all that time, although he would be in every house mostly, and
Hugh and he often thrang at the talking, and on the hill together and
among the crops, in all that time till the wedding of Hugh, never did I
hear that Helen Stockdale had speech with Bryde McBride.  But I was to
have word of it.

CHAPTER XXXII.

BRYDE AND HELEN.

And this is how the matter fell out.  There will be to this day a love
of stravaging among the young men, and maybe in the old ones as well,
and I kent that Bryde would whiles be ceilidhing, and often he and Dan,
his father, would be at McKinnon's, where Angus would be trying his
hand at the farming, and it was the fine sight to be seeing old McGilp
on the hill with Angus, and thrang at the working of sheep.

I am minding once that I was seeing them and Angus working a young
collie bitch, Flora, he would be calling her, and she would not be
working any too well, and that would be angering McGilp.  There was a
steep knowe where they were and a wheen sheep on it, and the bitch
would not be understanding how to gather, and at the last of it McGilp
gave a great roar out of him.

"Lay aloft, ye bitch," he roared in exasperation, "lay aloft, damn ye,"
and at that great sea voice Flora made off and left them, and I am not
wondering at it, for surely never was a dog so ordered; but Robin
McKinnon was telling me that when he was at the ploughing and McGilp
walking with him step for step, the smuggler would be crying to the
horses, and them turning in at the head-rig--

"Luff," he would cry, "luff, luff, and come to win'ward and we'll give
you the weight o' the mainsail down the hill."

It would be doing a man's heart good to be hearing Bryde making a mock
of the old captain at these times, and the good laughter of him that
would start a houseful o' folk to laugh also.  It was when he was for
McKinnon's that he fell in with Helen.

The stubble was white in the fields, and the leaves red and brown and
yellow, still holding here and there to the trees, a great night with a
touch of frost for the kail, and the half of a gale coming out the
nor'west.

Bryde was on his road for a crack with McGilp and Angus, and the road
was swept bare and dry and the night clear as a bell, when there came
that fine sound, the clatter and klop of riding-horse.  They were on
him at the bend above the Waulk Mill, Helen on her black horse,
Hillman, and the serving-man hard put to keep with her.  You see her
there--the black on his haunches and the breath of him like a white
cloud, and Bryde standing and his sea-coat flapping in the wind.  There
was no greeting from her, but her arms stretched out.

"Take me down," she said, and he lifted her.

Then to the serving-man--

"Walk the horses; but no--your mother's cottage is at the burnside.  Go
there and I will come soon," and the lad walked the horses away, and
these two stood watching.  Then Helen turned to Bryde and looked at
him, her black eyes flashing, her cheeks wind-whipped, her hair a
disarray with the speed of her travelling, and her lips smiling.  If
ever there would be beauty in a woman in the white night with a half
gale, it was in Helen.  She took his two hands and stood back from him
a little and looked, and then from her white throat there came
laughter, bubbling laughter, like a little brook in summer, joy and
happiness and content was in her laughing.

"Dear," she cried, "dear," to the great dark man, and in her tones were
the sounds you will hear in the voice of a mother.  "But God is kind
that I see you again before I am wife to your cousin.  And you too,"
and her laughter came again, "your cousin will be wife to you.  It is
droll," and she had always a taking way of that word.  "Listen, my
friend, here is this good night with a great strong wind and the moon
clear like the fire of the Bon Dieu, and the little stars merry and
twinkling, and the great white road.  Are not we the children of this
night?  Are not we the frien's of the night peoples?"

Bryde nodded, still looking.

"Then this is mine--all this night, this good night.  Come."

On the dry bracken, a little way from the roadside, he spread his coat
to make a resting-place for her.

"Now," she cried, "tell me."

"This is not right, Helen," and then--

"I care not for right," she cried, and her laughing came again, but he
waved her words aside.

"It will be only days now and you will be the wife of Hugh."

"No--no--no," she clasped her arms round herself.  "All this will be
his, but my heart--my heart will be waiting, but this one night my
heart is mine.  See," she cried, "he beat--beat--beat for joy.  Once I
tell you I will forget my convent ways, and I will make you forget.
See, my mother love one man and marry another, and I am born, and all
in me cry for that hill man--it is the cry from my mother in me."

Her hand was holding his arm.  "Hugh tells me you will go to America
with Margaret.  It is not true--tell me."

"It is true, Helen," said Bryde; "I am loving her for that, God bless
her."

"Ah, but will not Helen be blessed a little too," said the lass, and
for the first time there were tears in her eyes, and one great drop
fell like a white pearl in the moonlight.  "Dear, this is not you, so
calm--that is like Hugh,--you are cold.  Why do I cry and you not
comfort me?"  She pouted her lips.  "One kiss, and I will remember
always."

"One kiss," said Bryde, laughing, "and I will never be forgetting."
And at that they laughed.

"Ah, now it is Bryde--come, we will go to the horses," and she sprang
to her feet.

With the serving-man at his mother's door she had a word--

"You will come home in the morning--to-night you will stay with your
mother."

On the road, with Bryde mounted alongside of her on the servant's
beast, she set spurs to her horse Hillman, and he reared, and as he
pawed in the air she laughed, and she pointed with her whip
outstretched--

"Take me over that hill, and we will not come back ever, ever again."

And after the first mad gallop--

"I will tell you--you love Margaret, why--because Margaret is here
always since you were ver' little boy, always Margaret. . . ."

"Helen, I am loving Margaret because--I will not can tell why, but
there is peace and a great happiness in me when she is near me."

"I understand; it is that so great calm--me, I would kill you if you
love me and become cold; but she--she would smile and her heart be
breaking."

"I am thinking that too," said Bryde, and his eyes were soft.  The
horses were walking side by side, snapping a little playfully, for they
were loving the night.

"Mon coeur," whispered the lass, and her voice was low and her face
half-shamed, but very brave.  "We would have so great a son," said she,
and hung her head low after one long look at the man.  At the jerk on
the rein, the horses stopped.

"You are the bravest lass I will ever meet," said Bryde, and there was
a fire of admiration in his eyes, and a ring in his voice.  Her hands
groped out to his blindly, and she swayed to him.

"It is heaven to be here," said she, and pressed her face against his
breast, her eyes wide and dark, and her face half hidden.  "Dear,"--her
whole body quivered at the word,--"there is not any word a man can say
will be telling how much I am loving the bravery of you for that word.
It is in me to hold you here against my heart for the bravery of it."

"Take me," she whispered--"see, I am ready," and she opened her arms
wide and held her face upwards.  Her eyes were fast shut and the long
lashes dark on her cheek.  There came a look of infinite tenderness on
the fierce swarthy face of Bryde McBride.

"And afterwards, my brave lass?"

"Ah, then, I could not let you go.  Jesu aid me . . . you are mine from
the beginning; it is not right that you love that other.  Be kind to
me, Bryde, let me whisper--je t'adore, always I love you--thus," she
cried, and kissed him wildly in a kind of madness.  "I think," said
she, "when I am standing with Hugh to be married, I think I will run to
you," and then--

"Take me home now," all brokenly she spoke, "my brave night is
finished."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

HOW JOHN McCOOK HEARS OF THE PLOY AT THE CLATES.

There is a fate that stalks in the hills and plays with the lives of
the folk in the valleys.  "You will stop with your mother,"--these were
the words that Helen gave her serving-man, John McCook, that night she
rode with Bryde, and McCook stayed for a little in his mother's house,
and then, being young and of good spirit, he made his way to the inn to
be seeing his friends.  And he sat with them in McKelvie's place above
the quay, and now and then when Robin would be bringing drink into a
room a little apart, he would be hearing gusts of laughter, and whiles
the snatches of words.

And McCook was wanting to know who would be in the room, to be telling
his news when he reached Scaurdale, and he moved his stool so that his
ear was near to the crack of the door, and he could see a little into
the place.  There was great company in that room--McGilp and Dan
McBride were there, and Ronald McKinnon and his son Angus, and two or
three of the men of the old names who would be sailor-men too, and
there was great argument, for the men would be sailing their boats, and
their glasses on the table representing the sloops.  Once there came
high voices and deep oaths when a Kelso luffed his vessel so close to
his rival's that he spilled Charleach Ian's glass, but Rob McKelvie
righted the vessel and loaded her again with spirits, and the racing
would be continued.

As the time went on the voices were none so loud, but still he could
hear, and it was Ronny McKinnon that was speaking most, and the tale
that came to McCook was this:--

"There would be folk at the South End," said Ronald, "bien folk of his
own name some of them, and the harvest was very good for this year, and
there would be a considerable of spirit and salt to be taken across
quietly.  It will be hidden well," said Ronald, "at the Cleiteadh mor,
and the _Gull_ will be there in the offing, and send her boats ashore.
There will be none to expect a ploy that night, for it will be the
night that Hugh McBride will be married on the English lady, and that
will be a diversion."

For, indeed, on such an occasion the half of a parish would be merry
with the eating of hens and drinking of spirit, and the piping and
dancing.

"I will be there," said Dan, "and my son Bryde.  It's long since I will
have been at the smuggling," and then there came singing of Gaelic
songs that you can be hearing yet, and at that McCook took off his dram
and went out at the door, for he would be early on the road the next
day.

There is a fate that stalks in the hills and plays with the lives of
the folk in the valley.

Kate Dol Beag, as ye ken, was a lass at her service at Scaurdale, a
bonny dark ruddy lass and keen for the marrying, and the lad she had
her eye on was the serving-man, McCook.  And when these two were in the
stackyard at Scaurdale and well hidden behind the ricks on the next
night, she yoked on him.

"It is not me you are liking," said she, and put his hand from her
neck, "for last night you did not come home and me waiting."

"I could not be coming home, my lass," said he, "for the young mistress
made me stop at my mother's, and Bryde McBride, the sailor, rode with
her."

"Ay," said Kate, "she came home like a lass that goes to her
grave-claes instead o' her braws, and never a word from her, but a
white hue round her lips and her eyes staring. . . .  Did you go to my
father's," said Kate, for she was of a jealous nature.

"No, I was at McKelvie's for a wee after I would be with my mother, and
I was thinking Dol Beag your father would be there too."

"There was no lass you were with, then?"--this a little more softly and
her body came closer to his.

"There was no lass that I saw," said McCook, "but there were many
people at the inn," said he.

"Give me the news, then," she cried, and put an arm round his neck now
that she kent he would not have been with another woman.  And then he
told her how the South End folk would be at the smuggling on the night
of the wedding, and all that he had heard, meaning no ill, and the lass
was laughing, and her kindness came back to her.

"I will not have been good to you," said she, and lay back against the
stack, "and I am wearying this long while for your arms round me, and
the jagging of your hair on my face."

And as she sat there was more of her ankle showing than she would maybe
be liking in strange company.

"Ye have the fine legs," said John, looking at them, for he would be a
great gallant by his way of it; but the lass just smiled and pulled
them under her.

"It will be as well ye should ken, my man," said she, "and I will be
needing them the morn, for I am to be walking hame and seeing my folk."

And there they were in each other's arms, and he promised to meet her
well on, on the road home, for she was feart of the giant that lived in
the glen and was killed by the folk long ago--but that is an old wife's
tale.

They were good to her at hame the next day when she was seated with her
folk at a meal, and after that she was with her mother for a while, a
little red in the face, but brave enough.

"He will be marrying me, mother," said she; "I ken he will be coming to
you soon, and--and there will be no cutty-stool either," said she, "for
he is a nice lad and dacent, if he will be a little game," maybe
thinking of the stackyard.

"Time will be curing that," said her mother.

"I daresay that," and then with a hearty laugh and her head flung back,
"Kate will be helping too," said she, and ran into the kitchen.

Dol Beag, her father, was baiting a long line, his crook back throwing
a great black shadow on the wall.

"There will be great doings at your place soon, Kate," said he.

"Ay, there's nae talk but marrying yonder.  I am thinking the mistress
would rather be having the other man," said she, and rose to put peat
on the fire.

"Whatever other man is it?" says the mother.

"Kate will be meaning Dan McBride's bastard," says Dol Beag, and his
hand shook a little on the hook.

"He is free with his money whatever, and a fine man they are saying."

"Ay, ay, the father o' him was free with his gifts too," said her
father.  "They will all be thonder, I am thinking.  Laird and leddies
and bastards, the whole clamjamfry.  We will be hoping for a good day
at the time o' the year."

"John McCook would be telling me there will be a ploy that night at the
Cleiteadh mor," said the lass; "the folk will have a cargo ready.
McBride and his son will be there for the ploy," said the lass, "but he
said no' to be speaking of it."

Her father stopped a little at his baiting.

"They were aye the great hands for a ploy," said he, and twitched his
shoulder, and the black shadow on the wall wobbled and was still.
There came a long whistle as you will hear a shepherd call.

"That will be himsel'," said Kate.

"Fetch the lad in," said the mother, and went to the fire.

Dol Beag took down the great Bible.  "We will worship the Lord," said
he, "before you will be leaving," and he opened the Book and read, and
the voice of him rolled in relish of the Gaelic, and then they kneeled
on the bare floor and Dol Beag prayed before his God, and John McCook,
opening his eyes, saw his lass smiling to him.

The lad and lass took the hill road in the moonlight, and the mother
watching them.

Dol Beag lay in his bed long, turning and turning like a man not at his
ease, and then he rose and put his clothes on him.

"Where will you be going at this hour?" said his wife.

"Woman," said he, "I will have forgotten if the skiff is high on the
shore-head, for the wind is away to the west'ard," and he went out into
the night.

In an hour maybe he was in again and the cruisie lighted, and again he
fell on his knees by the side of the bed and prayed aloud, and his wife
would be hearing in her sleep.

"Lord, look on Thy servant.  Was not I the straight one before Thee,
straight like a young tree, and strong before Thee.  Lord, look then
from that great mountain.  Thy home and Thy dwelling-place, and see me,
Thy servant, twisted and gnarled like the roots of a fallen tree.  It
will be in Thy hands to raise up or cast down, and the wicked are
before Thee.  Strike, God of Battle, and the raging sea, strike and
spare not the wicked, for Thy servant will have waited long."

Gilchrist, who was now the head of the gangers and preventives, turned
on his pillow after Dol Beag had crept out.

"Ay, Mirren Stuart," said he, "Mirren Stuart that rade the Uist pony
and laughed at me in my young days--maybe, Mirren, ye will come to my
door yet--my _back_ door."

And those two that took the road up through the Glen by the burnside
past the very trees where Bryde and Helen sat on yon June morning when
the spider-webs were floating--John and Kate that dawdled on the road,
for never was a road too long for young folk in love--these two would
be making but the one shadow on the road, for the lass had thrown her
shawl over them both, and for a long time they were in the heather, not
far from Birrican, at a place they will be calling Oliver's garden--the
wherefore I will not know, unless maybe some of Cromwell's men would be
killed there, for I have heard the old folk say that Cromwell's
garrison at the Castle would be put to the sword; but I have no sure
knowledge of the garrison, or of the place of the killing, although I
am hoping that the folk did bravely, for it is never in me to be
forgiving the Drove at Dunbar.  But it was not Dunbar that these lovers
were heeding about--ye will have been in the heather with a lass maybe,
so you will be guessing that.

"Would you be telling the mother of you that we would be for marrying,
Kate?"

"Yes," said the lass in a whisper, and put her head against the curve
of his breast.  "I could be sleeping here."

"Och, my lass, it is fine to be sleeping in the heather.  My father and
his brother would be lying out like the kye in the summer, when they
would be at the smuggling, they will be often telling me.  And, Kate,"
said he, "you would not be saying any word o' the ploy at the Cleiteadh
mor, for your father, Dol Beag, is not very chief with Dan McBride."

"It will not be spoken of," said she; but the lass held her man the
closer.  "You will not be thinking of going to that place.  I could not
be letting you go there now."

"It will be the rent o' the crofts and steadings, the smuggling money,"
said he, "and sair wrocht for, and if they will not be hindering me, I
will be going there.  I was hearing at hame that Gilchrist is mad for a
new hoose, and he will have the promise of it if he can be putting
hands on a still, or 'making seizure,' as they will be naming it."

A shiver went over the lass.  "What is it makes ye grue?"

"I am wishing to greet to think you will be leaving me on that night."

"Come hame, lass," said McCook, and shook himself as a horse will shake
on a cold day; "there is a goose on my grave too," said he, and laughed
and kissed her.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

WHAT CAME OF THE PLOY.

Bryde and Margaret would be aye at their planning, and the lass with a
glamour of joy at the sewing and marking of linen; and whiles it would
seem that Bryde himself was forgot, but there would be times when they
would be away for hours together, the lass with her two arms clinging
to his, and laughing up into his face, and the folk would be smiling to
be just seeing her, for it was as though her love was so good and great
a power that she must be kind to the whole world.

"Why will you be loving me?" she would cry, and stand, her great blue
eyes all loving.

"My dear," Bryde would say, "the day grows brighter when you are with
me; there is peace in my heart and gladness.  The flowers are more
beautiful and the sea is grander.  Och, I cannot be telling you in
words."

"I will be content and listen; this is the way of it with me," and she
put her hand to her breast.  "There is something here that will grow
when you are near me, and I am telling myself that will be my happiness
choking me.  Am I not the daft lass?"

And little Hamish would be with them often, and Dan and Belle were
proud folk, but walking soberly for fear of too much happiness; but
once when we watched the father and his two sons coming home, and the
young boy between them, begging to be lifted and swung across little
pools.  Belle spoke--

"Hamish, keep guard," she said in that droll fashion that belonged to
her.  "Once when I was young there was a dream of evil came on me, but
I am forgetting it--I am forgetting."

"I will be loath to part with Bryde," said Dan.  "We were long
strangers; but, Hamish, my heart cannot hold the love I will have for
him, and maybe when Hamish Og is grown he will go to Bryde's place, and
Bryde will be coming home.  I would be wishing to see a grandson."

And at the Big House it would be Bryde this and Bryde that, till I am
thinking poor Hugh would be near demented.

And the night before the wedding Bryde stayed with us, and we had a
great night of it, for Hugh would not be having any other for his best
man, as they will be calling it, and Margaret was to be helping the
lass Helen, and was at Glenscaur already with the Laird and her mother,
and that night Hugh slept with Bryde like boys again, and I would be
hearing the laughing of them.

In the morning Bryde was up and crying that the sun was shining, and
that it would be time to be on the road.

"You will not be last at your ain wedding," he would say to Hugh, for
the boy was not very clever with his fingers that day; but we gave him
a good jorum, and he brisked up at that, and we got on the horses and
away, with the bauchles raining round our lugs and the horses sketch.
On all the road the folk would be walking to be seeing the couple, and
it was all we could be doing to be holding the horses, for there would
be salutes from blunderbusses, and flags on the trams of creels, old
flags and tattered from many's the sea, and we came to Scaurdale, and
smuggled Hugh into the house like a thief, for fear he would be seeing
Helen, and got at the dressing of him.

It was Bryde who had mind of all the freits.

  "Something old and something new,
  Something borrowed and something blue,"

he would be singing, for it will not be lucky to be married without the
due observance of these old sayings.

I would be sitting with Hugh in his room, and Bryde away to be seeing
if all things were ready, and to have a word with Margaret, for this
wedding would be putting things into his head maybe.  At last back he
came, tall and swarthy and smiling.

"She is a beautiful wife you will be getting, Hughie," said he; "and
Margaret and the old women will have her imprisoned, so you will be
coming with me,"--and we took Hugh out under the trees where the place
was made ready, and the guests were gathered, and in a little Helen
came to his side and Margaret with her, and the marrying was begun.

And the Laird of Scaurdale was lifted out in his chair, very white, but
with a good spirit in him yet.

It would be Helen I would be watching, for her hand was tight clenched,
and she swayed a little as a flower sways, but she spoke bravely.  It
would be a long business, a marriage in these days.

But when the ring was on her finger and Margaret had lifted the veil,
she turned to her man, and held him to be kissing her.

"You are kind to me, Hugh," said she in a little low voice.

And when it would be Bryde's turn to be at the kissing, she kissed his
cheek.

"I am your cousin now, is it not?" said she, with a little smile, and I
caught her as she swayed, and all her body would be a-quiver like a
fiddle-string.

There would be a great spread there in the open--pasties of mutton from
black-faced ewes, very sweet and good to be remembering, and fish too,
and fowls roasted and browned, and the crop of them bursting with
stuffing.  There was sirloin and pork, and dishes of every kind.  There
was ale, good strong ale, that puts flesh on a man if he will be having
the rib to be carrying it.  For dainty folk foreign wine, and for grown
men brandy and usquebach.  It would be a goodly feast, with much
laughing and neighbourliness among the guests, and there is a droll
thing I am remembering, and that is the good clothes of the folk.  If
you will be taking time and rummaging about in some old kist, you will
be finding these clothes to this day, with the infinite deal of sewing
on them, and the beautiful buttons, and you will likely be finding too
an old lease maybe, with all the stipulations anent the burning of kelp.

I am wishing that you could be with us on the road on such a day, for
every man would be stopping and getting his dram, and giving his good
wishes to the pair before he would be going on with his business.

And Hugh would be speaking for his wife and himself, and giving his
thanks to the folk for their well-wishing.  And the old Laird of
Scaurdale made the lassies keep their faces lowered, for he would be a
bluff hearty man, with little false modesty in him, if indeed he would
be having any of any kind.

"There is nothing," says he, "will be taming a lass like skelping a
wean, or curing him o' the hives, and it's weans I will be wanting
about the place," says he.

I will not be telling too much about the talk, for these would be
wilder days than now, as you can be seeing if you will be looking at
the Session Records.

Then in the evening the dancing would be going on, with the pipers in
their own place, three of them abreast, and piping until their faces
would be shining with the joy of it.  Och, the great joyousness of the
dancing, with the lassies taking a good hold of their skirts and
lifting them to be getting the bonny steps in, and the boys from the
glens hooching with upthrown arm, now this and now that, and their
shoes beating out the time as though the music and the dancing was in
the very blood of them, and indeed so it was.

And there would be fiddlers too, and step-dancing, and singing and
everything to be making merry the heart of a man.

Hugh and Helen would be leaving the dance at last, and there was a buzz
of laughing, although nobody would be knowing where the pair of them
were to be that night; and it was then that Margaret would be at her
good-nights to Bryde, for they could not be having enough of each other
all that day.

"It will be you and me next," said Bryde, "Margaret, my little
darling," and she crept closer to him.

"Take me somewhere," said she, "where the folk will not be seeing."

And then, "I will have been mad to be doing this all this night," said
she, and pulled his head down to her and kissed him.  "Tell me, Bryde,
oh, tell me."

"I am loving you," said he, and his eyes burning, "loving the grace and
the beauty and the bravery in you," and he lifted her into his arm like
a wean, and his face was bent to hers and her white arms round him.
Her eyes were softly closed, and a little white smile on her face.

"For ever and ever, my great dark man," she whispered.

"Darling," said Bryde, "little darling, for ever and ever," and with a
face all laughing and her eyes like stars she ran from him to her room.

And coming from her door--for he had followed her, laughing at her
dainty finger raised in smiling command--coming from her closed door
with her love about him like a cloud, there met him his cousin's wife,
and he could hear the crying of the dancers below, and Hugh's voice
forbidding pursuit.

"Good-night," said Helen, and gave him her hand--it was very cold.
"Good-night," and then with a half sob, "Jus' _won_ kiss," she
whispered . . .  I am often wondering. . . .

I would be with Belle when Bryde came among the dancers again.  Her
eyes were yearning over him.

"I am wishing I had you home--you will be too happy, my wild boy."

"There are none to be wishing evil this night," said Bryde, and laughed
down at his mother; and then, "There is no lass so bonny as my mother,
Hamish," and he put his arm round her.  "I will be behaving, little
mother," said he, and then Dan came to us and took Belle away.

It made high-water at five in the morning, and there was the last of a
moon showing the darkness on the shore and throwing a gleam on the sea.

There were folk moving on the beach, all silently except maybe you
would be hearing a sech of a breath, as when a man will be stretching
himself after resting from a load.  There would come now and then the
howling of a dog, an eerie sound, and then he would be at the barking a
long way through the night.  Sometimes a little horse would come out of
the darkness with a pack-load on his back, and men would be lifting the
load and laying it on the beach, and there would be quiet whispering,
and the little horse be led away and swallowed up in the dark among the
scrog and bushes.  And in a while there came the soft noise of muffled
oars, a sound very faint that will be stirring the blood of a man, and
a little knot of folk gathered round the barrels on the beach.

"That will be the boats now," said Dan McBride.

"It will be all quiet," said Ronald McKinnon, "and Gilchrist will not
be having his new hoose yet for a wee."

And Gilchrist--if Ronny had only kent--Gilchrist and his men shifted a
little among the bushes, and old Dol Beag was there among them
trembling a little and his mouth praying.

John McCook came close to Bryde McBride, and pointed to the very place
where the gangers were lying waiting.

"Would there be something moving there among the bushes?" said he.

"A sheep maybe," said Bryde.

"I am wishing I had the dogs with me," said John.

There were silent figures of women, with shawls tight about their
shoulders, and they looked a little fearfully to the dark places.

Margaret was in her first sleep and dreaming, and it was a daft dream,
and her lips curled softly and parted a little, for in her dreams Bryde
would be knocking and knocking at her door.

"I am just thinking this," she was saying to her dreaming self,
"because he would be tormenting me to be kissing him again," and she
opened her arms and her lips pouted, and then again came the knocking,
low at the first of it, and then growing louder, until at last she
became broad awake, and there would be only a little moonlight in her
room.

"Who is it?" she said, standing a little fearfully behind her door, and
her heart beating.

"Let me in; oh, let me in," she could hear a woman's voice, and opened
the door, and a lass flung herself inside.

"He will be away to the smuggling, mistress," cried the lass, "and I
will be feart, I will be feart, for I told my father--I told my father."

"Go back to your bed, Kate," said Margaret; "it is the nightmare.  Who
will be gone to the smuggling?--there will not be any smuggling."

"At the Clates, mistress--my man is there, the man I am to be marrying,
and your man, mistress, and his father," and then she got her words.
"It is my father I am dreading," said she.  "Dol Beag is my father.  I
am thinking he is a little wrong in the head, and to-day my mother came
to be telling me to keep my man beside me.  Oh, if my own mistress
would be free I would be telling her, and what would be frightening
her, my poor mistress--with the wrong man in her bed."

"Out of my way," said Margaret, and she started to her dressing.  "Away
from me, with your wicked thoughts, ye traitor."

"Go, you fool," for she was in a royal rage--"go to the stable and
waken the men.  Hurry," she cried--"hurry," and shoved the wench before
her and came to my door, and it was not long until I had the horses
saddled.

Margaret was on Helen's black horse Hillman, her face a white mask and
her lips a thin line.  Ye will have heard that Mistress Helen was a
bold rider, but you were not seeing Margaret that night.  It has come
to me since that she would be like Bryde in her rage.  She had the
black at the stretch of his gallop, and cutting him with the whip, and
a ruthlessness like cold iron was in her voice when she spoke to him.
I do not like to be thinking of her then, for it would not be thus she
would be using horse.

Round a bend of the road in this mad ride we smashed into Hugh and
Helen, their horses walking quietly, and I learned afterwards that they
were to spend their bridal night at the village called Lagg, and had
made their escape quietly.

I have often wondered why Helen was not on her own black horse that
night, and I think it was that she had put all thoughts of Bryde from
her mind--for Bryde was fond of the black, and would be praising and
petting him often.

But she kent her horse in the passing, and well she kent his rider.

"Come on," I cried to Hugh, and gathered my horse under me, for I was
all but thrown.

"No, no; _they're married_," cried Margaret, and cut again at the
black, although he was half maddened already.

As he leapt from the lash I heard Helen--

"Ah, Hillman," she cried (now Hillman was a by-name for Bryde), and
then, "Where is the so great calm of Margaret?"

"The gaugers are at the Clates--Gilchrist and Dol Beag and Bryde and
Dan.  Can ye not see what will come of it?"  I know not what I cried to
Hugh as we galloped.

But at my words Helen leaned forward on her saddle, and coaxed her
horse in a whisper, and he stretched to the gallop like a hound.

"A droll beginning this," said Hugh.  "Helter-skelter ower the
countryside for a wheen gangers.  What sort o' bridal night is this?
Could they no' keep their dirty fighting out o' my marriage. . . ."

"Ye were not meant to ken, Hugh."

"And I wish I did not ken.  God, look at Helen--look at my wife--look
at yon."

For Helen was abreast of Margaret and leaning from her saddle, and
speaking to the black horse, and he kent her voice and swerved to his
mistress.

"Do-you-know-who-he-is-like, my brave Hillman?" said Helen.

"He is like his mist . . . he is like the devil," said Margaret.

Sometimes yet I can see Helen's face clear-cut upraised against the
sky, her curling black hair flying loose, and never, never will I
forget her laughing--the devilry and the joy of it.

CHAPTER XXXV.

DOL BEAG LAUGHS AGAIN.

Angus McKinnon stretched himself on the shore at the Clates.  "I am not
liking this waiting," said he to Dan McBride; "McNeilage might have
been standing closer in."

"It will be the Revenue cutter he is feared of, Angus," said his father.

"The Revenue boat is lying off the White Rock in Lamlash," said Angus.
"McNeilage will be getting old and sober."

"Wait a wee, Angus--wait a wee, my boy."  It was another McKinnon, a
friend of his own, that spoke.  "Things are just right; the wee boats
will be in 'e noo.  It is a good park of barley I had, yes, and the
best of it in the kegs."

"Angus is right, father," said a tall lass with a shawl about her head,
not hiding the bonny boyish face of her.

"Hooch ay, lass; Angus will be always right by your way of it,--it is
in your bed you should be."

The wee boats were close inshore now, and the _Gull_ well off, for the
Clates is not a nice place if the wind will be shifting to the suthard.
With the grating of the keel of the first boat on the beach the men
made a start to be lifting the kegs, and carrying them to the boat and
wading, for it is not very safe to let a boat go hard aground if there
will be a hurry to be shoving her off again.

Into this mix-up of bending and hurrying folk came the voice of
Gilchrist the gauger.

"In the King's name," he roared, and his men sprang forward.

And these were the words that I heard when Helen and Margaret flung
themselves from the horses and ran forward into the press of people.

There was the dropping of kegs and the straightening of folk at the
voice, but I saw the great figure of Dan cooried beside the boat.  Then
came Gilchrist's voice again--

"Touch nothing--you scoundrels will touch nothing--I mak' seizure in
the King's name.  Get roon' them, lads, with your pieces ready," and
the excisemen made a circle of the smugglers.  The second small boat
was nearing the shore.

The lass McKinnon, with the bonny boyish face, stooped to pick up her
shawl, and Gilchrist was jumping and shouting.  "A bonny catch," he
cried--"a bonny catch," and at that the boyish lass straightened
herself.  "The boats ahoy," she cried, "ahoy, the boat; the gaugers are
on us."

"Stop the bitch," screamed Gilchrist, and sprang at the lass with his
fist raised.