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Title: The McBrides
       A Romance of Arran


Author: John Sillars



Release Date: October 22, 2007  [eBook #23152]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MCBRIDES***


E-text prepared by Al Haines



THE McBRIDES

A Romance of Arran

by

JOHN SILLARS

Fifth Impression







The Ryerson Press, Toronto
William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1922




TO

_MY MOTHER_




  LIST OF GAELIC NAMES AND EXPRESSIONS.

  Crotal, lichen.
  "A traill," you sluggard.
  Cleiteadh mor, big ridge of rocks.
  Bothanairidh, summer sheiling.
  Birrican, a place name.
  Rhuda ban, white headland.
  Bealach an sgadan, Herring slap.
  Skein dubh, black knife.
  Crubach, lame.
  Mo ghaoil, my darling.
  Direach sin, (just that), (now do you see).
  Lag 'a bheithe, hollow of the birch.
  Mo bhallach, my boy.
  Ceilidh, visit (meeting of friends); ceilidhing; ceilidher.
  Cha neil, negative, no.
  Mo leanabh, my child.
  Cailleachs, old women.
  Og, young.
  Mhari nic Cloidh, Mary Fullarton.




CONTENTS.


PART I.

CHAP.

      I. WHICH TELLS OF THE COMING OF THE GIPSY
     II. MAKES SOME MENTION OF ONE JOCK McGILP, AND TELLS HOW BELLE
         BROUGHT THE WEAN IN THE TARTAN SHAWL INTO THE HOUSE OF NOURN
    III. IN WHICH I CHASE DEER AND SEE STRANGE HORSEMEN ON THE HILL,
         AND A LIGHT FLASHING ON THE SEA
     IV. I MEET JOCK McGILP AND HIS MATE McNEILAGE AT THE TUBS' INN,
         AND LEARN WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE WEAN IN THE TARTAN SHAWL
      V. MIRREN STUART'S ERRAND
     VI. WE TRAMP THROUGH THE SNOW TO McKELVIE'S INN
    VII. WE SAIL IN McKELVIE'S SKIFF TO THE HOLY ISLAND
   VIII. THE DEATH OF McDEARG, THE RED LAIRD
     IX. MIRREN STUART BIDS HER DOG LIE DOWN
      X. DOL BEAG IS FLUNG INTO A FIRE
     XI. THE BLAZING WHINS
    XII. McALLAN'S LOCKER
   XIII. DAN McBRIDE SAILS FROM LOCH BANZA
    XIV. WE RETURN
     XV. THE STRANGER ON THE MOORS
    XVI. I HAVE SOME TALK WITH McGILP IN McKINNON'S KITCHEN


PART II.

   XVII. I TURN SCHOOLMASTER
  XVIII. THE FIRST MEETING
    XIX. THE RIDERS ON THE MOOR
     XX. "THE LOVE SECRET"
    XXI. DOL BEAG LAUGHS
   XXII. THE SHAMELESS LASS
  XXIII. HELEN AND BRYDE McBRIDE REST AT THE FOOT OF THE URIE
   XXIV. THE HALFLIN'S MESSAGE
    XXV. I RIDE AGAIN TO McALLAN'S LOCKER
   XXVI. A WEDDING ON THE DOORSTEP
  XXVII. MARGARET McBRIDE KISSES HELEN
 XXVIII. IN WHICH BETTY COMPLAINS OF GROWING-PAINS
   XXIX. THE RAKING BLACK SCHOONER
    XXX. TELLS WHERE BRYDE MET HAMISH OG
   XXXI. BRYDE AND MARGARET
  XXXII. BRYDE AND HELEN
 XXXIII. HOW JOHN McCOOK HEARS OF THE PLOY AT THE CLATES
  XXXIV. WHAT CAME OF THE PLOY
   XXXV. DOL BEAG LAUGHS AGAIN




THE McBRIDES.


PART I.

CHAPTER I.

WHICH TELLS OF THE COMING OF THE GIPSY.

It was April among the hills, waes me, the far-away days of my youth,
when the hills were smiling through the mists of their tears, and the
green grasses thrusting themselves through the withered mat of the
pasture like slender fairy swords.  April in the hills, with the
curlews crying far out on the moorside, past the Red Ground my
grandfather wrought, and where again the heather will creep down, rig
on rig, for all the stone dykes, deer fences, and tile drains that ever
a man put money in.  I never knew why it was they called it "Red
Ground," for it was mostly black peaty soil, but my grandfather would
be saying, "It will be growing corn.  Give it wrack, and it will be
growing corn for evermore."

They tell me he was a great farmer for all he was laird, and never
happier than at his own plough tail, breaking a colt to work in chains;
and he it was who improved the stock in cattle and horse in our glens,
for he would be aye telling the young farmers, "Gie the quey calves
plenty o' milk, as much as they'll lash into themselves.  Be good to
them when the baby flesh is on them, and they'll grow and thrive, and
your siller'll a' come back in the milking."

The countryside clavered and havered when he bought his pedigree bulls
and his pedigree mares.  "It's money clean wasted," said the old
farmers, "for a calf's a calf no odds what begets it, and a horse that
can work in chains and take its turn on the road is horse enough for
any man, without sinking money in dumb beasts, and a' this sire-and-dam
pother."  It would anger the old man that talk, ay, even when he was
the old frail frame of what once he was,--like a dead and withered
ash-tree, dourly awaiting the death gale to send it crashing down, to
lie where once its shade fell in the hot summer days of its youth,--and
the blood would rise up on his neck, where the flesh had shrunk like
old cracked parchment, and left cords and pipes of arteries and veins,
gnarled like old ivy round a tree.

Querulous he was and ill-tempered with the scoffers.  "Man, if I had
twenty more years I would grow hoofs on your horse and udders on your
in-coming queys."  Well, well, I'm fond of this farming, but I have set
out to tell a tale, which in my poor fancy should even be like a
rotation of crops, from the breaking in of the lea to the sowing out in
grass, with the sun and winds and sweet rains to ripen and swell the
grain--the crying of the harvesters and the laughing of lassies among
the stocks in the gloaming, the neighing of horse and the lowing of
kine in the evening.

On that morning so long ago Dan and I were ploughing stubble, and I
followed my horses in all joy, laughing to see them snap as I turned
them in at the head-rigs, and coaxing them as they threw their big
glossy shoulders into the collar on the brae face.  So the morning wore
on as I ploughed, with maybe a word now and then to Dick, and a touch
of the rein to Darling, and the sea-gulls screaming after us as the
good land was turned over.  The sun came glinting through the hill
mist, and the green buds were bursting in the hedgerows for very
gladness.

I was free from the college, free from the smoke-wrack and the grime of
the town, free to hear the birds awake and singing in the planting
behind the stackyard, and I breathed great gulps of air and felt clean
and purged of all the evil of the town; for if there is vice in the
country, it is to my mind evil without sordidness.

I remember my foolish thoughts were something like these, even though
my reading should have taught me better, for the Garden of Eden was a
fine place to sin in by all accounts, yet the environment did not
mitigate the punishment.  In these young days, when my body glowed from
a swim and my eyes were clear, I thought the minister too hard on that
original iniquity.

It was coming on for dinner-time--lowsin' time, as we say in the
field--when Dan shouted--

"Hamish," says he, "who'll yon be that's travellin' so fast above the
Craig-an-dubh?"

"I will be telling you that, Dan, when she's half a mile nearer."

"Ye hinna the toon mirk rubbed out your een yet, Hamish, or ye would
ken the bonny spaewife.  I've been watchin' her this last three 'bouts."

"Dan, Dan," said I, "do you think of nothing but women and horses?
Have ye never learned the lesson of Joseph?"

"Man, Hamish," says he, with a whimsical smile and a hand at his
moustache, "ye should put a' things in their proper order.  Horses and
weemen noo.  It's not a bad thing--a while wi' a lass after the horses
are bedded and foddered, but horses first; and as for Joseph"--his
smile broadened until I could see his teeth--"if it had been Dauvit the
leddy had met on the stair, the meenisters wid never hiv heard a cheep
about it. . . .

"It's a fine lesson yon, I aye think, for auld men to be preaching, but
deevil a word about their ain youthfu' rants.  Ye're a lusty lad
yirsel', and there's many a cheery nicht among the lasses wi'
petticoats and short-goons, and I'll teach ye hoo tae whistle them oot
if ye would leave your books and come raking wi' Dan."

We had unyoked the horses and got astride, and when we came to the gate
there was the bonny spaewife carrying a bairn in a tartan shawl.  Dan
drew up, and I also; so there we stood, the horses in an impatient
semi-circle on the road, Dan and I on horseback, and the woman looking
up at us.

She had the blackest eyes I ever saw, and hair black and curly as a
water-dog's clustered over her head, and the wee rain-drops clung about
the curls round her ears and brow.  Her nose was delicate and
faultless, and her complexion was that born of sun and rain and wind.
There seemed a smile to play round her red lips, and a sombreness about
her eyes (so that she held mine fixed), until Dan spoke.

"I think, Belle," said he, "you're gettin' bonnier, and if it wasna for
the wean I would leave a kiss on your bonny red mouth."

Round the pupils of her black eyes a little ring began to glow, as
though a light came from a great distance through darkness, her white
teeth bit on her under lip, and she stepped closer to Dan's horse.

"Haud away, woman, haud away, for the love o' your Maker; the stallion
canna thole weemen about him."

I fear me the town had taken some of the game out of me, for when I saw
the big dark horse flatten his ears, the wicked eyes rolling, and the
great fore-hoofs drumming on the road, ready to leap and batter the
woman and her bairn to a bloody pulp fornent me, my stomach turned, as
we say, and I felt sick and giddy.  Many a morning had I stood at the
loose-box door and watched the devil in the horse and the devil in the
man battle for mastery, and aye the horse was cowed.  Even on the
mornings when I heard Dan's step, soft and wary on the cobbles, before
the sun was up, and knew by the look of him, and the gruffness in his
voice, that he had travelled many a weary mile from his light-o'-love,
and that sleep had not troubled him, I would hear the stable door
opening and Dan whistling like the cheery early bird as he opened the
corn-kist.  After the morning feed the battle began, for Chieftain had
a devil, but I think Dan had seven of that ilk.

"It's him or me, Hamish," he would croon, "him or me, but I'm likin'
myself a' the time"; and he kept the lathering, plunging devil off
himself, whiles with his fists, and whiles with a short stick.

"I'll handle him were he twice as big and twice as bad.  I'll hae nae
gentlemen among the horse when there's lea to plough!" and the fight
would go on.  But Dan was the only man who could handle Chieftain, and
there seemed a kind of laughing comradeship between them.

I have digressed that you might see with my eyes the queer uncanny
thing that happened on the road there between the woman and the horse.
I have told you the spaewife--if spaewife you would call her, for I
think sorceress fitted her better--I have said she came close to
Chieftain's head, her black eyes fairly lowing; and as the brute, his
skin twitching, gathered himself to rear on her, she hit him full on
the mouth with her little brown hand, and hissed a word at him in her
own tongue.  As the word struck my ears I felt myself tingle to my
finger-tips, and the world seemed to go quiet all round me.  The
horse's ears went forward, and he stretched his great neck, and there
he was quiet as an old pony, nibbling with his lips at the woman's
shawl and hair.

And the woman looked at Dan.

A kind of half laugh, half sigh, left his lips.

"I wish," said he, "I had your gait o' handlin' horse.  It's desperate
sudden, but it's sure, as our friend Hamish wid observe.  Maybe, my
dear, you'll hiv a spell tae turn the horse tae himsel' again and
something extra, an' I'm no' sayin' but what I would be likin' him
better, for sittin' here on a quate beast that sould be like the
ravening devil o' holy writ is no' canny."

"Spell," said the girl, for indeed she was little more, and under her
brown skin I could see the darker red rising.  "Spell, ye night-hawk!"
and her broad bosom heaved with the rage in her, and her body trembled
with living anger.

"I come o' folk, ye reiver, that lay down and rose up among their
horse, in the black tents, that loved and hated among their horse, that
lived and died among their horse, and ye would talk to me o' spells.
Did I but say the word to that black horse, not you nor any o' the folk
ye cam' crooked among would straddle him and live to boast o' it after."

Dan sat his horse like a statue.  It makes my old eyes moist and my
throat choky to this day to think of it, for I loved him through
everything.  Could he have had command of heavy horse, and won his rest
on some glorious field, brave, headstrong, devil-may-care Dan; but
there he sat and looked on the Cassandra, and his eyes were laughing
from his stern face as he took a turn on the rope reins.

"Back, my bonny horse," said he to Chieftain, and there was a kind of
joyous lilt in his voice.  "Draw away your pair, Hamish, and this lan'
horse o' mine.  We'll miss our dinner maybe, but I've an unco hankering
after this word."

Away down in my heart I knew what was coming, and I watched the woman
loosen her tartan shawl and lay her infant in a neuk among the hedge
roots.

"I'm waitin' now, my dear," said Dan, "and in case I dee I'll tell ye I
think I could break you in, for I like the devil temper bleezin' in
your bonny black een, and your lips would warm a deein' man.  My dear,
I think I could be your man for a' ye say I cam' crooked; for spaewife
or no--God's life, ye're awfu' bonny, Belle."

The gipsy gave a little lilting laugh.

"You," says she--"you.  I'm not saying but you're a pretty man, and
I've good looks enough for baith--if I loved ye; but, man, my love
would be a flame.  Wid ye burn with me, lad; wid ye burn?"

"I think I would too," said he, "for your een have started the bleeze
a'ready, and I'm dootin' it'll finish in brimstane."

"Ay, ay, Dan; I'm spaein' true.  I jibed at you, although you did not
say the word o' the glens o' the wee creatur' under the hedge there, as
ye might have.  Ye've good blood in ye, lad, and I'm loving your
spirit, but I'm the Belle o' your death, Dan, the Death-Bell.  Now!"

No words of mine can convey my impression of that scene.  There were
the hills, silent and grandly contemptuous, there was a rabbit loping
across the road to the hedge foot, and there the road the woman had
come stretched upwards; but as she spoke some subtle essence seemed to
flood her veins, her sombre eyes flashed, her cheeks glowed darkly, and
she trembled so that I could see her clenched hands flutter like
segans.[1]  It was not excitement, but to my mind as though some vital
powerful force had taken possession of her body and shook it, as an
aspen quivers in a gale.

The power seemed to grow stronger and stronger as she spoke, until with
her word it seemed to break free and envelop us.

Where I have written "Now" she leaned rigidly towards Chieftain and
almost hissed, so sharply came a word between her teeth.  With some
such sound, I think, will the devil unshackle his hounds.  Well for me
that my horses were rugging at the hedge, or I had never been troubled
more with headache.

For the stallion reared his huge bulk into the air with a scream of
brute rage.  I have never heard such a sound since, and never wish to
again.  He turned like an eel, his mouth agape, and the veins round his
nostrils like cord.  His great gleaming teeth snapped like a trap at
his rider's legs, and snapped again after he had a blow on the head
that might have stunned him, and at the hollow sound of it I felt my
teeth take an edge to them.  Twice he reared and fell backwards, and
twice Dan was astride as he rose.  I could see the sweat running down
his face and the bulging of the muscles as his knees pressed and clung
to the heaving spume-spattered flanks.  I think he knew he was fighting
for his life, but his smile seemed graven on his face, though it looked
like the smile of a man in sore distress.  I knew every muscle felt
red-hot, and time would give the victory to the stronger brute.  And
then I saw the change like a lightning-flash.  Dan's shoulders haunched
themselves, his head was low and stretched forward, and a look of the
most devilish ferocity came over his face, his lips were pulled down,
and his eyes almost hidden under the bunched and corrugated brows.

There was a knotted rope rein in his hand, and his arm, brown and bare
to the elbow, and hard as an oak branch, rose, and I saw his teeth
clench till the muscles on his jaws stood out like crab-apples.

"Ye wid fecht wi' me," he crooned--"me, damn ye, me."  At every
reiterated word the rein fell, and the weals rose on the stallion's
neck and flank, and he snorted and screamed with rage.

"Woman," said I, having led the other horses away and returned--"woman
or devil, whatever you are, ye have made a horse mad this day, and now
the man's mad.  Will ye put an end to this business before worse
happens, for the horse is worth siller if the man's regardless, and
there's many a lass will greet herself to sleep till the fires of her
youth are burnt out if harm comes to Dan McBride.  Have ye no pity for
your ain sex?"

"Peety," she cries--"peety for a wheen licht-heided hussies that lo'e
the man best that tells the bonniest lees, or speaks them fairest.  Na,
na, ma lad, nae peety.  I'm watchin' a man that has tied their strings
and kissed their bonny ankles, when he should have let them dry his
sweat wi' their hair an' his feet wi' their braws.[2]  Oh, why, why,"
she kind of wailed--"why will the King aye gang the cadger's road, and
ken himsel' a king, and the cadger a cadger."  The horse, panting and
grunting at every breath, had breenged to the knowe on the roadside,
and still the knotted rein fell; and then with a mighty plunge he
reared up, balanced an instant on hind-legs, and then crashed backwards
and lay, and I felt my heart give a mighty beat as Dan sprang on the
brute's head and lay there, horse and man done.

"Come, you," snarled the man, as though he spoke to a dog; and the girl
went to him.

"Quate the brute," said he, "for he's trimmlin' sair, and I like his
temper a' the better for no' bein' broken."

"Ay, I'll quate the brute, easy as I wid yoursel'."

You may think you know a man till something happens, and you find him a
stranger, and so I found, for at her words the man sprang to his feet
as she soothed the horse.

"Say ye so," said he, and took her by the shoulder--"say ye so.  I've
broken many a horse afore this ane, and, Belle, I'll break you," and I
watched the swarthy flush rise on the girl's face, and looked at the
man's eyes and saw the reason of it.

"Wheest, lad, wheest," she cried; "let me go to the wean."

"Wean--ye never had a wean. . . ."

And then she did a queer thing.  She bent her dark head till I could
not see her eyes, but only the smooth eyelids and dark lashes, and she
put her little brown hand over the man's eyes and stood a picture of
humility, with a sad little smile on her face.

"Don't break me . . . yet," she murmured, and I saw Dan kiss her hand
as she slid it down over his lips, and her face brightened like a
flower in sunlight.

And there were the horses, rugging at the hedge where I had tethered
them; and Chieftain on his feet, shaky and foam-flecked, and trembling
at his knees; and the gipsy lass's wean greetin' at the hedge foot,
with one wee bare arm clear of the shawl, seeming to beckon all the
world to its aid.

And Belle the gipsy lass lifted the child and wrapped her in the shawl,
and took the road in front of us.  I had mind of Belle when she was the
bonniest lass among a wheen of black-avised Eastern folk, that camped
for many's the year on the ground of Scaurdale, where my uncle's
friend, John o' Scaurdale, farmed land; but I was not prepared for her
strange powers on horse, or for the beauty of her, and I think Dan was
of my way of thinking also, for at the stable door says he: "I think,
Hamish, a fee from John o' Scaurdale would not be such a bad thing with
a lass like Belle to be seeing in the gloaming."


[1] Ires--"flags."

[2] Costly apparel.



CHAPTER II.

MAKES SOME MENTION OF ONE JOCK McGILP, AND TELLS HOW BELLE BROUGHT
  THE WEAN IN THE TARTAN SHAWL INTO THE HOUSE OF NOURN.

Nourn was home to me in my holidays and vacations from the college, and
here I was back again for good, having become Magister Artium and well
acquainted with the plane-stanes and glaber of the town of
Glasgow--back again to the green countryside on my uncle's land of
Nourn, concerned more about horses and cattle beasts than with the
Arts, and with enough siller left me by my parents to be able to follow
my inclinations.

My uncle--the Laird of Nourn, as he was called--had married kind of
late, a common habit where the years bring strength and not eld; and
Dan, his brother Ewan the soldier's son, had been at Nourn since he
could creep, being early left an orphan.

On the Sunday after the coming of Belle the gipsy I lay long abed.  In
those days my cousin Dan and I made a practice of sleeping above the
horses, "to be near them," as Dan said; but for myself I aye thought it
would be that he might the easier slip out at night, and in again in
the morning, and nobody the wiser.

In the years I would be at the college Dan had become airt and pairt of
every wildness in the countryside, and in these times every man with
red blood in him was concerned with the smuggling or the distilling of
whisky,--and that is the reason that mothers were wishful that their
sons should be able to "take a horse by the head and a boat by the
helm," for these would be very needful attributes in a handy lad.

And lying there in bed I minded how I once fell in with Jock McGilp,
the captain of the smuggler _Seagull_, a man that sailed the _Gull_
like a witch, and cracked his fingers at the Revenue cutters, and this
was the way of it.

When I was a lonely boy, dreaming dreams of ages past and long ago, I
had a favourite haunt.  I made my way to the graveyard and lay among
the long lush grass, for the grass grew nowhere so long or so full of
sap as in the graveyard, and I thought of all the great warriors of our
glens whose bones had been laid in this place, and shivered to think of
the hot red blood stilled in death, and the grass roots creeping
downwards like tentacles into the chinks of the wood, and sending up
great fat greasy blades that sweated in the sun.  I hated the grass
roots, and dreamed horribly of them piercing into my heart, and drawing
the life-blood to feed the bloated sweaty leaves, but the graveyard had
an awful fascination for me.  Sometimes old men would wander inside the
dyke and move slowly to a rude stone and sit there, and I would hear
great sighs bursting into the quiet afternoon, when the sun always beat
down.  But I liked the old men for being there when the ivy rustled on
the ruined old chapel wall when the wind was lost, and the starlings
flew affrighted from their nests over the mural tablet that told all
men to--

  FIR GOD
  16--

And I feared God very much, and spoke to Him often in my lonely
wanderings, when I saw wee men in green coats among the heather, but
oftener on the soft green turfy bits on the hill.  And one awful time
when the hill road was all silent and the grasshoppers hidden and
quiet, an eerie humming came into my ears like a language I could not
understand, and I felt myself waiting for something.  Round the turn of
the hill before you come to the old quarry it came, and I stopped
stricken as a rabbit when a snake sways before it, for there came
towards me a thing like a dog--but such a dog--its shaggy coat was
white and its ears only were black, and as it passed its tongue lolled
out, and it looked at me through blue eyes with black rims, and I think
I feared that thing more than God.  But always before I left the
graveyard for my hill road home I crept up to a window, and looked into
a part of the chapel that was walled off and dark.  Great brambles grew
in this space and nettles of phenomenal size, with ugly fleshy-looking
clots of seeds on them.  A gnarled ash-tree had grown and broken the
wall, but over against the broken wall were great stones, and one of
these I liked best of all, for it made the blood tingle down my back
and my eyes see visions.  On a warm Sunday I lay half in the window
resting on the sill, for the walls were very thick, and I gazed at the
foot of the great stone where a plumed helmet was carved, and a sword
in its sheath; and round the helmet and sword battle-gear lay as though
the warrior had flung down his harness as he rested.  In imagination I
had girt me with the sword, the plumed helmet was on my head, when my
feet were seized and a rumbling voice cried--

"Can ye read?"

"Ay."

"Read that stane.  I'm no' a bawkin."

  "BLENHEIM.
  BAMILLIES.
  OUDENARDE.
  MALPLAQUET."


"Thayse the battles; read the man's name.

  "MAJOR EWAN McBRIDE."


"Ay, ay; come oot," and I was pulled out of the window, and an enormous
man stood before me, looking at me with a queer smile, and scratching
his neck till I could hear the hairs of his whiskers crickle and snap
like breaking twigs.

"D'ye ken who Major Ewan McBride was?"

"No."

"Well--Dan's faither; he was kilt; he's no in there at a'--it's a
peety, for things wid hiv been different.

"Eat ye your pease-brose and keep clear o' the weemen, and ye'll be as
great a man as him, but never say a word tae Dan.  Says you, when ye go
home and see him wi' nobody aboot, says you: 'Jock McGilp was saying
the turf's in and the gull's a bonny bird.'  Mind it noo; '_The turfs
in_' and '_the gull's a bonny bird_.'"

And that night so long ago, when Dan and I kneeled on the stone-flagged
floor beside one another and listened to my uncle pray and pray and
pray in Gaelic, I whispered--

"Dan."

"What?"

"Jock McGilp was saying . . ."

Uncle gave a great pause after asking "a clean heart," and Dan
whispered--

"Come nearer, ye devil, and don't speak so loud, or a' the servants 'll
be damned and sent to hell for lack o' attention."

"Jock McGilp was saying the turf was in and the seagull's a bonny bird."

"Wheest noo and listen, ye graceless deevil. . . ."

For a week after that I never saw Dan, but my uncle got sterner and
sterner, and when Dan returned, loud voices I heard in the night and
slamming doors, but Dan was whistling among his horses at cock-crow,
and told me I took after my mother's folk and would be a man yet. . . .

But on this April Sunday, after the week of ploughing stubble, we lay
long and listened to the pleasant rattling of horse chains, and
rustling of bedding, when the horses pawed for their morning meal.
There was the sun, well up on his day's journey, and a whole day to be
and enjoy him in.  And we rose and took our breakfast, and daunered to
the far fields, and inspected the young beasts, picking out the good
ones with many a knowing observation on heads and pasterns and hocks,
and then round the wrought land, and over the fields where a drain had
choked, and the rushes marked its course.  We mapped out how this
should be mended and strolled back to the stable, and lay in an empty
stall where some hay had been left, and waited until dinner, with the
shepherd's dogs lying watching their masters, and the herds and
ploughmen telling terrible stories of one Mal-mo-Hollovan.  Into this
peaceful scene came rushing a lass with the word that the Laird was at
church, as he should be, and Belle the gipsy wanted speech wi' the
mistress.

"An' why no', my lass?" said Dan; "she'll no' bite the mistress."

"The black eyes o' her, and the air o' her,--speech wi' the mistress,
indeed--the tinker!"

"Jean," said Dan, "be canny wi' Belle, or she'll put such a spell on ye
that ye'll no' hear your lad whistling ootside your window, and the
first thing ye'll ken he'll be inside, and you maybe in your sark."

"Ye ken too much aboot sich truck and trollop and the wey in by
windows," cried Jean, her face like the heart o' the fire; for her lad
was looking sheepishly at her from the corn-kist.

"Well, well, let Belle alane, or I'll be puttin' mysel' in Tam's
place," and poor Tam could only grin with a very red face.

And so it came that Belle made her way to the old room where the
mistress, my uncle's wife, was abed, after the birth of her son, about
whom the women-folk talked and laughed in corners, and looked so
disdainful at poor men-folk, that Dan said--

"It's a peety for the wean, wi' a' these weemen waitin' till he grows
up.  I'm dootin' he'll be swept oot o' his ain hoose wi' petticoats,
and take up wi' the dark-skinned beauties in the far glens, like Esau."

And sorely put out were the women when Dan, referring to the heir, said
he'd come in time for the best o' the grass.

"If the colt has got plenty o' daylight below him, and middlin' clean
o' the bane, he'll thrive right enough!"  The heir of all Nourn a leggy
colt!  There was nothing but black looks and pursed-up lips till even
the easy-going cause o' the change said drily enough: "They're damned
ill tae leeve wi' whiles, a man's ain weemen-folk, Hamish, an' I meant
the bairn nae ill either."

Well, Belle was ta'en to the old room where the mistress, my uncle's
wife, lay abed--her they ca'ed the Leddy, a fine strapping woman, with
kindly hands to man and beast and a wheedling, coaxing way with her,
though she could be cold and haughty at times, for she came of fighting
stock, and could not thole clavering and fussing, and I think she would
not hasten her stately step to be in time for the Last Judgment, for
the pride of her.

The room was fine and cool, with a wood fire spluttering in the great
stone fireplace, and the light playing on the carved pillars of the
canopied bed, and blinking on the oak panels; but it was a fine room,
with deerskin rugs here and there on the floor, and space to move about
without smashing trumpery that women collect round them, God knows why,
except to hide the lines of the building.

My aunt lay there on the great bed, her dark hair damp and clinging to
the white brow, and one arm crooked round her child, and she was gazing
at his head where the hair was already thickening, when Belle came to
the bedside.

"It's not red," said my aunt.  "I feared it would be red, for there are
red ones here and there in his house . . . look, woman, it's not red;
it will not be red."

"Na, na, it's fair, Leddy--fair and fause; but it'll darken wi' the
years, never fear.  What ails ye at rid, Leddy--the prettiest man in
these parts is rid enough?"

"Poor Dan," cried my aunt, with a bright smile and no hesitation.  "The
Laird tells me he's wasted enough keep for many bullocks laying the
yard with straw lest his horses should wake me in the mornings, but
I've missed his songs lying here.  They were merry enough too in the
fine spring mornings if the words were . . ."  And a delicate flush
crept over her neck and face, and she smiled a little as at the fault
of some wayward boy.

The door was opened softly, and a tall woman entered--a tall woman with
a world of sorrow in her wise old eyes, and years of patience in the
clasp of her hands.

"Betty," cried the patient--"Betty, is everything done well, now I'm
tied to my son," and she put her cheek to the downy head.

"The weemen are flighty and the lads are quate, and the hoose will no'
be itsel' till ye will be moving about again, an' Miss Janet's lad
will . . ."

"I will not have Dan called that, Betty," says my aunt.  "Ewan
McBride's lad he is, if ye must deave me with his forebears . . ."

"My dearie, my ain dearie, did I not nurse his mother when she grat
ower his wee body and a' the warl' was turned on her, and her man at
the great wars.  Ech, ech, a weary time, and her crying to him in the
nicht, and throwin' oot her white arms in the stillness and crying: 'My
brave fierce lad, my brave wild lover, come back and let me dee wi'
your arms aboot me.'  Ay, and her wild lad, her kindly lad, lying stark
on yon bluidy field and the corbies maybe at his bonny blue een.  I
love Dan, for I took him frae his mither's caul' breast; but ech, why
will he be shaming his name, and shaming his ain sel'--but I shouldna
be haverin', my dearie . . . and here's your soup now."

Jean--she of the stable raid--with a haughty look at the gipsy, who had
stood in a corner by the fire all this time, came with the bowl of
soup, but Belle slid forward noiselessly.

"Is it soup, Jean?" says she, and the wench stopped.  "Skim the fat off
it, then, for I saw a hussy like you gi'e her mistress soup like
that--and she died."  My aunt sat up in her bed, her face very stern
when Betty talked of Dan shaming himself and his name.

"I will know this," she cried.  "I am not ill any more--who is the
woman?"

Jean would have spoken at this, but the gipsy whispered: "Begone, or
I'll turn your hair white as the driven snaw," and the wench fled with
her soup, and spilled most of it in the stone-flagged corridor leading
to the kitchen, where she sat and trembled and grat her fill, every now
and again catching her yellow locks to make sure no change had started
yet.

So here we have Betty whispering--

"Don't vex yoursel', my Leddy; it's juist the lassie's clavers, for
Jean cam' in frae the stable, where she had nae right to be, except to
be seein' her lad--they ha'e lads on the brain the lassies noo--and
greetin' that young Dan had shamed her before the men, and a' because
o' a tinker body like Belle here, although the great folk will treat
her so kindly; no' that I mean her any harm," she added (erring on the
safe side, for Belle's eyes had begun to glow finely); "and then in
came Kate and Leezie wi' a tale o' a wean, tied in a tartan shawl,
lying in a biss in the wee byre.  Then and there they faithered and
mithered the bairn, the useless hussies. . . ."  The mother's haughty
eyes turned to the gipsy.

"I never found you lying, Belle.  Is this story true?--a bonny family
is this to be among," she cried, her hand pressing the child closer,
and maybe she pressed him too tightly, for the boy doubled his baby
fist, his wee voice whimpered, and his outflung arm struck his mother
in the face.

"Oh, oh," she cried; "will you turn on me too, and leave me for
farmer's wenches and tinker women like the lave of your folk?"

The gipsy lass was on her knees at the bedside.

"Lady," she cries, and her face was finely aglow, "nae wonder ye
grieved aboot the colour o' the bairn's hair.  Are ye a' Dan mad?"
Then when she saw the anger in the mother's eyes she cries--

"Ye'll maybe be in a mood to listen to the truth now."

"I'm in a fine mood to have ye whipped from my doors, ye
shameless . . ."

"Ay, shameless, madam, if I love I'll be that, but if I have a man I'll
share him wi' nane, and you'll not be yourself to be believing these
false tales; and you, Betty, I had thought ye had seen sorrow enough
without brimming your cup over.  It's true I left a wean sleeping in
the sweet hay; was there harm in that?  She's lain wi' me in the stable
lofts and outlying barns these many nights, but the wean is nane o'
mine.  It's an ill bird that fouls its ain nest, Betty, and when a' the
auld wives are shakin' their mutches at the end o' peat stacks and
sayin', 'This'll be another o' _his_; ye might have asked yourself
_how_?  The poor wee mitherless mite; her feet will be on the neck o'
her enemies, and, mistress, maybe I can tell ye why.  I hinna leed tae
ye yet, and ye can whip me from your doors if ye will, but hard, hard
will it fa' on them that raise the scourge."

Such a look passed between these two, so full of meaning, that my aunt
told Betty to leave her.

"And keep better manners among your wenches," said she, "for I will not
have Dan tormented with the baggage; and tell him I hope my son will
grow tall and strong like him, for I will be mindful of his kindness."

"Indeed, indeed, he would be very good, my dearie," cried Betty,
anxious to make amends.  "When ye were taken ill he lay in the kitchen
the lang night through, and his horse saddled and bridled ready in his
stall; ay, and he would not go to bed for the Laird himsel'.  Indeed,
many a wild night he galloped through, and him oot in the morning when
the doctor had left."

Belle had slipped out as the old woman was speaking, and now came back
with her tartan bundle; and when Betty had left the room the gipsy took
from the shawl a wean that cried so lustily that it wakened the heir to
all Nourn.

As the women whispered and crooned over the bairns, their cries
resounded through the house, and made it no place for men-folk.

But crossing the yard, Betty beckoned me with a crooked forefinger.

"Who's wean is that, think ye, Hamish, that Belle brought here?"

"I think you should be asking Belle," said I.

"Ask here or ask there," says Betty, "the wean has a look o'--dinna be
feart, my lad--the wean has the look o' John o' Scaurdale.  And that,"
says she, "would be fair scandalous."

But after Betty's jalousing I had a word or two with Dan McBride, my
cousin.

"Wean," says he, "and Betty thinks the bairn has a look o' John o'
Scaurdale.  It beats me, the cleverness of that woman.  This is the
story I got from Belle, Hamish.  It's a little dreich, but it will be
as well that ye should ken."

"Well," says Dan, "when ye were at the College in the toon and learning
yer tasks, there was a lass came to stop at Scaurdale, a niece she was
to the Laird there (a sister's wean, I am thinking), very prim and
bonny she was, and fu' o' nonsensical book-lore.  She took a liking to
the place, and there are some that pretend to ken, that say she took
mair than a liking to the Laird's son.  I would not say for that; he
was a brisk lad for so douce a lady.  Well, well, Hamish, they cast
out, and away goes the lass in a huff to her ain folk, and then back
comes the word o' her wedding (some South-country birkie her man was,
o' the name o' Stockdale, if I mind it right), and when that word came,
John o' Scaurdale's son was like to go out at the rigging.  We'll say
naething about that, Hamish; ye ken what came on him: his horse threw
him at the Laird's Turn yonder, and he never steered--he was by wi' it."

"What has this to do with Belle's wean?" said I.

"Belle's wean!  Man, Belle never had a wean.  That bairn is
Stockdale's; and I'm hearing," said he, "that Scaurdale's niece, the
mother of it, sent word to her uncle to take away the bairn, for her
man turned out an ill-doer, and it's like she would be feart.  But I
ken this much, Hamish, Belle is waiting word from Scaurdale, and," says
he, "they ken all the outs and ins of it, our friends here, and
whenever it will be safe the wean will go to John o' Scaurdale."

"Scaurdale is not so far from here," said I.  "Could Belle not have
taken the bairn there at the first go off?"

"I thought ye had mair heid, Hamish.  There's aye plenty o' gossips in
the world, and Scaurdale will want this business kept quiet."

"In plain words," said I, "the wean has been stolen away from her
father with the mother's help."

"That's just it precisely, Hamish; and what better place could she be
hidden than here, with Scaurdale and your uncle so very friendly, and
this so quiet a place?"




CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH I CHASE DEER AND SEE STRANGE HORSEMEN ON THE HILL,
  AND A LIGHT FLASHING ON THE SEA.

The corn was in the stackyard and the stacks thatched, and all that
summer Belle and her wean stayed with us, the lass working at the
weeding and the harvesting, and the wean well cared for, for the
mistress remained not long abed after the spaewife's coming.  Belle's
wean might be "a tinker's brat" in whispered corners in byres and
hay-sheds, where the wenches could claver out of hearing, but the
Laird's son got no better attention than the tinker's brat when the
mistress was near.

And now that the corn was secure and the stackyard full, the deer came
down from the hills and lay close to till nightfall, and then wrought
havoc in the turnip-drills, and I noticed that, like cows in a field of
grain, they spoiled more crop than they ate, both of potatoes and
turnips; and, indeed, it angered a man to see his good root-crops
haggled and thrawn with the thin-flanked beasts, like the lean cattle,
and I thought to go round the hill dyke with the dogs on an October
evening, and harry them back to their heather and bracken again.

It was early in the evening, so I took my stick and daunered to the
hay-shed (which was next to the planting) behind the stackyard, for I
liked the noise of the wood, and would lie on the hay and listen to the
scurry of the rabbits, the rippling note of the cushats in the
tree-tops, and watch for the coming of the white owls that flitted
among the trees.  And as I lay on the sweet-smelling clovery hay there
came over me a drowsiness, for I had been early abroad, and I dovered
and dovered till sleep and waking were mingled, and strange voices came
into my ears; and then I knew the voices, and felt myself go hot all
over, for I could not move or I would be discovered with the rustling
of the hay.

"I have waited long for ye, my bonny dark lass, waited when I was
shivering to take ye in my arms," and I could see Dan lean forward and
look into Belle's black eyes, one great arm round her shoulders and his
hand below her chin, and she was bonny, bonny in the blink o' the moon.

"Ye were a good lad," says she, smiling up at him; "it whiles made me
angry ye would be so good, and I would be lying at night thinking ye
had forgotten the gipsy lass, and would be assourying[1] wi'
red-cheeked, long-legged farmer lassies; and then ye would be coming to
my window and knocking, and I was glad, and listened and listened for
ye to be coming, although ye would not be knowing from me at all, and I
would be cold, cold to ye. . . ."

"My dear, it's news to me," cried he, in great wonder, "for never a
knock did I knock," and his eyes were laughing down at her.

"What!" she cries; "what!  And who would be daring?"

"That's just what I cannot say, for the lads think ye're no' canny some
way, but maistly because the weemen hiv them under their thumbs, so I'm
thinkin' it must just have been Hamish."

It was on the tip of my tongue to cry out at that, but I saw by his
face that he could not help hurting gently whatever he liked, and he
had no thought for me at all, but waited for the girl to speak.  The
great sombre eyes were looking up at him, and the moon glintin' on her
teeth as, her red lips parted, a brown hand fluttered about the man's
breast.

"You would be knocking.  I am wantin' you to be knocking," she cried,
"for I am only a wicked gipsy lass. . . ."

I saw the man stretch her back with a straightening of his arm; I saw
the limber length of him, the lean flank and the curve of his chest, as
he half lay on the hay.

"I am wishing ye to be knocking," he mimicked in a half-fierce,
half-laughing voice, "for I am only a wicked gipsy lass"; and again,
"My dear, my dear, I'm not seeing much wickedness in a' this, and so I
must be creeping out and knockin' on a lass that will not be saying a
civil word to me, let alone a kiss in the gloamin'."

"Oh," she lilted, "oh, so you would be knocking to that unkind lass;"
and then in a far-away voice, "Will you be remembering that place where
I found you, when I would be running a wild thing like a young
foal? . . ."

"Bonnily, Belle, bonnily I mind ye--a long-legged, black-maned filly ye
were, and the big eyes o' ye, I began to love ye then. . . ."

"It would be terrible and you lying in the stall beside your horse at
that place, and them not going near you, and you only a boy.  I will be
dreaming of the horse tramping your face yet."

"I'll teach ye something better to be dreaming than that, dear lass,
for I was only a boy then, and I was carrying a man's share o' French
brandy, more shame to me.  I had nae sense at all, to be lying beside
the horse, and him a kittle brute too; but I'll aye be mindin' ye
coorieing ower me, and greetin' for a' that, when the men o' the
_Seagull_ were feart tae venture into the stall, being sailors and
strange wi' horse."

Among the hay there I remembered the loud voices and the slamming of
doors in the night, and Jock McGilp and his message about the "turf
being in"; and here it was coming round that these two had met then,
and I somehow had helped to bring them together.

"I will be asking you to do me a service the night," I heard the girl
say.

"I'm thinkin' that, my dear, will it be ridin' for the priest, for
indeed you're such a _wicked_ lass I see nae ither way for it.  I canna
aye be knockin' when your wickedness keeps me in the caul' . . . ."

"Come," she cried, rising, "come, for we will have been dallying too
long, and I did give my word to Scaurdale.  I will not be listening any
more to your talk."

"Where fell ye across that grizzly dog, John, Laird o' Scaurdale?" said
Dan as they rose.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

So I waited until the hay was all quiet and the lovers gone, and I got
the dogs and went after the deer.

Outside the dyke I found them herded, their sentinels posted like an
army resting, and away they headed, the collies at their heels, and me
racing through bracken and heather and burn, after seeing them clearing
a rise and disappearing, the big antlers like branching trees.  Away
and away I followed, till the dogs' barking was faint in the night and
the three lonely hills were looming before me, and I saw the wild-fire
glimmer on the peat-bogs and the moon going down as I whistled and
whistled for the dogs.

And as I waited I heard the thud, thud, thud of horses galloping, and
then the jangle of bridle-chains, and I lay down in the heather.  Two
horsemen passed me, wrapped in their riding-cloaks, and after a while a
light jumped out on the hillside, and I knew the horsemen had stopped
at the old empty shepherd's house, and I made my way there, for since
old McCurdy died the house had been empty.  I could hear the dogs
barking away among the hills, and the rustle of the night-folks among
the dry heather as I cautiously rounded the "but and ben," and there at
the door were the two horses that had passed me.  Quietly I crawled
into a clump of heather and lay a-watching, and turned in my mind
everything I might be a witness to, and found no answer.  Then, away
behind me, I heard a horse neigh, and the tethered horses answered, and
a gaunt figure, white-haired and martial, stalked through the door, and
I knew John, Laird of Scaurdale, waited, he and his man.

I heard a laughing voice on the night wind.

"It's a great thing to have a lass on the saddle wi' ye, Belle, ye can
kiss her at every stride," and Belle's answer must have been kissed
into silence, for I never heard it.

There came Dan on our best horse, an upstanding raking bay, and in
front of him was Belle with the wean in the tartan shawl.  The servant
lifted Belle from the saddle, and Dan, looking awkward in the glow from
the window, held the tartan bundle, then handed it to the gipsy, and
all of them went in, and I was left alone on my heather tussock.  Maybe
ten minutes passed, and the servant came out and led the horses to the
back, where there was a sheepfold and a well, and I heard him drawing
water, and in a little time he entered the house, an empty sack in his
hand, and I knew the horses were at their feed, and crawled up to the
lighted window and peered in.  The Laird was striding up and down the
narrow room, his fierce old face twitching, the body-servant stood by
the door like a wooden man, and Dan, as though the ploy pleased him,
smiled at the gipsy, who held the wean.

The Laird's words came clearly--

"She would have the false knave, she was afraid o' my stern lad and
would have the carpet-knight--the poor wee lass; but she minded her
cousin--she minded my boy at the end o' a' when she hated the
Englishman.  I ken fine how her pride suffered before she sent me word,
but the word cam' at the hinder end.  Belle," said he, stopping his
march, "ye have done finely wi' your lad an' a'."

"It's not me he'll be lookin' at, sir," wi' a toss of her head.

"The bigger fool him; it was a' grist that cam' to my mill when I was
mowing down the twenties."

"Ay, Laird," says Dan wi' a bold look, "I've heard it said ye kept the
ministers in texts for many a day, and the sins o' the great made the
poor folks' teeth water from wan Sunday till the next."

"I had thought them more concerned wi' brewing their whisky and
poaching than in the inside o' a kirk," growled the Laird, for he was
choleric when reminded of his past by any but his own conscience, which
had turned in on itself, and grown morbid as a result.

"It's a grand place the kirk, sir; I've seen and heard enough there to
keep me cheery a' week.  There was the time when we walked there in
droves, and would be takin' a look at the beasts in the parks as we
went, and often the beasts would be turned on the roadside, for a man
might buy on Monday what he only saw on Sunday.  Once, going by
Hector's, the lassies wi' their shoon in their hands, were walkin'
easier barefit and savin' shoe leather, and a young Embro' leddy, wi' a
hooped skirt wi' the braidin' like theek rope on a stack, and
high-heeled shoon, looked disdainfu' at them.  Well, well, the pigs
were on the roadside at Hector's, and they kent the barefit lassies;
but the grand lady they didna ken at all, and one caught her gown by
the braidin' and scattered away reivin' and tearin', and set the lady
spinning like a peerie, and the lassies laughed and cried 'suckie,
suckie,' and put on their boots to go into the kirk, well put on, and
in a rale godly frame o' mind."

Belle had the wean wrapped in the cloak the servant had provided and
was croonin' ower it, and the body-servant was waitin' for orders, and
there stood Dan and the Laird as though loath to part, and them on
business that might mean worse than burnin' stackyards.  And it came to
me that Scaurdale was not the man to be cherishing any tinker's whelp,
not even if he had fair claim to.

"And what lesson did ye get that day, Sir Churchman?"

"Pride goeth before a fall," says Dan, "but that was a bad day for me."

"And how?" cried Scaurdale, and I could see he was wasting time on
purpose.

"Indeed it was no fault o' mine, for between the shepherds' dogs
huntin' aboot till the church scaled, and the pigs lookin' for
diversion, a kind o' hunt got up, and a pig came into the church wi' a'
the collies in full cry and made a bonny to-do among the Elect.  The
poor beast made a breenge and got a hat on its snout, and then a fling
o' its heid ended matters, and there was the pig in the deacon's hat,
and sair pit aboot was the pig, and sairer the deacon.

"Aweel, I was reproved and reminded o' the time when I had had a sermon
a' tae masel'; but the end crowned a', for I had killed an adder that
morning on the road, and put the beast in my pouch for Hamish.  In the
middle o' the sermon, after the Gadarene swine and the dogs were
outside, the adder somewie cam' alive and crawled on to the aisle, and
the minister eyed it, and then me, and I felt hot and caul', for I
didna ken o' any new evil that might hiv reached him, and I didna see
the beast till the preacher stopped and pointed.

"'Man o' evil,' he cried, 'take the image o' your father and go hence,'
and so I'm clean lost," said Dan, wi' a comical sigh.

I had just time to lay myself flat in the heather before the servant
came out and walked to the top o' the rise.  I could see the loom o'
him against the skyline, for the moon was now very low, and then he
whistled, and Dan came leading the horses, and the gipsy carrying the
wean.  I crawled to the rise but farther away, and prayed that the dogs
had gone home and would not get wind o' me.  For a while they stood,
Dan and the body-servant at the horses' heads, and the Laird a little
apart, and then I heard Dan--

"Yon's him at last," says he, and I saw a light glimmer for a little
away out at sea, and the servant ran back to the hut and brought the
lighted lantern, and three times he covered it with his cloak, and
three times he swung it bare, and I saw the long black shadow of the
horses' legs start away into the darkness, and then away out to sea a
flare glimmered three times and all was dark.

"Easy going," says Dan; "McGilp has nae wind to come close in, and it's
a long pull to the cove."

The Laird swung himself to the saddle, and as the servant mounted,
Belle made to give him the tartan bundle, but John, Laird o' Scaurdale,
trusted none but himself on a night ride over the road to Scaurdale.

"Give me the wean," says he, and loosened his cloak.  Belle held the
wee bundle to him, and he put it in the crook of his arm.

"Ye will be a great one and whip the tinkers from your door, my dear,"
whispered Belle to the sleeping infant, "but ye've lain in the heather,
and listened tae the noises o' the hill nights, and the burns, and the
clean growing things, and maybe ye'll mind them dimly in your heart and
be kind when ye come to your kingdom."

At that Scaurdale leant over his saddle.

"Ye'll never be in want if ye knock at my door, so long as the mortar
holds the stanes thegither."

"Good night to you, Sir Churchman; I'm in nae swither whether I would
change places wi' ye the night, but weemen are daft craturs, poor
things, and I've had my day."

Then there came the swish, swish o' galloping hoofs in dry bracken, for
Scaurdale was a bog-trooper and born wi' spurs on, and I heard the
whimper o' the wean, and a gruff voice petting.  Belle was greetin'
softly, and as Dan made to lift her in the saddle--

"I will not be sitting that way again," she cried; and I know, because
her heart was sore, she must be sharp with a man that had done nothing
to anger her that I could see.

"Aweel, I was aye a bonny rinner," says Dan.  "When I was herdin' and
the beasts lay down behind the black hill in the forenoon, I could rin
tae the Wineport and back before they were rising."  I laughed to think
how we estimate time in the college by the rules of Physics, and how
the herd on the moorside did, and wondered who but he could say how
long a cow beast would lie and chew her cud, and how many miles a man
could run in the time she took to chew it.

"I will not be having you running at all, and, indeed, you have been
kind and good to me.  But why should I be going back to that place when
the thing is done I came to be doing?  I will go away to my own folk,
and you will be forgetting me."

"I'll never be forgettin' you," says he, calling her pet words that
made me wish myself far enough away, for I was shy of lovers' talk, and
he held her to his breast and spoke quickly, and turned and caught the
bridle of his horse.

"No," cried the lass--"no, I will not be staying here," and I was glad
the moon was clouded at her words, "and you will not be seeing me till
I am grown old and wrinkled like a granny."

At that he gathered her in his arms, and for a while I saw only his
head and not her face at all, except just a blur that looked pale, and
then I heard her say--

"You will be saying that to all these other women, for you will be
wicked."

"Not wicked any more, lass.  I'll just be loving you, and why are ye
turned soft; where is the lass that asked me would I burn?"

"Indeed, it is just with you I will be too gentle, I think, all my
days, for ye will be a brute and a baby, all in one, and yet you would
be aye kind to me.  I could not be tholing another man after ye."

"I think I would not be tholing that either, my dear," cried he in a
fierce voice, "but the lantern has to be lighted and the fire.  Maybe
ye'll let me do that much for you," and this time I saw her smiling,
and clinging to him with both her hands.

At the door she waited till he had made the horse comfortable in the
stone fanks,[2] and when he joined her she stretched her arms up and
pulled his head down.

"I am wishing to do this," she said, and kissed him on the mouth.  "You
will not be loving any more but me," and she struck him lightly but
with fierce abandon on the cheek, and I heard him laughing, and then
the door opened and closed, and I had all the hills to myself.  A great
loneliness came over me, and I wished the dogs had waited.

And as I made my way home, I thought of that little whimpering wean in
the crook of Scaurdale's arm, and wondered how she would fare on board
the _Gull_, for by Dan's word I kent McGilp had shone the flare away
seaward.  Scaurdale, it seemed, would be hiding the wean in fair
earnest now, and McGilp I kent would whiles be on the French coast.
But never a word did I get from Dan for many's the day about Belle, or
McGilp, or Scaurdale--we talked of horses and sheep, until the coming
of Neil Beg.


[1] Courting, clandestine courtship.

[2] Sheepfold.




CHAPTER IV.

I MEET JOCK McGILP AND HIS MATE McNEILAGE AT THE TURF INN, AND
  LEARN WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE WEAN IN THE TARTAN SHAWL.

We were at common work enough, Dan and me, in the Blair Mhor when the
night clouds were banking behind the Blackhill to swoop down on the
fast flying winter afternoon.  Indeed, it was a matter of a braxy ewe,
and the poor beast lay at the hedge-side and the blood clotting at her
throat, for Dan had bled her, and the briars o' many a brake trailed
behind her.

"Braxy and oatmeal, Hamish," says he, "there's many a lusty lad reared
on worse; but we'll be hivin' tatties and herrin' for a change, and
plenty o' sour milk tae slocken the drouth o' it."

And as he stooped to tie the ewe's clits together to make her a handier
load, I looked round me at the cold bare trees, asleep till the spring
would waken them with sap.  The hills were bleak and barren, the rocks
harsh and cold with no warm crotal on them, and just the reek from the
houses rising into the frosty sky.

The night was just down on us, when I heard the lilt o' a whistle,
clear as a whaup's, and with a great melody.  To us there came
whistling a kilted lad, his knees red as collops, for he had waded the
burn, and the cheeks o' him glowing like wild roses.

"Ah-ha, Neil Veg," cries Dan, for he made a work wi' weans always, "is
it stravagin' after the lassies ye are this bonny nicht?"

"Indeed no, it iss not that; it's yourself I'll be after," shrilled the
lad, wi' a burning face.

"And what for will ye be after me, Neil Veg?"

"I will be tellin' you by yourself alone, for my father will be sayin'
to me, 'Did you find him, and him alone? '"

At that Dan took him a step aside, with a wink to me not to be minding,
and the lad delivered his message in Gaelic and sped away, and his
clear whistle came back to us.

"A brave lad, Hamish," says Dan; "he'll have listened to a' the ghost
and bogle and bawkin stories since he could creep, and yet he'll
whistle himsel' safe ower the hill and be too proud tae run, an' I'm
thinkin' every muircock that craws, and every whaup that cries, out on
the peat-hags, will be a bogle in his childish mind."

"There's truth in that," said I, "and I wish I could be hearin' the
stories, for you have not the way o' telling them.  Ye will not be
believing them."

"Come ye raikin' wi' me the night and maybe ye'll be hearing some o'
them," says Dan, and so when the horses were bedded and the kye
fothered, we slipped through the planting and took the old peat road
for it, and that I was to hear stories was all that he would tell me.

We came out on the old road to the cove, and rough enough passage we
made, for a hill burn that crossed the bare rock o' the road had frozen
and melted and frozen again, so that on the worst o' the hill we took
our hands and knees for it, and even that comedown to a hillman was
better than breaking our necks over the rocks on the low side, for the
track was whiles no more than a scratch along a precipice.

When we came on to good heather again Dan stopped me.

"Bide a wee, bide a wee, James," and he took a step from me, and there
came at my very ear the lone night-cry of a gull, so weird and
melancholy a sound, that but for a low laugh beside me again I would
have sworn the bird had passed in the darkness.

"Listen," says he; "I startled ye first with your Christian name, and
ye were so made up wi' it, ye wid believe a gull brushed your lug; but
listen, Hamish, listen."

From out of the night came the answer, and in my mind there came the
picture I had often watched, the grey night seas and the lonely gull
flying low, and ever and anon voicing its cry as though it mourned the
lost spirit of the deep.

"There's just the two roads, you see, the shore road and the hill road,
and a strange foot carries far, and there's aye a lad on the watch when
the 'turf's in.'"

So that was Wee Neil's message; McGilp and his crew would be ashore, as
many as could be spared from the schooner, and we were making for the
Turf Inn, and as we travelled I asked why it came to be called that.
"It's a long story," said Dan, "but maybe ye'll have noticed a hole in
a smiddy wall, where they will be throwing out the ashes.  Well, in
this lonely place here, there werena many to trouble, and it cam' to be
known that a man could get a dram if he paid for it, and as much as he
liked to be payin' for.  Well, well, a stranger cam' in one day and
asked refreshment and got it, and then he plankit down a gowden guinea
and waited for his change, for the stranger was a ganger, and here was
a capture just waitin' for him.

"Well, he waited and waited and cracked away wi' the lass, for there
seemed nobody about but just Meg the gleevitch, and she had talk eno'
for five men, and a trim pair o' ankles forbye.

"'I'll be goin' now, mistress,' says the stranger, rising.

"'I'm sorry for that,' says Meg, and looked as if she meant it.

"'If ye'll just give me my change. . . .'

"'Change!' she cries, 'God save us, change; we sell naething here,' and
she lifted the guinea oot the old jug on the shelf and handed it back.
'I thought it was just a present,' says she, makin' eyes at him, 'for a
thankfu' man's free wi' his siller.  Ye were lucky to get the only drop
o' drink in the hoose,'--and that was true enough, for the time they
had been talkin' and Meg kiltin' her skirt tae kind o' divert the
stranger's attention, the lads had the keg in a safe place.  Aweel, and
so he had just to take shank's mare for it.  I'll come back tae the
hole in the wa'.  There was one in the old house, and Meg cut a divot
and stuffed the hole wi' it if there was nae danger, and if she had
word o' excisemen or gaugers on the lookout for smuggling she took the
turf oot, and that's how the place got it's name (and why we pass the
word that the 'turf's in' if there's word o' a run), but it must have
hurt Meg to gie back the guinea, for she's a wild long eye for siller."

We were now close to a white house, stone built and thatched, set among
big plane-trees, and looking to the sea.  At the door I heard Gaelic
songs and great laughing, and then we went inside.  At first I saw
nothing but two ship's lanthorns, swung from hooks such as we use to
hang hams on, and the blazing fire, where a ship's timber burned with
wee blue flames licking out, as the fire got at the salt of the seven
seas.  Then I made out the swarthy faces turned to us, and heard Dan's
name voiced by the revellers, and a woman, stout built and perky but
still young, that I took to be Meg the gleevitch, from her bird-like
way of making little rushes, or, as we express it, "fleein' at things,"
brought us steaming glasses of toddy, so strong that I think she had
watered the whisky with more whisky, for the tears started to my eyes
as I drank my first drink.  But I felt fine and warm inside for all
that.  Captain McGilp, as tough a looking seaman as ever shook out a
reef, hoisted himself beside Dan.  He had not mind of me, I think.

"We did yon business o' Scaurdale's," he whispered, "and got the len'
of a cow to keep the wean in milk, and I'll no' say but I forget where
the beast came frae, for it's in the barrel now, what's left o't.  The
wean's in France in a convent among the nuns, where I'm envying her her
innocence," and the captain became so wild and heedless in his speech
that I drew away.  "Ho, my cockerel," says he, "Miss Mim-mou
(mim-mouth), that's the bonniest wie I ken o' gettin' yir wesan cut,"
and to Dan, "There's a lot o' the stallion to that colt."  This would
mean that I resembled my father, the minister now dead, for he survived
my mother, the Laird's sister, by but a few years.

"Let the lad be, Jock McGilp, or you and me'll be cuttin' wesands,"
says Dan, and I could have flown at the burly smuggler's throat for the
joy of Dan's backing.

"It'll be his first night, hey?  Well, look at McNeilage there; he's
been drunk fifteen flaming years."

"A bonny mate that--fifteen flaming years."

The mate slowly lifted his head, which had sunk on his massive chest,
and as I saw his face I grew amazed, for he resembled nothing so much
as a good-living, well-fed minister.

"I ha' used the sea, Cap'n, in my time.  I loved the nuns and the
virgins in San Iago afore we made a bonfire o' it, ay the holy nuns,
but they skirled.  Here's tae them, they were good while they lasted,"
and the unholy wretch smacked his lips as though he relished the memory
more than the drink.

"Sanny McNeilage, they ca' me.  I've seen what I've seen and what ye'll
never see--I've seen the decks red for a week and all hands drunk;" and
then he turned to me, and his face shone with kindliness, "Are ye any
man wi' a cutlass, my lad?"

"No," says I, for my blood boiled at the thought of the nuns, "I wish I
were."

"So do I," says he in a pitiful voice.

"All that was before your mother died," says a young lad at his elbow,
fierce Ronny McKinnon, and the mate put his head in his arms and his
shoulders shook with his greetin', while nods and winks went round the
godless crew.

"She was English, my poor old mother," he cried, "and I would lay down
my damned soul for her, but she died fifteen year ago, and she could
not say 'wee tatties' in the English when she slipped her cable, for
she turned into Gaelic--yes," and he looked up, the tears in his eyes
and rolling down his cheeks.  I think I never saw anything so hateful,
but then I saw his hand at his hanger and his big shoulders haunching.
"Will any o' ye be denying it?" he murmured in his pitiful voice, and
then through the tears I saw the devil mocking, and knew why the crew
hastened to reassure him.

Meg, the gleevitch, kept the drink going and threw more wood on the
fire.  "Drink up," she cries, "it's a rid tinker's night this."

"Why red tinkers, Meg?" says Dan, raising his head from close confab
wi' the captain.

"Ye ken the story fine," says she, "how the weans hiv the red hair tae
keep them warm maybe, lying oot."

"Not me, my lass," says Dan; "sit down here beside me and tell us."

And as we took our drink she told us of the red tinkers and when they
took to the road.

"Indeed, and that will be a good story too," said an old shepherd by
the fireside, with his dogs at his feet, "and I will be tellin' you
another, if you will be caring. . . ."

It wore on to the small hours of the morning, and cocks began to crow,
and yet we sat.  Indeed, by that time I was seeing two fires, and I
knew that most of the crew slept as they sat or sprawled, and the mate
was again weeping and leering round for some one to fight, as though
his seeming gentleness would entice a stranger.  Dan was parrying with
Meg, for in her story she had made great stress on a gipsy lass, and
all with knowing looks in Dan's direction; but at last we made our
homeward way, of which I remember little, except that Dan had me on his
back on the worst of the road, and I was singing.

Next morning I was ill, and black looks I got at the breakfast,
although my aunt was kind enough and I caught her smiling at me, for I
suppose I must have cut a queer enough figure, but my uncle was very
stern.  After I had made some pretence of eating, I rose, and he asked
me, in his grandest manner, to come to him in an hour.

He was among his books, for he was more of a bookworm than his folks,
and standing in front of the fire as I entered.

"Hamish," said he, "I thought more of ye.  Dan is no model to follow,"
says he; "forbye, your head is not so strong, if that be any excuse for
drink and devilry on his pairt.  I ken of his ongoings, but I hold my
peace, for he minds his work, and I have a promise to his father, my
brother, that's lying far frae his kith and kin in the field of
Malplaquet.  Let this be a warning to ye, Hamish, for this morning ye
were looking lamentable," says he, "just lamentable."




CHAPTER V.

MIRREN STUART'S ERRAND.

The shame of my first night's ploy at the Turf Inn lay heavy on me for
a while, and then I would be thinking of the swarthy crew with their
knives and their fierce oaths at the cards, of the spluttering glowing
fire and the old men of the glens in the glow of it, and when I heard
the wind moan and cry in the planting in the night, I longed to hear
the old dread stories of a people long dead who had raised great stones
on our wind-swept moors, and marked their heroes' resting-places with
cairns.

Something of this I told to Dan as we gathered in the sheep from the
far hills on the day before the big storm.  I mind it fine, the grey
heavy sky, the bursts of wind that rose ever and anon in the hills, and
died away with an eerie cry, and made me think that all the winds had
word to gather somewhere, and were hastening to the feast like corbies
to a dying ewe.

There was the smell of snow in the air, and the moss pools were frozen
hard, and beautiful it was to see the stag-horn moss entombed in the
clear ice, and the wee water-plants, pale and cold and pitiful, at the
bottom of the pools.  Round the far marches we gathered--the wild shy
wethers, seeing the dogs, paused as if to question the right of the
intruders, and then bounded away like goats, and in my mind's eye I see
yet the whitey-yellow wool where the wind ruffled the fleeces.  Dan was
very quiet that day, speaking seldom except to the dogs.

"There's something no canny coming, Hamish," said he; "I feel it in my
banes.  We're but puir craturs when a's said and done.  A pig can see
the wind, and there's them that can hear the grass growing, but a man
just breenges on, blin', blin', and fou o' pride."

And again, "Ye've a terrible hankerin' for bawkins,[1] Hamish.  I
whiles think ye will be some old Druid priest come back that's
forgotten the word o' power, but kens dimly in his mind that the white
glistening berries o' the oak and the old standing stanes are freens.
Ye're no feart o' bawkins, and ye're never tired o' hearing about them.
Aweel, it's a kind o' bravery I envy ye, for weel I mind that first
time I heard the Black Hound o' Nourn bay.  I can feel the tingle of
fear run in my bones yet when I think o' the dogs leaving me alane in
that unchancey wood, and that devil beast near me in the dark."

By this time we were at Bothanairidh, maybe a heather mile from
Craignaghor, the flock heading quietly in and the dogs at heel, and at
a bare hawthorn tree Dan stopped.

"An' this, Hamish, will be another o' your freens," said he.  "There's
many a lilting laugh hidden in the ears o' this old tree, for here it
was the cailleachs cam' tae spin in the long summer forenights, when
everybody left their hames and took their beasts tae the hill for the
summer.  There were no dykes or hedges in those days, and the beasts
had to be herded on the hill if the crops were to come to anything.
Aweel, the men a' went to the fishing and a' the weemen stayed at
Bothanairidh, and in the evenings the young lassies would be making
great laughing while the cailleachs span; and once, long long ago, when
the crotal was young on the rocks on the moors, there came a swarthy
lad and said fareweel tae his lass under this tree.  There was red wild
blood in the boy, and before he came back he had seen a many men swing
from the yard-arm.  Ay, when he did return, he met a red bride, for
another had awaited his coming.

"'This will be the bride ye are seeking,' snarled he that waited, and
gave the sailor the dagger where the throat dimples above the
collar-bone.  And they say the swarthy lad writhed him up against the
old tree and laughed.

"'As long as this tree stands,' he cried, 'you'll never hold to your
coward heart the lass ye have done the dirty killin' for,' and died.
Well, Hamish, I'm no' hand at stories, but the old hawthorn had aye
flourished white until then, and after that the flourish was fine rich
red, and when he that slew the swarthy lad sought to tear the tree
down, his hair changed colour in a night, and the strange folks' mark
was on him, and he wandered in the hills and died."

As we stood, I fitted into Dan's brief story--for his tale seemed to me
to resemble more the headings of a story than a real story,--I fitted
in a background of great wind-swept spaces, of bare rocks and cold
heather and that poor love-maddened outcast wandering alone, and
wondered what black pool cooled his brow at the last of it, and there
came to my ears a distant cry, and so sure was I that I had imagined
it, that I never turned to look, till Dan's laugh roused me.

"Come away from the standin' stanes and the heroes' graves.  That wasna
the skirl o' a ghost, but a hail frae a sonsy lass--but what gars her
risk her bonny legs in yon daft-like wie beats me."

"I think," says I, "yon'll be Finlay Stuart's Uist powny; there's none
here has the silver mane and tail. . . ."

"Imphm," says Dan; "imphm, Hamish, as Aul' Nick said when his mouth was
fu'.  Yon's Finlay's beast, and I'm thinkin' o' a' Finlay's lassies,
there's just wan wid bother her noddle tae come here away, and that's
Mirren; but wae's me," said he, with his droll smile, "she's set her
cap at the excise-man, they tell me."

The lass drew up her pony beside us, and, man, they were a picture,
these two--her hair, blown all loose, rippling like a wave, and the
flush of youth glowing in her face and neck, and her eyes shining, and
the noble Hieland pony, with his great curved neck and round dark
barrel, and the flowing silver mane and tail.  To me she bowed coldly
enough, but with all the grace of one whose men-folk called themselves
Royal, or maybe from Appin--especially in their cups.  Although it
seems the Royal Stuart race were none too particular whatever, but Dan
had always his own way with the lassies.

"Has the de'il run away wi' the excise-man, Mirren, that you're risking
horseflesh among the peat-bogs?"

"No," she cries, "no, but I wish he would be taking the whole dollop o'
them to his hob, and then maybe decent folks would be having peace."

"That would stamp ye Finlay's lass if I didna ken already," says Dan.

"Ken me," cried the maid; "I'm well kent as a bad sixpence--a lass that
should ha' been a lad wi' work to do or fighting, instead o'
sitting--sitting like a peat stack, or"--with a fine flare o'
colour--"like a midden waiting to be 'lifted.'"

"Ye're hard to please, my dear; there's many a lad wid be sair put oot
if ye took to the breeks. . . ."

"It will not be this gab clash I came to be hearin', Dan McBride, but a
most private business."

"Oh, don't be minding Hamish, my lass; he canna pass a rick o' barley
but his eyes and mouth water.  It's _just lamentable_," said he.

Her red lips took a curl at that, and then her speech came all in a
rush.

"I've heard--oh, do not be asking me how I will be hearing these
things, but the preventive men are lying at the cove waiting for the
_Gull_, and I thought maybe if she came the night, wi' a storm comin'
from the southard and them trying to make the port, they might all be
taken away and transported, and he would be among them. . . ."

"Gilchrist the exciseman, Mirren?"

"Why will ye be naming that man to me?" she cried, in a burst of
passion.  "Is it not bad enough to be doing that I let him tell me
their plans, and him not knowing where I carry them."

"I might have kent the breed o' ye wouldna be content wi' an exciseman,
Mirren.  Aweel, Hamish and me will just be having a sail this night,
storm or no', and the _Gull_ can coorie into mony's the neuk among the
rocks; but whit bates me is how they fun' oot the cove."

"It would just be Dol Bob that told," whispered Mirren.

"The dirty slink," cried Dan.  "I'm thinking there will be some talk
between that man and me soon; but I'm no good enough looking to be
thinking ye rade here to warn me, Mirren, so I'll be tellin' Ronny
McKinnon tae keep his heart up yet when the _Seagull's_ here, but ye'll
hiv a big handfu' wi' Ronny."

"I would not be having him less," she cried, a little pleased as I
thought; and then, as she turned to go, "There's a bonny wild lass at
McCurdy's old hut, Dan, and she told me where to look for ye.  Ye might
tell her Mirren Stuart was speiring for her kindly, and thinking
naething of Dan McBride, for the look she gied me out o' her black een
made me grue." [2]

So Belle was still at McCurdy's hut.  But Dan was thoughtful again, and
never spoke till we had the sheep in the low sheltered fields.

But coming home he was whimsical.  "Are they not droll now, the
lassies, Hamish--here's Mirren Stuart, namely for her good looks, and
for the bold spirit of her.  Many's the house she has saved with that
same Hielan' pony, for Gilchrist, a game lad among gangers, canna keep
anything from Mirren, and here she is among the heather wi' word o'
treachery, and d'ye ken who she will be doing it for?"

"No," said I, "except this McKinnon ye spoke of."

"Ay, McKinnon, just wild Ronny, that she cast out wi' years ago when he
was a decent farmer's son, close to her own place in the Glen yonder at
the far end o' Lamlash, before he slipped away on the _Seagull_."

"I am wishing, Dan," said I, "that ye kent less about the smugglers."

"A man must be doing something, Hamish, to get any pith out o' life.
This is what I am thinking we will be doing the night.  We will tell
the Laird that it will be as well that somebody should be giving an eye
to the sheep he has wintering at Lamlash and the South End, and then we
will make for McKelvie's Inn at Lamlash and get a boat across to the
Holy Island, and gie McGilp a signal frae the seaward side o' it, where
it will not be seen except in the channel.  McKelvie at the Quay Inn
will ken a' about that.  There's a man in the island ye will be glad to
meet if he's in his ordinar--McDearg they ca' him--and after that,
Hamish, we will stravaig to the South End and see the sheep there and
come back hame again.  Are ye game for it?" says he.

"Ay, Dan, but there's just this--who is this Dol Beag?"

"Dol Beag has a boat and a wife and weans, and he's a sour riligous
man, keen for siller at any price.  Well, I'm hoping the gangers have
paid him well by this time, for I am thinking he will not enjoy it
long."


[1] Fearsome apparitions.

[2] Shiver involuntarily.




CHAPTER VI.

WE TRAMP THROUGH THE SNOW TO McKELVIE'S INN.

With the afternoon came snow, round hard flakes like wee snowballs, dry
and silent and all-pervading, and the hills were changed, and there
came on the sea that queer mysterious snow light, and then the wind
rose skirling, sweeping the uplands bare and filling the quiet hollows.

At supper-time the gale was at its height, the roar from the iron-bound
shore was like giants in battle, and I knew that on the black rocks the
spray was rising in drifting white smoke, and the rocks trembling to
the onset of the seas.

Behind the stackyard, in the old trees, the crows were complaining
bitterly with their hard clap-clap tongues, and now and then a great
crashing warned of the death of some old storm-scarred veteran of the
wood.  But it was fine, the music of the storm, the blatter of the snow
and the wailing cry of the wind, before a great devastating blast came.

Fine to think that the stackyard was safe and sheltered, and the beasts
warm and well, were tearing away at their fodder all unconcerned, and
that the sheep were in the low ground of many sheltering knowes and
sturdy whin-bushes, comfortable as sheep could well be, and the thought
came to me of how Belle was faring in her lonely sheiling.  When the
supper was made a meal of and the horn spoons of the lads still busy,
Dan had a word with my uncle, for my aunt was mainly taken up watching
each new trick of her bairn these days.

"This snaw," says Dan, "will likely haud, and I would like fine to ken
if a' these hogs ye hiv wintering over the hill will be getting enough
keep.[1]  I'm thinking Hamish and me will be as well tae inquire the
night before it gets worse outside, for worse it'll be, and we'll be
back as soon as the weather betters."

At this my uncle takes a turn round his room with a thoughtful frown on
his brow.

"No pranks," says he; "I'll have no gallivanting, but I ken fine ye
have an interest in the beasts. . . .  Ye can go," and as we turned to
leave the room, he wheeled round with outstretched arm and his white
finger pointing.

"No pranks, mind.  I'll have no pranks."

"God's life," says Dan, as we muffled ourselves for our tramp--"God's
life, Hamish, he's queer names for things, that uncle o' yours; there's
nae prank in my heid this night--a queer prank it would be no' tae warn
McGilp,"--and as we tramped through the kitchen where the lassies were
coorieing over the fire telling bawkin stories, and edging closer to
the farm lads for comfort when the gale moaned and whined in the wide
chimney--as we tramped through, old Betty took Dan by the sleeve.

"Let go, ye old randy," cried he, in a great pretence of terror.  "I'm
thinking the old ones are perkier than the young ones these days. . . ."

"Och, my bairn, my bairn," cried the old woman, her two hands on him,
"will ye not be stopping in this night, this devil's night?  It's nae
hogs that's taking ye trakin' weary miles this very night, and fine ye
ken the hogs are weel, but ye're just leadin' the young lad astray
efter some quean that'll be stickin' tae him like the buttons on his
coat.

"Wae's me, wae's me, will ye not have enough truck wi' the wenches
already that ye mak' me lie eching and pechin' and listening for the
death-watch on sic a nicht,"--and at that Jean giggled hysterically and
crept closer to Tam, and the old dame turned on her like a flash.

"Wheest, ye besom, wi' your deleries; there's trouble enough aboot the
night without you skirling like a craking hen.  It's no' your kind I'm
feared for, ye useless one, but these wild hill lassies, for when the
devil is loose among the hills, he gars the wild blood leap in their
veins, and the wind tae loose the knot o' their lang hair--ay, and
he'll bring the man that'll gar them tingle at his touch, and send the
red blood flaming in their cheeks."

Dan's smile was broader and broader, and I noticed the red blood
flaming in the cheeks of our own sonsy dairy lassies, Liz and
Betty. . . .

"Ye were bred in the hills yourself, old mother," says Dan, and put an
arm round the withered old neck, "and I'm kissing you for that," and we
went out into the smother of the snowstorm.

At the byre end the old rowan-trees were creaking and groaning to the
violence of the gale, the bourtree bushes were flattened near to the
ground, and everywhere was white.  The driven snow melted on my tongue
as I gasped, and I felt the flakes melt in my eyes; but we followed the
road by instinct, for where the hedges should have been only a black
blur showed.  On the low road it was not so bad; but when we took the
hill road again, I fain would have turned my back to the gale, and
stood like a stirk on a wet day, but I powled on after Dan, thinking
shame of my coward heart.  Below us the sea roared like a cold, cold,
cruel hell; the maddened anger of the breakers made me shiver with
dread, and the gloating, horrible grumbling as the seas rumbled into
the coves made a cold sweat break on my back and limbs.  But I bent my
head before the gale and clawed my way upwards with numbed fingers
clutching like talons to the heather, and prayed that the roots might
hold.  So we toiled upwards, Dan always leading, and sometimes I saw
him turning and knew he was speaking; but the wind cut the words as
they left his lips, and bore them tearing and shrieking to the sea
below.

Before we gained the top of the hill I saw Dan climbing upwards from
the old peat track, and I followed dumbly as he led me into an old
quarry, long since disused except by the sheep on the warm summer days,
and there we lay almost exhausted, content just to know that the storm
rushed over our pitiful retreat, and it seems droll to me now that I
spoke scarcely above my breath; but then it seemed as though the
storm-king might hear me if I raised my voice.

But when Dan spoke the black anger was trembling in his voice.

"They're lying there snug and dry in our cove, d---n them, and that
poor _Gull_ straining and crying out there, reaching for her hame, and
them ready to pounce on her crew, the crawling slinks,"--and I knew he
was thinking of the Preventive men.

In a while we crawled to the path again, and clawed our way to the top
of the hill, and there below us was a wondrous sight.  The sea ran
inwards in a noble bay, and the bay was almost landlocked with an
island, but down below us was a myriad twinkling lights, hundreds of
them, rising and falling.  The snow had taken off for a little, and a
hazy moon hurrying behind grey clouds showed us the ships tossing and
straining at their cables.  Some of the lights seemed to move slowly
past the others, and these I took to be vessels dragging their anchors.

We stood looking down a while, for with the stopping of the snow a
weight seemed to be lifted from us, and then made our way downwards
towards the sea.  After our fight upwards, the descent seemed easy and
almost calm, although the wind was howling still; but we were close to
farmed land now, and company, and once in a field sheltered by the wood
of the Point, we came on sheep, standing and lying close in by the
trees, and Dan bawled into my ear, "The hogs are doing finely, Hamish;
I hadna expected to see them," and I remembered that we were wintering
sheep with old Hector of the Point as well as Easdale and Birrican.  We
struck the shore road and passed the big rock, and the sea was washing
over the road, carrying spars, and bamboos, and sailors' beds, and
leaving them high and dry on the fields by the roadside.

Groups of noisy seamen passed us with a great clop-clopping of
sea-boots, and many little thatch houses we hurried by, until we came
to the Quay Inn, where there were many people gathered, and pushed
ourselves through drunken, quarrelling sailors to the counter.


[1] Forage.




CHAPTER VII.

WE SAIL IN McKELVIE'S SKIFF TO THE HOLY ISLAND.

Through the throng of bearded sailors we strode and made our way to the
kitchen of the Quay Inn.  A place sacred to kenspeckle folk it was, and
from its smoke-stained rafters hung many pieces of bacon and dried
shallots, and there were also bunches of centaury, and camomile, and
dandelion root, and bogbean, for the goodman's wife was cunning in
medicines of the older-fashioned sort.  In this place the noise from
the common room was not so plainly heard, and indeed it gave me the
impression of a haven from the boisterous spirit there.

As I stood before the blazing fire, guiltily conscious of the puddle of
water at my feet where the snow had melted, Dan left the kitchen by a
door leading to a yard and stables, and I heard him speaking to some
one; and then when he came back there was the goodwife with him, and
Dan cried for a long hot drink, for the flesh was frozen on his bones.
At that the goodwife, with many "to be sures" and "of courses," hurried
herself here and there, and all the time she would be talking of the
sheep in this terrible weather, and of our long tramp across the hill;
and then she handed us the drink, and would not be having any payment
at all for it, for were we not freens of her ain folk (however far
out), and strangers too, moreover?  And then the low door opened, and
the innkeeper entered from the taproom, a dark man, very heavy across
the shoulders, and a little bent on his legs like a sailor.  I had seen
him as we entered, black-bearded, silent, with his two swarthy sons,
eyeing his company from below pent-house brows.  His eyes, blue and
keen, took us in from stem to stern, as the sailors say, and he came
close to Dan before the fire, and--

"Ay," says he, "it'll be the boat again," and his voice was a growl.

"Just that," says Dan, sipping his drink, and then he talked quickly,
and I heard him tell of Mirren Stuart's message and of Dol Rob Beag's
treachery (for he had taken the word to the Preventives of where McGilp
kept his cargo in the cove above the Snib before it was carted inland,
or stowed in many an innocent-looking smack bound for the mainland).

"Dol Rob Beag will be slipping his cable one of these fine nights,"
growled the listener; and then, "There's just the caves at the Rhu
Ban," [1] says he.

"I had that in my head," says Dan, "for the gangers are in the Cove at
Bealach an sgadan, and McGilp will be in the Channel.  McDearg o' the
Isle House is in this to his oxters.  There's just nothing for it but
to show a glim on the seaward side o' the Isle, and McGilp will take
the _Gull_ to the Rhu Ban when the wind takes off; but, man, it's
risky, devilish risky, wi' the bay fou o' boats."

"It's the deil's own night," agreed the innkeeper, "black as pitch and
blowing smoke, but the snow will be helping us too," and then we sat
before the fire all silent for a while, the goodwife busy with her
infusions and brews.

"Will ye be remembering the night they pressganged McKillop?" thus
suddenly to Dan.

"A droll night's work yon."

"Ye see," turning to me, "this Neil McKillop would be a likely lad,
clever on the boats, and clever wi' the snares--ay, clever, clever--and
kept his mother well.  Ay--well, there came a night like this, but not
so much wind, and the pressgang boat slipped into the bay, and nobody
knowing, and ashore came the crew o' her, and many's the likely lad
they took, and among them Neil McKillop.  The boat would just be
shoving off from the old Stone Quay when his mother came there in her
white mutch.

"'Give me back my son, my only son,' she cried, standing on the
quay-head; 'you will not be taking away the one that keeps me in meat
and drink, me an old, old woman.  Och, bring him back, my lad, and I'll
be blessing ye and praying for ye in your bloody wars.'

"At that a tarry breeks up with an oar and skelps a splash o' water at
the old woman, and laughed at her with the wind blowing her skirts, and
showing her lean shanks.

"'Go back to your weeds and your snakes, ye witch," he cries in the
Gaelic; 'we'll make a sailor-man out o' your whelp,' and the oars began
to plash.

"Down on her knees went the old _cailleach_.  'Bring him to me, ye
hounds, before I put a curse on ye,' and she tore her coorie from her
head, and the wind tore through the strands of her white hair, and they
rose like elf-locks.  High above her head she threw her arm, her
fingers stiff and pointing, there on the quay-head, an awesome sight in
the mirk of a half moon.

"Then slowly, slowly, softly she began--

"'Cursed be ye all, seed, breed, and generations o' ye.  The madness o'
the sea come on ye in the still night watches, friendless, friendless
on the face o' the waters be your lives, and your deaths too foul for
the sea to be giving you a cleanly burial.'  Then in a skirl o' rage,
her face working, 'The foul things o' the deep shall reive the flesh
from ye in your death, and in your lives ye shall mourn for the quiet
streams o' fresh water and the sight of green things growing--and
never, never, never get nigh them. . . .'

"In the boat the men lay on their oars, with faces white below the tan
o' wind and weather, and then hurriedly she came astern, and Neil
McKillop sprang on the quay, and to his mother, and the pressgang boat
shot into the haze off the land, and the mother and son went back to
the croft on the hillside."

His tale finished, McKelvie drained his glass at a gulp, and his lips
pressed together as though he were unwilling that even the volatile
essence might escape, and then--

"We'll go," says he.  "Robin!"

At his word one of the swarthy sons entered and stood waiting, and
through the open door to the common room I saw groups of sailors,
asleep on the floor before the fire, and asleep on the benches where
they sat; yet some hardened drinkers kept the drink going.

"Ye see, Hamish," Dan whispered, "there's a big sea running, and these
sailor boys would rather risk the floor than their wee boats."

I felt a sinking at my heart, for I knew that the sailors were sweirt
to risk their lives, yet there was not one timid face among them, but
many bold and truculent--men used to risk their lives, and maybe
enjoying the risk.  But I held my peace, for I thought shame of my
terror, and before Dan too.  So the four of us went out quietly the
back way and came to the quay, where we found a boat on the lee side,
afloat, and with the mast stepped, and all ready for hoisting the sail,
and I wondered if Dan's talking to the goodwife in the inn yard had had
anything to do with it, for the boats at that time of the year were
mostly upturned on the beach, and indeed most of the dingies and gigs
from the ships were also drawn up.

Robin McKelvie slipped down the quay-wall as nimbly as a cat, and
busied himself with the sail, doing what I know not, though I prayed he
might not loosen any reef, and his father followed, more slowly, for he
was a heavier man, but wonderfully active in a boat.  Then Dan bade me
climb down, and I scrambled down and found my feet on a gunwale just as
I expected to feel the water, so I sat down in the boat suddenly, and
Dan was beside me in a wee while.

Robin had the sail up, and made fast, as his father cast off and took
the tiller, and the roar of the sea all round me as we sailed from the
lee of the quay at first filled me with fear, but soon I felt the skiff
rise to the first sea, and I forgot my terror in watching the helmsman.

"Ay, ay," he spoke softly; "they're coming now, the three sisters," and
his eyes seemed to pierce the gloom for the three rolling curling waves
as he shouldered the skiff over them.  Sometimes I watched the water
curling over the gunwale, and wondered if ever again I would reach the
land, and then a wave would break somewhere near, and the helmsman
would mutter--

"I ken ye; I will be hearing your whispering," and it seemed to me as
if he were a cunning old warrior in the midst of well-tried foes, wary
and courageous, and always winning through.  But in the middle of the
bay the waves rose madly round us, the stout skiff was tossed like a
cork, now perched giddily on the crest, and now racing madly to the
trough, and then to the crest again with a horrible side motion (which
I think seamen call yawing), most fearful of all.  But McKelvie spoke
to his boat as I have heard horsemen speak to their horses.

When a squall struck us and the skiff lay down to it, he would croon
softly--

"You will not be killing yourself, lass--easy, easy,--oh, but you are
eager for the sea," and I knew that I was watching a master hand, a man
cunning in the moods of the sea; but as I sat he bade me bale the water
out of the boat, for it was slushing about high over the floor-boards,
and these had come adrift, and were moving with every motion, so I
baled with a will, glad for something mechanical to do, to keep my eyes
off the menacing waves which seemed to rush up to devour us, and as if
we were too poor a prey, spurned us away.  Then I saw that we were in
calmer water, and the steep shore of the Isle seemed close to, and the
light of the white house clear, and in a little time the sail came
rattling down, and the skiff's keel grated on the flat gravel, and we
sprang ashore and put the anchor on the beach though the tide was going
back.

And as we made our way over the gravelly shore I saw a crouching figure
rise from among the wrack and come to us.

"Oh, oh; have ye come for me, father?  Have ye come for me at last?"
and a girl flung herself into McKelvie's arms, and hung there crying.

"Wheest, lass, wheest," commanded the innkeeper sternly.

"Oh, I just crept as near the sea as I could go, for oh, yon hoose is
no' canny, and a' day the ravens from the Red Rocks have walked in at
the doors, fluttering and croaking, and the Red Man is crying that he's
gaun tae his hame the night; and McRae piping to him a' day, and him
drinking and blaspheming. . . ."

"If McDearg's gaun the night, we'll maybe hae news tae stop him, my
dear," said Dan.  "Anywie, ye're surely no' feart of a raven's
croaking?"

With that we started for the Isle House, the whitewash of it looking
yellowish against the snow, and all about us the flapping of wings and
the crying of sea-birds as our feet scrunched on the gravel.

"I canna go there," cried the lass.  "I just canna; let me bide in the
boat," and then, as she saw her brother take the lantern from the bows,
she ran to him.

"Take me wi' ye, Robin.  I'll speil tae the Goat's Ledge wi' ye; but
oh, do not be making me go back there. . . ."

"Wheest, my lassie, my poor wee lassie," said her father; "there's nae
harm will come on you, wi' your father and Robin beside ye; but you
will not be mentioning any Goat's Ledge, for the devil himself will
carry word to the Preventives."

So, standing some way from the skiff, we held a council of war, and at
length Robin took his lantern and left us to climb to the Goat Ledge
and make the warning signal, should M'Gilp be in the channel, and we
others made for an outhouse, where we left McKelvie's lass content
enough wi' two collies, for she was at her service in the Isle House,
and they kent her.  We left her there sitting on a bag of corn and the
dogs at her feet, and made our way through the yard to the house.


[1] Bhuda ban=white headland.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE DEATH OF McDEARG, THE RED LAIRD.

While we were still in the yard the door opened, throwing a scad of
light over the snow, and a high screiching voice came to us--

"Come in, lads, come in; the lassies are weary waiting for their lads,
the poor bit things, sair negleckit on this weary isle, wi' nane to see
their ankles but scarts[1] and solangeese."

And as we entered she held out a dry wrinkled hand.

"Prosperous New Year, Young Dan.  Six bonny sons Auld Kate wishes ye,
tall braw lads that'll no feel the weight o' your coffin; but if a'
tales be true, you'll no' be in want.  Ech, they're clever, clever,
your lassies.  Same to you, McKelvie.  Your lass has ta'en the rue the
day.  Happy New Year, young sir; you'll be a McBride too," and the old
withered crone peered at me through eyes bleared, as it seemed to me,
with the peat reek of a hundred winters.

I was sore amazed at our welcome, for it was not near New Year, and I
wondered if the scad of light on the snow, shining on us, had taken the
old woman back to her younger days, but Dan took me out of my amazement.

"Humour her, Hamish; humour the weemen.  A new face is New Year to Auld
Kate that keeps house tae McDearg."

"Och, it's the lassies will be the pleased ones, coiling the blankets
round them; it's Auld Kate that kens," and then she gave a screitchy
hooch and began to sing in her cracked thin voice--

  'The man's no' born and he never will be,
  The man's no born that will daunton me.'

It's that I used to be singing to your grandfather, Dan, when I was at
my service in Nourn.  He had a terrible grip, your grandfather, and the
devil was in him; but he's deid, they're a' deid but Auld Kate.  But
we'll have a dram, and you'll be seeing the Red Laird."  And in a
little I saw that there was more than old age the matter.

There came the noise of piping in that strange house, and we tramped
along a stone-flagged passage, and entered a room looking to the sea,
and there, before a great fire, was McDearg, an old man, with evil
looking from his eyes.  He sat in his great chair, his head on his
breast, and his shepherd, with the pipes on his knee, sat listening.

"A brave night, a brave night, and the devil on the roof-tree, McBride.
What seek ye o' the Red Laird?  The _Gull_, say ye; the Preventives--to
hell wi' the Preventives; there's a bonny cove at the Rhu Ban, lads;
but ye're in good time to see the devil coming for Red Roland."

A terrible squall struck the house and moaned round the gables, and the
lowes blew into the room.

"D'ye hear him, the laughing o' him, and his blackbirds spying all
day--ay, the Ravens from the Red Rocks; but they have nae terrors for
Roland McDearg."

A long time he was silent, and then slowly the words came--

"McRae, McRae (for the McRaes were all pipers), play me back, back till
I hear my mother laughing, in the evening, till I see the grass, green,
green and beautiful in the sun, and the golden ben-weeds swaying to the
breeze, and I am a boy again--I, Red Roland, searching among the
heather, with the scent o' wild honey around me, searching for the shy
white heather to bring coyly to my lass, and bravely the sun shines
among the hills, and the hawk's brown wings flutter in the blue vault.
Play me back, McRae, till I hear the water wimpling on the hill burns,
when I lie flat to drink, the brown peaty water, McRae, and the sheep
looking at me before they run.  The sun and the sea and the wild winds
o' my youth, McRae; bring them back to me before I go."

As he spoke, the Red Laird lolled his head on the back of his chair.
His eyes were closed, and his mind looked backwards; and as he cried
for the sun and the growing grass and the wave of the wind in the hay,
his hand rose and fell.  And McRae, McRae the piper, looked long into
the glowing fire, looked till his harsh face softened and the smiling
came round his eyes, and softly, softly he played.  And in his playing
I saw the goodman bend over his wife and whisper.  I saw her face glow
in the evening sun, and I heard her laughter, clear and sweet like
diamonds ajingle, as she struck him playfully, and walked stately and
slow to the green where her children played on the lush grass, and ever
and ever she looked over her shoulder for her man, because he was her
lover still.  And I saw a boy moving among the crags, the honey dust
round his knees, and ever and ever his eyes searched the heather, and I
heard his cry of gladness as he fell down beside the lucky heather,
white and chaste as a virgin.

And I looked at Dan and saw him far away in his youth, and even
McKelvie looked not comfortable.  But the Laird was all happy, a boy
again with all his days before him, and when McRae made an end of his
piping, said Dan with a queer sigh--

"A great gift, Hamish, to be drowned in drink," and as I watched the
piper gulp his usquebach I kent what he meant.

But at his stopping, the Laird rose.  "Let be the days o' innocence,
McRae.  The March, The March, now, and the onset o' battle.  Dirl it
out, dirl it out, for Red Roland was first in the charge, and the cries
o' fear made the blood tingle in his back, the women screaming, and the
men crying, and the red blood flowing, and my father's sword dauntless
in the van--bring it back, McRae.  Make my cauld blood hot as in my
manhood."

When he cried for the battle-music, his clenched fist beat the air, his
long locks tossed like an old lion's mane, and the war love shone in
his eyes.  A great change came on the piper.  He stood his full height,
as straight as a young larch tree, and a cold deadly pride came on his
face, and then with a great swing he threw the drones to his shoulder,
his arm caressed the bag, and his foot beat, beat, beat like a restive
horse, till he got the very swing of his pibroch.

Then with that fine prideful swing of his shoulders he started to
march, and I saw the clansmen gather, wet from the mountain torrents,
with knees red-scarred by the briars of many a wood.  I heard the
clamour of their talk, and the high note of their anger, and then
swiftly, silently, below a pale moon I saw their ranks lock and the
grim march begin, onward, onward to the southlands.

And then I heard the wail of the southern mothers, and the laughing cry
of the clansmen as the foemen stood to arms, the wild devilish lilt of
it for glory or a laughing death, and all around a black, black land,
lighted alone with blazing farms, and the broad red swathe where the
hillmen trailed.  Came the very struggle, the gasping for breath, the
cry of the fallen, the hand-to-hand grip, and then the great blare of
triumph, and the Red Laird yelled aloud--

"Through, by God, through!"

"I've lived my life, McBride, my ain wild life, and the sadness is
coming on me, to leave my bonny hills and the cold splash o' a summer's
sea.  The sadness o' the silent peaks and the gloom o' the hidden
valleys, McBride--ay, but it's fine, the sadness, better than the
heated joys o' the south."  And again McRae played, looking into the
heart of the fire, and the far-away look in his eyes, and as he played
I felt a lump rise in my throat, for a sorrow I kent not, except that
the wind moaned eerily through the thatch, and grey and gurly grew the
sea, with the black jackdaws flying low inshore.  The uneasy cattle
were lowing in the byre, and the rain fell in great drops from the
leafless trees--fell on the cold wet earth, and the fire on the hearth
was out, and cold white ash marked where nevermore would peat be
lighted; and oh! I heard the wail of the mourners, and saw the sobbing
daughter cling to her mother, and the youngest son leave for the wars,
the last of his house and name, and his name forgotten in the glens
already.

"Stop him, stop him," I cried; "there's cold death at my very side, and
his breath on my cheek like an east wind," and I would have run from
the room.

"Death," cried the Red Laird--"death.  I flouted him in my youth; I
wrestled with him and flung him from me.  I laughed at his cold eyes
across a naked sword, and spurned him on the heather; but now in my
age, when my bones are brittle and my arms shrunk, he creeps behind me
again, sure, sure o' his prey," and as he spoke he crouched like a
stealthy enemy, one groping hand outstretched.  Then he flung himself
upright, his eyes flashing, dauntless as a lion.

"Come then, Death, to the last grips wi' Red Roland; ay, your cold hand
is at my throat, old warrior--ay, but mine is firmer yet.  The Onset,
the Onset, the blare o' it, the madness o' it for Red Roland's last
fight," and at his words the swinging lamp went out with the last great
gust of the gale, and in the darkness came the crash of a fallen man,
and Red Roland lay dead in the red glow of his own fire.  And as we
stood there, Robin McKelvie came in with the word that the _Gull_ was
battling in the channel.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

And they carried the dead man and laid him decently on his bed.

Behind Robin, the house servants, stout dairymaids from the mainland,
stood awhisper, their sonsy red cheeks pale and mottled with fear, and
among them came the bullock-feeders; for the Red Laird fattened stock
for the mainland markets, and had his own quay, where the carrying
vessels moored in these days, and from the kitchen came the moaning of
old Kate.

"Ochone, ochone, he's gone, the strong one, and I mind me when his back
was like a barn door and the love-locks curling on his brow," and she
came into the chamber wringing pitiful, toil-worn hands, and the
servants after her, ashiver to be left alone in the dim passage.  Round
the fire they huddled, none speaking except in whispers, as though they
feared the great unseen Presence; and as they sat in that eerie silence
there came the hollow clop-clop of sea-boots in the passage, and I saw
the serving maids stiffen and straighten as they sat, and a look of
terrible fear came on their faces.

And McKelvie's lass skirled, "He's coming," and cooried back in a
corner.

"Can ye not hear the tramping?" and she thrust an arm before her head
as a bairn will to escape a cuff.

With that the door opened, and McKelvie entered in high sea-boots, but
the fear did not leave them, for the Laird was wont to wear sea-boots
when the weather was bad on his rocky isle; and with their minds all
a-taut for warnings and signs, the tramping in the flagged passage was
fearsome enough.  Indeed, I breathed the more freely myself when
McKelvie entered with Dan at his heels.

Dan had a stone jar in his hand, and he poured a stiff jorum, and held
it to auld Kate, greetin' at the fireside.

"The Red Laird's gone tae his ain folk, cailleach," says Dan, standing
straight and manly beside the huddled old woman.  "Good points he had
and bad, but he's finished his last rig and taken the long fee.

"Drink tae the memory o' him, Kate: ye kent him weel, and he had aye a
dram for a ceilidher."

"Ou ay, Dan, mo leanabh, ou ay; but I cannot thole the thought o' his
spirit fleeing among the cauld clear stars, for there's nae heaven for
him if his ain piper is no there to cheer him, or mak' him wae.  Och,
ay, I'll tak' the dram, but I'll be sore afraid there's plenty o'
pipers in hell wi' the devils dancing on hot coals tae their springs,
and he'll maybe be well enough."

As Dan put round the drink the doleful mood lifted a wee, and the lads
started to tell stories.

"I mind me," said Donald, the shepherd--"I mind o' a night I had on the
hills at the time o' the lambing, and in the grey o' the morning, when
the rocks are whispering one to another, and will be just back in their
places when a man comes near them, and when ye hear voices speaking not
plainly, because o' the scish o' the burn on the gravelly mounds, but
if ye listen till the burn is quiet a wee, ye'll be hearing the
laughing o' the Wee Folk at their games.

"Mora, in the grey o' the morning, I would be just among the sprits[2]
above the loch-side, when there came an eerie '_swish, swish_' at my
side, slow and soft.  I thought it would be a hare, and I stopped to
let her get away, for I would not be crossing her path, but see her I
could not, and I turned round to speak to 'Glen,' and there was no dog
there at all.

"Ay, well, I whistled and I whistled in that dreary place till the
noise of it put a fear on me, and I started on again, and there at my
side was the swish, swish in the sprits, and I would be poking my crook
among them, but when I would be stopping it would be stopping, and I
felt my hair bristle on my neck for the fear on me; but I pushed on,
looking at my feet and all round me, till something inside of myself
made me be looking up, and there was something before me, wi' eyes
glowering at me--oh, big, big it was, as a stack o' hay, and it was in
my path, and I shut my eyes and stood, for it would kill me.  And when
nothing would be happening I opened my two eyes, and it was not there,
and then I looked round with just my head, and aw!"--and a shudder went
through the shepherd, and he gulped at his drink,--"it was just at my
own very shoulder grinning at me.  And I ran and ran, skirling like a
hare, and it behind me--ran till I felt my heart beating in my throat,
and ran through burn and briars and hedges till I ran into the barn and
fell on the straw, and remembered no more."

"And why," says I, "did you not run into your ain house?"

"Are you not knowing that?" says Donald.  "If I had run to my house and
the door shut, I would just be fallin' dead on the doorstep."

"There's McGilp," says Dan.  "He aye carries a sail needle in his kep
lining, and he'll say it's just to be handy, but it's aye been in the
same place.  An' what will it be for, Neil Crubach?"

Neil looked up, his blue eyes hazy with dreaming things out of the
past.  His face was very beautiful, and his body massive and strong,
but he halted on his leg, and could walk but lamely.

"Oh," says Neil, with a kindly smile, "you will be knowing that surely,
and you a McBride, and reared among the rocks and the bonnie heather.

"It will just be that when our forefathers would be among the hill sat
night, many and many's the time the evil one would be coming to them
and speaking, and sometimes he would be coming in the form of a black
dog, like the Black Hound o' Nourn, wi' a red tongue lolling from his
mouth, and sometimes he would be a wild cat louping among the rocks,
hissing and spitting wi' his eyes lowin', and the old wise ones in the
far glen found the power in the unknown places in the hills, and they
said to the young hunters and warriors, 'Aye be carrying steel, for
steel will sever all bargains,' but a skein-dubh is the best to be
carrying in the hills, for a devil will not come near the black-hefted
knife wi' a strong bright blade--no," and Neil Crubach smiled, and
looked among the red embers for his dreams.

And then, still looking into the embers, he began to speak in his
soft-voiced way--

"They're bonnie wee things, the Wee Folk, and merry as the lambs in
June.

"When my leg would be troubling me sorely in my mind, and me a lad fit
to break a man's back, and to fling the great stone from me like a
chuckle--ay, in these long-ago days, there was a lass, and, och, she
was just to me in my mind like the sun rising from the sea on a summer
morning, and I could have taken her away in my own arms, for I would be
fierce like my folk, in their hate and their love, and whiles I would
be feeling in me the wish to be killing her nearly just to watch her
eyes opening like the sky when the white woolly clouds are drifting
apart, and among the hills when I wandered I would be dreaming of
holding her in my arms, for they would be great arms in these old days;
and one day she came, and I told her all that was in my heart, and she
said never a word, but just put her white round arms on my shoulder and
her head on my breast."

For a long time he was silent, and I saw the servant lassies look at
one another, their terrors all forgot in the beauty of his picture, for
there was colour in his very tone.

"I would be carrying her in my arms, for was she not but a mountain
flower, but when I would have taken her up I saw her eyes with a great
pity in them for my lameness, and I felt hell rising in my heart, for
were not my folk straight in their limbs, and nimble as goats among the
rocks? and then she saw my face, and I think there would be black
murder in it, but for myself, not for my white flower, for Neil Crubach
I hated when my love looked on this poor limb (it was only a little
shorter, but I knew the pride that was in his race).

"Then my love looked into my soul.

"'Neil,' she said, and drew my head down to her--'Neil, my hero, take
me up,' and I took her up, and she lay curled in my arms, with her lips
at my neck, and then she whispered, 'Neil, you will not be angry if I
say it now.'

"'Never angry, mo ghaoil,' and my heart stopped to be listening.

"'I wish--I just wish, Neil, mo ghaoil, that you would be more lame, for
my mother will be seeing us too soon, and I want aye to stay here.'"
Neil was just thinking aloud.

"A year, just a wee year, with her smiling at her spinning, and
running to meet me in the far fields to be carried home--ay, she would
be calling my arms 'home,'--and when we would be ceilidhing she would
be saying, 'Neil, it will be time your lass was "home," and her eyes
would be laughing at me, and no one else would be knowing at all.'

"A year, a wee year, and she lay like a white flower, still and cold,
and all my love could not make her hear.

"And I sat by her silent spinning-wheel and waited till she should come
back night by night; I forgot the old kirkyard, for how would the earth
be keeping my love from coming to me, and as I sat came my old mother,
and she was wise and gentle to her lame son.

"'My son, if you would be lying behind the wee hill when the moon is
young, maybe you would be forgiving your old mother'--for when she was
sad she blamed herself for the fall that left me lame, even when I
laughed and made nothing of it in her hearing.

"Behind the wee hill I lay when the moon was young and the grass was
cool on my brow, and I would be hearing the breathings of the hills in
the silence as they slept, and the moon sailed behind a black cloud and
all the world was dark, and I heard a great laughing in the dark near
me like diamonds and pearls sparkling, so wee was the sound and so
bright the laughing, and then the moon sailed out clear silver in a
blue sky, and there were all the Wee Folk at their games on the short
turf.  Bravely, bravely were they dressed in their green coats, and
near me, sitting and looking with longing eyes I saw my own love, and
she was looking down a wee, wee track in the grass, but it seemed to me
hundreds of miles.  And my love cried and waved as she looked down the
path, and I heard her laughing, my own love, and then, 'Hurry fast,
Neil, and take me home'; and again I heard her laughing joyously, and
then in the track of grass, away and away, I saw a-coming one that
halted on his foot, and he was away and away, but my love clapped her
hands, and ran down the path with her arms stretched out to be carried
home, and I saw all the Wee Folk run to welcome the one that halted on
his foot, and I knew that the path that they were travelling so fast
was just Time, and slowly, slowly only can Neil Crubach march, but she
is running to meet me--my love."

By this time old Kate had forgotten her troubles, and was away back in
her youth, when, if all accounts be true, there were few, few fit to
hold a candle to her wild beauty or devilry.

"Och, the nights like this would not be hindering the ploys when my leg
was the talk o' a parish, and my cheeks like the wild red rose.  We had
a' the lads to pick and choose among, Bell and me; and mora, it was not
gear they cam' courting for.

"There was a time we slept in the bochan to be nearer the beasts, we
would be telling the old ones, but maybe it was not for that at all,
for your grandfather was raiking then, Dan McBride, it kinna runs in
the breed o' ye.  Ay, well, we were in bed, Bell and me, when the Laird
o' Nourn whistled low outside.  'The devil take ye, Kate,' Bell would
be crying, 'he'll be in,' for there was only divots in the window in
the bochan.  'He will that,' says I, and I saw the divots tumbling, and
in he came assourying wi' two o' us, and us feart when he gied his
great nicker o' a laugh, for fear he would be awakening the old folks,
or rouse the dogs, although they kent him well enough, a rake like
themselves."

"Was he no' the auld devil?" says Dan with a laugh; "two o' ye, and the
best-looking lassies in the countryside."

"He wasna aul'," cried Kate--"aul'; he was as like you as two trout.
He got us two suits o' sailors' claes and he cam' tae see us dressed in
them, and bonny sailors we made, Bell and me, and we went to the Glen
and called on our uncles.  It was dark inside, and they were sitting
ower the fire talking slow and loud, and we went in.

"'What will you be wantin' here in God's name?' said Angus.

"'We've nae money and nae meat,' said I, 'and our ship has sailed
without us, and we're starving.'

"'Starving, John, starving, will ye be hearin' the poor sailor lads.
We have not got any money, John, to be giving, but gie the lads an egg
apiece, John, an egg apiece; and John brought us an egg, and then Bell
winked at me, and 'Ye hard old scart,' says I in the Gaelic, and he got
up on his feet, for he would be knowing my voice, and he could not be
understanding it at all, and when we had finished our devilry I gave
him the egg what I was fit and ran, and Angus would be crying--

"'Give me the graip, John; give me the graip.  Angus will kill boas
(both).'

"So an' on the night wore through; whiles we would be telling old
stories, and there would be times when we sat silent except for auld
Kate whimpering at the fireside.

"These were the days and these were the nights, ochone and ochone, for
the like o' them we'll be seeing nevermore."

And in the morning the women made a meal, moving stealthily about the
house and keeping together when the men went out to their beasts--for
birth or death, wedding or christening, the beasts must be looked to,
and that's good farming.  The seas were breaking white in the bay and
the ships lay at the stretch of their cables, but although we searched
long and ardently, we could not find the _Seagull_.  We were downcast
and silent, and no man looked at his neighbour, for the fear was on all
of our hearts that McGilp and his crew were lost, and at last I voiced
my dread to the innkeeper.

"Ye do not ken McGilp to be speaking that way," said he, and his voice
was hoarse as a raven's croak.  "We could not have run a cargo last
night wi' the sea like a boiling pot; and if the _Gull_ had anchored
off the Rhu Ban Cove there would be plenty to be wondering why she was
there.  No, no, my lad; there's sailor men on the _Gull_, and a wee
thing will not frighten them.  She just ran before it, man, and she's
standing off and on till the night."

And so it proved, for that night McGilp himself was rowed ashore, and
his eyes were red as a rabbit's wi' the lashing o' the sea, and the
white salt was dried on his beard.

With him was McNeilage, his mate, his face red and shining like a
well-fed minister, and the drink to his thrapple.

"A great night last night," said he.  "Och, a night like the old
roaring times when every ship on God's seven seas was a fortune for the
lifting."

We were on the shore at the Rhu Ban, working and toiling at the cargo
with the oars muffled, and no man speaking above his breath, and when
we had the cargo in the coves, and the seaweed and trash from the shore
concealing it, we made our way to the outhouse where McKelvie's lass
had waited, for there were friends of the dead Laird's in the house,
and new men are hard to trust in the smuggling.  And at the outhouse I
spoke to fierce Ronny McKinnon as he stood among the crew.

"Ronny," said I, "there was a bonny lass putting herself about for ye,
or ye might have been listening to mice cheeping instead o' the waves
out there."

"I've been in many's the ploy," says Ronny, "and the lassies liked me
well enough, except just one."

"Would her name be Mirren now?" said I.

"I'll no' say but it might just be that," says Ronny, with a thinking
look in his eyes.

"There was a lass o' that name, on a Hielan' pony, met Dan and me at
Bothanairidh the day before the snow," says I.  "She talked about ye
for a while."

"She would be having nothing good to be saying," says he with a laugh.
"For everything I did was a fault except just I would be sitting at
home with my old mother, and so I just fell in wi' McGilp, and left the
lassies to claver among themsel's for a year or two, for they will have
too many cantrips for a simple man."

"It would just be that lass that told us about the Preventives lying in
the cove near the Snib, and she was sore feart a lad Ronny McKinnon
would be transported."

"And would she be saying just that," says Ronny.

"She would just," says I.

"It's no like her temper at a', but I'll be thanking her for that kind
thought," says he, and commenced to his whistling o' pipers' tunes.


[1] Cormorants.

[2] Boghay.




CHAPTER IX.

MIRREN STUART BIDS HER DOG LIE DOWN.

It was after the burial of the Red Laird that we returned to the Quay
Inn in McKelvie's skiff, and this time we had McKelvie's lass and Ronny
McKinnon with us.  The _Seagull_ was at anchor now over near Donal's
Point, for McGilp had much business to attend to.  Little skiffs had
flitted in the night through the darkness of the bay.  The cove was
empty, and in the sand ballast of many a smack sailing for the mainland
ports, there was that hidden that the smacksmen prized more than their
honest cargoes of coal or potatoes.  Ronny McKinnon had been aye about
the cove, concealed in the daytime and busy in the night, for McGilp
trusted him much, and McKelvie's skiff had made a run with only the
innkeeper and swart Robin on board, except for a keg or two concealed
beneath a sail and a tangled long line.  At the Quay Inn Mrs McKelvie
made a great work with her lass, and would not be letting her do a
hand's turn, but just sit and be resting, and every one was very merry
about the place.  The two sons were scattering clean sand on the floor,
and the fine scent of cooking in the kitchen was wafted to the tap-room
and made my very teeth water for a square meal, for the sea had made me
hungry.  Ronny left us at the inn and made his way homewards, and I
would be hearing his cheery cries to the folk he passed, for he would
be everybody's fair-headed laddie, and maybe Mirren Stuart would be
feeling surer of her man when he would be sitting at home with his old
mother, for it seemed to me that the lassies that would be passing had
very bright eyes, and that they would be looking back often too.

We sat down to a meal in the kitchen, Dan and me, and he kept them all
in crack.  For the mistress he promised to gather bog-bean when the
time came, and she was in her very element; and there sat Dan McBride
with Gude kens what evil in his head, his eyes smiling at the old dame
and listening how she cured a young lass of a stomach complaint with
the wee round caps of the wilks--"for mind you," says she, "each wee
round cap will lift its ain weight o' poison frae the stomach."

"And the coosp,[1] now, mistress; Hamish here will no' be believing me,
but there's de'il the halt better for the coosp than"--and so his talk
went on, and him not believing one word.  And when her mother would be
rattling among the plates on the dresser, Dan would be bending over and
speaking to the lass, and looking into her eyes, and the gruff old
father saying never a word, and the two sons arguing where it was that
Dan had jumped the Nourn burn when the bridge was carried away with the
big spate.  And when we had our fill o' eating, we followed Ronny up
the Glen, for Dan would ken how the hogs were doing there now he was
this length, and so we tracked through the Glen, leaving Finlay
Stuart's house behind us.  As we passed I saw a lass in the stable, and
I wondered if Ronny had seen his mother yet.

It was just the long weary road to the South End that Dan and me
travelled, so the reader can follow Ronny, for he told me his story
long after of his coming when we needed him most.  And this was the
story that he told me:--

"Man," said Ronny, "when I took my leave o' ye at the Quay I just
thought yon day would see it settled between Mirren and me, once and
for all, and I'll no' be denying a queer happy feeling, for I felt I
could be conquering everything that day; but maybe it was because o'
the siller I had in my spluchan to be giving to my old mother, for if
the want o' it will not be making a lad miserable, the having o' it
will aye keep his spirits up.

"I would be thinking, inside of myself, that she would be sitting in
the kitchen, my old mother, and shooing the wee white hen away from
layin' in the bed, and then I would be coming in so quiet, and be
putting my hands over her eyes, and she would be kenning me, and
laughing, and greeting, for that I was back.  Then I would be making
her spread her brat over her knees, and be throwing the siller into her
lap and listening to the cries o' her.  But whiles among these thoughts
I would be making pictures o' a limber long-legged lass that could work
horse like a man, and would be on the hill after sheep when her
neighbours would be stretching themselves in bed, and rubbing the sleep
from their eyes.  And I was seeing her standing on the top of the hill,
wi' the morning breeze playing with her brown hair, wi' the clear
sparkle in her eyes and her lips curled to whistle on the dogs, and aye
I would be wondering if I would get a sight o' her when I passed her
father's place.

"When I came near, there was the great barking o' dogs, and a
black-and-tan collie came at me wi' the burses ridged on his back and
his white teeth showing.

"'Chance, ye old fool,' said I, and at that he gave a yelp, and came at
me daft to be seeing me, and jumping to be licking my face.  I got him
to heel, although, mind you, it did my heart good, his welcome, for we
were long friends, and there were few, few that Chance would welcome.
But I would aye be liking the dog since the first time I put my arm
round Mirren, and that was years ago.  She would have thrown it from
her that time, for she was like a quick-tempered boy, but at her angry
movement the old dog girned at me, and the rumble o' his growl made us
look, and there he was ready to spring at me, and it makes me laugh
yet; for Mirren, my own quick-tempered lass, fondled my hand at her
waist to quieten him.

"'Mirren,' said I, and I took my arm away, 'there's just nothing for it
but you should put your arm round me, for I can see you will only be
tholing mine for the sake o' my skin.'

"'There will be many a blue sea below your feet before Mirren Stuart
will be doing that,' said she, and I let her go a step in front of me,
maybe to see the fine swing o' her, and her free mountain stride.

"I was thinking o' that time when we came to the gate o' Finlay's
place, Chance and me, and the snow had been cleared from before the
stable, and when I looked, there was the Uist pony standing at the door
and Mirren busy at the grooming o' him, and her hair was tousled a wee
and curled at the nape o' her neck, and her sleeves turned back.

"I put my arms on the gate and stood watching her, for many a night I
would be thinking of her and me away, and then maybe because she would
be feeling an eye on her, she turned round.

"'Will ye aye be my lass yet, Mirren?' and I was proud to see the red
flush rise to her cheeks.

"'How many would that be making, Ronny?' she cried, and came half way
and stopped.

"'Just the one, Mirren,' said I, and opened the gate and came beside
her.

"'Ye will have changed then since last I kent ye.'

"'Indeed, and I think ye're bonnier yoursel', lass, and I would not be
believing that possible,' and we walked to the stable door wi' old
Chance at our heels.

"'They will have surely been teaching you nice talk, the stranger
lassies, Ronny.'

"'Mirren, dear,' said I, and put my hand on her shoulder, 'we will not
be talking that way any more, you and me,' and at the stable door o'
Finlay Stuart's place I put my arm round the shoulders of his proud
lass Mirren, and held her back, and made her look at me.

"'My lass,' said I, 'in a wee while I will be kissing my trysted wife.'

"'Look at the dog, Ronny, first,' said Mirren, but her eyes were
laughing.

"'I will be hearing him without looking away from you,' said I.

"And with that I bent my head to kiss her, but her face was turned away
from me, and even then I was hearing the growling o' the collie, and
wondering where he would be fastening on me.  Then with my head quite
close to her, I whispered--

"'Will it not have been any good at all, dear, all my love for you?
Will you be sending me away from you after all?'

"Then as I waited, she said a queer thing--

"'Chance!  Chance! _lie down_!' and at that the laughing came on me,
and my own lass turned her dear face to me glowing, and with a look of
mingled pride and shame she looked at me and put her arms round my neck.

"'I will not be a great hand at saying love talk, Ronny,' she
whispered.  'I can just be holding you tight, but take me if ye will be
having so poor a lass, for I will have been loving you all to myself
all the time.'

"And when a wee while was passed and we found ourselves in the stable
(for a lass has always an eye for who may be looking), Mirren Stuart
gave me a look of great scorn, but playfully.

"'It will be as well that one o' us is farmer enough to mind the
beasts,' said she, and went out and took the garron into his stall, for
he had been clean forgot, and stood looking longingly into his stable
and the wind raising a pook o' hair on his tail."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

"Well, when the lassies, Mirren's sisters, were by wi' teasing us, I
sat down to a meal in Finlay's kitchen, and when I rose on my legs to
be going, my lass flung a shawl round her, and wondrous bonny she was
in that shawl, and we left by the back road to be seeing my mother, and
the lassies flung bachles at us 'for luck.'  And although Mirren was
not out o' my sight in the house, yet I will be quite sure they kent we
were for the marrying, for I got a glimpse o' Peggy, a rollicking
tomboy o' a lass, rubbing herself against Mirren's shawl and crying,
'It's me that will be going off next.'

"And Anne, a ruddy lass, whispered--

"'Now that you will have the lad you were speaking about through your
sleep, Mirren, maybe ye'll be giving me your garters,' and between one
and the other o' them, it was a red-faced, brave-looking lass that
stood wi' me in my mother's kitchen.

"And my mother, that I had been wearying for a sight o' for three years
past, my old mother, kissed the lass first, and then--

"'You will have managed to bring him to his senses at last, Mirren
dear,' said she; and then I found that these two had been having the
great confabs when I would be away, and my wife has told me since, when
she was new-fangled wi' me, and very loving, that she would just be
going there to be listening to my mother's stories about me, when I
would be a wean; and although I will be telling her that the things I
am remembering most are the skelpings I would be getting, she just will
be laughing at me.

"'It is not one half of what you would be deserving, my man,' she says.

"So and on, there we sat wi' the red glow of the fire shining on my old
mother's face, making her look hearty and well in her white mutch, and
glinting on Mirren's eyes when she turned to speak, and lowing in the
copper o' her hair, and I would be content to sit and listen to these
two, till Mirren had to be going.  On the road home she made no
complaints when I put my arm round her, for was she not my own lass
now.  Moreover, it was dark.  We were at our first good-night under the
rowan-trees beside the byre, for rowans will keep the fairies away, and
it is good farming to have them where the beasts will be walking under
them every day.  We were loath to part, Mirren and me, and she would be
lying against my breast, when there came the figure of a man running,
and I kent him for Gilchrist the excise-man.

"'Stop a wee, my lad; stop,' says I.  'What will be hurrying ye?'

"'That damned McGilp has escaped us again,' said he, 'and Dan McBride
has killed Dol Rob Beag.'

"'Run, Ronny, run,' cried Mirren, and pulled me to the stable.  'Dan
will be needing all his friends before the morning,' and she had the
bridle on the garron, and I was on his back like a flash, and making
for the Quay Inn before she was done speaking."


[1] Coosp=chilblain on the heel.




CHAPTER X.

DOL BEAG IS FLUNG INTO A FIRE.

And now you will be coming to meet Dan and me on the long road back
from the South End, and coming on with us like a good comrade, for Dan
that day walked like a man that was fey, and I, who would be thinking I
kent him, might just as weel have been walking with a stranger.  Below
the shoulder o' the big black hill, before ye come to the Laird's Turn,
he halted.

"Man, Hamish, the hills are just vexed wi' me this day," said he, "and
I ken a' their moods, as weel as a bairn kens his mother."

"To me," said I, and I would be searching about in my mind for the
right words, like a pedant, for was I not college-bred--"to me," said
I, "they aye look just grandly contemptuous," and, mind you, my heart
went out to the great strong man at my side because of the soft place
in his warm heart for the grim old hills, for I would aye be feared to
talk that way to him, for fear of his laughing.

"I ken what ye mean by grandly contemptuous too," said he.  "I have
felt that way when I would be gathering sheep, and looking up at the
crags and the rocks above me, and the head o' the hill would be turned
from me in disdain, and I would be feeling like the wee red ant
crawling on the beard o' a warrior, asleep on a glorious battlefield.
I canna just be putting the right words to it, but, man, I feel it
inside o' me.

"There's days in the early summer mornings before the heat-haze has
lifted when a man can see the hills lying on their backs wi' their
faces to the sun, like giants resting, and he can see the smile on the
brow o' them when the sun beats down, and it's fine to be imagining
that they're laughing to one another; and on these days the hills are
aye friendly to a man, and when he lies down among the heather the
spirit o' the hills will be knowing him, and his forebears, since the
hills were established; but ah! they will be glooming at me the day.

"There's a frown on the brow o' the Urie, and his face is hidden from
me, and listen to the grumbling and flyting o' the burn.  They're a'
vexed, Hamish, but we're to have company down through the glen, for
yonder will be Sandy Nicol driving his stots to the bay."

We made up on the drover, a wild unkempt man with a great red beard
wagging on his broad chest, and fierce blue eyes that seldom winked,
and it seemed to me that his dogs--for two deep-chested, lean-flanked
black collies slunk at his heel--it seemed to me that they kent his
mind before he spoke a word, for they worked the wild hill-bred stots
like the dogs the old folk will be telling about.

"Ye would be looking to the hogs," said he, as if he had kent us from
the hillside and no greeting was needed; and as he spoke I thought of
an old door swinging on rust-eaten hinges, for his voice was deep and
harsh, as though he opened his mouth seldom to speak; and indeed such
was the case, for he lived on his farm among the hills alone with his
dogs.

"It's no great day this to be travelling beasts," said Dan, as we
walked at the tails o' the little herd.

"Ay, but this is just the day for Sandy.  Nae fears o' the evil eye wi'
the snaw on the road, for there's something clean aboot snaw, and auld
wives are at their firesides, wi' their ill wishes and evil eyes."

"You will ken the Red Laird's deid and buried, Sandy?"

For a wee while after Dan's question we three walked in silence, and
then the drover turned his wild face to us.

"We watched the devil coming for him yon night; we watched his coming,
ay, away far out on the sea, the black stallions stretched to the
gallop like racing hounds, and the hoofs o' them striking white fire
frae the water, and the flames o' hell curling and twisting round the
wheels o' his chariot.  Ay, we watched oor lane, the dogs and me, and
his whip was forked lightning, and his voice drooned the roar o' the
gale."

I felt a grue slither through me when the man stopped, for his harsh
voice intoned his words like some dreadful chant.

"Ye would be late out that night," said Dan, and again we were silent
till the drover spoke, and the thought came to me that he arranged all
his words in his mind, and then loosed his tongue to them.

"They were round us, that night, evil spirits and evil beasts, and they
would be lifting the thatch from the roof; and we went out, the dogs
and me, and a' the great rocks on the hillside would be jumbling and
jarring thegether, for all the evil ones were loose from the pit, and
tumbling the hills, and setting them straight, and the blue lowes were
rissling on the hill-tops.  But I would be holding my steel in my hand,
and we sat and watched, the dogs and me."

"Was it the skein-dubh you would be holding?"

"It would not be the black knife, Dan McBride; it would just be this."

At that Sandy Nicol showed us a small object, which seemed to me to be
a twisted horse-shoe nail wrapped round about with wool; but he would
not be letting it go from his palm, and when I would have examined it
closer he put it past.

"It's not Sandy that would be droving without his steel," he cried.

"Would you aye be carrying that?" said I; for he looked so wild and
lawless that it was not in me to be believing that he trusted to aught
save his dirk.

"There was a time no, mo bhallach," said Sandy Nicol, "a time when I
would be selling back-calvers and stots to the Red Laird for the
mainland markets; and it would just be the wee Broon Lass o' Ardbennan
that saved the beasts--for, ye see, I did not always stay ma lane, and
when my mother would be failin' and her joints stiffening like a' aged
beasts, the milking would aye be done and the byre mucked when she got
up in the morning.  Oh, but she was the wise one, for she would be
leaving the best o' the cream in a basin, and maybe a bannock, for the
wee Broon Lass, for my mother would be seeing her flitting among the
battens.  And before she went away she would be telling me: 'Never be
offering her boots or claes when the snaw comes, Sandy, for the Broonie
o' Lag 'a bheithe[1] left in sore anger for that they pitied her in the
snaw.'

"Direach sin, it was a fine day I started to drive the back-calvers and
stots, and the sun red wi' a fine-weather haze, and the roads hard and
dry, and it was maybe two hours I was on the road and the beasts
settled, when there came a woman on the road and a shawl about her
head, and I kent her for a devil's black bairn that could be telling
her ain folk when the rain would come in the harvest, and when the
butter would come on at the kirning.

"A bad unchancy woman; ye'll ken the breed o' them, for they will be
sore feart o' clean burn-water, but they'll be coorieing ower a fire a'
day, and talking to the black cat, and I had it in my mind to be
turning when I saw her, for did she not come into the byre at Dyke-end
when the beasts were at their fother, and she stood and she eyed them.

"'So bonny,' says she, 'so bonny and fat and glossy, and the wee bit
speckled quey calves they'll be leaving,' and with that she walked up
the byre and ran her hand over the tors of the beasts, crooning away to
herself; and another month saw the last of the kye pic calved.

"Well, well, I stood when she came to me, and she smirked at me.
'Seven braw beasts, and not a lame yin among them,' says she, and
tittered a wee bit laugh that set the dogs girning through their bare
teeth; and then she went her way, and her laughing coming back to me,
and we would not be far on when the first of the beasts was hirpling;
and one after the other the lameness came on them, till I could just
have sat down and grat that I had not set the dogs on the witch.

"I would just be turning the beasts on the road for a wee, when there
came the wee Broon Lass among the bracken on the hillside, and then I
left the road and took the dogs with me, and we hid on the low side,
for fear to anger the wee Broon Lass.  She went among the beasts, and
they would be kenning her, and lowing quietly like calves, and she
would be lifting their feet, and then there would be a hole in the
clits o' them a'.  And the wee Broon Lass, she blew and she blew into
the hole, and went on to the next, and in a wee the beasts were walking
sound, and taking a bite at the sprits and the scrog on the roadside,
and I lay close till I saw the wee one near the rise o' the hill, and
started the beasts again, and the lameness came near them not any more,
but aye I would be carrying the steel after that."

In the middle of the glen we left Sandy Nicol with his dogs and his
travelling beasts, and before we turned the bend where the nut-trees
were I looked back, and there he came on slowly with the sunset light
on him as he came, and I saw him looking to the great rocks on his left
hand as though he waited the coming of something not of this world; and
again he would be looking down through the bare trees to the dark glen
where the burn was muttering and grumbling coldly, and it was strange
to me that these wild men, so terrible in their anger, would be
believing all these old stories, until the thought came to me that it
would just be the poetry and imaginings of the Celt, alone among the
hills that are aye on the very point of speaking to their children; for
a man, and a bold man, will be seeing and hearing strange things among
the hills, when the mist comes down, when he will have listened to the
stories of hate and love and clan feuds of his folks since he could be
listening, clapped on his creepie stool close to his mother's skirt,
and his head against her knees.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

There was great company gathered at the Quay Inn when we entered,
although many of the ships had sailed, but there were sailors too, for
the bay was not handy for owners to come at, and the Quay Inn was a
favourite, so that it was no uncommon thing for ships to be wind-bound
for days, and even weeks, and there would be the great fights between
the men from the ships and the lads from the glens.  But there was no
trouble when we entered at all, for with the snow and the hard frost
outside, the great fire was the cheery place to be sitting at, and
indeed there must needs be ill blood between men if they will not be
agreeing over the best of drink, and fine company to be drinking it
with.

But it was as if every one was well pleased and with no worries, for I
saw no men whispering, with heads close, but every one happy to
recklessness, and already there was the darker red flush on the faces
that told of drink taken, and then I saw that many of the men gathered,
had been to the cove at the Rhu Ban in their skiffs, and were met here
to celebrate the run in their ain way.  A great shouting they made when
Dan stood among them, his eyes shining, for a ploy of this kind was
meat and drink to him, and they made room for us by the fire; while
McKelvie brought steaming glasses, and winked and nodded, and would be
looking wise as though we might ken something about his wares that he
would not be telling everybody, till indeed I could not keep back the
laughing to see the grave stern man so far gone with his own liquor.

And as we sat I would be watching a sailor with a knife at his hip, and
the lithe swing of the mountaineer in his carriage--a Skye man, I was
thinking; but he stood silent against the jamb of the fireplace, and
his eyes were dreamy and sad, and in myself I knew he was seeing his
own place, and him outward bound.  When the night was wearing on it
came his turn to sing, and with his song I knew that my thinking was
right, for his song was a farewell to Skye.  Now I know not the words,
but the air will haunt me whiles when the days are shortening, and the
pictures he painted will never be leaving my mind.

For I saw the dark sad hills of Coulin, and the sun blood-red on the
peaks, and the heavy dark night clouds tinged and burnished with gold,
and the sea was all silent, with the wee waves rippling on the shore.
And on the shore was a maiden looking away and away to sea, and the
nets all unheeded at her feet, and the seagulls not heeding her at all,
and the great sorrow was in her eyes, in the very poise of her; and I
wondered where was the lithe lad she should be having to love her, for
her eyes would aye be looking at the empty sea. . . .

When my mind was wandering on pictures of sadness, of an empty sea and
great grim silent hills, the inn door was pushed open, and the cold
swirl of frosty night air made the roysterers turn, and in there came a
thick-set junk of a man.  Always to my mind, Dol Rob Beag, for he it
was, had a look of a Joonie doorie, being all run to shoulders, and no
neck on him at all.  His arms hung well to his knee, giving the man the
appearance of a powerful animal.  His face was brown as a smack's sail,
and his eyes red and shifty as a ferret's.

"What is it ye waant here?" growled McKelvie with a lowerin' look, and
there was silence from the others; and the men put their drink down
where it would not spill if there should be a scrimmage.  Dol Beag put
a hand to his beard, and his shifty eyes fixed on the innkeeper.

"Ceevility," says he, "from a man in the public.  I'm wantin' that, and
I'll be payin' for whatever drink I'll tak.  Put a refreshment before
me, McKelvie, and go back again to your affairs."

There's no denying the man had a cold-steel bravery in him, and a grim
smile flickered on his face as he watched McKelvie, for no Hielan'man
born can thole being likened to a menial, and the dark blood of hatred
glowed on the innkeeper's face.

"I ken the ceevility I would like to be giving to you, Dol Beag," says
he, and put a drink on the table, and lifting the coin tendered in
payment he hurled it behind the fire.  "I would not be thinking myself
clean if I kept your money."

Dol Beag was on him before his words were out.

"The hell take you," he girned through clenched teeth, and his knife
left his hip.  "Ye'll lick where that lay, McKelvie, ye--ye--maker of
meats for sailors," and the sweat rolled off his brow, and his voice
was a skirl of rage.

McKelvie grabbed a horse-pistol from among his kegs.

"Ye hound, I'll put a hole in ye that will be hurrying the gaugers tae
fill wi' siller," and as quick as light he levelled the pistol and drew
the trigger.  The room was filled with brimstone smoke that gripped the
back of the throat, but Dol Beag was unhurt, and creeping like a
powerful beast on his enemy.  (The heavy bullet had smashed through the
eight-day clock.) McKelvie was retreating warily to his barrels again,
and I wondered if he had another pistol, when Dan laid his hand on Dol
Beag.

"Stop a minute," said he; "there's some talk due to me before ye kill
McKelvie."

"Ay, ay, wan at a time, McBride; I'll be feenishing the stickin' o'
this pig before I will start on you, and you can be countin' your
bastards again," and with that he whipped round on Dan like an eel with
his dirk hand high.  But a spring took Dan clear, and before Dol Beag
could follow, Dan had him in the air spitting like a cat.

"Ashes to ashes," says he, "dhust to dhust," says he, in a thick blind
rage, and hurled Dol smash between the stone jambs to the back of the
fire.

I saw Dol Rob Beag's neck take the corner of the jamb, and heard the
wrench, and then the singeing smell started, and I pulled him out from
the fire and the Skye man flung a stoup of water on him.

"Give him the whisky quick," cried swart Robin McKelvie; "put it down
his throat," but Dol Beag lay still.

A young man at the door--the same exciseman, Gilchrist, that trotted at
Mirren Stuart's coat-tails--cried in a thin voice, "Christ, he's deid;
ye'll swing for this, Dan McBride," and disappeared in the night.  With
that the sailors made for the door, driven by that fear of the law with
the long arm and the ruthless grasp; but Dan stood for a while looking
on his handiwork in dour silence.

"He brought it on himself, Hamish," says he; "but, man, I'm sorry for
his wife's sake."

"Out, man, out," I cried at him; "there's nae time for sorrow," and
there came the clop-clop of a galloping horse on the frozen road, and
Ronny McKinnon flung himself among us.

"The back door, damnation, the back door," he cried, and pushed Dan
before him.  "Will ye wait till that wasp's bink is buzzin' aboot yer
lugs?"

We followed McKinnon through the kitchen and into the yard behind the
inn, and a great fear came on me, for the yard was overhung with a
bush-covered precipice, and the long icicles glittering, and there was
only the track round to the main road open.

"We're trapped, Dan; we're trapped."

"Trapped nane.  Follow me, ye gomeril; there's a track up the broo,"
whispered McKinnon, and swung himself among the lowest of the bushes,
and we followed.

"I ken the very branches to put my hand on," says he, "and where every
stane is, for many's the night I ran the cutter for the auld wives."
We were half-way up before Dan spoke.

"I never kilt a man before," says he in a low whisper.

"Ye did weel for a beginner," says that wild young sea-hawk.  "Nobody
will be blaming ye for botching the work."  And as we struggled up he
hissed a fierce sea oath at me, when my clumsier boot dislodged an
icicle that tinkled like breaking glass in the yard below us.

"On, man, on," he whispered.  "Ye'll need a' your start, for the gang
will hunt ye doon like a mad dog."

"Fareweel, Hamish," says Dan, and put his hand to mine on the cliff
head.  "I'll harrow my ain ploughing."

"Go on, man, go on," I cried; "they're coming," for lights were
flashing on the road, and loud voices raised.  We had gained a bare
half-mile on the cliff face, for the road up was "round about," and
Ronny was impatient.

"Och, will ye wait for the hangman's rope?" in a fierce whisper below
his breath.  "There's a hidie-hole I ken, but little good it'll dae ye
when the hitch is on your thrapple."  And we started the long race to
the hills, picking out the patches behind the dykes where the ground
was bare.


[1] Lag 'a bheithe=the hollow of the birch.




CHAPTER XI.

THE BLAZING WHINS.

McKinnon was first in that long race and I next to him, for Dan would
not let me out of his sight lest I should lag behind and get rough
handling, although indeed, except the gaugers would yelp questions at
me which I might not find easy to answer, there was little I had to
fear, but it was always in Dan's mind that he had the charge of me.
The land was cultivated on a stey[1] face of maybe a half-mile before
the hill common started, and over the common (where in the summer the
cattle and hens were taken) the heather was patchy with bog hay, and
short crisp turf in places.  It was this wrought land I feared most,
for the snow was not swept in wreaths, leaving darker patches, but lay
like a white napkin over the land, and a black object could be seen
from a great distance.  But there was a belting of beech-trees and
Scots firs marching two farms; and coorieing in sheuchs, where the ice
crinkled in metallic splinters under our feet, we crawled to the
belting, and were able to stand upright again, at which I breathed a
sigh of relief, for my back had a pain like a band of hot iron with the
long bending.  We scrambled among the trees, and lay a moment, for
there was a roughness of bushes and briars, and the snow had been blown
off the branches, so there was little likelihood of our being seen.  We
lay breathing hard and peering through the bushes for signs of pursuit
(for the exciseman who cried the news at Finlay Stuart's, not knowing
his listener, would have roused his pack by this time), and that Rob
Beag was in their pay secretly there was now little doubt.  It would be
short shrift for Dan if he were caught.  Maybe two minutes we lay, and
I could have counted every beat of my heart, as it rose with a great
thud against my chest, and I felt the blood throb in my head like a
prisoner dashing against his cell.  The noise of a fall of snow from
the fir branches seemed loud as thunder, although we must have been
quiet enough, for I mind me of the rabbits loping from the burrows
daintily, and sitting up very boldly, almost under reach of a
shepherd's crook from me.

"They will have taken roun' the road," says Ronny; "they'll be on us
before we see them if we lie here."

On we went in single file in the belting.  Briars swung back and cut me
across the face, branches tore at us in passing all unheeded, and once
my leg, to the knee, sunk into a hole and threw me bodily; but I pulled
myself out, and was lame for six steps maybe, and forgot about it.
When we were half-way to the hill common there came sharp and clear
through the night the neigh of a horse.

"The doited fules," cries Ronny.  "They've ta'en the horses to ride a
man doon among the hills."

"Let me once win the peat bink," says Dan, "and I'll wander the devil
himsel'."  And from the ring in his voice I kent his dark mood had
passed, and waited to see him take the lead; but no, he herded me from
behind, but cheerily now.  We had crossed a high road, and entered the
belting of trees again, and along this road the gangers would come, and
our spoor was written plain.

"There will be the collieshangie when they see our marks in the snaw,
but they'll founder their horses on the brae and ill-use time tae nae
purpose, if just we get ower the common."

From the high ground we could see the road for half a mile and the
hunters in full cry, some on horseback and some afoot.

"Horse and foot," says Dan at my ear.  "A grim chase, Hamish.  I wish
ye had left me, lad."

A terrible curse from Ronny made me think our flank was already turned.
"The devil blast them.  The whuns, I clean forgot the whuns," and he
called on the Almighty to blast and destroy every whin-bush that ever
grew.

Amidst the torrent of oaths that buzzed around me I remembered hearing
of the whin planting.  In these days keep for beasts was scarce, and
the crofters would be cutting green whins, and pounding them between
flat stones and feeding cattle and horse with them.  Indeed, to this
day you'll see the flat stone yet at many a byre-end, although it is
never used now except maybe to set a boyne on on washing days; but the
poor cow beasts were terribly fond of the whins, and they'll tell you
yet, the old folks, that when they were herding in their young days,
when the beasts got scattered, they would take a whin bush and light it
to windward, and let the whin smoke drift down the wind, and the beasts
would come running, for they liked the charred whins with the sap still
in the jags.  Here and there they planted whins, for at one time they
had to go all the way to the castle for them, and on one side the
common was a great dense bank of them, thick as corn, and well grown.

"They'll be round us like collies round a marrow bane," said Ronny, and
as he spoke there was a shout from the highroad, and Dan laughed.

"This is where the kirn starts," and looking over my shoulder as I ran
I saw the horsemen spread out like a fan (on either side the belting)
where we crossed the road, and the men on foot were on our heels.

They knew of the bank of whins we must struggle through, and relied on
their horses' speed to take them round the planting and catch us coming
out while the men on foot harried our rear.  It was 'twixt devil and
deep sea, and the smuggler cursed himself for leading us into the clove
hitch.

Between us and the whins was a burn with steep earthy banks, and too
wide and deep to risk horses over.  So the horsemen on our left made
for a slap[2] where a rough peat-track crossed the burn, but those on
our right kept straight on, like the road to Imachar.  At the lower end
of the whins the burn was shallower and the banks low.

We flung across the stream, carrying down an avalanche of loose earth
and stones after us, and breenged into the maze of prickly bushes,
winding through those that the snow had been blown off.  But mostly the
bushes were dry and bare of snow, and this indeed proved our safety.
We were nearly through the clumps when the horsemen on our right
crossed the burn with a great floundering and splashing, and those on
our left came galloping over the peat-track, and the first horseman
galloped past us, so close that I heard the squeak of the saddle
leather.  We were crouched in a wee burn winding among the bushes; for
they grew strongly on either side, and left a little tunnel which one
could creep through without much hindrance, and as the riders drove
their unwilling beasts among the whins we crawled upwards like cats.
While the men on foot beat for us, and the horsemen kept wary eyes for
a movement to betray us, we crept from the whins and crawled like
adders belly flat up the little stream, over which dry bracken still
hung and straggling whin bushes, like soldiers marching away from the
main body.  We had crawled maybe fifty yards, when McKinnon turned his
face to me, and the blood was drying on his cheeks and brow where the
whins had marked him.

"Stop," his lips only moved; and I stopped and turned to Dan, for he
still had the rear-guard.

The burn had worn out a round hole under our bank, and we crawled in
and lay there, and never, never will I forget the cold of that pool and
the streak of light above us, for we lay in a brook that a sheep could
walk over, and indeed its very narrowness was our safety, for it surely
had been watched else.  And while we lay in the frozen cold of the
pool, the water tinkled and gurgled and laughed, and went plout-plout
at my knees, as though it was a hot summer day and we were stooping to
drink.

"We must just lie here like rats," whispered the smuggler, and I held
my chin to stop the chattering of my teeth, "for this burn gets
narrower than a sheep drain.  We must just steep in the water and think
of the whisky."

We could hear the swishing among the whins, and the shouts of the
rabble behind us, and the clatter of horses' hoofs on the shingle of
the burn, and the splashing.

"They're in there like rabbits in a patch of corn in the harvest,"
cried one man.

"By God, if I could only get that Ronny McKinnon under my bonny blue
hanger," said Gilchrist, the ganger that had the soft side for Mirren
Stuart.

"One good prog wid pay for this night's daftness," growled his leader,
and again came Gilchrist's voice--

"Was I tae ken McKinnon was ootside Finlay Stuart's and a dozen o' ye
in the kitchen."

"Umph," sniffed Ronny, "it's the great company that gathers at
Finlays," and indeed Mirren Stuart saved many's the house at that time,
for the gangers and excisemen went after her sisters, while old Finlay
smiled grimly, and Mirren got hold of the secrets.

"If a man runnin' like that Gilchrist can blurt oot the news and keep
runnin', it's maistly truth, but if he stops and begins to walk, and
twist his mouth before he speaks, he's makin' lies," said McKinnon, and
turned himself in the water.

The searchers were beginning to tire of beating.

"Roast the devil oot."  "Ay, gie McBride a taste o' the fire."

"I'm thanking God for a fool," said Dan, "if the whins will just burn,
but whins are dour revengefu' bushes."

"Burn," says Ronny--"burn; they'll hiv a bleeze ye'll see for twenty
miles--we're bate, Dan."

"Na, na," says Dan.  "Wait you, yonder's a twinkle, anither.  Man,
they'll mak' a bonny lowe, and waste a heap of good keep."

Men were rushing hither and thither with flaming branches, and already,
when the breeze freshened, you could hear the roar and crackle.  The
great lilac flames leapt ten feet in the air, and the night rained
stars.  The sparks fell above us like fire-flakes, and some came down
and sizzled out in our pool.

When the flames were roaring like a hurricane, Dan spoke softly--

"We'll go now."

"Are ye daft?" said Ronny.

"Ye don't ken the effect o' a fire like that," said Dan.  "A man must
look at it, and see the lowes ploofin' into the sky, and the sparks
fleein'.  He canna help himsel'.  The horses will be needing a lot o'
handling too, and the men on the low side'll just hiv tae run tae
winward or lie in the burn, for the heat o' whuns is terrible.  They'll
a' face the flames waitin' till we run oot like bleezin' deevils, and
they're sae sure that we will start every moment, they will not lift
their eyes for fear they will be missing the sight o' us."

"We must just risk it," said I, "for I'm like to freeze here."

Dan put his head out of our hole and crawled out, and I followed, and
Ronny last.  We could feel the air warm, and the night was clear as
day, and yet the searchers stood gazing at their fire as Dan had said.
We crawled flat like snakes, keeping among dark patches as much as we
could, till we came to the turf dyke, and still our pursuers tended the
fire.  Slowly and softly we crossed into heather, and lay for a minute.
Then, looking down across the common, Dan threw back his head and
laughed in his silent fashion.

"We're among our ain heather now, Hamish," says he.  "In an hour we'll
be among the peat hags.  I've a mind tae whistle them up."

"I've lain long enough in the water, Dan," said I.

"Aweel," says he, "we'll just make McAllan's Locker for it; eh, Ronny?"
And again we started to run, zigzagging to the dark bits till we
crossed the first rise, and we stood looking back.  The whins were all
ablaze and the trees in the belting standing out clear, and the little
figures still running with the torches.


[1] Steep.

[2] Opening.




CHAPTER XII.

McALLAN'S LOCKER.

Over the first rise of the hills was a long dreary waste--treeless,
awesome, desolate.  Whiles, as we ran, a curlew would rise, and its
long whirling cry rose in the night, filling the ears and leaving an
emptiness afterwards in the silence, for things not canny to be
filling.  Once we startled a herd of red-deer feeding round the mossy
lips of a frozen pool, and away they galloped.  One lordly stag wheeled
with antlers high, gazed at our flight, and vanished, leaving us in
that dreadful stillness, and a cold eerie wind whined and sighed over
us.  We spoke little, having no breath to spare, for the ground was
growing more steep and broken towards the second rise, up which we
clambered, sliding and falling, grasping frozen heather till we reached
the top.  The hill was now a riddle of peat hags and binks, like a
bee's skep, a place of treachery and slimy death, although the frost
would have most of the sinking pools in its iron hand; but we never
stopped the long stride that seemed so slow to me at first.  Dan bent
and twisted through the peat banks like a hound on the trail.  Here was
a place where folk had wrought, cutting their fuel for generations; and
God knows what memories were lurking here from the old days, what
ghosts of love and hatred, what spirits of tears and laughter.  Would
the race never end?  My tongue, dry and swollen, stuck raspily against
the roof of my mouth.  Round my lips was a hot fire, for I had grasped
a handful of snow and melted it in my mouth as I ran.  We were past the
peat hags, and the ground fell away under our feet; the heather got
scantier and sprits more common, until we had descended, maybe, five
hundred feet into a wide valley with a level plain at its heart, with
many clumps of stunted birches and hardy firs.  Here was the great
grazing for young beasts in the summer, away here in the glen, but now
only stillness and desolation.  A wide burn rumbled and splashed on its
gravelly banks in front of us, and we could hear the deep noise of a
waterfall.

"Hold in to the fall," cried McKinnon, and his voice was hoarse as a
raven's.

"I ken this like the back o' my hand," said Dan, and led us, with never
a break, to an easy crossing.

And now we took the greatest care of our going, for a great hill rose
before us steep, as it seemed to me, as the wall of a house, and then
all our care was made useless, for the snow began again.

Slowly, blindly we clambered and spelled up the hillside, now numb with
cold, now fiery hot, Dan always in the lead, and me groaning at his
hurdie.

"Keep a stout heart, Hamish; this is the last o't."

We were now, as it were, on a ladder on the hill face, for there were a
succession of great holes like steps, on each of which three men could
stand--the giant's steps, the old folks called them.

At the back of the step where we three lay was a grey rock, as though
the earth had been worn away, leaving the rock partly bare.  As we lay
Dan struck it three times with a stone about the size of a
putting-ball, and a great low baying sounded, and my blood ran cold,
and then the grey rock moved inch by inch, and I heard a great rift of
Gaelic, and Dan went crawling like a snake through the hole, and myself
and McKinnon at his heels.

"Welcome, hearty welcome; whatever drives ye sae fast.  Welcome to
McAllan's Locker."

"It's latish for ceilidhing," said Dan.  "I'm hoping me and my friends
are not putting ye out in any ways, but just a shakedown o' breckans is
all we're asking, and thankful for it."

"Better the bottom o' the locker than the end o' the cable.  Sit ye
doon and warm yourself."

I was sore done wi' the long running, and lay on the rook floor with my
head on my arms, and I felt as a hound feels after a long chase, till
the caveman answered Dan.  At the first I thought his tongue had been
malformed as he stood in the light, for a growling and grumbling came
from his throat; and as he growled, from the darkness of the chamber a
great brindled dog stalked to his side and stretched his fore-paws,
opened a mouth like a red pit, and whined with outstretched curling
tongue.

"He would tear down a stag, him," says Dan, nodding at the brute.
Again came the growling rumbling from the stranger.

"Hark tae him, Marr; hark tae him--a stag.  Ho, ho, ho!  He would tear
a man's throat oot at his first leap," and man and dog rumbled and
growled in devilish mirth.  "Sing tae me, dog--sing," and the man threw
his head up, and there came the long greeting howl of a dog baying the
moon, and dog and man howled in unison, with swaying bodies and heads
thrown upwards.

"God, but the open hill's a bonny place," said McKinnon, and a shiver
went over him.  In this terrible place we lay the night--a great gloomy
forbidding place in the belly of the hill.  Shiver on shiver went
through me as I looked round me.  The walls were rock, bare and dry,
converging high up in the gloom; for there was just the peat fire and a
cruisie alight.  Once, as though disturbed in its sleep, I heard a
rock-pigeon "rookatihoo coo-a" away above me in some cranny that must
open on the hill face.  The smoke curled up in a rude dry-stone chimney
for about five or six feet against the rock, and the bulk of it still
ascended in a column, although the chimney stopped, but a waving pall
hung over the cave, swaying and undulating in long waves and streamers,
and the air below was cool and fresh.  There were great carvings on the
walls--warriors and ships, galleys and horses a-rearing, and on a flat
stone projecting from the chimney, and serving as the brace or
mantelpiece, were models of ships made from the breast-bones of birds,
some quite large and others very small, and needing an infinite deal of
patience.  There were rough stools and a table, all of which must have
been made inside the cave, and, indeed, the bark was dry and brittle on
the legs.  Great bundles of heather, fashioned like narrow beds, lay
along the wall in the firelight, and like a dark unwinking eye the
light glimmered on a pool.  There were square steps cut in the rock
down to the pool, which was shaped like a horn spoon with the handle
cut off short, and the water entering it from a crack in the rock,
noiselessly as oil, trickled silently away in a little sloping gutter
to the back of the cavern.  Who first discovered the cavern I never
knew, but by the fire lay, twisted and blackened, the hilt and half of
a sword, and in a corner a black and rust-pitted breastplate.  The back
part of the cave narrowed, and through a passage the Nameless Man
passed to bring us meat and drink.  Have you walked on a bare moor road
in the pit mirk wi' a drizzle of soft mist in a silence you could hear?
Have you felt the fear coming over you, like a cold hand on your heart,
when ye knew that a thing gibbered and mouthed at your side?  Well, the
thought o' that man, the Nameless Man, brings fear to me in a lighted
room.

For he was a dead white man, his hair, lank and white, hung round his
shoulders, his beard was slimy and soft as a white hare's, face and
hands cold, dead white, and his features were frozen.

No trace of any feeling showed on his face.  His voice and his laughter
rumbled from his throat, leaving his face unchanged, only his pupils
waxed and waned like a cat's in the dark.  He was covered with a
patchwork of skins and tatters of cloth, and as he set meat before us,
venison, it came to me that he must hunt his food in the dark, always
in the dark.  That cold whiteness was not of the good God's sunlight.
As we ate, Dan told him some of our story, and the Nameless Man sat, a
handful of his beard in his hand, his elbow on the table, and his eyes
growing and fading.

"I'm sair feart I left him deid," said Dan.  "If they come for us, dog,
when we're lying at the still and the good water turnin' to fine
whisky--and the good nice water, trickling and dripping through the
rocks for a hundred years--if they creep upon us, dog, what will we be
doing, you and me, Marr?  Ho--ho--ho! killing them, eh?  Leaving their
bones wi' the white bones away in there--the old, old bones," and dog
and man made a howling of laughter.  I knew then that this was the
watcher of a smugglers' still; for let the gang o' Preventives do their
worst, whisky would still be made in the hills.

It came to me then why the folk would be leaving peats for the wee
folks, as they said, when they would be taking down the creels from the
hills; for the Nameless Man threw more on the fire from some hidden
store, likely nearer his worm, when we had finished eating.  The great
dog lay at the rock by which we entered, and I saw that the stone was
swung on a balance; but if there was a way to open from the outside I
never knew till long after.  McKinnon and Dan lay talking, but I was
silent for the most part, thinking of the sword and the armour, and of
the people who fashioned the well, and wondering about the old, old
bones away through the dark passage into the heart of the hill.  The
far, far-away stories were in my mind of Finn and his warriors, of his
great dogs and his queens.  Did Ossian the bard tune his harp to great
deeds, and to lovely women of the land of the Ever Young, in the cave
of the past?  Into my musings--for sleep had nearly come over me--broke
the voice of the Nameless Man.

"I gave her to drink of the foamy milk--warm, and the bubbles of froth
in it.  'Drink, my lost lass,' said I, 'for ye loved me well once,' and
all the time I would be telling her that death was coming with the
white milk.  And she took up the fine nice milk and drank, because she
had loved me well once, she that loved me yet but feared--the coward,
the soft, soft, white coward that would lie on another man's heart
after I had keeled her for myself.  Ay, she took up the milk and drank,
and I took my ways, and they came running to Glen Darruach to tell me
she had died.

"Oh, oh! the dark, the dark, and never more the sun shining on the
bonny blooms of dark Darruach, never mair the white lambs running, and
the gleam on the wing of the moorcock.

"Ay, they would be for the killing of me, and I lay among the rafters,
under the thatch of my mother's house, and listened to them miscalling
me, the black killer--the bloody man that had the black art and the
evil eye; and it came over my heart to catch them by the hair, and pull
them up to me as they were speaking, and let my black knife kiss their
hearts.  It was all red, red before me, up there under the thatch, and
them down below, and my sisters shaking when they saw me watching down
in the dark.  It's droll, droll--because a soft white coward died--they
would kill me, me that would kill a man when I drew my dirk--ho, ho, ho!

"I lay hid among the rocks above the Herring Slap, alane day and night,
and the blue rockdoos left their nestlings and circled above my lair,
till I was feart that folk wid see them, and come peering down and get
me.  But a herrin' skiff took me away from that place in the dark of
the night, and I drifted to the warm South Seas and the darkling women
and the white glistening houses; but she came with me, she that had
died.  I would be seeing her rising before the bows o' the ship, rising
from the sea, and waving on me to follow, and the weather was worse and
worse at her every coming.  An' there was a man o' the Western Isles in
the crew, and he had the sight, and would be telling o' the woman
rising from the sea, and her hair blowing over the yeast o' the waves,
and her eyes staring, staring, and the waving of her hand when I was at
the tiller; and so bad the weather got, and the sickness among the
crew, that the captain swore he would send the woman's man to her, and
he lay aft in his cabin, and drank rum till his boy was feart to
venture near him; and then he came on deck--a fine wild man, all in his
finery o' lace and golden earrings, and he called his sailors aft to
make choice of the woman's man.  There was many there that would have
been making choice of me, but my hand was quick on the dirk, and no man
spoke above a whisper, and then I looked over the bows, and I would be
seeing her coming, and the man of the Western Isles cried out in his
fear--

"'She's wavin', she's wavin', Chrisht's mercy.'  He was pointing to the
grey seas, and the froth was on his lips.

"And as he was standing gazing I creeped round behind him like a cat,
so quiet, and I had my arms round him before his eyes were winking.

"'Go to your wet love,' I cried, and I flung him over the rail by the
poop, and the captain was at the laughing.

"'The curse is lifted, my lads,' he roared.  'Crowd the sail on her.
Heigh-ho for the North and the gay adventures!'  But after that there
were two to be watching in the darkness when I took the tiller--ay, and
I crawled from the sea at last, and came to the hills again--in the
dark.

"Oh, the dark, the dark, and never mair the sun shining on the heather
howes of dark Glen Darruach."  As we lay on the heather beds the
Nameless Man wandered through the cave, and the booming of his voice
rumbled in the heart of the hill, as he wandered through unknown
galleries in the dark.  The day came at last, and I saw a wee shaft of
light filter down some way on the cavern walls, but we could only lie
still till the dusk would come again, and we might make our way among
the hills, for after our sleeping Dan and Ronny and me had a great
confab.

"I canna lie here like a rat in a hole a' my days," said Dan.

"Ye'll never sleep sound till there's many a mile o' blue sea between
you and Dol Beag's hunters," said I.  "If we could pass the word for a
skiff. . . ."

"We're daft, we're clean daft," cried Ronny.  "McGilp is lying at the
north end, standing off and on.  If we can just make Loch Ranza, ye're
safe."

"Ay," said Dan.  "I'm thinking it's the Low Country now for me, Hamish.
Whatever money is due me, ye'll leave wi' McGilp, and he'll find a way
for sending it on.  I'm sair sweirt tae part frae my bonny horses for
yon mauk's sake. . . .  And there's the bonny spaewife, Hamish; if
anything comes wrong tae that lass I'll be relying on you."  And then
for a long time he sat brooding at the fire.

In the afternoon a change came over the Nameless Man.  He crawled on
his knees about the cave, whining and howling like a beast.  He glared
at the black pool, and pointed.

"She's there in the water."  And then with a yell to the dog, "Had her,
Marr; tear her sinery; rive her sinery, good Marr."  And he hissed the
hound on to his vision, and the dog, frenzied at his crying, breenged
into the pool, and the man whined with joy, and caressed the soaking
coat.  Later on in the day, after we had had a meal, he sat at the
passage-way and eyed us, and the dog girned and showed his teeth.

"They'll no come creepin' into the dim places where the queer things
are hidden, no--spying and spying."  And when we paid no heed to his
ravings, except that we kept the fire bright and had armed ourselves,
he lay down and slept across the passage-way, his head on the hound's
flank.  At every movement of our bodies the growling rumbled to our
ears, and the bristles rose on the dog's back.  But when it was nearly
dark the sleeper wakened, and we left the dreadful place called
McAllan's Locker, and took to the hills again.




CHAPTER XIII.

DAN McBRIDE SAILS FROM LOCH RANZA.

For a while we lay silent on the giant's step of McAllan's Locker, and
I felt my spirits lighten to be outside of that place.  The hills were
silent, but from the cave came a baying and growling of dog and man, at
first as from a distance, and growing louder and louder, as though the
Nameless Man and his grim hound ranged through the unknown caverns.  We
three sprauchled upwards, for we had no relish to meet these two, and
as we neared the rise of the hill the baying filled the night, and
suddenly the great hound bounded down the hillside with great twisting
leaps, and at his heels the wild figure of his master followed.  In the
valley they played like gambolling puppies, rushing at one another and
wrestling, with whiles the brute worrying the man playfully, and whiles
the man kneeling on the dog; then away they would dash separately,
wheeling and leaping and rubbing their flanks in the snow.  For a long
time the game went on, and then the players slunk closer, the shaggy
heads thrust skywards, and the long whining cry rose on the night; then
away they ranged, running flank to flank through the peat hags and over
the rise of the hill we had crossed the night before.

"He'll be a bold man that shepherds these hills in the lambing," said
Dan.

All through this night we held our course a little to the west of the
pole-star, though McKinnon and Dan had travelled the way before.  We
were now in the middle of the great barren range, frowning mountains
menaced our path, and burns rumbled in the darkness; and when Dan spoke
his voice was thick with anger--

"I lifted a snipe o' a man, and I flung him the back of the fire.  What
is there in that to be running from?

"If the man has freens, I'll meet them a' wherever they like; but this
running sticks in my gizzard.  It's just ain brother tae caul' fear,"
and we marched on in grim silence.

On the mountains my feet were almost without feeling at all with the
cold, and my clothes sticking to my shoulders with sweat; and on the
last of the hills McKinnon clapped like a startled hare.

"Look at yon," he whispered; "they're to win'ward o' us after a'."

Far below us a little light flickered and blinked on the hillside, and
we watched it, hardly breathing, and again I heard my heart begin to
pound.

After some wee while of watching, Dan grunted--

"Umph!" says he.  "Ye see droll things in the hills when ye're rinnin'
for dear life.  Yon's just Tchonie Handy Ishable and his lantern."

"I never would be believing that story," said Ronny.

"Man, if I had the time I would get his secret this night," says Dan.
"Ye see, Hamish, yon's an old man down yonder, and they'll be saying he
pays the Duke's rent in the big money.  They've the story of how he
found a hoard o' it among the hills; and it's likely enough, for many's
the bold stark lad took to the Southern Seas from these glens.  Och,
an' I ken folk mysel' that found an iron pot o' doubloons in the peat
bink; but aul' Tchonie, he just takes what he will be needin', and he
takes it at night when the folks are abed.  They used to be following
him, but he was skilly among the rocks, and they would maybe come on
his lantern sitting lighted, and once they found a dagger stuck at the
entrance to a cave to keep the wee folk from shuttin' it when a man was
inside; but they were never able to get the secret, for Tchonie Handy
Ishable would be sittin' over his peat fire when the lads came back in
the mornin'."

At the screich o' day we came from Glen Chalmadale into the thatched
village of Loch Ranza.  At a house some way back from the others
McKinnon stopped us.

"The man that lives here is a farmer and a fisherman," said he, "and a
very po-lite man in his taalk moreover, for I know him well," and he
mimicked the Loch Ranza speech, which, indeed, is very proper speech,
and I was very startled at one time to hear the very weans with the
polite way of it.

"Ye will be havin' the dogs on us," says Dan in a low voice; "and
there's folks here that are unfreens o' mine."

"Alaister Jock has weans enough to do without the dogs," says Ronny,
"for dogs are unchancy beasts in the smuggling nights, and Alaister
himsel' will be always up wi' the drake's dridd."

In a little time Ronny came back to us, and we made our way into
Alastair's house, a place where a grown man could stand broad-soled on
the clay floor and touch the rafters of the roof with the flat of his
palms.  The peat fire was smouldering on the floor, and the reek made
its way out at the rigging.  Alastair himself, a tall stooped man with
a red beard and a thin beak of a nose, brought peats and threw them on
the fire.

"There was one came for you in the night yesterday," says he to Dan in
his very proper polite way.  "I would not be having her in my house at
all, for I am a reeleegious man with a family to rear before the Lord.
I put her into the byre with the kye, for she is of the land of Egypt,
the house of bondage; and my wife sprinkled a little meal and a little
saut over the rumps of the kye to keep away her spells, for we must
meet spell with spell--not that I will be believing in these evil-doers
of the Black Art."

"Och, I kent, I kent," cried Dan, long before Alastair had done with
his speaking, and disappeared through a door which gave me a glimpse of
a cow's head looking over its biss, and it struck me that the byre was
the handy place to get at in Loch Ranza.  Ronny and Alastair were
thrang at the talking, with the farmer laying off with his hands, and
wagging his head like a minister in the pulpit, and all in a voice so
raised in tone that I believed from hearing him what our folks say,
that when two farmers are ploughing at the north end they can talk
comfortably across three fields, and they are great at the handling of
their skiffs and bold sailors.  I heard Dan--

"Och, my lass, my ain lass; it went sair against my heart to be leaving
without seein' you at all."

I heard her brave voice with a crooning quiver like a mother's.

"I ran, I ran all the long road, for I kent it all from the first o'
it," and in the dimness of the byre I could see these two clinging to
each other.

"Is it the sight[1] ye think ye have now, my droll dark lass?" says
Dan, looking down at her, one arm holding her away from him and the
great love in his eyes.

"There's whiles I come near to hating you when you will be talking like
that," said the swarthy girl.  "Mirren Stuart brought me word."

"You'll be glad to be rid o' me then.  You'll be forgetting me soon,"
and the man let his arm drop from her shoulders, and the cold
intolerant pride of his voice stung like a whip-lash, for he never
could thole that the woman he loved could even have a thought different
from his own, let alone a love-hatred.

I expected a proud heart-breaking lie from the sombre beauty, but for
all his answer she crept close, and clung to him with both hands, and
hid her face on his breast; then holding him at the stretch of her arms
she raised her head, and looked Dan in his eyes.

"Oh, man," she cried, "I have that that will keep me in mind o' ye,
shameless, shameless that I am," and two great tears rose in her eyes,
the first tears I ever saw there, but Dan lifted her in his arms like a
baby.

"Was ever there such a mother for a bold man's son," I heard him cry in
a voice of love and pride and laughter.

In Alastair's kitchen the thought came to me then what will the son of
these two be--the father strong as a mountain ash, and with the cruel
arrogant pride of a long-bred race behind him, his own will his only
law, and the queer twist of tenderness for old stories and old songs
and his love for all nature--a stark man, who would reach out and take
what he desired; and the mother fiercely tender, wildly, passionately
loving her chosen man, all the dark East in her black eyes, all the
deadly South in her blazing angers--a graceful, hard, blue steel blade
of Damascus, with jewel-encrusted hilt and sheath of velvet.  What was
the son of these to be?

Alastair slipped out quietly, and Ronny and me sat at the fireside.

"We'll manage," said McKinnon, "for the gomerils have let us slip at
their bonfire and lost us.  The goodman here is McGilp's man, and his
skiff's ready, and the _Gull_ will be close in behind the point at high
water.  It will just be good-bye to Dan McBride wi' the turn o' the
tide."

"But how can this godly man be a smuggler?" said I, more to make talk
than anything else.

"Godly men must live like ither folk," said Ronny.

For a while we sat there till Dan and Belle joined us, and the lass
could not be letting go of her man, the brave proud lass.  I watched
her hand quivering in his great brown one, and her eyes following his
every change of look, and her face was all sorrow.  I came near to
hating Dan McBride too.

In the grey of the morning we made our way stealthily to the shore by
the point.

Dan and the gipsy stood some way from us, on the cold dark shore head,
and I think we had all a lowness of spirits, for that place is more sad
and mournful than any place I have ever seen.

"You'll set McCurdy's hut to rights for my dark wife," said Dan to me,
"and let it be her own place, and the money that is lying with my
uncle, you'll be giving her when she needs it," and there he went on,
keeping up her heart with his talk, and his eyes were straining
longingly to the loom of hills in the dimness, like a man saying
farewell, and I think the gangers and Dol Beag were clean forgot.

There came to our ears the low swish-sch of a boat gliding and
slithering over wrack, and the beating of wings in the air as the
sea-birds left the beach, and Alastair's boat grated on the gravel of
the shore.

"Will ye no' come wi' me, my dear," cried Dan to the lass as she clung
to him, and I had a twinge of jealousy that I was all forgot.

"Oh, fain, fain wid I be to travel wi' ye, my man, the cool long roads
and the waving green meadows; but oh! ye hivna the nature o' my
folk--there will be the great battles calling ye, and I would be trying
to keep ye beside me, till ye grew weary o' me.  But you will remember
always and always in your wanderings you will never be thinking of me,
but just that I will be loving you somewhere," and with a great cry,
"Have I no' loved ye--can I ever be forgetting ye?"

When Dan would have taken her to his heart, she sprang away, her eyes
blazing.

"Do not be petting me," she cries.  "I am not a bairn to be quieted.
Tell me ye love me--I want my ain fierce lover that wid make me kneel
to him because he loved me--the love in his eyes and the strength o'
his hands,--oh, I have loved a man."  And then the man answered, and
she saw the sorrow of parting in his face.

"My ain brave lass" . . . and at his words she came to him--"I will be
waiting for you all the long days, for I will be with you again; but
oh! it were better for all that ye never set your boot on these shores,
for then the storm-clouds will gather, and the lightning will leap in
the scarred mountains--my love, my love; but my heart cannot be brave
enough to forbid you to come back to me."  And for an instant the wild
fierce woman clung to her lover, then fled from the shore.  Dan stepped
into the waiting boat in silence, his head on his breast, and a word
from McKinnon or me, I think, would have kept him; but we said our
farewells, and Alastair set to the sculling, and we watched the
receding boat from the shore head until she drew close to the
_Seagull_, and we saw Dan climb on board, and the skiff returning.

As we walked back to Alastair's, we saw Belle standing on a ridge of
high ground, with the morning light behind her--dark against the light,
and her eyes straining to the sea; and as we came closer I spoke,
thinking to take her away from her sorrow, but her dark eyes remained
fixed on the schooner, as though she had never heard me.  There was a
little mist hanging over the sea.

We sat down to a meal of salted herrings in Alastair's kitchen, the
weans round us still sleepy and barefooted, and with tousled red locks,
which they flung from their eyes with a gesture very like a spirited
Hielan' pony tossing its mane; and when I looked from the door
again--which I was glad enough to do, for the reek was a little nippy
to my eyes--as I looked from the door I saw Belle returning, and with
her no other than Robin McKelvie of the Quay Inn.  There was no sign of
the _Seagull_, for a fog had come down on the firth, and even the
melancholy pleasure of seeing Dan's ship again was taken from me.

McKelvie stood at the door, and his face was red with running, and
streaked with white in places with fatigue.

"My father thought ye would make for this place.  Rob Beag's no' dead,"
he said; "the devil has more for him to do yet."


[1] Second sight.




CHAPTER XIV.

WE RETURN.

We made the great to-do in Alastair's kitchen between the exceeding
gladness of the news and the foolishness of our flight, and Alastair
himself was rowing in the fog after the _Gull_--only Belle said no
word, but went quietly behind a rick of peats close to the house, and
I, following her in my slow useless way, came on her suddenly, her arms
outstretched to the empty sea, and such a look of anguish on her face
that I was silent.  No words at all came from her, but her bosom rose
and fell as she battled with her sorrow.

"The man's not deid," said I, for I felt that was the great news, but
little did I know the woman.

"Dead," she cries--"dead," and laughed.  "Would that dog's death have
brought a tear to my eyes.  Hamish, Hamish, I have lost my man."

And wondrous fierce and beautiful she was as I left her.

We made our way back by the drove road, Ronny McKinnon and me, and we
were silent for the most part, for there was that in my throat to keep
me from speaking, for Dan was gone, and no rowing would get him back,
and who could get word to him.

There was the whiteness and stillness of snow over everything, and I
mind me how my mind would cling to wee things, like the footprints of
rabbits, and the wee bits of grey fur here and there, and the flight of
cushies in the trees, to come back with a start to the _Gull_ away out
in the Firth, and Dan on board of her.

Silently we ate our bannocks at a little burn under some stunted trees
and close to the shore, and wearily trailed on; and just at the
darkness I made out the lights of the big house, and came into the
kitchen, where Ronald McKinnon had a meal.  He took away over the hill
for his mother's house then, as he said, but I'm thinking maybe Mirren
Stuart would have another way of it, and at his going I went to that
grim man, the Laird.

He was with his back to a red fire of peats, and looked dourly at me.

"What new devilry is this?" says he, and bit his lip.  "Here are women
and men gane gyte wi' the tellin' o' death and murder--and where is Dan
McBride?"

"There is nae murder that I ken," said I, "and the hogs are doing
finely."

I believe the man had clean forgot about the sheep.

"Hogs," quo' he; "deil tak' the braxy beasts.  Sir, where is Dan
McBride?" and at that I told him.

"And there's more yet," said I, for I had passed my word.  "There's
more to tell yet."

"Ay," said he, "there will be.  Well, tell on."

And I told him of Belle and the old hut.  He was not so very
ill-pleased.

"See that the woman has what she will be needing," said he--"a cow and
such-like, Hamish, and peats and gear and plenishings.  Poor lass, poor
lass.  Hech, sirs, this will no' make bonny tellin' to the mistress.
The mistress will no' be pleased wi' this--she'll be in need o' siller
too."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

So it was on the first good day, with the sun red through a frosty
haze, and the snow melted for the most part, we yoked the horses to the
creels, and took gear and plenishing and peats to McCurdy's hut away in
the hills over beyond the peat hags, and it was a weary cow beast that
trailed behind, tied to the spars.

When we came over the last rise and stood to breathe the horses, I saw
Belle at her door, shading her eyes under her flattened palms from the
rays of the sun, and watching for us; and the horses looked in wonder
to see a house so far among the hills, and tossed their ropy manes.

Man, they were the great little horses we had these days, with little
heads such as I have seen in the paintings of Arab steeds, and an alert
eager look to them, broad forehead, and soft neat muzzle.  Close
coupled they were, with a great girth, broad chest and sloping
shoulders, and legs like iron.  But it was the pride and the strength
of them I never tired of, and it may be there was truth in the talk of
the old folk, that the Hielan' horse was come off Spanish or Moorish
horses of the Armada.  But none could tell me if these Arab horses
would be having the silver tail and mane of our little horses.  And as
I stood looking, I thought me it was a dreary wild place for a lass to
be living her lane, with the muirfowl for company and the great geese
flying north in the spring, and the bleating of sheep in the mist.

So all that winter I worked by the cottage; on the dry days thatching
and building, keeping a little horse to take me over the peat road in
the gloaming.

In the mornings I would be at it with mattock and spade delving hard at
the founds, and I had the great days sliping stones.  Indeed, I became
so strong and proud of myself that you will see to this day on that
hillside the dents I struck on great boulders, that now I would be
sweir to move.  I had with me an old man from the Lowlands, very good
at the building of dry-stone dykes, a knowledgeable man in many ways,
but especially in trees and gardens and such-like.  The byre we built
was not very big, and very dark, but it was cosy, too, under the
crooked joists, and covered with heather scraws and thatch.  In the
loft I put flat boards across the joists, and made a square hole in the
doorway, and brought hens and cocks to be making the place more
homelike.

All this was on my uncle's hill land, but I had my way of it, and
jaloused maybe that the mistress was putting in her good word, for she
had aye a soft side for young Dan.  When I told him about breaking in
from the moor, he hummed and hawed and gloomed at me.  "This will mean
the less sheep," says he.

"There's a wean coming," said I, and felt the blood rise in my face to
be saying it.  "Has he to be put in the heather, and die maybe in a
sheuch like a braxy ewe."

"Tut," says he, his colour rising a bit; "these are no words to be in
the mouth of a boy," but I kent I had him on the soft side.  "A man
must be dacent to his ain blood," said he, and that was the last of it.

So we had the great days at the burning of heather, and when I would be
running with a kindling here and there, and watching the lowes lick
into the dry scrog with a hiss before the breeze, I would be thinking
much of Dan and Ronny McKinnon and me in the blazing whins, and the
gangers and excisemen and riff-raff of that kidney hallooing round us.
Belle loved this burning and the very fierceness of the flames, with
the eerie gloaming falling, and she would not be heeding the cries of
Old Betty (for Betty was much with her these days for company) to be
keeping indoors.

"Hamish," she would say, coming close to me in the ruddy light, and the
dark cheeks of her glowing and her eyes flashing--"Hamish, I have that
in the heart of me."  And as she stood thus pointing to the fires, all
lit up and wild and beautiful, I thought there must surely have been
away back in her story a priestess who tended fires in some far Eastern
land.

Well, well, it's fine to be thinking back on these far-off days, and
the work we made at the dyke-building round the first park, and how we
gathered the lying stones and rousted out the deeper-set ones; and the
dyker made all grist that came to his mill, for he would split up
considerable boulders with great exactness and skill, a feat that never
came easily to me.  Then there were the stone drains to be making, and
the great talking about the run of the water, and the lie of the land,
and the niceness with which we laid those drains!  They were all joys
to me.  I dreamed green meadows and well-kept dykes and good beasts.

And then the ploughing--a sair job ploughing heather roots--and the
furrows I drew would have brought the laughing to Dan McBride; but the
soil was not so black, but where the rabbits had burrowed there was
good green grass among the red scrapings.  The sowing and the harrowing
were the easy job after that, and I mind me how I leaned on that dyke
and gazed on the first three acres won out of the hill, when the green
breard was showing, as a man might gaze on his first-born son.  In
these night trakings in the hills I learned the shape of every stunted
bush and tree, and the place of every rock on either hand, and many's
the droll ploy I came into.  Ye'll still see the track yet down from
the peat hags like a scar on the hillside, but the stories of the road
are lost in the swirling mists, and carried away in the winter gales.

There was a burn running over the road down from the little loch with
the green rush islands, where the sea-birds build, and the staghorn
moss is boot-deep, and in that little plouting burn there was grand
water to be making the whisky.  And in the gloaming have I seen a
lonely man with his dog at heel, hurrying by the burn-side, through the
bare birch trees, and disappearing to his night watch in some cunning
place on the hillside.  And once at the place where there is now a
little holly-tree, gnarled and full of years, I met the limber lads
with the kegs on their backs, and carrying the worm and all the gear
for the whisky-making.  And we buried everything in the peat hags below
the three hills, for the excisemen were close on us, and there they
lie, kegs and stoups, to this day; and would not the whisky be fine to
be drinking now, but maybe a little peaty.




CHAPTER XV.

THE STRANGER ON THE MOORS.

It would be well on into May, for the men were thrang with work, and
the lassies at the big house haining a bit of bannock to be putting
under their pillows for fear of hearing the cuckoo, when first I heard
the strange whistling.  It is not a very lucky thing to be hearing the
cuckoo and you wanting food, and I think this is just a haver of the
old folk to be making the young ones rise early on the fine clear
mornings; but many's the first bite I ken was taken from below the
pillows, and the cuckoo crying like all that.

There was a thick bit of a wood behind the stackyard at the big house,
and as I lay listening to the sounds of the early morning there came
often of late this clear melody, not loud but sweet and thrilling, as I
had heard Ronny McKinnon whistle and Dan too, and the words of that
tune are not to be talked about; but when I went quietly to the
planting one morning there was only the little moving of birds in the
greyness of the morning and the stillness of the wood.

I came back to the kitchen and rummaged the aumary for something to be
eating, and made my way to the stable and put a feed before my beast,
and watched him hard at it and the other beasts stamping and rattling
at their chains in their impatience.

We were on the hill road before the sun, for there was the matter of a
calf to be seeing to, and it was fine to be alone in the fresh day with
the dew still heavy on the green grass and wetting the horse to the
fetlocks; and the sun was coming up in the East, and here and there the
curl of blue smoke rising up from far-out clachans.  I would maybe be
on the other side of the black hill and going finely, and relishing the
green of the new growth, when there came to me that sweet whistling
again, and cooried by the roadside beside a grey stone I saw a man
sitting.  He was the droll figure of a man, with outlandish garb and
wee gold earrings.  His teeth showed white as milk against his swarthy
face, and he had many colours about him, at his throat and his waist,
and useless tatters and tassels, but withal he had the proud bearing of
mountain folk, and level black brows.

Abreast of him we came and he bended low, but with such grace and so
much dignity that it were as though he were a king receiving a vassal.

"Have you the Gaelic?" said I in the old tongue.

"Cha nail, cha nail, cha nail," cried he, so quickly and with such
gestures of his hands that I was startled.

"Geelp," said he--"Geelp."

"Are you McGilp's man?" said I.

"Man, yass," says he, and all his body would seem to be very glad; and
then I questioned him of his whistling, and got his story from him.

By his way of it, he had been a camp-follower or servant to a
horse-soldier in the Low Countries, which was maybe true, for I will
not be denying these wandering folk have the way of horse, and he made
a play of himself to be showing how he was beaten often with the
stirrup-leather.  Some time in his wanderings in the Low Countries he
fell in with "les Ecossais," and he was at the play-acting again with
his hands to be describing the Scotch soldiers, and then from some
pouch or hidie-hole about his outlandish garb he brought Dan's letter.

At that I sat on the roadside, and the Eastern man, with the rein loose
in his hand, crouched on his hunkers before me like an image.

There was much of sadness in that letter, and much of Belle the gipsy
lass, and of many wanderings from France to the Low Countries,

"Hamish, man, I'm minding the very stanes in the hill dykes and the
track o' the sheep on the hillside."  Why he had been kind to the
Egyptian he told me.  "Ye'll ken fine, Hamish, for what lass's
sake,"--and sent him into France with a Scotch soldier he kent,
returning there, with directions to wait at the little town on the
coast where McGilp would whiles be, and "bring you this word o' me and
a wheen things for Belle."  He was asking me to see McGilp too.  The
last of it was like Dan.  "I'm thinking, Hamish, if the houris in his
paradise kenned the words o' the spring I've been deaving him wi', the
Egyptian would be very greatly thought of."

When I was by with the reading of Dan's news, "Ye'll have another
letter," said I, making signs at the pagan.

"Yass," and at that he put it in my hands.  It was for Belle.

We got on the road again, the pony trotting now and the messenger
running easily, one brown hand at the stirrup-leather, and very many
times he would be saying "Geelp," till it came on me that McGilp would
be wishing to be seeing me at once.

At Belle's cottage door I dismounted, and with the clatter of the horse
there came old Betty, with that queer look on her face of disdain and
mystery, and just itching to be at the talking.

"_The wean's hame_," said she, and slammed the door with a last nod of
her old head and her lips pursed up; and then there came the snuffling
ill-natured greeting of a wean that made me grue as I made my way to
the byre, for till then my mind had clean forgot the calf I was to be
seeing that day.

In the byre we sat, the heathen and me--for we were but simple men in
this affair--and the byre was a dark place to be sitting, and in a
while old Betty came, havering at hens and talking to herself.  As she
came and stood in the doorway and looked closely within, with her back
bent and her hand on the lintel, her eyes fell on the messenger, and
she let a great cry from her in the Gaelic.  To be putting it in
English is not so good, but it would be like this, "What dost thou
require of me, father of devils?" and she fell on her knees.  Well,
well, I can laugh at that sight yet.  But she "came to" in a little,
and took me into the sunlight, and said the gipsy lass would be seeing
me for a little time; and I was taken to Belle's sleeping-place, and
her arm was round her wean, and she was lying on her back, and her
black hair a little damp curling on the pillow.

"You have been very good," said she.  "My man, your kinsman, will be
owing you thanks."  And at that her eyes suffused, and two great tears
gathered and glittered, and she smiled up to me, and I gave her the
letter and turned away.

In a long while she cried, proud and piteous--

"Bring me the messenger; he will have his father's gift for my son."
And the lilt of joy in her voice made me think shame to be a man at
all.  Silently the messenger came, his eyes on the ground, and kneeled,
and at that they were at it in their own Gaelic, and Belle raised the
wean a little, and I saw his face wrinkled and red, and his blue
staring eyes.  And the man laid a long blue blade across the bed, and
the little groping fingers of the child fluttered a moment, and then
closed on the hilt, and when I lifted the gleaming snake-like sword,
from the hilt scroll with a tinkling fell a ring, and it fell on the
bosom of the mother--and she lay and smiled.

      *      *      *      *      *      *

But I made a safe place for that sword and scabbard (for the messenger
gave that last into my hands), and for many nights in my dreams the
little dimpled hand fluttered and closed on the hilt.




CHAPTER XVI.

I HAVE SOME TALK WITH McGILP IN McKINNON'S KITCHEN.

In the gloaming I left the sheiling, and took my way through the hill,
as we say, for McKinnon's house by the glen on the road to Birrican,
and the first of that road is just plain guessing, but after, maybe, a
mile there rises up the Mulloch Mhor, the big peak of the Island, and
with that, a little to a man's left hand, the road to the sea is easy.
There is a road crossing that way that you'll still see running in
through the Planting above the Letter, and through by the Little
Clearing, and joining the road to the castle.

To the left of me I could hear the kye at the Bothanairidh, where there
was a common grazing, for by this time it was well to have the beasts
away from the steadings, because there was no great fencing in these
days, and the weans would be put to the herding, out on the hillside.
You'll see yet the wee turf byres where the kye were milked, and the
founds of the bochans where the old folk had their summer, with the
hens and beasts about them.  And many's the story I could be telling
about these summer quarters when the lassies and old wives would be at
the spinning.

All the glen on the right of me was a McBride place, but you will not
get that name there any more now, and nothing belonging to them but the
trees, old and straggling, that they would be planting long ago, and
the furs on the side of the hill where they had rigs about, and
lazy-beds.

There were not many houses on the shore in these days, except maybe at
a place they would be calling Clamperton, not very far from McKelvie's
Inn.

Ronny was the pleased man to welcome me to his house, and Mirren, his
wife, was at her best to be showing what a thrifty goodwife she was
making, and she was very kind, and spoke good words to me; so, thinks
I, Ronny will have been telling her about the talk we had yon day on
the Isle.

"They will be saying," says Mirren, "that yon dark lass has her trouble
past her."

"I am hoping that," said I, and looked at Ronny's mother sitting very
bright and perky by the fire, with a clean white mutch on her head and
the strings not tied.

"It is goot," says she, "to have a boy whatever--a boy iss a good
thing, no matter which way he will be got," and she ended her little
talk with a very brisk demand.  "Gif me a dram, Mirren; yes"--and that
set us to the laughing, for the young wife was setting the drink before
us and not making signs of giving the old one any.

We sat down to a meal of roasted fowl, very tasty, and a very good drop
of spirits to it, and I would be laughing inside of myself because of
the boldness of McKinnon to be praising his wife's cooking before his
ain mother, and Mirren was greatly pleased too; indeed, many's the time
I will be thinking that the road to a quiet lass's heart will be to
praise her cooking.  When we had made an end of the eating I gave
McKinnon the story of the stranger that came whistling at uncanny
hours, and asked him where I would be like to find McGilp, for it
appeared the man wanted speech with me.

"You are on the right tack," says he, "for I am waiting for his hand on
the sneck any time this two hours past," and the dishes were hardly
cleared away when the smuggler bent his head to be coming in the door,
for in these days there were no locks in the Isle of the Peaks.

There came in with the man a kind of waft of the sea as he threw off
his great-coat and clattered his cutlass in a corner--a fine figure of
a man, towering up to the rafters, and his voice held in as though it
would be more comfortable to hurl an order in the teeth of a gale.

"Ha!" says he, looking from McKinnon to his wife; "she has brought you
to port finely."  But he was mightily complimentary, and gave many good
wishes with his glass in his great hand.

"And how are you, Mister Hamish?" says he.  "Every plank sailing--in
fine trim--and that's good hearing these days."

With that McKinnon got his fiddle, and played us many sprightly airs,
for he was a very creditable performer, and the smuggler would be
asking for this or that one, and nodding his head with great spirit.

"You would have speech with the Pagan," said he, when the night was
wearing on.  "An' cold eneuch he was when I picked him up at the mouth
o' the Rouen river, for I had an express from a compatriot, Mr Hamish,
serving overseas"--this with a very grand air.

"Were you wanting speech with me?" said I, for I could see the drink
was going to his head.

"It's a wee thing private," says he; "but tak' up your dram.  I canna
thole a man that loiters wi' drink till the pith is out of it."

At that we drew our chairs close before the fire.

"Many's the time we would be talking about ye, Mr Hamish," says he,
"Dan and myself; yon time we left ye in the haar at Loch Ranza--a
senseless job, too, by all accounts, and Alastair rowing to the
suthard, and us creeping out to the nor'west; he'll be hard to find
now, by Gully--ay, Dan will be hard to find.

"I am hoping you are not close-hauled for time," says he, "for it's
hard to come at my tale, Mr Hamish; but ye see, Dan McBride had some
notion o' what might occur--I am thinking ye will see with me there.

"I am giving you the man's words, ye see, for he had great faith in ye.

"'Ye'll say to Hamish,' says he, and I'm telling you he was a sober
man--'ye'll say, I am not wanting the wean to grow up like a cadger's
dog, to be running from kicks and whining for a bone.'

"I am no' great hand at this wean business, Mr Hamish, but McBride was
a fine man."

At that I made mention of the wean he had taken to the convent in
France.

"I'm with you there," says he.  "I was paid good money for that job,
and I ken what I ken, and mair--what I've found out.  Ye'll no' hiv
great mind o' Scaurdale's son?  No?  Aweel, he was a bog-louper, and
wild, wild at that, but he fell in wi' some south-country lady--a
cousin o' his ain, that stopped for years at Scaurdale--a young thing
that was feart to haud the man, but fond o' him too.  I canna mind the
name o' her.  The long and short of it was jeest this--she married on
an Englishman, a landed man and weel bred--Stockdale they ca'ed
him--but he turned oot ill after a', and the first wean was a lass
instead o' a boy.  And I'm jalousin' she would be getting her
keel-haulings for that, poor lady.  Ye ken weel that young Scaurdale
broke his neck, and ye ken where.

"'I'll be in hell or hame,' says he, 'in forty minutes.'  At the Quay
Inn it was, and his horse lathered and foaming and wild wi' fear.
Aweel, Mr Hamish, he's no _hame_ yet.

"Things were going from bad to worse with the lass he lost, and her man
aye at the bottle, and sometimes she would be finding him lookin' at
the wean and cursing, so what does she do but get word to the old Laird
o' Scaurdale, who was fond o' her and a just man.  I'll wager ye, he
did not hang long in irons.  The thing was done circumspectly, mind
you--nae high-handedness--but Belle's folk were about Glen Scaur, a
droll wandering band, claiming great descent from Eastern folk, and
with horses and dogs and spaewife among them; and Belle (as they will
be calling her) was the daughter o' the Chief, a very proud man.

"They were a wandering tribe, Mr Hamish, and they wandered into the
south country, and I'm thinking ye saw the bonny spaewife coming back
her lane, except for a wean, on a morning ye ploughed stubble.

"But here's the droll bit," says he.  "Stockdale was kilt an his horse,
too, in his ain park, for he scoured the place like a madman after the
wean was lost.  Weel, weel, that finished the lady, poor body.  Ye'll
see how things are now, Mr Hamish," says he.

"Yon's an heiress.  An' that's a' I'll be saying," says he, for
McKinnon came in from his stable, "but the Laird, your uncle, was in
the ploy," says he, "or I'm sair mistaken, and the Mistress too."

With that we rose to be going, and had a glass, and the captain's last
words were--"Ye'll mind yon: 'I'm not wanting the wean to grow up like
a cadger's dog.'"

As I was walking home that night the thought came into my head of the
wisdom of Betty at the big house.

I minded her saying to me on the Sunday that Belle took the wean in the
tartan shawl to the Mistress--her very words came back to me--

"The wean has the look o' John o' Scaurdale."




PART II.


CHAPTER XVII.

I TURN SCHOOLMASTER.

There were many things to be doing in these days--peats to be cutting
and carted home and built into tidy stacks, just as you can see them
to-day, and the sprits and bog hay to be saving, for we were not good
at growing hay, and then, when the boys grew up, there was the
schooling of them.  It was the boys we would aye be calling them, Dan's
boy and the Laird's son, and they were fine boys.

Bryde McBride, that was the name of Dan's son, and Hugh, with a wheen
other names, was the young Laird, who was schooled in Edinburgh and was
not long back to us, and there was a lass Margaret, his sister.  They
would be with me everywhere on the long summer days, and me with the
books by me; but mostly in the summer we would hold school at the Wee
Hill, for there was a green place as level as the page of a book, and a
little turf dyke enclosing it nearly, that we called the Wee Hill.
Wae's me, now they have hens scarting about the place, and the
greenness is gone from it.

There was the stone of twenty-two snails close by, for that was the
number we found on it, a thing I have many times thought about; and
great games we had, Bryde with his black hair and swarthy skin and wild
blue eyes, with laughter just ready in them, and the speed and grace of
a wild cat; and Hugh, ruddy like his folks, and dour too and very
loyal; and the lass Margaret, who could turn Bryde with her little
finger, and gloried in the doing of it.  Ay, they grew up with me, and
would be swimming with me in the sea, and every path in the hills we
would be riding over, and we were happy together.  These were the
happiest hours of all, ochone; the sun shone more brightly and the days
were longer.

And in his mother's eyes there was none like Bryde.  The sun rose and
set on him, his every little mannerism was a joy, and I have watched
her gazing at him for long without speech, and suddenly rise and press
his head against her heart, and her happiness was when he looked up
from his task and smiled.  I think never was a hand laid on him in
anger.

There was something elemental about the lad.  He would stand mother
naked in the dim morning light below the little fall, and his pony
awaiting him, and he kent every horse and dog within twenty miles.
Indeed, there was a time when he would have slept with his horses.

"They might be needing me in the night," said he.

In these days we grew hay in a droll fashion.  If there was a field
namely for good grass, we would be getting green divots from it and
putting them in our own parks, and scattering good rich earth round the
divots.  And when the grass was blown about by the winds, the seeds
would fall and strike on the loose scattered earth, so that these
divots were the leaven that leavened the whole field.  But when he was
sixteen and man grown, a fair scholar and expert with the sword, Bryde
would be laughing at the notion.  And he was strong and tough like the
mountain ash.

"Hill land," said he, "will only be growing hill grass," and he set his
folk and he went himself and took the seeds from the hill grasses.
Guid kens how long it took him, but he sowed his hill grasses with his
corn, and the seeds came, as we say, and he cut it and threshed it with
the flails; and after that he had hay-stacks in his yard, and his
beasts were well done by, so that at the fair he got great prices both
for stots and back-calvers.  And, indeed, it was at the fair that first
I saw the mettle in the boy, although his eyes had always dancing
devils in them.  There was much drink in these days, and the mainland
dealers had not the head for it that the boys from the glens had.  The
young boys would be holding saddle beasts from the early morning and
making the easy money.  Aweel, on this fair day, Margaret the maid, the
sister of Hugh, had craked and craked to be seeing the beasts and the
ferlies, and her mother, the Lady, and her father, the Laird, were sore
against it.

"I will be with Bryde, my cousin," said she; "and who will meddle me."
(I was clean forgotten.)

"He is not a real cousin, Margaret," said the mother.

"He is a fine lad; you will go, my lass," said the Laird, for blood was
more to him than a stroke left-handed across a shield, and that day she
rode with Hugh and me--Margaret, the Flower of Nourn.  Tall she was and
limber like a lance, her eyes like blue forget-me-nots that grow by the
burn mhor, fearless and daring, with long black lashes.  Her brown hair
curled at her white neck, and her white chin was strong like a man's,
but very soft and beautiful; her lips red, and her teeth like pearls.

She was silent for the most part on the road that day, though whiles
she would be quizzing her brother about the lassies in the college
town, for he had two years of the College at St Andrews.  He was the
great hand with the lassies by all accounts, Hugh, and many's the time
his mother would be havering about them, but that man, my uncle, would
wink as though he would be amused.

But when we passed McKelvie's Inn and saw old McKelvie there, stout and
hearty, but very white about the head, and had a salutation from Ronald
McKinnon thrang with the dealers, and Mirren not far off still
sonsy--when we passed there I saw that Margaret was all trembling; and
when we saw Bryde, tall and swarthy, coming to us, I saw the smiling in
her eyes and her face aglow.

"What was that, my dear lass?" said I, looking at her.

"That would be my heart leaping," said she, with a laugh and a blush.

And Bryde lifted her from her little horse, and her hands were never
tired to be touching him.  She was all tremulous with laughter and
eager-eyed, and the red was flaming in her cheeks, and she would be
ordering Bryde like a queen, but pleadingly withal.

"You will stable my little horse," said she, and when Bryde, smiling
down at her, took the bridle, "But--but I will be coming with you," she
cried, "or surely you will be forgetting to halter him, or letting him
run off and leave me," and as those two with the proud little horse
moved to the inn, I saw her look up at the boy with all her heart in
her eyes and her lips smiling a little pitifully.

"Do you think I would be caring, Bryde, if he ran off--if you were left
with me?"

Ah, she was brave in her loving, was the Flower of Nourn.

Mirren McKinnon, that was once Mirren Stuart, was dowie that day, and
her eyes red with greeting, for her son had gone to the sea, as his
father had long ago.  "I will be missing his step," she said softly,
"when my man is on the hill," but Ronny would not be listening.

"It will make a man of the lad," said he; "there's something clean and
fine about the sea."

Bryde had sold his beasts well, and it was his pleasure to be showing
Margaret the bonniest foals, rough-haired and tousled as they were, and
Hugh and me would be passing judgment.  There was a mob of mares and
foals and yearlings gathered in one place, and the mainland dealers
bargaining with the farmers--always on the point of fighting by their
way of it, and laughing to scorn the offered prices, as you will see to
this day when folks are dealing in horse.

And as we stood a little way off, a great burly red-faced man--a
Lowland dealer, strong as a tree, and a wit in a coarse way--turned his
round drink-reddened eyes on us a time or two, and whispered behind his
hand to his cronies, and I heard the titter of Dol Beag's laughing as
Hugh pointed to a bonny yearling colt, and we stepped away, but not so
far that I heard the dealer's words.

"Ou ay," says he, looking at Bryde, "Dan's is he?  I've heard tell o'
him, but whitna queen is't that's lookin' at him like a motherless
foal?"

At that Bryde put Margaret in my hands.  His face was like a devil's
and his teeth showed as though his mouth were dry.  To Hugh he gave one
word.  "Stop!" said he, and the word was a snarl.

Never another word he spoke, but leapt among the bargainers, and slid
through the great flailing arms of the bucolic wit, and his right hand
sank into the man's red throat.  I see him still, his left hand behind
the man's back, the shoulders raised, all the lithe length of him as he
stood on his toes, his eyes like blue flame.  I saw him shake his enemy
as a dog shakes a rabbit.  The great red face took a blae colour--the
tongue protruded from his mouth and the eyes stared wildly.  Men would
have dragged Bryde off, but he hissed a "begone" through clenched teeth
(it was a word of his mother), and they fell back as from a
sword-stroke.

"Go down, go down, ye beast, if ye never come up," he girned, and flung
the man from him to the earth, where he lay.

I heard no word, and no look that I saw passed between, but Margaret
left us and ran to Bryde.

"Put your foot on that cur, my lady," says he, cold as an icicle, and
his head bare.  Her two white hands trembled at his sleeve and she
turned her face from the groaning man in horror, and then she raised
her great blue eyes in one long look, and then her little foot but
touched the man's shoulder.

A grim smile came over the face of Bryde McBride, like sunlight in a
dark pool.  "A brave lass," said he, and I only heard her reply, and
saw her colour rise at his praise.

"Take me home," she whispered, "Bryde--Bryde _dear_."

"Drink," cried the man on the ground, "drink.  God, I wis near hand it
that time."

On the road home we pretended to be very merry, for nothing would
please Margaret but Bryde would ride to her father's house.  On the
hill road she set spurs to her horse with a challenge to Bryde, and
they left us some way behind, Hugh and me.

"Man," said Hugh, and his face was troubled, "this will not do."

"No," said I, and hated myself, "for the boy's as good as you or me."

"Good!" cries Hugh; "he's like the mountains--he's granite, and what
are we but dressed sandstone--and the lass kens it," says he.  "God
help us."




CHAPTER XVIII.

THE FIRST MEETING.

When we made our way indoors the dogs were bounding and frolicking
round Margaret, and she was all laughter.  Her eyes were dancing, and
her wind-whipped cheeks glowed darkly; then she turned, one dainty
finger at her lips, and we kent that no word of her doings that day was
for the ears of her parents.

There was a bustle of women-folk about the house, and the noise of
crockery, and booming into the corridors came the voice of John, Laird
of Scaurdale.

"Chick or child," says he, "she's all I have--a wee Frenchified, Laird,
but she'll learn the wie o' the Scots yet."

And as Margaret entered, a little startled, and us at her heels, "Come
ben, my dear," he cries, "I've a new friend for ye," and beside the
mistress I saw Helen Stockdale.

I was always the great one for watching faces, and as these two maidens
approached, I saw the glowing cheeks of Margaret pale a little, her
lips press together, and her chin become a little proud, but her eyes
never wavered; but Mistress Helen beats me to be describing.  There was
an elegance about her and an air of languor, maybe from her sombre dark
eyes, yet her every movement was graceful, and her smile a thing to be
looking for, and she was slender as the stalk of a bluebell.  The Laird
of Scaurdale was in great humour, well on to seventy, his teeth still
strong and white, and his shoulders with but a horseman's stoop.

"Kiss, my dearies," says he; "was ever such dainty ladies?  Hugh, man,
where are your manners, and you such a namely man among the Saint Andra
lassies.  Hoots, man, this blateness does not become ye; ye've slept
wi' the lass before.  Ha, Saint Bryde o' the Mountains," says he to
Bryde, "well done, sir," for Mistress Helen, with a quick flashing
upward glance, had rendered her little hand for salutation.

And at his words I saw, like a flash, a look of cold hate leap in the
blue eyes of Margaret McBride.

I did much thinking while the others would be talking, and I thought of
the day, fresh from the college, when we ploughed the stubble and Belle
brought the wean in the tartan shawl,--the wean that grat beside Hugh
in the old room when Belle carried her from the wee byre--the wean that
was carried to McCurdy's hut with Belle and Dan McBride, and had lain
in the crook of the arm of John of Scaurdale that night when McGilp had
shown a light away seaward.

And there she was before me, Helen Stockdale, and I minded McGilp's
words, "Yon's an heiress."

And sitting there in dour silence, there came on me such a longing for
Dan McBride that I could have wept.  Eighteen years had I watched the
ploughing and the harvesting, the cutting of the peats and the carting
of hay, and never a word of Dan since the queer outlandish messenger
carried my word to him to come home.  The boys were grown men, the
Laird and his Lady getting on in years, and the old folk going away
with every winter, and never a word.

McGilp and his _Seagull_ were not so often at the cove these last
years, and yet McKinnon had a crack with him in Tiree, where he was
buying a horse or two.

"Young Dan's deid," said McKinnon, "and Dol Beag will be hirpling aboot
and eating his kail broth for many's the day."

There was one that never doubted--Belle, and after eighteen years she
was little changed, a weary look sometimes in her eyes, for was she not
like a wild thing chained, but more like a sister to Bryde than a
mother.

And old Betty, Betty of eighty winters, sat by the fireside and would
look at Bryde with her old, old eyes, hardly seeing, and whiles she
would be calling the boy "Young Dan," and whiles havering of Miss
Janet, his grandmother.

"You will be clever, clever," she would be saying to Belle, "and you
will get another man yet. . . ."

And one night as I stood at the door--a clear night, I mind, with a
harvest moon--"Hamish," said Belle, and her hand was at her heart, "I
could go to him barefoot, for is he not always with me in the night?"

As I sat dreaming and listening in a kind of a way to the talk round
me, it came on me that Margaret kept near to her mother, and once only
did I see her look at Bryde, a hurried puzzled look,--but Hugh was
ardent already, his face flushed and his laugh merry, and Mistress
Helen was happy too.

There was the great struggling with our language, and she had a droll
taking way of it that Hugh would be correcting in his college manner;
but Bryde sat back, listening mostly, his face proud and swarthy in the
shadows, and sometimes smiling to Mistress Helen, for her eyes would
come back to him often.

When the moon was up, Bryde rose.

"With your leave," said he, "I will be on the road."

Margaret came over beside me and put her hand into mine.

"You're early, sir, you're early," cried Scaurdale; "it's asourying wi'
the lasses ye will be at."

The mistress looked not so ill-pleased at that, but it seemed to me
Margaret's hand tightened in mine with a little tremble.

"I'm thinking, Scaurdale, we will be getting a pair of colours for
Bryde," said my uncle.  "Would he not make a slashing light dragoon?"

At that Mistress Helen clapped her hands.  "I think yes," said she,
"but yes, certainly."

"I would be going to the sea," said Bryde, "like Angus McKinnon--the
tall ships and the strange countries, the white sails in the moonlight,
and the black cannon and the cutlasses," said he, and then with a sort
of shame, "and all that," but his eyes were full of longing and his
cheek flushed.

"Ah oui," cried Helen, "I am seeing all that, M'sieu."

And Hugh McBride looked glumly at Bryde as he left.

"I am forgetting," said Margaret, "I am wanting Bryde.  Take me,
Hamish," and her hand was pressing mine.  But I thought to be teaching
her a lesson, and sat still a little.

"What is it you will have been forgetting, Margaret?" said I.

"Oh--oh," says she, her face all suffused, "it will just be about a pup
he was to be bringing me. . . ."

At that I took her with me.  "Pup," said I; "pup, Margaret.  What tale
is this?"

"Cat or dog, or--or anything," she cried.  "I am wanting him."

Bryde was at his horse's girths, and old Tam with a lanthorn.

"Bryde," cried the lass, "I am wanting you."

He had the horse out by this time, and I went away a little, but I
heard her say--

"You never kissed my hand, sir--no, not in all your life."

"No, Mistress Margaret," said the boy.

"But why, why, why?" said she, and I laughed to see her stamp.

"Ye see," said he, and mounted, then bending over his saddle, "Ye see,
my dear, I was loving your hand all that time," and the clatter of his
horse's feet on the cobbles brought me to my senses.

"Pup," said I.

"But, Hamish," whispered the lass, "I am wanting him."

"For what now?"

"I am wanting him _to keep_," said she, and put her head against my
arm--the brave lass.




CHAPTER XIX.

THE RIDERS ON THE MOOR.

I would be seeing very little of Bryde for many a day after that, for
there was aye work to be doing at his hill farm, and hard work will be
bringing sound sleep.

But Hugh was become the great gallant, with old Tam rubbing his
stirrups with sand from the sand-brae, that and wet divots, till the
irons shone like silver.

"Hoch-a-soch," he would say, "the young Laird is ta'en wi' the weemen.
I will be at the polishing o' his horse's shoes next, and it iss the
fine smells he will be haffin' on his claes--fine smells for the
leddies, yess."

"Tush, man," said the Laird, "ye smell o' my Lady's bower.  Your
forebears had the reek o' peats about them, or a waft o' ships. . . ."

But the road to Scaurdale would be drawing Hugh.

"It is Mistress Helen that will be having the dainty lad, Hugh, my
dear," his sister would be flashing; "your folk would not be hanging so
long at a lassie's coat-tails, if old stories will be true."

But he had an answer for her.

"What tails will Bryde be hanging at, my lass?"

"His plough-tail, my dainty lad," said Margaret, and laughed to be
provoking him.

"Maybe ay, Meg," says he, "and maybe no."

It was not long after that when Margaret would be wheedling me to be on
the hill.

"See, Hamish, my little brown horse is wearying for the air o' the
hills and the spring water," and she would smile with her brows raised
a little and her lips pouting.

When we were on the brow of the black hill--

"I am thinking we will ride to the peat hags," said Margaret, "and
we'll maybe be seeing Bryde," and she laughed in my face, and, indeed,
after that she was always at the laughing.

"What would his father be like, Hamish--Bryde's father?"

"A fine man he was, Margaret, but a little wild."

"Ay," said she, "he would be spoiled with the lasses."

And for a while she was thoughtful.  Bryde was at his plough-tail on an
outlying bit, but his horses were standing at the head-rig, and Bryde
was laughing and talking to a lady, and when I saw the serving-man
holding a pair of Scaurdale's horse, I kent the lass.

"I am wondering," said I, "where is Hugh, and Mistress Helen so far
from hame; but ye were in the right of it, Margaret, for Bryde is at
his plough-tail."

"He will have good company even there, it seems," said the lass.

But in a little Helen and she were at the talking.

"And where would you be leaving all your cavaliers, Helen," said
Margaret, for Hugh had been telling us of the young sparks at Scaurdale.

"Cavaliers, Margaret!" with a very dainty moving of the shoulders.  "Of
these I am weary this day, and so I inflict myself on the dragoon," and
here she bowed very low and gracefully to the ploughman, and there was
a little devilry in her black eyes.

Bryde was at his furrow again when Hugh joined us with his very braw
clothes, and he was a little dour-looking.

"We're all on the moor these days," says he, "and keeping a man from
his work seemingly."

"But now you have come we will ride to Scaurdale," said Helen, but
Margaret would not be heeding.

"I am to see my cousin's wife," says she, "in the house yonder, with
Hamish here; but here is Hugh on edge to be on the Scaurdale road, and
Bryde eager to be ploughing."  So Margaret and I made our way to the
house, and it was hard to be knowing where the shepherd's hut was among
the outbuildings of the steading, and as we turned into the stackyard
and watched Hugh and Mistress Helen ride on, Margaret turned to me.

"Is it not droll," said she, "that a man o' my folk, my own brother,
cannot be putting a ring on the finger of an easy lass like that?"

"Are you thinking she is easy?" said I.

"I am thinking she is a merry lass and wants a bold man--she will be
loving a bold man."

"I think that too."

"Who is it?" said Margaret, like a flash.

"Oh, just Hugh."

"Hamish," said the lass, "ye never lied to me before."

A halflin lad took the horses and we came to the house, and there was
Belle to meet us, smiling to Margaret, and her eyes wandering to where
her son was at the ploughing.

Now it was a droll thing to me to watch these two, for Margaret McBride
had the pride of her mother, and there were many times when she would
be very haughty, and yet in this moorland farmhouse she would be all
softness and the quiet laughter of gladness, and talking very wisely to
Belle about homely things.  And I would often be laughing at Margaret
and her talk of milk, and fowls, and calves, and lambs, but she would
be very serious.

"A woman should be knowing these things, Hamish," she would say.

But Belle was the slave of Margaret since the days when Hugh and Bryde
and the little wild lass would be playing in the heather, and climbing
for jackdaw's eggs or young rock-pigeons in Dun Dubh.  But that day
Margaret was beside old Betty, and making her comfortable in the chair
by the fire of red peats.

"Will you be very wise, old Betty?" said she, looking down on the old
one.

"Yess, yess, Betty has the wisdom, and Betty kens the secrets o' the
hill folks, but ye will not be needing to ken the secrets, for will you
not be keeping the lads away from ye with a stick.  Na, na, ye will not
be needing the love secret."

"My motherless lass!" cried Margaret, with a droll laugh, "and is there
a secret way of it?"

"Yess, yess, a very goot way, mo leanabh; you will chust be scraping a
little from the white of your nail and putting it in his dram, yess,
and he will be yours through all the worlds. . . ."

"But what," said I, "if he'll not be taking a dram?"

"I could always be wheedling him, Hamish," she laughed.  At that I
looked at her.

"I am thinking of Hugh," says she, "Hugh and Mistress Helen," but she
had the grace to be shamed a little.

"Indeed," said Belle, "they are a bonny pair, the young Laird and the
young lady.  She will be riding here many times, for the Laird of
Scaurdale will have been telling her old tales of the place."

"Will they be making a match of it?" said I.

"I am hoping that, Hamish," said Belle--"and, indeed, she is liking the
hills and the folk, and fond of the horses too, and will be keen to be
seeing Bryde breaking the young beasts, and watching him for long.  She
will whiles be putting the old tartan shawl round her."

At that Margaret went out of the house, and in a while I saw her with
Bryde, walking step for step with him on the lea he was breaking, and
her hand would sometimes be beside his on the stilt of the plough.

On the home road that day I would be showing her the road we had
travelled that night of the whin-burning, and where in the hills was
McAllan's Locker, and wondering what had come to the Killer, the dead
white man.  And I would be minding a story of a dog that howled in the
night and slunk by in the darkness of Lag 'a bheithe, and I wondered if
the Nameless Man had gone to his love that beckoned in the pool, or if
the ravens had got him at the last of it, and if the pigeons built
still away in the cranny of the Locker, and there was a sadness in me.

She had not been speaking, the lass beside me, and her merriness was
all gone, for she was aye merry with Bryde, and at last--

"Hamish," said she, "there is something will happen."

And on top of my own mood I was startled, and the words did not come to
me.

"Am I not the daft lassie?" said she, and started to the singing of
merry airs; but before we saw the rowan-tree that grows on the face of
the black hill, her songs were sad again.

"He will be lonesome away there, Bryde," said she, looking back.

"He will be looking for a lass one of these nights," said I, a little
angry, "and there are bonny lasses here and there, between here and
Scaurdale."

"I am wishing, Hamish, I could be at the herding and the kelp-burning
with the other lasses," said she, looking at me, and there was a little
smile at her lips, and a kind of eagerness I did not understand.

"Do you think Bryde will be looking at these wenches," said I in great
scorn (for I feared he did).

"No, Hamish, no," she cried amidst her laughter, and I understood then.

"Mistress Margaret," said I, "I am not a match for you in wit, it
seems, but since we are agreed he canna just be suited with these
lassies, there will just be two left by your way of it."

"Between here and Scaurdale, Hamish," said she, "it is your own words I
am giving you."

"Bryde is a fine lad," said I, "but he's like to be spoiled, and," said
I, "your mother will have told you he has not even a name."  At that
the dull anger I had been choking down most of that day broke over me.
"Damn the whole affair," said I, and dismounted.

When I lifted her from her horse, she was laughing and blinking tears
from her lashes, and she put her arms very tightly about my neck.

"Oh, Hamish, Hamish," said she, "I will have been doing that this
while."




CHAPTER XX.

"THE LOVE SECRET."

Lassies are droll creatures, and will tell many things the one to the
other in the way of a ploy, and Margaret McBride made great work with
old Betty's love potion, and that to Helen alone.

"I will be trying it on Hugh," said she, "when I have you sleeping, for
I will get scraping the white of your nail then."

And now this is the droll thing that came about.  We had a day after
the otters at the Bennan, a wet cold day, with little that was
laughable in it, except that a man of the Macdonalds took an otter home
over his shoulders, and the beast dead, as we thought; but coming in at
his own door it gripped him by the back of his hip, and at the start he
got he let a great cry to his wife in the Gaelic.

"Fell the beast, fell the beast," and the wife, with a beetle in her
hand, and in a flurry of excitement to be felling the beast, came a
dour on her man's head that felled him, poor man, and we left them
then, the otter killed at last, and the man and wife demented with the
suddenness of the happenings, and came to the house of Scaurdale.

Now the lassies, Margaret and Helen, were in the mood for a ploy, and
Margaret it was who scraped the little white powder from Helen's
polished nail.  "A wee tashte," she laughed, "old Betty would be
saying, 'chust a wee tashte.'"  And when the boys came in red-faced and
with sparkling eyes (for I was watching the prank), "Now," said
Margaret, "I will be giving poor Hugh his dram, and then everything
will do finely."

"But," said Helen, "I will be my own cup-bearer, or maybe the charm
will be a useless thing." And she took the old glass--a rummer it
was--and she carried it very daintily to the boys and bowed.

"Here is refreshment, my tired hunter," said she, and gave the glass
into Bryde's hand, and that swarthy hillman raised the glass to the
cup-bearer and drained it.

"I will not be very clever, it seems, Hamish," said Margaret.

But I had admiration for Helen, for she came back, laughing very
softly.  "Now we shall prove your charm, Mistress Margaret," said she;
"for truly M'sieu Hugh did not require it, but Bryde--he is cold and
hard like his own hills with me."

And that very night it was as though old Betty's havers were potent
spells, for Bryde was the fair-haired laddie with the Laird of
Scaurdale always, and as the evening wore on he grew a little flushed
with wine, so that all his silence left him, and he was very shyly bold
and very gallant; but Margaret was stately and proud like her mother,
and smiled but little.  And Hugh gloomed and laughed by turns, and had
an air of patronage to his cousin that was hurtful for me to be seeing
in him.

Hugh and Margaret were stopping at Scaurdale, but when the moon was
well up Bryde was for the road.  At that there was an outcry, for he
was the soul of the place.  The Laird of Scaurdale would have hindered
his going, and Helen made much ado, but his horse was brought, and we
came to the door to be seeing him off.

There was a brave moon, and the hillside very plain, and the noise of
the burn rumbling--a fine night to be out.

"I could be riding home too," said Margaret.

Bryde slipped his boot from the stirrup.

"Jump," said he, "and in two hours you'll be home, if Hamish and Hugh
will be allowing it."

I think she would have liked to go, for I saw the flash in her eyes,
and her quick smile, but then--

"No," said she; "it is a little cold here," and turned to go in.

Helen was at the Laird's side.

"But I have never ridden so," said she.  "Would Monsieur take me to the
bridge--a little way and back," but before the Laird had given his
assent she was in the saddle and off with a wave of her arm; and I
thought of the night when she had ridden that way once before, with the
father of Bryde on the big roadster, and the Laird was thinking the
same thing.

They were back in a little; indeed, the hoof-beats were very plain all
the time, but Helen was white as she dismounted, and her good-bye was
very low, and she listened to the klop-to-klop of the hoofs for a long
time before she came in.

That night she came into Margaret's room (for the lass told me
everything), and sat down wearily by the bedside.

"Your spell works, Mistress Margaret," said she.

I think Margaret would raise herself on her pillows.

"Ah," said she, "have you brought Bryde to heel, Helen?"

"The spell works," said Helen, "but I think backwards.  Margaret, ma
belle, he brings me to heel, it seem."

"They all have that knack, my men-folk," said Margaret--"mostly."




CHAPTER XXI.

DOL BEAG LAUGHS.

To town-bred folk the country in the winter time is an arid waste.
There is no throng of folk, no lighted ways, nor much amusement by
their way of it; but to the countryman the winter is the time--the long
dark nights for ceilidhing, the days after the rabbits and hares, and
the cosiness about a steading, with the beasts at their straw and
turnips, and the lassies to be coming home with, and the old stories
that will make the hair rise on a man's head.  Och, these are the
nights to be enjoying.

I would whiles take a stick and the dogs and over the hill for it to
McKinnon's for a crack with Ronald and Mirren, and then we would go to
the Quay Inn and listen to the singing, or talk to McGilp--for McGilp
had left the sea and settled at McKelvie's, where he was very much
respected as a moneyed man, having sold the _Seagull_ to McNeilage, his
mate.  He was much exercised by the morals of the place, and very
religious, except when in drink, which would be mostly every night.

On such a night, with Ronald and myself at the table and McGilp
opposite, the door opened, and in came Bryde and Hugh with a cold swirl
of sleet, and sat down beside us, and Robin McKelvie brought their
drink, and old McKelvie came ben to be doing the honours.  We were
close by the fire, for McGilp liked to be hearing the sough of the wind
in the lum, and him snug and warm.  On the other side of the fire was
Dol Beag, a man well over fifty, very silent, and I could not thole the
look of his crooked back.  But there was with him one of his own
kidney, and he began to let his tongue wag.

"We had many's the ploy in the old days," says he, "and wild nights
too.  It will chust be twenty years off an' on since I was swundged
behin' that fire like a sheep's heid--yes.

"I will haf forgotten what ploy that was--I was aalways fighting."

"Dol Beag, can ye no' be quate before dacent folk?" said Ronald.

"Ou ay, Ronald, I was chust thinking of the old ploys--I see you have
strangers with you."

Then he turned to Bryde--

"You will be a stronger man than your father, and he wass a fine man,
but you would kill a man too.  Yes, but we will not be talking of
killing when it's the lassies you will be thinking about, and I'm
hearing the southern leddy is very chief with you," and he sniggered
and went out.

"God's blood," said Hugh in a white rage, "do you let any drunken rogue
blackguard a lady?"

"I am not to be touching that man," said Bryde, and his face was dark
red.

"Have I to live to see one of my name a coward--a bastard and a coward?"

"By the living God, you lie, Hugh McBride," said Bryde through his
teeth, and struck Hugh on the mouth with the back of his hand.

"That will be all that is needful," says Hugh with a bow; "there's a
yard outside, and maybe McKelvie will be giving us a couple of
lanthorns."

Never a word said Bryde, but the breath whistled through his nostrils,
and we made our way through the kitchen, for it was easier to stop the
big burn in spate than these two.  There were cutlasses on the wall
crossed like the sign of a battle on a map, and Hugh had them down.

"I think they are marrows," says he, trying to be calm, but his very
voice shook with rage.

"Outside," said Bryde.

There was a puddly yard, squelched with the feet of cow beasts.  The
scad of light from the door and the two lanterns lit up the yellow
trampled glaur, and both the boys stripped in silence and stood on
guard, and then started.

McGilp and McKinnon and the McKelvies were there only, and if these had
not been my own boys I could have enjoyed the business, for they were
matched to a hair, and tireless as tigers.

The blue blades sprang from cut to parry like live things, and in the
light I saw the same cruel smile, line for line, in both faces.  The
snow was falling in big wet flakes, and the fight went on, neither
giving an inch, and then from behind came a thin voice--

"The McBrides are at it, hammer and tongs--the Laird and the bastard,
te-he," cried Dol Beag from the dark.

At that word Bryde's blade seemed to waver an instant, and Hugh's bit
into his thigh, but like a flash I saw Bryde recover, and a lightning
stroke and Hugh's cutlass was clattering on the cobbles, and then I saw
Bryde whirl his sword round his head, and raise himself uplifted for a
dreadful blow that would have cleft his cousin to the chest, and the
cruel smile was still on both faces, and then Bryde stopped.

"It's no' true, Hughie," said he, and lowered his hand and walked back
to the kitchen, swayed a minute, and thrust his arms out blindly, and
fell on the flagstones.

"Have I killed him, Hamish?" cried Hugh--"have I killed Bryde?  God,
what will Margaret say to this?"

"I do not know what you have done," said I.  "It would be maybe better
if he is dead, for I think you will have killed his spirit."

We would have had him to bed in the inn, but he came to himself.

"Hamish," said he, "take me home to my"--and in a brave voice--"to my
mother."

And Hugh went out of the room, and I knew he would never be a boy again.

McKelvie's wife was at the doctoring of the wound with her concoctions,
and I made what job I could of it, and then we put Bryde in a peat
creel, with straw and blankets, and took him to his mother.

"It was just a daft prank," said he to Belle, who leant over him like
some wild fierce creature.  "It was just a mad ploy, mother."




CHAPTER XXII.

THE SHAMELESS LASS.

I left Bryde sleeping at last and restless, with Belle wide-eyed by his
bedside, and traked down to the big house very bitter at heart against
Hugh, for the quarrel had been of his seeking; and when I came under
the rowan-trees and past the moss-covered stone horse-trough, the grey
day was coming in.  And at the little window of Margaret's room I saw a
white face peering, and there in a bare stone-flagged lobby she came to
me, a stricken white thing, and dumb.  She had no words at all, but
stood gazing at my face, her hands twisting and twisting, and a strange
moving in her white throat.

"Come, my lass," said I, and took her up and carried her to my room,
where there was still a glow of red in the wide fireplace, and I kicked
the charred wood together, and threw dry spills on that and made a
blaze, and set her in my chair in the glow of it, for she was stiff
with cold, being but half clothed or maybe less.  Then I brought from
an aumery some French spirit, and she took a little, shivering and
making faces, but it lifted the cold from her heart.  Yet in her eyes
was a dreadful look, as of one who had gazed all night over bottomless
chasms of nameless fear.

"And now, Mistress Margaret McBride," said I in as blithe a voice as I
could be mustering, "why am I to be finding you in cold lobbies, and
carrying you to my chamber like the ogre?"

At that came the saddest little smile over her face, and all her body
seemed to relax.

"Tell me," said she, "there would not be laughing in your voice and
him--away," and even then I was thinking she would be afraid to say
that grim word.

"Bryde will have a sned from a hanger," said I, making light of it.
"You will have seen deeper in a turnip, and I left him sleeping."

"The dear," said she--"the dear," and then looking at me, "Oh, Hamish,
Hamish, be good to me; I will not can help it."

"Where is Hugh?" said I.

"He came into us," said the lass, "like a wraith."

"'I have provoked my cousin,' he said, 'and wounded and maybe killed
him, and I am owing him my life forbye,' and I ran to be waiting for
you, and locked my door on all of them, even my mother."

She had a droll coaxing way with her, Margaret--a way of saying, "Will
you tell me?" and then of repeating it, and she started now.

"Hamish," said she, "will you tell me one thing?  Will you tell me?"

I nodded.

"Would it be--will you tell me--truly?" and she waited for my assent.

"Would it be Helen the boys were fighting over?"

"It would not," said I, and she said nothing more after that; but as I
took her to the door she pulled my head down.

"I am thinking often, Hamish," said she, "you are the best one of us
all."

      *      *      *      *      *      *

Now I will say this--that Bryde was like a wean in bed, fretful and
ill-natured and restless, and his mother had to be beside him when folk
came in, and I think in his new knowledge he feared she might suffer
some indignity.

And he lashed his pride with a new-found humbleness, and railed at
himself.  I can hear his words on that day I brought Margaret to be
seeing him, and she had many dainty dishes to be describing.

"It is very kind of you indeed," said he, "to be minding a poor body
like me, and kind of your people to be allowing you to visit my mother
and myself."

And at the sound of these words the poor lass was red and white time
about, and at last fell all aback like a little ship in the wind's eye.

"Oh, Bryde," cried she, "what is this talk of my people?  Are not my
people your own people also?"

"I have my mother's word for it," said he, with his arm over his eyes,
and the dark blood surging upwards over throat and cheeks.

The lass was on her knees by his bedside at that.

"Do you think," she cried--"do you think _that_ would weigh with me; I
have kent that long syne."

"It was news to me," said he, turning his face away; "bonny news to me."

"This will be news to me also," said she, her face hidden, "for I would
be thinking in the night-time--in the dark--I would be thinking it
would maybe be _me_ you differed over.

"You, Mistress Margaret,"  cried he.  "What could I ever be to such as
you--but a servant?"

"Bryde McBride, do you ken what there is in my heart to be doing to
you," and her eyes were all alight, and her breath coming fast--her
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 ca), 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.

"Back, ye damned kerrigan," and Bryde's voice was high like a
bugle-note, and he sprang forward.

"Dan McBride has the sailors on us," came a shout from Dol Beag, and
then Dan's great voice, laughing, "Fall on, lads; fall on.  Into them
with the steel."

"Fire," screamed Gilchrist--"fire, or we're by wi' it," and the pieces
burst and spattered round us in a wild confusion.  With the blaze of
the pieces I saw Dol Beag spring at Bryde as a wild cat springs;
crooked and bestial he was, and his knife flashing, but swifter than
the knife-flash was the love of the maid, who fell as Bryde fell.  Into
the bedlam of smoke and noise and groaning men, came the horrible
laughter of a man, wild and high and devilish.

"McBride, Dan McBride, McBride, Dan McBride, look at the bonny bastard;
look at your bonny bastard."  Dol Beag was crawling and writhing on the
beach like a beast, and then suddenly the breath left him.  At that
terrible sound, scream and scream of laughing, the excisemen drew back,
and the sailors stood fidgeting and looking half afeared, and there
came the sharp crack of a signal gun from the _Gull_ and the rattling
cr-a-ik, cr-a-ik of halyards.

"Back on the boats," cried Ronald McKinnon, for well he kent McNeilage
would make sail for only one thing, and that was the Government ship;
and the sailors drew off quickly with their wounded.  The excisemen
stood reloading the flintlocks, and Gilchrist, in a flutter of fear,
gave no orders until the skiffs were offshore and rowing hard for the
_Gull_, waiting with her sails all aback.

But for me, at that laughing I turned, and I saw the ruddy face of Dan
McBride blench like linen, his legs become weak like a man that has a
mortal blow, and he came to his son.  Bryde was on his back at his full
stretch on the shore, and his right arm under his head, with a little
switch of hazel in his hand; and lying against his breast with her arms
round his neck was Helen.

Margaret McBride was on her knees, and her hand held in the fast grip
of her man.

They brought lanterns round us now, and I would have lifted Helen, for
the dark stain on her back was growing and growing.

"Let me be," she whispered; "I am happy."

And then there came on the face of Bryde a slow smile, and his eyes
opened wide.

"I think I am not hurt--my shoulder--a lass came between----" and then
in a loud voice of terror, "Margaret, Margaret."

"I am s-safe, Bryde--safe--it is Helen."  Margaret was weeping, and at
these words Helen spoke to Bryde, even as we were staunching her wound.

"My Bryde," said she with a little smile, "and--I--was--almost--the
bride--of Hugh.  It--is--droll--poor Hugh."

Margaret would have taken the proud dark head to her breast, but
Helen's voice came faintly, "J'y suis, j'y reste.  Be very good to
Bryde, Margaret, ma belle, while he is with you--you bring him peace
and a great contentment and a so _great calm_."  I wonder could she be
smiling.  "When he come to me he will 'ave no great calm--no great
contentment--only--only--a great love."

So passed that proud spirit.

And her serving-man, John McCook, would be with her on the journey, for
his body was cold on the shore-head, and all the gameness out of it,
for a ganger's bullet found his heart, for all that Kate Dol Beag
thought she had it.  But because John McCook was come of good folk, I
took the dagger from Dol Beag's hand in the darkness, and wiped it
clean, and put it back into the sheath, while folk were seeing to the
wound on Bryde's shoulder, for a bullet had passed through it, even as
Helen robbed Dol Beag of his vengeance.

And of the folk, only those who dressed Helen for her last journey knew
that her death was a dagger-wound, these and our own people.

The daylight was strong when we would be blowing out the lanterns, and
the _Gull_ was away to the westward of the Craig, and the Revenue boat
hard on her heels, but making little of it; and then came folk and
lifted Dol Beag, and his back would not lie evenly on the board, but
gave his body a cant to one side, and there was no wound on him, for I
think he died of his laughing, and when he would be passing, Dan
McBride covered his face. . . .

It is after the dark wet days of winter that the sun comes again,
bringing greenness to the world and joy into the voices of birds, and
so came happiness to Bryde and Margaret in the old house of Nourn, for
Hugh could not thole his native place for many years, and indeed did
great things in America.  And Margaret McBride would take her sons to
the wee hill and tell them the great tales and the old stories, and her
arm would be on the shoulder of her man, and her eyes resting on him.

And at night, after the reading, when the boys would be sent scampering
to bed, you would see Bryde carrying a little lass to her
sleeping-place, and Margaret, his wife, following--and they would stand
by the bedside and listen to the laughing--and you will know the name
of that brave little lass.



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