"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.

THE END