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 theGull, 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 wasthatI 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 BrydeMcBride 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; theSpraywas 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.
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 fraeMcKinnon'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 Ihappenedto 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 theGullwas making for her home port, for my heart somehow warmed to theGull, 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.
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 stackyardand stood on the knowe and looked at the window where the Flower ofNourn 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 theSpray," 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 privateerSprayin 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."
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 heedingthatI 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.
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."
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 theGullwill 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, andI 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 theCleiteadh 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 hesaid 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—mybackdoor."
* * * * * *
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.