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'wonkiss," 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 andDan. Can ye not see what will come of it?" I know not what I cried toHugh 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.
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 theGullwell 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 ofGilchrist 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 theGulland 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 theGull, 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 sogreat 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 theGullwas 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.