The McBrides Part 15

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

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

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

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

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

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

"G.o.dly men must live like ither folk," said Ronny.

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

In the grey of the morning we made our way stealthily to the sh.o.r.e by the point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Do not be petting me," she cries. "I am not a bairn to be quieted.

Tell me ye love me--I want my ain fierce lover that wid make me kneel to him because he loved me--the love in his eyes and the strength o'

his hands,--oh, I have loved a man." And then the man answered, and she saw the sorrow of parting in his face.

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

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

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

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

"My father thought ye would make for this place. Rob Beag's no' dead,"

he said; "the devil has more for him to do yet."

[1] Second sight.

CHAPTER XIV.

WE RETURN.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I believe the man had clean forgot about the sheep.

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

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

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

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

"See that the woman has what she will be needing," said he--"a cow and such-like, Hamish, and peats and gear and plenishings. Poor la.s.s, poor la.s.s. Hech, sirs, this will no' make bonny tellin' to the mistress.

The mistress will no' be pleased wi' this--she'll be in need o' siller too."

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

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

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

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

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