The McBrides Part 4

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

"Indeed it was no fault o' mine, for between the shepherds' dogs huntin' aboot till the church scaled, and the pigs lookin' for diversion, a kind o' hunt got up, and a pig came into the church wi' a'

the collies in full cry and made a bonny to-do among the Elect. The poor beast made a breenge and got a hat on its snout, and then a fling o' its heid ended matters, and there was the pig in the deacon's hat, and sair pit aboot was the pig, and sairer the deacon.

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

"'Man o' evil,' he cried, 'take the image o' your father and go hence,'

and so I'm clean lost," said Dan, wi' a comical sigh.

I had just time to lay myself flat in the heather before the servant came out and walked to the top o' the rise. I could see the loom o'

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

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

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

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

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

"Ye will be a great one and whip the tinkers from your door, my dear,"

whispered Belle to the sleeping infant, "but ye've lain in the heather, and listened tae the noises o' the hill nights, and the burns, and the clean growing things, and maybe ye'll mind them dimly in your heart and be kind when ye come to your kingdom."

At that Scaurdale leant over his saddle.

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

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

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

softly, and as Dan made to lift her in the saddle--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And as I made my way home, I thought of that little whimpering wean in the crook of Scaurdale's arm, and wondered how she would fare on board the _Gull_, for by Dan's word I kent McGilp had shone the flare away seaward. Scaurdale, it seemed, would be hiding the wean in fair earnest now, and McGilp I kent would whiles be on the French coast.

But never a word did I get from Dan for many's the day about Belle, or McGilp, or Scaurdale--we talked of horses and sheep, until the coming of Neil Beg.

[1] Courting, clandestine courtship.

[2] Sheepfold.

CHAPTER IV.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I will be tellin' you by yourself alone, for my father will be sayin'

to me, 'Did you find him, and him alone? '"

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

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

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

"Come ye raikin' wi' me the night and maybe ye'll be hearing some o'

them," says Dan, and so when the horses were bedded and the kye fothered, we slipped through the planting and took the old peat road for it, and that I was to hear stories was all that he would tell me.

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