"Ah oui," cried Helen, "I am seeing all that, M'sieu."

And Hugh McBride looked glumly at Bryde as he left.

"I am forgetting," said Margaret, "I am wanting Bryde. Take me, Hamish," and her hand was pressing mine. But I thought to be teaching her a lesson, and sat still a little.

"What is it you will have been forgetting, Margaret?" said I.

"Oh--oh," says she, her face all suffused, "it will just be about a pup he was to be bringing me. . . ."

At that I took her with me. "Pup," said I; "pup, Margaret. What tale is this?"

"Cat or dog, or--or anything," she cried. "I am wanting him."

Bryde was at his horse's girths, and old Tam with a lanthorn.

"Bryde," cried the la.s.s, "I am wanting you."

He had the horse out by this time, and I went away a little, but I heard her say--

"You never kissed my hand, sir--no, not in all your life."

"No, Mistress Margaret," said the boy.

"But why, why, why?" said she, and I laughed to see her stamp.

"Ye see," said he, and mounted, then bending over his saddle, "Ye see, my dear, I was loving your hand all that time," and the clatter of his horse's feet on the cobbles brought me to my senses.

"Pup," said I.

"But, Hamish," whispered the la.s.s, "I am wanting him."

"For what now?"

"I am wanting him _to keep_," said she, and put her head against my arm--the brave la.s.s.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE RIDERS ON THE MOOR.

I would be seeing very little of Bryde for many a day after that, for there was aye work to be doing at his hill farm, and hard work will be bringing sound sleep.

But Hugh was become the great gallant, with old Tam rubbing his stirrups with sand from the sand-brae, that and wet divots, till the irons shone like silver.

"Hoch-a-soch," he would say, "the young Laird is ta'en wi' the weemen.

I will be at the polishing o' his horse's shoes next, and it iss the fine smells he will be haffin' on his claes--fine smells for the leddies, yess."

"Tush, man," said the Laird, "ye smell o' my Lady's bower. Your forebears had the reek o' peats about them, or a waft o' ships. . . ."

But the road to Scaurdale would be drawing Hugh.

"It is Mistress Helen that will be having the dainty lad, Hugh, my dear," his sister would be flashing; "your folk would not be hanging so long at a la.s.sie's coat-tails, if old stories will be true."

But he had an answer for her.

"What tails will Bryde be hanging at, my la.s.s?"

"His plough-tail, my dainty lad," said Margaret, and laughed to be provoking him.

"Maybe ay, Meg," says he, "and maybe no."

It was not long after that when Margaret would be wheedling me to be on the hill.

"See, Hamish, my little brown horse is wearying for the air o' the hills and the spring water," and she would smile with her brows raised a little and her lips pouting.

When we were on the brow of the black hill--

"I am thinking we will ride to the peat hags," said Margaret, "and we'll maybe be seeing Bryde," and she laughed in my face, and, indeed, after that she was always at the laughing.

"What would his father be like, Hamish--Bryde's father?"

"A fine man he was, Margaret, but a little wild."

"Ay," said she, "he would be spoiled with the la.s.ses."

And for a while she was thoughtful. Bryde was at his plough-tail on an outlying bit, but his horses were standing at the head-rig, and Bryde was laughing and talking to a lady, and when I saw the serving-man holding a pair of Scaurdale's horse, I kent the la.s.s.

"I am wondering," said I, "where is Hugh, and Mistress Helen so far from hame; but ye were in the right of it, Margaret, for Bryde is at his plough-tail."

"He will have good company even there, it seems," said the la.s.s.

But in a little Helen and she were at the talking.

"And where would you be leaving all your cavaliers, Helen," said Margaret, for Hugh had been telling us of the young sparks at Scaurdale.

"Cavaliers, Margaret!" with a very dainty moving of the shoulders. "Of these I am weary this day, and so I inflict myself on the dragoon," and here she bowed very low and gracefully to the ploughman, and there was a little devilry in her black eyes.

Bryde was at his furrow again when Hugh joined us with his very braw clothes, and he was a little dour-looking.

"We're all on the moor these days," says he, "and keeping a man from his work seemingly."

"But now you have come we will ride to Scaurdale," said Helen, but Margaret would not be heeding.

"I am to see my cousin's wife," says she, "in the house yonder, with Hamish here; but here is Hugh on edge to be on the Scaurdale road, and Bryde eager to be ploughing." So Margaret and I made our way to the house, and it was hard to be knowing where the shepherd's hut was among the outbuildings of the steading, and as we turned into the stackyard and watched Hugh and Mistress Helen ride on, Margaret turned to me.

"Is it not droll," said she, "that a man o' my folk, my own brother, cannot be putting a ring on the finger of an easy la.s.s like that?"