For a week after that I never saw Dan, but my uncle got sterner and sterner, and when Dan returned, loud voices I heard in the night and slamming doors, but Dan was whistling among his horses at c.o.c.k-crow, and told me I took after my mother's folk and would be a man yet. . . .

But on this April Sunday, after the week of ploughing stubble, we lay long and listened to the pleasant rattling of horse chains, and rustling of bedding, when the horses pawed for their morning meal.

There was the sun, well up on his day's journey, and a whole day to be and enjoy him in. And we rose and took our breakfast, and daunered to the far fields, and inspected the young beasts, picking out the good ones with many a knowing observation on heads and pasterns and hocks, and then round the wrought land, and over the fields where a drain had choked, and the rushes marked its course. We mapped out how this should be mended and strolled back to the stable, and lay in an empty stall where some hay had been left, and waited until dinner, with the shepherd's dogs lying watching their masters, and the herds and ploughmen telling terrible stories of one Mal-mo-Hollovan. Into this peaceful scene came rushing a la.s.s with the word that the Laird was at church, as he should be, and Belle the gipsy wanted speech wi' the mistress.

"An' why no', my la.s.s?" said Dan; "she'll no' bite the mistress."

"The black eyes o' her, and the air o' her,--speech wi' the mistress, indeed--the tinker!"

"Jean," said Dan, "be canny wi' Belle, or she'll put such a spell on ye that ye'll no' hear your lad whistling ootside your window, and the first thing ye'll ken he'll be inside, and you maybe in your sark."

"Ye ken too much aboot sich truck and trollop and the wey in by windows," cried Jean, her face like the heart o' the fire; for her lad was looking sheepishly at her from the corn-kist.

"Well, well, let Belle alane, or I'll be puttin' mysel' in Tam's place," and poor Tam could only grin with a very red face.

And so it came that Belle made her way to the old room where the mistress, my uncle's wife, was abed, after the birth of her son, about whom the women-folk talked and laughed in corners, and looked so disdainful at poor men-folk, that Dan said--

"It's a peety for the wean, wi' a' these weemen waitin' till he grows up. I'm dootin' he'll be swept oot o' his ain hoose wi' petticoats, and take up wi' the dark-skinned beauties in the far glens, like Esau."

And sorely put out were the women when Dan, referring to the heir, said he'd come in time for the best o' the gra.s.s.

"If the colt has got plenty o' daylight below him, and middlin' clean o' the bane, he'll thrive right enough!" The heir of all Nourn a leggy colt! There was nothing but black looks and pursed-up lips till even the easy-going cause o' the change said drily enough: "They're d.a.m.ned ill tae leeve wi' whiles, a man's ain weemen-folk, Hamish, an' I meant the bairn nae ill either."

Well, Belle was ta'en to the old room where the mistress, my uncle's wife, lay abed--her they ca'ed the Leddy, a fine strapping woman, with kindly hands to man and beast and a wheedling, coaxing way with her, though she could be cold and haughty at times, for she came of fighting stock, and could not thole clavering and fussing, and I think she would not hasten her stately step to be in time for the Last Judgment, for the pride of her.

The room was fine and cool, with a wood fire spluttering in the great stone fireplace, and the light playing on the carved pillars of the canopied bed, and blinking on the oak panels; but it was a fine room, with deerskin rugs here and there on the floor, and s.p.a.ce to move about without smashing trumpery that women collect round them, G.o.d knows why, except to hide the lines of the building.

My aunt lay there on the great bed, her dark hair damp and clinging to the white brow, and one arm crooked round her child, and she was gazing at his head where the hair was already thickening, when Belle came to the bedside.

"It's not red," said my aunt. "I feared it would be red, for there are red ones here and there in his house . . . look, woman, it's not red; it will not be red."

"Na, na, it's fair, Leddy--fair and fause; but it'll darken wi' the years, never fear. What ails ye at rid, Leddy--the prettiest man in these parts is rid enough?"

"Poor Dan," cried my aunt, with a bright smile and no hesitation. "The Laird tells me he's wasted enough keep for many bullocks laying the yard with straw lest his horses should wake me in the mornings, but I've missed his songs lying here. They were merry enough too in the fine spring mornings if the words were . . ." And a delicate flush crept over her neck and face, and she smiled a little as at the fault of some wayward boy.

The door was opened softly, and a tall woman entered--a tall woman with a world of sorrow in her wise old eyes, and years of patience in the clasp of her hands.

"Betty," cried the patient--"Betty, is everything done well, now I'm tied to my son," and she put her cheek to the downy head.

"The weemen are flighty and the lads are quate, and the hoose will no'

be itsel' till ye will be moving about again, an' Miss Janet's lad will . . ."

"I will not have Dan called that, Betty," says my aunt. "Ewan McBride's lad he is, if ye must deave me with his forebears . . ."

"My dearie, my ain dearie, did I not nurse his mother when she grat ower his wee body and a' the warl' was turned on her, and her man at the great wars. Ech, ech, a weary time, and her crying to him in the nicht, and throwin' oot her white arms in the stillness and crying: 'My brave fierce lad, my brave wild lover, come back and let me dee wi'

your arms aboot me.' Ay, and her wild lad, her kindly lad, lying stark on yon bluidy field and the corbies maybe at his bonny blue een. I love Dan, for I took him frae his mither's caul' breast; but ech, why will he be shaming his name, and shaming his ain sel'--but I shouldna be haverin', my dearie . . . and here's your soup now."

Jean--she of the stable raid--with a haughty look at the gipsy, who had stood in a corner by the fire all this time, came with the bowl of soup, but Belle slid forward noiselessly.

"Is it soup, Jean?" says she, and the wench stopped. "Skim the fat off it, then, for I saw a hussy like you gi'e her mistress soup like that--and she died." My aunt sat up in her bed, her face very stern when Betty talked of Dan shaming himself and his name.

"I will know this," she cried. "I am not ill any more--who is the woman?"

Jean would have spoken at this, but the gipsy whispered: "Begone, or I'll turn your hair white as the driven snaw," and the wench fled with her soup, and spilled most of it in the stone-flagged corridor leading to the kitchen, where she sat and trembled and grat her fill, every now and again catching her yellow locks to make sure no change had started yet.

So here we have Betty whispering--

"Don't vex yoursel', my Leddy; it's juist the la.s.sie's clavers, for Jean cam' in frae the stable, where she had nae right to be, except to be seein' her lad--they ha'e lads on the brain the la.s.sies noo--and greetin' that young Dan had shamed her before the men, and a' because o' a tinker body like Belle here, although the great folk will treat her so kindly; no' that I mean her any harm," she added (erring on the safe side, for Belle's eyes had begun to glow finely); "and then in came Kate and Leezie wi' a tale o' a wean, tied in a tartan shawl, lying in a biss in the wee byre. Then and there they faithered and mithered the bairn, the useless hussies. . . ." The mother's haughty eyes turned to the gipsy.

"I never found you lying, Belle. Is this story true?--a bonny family is this to be among," she cried, her hand pressing the child closer, and maybe she pressed him too tightly, for the boy doubled his baby fist, his wee voice whimpered, and his outflung arm struck his mother in the face.

"Oh, oh," she cried; "will you turn on me too, and leave me for farmer's wenches and tinker women like the lave of your folk?"

The gipsy la.s.s was on her knees at the bedside.

"Lady," she cries, and her face was finely aglow, "nae wonder ye grieved aboot the colour o' the bairn's hair. Are ye a' Dan mad?"

Then when she saw the anger in the mother's eyes she cries--

"Ye'll maybe be in a mood to listen to the truth now."

"I'm in a fine mood to have ye whipped from my doors, ye shameless . . ."

"Ay, shameless, madam, if I love I'll be that, but if I have a man I'll share him wi' nane, and you'll not be yourself to be believing these false tales; and you, Betty, I had thought ye had seen sorrow enough without br.i.m.m.i.n.g your cup over. It's true I left a wean sleeping in the sweet hay; was there harm in that? She's lain wi' me in the stable lofts and outlying barns these many nights, but the wean is nane o'

mine. It's an ill bird that fouls its ain nest, Betty, and when a' the auld wives are shakin' their mutches at the end o' peat stacks and sayin', 'This'll be another o' _his_; ye might have asked yourself _how_? The poor wee mitherless mite; her feet will be on the neck o'

her enemies, and, mistress, maybe I can tell ye why. I hinna leed tae ye yet, and ye can whip me from your doors if ye will, but hard, hard will it fa' on them that raise the scourge."

Such a look pa.s.sed between these two, so full of meaning, that my aunt told Betty to leave her.

"And keep better manners among your wenches," said she, "for I will not have Dan tormented with the baggage; and tell him I hope my son will grow tall and strong like him, for I will be mindful of his kindness."

"Indeed, indeed, he would be very good, my dearie," cried Betty, anxious to make amends. "When ye were taken ill he lay in the kitchen the lang night through, and his horse saddled and bridled ready in his stall; ay, and he would not go to bed for the Laird himsel'. Indeed, many a wild night he galloped through, and him oot in the morning when the doctor had left."

Belle had slipped out as the old woman was speaking, and now came back with her tartan bundle; and when Betty had left the room the gipsy took from the shawl a wean that cried so l.u.s.tily that it wakened the heir to all Nourn.

As the women whispered and crooned over the bairns, their cries resounded through the house, and made it no place for men-folk.

But crossing the yard, Betty beckoned me with a crooked forefinger.

"Who's wean is that, think ye, Hamish, that Belle brought here?"

"I think you should be asking Belle," said I.

"Ask here or ask there," says Betty, "the wean has a look o'--dinna be feart, my lad--the wean has the look o' John o' Scaurdale. And that,"

says she, "would be fair scandalous."

But after Betty's jalousing I had a word or two with Dan McBride, my cousin.

"Wean," says he, "and Betty thinks the bairn has a look o' John o'

Scaurdale. It beats me, the cleverness of that woman. This is the story I got from Belle, Hamish. It's a little dreich, but it will be as well that ye should ken."