CHAPTER XXII.

THE SHAMELESS La.s.s.

I left Bryde sleeping at last and restless, with Belle wide-eyed by his bedside, and traked down to the big house very bitter at heart against Hugh, for the quarrel had been of his seeking; and when I came under the rowan-trees and past the moss-covered stone horse-trough, the grey day was coming in. And at the little window of Margaret's room I saw a white face peering, and there in a bare stone-flagged lobby she came to me, a stricken white thing, and dumb. She had no words at all, but stood gazing at my face, her hands twisting and twisting, and a strange moving in her white throat.

"Come, my la.s.s," said I, and took her up and carried her to my room, where there was still a glow of red in the wide fireplace, and I kicked the charred wood together, and threw dry spills on that and made a blaze, and set her in my chair in the glow of it, for she was stiff with cold, being but half clothed or maybe less. Then I brought from an aumery some French spirit, and she took a little, shivering and making faces, but it lifted the cold from her heart. Yet in her eyes was a dreadful look, as of one who had gazed all night over bottomless chasms of nameless fear.

"And now, Mistress Margaret McBride," said I in as blithe a voice as I could be mustering, "why am I to be finding you in cold lobbies, and carrying you to my chamber like the ogre?"

At that came the saddest little smile over her face, and all her body seemed to relax.

"Tell me," said she, "there would not be laughing in your voice and him--away," and even then I was thinking she would be afraid to say that grim word.

"Bryde will have a sned from a hanger," said I, making light of it.

"You will have seen deeper in a turnip, and I left him sleeping."

"The dear," said she--"the dear," and then looking at me, "Oh, Hamish, Hamish, be good to me; I will not can help it."

"Where is Hugh?" said I.

"He came into us," said the la.s.s, "like a wraith."

"'I have provoked my cousin,' he said, 'and wounded and maybe killed him, and I am owing him my life forbye,' and I ran to be waiting for you, and locked my door on all of them, even my mother."

She had a droll coaxing way with her, Margaret--a way of saying, "Will you tell me?" and then of repeating it, and she started now.

"Hamish," said she, "will you tell me one thing? Will you tell me?"

I nodded.

"Would it be--will you tell me--truly?" and she waited for my a.s.sent.

"Would it be Helen the boys were fighting over?"

"It would not," said I, and she said nothing more after that; but as I took her to the door she pulled my head down.

"I am thinking often, Hamish," said she, "you are the best one of us all."

Now I will say this--that Bryde was like a wean in bed, fretful and ill-natured and restless, and his mother had to be beside him when folk came in, and I think in his new knowledge he feared she might suffer some indignity.

And he lashed his pride with a new-found humbleness, and railed at himself. I can hear his words on that day I brought Margaret to be seeing him, and she had many dainty dishes to be describing.

"It is very kind of you indeed," said he, "to be minding a poor body like me, and kind of your people to be allowing you to visit my mother and myself."

And at the sound of these words the poor la.s.s was red and white time about, and at last fell all aback like a little ship in the wind's eye.

"Oh, Bryde," cried she, "what is this talk of my people? Are not my people your own people also?"

"I have my mother's word for it," said he, with his arm over his eyes, and the dark blood surging upwards over throat and cheeks.

The la.s.s was on her knees by his bedside at that.

"Do you think," she cried--"do you think _that_ would weigh with me; I have kent that long syne."

"It was news to me," said he, turning his face away; "bonny news to me."

"This will be news to me also," said she, her face hidden, "for I would be thinking in the night-time--in the dark--I would be thinking it would maybe be _me_ you differed over.

"You, Mistress Margaret," cried he. "What could I ever be to such as you--but a servant?"

"Bryde McBride, do you ken what there is in my heart to be doing to you," and her eyes were all alight, and her breath coming fast--her face close to his and her arms round him: "I could be kissing your hurt till it was healed. I am wanting your head _here_, here at my heart, for I am yours--I will be yours--I will be yours."

"Some day," said Bryde in a soft whisper, with amazement in his tones--"some day you will find a man worthy of that great love. . . ."

But she was at her wheedling now.

"Will you tell me, Bryde--will you tell me truly?" and she put her lips to his ear. "I love you, Bryde--did ye not know? Am I not a shameless la.s.s?"

"There never was maiden like you before, Margaret," said he. "I am always loving you, always. . . ."

"But tell me," she cried--"tell me," and she put her ear close to his mouth, and her eyes were closed and a smiling gladness on her face.

"Love you," he cried in a great voice. "The good G.o.d will maybe be knowing the love in my heart for you," and his face was grey with pain, but at his words she pressed her face to his gently.

"Now," she said, "I will be happy again."

And when I came into the room there was the la.s.s standing very proud with her hand on his brow.

"Is he not a restless boy, our Bryde?" said she, and there was pride and love and tears and laughter in her tones, and she left us together.

"Hamish," said he, "you will not be bringing her here again ever--I will not be strong enough lying here . . ." and then in a lower voice, "My mother has a ring," said he. "I could not be asking her, my mother, and who is there to turn to but you," and I told him of the messenger who came from the Low Countries with Dan's letters and his mother's ring.

"And your baby fist closed on the sword," said I.

"The sword," said he. "Where is my father's gift?"

At that I went to the old byre where the heathen had sat that day, and I digged the cobbles from a corner of a biss close to the trough, and there, wrapped in a sheep's skin in a box, was the sword as I had buried it long ago, and I brought it to Dan's son.

He took it with a kind of joy, and his eyes all lit up.

"My father would be knowing," said he, and drew the blade. "This will clear the tangles."

There were flowers very beautifully let into the blade in thin gold.

"Is she not a maiden richly dowered?" said Bryde--"a slim grey maiden, a faithful maiden, who will be lying at my side, and fierce to be defending me?"