"Well," says Dan, "when ye were at the College in the toon and learning yer tasks, there was a la.s.s came to stop at Scaurdale, a niece she was to the Laird there (a sister's wean, I am thinking), very prim and bonny she was, and fu' o' nonsensical book-lore. She took a liking to the place, and there are some that pretend to ken, that say she took mair than a liking to the Laird's son. I would not say for that; he was a brisk lad for so douce a lady. Well, well, Hamish, they cast out, and away goes the la.s.s in a huff to her ain folk, and then back comes the word o' her wedding (some South-country birkie her man was, o' the name o' Stockdale, if I mind it right), and when that word came, John o' Scaurdale's son was like to go out at the rigging. We'll say naething about that, Hamish; ye ken what came on him: his horse threw him at the Laird's Turn yonder, and he never steered--he was by wi' it."

"What has this to do with Belle's wean?" said I.

"Belle's wean! Man, Belle never had a wean. That bairn is Stockdale's; and I'm hearing," said he, "that Scaurdale's niece, the mother of it, sent word to her uncle to take away the bairn, for her man turned out an ill-doer, and it's like she would be feart. But I ken this much, Hamish, Belle is waiting word from Scaurdale, and," says he, "they ken all the outs and ins of it, our friends here, and whenever it will be safe the wean will go to John o' Scaurdale."

"Scaurdale is not so far from here," said I. "Could Belle not have taken the bairn there at the first go off?"

"I thought ye had mair heid, Hamish. There's aye plenty o' gossips in the world, and Scaurdale will want this business kept quiet."

"In plain words," said I, "the wean has been stolen away from her father with the mother's help."

"That's just it precisely, Hamish; and what better place could she be hidden than here, with Scaurdale and your uncle so very friendly, and this so quiet a place?"

CHAPTER III.

IN WHICH I CHASE DEER AND SEE STRANGE HORs.e.m.e.n ON THE HILL, AND A LIGHT FLASHING ON THE SEA.

The corn was in the stackyard and the stacks thatched, and all that summer Belle and her wean stayed with us, the la.s.s working at the weeding and the harvesting, and the wean well cared for, for the mistress remained not long abed after the spaewife's coming. Belle's wean might be "a tinker's brat" in whispered corners in byres and hay-sheds, where the wenches could claver out of hearing, but the Laird's son got no better attention than the tinker's brat when the mistress was near.

And now that the corn was secure and the stackyard full, the deer came down from the hills and lay close to till nightfall, and then wrought havoc in the turnip-drills, and I noticed that, like cows in a field of grain, they spoiled more crop than they ate, both of potatoes and turnips; and, indeed, it angered a man to see his good root-crops haggled and thrawn with the thin-flanked beasts, like the lean cattle, and I thought to go round the hill d.y.k.e with the dogs on an October evening, and harry them back to their heather and bracken again.

It was early in the evening, so I took my stick and daunered to the hay-shed (which was next to the planting) behind the stackyard, for I liked the noise of the wood, and would lie on the hay and listen to the scurry of the rabbits, the rippling note of the cushats in the tree-tops, and watch for the coming of the white owls that flitted among the trees. And as I lay on the sweet-smelling clovery hay there came over me a drowsiness, for I had been early abroad, and I dovered and dovered till sleep and waking were mingled, and strange voices came into my ears; and then I knew the voices, and felt myself go hot all over, for I could not move or I would be discovered with the rustling of the hay.

"I have waited long for ye, my bonny dark la.s.s, waited when I was shivering to take ye in my arms," and I could see Dan lean forward and look into Belle's black eyes, one great arm round her shoulders and his hand below her chin, and she was bonny, bonny in the blink o' the moon.

"Ye were a good lad," says she, smiling up at him; "it whiles made me angry ye would be so good, and I would be lying at night thinking ye had forgotten the gipsy la.s.s, and would be a.s.sourying[1] wi'

red-cheeked, long-legged farmer la.s.sies; and then ye would be coming to my window and knocking, and I was glad, and listened and listened for ye to be coming, although ye would not be knowing from me at all, and I would be cold, cold to ye. . . ."

"My dear, it's news to me," cried he, in great wonder, "for never a knock did I knock," and his eyes were laughing down at her.

"What!" she cries; "what! And who would be daring?"

"That's just what I cannot say, for the lads think ye're no' canny some way, but maistly because the weemen hiv them under their thumbs, so I'm thinkin' it must just have been Hamish."

It was on the tip of my tongue to cry out at that, but I saw by his face that he could not help hurting gently whatever he liked, and he had no thought for me at all, but waited for the girl to speak. The great sombre eyes were looking up at him, and the moon glintin' on her teeth as, her red lips parted, a brown hand fluttered about the man's breast.

"You would be knocking. I am wantin' you to be knocking," she cried, "for I am only a wicked gipsy la.s.s. . . ."

I saw the man stretch her back with a straightening of his arm; I saw the limber length of him, the lean flank and the curve of his chest, as he half lay on the hay.

"I am wishing ye to be knocking," he mimicked in a half-fierce, half-laughing voice, "for I am only a wicked gipsy la.s.s"; and again, "My dear, my dear, I'm not seeing much wickedness in a' this, and so I must be creeping out and knockin' on a la.s.s that will not be saying a civil word to me, let alone a kiss in the gloamin'."

"Oh," she lilted, "oh, so you would be knocking to that unkind la.s.s;"

and then in a far-away voice, "Will you be remembering that place where I found you, when I would be running a wild thing like a young foal? . . ."

"Bonnily, Belle, bonnily I mind ye--a long-legged, black-maned filly ye were, and the big eyes o' ye, I began to love ye then. . . ."

"It would be terrible and you lying in the stall beside your horse at that place, and them not going near you, and you only a boy. I will be dreaming of the horse tramping your face yet."

"I'll teach ye something better to be dreaming than that, dear la.s.s, for I was only a boy then, and I was carrying a man's share o' French brandy, more shame to me. I had nae sense at all, to be lying beside the horse, and him a kittle brute too; but I'll aye be mindin' ye coorieing ower me, and greetin' for a' that, when the men o' the _Seagull_ were feart tae venture into the stall, being sailors and strange wi' horse."

Among the hay there I remembered the loud voices and the slamming of doors in the night, and Jock McGilp and his message about the "turf being in"; and here it was coming round that these two had met then, and I somehow had helped to bring them together.

"I will be asking you to do me a service the night," I heard the girl say.

"I'm thinkin' that, my dear, will it be ridin' for the priest, for indeed you're such a _wicked_ la.s.s I see nae ither way for it. I canna aye be knockin' when your wickedness keeps me in the caul' . . . ."

"Come," she cried, rising, "come, for we will have been dallying too long, and I did give my word to Scaurdale. I will not be listening any more to your talk."

"Where fell ye across that grizzly dog, John, Laird o' Scaurdale?" said Dan as they rose.

So I waited until the hay was all quiet and the lovers gone, and I got the dogs and went after the deer.

Outside the d.y.k.e I found them herded, their sentinels posted like an army resting, and away they headed, the collies at their heels, and me racing through bracken and heather and burn, after seeing them clearing a rise and disappearing, the big antlers like branching trees. Away and away I followed, till the dogs' barking was faint in the night and the three lonely hills were looming before me, and I saw the wild-fire glimmer on the peat-bogs and the moon going down as I whistled and whistled for the dogs.

And as I waited I heard the thud, thud, thud of horses galloping, and then the jangle of bridle-chains, and I lay down in the heather. Two hors.e.m.e.n pa.s.sed me, wrapped in their riding-cloaks, and after a while a light jumped out on the hillside, and I knew the hors.e.m.e.n had stopped at the old empty shepherd's house, and I made my way there, for since old McCurdy died the house had been empty. I could hear the dogs barking away among the hills, and the rustle of the night-folks among the dry heather as I cautiously rounded the "but and ben," and there at the door were the two horses that had pa.s.sed me. Quietly I crawled into a clump of heather and lay a-watching, and turned in my mind everything I might be a witness to, and found no answer. Then, away behind me, I heard a horse neigh, and the tethered horses answered, and a gaunt figure, white-haired and martial, stalked through the door, and I knew John, Laird of Scaurdale, waited, he and his man.

I heard a laughing voice on the night wind.

"It's a great thing to have a la.s.s on the saddle wi' ye, Belle, ye can kiss her at every stride," and Belle's answer must have been kissed into silence, for I never heard it.

There came Dan on our best horse, an upstanding raking bay, and in front of him was Belle with the wean in the tartan shawl. The servant lifted Belle from the saddle, and Dan, looking awkward in the glow from the window, held the tartan bundle, then handed it to the gipsy, and all of them went in, and I was left alone on my heather tussock. Maybe ten minutes pa.s.sed, and the servant came out and led the horses to the back, where there was a sheepfold and a well, and I heard him drawing water, and in a little time he entered the house, an empty sack in his hand, and I knew the horses were at their feed, and crawled up to the lighted window and peered in. The Laird was striding up and down the narrow room, his fierce old face twitching, the body-servant stood by the door like a wooden man, and Dan, as though the ploy pleased him, smiled at the gipsy, who held the wean.

The Laird's words came clearly--

"She would have the false knave, she was afraid o' my stern lad and would have the carpet-knight--the poor wee la.s.s; but she minded her cousin--she minded my boy at the end o' a' when she hated the Englishman. I ken fine how her pride suffered before she sent me word, but the word cam' at the hinder end. Belle," said he, stopping his march, "ye have done finely wi' your lad an' a'."

"It's not me he'll be lookin' at, sir," wi' a toss of her head.

"The bigger fool him; it was a' grist that cam' to my mill when I was mowing down the twenties."

"Ay, Laird," says Dan wi' a bold look, "I've heard it said ye kept the ministers in texts for many a day, and the sins o' the great made the poor folks' teeth water from wan Sunday till the next."

"I had thought them more concerned wi' brewing their whisky and poaching than in the inside o' a kirk," growled the Laird, for he was choleric when reminded of his past by any but his own conscience, which had turned in on itself, and grown morbid as a result.

"It's a grand place the kirk, sir; I've seen and heard enough there to keep me cheery a' week. There was the time when we walked there in droves, and would be takin' a look at the beasts in the parks as we went, and often the beasts would be turned on the roadside, for a man might buy on Monday what he only saw on Sunday. Once, going by Hector's, the la.s.sies wi' their shoon in their hands, were walkin'

easier barefit and savin' shoe leather, and a young Embro' leddy, wi' a hooped skirt wi' the braidin' like theek rope on a stack, and high-heeled shoon, looked disdainfu' at them. Well, well, the pigs were on the roadside at Hector's, and they kent the barefit la.s.sies; but the grand lady they didna ken at all, and one caught her gown by the braidin' and scattered away reivin' and tearin', and set the lady spinning like a peerie, and the la.s.sies laughed and cried 'suckie, suckie,' and put on their boots to go into the kirk, well put on, and in a rale G.o.dly frame o' mind."

Belle had the wean wrapped in the cloak the servant had provided and was croonin' ower it, and the body-servant was waitin' for orders, and there stood Dan and the Laird as though loath to part, and them on business that might mean worse than burnin' stackyards. And it came to me that Scaurdale was not the man to be cherishing any tinker's whelp, not even if he had fair claim to.

"And what lesson did ye get that day, Sir Churchman?"

"Pride goeth before a fall," says Dan, "but that was a bad day for me."