For answer he smiled down at her.

"Mhari nic Cloidh did tell me this would come, and there is more to come. There is to be a journey we will be making together--and listen, for these will be her words, 'And his hand will be over yours at the rough places, and he will lead you to the land of the pleasant ways, the wide green meadows, starred with flowers and the blue of sparkling seas,'--are not these good words?"

"My heart would be in such a land," said he. "My dear, could you be trusting yourself to me in the great new land, for the farming is in the very marrow of my bones. Would you be grieving for your own folk, and your own hills, in that new land, where the cattle would be grazing knee-deep in gra.s.s, and the horses roaming in herds, long-tailed and with great tangled manes--roaming on the great pastures?"

"I would be loving that place!" she cried.

"There would be the house-building. By a stream the house would be, where there would be fishing, and the byres and the stables and the d.y.k.es to be building, and you would be loving to see the little foals near to you, and the young calves in the joy of living, running daftlike races in the sunshine."

"Bryde, is it not the land of the Ever Young you will be showing me?"

"It is a young land, a land for strong youth. I could be getting ground there," said he, "in that far America; but would you not be vexed when the years went by--vexed at the strange faces, and yearning for the cold splash of the sea in summer, and the green of the waving bracken, the purple of the hills, and the sound of voices that you would be knowing?"

"Would I not be having you, Bryde? Is there anything I could be wishing for more than that? I am loving that land, and," she whispered, snuggling her head close to his side, "when we are grown old and our--our--children gone from us, maybe if you would be wearying for this place, we could be coming back and lying down yonder," said she, pointing to the old kirk, "among our folk."

"There would maybe be some of the boys here coming with us,--Angus McKinnon and Guy Hamilton and Pate Currie," says Bryde, "and we could be talking of this place and remembering it when it would be New Year, and telling the old stories again."

"Do you know who I think will be coming?" cried Margaret. "I am thinking Hamish will be coming too."

When they rose to leave the place--and they were loath to leave--the face of Margaret was changed; there was a glamour of joy over her, and her eyes were not seeing very well, but rather looking away into that happy future, and she clung to Bryde.

"Will I be too happy?" she whispered fearfully, and made the sign that wards off the spirit of evil. "Bryde, we will not be telling this for a wee while,--I am to be holding my happiness in my hands, holding it to my heart, and n.o.body knowing."

It will whiles make me smile to think of the coming of Bryde and Margaret to the Big House that day, for with all her cleverness the eyes of Margaret could not be leaving her man, and her mouth would tremble into a smile, and her cheeks glow at a word; but Bryde that day was all-conquering.

To my aunt--the Leddy, as they will be naming her--to her he was all courtesy, all deference, yet he would be surprising her into quick laughing--indeed, I will always be remembering her words.

"My dear," said she, and her voice trembling, "I am glad to welcome you--I am glad to be proud of you, for I will have loved you like my own son," and she kissed him very heartily and wept a little, and the Laird, my uncle, broke out--

"Hoots, what is it for--this greetin'; the lad kens he's welcome.

King's ship or no', and we will be having a bottle of the wine of Oporto," says he, and came back with it himself, handling the dusty age-crusted bottle with great skill, and we drank Bryde McBride his health. "'To the day when you will be slaying a deer,'" said the Laird, "'and to the day when you will not be slaying a deer,' and I'm thinking, Bryde, to-day you will have had a very good hunting."

And at that we drained our gla.s.ses, and Mistress Margaret and the mother of her would be looking with new eyes at the Laird, for there was a double twist to the thrust, and so it was that Bryde took up his life among us again, after his wandering to the sea. But he would be better for the wandering, having made himself a milled man in the hard school of the world.

You will be thinking of him on the farm on the moor, with that great red man his father and the brother Hamish that came so late, and Belle, that silent woman, watching with dark soft eyes. Margaret, the Flower of Nourn, was there often and none to gainsay her, for Bryde did not long keep his love a secret, but bearded the Laird, and won, for all that the old man opened the business with a great sternness.

"You will be over sib to the la.s.s," says he at the first go-off, "but her mother will be telling me she will have set her heart on you, and, Bryde McBride," said he, at the finish of it, "as you do to the la.s.s, so may G.o.d deal wi' you."

And in all that time, although he would be in every house mostly, and Hugh and he often thrang at the talking, and on the hill together and among the crops, in all that time till the wedding of Hugh, never did I hear that Helen Stockdale had speech with Bryde McBride. But I was to have word of it.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

BRYDE AND HELEN.

And this is how the matter fell out. There will be to this day a love of stravaging among the young men, and maybe in the old ones as well, and I kent that Bryde would whiles be ceilidhing, and often he and Dan, his father, would be at McKinnon's, where Angus would be trying his hand at the farming, and it was the fine sight to be seeing old McGilp on the hill with Angus, and thrang at the working of sheep.

I am minding once that I was seeing them and Angus working a young collie b.i.t.c.h, Flora, he would be calling her, and she would not be working any too well, and that would be angering McGilp. There was a steep knowe where they were and a wheen sheep on it, and the b.i.t.c.h would not be understanding how to gather, and at the last of it McGilp gave a great roar out of him.

"Lay aloft, ye b.i.t.c.h," he roared in exasperation, "lay aloft, d.a.m.n ye,"

and at that great sea voice Flora made off and left them, and I am not wondering at it, for surely never was a dog so ordered; but Robin McKinnon was telling me that when he was at the ploughing and McGilp walking with him step for step, the smuggler would be crying to the horses, and them turning in at the head-rig--

"Luff," he would cry, "luff, luff, and come to win'ward and we'll give you the weight o' the mainsail down the hill."

It would be doing a man's heart good to be hearing Bryde making a mock of the old captain at these times, and the good laughter of him that would start a houseful o' folk to laugh also. It was when he was for McKinnon's that he fell in with Helen.

The stubble was white in the fields, and the leaves red and brown and yellow, still holding here and there to the trees, a great night with a touch of frost for the kail, and the half of a gale coming out the nor'west.

Bryde was on his road for a crack with McGilp and Angus, and the road was swept bare and dry and the night clear as a bell, when there came that fine sound, the clatter and klop of riding-horse. They were on him at the bend above the Waulk Mill, Helen on her black horse, Hillman, and the serving-man hard put to keep with her. You see her there--the black on his haunches and the breath of him like a white cloud, and Bryde standing and his sea-coat flapping in the wind. There was no greeting from her, but her arms stretched out.

"Take me down," she said, and he lifted her.

Then to the serving-man--

"Walk the horses; but no--your mother's cottage is at the burnside. Go there and I will come soon," and the lad walked the horses away, and these two stood watching. Then Helen turned to Bryde and looked at him, her black eyes flashing, her cheeks wind-whipped, her hair a disarray with the speed of her travelling, and her lips smiling. If ever there would be beauty in a woman in the white night with a half gale, it was in Helen. She took his two hands and stood back from him a little and looked, and then from her white throat there came laughter, bubbling laughter, like a little brook in summer, joy and happiness and content was in her laughing.

"Dear," she cried, "dear," to the great dark man, and in her tones were the sounds you will hear in the voice of a mother. "But G.o.d is kind that I see you again before I am wife to your cousin. And you too,"

and her laughter came again, "your cousin will be wife to you. It is droll," and she had always a taking way of that word. "Listen, my friend, here is this good night with a great strong wind and the moon clear like the fire of the Bon Dieu, and the little stars merry and twinkling, and the great white road. Are not we the children of this night? Are not we the frien's of the night peoples?"

Bryde nodded, still looking.

"Then this is mine--all this night, this good night. Come."

On the dry bracken, a little way from the roadside, he spread his coat to make a resting-place for her.

"Now," she cried, "tell me."

"This is not right, Helen," and then--

"I care not for right," she cried, and her laughing came again, but he waved her words aside.

"It will be only days now and you will be the wife of Hugh."

"No--no--no," she clasped her arms round herself. "All this will be his, but my heart--my heart will be waiting, but this one night my heart is mine. See," she cried, "he beat--beat--beat for joy. Once I tell you I will forget my convent ways, and I will make you forget.

See, my mother love one man and marry another, and I am born, and all in me cry for that hill man--it is the cry from my mother in me."

Her hand was holding his arm. "Hugh tells me you will go to America with Margaret. It is not true--tell me."

"It is true, Helen," said Bryde; "I am loving her for that, G.o.d bless her."

"Ah, but will not Helen be blessed a little too," said the la.s.s, and for the first time there were tears in her eyes, and one great drop fell like a white pearl in the moonlight. "Dear, this is not you, so calm--that is like Hugh,--you are cold. Why do I cry and you not comfort me?" She pouted her lips. "One kiss, and I will remember always."

"One kiss," said Bryde, laughing, "and I will never be forgetting."

And at that they laughed.