HELEN AND BRYDE McBRIDE REST AT THE FOOT OF THE URIE.
There was a long time that Bryde was lame and weak, for he had lost
much blood, but his strength came back to him, and it is droll to think
that he had grown in his bed. When he was out he could not be having
enough of the hills, and the fields and the sun. He would be talking
to the very beasts about the place in his gladness, and Hugh would be
giving him an arm, and they would often be at the laughing like
brothers; but for long was Margaret, his sister, cold to Hugh.
And in the month of May, Bryde came down to the big house, and the
Laird and his Lady welcomed him at the door, and Margaret behind them
very sedate by her way of it.
And the Laird gave Bryde a good word that day in my hearing.
"You will not be minding that tale, my lad," said he, with his hand on
Bryde's shoulder. "We will whiles be a little careless in the
marrying, our folk," said he, "but the blood is strong enough, and we
hold together."
But for all that I kent that there would be something strange about
Dan's son since he rose from his bed, and I think that Margaret kent it
too, for I would be seeing a wistful look in her eyes when no one would
be near her.
And then there was a day when Hugh brought Helen to the house, and she
was closeted a long time with Margaret.
"Your cousin Bryde will be leaving us ver' soon," said she.
I will never be the one to deny that Mistress Helen came fast to the
bit.
"Will Hugh have been telling you that?" said Margaret in a certain tone.
"Hugh--no. I meet Bryde ver' often. He is good to be meeting--there
is a fire and dash about him," and at that she spread out her white
hands with a fine gesture, and took a turn to the window, her
riding-switch at her teeth.
Now there was an intolerance about Margaret which you will find often
with a proud spirit, and that Bryde should be happy away from her hurt
her like a lash. The women maybe will have a name for it, for there
was a smile in Helen's eyes as Margaret spoke--
"I am glad," said she, "he will have so good a friend as you. Maybe he
will be staying if you were to ask him."
"And you, Margaret?"
"I do not come of folk who ask," said Margaret, with great unconcern;
then for no reason seemingly (but maybe thinking of a certain time when
she all but asked) her neck and face and forehead grew dark with
mantling blood.
"Is he then not of your people who are slow to ask--favours?" said
Helen. "I think so, yes. Do you remember I ride with him a little way
from Scaurdale? There is a moon, and the hills ver' clear and we
gallop."
"I am minding," said Margaret.
"'It is Romance,' I say to him, and he will be carrying me away off to
the hills, and he is laughing.
"'An unwilling captive,' he says.
"'Not ver' unwilling,' I say, for he looked ver' gallant.
"'But a willing captive, she would kiss me,' said Bryde, your cousin,
and then I make no movement of my head, but my eyes are looking at his
laughing down at me--_asking favours_, ma belle, and still I not move,
and he throw back his head (comme ça), and say--
"'I do not beg--even kisses,' very proudly he looks, ma belle, and his
blue eyes laughing. . . ."
"I am remembering that the charm was working, Helen," said Margaret, in
a voice like the north wind for coldness.
"Ah oui," cried Helen, "backwards it work--I kiss _him_ la la," and she
laughed like silver bells a-tinkle.
Now that was a daftlike tale to be telling, but Margaret was for ever
cleaving me with Helen after that. "She is beautiful," she would tell
me, "and merry and a great lady, and I think any man will be loving
her," but there were many nights when Margaret lay wide-eyed, for all
that she drove Bryde from her with jest and laughter. But I think it
was well that she never kent of the meeting of Bryde and Helen
Stockdale at the ford in the burn yonder at the foot of the Urie.
On a summer morning that was, with the heat-haze hardly lifted and long
slender threads of spider webs clinging to the leaves of the birches by
the burnside, and the bracken green and strong, with the white cuckoo
spittals on them that will leave a mark like froth on the knees of a
horse. To the pebbly ford above the "Waulk Mill" came Bryde, riding
loosely with slack rein, for he was thinking much these days. In the
burn his horse halted to drink, and then rested a little from the
water--his head high and his ears forward--Bryde looking to his path
for the South End, for he was on some errand of grazing beasts. Then
there came that fine sound, the distant neigh of a horse, and the horse
in the burn answered gallantly, and came splashing on, passaging and
side-stepping a little, with curved crest. And there by the burnside
they met, Bryde and Helen.
Their words at the meeting were formal enough, for there were houses at
a little distance from the crossing; but you will only be seeing the
founds of them now, and the plum-trees gone to wood, and the straggling
hawthorns and the heather growing to the very burnside by the
Lagavile.[1] But at the meeting there was a rich glowing colour in the
face of the maid, and her lips were parted in a little smile, and her
great eyes, sombre often, but now alight with love a-laughing in them,
rested on the man like a caress.
"Ha, well met, my swarthy dragoon," said she, "or are we sailors this
merry morning?"
"There's aye the night for dreams, Mistress Helen, but in the daytime I
will be but a plain farming body, concerned about bestial. . . ."
"Bestial," quo' she, as they rode in the old track by the burnside that
you'll see yet from the other road, "my horse is a-lathered, and I too
am concerned about bestial. We will let us down," said she, "in the
shade yonder, and rest the horses, and be good farmers together--yes?"
Bryde slacked the girths and tied the horses, and then joined the lass
on a little mound of green like a couch.
"And now," cried Helen Stockdale--"now, sir, here are we in the green
wood with neither page nor groom--squire and dame--and I am loving it,"
said she, and her little brown capable hand took one of his great hard
ones.
[1] Laga vile=hollow of the tree.
"You have fine hands, M'sieu Bryde," said she, her fingers over his to
be comparing them, "great and strong and well-tried."
And there fell a silence between them, and as both strove to break that
silence their eyes met, and there came a quick changing of colour on
the face of Helen, and Bryde's hand closed over hers. And as she sat
by his side her eyes lowered, and the curling lashes sweeping her
cheek, it came to the man how very beautiful she was, her pride all
forgotten. He felt her hand trembling in his, and then she raised her
head with a questioning little sound at her lips, and looked at him,
and smiled, pouting.
"And must _I_ beg," she whispered.
"I think," said Bryde, "that the horses are rested."
The light left her eyes, as the sea darkens when a cloud comes over the
sun. Red surged the blood over throat and face and brow. She sprang
to her feet, twisting her whip in her brown hands. By the horses she
turned--
"Am I lame, or blind, or ugly?" she cried. "Oh, man, I could kill you
. . . but some day, Monsieur, some day I shall laugh when that proud
Mistress Margaret flouts your love . . ." She laughed, mocking.
"'It will be no concern of mine whether Bryde McBride goes or stays,'
says the Lady Margaret. 'I do not beg--and what is he to me.'"
"You are a droll lass," said Bryde, with a frown on his face--"a droll
lass, and very beautiful--so Mistress Margaret . . ." but Helen broke
into his talk.
"Am I beautiful to you, M'sieu? I am honoured," but her eyes were
soft--"but what would the proud Margaret say to that?"
"We will forget her, Mistress Helen--what have I to be doing except to
be a loyal kinsman to her?" and here the drollest laughing came over
Helen.
"I am sure she will be loving _that_," said she, "a loyal kinsman."
And although her breath was still flurried with her swift rage, her
eyes were laughing at the man.
"I can never be in anger with you, Bryde," said she. "I wish it were
not so."
"Are you wishing to be angry with me now?" said he in a deep voice,
with one great arm round her shoulder, and his face bent to her. And
as she looked at him a sort of fierceness came over Helen. She flung
her arms round the man, and stood on tiptoe to be reaching up to him.
"Some day I will be forgetting my convent teaching," said she, "and
then I will make you love me, and you will be mine _altogether_."
"There will be something in that," said Bryde, and laughed a loud
ringing laugh, as the drollness of the business came on him. And when
he looked down, there was the lass all humbled, and tears standing in
her eyes, and a pitiful little mouth on her.
"You are laughing at me, Bryde," said she in a little voice, shakily.
"No, dear, no," said he, "I would be thinking of the Laird of Scaurdale
if he kent, and me with a name to be making. Do not be greetin'," said
he, "there will be nothing at all to be greeting for," and he set her
on her horse gently, and they rode on by the burnside, and watched the
brown trout flash in below the boulders, and darting across the amber
pools, just as they do to-day.