TELLS WHERE BRYDE MET HAMISH OG.
What would you be having me tell you now?--of how we carried the fish
home from the skiff, of how we walked slowly up the shore road, with
Bryde standing to look at the places he would have been remembering.
"I have been in many places," said he, "but I am not remembering so
bonny a place as this."
Would it be pleasing you to hear that when we came to the Big House,
Bryde left me standing, and went through the wood behind the stackyard
and stood on the knowe and looked at the window where the Flower of
Nourn slept.
"Now," said he after that, "I will go to my mother."
"She will be awaiting," said I, "your mother and the boy Hamish--your
brother."
"And who," said he stopping, "who is the father of my brother?" and
there was a whistling of his breath in his nostrils.
"Your father," said I.
"Ah," said he, "is that man home?" and his pace was quicker and there
was a line deep in his brows. "How long has my father been in this
place?"
"It would be soon after you would be following the seas, and they were
married."
"He was a little behind the fair, it seems," and the bitterness in his
voice was not good to be hearing. We were silent until we came in
sight of the white stone below the house on the moor on the road to the
three lonely ones, and then I cried, pointing--
"She is waiting."
"I see her," said he, "and the boy with her," and I looked at the
far-seeing sailor eyes with the little wrinkles at the corners that
seamen and hillmen have, and he left me. When I reached the stone they
were there, the son comforting the mother, and the little boy Hamish
standing a little way off, affrighted.
"Take me," he cried, his arms out, "Hamish is feared of the great black
man," and I would have taken him, but Bryde was before me.
"Come, little dear," said he, and smiled, and the boy came to him
slowly, the mother watching, and then Bryde swung his little brother on
his shoulder.
"We will be doing finely now," said he; "and you kent I was coming,"
said he to the mother, smiling at her.
"I saw her sailing in the Firth, your black schooner, the neatness of
her, and the pride, and I said, 'It is my son's ship you are'; and when
she was at an anchor in the calm water I was watching for the little
boat to be coming to the shore, but the darkness was down and your
father took me away. Morning and evening," said she, "rain or fine, I
would be looking for you since Angus McKinnon came home."
"What--is he home then? I forgathered with him, I mind. I was mate on
the _Spray_," said Bryde. "Well, he would be telling you I was lucky.
I have word that I can be sailing a King's ship if I will be going
back."
At the door of the place that was old McCurdy's hut, Dan McBride was
standing. The white was streaking in the redness of his face, and he
was shaking. Bryde put the boy in his mother's arms, and it is droll,
but Belle went to the side of her man.
"Dan," said she, "I have brought you your son," and she looked from one
to the other, her lips quivering. Bryde opened his mouth to speak,
looking at his father--a long level look.
"You are a fine man," said he, "my father."
At the words Dan took a great gulp of a breath and his eyes were
filling.
"I will have a great son," said he, and cried aloud on his Maker. "My
son, oh, my son, can you be forgiving your father?"
"There is no ill in my heart for you," said the son, "only pity and a
strange love since the day that Hamish put your gift to me into my
hand. I will have been carving my own name with that sword, and it is
kindness in you to be lending your name to me."
"My name and all that I have," cried the father, and took his son into
the house.
Well, well, it is easy to be writing of that meeting, but the dread of
it that was on me I kent afterwards when we were at meat, when we had
all laughed together. It would be Betty that brought the laughing on
us, for she would be crying to us to ken who was the stranger.
And when Bryde went to her bedside, she scrambled up among her pillows.
"Will you have been fetching a silk dress for Betty?" she cried at him.
"Silk and lace and more," said Bryde.
"Not brandy," says she, her lips pursed up.
"Just brandy."
"Come and be kissing me first," said she, a little tremulously, "and
then we will maybe be having a drop of it."
The halflin, a stout man now, and clever with horse, came in to the
house to be seeing Bryde.
"Ye can be riving the skin off my bones," said he, "for I was telling
her about yon."
"About what?" said Bryde, but I think that he kent, for his face was
dark.
"About the words ye would be telling her yon night ye left wi' the
kist, and her not there to be hearing. She would be giving me siller,"
said the halflin.
I am thinking he would get mair siller. And most of that day, it would
be nothing but questions, Bryde sitting with his brother on his knee,
and Dan going out of himself with little kindnesses.
"Hugh is not married, ye tell me. What ails the man?"
"Och," said I, "his days o' freedom will be getting fewer, for they
will be at the marrying soon."
"We will be having a spree then," said Bryde. "I am thinking I have a
present for Mistress Helen in my traps."
And his kists and bags and droll cases came from the stone quay in the
evening, and I was greatly taken with the cunningness of the cases of
leather, fashioned likely from a cow belly, and with the hair still
sticking, although maybe a little bare and worn, and the corners
clamped with iron, making a box of leather of a handy shape for a pack
beast, or easy to be stored in a ship.
And the cries of Betty when she had her dress (all of fine black silk
with much lace, fine like cobwebs), the cries of her were heartening in
a body so old, but maybe a little foolish. For his mother he had a
host of things--a chain of fine gold with a pearl here and there at
intervals, and a watch for me of chased silver, very large and
handsome. To his father he gave a bridle of plaited hair and
ornamented with silver, a very fine bit of work, and too beautiful for
everyday use, but Dan sat with it on his knee, and indeed it was hung
in the place of honour beside his great sword.
And we sat long listening to Bryde when the strangeness wore off him,
and he was telling us of how he came on board a King's ship and worked
and fought until his officers were proud of him, and of how he became
an officer on board a frigate, a position most difficult to attain to
in those days (although there are other men from the island who have
done the like, as a man can be reading in the records). He told us of
his sailing days in the privateer _Spray_ in the Indies, and of his
meeting with Angus McKinnon, but of these things I will not be writing
at any length in this story.
The father and son left me a good way on the home road, and I made my
way indoors with no noise, and there was not so much as a dog barking,
and when I was in my own place I sat thinking for a long time.
And it came on me that Bryde was the wise one to be going away with his
sword, and to be making a name for himself, and siller. For the Bryde
that was fit to command a King's ship would be far different from the
boy on a moorside farm, and I was weaving dreams like a lass at her
spinning when the door was opened behind me and Margaret stood looking
in, a light held high in her hand and her arm bare.
"When will he be coming?" said she. It would likely be the man that
was with me at the splash-net that would be telling her the news.
"He has been here already," said I, "and you sound sleeping."
"I will be easy wakened, Hamish; a chuckle stone at the window would
not have been putting you out of your road. Will he be changed in his
features?" says she, "and was he asking for all of us?"
"Indeed he was all questions," said I; "but I am not remembering that
he spoke of you, my lass."
"My motherless lass! am I clean forgot then?"
"I would not say that either," said I, and told her about the window
gazing.
"He will be a little blate for such a namely man," said Margaret, but I
could see there was a glow of pleasure over her.
"It will be long past time for the bedding," said I.
"There is no sleep will come to me this night"; and then, "I wonder
will the daylight never be coming?"
"Margaret," said I, and I am glad always that I said this--"Margaret,"
said I, "Bryde will be coming here in the morning; you will be meeting
your kinsman on the road," said I, "and that will be doing him a
kindness.
"Maybe he will not be for me to be meeting him, Hamish?"
"There's aye that, Margaret, but I would be risking it."