BRYDE AND MARGARET.
I think truly there was not much sleep for Margaret, even as she said,
for did not I hear her moving, and I would be thinking of her turning
and twisting fornent the image-glass.
And I will tell you where the place is that they met, Bryde and
Margaret, on the hill where the cairn stands and no man knows who would
be the builders. For the lass walked easy and slow to the Hill of the
Fort, as we will be calling it, and then turned to the ridge that runs
to the right hand, for that way one can be seeing all the valley. And
she sat by the foot of the cairn. I am thinking that the far-seeing
blue eyes of Bryde would be watching every rise and hollow, or why else
would he have made the cairn, for that is not just the nearest road to
the Big House.
To her he came there and stood before her, and she rose to be meeting
him, but had no words of greeting. It is like she would be rehearsing
in her mind how this meeting should go, but for all that she rose, and
her hands clasped and pressed themselves hard at her heart, and she
turned herself a little away from him, only her eyes holding his.
"Br--Bryde," was the word that came softly between her lips like a
whisper.
But the man took two strides and was at her side, his hands not yet
touching her, and there came a trembling on the lass.
"If you cannot be loving me and keeping me for ever," said she, "do not
be touching me, for if you will be touching me I am lost," and there
was a dignity in her bearing, although her lips were quivering.
"I am not fit to be touching you, for I have no right folk," said he.
"Do you think it is heeding _that_ I will be, if it is me and no other
that has your heart?"
"But that has aye been yours, little lass, from the beginning, for
there is sunshine and gladness where you are."
"Then," she cried, "then, my darling, I will not can wait any longer,"
and he held her close and looked down into her eyes. There was a place
of flat rocks a little way off, and he carried her there, and a white
swirl of mist hung around them, and the wind blowing it away, and the
sun licking up the trailing white wreaths.
"We are on the high ground," he cried; "look, my dear, the sea below
us, and the woods and the heather, the sun and the mist and the winds
are round us--it is here that I would be loving to kiss you."
"Kiss me, then," she cried, "for I have been dreaming of such?"
Always when I am on the hill I will be looking at that little rocky
place, and seeing these two, brave and proud and young and loving,
seeing them clasped heart to heart on that high wind-swept space
against the sky, with the little curls and whirls of mist and the sun
licking up the floating wreaths. So must the young gods have loved.
And they sat there with the wild-fowl only and the sheep to be seeing
them.
"Bryde," cried the girl, looking at her man with great starry eyes and
her cheeks aglow, "Bryde, will it anger you if I will be telling
something."
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 grass, 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
dykes 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 nobody 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 glasses, 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 lass," 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 lass,
so may God 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.