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 bitch, 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 bitch
would not be understanding how to gather, and at the last of it McGilp
gave a great roar out of him.
"Lay aloft, ye bitch," he roared in exasperation, "lay aloft, damn 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 God 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, God bless
her."
"Ah, but will not Helen be blessed a little too," said the lass, 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.
"Ah, now it is Bryde--come, we will go to the horses," and she sprang
to her feet.
With the serving-man at his mother's door she had a word--
"You will come home in the morning--to-night you will stay with your
mother."
On the road, with Bryde mounted alongside of her on the servant's
beast, she set spurs to her horse Hillman, and he reared, and as he
pawed in the air she laughed, and she pointed with her whip
outstretched--
"Take me over that hill, and we will not come back ever, ever again."
And after the first mad gallop--
"I will tell you--you love Margaret, why--because Margaret is here
always since you were ver' little boy, always Margaret. . . ."
"Helen, I am loving Margaret because--I will not can tell why, but
there is peace and a great happiness in me when she is near me."
"I understand; it is that so great calm--me, I would kill you if you
love me and become cold; but she--she would smile and her heart be
breaking."
"I am thinking that too," said Bryde, and his eyes were soft. The
horses were walking side by side, snapping a little playfully, for they
were loving the night.
"Mon coeur," whispered the lass, and her voice was low and her face
half-shamed, but very brave. "We would have so great a son," said she,
and hung her head low after one long look at the man. At the jerk on
the rein, the horses stopped.
"You are the bravest lass I will ever meet," said Bryde, and there was
a fire of admiration in his eyes, and a ring in his voice. Her hands
groped out to his blindly, and she swayed to him.
"It is heaven to be here," said she, and pressed her face against his
breast, her eyes wide and dark, and her face half hidden. "Dear,"--her
whole body quivered at the word,--"there is not any word a man can say
will be telling how much I am loving the bravery of you for that word.
It is in me to hold you here against my heart for the bravery of it."
"Take me," she whispered--"see, I am ready," and she opened her arms
wide and held her face upwards. Her eyes were fast shut and the long
lashes dark on her cheek. There came a look of infinite tenderness on
the fierce swarthy face of Bryde McBride.
"And afterwards, my brave lass?"
"Ah, then, I could not let you go. Jesu aid me . . . you are mine from
the beginning; it is not right that you love that other. Be kind to
me, Bryde, let me whisper--je t'adore, always I love you--thus," she
cried, and kissed him wildly in a kind of madness. "I think," said
she, "when I am standing with Hugh to be married, I think I will run to
you," and then--
"Take me home now," all brokenly she spoke, "my brave night is
finished."