CHAPTER XIV.
WE RETURN.
We made the great to-do in Alastair's kitchen between the exceeding gladness of the news and the foolishness of our flight, and Alastair himself was rowing in the fog after the Gull—only Belle said no word, but went quietly behind a rick of peats close to the house, and I, following her in my slow useless way, came on her suddenly, her arms outstretched to the empty sea, and such a look of anguish on her face that I was silent. No words at all came from her, but her bosom rose and fell as she battled with her sorrow.
"The man's not deid," said I, for I felt that was the great news, but little did I know the woman.
"Dead," she cries—"dead," and laughed. "Would that dog's death have brought a tear to my eyes. Hamish, Hamish, I have lost my man."
And wondrous fierce and beautiful she was as I left her.
We made our way back by the drove road, Ronny McKinnon and me, and we were silent for the most part, for there was that in my throat to keep me from speaking, for Dan was gone, and no rowing would get him back, and who could get word to him.
There was the whiteness and stillness of snow over everything, and I mind me how my mind would cling to wee things, like the footprints of rabbits, and the wee bits of grey fur here and there, and the flight of cushies in the trees, to come back with a start to the Gull away out in the Firth, and Dan on board of her.
Silently we ate our bannocks at a little burn under some stunted trees and close to the shore, and wearily trailed on; and just at the darkness I made out the lights of the big house, and came into the kitchen, where Ronald McKinnon had a meal. He took away over the hill for his mother's house then, as he said, but I'm thinking maybe Mirren Stuart would have another way of it, and at his going I went to that grim man, the Laird.
He was with his back to a red fire of peats, and looked dourly at me.
"What new devilry is this?" says he, and bit his lip. "Here are women and men gane gyte wi' the tellin' o' death and murder—and where is Dan McBride?"
"There is nae murder that I ken," said I, "and the hogs are doing finely."
I believe the man had clean forgot about the sheep.
"Hogs," quo' he; "deil tak' the braxy beasts. Sir, where is Dan
McBride?" and at that I told him.
"And there's more yet," said I, for I had passed my word. "There's more to tell yet."
"Ay," said he, "there will be. Well, tell on."
And I told him of Belle and the old hut. He was not so very ill-pleased.
"See that the woman has what she will be needing," said he—"a cow and such-like, Hamish, and peats and gear and plenishings. Poor lass, poor lass. Hech, sirs, this will no' make bonny tellin' to the mistress. The mistress will no' be pleased wi' this—she'll be in need o' siller too."
* * * * * *
So it was on the first good day, with the sun red through a frosty haze, and the snow melted for the most part, we yoked the horses to the creels, and took gear and plenishing and peats to McCurdy's hut away in the hills over beyond the peat hags, and it was a weary cow beast that trailed behind, tied to the spars.
When we came over the last rise and stood to breathe the horses, I saw Belle at her door, shading her eyes under her flattened palms from the rays of the sun, and watching for us; and the horses looked in wonder to see a house so far among the hills, and tossed their ropy manes.
Man, they were the great little horses we had these days, with little heads such as I have seen in the paintings of Arab steeds, and an alert eager look to them, broad forehead, and soft neat muzzle. Close coupled they were, with a great girth, broad chest and sloping shoulders, and legs like iron. But it was the pride and the strength of them I never tired of, and it may be there was truth in the talk of the old folk, that the Hielan' horse was come off Spanish or Moorish horses of the Armada. But none could tell me if these Arab horses would be having the silver tail and mane of our little horses. And as I stood looking, I thought me it was a dreary wild place for a lass to be living her lane, with the muirfowl for company and the great geese flying north in the spring, and the bleating of sheep in the mist.
So all that winter I worked by the cottage; on the dry days thatching and building, keeping a little horse to take me over the peat road in the gloaming.
In the mornings I would be at it with mattock and spade delving hard at the founds, and I had the great days sliping stones. Indeed, I became so strong and proud of myself that you will see to this day on that hillside the dents I struck on great boulders, that now I would be sweir to move. I had with me an old man from the Lowlands, very good at the building of dry-stone dykes, a knowledgeable man in many ways, but especially in trees and gardens and such-like. The byre we built was not very big, and very dark, but it was cosy, too, under the crooked joists, and covered with heather scraws and thatch. In the loft I put flat boards across the joists, and made a square hole in the doorway, and brought hens and cocks to be making the place more homelike.
All this was on my uncle's hill land, but I had my way of it, and jaloused maybe that the mistress was putting in her good word, for she had aye a soft side for young Dan. When I told him about breaking in from the moor, he hummed and hawed and gloomed at me. "This will mean the less sheep," says he.
"There's a wean coming," said I, and felt the blood rise in my face to be saying it. "Has he to be put in the heather, and die maybe in a sheuch like a braxy ewe."
"Tut," says he, his colour rising a bit; "these are no words to be in the mouth of a boy," but I kent I had him on the soft side. "A man must be dacent to his ain blood," said he, and that was the last of it.
So we had the great days at the burning of heather, and when I would be running with a kindling here and there, and watching the lowes lick into the dry scrog with a hiss before the breeze, I would be thinking much of Dan and Ronny McKinnon and me in the blazing whins, and the gangers and excisemen and riff-raff of that kidney hallooing round us. Belle loved this burning and the very fierceness of the flames, with the eerie gloaming falling, and she would not be heeding the cries of Old Betty (for Betty was much with her these days for company) to be keeping indoors.
"Hamish," she would say, coming close to me in the ruddy light, and the dark cheeks of her glowing and her eyes flashing—"Hamish, I have that in the heart of me." And as she stood thus pointing to the fires, all lit up and wild and beautiful, I thought there must surely have been away back in her story a priestess who tended fires in some far Eastern land.
Well, well, it's fine to be thinking back on these far-off days, and the work we made at the dyke-building round the first park, and how we gathered the lying stones and rousted out the deeper-set ones; and the dyker made all grist that came to his mill, for he would split up considerable boulders with great exactness and skill, a feat that never came easily to me. Then there were the stone drains to be making, and the great talking about the run of the water, and the lie of the land, and the niceness with which we laid those drains! They were all joys to me. I dreamed green meadows and well-kept dykes and good beasts.
And then the ploughing—a sair job ploughing heather roots—and the furrows I drew would have brought the laughing to Dan McBride; but the soil was not so black, but where the rabbits had burrowed there was good green grass among the red scrapings. The sowing and the harrowing were the easy job after that, and I mind me how I leaned on that dyke and gazed on the first three acres won out of the hill, when the green breard was showing, as a man might gaze on his first-born son. In these night trakings in the hills I learned the shape of every stunted bush and tree, and the place of every rock on either hand, and many's the droll ploy I came into. Ye'll still see the track yet down from the peat hags like a scar on the hillside, but the stories of the road are lost in the swirling mists, and carried away in the winter gales.
There was a burn running over the road down from the little loch with the green rush islands, where the sea-birds build, and the staghorn moss is boot-deep, and in that little plouting burn there was grand water to be making the whisky. And in the gloaming have I seen a lonely man with his dog at heel, hurrying by the burn-side, through the bare birch trees, and disappearing to his night watch in some cunning place on the hillside. And once at the place where there is now a little holly-tree, gnarled and full of years, I met the limber lads with the kegs on their backs, and carrying the worm and all the gear for the whisky-making. And we buried everything in the peat hags below the three hills, for the excisemen were close on us, and there they lie, kegs and stoups, to this day; and would not the whisky be fine to be drinking now, but maybe a little peaty.