CHAPTER XVII.
I TURN SCHOOLMASTER.
There were many things to be doing in these days—peats to be cutting and carted home and built into tidy stacks, just as you can see them to-day, and the sprits and bog hay to be saving, for we were not good at growing hay, and then, when the boys grew up, there was the schooling of them. It was the boys we would aye be calling them, Dan's boy and the Laird's son, and they were fine boys.
Bryde McBride, that was the name of Dan's son, and Hugh, with a wheen other names, was the young Laird, who was schooled in Edinburgh and was not long back to us, and there was a lass Margaret, his sister. They would be with me everywhere on the long summer days, and me with the books by me; but mostly in the summer we would hold school at the Wee Hill, for there was a green place as level as the page of a book, and a little turf dyke enclosing it nearly, that we called the Wee Hill. Wae's me, now they have hens scarting about the place, and the greenness is gone from it.
There was the stone of twenty-two snails close by, for that was the number we found on it, a thing I have many times thought about; and great games we had, Bryde with his black hair and swarthy skin and wild blue eyes, with laughter just ready in them, and the speed and grace of a wild cat; and Hugh, ruddy like his folks, and dour too and very loyal; and the lass Margaret, who could turn Bryde with her little finger, and gloried in the doing of it. Ay, they grew up with me, and would be swimming with me in the sea, and every path in the hills we would be riding over, and we were happy together. These were the happiest hours of all, ochone; the sun shone more brightly and the days were longer.
And in his mother's eyes there was none like Bryde. The sun rose and set on him, his every little mannerism was a joy, and I have watched her gazing at him for long without speech, and suddenly rise and press his head against her heart, and her happiness was when he looked up from his task and smiled. I think never was a hand laid on him in anger.
There was something elemental about the lad. He would stand mother naked in the dim morning light below the little fall, and his pony awaiting him, and he kent every horse and dog within twenty miles. Indeed, there was a time when he would have slept with his horses.
"They might be needing me in the night," said he.
In these days we grew hay in a droll fashion. If there was a field namely for good grass, we would be getting green divots from it and putting them in our own parks, and scattering good rich earth round the divots. And when the grass was blown about by the winds, the seeds would fall and strike on the loose scattered earth, so that these divots were the leaven that leavened the whole field. But when he was sixteen and man grown, a fair scholar and expert with the sword, Bryde would be laughing at the notion. And he was strong and tough like the mountain ash.
"Hill land," said he, "will only be growing hill grass," and he set his folk and he went himself and took the seeds from the hill grasses. Guid kens how long it took him, but he sowed his hill grasses with his corn, and the seeds came, as we say, and he cut it and threshed it with the flails; and after that he had hay-stacks in his yard, and his beasts were well done by, so that at the fair he got great prices both for stots and back-calvers. And, indeed, it was at the fair that first I saw the mettle in the boy, although his eyes had always dancing devils in them. There was much drink in these days, and the mainland dealers had not the head for it that the boys from the glens had. The young boys would be holding saddle beasts from the early morning and making the easy money. Aweel, on this fair day, Margaret the maid, the sister of Hugh, had craked and craked to be seeing the beasts and the ferlies, and her mother, the Lady, and her father, the Laird, were sore against it.
"I will be with Bryde, my cousin," said she; "and who will meddle me."
(I was clean forgotten.)
"He is not a real cousin, Margaret," said the mother.
"He is a fine lad; you will go, my lass," said the Laird, for blood was more to him than a stroke left-handed across a shield, and that day she rode with Hugh and me—Margaret, the Flower of Nourn. Tall she was and limber like a lance, her eyes like blue forget-me-nots that grow by the burn mhor, fearless and daring, with long black lashes. Her brown hair curled at her white neck, and her white chin was strong like a man's, but very soft and beautiful; her lips red, and her teeth like pearls.
She was silent for the most part on the road that day, though whiles she would be quizzing her brother about the lassies in the college town, for he had two years of the College at St Andrews. He was the great hand with the lassies by all accounts, Hugh, and many's the time his mother would be havering about them, but that man, my uncle, would wink as though he would be amused.
But when we passed McKelvie's Inn and saw old McKelvie there, stout and hearty, but very white about the head, and had a salutation from Ronald McKinnon thrang with the dealers, and Mirren not far off still sonsy—when we passed there I saw that Margaret was all trembling; and when we saw Bryde, tall and swarthy, coming to us, I saw the smiling in her eyes and her face aglow.
"What was that, my dear lass?" said I, looking at her.
"That would be my heart leaping," said she, with a laugh and a blush.
And Bryde lifted her from her little horse, and her hands were never tired to be touching him. She was all tremulous with laughter and eager-eyed, and the red was flaming in her cheeks, and she would be ordering Bryde like a queen, but pleadingly withal.
"You will stable my little horse," said she, and when Bryde, smiling down at her, took the bridle, "But—but I will be coming with you," she cried, "or surely you will be forgetting to halter him, or letting him run off and leave me," and as those two with the proud little horse moved to the inn, I saw her look up at the boy with all her heart in her eyes and her lips smiling a little pitifully.
"Do you think I would be caring, Bryde, if he ran off—if you were left with me?"
Ah, she was brave in her loving, was the Flower of Nourn.
Mirren McKinnon, that was once Mirren Stuart, was dowie that day, and her eyes red with greeting, for her son had gone to the sea, as his father had long ago. "I will be missing his step," she said softly, "when my man is on the hill," but Ronny would not be listening.
"It will make a man of the lad," said he; "there's something clean and fine about the sea."
Bryde had sold his beasts well, and it was his pleasure to be showing Margaret the bonniest foals, rough-haired and tousled as they were, and Hugh and me would be passing judgment. There was a mob of mares and foals and yearlings gathered in one place, and the mainland dealers bargaining with the farmers—always on the point of fighting by their way of it, and laughing to scorn the offered prices, as you will see to this day when folks are dealing in horse.
And as we stood a little way off, a great burly red-faced man—a Lowland dealer, strong as a tree, and a wit in a coarse way—turned his round drink-reddened eyes on us a time or two, and whispered behind his hand to his cronies, and I heard the titter of Dol Beag's laughing as Hugh pointed to a bonny yearling colt, and we stepped away, but not so far that I heard the dealer's words.
"Ou ay," says he, looking at Bryde, "Dan's is he? I've heard tell o' him, but whitna queen is't that's lookin' at him like a motherless foal?"
At that Bryde put Margaret in my hands. His face was like a devil's and his teeth showed as though his mouth were dry. To Hugh he gave one word. "Stop!" said he, and the word was a snarl.
Never another word he spoke, but leapt among the bargainers, and slid through the great flailing arms of the bucolic wit, and his right hand sank into the man's red throat. I see him still, his left hand behind the man's back, the shoulders raised, all the lithe length of him as he stood on his toes, his eyes like blue flame. I saw him shake his enemy as a dog shakes a rabbit. The great red face took a blae colour—the tongue protruded from his mouth and the eyes stared wildly. Men would have dragged Bryde off, but he hissed a "begone" through clenched teeth (it was a word of his mother), and they fell back as from a sword-stroke.
"Go down, go down, ye beast, if ye never come up," he girned, and flung the man from him to the earth, where he lay.
I heard no word, and no look that I saw passed between, but Margaret left us and ran to Bryde.
"Put your foot on that cur, my lady," says he, cold as an icicle, and his head bare. Her two white hands trembled at his sleeve and she turned her face from the groaning man in horror, and then she raised her great blue eyes in one long look, and then her little foot but touched the man's shoulder.
A grim smile came over the face of Bryde McBride, like sunlight in a dark pool. "A brave lass," said he, and I only heard her reply, and saw her colour rise at his praise.
"Take me home," she whispered, "Bryde—Bryde dear."
"Drink," cried the man on the ground, "drink. God, I wis near hand it that time."
On the road home we pretended to be very merry, for nothing would please Margaret but Bryde would ride to her father's house. On the hill road she set spurs to her horse with a challenge to Bryde, and they left us some way behind, Hugh and me.
"Man," said Hugh, and his face was troubled, "this will not do."
"No," said I, and hated myself, "for the boy's as good as you or me."
"Good!" cries Hugh; "he's like the mountains—he's granite, and what are we but dressed sandstone—and the lass kens it," says he. "God help us."