CHAPTER XXXIV.
WHAT CAME OF THE PLOY.
Bryde and Margaret would be aye at their planning, and the lass with a glamour of joy at the sewing and marking of linen; and whiles it would seem that Bryde himself was forgot, but there would be times when they would be away for hours together, the lass with her two arms clinging to his, and laughing up into his face, and the folk would be smiling to be just seeing her, for it was as though her love was so good and great a power that she must be kind to the whole world.
"Why will you be loving me?" she would cry, and stand, her great blue eyes all loving.
"My dear," Bryde would say, "the day grows brighter when you are with me; there is peace in my heart and gladness. The flowers are more beautiful and the sea is grander. Och, I cannot be telling you in words."
"I will be content and listen; this is the way of it with me," and she put her hand to her breast. "There is something here that will grow when you are near me, and I am telling myself that will be my happiness choking me. Am I not the daft lass?"
And little Hamish would be with them often, and Dan and Belle were proud folk, but walking soberly for fear of too much happiness; but once when we watched the father and his two sons coming home, and the young boy between them, begging to be lifted and swung across little pools. Belle spoke—
"Hamish, keep guard," she said in that droll fashion that belonged to her. "Once when I was young there was a dream of evil came on me, but I am forgetting it—I am forgetting."
"I will be loath to part with Bryde," said Dan. "We were long strangers; but, Hamish, my heart cannot hold the love I will have for him, and maybe when Hamish Og is grown he will go to Bryde's place, and Bryde will be coming home. I would be wishing to see a grandson."
And at the Big House it would be Bryde this and Bryde that, till I am thinking poor Hugh would be near demented.
And the night before the wedding Bryde stayed with us, and we had a great night of it, for Hugh would not be having any other for his best man, as they will be calling it, and Margaret was to be helping the lass Helen, and was at Glenscaur already with the Laird and her mother, and that night Hugh slept with Bryde like boys again, and I would be hearing the laughing of them.
In the morning Bryde was up and crying that the sun was shining, and that it would be time to be on the road.
"You will not be last at your ain wedding," he would say to Hugh, for the boy was not very clever with his fingers that day; but we gave him a good jorum, and he brisked up at that, and we got on the horses and away, with the bauchles raining round our lugs and the horses sketch. On all the road the folk would be walking to be seeing the couple, and it was all we could be doing to be holding the horses, for there would be salutes from blunderbusses, and flags on the trams of creels, old flags and tattered from many's the sea, and we came to Scaurdale, and smuggled Hugh into the house like a thief, for fear he would be seeing Helen, and got at the dressing of him.
It was Bryde who had mind of all the freits.
"Something old and something new,
Something borrowed and something blue,"
he would be singing, for it will not be lucky to be married without the due observance of these old sayings.
I would be sitting with Hugh in his room, and Bryde away to be seeing if all things were ready, and to have a word with Margaret, for this wedding would be putting things into his head maybe. At last back he came, tall and swarthy and smiling.
"She is a beautiful wife you will be getting, Hughie," said he; "and Margaret and the old women will have her imprisoned, so you will be coming with me,"—and we took Hugh out under the trees where the place was made ready, and the guests were gathered, and in a little Helen came to his side and Margaret with her, and the marrying was begun.
And the Laird of Scaurdale was lifted out in his chair, very white, but with a good spirit in him yet.
It would be Helen I would be watching, for her hand was tight clenched, and she swayed a little as a flower sways, but she spoke bravely. It would be a long business, a marriage in these days.
But when the ring was on her finger and Margaret had lifted the veil, she turned to her man, and held him to be kissing her.
"You are kind to me, Hugh," said she in a little low voice.
And when it would be Bryde's turn to be at the kissing, she kissed his cheek.
"I am your cousin now, is it not?" said she, with a little smile, and I caught her as she swayed, and all her body would be a-quiver like a fiddle-string.
There would be a great spread there in the open—pasties of mutton from black-faced ewes, very sweet and good to be remembering, and fish too, and fowls roasted and browned, and the crop of them bursting with stuffing. There was sirloin and pork, and dishes of every kind. There was ale, good strong ale, that puts flesh on a man if he will be having the rib to be carrying it. For dainty folk foreign wine, and for grown men brandy and usquebach. It would be a goodly feast, with much laughing and neighbourliness among the guests, and there is a droll thing I am remembering, and that is the good clothes of the folk. If you will be taking time and rummaging about in some old kist, you will be finding these clothes to this day, with the infinite deal of sewing on them, and the beautiful buttons, and you will likely be finding too an old lease maybe, with all the stipulations anent the burning of kelp.
I am wishing that you could be with us on the road on such a day, for every man would be stopping and getting his dram, and giving his good wishes to the pair before he would be going on with his business.
And Hugh would be speaking for his wife and himself, and giving his thanks to the folk for their well-wishing. And the old Laird of Scaurdale made the lassies keep their faces lowered, for he would be a bluff hearty man, with little false modesty in him, if indeed he would be having any of any kind.
"There is nothing," says he, "will be taming a lass like skelping a wean, or curing him o' the hives, and it's weans I will be wanting about the place," says he.
I will not be telling too much about the talk, for these would be wilder days than now, as you can be seeing if you will be looking at the Session Records.
Then in the evening the dancing would be going on, with the pipers in their own place, three of them abreast, and piping until their faces would be shining with the joy of it. Och, the great joyousness of the dancing, with the lassies taking a good hold of their skirts and lifting them to be getting the bonny steps in, and the boys from the glens hooching with upthrown arm, now this and now that, and their shoes beating out the time as though the music and the dancing was in the very blood of them, and indeed so it was.
And there would be fiddlers too, and step-dancing, and singing and everything to be making merry the heart of a man.
Hugh and Helen would be leaving the dance at last, and there was a buzz of laughing, although nobody would be knowing where the pair of them were to be that night; and it was then that Margaret would be at her good-nights to Bryde, for they could not be having enough of each other all that day.
"It will be you and me next," said Bryde, "Margaret, my little darling," and she crept closer to him.
"Take me somewhere," said she, "where the folk will not be seeing."
And then, "I will have been mad to be doing this all this night," said she, and pulled his head down to her and kissed him. "Tell me, Bryde, oh, tell me."
"I am loving you," said he, and his eyes burning, "loving the grace and the beauty and the bravery in you," and he lifted her into his arm like a wean, and his face was bent to hers and her white arms round him. Her eyes were softly closed, and a little white smile on her face.
"For ever and ever, my great dark man," she whispered.
"Darling," said Bryde, "little darling, for ever and ever," and with a face all laughing and her eyes like stars she ran from him to her room.
And coming from her door—for he had followed her, laughing at her dainty finger raised in smiling command—coming from her closed door with her love about him like a cloud, there met him his cousin's wife, and he could hear the crying of the dancers below, and Hugh's voice forbidding pursuit.
"Good-night," said Helen, and gave him her hand—it was very cold. "Good-night," and then with a half sob, "Jus' won kiss," she whispered . . . I am often wondering. . . .
* * * * * *
I would be with Belle when Bryde came among the dancers again. Her eyes were yearning over him.
"I am wishing I had you home—you will be too happy, my wild boy."
"There are none to be wishing evil this night," said Bryde, and laughed down at his mother; and then, "There is no lass so bonny as my mother, Hamish," and he put his arm round her. "I will be behaving, little mother," said he, and then Dan came to us and took Belle away.
* * * * * *
It made high-water at five in the morning, and there was the last of a moon showing the darkness on the shore and throwing a gleam on the sea.
There were folk moving on the beach, all silently except maybe you would be hearing a sech of a breath, as when a man will be stretching himself after resting from a load. There would come now and then the howling of a dog, an eerie sound, and then he would be at the barking a long way through the night. Sometimes a little horse would come out of the darkness with a pack-load on his back, and men would be lifting the load and laying it on the beach, and there would be quiet whispering, and the little horse be led away and swallowed up in the dark among the scrog and bushes. And in a while there came the soft noise of muffled oars, a sound very faint that will be stirring the blood of a man, and a little knot of folk gathered round the barrels on the beach.
"That will be the boats now," said Dan McBride.
"It will be all quiet," said Ronald McKinnon, "and Gilchrist will not be having his new hoose yet for a wee."
And Gilchrist—if Ronny had only kent—Gilchrist and his men shifted a little among the bushes, and old Dol Beag was there among them trembling a little and his mouth praying.
John McCook came close to Bryde McBride, and pointed to the very place where the gangers were lying waiting.
"Would there be something moving there among the bushes?" said he.
"A sheep maybe," said Bryde.
"I am wishing I had the dogs with me," said John.
There were silent figures of women, with shawls tight about their shoulders, and they looked a little fearfully to the dark places.
Margaret was in her first sleep and dreaming, and it was a daft dream, and her lips curled softly and parted a little, for in her dreams Bryde would be knocking and knocking at her door.
"I am just thinking this," she was saying to her dreaming self, "because he would be tormenting me to be kissing him again," and she opened her arms and her lips pouted, and then again came the knocking, low at the first of it, and then growing louder, until at last she became broad awake, and there would be only a little moonlight in her room.
"Who is it?" she said, standing a little fearfully behind her door, and her heart beating.
"Let me in; oh, let me in," she could hear a woman's voice, and opened the door, and a lass flung herself inside.
"He will be away to the smuggling, mistress," cried the lass, "and I will be feart, I will be feart, for I told my father—I told my father."
"Go back to your bed, Kate," said Margaret; "it is the nightmare. Who will be gone to the smuggling?—there will not be any smuggling."
"At the Clates, mistress—my man is there, the man I am to be marrying, and your man, mistress, and his father," and then she got her words. "It is my father I am dreading," said she. "Dol Beag is my father. I am thinking he is a little wrong in the head, and to-day my mother came to be telling me to keep my man beside me. Oh, if my own mistress would be free I would be telling her, and what would be frightening her, my poor mistress—with the wrong man in her bed."
"Out of my way," said Margaret, and she started to her dressing. "Away from me, with your wicked thoughts, ye traitor."
"Go, you fool," for she was in a royal rage—"go to the stable and waken the men. Hurry," she cried—"hurry," and shoved the wench before her and came to my door, and it was not long until I had the horses saddled.
* * * * * *
Margaret was on Helen's black horse Hillman, her face a white mask and her lips a thin line. Ye will have heard that Mistress Helen was a bold rider, but you were not seeing Margaret that night. It has come to me since that she would be like Bryde in her rage. She had the black at the stretch of his gallop, and cutting him with the whip, and a ruthlessness like cold iron was in her voice when she spoke to him. I do not like to be thinking of her then, for it would not be thus she would be using horse.
* * * * * *
Round a bend of the road in this mad ride we smashed into Hugh and Helen, their horses walking quietly, and I learned afterwards that they were to spend their bridal night at the village called Lagg, and had made their escape quietly.
I have often wondered why Helen was not on her own black horse that night, and I think it was that she had put all thoughts of Bryde from her mind—for Bryde was fond of the black, and would be praising and petting him often.
But she kent her horse in the passing, and well she kent his rider.
"Come on," I cried to Hugh, and gathered my horse under me, for I was all but thrown.
"No, no; they're married," cried Margaret, and cut again at the black, although he was half maddened already.
As he leapt from the lash I heard Helen—
"Ah, Hillman," she cried (now Hillman was a by-name for Bryde), and then, "Where is the so great calm of Margaret?"
"The gaugers are at the Clates—Gilchrist and Dol Beag and Bryde and
Dan. Can ye not see what will come of it?" I know not what I cried to
Hugh as we galloped.
But at my words Helen leaned forward on her saddle, and coaxed her horse in a whisper, and he stretched to the gallop like a hound.
"A droll beginning this," said Hugh. "Helter-skelter ower the countryside for a wheen gangers. What sort o' bridal night is this? Could they no' keep their dirty fighting out o' my marriage. . . ."
"Ye were not meant to ken, Hugh."
"And I wish I did not ken. God, look at Helen—look at my wife—look at yon."
For Helen was abreast of Margaret and leaning from her saddle, and speaking to the black horse, and he kent her voice and swerved to his mistress.
"Do-you-know-who-he-is-like, my brave Hillman?" said Helen.
"He is like his mist . . . he is like the devil," said Margaret.
Sometimes yet I can see Helen's face clear-cut upraised against the sky, her curling black hair flying loose, and never, never will I forget her laughing—the devilry and the joy of it.