CHAPTER XXXV.
DOL BEAG LAUGHS AGAIN.
Angus McKinnon stretched himself on the shore at the Clates. "I am not liking this waiting," said he to Dan McBride; "McNeilage might have been standing closer in."
"It will be the Revenue cutter he is feared of, Angus," said his father.
"The Revenue boat is lying off the White Rock in Lamlash," said Angus.
"McNeilage will be getting old and sober."
"Wait a wee, Angus—wait a wee, my boy." It was another McKinnon, a friend of his own, that spoke. "Things are just right; the wee boats will be in 'e noo. It is a good park of barley I had, yes, and the best of it in the kegs."
"Angus is right, father," said a tall lass with a shawl about her head, not hiding the bonny boyish face of her.
"Hooch ay, lass; Angus will be always right by your way of it,—it is in your bed you should be."
The wee boats were close inshore now, and the Gull well off, for the Clates is not a nice place if the wind will be shifting to the suthard. With the grating of the keel of the first boat on the beach the men made a start to be lifting the kegs, and carrying them to the boat and wading, for it is not very safe to let a boat go hard aground if there will be a hurry to be shoving her off again.
Into this mix-up of bending and hurrying folk came the voice of
Gilchrist the gauger.
"In the King's name," he roared, and his men sprang forward.
And these were the words that I heard when Helen and Margaret flung themselves from the horses and ran forward into the press of people.
There was the dropping of kegs and the straightening of folk at the voice, but I saw the great figure of Dan cooried beside the boat. Then came Gilchrist's voice again—
"Touch nothing—you scoundrels will touch nothing—I mak' seizure in the King's name. Get roon' them, lads, with your pieces ready," and the excisemen made a circle of the smugglers. The second small boat was nearing the shore.
The lass McKinnon, with the bonny boyish face, stooped to pick up her shawl, and Gilchrist was jumping and shouting. "A bonny catch," he cried—"a bonny catch," and at that the boyish lass straightened herself. "The boats ahoy," she cried, "ahoy, the boat; the gaugers are on us."
"Stop the bitch," screamed Gilchrist, and sprang at the lass with his fist raised.
"Back, ye damned kerrigan," and Bryde's voice was high like a bugle-note, and he sprang forward.
"Dan McBride has the sailors on us," came a shout from Dol Beag, and then Dan's great voice, laughing, "Fall on, lads; fall on. Into them with the steel."
"Fire," screamed Gilchrist—"fire, or we're by wi' it," and the pieces burst and spattered round us in a wild confusion. With the blaze of the pieces I saw Dol Beag spring at Bryde as a wild cat springs; crooked and bestial he was, and his knife flashing, but swifter than the knife-flash was the love of the maid, who fell as Bryde fell. Into the bedlam of smoke and noise and groaning men, came the horrible laughter of a man, wild and high and devilish.
"McBride, Dan McBride, McBride, Dan McBride, look at the bonny bastard; look at your bonny bastard." Dol Beag was crawling and writhing on the beach like a beast, and then suddenly the breath left him. At that terrible sound, scream and scream of laughing, the excisemen drew back, and the sailors stood fidgeting and looking half afeared, and there came the sharp crack of a signal gun from the Gull and the rattling cr-a-ik, cr-a-ik of halyards.
"Back on the boats," cried Ronald McKinnon, for well he kent McNeilage would make sail for only one thing, and that was the Government ship; and the sailors drew off quickly with their wounded. The excisemen stood reloading the flintlocks, and Gilchrist, in a flutter of fear, gave no orders until the skiffs were offshore and rowing hard for the Gull, waiting with her sails all aback.
But for me, at that laughing I turned, and I saw the ruddy face of Dan McBride blench like linen, his legs become weak like a man that has a mortal blow, and he came to his son. Bryde was on his back at his full stretch on the shore, and his right arm under his head, with a little switch of hazel in his hand; and lying against his breast with her arms round his neck was Helen.
Margaret McBride was on her knees, and her hand held in the fast grip of her man.
They brought lanterns round us now, and I would have lifted Helen, for the dark stain on her back was growing and growing.
"Let me be," she whispered; "I am happy."
And then there came on the face of Bryde a slow smile, and his eyes opened wide.
"I think I am not hurt—my shoulder—a lass came between——" and then in a loud voice of terror, "Margaret, Margaret."
"I am s-safe, Bryde—safe—it is Helen." Margaret was weeping, and at these words Helen spoke to Bryde, even as we were staunching her wound.
"My Bryde," said she with a little smile, "and—I—was—almost—the bride—of Hugh. It—is—droll—poor Hugh."
Margaret would have taken the proud dark head to her breast, but Helen's voice came faintly, "J'y suis, j'y reste. Be very good to Bryde, Margaret, ma belle, while he is with you—you bring him peace and a great contentment and a so great calm." I wonder could she be smiling. "When he come to me he will 'ave no great calm—no great contentment—only—only—a great love."
So passed that proud spirit.
And her serving-man, John McCook, would be with her on the journey, for his body was cold on the shore-head, and all the gameness out of it, for a ganger's bullet found his heart, for all that Kate Dol Beag thought she had it. But because John McCook was come of good folk, I took the dagger from Dol Beag's hand in the darkness, and wiped it clean, and put it back into the sheath, while folk were seeing to the wound on Bryde's shoulder, for a bullet had passed through it, even as Helen robbed Dol Beag of his vengeance.
And of the folk, only those who dressed Helen for her last journey knew that her death was a dagger-wound, these and our own people.
The daylight was strong when we would be blowing out the lanterns, and the Gull was away to the westward of the Craig, and the Revenue boat hard on her heels, but making little of it; and then came folk and lifted Dol Beag, and his back would not lie evenly on the board, but gave his body a cant to one side, and there was no wound on him, for I think he died of his laughing, and when he would be passing, Dan McBride covered his face. . . .
It is after the dark wet days of winter that the sun comes again, bringing greenness to the world and joy into the voices of birds, and so came happiness to Bryde and Margaret in the old house of Nourn, for Hugh could not thole his native place for many years, and indeed did great things in America. And Margaret McBride would take her sons to the wee hill and tell them the great tales and the old stories, and her arm would be on the shoulder of her man, and her eyes resting on him.
And at night, after the reading, when the boys would be sent scampering to bed, you would see Bryde carrying a little lass to her sleeping-place, and Margaret, his wife, following—and they would stand by the bedside and listen to the laughing—and you will know the name of that brave little lass.