The blue blades sprang from cut to parry like live things, and in the light I saw the same cruel smile, line for line, in both faces. The snow was falling in big wet flakes, and the fight went on, neither giving an inch, and then from behind came a thin voice—
"The McBrides are at it, hammer and tongs—the Laird and the bastard, te-he," cried Dol Beag from the dark.
At that word Bryde's blade seemed to waver an instant, and Hugh's bit into his thigh, but like a flash I saw Bryde recover, and a lightning stroke and Hugh's cutlass was clattering on the cobbles, and then I saw Bryde whirl his sword round his head, and raise himself uplifted for a dreadful blow that would have cleft his cousin to the chest, and the cruel smile was still on both faces, and then Bryde stopped.
"It's no' true, Hughie," said he, and lowered his hand and walked back to the kitchen, swayed a minute, and thrust his arms out blindly, and fell on the flagstones.
"Have I killed him, Hamish?" cried Hugh—"have I killed Bryde? God, what will Margaret say to this?"
"I do not know what you have done," said I. "It would be maybe better if he is dead, for I think you will have killed his spirit."
We would have had him to bed in the inn, but he came to himself.
"Hamish," said he, "take me home to my"—and in a brave voice—"to my mother."
And Hugh went out of the room, and I knew he would never be a boy again.
McKelvie's wife was at the doctoring of the wound with her concoctions, and I made what job I could of it, and then we put Bryde in a peat creel, with straw and blankets, and took him to his mother.