* * * * * *
Now I will say this—that Bryde was like a wean in bed, fretful and ill-natured and restless, and his mother had to be beside him when folk came in, and I think in his new knowledge he feared she might suffer some indignity.
And he lashed his pride with a new-found humbleness, and railed at himself. I can hear his words on that day I brought Margaret to be seeing him, and she had many dainty dishes to be describing.
"It is very kind of you indeed," said he, "to be minding a poor body like me, and kind of your people to be allowing you to visit my mother and myself."
And at the sound of these words the poor lass was red and white time about, and at last fell all aback like a little ship in the wind's eye.
"Oh, Bryde," cried she, "what is this talk of my people? Are not my people your own people also?"
"I have my mother's word for it," said he, with his arm over his eyes, and the dark blood surging upwards over throat and cheeks.
The lass was on her knees by his bedside at that.
"Do you think," she cried—"do you think that would weigh with me; I have kent that long syne."
"It was news to me," said he, turning his face away; "bonny news to me."