"The black eyes o' her, and the air o' her,—speech wi' the mistress, indeed—the tinker!"
"Jean," said Dan, "be canny wi' Belle, or she'll put such a spell on ye that ye'll no' hear your lad whistling ootside your window, and the first thing ye'll ken he'll be inside, and you maybe in your sark."
"Ye ken too much aboot sich truck and trollop and the wey in by windows," cried Jean, her face like the heart o' the fire; for her lad was looking sheepishly at her from the corn-kist.
"Well, well, let Belle alane, or I'll be puttin' mysel' in Tam's place," and poor Tam could only grin with a very red face.
And so it came that Belle made her way to the old room where the mistress, my uncle's wife, was abed, after the birth of her son, about whom the women-folk talked and laughed in corners, and looked so disdainful at poor men-folk, that Dan said—
"It's a peety for the wean, wi' a' these weemen waitin' till he grows up. I'm dootin' he'll be swept oot o' his ain hoose wi' petticoats, and take up wi' the dark-skinned beauties in the far glens, like Esau."
And sorely put out were the women when Dan, referring to the heir, said he'd come in time for the best o' the grass.
"If the colt has got plenty o' daylight below him, and middlin' clean o' the bane, he'll thrive right enough!" The heir of all Nourn a leggy colt! There was nothing but black looks and pursed-up lips till even the easy-going cause o' the change said drily enough: "They're damned ill tae leeve wi' whiles, a man's ain weemen-folk, Hamish, an' I meant the bairn nae ill either."
Well, Belle was ta'en to the old room where the mistress, my uncle's wife, lay abed—her they ca'ed the Leddy, a fine strapping woman, with kindly hands to man and beast and a wheedling, coaxing way with her, though she could be cold and haughty at times, for she came of fighting stock, and could not thole clavering and fussing, and I think she would not hasten her stately step to be in time for the Last Judgment, for the pride of her.
The room was fine and cool, with a wood fire spluttering in the great stone fireplace, and the light playing on the carved pillars of the canopied bed, and blinking on the oak panels; but it was a fine room, with deerskin rugs here and there on the floor, and space to move about without smashing trumpery that women collect round them, God knows why, except to hide the lines of the building.