"I am liking that man too," said Margaret, when we were alone, "but I am thinking there was a liking for the wandering, and the fighting in him, or else he had been back long syne."
"He would have his happy days these twenty years," said she, "in new towns and among new folk, and Belle kind of chained to the moor here—it is that silent woman I will be liking the best of all, Hamish."
"My dear," said I, "you are not understanding the pride of your ain folk. Yon was the God's truth and nothing else he told Mistress Helen; the hangman's rope is no decent to be coiled about a man's folk. It's just the cleverness of Helen Stockdale I will be made up with—the simple sending of a screed of news; what beats me is why she did it."
"And that's easy to me," says Margaret. "It would just be a gift to
Belle, Hamish."
"To Belle," says I.
"There are maybe more ways o' killing a cat than choking it with butter," said the lass, "but that will be a very effective way, and even the cat might like it, I am thinking. Ye'll mind, Hamish, that Belle is the mother o' Bryde McBride, and what could not but be pleasing to the mother, would be like enough to please the lad, that doted on her a' his days."
"I think I am seeing it," said I.
"Ay, but Helen never would be seeing it like that, Hamish. She saw it like a flash, and sent the letter that brought back Dan, and I am not sure but Bryde would be here yet, if the mail had but come to hand sooner."
"Margaret," said I, "are there none among the young sparks coming about the place that you could be tholing about ye?"
"No," says she, with a smile; "there is a word among the kitchen wenches that whiles comes into my mind, Hamish."