"He will come on yon road," she would sometimes be telling Hamish Og, and point to the grey sea away to the suthard.
Now these freits are very catchy, and will follow folks that put faith in them, and there are many such folk to this day; and even Margaret McBride would always be putting great faith in the crowing of a cock—a noble fellow he was, of the Scots Grey breed. At the feeding-time Margaret would be thrang with her white hands in a measure of grain, and I would be hearing her speaking to the chanticleer. If he would be crowing once, it was not good, and she would be coaxing him.
"Have you not better word than that?" she would flyte at him at the second cry; and if the bird would crow the three times, she would be lavish with the feeding and grow cheerful. And there was a time when Mistress Helen was with her at this task, and curious at all the talking.
"If he will cry three times—is it that something happens?" said Helen.
"It will be good news."
"Perhaps a lover comes?"
"I am not to have a man, it seems," says Margaret.
"If my lover comes," murmured Helen softly, with her slow smile, "I will know—another way."
"In what way?" says Margaret, throwing the last of the grain to the fowls about her feet.
"Something will leap up here, ma belle, where my heart is."