"A grain o' water," said she. "You will be liking it plain yourself, but I would aye be liking a little water—after it. Many's the day have I been waiting for the coming of Bryde, the dear one, the limber lad, and I will be tholing yet a wee, for I will be seeing him before I will be going to my own place."
And with that Margaret came to be speaking to the old one, and for myself I made my way outside to where I could be laughing in comfort, for the sight of Betty's face when she had made up her mind to be tholing a little longer was too much for me.
It was after this visit to Betty that Margaret would be asking me to be taking the dogs and catching her a pair or two, maybe, of young rabbits, for they were well grown, and she took butter in the blade of a kail, and such-like truck, and went to see Mhari nic Cloidh.
She was come of a great race this Mhari nic Cloidh, a race that has given the old names to glens and to burns, a race that led the Brandanes of the Kings; but she was old and lived alone, except maybe when the young lassies would be doing the scouring of her blankets, tramping like all that, and among the lassies was the saying that Mhari nic Cloidh had the gift.
Well, for that I will not be saying, but she would aye have a dram for kent folk, and Dan McBride took me with him there many a time. Well, well, the young boys would be tormenting the old lady—they would be lighting green branches in the fire in her sleeping-place, to smeek her out, not meaning any ill, but just for a ploy, and to see her lindging at them with the stick from her bed, and craking and raging at them time about, to be taking the divot off the top of the lum. And that was the great diversion for them; but when Margaret went to her this time she was thrang at the building of her stack of peat, and there was with her a younger woman, and Mhari nic Cloidh was not in good wind, for the first of her words came to us: "A traill," says she to her helper. "Traill," it seems to me, would be meaning in the English, "lazy, useless, bedraggled"; but there is no word in English that would be giving the contempt of that word, which I am thinking would have some connection with the Norse word "troll," but I am not sure of it. But there was no end to her kindness for Margaret.
"It was in me that you would be coming, mo leanabh, fresh and beautiful like the bloom on the hawthorn, a maiden of the morning, bringing gifts in her hands."
So I left them in the house, and tried my hand at the building of the peats till I was seeing that the traill was well contented to be sitting watching me and doing nothing; and at that I left the rick, for I cannot put up with idleness; besides, I was not making a very good hand at the building. When I put my head into the room again, Mhari nic Cloidh was thrang at the talking in a droll sing-song voice, and this was the air of it—
"The word will come over the water—soon it will be coming—ay, soon—there will be one coming from the sea."
Now I was jalousing that Margaret was like the lave of lassies, very keen to be at the probing into the future, a thing that is not canny to be having any belief in, and not in accordance with the Scriptures; but for all that—
"What havers was it the old one would be telling you, and me outside at the peats?"