"She will be getting old and thinking droll thoughts, Hamish—just old wives' havers, about the crops and the wars that will be coming. . . ."
"And the word from the sea, Margaret? Will that be news of a battle maybe?"
"I am not sure I was understanding that," said she, looking away. "I am thinking that would be not anything at all," but I could see her hiding a smile.
"I am hoping there is no harm come to Bryde," said I, "and the word coming home on a ship."
At that the sly smile (for it was sly) was quick to vanish from the lass's face, and she turned to me then.
"I am hating you when you croak like a raven, wishing evil," she cried—"there will be no harm to Bryde. I will be having news of him soon, and I will be going on a journey with him. . . ."
"Well, my lass, could you not have been telling me" (for she was angry and nearly weeping), "instead of talking about crops and wars," said I.
"Are you not always telling me it is havers," she cried out, "and not for sensible folk to be listening to, and putting belief in. I am thinking you are worse than me," and at that she left me in a fine flare of temper.
* * * * * *
Now on the shore from Bealach an sgadan till you come well below the rise of the hill of the fort there is a roughness of grass and sprits that will put a fine skin on grazing beasts, maybe from the strength of the salt in the ground and the wrack, for with high tides the place is often flooded. We would graze young beasts there all the summer with a herd-boy at the watching of them. A lonely eerie place for a night vigil, with nothing but waterfowl and cushies for company; and on a Sabbath I went there (for a man must see his beasts, no matter for the evil example of stravaging on the Lord's Day), and when I would be through with the queys I walked on the little path, on the short turf well past the grazing, to the place where the rocks on the shore are very large, and set in droll positions, as though maybe a daft giant of the old days had cocked them up for his play, and at this place, lying curled between the smaller boulders, was a man twisting a bit of tattered rope into fantastic knots, and eyeing his work with a droll half-pleased look, and his head a little to one side.