"Hugh is not married, ye tell me. What ails the man?"
"Och," said I, "his days o' freedom will be getting fewer, for they will be at the marrying soon."
"We will be having a spree then," said Bryde. "I am thinking I have a present for Mistress Helen in my traps."
And his kists and bags and droll cases came from the stone quay in the evening, and I was greatly taken with the cunningness of the cases of leather, fashioned likely from a cow belly, and with the hair still sticking, although maybe a little bare and worn, and the corners clamped with iron, making a box of leather of a handy shape for a pack beast, or easy to be stored in a ship.
And the cries of Betty when she had her dress (all of fine black silk with much lace, fine like cobwebs), the cries of her were heartening in a body so old, but maybe a little foolish. For his mother he had a host of things—a chain of fine gold with a pearl here and there at intervals, and a watch for me of chased silver, very large and handsome. To his father he gave a bridle of plaited hair and ornamented with silver, a very fine bit of work, and too beautiful for everyday use, but Dan sat with it on his knee, and indeed it was hung in the place of honour beside his great sword.
And we sat long listening to Bryde when the strangeness wore off him, and he was telling us of how he came on board a King's ship and worked and fought until his officers were proud of him, and of how he became an officer on board a frigate, a position most difficult to attain to in those days (although there are other men from the island who have done the like, as a man can be reading in the records). He told us of his sailing days in the privateer Spray in the Indies, and of his meeting with Angus McKinnon, but of these things I will not be writing at any length in this story.
The father and son left me a good way on the home road, and I made my way indoors with no noise, and there was not so much as a dog barking, and when I was in my own place I sat thinking for a long time.
And it came on me that Bryde was the wise one to be going away with his sword, and to be making a name for himself, and siller. For the Bryde that was fit to command a King's ship would be far different from the boy on a moorside farm, and I was weaving dreams like a lass at her spinning when the door was opened behind me and Margaret stood looking in, a light held high in her hand and her arm bare.
"When will he be coming?" said she. It would likely be the man that was with me at the splash-net that would be telling her the news.
"He has been here already," said I, "and you sound sleeping."