And this is how the matter fell out. There will be to this day a love of stravaging among the young men, and maybe in the old ones as well, and I kent that Bryde would whiles be ceilidhing, and often he and Dan, his father, would be at McKinnon's, where Angus would be trying his hand at the farming, and it was the fine sight to be seeing old McGilp on the hill with Angus, and thrang at the working of sheep.
I am minding once that I was seeing them and Angus working a young collie bitch, Flora, he would be calling her, and she would not be working any too well, and that would be angering McGilp. There was a steep knowe where they were and a wheen sheep on it, and the bitch would not be understanding how to gather, and at the last of it McGilp gave a great roar out of him.
"Lay aloft, ye bitch," he roared in exasperation, "lay aloft, damn ye," and at that great sea voice Flora made off and left them, and I am not wondering at it, for surely never was a dog so ordered; but Robin McKinnon was telling me that when he was at the ploughing and McGilp walking with him step for step, the smuggler would be crying to the horses, and them turning in at the head-rig—
"Luff," he would cry, "luff, luff, and come to win'ward and we'll give you the weight o' the mainsail down the hill."
It would be doing a man's heart good to be hearing Bryde making a mock of the old captain at these times, and the good laughter of him that would start a houseful o' folk to laugh also. It was when he was for McKinnon's that he fell in with Helen.
The stubble was white in the fields, and the leaves red and brown and yellow, still holding here and there to the trees, a great night with a touch of frost for the kail, and the half of a gale coming out the nor'west.
Bryde was on his road for a crack with McGilp and Angus, and the road was swept bare and dry and the night clear as a bell, when there came that fine sound, the clatter and klop of riding-horse. They were on him at the bend above the Waulk Mill, Helen on her black horse, Hillman, and the serving-man hard put to keep with her. You see her there—the black on his haunches and the breath of him like a white cloud, and Bryde standing and his sea-coat flapping in the wind. There was no greeting from her, but her arms stretched out.
"Take me down," she said, and he lifted her.
Then to the serving-man—
"Walk the horses; but no—your mother's cottage is at the burnside. Go there and I will come soon," and the lad walked the horses away, and these two stood watching. Then Helen turned to Bryde and looked at him, her black eyes flashing, her cheeks wind-whipped, her hair a disarray with the speed of her travelling, and her lips smiling. If ever there would be beauty in a woman in the white night with a half gale, it was in Helen. She took his two hands and stood back from him a little and looked, and then from her white throat there came laughter, bubbling laughter, like a little brook in summer, joy and happiness and content was in her laughing.