"He will be away to the smuggling, mistress," cried the lass, "and I will be feart, I will be feart, for I told my father—I told my father."
"Go back to your bed, Kate," said Margaret; "it is the nightmare. Who will be gone to the smuggling?—there will not be any smuggling."
"At the Clates, mistress—my man is there, the man I am to be marrying, and your man, mistress, and his father," and then she got her words. "It is my father I am dreading," said she. "Dol Beag is my father. I am thinking he is a little wrong in the head, and to-day my mother came to be telling me to keep my man beside me. Oh, if my own mistress would be free I would be telling her, and what would be frightening her, my poor mistress—with the wrong man in her bed."
"Out of my way," said Margaret, and she started to her dressing. "Away from me, with your wicked thoughts, ye traitor."
"Go, you fool," for she was in a royal rage—"go to the stable and waken the men. Hurry," she cried—"hurry," and shoved the wench before her and came to my door, and it was not long until I had the horses saddled.
* * * * * *
Margaret was on Helen's black horse Hillman, her face a white mask and her lips a thin line. Ye will have heard that Mistress Helen was a bold rider, but you were not seeing Margaret that night. It has come to me since that she would be like Bryde in her rage. She had the black at the stretch of his gallop, and cutting him with the whip, and a ruthlessness like cold iron was in her voice when she spoke to him. I do not like to be thinking of her then, for it would not be thus she would be using horse.
* * * * * *
Round a bend of the road in this mad ride we smashed into Hugh and Helen, their horses walking quietly, and I learned afterwards that they were to spend their bridal night at the village called Lagg, and had made their escape quietly.
I have often wondered why Helen was not on her own black horse that night, and I think it was that she had put all thoughts of Bryde from her mind—for Bryde was fond of the black, and would be praising and petting him often.