"You will be saying that to all these other women, for you will be wicked."
"Not wicked any more, lass. I'll just be loving you, and why are ye turned soft; where is the lass that asked me would I burn?"
"Indeed, it is just with you I will be too gentle, I think, all my days, for ye will be a brute and a baby, all in one, and yet you would be aye kind to me. I could not be tholing another man after ye."
"I think I would not be tholing that either, my dear," cried he in a fierce voice, "but the lantern has to be lighted and the fire. Maybe ye'll let me do that much for you," and this time I saw her smiling, and clinging to him with both her hands.
At the door she waited till he had made the horse comfortable in the stone fanks,[2] and when he joined her she stretched her arms up and pulled his head down.
"I am wishing to do this," she said, and kissed him on the mouth. "You will not be loving any more but me," and she struck him lightly but with fierce abandon on the cheek, and I heard him laughing, and then the door opened and closed, and I had all the hills to myself. A great loneliness came over me, and I wished the dogs had waited.
And as I made my way home, I thought of that little whimpering wean in the crook of Scaurdale's arm, and wondered how she would fare on board the Gull, for by Dan's word I kent McGilp had shone the flare away seaward. Scaurdale, it seemed, would be hiding the wean in fair earnest now, and McGilp I kent would whiles be on the French coast. But never a word did I get from Dan for many's the day about Belle, or McGilp, or Scaurdale—we talked of horses and sheep, until the coming of Neil Beg.
[1] Courting, clandestine courtship.
[2] Sheepfold.