"Och, my bairn, my bairn," cried the old woman, her two hands on him, "will ye not be stopping in this night, this devil's night? It's nae hogs that's taking ye trakin' weary miles this very night, and fine ye ken the hogs are weel, but ye're just leadin' the young lad astray efter some quean that'll be stickin' tae him like the buttons on his coat.
"Wae's me, wae's me, will ye not have enough truck wi' the wenches already that ye mak' me lie eching and pechin' and listening for the death-watch on sic a nicht,"—and at that Jean giggled hysterically and crept closer to Tam, and the old dame turned on her like a flash.
"Wheest, ye besom, wi' your deleries; there's trouble enough aboot the night without you skirling like a craking hen. It's no' your kind I'm feared for, ye useless one, but these wild hill lassies, for when the devil is loose among the hills, he gars the wild blood leap in their veins, and the wind tae loose the knot o' their lang hair—ay, and he'll bring the man that'll gar them tingle at his touch, and send the red blood flaming in their cheeks."
Dan's smile was broader and broader, and I noticed the red blood flaming in the cheeks of our own sonsy dairy lassies, Liz and Betty. . . .
"Ye were bred in the hills yourself, old mother," says Dan, and put an arm round the withered old neck, "and I'm kissing you for that," and we went out into the smother of the snowstorm.
At the byre end the old rowan-trees were creaking and groaning to the violence of the gale, the bourtree bushes were flattened near to the ground, and everywhere was white. The driven snow melted on my tongue as I gasped, and I felt the flakes melt in my eyes; but we followed the road by instinct, for where the hedges should have been only a black blur showed. On the low road it was not so bad; but when we took the hill road again, I fain would have turned my back to the gale, and stood like a stirk on a wet day, but I powled on after Dan, thinking shame of my coward heart. Below us the sea roared like a cold, cold, cruel hell; the maddened anger of the breakers made me shiver with dread, and the gloating, horrible grumbling as the seas rumbled into the coves made a cold sweat break on my back and limbs. But I bent my head before the gale and clawed my way upwards with numbed fingers clutching like talons to the heather, and prayed that the roots might hold. So we toiled upwards, Dan always leading, and sometimes I saw him turning and knew he was speaking; but the wind cut the words as they left his lips, and bore them tearing and shrieking to the sea below.
Before we gained the top of the hill I saw Dan climbing upwards from the old peat track, and I followed dumbly as he led me into an old quarry, long since disused except by the sheep on the warm summer days, and there we lay almost exhausted, content just to know that the storm rushed over our pitiful retreat, and it seems droll to me now that I spoke scarcely above my breath; but then it seemed as though the storm-king might hear me if I raised my voice.
But when Dan spoke the black anger was trembling in his voice.
"They're lying there snug and dry in our cove, d—-n them, and that poor Gull straining and crying out there, reaching for her hame, and them ready to pounce on her crew, the crawling slinks,"—and I knew he was thinking of the Preventive men.
In a while we crawled to the path again, and clawed our way to the top of the hill, and there below us was a wondrous sight. The sea ran inwards in a noble bay, and the bay was almost landlocked with an island, but down below us was a myriad twinkling lights, hundreds of them, rising and falling. The snow had taken off for a little, and a hazy moon hurrying behind grey clouds showed us the ships tossing and straining at their cables. Some of the lights seemed to move slowly past the others, and these I took to be vessels dragging their anchors.