At that I sat on the roadside, and the Eastern man, with the rein loose in his hand, crouched on his hunkers before me like an image.
There was much of sadness in that letter, and much of Belle the gipsy lass, and of many wanderings from France to the Low Countries,
"Hamish, man, I'm minding the very stanes in the hill dykes and the track o' the sheep on the hillside." Why he had been kind to the Egyptian he told me. "Ye'll ken fine, Hamish, for what lass's sake,"—and sent him into France with a Scotch soldier he kent, returning there, with directions to wait at the little town on the coast where McGilp would whiles be, and "bring you this word o' me and a wheen things for Belle." He was asking me to see McGilp too. The last of it was like Dan. "I'm thinking, Hamish, if the houris in his paradise kenned the words o' the spring I've been deaving him wi', the Egyptian would be very greatly thought of."
When I was by with the reading of Dan's news, "Ye'll have another letter," said I, making signs at the pagan.
"Yass," and at that he put it in my hands. It was for Belle.
We got on the road again, the pony trotting now and the messenger running easily, one brown hand at the stirrup-leather, and very many times he would be saying "Geelp," till it came on me that McGilp would be wishing to be seeing me at once.
At Belle's cottage door I dismounted, and with the clatter of the horse there came old Betty, with that queer look on her face of disdain and mystery, and just itching to be at the talking.
"The wean's hame," said she, and slammed the door with a last nod of her old head and her lips pursed up; and then there came the snuffling ill-natured greeting of a wean that made me grue as I made my way to the byre, for till then my mind had clean forgot the calf I was to be seeing that day.
In the byre we sat, the heathen and me—for we were but simple men in this affair—and the byre was a dark place to be sitting, and in a while old Betty came, havering at hens and talking to herself. As she came and stood in the doorway and looked closely within, with her back bent and her hand on the lintel, her eyes fell on the messenger, and she let a great cry from her in the Gaelic. To be putting it in English is not so good, but it would be like this, "What dost thou require of me, father of devils?" and she fell on her knees. Well, well, I can laugh at that sight yet. But she "came to" in a little, and took me into the sunlight, and said the gipsy lass would be seeing me for a little time; and I was taken to Belle's sleeping-place, and her arm was round her wean, and she was lying on her back, and her black hair a little damp curling on the pillow.
"You have been very good," said she. "My man, your kinsman, will be owing you thanks." And at that her eyes suffused, and two great tears gathered and glittered, and she smiled up to me, and I gave her the letter and turned away.