"Wheest, lad, wheest," she cried; "let me go to the wean."
"Wean—ye never had a wean. . . ."
And then she did a queer thing. She bent her dark head till I could not see her eyes, but only the smooth eyelids and dark lashes, and she put her little brown hand over the man's eyes and stood a picture of humility, with a sad little smile on her face.
"Don't break me . . . yet," she murmured, and I saw Dan kiss her hand as she slid it down over his lips, and her face brightened like a flower in sunlight.
And there were the horses, rugging at the hedge where I had tethered them; and Chieftain on his feet, shaky and foam-flecked, and trembling at his knees; and the gipsy lass's wean greetin' at the hedge foot, with one wee bare arm clear of the shawl, seeming to beckon all the world to its aid.
And Belle the gipsy lass lifted the child and wrapped her in the shawl, and took the road in front of us. I had mind of Belle when she was the bonniest lass among a wheen of black-avised Eastern folk, that camped for many's the year on the ground of Scaurdale, where my uncle's friend, John o' Scaurdale, farmed land; but I was not prepared for her strange powers on horse, or for the beauty of her, and I think Dan was of my way of thinking also, for at the stable door says he: "I think, Hamish, a fee from John o' Scaurdale would not be such a bad thing with a lass like Belle to be seeing in the gloaming."
[1] Ires—"flags."
[2] Costly apparel.
CHAPTER II.
MAKES SOME MENTION OF ONE JOCK McGILP, AND TELLS HOW BELLE BROUGHT
THE WEAN IN THE TARTAN SHAWL INTO THE HOUSE OF NOURN.