THE FIRST MEETING.
When we made our way indoors the dogs were bounding and frolicking round Margaret, and she was all laughter. Her eyes were dancing, and her wind-whipped cheeks glowed darkly; then she turned, one dainty finger at her lips, and we kent that no word of her doings that day was for the ears of her parents.
There was a bustle of women-folk about the house, and the noise of crockery, and booming into the corridors came the voice of John, Laird of Scaurdale.
"Chick or child," says he, "she's all I have—a wee Frenchified, Laird, but she'll learn the wie o' the Scots yet."
And as Margaret entered, a little startled, and us at her heels, "Come ben, my dear," he cries, "I've a new friend for ye," and beside the mistress I saw Helen Stockdale.
I was always the great one for watching faces, and as these two maidens approached, I saw the glowing cheeks of Margaret pale a little, her lips press together, and her chin become a little proud, but her eyes never wavered; but Mistress Helen beats me to be describing. There was an elegance about her and an air of languor, maybe from her sombre dark eyes, yet her every movement was graceful, and her smile a thing to be looking for, and she was slender as the stalk of a bluebell. The Laird of Scaurdale was in great humour, well on to seventy, his teeth still strong and white, and his shoulders with but a horseman's stoop.
"Kiss, my dearies," says he; "was ever such dainty ladies? Hugh, man, where are your manners, and you such a namely man among the Saint Andra lassies. Hoots, man, this blateness does not become ye; ye've slept wi' the lass before. Ha, Saint Bryde o' the Mountains," says he to Bryde, "well done, sir," for Mistress Helen, with a quick flashing upward glance, had rendered her little hand for salutation.
And at his words I saw, like a flash, a look of cold hate leap in the blue eyes of Margaret McBride.
I did much thinking while the others would be talking, and I thought of the day, fresh from the college, when we ploughed the stubble and Belle brought the wean in the tartan shawl,—the wean that grat beside Hugh in the old room when Belle carried her from the wee byre—the wean that was carried to McCurdy's hut with Belle and Dan McBride, and had lain in the crook of the arm of John of Scaurdale that night when McGilp had shown a light away seaward.
And there she was before me, Helen Stockdale, and I minded McGilp's words, "Yon's an heiress."