"I am thinking we will ride to the peat hags," said Margaret, "and we'll maybe be seeing Bryde," and she laughed in my face, and, indeed, after that she was always at the laughing.
"What would his father be like, Hamish—Bryde's father?"
"A fine man he was, Margaret, but a little wild."
"Ay," said she, "he would be spoiled with the lasses."
And for a while she was thoughtful. Bryde was at his plough-tail on an outlying bit, but his horses were standing at the head-rig, and Bryde was laughing and talking to a lady, and when I saw the serving-man holding a pair of Scaurdale's horse, I kent the lass.
"I am wondering," said I, "where is Hugh, and Mistress Helen so far from hame; but ye were in the right of it, Margaret, for Bryde is at his plough-tail."
"He will have good company even there, it seems," said the lass.
But in a little Helen and she were at the talking.
"And where would you be leaving all your cavaliers, Helen," said
Margaret, for Hugh had been telling us of the young sparks at Scaurdale.
"Cavaliers, Margaret!" with a very dainty moving of the shoulders. "Of these I am weary this day, and so I inflict myself on the dragoon," and here she bowed very low and gracefully to the ploughman, and there was a little devilry in her black eyes.