All about the house the peat-reek swung like mist on the mountain. Wind and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind that came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a beady slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings. The woman lay slack on the bed, her eyes glossed over with the glass that folks see the great sights through, and her fingers making love over the face and breast of a new-born boy that cried thinly at her knees. A lighted cruisie spluttered with heavy smell at the end of a string on a rafter.
“O Skilly Woman, Skilly Woman, it's late we are,” said Black Murdo.
“Late enough, as ye say, just man. Had ye bartered an old sword for twenty minutes on the Tom-an-dearc, I was here before danger.”
Then the Skilly Woman set him on the wet windy side of the door, and went about with busy hands.
The man, with the ragged edge of his kilt scraping his knees and the rain bubbling in his brogues, leaned against the wattled door and smeared the blood from his brow. A cold wind gulped down from Glenurchy and ghosts were over Inishail. The blast whirled about and whirled about, and swung the rowan like a fern, and whistled in the gall, and tore the thatch, all to drown a child's cry. The blackness crowded close round like a wall, and flapped above like a plaid—Stronbuie was in a tent and out of the world. Murdo strained to hear a voice, but the wind had the better of him. He went round to the gable, thinking to listen at the window, but the board on the inside shut the wind and him out. The strange emptiness of grief was in his belly.
Inside, the Skilly One went like a witch, beak-nosed and half-blind. There was clatter of pans and the dash of water, the greeting of the child and the moan of the mother. What else is no man's business. For all she was skilly the old dame had no thought of the woman sinking.
“You'll have blithe-meat in the morning,” she said, cheerily, from the fireside.
Silis made worse moan than before.
“Such a boy, white love! And hair like the copper! His hide is mottled like a trout's back; calf of my heart!”
Silis, on her side, put out white craving arms. “Give it to me, wife; give it to me.”