'Is it Gilbert Kennedy?' she said.
We told her ay.
'Lay him down under the gate,' she commanded, 'I would speak with him.'
'But, my lady Marjorie,' I said, as gently as I could, 'I fear that he is dead already.'
'Then I would even speak to him dead,' she cried. 'Lay him down!'
Her husband came up to take her by the hand as if to remove her, but she turned on him in white anger, swift and flaming.
'You that have never yet dared to lay a hand on me, is it like that you shall begin now? Go, look to your father; cravens that shun the battle ought not to brawl with women in the gate!'
And without further remonstrance James Mure slunk away, like the very pitiful rogue that he was. I could have kicked the cur, and wished there had been fewer folk there—for I had done it too.
Then she that had been so proud and haughty to young Bargany when he was alive, took the fair, wounded head in her arms, crouching beside him in the dun, trampled snow, while the flakes blew in upon her unbound hair. She crooned and hushed him like a bairn, while we that had borne him stood wide from her, some turning away altogether. But, because I knew all and loved her, I stood near.
'Gilbert,' she said, 'noblest and dearest, never doubt but that I loved you—never loved but you. Though I flouted you oft, and ever sent you empty away, yet I loved you and none other. And I want the world to know that I loved him—ay,' she said, turning her face up to us all defiantly, 'ay, and loved him with clean hands, too, for he that is dead never knew it. But I desire you that were his enemies in life, to know that I, Marjorie Kennedy, honoured myself by loving the noblest man and the fairest—not that thing there, who by cozenance bought me, as cattle are bought in the market-place.'