Читать книгу The McBrides - John Sillars - Страница 9

The corn was in the stackyard and the stacks thatched, and all that summer Belle and her wean stayed with us, the lass working at the weeding and the harvesting, and the wean well cared for, for the mistress remained not long abed after the spaewife's coming. Belle's wean might be "a tinker's brat" in whispered corners in byres and hay-sheds, where the wenches could claver out of hearing, but the Laird's son got no better attention than the tinker's brat when the mistress was near.

And now that the corn was secure and the stackyard full, the deer came down from the hills and lay close to till nightfall, and then wrought havoc in the turnip-drills, and I noticed that, like cows in a field of grain, they spoiled more crop than they ate, both of potatoes and turnips; and, indeed, it angered a man to see his good root-crops haggled and thrawn with the thin-flanked beasts, like the lean cattle, and I thought to go round the hill dyke with the dogs on an October evening, and harry them back to their heather and bracken again.

It was early in the evening, so I took my stick and daunered to the hay-shed (which was next to the planting) behind the stackyard, for I liked the noise of the wood, and would lie on the hay and listen to the scurry of the rabbits, the rippling note of the cushats in the tree-tops, and watch for the coming of the white owls that flitted among the trees. And as I lay on the sweet-smelling clovery hay there came over me a drowsiness, for I had been early abroad, and I dovered and dovered till sleep and waking were mingled, and strange voices came into my ears; and then I knew the voices, and felt myself go hot all over, for I could not move or I would be discovered with the rustling of the hay.

"I have waited long for ye, my bonny dark lass, waited when I was shivering to take ye in my arms," and I could see Dan lean forward and look into Belle's black eyes, one great arm round her shoulders and his hand below her chin, and she was bonny, bonny in the blink o' the moon.

"Ye were a good lad," says she, smiling up at him; "it whiles made me angry ye would be so good, and I would be lying at night thinking ye had forgotten the gipsy lass, and would be assourying[1] wi' red-cheeked, long-legged farmer lassies; and then ye would be coming to my window and knocking, and I was glad, and listened and listened for ye to be coming, although ye would not be knowing from me at all, and I would be cold, cold to ye. … "

"My dear, it's news to me," cried he, in great wonder, "for never a knock did I knock," and his eyes were laughing down at her.

"What!" she cries; "what! And who would be daring?"

"That's just what I cannot say, for the lads think ye're no' canny some way, but maistly because the weemen hiv them under their thumbs, so I'm thinkin' it must just have been Hamish."

It was on the tip of my tongue to cry out at that, but I saw by his face that he could not help hurting gently whatever he liked, and he had no thought for me at all, but waited for the girl to speak. The great sombre eyes were looking up at him, and the moon glintin' on her teeth as, her red lips parted, a brown hand fluttered about the man's breast.

"You would be knocking. I am wantin' you to be knocking," she cried, "for I am only a wicked gipsy lass. … "

I saw the man stretch her back with a straightening of his arm; I saw the limber length of him, the lean flank and the curve of his chest, as he half lay on the hay.

"I am wishing ye to be knocking," he mimicked in a half-fierce, half-laughing voice, "for I am only a wicked gipsy lass"; and again, "My dear, my dear, I'm not seeing much wickedness in a' this, and so I must be creeping out and knockin' on a lass that will not be saying a civil word to me, let alone a kiss in the gloamin'."

"Oh," she lilted, "oh, so you would be knocking to that unkind lass;" and then in a far-away voice, "Will you be remembering that place where I found you, when I would be running a wild thing like a young foal? … "

"Bonnily, Belle, bonnily I mind ye—a long-legged, black-maned filly ye were, and the big eyes o' ye, I began to love ye then. … "

"It would be terrible and you lying in the stall beside your horse at that place, and them not going near you, and you only a boy. I will be dreaming of the horse tramping your face yet."

"I'll teach ye something better to be dreaming than that, dear lass, for I was only a boy then, and I was carrying a man's share o' French brandy, more shame to me. I had nae sense at all, to be lying beside the horse, and him a kittle brute too; but I'll aye be mindin' ye coorieing ower me, and greetin' for a' that, when the men o' the Seagull were feart tae venture into the stall, being sailors and strange wi' horse."

Among the hay there I remembered the loud voices and the slamming of doors in the night, and Jock McGilp and his message about the "turf being in"; and here it was coming round that these two had met then, and I somehow had helped to bring them together.

"I will be asking you to do me a service the night," I heard the girl say.

"I'm thinkin' that, my dear, will it be ridin' for the priest, for indeed you're such a wicked lass I see nae ither way for it. I canna aye be knockin' when your wickedness keeps me in the caul'. … "

"Come," she cried, rising, "come, for we will have been dallying too long, and I did give my word to Scaurdale. I will not be listening any more to your talk."

"Where fell ye across that grizzly dog, John, Laird o' Scaurdale?" said

Dan as they rose.

* * * * * *

So I waited until the hay was all quiet and the lovers gone, and I got the dogs and went after the deer.

Outside the dyke I found them herded, their sentinels posted like an army resting, and away they headed, the collies at their heels, and me racing through bracken and heather and burn, after seeing them clearing a rise and disappearing, the big antlers like branching trees. Away and away I followed, till the dogs' barking was faint in the night and the three lonely hills were looming before me, and I saw the wild-fire glimmer on the peat-bogs and the moon going down as I whistled and whistled for the dogs.

And as I waited I heard the thud, thud, thud of horses galloping, and then the jangle of bridle-chains, and I lay down in the heather. Two horsemen passed me, wrapped in their riding-cloaks, and after a while a light jumped out on the hillside, and I knew the horsemen had stopped at the old empty shepherd's house, and I made my way there, for since old McCurdy died the house had been empty. I could hear the dogs barking away among the hills, and the rustle of the night-folks among the dry heather as I cautiously rounded the "but and ben," and there at the door were the two horses that had passed me. Quietly I crawled into a clump of heather and lay a-watching, and turned in my mind everything I might be a witness to, and found no answer. Then, away behind me, I heard a horse neigh, and the tethered horses answered, and a gaunt figure, white-haired and martial, stalked through the door, and I knew John, Laird of Scaurdale, waited, he and his man.

I heard a laughing voice on the night wind.

"It's a great thing to have a lass on the saddle wi' ye, Belle, ye can kiss her at every stride," and Belle's answer must have been kissed into silence, for I never heard it.

There came Dan on our best horse, an upstanding raking bay, and in front of him was Belle with the wean in the tartan shawl. The servant lifted Belle from the saddle, and Dan, looking awkward in the glow from the window, held the tartan bundle, then handed it to the gipsy, and all of them went in, and I was left alone on my heather tussock. Maybe ten minutes passed, and the servant came out and led the horses to the back, where there was a sheepfold and a well, and I heard him drawing water, and in a little time he entered the house, an empty sack in his hand, and I knew the horses were at their feed, and crawled up to the lighted window and peered in. The Laird was striding up and down the narrow room, his fierce old face twitching, the body-servant stood by the door like a wooden man, and Dan, as though the ploy pleased him, smiled at the gipsy, who held the wean.

The Laird's words came clearly—

"She would have the false knave, she was afraid o' my stern lad and would have the carpet-knight—the poor wee lass; but she minded her cousin—she minded my boy at the end o' a' when she hated the Englishman. I ken fine how her pride suffered before she sent me word, but the word cam' at the hinder end. Belle," said he, stopping his march, "ye have done finely wi' your lad an' a'."

"It's not me he'll be lookin' at, sir," wi' a toss of her head.

"The bigger fool him; it was a' grist that cam' to my mill when I was mowing down the twenties."

"Ay, Laird," says Dan wi' a bold look, "I've heard it said ye kept the ministers in texts for many a day, and the sins o' the great made the poor folks' teeth water from wan Sunday till the next."

"I had thought them more concerned wi' brewing their whisky and poaching than in the inside o' a kirk," growled the Laird, for he was choleric when reminded of his past by any but his own conscience, which had turned in on itself, and grown morbid as a result.

"It's a grand place the kirk, sir; I've seen and heard enough there to keep me cheery a' week. There was the time when we walked there in droves, and would be takin' a look at the beasts in the parks as we went, and often the beasts would be turned on the roadside, for a man might buy on Monday what he only saw on Sunday. Once, going by Hector's, the lassies wi' their shoon in their hands, were walkin' easier barefit and savin' shoe leather, and a young Embro' leddy, wi' a hooped skirt wi' the braidin' like theek rope on a stack, and high-heeled shoon, looked disdainfu' at them. Well, well, the pigs were on the roadside at Hector's, and they kent the barefit lassies; but the grand lady they didna ken at all, and one caught her gown by the braidin' and scattered away reivin' and tearin', and set the lady spinning like a peerie, and the lassies laughed and cried 'suckie, suckie,' and put on their boots to go into the kirk, well put on, and in a rale godly frame o' mind."

Belle had the wean wrapped in the cloak the servant had provided and was croonin' ower it, and the body-servant was waitin' for orders, and there stood Dan and the Laird as though loath to part, and them on business that might mean worse than burnin' stackyards. And it came to me that Scaurdale was not the man to be cherishing any tinker's whelp, not even if he had fair claim to.

"And what lesson did ye get that day, Sir Churchman?"

"Pride goeth before a fall," says Dan, "but that was a bad day for me."

"And how?" cried Scaurdale, and I could see he was wasting time on purpose.

"Indeed it was no fault o' mine, for between the shepherds' dogs huntin' aboot till the church scaled, and the pigs lookin' for diversion, a kind o' hunt got up, and a pig came into the church wi' a' the collies in full cry and made a bonny to-do among the Elect. The poor beast made a breenge and got a hat on its snout, and then a fling o' its heid ended matters, and there was the pig in the deacon's hat, and sair pit aboot was the pig, and sairer the deacon.

"Aweel, I was reproved and reminded o' the time when I had had a sermon a' tae masel'; but the end crowned a', for I had killed an adder that morning on the road, and put the beast in my pouch for Hamish. In the middle o' the sermon, after the Gadarene swine and the dogs were outside, the adder somewie cam' alive and crawled on to the aisle, and the minister eyed it, and then me, and I felt hot and caul', for I didna ken o' any new evil that might hiv reached him, and I didna see the beast till the preacher stopped and pointed.

"'Man o' evil,' he cried, 'take the image o' your father and go hence,' and so I'm clean lost," said Dan, wi' a comical sigh.

I had just time to lay myself flat in the heather before the servant came out and walked to the top o' the rise. I could see the loom o' him against the skyline, for the moon was now very low, and then he whistled, and Dan came leading the horses, and the gipsy carrying the wean. I crawled to the rise but farther away, and prayed that the dogs had gone home and would not get wind o' me. For a while they stood, Dan and the body-servant at the horses' heads, and the Laird a little apart, and then I heard Dan—

"Yon's him at last," says he, and I saw a light glimmer for a little away out at sea, and the servant ran back to the hut and brought the lighted lantern, and three times he covered it with his cloak, and three times he swung it bare, and I saw the long black shadow of the horses' legs start away into the darkness, and then away out to sea a flare glimmered three times and all was dark.

"Easy going," says Dan; "McGilp has nae wind to come close in, and it's a long pull to the cove."

The Laird swung himself to the saddle, and as the servant mounted, Belle made to give him the tartan bundle, but John, Laird o' Scaurdale, trusted none but himself on a night ride over the road to Scaurdale.

"Give me the wean," says he, and loosened his cloak. Belle held the wee bundle to him, and he put it in the crook of his arm.

"Ye will be a great one and whip the tinkers from your door, my dear," whispered Belle to the sleeping infant, "but ye've lain in the heather, and listened tae the noises o' the hill nights, and the burns, and the clean growing things, and maybe ye'll mind them dimly in your heart and be kind when ye come to your kingdom."

At that Scaurdale leant over his saddle.

"Ye'll never be in want if ye knock at my door, so long as the mortar holds the stanes thegither."

"Good night to you, Sir Churchman; I'm in nae swither whether I would change places wi' ye the night, but weemen are daft craturs, poor things, and I've had my day."

Then there came the swish, swish o' galloping hoofs in dry bracken, for Scaurdale was a bog-trooper and born wi' spurs on, and I heard the whimper o' the wean, and a gruff voice petting. Belle was greetin' softly, and as Dan made to lift her in the saddle—

"I will not be sitting that way again," she cried; and I know, because her heart was sore, she must be sharp with a man that had done nothing to anger her that I could see.

"Aweel, I was aye a bonny rinner," says Dan. "When I was herdin' and the beasts lay down behind the black hill in the forenoon, I could rin tae the Wineport and back before they were rising." I laughed to think how we estimate time in the college by the rules of Physics, and how the herd on the moorside did, and wondered who but he could say how long a cow beast would lie and chew her cud, and how many miles a man could run in the time she took to chew it.

"I will not be having you running at all, and, indeed, you have been kind and good to me. But why should I be going back to that place when the thing is done I came to be doing? I will go away to my own folk, and you will be forgetting me."

"I'll never be forgettin' you," says he, calling her pet words that made me wish myself far enough away, for I was shy of lovers' talk, and he held her to his breast and spoke quickly, and turned and caught the bridle of his horse.

"No," cried the lass—"no, I will not be staying here," and I was glad the moon was clouded at her words, "and you will not be seeing me till I am grown old and wrinkled like a granny."

At that he gathered her in his arms, and for a while I saw only his head and not her face at all, except just a blur that looked pale, and then I heard her say—

"You will be saying that to all these other women, for you will be wicked."

"Not wicked any more, lass. I'll just be loving you, and why are ye turned soft; where is the lass that asked me would I burn?"

"Indeed, it is just with you I will be too gentle, I think, all my days, for ye will be a brute and a baby, all in one, and yet you would be aye kind to me. I could not be tholing another man after ye."

"I think I would not be tholing that either, my dear," cried he in a fierce voice, "but the lantern has to be lighted and the fire. Maybe ye'll let me do that much for you," and this time I saw her smiling, and clinging to him with both her hands.

At the door she waited till he had made the horse comfortable in the stone fanks,[2] and when he joined her she stretched her arms up and pulled his head down.

"I am wishing to do this," she said, and kissed him on the mouth. "You will not be loving any more but me," and she struck him lightly but with fierce abandon on the cheek, and I heard him laughing, and then the door opened and closed, and I had all the hills to myself. A great loneliness came over me, and I wished the dogs had waited.

And as I made my way home, I thought of that little whimpering wean in the crook of Scaurdale's arm, and wondered how she would fare on board the Gull, for by Dan's word I kent McGilp had shone the flare away seaward. Scaurdale, it seemed, would be hiding the wean in fair earnest now, and McGilp I kent would whiles be on the French coast. But never a word did I get from Dan for many's the day about Belle, or McGilp, or Scaurdale—we talked of horses and sheep, until the coming of Neil Beg.

[1] Courting, clandestine courtship.

[2] Sheepfold.