The McBrides | Page 7

never saw Dan, but my uncle got sterner and sterner, and when Dan returned, loud voices I heard in the night and slamming doors, but Dan was whistling among his horses at cock-crow, and told me I took after my mother's folk and would be a man yet. . . .
But on this April Sunday, after the week of ploughing stubble, we lay long and listened to the pleasant rattling of horse chains, and rustling of bedding, when the horses pawed for their morning meal. There was the sun, well up on his day's journey, and a whole day to be and enjoy him in. And we rose and took our breakfast, and daunered to the far fields, and inspected the young beasts, picking out the good ones with many a knowing observation on heads and pasterns and hocks, and then round the wrought land, and over the fields where a drain had choked, and the rushes marked its course. We mapped out how this should be mended and strolled back to the stable, and lay in an empty stall where some hay had been left, and waited until dinner, with the shepherd's dogs lying watching their masters, and the herds and ploughmen telling terrible stories of one Mal-mo-Hollovan. Into this peaceful scene came rushing a lass with the word that the Laird was at church, as he should be, and Belle the gipsy wanted speech wi' the mistress.
"An' why no', my lass?" said Dan; "she'll no' bite the mistress."
"The black eyes o' her, and the air o' her,--speech wi' the mistress, indeed--the tinker!"
"Jean," said Dan, "be canny wi' Belle, or she'll put such a spell on ye that ye'll no' hear your lad whistling ootside your window, and the first thing ye'll ken he'll be inside, and you maybe in your sark."
"Ye ken too much aboot sich truck and trollop and the wey in by windows," cried Jean, her face like the heart o' the fire; for her lad was looking sheepishly at her from the corn-kist.
"Well, well, let Belle alane, or I'll be puttin' mysel' in Tam's place," and poor Tam could only grin with a very red face.
And so it came that Belle made her way to the old room where the mistress, my uncle's wife, was abed, after the birth of her son, about whom the women-folk talked and laughed in corners, and looked so disdainful at poor men-folk, that Dan said--
"It's a peety for the wean, wi' a' these weemen waitin' till he grows up. I'm dootin' he'll be swept oot o' his ain hoose wi' petticoats, and take up wi' the dark-skinned beauties in the far glens, like Esau."
And sorely put out were the women when Dan, referring to the heir, said he'd come in time for the best o' the grass.
"If the colt has got plenty o' daylight below him, and middlin' clean o' the bane, he'll thrive right enough!" The heir of all Nourn a leggy colt! There was nothing but black looks and pursed-up lips till even the easy-going cause o' the change said drily enough: "They're damned ill tae leeve wi' whiles, a man's ain weemen-folk, Hamish, an' I meant the bairn nae ill either."
Well, Belle was ta'en to the old room where the mistress, my uncle's wife, lay abed--her they ca'ed the Leddy, a fine strapping woman, with kindly hands to man and beast and a wheedling, coaxing way with her, though she could be cold and haughty at times, for she came of fighting stock, and could not thole clavering and fussing, and I think she would not hasten her stately step to be in time for the Last Judgment, for the pride of her.
The room was fine and cool, with a wood fire spluttering in the great stone fireplace, and the light playing on the carved pillars of the canopied bed, and blinking on the oak panels; but it was a fine room, with deerskin rugs here and there on the floor, and space to move about without smashing trumpery that women collect round them, God knows why, except to hide the lines of the building.
My aunt lay there on the great bed, her dark hair damp and clinging to the white brow, and one arm crooked round her child, and she was gazing at his head where the hair was already thickening, when Belle came to the bedside.
"It's not red," said my aunt. "I feared it would be red, for there are red ones here and there in his house . . . look, woman, it's not red; it will not be red."
"Na, na, it's fair, Leddy--fair and fause; but it'll darken wi' the years, never fear. What ails ye at rid, Leddy--the prettiest man in these parts is rid enough?"
"Poor Dan," cried my aunt, with