The McBrides | Page 9

be yourself to be believing these false tales; and you, Betty, I had thought ye had seen sorrow enough without brimming your cup over. It's true I left a wean sleeping in the sweet hay; was there harm in that? She's lain wi' me in the stable lofts and outlying barns these many nights, but the wean is nane o' mine. It's an ill bird that fouls its ain nest, Betty, and when a' the auld wives are shakin' their mutches at the end o' peat stacks and sayin', 'This'll be another o' his; ye might have asked yourself how? The poor wee mitherless mite; her feet will be on the neck o' her enemies, and, mistress, maybe I can tell ye why. I hinna leed tae ye yet, and ye can whip me from your doors if ye will, but hard, hard will it fa' on them that raise the scourge."
Such a look passed between these two, so full of meaning, that my aunt told Betty to leave her.
"And keep better manners among your wenches," said she, "for I will not have Dan tormented with the baggage; and tell him I hope my son will grow tall and strong like him, for I will be mindful of his kindness."
"Indeed, indeed, he would be very good, my dearie," cried Betty, anxious to make amends. "When ye were taken ill he lay in the kitchen the lang night through, and his horse saddled and bridled ready in his stall; ay, and he would not go to bed for the Laird himsel'. Indeed, many a wild night he galloped through, and him oot in the morning when the doctor had left."
Belle had slipped out as the old woman was speaking, and now came back with her tartan bundle; and when Betty had left the room the gipsy took from the shawl a wean that cried so lustily that it wakened the heir to all Nourn.
As the women whispered and crooned over the bairns, their cries resounded through the house, and made it no place for men-folk.
But crossing the yard, Betty beckoned me with a crooked forefinger.
"Who's wean is that, think ye, Hamish, that Belle brought here?"
"I think you should be asking Belle," said I.
"Ask here or ask there," says Betty, "the wean has a look o'--dinna be feart, my lad--the wean has the look o' John o' Scaurdale. And that," says she, "would be fair scandalous."
But after Betty's jalousing I had a word or two with Dan McBride, my cousin.
"Wean," says he, "and Betty thinks the bairn has a look o' John o' Scaurdale. It beats me, the cleverness of that woman. This is the story I got from Belle, Hamish. It's a little dreich, but it will be as well that ye should ken."
"Well," says Dan, "when ye were at the College in the toon and learning yer tasks, there was a lass came to stop at Scaurdale, a niece she was to the Laird there (a sister's wean, I am thinking), very prim and bonny she was, and fu' o' nonsensical book-lore. She took a liking to the place, and there are some that pretend to ken, that say she took mair than a liking to the Laird's son. I would not say for that; he was a brisk lad for so douce a lady. Well, well, Hamish, they cast out, and away goes the lass in a huff to her ain folk, and then back comes the word o' her wedding (some South-country birkie her man was, o' the name o' Stockdale, if I mind it right), and when that word came, John o' Scaurdale's son was like to go out at the rigging. We'll say naething about that, Hamish; ye ken what came on him: his horse threw him at the Laird's Turn yonder, and he never steered--he was by wi' it."
"What has this to do with Belle's wean?" said I.
"Belle's wean! Man, Belle never had a wean. That bairn is Stockdale's; and I'm hearing," said he, "that Scaurdale's niece, the mother of it, sent word to her uncle to take away the bairn, for her man turned out an ill-doer, and it's like she would be feart. But I ken this much, Hamish, Belle is waiting word from Scaurdale, and," says he, "they ken all the outs and ins of it, our friends here, and whenever it will be safe the wean will go to John o' Scaurdale."
"Scaurdale is not so far from here," said I. "Could Belle not have taken the bairn there at the first go off?"
"I thought ye had mair heid, Hamish. There's aye plenty o' gossips in the world, and Scaurdale will want this business kept quiet."
"In plain words," said I, "the wean has been stolen away from her father with the mother's