The McBrides | Page 4

dinner maybe, but I've an unco hankering
after this word."
Away down in my heart I knew what was coming, and I watched the
woman loosen her tartan shawl and lay her infant in a neuk among the
hedge roots.

"I'm waitin' now, my dear," said Dan, "and in case I dee I'll tell ye I
think I could break you in, for I like the devil temper bleezin' in your
bonny black een, and your lips would warm a deein' man. My dear, I
think I could be your man for a' ye say I cam' crooked; for spaewife or
no--God's life, ye're awfu' bonny, Belle."
The gipsy gave a little lilting laugh.
"You," says she--"you. I'm not saying but you're a pretty man, and I've
good looks enough for baith--if I loved ye; but, man, my love would be
a flame. Wid ye burn with me, lad; wid ye burn?"
"I think I would too," said he, "for your een have started the bleeze
a'ready, and I'm dootin' it'll finish in brimstane."
"Ay, ay, Dan; I'm spaein' true. I jibed at you, although you did not say
the word o' the glens o' the wee creatur' under the hedge there, as ye
might have. Ye've good blood in ye, lad, and I'm loving your spirit, but
I'm the Belle o' your death, Dan, the Death-Bell. Now!"
No words of mine can convey my impression of that scene. There were
the hills, silent and grandly contemptuous, there was a rabbit loping
across the road to the hedge foot, and there the road the woman had
come stretched upwards; but as she spoke some subtle essence seemed
to flood her veins, her sombre eyes flashed, her cheeks glowed darkly,
and she trembled so that I could see her clenched hands flutter like
segans.[1] It was not excitement, but to my mind as though some vital
powerful force had taken possession of her body and shook it, as an
aspen quivers in a gale.
The power seemed to grow stronger and stronger as she spoke, until
with her word it seemed to break free and envelop us.
Where I have written "Now" she leaned rigidly towards Chieftain and
almost hissed, so sharply came a word between her teeth. With some
such sound, I think, will the devil unshackle his hounds. Well for me
that my horses were rugging at the hedge, or I had never been troubled
more with headache.

For the stallion reared his huge bulk into the air with a scream of brute
rage. I have never heard such a sound since, and never wish to again.
He turned like an eel, his mouth agape, and the veins round his nostrils
like cord. His great gleaming teeth snapped like a trap at his rider's legs,
and snapped again after he had a blow on the head that might have
stunned him, and at the hollow sound of it I felt my teeth take an edge
to them. Twice he reared and fell backwards, and twice Dan was astride
as he rose. I could see the sweat running down his face and the bulging
of the muscles as his knees pressed and clung to the heaving
spume-spattered flanks. I think he knew he was fighting for his life, but
his smile seemed graven on his face, though it looked like the smile of
a man in sore distress. I knew every muscle felt red-hot, and time
would give the victory to the stronger brute. And then I saw the change
like a lightning-flash. Dan's shoulders haunched themselves, his head
was low and stretched forward, and a look of the most devilish ferocity
came over his face, his lips were pulled down, and his eyes almost
hidden under the bunched and corrugated brows.
There was a knotted rope rein in his hand, and his arm, brown and bare
to the elbow, and hard as an oak branch, rose, and I saw his teeth
clench till the muscles on his jaws stood out like crab-apples.
"Ye wid fecht wi' me," he crooned--"me, damn ye, me." At every
reiterated word the rein fell, and the weals rose on the stallion's neck
and flank, and he snorted and screamed with rage.
"Woman," said I, having led the other horses away and
returned--"woman or devil, whatever you are, ye have made a horse
mad this day, and now the man's mad. Will ye put an end to this
business before worse happens, for the horse is worth siller if the man's
regardless, and there's many a lass will greet herself to sleep till the
fires of her youth are burnt out if harm comes to Dan McBride. Have ye
no pity for your ain sex?"
"Peety," she cries--"peety for a wheen licht-heided hussies that lo'e the
man