The McBrides | Page 7

a bonny bird.'"
And that night so long ago, when Dan and I kneeled on the
stone-flagged floor beside one another and listened to my uncle pray
and pray and pray in Gaelic, I whispered--
"Dan."
"What?"
"Jock McGilp was saying . . ."
Uncle gave a great pause after asking "a clean heart," and Dan
whispered--
"Come nearer, ye devil, and don't speak so loud, or a' the servants 'll be
damned and sent to hell for lack o' attention."
"Jock McGilp was saying the turf was in and the seagull's a bonny
bird."
"Wheest noo and listen, ye graceless deevil. . . ."

For a week after that I 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