The McBrides | Page 8

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 a bright smile and no hesitation. "The
Laird tells me he's wasted enough keep for many bullocks laying the
yard with straw lest his horses should wake me in the mornings, but
I've missed his songs lying here. They were merry enough too in the
fine spring mornings if the words were . . ." And a delicate flush crept
over her neck and face, and she smiled a little as at the fault of some
wayward boy.
The door was opened softly, and a tall woman entered--a tall woman
with a world of sorrow in her wise old eyes, and years of patience in
the clasp of her hands.
"Betty," cried the patient--"Betty, is everything done well, now I'm tied
to my son," and she put her cheek to the downy head.
"The weemen are flighty and the lads are quate, and the hoose will no'
be itsel' till ye will be moving about again, an' Miss Janet's lad will . . ."
"I will not have Dan called that, Betty," says my aunt. "Ewan
McBride's lad he is, if ye must deave me with his forebears . . ."
"My dearie, my ain dearie, did I not nurse his mother when she grat
ower his wee body and a' the warl' was turned on her, and her man at
the great wars. Ech, ech, a weary time, and her crying to him in the
nicht, and throwin' oot her white arms in the stillness and crying: 'My
brave fierce lad, my brave wild lover, come back and let me dee wi'
your arms aboot me.' Ay, and her wild lad, her kindly lad, lying stark
on yon bluidy field and the corbies maybe at his bonny blue een. I love
Dan, for I took him frae his mither's caul' breast; but ech, why will he
be shaming his name, and shaming his ain sel'--but I shouldna be

haverin', my dearie . . . and here's your soup now."
Jean--she of the stable raid--with a haughty look at the gipsy, who had
stood in a corner by the fire all this time, came with the bowl of soup,
but Belle slid forward noiselessly.
"Is it soup, Jean?" says she, and the wench stopped. "Skim the fat off it,
then, for I saw a hussy like you gi'e her mistress soup like that--and she
died." My aunt sat up in her bed, her face very stern when Betty talked
of Dan shaming himself and his name.
"I will know this," she cried. "I am not ill any more--who is the
woman?"
Jean would have spoken at this, but the gipsy whispered: "Begone, or
I'll turn your hair white as the driven snaw," and the wench fled with
her soup, and spilled most of it in the stone-flagged corridor leading to
the kitchen, where she sat and trembled and grat her fill, every now and
again catching her yellow locks to make sure no change had started yet.
So here we have Betty whispering--
"Don't vex yoursel', my Leddy; it's juist the lassie's clavers, for Jean
cam' in frae the stable, where she had nae right to be, except to be seein'
her lad--they ha'e lads on the brain the lassies noo--and greetin' that
young Dan had shamed her before the men, and a' because o' a tinker
body like Belle here, although the great folk will treat her so kindly; no'
that I mean her any harm," she added (erring on the safe side, for
Belle's eyes had begun to glow finely); "and then in came Kate and
Leezie wi' a tale o' a wean, tied in a tartan shawl, lying in a biss in the
wee byre. Then and there they faithered and mithered the bairn, the
useless hussies. . . ." The mother's haughty eyes turned to the gipsy.
"I never found you lying, Belle. Is this story true?--a bonny family is
this to be among," she cried, her hand pressing the child closer, and
maybe she pressed him too tightly, for the boy doubled