The McBrides Part 36

Margaret was on Helen's black horse Hillman, her face a white mask and her lips a thin line. Ye will have heard that Mistress Helen was a bold rider, but you were not seeing Margaret that night. It has come to me since that she would be like Bryde in her rage. She had the black at the stretch of his gallop, and cutting him with the whip, and a ruthlessness like cold iron was in her voice when she spoke to him.

I do not like to be thinking of her then, for it would not be thus she would be using horse.

Round a bend of the road in this mad ride we smashed into Hugh and Helen, their horses walking quietly, and I learned afterwards that they were to spend their bridal night at the village called Lagg, and had made their escape quietly.

I have often wondered why Helen was not on her own black horse that night, and I think it was that she had put all thoughts of Bryde from her mind--for Bryde was fond of the black, and would be praising and petting him often.

But she kent her horse in the pa.s.sing, and well she kent his rider.

"Come on," I cried to Hugh, and gathered my horse under me, for I was all but thrown.

"No, no; _they're married_," cried Margaret, and cut again at the black, although he was half maddened already.

As he leapt from the lash I heard Helen--

"Ah, Hillman," she cried (now Hillman was a by-name for Bryde), and then, "Where is the so great calm of Margaret?"

"The gaugers are at the Clates--Gilchrist and Dol Beag and Bryde and Dan. Can ye not see what will come of it?" I know not what I cried to Hugh as we galloped.

But at my words Helen leaned forward on her saddle, and coaxed her horse in a whisper, and he stretched to the gallop like a hound.

"A droll beginning this," said Hugh. "Helter-skelter ower the countryside for a wheen gangers. What sort o' bridal night is this?

Could they no' keep their dirty fighting out o' my marriage. . . ."

"Ye were not meant to ken, Hugh."

"And I wish I did not ken. G.o.d, look at Helen--look at my wife--look at yon."

For Helen was abreast of Margaret and leaning from her saddle, and speaking to the black horse, and he kent her voice and swerved to his mistress.

"Do-you-know-who-he-is-like, my brave Hillman?" said Helen.

"He is like his mist . . . he is like the devil," said Margaret.

Sometimes yet I can see Helen's face clear-cut upraised against the sky, her curling black hair flying loose, and never, never will I forget her laughing--the devilry and the joy of it.

CHAPTER x.x.xV.

DOL BEAG LAUGHS AGAIN.

Angus McKinnon stretched himself on the sh.o.r.e at the Clates. "I am not liking this waiting," said he to Dan McBride; "McNeilage might have been standing closer in."

"It will be the Revenue cutter he is feared of, Angus," said his father.

"The Revenue boat is lying off the White Rock in Lamlash," said Angus.

"McNeilage will be getting old and sober."

"Wait a wee, Angus--wait a wee, my boy." It was another McKinnon, a friend of his own, that spoke. "Things are just right; the wee boats will be in 'e noo. It is a good park of barley I had, yes, and the best of it in the kegs."

"Angus is right, father," said a tall la.s.s with a shawl about her head, not hiding the bonny boyish face of her.

"Hooch ay, la.s.s; Angus will be always right by your way of it,--it is in your bed you should be."

The wee boats were close insh.o.r.e now, and the _Gull_ well off, for the Clates is not a nice place if the wind will be s.h.i.+fting to the suthard.

With the grating of the keel of the first boat on the beach the men made a start to be lifting the kegs, and carrying them to the boat and wading, for it is not very safe to let a boat go hard aground if there will be a hurry to be shoving her off again.

Into this mix-up of bending and hurrying folk came the voice of Gilchrist the gauger.

"In the King's name," he roared, and his men sprang forward.

And these were the words that I heard when Helen and Margaret flung themselves from the horses and ran forward into the press of people.

There was the dropping of kegs and the straightening of folk at the voice, but I saw the great figure of Dan cooried beside the boat. Then came Gilchrist's voice again--

"Touch nothing--you scoundrels will touch nothing--I mak' seizure in the King's name. Get roon' them, lads, with your pieces ready," and the excis.e.m.e.n made a circle of the smugglers. The second small boat was nearing the sh.o.r.e.

The la.s.s McKinnon, with the bonny boyish face, stooped to pick up her shawl, and Gilchrist was jumping and shouting. "A bonny catch," he cried--"a bonny catch," and at that the boyish la.s.s straightened herself. "The boats ahoy," she cried, "ahoy, the boat; the gaugers are on us."

"Stop the b.i.t.c.h," screamed Gilchrist, and sprang at the la.s.s with his fist raised.

"Back, ye d.a.m.ned kerrigan," and Bryde's voice was high like a bugle-note, and he sprang forward.

"Dan McBride has the sailors on us," came a shout from Dol Beag, and then Dan's great voice, laughing, "Fall on, lads; fall on. Into them with the steel."

"Fire," screamed Gilchrist--"fire, or we're by wi' it," and the pieces burst and spattered round us in a wild confusion. With the blaze of the pieces I saw Dol Beag spring at Bryde as a wild cat springs; crooked and b.e.s.t.i.a.l he was, and his knife flas.h.i.+ng, but swifter than the knife-flash was the love of the maid, who fell as Bryde fell. Into the bedlam of smoke and noise and groaning men, came the horrible laughter of a man, wild and high and devilish.

"McBride, Dan McBride, McBride, Dan McBride, look at the bonny b.a.s.t.a.r.d; look at your bonny b.a.s.t.a.r.d." Dol Beag was crawling and writhing on the beach like a beast, and then suddenly the breath left him. At that terrible sound, scream and scream of laughing, the excis.e.m.e.n drew back, and the sailors stood fidgeting and looking half afeared, and there came the sharp crack of a signal gun from the _Gull_ and the rattling cr-a-ik, cr-a-ik of halyards.

"Back on the boats," cried Ronald McKinnon, for well he kent McNeilage would make sail for only one thing, and that was the Government s.h.i.+p; and the sailors drew off quickly with their wounded. The excis.e.m.e.n stood reloading the flintlocks, and Gilchrist, in a flutter of fear, gave no orders until the skiffs were offsh.o.r.e and rowing hard for the _Gull_, waiting with her sails all aback.

But for me, at that laughing I turned, and I saw the ruddy face of Dan McBride blench like linen, his legs become weak like a man that has a mortal blow, and he came to his son. Bryde was on his back at his full stretch on the sh.o.r.e, and his right arm under his head, with a little switch of hazel in his hand; and lying against his breast with her arms round his neck was Helen.

Margaret McBride was on her knees, and her hand held in the fast grip of her man.

They brought lanterns round us now, and I would have lifted Helen, for the dark stain on her back was growing and growing.

"Let me be," she whispered; "I am happy."

And then there came on the face of Bryde a slow smile, and his eyes opened wide.

"I think I am not hurt--my shoulder--a la.s.s came between----" and then in a loud voice of terror, "Margaret, Margaret."