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There came to our ears the low swish-sch of a boat gliding and slithering over wrack, and the beating of wings in the air as the sea-birds left the beach, and Alastair's boat grated on the gravel of the shore. "Will ye no' come wi' me, my dear," cried Dan to the lass as she clung to him, and I had a twinge of jealousy that I was all forgot.
As we walked back to Alastair's, we saw Belle standing on a ridge of high ground, with the morning light behind her dark against the light, and her eyes straining to the sea; and as we came closer I spoke, thinking to take her away from her sorrow, but her dark eyes remained fixed on the schooner, as though she had never heard me. There was a little mist hanging over the sea.
Then pondering awhile he muttered brokenly, 'I'll hap ye in again, Alastair, beloved; when I've a sign to bury wi' ye that will prove to ye my troth. So saying he sat down beside the grave and cleaned Alastair's bonnet, then placed it on his own head in token of his vow, and waited for the dawn and his revenge.
Ay, it was Alastair's bonnet, for there was the blackcock's tail feathers which Alastair had always proudly worn in right of his birth. Stained with blood the bonnet itself cloven in twain with a blow from hatchet or axe. 'My bonny Alastair! he groaned aloud. 'Dear laddie!
Then, finally, how he had counselled Alastair to turn drover with him till the 'Redcoats' should depart, as the best method to avoid capture, and how constantly Alastair's high spirits led them into danger. And now it was all over all over save the final duty to his brother.
We sat down to a meal of salted herrings in Alastair's kitchen, the weans round us still sleepy and barefooted, and with tousled red locks, which they flung from their eyes with a gesture very like a spirited Hielan' pony tossing its mane; and when I looked from the door again which I was glad enough to do, for the reek was a little nippy to my eyes as I looked from the door I saw Belle returning, and with her no other than Robin McKelvie of the Quay Inn.
In a little time Ronny came back to us, and we made our way into Alastair's house, a place where a grown man could stand broad-soled on the clay floor and touch the rafters of the roof with the flat of his palms. The peat fire was smouldering on the floor, and the reek made its way out at the rigging.
In Alastair's kitchen the thought came to me then what will the son of these two be the father strong as a mountain ash, and with the cruel arrogant pride of a long-bred race behind him, his own will his only law, and the queer twist of tenderness for old stories and old songs and his love for all nature a stark man, who would reach out and take what he desired; and the mother fiercely tender, wildly, passionately loving her chosen man, all the dark East in her black eyes, all the deadly South in her blazing angers a graceful, hard, blue steel blade of Damascus, with jewel-encrusted hilt and sheath of velvet.
We made the great to-do in Alastair's kitchen between the exceeding gladness of the news and the foolishness of our flight, and Alastair himself was rowing in the fog after the Gull only Belle said no word, but went quietly behind a rick of peats close to the house, and I, following her in my slow useless way, came on her suddenly, her arms outstretched to the empty sea, and such a look of anguish on her face that I was silent.
But, by Gott ye'll be avenged fine the morn's morning! Reverently he went on with his howking, and soon Alastair's pale face showed in the moonlight, stained with soil, and bloody under the gash above his forehead. Donald kneeled down in the grave and kissed like a lover his foster-brother on the brow.
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