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He was thin and drawn up at the belly, but his eye was full and fiery, and I kent this was no serving-man's beast, but I took him to the stable and gave him a stall, with dry bracken for a bedding, and a measure of corn and peas, and the halflin came from the loft and got at the rubbing of him down, gabbling all the time about pasterns and withers, and Belle watched me, saying no word.
"Come and be kissing me first," said she, a little tremulously, "and then we will maybe be having a drop of it." The halflin, a stout man now, and clever with horse, came in to the house to be seeing Bryde. "Ye can be riving the skin off my bones," said he, "for I was telling her about yon." "About what?" said Bryde, but I think that he kent, for his face was dark.
I am inclined to suppose that Mrs. Jardine of Whitethorn has more knowledge of the world and self-command than the whole set of my relations here, unless, perhaps, my Aunt Crawfurd she will only speculate on your dresses that is the question, Susan." "Would you not have liked to have gone with the other girls, Joanna? for Conny, she must submit to be a halflin yet.
A halflin lad took the horses and we came to the house, and there was Belle to meet us, smiling to Margaret, and her eyes wandering to where her son was at the ploughing.
I mind that there was a good back-end that year, as we say, with plenty of keep for the beasts, and the stacks under thatch of sprits by the end of September, and I would be standing in the stackyard as a man will, just pleased to be seeing things as they were, and swithering if I should be taking a step to the Quay Inn, when the halflin lad from Bryde's place came up to me.
"About the words ye would be telling her yon night ye left wi' the kist, and her not there to be hearing. She would be giving me siller," said the halflin. I am thinking he would get mair siller. And most of that day, it would be nothing but questions, Bryde sitting with his brother on his knee, and Dan going out of himself with little kindnesses. "Hugh is not married, ye tell me.
At the farm in the hills the halflin would be doing finely a little lavish with the feeding, as a body will be when the keep is not his own, but the beasts would be looking well, and the steading clean and tidy.
"There will be word for him in the morning," said I; "this will surely be a beast from the Castle," and at that Belle went into the house, and I left the halflin still watching the strange horse and made my way on foot across the hill.
And the lad lisped and boggled at the English, till I shook the Gaelic into him and there was the story. It would be two nights ago that Bryde McBride came into the loft where the halflin was sleeping, and bade him dress.
"She'll be at Bothanairidh by noo," and so it was, for when I came to the farm on the moor there was Margaret, thrang at the talking to the halflin, and looking blither than I had thought to see her; and thinks I to myself, he will have been telling her about Bryde and the lighted window and that I was right I know, although Margaret would never be telling me what it was that Bryde said that night; and the halflin I would not be asking, but I would be telling the lass about the three feet of blue steel in the lad's gizzard, and at that she would laugh at me.
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