The shame of my first night's ploy at the Turf Inn lay heavy on me for a while, and then I would be thinking of the swarthy crew with their knives and their fierce oaths at the cards, of the spluttering glowing fire and the old men of the glens in the glow of it, and when I heard the wind moan and cry in the planting in the night, I longed to hear the old dread stories of a people long dead who had raised great stones on our wind-swept moors, and marked their heroes' resting-places with cairns.

Something of this I told to Dan as we gathered in the sheep from the far hills on the day before the big storm. I mind it fine, the grey heavy sky, the bursts of wind that rose ever and anon in the hills, and died away with an eerie cry, and made me think that all the winds had word to gather somewhere, and were hastening to the feast like corbies to a dying ewe.

There was the smell of snow in the air, and the moss pools were frozen hard, and beautiful it was to see the stag-horn moss entombed in the clear ice, and the wee water-plants, pale and cold and pitiful, at the bottom of the pools. Round the far marches we gathered—the wild shy wethers, seeing the dogs, paused as if to question the right of the intruders, and then bounded away like goats, and in my mind's eye I see yet the whitey-yellow wool where the wind ruffled the fleeces. Dan was very quiet that day, speaking seldom except to the dogs.

"There's something no canny coming, Hamish," said he; "I feel it in my banes. We're but puir craturs when a's said and done. A pig can see the wind, and there's them that can hear the grass growing, but a man just breenges on, blin', blin', and fou o' pride."

And again, "Ye've a terrible hankerin' for bawkins,[1] Hamish. I whiles think ye will be some old Druid priest come back that's forgotten the word o' power, but kens dimly in his mind that the white glistening berries o' the oak and the old standing stanes are freens. Ye're no feart o' bawkins, and ye're never tired o' hearing about them. Aweel, it's a kind o' bravery I envy ye, for weel I mind that first time I heard the Black Hound o' Nourn bay. I can feel the tingle of fear run in my bones yet when I think o' the dogs leaving me alane in that unchancey wood, and that devil beast near me in the dark."

By this time we were at Bothanairidh, maybe a heather mile from Craignaghor, the flock heading quietly in and the dogs at heel, and at a bare hawthorn tree Dan stopped.

"An' this, Hamish, will be another o' your freens," said he. "There's many a lilting laugh hidden in the ears o' this old tree, for here it was the cailleachs cam' tae spin in the long summer forenights, when everybody left their hames and took their beasts tae the hill for the summer. There were no dykes or hedges in those days, and the beasts had to be herded on the hill if the crops were to come to anything. Aweel, the men a' went to the fishing and a' the weemen stayed at Bothanairidh, and in the evenings the young lassies would be making great laughing while the cailleachs span; and once, long long ago, when the crotal was young on the rocks on the moors, there came a swarthy lad and said fareweel tae his lass under this tree. There was red wild blood in the boy, and before he came back he had seen a many men swing from the yard-arm. Ay, when he did return, he met a red bride, for another had awaited his coming.

"'This will be the bride ye are seeking,' snarled he that waited, and gave the sailor the dagger where the throat dimples above the collar-bone. And they say the swarthy lad writhed him up against the old tree and laughed.

"'As long as this tree stands,' he cried, 'you'll never hold to your coward heart the lass ye have done the dirty killin' for,' and died. Well, Hamish, I'm no' hand at stories, but the old hawthorn had aye flourished white until then, and after that the flourish was fine rich red, and when he that slew the swarthy lad sought to tear the tree down, his hair changed colour in a night, and the strange folks' mark was on him, and he wandered in the hills and died."

As we stood, I fitted into Dan's brief story—for his tale seemed to me to resemble more the headings of a story than a real story,—I fitted in a background of great wind-swept spaces, of bare rocks and cold heather and that poor love-maddened outcast wandering alone, and wondered what black pool cooled his brow at the last of it, and there came to my ears a distant cry, and so sure was I that I had imagined it, that I never turned to look, till Dan's laugh roused me.

"Come away from the standin' stanes and the heroes' graves. That wasna the skirl o' a ghost, but a hail frae a sonsy lass—but what gars her risk her bonny legs in yon daft-like wie beats me."

"I think," says I, "yon'll be Finlay Stuart's Uist powny; there's none here has the silver mane and tail. . . ."

"Imphm," says Dan; "imphm, Hamish, as Aul' Nick said when his mouth was fu'. Yon's Finlay's beast, and I'm thinkin' o' a' Finlay's lassies, there's just wan wid bother her noddle tae come here away, and that's Mirren; but wae's me," said he, with his droll smile, "she's set her cap at the excise-man, they tell me."

The lass drew up her pony beside us, and, man, they were a picture, these two—her hair, blown all loose, rippling like a wave, and the flush of youth glowing in her face and neck, and her eyes shining, and the noble Hieland pony, with his great curved neck and round dark barrel, and the flowing silver mane and tail. To me she bowed coldly enough, but with all the grace of one whose men-folk called themselves Royal, or maybe from Appin—especially in their cups. Although it seems the Royal Stuart race were none too particular whatever, but Dan had always his own way with the lassies.

"Has the de'il run away wi' the excise-man, Mirren, that you're risking horseflesh among the peat-bogs?"

"No," she cries, "no, but I wish he would be taking the whole dollop o' them to his hob, and then maybe decent folks would be having peace."

"That would stamp ye Finlay's lass if I didna ken already," says Dan.

"Ken me," cried the maid; "I'm well kent as a bad sixpence—a lass that should ha' been a lad wi' work to do or fighting, instead o' sitting—sitting like a peat stack, or"—with a fine flare o' colour—"like a midden waiting to be 'lifted.'"

"Ye're hard to please, my dear; there's many a lad wid be sair put oot if ye took to the breeks. . . ."

"It will not be this gab clash I came to be hearin', Dan McBride, but a most private business."

"Oh, don't be minding Hamish, my lass; he canna pass a rick o' barley but his eyes and mouth water. It's just lamentable," said he.

Her red lips took a curl at that, and then her speech came all in a rush.

"I've heard—oh, do not be asking me how I will be hearing these things, but the preventive men are lying at the cove waiting for the Gull, and I thought maybe if she came the night, wi' a storm comin' from the southard and them trying to make the port, they might all be taken away and transported, and he would be among them. . . ."

"Gilchrist the exciseman, Mirren?"

"Why will ye be naming that man to me?" she cried, in a burst of passion. "Is it not bad enough to be doing that I let him tell me their plans, and him not knowing where I carry them."

"I might have kent the breed o' ye wouldna be content wi' an exciseman, Mirren. Aweel, Hamish and me will just be having a sail this night, storm or no', and the Gull can coorie into mony's the neuk among the rocks; but whit bates me is how they fun' oot the cove."

"It would just be Dol Bob that told," whispered Mirren.

"The dirty slink," cried Dan. "I'm thinking there will be some talk between that man and me soon; but I'm no good enough looking to be thinking ye rade here to warn me, Mirren, so I'll be tellin' Ronny McKinnon tae keep his heart up yet when the Seagull's here, but ye'll hiv a big handfu' wi' Ronny."

"I would not be having him less," she cried, a little pleased as I thought; and then, as she turned to go, "There's a bonny wild lass at McCurdy's old hut, Dan, and she told me where to look for ye. Ye might tell her Mirren Stuart was speiring for her kindly, and thinking naething of Dan McBride, for the look she gied me out o' her black een made me grue." [2]

So Belle was still at McCurdy's hut. But Dan was thoughtful again, and never spoke till we had the sheep in the low sheltered fields.

But coming home he was whimsical. "Are they not droll now, the lassies, Hamish—here's Mirren Stuart, namely for her good looks, and for the bold spirit of her. Many's the house she has saved with that same Hielan' pony, for Gilchrist, a game lad among gangers, canna keep anything from Mirren, and here she is among the heather wi' word o' treachery, and d'ye ken who she will be doing it for?"

"No," said I, "except this McKinnon ye spoke of."

"Ay, McKinnon, just wild Ronny, that she cast out wi' years ago when he was a decent farmer's son, close to her own place in the Glen yonder at the far end o' Lamlash, before he slipped away on the Seagull."

"I am wishing, Dan," said I, "that ye kent less about the smugglers."

"A man must be doing something, Hamish, to get any pith out o' life. This is what I am thinking we will be doing the night. We will tell the Laird that it will be as well that somebody should be giving an eye to the sheep he has wintering at Lamlash and the South End, and then we will make for McKelvie's Inn at Lamlash and get a boat across to the Holy Island, and gie McGilp a signal frae the seaward side o' it, where it will not be seen except in the channel. McKelvie at the Quay Inn will ken a' about that. There's a man in the island ye will be glad to meet if he's in his ordinar—McDearg they ca' him—and after that, Hamish, we will stravaig to the South End and see the sheep there and come back hame again. Are ye game for it?" says he.

"Ay, Dan, but there's just this—who is this Dol Beag?"

"Dol Beag has a boat and a wife and weans, and he's a sour riligous man, keen for siller at any price. Well, I'm hoping the gangers have paid him well by this time, for I am thinking he will not enjoy it long."

[1] Fearsome apparitions.

[2] Shiver involuntarily.