"I come o' folk, ye reiver, that lay down and rose up among their
horse, in the black tents, that loved and hated among their horse, that
lived and died among their horse, and ye would talk to me o' spells.
Did I but say the word to that black horse, not you nor any o' the folk
ye cam' crooked among would straddle him and live to boast o' it after."

Dan sat his horse like a statue. It makes my old eyes moist and my
throat choky to this day to think of it, for I loved him through
everything. Could he have had command of heavy horse, and won his rest
on some glorious field, brave, headstrong, devil-may-care Dan; but
there he sat and looked on the Cassandra, and his eyes were laughing
from his stern face as he took a turn on the rope reins.

"Back, my bonny horse," said he to Chieftain, and there was a kind of
joyous lilt in his voice. "Draw away your pair, Hamish, and this lan'
horse o' mine. We'll miss our dinner maybe, but I've an unco hankering
after this word."

Away down in my heart I knew what was coming, and I watched the woman
loosen her tartan shawl and lay her infant in a neuk among the hedge
roots.

"I'm waitin' now, my dear," said Dan, "and in case I dee I'll tell ye I
think I could break you in, for I like the devil temper bleezin' in
your bonny black een, and your lips would warm a deein' man. My dear,
I think I could be your man for a' ye say I cam' crooked; for spaewife
or no--God's life, ye're awfu' bonny, Belle."

The gipsy gave a little lilting laugh.

"You," says she--"you. I'm not saying but you're a pretty man, and
I've good looks enough for baith--if I loved ye; but, man, my love
would be a flame. Wid ye burn with me, lad; wid ye burn?"

"I think I would too," said he, "for your een have started the bleeze
a'ready, and I'm dootin' it'll finish in brimstane."

"Ay, ay, Dan; I'm spaein' true. I jibed at you, although you did not
say the word o' the glens o' the wee creatur' under the hedge there, as
ye might have. Ye've good blood in ye, lad, and I'm loving your
spirit, but I'm the Belle o' your death, Dan, the Death-Bell. Now!"

No words of mine can convey my impression of that scene. There were
the hills, silent and grandly contemptuous, there was a rabbit loping
across the road to the hedge foot, and there the road the woman had
come stretched upwards; but as she spoke some subtle essence seemed to
flood her veins, her sombre eyes flashed, her cheeks glowed darkly, and
she tre