rth siller if the man's regardless, and
there's many a lass will greet herself to sleep till the fires of her
youth are burnt out if harm comes to Dan McBride. Have ye no pity for
your ain sex?"

"Peety," she cries--"peety for a wheen licht-heided hussies that lo'e
the man best that tells the bonniest lees, or speaks them fairest. Na,
na, ma lad, nae peety. I'm watchin' a man that has tied their strings
and kissed their bonny ankles, when he should have let them dry his
sweat wi' their hair an' his feet wi' their braws.[2] Oh, why, why,"
she kind of wailed--"why will the King aye gang the cadger's road, and
ken himsel' a king, and the cadger a cadger." The horse, panting and
grunting at every breath, had breenged to the knowe on the roadside,
and still the knotted rein fell; and then with a mighty plunge he
reared up, balanced an instant on hind-legs, and then crashed backwards
and lay, and I felt my heart give a mighty beat as Dan sprang on the
brute's head and lay there, horse and man done.

"Come, you," snarled the man, as though he spoke to a dog; and the girl
went to him.

"Quate the brute," said he, "for he's trimmlin' sair, and I like his
temper a' the better for no' bein' broken."

"Ay, I'll quate the brute, easy as I wid yoursel'."

You may think you know a man till something happens, and you find him a
stranger, and so I found, for at her words the man sprang to his feet
as she soothed the horse.

"Say ye so," said he, and took her by the shoulder--"say ye so. I've
broken many a horse afore this ane, and, Belle, I'll break you," and I
watched the swarthy flush rise on the girl's face, and looked at the
man's eyes and saw the reason of it.

"Wheest, lad, wheest," she cried; "let me go to the wean."

"Wean--ye never had a wean. . . ."

And then she did a queer thing. She bent her dark head till I could
not see her eyes, but only the smooth eyelids and dark lashes, and she
put her little brown hand over the man's eyes and stood a picture of
humility, with a sad little smile on her face.

"Don't break me . . . yet," she murmured, and I saw Dan kiss her hand
as she slid it down over his lips, and her face brightened like a
flower in sunlight.

And there were the horses, rugging at the hedge where I had tethered
them; and Chieftain on his feet, shaky and foam-flecked, and trembling
at his knees; and the gipsy lass's wean greetin' at the hedge foot,
with one wee bare arm clear of the shawl, seemi