ll be glad to be rid o' me then. You'll be forgetting me soon,"
and the man let his arm drop from her shoulders, and the cold
intolerant pride of his voice stung like a whip-lash, for he never
could thole that the woman he loved could even have a thought different
from his own, let alone a love-hatred.

I expected a proud heart-breaking lie from the sombre beauty, but for
all his answer she crept close, and clung to him with both hands, and
hid her face on his breast; then holding him at the stretch of her arms
she raised her head, and looked Dan in his eyes.

"Oh, man," she cried, "I have that that will keep me in mind o' ye,
shameless, shameless that I am," and two great tears rose in her eyes,
the first tears I ever saw there, but Dan lifted her in his arms like a
baby.

"Was ever there such a mother for a bold man's son," I heard him cry in
a voice of love and pride and laughter.

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. What was
the son of these to be?

Alastair slipped out quietly, and Ronny and me sat at the fireside.

"We'll manage," said McKinnon, "for the gomerils have let us slip at
their bonfire and lost us. The goodman here is McGilp's man, and his
skiff's ready, and the _Gull_ will be close in behind the point at high
water. It will just be good-bye to Dan McBride wi' the turn o' the
tide."

"But how can this godly man be a smuggler?" said I, more to make talk
than anything else.

"Godly men must live like ither folk," said Ronny.

For a while we sat there till Dan and Belle joined us, and the lass
could not be letting go of her man, the brave proud lass. I watched
her hand quivering in his great brown one, and her eyes following his
every change of look, and her face was all sorrow. I came near to
hating Dan McBride too.

In the grey of the morning we made our way stealthily to the shore by
the point.

Dan and the gi