tle flushed
with wine, so that all his silence left him, and he was very shyly bold
and very gallant; but Margaret was stately and proud like her mother,
and smiled but little. And Hugh gloomed and laughed by turns, and had
an air of patronage to his cousin that was hurtful for me to be seeing
in him.

Hugh and Margaret were stopping at Scaurdale, but when the moon was
well up Bryde was for the road. At that there was an outcry, for he
was the soul of the place. The Laird of Scaurdale would have hindered
his going, and Helen made much ado, but his horse was brought, and we
came to the door to be seeing him off.

There was a brave moon, and the hillside very plain, and the noise of
the burn rumbling--a fine night to be out.

"I could be riding home too," said Margaret.

Bryde slipped his boot from the stirrup.

"Jump," said he, "and in two hours you'll be home, if Hamish and Hugh
will be allowing it."

I think she would have liked to go, for I saw the flash in her eyes,
and her quick smile, but then--

"No," said she; "it is a little cold here," and turned to go in.

Helen was at the Laird's side.

"But I have never ridden so," said she. "Would Monsieur take me to the
bridge--a little way and back," but before the Laird had given his
assent she was in the saddle and off with a wave of her arm; and I
thought of the night when she had ridden that way once before, with the
father of Bryde on the big roadster, and the Laird was thinking the
same thing.

They were back in a little; indeed, the hoof-beats were very plain all
the time, but Helen was white as she dismounted, and her good-bye was
very low, and she listened to the klop-to-klop of the hoofs for a long
time before she came in.

That night she came into Margaret's room (for the lass told me
everything), and sat down wearily by the bedside.

"Your spell works, Mistress Margaret," said she.

I think Margaret would raise herself on her pillows.

"Ah," said she, "have you brought Bryde to heel, Helen?"

"The spell works," said Helen, "but I think backwards. Margaret, ma
belle, he brings me to heel, it seem."

"They all have that knack, my men-folk," said Margaret--"mostly."

CHAPTER XXI.

DOL BEAG LAUGHS.

To town-bred folk the country in the winter time is an arid waste.
There is no throng of folk, no lighted ways, nor much amusement by
their way of it; but to the countryman the winter is the time--the long
dark nights for ceilidhing