devilry in these bonny places"; and McKinnon's son sighed
in a way that would have brought no pleasure to the ears of his mother,
Mirren Stuart, that used to ride the Uist pony in her young days.

The grass was wet with dew when I left the sailor and made my road
home, and I mind that I looked away to the suthard for a sail, and
there was a queer gladness and a sorrow in me, and a grave doubt about
that old woman Mhari nic Cloidh and her havers.

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE RAKING BLACK SCHOONER.

I met Belle and Dan with the boy with them at the big stones away below
the peat hags where the sea lies open to a man's look, and I took the
young boy on my shoulder and laughed at Belle when she would be saying
he was too big to be carried, and there was the look of pride in the
swarthy face, pride and tenderness, as she stood, her hand on the arm
of her man. But Dan kent me better.

"Out with it, Hamish. What good news gars ye giggle like a lass?"

"Man," I said, "have ye no' heard?--McKinnon's son is home, and has
word o' Bryde. Betty will be seeing him with this boy in his arms yet.
Bryde is coming home."

Belle's hands came to her heart for a little, and then her arms were
round Dan like a wild thing.

"Oh, man, man, are you not glad?" she cried--"are you not glad?"

"Glad!" said Dan, and swallowed hard. "Ay, lass, glad is not the
word," and then he kept shaking my hand, and looking at me without
words, but Belle was afire.

"Hamish," she cried, clinging to me with her daftlike foreign ways,
"will you always be bringing me good news till I am old and ugly?"

That night old Betty forgot her growing-pains and sang to the boy,
Hamish Og, and it was a mercy that he had not much of the Gaelic so
far, for the songs were not very douce, and not what a body might be
expecting from an old woman that had seen much sorrow; but I am often
thinking that she would have her good days too, for she would be
enjoying her biting, and putting a pith into it that made Dan himself
stare in wonder.

And I told my uncle and my aunt the news when Margaret was not by, for
I kept mind of her talk of old wives' havers, and I kent the mother of
Margaret would not be telling her, nor the Laird either for that part,
for he was a good deal under her thumb in these matters; but for all
that I might have been sparing myself the bother, for this is what came
of it.

We were gathered for the reading and Hugh a little late, as was usual
w