for Bryde), and
then, "Where is the so great calm of Margaret?"

"The gaugers are at the Clates--Gilchrist and Dol Beag and Bryde and
Dan. Can ye not see what will come of it?" I know not what I cried to
Hugh as we galloped.

But at my words Helen leaned forward on her saddle, and coaxed her
horse in a whisper, and he stretched to the gallop like a hound.

"A droll beginning this," said Hugh. "Helter-skelter ower the
countryside for a wheen gangers. What sort o' bridal night is this?
Could they no' keep their dirty fighting out o' my marriage. . . ."

"Ye were not meant to ken, Hugh."

"And I wish I did not ken. God, look at Helen--look at my wife--look
at yon."

For Helen was abreast of Margaret and leaning from her saddle, and
speaking to the black horse, and he kent her voice and swerved to his
mistress.

"Do-you-know-who-he-is-like, my brave Hillman?" said Helen.

"He is like his mist . . . he is like the devil," said Margaret.

Sometimes yet I can see Helen's face clear-cut upraised against the
sky, her curling black hair flying loose, and never, never will I
forget her laughing--the devilry and the joy of it.

CHAPTER XXXV.

DOL BEAG LAUGHS AGAIN.

Angus McKinnon stretched himself on the shore at the Clates. "I am not
liking this waiting," said he to Dan McBride; "McNeilage might have
been standing closer in."

"It will be the Revenue cutter he is feared of, Angus," said his father.

"The Revenue boat is lying off the White Rock in Lamlash," said Angus.
"McNeilage will be getting old and sober."

"Wait a wee, Angus--wait a wee, my boy." It was another McKinnon, a
friend of his own, that spoke. "Things are just right; the wee boats
will be in 'e noo. It is a good park of barley I had, yes, and the
best of it in the kegs."

"Angus is right, father," said a tall lass with a shawl about her head,
not hiding the bonny boyish face of her.

"Hooch ay, lass; Angus will be always right by your way of it,--it is
in your bed you should be."

The wee boats were close inshore now, and the _Gull_ well off, for the
Clates is not a nice place if the wind will be shifting to the suthard.
With the grating of the keel of the first boat on the beach the men
made a start to be lifting the kegs, and carrying them to the boat and
wading, for it is not very safe to let a boat go hard aground if there
will be a hurry to be shoving her off again.

Into this mix-up of bending and hurrying folk came th