The McBrides - A Romance of Arran

John Sillars

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• Publié par: unno
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 37
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg eBook, The McBrides, by
John Sillars
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Title: The McBrides A Romance of Arran
Author: John Sillars
Release Date: October 22, 2007 [eBook #23152]
Language: English
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK THE MCBRIDES***
E-text prepared by Al Haines
THE McBRIDESA Romance of Arran
by
JOHN SILLARS
Fifth Impression
The Ryerson Press, Toronto
William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1922TO
MY MOTHERLIST OF GAELIC NAMES AND
EXPRESSIONS.
Crotal, lichen.
"A traill," you sluggard.
Cleiteadh mor, big ridge of rocks.
Bothanairidh, summer sheiling.
Birrican, a place name.
Rhuda ban, white headland.
Bealach an sgadan, Herring slap.
Skein dubh, black knife.
Crubach, lame.
Mo ghaoil, my darling.
Direach sin, (just that), (now do you see).
Lag 'a bheithe, hollow of the birch.
Mo bhallach, my boy.
Ceilidh, visit (meeting of friends); ceilidhing;
ceilidher.
Cha neil, negative, no.
Mo leanabh, my child.
Cailleachs, old women.
Og, young.
Mhari nic Cloidh, Mary Fullarton.CONTENTS.
PART I.
CHAP.
I. WHICH TELLS OF THE COMING OF THE
GIPSY
II. MAKES SOME MENTION OF ONE JOCK
McGILP, AND TELLS HOW BELLE
BROUGHT THE WEAN IN THE TARTAN
SHAWL INTO THE HOUSE OF NOURN
III. IN WHICH I CHASE DEER AND SEE
STRANGE HORSEMEN ON THE HILL,
AND A LIGHT FLASHING ON THE SEA
IV. I MEET JOCK McGILP AND HIS MATE
McNEILAGE AT THE TUBS' INN,
AND LEARN WHAT HAS BECOME OF THE
WEAN IN THE TARTAN SHAWL
V. MIRREN STUART'S ERRAND
VI. WE TRAMP THROUGH THE SNOW TO
McKELVIE'S INN
VII. WE SAIL IN McKELVIE'S SKIFF TO THE
HOLY ISLAND
VIII. THE DEATH OF McDEARG, THE RED
LAIRD
IX. MIRREN STUART BIDS HER DOG LIE
DOWN
X. DOL BEAG IS FLUNG INTO A FIRE
XI. THE BLAZING WHINS XII. McALLAN'S LOCKER
XIII. DAN McBRIDE SAILS FROM LOCH BANZA
XIV. WE RETURN
XV. THE STRANGER ON THE MOORS
XVI. I HAVE SOME TALK WITH McGILP IN
McKINNON'S KITCHEN
PART II.
XVII. I TURN SCHOOLMASTER
XVIII. THE FIRST MEETING
XIX. THE RIDERS ON THE MOOR
XX. "THE LOVE SECRET"
XXI. DOL BEAG LAUGHS
XXII. THE SHAMELESS LASS
XXIII. HELEN AND BRYDE McBRIDE REST AT
THE FOOT OF THE URIE
XXIV. THE HALFLIN'S MESSAGE
XXV. I RIDE AGAIN TO McALLAN'S LOCKER
XXVI. A WEDDING ON THE DOORSTEP
XXVII. MARGARET McBRIDE KISSES HELEN
XXVIII. IN WHICH BETTY COMPLAINS OF
GROWING-PAINS
XXIX. THE RAKING BLACK SCHOONER
XXX. TELLS WHERE BRYDE MET HAMISH OG
XXXI. BRYDE AND MARGARET
XXXII. BRYDE AND HELEN
XXXIII. HOW JOHN McCOOK HEARS OF THE
PLOY AT THE CLATES
XXXIV. WHAT CAME OF THE PLOY
XXXV. DOL BEAG LAUGHS AGAINTHE McBRIDES.
PART I.
CHAPTER I.
WHICH TELLS OF THE COMING OF THE GIPSY.
It was April among the hills, waes me, the far-away
days of my youth, when the hills were smiling
through the mists of their tears, and the green
grasses thrusting themselves through the withered
mat of the pasture like slender fairy swords. April in
the hills, with the curlews crying far out on the
moorside, past the Red Ground my grandfather
wrought, and where again the heather will creep
down, rig on rig, for all the stone dykes, deer
fences, and tile drains that ever a man put money
in. I never knew why it was they called it "Red
Ground," for it was mostly black peaty soil, but my
grandfather would be saying, "It will be growing
corn. Give it wrack, and it will be growing corn for
evermore."
They tell me he was a great farmer for all he was
laird, and never happier than at his own plough tail,
breaking a colt to work in chains; and he it was
who improved the stock in cattle and horse in our
glens, for he would be aye telling the young
farmers, "Gie the quey calves plenty o' milk, as
much as they'll lash into themselves. Be good tothem when the baby flesh is on them, and they'll
grow and thrive, and your siller'll a' come back in
the milking."
The countryside clavered and havered when he
bought his pedigree bulls and his pedigree mares.
"It's money clean wasted," said the old farmers,
"for a calf's a calf no odds what begets it, and a
horse that can work in chains and take its turn on
the road is horse enough for any man, without
sinking money in dumb beasts, and a' this sire-
and-dam pother." It would anger the old man that
talk, ay, even when he was the old frail frame of
what once he was,—like a dead and withered ash-
tree, dourly awaiting the death gale to send it
crashing down, to lie where once its shade fell in
the hot summer days of its youth,—and the blood
would rise up on his neck, where the flesh had
shrunk like old cracked parchment, and left cords
and pipes of arteries and veins, gnarled like old ivy
round a tree.
Querulous he was and ill-tempered with the
scoffers. "Man, if I had twenty more years I would
grow hoofs on your horse and udders on your in-
coming queys." Well, well, I'm fond of this farming,
but I have set out to tell a tale, which in my poor
fancy should even be like a rotation of crops, from
the breaking in of the lea to the sowing out in
grass, with the sun and winds and sweet rains to
ripen and swell the grain—the crying of the
harvesters and the laughing of lassies among the
stocks in the gloaming, the neighing of horse and
the lowing of kine in the evening.On that morning so long ago Dan and I were
ploughing stubble, and I followed my horses in all
joy, laughing to see them snap as I turned them in
at the head-rigs, and coaxing them as they threw
their big glossy shoulders into the collar on the
brae face. So the morning wore on as I ploughed,
with maybe a word now and then to Dick, and a
touch of the rein to Darling, and the sea-gulls
screaming after us as the good land was turned
over. The sun came glinting through the hill mist,
and the green buds were bursting in the
hedgerows for very gladness.
I was free from the college, free from the smoke-
wrack and the grime of the town, free to hear the
birds awake and singing in the planting behind the
stackyard, and I breathed great gulps of air and felt
clean and purged of all the evil of the town; for if
there is vice in the country, it is to my mind evil
without sordidness.
I remember my foolish thoughts were something
like these, even though my reading should have
taught me better, for the Garden of Eden was a
fine place to sin in by all accounts, yet the
environment did not mitigate the punishment. In
these young days, when my body glowed from a
swim and my eyes were clear, I thought the
minister too hard on that original iniquity.
It was coming on for dinner-time—lowsin' time, as
we say in the field—when Dan shouted—
"Hamish," says he, "who'll yon be that's travellin' so