d among the kitchen
wenches that whiles comes into my mind, Hamish."

"The kitchen wenches' conversation will be doing finely for me," says
I, a little put out.

"It is none such a bad saying either, Hamish. This is it," said she,
"and there's no great occasion to be in a black mood with a lass--

"A clean want, Hamish, is better than a dirty breakfast. That's what
the lassies say, whiles, in the kitchen."

CHAPTER XXVII.

MARGARET McBRIDE KISSES HELEN.

It would always be a great pleasure for me to be watching Dan, the way
he would be toiling against the heather, and draining in the moss in
the seasons, and rearing his horses, for his great war-horse sired many
foals, and maybe to this day you will see the traces of that breed in
the little crofts where the horses and cattle beasts are as long bred
as the names of the folk that own them. They were black for the most
part, the breed of the war-horse, and very proud in their bearing, but
bigger beasts than the native breed, and not so much cow-hocked
(although that is a hardy sign), nor so scroggy at the hoof--ay, and
they would trot for evermore. You will maybe hear to this day a farmer
saying of a mare of that strain: "She is one of the old origineels."
But whiles the twenty years of his soldiering would come over the man,
and ye would be hearing him at his camp-songs in the French language,
and there would come a prideful swing to his body, and a quick way of
speech, and an overbearing look, as though maybe the common work was
galling, and the sheep and beasts nothing better than for boiling in a
soldier's camp-kettle. These times would maybe be after a fair or a
wedding, and indeed he was not to be interfered with except by his own
native folk, for he would ride at a ganger or an exciseman for the
pleasure of seeing them run like dafties when the mood was on him--or a
drop too much in him--and for no ill-nature whatever; but it was
fearsome to see the big black horse stretch to the gallop, with flying
mane and wicked eye a-rolling. But Belle could tame her man, and she
kent his every mood and his every look. It was droll and laughable too
to see her hand his little son to Dan (for old Betty was right: there
was another son to Belle--not a "scroosch," as the old one said, but
one boy, and they put Hamish on him for a name: Hamish Og they called
him, and he ruled that house).

"Here is your son to be holding for a little, my man," that dark woman