The McBrides A Romance of Arran

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 WHI...

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...

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 th...

Nourn was home to me in my holidays and vacations from the college, and here I was back again for good, having become Magister Artium and well acquainted with the plane-stanes a...

The corn was in the stackyard and the stacks thatched, and all that summer Belle and her wean stayed with us, the lass working at the weeding and the harvesting, and the wean we...

We were at common work enough, Dan and me, in the Blair Mhor when the night clouds were banking behind the Blackhill to swoop down on the fast flying winter afternoon. Indeed, i...

The shame of my first night's ploy at the Turf Inn lay heavy on me for a while, and then I would be thinking of the swarthy crew with their knives and their fierce oaths at the...

With the afternoon came snow, round hard flakes like wee snowballs, dry and silent and all-pervading, and the hills were changed, and there came on the sea that queer mysterious...

Through the throng of bearded sailors we strode and made our way to the kitchen of the Quay Inn. A place sacred to kenspeckle folk it was, and from its smoke-stained rafters hun...

"Come in, lads, come in; the lassies are weary waiting for their lads, the poor bit things, sair negleckit on this weary isle, wi' nane to see their ankles but scarts[1] and sol...

It was after the burial of the Red Laird that we returned to the Quay Inn in McKelvie's skiff, and this time we had McKelvie's lass and Ronny McKinnon with us. The _Seagull_ was...

And now you will be coming to meet Dan and me on the long road back from the South End, and coming on with us like a good comrade, for Dan that day walked like a man that was fe...

McKinnon was first in that long race and I next to him, for Dan would not let me out of his sight lest I should lag behind and get rough handling, although indeed, except the ga...

Over the first rise of the hills was a long dreary waste--treeless, awesome, desolate. Whiles, as we ran, a curlew would rise, and its long whirling cry rose in the night, filli...

For a while we lay silent on the giant's step of McAllan's Locker, and I felt my spirits lighten to be outside of that place. The hills were silent, but from the cave came a bay...

We made the great to-do in Alastair's kitchen between the exceeding gladness of the news and the foolishness of our flight, and Alastair himself was rowing in the fog after the...

It would be well on into May, for the men were thrang with work, and the lassies at the big house haining a bit of bannock to be putting under their pillows for fear of hearing...

In the gloaming I left the sheiling, and took my way through the hill, as we say, for McKinnon's house by the glen on the road to Birrican, and the first of that road is just pl...

There were many things to be doing in these days--peats to be cutting and carted home and built into tidy stacks, just as you can see them to-day, and the sprits and bog hay to...

When we made our way indoors the dogs were bounding and frolicking round Margaret, and she was all laughter. Her eyes were dancing, and her wind-whipped cheeks glowed darkly; th...

I would be seeing very little of Bryde for many a day after that, for there was aye work to be doing at his hill farm, and hard work will be bringing sound sleep.

Lassies are droll creatures, and will tell many things the one to the other in the way of a ploy, and Margaret McBride made great work with old Betty's love potion, and that to...

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...

I left Bryde sleeping at last and restless, with Belle wide-eyed by his bedside, and traked down to the big house very bitter at heart against Hugh, for the quarrel had been of...

There was a long time that Bryde was lame and weak, for he had lost much blood, but his strength came back to him, and it is droll to think that he had grown in his bed. When he...

I mind that there was a good back-end that year, as we say, with plenty of keep for the beasts, and the stacks under thatch of sprits by the end of September, and I would be sta...

There came a weariness of the spirit over me that long dreary winter, and all nature was there to be seconding my dismal thoughts. For months never did I awake but my first thou...

It was at the drakes' dridd that Dan roused me, and we left McAllan's Locker behind us with its gruesome keepers, and came down the hillside to the burn. I mind that there was a...

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,...

There was a great change in the old one, it seemed to me, when I was seeing her. She would be so very wee-looking in her bed, and her spirits so low. She looked at the lotions a...

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 laughe...

What would you be having me tell you now?--of how we carried the fish home from the skiff, of how we walked slowly up the shore road, with Bryde standing to look at the places h...

I think truly there was not much sleep for Margaret, even as she said, for did not I hear her moving, and I would be thinking of her turning and twisting fornent the image-glass.

And this is how the matter fell out. There will be to this day a love of stravaging among the young men, and maybe in the old ones as well, and I kent that Bryde would whiles be...

There is a fate that stalks in the hills and plays with the lives of the folk in the valleys. "You will stop with your mother,"--these were the words that Helen gave her serving...

Bryde and Margaret would be aye at their planning, and the lass with a glamour of joy at the sewing and marking of linen; and whiles it would seem that Bryde himself was forgot,...

"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...