The Birmingham age-herald., 1907-11-03
CHAPTER III.
A New Type of Young Ma

The younger of the two men who took Vida off the wreck of The Good Intent in the Suck of Sannox, was a red-headed Irishman. And when you were much stronger and readier with your fists than he was you called him by that name to his face. If not. you said, Mister Billy" or familarly, "Billy." His name on the records of the Commissioners of the Northern Lights was William Bryan, but he rarely insisted upon this. Indeed, he always looked up quickly to see if you were chaffing him when you referred to him as MT" Bryan.
 Formerly these two had been stationed on a rock-light of an inferior kind, called the Muckle Ross; in Galloway, but had been promoted when the Wolf Skerry Light was built which was a very big rise indeed. For the Wolf Skerry is one of the biggest, completest, most up-to- date and complicated lights in the three Kingdoms, and great writer very nearly had a hand in constructing 1t Instead he looked for pebbles along the shore, and To! when he found them they were all diamonds and emeralds and rubies.
 On the MuclSle Ross also. Billy and his mate had been mixed up with little girl called Saucy Easdaile and two very naughty boys named Dinky and Toady Lion, but neither of them much liked to be reminded of that. Since then, Dick Finnan had tried going for spell, but he found it monstrous dull after the lighthouse, where at least there were al- ways the redeetors to give last rub to, the lights to re-arrange, or the ships to watch. So when he heard of the Wolf Skerry and how Billy Bryan was first on the list for it. he begged and prayed to be allowed to go with him, even with out wages.
 But now that Vida had come and Dick |. .I. lA-1w. craving for the land returned. Only never again would he live a life of idleness. He had never in all his days done such hard work as during that six months when he had done nothing-so. at least, he was in the habit of telling his cron- ies, who, not being born that way. had considerable difficulty in believing him.
 So he took the position of storekeeper at the big Incubus pits, and with it the lease of pretty cottage almost at the gates of Gorm House. the residence of Jacob Romer Esq, J. P, D. D.
 Quite a slim girl when she left Thorsby Old Quay to join the ill-omened Good h. tent, with her mother leaning on her arm, Vida had grown into a woman in the five years she had spent with Dick Fin nan. To begin with there had been a quarrel between the two men on the light house as to who was to have her to look after. The claims of the senior were, however, manifestly paramount. Dick was an aged man. a man of prop erty and an elder of the kirk. He had served his time, so that he could turn his hand to anything. Billy was "thirled' to the light house, and that was no place in which to keep a young lass, ''pewed up, as it were" said Dick. ct is believed that he meant 'mewed.')
 But Billy Bryan, upon the refusal of their young fiotsam from the sea to give any account of herself which included a reference to her name, insisted that she should bear his and not Dicks. Other wise he would contest the entire claim.
 Sure, she's the orphan daughter of a brother of mne.' he said threateningly to his mate. and since ye have never seen my brother, ye can't gainsay 1t. Now I put it to ye can ye, Dick Finnan? Be- sides. it's only reasonable. Here are you wi that fine young lass for a daughter. or as good-ready to sew on your buttons Aud mend your stocking. read ye to sleep of Sunday out of a good book, or sit along O ye in the kirk looking like posy beside a scarecrow. And here am I on the Wolf Light-ine having as much right to the colleen as you--with only the sea-scarts and the reek of your cottage over wonder at the house gate to cheer mel So she's got to be my only brothers only daughter, l tell ye. And if any man dares to say to the contrary, let him step out to the Skerry, that's all,''
 So, simply in virtue of her silence. n- deed, without being consulted in the mat ter Dick Finnan's ward became Miss Vida Bryan. And what is more. all tAe young men, as she came to be Sweet-and- Twenty, considered it one of the prettiest names in the world.
 vida Bryan,' Little Vida Bryan" Pretty Vida Bryanv 'Dainty Vida!' Taken plain or with the sauce of adjec- ! tives-anyway-it sounded. as her poor mother would, have said. nice" Yes. ''nice"-but. alas. the owner was not often kind to those who thus used it. For Vida retained the temper she had shown so unexpectedly and volcancally when Uncle Tom crossed her in the mat ter of the poor side for her mother, at the Thorsby general hospital. And though she made her own dresses-they were of weelx-day print. with alpaca for Sundays-and though she tried to be only a cottager's lass. there was something almost fierce about her which she could not rule out-somethng that told in her gait, in the carry of her head in her way of entering room, in her manner of sitting in a chair, in the way she handled knife and fork. and. especially, in the power she had of putting obstru- sive and assuming males into their places.
 This difference was variously expressed in the parish of Kirktown.
 ''Slfer looks as if she thought herself somebody" said the women. Pity our daughters have not been wrecked and that nobody knows anything about theml Eh, it's a rare loss for the poor bits O