Yet Maggie Moore, had she been on speaking terms with him, could have undeceived him. For, one night, when alone in the kitchen, on suddenly looking up, she had seen to her horror a dim, moonlike face glued against the windowpane. In the first mad panic of the moment she almost screamed, and dropped her work; then—a true Moore—controlled herself and sat feigning to work, yet watching all the while.
It was M'Adam, she recognized that: the face pale in its framework of black; the hair lying dank and dark on his forehead; and the white eyelids blinking, slow, regular, horrible. She thought of the stories she had heard of his sworn vengeance on her father, and her heart stood still, though she never moved. At length with a gasp of relief she discerned that the eyes were not directed on her. Stealthily following their gaze, she saw they rested on the Shepherds' Trophy; and on the Cup they remained fixed, immovable, while she sat motionless and watched.
An hour, it seemed to her, elapsed before they shifted their direction, and wandered round the room. For a second they dwelt upon her; then the face withdrew into the night.
Maggie told no one what she had seen. Knowing well how terrible her father was in his anger, she deemed it wiser to keep silence. While as for David M'Adam, she would never speak to him again!
And not for a moment did that young man surmise whence his father came when, on the night in question, M'Adam returned to the Grange, chuckling to himself. David was growing of late accustomed to these fits of silent, unprovoked merriment; and when his father began giggling and muttering to Red Wull, at first he paid no heed.
“He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet. There's many a slip twixt Cup and lip—eh, Wullie, he! he!” And he made allusion to the flourishing of the wicked and their fall; ending always with the same refrain: “He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet.”
In this strain he continued until David, his patience exhausted, asked roughly:
“What is't yo' mumblin' aboot? Wha is it yo'll beat, you and yer Wullie?”
The lad's tone was as contemptuous as his words. Long ago he had cast aside any semblance of respect for his father.
M'Adam only rubbed his knees and giggled.