“Your good leddy’s tired,” said he. “Maybe you’d best rest a wee before we gang further.”
Brown looked at his wife. She was certainly very pale, and her dark eyes were bright and wild.
“What is it, Maggie? I’ve wearied you. I’m thinkin’ it’s time we went back.”
“No, no, John, let us go on. It’s wonderful! It’s like a dreamland place. It all seems so close and so near to me. How long were the Romans here, Mr. Cunningham?”
“A fair time, mam. If you saw the kitchen midden-pits you would guess it took a long time to fill them.”
“And why did they leave?”
“Well, mam, by all accounts they left because they had to. The folk round could thole them no longer, so they just up and burned the fort aboot their lugs. You can see the fire marks on the stanes.”
The woman gave a quick little shudder. “A wild night—a fearsome night,” said she. “The sky must have been red that night—and these grey stones, they may have been red also.”
“Aye, I think they were red,” said her husband. “It’s a queer thing, Maggie, and it may be your words that have done it; but I seem to see that business aboot as clear as ever I saw anything in my life. The light shone on the water.”
“Aye, the light shone on the water. And the smoke gripped you by the throat. And all the savages were yelling.”