And Lanty said yes.
Out in the yard, by Bluecaster’s wheel, revulsion swept over him. The weight he had lifted pressed hard. He looked up sharply.
“You trust me too much! Will you never see a thing with your own eyes? Suppose I’m wrong, after all?”
Bluecaster, reins in hand, looked down at him with a shamed bitterness in his face.
“It’s better to be wrong and a sportsman than a cur that won’t face the drain! I wish to God, Lancaster, you were my elder brother!”
Lanty rode after him across the marsh, his foreboding heart in his stirrups. But as he began to climb at last, and the whole panorama of eastern hills came into view, his burden dropped from him. The die was cast. None but a coward would wish it back. What would come, must. He would rest content.
He could see the Whygills curled asleep on the horizon, like giant elephants cuddled trunk to trunk, their soft, velvet, wrinkled backs hunched into the tender sky. Below them the heather glowed pink and rich on the dark ridges of moor. He drew a deep breath as he rode forward, his heart eased. Yet he had taken not only the whole of the marsh, but Bluecaster himself into his hands.
CHAPTER X
TERROR BY NIGHT
Lup was waiting with the boat when Wolf came down to the channel. The tide was gone, now, but where the old man stood the still-shining sand sucked heavily at his boots. The son held the boat while his father climbed in, then pushed off again in silence. They had not spoken unless forced since the moment of fierce contact in Lancaster’s office.