CHAPTER XXIII
THE BATTLE
It was gray dawn, with a reddening sky in the east, when Nort walked up the town road. The fire within him had somewhat died down, and he began to feel tired and, yes, hungry. At the brook at the foot of the hill he stopped and threw himself down on the stones to drink, and as he lifted his head he looked at himself curiously in the pool. The robins were beginning to sing, and all the world was very still and beautiful.
When he got up Fergus touched him on his shoulder. He was startled, and glanced around suddenly, and the two men stood for a moment looking into each other's eyes. And Nort knew as well as though some one had told him, that it had come to an unescapable issue between him and this grim Scotchman.
"Well, Fergus, where did you drop from?"
He tried to carry it off jauntily: he had always played with Fergus.
"I've been waitin' fer ye," said Fergus. "I want ye to come in the wood wi' me. I have a bone to pick wi' ye."
Fergus seemed perfectly cool; whatever agitation he felt showed itself only in the increasing Scotchiness of his speech.
Nort objected faintly, but was borne along by a will stronger than his own. They stepped into the woods and walked silently side by side until they came to an opening near the edge of a field. Here there were beech trees with spaces around them, and the ground was softly clad in new green bracken and carpeted with leaves. Nort felt a kind of cold horror which he could not understand.
"Fergus," he said, again trying to speak lightly, "it was you I saw looking in at David's window."