“There’s no ale for you to-night, Stephen,” she said, gaunt and truculent.
“And why, if I might ask?”
“Because you come boasting you’ve shot the dog that saved you all at Garsykes. There were few of Logie’s Men, and many of theirs; and he scattered them for you, to some purpose.”
“But, woman, he kills sheep.”
“And saves men, it seems. The Master mightn’t be here—or you either—if it hadn’t been for Storm.”
The shepherd was nonplussed for a moment. “That’s true enough,” he muttered, plucking at his thin, wiry beard. “They were in a mind to kill us that day, with their women egging them on.”
“Yet you come here, snug as a toad in its hole, and tell me you’ve killed Storm. A queer way of showing thankfulness for what life there’s left in your old bones.”
“You don’t understand. You never could, not being a shepherd.”
“Without a heart in his body.”
“With a heart for ravished ewes. There’s a law among us, fixed as old Pengables. A dog turned wolf is hunted till he’s shot.”