“He swore he wouldn’t.”
“Aye, but I’d have found a quick change o’ mind myself—if Garsykes pressed me.”
Murgatroyd eyed him with sombre doubt. “What’s you’re name when you’re at home, my lad? You seem to know a lot about Garsykes.”
“I haven’t a home. That’s why I’m known as Will o’ Wisp.”
“The Master of Logie touched you with a bullet—and you sit grinning there as if he’d given you ale and crumpets.”
“I never cry over spilled luck. That’s what the road teaches a free-striding man. Besides, there was comfort met me on a little, grey brig o’ stone.” The man’s eyes twinkled with random, inborn gaiety. “I never saw such a lass in my life—slim and like a posy, and she was weaving a basket.”
Long Murgatroyd stirred restlessly, but his neighbour kicked him by stealth and whispered in his ear.
“That would be Nita,” said the widow—“Nita, the basket-maker, as we call her. Poor bairn, she was left an orphan——”
“That doesn’t trouble her now,” broke in Will o’ Wisp, with his heedless laugh. “She smiled so kindly as I went by that I asked the way to Garsykes. And it ended with my sitting on the brig beside her.”
“It does,” said Murgatroyd, heavily. “It always ends like that.”