Murgatroyd glanced up the grey fells, as he swayed unsteadily for a moment when the breeze found the ale in him. Then he strode up to his cottage under Scummer Rigg.
“Will o’ Wisp courts Will o’ Wisp,” he muttered, with a big, joyous hiccough. “The devilment there’ll be in Garsykes.”
II
About five of that November evening, Hardcastle had come to his house of Logie and heard a woman’s voice as he stepped into the hall after stabling his horse.
“Now, Storm, be quiet,” she chided. “You’ve had two weeks of nursing, and you’re nearly well. I’ll not have you snap at me. But then all sick folk are that way,” she went on, coaxing and scolding in the same breath.
She was changing the sheep-slayer’s bandages, and glanced up at Hardcastle with a smile of welcome.
“He’s strong enough to need a male nurse now. Will you do the rest?”
Storm tried his fretful temper on the Master, but not for long. He did not whimper even as the ointment stung and galled before it soothed; for he knew that the days of his pamperdom were nearly over—and that Hardcastle knew it, too.
When he had licked himself for a while, then settled into sleep, Causleen and Hardcastle stood in the draughty hall, glancing at each other with the new understanding that had come by stealth to them during these last days.
“Donald—how is he?” he asked.