“Does the grey road end somewhere?” she asked, linking her arm in his to help him up the steep.
“I trust not. When my time comes to go, there’ll surely be other hills beyond the Brink—winding roads, and further rises, and gloaming skies. I’d be lonely without them, child.”
They came to the grey house on the hill, through a rain of beech-leaves slanting down the breeze. The pedlar’s glance, quick for big things and little, caught a glint of the after-light on a small, polished thing that lay on top of the gate.
“The Wilderness Folk told no lies as we passed through,” said Donald. “I had speech with two or three, and their talk was all of this.”
“What is it?” asked Causleen, peering down at the thing lying in the old man’s palm.
“Just a token—and I’m wondering what sort of man lives here at Logie. He’ll need to be dour and staunch, with no fear about him.”
“They were kind enough to us, those folk,” she said, shivering a little at the memory; “but they were evil. While we were selling from the pack, and till we got away into the hills, there was poison round us.”
“There was. It’s a pity, girl, we haven’t let life dull the Highland vision. We ought to be toughened by this time.”
Again she glanced at the little thing in his palm. “Does it go hard with the man they hate?”
“It goes so hard that I’d not change places with him for a wealth of money. Weather is weather; fight in the open is fight; but what they’re putting on the Master of Logie would chill me to the bone.”