“Back again, are you, Storm?” said the Master, with gruff banter. “Red from the feast, as usual?”
But the dog’s grey muzzle was innocent of stains. For three days he had ravened, then had slept off the after-sickness, had lapped greedily at every stream he passed. No guile showed in the brown, humid eyes. He knew nothing of repentance, or need of it. It was just that his wander-lust was over, and somewhere deep in his being was the knowledge that danger threatened Logie. He was home again, and at his post.
“It was time you came,” said Hardcastle. “Dogs I know, and horses I know—but women are beyond me.”
Storm had the better of him; for a half-hour later Causleen found him in the cupboard under the stair, and brought him food, and made much of him before she bent above his tousled head.
“Oh, Storm,” she said, and cried her heart out.
CHAPTER XVI
A ROPE-END AND A TREE
I
Hardcastle fretted during the next days, because the hurt to his knee yielded slowly even to Rebecca’s skill with peat and simples and the right way of handling bandages. The fear was on him constantly that Garsykes would hear of his infirmity and rush to the attack before his strength returned to face it.
There was the pedlar, trusting to the shelter he had promised him—and Rebecca, old in service—and Causleen.