“What have you to sell?” asked the Master of Logie, aloof and cold.
“Favours for the maids,” said the pedlar, his voice soft with persuasion. He was thinking of Causleen’s safe lodging for the night, as he opened his pack and praised its wares. She was too tired, poor wean, to journey further, though he was so used to weariness that a further tramp through the night was of small account. “Favours for the maids—a blue mob-cap that sits bonnie enough on a young girl’s hair, with her eyes bo-peeping under it.”
“No maids live at Logie. There’s a grey, old woman indoors—a good cook, and quiet about the house—but she’s past favours.”
“You’re wrong,” persisted Donald. “If a woman neared her end at ninety, she’d cry for the pedlar to dress her up for bridegroom death.”
“Not Rebecca,” said Hardcastle. “I chose her with great care—a nether-millstone of a woman, without a frill or a furbelow about her.”
“You know much of women?” asked Causleen.
“Enough to last me a lifetime.” Something cold and savage showed in his face for a moment, then was gone. “My housekeeper is like the walls of Logie—staunch and weathered.”
“She never loses temper?” The girl was measuring swords with this self-secure, blunt man who disdained all pedlars. “You never find her crying her heart out when you come home before she looks for you?”
“She loses temper,” said Hardcastle, with lazy unconcern. “Not every day, or every week, but when the time comes for outlet. I’m made that way myself. We treat it like the ding of storm about a house that’s outlived many such.”
“And she never weeps?”