The jostling mob, glad of a scapegoat for its panic, turned on Murgatroyd.
“Aye, be you first to cross the bridge—if you dare, mad Murgatroyd!”
His madness came on him in earnest. The broken years of his slavery to Nita, came to a head. Better any happening up at Logie than Nita’s laughter if they left the house standing and came back with the tale.
He forced his way through the press. Shammocky no longer, but grim and straight and broad he led his Legion of the Lost between the grey, narrow walls of Logie Brigg. And all men followed him, afraid of the gaunt figure striding through the gloom.
They came to the gate of Logie, where Donald had found their token in the autumn days. Above them the house lay dark and hushed. Starlings cheeped and scolded in the ivied wall, but no other challenge answered their intrusion.
Murgatroyd gave a low chuckle—bleak and terrible as when he had jested after looking over the brink of death.
“We’re not expected, though I blabbed to Hardcastle. He fancied, seemingly, that a liar never can speak truth.”
Then, with savage zest, he planned the night-surprise, giving them no time for a second panic. He would lead one half to the main door, while the rest stole through the stable-yard and attacked the kitchen-entry.
“Sharp and ready does it, and any man would be a fool to fall soft now. He’d have Long Murgatroyd to reckon with.”
Overwhelming weight of numbers was with them. So was the slumber of a house that did not look for them to-night. But Murgatroyd’s gruff threat was the steadying note.