“You’re getting quick at the uptake,” grunted Brant.
A light step sounded close behind them, and Causleen stood there, her hair rippling in a dusky cloud about her night-gear.
“Oh, go back, child,” said the Master. “There’s trouble.”
“I’ve faced many kinds. Shall I tell you why I stay, Hardcastle of Logie?”
He was daunted by her courage, by the smouldering anger in her face. Causleen did not seem to hear Brant, or gaping door.
“I stay to see if you’re better at the fighting than the wooing. A laggard in one is a laggard at both, they say.”
It was no time for warfare of the tongue, and Hardcastle turned sharply to carry her out of harm’s way. He turned again, for the thick, nail-studded door had crashed inward with a swirl of flame and dancing faggot-embers.
Nothing chanced for awhile save fire that drove him back, and stench of tar and resin. Storm’s barking rang like a wolf-cry through the house, till suddenly it ceased, and Rebecca stood among them, the dog bristling by her side.
“Here’s a queer upset in my kitchen,” she said, glancing from the blazing doorway to the men’s faces. “I wakened late, I own, but I’d sense to go and loose Storm first. He might have been burned alive, poor lamb.”
Brant and the sheep-slayer eyed each other with slow wonder, as folk who had not looked for the meeting and did not relish it. Then, with peril waiting close at hand for both, the shepherd’s full-fed wrath blazed out.