“Not so hasty. It must be good lodging for my girl, however it goes with me.”
The Master glowered down at them from under sullen brows. “I’ve power to take it without price of any sort.”
“You have—but not power to use your strength against an aged man. Your face tells me that.”
“Well, then, your price is granted—a good lodging for the night.”
“For both?” asked Causleen. “Father cares little what bed he finds—but I care for him.”
“Beggars seem to be choosers these days,” snapped Hardcastle, raw with trouble.
“It does seem so,” said Donald gently. “The beggars out there are riding on your gate already.”
He opened his palm, and the moonlight glinted on a flint arrow-head, smooth and polished.
Do as he would, something near panic took the Master. The men of Logie-side had paid tribute diligently—till yesterday, when at last it was asked of a Hardcastle and met with blunt refusal. The fight at the pinfold had marked him. He was lame and bruised, but that was the pleasant fruit of victory in single combat against three.
The thing he looked on now was a token hedged about with dread of the forefathers. Once, in the twilight days of the Logie country, a man of the caves had killed his enemy with it, or had slain a wild-fowl for daily food. Since then it had grown to be what it was to Hardcastle—a thing of stark terror, known to all since the Lost Folk first bit their way into an honest country. He would have been less than flesh-and-blood if he had not weakened to this harsh trial time.