“If I had a tongue like thine, Rebecca, I’d do two things—tie a double knot in it, then cut it at the root.”
“Hark to him, Jonah,” shrilled the old woman, gaunt and fiery. “Comes bringing his saucy ways to Logie’s kitchen, where you and me live.”
The brindled cat knew his mistress, her every look and change of voice. His fur had been scorched, moreover, at some time of the wild onset, and he was in evil temper. He stalked up and down about Brant’s knees, growling as a dog might.
“Going Storm’s way, are you?” said the shepherd. “You’ll be for the wild lands soon, and a dollop of lead to teach you poacher’s shrift.”
Causleen looked on, wide-eyed and troubled. In her Highland glens they had sung of far-off battles. She had been suckled in the faith that warriors returned from victory with glad faces and shouts of triumph. Yet here at Logie, safe through heavy odds, Rebecca and the shepherd were snarling at each other, as if all was lost. It was her first taste of battle and its aftermath.
“While I was getting up from my dazement, Master,” said Brant by and by, “I heard another screech and running of the Garsykes Men, and made shift to follow with the butt-end of the blunderbuss. But they outran me, like. So I stepped in here, to ask what had happened.”
“All the world, Stephen—and what’s beyond it.”
And now Causleen heard the note of victory at last—heard it in his voice. All that was Hardcastle was hers, and she was his. She thought of the father lying yonder. He would be content.
Hardcastle, going to the porch to hear if there were any lurking Wilderness Folk about the courtyard, lifted a foot instinctively as he crossed the threshold. He remembered the body that had fallen in answer to his charge of shot.
“Aye, he was there,” said Rebecca dryly; “but I took leave to shift him into the stable-yard. We’ll hoist him over the Long Pasture wall to-morrow—and the Garsykes sort will steal up to take him off. They’re like rats in that way, too—attentive to their burials.”