Nita knew now that all had miscarried, and they snarled in answer to her spite. For a moment they had in mind to rive her limb from limb; and, knowing the danger, she faced them with outstretched hands and a pleading smile that might have been a child’s.
“Why should you hurt your little basket-weaver?”
“Because we’re plugged with lead and rusty nails,” grunted a shammocky rogue whose right arm hung limp.
“Aye,” said another. “It was you that sent us up to Logie.”
They were round her now like wolves. Foiled and wounded, they longed to spring on this new prey, yet could not. Nita had queened it over Garsykes so long that old experience did not fail her now. She wove little, wanton spells about them—then pleaded again with frail, helpless hands—till the old witchcraft stirred about them. The grumbling oaths grew muffled, and Nita, seeing them half-cowed already, laughed with stinging mockery.
“I sent you up to Logie, thinking you were men. Thirty of you went against Hardcastle and could not take him.”
The snarling uproar rose afresh, but she held the lash now and wielded it.
“You were to bring him—alive, if might be—to little Nita, so she could teach him many ways of humbling pride. And all you bring is—your tattered selves.”
Widow Mathison had joined them—plump and touzled, just as she had left her bed at sound of the uproar, except for a cloak thrown over her nightwear.
“All Garsykes couldn’t lay hands on one man up yonder?” she asked, rocking to and fro with laughter. “If Hardcastle was minded that way, I’d risk a second wedding. The more I see of our sort, the deeper I fall into love with Logie’s Master.”