“I can shift rheumatics as well as one here and there, when the Master’s got rid of his own ailment. But every talk of going to Shepherd Brant’s will make me bedridden, and so I warn you.”
They fell silent presently, yielding to the twilight quiet of the place. Here the flint arrow-head had waited on the gate-top for Hardcastle’s return when October russeted the woods. Here Rebecca had communed with her dead lover through forty years of constancy to feud. They seemed to listen to the rustle of unsubstantial feet.
“The pedlar’s girl should be proud to be among us now,” said Rebecca, her voice low and crooning. “All the years Logie has bided—and vengeance in her hand at last.”
The Master could not rid himself of dread for Causleen. Fast as he beat down one attack, another fear came shadowy at him from behind.
“Garsykes swarms with its scum, and we are few,” he growled. “Who made you a prophet?”
A step sounded up the road, and Hardcastle, turning with quick instinct to defend himself, saw Michael Draycott, his wide, cheery face less full of colour than its wont.
“You, Michael? You look peaky, man.”
“Well, it’s this way. I found my best heifer dead this morning—a fine little roan she was—and a scrawled token by her side. Hemlock grows in the Wilderness. That was the message.”
“A mucky folk,” said Rebecca tranquilly. “They were bred mucky. They couldn’t help it, maybe.”
“As they’d put that on me, I knew naught else would happen to the homestead for a bit; so I stepped up to spend the night at Logie, by your leave.”