“You’ve heard of something planned?”
“Not I; but they’ve let you alone so long that it stands to reason there’s mischief brewing.”
Rebecca was her bustling self again. “You’re no sort of laggard, Michael. For a man so death-shy you do very well—and there’s a game-pie in the oven.”
They kept watch together that night, the Master and Draycott, with a jug of October ale between them. They sipped it sparingly, for it was potent, and they kept wide ears for any sound outside the four stout walls that sheltered them.
Causleen, about the middle of the watch, woke from an evil dream, and shuddered as she lay in the darkness. A rat scampered across the ceiling. In the silence its feet sounded like the tramp of hurrying men, and she lifted herself in panic.
She conquered that. Fear, they had taught her in babyhood, was a shameful thing to harbour. But with the conquering came blinding loneliness, a reaching out for the dead father whose voice she would not hear again. They were kind at Logie, but it was a house of dread. If only her father were laying below-stairs there, his eyes kindling with welcome though his body was outworn. If only he were living. But he lay in the wet earth down yonder, dust to dust.
A man’s tread came down the passage, and halted at her door. She did not know what peril was at hand, but roused herself to meet it.
“Who is it?” she asked sharply.
“Who should it be?”
The relief was instant. No voice she had heard till now had been so strong, so welcome.