Causleen, with sudden, blinding passion, called to the sheep-slayer “Storm, kill her. Fasten on her throat, Storm.”
The dog was far down the slope already. He, too had seen the Master. Causleen might smell of home, but Hardcastle was Logie’s self.
The pedlar’s girl raced sure-footed between the wet, gnarled hummocks, crying as she ran with a warning that the gale caught and drove to tatters. She came to the parting of the ways, and followed without pause the grey track that wound upward to the caves.
Hardcastle’s big figure, far ahead, halted for a brief welcome as Storm overtook him. As if she stood beside them, she knew what went to that greeting—the man’s joy that he had a toothed and stubborn friend in this adventure, the dog’s that he was with the chosen one.
“Come back,” she cried again—so loud, it seemed to her, that not even the wind could hinder its sharp bidding.
Hardcastle did not hear. Like a man possessed he strode forward till he reached the cave’s mouth. Then they were swallowed by the darkness, Storm and he, and Causleen knew at last what caring meant.
She neither wavered nor had fear. Where he went she would follow, by free-will and by right.
Nita watched it all from the benty lands above—saw Hardcastle and Storm go into the trap prepared. Then Causleen went, and was hidden by the dark. And after that, ten frowsy men got out from the rocks and closed about the entry.
The basket-weaver took her way to Garsykes, crooning a song of the Lost Folk—a low, stealthy ballad, ages old, that reeked of the marshes and the styes. And, as she came into the village, she found it packed with men and scolding women.
They snarled and jeered at her, and Long Murgatroyd’s voice was lifted in sullen fury.