A hard, keen light showed in Rebecca’s eyes. Her thin body quivered with sudden passion. “There will come a token on the gate, Master.”
“It’s here.”
Hardcastle held out his palm, as Donald had done awhile since, and Rebecca gloated on the sight of the little, brown thing that meant the end of peace for all at Logie.
“Through the years I’ve wanted this. What will you do with it, Master?”
Hardcastle turned, with a hard laugh, and set the arrow-head on the drip-stone over his door.
“It stays here—a charm against all alms-giving on Logie roads.”
CHAPTER III
THE END OF A JOURNEY
When Hardcastle had opened the door to Causleen and her father, and had thrown his gun and brace of partridge down on the long-settle in the hall, his hardness left him. These two were guests, whatever chance had driven them to the bleak roads where pedlars chaffered for a livelihood.
He brought them into a great, cosy room, aglow with its fire of pine-logs and fragrant with the smouldering peats that burned below. Causleen glanced about, with a woman’s quickness to see all—the candles in their sconces, bringing mellow lights to birth on bees’-waxed panels—the orderly array of muskets, swords and pistols on the walls—and, over these, a pike with the red-rust on it of blood shed long ago.