“I went over-hill for the right to keep you near.”
She had known him taciturn and hard, known the laughter that came rarely and was far away from joy; but now he was a riddle, as he took her hands and would not let them go.
“You left me so soon—for what?” asked Causleen wearily.
His heart spoke now. By all he said and left unsaid she knew at last the caring that had come at the end of their uphill, stormy wooing. Garsykes might be broken, once for all, he told her; but the old, stealthy siege of Logie might be renewed by slow degrees. Either way, they’d meet the coming weather as man and wife. The licence would be ready in three days’ time, and it was no far ride to Skipton Kirk.
“That was your business?” she asked, her voice brave and vibrant. “And I chided you—and so, Dick, do what you will with me.”
When his will was made plain, however, that on the fourth day from now they would be married, she was submissive no longer, but pleaded for delay. She had no clothes for her wedding, and would shame him in his own market-town unless he gave her time.
“Wear the old cloak over all,” said Hardcastle, “and I’ll be content enough.”
So there came a day when Rebecca watched them ride out from Logie. The Master had not said what their errand was, but she knew; and she scolded Jonah till he spat at her. And then she gathered him into her arms, and cried, and cried.
“Love of a man sees far, when you’ve mothered his cantrips since he was a babby,” she said by and by, with a smile utterly forlorn. “And jealousy sees far. But it’s hell’s own spite when the two keep company.”
Causleen and Hardcastle guessed nothing of all this, as they rode, in wonder and in silence, over the hill to Skipton. They guessed nothing of it as they rode home again, drawing rein to glance at the pride of that one word, Desormais, carved high above the grey, stubborn castle-gateway.