“Taking her to the hill-winds. She’s stifled in these Logie woods.”
With that he went down the corridor, buoyant and heedless. A stable-lad was holding the two horses, and Causleen waited for him.
“Brant’s here,” he said, as he mounted her. “It’s as well, with Rebecca thinking fire and slaughter is brewing up.”
She laughed with him. Laughter was in their hearts, and joy rode pick-a-back behind them down the winding lane. The bird-cherry trees were in blossom, their white tassels dusting the sleepy air with fragrance. From every bush—from the high sycamores whose leaves drowsed in the summer’s heat—birds were wild with song. Thrushes piped high. Blackbirds sent out their mellower note, and all the small fry joined in this wild din of June.
“Causleen,” said Hardcastle, his voice softened by the wonder of their days together, “I was surly when you came at first. Dear God, if I had missed you.”
“That was not meant. Was there ever a wind that blew but brought us closer?”
It was in this mood—sure of each other, with a high pride in wedlock—that they reached the gate opening on the Norbrigg road. On the top bar lay a flint arrow, brown and smooth in the sun-glare, and Hardcastle checked himself as he stooped to unhasp the gate.
His glance sought Causleen’s. Both were thinking of the first token found by Pedlar Donald, of all that followed. They were thinking, too, with sharp revulsion, of the arrow-heads that littered the floor of Garsykes Cave.
For a moment their nightmare journey through the cavern clouded the sunlight, chilled the eager breath of summer. Then Hardcastle put the token into his pocket, as he had put the earlier one, and said not a word as they rode up into the hills. It was only when they drew rein to breathe their horses, and Garsykes showed below them, that he broke the silence.
“We’ll go through no second waiting-time, wife,” he said—“waiting for what the Wilderness is pleased to do.”