“Yes,” said Hardcastle, with grim humour, “I know a place called Garsykes. Do you want to get there?”
“I do, quick as my legs will take me.”
Hardcastle pointed the way for him, where the lazy track curved down to the lowlands and the curling smoke below. Then he took the arrow-head from his pocket and tossed it into the man’s hand.
“Tell them it comes from Logie,” he said, and rode forward with Causleen.
The man stared after them for a moment, then fell again into the lopping stride that carries tired legs far. Between the heather and the benty lands he went, and came to Garsykes’ cobbled street, and dropped heavily on to the stone bench outside the inn.
Long Murgatroyd was sitting there with a quart mug at his elbow, and he glanced curiously at the newcomer.
“And where might you be from?” he asked.
The stranger sat bunched-up, his sombre eyes staring straight in front of him. “From York,” he said. “There’s been a gaol delivery—and I’m one of the delivered.”
“Take a pull at my mug, lad. You’ve walked a tidy bit too far, by the look o’ you. There, that’s better. And what did they gaol you for, if a body might ask?”
A sullen grin wrinkled the man’s face. “They said it was for robbery on the highroad; but I knew better. It was for letting myself be fool enough to be catched at it.”