“No need to tell me that,” said Nita.
“The widow’s gone up-fell, like the rest of the living folk. And now there’s only you and me—and the still ones down yonder. We’ve got all Garsykes to ourselves, Nita, and the fever couldn’t touch us if it tried.”
Even as he spoke, he fell to shivering, and Nita glanced at him with startled eyes. The widow’s ale had less to do with his wild talk and wilder bearing than she had fancied. Doubt grew into certainty that the plague was on him, and yet she could not stir. She could only watch the dreadful twisting of his body, till the shivering passed.
“Now we’ll set up together, and own all Garsykes,” said Murgatroyd. “It will take us a bit to shift the dead, but they’ll not hinder—and the fever can’t touch us——”
His voice wandered out in senseless mutterings. Then, as he saw her recoil, a false strength came on him. She had played with him, flouted him; but he had known she would be his one day.
Before she knew his purpose, he had crushed her into his arms and kissed her, scarce knowing what he did. Fighting like a wild-cat, tooth and claw, she got away from his fast-waning strength, and fled up the hills, and out to the hidden pool where she was used to bathe o’ mornings.
She stripped with haste and plunged into the peat-brown depths, and scarce dared leave them when her limbs grew chill and cramped. And in her heart, deep down, was a haunting fear that not all the waters, welling sweet from out these pastured uplands, could cleanse that bridal-kiss of plague.
Long Murgatroyd tottered in pursuit, then came near to falling. He forgot Nita, forgot all but the instinct of a wounded beast to seek its lair. Somehow he got to his cottage, and went in, and shut the door. A great sweat broke over him, and afterwards a chill that nipped him to the bone. He raked the grey peats on the hearth into a glow, and fed them with sticks and fir-cones till the chimney roared and bellowed.
Still he could find no warmth, though his brain was hot as a furnace. He piled more wood on, and more, till the blazing heap fell over and down, and licked his clothes, and ran here and there about the coarse matting on the floor.
Rebecca, up at Logie, had found no ease that day. Scrub as she would, bake, or quarrel with the brindled cat, nothing helped to stifle her restlessness. Old griefs tugged at her memory, and would not be still. Jealousy of Logie’s mistress rankled with new bitterness.