“My beauty’s gone, Hardcastle of Logie,” she said, defiant to the last, “and there’s no Garsykes left. But I still sell baskets up the Dale.”
“Oh, come away,” pleaded Causleen. “Dick, come away.”
Hardcastle sat there in saddle for a moment, with sharp recollection of other days, when Nita’s face was a mask of eager beauty, tempting men. Then without a word he rode on, Causleen beside him.
Again the chill was on them, as if they had plunged into a pine-wood where no free air could roam or wildflowers grow.
“She still sells baskets up the Dale,” said Causleen, awed and troubled. “You heard her, Dick? It was a threat.”
They had come to Logie Brigg, and drew rein there, listening to Wharfe River as she lapped and played about the grey arches underneath. And suddenly, as if the river sent up a message to him in plain words, Hardcastle knew that he was home at last.
“An idle threat,” he said, his voice buoyant and secure. “Garsykes is ended at long last.”
They went together up the steep, winding road, ablaze with sunlight and choired by singing birds, and came to the gate of many memories. Twice the Garsykes token had been laid on the topmost bar. Rebecca had trysted her dead lover here, every night through forty weary years. And remembrance of this tryst gave Causleen heart to speak at last.
“Logie and the lands are so much to you,” she said, the words tripping over one another in their haste—“and Rebecca could never be done with mourning that——”
“Yes, wife? She was always good at the doldrums.”