“It was as well I didn’t turn him away last night. He’d not have got far, poor devil.”
“As well maybe,” grumbled Rebecca, “though I’ve no stomach for tending him and the dark-eyed hussie for weeks on end. We’ve lived to ourselves till now, and I never relished foreigners.”
“They’re under my roof.”
“Oh, they’ll be looked after, Master. And, to be sure, it’s as ill to slight the pedlar-sort as it is to kill a spider. Lucky they are, both o’ the tribes, if you treat ’em kindly.”
“Lucky?” said Hardcastle, getting up from table. “Donald found the token for me, if that spells luck.”
“It does. We’ll be rid of the Wilderness scum at last.”
“At last—and may it be a long last,” snapped the Master.
He had forgotten Storm the sheep-slayer—as he was forgetting many things in this new day of strife—until he passed the cupboard where he had housed the culprit over-night.
Storm was not there. He had watched for this moment, after the house-doors were opened, and had gone away to the hills by stealth. Hardcastle laughed soberly. One guest the less under his roof was one load taken from his shoulders; and the pack promised to be heavy by and by.
His own dog, Roy, was waiting for him in the hall—a big retriever, his coat sleek and gold-red as October on the brackens. His nut-brown eyes danced as he saw the gun under Hardcastle’s arm, and clouded when the Master checked him.