“No man runs to meet my fists, I notice.”
Still the Wilderness Men held back. Attack in daylight was a trade they had not learned, and they were clumsy at it.
Hardcastle’s blood was red in him, as when he had stood above old Roy, slain foully by these people. The struggle could not last, he knew. Soon they would gather bastard courage from force of numbers, and there would be an end to him and Shepherd Brant. But joy was with him. There was a sharp memory of Logie, the house dearer to him than all else except his lands. Parting was hard, till he remembered that they would carry him there a true Hardcastle. Dead or alive, he asked for Logie’s honour.
Up above this battle that could only have one end, Storm was pressing through the brackens. He had warned the Master, and afterwards had watched the score of grey-fleeced ewes. And the old wolf-call had reached him.
Storm went on his own business now. He went at speed, but craftily, and never left cover till he crossed the brook that, further down, ran under the bridge where Hardcastle fronted the Lost Folk. Then he turned downhill. He was in the open now, and the sheep that fool Geordie guarded turned face about as the slayer’s hunting-note came down the lean, steep pasture-lands. They knew that Storm loved to chase them from behind before at last he leaped and fastened his teeth in wool and flesh. So they turned about, with bleating courage to resist, till the cry of the slayer came near and eager.
Geordie Wiseman pranced up and down, shouting that the ewes were all gone daft. Hardcastle and Brant turned to see the frenzied mob of sheep charge them from behind; and just in time they left the bridge. The sheep came skeltering over in resistless panic, drove through the Wilderness Folk and scattered them like chaff to one side and the other of the road. Fear of man was lost in the wilder dread of what pursued.
After them came Storm, at a tearing gallop that checked as he neared the Garsykes Men. The sheep were in front of him, a sure quarry later on; and here were enemies who had harried him up and down the country-side for many a day. He bit right and left with savage yelps. He paused to maul one here and there of those who had been stamped into the breeze-blown dust of the roadway. Then he passed, as a roaring gale might do, and followed the grey ewes—out and up, till he was hidden by a bluff of rock.
The Garsykes Men were broken. They forgot Hardcastle at the bridge, forgot all but superstition, and the look of Storm as he went by, with his fangs bared and his muzzle dripping red with blood of theirs. Terror-stricken as the sheep whose cries still came fitfully down-wind, they made for home, some limping as they went.
Hardcastle passed a hand across his eyes. A moment since he had been ready for the struggle that was to end all strife for him on this side of things; and now he was a free man again. It was unbelievable how sweet life was, with all its harsh ups-and-downs.
Brant came to his side, and together they stood looking down on the mean village in the hollow just below them. It was packed with women, and one of them—a plump, brazen hussy—sent a great laugh up.