“Same as you’ve sent all of us, one by one?”
“When you tried to come too close.”
She stood there, soft as this morning that followed a night of grim tempest—a radiant thing, knowing herself mistress of them all.
“Well. Hardcastle’s tied to another apron-string. She’s a bonnie lass, too, as I glimpsed her in the woodmen’s hut. They made a picture, sitting by the fire as if they’d set up housekeeping together.”
A wild-rose flush leaped to Nita’s cheeks. “Who was it?” she asked.
“The pedlar’s lass. He’s chosen dark and trusty this time, as the saying is. None of your yellow-haired women again for him, says Hardcastle—and I don’t wonder.”
Nita took up the challenge. “You saw them in the hut?”
“Aye. I opened the door to creep in for shelter, and Hardcastle was there.”
“And you ran for your life? To be sure, you’d not forget what he did to you at the pinfold. None of your masters of Logie again for you, if you can help it—and I don’t wonder.”
Her mimicry, the quickness of her answer, raised such a storm of laughter against Murgatroyd that he gave up the contest; but presently he followed, as she went by the field-track that led to Logie Brigg, and overtook her.