The old fisherman had heard the ominous remark of the savage as if he heard it not. “We have not met for many years, Eachen,” he said—“not since the death of my poor sister, when we parted such ill friends; but we are shortlived creatures ourselves, surely our anger should be shortlived too. I have come to crave from you a seat by your fire.”
“It was no wish of mine, William Beth,” said Eachen, “that we should ever meet; but there is room enough for us all beside the fire.”
He resumed his seat; the two fishermen took their places fronting him, and for some time neither party exchanged a word.
“This is but a gousty lodging-place,” at length remarked the old fisherman, looking round him; “but I have seen worse, and I wish the folk at hame kent we were half sae snug.”
The remark seemed directed to no one in particular, and there was no reply. In a second attempt he addressed himself to the old man.
“It has vexed me, Eachen,” he said, “that our young folk, were it but for my sister’s sake, should not be on mair friendly terms; an’ we ourselves too—why suld we be enemies?” The old man, without deigning a reply, knit his grey shaggy brows, and looked doggedly at the fire.
“Nay, now,” continued the fisherman, “we are getting auld men now, Eachen, an’ wald better bury our hard thoughts o’ ane anither afore we come to be buried oursels.”
Eachen fixed his keen scrutinizing glance on the speaker, there was a tremulous motion of the upper lip as he withdrew it, and a setting of the teeth; but the tone of his reply savoured more of sullen indifference than of passion.
“William Beth,” he said, “ye have tricked my boys out o’ the bit property that suld have come to them by their mither; it’s no so long since they barely escaped being murdered by your son. What more want you? But, mayhap, ye think it better that the time should be passed in making boss professions of good-will than employed in clearing off an old score.”
“Ay,” hiccuped out the elder of the two sons, “the houses might come my way then; an’, if Helen Henry were to lose her ae joe, the tither might hae the better chance.”