“Do ye care?” asked Ian incredulously. “’Tis an ordinary woman—and I like not green eyes; also she is false to her finger-tips—like a Campbell.”
“Ah, yes,” cried Ronald wildly, “she is false and doubly false. She has the trick of smiling when she lies—there is a poison in her breath that doth infect her kisses with a deadly sweetness, and in her eyes a witchcraft lurks to drive the blood too fast for bearing—I would that she or I were dead!”
A low wind was abroad; it blew the ice-cold snowflakes hissing into the lazy fire, and shook the tassels of the firs against the darkening trail of clouds.
Ian drew himself up in silence; Makian was asleep behind them, close wrapped in his plaid. It was too dark to see more than the outline of his figure.
The vast forms of the distant mountains were fast absorbed into the general grayness; it grew colder and a great sense of awe came with the dark as if an unseen presence whispered: “Hush!”
“I would be fighting,” said Ronald suddenly through the dusk, “I would be in the press and sweep of arms, the lift and music of the battle-cries—or I would lie dead and careless of the eagles that pluck at my heart—smiling perhaps—not heedful of the pain that stabs there now!”
“But ye have had your fill o’ fighting,” said Ian, shuddering under the sting of the wind. “At Killicrankie—when Dundee died. I have need to repine, who stayed guarding Glencoe while ye fought.”
Ronald’s voice came in answer, melodiously.
“It was most glorious. My God! I would give ten years of peace for such another fight—but what mattered the victory? Dundee was slain.” His voice fell to gloom. “I loved Dundee, though he was a Lowlander—this Saxon Caryl that I’ve told ye of: he had a face like his, a girl’s face, always calm. I would have died for Dundee. He was a great gentleman, full of courtliness.”
He rested his head on his hand and gazed sadly at the slow moving clouds.