"The snow's no more nor a half fut deep!" he was bellowing.
The Duke caught the first symptom of yielding, but was too wise to make answer.
"Yon's the doctor back there," he cried, with a great show of righteous concern, "he'll mebby be in a hurry."
There was no sign of impatience from the two, choking down their laughter, in the cutter behind; and though she could not see them, well the Duke knew they were enjoying themselves. Nevertheless, she condescended to answer.
"You'd better not keep him waiting, then," she advised.
The man darted one more glance around, the glance of an imprisoned lion which suddenly realizes its position. Slowly, his brows erect, his face dark, he descended from the sleigh and walked around to her side. He stood for a moment regarding her, with a dawning expression of something like respect struggling with the gleam of his fierce eyes.
"If Ah tramp ye a path 'round the sleigh will ye walk in it?" he asked, his voice tremulous with wrath.
The Duke weighed the proposition with great deliberation. She would have died there under the horses' feet rather than show the slightest interest in it. "Well," she admitted indifferently, "I can't say. If I don't get my skirts snowy, I might. You tramp the road, and then I'll see."
With smothered imprecations, Sandy plunged into the snow.
Dr. Allen, quenching his unseemly mirth, sprang from the cutter and came to his aid. There was something to arouse pity in the downfall of the man of strength. Neither by word nor sign did Sandy recognize either his or Elsie Cameron's presence. The atmosphere was too highly charged to admit of ordinary courtesies. When the two men had trampled a wide pathway, and made it sufficiently smooth and firm, the Duke of Wellington condescended to march out of her citadel. There was no smallest sign of haste in her movements; she stood and eyed the track critically, as if doubtful as to whether she would use it, after all. Her hesitation proved the last straw to her enemy's endurance. With an inarticulate cry of rage Sandy McQuarry sprang toward her. The Duke was tall and stately, and of no light weight, but he caught her up as if she had been a child, and with a few mighty strides bore her along the pathway. Reaching the road, he planted her in the middle of it with a violent thud.