Two more days passed. The man from the hut below in the pass came at dusk with food carefully sent from the chieftain's hall. Redcoats had gone indeed through the glen, but they could never find the path to this place! They might return or they might not; they were like the devil who rose by your side when you were most peaceful! Angus went down the mountain-side. The sound of his footstep died away. Ian had again Solitude herself.
Another day and night passed. He watched the sun climb toward noon, and as the day grew warm he heard a step upon the hidden path. With a pistol in either hand he moved, as stealthily, as silently as might be, to a platform of rock that overhung the way of the intruder. In another moment the latter was in sight—one man climbing steadily the path to the old robber fastness. He saw that it was Glenfernie. No one followed him. He came on alone.
Rullock put by his pistols and, moving to a chair of rock, sat there. The other's great frame rose level with him, stepped upon the rocky floor. Ian had been growing to feel an anger at solitude. When he saw Alexander he had not been able to check an inner movement of welcome. He felt an old—he even felt a new—affection for the being upon whom, certainly, he had leaned. There flowed in, in an impatient wave, the consideration that he must hate....
But Glenfernie hated. Ian rose to face him.
"So you've found your way to my castle? It is a climb! You had best sit and rest yourself. I have my sword now, and I will give you satisfaction."
Glenfernie nodded. He sat upon a piece of fallen rock. "Yes, I will rest first, thank you! I have searched since dawn, and the mountain is steep. Besides, I want to talk to you."
Ian brought from his cupboard oat-cake and a flask of brandy. The other shook his head.
"I had food at sunrise, and I drank from a spring below."
"Very good!"
The laird of Glenfernie sat looking down the mountain-sides and over to far hills and moving clouds, much as he used to sit in the crook of the old pine outside the broken wall at Glenfernie. There was a trick of posture when he was at certain levels within himself. Ian knew it well.