“Man,” he said, “there’s a whole history in it! Three sprigs of gall mean three Campbells, do they not? and that’s the baron-bailie and Sonachan, and this one with the leaves off the half-side is the fellow with the want And oak is Stewart—a very cunning clan to be fighting or foraying or travelling with, for this signal is Stewart’s work or I’m a fool: the others had not the gumption for it. And what’s the ivy but Clan Gordon, and the peeled withy but hurry, and—surely that will be doing for the reading of a very simple tale. Let us be taking our ways. I have a great admiration for Stewart that he managed to do so well with this thing, but I could have bettered that sign, if it were mine, by a chapter or two more.”
“It contains a wonderful deal of matter for the look of it,” I confessed.
“And yet,” said he, “it leaves out two points I consider of the greatest importance. Where’s the Dark Dame, and when did our friends pass this way? A few chucky-stones would have left the hour plain to our view, and there’s no word of the old lady.”
I thought for a second, then, “I can read a bit further myself,” said I; “for there’s no hint here of the Dark Dame because she was not here. They left the suaicheantas just of as many as escaped from——”
“And so they did! Where are my wits to miss a tale so plain?” said he. “She’ll be in Dalness yet, perhaps better off than scouring the wilds, for after all even the MacDonalds are human, and a half-wit widow woman would be sure of their clemency. It was very clever of you to think of that now.”
I looked again at the oak-stem, still sticking up at the slant “It might as well have lain flat under the peeled wand like the others,” I thought, and then the reason for its position flashed on me. It was with just a touch of vanity I said to my friend, “A little coueging may be of some use at woodcraft too, if it sharpens Elrigmore’s wits enough to read the signs that Barbreck’s eagle eye can find nothing in. I could tell the very hour our friends left here.”
“Not on their own marks,” he replied sharply, casting his eyes very quickly again on twig and leaf.
“On nothing else,” said I.
He looked again, flushed with vexation, and cried himself beat to make more of it than he had done.
“What’s the oak branch put so for, with its point to the sky if———?”