“Fine indeed; the finest of the fine! They're for a particular one.”
“Duke John himself, perhaps?”
“No, man; a particular one, and were they not his in time a sorry man was I. They're the best Baldi Crom ever put leather on.”
Till the turn of the night the drovers slept in their plaids, their cattle steaming out-by in the dark, munching the coarse grass selvedge, breathing heavy. And when the men and their beasts went in the darkness of the morning, Baldi Crom was still throng at his fine pair of shoes.
“I'm late, I'm surely late,” said he, toiling hard, but with no sloven-work, at his task.
The rain had come with the morning, and was threshing out-by on peat and thatch. Inside, the fire died, and the cruisie gave warnings that its oil was low, but Baldi Crom was too throng on the end of his task to notice. And at last his house dropped into darkness.
“Tormaid! Tormaid! my little hero—I'm sore feared you'll die without shoes after all,” cried the old man, staggering to the door for daylight. He had the door but opened when he fell, a helpless lump, on the clay floor. The rain slanted on his grey hairs and spat on a fine shoe.
Far down the good long glen the drovers were tramping after their cattle, and the dun morning was just before them when they got to the gate of Inneraora. Here there was a great to-do, for the kind gallows stood stark before the Arches. Round about it were the townspeople waiting for a hanging.
“Who is't, and what is't for?” asked the drover with the knee-breeches and the coarse hose, pushing into the crowd.
“Tormaid, the son of the Carnus cobbler,” said a woman with a plaid over her head. “He killed a man in a brawl at Braleckan and raped his purse. Little enough to put tow to a pretty lad's neck for, sure enough!” “Stand clear there!” cried a sharp voice, and the hangman and his friend came to the scaffold's foot with a lad in front of them, his hands shackled behind his back. He was a strong straight lad, if anything overly dour in the look, and he wore a good coat and tiews, but neither boot nor bonnet. Under the beam he put back his shoulders with a jerk and looked at the folk below, then over at Dunchuach with the mist above the fort like smoke.