Whitefoot growled at the word "exciseman," showing a set of firm white teeth under a black bristly lip turned up wickedly at the corners.
"But this will not always last, lad," Stair Garland went on, "the wars will blow over and they will have men and troops to stop all this open cargo-running. Then they will never beat us altogether, and for years and years they will have the upper hand in their turn. What will come of you and me then, Whitefoot? We shall have to foot it, far afield, lad. Fergus will have the farm when my father has done with it. Agnew takes to books and will get learning. But the 'fechtin' fool' must still be the fechtin' fool. And there is no outgate for him except what he can make with his two hands.
"What has he to do with falling in love, Whitefoot?—Answer me that, silly dog, instead of lickin' and slaverin' all over my hand! Can he marry? No. Would he take any woman into this life of straits and hidings and ambushes? No! And yet what a fool he is because Patsy (oh, Whitefoot, our little Patsy!) being a laird's only daughter, goes for a while with her own kind as she must at the last. What a fool you have for a master, Whitefoot! Tell him so!"
"Ow-oww-ouch!" The dog's answer came in a kind of furious shout that was at once a defiance of fate, of the dread Power which deprived masters of their heart's desire and dogs of speech, shutting them both in within the narrow bounds of a hard necessity.
Stair soothed the dog with one hand, for he could hear his heart thump in short laboured leaps as if after a long pursuit of a dog-fox on the hillside.
"It is all no use, Whitefoot," he went on, more gently, "but after all you are a friend, and it does me good to talk to you. You are always on my side, and I do believe that you understand better than any one else. But now the moon is up we must be going down to the Cave of Slains, or perhaps the Calaman. Stand up, Whitefoot, and say good-night to Patsy before she goes to bed."
Stair rose bareheaded on his rock and looked towards the head of the long bare glen, above which he could see the grey towers of Castle Raincy touched to silver by the moonlight. Some windows were still illuminated on the ground-floor, but higher up only one held a light.
Stair waved his hand towards it.
"Come on now," he said encouragingly to Whitefoot. "Speak—give it tongue! Say good-night to Patsy. She will never know."
And along with his master's shout there went out towards that single light high on the side of the castle wall, the dog's cry to which Stair had trained him for night signalling. And it came to the ears of Patsy as she leaned from her high window, long and lonely and bleak as the howl of a wolf, outcasted from the pack.