“No,” agreed her husband. “Come away out to the wee room in the stable, which will do nicely, I think.”
And Kelpie, who had expected to be beaten and turned out for her theft, stared. They were daft, all of them! But presently she forgot their daftness because of the surprisingly painful business of having her shoulder tended. She gritted her teeth and cursed vigorously, and after it was over she was glad enough to lie down on the small cot in the stable-room and be left alone to sleep.
Kelpie awoke with an oppressive sense of being trapped. Blindly hostile walls and ceiling surrounded her, shutting out sky and wind. In sudden panic she would have leaped up and fled to the safety of outside, but the first movement brought the sharp, forgotten pain of her shoulder. She gasped slightly, blinked, and noticed a pair of dark eyes regarding her from a flower face. It was the wee bit of a lassie she had seen in the big house, who stood watching Kelpie with grave sympathy. She was a tiny thing, her body slight as it rose from the primrose bulk of her long skirts, but Kelpie was disconcerted. The gaze seemed to understand too much.
“Poor lady!” said the mite, shaking her honey-brown head sorrowfully. “Is it a sore bad hurt, then?”
Kelpie said nothing.
Light danced into the dark eyes. “Wee Mairi will kiss it and make it well.” Quite undeterred by thoughts of cleanliness, the child leaned over the cot and dropped a soft kiss on the bandages covering Kelpie’s shoulder, and then another on her cheek. “Now it will stop hurting, just, and you can be happy,” she announced. Crooking a small finger in the old gesture of calling down a blessing from heaven, she turned and trotted out, leaving a shaken Kelpie behind her.
Nothing like this had ever happened to her before! Children had always clung to their mothers, frightened of the witch’s lass. No one at all had ever kissed her and Kelpie, to her dismay, found that her eyes had filled with tears. Och, this would never do at all! She must be hard and strong, or else how would she ever survive in the world she knew? She closed her treacherous eyes and concentrated on subduing the weakness.
The weakness was just about subdued when she became aware of more company in the room. This time it was a pair of seven or eight-year-old lads with penetrating blue eyes set in identical tanned faces which were alight with passionate curiosity.
Kelpie, still shaken and very much on the defensive from her encounter with Wee Mairi, glared at them with frank hostility. They went on staring at her with unwavering interest. Dhé! They were nearly as disconcerting as Wee Mairi—and there were two of them. Kelpie decided to take the offensive.