Kelpie breathed the salt wind as she climbed higher above the glen, and stared hungrily at the distant hills. For she was beginning to feel restless. A wee glen was not space enough, and there were too many people, too much routine, and she must away to the hills to be alone. Here were only the mild shaggy cattle peering mournfully from behind long fringes of hair, and the hares and red deer, the hill larks and whaups and gulls, and an eagle—high and alone in the free air.
Her acute senses had been lulled by the months of security at Glenfern, and she was startled to see the bent, wiry figure of Mina rise unexpectedly from behind a clump of juniper.
They looked at each other, and Kelpie’s expression could not possibly have been mistaken for delight. Mina took one good look at it, swung back her strong, scrawny arm, and aimed it at Kelpie.
It seemed that Kelpie’s reactions as well as her senses had become rusty. She didn’t duck in time. And, since Mina had fully expected her to, the resounding smack startled and pained them both.
Mina shook her stinging hand and glared at Kelpie as if the girl had done it on purpose. Kelpie, her head ringing, glared back. And Black Bogle, who had appeared as silently as his eerie namesake, shook with malicious laughter.
“Amadain!” grumbled Mina sourly. “Forgotten everything you ever knew! Fine-lady clothes and clean face, and hands that will have lost all their cunning—such as it was. Blind and deaf and slow as a sleeping snail. Amadain!”
“Sssss!” remarked Kelpie, looking and sounding like a wrathful snake. She had forgotten how ugly and mean and dirty Mina was. Och, how she hated her!
Mina looked pleased. She enjoyed Kelpie’s impotent hatred. And Kelpie, knowing this, controlled her feelings and hooded her eyes and made her sharp-jawed small mouth curl upward. She had been a fool to show her feelings at all at all!
“Come away, then,” ordered Mina, suddenly becoming brisk. “You have kept us waiting long enough! Why weren’t you coming as soon as you got my message?”