“Is he with thee, then?” demanded the Warder.
“To be sure he is,” cried Dugald impatiently. “Come, man! he is close at hand, I tell thee. Come! art thou to keep us standing here all night? By all that’s good, he is coming upon us;—and, if he be detained but the veriest fraction of a prod-flight, thou shalt surely have a cudgelling for thy supper. Come man!—open I tell thee.”
The huge iron bolts were now withdrawn from their fastenings, the key grated among the rough wards of the lock, and the wicket was thrown back, whilst the Warder, peering through the opening, seemed as if he were inclined to know something more of those without, before he removed his own bulky person, that still blocked the passage. But Dugald, stooping his head, sprang through the low aperture, and throwing his skull right into the poor fellow’s stomach, with the force of a battering-ram, he laid him sprawling on his back.
“Hech!” cried the Warder, as he fell. “Hech me!”
“Old fool that thou art!” cried Dugald, taking up the first word of quarrel with him; “who was to think that thou wert to be standing in the very midst of the way?—Yet I hope I have not hurt thee, for all that. Thou knowest, Rory, that I had rather hurt myself than thee.”
“Nay, nay,” said the old man, with a surly sort of acquiescence, as he was slowly raising himself from the ground by means of Dugald’s assistance; during which operation Patrick Stewart, wrapped up in his plaid, and followed by the other two men, had made good his entrance into the court-yard. “Nay, nay, I am not hurt. I’m no such eggshells, i’faith. Yet what a fiend made thee so impatient? I behooved to be careful who I let in, seeing that I was strictly charged to open to none but Murdoch Stewart himself there,” pointing to Sir Patrick, who was standing a few paces aloof. “More by token, I required to be all the warier, seeing that there was none living within the walls, besides myself, save the old Knight Sir Allan, and the Lady Stradawn.”
“How comes that?” demanded Dugald; “Though so many went to Curgarf, there were still some left behind, surely.”
“True enough, true enough,” replied the Warder. “But I know not what hath possessed the lady. They have all been sent hither and thither, on some errand or another;—even the very women folk have all gone forth.”
Sir Patrick Stewart stood to hear no more, but making a signal to Dugald and the others to follow him, he crossed the court-yard towards the door of the keep tower, where they stood aside, whilst he knocked gently, yet loud enough to be heard in the hall above. Soon afterwards, a timid and unsteady footstep was heard descending the stair.
“Open, good mother,” said Sir Patrick.