"It is I who would like to know who brought the trouble on the young master; and last night, as I was lying in my bunk, thinking over this thing and that thing, and wondering what it was that had happened, I was remembering that the Little Red Dwarf came to Lochgarra yesterday—yes, and he the only stranger that came to Lochgarra yesterday."
"I wish the Little Red Dwarf were with his father the devil," said Calum, with calm content.
"And if I thought it was the Little Red Dwarf that was the cause of the master's trouble," said Coinneach, with his deep-set grey eyes full of a dark hatred, "do you know what I would do, Calum? I would put the orra-an-donais on him. That is what I would do, ay, this very night. This very night I would take two branches of hawthorn, and I would nail them as a cross, and at twelve o'clock I would put them against his door; and then I would say this: 'God's wrath to be set against thy face, whether thou art drowning at sea or burning on land; and a branch of hawthorn between thy heart and thy kidneys; and for thy soul the lowermost floor in hell, for ever and ever.' He is a powerful man, the Little Red Dwarf, and he has wide shoulders; but how would he fare with the orra-an-donais on his wide shoulders?"
But Calum shook his head.
"No, no," said the long, loutish, good-humoured-looking lad, "I do not think well of such things. They are dangerous things. They are like the bending of a stick; and who knows but that the stick may fly back and strike you? But this is what I have in my mind, Coinneach: if the master wishes, then I would just take the Little Red Dwarf and I would put him in a pool in the Garra, ay, and I would hold his head down until he was as dead as a rat. Aw, Dyeea, there would be no trouble with the Little Red Dwarf after that!"
"The master!" said Coinneach—and there was silence.
Young Donald appeared somewhat pale and tired; but otherwise did not seem out of spirits.
"Well, Coinneach," he said, cheerfully enough, as he came up—and he spoke in the tongue that was most familiar to them—"what do you think of taking the world for your pillow—as they say in the old stories; and would you set out at this very moment?"
"But with you, sir?" said Coinneach, quickly.
"Oh, yes, yes—in the Sirène?"