With that she went, and then, from within, beckoned to him to enter.
“There is no one here, Neil Ross. Drink the milk.”
He drank; and while he did so she drew a leather pouch from some hidden place in her dress.
“And now I have this to give you.”
She counted out ten pennies and two farthings.
“It is all the coppers I have. You are welcome to them. Take them, friend of my friend. They will give you the food you need, and the ferry across the Sound.”
“I will do that, Maisie Macdonald, and thanks to you. It is not forgetting it I will be, nor you, good woman. And now, tell me, is it safe that I am? He called me a ‘scapegoat’; he, Andrew Blair! Can evil touch me between this and the sea?”
“You must go to the place where the evil was done to you and yours—and that, I know, is on the west side of Iona. Go, and God preserve you. But here, too, is a sian that will be for the safety.”
Thereupon, with swift mutterings she said this charm: an old, familiar Sian against Sudden Harm:—