did. On the high uplands Brant had learned to see with his ears when

need pressed. The fleeing mob, not far down the road as yet, was making noise enough to rouse dead men on their gibbets, and Brant’s blunderbuss bellowed like a stag gone mad at rutting-time.

A livid shriek of anguish followed, and those in Logie’s kitchen waited for Brant to return in triumph.

“Hark to them,” said Rebecca, rubbing her hands together. “They came to Logie, as my lad told me at the gate—and they go as he fore-warned me. By the marrow, how they squeal!”

Causleen thought of her father. He had been asleep when she glanced in on her way to the kitchen; but the uproar must have roused him, and it was terrible to picture him lying there, alone and helpless, waiting for he knew not what.

The Master’s thoughts were with his shepherd, who did not return. “Brant’s long in coming,” he muttered restlessly, and had taken a step toward the porch when he halted, checked by the strangest tumult that had come to Logie on this night of crashing din.

He heard a bellow of mingled rage and fear, and knew the voice for Long Murgatroyd’s. He heard, too, the muffled oaths of other men. He sprang to Causleen’s side and put her behind him; and now the sharp stench of fire wisped and eddied down the passage.

“Go back,” he muttered, hearing her steps close following his.

She would not, and they ran down the long corridor together till they reached the open door of the room where Donald lay. And on the threshold they stood as in a nightmare, aghast at what they saw.

Long Murgatroyd and a press of Garsykes Men were in the room, their faces lit by a fire they had piled in the middle of it. The lamp-glow, stealing through the room where Donald slept, had shown them an easier way of entry than burning down the main door. They had crashed through the window, tossed down their sacks pell-mell and lit them. If they had seen the sleeping man, they took him for dead or helpless and had not heeded.

So much was plain to Causleen and Hardcastle, looking on with the nightmare grip about them still. But the pedlar slept no longer. He was awake and on his feet. His face caught the fireglow as wrinkled parchment might—little lines of crimson criss-crossing its ancient pallor—but the body they had thought chained was alert and strong, willowy with youth.

Donald had gone to sleep content. His girl would be safe in Hardcastle’s hands, and he was free to let dreams take him down the roads of old romance, when those of his race plied claymores and heard the battle-din. He woke to see an ill-kempt company lighting a fire at the far end of the room; and suddenly life raced into his palsied limbs.

Peril to Logie was mingled in his thoughts with far-off combats up the glens at home. He stood there, supple and thin and dominant, gathering the dreams come true at last. And the Garsykes mob gaped at this dead man who faced them without any weapon but his consuming joy in battle.

Long Murgatroyd was twitching from one foot to the other. The men behind him were bound as by a spell. So was Hardcastle, who was aware of deeper things than he had known till now. The Garsykes Folk saw only Donald. That was plain, and the pedlar must have his will of this last moment, till there was need to intervene.

Donald glanced about, as if in search of something that had shared his tedious days in this same room. And still Murgatroyd and those behind were held in thrall. The fire they had kindled blazed and smoked by turns in the sleepy draught, till Murgatroyd kicked it into flame.

“The wood’s wet,” he muttered, “and be damned to the fools that gathered it.”

“Aye, wet with blood,” shrilled Donald.

With that, strength came to him. His glance, roving again about the walls, found the thing he sought. With speed incredible he leaped to get the pike into his hands—the pike that had gone to Flodden and returned.

He swung it gently to and fro for one swift moment, as if he doubted which of its three blades to ply. Then, with a Gaelic battle-shout, he leaped forward, through and over the fire’s reek, whirling the axe-edge high above his old, grey head.

Long Murgatroyd got his skull away from the blow; but the axe clove his shoulder till it gritted on the bone.

“I’m done, lads,” he growled, swaying to his fall. “Get about this madman risen from the dead.”

No voice answered him. The Garsykes Men had gone the way they came taking still dread for company. Alone with one who whirled his axe to strike again, Murgatroyd gathered what strength was left him, and ran screaming out into the night.

A great light shone in Donald’s face. There was strength in his body still, and a pibroch in his soul; and, when Causleen ran to him across the dwindling fire, he turned happily.

“It was so they fought in the old days gone. I’m glad you saw me make an end that way.”

He toyed with the pike lovingly. He praised Logie for keeping its edges grouted and sharp through the centuries for this night’s work of his. Then his strength fell away, a borrowed joy. The pike dropped from his grasp, clattering into the embers that Hardcastle was stamping out.

“Your hands, child,” he whispered.

She guided him to the long-settle that had been his bed for many weary days, and her tears rained on the blankets she gathered round the motionless body. Donald opened his eyes once—glad, tender eyes, at peace with this world and the next—and he found voice, as he had got strength awhile since to lift the pike.

“Causleen, little Evening Star, you’ve lit the roads for me. And now—dear God, there’s sunrise on the hills.”

The pedlar lay quiet awhile. All that was of this world clamoured round him. He was saying good-bye to the broken roads he loved. There would be no to-morrows, with curlews wailing over summer hills and dusk cradling in purple hollows of the moor—no journeys on blistered feet through the tang of winter gales. He ached for the northland he must leave, and his spirit shrank from the last Crossing because the world was full of lovesome things. Surely he would see once again the shimmer of buttercups glowing like grace of old allegiance across the ripening meadows, would hear the storm-cock pipe defiance to the gale. Just once again he must smell, too, the reek of clover-hay as it came home on creaking wagons between the briar-rose banks.

“It grows dark,” he murmured suddenly. “And now the light shines through—and, child, there’s your mother beckoning from the braes. She’s just as young and bonnie—as bonnie——”

It was so the warrior died, and Hardcastle stood with bowed head till Causleen’s first storm of grief was ended. A strange gentleness came to him, a softening of the ice-cold years, as he covered Donald’s face and drew the girl away.

They stood facing each other in the dim lamplight. A chill breeze blew through the broken casement, tossing to and fro the reek of the stamped-out fire. On the floor the pike lay in a little pool of crimson, darkening fast. Yet nothing prevailed against the austere and tranquil presence that filled this room of death.

“Causleen,” he said, by and by, “you need not be lonely.”

She was feeling like a child lost in mid-winter moors. No words could have reached her heart as his simple, “you need not be lonely,” did. He was changed, as she was, by this alchemy of death, into finer metal.

Then, longing to believe in him, she took a step away. “It is not the time or place to—to doubt you.”

“It is the place to tell me why you doubt.” His glance went to the death-bed. “Could I be false, with your father lying there?”

“You could not—no—and yet it seems so mean a thing to talk of here.”

“It divides us, and _he_ did not want that.”

“I am ashamed either way,” she said, her brave eyes meeting his—“of you, or of myself for doubting.”

Little by little he drew the tale from her. She had come to the wood between Logie and the slope to Wharfe River, weeks ago, and seen him with Nita’s arms stretched out to him.

Hardcastle understood now all that had baffled him these late days. He recalled each detail of that half-forgotten scene—Nita’s alluring eagerness, the sharp crack of a twig, his glance backward to learn if one of the Lost Folk was stealing on him from behind.

“You saw us there,” he said, “and she was an old love of mine. What else could you have thought?”

His quietness seemed to rebuke her. All these weeks she had been the silent accuser, he the shameless culprit. Was he a liar through and through, under his mask of gruff honesty?

“We shared the woodmen’s hut for a night,” he went on, “and afterwards there was trouble. I asked to clear that for you.”

“From pity.” It was her turn now to glance at the silent figure on the settle. “We never cared for charity, he and I.”

“I did not offer charity,” he said, direct and forthright. “While I was persuading you to that, Nita wove her devilry into it all.”

“What devilry?” she asked, her eyes grave and questioning.

He glanced from the shattered casement to Donald’s death-bed, and his face hardened.

“She offered me escape from what has come to Logie—and I would not take it.”

Causleen’s heart was free at last, as she watched this man whom she had flouted. He showed greater than his height in the dim lamp-glow that made flickering lights and shadows through the room. His voice though hushed in deference to what lay yonder, was vibrant in its simple candour. He loved her—loved her for herself.

A gusty weariness came about her, a need to lean on the man who had caused her sleepless nights and tears as salt as the nether brine-pits.

“I was afraid—till now,” she whispered, and put her hands into his as if she gave a kingdom.