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But because John McCook was come of good folk, I took the dagger from Dol Beag's hand in the darkness, and wiped it clean, and put it back into the sheath, while folk were seeing to the wound on Bryde's shoulder, for a bullet had passed through it, even as Helen robbed Dol Beag of his vengeance.
We were close by the fire, for McGilp liked to be hearing the sough of the wind in the lum, and him snug and warm. On the other side of the fire was Dol Beag, a man well over fifty, very silent, and I could not thole the look of his crooked back. But there was with him one of his own kidney, and he began to let his tongue wag.
"I ken the ceevility I would like to be giving to you, Dol Beag," says he, and put a drink on the table, and lifting the coin tendered in payment he hurled it behind the fire. "I would not be thinking myself clean if I kept your money." Dol Beag was on him before his words were out. "The hell take you," he girned through clenched teeth, and his knife left his hip.
"Wae's me, for I've lost that, horse and all." But I had a word to say to that. "The horse will be sleeping in the stable," said I, "and I will be the man that's put him there," and told him about the strange horse. "Yon crater, Dol Beag, didna just dee," says he after a while. "Nor a drop out of his lug," says I, "if ye will be overlooking a crooked back. I sent ye that word with the heathen."
And when the wether came up and asked the Amadan what great feats he had done that made him impudent enough to dare to come there, the Amadan said: "With this sword I have killed Slat Mor, Slatt Marr, Slatt Beag, the Cailliach of the Rocks and her four badachs, and likewise the Black Bull of the Brown Wood." "Then," said the White Wether, "you'll never kill any other." And at the Amadan he sprang.
In the morning all four of them set off, and travelled to the Glen of the Echoes, where they met the three giants. "Now," says the Amadan, "if you three will engage the two smaller giants, Slat Marr and Slat Beag, I'll engage Slat Mor myself and kill him." They agreed to this.
"I am not fit to stand in the same park with my cousin, and I will have told him that," for his mother would aye be warning Bryde never to lay hands on Dol Beag all his days. There was a long time that Bryde was lame and weak, for he had lost much blood, but his strength came back to him, and it is droll to think that he had grown in his bed.
And her serving-man, John McCook, would be with her on the journey, for his body was cold on the shore-head, and all the gameness out of it, for a ganger's bullet found his heart, for all that Kate Dol Beag thought she had it.
"I daresay that," and then with a hearty laugh and her head flung back, "Kate will be helping too," said she, and ran into the kitchen. Dol Beag, her father, was baiting a long line, his crook back throwing a great black shadow on the wall. "There will be great doings at your place soon, Kate," said he. "Ay, there's nae talk but marrying yonder.
And Gilchrist if Ronny had only kent Gilchrist and his men shifted a little among the bushes, and old Dol Beag was there among them trembling a little and his mouth praying. John McCook came close to Bryde McBride, and pointed to the very place where the gangers were lying waiting. "Would there be something moving there among the bushes?" said he. "A sheep maybe," said Bryde.
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