Page:Stevenson and Quiller-Couch - St Ives .djvu/117

 of alarm that seemed to me extraordinary. I had learned by this time that their stand-off manners implied, at least, no active enmity; and I made bold to ask them what was wrong.

"Bad yins," was Sim's emphatic answer.

All day the dogs were kept unsparingly on the alert, and the drove pushed forward at a very unusual and seemingly unwelcome speed. All day Sim and Candlish, with a more than ordinary expenditure both of snuff and of words, continued to debate the position. It seems that they had recognised two of our neighbours on the road—one Faa, and another by the name of Gillies. Whether there was an old feud between them still unsettled I could never learn; but Sim and Candlish were prepared for every degree of fraud or violence at their hands. Candlish repeatedly congratulated himself on having left "the watch at home with the mistress"; and Sim perpetually brandished his cudgel, and cursed his ill-fortune that it should be sprung.

"I wilna care a damn to gie the daashed scoon'rel a fair clout wi' it," he said. "The daashed thing micht come sindry in ma hand."

"Well, gentlemen,'^ said I, "suppose they do come on, I think we can give a very good account of them." And I made my piece of holly, Ronald's gift, the value of which I now appreciated, sing about my head.

"Ay, man? Are ye stench?" inquired Sim, with a gleam of approval in his wooden countenance.

The same evening, somewhat wearied with our day-long expedition, we encamped on a little verdant mound, from the midst of which there welled a spring of clear water scarce great enough to wash the hands in. We had made our meal and lain down, but were not yet asleep, when a growl from one of the collies set us on the alert. All three sat up, and on a second impulse all lay down