Page:Stories of the two drovers and Countess of Exeter.pdf/18

 interference. “There should be no more fighting in her house,” she said; “there had been too much already.——And you, Mr Wakefield, may live to learn,” she added, “what it is to make a deadly enemy out of a good friend.” “Psha, dame! Robin Oig is an honest fellow, and will never keep malice.” “Do not trust to that——you do not know the dour temper of the Scotch, though you have dealt with them so often. I have a right to know them, my mother being a Scot.” “And so is well seen in her daughter,” said Ralph Heskett.

This nuptial sarcasm gave the discourse another turn; fresh customers entered the tap-room or kitchen, and others left it. The conversation turned on the expected markets, and the report of prices from the different parts of Scotland and England—treaties were commenced, and Harry Wakefield was lucky enough to find a chap for a part of his drove, and at a very considerable profit; an event of consequence more than sufficient to blot out all remembrances of the unpleasant scuffle in the earlier part of the day. But there remained one party from whose mind that recollection could not have been wiped away by possession of every head of cattle betwixt Esk and Eden.

This was Robin Oig M'Combich.——“That I should have had no weapon,” he said, and for the first time in my life!——Blighted be the tongue that bids the Highlander part with the dirk——the dirk——ha! the English blood!——My Muhme’s word——when did her word fall to the ground?”

The recollection of the fatal prophecy confirmed the deadly intention which instantly sprung up in his mind. “Ha! Morrison cannot be many miles behind; and if it were an hundred, what then!”

His impetuous spirit had now a fixed purpose and motive of action, and he turned the light foot of his country towards the wilds, through which he knew, by Mr Ireby’s report, that Morrison was advancing. His mind was wholly engrossed by the sense of injury——