to speir questions. They'll hae him murdered or awa' to sea. And maybe
the leddy was wi' him and they've got them baith. Wae's me! Wae's me!"

The Die-Hard, who was Wee Jaikie, did not delay. His eyes had
filled with tears at her news, which we know to have been his habit.
When Mrs. Morran, after indulging in a moment of barbaric keening,
looked back the road she had come, she saw a small figure trotting up
the hill like a terrier who has been left behind. As he trotted he
wept bitterly. Jaikie was getting dangerous.



CHAPTER XII


HOW MR. McCUNN COMMITTED AN ASSAULT UPON AN ALLY


Dickson always maintained that his senses did not leave him for more
than a second or two, but he admitted that he did not remember very
clearly the events of the next few hours. He was conscious of a bad
pain above his eyes, and something wet trickling down his cheek.
There was a perpetual sound of water in his ears and of men's voices.
He found himself dropped roughly on the ground and forced to walk,
and was aware that his legs were inclined to wobble. Somebody had a
grip on each arm, so that he could not defend his face from the
brambles, and that worried him, for his whole head seemed one aching
bruise and he dreaded anything touching it. But all the time he
did not open his mouth, for silence was the one duty that his
muddled wits enforced. He felt that he was not the master of his