Audrey

Haward sat down upon a keg of powder, crossed his knees, and, with his

chin upon his hand, looked from between the curled lengths of his periwig

at the figure opposite. "I am glad to find that in Virginia, at least,

there is honesty," he said dryly. "I will try to remember the cost of the

cup and the wine against the expiry of your indenture. In the mean time, I

am curious to know why you are angry with me whom you have never seen

before to-day."

With the dashing of the wine to earth the other's passion had apparently

spent itself. The red slowly left his face, and he leaned at ease against

the cask, drumming upon its head with his fingers. The sunlight, shrinking

from floor and wall, had left but a single line of gold. In the half light

strange and sombre shapes possessed the room; through the stillness,

beneath the sound of the tattoo upon the cask head, the river made itself

heard.

"For ten years and more you have been my--master," said the storekeeper.

"It is a word for which I have an invincible distaste. It is not

well--having neither love nor friendship to put in its place--to let

hatred die. When I came first to this slavery, I hated all Campbells, all

Whigs, Forster that betrayed us at Preston, and Ewin Mor Mackinnon. But

the years have come and the years have gone, and I am older than I was at

twenty-five. The Campbells I can never reach: they walk secure, overseas,

through Lorn and Argyle, couching in the tall heather above Etive,

tracking the red deer in the Forest of Dalness. Forster is dead. Ewin

Mackinnon is dead, I know; for five years ago come Martinmas night I saw

his perjured soul on its way to hell. All the world is turning Whig. A man

may hate the world, it is true, but he needs a single foe."

"And in that capacity you have adopted me?" demanded Haward.

MacLean let his gaze travel over the man opposite him, from the looped hat

and the face between the waves of hair to the gilt spurs upon the great

boots; then turned his eyes upon his own hand and coarsely clad arm

stretched across the cask. "I, too, am a gentleman, the brother of a

chieftain," he declared. "I am not without schooling. I have seen

something of life, and of countries more polite than the land where I was

born, though not so dear. I have been free, and have loved my freedom. Do

you find it so strange that I should hate you?"

There was a silence; then, "Upon my soul, I do not know that I do," said

Haward slowly. "And yet, until this day I did not know of your existence."