THE GABBLE-RATCHETCausleen was restless about the house of Logie. Her father dozed and roused himself by turns. Always in his waking moments he glanced at the pike that had gone to Flodden Field and back, and was eager to leave the roof that sheltered him. She watched the same pitiful struggle to rise and get his helpless limbs to ground, the same falling into stupor.
Near sunset of the day that followed the ewe-gathering, she drifted into Rebecca’s kitchen, pride and weariness waging a private feud within her.
“It is always the same tale, Rebecca,” she said. “My father is not well enough to go just yet, and we overstay our leave.”
“Who told you that?” asked the other dryly, as she gimped the edge of an apple-pasty before she set it in the oven. “Not me for one.”
“Nobody told me—in so
