FLAMEThat night they waited in Garsykes village till the moon dipped over Scummer Rigg and grey-black gloom shrouded heath and pasture-land. Then every man who had strength to carry a burden reached out for his well-filled sack.
Long Murgatroyd came up the hill with his shammocky stride just as they were shouldering the sacks. He stood awhile in the lamp-glow streaming from the tavern windows, and they drew away from him as if he had the plague. There was something unearthly in his white, drawn face, in the laugh that broke his silence.
“So I’m in time, after all? It’s better pastime, this, than hanging yourself in Nita’s garter.”
The man still felt raw of a hempen cord about his neck—the cord that Hardcastle had loosed not long ago. Yet he laughed again, as he glanced from one to anoth
