His errand lay over Logie Brigg, and up into the wooded roadway that climbed steeply to Langerton. Beyond Langerton were the Wilderness Folk, who were out against him to a man—lurking close at hand, maybe, in twos or threes. Hardcastle paid no heed. He had gone through the sweat of fear last night, and to-day sunrise was with him after that long battle. Dread, rooted generations deep, had been fought and thrown in the space of a night, he fancied.
At the bend of the road where it strode, over Crooning Water, a quiet, slender woman sat on the copestone of the bridge. She had a pile of picked willow-stems at her right hand, and was busy with a half-made basket lying in her lap. In all the Dale there was no more sequestered nook than this, none richer with the peace and mellowed glory of Oct
