The plaid was unwound from about his head, and in the dim light Wat could see that he stood beside the door of a cabin, so low as hardly to be distinguishable from the bowlders upon the moor, being as shapelessly primitive and turf-overgrown as they. Beside him crouched a woman of middle age, apparently tall and well-featured.
"Wheest, laddie," she whispered, "hae ye the heart o' gowd that the lassie left for ye wi' that daft hempie, Mehitabel Smith?"
Wat slipped the love-token from under his shirt and let the woman touch it. It was chill and damp with the crossing of the salt strait.
"Aye, lad, surely ye are the true lover, and Bess Landsborough is no' the woman to wrang ye," said the wife of Alister. "But mind ye, there are mony dangers yet to encounter. Your friend that was casten oot o' your bit boatie among the Bores o' the Suck is safe-warded yonder in the tower, and that is my man Alister that ye swithered whether to put your gully-knife intil or no."
Wat hastened to disclaim any such fell intent.
[Illustration: "A GIGANTIC HIGHLANDER WITH A NAKED CLAYMORE BY HIS SIDE"]
"Wi' laddie, was I no watchin' ye?" said the woman, "and did I no see the thocht in the verra crook o' your elbow? Bess Landsborough has companied ower lang wi' men o' war no' to ken when they are playin' themselves, and when the death o' the heart rins like wildfire alang the shoother blade, doon the strong airm, and oot at the place where the fingers fasten themselves round the blue steel. Sma' blame till ye! But lest ye should be ower greatly tempted, I e'en threw the plaidie ower ye to gie ye time to consider better. For, after a', Alister's my ain man, and a kind man to me. And forbye, stickin' a knife atween puir Alister's ribs wad no hae advantaged you a hair, nor yet helped ye to your bit lass--no, nor even assisted that ill-set skelum Jock Scarlett to win clear oot o' his prison hole."
"Come this side the hoose," she said; "I want a word wi' you. Bess Landsborough is takin' some risks the nicht, and she maun ken what mainner o' lad she is pittin' her windpipe in danger for."
She drew him round the low, turf-roofed house to the end farthest from the castle. Here stood a peat stack, or rather a mound of the large surface "turves" of the country, for there are no true peat-mosses upon Suliscanna.