It was M'Adam, she recognized that: the face pale in its framework of black; the hair lying dank and dark on his forehead; and the white eyelids blinking, slow, regular, horrible. She thought of the stories she had heard of his sworn vengeance on her father, and her heart stood still, though she never moved. At length with a gasp of relief she discerned that the eyes were not directed on her. Stealthily following their gaze, she saw they rested on the Shepherds' Trophy; and on the Cup they remained fixed, immovable, while she sat motionless and watched.
An hour, it seemed to her, elapsed before they shifted their direction, and wandered round the room. For a second they dwelt upon her; then the face withdrew into the night.
Maggie told no one what she had seen. Knowing well how terrible her father was in his anger, she deemed it wiser to keep silence. While as for David M'Adam, she would never speak to him again!
And not for a moment did that young man surmise whence his father came when, on the night in question, M'Adam returned to the Grange, chuckling to himself. David was growing of late accustomed to these fits of silent, unprovoked merriment; and when his father began giggling and muttering to Red Wull, at first he paid no heed.
"He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet. There's many a slip twixt Cup and lip--eh, Wullie, he! he!" And he made allusion to the flourishing of the wicked and their fall; ending always with the same refrain: "He! he! Wullie. Aiblins we'll beat him yet."
In this strain he continued until David, his patience exhausted, asked roughly:
"What is't yo' mumblin' aboot? Wha is it yo'll beat, you and yer Wullie?"
The lad's tone was as contemptuous as his words. Long ago he had cast aside any semblance of respect for his father.
M'Adam only rubbed his knees and giggled.
"Hark to the dear lad, Wullie! Listen hoo pleasantly he addresses his auld dad!" Then turning on his son, and leering at him: "What is it, ye ask? Wha should it be but the Black Killer? Wha else is there I'd be wushin' to hurt?"
"The Black Killer!" echoed the boy, and looked at his father in amazement.
Now David was almost the only man in Wastrel-dale who denied Red Wull's identity with the Killer. "Nay," he said once; "he'd kill me, given half a chance, but a sheep--no." Yet, though himself of this opinion, he knew well what the talk was, and was astonished accordingly at his father's remark.