MacLean thrust a handkerchief into his bosom to stanch the bleeding. "A
pin prick," he said indifferently.
His late antagonist held out his hand. "It is well over. Come! We are not
young hotheads, but men who have lived and suffered, and should know the
vanity and the pity of such strife. Let us forget this hour, call each
other friends again"-"Tell me first," demanded MacLean, his arm rigid at his side,--"tell me
first why you fought Mr. Everard and Mr. Travis."
Gray eyes and dark blue met. "I fought them," said Haward, "because, on a
time, they offered insult to the woman whom I intend to make my wife."
So quiet was it in the room when he had spoken that the wash of the river,
the tapping of walnut branches outside the window, the dropping of coals
upon the hearth, became loud and insistent sounds. Then, "Darden's
Audrey?" said MacLean in a whisper.
"Not Darden's Audrey, but mine," answered Haward,--"the only woman I have
ever loved or shall love."
He walked to the window and looked out into the darkness. "To-night there
is no light," he said to himself, beneath his breath. "By and by we shall
stand here together, listening to the river, marking the wind in the
trees." As upon paper heat of fire may cause to appear characters before
invisible, so, when he turned, the flame of a great passion had brought
all that was highest in this gentleman's nature into his countenance,
softening and ennobling it. "Whatever my thoughts before," he said simply,
"I have never, since I awoke from my fever and remembered that night at
the Palace, meant other than this." Coming back to MacLean he laid a hand
upon his shoulder. "Who made us knows we all do need forgiveness! Am I no
more to you, Angus, than Ewin Mor Mackinnon?"
An hour later, those who were to be lifetime friends went together down
the echoing stair and through the empty house to the outer door. When it
was opened, they saw that upon the stone step without, in the square of
light thrown by the candles behind them, lay an Indian arrow. MacLean
picked it up. "'Twas placed athwart the door," he said doubtingly. "Is it
in the nature of a challenge?"
Haward took the dart, and examined it curiously. "The trader grows
troublesome," he remarked. "He must back to the woods and to the foes of
his own class." As he spoke he broke the arrow in two, and flung the
pieces from him.
It was a night of many stars and a keen wind. Moved each in his degree by
its beauty, Haward and MacLean stood regarding it before they should go,
the one back to his solitary chamber, the other to the store which was to
be his charge no longer than the morrow. "I feel the air that blows from
the hills," said the Highlander. "It comes over the heather; it hath swept
the lochs, and I hear it in the sound of torrents." He lifted his face to
the wind. "The breath of freedom! I shall have dreams to-night."