"Pitt," said Donald. "Oh, I see. That's true, no doubt. But I want some one nearer hand than Pitt. Who gave them this paper? Whose is the writing on it?"
"I can tell you that," said James Bigger. "I have a note in my pocket this minute from the man who wrote that. It's a summons to a meeting for important business at the house of Aeneas Moylin, on the hill of Donegore, next week."
"Ay, and the man's name is James Finlay."
A dead silence followed the statement. It was Donald who broke it.
"I reckon, friend Bigger, that I'll go with you to that meeting. We'll take Neal here along, too. He knows the man. There'll be some important business done that night, though maybe not quite the same as what James Finlay has planned."
Neal Ward was awakened next morning by the noise which Peg Macllrea made sweeping and tidying the room where he slept. He lay for a few minutes watching the girl. Her red hair was coiled up now in a neat roll at the back of her head. Her freckled face was clean, and had apparently escaped bruising in her conflict with the dragoon. She wore a short grey skirt of woollen homespun. The sleeves of her bodice were rolled up, and displayed a pair of muscular red arms. The girl was more than commonly tall, and anyone listening to her heavy footfall, and noting her thick figure and broad shoulders, would have understood that she was well able to carry a young man, even of Neal's height, up a flight of stairs. The dragoon might easily have come to the worst in single combat with such a maiden if he had not obtained an advantage over her at the start by twisting her hair round his hand.
It was not very long before she noticed that Neal was awake. She came over to him smiling.
"You've had a brave sleep," she said. "It's nigh on eleven o'clock. The master and Mr. Ward are out this twa hours. They bid me not stir you. I was just readying up the room a bit, and I went about it as mim as a mouse."
"I'm thinking," said Neal, "that I'll be getting up now."
"'Deed, then, and you'll no. The last word the master said was just that you were to lie in the day. I'm to give you tea and toasted bread, and an egg if you fancy it."
"But," said Neal, "I can't lie here in bed all day."