"Haste ye, heroes," said the old woman, cowering on the wet stone; "haste ye, dears; it's mighty long ye are about it."
The Diarmaid turned the edge twice on the coated arm, and Murdo wasted his wind to curse. Then he gave the stroke that's worth fifty head of kyloes (fine they know that same all below Cladichl), and a red seam jumped to the Diarmaid's face. All his heart went to stiffen his slacking heavy arm, and he poured on Murdo till Murdo felt it like a rain of spears. One hot wandering stroke he got on the bonnet, and for want of the bowl of brose at Inneraora, the wind that should go to help him went inside, and turned his stomach. Sweat, hot and salt, stung his eyes, his ears filled with a great booming, he fell in a weary dream of a far-off fight on a witched shore, with the waves rolling, and some one else at the fencing, and caring nought, but holding guard with the best blade Gow-an-aora ever took from flame. Back stepped the Diarmaid, sudden, and sweep went his steel at the shaking knees.
A bairn's cry struck Murdo's ear through the booming and sent him full awake. He drew back the stretched foot fast, and round the red one's sword hissed through air. "Foil! foil!" said Murdo, and he slashed him on the groin.
"That'll do, man; no more," said the Skilly Woman, quickly,
"I may as well finish him; it's lame he'll be all his days any way, and little use is a man with a halt in a healthy clan."
"Halt or no halt, let him be; he's my second cousin's son."
Murdo looked for a bit at the bloody thing before him, but the woman craved again with bony fingers on his wrist; so he spat on the dirty green tartan and went. The smoke rose from him and hung about with a smell of wearied flesh, the grey of the mist was black at Carnus. When the pair came over against Lochow, where one can see the holy isle when it is day, the night was deep and cold; but the woman bent at the cross with a "_Mhoire Mhathair_," and so did the man, picking the clotted blood from his ear. They dropped down the brae on the house at last.
For a little Black Murdo's finger hung on the sneck, and when he heard a sound he pushed in the door.
All about the house the peat-reek swung like mist on the mountain. Wind and rain fought it out on Cladich brae, and when it was not the wind that came bold through the smoke-hole in the roof, 'twas the rain, a beady slant that hissed on the peats like roasting herrings. The woman lay slack on the bed, her eyes glossed over with the glass that folks see the great sights through, and her fingers making love over the face and breast of a new-born boy that cried thinly at her knees. A lighted cruisie spluttered with heavy smell at the end of a string on a rafter.