The Desperate Journey Read Online Free PDF Page A

out and the lid sprang open and the contents were trampled into the mud of the farmyard. Kirsty could stand it no longer. She rushed from the house and gathered up the bedcovers and blankets and the one fine white linen tablecloth that Kate had woven herself when she was a lass. Still Kate said nothing, looking with terrible eyes at the factor who stood watching in the doorway. Under those unflinching eyes he grew uncomfortable.
    “There is no need to be over rough,” he said to his men. “Now, Mistress Murray, if you and your son will rise from your chairs, they shall be carried out with care.”
    “Then you must carry us out with them too, for go from this house on my own legs I will not!” Kate Murray said with determined dignity.
    “Remove them!” Patrick Sellar ordered.
    The men seized Davie and carried him kicking and struggling from the house. When he would have rushed back into the house, one of them gave him a push which sent him sprawling flat on his face on the trampled ground. They turned their attention to Kate Murray. She rose proudly to her feet.
    “The first one of you to lay a finger on me will feel my nails on his face!” she said. Before her the men fell back muttering. No one wanted to be the first.
    “We’ve had enough of this defiance!” Sellar shouted, his temper rising. “Light a torch at the embers of that fire and set it to the thatch! If she will not come out, let her roast alive!”
    One of the men snatched up a torch of resin and pine they had brought with them for the purpose of firing the house, and thrust it among the glowing peat. It burst at once into flame. He snatched it out, jumped on the remaining chair and thrust the torch in among the timbers and the thatch. It went up like a bonfire. With the smoke eddying round them the men rushed from the house. Still Kate Murray stood as if turned to stone. Suddenly Davie realised his mother’s peril, and he rushed in and tugged at her arm.
    “Come out, Mother! It will only be minutes before the roof falls about our heads!”
    Still she stared about her as though bereft of understanding. Davie plucked at her hand. “Mother! Mother! Come out! If you do not, we shall both die here!”
    It was only the realization of Davie’s peril that brought her to her senses. As the smoke swirled about them and bits of burning thatch fell at their feet, she ran from the house with him.
    “I thought that would smoke out the vixen and her cub!” Sellar mocked.
    Kate Murray drew herself up to her full height and she was a tall woman. “A vixen, am I, Patrick Sellar?” she began, pointing her finger at him. “Then hear what a vixen has to say to you this day!” Her voice sounded so terrible that all the men fell silent.
    “Today you have shown no mercy to the suffering. Look then for a day when suffering will visit your own house and there will be no mercy for you. You have laid your hands on those who were defenceless, but your time will come when there will be none to stand beside you when you are in need. You have put fire to this house, but that fire and smoke rises to heaven to cry for your punishment. Never will you go easily again! Never will you be free of the evil you have done! It will be remembered long after you are dust in the grave!” A gust of wind sent the smoke eddying round her in ghostly fashion. Patrick Sellar turned pale and stepped backward away from her, then made an effort to recover himself.
    “You – you dark witch!” he cried. “Don’t you dare lay curses on me or I will have you whipped for it!”
    She fixed him again with her dark glittering eyes, and his gaze fell. “Have you not brought enough destruction on this house?” she asked him fearlessly. “Go on your way! You have done that for which you came.” She turned her back on him with contempt. For a moment he seemed about to reply angrily, then he flung himself on his horse.
    “Gather up your gear, men, and come after me,” he shouted over his