On the water I saw a ship in full sail, diminished to a toy
size, careering northward with the wind.
Outside a man was seated whistling a cheerful tune. I got to my feet
and staggered out to clear my head in the air, and found the smiling
face of Ringan.
"Good-morning, Andrew," he cried, as I sat down beside him. "Have you
slept well?"
I rubbed my eyes and took long draughts of the morning breeze.
"Are you a warlock, Mr. Campbell, that you can spirit folk about the
country at your pleasure? I have slept sound, but my dreams have been
bad."
"Yes," he said; "what sort of dreams, maybe?"
"I dreamed I was in a wild place among wild men, and that I saw murder
done. The look of the man who did it was not unlike your own."
"You have dreamed true," he said gravely; "but you have the wrong word
for it. Others would call it justice."
"What sort of justice?" said I, "when you had no court or law but just
what you made yourself."
"Is it not a stiff Whiggamore?" he said, looking skywards. "Why, man,
all justice is what men make themselves. What hinders the Free
Companions from making as honest laws as any cackling Council in the
towns? Did you see the man Cosh? Have you heard anything of his doings,
and will you deny that the world was well quit of him? There's a
decency in all trades, and Cosh fair stank to heaven.
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