A Lovers' Tale by Maurice Hewlett

Now back we go to Tongue on Midfirth to see what was going on there.

Stangerd's father was not overjoyed to have her back again at home, but he said that she had been very right to leave Sowerby and a husband who put her to ridicule. He was sanguine, too, that she would get her property back either by a pleading at the Thing or by Berse's sense of justice; but his son Toothgnasher thought differently, and as the season wore away, it seemed that Toothgnasher was right. Then came the battle in Berse's house, and the end of Toothgnasher and Wale. Thorkel took that hardly, and showed Stangerd by his dealing that he put some of the blame upon her. He now talked of ransom and the need of a champion to take up his quarrel. He talked more than once of Cormac as of the right man in the right place, as the natural champion of his family, and all the rest of it. Stangerd said nothing, but remained handsome, silent, and self-possessed as she had always been. Yet there's no doubt but she expected Cormac to come, and looked for him every day.