The gist of the conversation may be summed-up thus. Did gentlefolks from the south ever come to Halko’s Head? Yes, some, but not many. There were but three houses suitable to such folks--Widow Macfarlane’s, the cottage beyond the Devil’s Staircase; Mistress Ramsay’s on the Killalochie road; and a shooting-box of Lord Pendarvoch’s. But this latter had been suffered to fall into decay many years ago. It had been shut up for the last quarter of a century, except now and then, when my lord had lent it to one of his friends that came for the shootings. All the shootings round about, farther than you could see, belonged to Lord Pendarvoch. But he was just dead, poor old body! and little loss to any mortal creature, for he had been nothing better than a miser since his young days, when he was wild and wasteful enough, if folks spoke true. That “wee bit stone hoosie” on the cliff had been put there by my lord, who brought the stone “posties” from foreign parts. Here was the mystery of the classic temple fully explained. Eustace knew very little of the peers of the realm, and Lord Pendarvoch was to him only as other lords--an unfamiliar name. “You have lived here many years, I suppose?” he said to the hostess. She told him with a pleasant grin, that she had never lived anywhere else. That pure mountain air she had breathed all her life. On Halko’s Head her eyes had first opened. On this Eustace proceeded to question her closely as to her recollections of any strangers who had made their abode at the fishing-village about four-and-twenty years before. He described the young couple--a gentleman and lady--“bride and bridegroom,” he said, with a faint blush. After much questioning from Eustace, and profound consideration upon the worthy dame’s part, a glimmer of light broke in upon her memory. “Was it at Lord Pendarvoch’s they lived?” she asked. “That I cannot tell you. But since you say there are only three houses suitable to strangers of superior condition, I suppose it was at one of those three the lady and gentleman had lived. They were here some months. The lady was very young, very pretty. She left suddenly, and the gentleman followed her a few days afterwards.” “Ay, ay, puir thing! I mind her the noo!” exclaimed the woman, nodding her head sympathetically. After this she told Eustace how such a couple as he described--the lady “as bonny a lass as ye’d see for mony a lang mile”--had lived for some months at Lord Pendarvoch’s shooting-box; and how the lady had been very sad and gentle, and much neglected towards the last by the gentleman, until she ran away one day, in a fit of jealousy, as it was thought, because the gentleman had been seen riding and driving with a strange foreign woman from London; and the gentleman had thought she’d drowned herself, and had been well-nigh mad for a night and a day, till news came that quieted him, and then he went away.