"I wad hae brocht ye a Bible, too, but Aphra micht hae noticed," he said. "There's mair nor a packet o' candles in the press, forbye a half loaf if ye are hungrysome i' the nicht-time. It's little likely that ye will ken how to play the fiddle?" I told him I had no such skill, at which he sighed. "I was dootin' that," he said. "If ye had I could hae played the seconds to ye fine! But Jeremy can play for twa when the fit is on him. Ye never heard Jeremy. He has a fiddle that is a real--Jeremy forgets the name--but it's real something awesome grand. And that's a deal mair than maist braw folk can say o' their fiddles. For they are maistly made i' the Gressmarket o' Edinbory! There's a melodeon, though, wi' silver keys, that's better still. But Hobby winna gie Jeremy the siller to buy it. It's in Lithgow's window at Langtoon, and some day it will be Jeremy's ain. Maybe afore ye think. Then he will come and play ye the bonnie music. Ye can dance, Elsie? Eh, that's weel. Jeremy canna dance, but he can play the bonnie music to dance till, and it's the finest sicht in the world to see a feat young lass footing it dentily to 'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' or 'Tullochgorum.'" After Jeremy was gone, I went over many things in my mind. Whatever part my grandfather Stennis had taken in the disappearances of Harry Foster, Riddick of Langbarns, Lang Hutchins the drover, and Joe Yarrow's father, obviously he had nothing to do with this. Therefore, I could only hope and pray that he was alike innocent of the others. Not that the justice, or injustice, of the country would in any case hold him guiltless. He it was who had brought this wild crew about the lonely and formidable House of the Grange. Because of them the Deep Moat glimmered through a mist of fear, and the sullen expanse of the Moat Pond had its waters, like once on a time the Nile, turned by the evening sun into blood. Still, I should be glad, even in my own heart, to be able to think better of my mother's father, even if no one agreed with me.