"However, this is my story. One day I had finished wi’ my business here, and had set out to ride over to Ledmore, when the toothache came into my head just terrible, and I was like to be driven mad. I was passing Cruagan at the time—where ye spoke to James Macdonald, Miss Stanley—indeed, it was at James’s house I stopped, and tied up the beast, and went in to see if I could get a drop of whiskey to put in the side of my cheek, for the pain was just fearful. Well, there was nobody in but James’s old mother—an old, old woman—she could hardly move away from the fire—and says I, ’For God’s sake, woman, give me some whiskey to drive away this pain.’ Of course she declared and better declared there was none in the house; but at last, seeing I was near out o’ my senses, she hobbled away and brought me—what do ye think?—a glass of brandy—and fine brandy, too. ’Hallo!’ says I to the old cailleach, when the brandy had burned in my mouth for a while, and the pain was not so bad, ’where did ye get this fine stuff?’ Would ye believe it, she declared and better declared that she found it! ’Find it, woman! Where did ye find it?’ But no; that was all; she had found it. And then I began to think. Where was an old woman like that to get brandy? So says I all of a sudden, ’This is smuggled stuff. Ye need not deny it; and unless ye tell me instantly where ye got it, and how ye got it, the Supervisor will be here to-morrow morning, and in twenty-four hours ye’ll be in Dingwall Jail!——’" "Mr. Purdie," said Käthchen, interrupting—and with rather a cold manner—"was that your return for the old woman’s kindness to you in your trouble?" But he did not heed the taunt. He was exulting in his having trapped his enemy. "She was frightened out of her wits, the wretched old creature. ’Donuil Og,’ she says—Young Donald—it was from young Ross that she had got it. And now the case was clear enough! I had been suspecting something of the kind. And here was a fine come-down for the Rosses of Heimra;—the Rosses of Heimra, that in former days made such a flourish at the English court—dancing at Almacks, and skelping about wi’ the Prince Regent; and now the last of the family come down to selling smuggled brandy to old women and a parcel of crofters and cottars! A fine way of earning a living! But it’s all he’s fit for—an idle ne’er-do-weel, that never did a turn of work in his life beyond poaching and thieving and stirring up ill-will behind one’s back. But I’ll be even with my gentleman! I’ll have the Supervisor of Excise on to him; his fine little trips to the Channel Islands—I suppose it’s the Channel Islands, where you get brandy for next to nothing—we’ll soon put a stop to them; and when he finds himself before the Sheriff at Dingwall, he’ll be singing another tune!" A tap at the door—then Barbara entered; and the factor looked up quickly and suspiciously. But if the tall Highland lass had been listening her face said nothing.