"I have told you already, Mary, that if I were young Ross of Heimra, and such an injury had been done to me and mine—well, I should not like to say what I should be inclined to do in return. A sentimental grievance!—yes; but it is sentimental grievances that go deepest down into the Highland nature, and that are longest remembered. But then on the other hand it seems to me that shooting game or killing salmon is a very paltry form of revenge. That is not how I should try to have it out with Mr. Purdie—for who can doubt that it was Mr. Purdie destroyed the loch and the castle?—I saw his air of triumph when he told the story. No; poaching wouldn’t be my revenge—" "There is more than that, Käthchen," Mary said, absently. "It isn’t merely defying the keepers, or being in league with them. There is more than that. I wonder, now, if it is he who has set those people against us, so that they will never regard us but as strangers and enemies? It is not natural, their sullen refusal of kindness. There is something hidden—something behind—that I don’t understand." She was silent for a second or two: then she said—"I wonder if he thinks he can drive me out of the place by stirring up this bitter ill-will." "There is one way to get over the difficulty," said Käthchen, lightly. "Ask him to Lochgarra House. He is a Highlander: if he has once sate down at your table, he cannot be your enemy afterwards." A touch of colour rose to Mary’s face. "You forget the character he bears," she said, somewhat proudly. And here they were at the Cruagan crofts; and the people were all busy in the wide stretch of land enclosed by a dilapidated fence of posts and wire. James Macdonald, the elderly crofter who had complained of the dyke-tax, was ploughing drills for potatoes; two or three women and girls were planting; and a white-haired old man was bringing out the seed-potatoes in a pail. The plough was being drawn by two horses wearing huge black collars—what these were for the two visitors could not imagine. "Are you going to speak to him, Mary?" Kate asked in an undertone—as the plough was coming towards the end of the field. "Yes, I am," said the young lady. "I want to see if the remission of the tax has had no effect on him. Perhaps he will have a little more English now." There was no time to be lost—the horses were turning. She stepped across from the road. "May I interrupt you for a moment? I want to ask you—" Well, the grey-bearded man with the shaggy eyebrows did check the horses—perhaps he had meant to give them a rest at the end of the drill. "Oh, thank you," said Mary, in her most gracious and friendly way. "I only wished to ask you whether Mr. Purdie had told you that there was to be no more tax for the dyke, and that there was to be fifteen years’ of it given back." The Russian-looking crofter regarded the shafts of the plough without removing his hands; and then he said— "Yes—he was saying that."