And so they waited. It was a singular scene for the Twelfth of August on the side of a Highland hill: no ranging of dogs, no cracking of breechloaders, no picking up of a bird here and there from the thick heather, but a small group, standing silent and constrained, and dimly aware that pent-up human passions were about to burst forth amid these vast and impressive solitudes. Young Ross of Heimra—for it was unmistakably he—came leisurely along; his attention was evidently fixed on the sportsmen; perhaps he was wondering that they did not let loose the dogs and get to work. But as he drew nearer he must have perceived that they were awaiting his approach; and so—with something of interrogation and surprise in his look—he came up to them. "I hope you have had good sport," said Fred Stanley. Donald Ross stared: there was something in the young man’s tone that seemed to strike him. "I—I don’t quite understand," said he. "Oh, well, it’s only this," replied the other, striving to keep down his rising rage, and speaking in a deliberately taunting fashion, "that when you find anyone on a Highland moor on the Twelfth of August you naturally suppose that he has come for grouse. And why not? I am sorry we have interrupted you. When you have the fishing and the stalking, why shouldn’t you have the shooting as well? I am sorry if we have disturbed you——" They formed a curious contrast, those two: the tall, handsome, light-haired youth, with his fair complexion and his boyish moustache causing him to look almost effeminate, and yet with his nostrils dilated, his haughty grey eyes glistening with anger, a tremor of passion about the lines of his lips; the other, though hardly so tall, of more manly presence, his pale, proud, clear-cut features entirely reticent, his coal-black eyes, so far, without flame in them, an absolute self-possession and dignity governing his manner. "I hardly know what you mean," said he, slowly, fixing those calmly observant black eyes on the young lad. "What is it all about? Do I understand you to accuse me of shooting over your moor—here—now?—do you imagine——" "Oh, it isn’t that only!—it is half-a-dozen things besides!" the young man exclaimed, letting his passion get entirely the mastery of him. "Who has this place? Not those who bought it! It is you who have the shooting and fishing and everything; and not content with that but you play dog-in-the-manger as well—heaving stones into the pools when anyone else goes down to the river. And who does the scringeing about here?—answer me that!—do you think we don’t know well enough? Let us have an end of hypocrisy——"