Though Skirling Wattie was on good terms with the whole of his team, the member of it whom he singled out for complete confidence, whom he regarded as an employer might regard the foreman of a working gang, was the yellow cur. The abuse he poured over the heads of his servants was meant more as incentive than as rebuke, and he fed them well, sharing his substance honestly with them, and looking to them for arduous service in return. They were a faithful, intelligent lot, good-tempered, but for one of the collies, and the accepted predominance of the yellow cur was merely one more illustration of the triumph of personality. His golden eyes, clear, like unclouded amber, contrasted with the thick and vulgar yellow of his close coat, and the contrast was like that between spirit and flesh. He was a strong, untiring creature, with blunt jaws and legs that seemed to be made of steel, and it was characteristic of him that he seldom laid down but at night, and would stand turned in his traces as though waiting for orders, looking towards his master as the latter sang or piped, whilst his comrades, extended in the dust, took advantage of the halt. The party was drawn up under the lee of a low wall by the grassy side of the Brechin road, and its grotesqueness seemed greater than ever because of its entirely unsuitable background. The wall encircled the site of an ancient building called Magdalen Chapel, which had long been ruined, and now only survived in one detached fragment and in the half-obliterated traces of its foundations. Round it the tangled grass rose, and a forest of withered hemlock that had nearly choked out the nettles, stood up, traced like lacework against the line of hills beyond the Basin. In summer its powdery white threw an evanescent grace over the spot. The place was a haunt of Skirling Wattie's, for it was a convenient half-way house between Montrose and Brechin, and the trees about it gave a comforting shelter from both sun and rain. The tailboard of the cart was turned to the wall so that the piper could lean his broad back against it, and there being not a dozen inches between the bottom of his cart and the ground, he was hidden from anyone who might chance to be in the chapel precincts. The projecting stone which made a stile for those who entered the enclosure was just level with his shoulder, and he had laid his pipes on it while he sat with folded arms and considered the situation. He had just been begging at a farm, and he had heard a rumour there that Archie Flemington was gone from Balnillo, and had been seen in Brechin, riding westwards, on the preceding morning. The beggar had got a letter for him behind his sliding boards which had to be delivered without delay. "Doag," said he again, "we'll awa' to auld Davie's."