Supper followed, which was much the same as the dinner, only there was more toddy, and therefore more noise; and Duncan Cameron, emboldened by the whisky, ventured to say that Alaister had not danced "clean" that night; to which Alaister answered, with a look of pity, that "Duncan, puir fellow, had never seen right since the night he had sic a fley wi' the fairies on the moor, when they shot him into a peat-moss, and the Will-of-the-Wisps ran so near him that they singed his nose, and it had been red ever since." This had the effect of silencing Duncan, who had fallen in as described when coming home tipsy from a wake, and had told many wonderful stories of his ill-treatment by the "gude fouk," as he called the fairies. The conversation now turned on fairies, and all professed the deepest admiration and respect for them. Alaister, however, rather laughed at the idea of their doing anybody good or ill, and even hinted that he doubted their existence. Then began a warm discussion; and by degrees Alaister grew bolder, and expressed in plain terms his entire disbelief in these gentle spirits, challenging them to meet him that night on his way home, and let him play on the bagpipes heard by so many of his companions in the gloamin' among the heather on the hill-side; at the same time drinking glass after glass to his success in the exploit. Soon after this the party broke up, and Alaister started for Inverknickle, playing what he intended for "Wooed and married and a'," but it was a bad version of it, and sounded dismal and unearthly as it died away in the distance. He crossed the moor in the bright moonlight, and at last reached the birch wood, where the white stems shone like ghosts in their winding-sheets, and the branches swung noiselessly in the night breeze, and gave out their fresh sweet smell. Let it not be supposed that Alaister actually observed all this, but it had an influence on his mind, and made him feel eerie, it was so different from the noisy scene he had left.