Within the house of Allenders they were all very silent. Martha, making no comment upon Harry’s life, tried to blind her eyes, and take out of them the vigilant jealous love which would not be deluded. Poor little Agnes, dispirited and pale, went about the house with her baby, forgetting all her girlish songs and laughter. Rose, wearying and sickened of the dreams which had been her sole solace, worked on in silence, and never cared to stir abroad; and merry little Katie Calder, the only free heart among them, could not comprehend the vague gloom which so often overpowered even Lettie--for Lettie’s dreary thoughts had returned to her again. “Lettie, dinna be sae dull,” pleaded Katie Calder; “naebody ever sings or says a word now--naebody but Allenders, and the doctor, when he comes; but I dinna like the doctor, Violet, and they canna bide him at Maidlin Cross.” “I think he’s a bad man,” said Violet, decidedly--and she clenched her hand, and stamped her little foot upon Dragon’s stair. “Ay, bairns,” said Dragon; “and I would like to hear somebody explain in a sensible way what gies him such a grip o’ Mr. Hairy. You’ll no ken, Missie; you’re ower wee; but if there was the like of Boston, or the young lad Livingstone, that converted sae mony hunder folk on the Monday of the preachings at the kirk of Shotts, or John Welsh, that wore the very stanes with his praying, to the fore now, I wouldna care to take my fit in my hand and gang away to ask their counsel: for, ye see, Mr. Hairy’s a different man from yon--a very different kind o’ man--and how the like of this chield has gotten such maistry over him is a miracle to me. I kent within mysel it was an ill sign when they ca’d him Hairy. There’s ne’er been a Hairy Allenders from Leddy Violet’s time till now.” Lettie would not speak of family concerns even to Dragon. She had already the instinctive pride which hides the wound in its own breast, and dies rather than complain; so she changed the subject rapidly. “Dragon, you never told us the story about the laird that planted the oak; and I thought myself, when I was at the waterside, that I heard it groan; but how could it groan, Dragon, at the season the man was killed? How could it ken the seasons, and it only a tree?” “It’s just because ye have nae knowledge, Missie,” said Dragon. “There’s me mysel noo, an auld man. I’m aye cauld, and aye creeping to my bit spunk of fire--ye might say how should I ken the seasons; but the oak has its fit constant in the earth, and its head to the sky, and hears the water every day, and feels the rain and the sun, and kens when to put forth its first leaves, and when to let them fa’, better than the wisest man that ever lived upon this earth. And weel may it groan, the auld oak--it’s langer in the service of the family than me; and do ye think I dinna groan mony a time, to see a fine lad like Mr. Hairy led away.”