Kenneth had the flute in his pocket. He was a marvellous player for a boy. His whole soul seemed to breathe through the instrument. To-day he played a battle-piece of his own putting together--not composing. First came the gathering of the clans, bold, energetic, soul-touching, then the plaintive farewell to native glens, as the Highlanders marched away,-- "Maybe to return to Lochaber no more." Next came the spirited march, then the wilder pibroch as the foe was sighted, then wilder rushing music still; the fight was going on now, you could feel that. You could hear the shrill slogan of the Highlander mingling with shout of victor and shriek of wounded. Then a pause, and anon the coronach or wail for the dead. And so the music died away. Down the glen now the party went, for the sun was sinking low in the west, and the fairy glen was miles from the clachan. But Jessie must see the sheep. Dugald was acting as shepherd to-day, and doffed his Highland bonnet as the ladies approached him. There was not a sheep there that Kenneth did not know. They bleated a kindly welcome as he approached. They even played with Kooran, making great pretence to knock him down or to hit him with their hard feet, all of which Kooran took in good part, and kindly pretended to run from them, then turning and barking in a funny remonstrative voice, as if he really were laughing at heart, and enjoyed the fun immensely, and I have no doubt he did. Dugald took Kenneth aside. "There is bad news come," he said; "all is lost. The glen is to be evicted." Kenneth's heart sank within him. The cloud then that had been gathering so long was about to burst. It was well-nigh a year since the tenantry had been asked to leave. They heeded not the summons. They could not believe that their own auld laird McGregor would send his people away. Little they knew. McGregor would never appear among them again. The edict sent through him was sent by or at the instigation of the new American laird. The glens were no good to him with people in them--so he said--he must have deer; he was buying the land for the "sport" it would afford him, his family and friends. Yet he doubted his own power, being a foreigner, to evict. But that very day the last summons was given previous to forcible expulsion. And the young men of the clachan and glens were wild. They would stand by their homesteads, they would grasp dirk and claymore, they would fight, they would die where they stood. But at the great meeting that took place the wisdom of the grey-haired prevailed. And with sorrow, ay, and tears, they all came at last to the conclusion that resistance would be worse than useless. They would not go till they were forced, they would stay and see the last of the dear old spot, but they would bend their necks to the yoke, they would maintain a passive attitude.