How still everything was!--as it is after a rock has fallen, after a tree has been torn up, the silence arching over the void before any whispering voice gets up to say where is it. The waters and the sighing branches both seemed still--with horror. And Drumcarro blew upon his hand which he had strained, and wiped the perspiration from his face. After a while he rose, still panting a little, his feet sinking into the spongy grass, and went homeward. He met nobody on the way, but seeing Duncan in the yard where he was attending to the cattle, beckoned to him with his hand. Duncan came at the master’s call, but not too quickly. “Ye were wanting me, sir,” he said. “No--I was not wanting you.” “Ye cried upon me, maister.” “No, I did not cry upon you--is it me that knows best or you? Go back to your beasts.” Drumcarro stood for a moment and watched the man turn back reluctantly, then he raised his voice: “Hey, Duncan--go down yonder,” pointing his thumb over his shoulder--“and see if anything’s happened. I’m thinking there’s a man--tummult over the linn.” Having said this the master went quietly to his own room and shut himself up there. CHAPTER XXI. Duncan gave a great start at this strange intimation--“Tummult over the linn!” That was not an accident to be spoken of in such an easy way. He put down the noisy pail he had been carrying in his hand. “Lord!” he said to himself; but he was a man slow to move. Nevertheless after two or three goings back upon himself, and thoughts that “the maister must have gone gyte,” Duncan set himself slowly in motion. “A man tummult o’er the linn--that’s a very sarious thing,” he said to himself. It was a great ease to his mind to see Glendochart coming down the path from the hill, and he stopped until they met. “Sir,” said Duncan, “have ye noticed anything strange about the maister?” “Strange about Drumcarro? I have noticed nothing beyond the ordinary,” was the reply. “What has he been doing, Duncan?” “He has been doing naething, Glendochart. But he just came upon me when I was doing my wark in the yaird. And I says, ‘Are ye wanting me, maister?’ And he says, ‘Me wanting ye? No, I’m no wanting ye.’ But afore I can get back to my wark I hear him again, ‘Duncan!’ ‘What is it, maister?’ says I. And says he, ‘I think there’s a man tummult over the linn. Ye can go and see.’” “Tumbled over the linn!” cried Glendochart “Good Lord! and did ye go and see?” “I’m on the road now,” said Duncan; “a man cannot do everything at once.” “The man may be drowned,” cried Glendochart, turning round quickly. “Run on, Duncan, for the Lord’s sake. I’m not so surefooted as the like of you, but I’ll follow ye by the road, as fast as I can. A man over the linn! Dear me, but that may be a very serious matter.”