But the old man was hard to move. Sure of his rights, and convinced of the injustice of all legal proceedings, he clung tenaciously to his little property. It was not a place anyone need grieve over losing, an observer might say--a few acres of stumpy, cleared land, an indefinite piece of forest, and an old log cabin. But it was Sandy's home--the only one he had known since he left his father's fisher-hut on the wind-swept shore of Islay. And every stone and tree on the rough little place, and the very birds that sang in the evening from the dark circle of forest were very dear to the old man's heart. From the doorway he could see down the leafy lane to the church and beyond it into the grassy graveyard with its leaning headstones. There was one there, an old moss-grown, wooden slab, once painted white. It marked two graves, those of Sandy's wife and his daughter, their only child, who had been Eppie's mother. Yes, it was hard to think of leaving it all, and he was fiercely determined to stay. His friends did their best to help him. Mr. Coulson took the liberty of writing to Mrs. Jarvis, the owner of the property, begging her to notice Sandy's claim. But there came no answer, and Mr. Huntley, the lawyer, laughed at him, saying by the time he had done business with that lady as long as he had he'd know better. Mr. MacAllister offered Sandy work in the mill, with pay commuted the long way. Noah Clegg invited both him and Eppie to share his home until such time as he could look about him for a new place. For, though the two Sunday-school superintendents were wont to sit up all night arguing fiercely on points of doctrine, in the day of affliction all differences were forgotten. Jake Martin even loudly declared himself powerful sorry, but then business was business, and he supposed there would always be shiftless folk like Sandy in the world who could never get on. Wully Johnstone came next. He strolled over through the woods one afternoon and casually remarked that that old house of his by the spring was just fair totterin' for lack of care, and he wished to peace some obleegin' body would move intil it an' save him all the worry. But Sandy would accept no man's hospitality, however delicately offered. He was proud, even for a Highlander, and not Noah Clegg himself, who was his closest friend, might extend to him charity.