This had seemed perfectly natural to Fanshawe, who was ever sympathetic and ready to help. Besides, Scotland was not to him an unknown place. He had gone to the North often enough, to shooting boxes and castles among the moors. Scotland meant game and deer-stalking, mountains and lochs, and vigorous exercise, according to his understanding. Of course he was well enough aware that April is not the moment for such delights. He must have known too that no delights were possible in the circumstances, and that his goodnature was about to plunge him into a new kind of experience, and not a cheerful one. But yet if he ever paused to think where he was going, he was of opinion that he knew perfectly what the manner of living was. And it may be supposed that to such a man it was strange and somewhat overpowering to find himself at the end of a few days stranded as it were on the quietest coast, in the midst of the most tranquil rural life, in a sorrowful house where there were no visitors, no amusements, nothing going on, nothing to see. The sombre excitement of the arrival, and of the funeral, had for the first moment cast a veil over the gravest aspect of this seclusion. Half of Fife, as Miss Jean truly said, had shown their “respect” to the heir of Pitcomlie, and this fact had kept the stranger from perceiving the dead calm that awaited him. It was on the Sunday afternoon that he first discovered what it was that he had fallen into. He had gone decorously to the parish church in the morning, with that amount of information respecting its simple forms and ceremonies which the moors and the grouse have communicated to the well-meaning and inquisitive English sportsman. And though we will not say that Mr. Fanshawe’s mind was not visited by a momentary surprise that no part of the service was in Gaelic, he yet got through that part of the day well enough; and then he returned with the family to luncheon, a meal which was eaten almost in silence and at which he first fully realised the state of affairs. The first Sunday is a painful moment for people in fresh grief. Mr. Heriot sat at the foot of his table, sombre, incapable of speech, with his head bent upon his breast, answering mechanically, but sometimes with flashes of painful irritation, when he was addressed. Marjory from time to time attempted to talk; but the tears would come into her eyes in the midst of a sentence, her lip would quiver, and the words die away. Little Milly, with her hair more golden-bright than ever over her black frock, sat with great eyes opened upon the visitor, ready to cry every time that Marjory’s voice faltered; and Uncle Charles, who sat beside the child, was checked by some irritable word from his brother whenever he began to speak. Thus Mr. Fanshawe found himself sadly out of place in the family sitting-room downstairs.