Mrs. Catherine rose. Amazement, grief, and burning anger contended in her face. "What say you? The alien has dared to cast out the Macalpines of Oranmore from their own land! I cannot believe it--it is not possible!" "The lad is dying!" cried young Sympelton, too much absorbed with what he had seen to heed Mrs. Catherine's exclamation. "They are covering him with cloaks and plaids--they say the cold will kill him. It is a terrible sight!--old men, and women, and little children, and the dying lad! Not a roof in the whole glen to shelter them!" Mrs. Catherine left the room, and went down stairs. An energetic word sent double speed into Andrew's movements as he prepared the carriage. Mrs. Euphan Morison was ordered to put wine into it; blankets and cloaks were added, and Mrs. Catherine, with her own hands, thrust Giles into the carriage. "Bring the lad here, to the Tower: come back to me yourself. Bring the aged and feeble with you, as many as can come. Mind that you return to me your own self. And now, sir, away!" The carriage dashed out of the court, and at a pace to which Mrs. Catherine's horses were not accustomed, took the way to Oranmore. Fitzherbert and Whittret had left the glen, with their band of attendants. The Macalpines were alone; the shadows of the March evening began to gather darkly upon the hills. In Big Duncan's roofless cottage, on a bed, hastily constructed before the fire, and shielded with a rude canopy of plaids, lay the sick lad, shivering and moaning, as the gust of wind which swept through the vacant window-frame, and burst in wild freedom overhead, shook the frail shelter over him, and tossed the coverings off his emaciated limbs. Mr. Lumsden stood beside him. In the first shock of that great misfortune, the minister endeavored to speak hopeful, cheering words--of earthly comfort yet to come--of heavenly strength and consolation, which no oppressing hand could bereave them of.--Homeless and destitute, in the stern silence of their restrained emotions, the Macalpines heard him; some vainly, the burning sense of personal wrong momentarily eclipsing even their religion; some with a noble patience which, had they been Romans of an older day, would have gained them the applauses of a world. These brief and lofty words of his were concluded with a prayer. The March evening was darkening, the wind sweeping chill and fierce above them. The tremulous old man leaned on the sick lad's bed; the grandmother crouched by the fire upon her grandchild's stool. Big Duncan Macalpine stood on his own threshold; without, close to the vacant window, stood the neighbors who could not find admission into the interior, and from the midst of them the voice of supplication ascended up to heaven, "For strength, for patience, for forgiveness to their enemy."