That, sometimes at least, he knew she was there was clear to her, because, as she stole rapidly through the tangled fern and gale, she would hear a mocking laugh follow her like a leaping thing. Mànus was not there on the night when she told Marcus and his brothers that she was going. He was in the haven on board the _Luath_, with his two mates, he singing in the moonshine as all three sat mending their fishing gear. After the supper was done, the three brothers sat smoking and talking over an offer that had been made about some Shetland sheep. For a time, Anne watched them in silence. They were not like brothers, she thought. Marcus, tall, broad-shouldered, with yellow hair and strangely dark blue-black eyes and black eyebrows; stern, with a weary look on his sun-brown face. The light from the peats glinted upon the tawny curve of thick hair that trailed from his upper lip, for he had the _caisean-feusag_ of the Northmen. Gloom, slighter of build, dark of hue and hair, but with hairless face; with thin, white, long-fingered hands that had ever a nervous motion, as though they were tide-wrack. There was always a frown on the centre of his forehead, even when he smiled with his thin lips and dusky, unbetraying eyes. He looked what he was, the brain of the Achannas. Not only did he have the English as though native to that tongue, but could and did read strange unnecessary books. Moreover, he was the only son of Robert Achanna to whom the old man had imparted his store of learning, for Achanna had been a school-master in his youth, in Galloway, and he had intended Gloom for the priesthood. His voice, too, was low and clear, but cold as pale-green water running under ice. As for Seumas, he was more like Marcus than Gloom, though not so fair. He had the same brown hair and shadowy hazel eyes, the same pale and smooth face, with something of the same intent look which characterised the long-time missing, and probably dead, eldest brother, Alasdair. He, too, was tall and gaunt. On Seumas’s face there was that indescribable, as to some of course imperceptible, look which is indicated by the phrase “the dusk of the shadow,” though few there are who know what they mean by that, or, knowing, are fain to say. Suddenly, and without any word or reason for it, Gloom turned and spoke to her. “Well, Anne, and what is it?” “I did not speak, Gloom.” “True for you, _mo cailinn_. But it’s about to speak you were.” “Well, and that is true. Marcus, and you Gloom, and you Seumas, I have that to tell which you will not be altogether glad for the hearing. ’Tis about—about—me and—and Mànus.”