I looked at it a moment, turning it over in my hand. ’It has been opened,’ said I. ’See, the wax is gone, and there are finger-marks within.’ ’So, indeed, it has,’ said Dominie Mure. ’Boy, if you have opened it I will tan you alive, outside and in.’ Whereat the boy began to weep. ’I have said what I was told to say,’ he cried, and for all we could do, nothing more could we get out of him—save that a dark man, faced like an ape or a wild beast, had come some way home behind him and sorely terrified him. So we sent the boy back to his mother, and, bidding farewell for that time to the Dominie and to young Gremmat, I fared along the way to Culzean to make me ready for the long journey of the morrow. *CHAPTER XXIX* *THE MURDER AMONG THE SANDHILLS* It was broad day and a pleasant May morn, when my master and I said our farewells at the gate of Culzean. With my own hands I had saddled for Sir Thomas his warhorse. But he, coming down arrayed in his plain suit of dark Flemish cloth, bade me take him back to the stable and get instead a pacing palfrey, which he loved because Marjorie had used to ride it. Then he kissed his bairns, for the lads and Nell stood by the door on the landward side, watching us with earnest eyes. ’Keep the castle, James,’ he cried, ’till I come back!’ ’Ay,’ said Sandy, ’we will keep it for you, faither.’ For Sandy came ever to the forefront, setting himself naturally before the slow and quiet Jamie. Then Nell came near and kissed her rather. But she and I only looked the one at the other as friends look, for at least before folk we did not so much as touch hands. So down through the woods Sir Thomas and I went sedately and quietly, now into little caller blinks of morning sunshine which glinted straight and level between the trees, and anon coming out upon a bare knoll as into a room with a removed and spacious ceiling. For there at our feet was the plain of the sea, sparkling and blue, beyond it again the hills of Arran, and to the south the shoulder of the Craig of Ailsa, heaving its bulk skyward like a monster of the ocean stranded in the shoreward shallows. Very pleasant was my master’s discourse as we went, of the wonderful peace that he was going to bring upon the land of Carrick from his dealings with the King and Council in Edinburgh. Specially he spoke with thankfulness of the present friendship of Auchendrayne, of the young Bargany who should for long be under tutors and governors, and of our own Earl, now tired of the feud and eager for a lasting peace. ’It needs,’ said he, ’but that one should take on him all the burden and heat of the day, and carry the matter through. And I, that am no warrior, but a quiet man dwelling in mine own house and fit only for daunering about mine own fields, may be able to do more in the matter than many battalions. For I have some influence with the King—a man that loves grave discourse upon occasion.’