‘Yonder’s him!’ she cried, as she extended a direct forefinger on his shelter. A shout rose from the revellers. Even the man in the doorway turned his head, a thing he had not been able to do for some time. ‘Heh! the laird! the laird!’ ‘Yon’s him. Come awa’, laird, an’ let’s get a sicht o’ ye!’ ‘Here’s to ye, laird!’ ‘Laird! laird! What’ll I get if I run through the fire?’ ‘Ye’ll get a pair o’ burned boots!’ roared the man in the doorway with sudden warmth. Speid came out from the shadow. He had not bargained for this. Silence fell at once upon the assembly, and it occurred to him that he would do well to say a few words to these, his new dependents. He paused, not knowing how to address them. ‘Friends,’ he began at last, ‘I see that you mean this--this display as a kind welcome to me.’ ‘Just that,’ observed a voice in the crowd. ‘I know very little about Whanland, and I do not even know your names. But I shall hope to be friendly with you all. I mean to live here and to try my best to do well by everybody. I hope I have your good wishes.’ ‘Ye’ll hae that!’ cried the voice; and a man, far gone in intoxication, who had absently filled the tin mug he had drained with small stones, rattled it in accompaniment to the approving noise which followed these words. ‘I thank you all,’ said the young man, as it subsided. Then he turned and went up the fields to the house. And that was how Gilbert Speid came back to Whanland. CHAPTER II AT GARVIEKIRK THE woman who lay in her grave by the sands had rested there for nearly thirty years when her son stood in the grass to read her name and the date of her death. The place had been disused as a burial-ground; and it cost Gilbert some trouble to find the corner in which Clementina Speid’s passionate heart had mixed with the dust from which, we are told, we emanate. The moss and damp had done their best to help on the oblivion lying in wait for us all, and it was only after half an hour of careful scraping that he had spelt out the letters on the stone. There was little to read: her name, and the day she died--October 5, 1770--and her age. It was twenty-nine; just a year short of his own. Underneath was cut: ‘Thus have they rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my goodwill (Ps. cix. 4).’ He stood at her feet, his chin in his hand, and the salt wind blowing in his hair. The smell of tar came up from the nets spread on the shore to windward of him, and a gull flitted shrieking from the line of cliff above. He looked up.