‘Oh, ma’am! you surely cannot refuse me? I have no one but you of whom I can ask it.’ ‘I will do it, Gilbert.’ It was with this understanding that they parted. To Jimmy Stirk and his grandmother his absence made a blank which nothing could fill. The old woman missed his visits and his talk, his voice and his step, his friendship which had bridged the gulf between age and youth, between rich and poor. She was hardly consoled by the occasional visits of Macquean, who would drop in now and then to recapitulate to her the circumstances of a departure which had never ceased to surprise him. He was not cut after her pattern, but she tolerated him for his master’s sake. From Morphie bits of information had trickled; on the day of his last visit the servants had let nothing escape them, and Lady Eliza’s face, as she went about the house, was enough to convince the dullest that there was tragedy afoot. A maid had been in the passage, who had seen Gilbert as he left Cecilia. ‘Ye’ll no have gotten any word o’ the laird?’ inquired Granny on one of the first days of the young year, as Macquean stopped at her door. ‘Na, na.’ The old woman sighed, but made no gesture of invitation. From behind her, through the open half of the door, Macquean heard the sound of a pot boiling propitiously, and a comfortable smell reached him where he stood. ‘A’ was saying that a’ hadna heard just very muckle,’ continued he, his nostrils wide--‘just a sma’ word----’ ‘Come away in-by,’ interrupted the Queen of the Cadgers, standing back, and holding the door generously open. ‘Maybe ye’ll take a suppie brose; they’re just newly made. Bide till a’ gie ye spune to them.’ It was warm inside the cottage, and he entered, and felt the contrast between its temperature and that of the sharp January air with satisfaction. Granny tipped some of the savoury contents of the black pot into a basin. ‘What was it ye was hearin’ about the laird?’ she asked, as she added a horn spoon to the concoction, and held it out to him. ‘Aw! it was just Wullie Nicol. He was sayin’ that he was thinkin’ the laird was clean awa’ now. It’s a piecie cauld, d’ye no think?’ replied Macquean, as well as he could for the pleasures of his occupation. ‘But what else was ye to tell me?’ she said, coming nearer. ‘There was nae mair nor that. Yon’s grand brose.’