Thus it went on the whole day, and as the evening approached, he grew still more excited. The sun went down, and the twilight began; and, as the twilight deepened, still his excitement grew. Straightway it seemed as if the whole Seaton had come to share in it. Men and women were all out of doors; and, late as it was when the sun set, to judge by the number of red legs and feet that trotted in and out with a little shadowy flash, with a dull patter-pat on earthen floor and hard road, and a scratching and hustling among the pebbles, there could not have been one older than a baby in bed; while of the babies even not a few were awake in their mothers’ arms, and out with them on the sea front. The men, with their hands in their trouser-pockets, were lazily smoking pigtail, in short-clay pipes with tin covers fastened to the stems by little chains, and some of the women, in short blue petticoats and worsted stockings, doing the same. Some stood in their doors, talking with neighbours standing in their doors; but these were mostly the elder women: the younger ones-- all but Lizzy Findlay--were out in the road. One man half leaned, half sat on the window sill of Duncan’s former abode, and round him were two or three more, and some women, talking about Scaurnose, and the factor, and what the lads would do to-morrow; while the hush of the sea on the pebbles mingled with their talk, like an unknown tongue of the infinite--never articulating, only suggesting-- uttering in song and not in speech--dealing not with thoughts, but with feelings and foretastes. No one listened: what to them was the Infinite with Scaurnose in the near distance! It was now almost as dark as it would be throughout the night if it kept as clear. Once more there was Duncan, standing as if looking out to sea, and shading his brows with his hand as if to protect his eyes from the glare of the sun, and enable his sight! “There’s the auld piper again!” said one of the group, a young woman. “He’s unco fule like to be stan’in that gait (_way_), makin’ as gien he cudna weel see for the sun in ’s e’en.” “Haud ye yer tongue, lass,” rejoined an elderly woman beside her. “There’s mair things nor ye ken, as the Beuk says. There’s een ’at can see an’ een ’at canna, an’ een ’at can see twise ower, an’ een ’at can see steikit what nane can see open.” “Ta poat! ta poat of my chief!” cried the seer. “She is coming like a tream of ta night, put one tat will not tepart with ta morning.” He spoke as one suppressing a wild joy. “Wha’ll that be, lucky-deddy (_grandfather_)?” inquired, in a respectful voice, the woman who had last spoken, while those within hearing hushed each other and stood in silence. And all the time the ghost of the day was creeping round from west to east to put on its resurrection body, and rise new born. It gleamed faint like a cold ashy fire in the north.