As I went back--which I did instantly, leaving the stable door swinging open--I heard my mother's voice again. She was calling aloud and the sound of her voice was yearning and full like that of a young woman. "William!" she called, and again "William!" Now though that is my name I knew full well that it was not to me, her son, that she called. For that is the voice a woman only uses to him who has been her man, and with her has drunk of the fountain of the joy of youth. Once on a time I shot an eagle on the Millyea, and his mate came and called him even thus, with a voice that was as soft as that of a cushie dove crooning in the tall trees in the early summer, till I could have wept for sorrow at my deed. Then as I went in, I came upon my mother a step or two from the open door, groping with her arms wide in the darkness. "Oh," she cried, "William, my William, the Lord be thankit!" and she clasped me to her heart. But in a moment she flung me from her. "Oh! it's you," she said bitterly, and went within without another word, her harshness jangling on my heart. Yet I understood, for my mother was always greatly set on my father. And once when in jest we teased her to try her, telling her the story of the pious Æneas, and asking her to prophesy to us which one of us she would lift, if so it was that the house of Earlstoun were in a lowe. "Faith," said my mother, "I wad tak' your faither on my back, gin a' the lave o' ye had to bide and burn!" So it was ever with my mother. She was my father's sweetheart to her latest hour. But when I went in I found her sitting, sheet-white and trembling on the settle. "What's ta'en ye, mither?" I said to her, putting a shawl about her. "O my man, my bonny man," she said, "there's nane to steek your e'en the nicht! An' Mary Gordon maun lie her leesome lane for evermair!" "Hoot, mither," I said, "speak not so. My faither will come his ways hame i' the mornin' nae doot, wi' a' the lads o' the Kenside clatterin' ahint him. Sandy is wi' him, ye ken." "Na," she said calmly enough, but as one who has other informations, "Sandy is no wi' him. Sandy gaed through the battle wi' his heid doon and his sword rinnin' reed. I see them a' broken--a' the pride o' the West, an' the dragoons are riding here an' there amang them, an' haggin' them doon. But your faither I canna see--I canna see my man----" "Mither," I said, mostly, I think, for something to say, "Mind the Guid Cause!" She flung her hands abroad with a fine gesture as of scorn. "What cause is guid that twines a woman frae her ain man--an' we had been thegither three-an'-thirty year!"