"Yes, he's aye using me ill," she said, sobbing and wiping her eyes. "I was in the garden just now, nipping some dead leaves from the briar bush, when he came in at the gate. He never likes to see me among my flowers, and when he found me there he got into a passion, and walked over the beds, and kicked the plants about with his sea boots. Then he ordered me away into the house, and said that if I wanted work to do, I might go and clean out the stable. I told him that was a man's work, not a lassie's; and at that he took up a stick, and struck me with it across the back." And here she sobbed again. I did not speak, but I felt my blood run hot in indignation against Carver Kinlay. I would have liked to thrash him. "If I were a lad like you, Halcro," she continued, "it's not long I would bide at Crua Breck. I would run away to sea. But what can a helpless lassie do? Nobody has a good word to say for my father since the Curlew was lost, and--I canna help it--I hae just as great an ill will at him as anybody else has." "They say that it was all through Carver that my father was drowned," I said. "Tell me, Halcro, what was the quarrel between your father and mine? What way did it come about?" "Well, I canna tell ye the ins and outs o' it all, but my father had some secret about Carver, and Carver was aye afraid o' him. You see, Thora, folks say that when a man saves another from the sea, there's sure to be a quarrel between them. And my father saved Carver Kinlay--not, perhaps, from the sea, but he saved his life." "How was that, Halcro?" "It was when you were a bairn, Thora. A ship was wrecked here on the Gaulton rocks, and all your family were aboard. Your mother and Tom were picked up by the Curlew, but Carver and you werena found for some days after the wreck. My father found you both in a cave, down in the cliff, and if it hadna been for him, I suppose you wouldna be here now, Thora, to say that Carver had beaten you." "That's a strange thing you're telling me, Halcro. I never heard of it before. And what ship was it that was wrecked?" "The Undine." "The Undine! I've seen that name on a box at Crua Breck that father keeps his money in. But tell me all about it. Did Captain Ericson tell you about the wreck?" "No. I only heard of it a week before he was drowned. It was Colin Lothian and my uncle Mansie that told it me. Auld Colin kens all about it, and more than he told to me." "Colin is a good old man, Halcro. When next I see him I will ask him to tell me what it was that he kept from you. Colin would keep nothing from me, I believe." "Maybe not. But listen, and I will give you the story as I heard it." Thora lay down on the grass, with her hands under her chin, and I proceeded to tell her of the wreck of the Undine.