She put up her old face against his. “’S tha e ruidhinn mo chridhe,” she whispered; “it is touching my heart you are.” After that they walked on slowly through the dripping mist, each dumb and brooding deep. “Where will you be staying this night?” asked Sheen suddenly, when they had traversed a wide boggy stretch of land; adding, as by an afterthought--“Ah, it is asking you were if the tarn there were Feur-Lochan. No; it is Loch-a-chaoruinn, and the clachan that is near is Contullich.” “Which way?” “Yonder: to the right.” “And you are not going there?” “No. I am going to the steading of Andrew Blair. Maybe you are for knowing it? It is called the Baile-na-Chlais-nambuidheag.”[6] [6] The farm in the hollow of the yellow flowers. “I do not remember. But it is remembering a Blair I am. He was Adam, the son of Adam, the son of Robert. He and my father did many an ill deed together.” “Ay, to the stones be it said. Sure, now, there was, even till this weary day, no man or woman who had a good word for Adam Blair.” “And why that … why till this day?” “It is not yet the third hour since he went into the silence.” Neil Ross uttered a sound like a stifled curse. For a time he trudged wearily on. “Then I am too late,” he said at last, but as though speaking to himself. “I had hoped to see him face to face again, and curse him between the eyes. It was he who made Murtagh Ross break his troth to my mother, and marry that other woman, barren at that, God be praised! And they say ill of him, do they?” “Ay, it is evil that is upon him. This crime and that, God knows; and the shadow of murder on his brow and in his eyes. Well, well, ’tis ill to be speaking of a man in corpse, and that near by. ’Tis Himself only that knows, Neil Ross.” “Maybe ay and maybe no. But where is it that I can be sleeping this night, Sheen Macarthur?” “They will not be taking a stranger at the farm this night of the nights, I am thinking. There is no place else for seven miles yet, when there is the clachan, before you will be coming to Fionnaphort. There is the warm byre, Neil, my man; or, if you can bide by my peats, you may rest, and welcome, though there is no bed for you, and no food either save some of the porridge that is over.” “And that will do well enough for me, Sheen; and Himself bless you for it.” And so it was. * * * * * After old Sheen Macarthur had given the wayfarer food--poor food at that, but welcome to one nigh starved, and for the heartsome way it was given, and because of the thanks to God that was upon it before even spoon was lifted--she told him a lie. It was the good lie of tender love.