“Sure now, after all, Neil, my man,” she said, “it is sleeping at the farm I ought to be, for Maisie Macdonald, the wise woman, will be sitting by the corpse, and there will be none to keep her company. It is there I must be going; and if I am weary, there is a good bed for me just beyond the dead-board, which I am not minding at all. So, if it is tired you are sitting by the peats, lie down on my bed there, and have the sleep; and God be with you.” With that she went, and soundlessly, for Neil Ross was already asleep, where he sat on an upturned _claar_, with his elbows on his knees, and his flame-lit face in his hands. The rain had ceased; but the mist still hung over the land, though in thin veils now, and these slowly drifting seaward. Sheen stepped wearily along the stony path that led from her bothy to the farm-house. She stood still once, the fear upon her, for she saw three or four blurred yellow gleams moving beyond her, eastward, along the dyke. She knew what they were--the corpse-lights that on the night of death go between the bier and the place of burial. More than once she had seen them before the last hour, and by that token had known the end to be near. Good Catholic that she was, she crossed herself, and took heart. Then, muttering _Crois nan naoi aingeal leam_ _’O mhullach mo chinn_ _Gu craican mo bhonn_ (The cross of the nine angels be about me, From the top of my head To the soles of my feet), she went on her way fearlessly. When she came to the White House, she entered by the milk-shed that was between the byre and the kitchen. At the end of it was a paved place, with washing-tubs. At one of these stood a girl that served in the house,--an ignorant lass called Jessie McFall, out of Oban. She was ignorant, indeed, not to know that to wash clothes with a newly dead body near by was an ill thing to do. Was it not a matter for the knowing that the corpse could hear, and might rise up in the night and clothe itself in a clean white shroud? She was still speaking to the lassie when Maisie Macdonald, the deid-watcher, opened the door of the room behind the kitchen to see who it was that was come. The two old women nodded silently. It was not till Sheen was in the closed room, midway in which something covered with a sheet lay on a board, that any word was spoken. “Duit sìth mòr, Beann Macdonald.” “And deep peace to you, too, Sheen; and to him that is there.” “Och, ochone, mise ’n diugh; ’tis a dark hour this.” “Ay; it is bad. Will you have been hearing or seeing anything?” “Well, as for that, I am thinking I saw lights moving betwixt here and the green place over there.” “The corpse-lights?” “Well, it is calling them that they are.” “I _thought_ they would be out. And I have been hearing the noise of the planks--the cracking of the boards, you know, that will be used for the coffin to-morrow.”