He did not answer, but the tumbler cracked in his grip, and the splintered glass fell into his plate. The spilt milk trickled off the table on to the end of his plaid, and so to the floor. Luath, the collie, slipped forward, with her tongue lolling greedily: but her eye caught the stare of the silent man, and with a whine, and a sudden sweep of her tail, she slunk back. It must have been nigh an hour later, that he spoke. “No, Elspeth,” he said. “There will be no going away from here, for you and me, till we go feet foremost.” Before the afternoon we had heard all: how he had gone to see this English lord who had “usurped” Drumdoon: how he had not gained an interview, and had seen no other than Mr Laing, the East Lothian factor. He had had to accept bitter hard terms. Sir Ewan Campbell was in Madras, with his regiment, a ruined man: he would never be home again, and, if he were, would be a stranger in the Three Straths, where he and his had lived, and where his kindred had been born and had died during six centuries back. There was no hope. This Lord Greycourt wanted more rent, and he also wanted Strathgorm for a deer-run. We were sitting, brooding on these things: in our ears the fierce words that Gorromalt had said, with bitter curses, upon the selling of the ancient land and the betrayal of the people. Morag was in one of her strange moods. I saw her, with her shining eyes, looking at the birch that overhung the small foaming linn beyond us, just as though she saw the soul of it, and the soul with strange speech to it. “Where is Muireall?” she said to me suddenly, in a low voice. “Muireall?” I repeated, “Muireall? I am not for knowing, Morag. Why do you ask? Do you want her?” She did not answer, but went on: “Have you seen him again?” “Him?… Whom?” “Jasper Morgan, this English lord’s son.” “No.” A long silence followed. Suddenly Aunt Elspeth started. Pointing to a figure coming from the peat-moss at the hither end of Strathmòr, she asked who it was, as she could not see without her spectacles. Her husband rose, staring eagerly. He gave a grunt of disappointment when he recognised Mr Allan Stewart, the minister of Strathmòr parish. As the old man drew near we watched him steadfastly. I have the thought that each one of us knew he was coming to tell us evil news; though none guessed why or what, unless Morag mayhap. When he had shaken hands, and blessed the house and those within it, Mr Stewart sat down on the bench beside Morag and me. I am thinking he wanted not to see the eyes of Gorromalt, nor to see the white face of Aunt Elspeth. I heard him whisper to my dear that he wanted her to go into the house for a little. But she would not. The birdeen knew that sorrow was upon us all. He saw “no” in her eyes, and forbore. “And what is the thing that is on your lips to tell, Mr Stewart?” said Gorromalt at last, half-mockingly, half-sullenly. “And how are you for knowing that I have anything to tell, Gorromalt?”