Such power had been accumulated and brought to bear against Glenwarlock, that at length he was reduced almost to the last extremity. He had had to part with his horses before even his crops were all sown, and had therefore dismissed his men, and tried to sell what there was as it stood, and get some neighbouring farmer to undertake the rest of the land for the one harvest left him; but those who might otherwise have bought and cultivated were afraid of offending Lord Lick-my-loof, whose hand was pretty generally seen in the turn of affairs, and also of involving themselves in an unsecure agreement. So things had come to a bad pass with the laird and his household. A small crop of oats and one of potatoes were coming on, for which the laird did what little he could, assisted by Grizzie and Aggie at such times when they could leave their respective charges, but in the meantime the stock of meal was getting low, and the laird did not see where more was to come from. He and Grizzie had only porridge, with a little salt butter, for two, and not unfrequently the third also of their daily meals. Grizzie for awhile managed to keep alive a few fowls that picked about everywhere, finally making of them broth for her invalid, and persuading the laird to eat the little that was not boiled away, till at length there was neither cackle nor crow about the place, so that to Cosmo it seemed dying out into absolute silence--after which would come the decay and the crumbling, until the castle stood like the great hollow mammoth-tooth he had looked down upon in his dream. At once he proceeded to do what little could yet be done for the on-coming crops, resolving to hire himself out for the harvest to some place later than Glenwarlock, so that he might be able to mow the oats before leaving, when his father and Grizzie with the help of Aggie would secure them. Nothing could now prevent the closing of the net of the last mortgage about them; and the uttermost Cosmo could hope for thereafter was simply to keep his father and Grizzie alive to the end of their natural days. Shelter was secure, for the castle was free. The winter was drawing on, but there would be the oats and the potatoes, with what kail the garden would yield them, and they had, he thought, plenty of peats. Yet not unfrequently, as he wandered aimless through the dreary silence, he would be speculating how long, by a judiciously ordered consumption of the place, he could keep his father warm. The stables and cow-houses would afford a large quantity of fuel; the barn too had a great deal of heavy wood-work about it; and there was the third tower or block of the castle, for many years used for nothing but stowage, whose whole thick floors he would thankfully honour, burning them to ashes in such a cause. In the spring there would be no land left them, but so long as he could save the house and garden, and find means of keeping his two alive in them, he would not grieve over that.