Love, the weary, Tottered down the shelving road: At its foot, lo, night the starry Meeting him from God! "Love, the holy!" Sang a music in her dome, Sang it softly, sang it slowly, "--Love is coming home!" Ere the week was out, there stood above the dead stag a growing cairn, to this day called Carn a' cabrach mor. It took ten men with levers to roll one of the boulders at its base. Men still cast stones upon it as they pass. The next morning came a note to the cottage, in which Sercombe thanked the Macruadh for changing his mind, and said that, although he was indeed glad to have secured such a splendid head, he would certainly have stalked another deer, had he known the chief set such store by the one in question. It was handed to Alister as he sat at his second breakfast with his mother and Ian: even in winter he was out of the house by six o'clock, to set his men to work, and take his own share. He read to the end of the first page with curling lip; the moment he turned the leaf, he sprang from his seat with an exclamation that startled his mother. "The hound!--I beg my good dogs' pardon, one and all!" he cried. "--Look at this, Ian! See what comes of taking your advice!" "My dear fellow, I gave you no advice that had the least regard to the consequence of following it! That was the one thing you had nothing to do with." "READA," insisted Alister, as he pranced about the room. "No, don't read the letter; it's not worth, reading. Look at the paper in it." Ian looked, and saw a cheque for ten pounds. He burst into loud laughter. "Poor Ruadh's horns! they're hardly so long as their owner's ears!" he said. "I told you so!" cried the chief. "No, Alister! You never suspected such a donkey!" "What is it all about?" asked the mother. "The wretch who shot Ruadh," replied Alister, "--to whom I gave his head, all to please Ian,--" "Alister!" said Ian. The chief understood, and retracted. "--no, not to please Ian, but to do what Ian showed me was right:--I believe it was my duty!--I hope it was!--here's the murdering fellow sends me a cheque for ten pounds!--I told you, Ian, he offered me ten pounds over the dead body!" "I daresay the poor fellow was sorely puzzled what to do, and appealed to everybody in the house for advice!" "You take the cheque to represent the combined wisdom of the New House?" "You must have puzzled them all!" persisted Ian. "How could people with no principle beyond that of keeping to a bargain, understand you otherwise! First, you perform an action such persons think degrading: you carry a fellow's bag for a shilling, and then himself for nothing! Next, in the very fury of indignation with a man for killing the finest stag in the country on your meadow, you carry him home the head with your own hands! It all comes of that unlucky divine motion of yours to do good that good may come! That shilling of Mistress Conal's is at the root of it all!"