He resumed his seat; the two fishermen took their places fronting him, and for some time neither party exchanged a word. “This is but a gousty lodging-place,” at length remarked the old fisherman, looking round him; “but I have seen worse, and I wish the folk at hame kent we were half sae snug.” The remark seemed directed to no one in particular, and there was no reply. In a second attempt he addressed himself to the old man. “It has vexed me, Eachen,” he said, “that our young folk, were it but for my sister’s sake, should not be on mair friendly terms; an’ we ourselves too--why suld we be enemies?” The old man, without deigning a reply, knit his grey shaggy brows, and looked doggedly at the fire. “Nay, now,” continued the fisherman, “we are getting auld men now, Eachen, an’ wald better bury our hard thoughts o’ ane anither afore we come to be buried oursels.” Eachen fixed his keen scrutinizing glance on the speaker, there was a tremulous motion of the upper lip as he withdrew it, and a setting of the teeth; but the tone of his reply savoured more of sullen indifference than of passion. “William Beth,” he said, “ye have tricked my boys out o’ the bit property that suld have come to them by their mither; it’s no so long since they barely escaped being murdered by your son. What more want you? But, mayhap, ye think it better that the time should be passed in making boss professions of good-will than employed in clearing off an old score.” “Ay,” hiccuped out the elder of the two sons, “the houses might come my way then; an’, if Helen Henry were to lose her ae joe, the tither might hae the better chance.” “Look ye, uncle,” exclaimed the younger fisherman, “your threat might be spared. Our little property was my grandfather’s and of right descended to his only son. As for the affair at the tryst, I dare either of my cousins to say the quarrel was of my seeking. I have no wish to raise my hand against the sons or the husband of my aunt; but if forced to it, you will find that neither my father nor myself are wholly at your mercy.” He rose to his feet as he spoke. “Whisht, Ernest,” said the old fisherman calmly, “sit down; your uncle maun hae ither thoughts. It is now twenty years, Eachen,” he continued, “since I was called to my sister’s deathbed. You cannot forget what passed there. There had been grief and hunger beside that bed. I’ll no say you were willingly unkind. Few folk are that but when they have some purpose to serve by it, and you could have none; but you laid no restraint on a harsh temper, and none on a craving habit, that forgets everything but itself, and sae my poor sister perished in the middle of her days, a wasted heart-broken thing. I have nae wish to hurt you. We baith passed our youth in a bad school, and I owre aften feel I havena unlearned a’ my own lessons to wonder that you suldna have unlearned a’ yours. But we’re getting old men, Eachen, why suld we die fools? and fools we maun die, if we die enemies.”