noon father and my brothers arrived, and we all
had tea out on the shady lawn, up to the very edge of which the waves were
lapping and lisping.

I was reclining in a hammock chair, listening to the sea's soft, soothing
murmur, when father brought his camp-stool and sat near me.

'Murdoch, boy,' he said, taking my hand gently, almost tenderly, in his,
'are you strong enough to bear bad news?'

My heart throbbed uneasily, but I replied, bravely enough, 'Yes, dear
father; yes.'

'Then,' he said, speaking very slowly, as if to mark the effect of every
word, 'we are--never--to return--to Castle Coila!'

I was calm now, for, strange to say, the news appeared to be no news at
all.

'Well, father,' I answered, cheerfully, 'I can bear that--I could bear
anything but separation.'

I went over and kissed my mother and sister.

'So this is the cloud that was in your faces, eh? Well, the worst is over.
I have nothing to do now but get well. Father, I feel quite a man.'

'So do we both feel men,' said Donald and Dugald; 'and we are all going to
work. Won't that be jolly?'

In a few brief words father then explained our position. There had arrived
one day, some weeks after the worst and most dangerous part of my illness
was over, an advocate from Aberdeen, in a hired carriage. He had, he
said, a friend with him, who seemed, so he worded it, 'like one risen
from the dead.'

His friend was helped down, and into father's private room off the hall.

His friend was the old beldame Mawsie, and a short but wonderful story she
had to tell, and did tell, the Aberdeen advocate sitting quietly by the
while with a bland smile on his face. She remembered, she said with many a
sigh and groan, and many a doleful shake of head and hand, the marriage of
Le Roi the dragoon with the Miss M'Crimman of Coila, although but a girl
at the time; and she remembered, among many other things, that the
priest's books were hidden for safety in a vault, where he also kept all
the money he possessed. No one knew of the existence of this vault except
her, and so on and so forth. So voluble did the old lady become that the
advocate had to apply the _cloture_ at last.

'It is strange--if true,' my father had muttered. 'Why,' he added, 'had
the old lady not spoken of this before?'

'Ah, yes, to be sure,' said the Aberdonian. 'Well, that also is strange,
but easily explained. The shock received on the night of the fire at the
chapel had deprived the poor