hird, the
bustle began again as before.

Having thus set folks' minds at rest, we came down the brae, and were
met at the yard gate (for this place was like a well-doing farm) by a
tall, handsome man of more than fifty, who cried out to Alan in Gaelic.

"James Stewart," said Alan, "I will ask ye to speak in Scots, for here
is a young gentleman with me that has nane of the other. This is him,"
he added, putting his arm through mine, "a young gentleman of the
Lowlands, and a laird in his country too, but I am thinking it will be
better for his health if we give his name the go-by."

James of the Glens turned to me for a moment, and greeted me courteously
enough: the next he had turned to Alan.

"This has been a dreadful accident," he cried. "It will bring trouble on
the country." And he wrung his hands.

"Hoots!" said Alan, "ye must take the sour with the sweet, man. Colin
Roy is dead, and be thankful for that!"

"Ay," said James, "and by my troth, I wish he was alive again! It's all
very fine to blow and boast beforehand; but now it's done, Alan; and
who's to bear the wyte[21] of it? The accident fell out in Appin--mind
ye that, Alan; it's Appin that must pay; and I am a man that has a
family."

While this was going on I looked about me at the servants. Some were on
ladders, digging in the thatch of the house or the farm buildings, from
which they brought out guns, swords, and different weapons of war;
others carried them away; and by the sound of mattock blows from
somewhere farther down the brae, I suppose they buried them. Though they
were all so busy, there prevailed no kind of order in their efforts; men
struggled together for the same gun and ran into each other with their
burning torches; and James was continually turning about from his talk
with Alan, to cry out orders, which were apparently never understood.
The faces in the torchlight were like those of people overborne with
hurry and panic; and though none spoke above his breath, their speech
sounded both anxious and angry.

It was about this time that a lassie came out of the house carrying a
pack or bundle; and it has often made me smile to think how Alan's
instinct awoke at the mere sight of it.

"What's that the lassie has?" he asked.

"We're just setting the house in order, Alan," said James, in his
frightened and somewhat fawning way. "They'll search Appin with candles,
and we must have all things straight. We're digging the bit guns and
swo