to him.

Mackenzie touched him on the shoulder, and the old man started. "Is it
you, Mr. Mackenzie?" he said in Gaelic. "It is a great fright you have
given me."

"Come down to the house, John. The lads from Habost and Alister, and
some more will be coming; and you will get a ferry good dram, John, to
put wind in the pipes."

"It is no dram I am thinking of, Mr. Mackenzie," said the old man. "And
you will have plenty of company without me. But I will come down to the
house, Mr. Mackenzie--oh yes, I will come down to the house--but _in a
little while_ I will come to the house."

Mackenzie turned from him with a petulant exclamation, and went along
and down the hill rapidly, as he could hear voices in the darkness. He
had just got into the house when his visitors arrived. The door of the
room was opened, and there appeared some six or eight tall and stalwart
men, mostly with profuse brown beards and weatherbeaten faces, who
advanced into the chamber with some show of shyness. Mackenzie offered
them a rough and hearty welcome, and as soon as their eyes had got
accustomed to the light bade them help themselves to the whisky on the
table. With a certain solemnity each poured out a glass and drank
"_Shlainte!_" to his host as if it were some funeral rite. But when he
bade them replenish their glasses, and got them seated with their faces
to the blaze of the peats, then the flood of Gaelic broke loose. Had the
wise little girl from Suainabost warned these big men? There was not a
word about Sheila uttered. All their talk was of the reports that had
come from Caithness, and of the improvements of the small harbor near
the Butt, and of the black sea-horse that had been seen in Loch
Suainabhal, and of some more sheep having been found dead on the Pladda
Isles, shot by the men of the English smacks. Pipes were lit, the peats
stirred up anew, another glass or two of whisky drunk, and then, through
the haze of the smoke, the browned faces of the men could be seen in
eager controversy, each talking faster than the other, and comparing
facts and fancies that had been brooded over through solitary nights of
waiting on the sea. Mackenzie did not sit down with them: he did not
even join them in their attention to the curious whisky-flasks. He paced
up and down the opposite side of the room, occasionally being appealed
to with a story or a question, and showing by his answers that he was
but vaguely hearing the vociferous talk of his