g June evenings, but they
drowned them in the tooting of fifes and the banging of drums and went
gaily on to their doom.

But while the MacDonalds raged, Big Malcolm remained at home alone or
in company with Long Lauchie, and fought with himself the fiercest
battle in which he had ever engaged. Not since the day he had seen
Rory go down under Pat Murphy's feet had he been so sorely tried. And
the MacDonalds would say he had failed them because his son was about
to unite with one of the Caldwell crew. That was the sting of it!
Callum had always been the first in any aggressive enterprise of the
Oa, and Callum was now conspicuous by his absence. Sometimes Big
Malcolm was fiercely resolved to plunge headlong into the commotion and
compel his son to join him. And then calmer moments ensued; he could
not forget those winter prayer meetings and the wonderful leavening
effect they had had upon the community; nor could he forget Praying
Donald's prophetic warnings that all strife and enmity must certainly
bring retribution. No; he had forever put all feuds behind him, he
finally decided, and if the MacDonalds were about to engage in strife
with the Orangemen they must learn that he, Big Malcolm, was far above
and beyond any such unseemly brawlings.

But upon this evening when Scotty found him alone at the doorway, his
grandfather was experiencing none of the settled calm that might be
expected to follow such a laudable decision. For to-night the
MacDonalds were holding another mass-meeting at the house of Roarin'
Sandy to decide finally what punishment should be meted out to the
reckless Orangemen, and his very soul was crying out to be with them.

Scotty could elicit no answer to his remarks, and sat upon the
doorstep, a small, disconsolate heap, wondering sadly how his hero
could have made such a mistake, and finding in his own forlorn heart an
echo of the sweet, melancholy evening music. Around him the mosquitoes
wailed out their dreary little song; away down by the edge of the wet,
low pastures, where the fireflies wandered, each with his weird little
torch, the frogs were piping mournfully. The whitethroat was sending
out his "silver arrows of song" clearly and pensively from the depths
of the velvet dusk. The discordant twang of the swooping night-hawks
came down from the pale clear sky where one silver star had come out
above the black jagged line of forest.

Granny was moving about indoors; the boy could s