, and all other difficulties were
met and dealt with in an equally summary manner. Danny's dangerous
part of the task was executed with wonderful skill and an answer was
piloted safely back.

They were all three somewhat disappointed when Callum announced that
the proceedings must stop there. Danny was inclined to rebel, and
Isabel failed to explain such conduct. But Scotty found ample
compensation for their restriction in the happy change in Callum. His
old gaiety came back, his eyes sparkled, and he would snatch up Isabel
and go leaping about the house with her perched shrieking upon his
shoulder, just as he used to do in the happy days before the Orangemen
came to blight their home.

Matters were improving in other places too. Big Malcolm's second stage
of repentance, a period of prayer and fasting, had passed; he had come
once more into his old contented state, sure of the forgiveness of his
Heavenly Father for the wrong done, and determined by His grace never
again to fall. News reached the Oa, too, that Nancy Caldwell had
suddenly given up her rebellious outbursts and had settled down meekly
to her fate, and Tom Caldwell boasted all over the Flats that she
wouldn't take Callum Fiach if all the MacDonalds in the Oa came to back
him up.

And so Scotty found life happy again, and he and Isabel once more
settled down contentedly to housekeeping beneath the Silver Maple. But
the summer passed and old Brian came and took his comrade away, and
Scotty wept secretly in the haymow all the evening after her departure.

The next morning he arose with a distinct consciousness of loss
sustained. Isabel was not the only one who had left apparently. When
they sat down to breakfast Callum had not yet appeared. No one marked
his absence until Big Malcolm came in from the barn.

"Where will Callum be?" he inquired as he helped himself to his
porridge. Rory kept his eyes upon his plate, but Hamish answered in a
troubled tone, "I'll not know, father. Mebby he would be at the north
clearing, whatever. He would not be coming home last night."

Big Malcolm continued his meal with knitted brows. Suddenly he looked
up and caught a startled expression in his wife's eyes.

"What is it?" he asked anxiously.

Mrs. MacDonald's fingers were working tremulously with the hem of her
apron. "I would be thinking," she faltered, "it will be the day--the
day that was set!"

"Hoots!" cried Big Malcolm, "that will be nothing, wh