ad to be getting out
of it?" And now her eyes were suffused with tears though her lips were
smiling.

"I know, I know," said he, casting a glance up that lone valley that was
so much their common grief. "And could we not be worse? I'm sure Black
Duncan, reared in a bothy in Skye, who has been tossed by the sea, and
been wet and dry in all airts of the world, would be a very thankless
man if he was not pleased to be here safe and comfortable, on a steady
bed at night, and not heeding the wind nor the storm no more than if he
was a skart."

"Oh! you're glad enough to be here, then?" said she.

"Am I?" said he. And he sighed, so comical a sound from that hard
mariner that she could not but laugh in spite of the anxieties
oppressing her.

"I'm not going with him," she proceeded.

"I know," said he. "At least I heard--I heard otherwise, and I wondered
when you said it, thinking perhaps you had made him change his mind."

"You thought I had made him change--what do you mean?" she pressed,
feeling herself on the verge of an explanation, but determined not to
ask directly.

Black Duncan became cautious.

"You need not be asking me anything: I know nothing about it," said he
shortly. "I am very busy--I----" He hissed at his work more strenuously
than ever.

Then Nan knew he was not to be got at that way.

"Oh, well, never mind," said she; "tell me a story."

"I have no time just now," he answered.

Nan's uncle came round the corner of the dyke, no sound from his
footsteps, his hands in his pockets, his brows lowering. He looked at
the two of them and surmised the reason of Nan's discourse with Black
Duncan.

"Women--" said he to himself vaguely. "Women--" said he, pausing for
a phrase to express many commingled sentiments he had as to their
unnecessity, their aggravation, and his suspicion of them. He did not
find the right one. He lifted his hand, stroked again the tangled beard,
then made a gesture, a large animal gesture--still the satyr--to the
sky. He turned and went down to the riverside. Mid-way he paused and
stroked his beard again, and looked grimly up at where the maid and
the manservant were blue-black against the evening sky. He shrugged his
shoulders, "Women," said he, "they make trouble. I wish--I wish----" He
had no word to finish the sentence with, he but sighed and proceeded on
his way.

Nan seemed to be lazily watching his figure as she sat in the grass,
herself observed by Black Duncan. But