. "That's what the
doctor's been expecting. It's the last lap!"

"What do you mean, father? Isn't it better for you to be getting fat
now?"

He smiled a little and, bending down, pressed his fingers on the
swollen ankle. The indentations stayed there. She thought of the soft
depression on Lashnagar where the young shepherd had gone down.

"We'll just walk about a bit, Marcella," he said, his hand pressing
heavily on her shoulder. "I thought my legs felt very tired and heavy.
This is the last lap of the race. When my hands get fat like that my
heart will be drowned, Marcella."

"Father, what _do_ you mean?" she cried frantically, but he told her
nothing. There were no medical books in the house which she could read.
She had to be content, as Wullie had said, to go on to the end knowing
nothing, while things trod along her life.

"It's a damned sort of death, Marcella, for a Lashcairn. Lying in
bed--getting stiffer and heavier--and in the end drowned. We like to go
out fighting, Marcella, killing and being killed. Did I ever tell you of
Tammas Lashcairn and how he tore a wolf to pieces in the old grey house
on Ben Grief?"

He talked quickly and strangely, disjointed talk out of which she wove
wild tales of the deaths of her people in the past.

After he had got back into bed and she stooped over him, trying to chafe
warmth into his cold feet, he looked at her more kindly than he had ever
looked before.

"All my life I have cursed you because you were a girl. I cursed your
mother because she gave me no son. And now I thank God that you are not
a man, to carry on the old name."

"Why, father?" she asked, her eyes frightened and puzzled.

"The Lord deals righteously. I shall sleep now," was all he said.

It was Wullie who told her what her father had meant. They were up on
Ben Grief watching the swollen streams overflowing with melted snow and
storm-water. Marcella looked wan and tired; her eyes were ringed with
black shadows. As usual she was hungry, but Wullie had left potatoes
buried under the green-wood fire, and they would feast when they got
back.

"Why is it father is glad I'm not a boy?" she asked him.

It was a long time before he told her.

"The Lashcairns are a wild lot, lassie--especially the men folk. They
kill and they rule others and they drink. It's drink that's ruined them,
because drink is the only thing they canna rule. That's the men folk I'm
talking of. Your great-grandfather lost all h