nding in their doors, but these were mostly the elder women: the
younger ones--all but Lizzy Findlay--were out in the road. One man half
leaned, half sat on the window-sill of Duncan's former abode, and round
him were two or three more, and some women, talking about Scaurnose, and
the factor, and what the lads there would do to-morrow; while the hush
of the sea on the pebbles mingled with their talk like an unknown tongue
of the Infinite--never articulating, only suggesting--uttering in song
and not in speech--dealing not with thoughts, but with feelings and
foretastes. No one listened: what to them was the Infinite, with
Scaurnose in the near distance? It was now almost as dark as it would be
throughout the night if it kept clear.

Once more there was Duncan, standing as if looking out to sea, and
shading his brows with his hand as if to protect his eyes from the glare
of the sun and enable his sight.

"There's the auld piper again!" said one of the group, a young woman.
"He's unco fule-like to be stan'in' that gait (_way_), makin' as gien he
cudna weel see for the sun in 's een."

"Haud ye yer tongue, lass," rejoined an elderly woman beside her.
"There's mair things nor ye ken, as the Beuk says. There's een 'at can
see an' een 'at canna, an' een 'at can see twise ower, an' een 'at can
see steikit what nane can see open."

"Ta poat! ta poat of my chief!" cried the seer. "She is coming like a
tream of ta night, put one tat will not tepart with ta morning!" He
spoke as one suppressing a wild joy.

"Wha'll that be, lucky-deddy?" inquired in a respectful voice the woman
who had last spoken, while all within hearing hushed each other and
stood in silence. And all the time the ghost of the day was creeping
round from west to east, to put on its resurrection body and rise new
born. It gleamed faint like a cold ashy fire in the north.

"And who will it pe than her own son, Mistress Reekie?" answered the
piper, calling her by her husband's nickname, as was usual, but, as was
his sole wont, prefixing the title of respect where custom would have
employed but her Christian name. "Who'll should it pe put her own
Malcolm?" he went on. "I see his poat come round ta Tead Head. She flits
over the water like a pale ghost over Morven. But it's ta young and ta
strong she is pringing home to Tuncan.--O m'anam, beannuich!"

Involuntarily, all eyes turned toward the point called the Death's Head,
which bounded the bay on the east.