they had
done what seemed their duty by that, then came the best of the
feast--whatever tales or poetry Donal had laid his hands upon.

Somewhere about this time it was that he first got hold of a copy of
the Paradise Lost. He found that he could not make much of it. But
he found also that, as before with the ballads, when he read from it
aloud to Gibbie, his mere listening presence sent back a spiritual
echo that helped him to the meaning; and when neither of them
understood it, the grand organ roll of it, losing nothing in the
Scotch voweling, delighted them both.

Once they were startled by seeing the gamekeeper enter the field.
The moment he saw him, Gibbie laid himself flat on the ground, but
ready to spring to his feet and run. The man, however, did not come
near them.

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE GAMEKEEPER

The second winter came, and with the first frost Gibbie resumed his
sheepskin coat and the brogues and leggings which he had made for
himself of deer-hide tanned with the hair. It pleased the two old
people to see him so warmly clad. It pleased them also that, thus
dressed, he always reminded them of some sacred personage
undetermined--Jacob, or John the Baptist, or the man who went to
meet the lion and be killed by him--in Robert's big Bible, that is,
in one or other of the woodcuts of the same. Very soon the stories
about him were all stirred up afresh, and new rumours added. This
one and that of the children declared they had caught sight of the
beast-loon, running about the rocks like a goat; and one day a boy
of Angus's own, who had been a good way up the mountain, came home
nearly dead with terror, saying the beast-loon had chased him a long
way. He did not add that he had been throwing stones at the sheep,
not perceiving any one in charge of them. So, one fine morning in
December, having nothing particular to attend to, Angus shouldered
his double-barrelled gun, and set out for a walk over Glashgar, in
the hope of coming upon the savage that terrified the children. He
must be off. That was settled. Where Angus was in authority, the
outlandish was not to be suffered. The sun shone bright, and a keen
wind was blowing.

About noon he came in sight of a few sheep, in a sheltered spot,
where were little patches of coarse grass among the heather. On a
stone, a few yards above them, sat Gibbie, not reading, as he would
be half the time now, but busied with a Pan's-pipes--which, under
Dona