eyes on those gleaming windows, as if he
feared to relinquish the spectacle a moment, lest it should fly like a
dream.

We had thought first of pushing across the glen, over the river, through
Corrie Ghuibhasan, and into the Black Mount; but the journey in a night
like what was now fallen was not to be attempted. On the hills beyond
the river the dog-fox barked with constancy, his vixen screeching like a
child--signs of storm that no one dare gainsay. So we determined to
seek shelter and concealment somewhere in the policies of the house. But
first of all we had to find what the occasion was of this brilliancy
in Dalness, and if too many people for our safety were not in the
neighbourhood. I was sent forward to spy the place, while my companions
lay waiting below a cluster of alders.

I went into the grounds with my heart very high up on my bosom, not
much put about at any human danger, let me add, for an encounter with an
enemy of flesh and blood was a less fearsome prospect than the chance of
an encounter with more invulnerable foes, who, my skin told me, haunted
every heugh and howe of that still and sombre demesne of Dalness. But
I set my teeth tight in my resolution, and with my dirk drawn in my
hand--it was the only weapon left me--I crept over the grass from
bush to bush and tree to tree as much out of the revelation of the
window-lights as their numbers would let me.

There was not a sound in the place, and yet those lights might have
betokened a great festivity, with pipe and harp going, and dancers' feet
thudding on the floor.

At one of the gables there was a low window, and I made for it, thinking
it a possible eye to a lobby or passage, and therefore not so hazardous
to look in at I crept up and viewed the interior.

My window, to my astonishment, looked in on no bare plain lobby, but
on a spacious salmanger or hall, very rosy with sconce-light and
wood-fire--a hall that extended the whole length of the house, with a
bye-ordinar high ceil of black oak carved very handsomely. The walls at
the far end were hung with tapestry very like MacCailein's rooms at home
in Inneraora, and down the long sides, whose windows streamed the light
upon the hall, great stag-heads glowered with unsleeping eyes, stags of
numerous tines. The floor was strewn with the skins of the chase, and on
the centre of it was a table laden with an untouched meal, and bottles
that winked back the flicker of the candle and the hearth.