, I felt sure, lay some strange document that should utterly
undo all Townley's work of years.

M'Rae is now at the table. He opens the casket, and for a moment looks
critically at its contents.

I can hear my heart beating. I'm sure I look pale with anxiety.

Now M'Rae puts his hand inside and quietly takes out--a fresh cigar.

Then, humming a tune the while, he brings the casket towards Townley, and
bids him help himself.

Townley does as he is told, but at the same time bursts into a hearty
laugh.

'Mr. M'Rae,' he says, 'you are the coolest man that ever I met. I do
believe that if you were taken out to be shot--'

'Stay,' said M'Rae, 'I _was_ once. I was tried for a traitor--tried for a
crime in France called "Treason," that I was as guiltless of as an unborn
babe--and condemned.'

'And what did you do?'

'Some one on the ground handed me a cigar, and--I lit it.

'Nay, my dear friends, I have lost my case here. Indeed, I never, it would
seem, had one.

'M'Crimman,' he continued, shaking me by the hand, 'Coila is yours.'

'Strathtoul,' I answered, 'is our blood feud at an end?'

'It is,' was the answer; and once again hand met hand across the table.

* * * * *

Need I tell of the home-coming of the M'Crimmans of Coila? Of the clansmen
who met us in the glen and marched along with us? Of the cheering strains
of music that re-echoed from every rock? Of the flags that fluttered over
and around our Castle Coila? Of the bonfires that blazed that night on
every hill, and cast their lurid light across the darkling lake? Or of the
tears my mother shed when, looking round the tartan drawing-room, the
cosiest in all the castle, she thought of father, dead and gone? No, for
some things are better left to the reader's imagination.

* * * * *

I throw down my pen with a sigh of relief.

I think I have finished my story; my noble deerhound thinks so too. He
gets slowly up from the hearthrug, conies towards me, and places his
honest head on my arm, but his eyes are fixed on mine.

It is not patting that he wants, nor petting either.

'Come out now, master,' he seems to say, speaking with soft brown eyes and
wagging tail; 'come out, master; mount your fleetest horse, and let us
have a glorious gallop across the hills. See how the sun shines and
glitters on grass, on leaves and lake! While you have been writing there
day afte