, Kenneth. As for you, you young viper, are you
as cunning as you are high, or is this childishness and--"

"Mackhai! Mackhai!" yelled Scoodrach, coming tearing into the courtyard
from the house. "Maister Maister Ken, Maister Max, ta deevils have been
and cot ta poat, and they've landed on ta rocks, and got into ta house."

"What!" cried Kenneth excitedly. "Come on, father. Oh, why didn't I
put a sentry there?"

Taken in the rear, the boy felt, and, forgetful of his father's words,
he was about to rush away to the defence, when, paler than ever, his
father clapped his hand upon his shoulder.

"Stop!" he cried; and he drew himself up to his full height, as there
were the sounds of feet from within, and the bailiff came through the
inner archway of the castle, to stand among the ruins of old Dunroe, to
proclaim the ruin of the new.

"Mr Mackhai," he said sharply, as he presented a slip of paper, "in the
Queen's name I take possession here--suit of Mr Andrew Blande,
Lincoln's Inn, London."

"What!" cried Max, whose jaw dropped as he grasped the state of affairs.
"It is a lie! my father would not do such a thing."

"Your cursed father, sir, would do anything that is mean and base--even
to sending you down here to be a spy upon us, till he could tie the last
knot in the miserable net he has thrown around me."

"Oh, Max!" cried Kenneth, as his face flushed, and then turned pale.

"Be a man, my boy," said his father sternly. "Recollect that you are a
Mackhai. Let this legal robber take all; let him and his son enjoy
their prize. Ken, my boy, my folly has made a beggar of you. I have
lost all now, but one thing. I am still a gentleman of a good old race.
He cannot rob me of that. Come."

He walked proudly through the archway into the house with his son, and
the rest followed, leaving Max Blande standing alone in the old
courtyard, staring wildly before him, till he started as if stung. For
all at once a jackdaw on the inner part of one of the towers uttered
what sounded to him a mocking, jeering--

_Tah_!

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

MAX ASKS THE WAY TO GLASGOW.

"And does everything go to him, father?" said Kenneth that same evening,
as he sat with his father in the study, the table covered with papers,
and the wind from off the sea seeming to sigh mournfully around the
place.

"Everything, my boy. Mortgage upon mortgage, interest and principal,
built up and increasing year by year, till it has c