ey would
come up in wonder on his heels and guess at his identity, then taunt him
for the rustic nature of his clothing.

"Crotal-coat, crotal-coat, there are peats in your brogues!" they would
cry; or "Hielan'-man, hielan'-man, go home for your _fuarag_ and brose!"

They were strange new creatures to him, foreigners quite, and cruel,
speaking freely a tongue he knew not but in broken parts, yet deep in
his innermost there was a strange feeling that he was of their kind. He
wished he could join them in their English play, or better far, that he
might take them to the eagle's nest in Stob Bhan, or the badgers' hamlet
in Blaranbui, or show them his skill to fetch the deer at a call, in the
rutting time, from the mud-wallows above Carnus. But even yet, he was
only a stranger to the boys of the town, and as he went down the street
in the drenching rain that filled the syvers to overflowing and rose
in a smoke from the calm waters of the bay, they cried "Crotal-coat,
crotal-coat," after him.

"Ah," said he to himself, inly pleased at their ignorance, "if I cared,
could I not make them ashamed, by telling them they were mocking a boy
without a home?"

Kept by the rain closer than usual to the shelter of the closes, the
scamps to-day went further than ever in their efforts to annoy the
stranger; they rolled stones along the causey so that they caught him
on the heels, and they ran out at the back ends of their closes as he
passed, and into others still before him, so that his progress down the
town was to run a gauntlet of jeers. But he paid no heed; he was of
that gifted nature that at times can treat the most bitter insults with
indifference, and his mind was taken up with the manner of his message.

When he came to the Cross-houses he cast about for the right close in a
place where they were so numerous that they had always confused him, and
a middle-aged woman with bare thick arms came out to help him.

"You'll be looking for some one?" said she in Gaelic, knowing him no
town boy.

He was standing as she spoke to him in a close that had seemed the one
he sought, and he turned to tell her where he was going.

"Oh yes," said the woman, "I know her well. And you'll be from the glen,
and what's your errand in the town to-day? You are from Drimfern? No,
Ladyfield! It is a fine place Ladyfield; and how is the goodwife there?"

"She is dead," said Gilian hurriedly.

"God, and that is a pity too!" said the woman, conten