be left alone in the dim passage. Round
the fire they huddled, none speaking except in whispers, as though they
feared the great unseen Presence; and as they sat in that eerie silence
there came the hollow clop-clop of sea-boots in the passage, and I saw
the serving maids stiffen and straighten as they sat, and a look of
terrible fear came on their faces.

And McKelvie's lass skirled, "He's coming," and cooried back in a
corner.

"Can ye not hear the tramping?" and she thrust an arm before her head
as a bairn will to escape a cuff.

With that the door opened, and McKelvie entered in high sea-boots, but
the fear did not leave them, for the Laird was wont to wear sea-boots
when the weather was bad on his rocky isle; and with their minds all
a-taut for warnings and signs, the tramping in the flagged passage was
fearsome enough. Indeed, I breathed the more freely myself when
McKelvie entered with Dan at his heels.

Dan had a stone jar in his hand, and he poured a stiff jorum, and held
it to auld Kate, greetin' at the fireside.

"The Red Laird's gone tae his ain folk, cailleach," says Dan, standing
straight and manly beside the huddled old woman. "Good points he had
and bad, but he's finished his last rig and taken the long fee.

"Drink tae the memory o' him, Kate: ye kent him weel, and he had aye a
dram for a ceilidher."

"Ou ay, Dan, mo leanabh, ou ay; but I cannot thole the thought o' his
spirit fleeing among the cauld clear stars, for there's nae heaven for
him if his ain piper is no there to cheer him, or mak' him wae. Och,
ay, I'll tak' the dram, but I'll be sore afraid there's plenty o'
pipers in hell wi' the devils dancing on hot coals tae their springs,
and he'll maybe be well enough."

As Dan put round the drink the doleful mood lifted a wee, and the lads
started to tell stories.

"I mind me," said Donald, the shepherd--"I mind o' a night I had on the
hills at the time o' the lambing, and in the grey o' the morning, when
the rocks are whispering one to another, and will be just back in their
places when a man comes near them, and when ye hear voices speaking not
plainly, because o' the scish o' the burn on the gravelly mounds, but
if ye listen till the burn is quiet a wee, ye'll be hearing the
laughing o' the Wee Folk at their games.

"Mora, in the grey o' the morning, I would be just among the sprits[2]
above the loch-side, when there came an eerie '_swish, swish_' at my
side, slow and soft. I th