and gie McGilp a signal frae the seaward side o' it, where
it will not be seen except in the channel. McKelvie at the Quay Inn
will ken a' about that. There's a man in the island ye will be glad to
meet if he's in his ordinar--McDearg they ca' him--and after that,
Hamish, we will stravaig to the South End and see the sheep there and
come back hame again. Are ye game for it?" says he.

"Ay, Dan, but there's just this--who is this Dol Beag?"

"Dol Beag has a boat and a wife and weans, and he's a sour riligous
man, keen for siller at any price. Well, I'm hoping the gangers have
paid him well by this time, for I am thinking he will not enjoy it
long."

[1] Fearsome apparitions.

[2] Shiver involuntarily.

CHAPTER VI.

WE TRAMP THROUGH THE SNOW TO McKELVIE'S INN.

With the afternoon came snow, round hard flakes like wee snowballs, dry
and silent and all-pervading, and the hills were changed, and there
came on the sea that queer mysterious snow light, and then the wind
rose skirling, sweeping the uplands bare and filling the quiet hollows.

At supper-time the gale was at its height, the roar from the iron-bound
shore was like giants in battle, and I knew that on the black rocks the
spray was rising in drifting white smoke, and the rocks trembling to
the onset of the seas.

Behind the stackyard, in the old trees, the crows were complaining
bitterly with their hard clap-clap tongues, and now and then a great
crashing warned of the death of some old storm-scarred veteran of the
wood. But it was fine, the music of the storm, the blatter of the snow
and the wailing cry of the wind, before a great devastating blast came.

Fine to think that the stackyard was safe and sheltered, and the beasts
warm and well, were tearing away at their fodder all unconcerned, and
that the sheep were in the low ground of many sheltering knowes and
sturdy whin-bushes, comfortable as sheep could well be, and the thought
came to me of how Belle was faring in her lonely sheiling. When the
supper was made a meal of and the horn spoons of the lads still busy,
Dan had a word with my uncle, for my aunt was mainly taken up watching
each new trick of her bairn these days.

"This snaw," says Dan, "will likely haud, and I would like fine to ken
if a' these hogs ye hiv wintering over the hill will be getting enough
keep.[1] I'm thinking Hamish and me will be as well tae inquire the
night before it gets worse outside, for worse it'll be