the
wanderings and misdeeds of Israel as recorded in the Book of Exodus.
She must always be getting up to look at the pot on the fire, or to
open the back door and study the weather. For a little she fought
against her unrest, and then she gave up the attempt at concentration.
She took the big pot off the fire and allowed it to simmer, and
presently she fetched her boots and umbrella, and kilted her
petticoats. "I'll be none the waur o' a breath o' caller air," she
decided.

The wind was blowing great guns but there was only the thinnest
sprinkle of rain. Sitting on the hen-house roof and munching a raw
turnip was a figure which she recognized as the smallest of the
Die-Hards. Between bites he was singing dolefully to the tune of
"Annie Laurie" one of the ditties of his quondam Sunday School:

"The Boorjoys' brays are bonnie,
Too-roo-ra-roo-raloo,
But the Workers of the World
Wull gar them a' look blue,
And droon them in the sea,
And--for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'll lay me down and dee."

"Losh, laddie," she cried, "that's cauld food for the stomach. Come
indoors about midday and I'll gie ye a plate o' broth!" The Die-Hard
saluted and continued on the turnip.

She took the Auchenlochan road across the Garple bridge, for that was
the best road to the Mains, and by it Dickson and the others might be
returning. Her equanimity at all seasons was like a Turk's, and she
would not have admitted that anything mortal had power to upset or
excite her: nevertheless it was a fast-beating heart that she now bore
beneath her Sunday jacket. Great events, she felt, were on the eve of
happening, and of them she was a part. Dickson's anxiety was hers, to
bring things to a business-like conclusion. The honour of Huntingtower
was at stake and of the old Kennedys. She was carrying out Mr.
Quentin's commands, the dead boy who used to clamour for her treacle
scones. And there was more than duty in it, for youth was not dead in
her old heart, and adventure had still power to quicken it.

Mrs. Morran walked well, with the steady long paces of the Scots
countrywoman. She left the Auchenlochan road and took the side path
along the tableland to the Mains. But for the surge of the gale and
the far-borne boom of the furious sea there was little noise; not a
bird cried in the uneasy air. With the wind behind her Mrs. Morran
breasted the ascent till she had on her right the moorland running
south to the Lochan valley a