"There must be something wicked in the times, and cheatery rampant
indeed," I thought, "when the common gibbet of Inneraora has a
drunkard's convoy on either hand to prop it up."

But it was no time for meditation. Through the rags of plaiding on the
chains went the wind again so eerily that I bound to be off, and I put
my horse to it, bye the town-head and up the two miles to Glen Shira. I
was sore and galled sitting on the saddle; my weariness hung at the back
of my legs and shoulders like an ague, and there was never a man in this
world came home to his native place so eager for taking supper and sleep
as young Elrigmore.

What I expected at my father's door I am not going to set down here. I
went from it a fool, with not one grace about me but the love of my good
mother, and the punishment I had for my hot and foolish cantrip was many
a wae night on foreign fields, vexed to the core for the sore heart I
had left at home.

My mind, for all my weariness, was full of many things, and shame above
all, as I made for my father's house. The horse had never seen Glen
Shira, but it smelt the comfort of the stable and whinnied cheerfully
as I pulled up at the gate. There was but one window to the gable-end of
Elrigmore, and it was something of a surprise to me to find a light in
it, for our people were not overly rich in these days, and candle or
cruisie was wont to be doused at bedtime. More was my surprise when,
leading my horse round to the front, feeling my way in the dark by
memory, I found the oak door open and my father, dressed, standing in
the light of it.

A young _sgalag_ came running to the reins, and handing them to him, I
stepped into the light of the door, my bonnet in my hand.

"Step in, sir, caird or gentleman," said my father--looking more bent at
the shoulder than twelve years before.

I went under the door-lintel, and stood a little abashed before him.

"Colin! Colin!" he cried in the Gaelic "Did I not ken it was you?" and
he put his two hands on my shoulders.

"It is Colin sure enough, father dear," I said, slipping readily enough
into the mother tongue they did their best to get out of me at Glascow
College. "Is he welcome in this door?" and the weariness weighed me down
at the hip and bowed my very legs.

He gripped me tight at the elbows, and looked me hungrily in the face.

"If you had a murdered man's head in your oxter, Colin," said he, "you
were still my son. Colin, Colin! come ben and