tly, dull vapours from a swamp, corp-candles on the sea, more than
the eyes of a habitable dwelling warm and lit within. We stood, the
seven of us, against the gable (for the woman joined us and munched a
dry crust between the chittering of her teeth), waiting the coming of
the MacDonalds.

I got to my musing again, puzzled in this cold adventure, upon the
mystery of life. I thought it must be a dream such as a man has lying in
strange beds, for my spirit floated and cried upon that black and ugly
air, lost and seeking as the soul of a man struggling under sleep. I had
been there before, I felt, in just such piteous case among friends in
the gable of a dwelling, yet all alone, waiting for visitors I had no
welcome for. And then again ( I would think), is not all life a dream,
the sun and night of it, the seasons, the faces of friends, the flicker
of fires and the nip of wine; and am not I now stark awake for the first
time, the creature of God, alone in His world before the dusk has been
divided from the day and bird and beast have been let loose to wander
about a new universe? Or again (I would think), am I not dead and done
with? Surely I fell in some battle away in Low Germanie, or later in the
sack of Inneraora town, that was a town long, long ago, before the wave
threshed in upon Dunchuach?

The man with the want, as usual, was at his tears, whispering to himself
reproach and memory and omens of fear, but he was alert enough to be the
first to observe the approach of our enemy. Ten minutes at least before
they appeared on the sward, lit by the lights of the upper windows, he
lifted a hand, cocked an ear, and told us he heard their footsteps.

There were about a score and a half of the Mac-Donalds altogether, of
various ages, some of them old gutchers that had been better advised to
be at home snug by the fire in such a night or saying their prayers in
preparation for the looming grave, some of them young and strapping, all
well enough armed with everything but musketry, and guided to the house
by the blind woman's son and a gentleman in a laced coat, whom we took
to be the owner of Dalness because two men of the bearing and style of
servants were in his train and very pretentious about his safety in the
course of a debate that took place a few yards from us as to whether
they should demand our surrender or attack and cut us down with-out
quarter.

The gentleman sent his two lackeys round the house, and they came