About four o’clock Benjie backed the old horse into the shafts, and jogged up the beech-avenue to Mrs Macpherson’s, where he was stayed with tea and scones. There was a gathering outside the door of Macpherson himself and the two gillies, and a strange excitement seemed to have fallen on that stolid community. Benjie could not avoid—indeed, I am not sure that he tried to avoid—hearing scraps of their talk. “I’ve been a’ round Carnmore,” said Alan, “and I seen some fine beasts. They’re mostly in a howe atween the two tops, and a man at the Grey Beallach could keep an eye on all the good ground.” “Aye, but there’s the Carn Moss, and the burnheads—there will be beasts there too,” said James Fraser. “There will have to be a man there, for him at the Grey Beallach would not ken what was happeni
