'I would say naething o' thae clavers to Mary,' he observed, and began to

walk forward.

There is a belt of turf along the side of Aros Bay, where walking is

easy; and it was along this that I silently followed my silent kinsman. I

was perhaps a little disappointed at having lost so good an opportunity

to declare my love; but I was at the same time far more deeply exercised

at the change that had befallen my uncle. He was never an ordinary,

never, in the strict sense, an amiable, man; but there was nothing in

even the worst that I had known of him before, to prepare me for so

strange a transformation. It was impossible to close the eyes against

one fact; that he had, as the saying goes, something on his mind; and as

I mentally ran over the different words which might be represented by the

letter M--misery, mercy, marriage, money, and the like--I was arrested

with a sort of start by the word murder. I was still considering the

ugly sound and fatal meaning of the word, when the direction of our walk

brought us to a point from which a view was to be had to either side,

back towards Aros Bay and homestead, and forward on the ocean, dotted to

the north with isles, and lying to the southward blue and open to the

sky. There my guide came to a halt, and stood staring for awhile on that

expanse. Then he turned to me and laid a hand on my arm.

'Ye think there's naething there?' he said, pointing with his pipe; and

then cried out aloud, with a kind of exultation: 'I'll tell ye, man! The

deid are down there--thick like rattons!'

He turned at once, and, without another word, we retraced our steps to

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