"But what can you do else?" gasped Jock. He felt that his world
was tumbling about his ears.

"The Lord knows," answered the Shepherd. "Emigrate to America
likely. I've always been with the sheep and nothing else. It may
be I can hire out to some other body, but chances are few
hereabouts, and if the Auld Laird carries out this notion,
there'll be many another beside ourselves who'll need to be
walking the world. It seems unlikely he would be for taking away
the town too, even if it is but a wee bit of a village, and the
law gives him the right, for times have changed since that lease
was made, long years ago, and there are few in this day who would
venture to enforce it. But the Auld Laird's a hard man, I'm told,
and he chooses hard men to carry out his will. Mr. Craigie has
little heart, and as for Angus Niel, he'd make things worse
rather than better if he had his way." Then, seeing tears
gathering in Jean's eyes, he said to comfort her, "There now,
dinna greet, my lassie! There's no sense in crossing a bridge
till you come to it, and this bridge is still four months and a
bittock away. We've the summer before us, and the Lord's arm is
not shortened that it cannot save. We'll make the best of it and
have one more happy summer, let the worst come at the end of it."

"But, Father," urged Jock, "will he turn every one out, do you
think?"

"Who can foretell the whimsies of a selfish man?" answered the
Shepherd. "He has only his own will to consider, but my opinion
is he'll turn out those whose holdings lie nearest the forests