"Neither Jean nor I ever saw Wee Brown Elspeth," he said--"neither Jean
nor I. But you did. You have always seen what the rest of us did not
see, my bairn--always."

I stammered out a few words, half in a whisper. "I have always seen what
you others could not see? WHAT--HAVE--I--SEEN?"

But I was not frightened. I suppose I could never tell any one what
strange, wide, bright places seemed suddenly to open and shine before
me. Not places to shrink back from--oh no! no! One could be sure,
then--SURE! Feargus had lifted his bonnet with that extraordinary
triumph in his look--even Feargus, who had been rather dour.

"You called them the White People," Hector MacNairn said.


Angus and Jean had known all my life. A very old shepherd who had looked
in my face when I was a baby had said I had the eyes which "SAW." It
was only the saying of an old Highlander, and might not have been
remembered. Later the two began to believe I had a sight they had not.
The night before Wee Brown Elspeth had been brought to me Angus had read
for the first time the story of Dark Malcolm, and as they sat near me on
the moor they had been talking about it. That was why he forgot himself
when I came to ask them where the child had gone, and told him of the
big, dark man with the scar on his forehead. After that they were sure.

They had always hidden their knowledge from me because they were afraid
it might frighten me to be told. I had not been a strong child. They
kept the secret from my relatives because they knew they would dislike