know. But now, as he walked, fighting with the wind, his bonnet of
little shelter pulled down on his forehead, he was thinking mostly
of Lachlan his foster-brother, whose devotion had done much to
nourish in him the sense that he was head of the clan. He had not
far to go to reach his home--about a couple of miles.

He had left the village a quarter of the way behind him, when
through the darkness he spied something darker yet by the roadside.
Going up to it, he found an old woman, half sitting, half standing,
with a load of peats in a creel upon her back, unable, apparently,
for the moment at least, to proceed. Alister knew at once by her
shape and posture who she was.

"Ah, mistress Conal!" he said, "I am sorry to see you resting on
such a night so near your own door. It means you have filled your
creel too full, and tired yourself too much."

"I am not too much tired, Macruadh!" returned the old woman, who was
proud and cross-tempered, and had a reputation for witchcraft, which
did her neither much good nor much harm.

"Well, whether you are tired or not, I believe I am the stronger of
the two!"

"Small doubt of that, Alister!" said mistress Conal with a sigh.

"Then I will take your creel, and you will soon be home. Come along!
It is going to be a wild night!"

So saying he took the rope from the neck of the old woman right