"Come along, and let's get it over!" cried the leader of the ejection-party. "It—won't take many minutes once it's well a going, and there's fire enough on the hearth to set Ben Cruachan in a blaze!"
"Is everything out of it?" demanded the chief.
"All but her cat. We've done our best, sir, and searched everywhere, but he's not to be found. There's nothing else left."
"It's a lie!" screamed Mistress Conal. "Is there not a great pile of peats, carried on my own back from the moss! Ach, you robbers! Would you burn the good peats?"
"What good will the peats be to you, woman," said one of them not unkindly, "when you have no hearth?"
She gave a loud wail, but checked it.
"I will burn them on the road," she said. "They will keep me a few hours from the dark! When I die I will go straight up to God and implore his curse upon you, on your bed and board, your hands and tools, your body and soul. May your every prayer be lost in the wide murk, and never come at his ears! May—"
"Hush! hush!" interposed the chief with great gentleness. "You do not know what you are saying. But you do know who tells us to forgive our enemies!"
"It's well for HIM to forgive," she screamed, "sitting on his grand throne, and leaving me to be turned out of my blessed house, on to the cold road!"
"Nannie!" said the chief, calling her by her name, "because a man is unjust to you, is that a reason for you to be unjust to him who died for you? You know as well as he, that you will not be left out on the cold road. He knows, and so do you, that while I have a house over my head, there is a warm corner in it for you! And as for his sitting on his throne, you know that all these years he has been trying to take you up beside him, and can't get you to set your foot on the first step of it! Be ashamed of yourself, Nannie!"