"Your father," said I.
"Ah," said he, "is that man home?" and his pace was quicker and there was a line deep in his brows. "How long has my father been in this place?"
"It would be soon after you would be following the seas, and they were married."
"He was a little behind the fair, it seems," and the bitterness in his voice was not good to be hearing. We were silent until we came in sight of the white stone below the house on the moor on the road to the three lonely ones, and then I cried, pointing—
"She is waiting."
"I see her," said he, "and the boy with her," and I looked at the far-seeing sailor eyes with the little wrinkles at the corners that seamen and hillmen have, and he left me. When I reached the stone they were there, the son comforting the mother, and the little boy Hamish standing a little way off, affrighted.
"Take me," he cried, his arms out, "Hamish is feared of the great black man," and I would have taken him, but Bryde was before me.
"Come, little dear," said he, and smiled, and the boy came to him slowly, the mother watching, and then Bryde swung his little brother on his shoulder.
"We will be doing finely now," said he; "and you kent I was coming," said he to the mother, smiling at her.
"I saw her sailing in the Firth, your black schooner, the neatness of her, and the pride, and I said, 'It is my son's ship you are'; and when she was at an anchor in the calm water I was watching for the little boat to be coming to the shore, but the darkness was down and your father took me away. Morning and evening," said she, "rain or fine, I would be looking for you since Angus McKinnon came home."