"Dear, dear! What can the matter be?" said their father, looking from one excited face to the other.
"Oh, Father," gasped Jean, finding her tongue first, "you never can guess, so I'll tell you. The Auld Laird's dead."
The Shepherd stood still in his tracks, too stunned for words.
"Aye!" cried Jock, wishing to share in the glory of such an exciting revelation. "He's as dead as a salt herring."
"Oh, Father!" cried Jean, "aren't you glad? Now we won't have to leave the wee bit hoosie and the Glen."
"I'm none so sure of that," said the Shepherd slowly, when he had recovered from the first shock of surprise. "The new Laird may be worse than the old. Be that as it may, I'm not one to rejoice at the death of any man. Death is a solemn thing, my dawtie, but the Lord's will be done, and I'm not pretending to mourn."
"We went to the village," cried Jean, "to get a bit of meat for the pot, and there was a whole crowd of people around the post-office door. 'T was the post-master gave us the news, and Mr. Craigie and Angus Niel have put weeds on their hats and look as mournful as Tam when he's scolded. We saw them out of the school-house window not two hours gone."
"They have reason to mourn," said the Shepherd grimly, "not for the Auld Laird's death only, but for their own lives as well. Aye, that's a subject for grief." He shook his head dubiously, and, seeming to feel it was an occasion for a moral lesson, he added, "'Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.'"
"What has that to do with the Auld Laird?" asked Jock, much mystified.
"Nothing at all, maybe," answered the Shepherd, "but it's a wise word to remember against our own time."