The laird drew a determined breath and opened his eyes.  “Alexander!”

“Father!”

“You look like myself sitting there, and yet not myself.  I am going to die.”

“If that’s your will, father.”

“Aye, it’s my will, for I’ve made it mine.  I can’t talk much.  We’ll talk at times and sit still between.  Are you going to stay with me to-night?”

“Indeed I am, father.  Right here beside you.”

“Well, I’ve missed you.  But you had to have your wanderings and your life of men.  I understood that.”

“You’ve been most good to me.  It is in my heart and in the tears of my eyes.”

“I did not grudge the siller.  And I’ve had a pride in you, Alexander.  Now you’ll be the laird.  Now let’s sit quiet a bit.”

The snow fell, the fire burned, the clock ticked.  He spoke again.  “It’s before an eye inside that you’ll be a wanderer and a goer about yet—­within and without, my laddie, within and without!  Do not forget, though, to hold the old place together that so many Jardines have been born in, and to care for the tenant bodies and the old folk—­and there’s your brother and sister.”

“I will forget nothing that you say, father.”

“I have kept that to say on top of my mind....  The old place and the tenant bodies and old folk, and your brother and sister.  I have your word, and so,” said the laird, “that’s done and may drift by.—­Grizel, I wad sleep a bit.  Let him go and come again.”

His eyes closed.  Alexander rose from the chair beside him.  Coming to Alice, he put his arm around her, and with Jamie at his other hand the three went from the room.  Strickland tarried a moment to consult with Mrs. Grizel.

“The doctor comes to-morrow?”

“Aye.  Tibbie thinks him a bit stronger.”

“I will watch to-night with Alexander.”

“Hoot, man! ye maun be weary enough yourself!” said Mrs. Grizel.

“No, I am not.  I will sleep awhile after supper, and come in about ten.  So you and Tibbie may get one good night.”

Some hours later, in the room that had been his since his first coming to Glenfernie, he gazed out of window before turning to go down-stairs.  The snow had ceased to fall, and out of a great streaming floe of clouds looked a half-moon.  Under it lay wan hill and plain.  The clouds were all of a size and vast in number, a herd of the upper air.  The wind drove them, not like a shepherd, but like a wolf at their heels.  The moon seemed the shepherd, laboring for control.  Then the clouds themselves seemed the wolves, and the moon a traveler against whom they leaped, who was thrown among them, and rose again....  Then the moon was a soul, struggling with the wrack and wave of things.