“Your aunt’s getting a wee bit frail, Mrs. Marcella!  So I brought the old machine along.”

They climbed into the machine—­his old, high dog-cart, and drove along through tearing winds which were like the greeting embraces of friends to Marcella.  The doctor told her all the news; all about the new babies, and the few deaths and illnesses while she had been away.  The dashing of the water on the beach came to them.  He told her that Jock had been washed from his little boat one rough night, and his body had never been found.  The reek of the green wood fires came to them on the salt breeze.

“What’s that remind you of, Louis?” she asked him.

“Gorse!” he said with a grimace.

“I love it!” she said simply.

The door of Wullie’s hut stood open.  He was silhouetted dark against the light within.  The doctor drew up.

“Must stop and speak to Wullie,” he said rather apologetically, to Louis.  The old man came out and stood looking at Marcella.  He did not seem a day older.

“So ye’re back again, Marcella?” he said.  “I knew ye’d be back!  I knew ye’d soon wear the wings off yer feet!  But ye’re not well?”

“How could I be, away from home?” she said gently.  “I’ll be well again here.”

Tammas came up then, with his wife and the six big children Marcella knew, and two littler ones she had never seen.  Jock’s Bessie came out and put a small bundle on the floor of the machine.

“Juist a cookie for the bit laddie,” she explained.

They all stared at Louis and then spoke to him:  he got the idea that they were sizing him up, calling him to account for how he had dealt with Marcella, who belonged to them.  They claimed young Andrew whom they coolly called “Andrew Lashcairn.”  As they drove on through the village they took on something of the nature of a triumphal progress, for everyone came out, and talked.  And everyone seemed to be Marcella’s owners.

Aunt Janet was on the step when they reached the farm:  her eagle face was thinner, quite fleshless; in her black silk frock, shivered at the seams, and the great cairngorm brooch, she looked quite terrifying.

“So you’re back, Marcella?  I knew you would be coming back,” she said.

Louis wondered if this were the stock greeting at Lashnagar.

“I wonder what you’ve got for going across the world?” she said.  “You’re not well.”

“I’ve got my two men,” laughed Marcella, as she kissed the old lady.

“Humphm!” said Aunt Janet.  “He’d have found you out if you’d stayed here all the time.”

“Do you know, Marcella,” said Louis, as they went along the windy passages to her father’s room in which Aunt Janet had elected to put them.  “I’ve an extraordinary feeling that I’ve nothing to do with you any more.  All these people—­they seem to own you!  You’re an elusive young beggar, you know.  First Kraill—­I had to ask his permission to keep you.  Now a whole village full!”