He longed to meet Strang face to face, and with an hereditary and quite involuntary instinct he put his hand to the place where his forefathers had always carried their dirks.

The action terrified and partly calmed him.

"My God!" he exclaimed, "forgive thy servant.

I hae been guilty in my heart o' murder." He was very penitent, but still, as he mused the fire burned; and he gave vent to his feelings in odd, disjointed sentences thrown up from the very bottom of his heart, as lava is thrown up by the irrepressible eruption: "Wha shall deliver a man from his ancestors?
Black Evan Callendar was never much nearer murder than I hae been this night, only for the grace of God, which put the temptation and the opportunity sae far apart.

I'll hae Strang under my thumb yet.