He and Helen were still young enough to regret the breaking of a tie which bound them to a life whose romance cast something like a glamour over the prosaic one of more modern times.

Both would, in the unreasonableness of youthful sympathy, have willingly shared land and gold with their poor kinsmen; but in this respect Tallisker was with the laird.
"It was better," he said, "that the old feudal tie should be severed even by a thousand leagues of ocean.

They were men and not bairns, and they could feel their ain feet;" and then he smiled as he remembered how naturally they had taken to self-dependence.

For one night, in a conversation with the oldest men, he said, "Crawfords, ye'll hae to consider, as soon as you are gathered together in your new hame, the matter o' a dominie.

Your little flock in the wilderness will need a shepherd, and the proper authorities maun be notified." Then an old gray-headed man had answered firmly, "Dominie, we will elect our ain minister.