In a year after the departure of the clan, the clachans of Crawford and Traquare had lost almost all traces of their old pastoral character.

The coal pit had been opened, and great iron furnaces built almost at its mouth.

Things had gone well with Crawford; the seam had proved to be unusually rich; and, though the iron had been found, not on his land, but on the extreme edge of Blair, he was quite satisfied.
Farquharson had struck hands with him over it, and the Blair iron ore went to the Crawford furnaces to be smelted into pig iron.
Crawford had grown younger in the ardent life he had been leading.

No one would have taken him to be fifty-five years old.

He hardly thought of the past; he only told himself that he had never been as strong and clear-headed and full of endurance, and that it was probable he had yet nearly half a century before him.