If her father learnt of the affair, and of the ill-omen connected with it, the matter would surely cause him great uneasiness.

Why should he be worried on her account?
No, she would never allow it, and told Stewart plainly of her disapproval of such a course.
"But, tell me," she asked at last, as returning to the courtyard, they stood together at the spot where she had stood in that moonlit hour and heard with her own ears those weird, mysterious voices coming from nowhere--"tell me, Stewart, is there any legend connected with the Whispers?
Have you ever heard any story concerning their origin ?" "Of coorse, miss.

Through all Perthshire it's weel kent," replied the man slowly, not, it seemed, without considerable reluctance.

"What is h'ard by those doomed tae daith is the conspiracy o' Charles Lord Glencardine an' the Earl o' Kintyre for the murder o' the infamous Cardinal Setoun o' St.Andrews, wha, as I dare say ye ken fra history, miss, was assassinated here, on this very spot whaur we stan'.

The Earl o' Kintyre, thegither wi' Lord Glencardine, his dochter Mary, an' ane o' the M'Intyres o' Talnetry, an' Wemyss o' Strathblane, were a year later tried by a commission issued under the name o' Mary Queen o' Scots; but sae popular was the murder o' the Cardinal that the accused were acquitted." "Yes," exclaimed the girl, "I remember reading something about it in Scottish history.