.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 43829
   :PG.Title: White Wings, Volume II (of 3)
   :PG.Released: 2013-09-27
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: William Black
   :DC.Title: White Wings, Volume II
              A Yachting Romance
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1880
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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WHITE WINGS, VOLUME II
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      WHITE WINGS:

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      A Yachting Romance.

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      BY

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      WILLIAM BLACK,

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      AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON,"
      "GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY," ETC.

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      *IN THREE VOLUMES*

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      VOL. II.

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      London:
      MACMILLAN AND CO.
      1880.

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      *The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved.*

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      LONDON:
      R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR.
      BREAD STREET HILL.

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   CONTENTS.

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CHAPTER I.

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`VILLANY ABROAD`_


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CHAPTER II.

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`AN ULTIMATUM`_


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CHAPTER III.

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`THE NEW SUITOR`_


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CHAPTER IV.

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`CHASING A THUNDERSTORM`_


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CHAPTER V.

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`CHASING SEALS`_


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CHAPTER VI.

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`"UNCERTAIN, COY, AND HARD TO PLEASE"`_


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CHAPTER VII.

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`SECRET SCHEMES`_


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CHAPTER VIII.

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`BEFORE BREAKFAST`_


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CHAPTER IX.

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`A PROTECTOR`_


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CHAPTER X.

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`"MARY, MARY!"`_


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CHAPTER XI.

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`AN UNSPOKEN APPEAL`_


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CHAPTER XII.

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`HIS LORDSHIP`_


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CHAPTER XIII.

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`THE LAIRD'S PLANS`_


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CHAPTER XIV.

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`A SUNDAY IN FAR SOLITUDES`_


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CHAPTER XV.

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`HIDDEN SPRINGS`_





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.. _`VILLANY ABROAD`:

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   WHITE WINGS:

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   A Yachting Romance.

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CHAPTER I.

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VILLANY ABROAD.

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It is near mid-day; two late people are sitting
at breakfast; the skylight overhead has
been lifted, and the cool sea-air fills the saloon.

"Dead calm again," says Angus Sutherland,
for he can see the rose-red ensign hanging limp
from the mizen-mast, a blaze of colour against
the still blue.

There is no doubt that the *White Dove* is
quite motionless; and that a perfect silence
reigns around her.  That is why we can hear
so distinctly—through the open skylight—the
gentle footsteps of two people who are pacing
up and down the deck, and the soft voice of one
of them as she speaks to her friend.  What is
all this wild enthusiasm about, then?

"It is the noblest profession in the world!"
we can hear so much as she passes the skylight.
"One profession lives by fomenting quarrels;
and another studies the art of killing in every
form; but this one lives only to heal—only to
relieve the suffering and help the miserable.
That is the profession I should belong to, if I
were a man!"

Our young Doctor says nothing as the voice
recedes; but he is obviously listening for the
return walk along the deck.  And here she
comes again.

"The patient drudgery of such a life is quite
heroic—whether he is a man of science,
working day and night to find out things for the
good of the world, nobody thanking him or
caring about him, or whether he is a physician
in practice with not a minute that can be called
his own—liable to be summoned at any hour——"

The voice again becomes inaudible.  It is
remarked to this young man that Mary Avon
seems to have a pretty high opinion of the
medical profession.

"She herself," he says hastily, with a touch
of colour in his face, "has the patience and
fortitude of a dozen doctors."

Once more the light tread on deck comes
near the skylight.

"If I were the Government," says Mary
Avon, warmly, "I should be ashamed to see
so rich a country as England content to take
her knowledge second-hand from the German
Universities; while such men as Dr. Sutherland
are harassed and hampered in their proper
work by having to write articles and do
ordinary doctor's visiting.  I should be ashamed.
If it is a want of money, why don't they pack
off a dozen or two of the young noodles who
pass the day whittling quills in the Foreign
Office?——"

Even when modified by the distance, and by
the soft lapping of the water outside, this seems
rather strong language for a young lady.  Why
should Miss Avon again insist in such a warm
fashion on the necessity of endowing research?

But Angus Sutherland's face is burning red.
Listeners are said to hear ill of themselves.

"However, Dr. Sutherland is not likely to
complain," she says, proudly, as she comes by
again.  "No; he is too proud of his
profession.  He does his work; and leaves the
appreciation of it to others.  And when everybody
knows that he will one day be among the most
famous men in the country, is it not monstrous
that he should be harassed by drudgery in the
meantime?  If I were the Government——"

But Angus Sutherland cannot suffer this to
go on.  He leaves his breakfast unfinished,
passes along the saloon, and ascends the
companion.

"Good morning!" he says.

"Why, are you up already?" his hostess
says.  "We have been walking as lightly as
we could, for we thought you were both asleep.
And Mary has been heaping maledictions on
the head of the Government because it doesn't
subsidise all you microscope-men.  The next
thing she will want is a licence for the whole of
you to be allowed to vivisect criminals."

"I heard something of what Miss Avon
said," he admitted.

The girl, looking rather aghast, glanced at
the open skylight.

"We thought you were asleep," she stammered,
and with her face somewhat flushed.

"At least, I heard you say something about
the Government," he said, kindly.  "Well, all
I ask from the Government is to give me a trip
like this every summer."

"What," says his hostess, "with a barometer
that won't fall?"

"I don't mind."

"And seas like glass?"

"I don't mind."

"And the impossibility of getting back to land?"

"So much the better," he says defiantly.

"Why," she reminds him, laughing, "you
were very anxious about getting back some
days ago.  What has made you change your
wishes?"

He hesitates for a moment, and then he says—

"I believe a sort of madness of idleness has
got possession of me.  I have dallied so long
with that tempting invitation of yours to stay
and see the *White Dove* through the equinoctials
that—that I think I really must give in——"

"You cannot help yourself," his hostess says,
promptly.  "You have already promised.  Mary
is my witness."

The witness seems anxious to avoid being
brought into this matter; she turns to the
Laird quickly, and asks him some question
about Ru-na-Gaul light over there.

Ru-na-Gaul light no doubt it is—shining
white in the sun at the point of the great cliffs;
and there is the entrance to Tobbermorry; and
here is Mingary Castle—brown ruins amid the
brilliant greens of those sloping shores—and
there are the misty hills over Loch Sunart.
For the rest, blue seas around us, glassy and
still; and blue skies overhead, cloudless and
pale.  The barometer refuses to budge.

But suddenly there is a brisk excitement.
What though the breeze that is darkening the
water there is coming on right ahead?—we
shall be moving any way.  And as the first
puffs of it catch the sails, Angus Sutherland
places Mary Avon in command; and she is
now—by the permission of her travelling
physician—allowed to stand as she guides the
course of the vessel.  She has become an
experienced pilot: the occasional glance at the
leach of the top-sail is all that is needed; she
keeps as accurately "full and by" as the master
of one of the famous cuptakers.

"Now, Mary," says her hostess, "it all depends
on you as to whether Angus will catch
the steamer this evening."

"Oh, does it?" she says, with apparent innocence.

"Yes; we shall want very good steering to
get within sight of Castle Osprey before the
evening."

"Very well, then," says this audacious person.

At the same instant she deliberately puts
the helm down.  Of course the yacht directly
runs up to the wind, her sails flapping
helplessly.  Everybody looks surprised; and John
of Skye, thinking that the new skipper has
only been a bit careless, calls out—

"Keep her full, mem, if you please."

"What do you mean, Mary?  What are
you about?" cries Queen T.

"I am not going to be responsible for
sending Dr. Sutherland away," she says, in
a matter-of-fact manner, "since he says he is
in no hurry to go.  If you wish to drive your
guest away, I won't be a party to it.  I mean
to steer as badly as I can."

"Then I depose you," says Dr. Sutherland
promptly.  "I cannot have a pilot who
disobeys orders."

"Very well," she says, "you may take the
tiller yourself"—and she goes away, and sits
down in high dudgeon, by the Laird.

So once more we get the vessel under way;
and the breeze is beginning to blow somewhat
more briskly; and we notice with hopefulness
that there is rougher water further down the
Sound.  But with this slow process of beating,
how are we to get within sight of Castle
Osprey before the great steamer comes up
from the South?

The Laird is puzzling over the Admiralty
Sailing Directions.  The young lady, deeply
offended, who sits beside him, pays him great
attention, and talks "at" the rest of the
passengers with undisguised contempt.

"It is all haphazard, the sailing of a yacht,"
she says to him, though we can all hear.
"Anybody can do it.  But they make a
jargon about it to puzzle other people, and
pretend it is a science, and all that."

"Well," says the Laird, who is quite unaware
of the fury that fills her brain, "there
are some of the phrases in this book that
are verra extraordinary.  In navigating this
same Sound of Mull, they say you are to
keep the 'weather shore aboard.'  How can
ye keep the weather shore aboard?"

"Indeed, if we don't get into a port soon,"
remarks our hostess and chief commissariat-officer,
"it will be the only thing we shall
have on board.  How would you like it
cooked, Mary?"

"I won't speak to any of you," says the
disgraced skipper, with much composure.

"Will you sing to us, then?"

"Will you behave properly if you are
reinstated in command?" asks Angus Sutherland.

"Yes, I will," she says, quite humbly; and
forthwith she is allowed to have the tiller
again.

Brisker and brisker grows the breeze; it
is veering to the south, too; the sea is rising,
and with it the spirits of everybody on board.
The ordinarily sedate and respectable *White
Dove* is showing herself a trifle frisky,
moreover; an occasional clatter below of
hairbrushes or candlesticks tells us that people
accustomed to calms fall into the habit of
leaving their cabins ill-arranged.

"There will be more wind, sir," says John
of Skye, coming aft; and he is looking at
some long and streaky "mare's tails" in the
south-western sky.  "And if there wass a gale
o' wind, I would let her have it!"

Why that grim ferocity of look, Captain
John?  Is the poor old *White Dove* responsible
for the too fine weather, that you would like
to see her driven, all wet and bedraggled,
before a south-westerly gale?  If you must
quarrel with something, quarrel with the
barometer; you may admonish it with a
belaying-pin if you please.

Brisker and brisker grows the breeze.  Now
we hear the first pistol-shots of the spray
come rattling over the bows; and Hector of
Moidart has from time to time to duck his
head, or shake the water from his jersey.  The
*White Dove* breasts these rushing waves and
a foam of white water goes hissing away from
either side of her.  Speine Mor and Speine
Beg we leave behind; in the distance we can
descry the ruins of Aros Castle and the deep
indentation of Salen Bay; here we are passing
the thick woods of Funeray.  "*Farewell,
farewell, to Funeray!*"  The squally look in
the south-west increases; the wind veers
more and more.  Commander Mary Avon is
glad to resign the helm, for it is not easy to
retain hold in these plunging seas.

"Why, you will catch the steamer after all,
Angus!" says his hostess, as we go tearing by
the mouth of Loch Aline.

"This is a good one for the last!" he calls
to her.  "Give her some more sheet, John;
the wind is going round to the north!"

Whence comes the whirling storm in the
midst of the calm summer weather?  The
blue heavens are as blue as the petal of a
crane'sbill: surely such a sky has nothing to
do with a hurricane.  But wherever it comes
from, it is welcome enough; and the brave
*White Dove* goes driving through those heavy
seas, sometimes cresting them buoyantly, at
other times meeting them with a dull shock,
followed by a swish of water that rushes
along the lee scuppers.  And those two
women-folk—without ulsters or other
covering: it is a merry game to play jack-in-the-box,
and duck their heads under the shelter
of the gig when the spray springs into the
air.  But somehow the sea gets the best of
it.  Laugh as they may, they must be feeling
rather damp about their hair; and as for
Mary Avon's face—that has got a bath of
salt-water at least a dozen times.  She cares
not.  Sun, wind and sea she allows to do
their worst with her complexion.  Soon we
shall have to call her the Nut-brown Maid.

Brisker and brisker grows the breeze.  Angus
Sutherland, with a rope round the tiller, has his
teeth set hard: he is indeed letting the *White
Dove* have it at last, for he absolutely
refuses to have the topsail down.  The main
tack, then: might not that be hauled up?
No; he will have none of John of Skye's
counsels.  The *White Dove* tears her way
through the water—we raise a cloud of birds
from the rocks opposite Scallasdale—we see
the white surf breaking in at Craignure—ahead
of us is Lismore Lighthouse, perched over
the whirling and struggling tides, shining white
in the sunlight above the dark and driven sea.

   |  *Ahead she goes; the land she knows!*

—past the shadowy ruins of Duart, and out
and through the turbulent tides off the
lighthouse rocks.  The golden afternoon is not yet
far advanced; let but this brave breeze
continue, and soon they will descry the *White
Dove* from the far heights of Castle Osprey!

But there was to be no Castle Osprey for
Angus Sutherland that evening, despite the
splendid run the *White Dove* had made.  It
was a race, indeed, between the yacht and the
steamer for the quay; and notwithstanding that
Mary Avon was counselling everybody to give
it up as impossible, John of Skye would hold
to it in the hope of pleasing Dr. Sutherland
himself.  And no sooner was the anchor let
go in the bay, than the gig was down from the
davits; the men had jumped in; the solitary
portmanteau was tossed into the stern; and
Angus Sutherland was hurriedly bidding his
adieux.  The steamer was at this instant
slowing into the quay.

"I forbid any one to say good-bye to him,"
says our Admiral-in-chief, sternly.  "*Au
revoir—auf Wiedersehen*—anything you like—no
good-bye."

Last of all he took Mary Avon's hand.

"You have promised, you know," she said,
with her eyes cast down.

"Yes," said he, regarding her for an instant
with a strange look—earnest perhaps, and yet
timid—as if it would ask a question, and dared
not—"I will keep my promise."  Then he
jumped into the boat.

That was a hard pull away to the quay;
and even in the bay the water was rough, so
that the back-sweep of the oars sometimes
caught the waves and sent the spray flying
in the wind.  The *Chevalier* had rung her
bells.  We made sure he would be too late.
What was the reason of this good-natured
indulgence?  We lost sight of the gig in at
the landing-slip.

Then the great steamer slowly steamed away
from the quay: who was that on the paddle-box
waving good-bye to us?

"Oh, yes, I can see him plainly," calls out
Queen T., looking through a glass; and there
is a general waving of handkerchiefs in reply
to the still visible signal.  Mary Avon waves
her handkerchief, too—in a limp fashion.  We
do not look at her eyes.

And when the gig came back, and we bade
good-bye for the time to the brave old *White
Dove*, and set out for Castle Osprey, she was
rather silent.  In vain did the Laird tell her
some of the very best ones about Homesh;
she seemed anxious to get into the house and
to reach the solitude of her own room.

But in the meantime there was a notable
bundle of letters, newspapers, and what not,
lying on the hall-table.  This was the first
welcome that civilisation gave us.  And
although we defied these claims—and determined
that not an envelope should be opened
till after dinner—Mary Avon, having only one
letter awaiting her, was allowed to read that.
She did it mechanically, listlessly—she was
not in very good spirits.  But suddenly we
heard her utter some slight exclamation; and
then we turned and saw that there was a
strange look on her face—of dismay and dread.
She was pale, too, and bewildered—like one
stunned.  Then without a word, she handed
the letter to her friend.

"What is the matter, Mary?"

But she read the letter—and, in her
amazement, she repeated the reading of it, aloud.
It was a brief, business-like, and yet friendly
letter, from the manager of a certain bank in
London.  He said he was sorry to refer to
painful matters; but no doubt Miss Avon had
seen in the papers some mention of the
absconding of Mr. Frederick Smethurst, of
——.  He hoped there was nothing wrong;
but he thought it right to inform Miss Avon
that, a day or two before this disappearance,
Mr. Smethurst had called at the bank and
received, in obedience to her written
instructions, the securities—U.S. Funded
Stock—which the bank held in her name.
Mr. Smethurst had explained that these bonds
were deliverable to a certain broker; and that
securities of a like value would be deposited
with the bank in a day or two afterwards.
Since then nothing had been heard of him till
the Hue and Cry appeared in the newspapers.
Such was the substance of the letter.

"But it isn't true!" said Mary Avon, almost
wildly.  "I cannot believe it.  I will not
believe it.  I saw no announcement in the
papers.  And I did give him the letter—he
was acting quite rightly.  What do they want
me to believe?"

"Oh, Mary!" cries her friend, "why did you
not tell us?  Have you parted with everything?"

"The money?" says the girl—with her white
face, and frightened pathetic eyes.  "Oh, I
do not care about the money!  It has got
nothing to do with the money.  But—but—he—was
my mother's only brother."

The lips tremble for a moment; but she
collects herself.  Her courage fights through
the stun of this sudden blow.

"I will not believe it!" she says.  "How
dare they say such things of him?  How is
it we have never seen anything of it in the papers?"

But the Laird leaves these and other wild
questions to be answered at leisure.  In the
meantime, his eyes are burning like coals of
fire; and he is twisting his hands together
in a vain endeavour to repress his anger and
indignation.

"Tell them to put a horse to," he says in
a voice the abruptness of which startles every
one.  "I want to drive to the telegraph-office.
This is a thing for men to deal wi'—not weemen."





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.. _`AN ULTIMATUM`:

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   CHAPTER II.


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   AN ULTIMATUM.

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When our good friend the Laird of
Denny-mains came back from the post-office, he
seemed quite beside himself with wrath.  And
yet his rage was not of the furious and
loquacious sort; it was reticent, and deep,
and dangerous.  He kept pacing up and down
the gravel-path in front of the house, while as
yet dinner was not ready.  Occasionally he
would rub his hands vehemently, as if to get
rid of some sort of electricity; and once or
twice we heard him ejaculate to himself,
"The scoondrel!  The scoondrel!"  It was
in vain that our gentle Queen Titania, always
anxious to think the best of everybody, broke
in on these fierce meditations, and asked the
Laird to suspend his judgment.  How could
he be sure, she asked, that Frederick
Smethurst had really run away with his niece's
little property?  He had come to her and
represented that he was in serious difficulties;
that this temporary loan of seven thousand
pounds or so would save him; that he
would repay her directly certain remittances
came to him from abroad.  How could he,
the Laird, know that Frederick Smethurst
did not mean to keep his promise?

But Denny-mains would have none of
these possibilities.  He saw the whole story
clearly.  He had telegraphed for confirmation;
but already he was convinced.  As for
Frederick Smethurst being a swindler—that
did not concern him, he said.  As for the
creditors, that was their own look-out: men
in business had to take their chance.  But
that this miscreant, this ruffian, this mean
hound should have robbed his own niece of
her last farthing—and left her absolutely
without resources or protection of any kind in the
world—this it was that made the Laird's eyes
burn with a dark fire.  "The scoondrel!—the
scoondrel!" he said; and he rubbed his hands
as though he would wrench the fingers off.

We should have been more surprised at
this exhibition of rage on the part of a person
so ordinarily placid as Denny-mains, but that
every one had observed how strong had
become his affection for Mary Avon during our
long days on the Atlantic.  If she had been
twenty times his own daughter he could not
have regarded her with a greater tenderness.
He had become at once her champion and
her slave.  When there was any playful
quarrel between the young lady and her
hostess, he took the side of Mary Avon with
a seriousness that soon disposed of the
contest.  He studied her convenience to the
smallest particular when she wished to paint
on deck; and so far from hinting that he
would like to have Tom Galbraith revise and
improve her work, he now said that he would
have pride in showing her productions to that
famous artist.  And perhaps it was not quite
so much the actual fact of the stealing of the
money as the manner and circumstance of it
that now wholly upset his equilibrium, and
drove him into this passion of rage.  "The
scoondrel!—the scoondrel!" he muttered to
himself, in these angry pacings to and fro.

Then he surprised his hostess by suddenly
stopping short, and uttering some brief chuckle
of laughter.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said he, "for
the leeberty I have taken; but I was at the
telegraph-office in any case; and I thought
ye would not mind my sending for my
nephew Howard.  Ye were so good as to say——"

"Oh, we shall be most pleased to see him,"
said she promptly.  "I am sure he must have
heard us talking about the yacht; he will not
mind a little discomfort——"

"He will have to take what is given him,
and be thankful," said the Laird, sharply.
"In my opeenion the young people of the
present day are too much given to picking and
choosing.  They will not begin as their parents
began.  Only the best of everything is good
enough for them."

But here the Laird checked himself.

"No, no, ma'am," said he.  "My nephew
Howard is not like that.  He is a good lad—a
sensible lad.  And as for his comfort on
board that yacht, I'm thinking it's not that,
but the opposite, he has to fear most.  Ye
are spoiling us all—the crew included."

"Now we must go in to dinner," is the
practical answer.

"Has she come down?" asks the Laird, in
a whisper.

"I suppose so."

In the drawing-room we found Mary Avon.
She was rather pale, and silent—that was all;
and she seemed to wish to avoid observation.
But when dinner was announced the Laird
went over to her, and took her hand, and led
her into the dining-room, just as he might
have led a child.  And he arranged her chair
for her; and patted her on the back as he
passed on, and said cheerfully—

"Quite right—quite right—don't believe all
the stories ye hear.  *Nil desperandum*—we're
not beaten down yet!"

She sate cold and white, with her eyes cast
down.  He did not know that in the interval
her hostess had been forced to show the girl
that paragraph of the Hue and Cry.

"*Nil desperandum*—that's it," continued the
good-hearted Laird, in his blithest manner.
"Keep your own conscience clear, and let
other people do as they please—that is the
philosophy of life.  That is what Dr. Sutherland
would say to ye, if he was here."

This chance reference to Angus Sutherland
was surely made with the best intentions;
but it produced a strange effect on the girl.
For an instant or two she tried to maintain
her composure—though her lips trembled;
then she gave way, and bent her head, and
burst out crying, and covered her face with
her hands.  Of course her kind friend and
hostess was with her in a moment, and soothed
her, and caressed her, and got her to dry her
eyes.  Then the Laird said, after a second or
two of inward struggle—

"Oh, do you know that there is a steamer
run on the rocks at the mouth of Loch Etive?"

"Oh, yes," his hostess—who had resumed
her seat—said cheerfully.  "That is a good
joke.  They say the captain wanted to be
very clever; and would not have a pilot,
though he knows nothing about the coast.
So he thought he would keep mid-channel in
going into the Loch!".

The Laird looked puzzled: where was the joke?

"Oh," said she, noticing his bewilderment,
"don't you know that at the mouth of Loch
Etive the rocks are right in the middle, and
the channel on each side?  He chose precisely
the straight line for bringing his vessel full
tilt on the rocks!"

So this was the joke, then: that a valuable
ship should be sunk?  But it soon became
apparent that any topic was of profound
interest—was exceedingly facetious even—that
could distract Mary Avon's attention.  They
would not let her brood over this thing.  They
would have found a joke in a coffin.  And
indeed amidst all this talking and laughing
Mary Avon brightened up considerably; and
took her part bravely; and seemed to have
forgotten all about her uncle and his evil deeds.
You could only have guessed from a certain
preoccupation that, from time to time, these
words must have been appearing before her
mind, their commonplace and matter-of-fact
phraseology in no way detracting from their
horrible import: "*Police-officers and others are
requested to make immediate search and inquiry
for the above named; and those stationed at
seaport towns are particularly requested to search
outward-bound vessels.*"  The description of
Mr. Frederick Smethurst that preceded this
injunction was not very flattering.

But among all the subjects, grave and gay,
on which the Laird touched during this repast,
there was none he was so serious and
pertinacious about as the duty owed by young
people to their parents and guardians.  It did
not seem an opportune topic.  He might, for
example, have enlarged upon the duties of
guardians towards their helpless and
unprotected wards.  However, on this matter he
was most decided.  He even cross-examined
his hostess, with an unusual sternness, on the
point.  What was the limit—was there any
limit—she would impose on the duty which
young folks owed to those who were their
parents or who stood to them in the relation
of parents?  Our sovereign mistress, a little
bit frightened, said she had always found her
boys obedient enough.  But this would not
do.  Considering the care and affection
bestowed on them—considering the hardly-earned
wealth spent on them—considering the easy
fortune offered to them—was it not bounden
on young people to consult and obey the
wishes of those who had done so much for
them?  She admitted that such was the case.
Pressed to say where the limit of such duty
should lie, she said there was hardly any.  So
far good; and the Laird was satisfied.

It was not until two days afterwards that we
obtained full information by letter of what was
known regarding the proceedings of Frederick
Smethurst, who, it appears, before he bolted,
had laid hands on every farthing of money he
could touch, and borrowed from the credulous
among his friends; so that there remained no
reasonable doubt that the story he had told
his niece was among his other deceptions, and
that she was left penniless.  No one was
surprised.  It had been almost a foregone
conclusion.  Mary Avon seemed to care little
about it; the loss of her fortune was less to
her than the shame and dishonour that this
scoundrel had brought on her mother's name.

But this further news only served to stir up
once more the Laird's slumbering wrath.  He
kept looking at his watch.

"She'll be off Easdale now," said he to
himself; and we knew he was speaking of
the steamer that was bringing his nephew
from the south.

By and by—"She'll be near Kerrara, now,"
he said, aloud.  "Is it not time to drive to
the quay?"

It was not time, but we set out.  There was
the usual crowd on the quay when we got
there; and far off we could descry the red
funnels and the smoke of the steamer.  Mary
Avon had not come with us.

"What a beautiful day your nephew must
have had for his sail from the Crinan," said
the Laird's gentle hostess to him.

Did he not hear her?  Or was he absorbed
in his own thoughts?  His answer, at all
events, was a strange one.

"It is the first time I have asked anything
of him," he said almost gloomily.  "I have
a right to expect him to do something for me
now."

The steamer slows in; the ropes are thrown
across; the gangways run up; and the crowd
begins to pour out.  And here is a tall and
handsome young fellow who comes along with
a pleasant smile of greeting on his face.

"How do you do, Mr. Smith?" says Queen
T., very graciously—but she does not call
him "Howard" as she calls Dr. Sutherland
"Angus."

"Well, uncle," says he, brightly, when he
has shaken hands all round, "what is the
meaning of it all?  Are you starting for
Iceland in a hurry?  I have brought a rifle as
well as my breechloader.  But perhaps I had
better wait to be invited?"

This young man with the clear, pale complexion,
and the dark hair, and dark grey eyes,
had good looks and a pleasant smile in his
favour; he was accustomed to be made
welcome; he was at ease with himself.  He
was not embarrassed that his uncle did not
immediately answer; he merely turned and
called out to the man who had got his
luggage.  And when we had got him into
the waggonette, and were driving off, what
must he needs talk about but the absconding
of Mr. Frederick Smethurst, whom he
knew to be the uncle of a young lady he
had once met at our house.

"Catch him?" said he with a laugh.
"They'll never catch him."

His uncle said nothing at all.

When we reached Castle Osprey, the Laird
said in the hall, when he had satisfied himself
that there was no one within hearing—

"Howard, I wish to have a few meenutes'
talk with ye; and perhaps our good friends
here will come into the room too——"

We followed him into the dining-room; and
shut the door.

"—just to see whether there is anything
unreasonable in what I have got to say to ye."

The young man looked rather alarmed;
there was an unusual coldness and austerity
in the elder man's voice.

"We may as well sit down," he said; "it
wants a little explanation."

We sate down in silence, Howard Smith
looking more concerned than ever.  He had
a real affection, as we knew, for this
pseudo-uncle of his, and was astounded that he
should be spoken to in this formal and cold
manner.

The Laird put one or two letters on the table
before him.

"I have asked our friends here," said he, in
a calm and measured voice, "to listen to what
I have to say, and they will judge whether it is
unreasonable.  I have a service to ask of ye.  I
will say nothing of the relations between you
and me before this time—but I may tell ye
frankly—what doubtless ye have understood—that
I had intended to leave ye Denny-mains at
my death.  I have neither kith nor kin of my
own blood; and it was my intention that ye
should have Denny-mains—perhaps even before
I was called away."

The young man said nothing; but the manner
in which the Laird spoke of his intentions in
the past sense might have made the most
disinterested of heirs look frightened.  After ali,
he had certainly been brought up on the
understanding that he was to succeed to the
property.

"Now," said he, slowly, "I may say I have
shown ye some kindness——"

"Indeed you have, sir!" said the other warmly.

"—and I have asked nothing from ye in
return.  I would ask nothing now, if I was your
age.  If I was twenty years younger, I would
not have telegraphed for ye—indeed no, I
would have taken the matter into my own
hands——"

Here the Laird paused for a second or so
to regain that coldness of demeanour with which
he had started.

"Ay, just so.  Well, ye were talking about
the man Smethurst as we were coming along.
His niece, as ye may be aware, is in this
house—a better lass was never seen within any
house."

The Laird hesitated more and more as he
came to the climax of his discourse: it was
obviously difficult for him to put this restraint
on himself.

"Yes," said he, speaking a little more
hurriedly, "and that scoondrel—that scoondrel—has
made off with every penny that the poor
lass had—every penny of it—and she is left an
orphan—without a farthing to maintain herself
wi'—and that infernal scoondrel——"

The Laird jumped from his seat; his anger
was too much for him.

"I mean to stand by her," said he, pacing up
and down the room, and speaking in short
ejaculations.  "She will not be left without a
farthing.  I will reach him too, if I can.  Ay,
ay, if I was but twenty years younger, and had
that man before me!"

He stopped short opposite his nephew,
and controlled himself so as to speak quite
calmly.

"I would like to see ye settled at
Denny-mains, Howard," said he.  "And ye would
want a wife.  Now if ye were to marry this
young leddy, it would be the delight of my
old age to see ye both comfortable and well
provided for.  And a better wife ye would not
get within this country.  Not a better!"

Howard Smith stared.

"Why, uncle!" said he, as if he thought
some joke was going forward.  We, who had
been aware of certain profound plans on the
part of Denny-mains, were less startled by this
abrupt disclosure of them.

"That is one of two things," said the Laird,
with forced composure, "that I wished to put
before ye.  If it is impossible, I am sorely
vexed.  But there is another; and one or the
other, as I have been thinking, I am fairly
entitled to ask of ye.  So far I have not
thought of any return for what I have done; it
has been a pleasure to me to look after your
up-bringing."

"Well, uncle," said the young man, beginning
to look a little less frightened.  "I would
rather hear of the other thing.  You know—eh—that
is—a girl does not take anybody who is
flung at her, as it were—it would be an
insult—and—and people's inclinations and
affections——"

"I know—I know—I know," said the Laird,
impatiently.  "I have gone over all that.  Do
ye think I am a fool?  If the lass will not have
ye, there is an end to it: do your best to get
her, and that is enough for me."

"There was another thing—" the young man
suggested timidly.

"Yes, there is," said the Laird, with a sudden
change in his manner.  "It is a duty, sir, ye
owe not to me, but to humanity.  Ye are
young, strong, have plenty of time, and I will
give ye the money.  Find out that man
Smethurst; get him face to face; and fell him!
Fell him!"—the Laird brought his fist down
on the table with a bang that made everything
jump, and his eyes were like coals of
fire.  "None o' your pistols or rapiers or trash
like that!—no, no!—a mark on his face for the
rest of his life—the brand of a scoondrel
between his eyes—there! will ye do that for me?"

"But, uncle," cried the young man, finding
this alternative about as startling as the other,
"how on earth can I find him?  He is off to
Brazil, or Mexico, or California, long ere now,
you may depend on it."

The Laird had pulled himself together again.

"I have put two things before ye," said he,
calmly.  "It is the first time I have asked ye
for a service, after having brought ye up as
few lads have been brought up.  If you think
it is unfair of me to make a bargain about such
things, I will tell ye frankly that I have more
concern in that young thing left to herself than
in any creature now living on earth; and I will
be a friend to her as well as an old man can.  I
have asked our friends here to listen to what
I had to say; they will tell ye whether I am
unreasonable.  I will leave ye to talk it over."

He went to the door.  Then he turned for a
moment to his hostess.

"I am going to see, ma'am, if Mary will go
for a bit walk wi' me—down to the shore, or
the like; but we will be back before the hour
for denner."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE NEW SUITOR`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER III.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE NEW SUITOR.

.. vspace:: 2

It is only those who have lived with her for
a number of years who can tell when a certain
person becomes possessed with the demon of
mischief, and allows sarcasm and malignant
laughter and other unholy delights to run riot
in her brain.  The chief symptom is the
assumption of an abnormal gravity, and a look of
simple and confiding innocence that appears in
the eyes.  The eyes tell most of all.  The dark
pupils seem even clearer than is their wont, as
if they would let you read them through and
through; and there is a sympathetic appeal in
them; the woman seems so anxious to be kind,
and friendly, and considerate.  And all the
time—especially if it be a man who is
hopelessly dumfoundered—she is revenging the
many wrongs of her sex by covertly laughing
at him and enjoying his discomfiture.

And no doubt the expression on Howard
Smith's face, as he sat there in a bewildered
silence, was ludicrous enough.  He was inclined
to laugh the thing away as a joke, but he knew
that the Laird was not given to practical jokes.
And yet—and yet—

"Do you really think he is serious?" he
blurted out at length, and he spoke to this lady
with the gentle innocent eyes.

"Oh, undoubtedly," she answered, with
perfect gravity.

"Oh, no; it is impossible!" he said, as if
arguing with himself.  "Why, my uncle, of all
men in the world,—and pretending it was
serious—of course people often do wish their
sons or daughters to marry a particular person—for
a sensible reason, to keep estates together,
or to join the fortunes of a family—but this—no,
no; this is a joke, or else he wants to drive
me into giving that fellow a licking.  And that,
you know, is quite absurd; you might as well
drag the Atlantic for a penknife."

"I am afraid your uncle is quite serious,"
said she, demurely.

"But it was to be left to you," he answered
quickly.  "You were to say whether it was
unreasonable.  Surely you must see it is not
reasonable.  Neither the one thing nor the
other is possible—"

Here the young man paused for a moment.

"Surely," he said, "my uncle can't mean,
by putting these impossible things before me,
to justify his leaving his property to somebody
else?  There was no need for any such excuse;
I have no claim on him; he has a right to do
what he pleases."

"That has nothing to do with it," said
Queen T. promptly.  "Your uncle is quite
resolved, I know, that you should have
Denny-mains."

"Yes—and a wife," responded the young
man, with a somewhat wry smile.  "Oh, but
you know, it is quite absurd; you will reason
him out of it, won't you?  He has such a high
opinion of your judgment, I know."

The ingenious youth!

"Besides," said he warmly, "do you think
it very complimentary to your friend Miss
Avon that any one should be asked to come
and marry her?"

This was better; it was an artful thrust.
But the bland sympathetic eyes only paid him
a respectful attention.

"I know my uncle is pretty firm when he
has got a notion into his head," said he,
"and—and—no doubt he is quite right in thinking
that the young lady has been badly treated,
and that somebody should give the absconder a
thrashing.  All that is quite right; but why
should I be made responsible for it?  I can't
do impossible things."

"Well, you see," said his sage adviser, with
a highly matter-of-fact air, "your uncle may
not regard either the one thing or the other as
impossible."

"But they are impossible," said he.

"Then I am very sorry," said she, with great
sweetness.  "Because Denny-mains is really a
beautiful place.  And the house would lend
itself splendidly to a thorough scheme of
redecoration; the hall could be made perfectly
lovely.  I would have the wooden dado painted
a dark bottle-green, and the wall over it a rich
Pompeian red—I don't believe the colours of a
hall can be too bold if the tones are good in
themselves.  Pompeian red is a capital
background for pictures, too; and I like to see
pictures in the hall; the gentlemen can look at
them while they are waiting for their wives.
Don't you think Indian matting makes a very
nice, serviceable, sober-coloured dado for a
dining-room—so long as it does not drive your
pictures too high on the wall?"

The fiendishness of this woman!  Denny-mains
was being withdrawn from him at this
very moment; and she was bothering him
with questions about its decoration.  What did
he think of Indian matting?

"Well," said he, "if I am to lose my chance
of Denny-mains through this piece of absurdity,
I can't help it."

"I beg your pardon," said she most amiably;
"but I don't think your uncle's proposal so very
absurd.  It is the commonest thing in the world
for people to wish persons in whom they are
interested to marry each other; and very often
they succeed by merely getting the young
people to meet, and so forth.  You say yourself
that it is reasonable in certain cases.  Well, in
this case, you probably don't know how great
an interest your uncle takes in Miss Avon, and
the affection that he has for her.  It is quite
remarkable.  And he has been dwelling on this
possibility of a match between you—of seeing
you both settled at Denny-mains—until he
almost regards it as already arranged.  'Put
yourself in his place,' as Mr. Reade says.  It
seems to him the most natural thing in the
world, and I am afraid he will consider you
very ungrateful if you don't fall in with his
plan."

Deeper and deeper grew the shadow of
perplexity on the young man's brow.  At first
he had seemed inclined to laugh the whole
matter aside, but the gentle reasoning of this
small person had a ghastly aspect of seriousness
about it.

"Then his notion of my seeking out the
man Smethurst and giving him a thrashing:
you would justify that, too?" he cried.

"No, not quite," she answered, with a bit
of a smile.  "That is a little absurd, I
admit—it is merely an ebullition of anger.  He won't
think any more of that in a day or two I am
certain.  But the other—the other, I fear, is
a fixed idea."

At this point we heard some one calling
outside:

"Miss Mary!  I have been searching for ye
everywhere; are ye coming for a walk down to
the shore?"

Then a voice, apparently overhead at an
open window—

"All right, sir; I will be down in a moment."

Another second or two, and we hear some
one singing on the stair, with a fine air of
bravado—

   |  *A strong sou-wester's blowing, Billy; can't you hear it roar, now?*

—the gay voice passes through the hall—

   |  *Lord help 'em, how I pities all un—*

—then the last phrase is heard outside—

   |  *—folks on shore now—*
   |

Queen Titania darts to the open window of
the dining-room.

"Mary!  Mary!" she calls.  "Come here."

The next instant a pretty enough picture
is framed by the lower half of the window,
which is open.  The background is a blaze of
scarlet and yellow and green—a mixture of
sunlight and red poppies and nasturtiums
and glancing fuchsia leaves.  Then this slight
figure that has appeared is dark in shadow;
but there is a soft reflected light from the front
of the house, and that just shows you the smile
on Mary Avon's face and the friendliness of
her dark soft eyes.

"Oh, how do you do?" she says, reaching
in her hand and shaking hands with him.
There is not any timidity in her manner.  No
one has been whispering to her of the dark
plots surrounding her.

Nor was Mr. Smith much embarrassed,
though he did not show himself as grateful
as a young man might have done for so frank
and friendly a welcome.

"I scarcely thought you would have
remembered me," said he modestly.  But at
this moment Denny-mains interfered, and took
the young lady by the arm, and dragged her
away.  We heard their retreating footsteps
on the gravel walk.

"So you remember her?" says our hostess,
to break the awkward silence.

"Oh, yes, well enough," said he; and then
he goes on to say stammeringly—"Of course,
I—I have nothing to say against her——"

"If you have," it is here interposed, as a
wholesome warning, "you had better not
mention it here.  Ten thousand hornets' nests
would be a fool compared to this house if you
said anything in it against Mary Avon."

"On the contrary," says he, "I suppose she
is a very nice girl indeed—very—I suppose
there's no doubt of it.  And if she has been
robbed like that, I am very sorry for her; and
I don't wonder my uncle should be interested
in her, and concerned about her, and—and all
that's quite right.  But it is too bad—it is too
bad—that one should be expected to—to ask
her to be one's wife, and a sort of penalty
hanging over one's head, too.  Why, it is
enough to set anybody against the whole
thing; I thought everybody knew that you
can't get people to marry if you drive them
to it—except in France, I suppose, where the
whole business is arranged for you by your
relatives.  This isn't France; and I am quite
sure Miss Avon would consider herself very
unfairly treated if she thought she was being
made part and parcel of any such arrangement.
As for me—well, I am very grateful to my
uncle for his long kindness to me; he has
been kindness itself to me; and it is quite
true, as he says, that he has asked for nothing
in return.  Well, what he asks now is just a
trifle too much.  I won't sell myself for any
property.  If he is really serious—if it is to
be a compulsory marriage like that—Denny-mains
can go.  I shall be able to earn my
own living somehow."

There was a chord struck in this brief,
hesitating, but emphatic speech that went
straight to his torturer's heart.  A look of
liking and approval sprang to her eyes.  She
would no longer worry him.

"Don't you think," said she gently, "that
you are taking the matter too seriously?  Your
uncle does not wish to force you into a
marriage against your will; he knows nothing
about Adelphi melodramas.  What he asks is
simple and natural enough.  He is, as you see,
very fond of Mary Avon; he would like to
see her well provided for; he would like to
see you settled and established at Denny-mains.
But he does not ask the impossible.
If she does not agree, neither he nor you can
help it.  Don't you think it would be a very
simple matter for you to remain with us for
a time, pay her some ordinary friendly
attention, and then show your uncle that the
arrangement he would like does not recommend
itself to either you or her?  He asks no
more than that; it is not much of a sacrifice."

There was no stammering about this lady's
exposition of the case.  Her head is not very
big, but its perceptive powers are remarkable.

Then the young man's face brightened considerably.

"Well," said he, "that would be more sensible,
surely.  If you take away the threat, and
the compulsion, and all that, there can be no
harm in my being civil to a girl, especially
when she is, I am sure, just the sort of girl one
ought to be civil to.  I am sure she has plenty
of common sense—-"

It is here suggested once more that, in this
house, negative praise of Mary Avon is likely
to awake slumbering lions.

"Oh, I have no doubt," says he readily, "that
she is a very nice girl indeed.  One would not
have to pretend to be civil to some creature
stuffed with affectation, or a ghoul.  I don't
object to this at all.  If my uncle thinks it
enough, very well.  And I am quite sure that
a girl you think so much of would have more
self-respect than to expect anybody to go and
make love to her in the country-bumpkin style."

Artful again; but it was a bad shot.  There
was just a little asperity in Madame's manner
when she said—

"I beg you not to forget that Mary does not
wish to be made love to by anybody.  She is quite
content as she is.  Perhaps she has quite other
views, which you would not regret, I am sure.
But don't imagine that she is looking for a
husband; or that a husband is necessary for her;
or that she won't find friends to look after her.
It is your interests we are considering, not hers."

Was the snubbing sufficient?

"Oh, of course, of course," said he, quite
humbly.  "But then, you know, I was only
thinking that—that—if I am to go in and make
believe about being civil to your young
lady-friend, in order to please my uncle, too much
should not be expected.  It isn't a very nice
thing—at least, for you it may be very
nice—to look on at a comedy——"

"And is it so very hard to be civil to a girl?"
says his monitress sharply.  "Mary will not
shock you with the surprise of her gratitude.
She might have been married ere now if she
had chosen."

"She—isn't—quite a school-girl, you know,"
he says timidly.

"I was not aware that men preferred to marry
school-girls," says the other, with a gathering
majesty of demeanour.

Here a humble witness of this interview has
once more to interpose to save this daring
young man from a thunderbolt.  Will he not
understand that the remotest and most
round-about reflection on Mary Avon is in this house
the unpardonable sin?

"Well," said he frankly, "it is exceedingly
kind of you to show me how I am to get out of
this troublesome affair; and I am afraid I must
leave it to you to convince my uncle that I have
done sufficient.  And it is very kind of you to
ask me to go yachting with you; I hope I shall
not be in the way.  And—and—there is no
reason at all why Miss Avon and I should not
become very good friends—in fact, I hope we
shall become such good friends that my uncle
will see we could not be anything else."

Could anything be fairer than this?  His
submission quite conquered his hostess.  She said
she would show him some of Mary Avon's
sketches in oil, and led him away for that purpose.
His warm admiration confirmed her good
opinion of him; henceforth he had nothing
to fear.

At dinner that evening he was at first a little
shy; perhaps he had a suspicion that there were
present one or two spectators of a certain
comedy which he had to play all by himself.
But, indeed, our eyes and ears were not for him
alone.  Miss Avon was delighting the Laird
with stories of the suggestions she had got
about her pictures from the people who had
seen them—even from the people who had
bought them—in London.

"And you know," said she quite frankly, "I
must study popular taste as much as I fairly can
now, for I have to live by it.  If people will
have sea-pieces spoiled by having figures put in,
I must put in figures.  By and by I may be in
a position to do my own work in my own way."

The Laird glanced at his nephew: was it not
for him to emancipate this great and original
artist from the fear of critics, and dealers, and
purchasers?  There was no response.

"I mean to be in London soon myself," the
Laird said abruptly; "ye must tell me where I
can see some of your pictures."

"Oh, no," she said, laughing, "I shall not
victimise my friends.  I mean to prey on the
public—if possible.  It is Mr. White, in King
Street, St. James's, however, who has taken
most of my pictures hitherto; and so if you
know of anybody who would like to acquire
immortal works for a few guineas apiece, that is
the address."

"I am going to London myself soon," said
he, with a serious air, as if he had suddenly
determined on buying the National Gallery.

Then Howard Smith, perceiving that no one
was watching him, or expecting impossibilities
of him, became quite cheerful and talkative;
and told some excellent stories of his experiences
at various shooting quarters the previous winter.
Light-hearted, good-natured, fairly humorous,
he talked very well indeed.  We gathered that
during the last months of the year the shooting
of pheasants occupied a good deal more of his
time and attention than the study of law.  And
how could one wonder that so pleasant-mannered
a young man was a welcome guest at those
various country-houses in the south?

But it appeared that, despite all this careless
talk, he had been keeping an eye on Mary Avon
during dinner.  Walking down to the yacht
afterwards—the blood-red not quite gone from
the western skies, a cool wind coming up from
the sea—he said casually to his uncle—

"Well, sir, whatever trouble that young lady
may have gone through has not crushed her
spirits yet.  She is as merry as a lark."

"She has more than cheerfulness—she has
courage," said the Laird, almost severely.  "Oh,
ay, plenty of courage.  And I have no doubt
she could fight the world for herself just as well
as any man I know.  But I mean to make it
my business that she shall not have to fight the
world for herself—not as long as there is a stick
standing on Denny-mains!"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHASING A THUNDERSTORM`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER IV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   CHASING A THUNDERSTORM.

.. vspace:: 2

"*All on board then—all on board!*" the
summons comes ringing through the wonderland
of dreams.  And then, amid the general
hurry and scurry throughout the house, certain
half-bewildered people turn first of all to the
windows of their rooms: a welcome sight!
The glory of the summer dawn is shining over
the mountains; the *White Dove*, with nearly
all her sail set, is swinging there at her
moorings; best of all, a strong breeze—apparently
from the north-east—is ruffling the dark
blue seas and driving a line of white surf on
the further shores.  The news comes that
Master Fred, by darting about in the dingay
since ever daylight began, has got the very last
basket on board; the red caps are even now
bringing the gig in to the landing slip; John of
Skye is all impatience to take advantage of the
favourable wind.  There is but little time lost;
the happy-go-lucky procession—*dona ferentes*—set
out for the beach.  And if the Laird is
pleased to find his nephew apparently falling
into his scheme with a good grace; and if the
nephew thinks he is very lucky to get so easily
out of an awkward predicament; and if Mary
Avon—unconscious of these secret designs—is
full of an eager delight at the prospect of being
allowed to set to work again—may not all this
account for a certain indecorous gaiety that
startles the silence of the summer morning?
Or is it that mythical hero Homesh who is
responsible for this laughter?  We hear the
Laird chuckling; we notice the facetious
wrinkles about his eyes; we make sure it must
be Homesh.  Then the final consignment of
books, shawls, gun-cases, and what not is
tossed into the gig; and away we go, with the
measured dash of the oars.

And what does the bearded John of Skye
think of the new hand we have brought him?
Has he his own suspicions?  Is his friend and
sworn ally, Dr. Sutherland, to be betrayed and
supplanted in his absence?

"Good morning, sir," he says obediently, at
the gangway; and the quick Celtic eyes glance
at Howard Smith from top to toe.

"Good morning, captain," the young man
says lightly; and he springs too quickly up the
steps, making a little bit of a stumble.  This is
not an auspicious omen.

Then on deck: the handsome figure and
pleasant manner of this young man ought
surely to prepossess people in his favour.
What if his tightly-fitting garments and his
patent-leather boots and white gaiters are not
an orthodox yachting rig?  John of Skye
would not judge of a man by his costume.
And if he does not seem quite at home—in this
first look round—every one is not so familiar
with boating life as Dr. Sutherland.  It is true,
an umbrella used as a walking-stick looks
strange on board a yacht; and he need not
have put it on the curved top of the companion,
for it immediately rolls over into the scuppers.
Nor does he seem to see the wickedness of
placing a heavy bundle of canvases on the
raised skylight of the ladies' cabin; does he
want to start the glass?  Dr. Sutherland, now,
would have given the men a hand in hauling
up the gig.  Dr. Sutherland would not have
been in the way of the tiller, as the yacht is
released from her moorings.

Unaware of this rapid criticism, and unconcerned
by all the bustle going on around, our
new friend is carelessly and cheerfully chatting
with his hostess; admiring the yacht; praising
the beauty of the summer morning; delighted
with the prospect of sailing in such weather.
He does not share in the profound curiosity of
his uncle about the various duties of the men.
When John of Skye, wishing to leave the tiller
for a minute to overhaul the lee tackle, turns
quite naturally to Mary Avon, who is standing
by him, and says with a grin of apology, "If
ye please, mem," the young man betrays but
little surprise that this young lady should be
entrusted with the command of the vessel.

"What!" he says, with a pleasant smile—they
seem on very friendly terms already—"can
you steer, Miss Avon?  Mind you don't run us
against any rocks."

Miss Avon has her eye on the mainsail.  She
answers, with a business-like air—

"Oh, there is no fear of that.  What I have
to mind, with this wind, is not to let her gybe,
or I should get into disgrace."

"Then I hope you won't let her gybe,
whatever that is," said he, with a laugh.

Never was any setting-out more auspicious.
We seemed to have bade farewell to those
perpetual calms.  Early as it was in the
morning, there was no still, dream-like haze
about the mountains; there was a clear
greenish-yellow where the sunlight struck
them; the great slopes were dappled with the
shadows of purple-brown; further away the tall
peaks were of a decided blue.  And then the
windy, fresh, brisk morning; the *White Dove*
running races with the driven seas; the white
foam flying away from her sides.  John of Skye
seemed to have no fear of this gentle skipper.
He remained forward, superintending the setting
of the topsail; the *White Dove* was to "have it"
while the fresh breeze continued to blow.

And still the squally easterly wind bears her
bravely onward, the puffs darkening the water
as they pass us and strike the rushing seas.
Is that a shadow of Colonsay on the far
southern horizon?  The lighthouse people
here have gone to bed; there is not a single
figure along the yellow-white walls.  Look at
the clouds of gulls on the rocks, resting after
their morning meal.  By this time the deer
have retreated into the high slopes above
Craignure; there is a white foam breaking
along the bay of Innismore.  And still the
*White Dove* spins along, with foam-diamonds
glittering in the sunlight at her bows; and we
hear the calling of the sea-swallows, and the
throbbing of a steamer somewhere in among
the shadows of Loch Aline.  Surely now we are
out of the reign of calms; the great boom strains
at the sheets; there is a whirl of blue waters;
the *White Dove* has spread her wings at last.

"Ay, ay," says John of Skye, who has relieved
Miss Avon at the helm; "it is a great peety."

"Why, John?" says she, with some surprise;
is he vexed that we should be sailing well on
this fine sailing day?

"It iss a great peety that Mr. Sutherland
not here," said John, "and he wass know so
much about a yacht, and day after day not a
breeze at ahl.  There iss not many chentlemen
will know so much about a yacht as Mr. Sutherland."

Miss Avon did not answer, though her face
seemed conscious in its colour.  She was deeply
engaged in a novel.

"Oh, that is the Mr. Sutherland who has
been with you," said Howard Smith to his
hostess, in a cheerful way.  "A doctor, I think
you said?"

At this Miss Avon looked up quickly from
her book.

"I should have thought," said she with a
certain dignity of manner, "that most people
had heard of Dr. Angus Sutherland."

"Oh, yes, no doubt," said he, in the most
good-natured fashion.  "I know about him
myself—it must be the same man.  A nephew
of Lord Foyers, isn't he?  I met some friends
of his at a house last winter; they had his
book with them—the book about tiger-hunting
in Nepaul, don't you know?—very interesting
indeed it was, uncommonly interesting.  I read
it right through one night when everybody else
was in bed——"

"Why, that is Captain Sutherland's book,"
said his hostess, with just a trace of annoyance.
"They are not even related.  How can you
imagine that Angus Sutherland would write
a book about tiger-hunting?—he is one of
the most distinguished men of science in
England."

"Oh, indeed," says the young man, with
the most imperturbable good humour.  "Oh,
yes, I am sure I have heard of him—the
Geographical Society, or something like that;
really those evenings are most amusing.  The
women are awfully bored, and yet they do
keep their eyes open somehow.  But about
those Indian fellows; it was only last winter
that I heard how the —— —— manages to
make those enormous bags, all to his own
gun, that you see in the papers.  Haven't
you noticed them?"

Well, some of us had been struck with
amazement by the reports of the enormous
slaughter committed by a certain Indian prince;
and had wondered at one of the gentle natives
of the East taking so thoroughly and
successfully to our robust English sports.

"Why," said this young man, "he has every
covert laid out with netting, in small squares
like a dice-board; and when he has done
blazing away in the air, the under-keepers
come up and catch every pheasant, hare, and
rabbit that has run into the netting, and kill
them, and put them down to his bag.  Ingenious,
isn't it?  But I'll tell you what I
have seen myself.  I have seen Lord Justice
—— deliberately walk down a line of netting
and shoot every pheasant and rabbit that had
got entangled.  'Safer not to let them get
away,' says he.  And when his host came up
he said, 'Very good shooting; capital.  I have
got four pheasants and seven rabbits there; I
suppose the beaters will pick them up.'"

And so the Youth, as we had got to call
him, rattled on, relating his personal experiences,
and telling such stories as occurred to
him.  There was a good sprinkling of well-known
names in this desultory talk; how could
Miss Avon fail to be interested, even if the
subject-matter was chiefly composed of
pheasant-shooting, private theatricals, billiard matches on
wet days, and the other amusements of country life?

The Laird, when he did turn aside from that
huge volume of *Municipal London*—which he
had brought with him for purposes of
edification—must have seen and approved.  If the
young man's attentions to Mary Avon were of
a distinctly friendly sort, if they were
characterised by an obvious frankness, if they
were quite as much at the disposal of Mr. Smith's
hostess, what more could be expected?
Rome was not built in a day.  Meanwhile
Miss Avon seemed very well pleased with her
new companion.

And if it may have occurred to one or other
of us that Howard Smith's talking, however
pleasant and good-natured and bright, was on a
somewhat lower level than that of another of
our friends, what then?  Was it not better fitted
for idle sailing among summer seas?  Now,
indeed, our good friend the Laird had no need
to fear being startled by the sudden propounding
of conundrums.

He was startled by something else.  Coming
up from luncheon, we found that an
extraordinary darkness prevailed in the western
heavens—a strange bronze-purple gloom that
seemed to contain within it the promise of a
hundred thunderstorms.  And as this fair wind
had now brought us within sight of the open
Atlantic, the question was whether we should
make for Skye or run right under this lurid
mass of cloud that appeared to lie all along the
western shores of Mull.  Unanimously the
vote was for the latter course.  Had not
Angus Sutherland been anxious all along to
witness a thunderstorm at sea?  Might it not
be of inestimable value to Miss Avon?  John
of Skye, not understanding these reasons,
pointed out that the wind had backed
somewhat to the north, and that Mull would give
us surer shelter than Skye for the night.  And
so we bore away past Quinish, the brisk breeze
sending the *White Dove* along in capital style;
past the mouth of Loch Cuan; past the wild
Cailleach Point; past the broad Calgary Bay;
and past the long headland of Ru-Treshanish.
It was a strange afternoon.  The sun was
hidden; but in the south and west there
was a wan, clear, silver glow on the sea; and
in this white light the islands of Lunga, and
Fladda, and Staffa, and the Dutchman were
of sombre purple.  Darker still were the
islands lying towards the land—Gometra, and
Ulva, and Inch Kenneth; while the great
rampart of cliff from Loch-na-Keal to Loch
Scridain was so wrapped in gloom that
momentarily we watched for the first quivering
flash of the lightning.  Then the wind died
away.  The sea grew calm.  On the glassy grey
surface the first drops of the rain fell—striking
black, and then widening out in small circles.
We were glad of the cool rain, but the
whispering of it sounded strangely in the silence.

Then, as we are still watching for the first
silver-blue flash of the lightning, behold! the
mighty black wall of the Bourg and Gribun
cliffs slowly, mysteriously disappears; and
there is only before us a vague mist of grey.
Colonsay is gone; Inch Kenneth is gone; no
longer can we make out the dark rocks of
Erisgeir.  And then the whispering of the
sea increases; there is a deeper gloom over
head; the rain-king is upon us!  There is a
hasty retreat down stairs; the hatches are
shoved over; after dinner we shall see what
this strange evening portends.

"I hope we shall get into the Sound of
Ulva before dark," says Miss Avon.

"I wish Angus was on board.  It is a
shame he should be cheated out of his
thunderstorm.  But we shall have the equinoctials
for him, at all events," says Queen Titania—just
as if she had a series of squalls and
tempests bottled, labelled, and put on a shelf.

When we get on deck again we find that
the evening, but not the *White Dove*, has
advanced.  There is no wind; there is no rain;
around us there is the silent, glassy, lilac-grey
sea, which, far away in the west, has one or
two gleams of a dull bronze on it, as if some
afterglow were struggling through the clouds
at the horizon.  Along the Gribun cliffs, and
over the islands, the gloom has surely
increased; it were better if we were in some
shelter for this night.

Then a noise is heard that seems to impose
a sudden silence—thunder, low, distant, and
rumbling.  But there is no splendid gleam
through the gathering gloom of the night: the
Gribun cliffs have not spoken yet.

John of Skye has carelessly seated himself
on one of the deck-stools; his arm hangs idly
on the tiller; we guess, rather than hear, that
he is regaling himself with the sad, monotonous
*Farewell to Fuineray*.  He has got on
his black oilskins, though there is not a drop
of rain.

By and by, however, it being now quite
dark, he jumps to his feet, and appears to
listen intently.

"Ay, do ye hear it?" he says, with a short
laugh.  "And it iss off the land it iss coming!"

He calls aloud—"Look out boys! it is a
squahl coming over, and we'll hev the topsail
down whatever!"

Then we hear a distant roaring; and presently
the headsails are violently shaken, and
the great boom swings over as John puts
the helm up to get way on her.  The next
instant we are racing in for the land, as if we
mean to challenge the heavy squall that is
tearing across from the unseen Gribun cliffs.
And now the rain-clouds break in deluges;
the men in their black oilskins go staggering
this way and that along the slippery decks;
the *White Dove* is wrestling with the sudden
storm; another low murmur of thunder comes
booming through the darkness.  What is that
solitary light far in there towards the
land?—dare any steamer venture so near the shore
on such a night?  And we, too; would it not
be safer for us to turn and run out to sea
rather than beat against a squall into the
narrow and shallow channels of Ulva's Sound?
But John of Skye is not afraid.  The wind
and sea cannot drown his strident voice; the
rain deluge cannot blind the trained eyes; the
men on the look-out—when the bow of the
boat springs high on a wave, we can see the
black figures against the sombre sky—know
the channels too; we are not afraid to make
for Ulva's Sound.

There is a wild cry from one of the women;
she has caught sight, through the gloom, of
white foam dashing on the rocks.

"It is all right, mem!" John calls aloud,
with a laugh; but all the same the order is
shouted, "*Ready about!*"—"*Ready about!*" is
the call coming back to us from the darkness.
"*'Bout ship!*" and then away she sheers from
that ugly coast.

We were after all cheated of our thunderstorm,
but it was a wild and a wet night
nevertheless.  Taking in the mizen was no
joke amid this fury of wind and rain, but that
and the hauling up of the main-tack lessened
the pressure on her.  John of Skye was in
high spirits.  He was proud of his knowledge
of the dangerous coast; where less familiar
eyes saw only vague black masses looming out
of the darkness he recognised every rock and
headland.

"No, no, mem," he was calling out in friendly
tones; "we not hef to run out to sea at ahl.
We will get into the Sound of Ulva ferry well;
and there will not be any better anchorage as
the Sound of Ulva, when you are acquaint.
But a stranger—I not ask a stranger to go into
the Sound of Ulva on so dark a night."

What is this we hear?—"*Down foresail,
boys!*" and there is a rattle on to the decks.
The head of the yacht seems to sway round;
there is a loud flapping of sails.  "*Down
chub!*"—and there are black figures struggling
up there at the bowsprit; but vaguely seen
against the blackness of the sky and the sea.
Then, in a second or two, there is a fiercer
rattle than ever; the anchor is away with a
roar.  Some further chain is paid out; then a
strange silence ensues; we are anchored in
Ulva's Sound.

Come down into the cabin, then, you women-folk,
and dry your streaming faces, and arrange
your dishevelled hair.  Is not this a wonderful
stillness and silence after the whirl and
roar of the storm outside?  But then you
must know that the waters are smooth in here;
and the winds become gentle—as gentle as
the name of the island that is close to us now
in the dark.  It is a green-shored island.  The
sailors call it *Ool-a-va*.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHASING SEALS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER V.


.. class:: center medium bold

   CHASING SEALS.

.. vspace:: 2

Next morning found the Laird in a most
excellent humour.  All was going well.
Though nothing had been said or promised
by the Youth, was not his coming away with
us into these remote solitudes—to say nothing
of the very pleasant manner in which he sought
to entertain Miss Mary Avon—sufficient
evidence that he had at least no great repugnance
to his uncle's scheme?  The Laird was
disposed to chuckle privately over the anxiety
that Mary displayed about her work.  The
poor young thing: she did not understand
what higher powers were ordering her future
for her.

"Let her work on," the Laird said, in great
confidence, to his hostess, and there was a
fine secret humour in his eyes.  "Ay, ay, let
her work on: hard work never harmed
anybody.  And if she brings her bit mailin to
the marriage—ye would call it her dowry in
the south—in the shape of a bundle of
pictures—just as a young Scotch lass brings a chest
of drawers or a set of napery—she will not
be empty-handed.  She can hang them up
herself at Denny-mains."

"You are looking too far ahead, sir," says
Queen T., with a quiet smile.

"Maybe—maybe," says the Laird, rubbing
his hands with a certain proud satisfaction.
"We'll see who's right—we will see who is
right, ma'am."

Then, at breakfast, he was merry, complaisant,
philosophical in turns.  He told us
that the last vidimus of the affairs of the
Burgh of Strathgovan was most satisfactory:
assets about 35,000*l.*; liabilities not over
20,000*l.*; there was thus an estimated surplus
of no less than 15,000*l*.  Why, then, he asked,
should certain poor creatures on the Finance
Committee make such a work about the merest
trifles?  Life was not given to man that he
should worry himself into a rage about a penny
farthing.

"There is a great dale of right down
common sense, ma'am," said he, "in that verse
that was written by my countryman, Welliam
Dunbaur—

   |  Be merry man, and tak not sair in mind
   |    The wavering of this wretched world of sorrow;
   |  To God be humble, to thy friend be kind,
   |    And with thy neighbours gladly lend and borrow;
   |  His chance to-night, it may be thine to-morrow;
   |    Be blythe in heart for any aventúre,
   |  For oft with wise men it has been said aforow,
   |    Without Gladnésse availeth no Treasúre."
   |

But we, who were in the secret, knew that
this quotation had nothing in the world to do
with the Finance Committee of Strathgovan.
The Laird had been comforting himself with
these lines.  They were a sort of philosophico-poetical
justification of himself to himself for
his readiness to make these two young people
happy by giving up to them Denny-mains.

And no doubt he was still chuckling over
the simplicity of this poor girl, when, after
breakfast, he found her busily engaged in
getting her painting materials on deck.

"Beautiful—beautiful," said he, glancing
around.  "Ye will make a fine picture out of
those mountains, and the mist, and the still
sea.  What an extraordinary quiet after last
night's rain!"

And perhaps he was thinking how well this
picture would look in the dining-room at
Denny-mains; and how a certain young
hostess—no longer pale and fragile, but robust
and sun-browned with much driving in a
pony-carriage—would take her friends to the picture,
and show them Ulva, and Loch-na-Keal, and
Ben-More; and tell them how this strange
quiet and beauty had followed on a wild night
of storm and rain.  The world around us was
at this moment so quiet that we could hear
the twittering of some small bird among the
rocks in there at the shore.  And the pale,
wan, dream-like sea was so perfect a mirror
that an absolutely double picture was
produced—of the gloomy mountain-masses of
Ben-More, amid silver gleams of cloud and
motionless wreaths of mist; of the basaltic pillars
of the coast nearer at hand—a pale reddish-brown,
with here and there a scant sprinkling
of grass; of that broad belt of rich orange-yellow
seaweed that ran all along the rocks,
marking the junction of the world of the land
with the water-world below.  An absolutely
perfect mirror; except when some fish splashed;
then the small circles widened out and
gradually disappeared; and the surface was as
glassy as before.

The Laird was generous.  He would leave
the artist undisturbed at her work.  Would
not his nephew be better amused if a bachelor
expedition were fitted out to go in search of
the seals that abound in the channels around
Inch Kenneth?  Our hostess declined to go;
but provided us with an ample lunch.  The
gig was lowered; and everything ready for the
start.

"Bring your shot-gun, too, Howard," said
the Laird.  "I want ye to shoot some skarts.
I am told that the breasts of them are very
close and fine in the feathers; and I would like
a muff or a bag made of them for a leddy—for
a young leddy."

Mary Avon was busy with her work: how
could she hear?

"And if the skin of the seals about here
is not very fine, we will make something of
it.  Oh, ay, we will make something of it in the
way of a present.  I know a man in Glasgow
who is extraordinary clever at such things."

"We have first to get the seal, uncle," said
his nephew, laughing.  "I know any number
of men who assure you they have shot seals;
but not quite so many who have got the seals
that were shot."

"Oh, but we'll get the seal, and the skarts,
too," said the Laird; and then he added,
grimly, "Man, if ye cannot do that, what can
ye do?  If ye cannot shoot well, what else are
ye fit for?"

"I really don't know, uncle," the Youth
confessed modestly, as he handed down his rifle
into the gig.  "The London solicitors are a
blind race.  If they only knew what a treasure
of learning and sound judgment they might
have for the asking: but they don't.  And I
can't get any of the Scotch business you were
talking about; because my name doesn't begin
with Mac."

"Well, well, we must wait, and hope for the
best," said the Laird, cheerfully, as he took his
seat in the stern of the gig.  "We are not
likely to run against a solicitor in the Sound
of Ulva.  Sufficient for the day.  As I was
saying, there's great common sense in what
Welliam Dunbaur wrote—

   |    Be blythe in heart for any aventúre,
   |  For oft with wise men it has been said aforow,
   |    Without Gladnésse availeth no Treasúre.

—Bless me, look at that!"

This sudden exclamation sent all eyes to
the shore.  A large heron, startled by the
rattling of the oars, had risen, with a sharp
and loud croak of alarm, from among the
sea-weed, his legs hanging down, his long
neck, and wings, and body apparently a
grey-white against the shadow of the basaltic rocks.
Then, lazily flapping, he rose higher and
higher; he tucked up his legs; the great wings
went somewhat more swiftly; and then, getting
above the low cliffs, and appearing quite black
against the silver-clear sky, he slowly sailed
away.

The silence of this dream-like picture around
us was soon broken.  As the men pulled away
from the yacht, the lonely shores seemed to
waken up into life; and there were whistlings,
and callings, and warnings all along the cliffs;
while the startled sea-birds whirred by in
flashes of colour, or slowly and heavily betook
themselves to some further promontory.  And
now, as we passed along the narrow Sound,
and saw through the translucent water the
wonder-land of seaweed below—with the
patches of clear yellow sand intervening—we
appreciated more and more highly the skill
of John of Skye in getting us into such a
harbour on the previous night.  It is not
every one who, in pitch darkness and in the
midst of squalls, can run a yacht into the neck
of a bottle.

We emerged from the narrow channel, and
got out into the open; but even the broad
waters of Loch-na-Keal were pale and still:
the reflection of Eorsa was scarcely marred
by a ripple.  The long, measured throb of the
rowing was the only sound of life in this world
of still water and overhanging cloud.  There
was no stroke-oar now to give the chorus

   |  *A long strong pull together,*
   |      *Ho, ro, clansman.*

But still we made good way.  As we got
further out, we came in sight of Little Colonsay;
and further off still, Staffa, lying like a dark
cloud on the grey sea.  Inch Kenneth, for
which we were making, seemed almost black;
although, among the mists that lay along the
Gribun and Bourg cliffs, there was a dull
silver-yellow light, as though some sunlight
had got mixed up with the clouds.

"No, no," the Laird was saying, as he
studied a scrap of paper, "it is not a great
property to admeenister; but I am strong in
favour of local management.  After reading
that book on London, and its catalogue of the
enormous properties there, our little bit Burgh
appears to be only a toy; but the principle of
sound and energetic self-government is the
same.  And yet it is no so small, mind ye.
The Burgh buildings are estimated at
nineteen thousand pounds odd; the furniture at
twelve hunderd pounds; lamps near on two
thousand five hunderd; sewers nine thousand
pounds odd; and then debts not far from three
thousand pounds—that makes our assets just
about thirty-five thousand.  And if the
water-pipes in some places are rather too small for
the steam fire-engine, we maun have them
bigger.  It was quite rideeculous that a thriving
place like Strathgovan, when there was a big
fire, should have to run to Glesca for help.
No, no; I believe in independence; and if ye
should ever live in our neighbourhood, Howard,
I hope ye will stand out against the policy of
annexation.  It is only a lot o' Radical bodies
that are for upsetting institutions that have
been tried by time and not found wanting."

"Oh, certainly, sir," Howard Smith said
blithely.  "When you educate people to take
an interest in small parochial matters, they are
better fitted to give an opinion about the
general affairs of the country."

"Small?" said the Laird, eyeing him
severely.  "They are of as much importance
as human life; is there anything of greater
importance in the world?  By abolishin' the
Coulterburn nuisance, and insisting on greater
cleanliness and ventilation, we have reduced
the number of deaths from infectious diseases
in a most extraordinar' manner; and there will
be no more fear of accidents in the Mitherdrum
Road, for we are going to have a
conteenuous line of lamps that'll go right in to
the Glesca lamps.  I do not call these small
matters.  As for the asphalting of the pavement
in front of John Anderson's line of houses,"
continued the Laird, as he consulted the
memorandum in his hand, "that is a small matter, if
ye like.  I am not disposed to pronounce an
opinion on that matter: they can settle it
without my voice.  But it will make a great
difference to John Anderson; and I would
like to see him come forward with a bigger
subscription for the new Park.  Well, well;
we must fight through as best we can."

It was here suggested to the Laird that he
should not let these weighty matters trouble
him while he is away on a holiday.

"Trouble me?" said he, lightly.  "Not a
bit, man!  People who have to meddle in
public affairs must learn how to throw off their
cares.  I am not troubled.  I am going to
give the men a dram; for better pulling I
never saw in a boat!"

He was as good as his word, too.  He
had the luncheon-basket handed down from
the bow; he got out the whisky bottle;
there was a glass filled out for each of the
men, which was drunk in solemn silence.

"Now, boys," said he, as they took to their
oars again, "haven't ye got a song or a chorus
to make the rowing easy?"

But they were too shy for a bit.  Presently,
however, we heard at the bow a low, plaintive,
querulous voice; and the very oars seemed
to recognise the air as they gripped the water.
Then there was a hum of a chorus—not very
musical—and it was in the Gaelic—but we
knew what the refrain meant.

   |  *Ō bōatmān, ă fārewĕll tō yŏu,*
   |  *Ō bōatmān, ă fārewĕll tō yŏu,*
   |  *Whĕrēvēr yŏu māy bĕ gōĭng.*

That is something like the English of it: we
had heard the *Fhir a Bhata* in other days.

The long, heavy pull is nearly over.  Here
are the low-lying reefs of rock outside Inch
Kenneth; not a whisper is permissible as we
creep into the nearest bay.  And then the
men and the boat are left there; and the
Youth—perhaps dimly conscious that his
uncle means the seal-skin for Mary Avon—grasps
his rifle and steals away over the
undulating shelves of rock; while his two
companions, with more leisure but with not less
circumspection, follow to observe his
operations.  Fortunately there is no screaming
sea-pyot or whistling curlew to give warning;
stealthily, almost bent in two, occasionally
crawling on all fours, he makes his way along
the crannies in the reef, until, as we see, he
must be nearly approaching the channel on his
left.  There he pauses to take breath.  He
creeps behind a rock; and cautiously looks
over.  He continues his progress.

"This is terrible woark," says the Laird,
in a stage-whisper, as he, too—with a much
heavier bulk to carry—worms along.  From
time to time he has to stay to apply his
handkerchief to his forehead; it is hot work
on this still, breathless day.

And at last we, too, get down to the edge
of a channel—some hundred yards lower than
Howard Smith's post—and from behind a rock
we have a pretty clear view of the scene of
operations.  Apparently there is no sign of any
living thing—except that a big fish leaps into
the air, some dozen yards off.  Thereafter a
dead silence.

After waiting about a quarter of an hour
or so, the Laird seemed to become violently
excited, though he would neither budge nor
speak.  And there, between two islands right
opposite young Smith, appeared two shining
black heads on the still water; and they were
evidently coming down this very channel.  On
they came—turning about one way and another,
as if to look that the coast was clear.  Every
moment we expected to hear the crack of the
rifle.  Then the heads silently disappeared.

The Laird was beside himself with disappointment.

"Why did he no shoot?  Why did he no
shoot?" he said, in an excited whisper.

He had scarcely spoken when he was startled
by an apparition.  Right opposite to him—not
more than twenty yards off—a black thing
appeared on the water—with a glistening smooth
head, and large, soft eyes.  Then another.  We
dared not move.  We waited for the whistle
of the rifle-bullet.  The next instant the first
seal caught sight of the Laird; raised its head
for an instant at least six inches higher; then
silently plunged along with its companion.
They were gone, at all events.

The Youth came marching along the rocks,
his rifle over his shoulder.

"Why didn't you fire?" his uncle said,
almost angrily.

"I thought they were coming nearer," said
he.  "I was just about to fire when they
dived.  Mind, it isn't very easy to get on to
a thing that is bobbing about like that, with a
rifle.  I propose we have luncheon, now, until
the tide ebbs a bit; then there may be a
chance of catching one lying on the rocks.
That is the proper time for getting a shot
at a seal."

We had luncheon: there was no difficulty
about securing that.  But as for getting at
the seals—whether we crawled over the rocks,
or lay in hiding, or allowed the boat to drift
towards some island, on the chance of one
of them rising in our neighbourhood—it was
no use at all.  There were plenty of seals
about: a snap shot now and again served to
break the monotony of the day; but that
present tor Mary Avon seemed as remote
as ever.  And when one is determined on
shooting a seal, one is not likely to waste
one's attention, and cartridges, on such inferior
animals as skarts.

The silver-grey day became more golden;
there was a touch of warm purple about the
shadows of Staffa.

"Come," said the Laird at last.  "We must
go back.  It is no use.  I have often heard
people say that if you miss the first chance at
a seal it never gives ye another."

"Better luck next time, uncle," said the
Youth; but his uncle refused to be comforted.
And the first thing he said to Mary Avon
when he got back to the yacht was—

"We have not got it."

"Got what?" said she.

"The seal-skin I wanted to have dressed
for ye.  No, nor the skarts I wanted to have
made into a muff or a bag for ye."

"Oh," said she, promptly, "I am very glad.
I hope you won't shoot any of those poor
things on my account; I should be very sorry
indeed."

The Laird took this as one of the familiar
protestations on the part of women, who
wouldn't for the world have poor things shot,
but who don't object to wearing any amount
of furs and feathers, to say nothing of having
innocent sheep sheared and harmless silkworms
robbed in order to deck themselves out.
She should have that dressed seal-skin, and
that muff of skarts' breasts, all the same.

Nothing of stupendous importance happened
that evening except that—after we had caught
three dozen of good-sized lithe and returned
to the yacht with this welcome addition to our
stores—there was a general discussion of our
plans for the next few days.  And our gentle
hostess was obviously looking forward to
Angus Sutherland's coming back to us with
great pleasure; and we were to make our
return to suit his convenience; and she would
write to him whenever we got near a
post-office again.

Mary Avon had sate silent during all
this.  At last, she said—apparently with some
effort and yet very deliberately—

"I—I think you are a little cruel to
Dr. Sutherland.  You are forcing him to come
with you against his better judgment—for
you know, with his prospects, and the calls
on his time, he cannot afford such long
idleness.  Do you think it is quite fair?"

The woman stared at this girl, who spoke
with some earnestness, though her eyes were
downcast.

"He would do anything to please you,"
Mary Avon continued, as if she were
determined to get through with some speech
that she had prepared, "and he is very fond
of sailing: but do you think you should allow
him to injure his prospects in this way?
Wouldn't it be a greater kindness to write
and say that, if he really feels he ought to
return to London, you would not hold him
to his promise?  I am sure he would not be
offended: he would understand you at once.
And I am sure he would do what is clearly
right: he would go straight back to London,
and resume his work—for his own sake and
for the sake of those who count on a great
future for him.  I, for one, should be very
sorry to see him come back to idle away his
time in sailing."

And still Queen Tita stared at the girl,
though their eyes did not meet.  And she
could scarcely believe that it was Mary Avon
who had counselled this cold dismissal.





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.. _`"UNCERTAIN, COY, AND HARD TO PLEASE"`:

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   CHAPTER VI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   "UNCERTAIN, COY, AND HARD TO PLEASE."

.. vspace:: 2

There are two people walking up and down
the deck this beautiful morning: the lazy ones
are still below, dawdling over breakfast.  And
now young Smith, though he is not much more
than an acquaintance, talks quite confidentially
to his hostess.  She has his secret; he looks
to her for aid.  And when they do have a
quiet moment like this together there is usually
but one person of whom they speak.

"I must say she has an extraordinary spirit,"
he observes, with some decision.  "Why, I
believe she is rather pleased than otherwise to
have lost that money.  She is not a bit afraid
of going up to London to support herself by her
work.  It seems to amuse her on the whole!"

"Mary has plenty of courage," says the
other quietly.

"I don't wonder at my uncle being so fond
of her: he likes her independent ways and
her good humour.  I shouldn't be surprised if
he were to adopt her as his daughter, and cut
me out.  There would be some sense in that."

"I am glad you take it so coolly," says our
governor-general, in a matter-of-fact way that
rather startles him.  "More unlikely things
have happened."

But he recovers himself directly.

"No, no," says he, laughing.  "There is
one objection.  She could not sit on any of
the parochial Boards of Strathgovan.  Now I
know my uncle looks forward to putting me
on the Police Committee and the Lighting
Committee, and no end of other Committees.
By the way, she might go on the School
Board.  Do they have women on the School
Boards in Scotland?"

On this point his hostess was no better
informed than himself.

"Well," said he, after a bit, "I wouldn't call
her pretty, you know; but she has a singularly
interesting face."

"Oh, do you think so?" says the other,
quite innocently.

"I do, indeed," answers the ingenuous Youth.
"And the more you see of her the more interesting
it becomes.  You seem to get so well
acquainted with her somehow; and—and you
have a sort of feeling that her presence is
sort of necessary."

This was somewhat vague; but he made
another wild effort to express himself.

"What I mean is—that—that suppose she
were to leave the yacht, wouldn't the saloon
look quite different?  And wouldn't the sailing
be quite different?  You would know there
was something wanting."

"I should, indeed," is the emphatic reply.

"I never knew any one," says the Youth,
warming to his work of thorough explanation,
"about whose presence you seem so conscious—even
when she isn't here—I don't mean
that exactly—I mean that at this moment
now, you know she is on board the yacht—and
it would be quite different if she were
not.  I suppose most people wouldn't call her
pretty.  There is nothing of the Book of
Beauty about her.  But I call it a most
interesting face.  And she has fine eyes.  Anybody
must admit that.  They have a beautiful, soft
expression; and they can laugh even when
she is quite silent——"

"My dear Mr. Smith," says his hostess,
suddenly stopping short, and with a kind of
serious smile on her face, "let me talk frankly
to you.  You acted very sensibly, I think, in
coming with us to humour your uncle.  He
will come to see that this scheme of his is
impracticable; and in the meantime, if you
don't mind the discomfort of it, you have a
holiday.  That is all quite well.  But pray
don't think it necessary that you should argue
yourself into falling in love with Mary.  I am
not in her confidence on such a delicate matter;
but one has eyes; and I think I might almost
safely say to you that, even if you persuaded
yourself that Mary would make an excellent
wife—and be presentable to your friends—I
say even if you succeeded in persuading
yourself, I am afraid you would only have thrown
that labour away.  Please don't try to convince
yourself that you ought to fall in love with her."

This was plain speaking.  But then our
admiral-in-chief was very quickly sensitive
where Mary Avon was concerned; and perhaps
she did not quite like her friend being spoken
of as though she were a pill that had to be
swallowed.  Of course the Youth instantly
disclaimed any intention of that kind.  He
had a very sincere regard for the girl, so far
as he had seen her; he was not persuading
himself; he was only saying how much she
improved when you got better acquainted with her.

"And if," said he, with just a touch of
dignity, "if Miss Avon is—is—engaged——"

"Oh, I did not say that," his hostess quickly
interposed.  "Oh, certainly not.  It was only
a guess on my part——"

"——or likely to be engaged," he
continued, with something of the same reserve,
"I am sure I am very glad for her sake; and
whoever marries her ought to have a cheerful
home and a pleasant companion."

This was a generous sentiment; but there
was not much of a "wish-you-may-be-happy"
air about the young man.  Moreover, where
was the relief he ought to have experienced
on hearing that there was an obstacle—or
likelihood of an obstacle—to the execution of
his uncle's scheme which would absolve him
from responsibility altogether?

However, the subject could not be continued
just then; for at this moment a tightly-brushed
small head, and a narrow-brimmed felt hat,
and a shapely neck surrounded by an
upstanding collar and bit of ribbon of navy-blue,
appeared at the top of the companion, and
Mary Avon, looking up with her black eyes
full of a cheerful friendliness, said—

"Weil, John, are you ready to start yet?"

And the great, brown-bearded John of Skye,
looking down at this small Jack-in-the-box with
a smile of welcome on his face, said—

"Oh, yes, mem, when the breakfast is over."

"Do you think it is blowing outside, then?"

"Oh, no, mem, but there is a good breeze;
and maybe there will be a bit of a rowl from
the Atlantic.  Will Mr. —— himself be for
going now?"

"Oh, yes, certainly," she says, with a fine
assumption of authority.  "We are quite
ready when you are ready, John; Fred will
have the things off the table in a couple of
minutes."

"Very well, mem," says the obedient John
of Skye, going forward to get the men up
to the windlass.

Our young Doctor should have been there
to see us getting under way.  The Sound of
Ulva is an excellent harbour and anchorage
when you are once in it; but getting out of it,
unless with both wind and tide in your favour,
is very like trying to manoeuvre a man-of-war
in a tea-cup.  But we had long ago come to
the conclusion that John of Skye could sail
the *White Dove* through a gas-pipe, with half
a gale of wind dead in his teeth; and the
manner in which he got us out of this narrow and
tortuous channel fully justified our confidence.

"Very prettily done, Captain John!" said
the Laird—who was beginning to give himself
airs on nautical matters—when we had got out
into the open.

And here, as we soon discovered, was the
brisk fresh breeze that John of Skye had
predicted; and the running swell, too, that
came sweeping in to the mouth of Loch-na-Keal.
Black indeed looked that far-reaching
loch on this breezy, changeful morning—as
dark as it was when the chief of Ulva's Isle
came down to the shore with his runaway
bride; and all along Ben-More and over the
Gribun cliffs hung heavy masses of cloud, dark
and threatening as if with thunder.  But far
away in the south there was a more cheerful
outlook; the windy sea shimmering in light;
some gleams of blue in the sky; we knew that
the sunshine must be shining on the green
clover and the beautiful sands of Iona.  The
*White Dove* seemed to understand what was
required of her.  Her head was set for the
gleaming south; her white wings outspread;
as she sprang to meet those rushing seas we
knew we were escaping from the thunder-darkness
that lay over Loch-na-Keal.

And Ulva: had we known that we were
now leaving Ulva behind us for the last time,
should we not have taken another look back,
even though it now lay under a strange and
mysterious gloom?  Perhaps not.  We had
grown to love the island in other days.  And
when one shuts one's eyes in winter, it is not
to see an Ulva of desolate rocks and leaden
waves; it is a fair and shining Ulva, with blue
seas breaking whitely along its shores; and
magical still channels, with mermaid's halls of
seaweed; and an abundant, interesting life—all
manner of sea-birds, black rabbits running
among the rocks, seals swimming in the silent
bays.  Then the patch of civilisation under
shelter of the hills; the yellow corn-fields;
the dots of human creatures and the red and
tawny-grey cattle visible afar in the meadow;
the solitary house; the soft foliage of trees
and bushes; the wild-flowers along the cliffs.
That is the green-shored island: that is the
*Ool-a-va* of the sailors; we know it only in
sunlight and among blue summer seas: it
shines for us for ever!

The people who go yachting are a fickle
folk.  The scene changes—and their interests
change—every few minutes.  Now it is the
swooping down of a solan; again it is the
appearance of another island far away;
presently it is a shout of laughter forward, as
some unlucky wight gets drowned in a shower
of sea-spray: anything catches their attention
for the moment.  And so the *White Dove*
swings along; and the sea gets heavier and
heavier; and we watch the breakers springing
high over the black rocks of Colonsay.  It
is the Laird who is now instructing our
new guest; pointing out to him, as they come
in view, Staffa, the Dutchman, Fladda, and
Lunga, and Cairnaburg.  Tiree is invisible at
the horizon: there is too wild a whirl of wind
and water.

The gloom behind us increases; we know
not what is about to happen to our beloved
but now distant Ulva—what sudden rumble
of thunder is about to startle the silence of
the dark Loch-na-Keal.  But ahead of us the
south is still shining clear: blow, winds, that
we may gain the quiet shelter of Polterriv
before the evening falls!  And is it not full
moon to-night?—to-night our new guest may
see the yellow moon shining on the still waters
of Iona Sound.

But the humiliating truth must be told.  The
heavy sea has been trying to one unaccustomed
to life on board.  Howard Smith, though
answering questions well enough, and even
joining voluntarily in conversation occasionally,
wears a preoccupied air.  He does not take
much interest in the caves of Bourg.  The
bright look has gone from his face.

His gentle hostess—who has herself had
moments of gloom on the bosom of the
deep—recognises these signs instantly; and insists
on immediate luncheon.  There is a double
reason for this haste.  We can now run under
the lee of the Erisgeir rocks, where there will
be less danger to Master Fred's plates and
tumblers.  So we are all bundled down into the
saloon; the swell sensibly subsides as we get
to leeward of Erisgeir; there is a scramble of
helping and handing; and another explosion
in the galley tells us that Master Fred has
not yet mastered the art of releasing
effervescing fluids.  Half a tumblerful of that
liquid puts new life into our solemn friend.
The colour returns to his face, and brightness
to his eyes.  He admits that he was beginning
to long for a few minutes on firm land—but
now—but now—he is even willing to join us
in an excursion that has been talked of to
the far Dubhartach lighthouse.

"But we must really wait for Angus,"
our hostess says, "before going out there.
He was always so anxious to go to Dubhartach."

"But surely you won't ask him to come
away from his duties again?" Mary Avon
puts in hastily.  "You know he ought to go
back to London at once."

"I know I have written him a letter," says
the other demurely.  "You can read it if you
like, Mary.  It is in pencil, for I was afraid
of the ink-bottle going waltzing over the table."

Miss Avon would not read the letter.  She
said we must be past Erisgeir by this time;
and proposed we should go on deck.  This
we did; and the Youth was now so comfortable
and assured in his mind that, by lying full
length on the deck, close to the weather
bulwarks, he managed to light a cigar.  He
smoked there in much content, almost safe
from the spray.

Mary Avon was seated at the top of the
companion, reading.  Her hostess came and
squeezed herself in beside her, and put her
arm round her.

"Mary," said she, "why don't you want
Angus Sutherland to come back to the yacht?"

"I!" said she, in great surprise—though
she did not meet the look of the elder
woman—"I—I—don't you see yourself that he ought
to go back to London?  How can he look
after that magazine while he is away in the
Highlands?  And—and—he has so much to
look forward to—so much to do—that you
should not encourage him in making light
of his work."

"Making light of his work!" said the other.
"I am almost sure that you yourself told him
that he deserved and required a long—a very
long—holiday."

"You did, certainly."

"And didn't you?"

The young lady looked rather embarrassed.

"When you saw him," said she, with flushed
cheeks, "so greatly enjoying the sailing—absorbed
in it—and—and gaining health and
strength, too—well, of course you naturally
wished that he should come back and go away
with you again.  But it is different on
reflection.  You should not ask him."

"Why, what evil is likely to happen to
him through taking another six weeks' holiday?
Is he likely to fall out of the race of
life because of a sail in the *White Dove*?
And doesn't he know his own business?  He
is not a child."

"He would do a great deal to please you."

"I want him to please himself," said the
other; and she added, with a deadly frown
gathering on her forehead, "and I won't have
you, Miss Dignity, interfering with the
pleasures of my guests.  And there is to be no
snubbing, and no grim looks, and no hints
about work, and London, and other nonsense,
when Angus Sutherland comes back to us.
You shall stand by the gangway—do you
hear?—and receive him with a smiling face;
and if you are not particularly kind, and civil,
and attentive to him, I'll have you lashed to
the yard-arm and painted blue—keel-haul me
if I don't."

Fairer and fairer grew the scene around
us as the brave *White Dove* went breasting
the heavy Atlantic rollers.  Blue and white
overhead; the hot sunlight doing its best to
dry the dripping decks; Iona shining there
over the smoother waters of the Sound; the
sea breaking white, and spouting up in columns,
as it dashed against the pale red promontories
of the Ross of Mull.  But then this stiff
breeze had backed to the west; and there was
many a long tack to be got over before we
left behind the Atlantic swell and ran clear
into the Sound.  The evening was drawing on
apace as we slowly and cautiously steered into
the little creek of Polterriv.  No sooner had
the anchor rattled out than we heard the clear
tinkling of Master Fred's bell; how on earth
had he managed to cook dinner amid all that
diving and rolling and pitching?

And then, as we had hoped, it was a beautiful
evening; and the long gig was got out, and
shawls for the women-folk flung into the
stern.  The fishing did not claim our
attention.  Familiar as some of us were with the
wonderful twilights of the north, which of us
had ever seen anything more solemn, and still,
and lovely than these colours of sea and shore?
Half-past nine at night on the 8th of August;
and still the west and north were flushed with
a pale rose-red, behind the dark, rich,
olive-green of the shadowed Iona.  But what was
that to the magic world that lay before us as
we returned to the yacht?  Now the moon
had arisen, and it seemed to be of a clear,
lambent gold; and the cloudless heavens and
the still sea were of a violet hue—not imaginatively,
or relatively, but positively and literally
violet.  Then between the violet-coloured sky
and the violet-coloured sea, a long line of
rock, jet black as it appeared to us.  That
was all the picture: the yellow moon, the
violet sky, the violet sea, the line of black
rock.  No doubt it was the intensity of the
shadows along this line of rock that gave
that extraordinary luminousness to the still
heavens and the still sea.

When we got back to the yacht a telegram
awaited us.  It had been sent to Bunessan,
the nearest telegraph-station; but some kind
friends there, recognising the *White Dove* as
she came along by Erisgeir, and shrewdly
concluding that we must pass the night at
Polterriv, had been so kind as to forward it
on to Fion-phort by a messenger.

"I thought so!" says Queen T. with a
fine delight in her face as she reads the
telegram.  "It is from Angus.  He is coming on
Thursday.  We must go back to meet him at
Ballahulish or Corpach."

Then the discourtesy of this remark struck her.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Smith," said she,
instantly.  "Of course, I mean if it is quite
agreeable to you.  He does not expect us,
you see; he would come on here——"

"I assure you I would as soon go to
Ballahulish as anywhere else," says the
Youth promptly.  "It is quite the same to
me—it is all new, you see, and all equally
charming."

Mary Avon alone expressed no delight at
this prospect of our going to Ballahulish to
meet Angus Sutherland; she sate silent; her
eyes were thoughtful and distant; it was
not of anything around her that she was
thinking.

The moon had got whiter now; the sea
and the sky blue-black in place of that soft
warm violet colour.  We sate on deck till a
late hour; the world was asleep around us;
not a sound disturbed the absolute stillness
of land and sea.

And where was the voice of our singing
bird?  Had the loss of a mere sum of money
made her forget all about Mary Beaton, and
Mary Seaton, "and Mary Carmichael and
me?" Or was the midnight silence too much
for her; and the thought of the dusky cathedral
over there; with the gravestones pale in
the moonlight; and all around a whispering
of the lonely sea?  She had nothing to fear.
She might have crossed over to Iona and
might have walked all by herself through the
ruins, and in calmness regarded the sculptured
stones.  The dead sleep sound.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SECRET SCHEMES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   SECRET SCHEMES.

.. vspace:: 2

The delight with which John of Skye heard
that his friend Dr. Sutherland was coming
back to the yacht, and that we were now
setting out for Ballahulish or Corpach to meet
him, found instant and practical expression on
this fine, breezy, sunlit morning.

"Hector," says he, "we will put the gaff
topsail on her!"

What did he care though this squally breeze
came blowing down the Sound in awkward gusts?

"It is a fine wind, mem," says he to the
Admiral, as we slowly leave the green waters
and the pink rocks of Polterriv, and get into
the open and breezy channel.  "Oh, we will
mek a good run the day.  And I beg your
pardon, mem, but it is a great pleasure to me
that Mr. Sutherland himself is coming back
to the yat."

"He understands your clever sailing, John:
is that it?"

"He knows more about a yat as any
chentleman I will ever see, mem.  And we
will try to get a good breeze for him this time,
mem—and not to have the calm weather."

This is not likely to be a day of calm
weather, at all events.  Tide and wind
together take us away swiftly from the little
harbour behind the granite rocks.  And is
Iona over there all asleep; or are there some
friends in the small village watching the
*White Dove* bearing away to the south?  We
wave our handkerchiefs on chance.  We take
a last look at the gabled ruins over the
sea; at the green corn-fields; and the
scattered houses; and the beaches of silver sand.
Good-bye—good-bye!  It is a last look for
this summer at least; perhaps it is a last
look for ever.  But Iona too—as well as
Ulva—remains in the memory a vision of sunlight,
and smooth seas, and summer days.

Harder and harder blows this fresh breeze
from the north; and we are racing down the
Sound with the driven waves.  But for the
rope round the tiller, Miss Avon, who is
steering, would find it difficult to keep her
feet; and her hair is blown all about her
face.  The salt water comes swishing down
the scuppers; the churned foam goes hissing
and boiling away from the sides of the vessel;
the broad Atlantic widens out.  And that
small grey thing at the horizon?  Can that speck
be a mass of masonry a hundred and fifty feet
in height, wedged into the lonely rock?

"No, no," says our gentle Queen Titania
with an involuntary shudder, "not for worlds
would I climb up that iron ladder, with the
sea and the rocks right below me.  I should
never get half-way up."

"They will put a rope round your waist,
if you like," it is pointed out to her.

"When we go out, then," says this coward.
"I will see how Mary gets on.  If she does
not die of fright, I may venture."

"Oh, but I don't think I shall be with
you," remarks the young lady quite simply.

At this there is a general stare.

"I don't know what you mean," says her
hostess, with an ominous curtness.

"Why, you know," says the girl, cheerfully—and
disengaging one hand to get her hair
out of her eyes—"I can't afford to go idling
much longer.  I must get back to London."

"Don't talk nonsense," says the other
woman, angrily.  "You may try to stop
other people's holidays, if you like; but I am
going to look after yours.  Holidays!  How
are you to work, if you don't work now?
Will you find many landscapes in Regent
Street?"

"I have a great many sketches," says Mary
Avon, "and I must try to make something
out of them, where there is less distraction
of amusement.  And really, you know, you
have so many friends—would you like me
to become a fixture—like the mainmast—"

"I would like you to talk a little common
sense," is the sharp reply.  "You are not
going back to London till the *White Dove*
is laid up for the winter—that is what I
know."

"I am afraid I must ask you to let me off,"
she says, quite simply and seriously.  "Suppose
I go up to London next week?  Then, if I
get on pretty well, I may come back——"

"You may come back!" says the other with
a fine contempt.  "Don't try to impose on
me.  I am an older woman than you.  And
I have enough provocations and worries from
other quarters: I don't want you to begin
and bother."

"Is your life so full of trouble?" says the
girl, innocently.  "What are these fearful
provocations?"

"Never mind.  You will find out in time.
But when you get married, Mary, don't forget
to buy a copy of Doddridge on Patience.
That should be included in every bridal
trousseau."

"Poor thing—is it so awfully ill-used?"
replies the steersman, with much compassion.

Here John of Skye comes forward.

"If ye please, mem, I will tek the tiller
until we get round the Ross.  The rocks are
very bad here."

"All right, John," says the young lady; and
then, with much cautious clinging to various
objects, she goes below, saying that she means
to do a little more to a certain slight
water-colour sketch of Polterriv.  We know why
she wants to put some further work on that
hasty production.  Yesterday the Laird
expressed high approval of the sketch.  She
means him to take it with him to Denny-mains,
when she leaves for London.

But this heavy sea: how is the artist getting
on with her work amid such pitching and
diving?  Now that we are round the Ross,
the *White Dove* has shifted her course; the
wind is more on her beam; the mainsheet has
been hauled in; and the noble ship goes
ploughing along in splendid style; but how
about water-colour drawing?

Suddenly, as the yacht gives a heavy lurch
to leeward, an awful sound is heard below.
Queen T. clambers down the companion, and
holds on by the door of the saloon; the others
following and looking over her shoulders.
There a fearful scene appears.  At the head
of the table, in the regal recess usually
occupied by the carver and chief president of our
banquets, sits Mary Avon, in mute and blank
despair.  Everything has disappeared from
before her.  A tumbler rolls backwards and
forwards on the floor, empty.  A dishevelled
bundle of paper, hanging on to the edge of a
carpet-stool, represents what was once an
orderly sketch-book.  Tubes, pencils, saucers,
sponges—all have gone with the table-cloth.
And the artist sits quite hopeless and silent,
staring before her like a maniac in a cell.

"Whatever have you been and done?" calls
her hostess.

There is no answer: only that tragic despair.

"It was all bad steering," remarks the
Youth.  "I knew it would happen as soon as
Miss Avon left the helm."

But the Laird, not confining his sympathy
to words, presses by his hostess; and, holding
hard by the bare table, staggers along to the
scene of the wreck.  The others timidly follow.
One by one the various objects are rescued,
and placed for safety on the couch on the
leeward side of the saloon.  Then the automaton
in the presidential chair begins to move.  She
recovers her powers of speech.  She
says—awaking from her dream—

"Is my head on?"

"And if it is, it is not of much use to you,"
says her hostess, angrily.  "Whatever made
you have those things out in a sea like this?
Come up on deck at once; and let Fred get
luncheon ready."

The maniac only laughs.

"Luncheon!" she says.  "Luncheon in the
middle of earthquakes!"

But this sneer at the *White Dove*, because
she has no swinging table, is ungenerous.
Besides, is not our Friedrich d'or able to battle
any pitching with his ingeniously bolstered
couch—so that bottles, glasses, plates, and what
not, are as safe as they would be in a case in
the British Museum?  A luncheon party on
board the *White Dove*, when there is a heavy
Atlantic swell running, is not an imposing
ceremony.  It would not look well as a coloured
lithograph in the illustrated papers.  The
figures crouching on the low stools to leeward;
the narrow cushion bolstered up so that the
most enterprising of dishes cannot slide; the
table-cover plaited so as to afford receptacles
for knives and spoons; bottles and tumblers
plunged into hollows and propped; Master
Fred, balancing himself behind these stooping
figures, bottle in hand, and ready to replenish
any cautiously proffered wine-glass.  But it
serves.  And Dr. Sutherland has assured us
that, the heavier the sea, the more necessary
is luncheon for the weaker vessels, who may
be timid about the effect of so much rolling
and pitching.  When we get on deck again,
who is afraid?  It is all a question as to what
signal may be visible to the white house of
Carsaig—shining afar there in the sunlight,
among the hanging woods, and under the soft
purple of the hills.  Behold!—behold!—the
red flag run up to the top of the white pole!
Is it a message to us, or only a summons to
the *Pioneer*?  For now, through the whirl of
wind and spray, we can make out the steamer
that daily encircles Mull, bringing with it white
loaves, and newspapers, and other luxuries of
the mainland.

She comes nearer and nearer; the throbbing
of the paddles is heard among the rush of the
waves; the people crowd to the side of the
boat to have a look at the passing yacht; and
one well-known figure, standing on the hurricane
deck, raises his gilt-braided cap,—for we
happen to have on board a gentle small creature
who is a great friend of his.  And she waves her
white handkerchief, of course; and you should
see what a fluttering of similar tokens there is
all along the steamer's decks, and on the paddle
boxes.  Farewell!—farewell!—may you have
a smooth landing at Staffa, and a pleasant sail
down the Sound, in the quiet of the afternoon!
The day wears on, with puffs and squalls
coming tearing over from the high cliffs of
southern Mull; and still the gallant *White
Dove* meets and breasts those rolling waves,
and sends the spray flying from her bows.
We have passed Loch Buy; Garveloch and
the Island of Saints are drawing nearer; soon
we shall have to bend our course northward,
when we have got by Eilean-straid-ean.  And
whether it is that Mary Avon is secretly
comforting herself with the notion that she will
soon see her friends in London again, or
whether it is that she is proud of being again
promoted to the tiller, she has quite recovered
her spirits.  We hear our singing-bird once
more—though it is difficult, amid the rush and
swirl of the waters, to do more than catch
chance phrases and refrains.  And then she
is being very merry with the Laird, who is
humorously decrying England and the English,
and proving to her that it is the Scotch
migration to the south that is the very saving
of her native country.

"The Lord Chief Justice of England, the
Archbishop of Canterbury, the President of
the Royal Academy—the heads and leading
men everywhere—all Scotch—all Scotch,"
says he.

"But the weak point about the Scotch, sir,"
says this philosopher in the ulster, who is
clinging on to the tiller rope, "is their modesty.
They are so distrustful of their own merits.
And they are always running down their
own country."

"Ha, ha!—ho! ho! ho!" roars the Laird.
"Verra good! verra good!  I owe ye one for
that.  I owe ye one.  Howard, have ye nothing
to say in defence of your native country?"

"You are speaking of Scotland, sir?"

"Ay."

"That is not my native country, you know."

"It was your mother's, then."

Somehow, when by some accident—and it
but rarely happened—the Laird mentioned
Howard Smith's mother, a brief silence fell on
him.  It lasted but a second or two.  Presently
he was saying, with much cheerfulness—

"No, no, I am not one of those that would
promote any rivalry between Scotland and
England.  We are one country now.  If the
Scotch preserve the best leeterary English—the
most pithy and characteristic forms of the
language—the English that is talked in the
south is the most generally received throughout
the world.  I have even gone the length—I'm
no ashamed to admit it—of hinting to Tom
Galbraith that he should exheebit more in
London: the influence of such work as his
should not be confined to Edinburgh.  And
jealous as they may be in the south of the
Scotch school, they could not refuse to
recognise its excellence—eh?  No, no; when
Galbraith likes to exheebit in London, ye'll
hear a stir, I'm thinking.  The jealousy of
English artists will have no effect on public
opeenion.  They may keep him out o' the
Academy—there's many a good artist has
never been within the walls—but the public is
the judge.  I am told that when his picture of
*Stonebyres Falls* was exheebited in Edinburgh,
a dealer came all the way from London to look
at it."

"Did he buy it?" asked Miss Avon, gently.

"Buy it!" the Laird said, with a
contemptuous laugh.  "There are some of us
about Glasgow who know better than to let a
picture like that get to London.  I bought it
myself.  Ye'll see it when ye come to
Denny-mains.  Ye have heard of it, no doubt?"

"N—no, I think not," she timidly answers.

"No matter—no matter.  Ye'll see it when
ye come to Denny-mains."

He seemed to take it for granted that she
was going to pay a visit to Denny-mains: had
he not heard, then, of her intention of at once
returning to London?

Once well round into the Frith of Lorn, the
wind that had borne us down the Sound of
Iona was now right ahead; and our progress
was but slow.  As the evening wore on, it was
proposed that we should run into Loch Speliv
for the night.  There was no dissentient voice.

The sudden change from the plunging seas
without to the quiet waters of the solitary little
loch was strange enough.  And then, as we slowly
beat up against the northerly wind to the head
of the loch—a beautiful, quiet, sheltered little
cup of a harbour among the hills—we found
before us, or rather over us, the splendours of a
stormy sunset among the mountains above
Glen More.  It was a striking spectacle—the
vast and silent gloom of the valleys below,
which were of a cold and intense green in
the shadow; then above, among the great
shoulders and peaks of the hills, flashing
gleams of golden light, and long swathes of
purple cloud touched with scarlet along their
edges, and mists of rain that came along with
the wind, blotting out here and there those
splendid colours.  There was an absolute
silence in this overshadowed bay—but for the
cry of the startled wild-fowl.  There was no
sign of any habitation, except perhaps a trace
of pale blue smoke rising from behind a mass
of trees.  Away went the anchor with a short,
sharp rattle; we were safe for the night.

We knew, however, what that trace of smoke
indicated behind the dark trees.  By and by,
as soon as the gig had got to the land, there
was a procession along the solitary shore—in
the wan twilight—and up the rough path—and
through the scattered patches of birch and fir.
And were you startled, Madam, by the apparition
of people who were so inconsiderate as to
knock at your door in the middle of dinner, and
whose eyes, grown accustomed to the shadows
of the valleys of Mull, must have looked
bewildered enough on meeting the glare of the
lamps?  And what did you think of a particular
pair of eyes—very soft and gentle in their dark
lustre—appealing, timid, friendly eyes, that had
nevertheless a quiet happiness and humour in
them?  It was at all events most kind of you
to tell the young lady that her notion of
throwing up her holiday and setting out for London
was mere midsummer madness.  How could
you—or any one else—guess at the origin of so
strange a wish?





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`BEFORE BREAKFAST`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER VIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   BEFORE BREAKFAST.

.. vspace:: 2

Who is this who slips through the saloon,
while as yet all on board are asleep—who
noiselessly ascends the companion-way, and
then finds herself alone on deck?  And all the
world around her is asleep too, though the gold
and rose of the new day is shining along the
eastern heavens.  There is not a sound in this
silent little loch: the shores and the woods are
as still as the far peaks of the mountains, where
the mists are touched here and there with a
dusky fire.

She is not afraid to be alone in this silent
world.  There is a bright and contented look
on her face.  Carefully and quietly, so as not
to disturb the people below, she gets a couple
of deck stools, and puts down the large
sketch-book from under her arm, and opens out a
certain leather case.  But do not think she is
going to attack that blaze of colour in the east,
with the reflected glare on the water, and the
bar of dark land between.  She knows better.
She has a wholesome fear of chromo-lithographs.
She turns rather to those great mountain
masses, with their mysteriously moving
clouds, and their shoulders touched here and
there with a sombre red, and their deep and
silent glens a cold, intense green in shadow.
There is more workable material.

And after all there is no ambitious effort to
trouble her.  It is only a rough jotting of form
and colour, for future use.  It is a pleasant
occupation for this still, cool, beautiful morning;
and perhaps she is fairly well satisfied with it,
for one listening intently might catch snatches
of songs and airs—of a somewhat incoherent
and inappropriate character.  For what have
the praises of Bonny Black Bess to do with
sunrise in Loch Speliv?  Or the saucy Arethusa
either?  But all the same the work goes quietly
and dexterously on—no wild dashes and searchings
for theatrical effect, but a patient mosaic
of touches precisely reaching their end.  She
does not want to bewilder the world.  She
wants to have trustworthy records for her own
use.  And she seems content with the progress
she is making.

   |  *Here's a health to the girls that we loved long ago,*

this is the last air into which she has
wandered—half humming and half whistling—

   |  *Where the Shannon, and Liffey, and Blackwater flow.*

—when she suddenly stops her work to listen.
Can any one be up already?  The noise is not
repeated; and she proceeds with her work.

   |  *Here's a health to old Ireland: may she ne'er be dismayed;*
   |  *Then pale grew the cheeks of the Irish Brigade!*
   |

The clouds are assuming substance now:
they are no mere flat washes but accurately
drawn objects that have their fore-shortening
like anything else.  And if Miss Avon may be
vaguely conscious that had our young Doctor
been on board she would not have been left so
long alone, that had nothing to with her work.
The mornings on which he used to join her on
deck, and chat to her while she painted, seem
far away now.  He and she together would see
Dunvegan no more.

But who is this who most cautiously comes
up the companion, bearing in his hand a cup
and saucer?

"Miss Avon," says he, with a bright laugh,
"here is the first cup of tea I ever made; are
you afraid to try it?"

"Oh, dear me," said she, penitently, "did I
make any noise in getting my things below?"

"Well," he says, "I thought I heard you;
and I knew what you would be after; and I
got up and lit the spirit-lamp."

"Oh, it is so very kind of you," she says—for
it is really a pretty little attention on the
part of one who is not much given to shifting
for himself on board.

Then he dives below again and fetches her
up some biscuits.

"By Jove," he says, coming closer to the
sketch, "that is very good.  That is awfully
good.  Do you mean to say you have done all
that this morning?"

"Oh, yes," she says, modestly.  "It is only
a sketch."

"I think it uncommonly good," he says,
staring at it as if he would pierce the paper.

Then there is a brief silence, during which
Miss Avon boldly adventures upon this
amateur's tea.

"I beg your pardon," he says, after a bit, "it
is none of my business, you know—but you
don't really mean that you are going back to
London?"

"If I am allowed," she answers with a smile.

"I am sure you will disappoint your friends
most awfully," says he, in quite an earnest
manner.  "I know they had quite made up
their minds you were to stay the whole time.
It would be very unfair of you.  And my
uncle: he would break his heart if you were
to go."

"They are all very kind to me," was her
only answer.

"Look here," he says, with a most friendly
anxiety.  "If—if—it is only about business—about
pictures I mean—I really beg your
pardon for intermeddling——"

"Oh," said she, frankly, "there is no secret
about it.  In fact, I want everybody to know
that I am anxious to sell my pictures.  You
see, as I have got to earn my own living,
shouldn't I begin at once and find out what it
is like?"

"But look here," he said eagerly, "if it is a
question of selling pictures, you should trust to
my uncle.  He is among a lot of men in the
West of Scotland, rich merchants and people of
that sort, who haven't inherited collections of
pictures, and whose hobby is to make a
collection for themselves.  And they have much too
good sense to buy spurious old masters, or bad
examples for the sake of the name: they prefer
good modern art, and I can tell you they are
prepared to pay for it too.  And they are not
fools, mind you; they know good pictures.
You may think my uncle is very prejudiced—he
has his favourite artists—and—and believes
in Tom Galbraith, don't you know—but I can
assure you, you won't find many men who
know more about a good landscape than he
does; and you would say so if you saw his
dining room at Denny-mains."

"I quite believe that," said she, beginning
to put up her materials: she had done her
morning's work.

"Well," he says, "you trust to him; there
are lots of those Glasgow men who would only
be too glad to have the chance——"

"Oh, no, no," she cried, laughing.  "I am
not going to coerce people into buying my
pictures for the sake of friendship.  I think
your uncle would buy every sketch I have on
board the yacht; but I cannot allow my friends
to be victimised."

"Oh, victimised!" said he, scornfully.
"They ought to be glad to have the chance.
And do you mean to go on giving away your
work for nothing?  That sketch of the little
creek we were in—opposite Iona, don't you
know—that you gave my uncle, is charming.
And they tell me you have given that picture
of the rocks and sea-birds—where is the
place?——"

"Oh, do you mean the sketch in the saloon—of Canna?"

"Yes; why it is one of the finest landscapes
I ever saw.  And they tell me you gave it to
that doctor who was on board!"

"Dr. Sutherland," says she, hastily—and
there is a quick colour in her face—"seemed to
like it as—as a sort of reminiscence, you
know——"

"But he should not have accepted a valuable
picture," said the Youth, with decision.  "No
doubt you offered it to him when you saw he
admired it.  But now—when he must understand
that—well, in fact, that circumstances are
altered—he will have the good sense to give it
you back again."

"Oh, I hope not," she says, with her
embarrassment not diminishing.  "I—I should
not like that!  I—I should be vexed."

"A person of good tact and good taste,"
says this venturesome young man, "would make
a joke of it—would insist that you never meant
it—and would prefer to buy the picture."

She answers, somewhat shortly—

"I think not.  I think Dr. Sutherland has as
good taste as any one.  He would know that
that would vex me very much."

"Oh, well," says he, with a sort of carelessness,
"every one to his liking.  If he cares
to accept so valuable a present, good and well."

"You don't suppose he asked me for it?"
she says, rather warmly.  "I gave it him.  He
would have been rude to have refused it.  I
was very much pleased that he cared for the picture."

"Oh, he is a judge of art, also?  I am told
he knows everything."

"He was kind enough to say he liked the
sketch; that was enough for me."

"He is very lucky; that is all I have to say."

"I dare say he has forgotten all about such
a trifle.  He has more important things to
think about."

"Well," said he, with a good-natured laugh,
"I should not consider such a picture a trifle if
any one presented it to me.  But it is always
the people who get everything they want who
value things least."

"Do you think Dr. Sutherland such a
fortunate person?" says she.  "Well, he is
fortunate in having great abilities; and he is
fortunate in having chosen a profession that
has already secured him great honour, and
that promises a splendid future to him.
But that is the result of hard work; and
he has to work hard now.  I don't think most
men would like to change places with him just
at present."

"He has one good friend and champion, at
all events," he says, with a pleasant smile.

"Oh," says she, hastily and anxiously, "I am
saying what I hear.  My acquaintance with
Dr. Sutherland is—is quite recent, I may say;
though I have met him in London.  I only got
to know something about him when he was in
Edinburgh, and I happened to be there too."

"He is coming back to the yacht," observes
Mr. Smith.

"He will be foolish to think of it," she
answers, simply.

At this stage the yacht begins to wake up.
The head of Hector of Moidart, much dishevelled,
appears at the forecastle, and that
wiry mariner is rubbing his eyes; but no
sooner does he perceive that one of the ladies
is on deck than he suddenly ducks down again—to
get his face washed, and his paper collar.
Then there is a voice heard in the saloon
calling:—

"Who has left my spirit-lamp burning?"

"Oh, good gracious!" says the Youth, and
tumbles down the companion incontinently.

Then the Laird appears, bringing up with
him a huge red volume entitled *Municipal
London*; but no sooner does he find that Miss
Avon is on deck than he puts aside that mighty
compendium, and will have her walk up and
down with him before breakfast.

"What?" he says, eyeing the cup and saucer,
"have ye had your breakfast already?"

"Mr. Smith was so kind as to bring me a
cup of tea."

"What," he says again—and he is obviously
greatly delighted.  "Of his own making?  I
did not think he had as much gumption."

"I beg your pardon, sir?" said she.  She
had been startled by the whistling of a curlew
close by, and had not heard him distinctly.

"I said he was a smart lad," said the Laird,
unblushingly.  "Oh, ay, a good lad; ye will
not find many better lads than Howard.  Will
I tell ye a secret?"

"Well, sir—if you like," said she.

There was a mysterious, but humorous look
about the Laird; and he spoke in a whisper.

"It is not good sometimes for young folk to
know what is in store for them.  But I mean
to give him Denny-mains.  Whish!  Not a
word.  I'll surprise him some day."

"He ought to be very grateful to you, sir,"
was her answer.

"That he is—that he is," said the Laird;
"he's an obedient lad.  And I should not
wonder if he had Denny-mains long before he
expects it; though I must have my crust of
bread, ye know.  It would be a fine occupation
for him, looking after the estate; and what is
the use of his living in London, and swallowing
smoke and fog?  I can assure ye that the
air at Denny-mains, though it's no far from
Glasgow, is as pure as it is in this very Loch
Speliv."

"Oh, indeed, sir."

They had another couple of turns in silence.

"Ye're verra fond of sailing," says the Laird.

"I am now," she says.  "But I was very much
afraid before I came; I have suffered so
terribly in crossing the Channel.  Somehow
one never thinks of being ill here—with nice
clean cabins—and no engines throbbing——"

"I meant that ye like well enough to go
sailing about these places?"

"Oh yes," says she.  "When shall I ever
have such a beautiful holiday, again?"

The Laird laughed a little to himself.  Then
he said with a business-like air:

"I have been thinking that, when my
nephew came to Denny-mains, I would buy a
yacht for him, that he could keep down the
Clyde somewhere—at Gourock, or Kilmun, or
Dunoon, maybe.  It is a splendid ground for
yachting—a splendid!  Ye have never been
through the Kyles of Bute?"

"Oh, yes, sir; I have been through them in
the steamer."

"Ay, but a yacht; wouldn't that be better?
And I am no sure I would not advise him to
have a steam-yacht—ye are so much more
independent of wind and tide; and I'm thinking
ye could get a verra good little steam-yacht
for 3,000*l*."

"Oh, indeed."

"A great deal depends on the steward," he
continues, seriously.  "A good steward that
does not touch drink, is jist worth anything.
If I could get a first-class man, I would not
mind giving him two pounds a week, with his
clothes and his keep, while the yacht was being
used; and I would not let him away in the
winter—no, no.  Ye could employ him at
Denny-mains, as a butler-creature, or something
like that."

She did not notice the peculiarity of the
little pronoun: if she had, how could she have
imagined that the Laird was really addressing
himself to her?

"I have none but weeman-servants indoors
at Denny-mains," he continued, "but when
Howard comes, I would prefer him to keep the
house like other people, and I will not stint
him as to means.  Have I told ye what
Welliam Dunbaur says—

   |  *Be merry, man, and tak not sair in mind—*"
   |

"Oh, yes, I remember."

"There's fine common sense in that.  And
do not you believe the people who tell ye that
the Scotch are a dour people, steeped in
Calvinism, and niggardly and grasping at the
last farthing——"

"I have found them exceedingly kind to me,
and warm-hearted and generous—" says she;
but he interrupted her suddenly.

"I'll tell ye what I'll do," said he, with
decision.  "When I buy that yacht, I'll get
Tom Galbraith to paint every panel in the
saloon—no matter what it costs!"

"Your nephew will be very proud of it,"
she said.

"And I would expect to take a trip in her
myself, occasionally," he added, in a facetious
manner.  "I would expect to be invited——"

"Surely, sir, you cannot expect your
nephew to be so ungrateful——"

"Oh," he said, "I only expect reasonable
things.  Young people are young people; they
cannot like to be always hampered by
grumbling old fogeys.  No, no; if I present any
one wi' a yacht, I do not look on myself as a
piece of its furniture."

The Laird seemed greatly delighted.  His
step on the deck was firmer.  In the pauses of
the conversation she heard something about—

   |  *tántará!  Sing tántará!*
   |

"Will ye take your maid with ye?" he asked
of her, abruptly.

The girl looked up with a bewildered
air—perhaps with a trifle of alarm in her eyes.

"I, sir?"

"Ha, ha!" said he, laughing, "I forgot.  Ye
have not been invited yet.  No more have I.
But—if the yacht were ready—and—and if ye
were going—ye would take your maid, no
doubt, for comfort's sake?"

The girl looked reassured.  She said, cheerfully:

"Well, sir, I don't suppose I shall ever go
yachting again, after I leave the *White Dove*.
And if I were, I don't suppose I should be
able to afford to have a maid with me, unless
the dealers in London should suddenly begin
to pay me a good deal more than they have
done hitherto."

At this point she was summoned below by
her hostess calling.  The Laird was left alone
on deck.  He continued to pace up and down,
muttering to himself, with a proud look on his
face.

"A landscape in every panel, as I'm a living
man! ... Tom 'll do it well, when I tell him
who it's for....  The leddies' cabin blue and
silver—cool in the summer—the skylight pented—she'll
no be saying that the Scotch are wanting
in taste when she sees that cabin!

   |    Sing tántará!  Sing tántará!
   |    * * * The Highland army rues
   |  That ere they came to Cromdale!

And her maid—if she will not be able to afford
a maid, who will?—French, if she likes!  Blue
and silver—blue and silver—that's it!"

And then the Laird, still humming his
lugubrious battle-song, comes down into the
saloon.

"Good morning, ma'am; good morning!
Breakfast ready?  I'm just ravenous.  That
wild lassie has walked me up and down until I
am like to faint.  A beautiful morning
again—splendid!—splendid!  And do ye know where
ye will be this day next year?"

"I am sure I don't," says his hostess, busy
with the breakfast-things.

"I will tell ye.  Anchored in the Holy Loch,
off Kilmun, in a screw-yacht.  Mark my words
now: *this very day next year!*"





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`A PROTECTOR`:

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   CHAPTER IX.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A PROTECTOR.

.. vspace:: 2

"Oh, ay," says John of Skye, quite proudly,
as we go on deck after breakfast, "there will
be no more o' the dead calms.  We will give
Mr. Sutherland a good breeze or two when
he comes back to the yat."

It is all Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Sutherland
now!—everything is to be done because
Mr. Sutherland is coming.  Each belaying pin is
polished so that one might see to shave in it;
Hector of Moidart has spent about two hours
in scraping and rubbing the brass and copper of
the galley stove-pipe; and Captain John, with
many grins and apologies, has got Miss Avon
to sew up a rent that has begun to appear in
the red ensign.  All that he wants now is to
have the yacht beached for a couple of days,
to have the long slender sea-grass scraped from
her hull: then Mr. Sutherland will see how
the *White Dove* will sail!

"I should imagine," says the Youth, in an
undertone, to his hostess, as we are working
out the narrow entrance to Loch Speliv, "that
your doctor-friend must have given those men
a liberal *pour-boire* when he left."

"Oh, I am sure not," said she, quickly, as if
that was a serious imputation.  "That is very
unlikely."

"They seem very anxious to have everything
put right against his coming," he says;
"at all events, your captain seems to think that
every good breeze he gets is merely thrown
away on us."

"Dr. Sutherland and he," she says, laughing,
"were very good friends.  And then Angus
had very bad luck when he was on board: the
glass wouldn't fall.  But I have promised to
bottle up the equinoctials for him—he will have
plenty of winds before we have done with him.
You must stay too, you know, Mr. Smith,
and see how the *White Dove* rides out a gale."

He regarded her—with some suspicion.  He
was beginning to know that this lady's
speech—despite the great gentleness and innocence
of her eyes—sometimes concealed curious
meanings.  And was she now merely giving
him a kind and generous invitation to go
yachting with us for another month; or was she,
with a cruel sarcasm, referring to the probability
of his having to remain a prisoner for
that time, in order to please his uncle?

However, the conversation had to be
dropped, for at this moment the Laird and his
*protégée* made their appearance; and, of course,
a deck-chair had to be brought for her, and a
foot-stool, and a sunshade, and a book.  But
what were these attentions, on the part of her
elderly slave, compared with the fact that a
young man, presumably enjoying a sound and
healthy sleep, should have unselfishly got
up at an unholy hour of the morning, and
should have risked blowing up the yacht with
spirits of wine in order to get her a cup of tea?

It was a fine sailing day.  Running before a
light topsail breeze from the south-east, the
*White Dove* was making for the Lynn of
Morven, and bringing us more and more within
view of the splendid circle of mountains, from
Ben Cruachan in the east to Ben Nevis in the
north; from Ben Nevis down to the successive
waves of the Morven hills.  And we knew
why, among all the sunlit yellows and
greens—faint as they were in the distance—there
were here and there on slope and shoulder
stains of a beautiful rose-purple that were a
new feature in the landscape.  The heather
was coming into bloom—the knee-deep, honey-scented
heather, the haunt of the snipe, and the
muircock, and the mountain hare.  And if there
was to be for us this year no toiling over the
high slopes and crags—looking down from time
to time on a spacious world of sunlit sea and
island—we were not averse from receiving
friendly and substantial messages from those
altitudes.  In a day or two now the first crack
of the breechloader would startle the silence of
the morning air.  And Master Fred's larder
was sorely in want of variety.

Northward, and still northward, the light
breeze tempering the scorching sunlight that
glares on the sails and the deck.  Each long
ripple of the running blue sea flashes in
diamonds; and when we look to the south,
those silver lines converge and converge, until
at the horizon they become a solid blaze of light
unendurable to the eye.  But it is to the north
we turn—to the land of Appin, and Kingairloch,
and Lochaber: blow, light wind; and carry
us onward, gentle tide; we have an appointment
to keep within shadow of the mountains
that guard Glencoe.

The Laird has discovered that these two were
up early this morning: he becomes facetious.

"Not sleepy yet, Miss Mary?" he says.

"Oh, no—not at all," she says, looking up
from her book.

"It's the early bird that catches the first
sketch.  Fine and healthy is that early rising,
Howard.  I'm thinking ye did not sleep sound
last night: what for were ye up before anybody
was stirring?"

But the Laird does not give him time to
answer.  Something has tickled the fancy of
this profound humourist.

"*Kee! kee!*" he laughs; and he rubs his
hands.  "I mind a good one I heard from
Tom Galbraith, when he and I were at the
Bridge of Allan; room to room, ye know; and
Tom did snore that night.  'What,' said I to
him in the morning, 'had ye nightmare, or
*delirium tremens*, that ye made such a noise
in the night?'  'Did I snore?' said he—I'm
thinking somebody else must have complained
before.  'Snore?' said I, 'twenty grampuses
was nothing to it.'  And Tom—he burst out
a-laughing.  'I'm very glad,' says he.  'If I
snored, I must have had a sound sleep!'  A
*sound* sleep—d'ye see?  Very sharp—very
smart—eh?"—and the Laird laughed and
chuckled over that portentous joke.

"Oh, uncle, uncle, uncle!" his nephew cried.
"You used never to do such things.  You must
quit the society of those artists, if they have
such a corrupting influence on you."

"I tell ye," he says, with a sudden seriousness,
"I would just like to show Tom Galbraith
that picture o' Canna that's below.  No; I
would not ask him to alter a thing.  Very
good—very good it is.  And—and—I think—I
will admit it—for a plain man likes the truth to
be told—there is just a bit jealousy among
them against any English person that tries to
paint Scotch scenery.  No, no, Miss Mary—don't
you be afraid.  Ye can hold your own.
If I had that picture, now—if it belonged to
me—and if Tom was stopping wi' me at
Denny-mains, I would not allow him to alter
it, not if he offered to spend a week's work
on it."

After that—what?  The Laird could say no
more.

Alas! alas! our wish to take a new route
northward was all very well; but we had got
under the lee of Lismore, and slowly and slowly
the wind died away, until even the sea was as
smooth as the surface of a mirror.  It was but
little compensation that we could lean over the
side of the yacht, and watch the thousands of
"sea-blubbers" far down in the water, in all
their hues of blue, and purple, and pale pink.
The heat of the sun was blistering; scorching
with a sharp pain any nose or cheek that was
inadvertently turned towards it.  As for the
Laird, he could not stand this oven-like
business any longer; he declared the saloon
was ever so much cooler than the deck; and
went down below, and lay at length on one of
the long blue cushions.

"Why, John," says Queen T., "you are
bringing on those dead calms again.  What
will Dr. Sutherland say to you?"

But John of Skye has his eye on the distant
shore.

"Oh, no, mem," he says, with a crafty
smile, "there will not be a dead calm very
long."

And there, in at the shore, we see a dark
line on the water; and it spreads and spreads;
the air becomes gratefully cool to the face
before the breeze perceptibly fills the sails;
then there is a cheerful swing over of the boom
and a fluttering of the as yet unreleased
head-sails.  A welcome breeze, surely, from the far
hills of Kingairloch.  We thank you, you
beautiful Kingairloch, with your deep glens and
your rose-purple shoulders of hills: long may
you continue to send fresh westerly winds to
the parched and passing voyager!

We catch a distant glimpse of the white
houses of Port Appin; we bid adieu to the
musically-named Eilean-na-Shuna; far ahead
of us is the small white lighthouse at the mouth
of the narrows of Corran.  But there is to be
no run up to Fort William for us to-night; the
tide will turn soon; we cannot get through the
Corran narrows.  And so there is a talk of
Ballahulish; and Captain John is trying hard
to get Miss Avon to pronounce this Bal-a-chaolish.
It is not fair of Sandy from Islay—who
thinks he is hidden by the foresail—to
grin to himself at these innocent efforts.

Grander and grander grow those ramparts
of mountains ahead of us—with their
wine-coloured stains of heather on the soft and
velvety yellow-green.  The wind from the
Kingairloch shores still carries us on; and
Inversanda swells the breeze; soon we shall
be running into that wide channel that leads
up to the beautiful Loch Leven.  The Laird
reappears on deck.  He is quite enchanted
with the scene around him.  He says if an
artist had placed that black cloud behind the
great bulk of Ben Nevis, it could not have
been more artistically arranged.  He declares
that this entrance to Loch Leven is one of the
most beautiful places he has ever seen.  He
calls attention to the soft green foliage of the
steep hills; and to that mighty peak of granite,
right in the middle of the landscape, that we
discover to be called the Pap of Glencoe.  And
here, in the mellow light of the afternoon, is
the steamer coming down from the north: is
it to be a race between us for the Bal-a-chaolish
quay?

It is an unfair race.  We have to yield to
brute strength and steam kettles.

   |  *Four to one Argyle came on,*

as the dirge of Eric says.  But we bear no
malice.  We salute our enemy as he goes
roaring and throbbing by; and there is many
a return signal waved to us from the paddle-boxes.

"Mr. Sutherland is no there, mem, I think,"
says Captain John, who has been scanning
those groups of people with his keen eyes.

"I should think not; he said he was coming
to-morrow," is the answer.

"Will he be coming down by the *Chevalier*
in the morning, or by the *Mountaineer* at
night?" is the further question.

"I don't know."

"We will be ashore for him in the morning,
whatever," says John of Skye cheerfully;
and you would have thought it was his
guest, and not ours, who was coming on
board.

The roaring out of the anchor chain was
almost immediately followed by Master Fred's
bell.  Mary Avon was silent and *distraite* at
dinner; but nothing more was said of her
return to London.  It was understood that,
when Angus Sutherland came on board, we
should go back to Castle Osprey, and have
a couple of days on shore, to let the *White
Dove* get rid of her parasitic seaweed.

Then, after dinner, a fishing excursion; but
this was in a new loch, and we were not
very successful.  Or was it that most of us
were watching, from this cup of water
surrounded by the circle of great mountains, the
strange movings of the clouds in the gloomy
and stormy twilight, long after the sun had
sunk?

"It is not a very sheltered place," remarked
the Laird, "if a squall were to come down
from the hills."

But by and by something appeared that lent
an air of stillness and peace to this sombre
scene around us.  Over one of those eastern
mountains a faint, smoky, suffused yellow light
began to show; then the outline of the
mountain—serrated with trees—grew dark; then
the edge of the moon appeared over the black
line of trees; and by and by the world was
filled with this new, pale light, though the
shadows on the hills were deeper than ever.
We did not hurry on our way back to the
yacht.  It was a magical night—the black,
overhanging hills, the white clouds crossing
the blue vaults of the heavens, the wan light
on the sea.  What need for John of Skye to
put up that golden lamp at the bow?  But it
guided us on our way back—under the dusky
shadows of the hills.

Then below, in the orange-lit cabin, with
cards and dominoes and chess about, a curious
thing overhead happens to catch the eye of
one of the gamblers.  Through the skylight,
with this yellow glare, we ought not to see
anything; but there, shining in the night, is
a long bar of pale phosphorescent green light.
What can this be?  Why green?  And it is
Mary Avon who first suggests what this
strangely luminous thing must be—the boom,
wet with the dew, shining in the moonlight.

"Come," says the Laird to her, "put a
shawl round ye, and we will go up for another
look round."

And so, after a bit, they went on deck, these
two, leaving the others to their bezique.  And
the Laird was as careful about the wrapping
up of this girl as if she had been a child of
five years of age; and when they went out
on to the white deck, he would give her his
arm that she should not trip over any stray
rope; and they were such intimate friends
now that he did not feel called upon to talk
to her.

But by and by the heart of the Laird was
lifted up within him because of the wonderful
beauty and silence of this moonlight night.

"It is a great peety," said he, "that you
in the south are not brought up as children
to be familiar with the Scotch version of the
Psalms of David.  It is a fountain-head of
poetry that ye can draw from all your life
long; and is there any poetry in the world
can beat it?  And many a time I think that
David had a great love for mountains—and
that he must have looked at the hills around
Jerusalem—and seen them on many a night
like this.  Ye cannot tell, lassie, what stirs
in the heart of a Scotchman or Scotchwoman
when they repeat the 121st Psalm:—

   |  I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
   |    From whence doth come mine aid;
   |  My safety cometh from the Lord
   |    Who heaven and earth hath made.
   |  Thy foot He'll not let slide, nor will
   |    He slumber that thee keeps:
   |  Behold, He that keeps Israel
   |    He slumbers not nor sleeps.

Ask your friend Dr. Sutherland—ask him
whether he has found anything among his
philosophy, and science, and the new-fangled
leeterature of the day that comes so near to
his heart as a verse of the old Psalms that
he learnt as a boy.  I have heard of Scotch
soldiers in distant countries just bursting out
crying, when they heard by chance a bit
repeated o' the Psalms of David.  And the
strength and reliance of them: what grander
source of consolation can ye have?  'As the
mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the
Lord is round about His people from henceforth,
even for ever.'  What are the trials of
the hour to them that believe and know and
hope?  They have a sure faith; the captivity
is not for ever.  Do ye remember the beginning
of the 126th Psalm—it reminds me most
of all of the Scotch phrase

   |  'laughin' maist like to greet'

—'When the Lord turned again the captivity
of Zion, we were like them that dream.  Then
was our mouth filled with laughter, and our
tongue with singing; then said they among
the heathen, The Lord hath done great things
for them.  The Lord hath done great things
for us, whereof we are glad.  Turn again our
captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the
south!'"

The Laird was silent for a minute or two;
there was nothing but the pacing up and down
the moonlit deck.

"And you have your troubles too, my lass,"
said he, at length.  "Oh, I know—though ye
put so brave a face on it.  But you need not
be afraid; you need not be afraid.  Keep up
your heart.  I am an old man now; I may
have but few years to reckon on; but while I
live ye will not want a friend....  Ye will
not want a friend....  If I forget, or refuse
what I promise ye this night, may God do so
and more unto me!"

But the good-hearted Laird will not have
her go to sleep with this solemnity weighing
on her mind.

"Come, come," he says cheerfully, "we will
go below now; and you will sing me a
song—the Queen's Maries, if ye like—though
I doubt but that they were a lot o' wild
hizzies."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`"MARY, MARY!"`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER X.


.. class:: center medium bold

   "MARY, MARY!"

.. vspace:: 2

Is there any one awake and listening—perhaps
with a tremor of the heart—for the calling
out of "*White Dove*, ahoy!" from the shore?
Once the ordinary loud noises of the morning
are over—the brief working of the pump, the
washing down of the decks—silence reigns
once more throughout the yacht.  One can
only hear a whispering of the rain above.

Then, in the distance, there is a muffled
sound of the paddles of a steamer; and that
becomes fainter and fainter, while the *White
Dove* gradually loses the motion caused by the
passing waves.  Again there is an absolute
stillness; with only that whispering of the rain.

But this sudden sound of oars? and the
slight shock against the side of the vessel?
The only person on board the yacht who is
presentable whips a shawl over her head, darts
up the companion way, and boldly emerges
into the moist and dismal morning.

"Oh, Angus!" she cries, to this streaming
black figure that has just stepped on deck,
"what a day you have brought with you!"

"Oh, it is nothing!" says a cheerful voice
from out of the dripping macintosh—perhaps it
is this shining black garment that makes the wet
face and whiskers and hair glow redder than
ever, and makes the blue eyes look even bluer.
"Nothing at all!  John and I have agreed it is
going to clear.  But this is a fine place to be
in, with a falling glass!  If you get a squall
down from Glencoe, you won't forget it."

"A squall!" she says, looking round, in
amazement.  Well might she exclaim; for the
day is still, and grey, and sombre; the
mountains are swathed in mist; the smooth sea
troubled only by the constant rain.

However, the ruddy-faced Doctor, having
divested himself of his dripping garment,
follows his hostess down the companion, and
into the saloon, and sits down on one of the
couches.  There is an odd, half pathetic
expression on his face, as he looks around.

"It seems a long time ago," he says,
apparently to himself.

"What does?" asks his hostess, removing
her head-gear.

"The evenings we used to spend in this
very saloon," says he—looking with a strange
interest on those commonplace objects, the
draughts and dominoes, the candlesticks and
cigar-boxes, the cards and books—"away up
there in the north.  It seems years since we
were at Dunvegan, doesn't it, and lying off
Vaternish Point?  There never was as snug a
cabin as this in any yacht.  It is like returning
to an old home to get into it."

"I am very glad to hear you say so," says his
hostess, regarding him with a great kindliness.
"We will try to make you forget that you have
ever been away.  Although," she added frankly,
"I must tell you you have been turned out of
your state-room—for a time.  I know you
won't mind having a berth made up for you on
one of those couches."

"Of course not," he said; "if I am not in
your way at all.  But——"

And his face asked the question.

"Oh! it is a nephew of Denny-mains who
has come on board—a Mr. Smith, a very nice
young fellow; I am sure you will like him."

There was nothing said in reply to this.

Then the new-comer inquired, rather timidly,
"You are all well, I hope?"

"Oh, yes!"

"And—and Miss Avon, too?" said he.

"Oh, yes!  But Mary has suffered a great
misfortune since you left."

She looked up quickly.  Then she told him
the story; and in telling him her indignation
awoke afresh.  She spoke rapidly.  The old
injury had touched her anew.

But, strangely enough, although Angus
Sutherland displayed a keen interest in the
matter, he was not at all moved to that passion
of anger and desire for vengeance that had
shaken the Laird.  Not at all.  He was very
thoughtful for a time; but he only said, "You
mean she has to support herself now?"

"Absolutely."

"She will naturally prefer that to being
dependent on her friends?"

"She will not be dependent on her friends, I
know," is the answer; "though the Laird has
taken such a great liking for her that I believe
he would give her half Denny-mains."

He started a little bit at this; but
immediately said—

"Of course she will prefer independence.
And, as you say, she is quite capable of earning
her own living.  Well, she does not worry
about it?  It does not trouble her mind?"

"That affair of her uncle wounded her very
keenly, I imagine, though she said little; but
as for the loss of her little fortune, not at all!
She is as light-hearted as ever.  The only
thing is that she is possessed by a mad notion
that she should start away at once for London."

"Why?"

"To begin work; I tell her she must work here."

"But she is not anxious?  She is not troubled?"

"Not a bit!  The Laird says she has the
courage of ten men; and I believe him."

"That is all right.  I was going to prescribe
a course of Marcus Aurelius; but if you have
got philosophy in your blood, it is better than
getting it through the brain."

And so this talk ended; leaving on the mind
of one of those two friends a distinct sense of
disappointment.  She had been under the
impression that Angus Sutherland had a very warm
regard for Mary Avon; and she had formed
certain other suspicions.  She had made sure
that he, more quickly than any one else, would
resent the injury done to this helpless girl.
And now he seemed to treat it as of no
account.  If she was not troubling herself; if
she was not giving herself headaches about it:
then, no matter!  It was a professional view of
the case.  A dose of Marcus Aurelius?  It was
not thus that the warm-hearted Laird had
espoused Mary Avon's cause.

Then the people came one by one in to
breakfast; and our young Doctor was
introduced to the stranger who had ousted him
from his state-room.  Last of all came Mary Avon.

How she managed to go along to him, and
to shake hands with him, seeing that her eyes
were bent on the floor all the time, was a
mystery.  But she did shake hands with him;
and said, "How do you do?" in a somewhat
formal manner; and she seemed a little paler
than usual.

"I don't think you are looking quite as well
as when I left," said he, with a great interest
and kindness in his look.

"Thank you, I am very well," she said; and
then she instantly turned to the Laird and
began chatting to him.  Angus Sutherland's
face burned red; it was not thus she had been
used to greet him in the morning, when we
were far away beyond the shores of Canna.

And then, when we found that the rain was
over, and that there was not a breath of wind
in this silent, grey, sombre world of mountain
and mist, and when we went ashore for a walk
along the still lake, what must she needs do but
attach herself to the Laird, and take no notice
of her friend of former days?  Angus walked
behind with his hostess, but he rarely took his
eyes off the people in front.  And when Miss
Avon, picking up a wild flower now and again,
was puzzling over its name, he did not, as once
he would have done, come to her help with his
student-days' knowledge of botany.  Howard
Smith brought her a bit of wall rue, and said
he thought they called it *Asplenium marinum*:
there was no interference.  The preoccupied
Doctor behind only asked how far Miss Avon
was going to walk with her lame foot.

The Laird of Denny-mains knew nothing of
all this occult business.  He was rejoicing in his
occupation of philosopher and guide.  He was
assuring us all that this looked like a real
Highland day—far more so than the Algerian
blue sky that had haunted us for so long.  He
pointed out, as we walked along the winding
shores of Loch Leven, by the path that rose,
and fell, and skirted small precipices all
hanging in foliage, how beautiful was that calm,
slate-blue mirror beneath, showing every
outline of the sombre mountains, with their masses
of Landseer mist.  He stopped his companion
to ask her if she had ever seen anything finer
in colour than the big clusters of scarlet rowans
among the yellow-green leaves?  Did she
notice the scent of the meadow-sweet, in the
moist air of this patch of wood?  He liked
to see those white stars of the grass-of-Parnassus;
they reminded him of many a stroll
among the hills about Loch Katrine.

"And this still Loch Leven," he said at
length, and without the least blush on his face,
"with the Glencoe mountains at the end of it.
I have often heard say was as picturesque a
loch as any in Scotland, on a gloomy day like
this.  Gloomy I call it, but ye see there are
fine silver glints among the mist; and—and, in
fact, there's a friend of mine has often been
wishing to have a water-colour sketch of it.  If
ye had time, Miss Mary, to make a bit drawing
from the deck of the yacht, ye might name
your own price—just name your own price.  I
will buy it for him."

A friend!  Mary Avon knew very well who
the friend was.

"I should be afraid, sir," said she, laughing,
"to meddle with anything about Glencoe."

"Toots! toots!" said he; "ye have not
enough confidence.  I know twenty young
men in Edinburgh and Glasgow who have
painted every bit of Glencoe, from the bridge
to the King's House inn, and not one of them
able to come near ye.  Mind, I'm looking
forward to showing your pictures to Tom
Galbraith; I'm thinking he'll stare!"

The Laird chuckled again.

"Oh, ay! he does not know what a formidable
rival has come from the south; I'm
thinking he'll stare when he comes to Denny-mains
to meet ye.  Howard, what's that down there?"

The Laird had caught sight of a pink flower
on the side of a steep little ravine, leading
down to the shore.

"Oh, I don't want it; I don't want it!"
Mary Avon cried.

But the Laird was obdurate.  His nephew
had to go scrambling down through the alders
and rowan-trees and wet bracken to get this
bit of pink crane's-bill for Miss Avon's bouquet.
And of course she was much pleased; and
thanked him very prettily; and was it
catch-fly, or herb robert, or what was it?

Then out of sheer common courtesy she had
to turn to Angus Sutherland.

"I am sure Dr. Sutherland can tell us."
she says, timidly; and she does not meet
his eyes.

"It is one of the crane's-bills, any way,"
he says, indifferently.  "Don't you think you
had better return now, Miss Avon, or you
will hurt your foot?"

"Oh, my foot is quite well now, thank
you!" she says; and on she goes again.

We pass by the first cuttings of the
slate-quarries; the men suspended by ropes round
their waists and hewing away at the face of
the cliff.  We go through the long straggling
village; and the Laird remarks that it is not
usual for a Celtic race to have such clean
cottages, with pots of flowers in the window.
We saunter idly onwards, towards those great
mountain-masses, and there is apparently no
thought of returning.

"When we've gone so far, might we not
go on to the mouth of the pass?" she asks.
"I should like to have a look even at the
beginning of Glencoe."

"I thought so," said the Laird, with a
shrewd smile.  "Oh, ay! we may as well
go on."

Past those straggling cottages, with the
elder-bush at their doors to frighten away
witches; over the bridge that spans the
brawling Cona; along the valley down which
the stream rushes; and this gloom overhead
deepens and deepens.  The first of the great
mountains appears on our right, green to the
summit, and yet so sheer from top to bottom
that it is difficult to understand how those
dots of sheep maintain their footing.  Then
the marks on him; he seems to be a huge
Behemoth, with great eyes, grand, complacent,
even sardonic in his look.  But the further
and further mountains have nothing of this
mild, grand humour about them; they are
sullen and awful; they grasp the earth with
their mighty bulk below, but far away they
lift their lurid peaks to the threatening skies,
up there where the thunder threatens to shake
the silence of the world.

"Miss Avon," Dr. Sutherland again
remonstrates, "you have come five or six miles
now.  Suppose you have to walk back in
the rain?"

"I don't mind about that," she says,
cheerfully.  "But I am dreadfully, dreadfully
hungry."

"Then we must push on to Clachaig,"
says the Laird; "there is no help for it."

"But wait a moment," she says.

She goes to the side of the road, where
the great grey boulders, and ferns, and moist
marsh-grass are, and begins to gather handfuls
of "sourocks;" that is to say, of the smaller
sheep's sorrel.  "Who will partake of this
feast to allay the pangs of hunger?"

"Is thy servant a baa-lamb that she should
do this thing?" her hostess says, and drives
the girl forward.

The inn is reached but in time; for behold
there is a grey "smurr" of mist coming down
the glen; and the rain is beginning to darken
the grey boulders.  And very welcome are
those chairs, and the bread and cheese and
beer, and the humble efforts in art around
the walls.  If the feast is not as the feasting
of the Fishmongers—if we have no pretty
boxes to carry home to the children—if we
have no glimpses of the pale blue river and
shipping through the orange light of the room,
at least we are not amazed by the appearance
of the Duke of Sussex in the garb of a
Highlander.  And the frugal meal is substantial
enough.  Then the question about getting
back arises.

"Now, Mary," says her hostess, "you have
got to pay for your amusement.  How will
you like walking seven or eight miles in a
thunderstorm?"

But here the Laird laughs.

"No, no," he says, going to the window.
"That waggonette that has just come up I
ordered at the inn on passing.  Ye will not
have to walk a step, my lass; but I think
we had better be going, as it looks black
overhead."

Black enough, indeed, was it as we drove
back in this silent afternoon, with a
thunderstorm apparently about to break over our
heads.  And it was close and sultry when
we got on board again, though there was as
yet no wind.  Captain John did not like the
look of the sky.

"I said you were going to bring a gale
with you, Angus," his hostess remarked to
him, cheerfully, at dinner.

"It begins to look like it," he answered,
gravely; "and it is getting too late to run
away from here if the wind rises.  As soon
as it begins to blow, if I were John, I would
put out the starboard anchor."

"I know he will take your advice," she
answers, promptly.

We saw little of Angus Sutherland that
evening; for it was raining hard and blowing
hard; and the cabin below, with its lit candles,
and books and cards, and what not, was
cheerful enough; while he seemed very much to
prefer being on deck.  We could hear the
howling of the wind through the rigging,
and the gurgling of the water along the sides
of the yacht; and we knew by the way she
was swaying that she was pulling hard at
her anchor chain.  There was to be no
beautiful moonlight for us that night, with the
black shadows on the hills, and the lane of
silver on the water.

A dripping and glistening figure comes down
the companion; a gleaming red face appears
at the door.  Mary Avon looks up from her
draughts, but for an instant.

"Well, Angus, what is the report?" says
Queen Titania, brightly.  "And what is all
the noise on deck?  And why don't you come
below?"

"They have been paying out more anchor
chain," says the rough voice from out of the
macintosh; "it is likely to be a nasty night,
and we are going to lower the topmast now.
I want you to be so kind as to tell Fred to
leave out some whisky and some bread and
cheese; for John thinks of having an anchor
watch."

"The bread and cheese and whisky Fred
can get at any time," says she; and she adds
with some warmth, "But you are not going to
stay on deck on such a night?  Come in
here at once.  Leave your macintosh on the
steps."

Is it that he looks at that draught-board?
It is Mr. Howard Smith who is playing with
Mary Avon.  The faithless Miranda has got
another Ferdinand now.

"I think I would rather take my turn like
the rest," he says, absently.  "There may be
some amusement before the morning."

And so the black figure turned away and
disappeared; and a strange thing was that
the girl playing draughts seemed to have been
so bewildered by the apparition that she stared
at the board, and could not be got to
understand how she had made a gross and gigantic
blunder.

"Oh, yes; oh, certainly!" she said, hurriedly;
but she did not know how to retrieve
her obvious mistake.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`AN UNSPOKEN APPEAL`:

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   CHAPTER XI.


.. class:: center medium bold

   AN UNSPOKEN APPEAL.

.. vspace:: 2

"What have I done?  Is she vexed?
Have I offended her?" he asked the next
morning, in a rapid manner, when his hostess
came on deck.  The gale had abated
somewhat, but gloom overspread earth and sky.
It was nothing to the gloom that overspread
his usually frank and cheerful face.

"You mean Mary?" she says, though she
knows well enough.

"Yes; haven't you seen?  She seems to
treat me as though we had never met before—as
though we were perfect strangers—and I
know she is too kind-hearted to cause any
one pain——"

Here he looks somewhat embarrassed for a
moment; but his customary straightforwardness
comes to his rescue.

"Yes; I will confess I am very much hurt
by it.  And—and I should like to know if
there is any cause.  Surely you must have
noticed it?"

She had noticed it, sure enough; and, in
contrast with that studied coldness which Mary
Avon had shown to her friend of former days,
she had remarked the exceeding friendliness
the young lady was extending to the Laird's
nephew.  But would she draw the obvious
conclusion?  Not likely; she was too staunch
a friend to believe any such thing.  All the
same there remained in her mind a vague
feeling of surprise, with perhaps a touch of
personal injury.

"Well, Angus, you know," she said, evasively;
"Mary is very much preoccupied just
at present.  Her whole condition of life is
changed, and she has many things to think
of——"

"Yes; but she is frank enough with her
other friends.  What have I done, that I
should be made a stranger of?"

A pathetic answer comes to these idle
frettings of the hour.  Far away on the shore a
number of small black figures emerge from
the woods, and slowly pass along the winding
road that skirts the rocks.  They are
following a cart—a common farmyard cart; but on
the wooden planks is placed a dark object
that is touched here and there with silver—or
perhaps it is only the white cords.  Between
the overhanging gloom of the mountains and
the cold greys of the wind-swept sea the small
black line passes slowly on.  And these two
on board the yacht watch it in silence.  Are
they listening for the wail of the pipes—the
wild dirge of Lord Lovat, or the cry of the
*Cumhadh na Cloinne*?  But the winds are
loud, and the rushing seas are loud; and now
the rude farmyard cart, with its solemn burden,
is away out at the point; and presently
the whole simple pageant has disappeared.
The lonely burying-ground lies far away among
the hills.

Angus Sutherland turns round again, with
a brief sigh.

"It will be all the same in a few years," he
says to his hostess; and then he adds,
indifferently, "What do you say about starting?
The wind is against us; but anything is better
than lying here.  There were some bad squalls
in the night."

Very soon after this the silent loch is
resounding with the rattle of halyards, blocks,
and chains; and Angus Sutherland is seeking
distraction from those secret cares of the
moment in the excitement of hard work.  Nor
is it any joke getting in that enormous quantity
of anchor chain.  In the midst of all the noise
and bustle Mary Avon appears on deck to
see what is going on, and she is immediately
followed by young Smith.

"Why don't you help them?" she says, laughing.

"So I would, if I knew what to do," he
says, good-naturedly.  "I'll go and ask
Dr. Sutherland."

It was a fatal step.  Angus Sutherland
suggested, somewhat grimly, that, if he liked,
he might lend them a hand at the windlass.
A muscular young Englishman does not
like to give in; and for a time he held his
own with the best of them; but long before
the starboard anchor had been got up, and
the port one hove short, he had had enough
of it.  He did not volunteer to assist at the
throat halyards.  To Miss Avon, who was
calmly looking on, he observed that it would
take him about a fortnight to get his back
straight.

"That," said she, finding an excuse for him
instantly, "is because you worked too hard at
it at first.  You should have watched the Islay
man.  All he does is to call 'Heave!' and to
make his shoulders go up as if he were going
to do the whole thing himself.  But he does
not help a bit.  I have watched him again
and again."

"Your friend, Dr. Sutherland," said he,
regarding her for an instant as he spoke,
"seems to work as hard as any of them."

"He is very fond of it," she said, simply,
without any embarrassment; nor did she appear
to regard it as singular that Angus Sutherland
should have been spoken of specially as her
friend.

Angus Sutherland himself comes rapidly aft,
loosens the tiller rope, and jams the helm over.
And now the anchor is hove right up; the
reefed mainsail and small jib quickly fill out
before this fresh breeze; and, presently, with a
sudden cessation of noise, we are spinning
away through the leaden-coloured waters.  We
are not sorry to get away from under the gloom
of these giant hills; for the day still looks
squally, and occasionally a scud of rain comes
whipping across, scarcely sufficient to wet the
decks.  And there is more life and animation
on board now; a good deal of walking up and
down in ulsters, with inevitable collisions; and
of remarks shouted against, or with, the wind;
and of joyful pointing towards certain silver
gleams of light in the west and south.  There
is hope in front; behind us nothing but
darkness and the threatenings of storm.  The Pap
of Glencoe has disappeared in rain; the huge
mountains on the right are as black as the
deeds of murder done in the glen below;
Ardgour over there, and Lochaber here, are
steeped in gloom.  And there is less sadness
now in the old refrain of Lochaber since there
is a prospect of the South shining before us.
If Mary Avon is singing to herself about

   |  *Lochaber no more!  And Lochaber no more!*
   |  *We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more!*

—it is with a light heart.

But then if it is a fine thing to go bowling
along with a brisk breeze on our beam, it is
very different when we get round Ardshiel and
find the southerly wind veering to meet us
dead in the teeth.  And there is a good sea
running up Loch Linnhe—a heavy grey-green
sea that the *White Dove* meets and breaks, with
spurts of spray forward, and a line of hissing
foam in our wake.  The zig-zag beating takes
us alternately to Ardgour and Appin, until we
can see here and there the cheerful patches of
yellow corn at the foot of the giant and gloomy
hills; then "'Bout ship" again, and away we
go on the heaving and rushing grey-green sea.

And is Mary Avon's oldest friend—the
woman who is the staunchest of champions—being
at last driven to look askance at the girl?
Is it fair that the young lady should be so
studiously silent when our faithful Doctor is by,
and instantly begin to talk again when he goes
forward to help at the jib or foresail sheets?
And when he asks her, as in former days, to
take the tiller, she somewhat coldly declines the
offer he has so timidly and respectfully made.
But as for Mr. Smith, that is a very different
matter.  It is he whom she allows to go below
for some wrapper for her neck.  It is he who
stands by, ready to shove over the top of the
companion when she crouches to avoid a passing
shower of rain.  It is he with whom she jokes
and talks—when the Laird does not monopolise her.

"I would have believed it of any girl in the
world rather than of her," says her hostess, to
another person, when these two happen to be
alone in the saloon below.  "I don't believe
it yet.  It is impossible.  Of course a girl who
is left as penniless as she is might be pardoned
for looking round and being friendly with rich
people who are well inclined towards her; but
I don't believe—I say it is impossible—that
she should have thrown Angus over just
because she saw a chance of marrying the
Laird's nephew.  Why, there never was a girl
we have ever known so independent as she is!—not
any one half as proud and as fearless.
She looks upon going to London and earning
her own living as nothing at all!  She is the
very last girl in the world to speculate on
making a good match—she has too much
pride—she would not speak another word to Howard
Smith if such a monstrous thing were suggested
to her."

"Very well," says the meek listener.  The
possibility was not of his suggesting, assuredly:
he knows better.

Then the Admiral-in-chief of the *White Dove*
sits silent and puzzled for a time.

"And yet her treatment of poor Angus is
most unfair.  He is deeply hurt by it—he told
me so this morning——"

"If he is so fearfully sensitive that he cannot
go yachting and enjoy his holiday because a
girl does not pay him attention——"

"Why, what do you suppose he came back
here for?" she says, warmly.  "To go sailing
in the *White Dove*?  No; not if twenty *White
Doves* were waiting for him!  He knows too
well the value of his time to stay away so long
from London if it were merely to take the
tiller of a yacht.  He came back here, at great
personal sacrifice, because Mary was on board."

"Has he told you so?"

"He has not; but one has eyes."

"Then suppose she has changed her mind:
how can you help it?"

She says nothing for a second.  She is
preparing the table for Master Fred: perhaps
she tosses the novels on to the couch with an
impatience they do not at all deserve.  But at
length she says—

"Well; I never thought Mary would have
been so fickle as to go chopping and changing
about within the course of a few weeks.
However, I won't accuse her of being mercenary;
I will not believe that.  Howard Smith is a
most gentlemanly young man—good-looking,
too, and pleasant tempered.  I can imagine
any girl liking him."

Here a volume of poems is pitched on to
the top of the draught-board, as if it had done
her some personal injury.

"And in any case she might be more civil to
one who is a very old friend of ours," she adds.

Further discourse on this matter is
impossible; for our Freidrich d'or comes in to
prepare for luncheon.  But why the charge of
incivility?  When we are once more assembled
together, the girl is quite the reverse of uncivil
towards him.  She shows him—when she is
forced to speak to him—an almost painful
courtesy; and she turns her eyes down, as if
she were afraid to speak to him.  This is no
flaunting coquette, proud of her wilful caprice.

And as for poor Angus, he does his best to
propitiate her.  They begin talking about the
picturesqueness of various cities.  Knowing
that Miss Avon has lived the most of her life,
if she was not actually born, in London, he
strikes boldly for London.  What is there in
Venice, what is there in the world, like London
in moonlight—with the splendid sweep of her
river—and the long lines of gas-lamps—and the
noble bridges?  But she is all for Edinburgh
if Edinburgh had but the Moldau running
through that valley, and the bridges of Prague
to span it, what city in Europe could compare
with it?  And the Laird is so delighted with
her approval of the Scotch capital, that he
forgets for the moment his Glaswegian
antipathy to the rival city, and enlarges no less
on the picturesqueness of it than on its wealth
of historical traditions.  There is not a stain
of blood on any floor that he does not believe
in.  Then the Sanctuary of Holyrood: what
stories has he not to tell about that famous
refuse?

"I believe the mysterious influence of that
Sanctuary has gone out and charmed all the
country about Edinburgh," said our young
Doctor.  "I suppose you know that there are
several plants, poisonous elsewhere, that are
quite harmless in the neighbourhood of
Edinburgh.  You remember I told you, Miss Avon,
that evening we went out to Arthur's Seat?"

It was well done, Queen Titania must have
thought, to expose this graceless flirt before
her new friends.  So she had been walking
out to Arthur's Seat with him, in the summer
afternoons?

"Y—yes," says the girl.

"Ay; that is a most curious thing," says the
Laird, not noticing her downcast looks and
flushed cheeks.  "But what were they, did
ye say?"

"Umbelliferous plants," replies Angus
Sutherland, in quite a matter-of-fact manner.  "The
*Œnanthe crocata* is one of them, I remember;
and I think the *Cicuta virosa*—that is, the
Water Hemlock."

"I would jist like to know," says the Laird,
somewhat pompously, "whether that does not
hold good about the neighbourhood of Glesca
also.  There's nothing so particular healthy
about the climate of Edinburgh, as far as ever
I heard tell of.  Quite the reverse—quite the
reverse.  East winds—fogs—no wonder the
people are shilpit-looking creatures as a general
rule—like a lot o' Paisley weavers.  But the
ceety is a fine ceety, I will admit that; and
many's the time I've said to Tom Galbraith
that he could get no finer thing to paint than
the view of the High Street at night from
Prince's Street—especially on a moonlight
night.  A fine ceety: but the people
themselves!—" here the Laird shook his head.
"And their manner o' speech is most vexsome—a
long, sing-song kind o' yaumering as if
they had not sufficient manliness to say
outright what they meant.  If we are to have
a Scotch accent, I prefer the accent—the very
slight accent—ye hear about Glesca.  I would
like to hear what Miss Avon has to say upon
that point."

"I am not a very good judge, sir," says
Miss Avon, prudently.

Then on deck.  The leaden-black waves
are breaking in white foam along the shores
of Kingairloch and the opposite rocks of
Eilean-na-Shuna; and we are still laboriously
beating against the southerly wind; but those
silver-yellow gleams in the south have
increased, over the softly-purple hills of Morvern
and Duart.  Black as night are the vast ranges
of mountains in the north; but they are far
behind us; we have now no longer any fear
of a white shaft of lightning falling from the
gloom overhead.

The decks are dry now; camp-stools are
in requisition; there is to be a consultation
about our future plans, after the *White Dove*
has been beached for a couple of days.  The
Laird admits that, if it had been three days
or four days, he would like to run through
to Glasgow and to Strathgovan, just to see
how they are getting on with the gas-lamps
in the Mitherdrum Road; but, as it is, he
will write for a detailed report; hence he is
free to go wherever we wish.  Miss Avon,
interrogated, answers that she thinks she must
leave us and set out for London; whereupon
she is bidden to hold her tongue and not talk
foolishness.  Our Doctor, also interrogated,
looks down on the sitting parliament—he is
standing at the tiller—and laughs.

"Don't be too sure of getting to Castle
Osprey to-night," he says, "whatever your
plans may be.  The breeze is falling off a
bit.  But you may put me down as willing
to go anywhere with you, if you will let me
come."

This decision seemed greatly to delight his
hostess.  She said we could not do without him.
She was herself ready to go anywhere now;
she eagerly embraced the Youth's suggestion
that there were, according to John of Skye's
account, vast numbers of seals in the bays on
the western shores of Knapdale; and at once
assured the Laird, who said he particularly
wanted a sealskin or two and some skarts'
feathers for a young lady, that he should not
be disappointed.  Knapdale, then, it was to be.

But in the meantime?  Dinner found us in
a dead calm.  After dinner, when we came on
deck, the sun had gone down; and in the pale,
tender blue-grey of the twilight, the golden star
of Lismore lighthouse was already shining.
Then we had our warning lights put up—the
port red light shedding a soft crimson glow
on the bow of the dingay, the starboard green
light touching with a cold, wan colour the iron
shrouds.  To crown all, as we were watching
the dark shadows of Lismore island, a thin,
white, vivid line—like the edge of a
shilling—appeared over the low hill; and then the full
moon rose into the partially clouded sky.  It
was a beautiful night.

But we gave up all hope of reaching Castle
Osprey.  The breeze had quite gone; the
calm sea slowly rolled.  We went below—to
books, draughts, and what not; Angus Sutherland
alone remaining on deck, having his pipe
for his companion.

It was about an hour afterwards that we
were startled by sounds on deck; and
presently we knew that the *White Dove* was
again flying through the water.  The women
took some little time to get their shawls and
things ready; had they known what was
awaiting them, they would have been more
alert.

For no sooner were we on deck than we
perceived that the *White Dove* was tearing
through the water without the slightest
landmark or light to guide her.  The breeze that
had sprung up had swept before it a bank of
sea-fog—a most unusual thing in these windy
and changeable latitudes; and so dense was
this fog that the land on all sides of us had
disappeared, while it was quite impossible to
say where Lismore light-house was.  Angus
Sutherland had promptly surrendered the helm
to John of Skye; and had gone forward.
The men on the look out at the bow were
themselves invisible.

"Oh, it is all right, mem!" called out John
of Skye, through the dense fog, in answer to
a question.  "I know the lay o' the land
very well, though I do not see it.  And I
will keep her down to Duart, bekass of the
tide."

And then he calls out—

"Hector, do you not see any land yet?'

"*Cha n'eil!*" answers Hector, in his native
tongue.

"We'll put a tack on her now.  Ready
about, boys!"

"*Ready about!*"

Round slews her head, with blocks and sails
clattering and flapping; there is a scuffle of
making fast the lee sheets; then once more
the *White Dove* goes plunging into the
unknown.  The non-experts see nothing at all
but the fog; they have not the least idea
whether Lismore lighthouse—which is a solid
object to run against—is on port or starboard
bow, or right astern, for the matter of that.
They are huddled in a group about the top
of the companion.  They can only listen,
and wait.

John of Skye's voice rings out again.

"Hector, can you not mek out the land yet?"

"*Cha n'eil!*"

"What does he say?" the Laird asks,
almost in a whisper: he is afraid to distract
attention at such a time.

"He says 'No,'" Angus Sutherland
answers.  "He cannot make out the land.  It
is very thick; and there are bad rocks
between Lismore and Duart.  I think I will
climb up to the cross-trees and have a look
round."

What was this?  A girl's hand laid for an
instant on his arm; a girl's voice—low, quick,
beseeching—saying "Oh, no!"

It was the trifle of a moment.

"There is not the least danger," says he,
lightly.  "Sometimes you can see better at
the cross-trees."

Then the dim figure is seen going up the
shrouds; but he is not quite up at the
cross-trees, when the voice of John of Skye is
heard again.

"Mr. Sutherland!

"All right, John!" and the dusky figure
comes stumbling down and across the loose
sheets on deck.

"If ye please, sir," says John of Skye; and
the well-known formula means that Angus
Sutherland is to take the helm.  Captain
John goes forward to the bow: the only
sound around us is the surging of the unseen
waves.

"I hope you are not frightened, Miss
Avon," says Mr. Smith, quite cheerfully;
though he is probably listening, like the rest
of us, for the sullen roaring of breakers in
the dark.

"No—I am bewildered—I don't know
what it is all about."

"You need not be afraid," Angus Sutherland
says to her, abruptly, for he will not have
the Youth interfere in such matters, "with
Captain John on board.  He sees better in a
fog than most men in daylight."

"We are in the safe keeping of one greater
than any Captain John," says the Laird, simply
and gravely: he is not in any alarm.

Then a call from the bow.

"Helm hard down, sir!"

"Hard down it is, John!"

Then the rattle again of sheets and sails;
and as she swings round again on the other
tack, what is that vague, impalpable shadow
one sees—or fancies one sees—on the starboard
bow?

"Is that the land, John?" Angus Sutherland
asks, as the skipper comes aft.

"Oh, ay!" says he, with a chuckle.  "I
was thinking to myself it wass the loom of
Duart I sah once or twice.  And I wass saying
to Hector if it wass his sweetheart he will look,
for he will see better in the night."

Then by and by this other object, to which
all attention is summoned: the fog grows
thinner and thinner; some one catches sight
of a pale, glimmering light on our port quarter;
and we know that we have left Lismore
lighthouse in our wake.  And still the fog grows
thinner, until it is suffused with a pale blue
radiance; then suddenly we sail out into the
beautiful moonlight, with the hills along the
horizon all black under the clear and solemn skies.

It is a pleasant sail into the smooth harbour
on this enchanted night: the far windows of
Castle Osprey are all aglow; the mariners are
to rest for a while from the travail of the sea.
And as we go up the moonlit road, the Laird is
jocular enough; and asks Mary Avon, who is
his companion, whether she was prepared to
sing "Lochaber no more!" when we were
going blindly through the mist.  But our young
Doctor remembers that hour or so of mist for
another reason.  There was something in the
sound of the girl's voice he cannot forget.
The touch of her hand was slight; but his
arm has not even yet parted with the thrill
of it.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HIS LORDSHIP`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   HIS LORDSHIP.

.. vspace:: 2

Miss Avon is seated in the garden in front
of Castle Osprey, under the shade of a
drooping ash.  Her book lies neglected beside her,
on the iron seat; she is idly looking abroad on
the sea and the mountains, now all aglow in
the warm light of the afternoon.

There is a clanging of a gate below.  Presently,
up the steep gravel path, comes a tall and
handsome young fellow, in full shooting
accoutrement, with his gun over his shoulder.  Her
face instantly loses its dreamy expression.  She
welcomes him with a cheerful "Good evening!"
and asks what sport he has had.  For answer
he comes across the greensward; places his gun
against the trunk of the ash; takes a seat
beside her; and puts his hands round one knee.

"It is a long story," says the Youth.  "Will
it bore you to hear it?  I've seen how the
women in a country house dread the beginning
of the talk at dinner about the day's shooting;
and yet give themselves up, like the martyrs
and angels they are; and—and it is very
different from hunting, don't you know, for
there the women can talk as much as anybody."

"Oh!  but I should like to hear, really," says
she.  "It was so kind of a stranger on board
a steamer to offer you a day's shooting."

"Well, it was," says he; "and the place has
been shot over only once—on the 12th.  Very
well; you shall hear the whole story.  I met
the keeper by appointment, down at the quay.
I don't know what sort of a fellow he
is—Highlander or Lowlander—I am not such a
swell at those things as my uncle is; but I
should have said he talked a most promising
mixture of Devonshire, Yorkshire, and
Westmoreland——"

"What was his name?"

"I don't know," says the other leisurely.
"I called him Donald, on chance; and he took
to it well enough.  I confess I thought it
rather odd he had only one dog with him—an
old retriever; but then, don't you know, the
moor had been shot over only once; and I
thought we might get along.  As we walked
along to the hill, Donald says, 'Dinna tha
mind, sir, if a blackcock gets up; knock un
ower, knock un ower, sir.'"

At this point Miss Avon most unfairly bursts
out laughing.

"Why," she says, "what sort of countryman
was he if he talked like that?  That is how
they speak in plays about the colliery districts."

"Oh, it's all the same!" says the young
man, quite unabashed.  "I gave him my bag
to carry, and put eight or ten cartridges in
my pockets.  'A few mower, sir; a few mower,
sir,' says Donald; and crams my pockets full.
Then he would have me put cartridges in
my gun even before we left the road; and as
soon as we began to ascend the hill I saw he
was on the outlook for a straggler or two, or
perhaps a hare.  But he warned me that the
shooting had been very bad in these districts
this year; and that on the 12th the rain was
so persistent that scarcely anybody went out.
Where could we have been on the 12th? surely
there was no such rain with us?"

"But when you are away from the hills
you miss the rain," remarks this profound
meteorologist.

"Ah! perhaps so.  However, Donald said,
'His lordship went hout for an hour, and got a
brace and a alf.  His lordship is no keen for
a big bag, ye ken; but is just satisfied if he
can get a brace or a couple of brace afore
luncheon.  It is the exerceez he likes.'  I then
discovered that Lord —— had had this moor
as part of his shooting last year; and I assured
Donald I did not hunger after slaughter.  So
we climbed higher and higher.  I found Donald
a most instructive companion.  He was very
great on the ownership of the land about here;
and the old families, don't you know; and all
that kind of thine.  I heard a lot about the
MacDougalls, and how they had all their
possessions confiscated in 1745; and how, when
the Government pardoned them, and ordered
the land to be restored, the Campbells and
Breadalbane, into whose hands it had fallen,
kept all the best bits for themselves.  I asked
Donald why they did not complain; he only
grinned; I suppose they were afraid to make a
row.  Then there was one MacDougall, an
admiral or captain, don't you know; and he sent
a boat to rescue some shipwrecked men, and the
boat was swamped.  Then he would send
another; and that was swamped, too.  The
Government, Donald informed me, wanted to
hang him for his philanthropy; but he had
influential friends; and he was let off on the
payment of a large sum of money—I suppose
out of what Argyll and Breadalbane had left him."

The Youth calmly shifted his hands to the
other knee.

"You see, Miss Avon, this was all very
interesting; but I had to ask Donald where
the birds were.  'I'll let loose the doag now,'
says he.  Well; he did so.  You would have
thought he had let loose a sky-rocket!  It was
off and away—up hill and down dale—and all
his whistling wasn't of the slightest use.  'He's
a bit wild,' Donald had to admit; 'but if I had
kent you were agoin' shootin' earlier in the
morning, I would have given him a run or two
to take the freshness hoff.  But on a day like
this, sir, there's no scent; we will just have to
walk them up; they'll lie as close as a
water-hen.'  So we left the dog to look after himself;
and on we pounded.  Do you see that long
ridge of rugged hill?"

He pointed to the coast-line beyond the bay.

"Yes."

"We had to climb that, to start with;
and not even a glimpse of a rabbit all the
way up.  ''Ave a care, sir,' says Donald; and
I took down my gun from my shoulder,
expecting to walk into a whole covey at least.
'His lordship shot a brace and a alf of grouse
on this wery knoll the last day he shot over
the moor last year.'  And now there was
less talking, don't you know; and we went
cautiously through the heather, working every
bit of it, until we got right to the end of the
knoll.  'It's fine heather,' says Donald; 'bees
would dae well here.'  On we went; and
Donald's information began again.  He pointed
out a house on some distant island where
Alexander III. was buried.  'But where are
the birds?' I asked of him, at last.  'Oh,'
says he, 'his lordship was never greedy after
the shootin'!  A brace or two afore luncheon
was all he wanted.  He baint none o' your
greedy ones, he baint.  His lordship shot a
hare on this very side last year—a fine long
shot.'  We went on again: you know what
sort of morning it was, Miss Avon?"

"It was hot enough even in the shelter of
the trees."

"Up there it was dreadful: not a breath
of wind: the sun blistering.  And still we
ploughed through that knee-deep heather, with
the retriever sometimes coming within a mile
of us; and Donald back to his old families.
It was the MacDonnells now; he said they
had no right to that name; their proper name
was MacAlister—Mack Mick Alister, I think
he said.  'But where the dickens are the
birds?' I asked.  'If we get a brace afore
luncheon, we'll do fine,' said he; and then he
added, 'There's a braw cold well down there
that his lordship aye stopped at.'  The hint
was enough; we had our dram.  Then we
went on, and on, and on, and on, until I struck
work, and sat down, and waited for the
luncheon basket."

"We were so afraid Fred would be late,"
she said; "the men were all so busy down
at the yacht."

"What did it matter?" the Youth said,
resignedly.  "I was being instructed.  He
had got further back still now, to the Druids,
don't you know, and the antiquity of the
Gaelic language.  'What was the river that
ran by Rome?'  'The Tiber,' I said.  'And
what,' he asked, 'was *Tober* in Gaelic but a
spring or fountain?'  And the Tamar in
Devonshire was the same thing.  And the
various Usks—*uska*, it seems, is the Gaelic
for water.  Well, I'm hanged if I know what
that man did *not* talk about!"

"But surely such a keeper must be invaluable,"
remarked the young lady, innocently.

"Perhaps.  I confess I got a little bit tired
of it; but no doubt the poor fellow was doing
his best to make up for the want of birds.
However, we started again after luncheon.  And
now we came to place after place where his
lordship had performed the most wonderful
feats last year.  And, mind you, the dog
wasn't ranging so wild now; if there had been
the ghost of a shadow of a feather in the
whole district we must have seen it.  Then
we came to another well where his lordship
used to stop for a drink.  Then we arrived
at a crest where no one who had ever shot on
the moor had ever failed to get a brace or two.
A brace or two!  What we flushed was a
covey of sheep that flew like mad things down
the hill.  Well, Donald gave in at last.  He
could not find words to express his astonishment.
His lordship had never come along that
highest ridge without getting at least two or
three shots.  And when I set out for home,
he still stuck to it; he would not let me take
the cartridges out of my gun; he assured me
his lordship never failed to get a snipe or a
blackcock on the way home.  Confound his
lordship!"

"And is that all the story?" says the young
lady, with her eyes wide open.

"Yes, it is," says he, with a tragic gloom on
the handsome face.

"You have not brought home a single bird?"

"Not a feather!—never saw one."

"Nor even a rabbit?'

"Nary rabbit!"

"Why, Fred was up here a short time ago,
wanting a few birds for the yacht."

"Oh, indeed," says he, with a sombre
contempt.  "Perhaps he will go and ask his
lordship for them.  In the meantime, I'm
going in to dress for dinner.  I suppose his
lordship would do that, too, after having shot
his thirty brace."

"You must not, any way," she says.  "There
is to be no dressing for dinner to-day; we are
all going down to the yacht after."

"At all events," he says, "I must get my
shooting things off.  Much good I've done
with 'em!"

So he goes into the house, and leaves her
alone.  But this chat together seems to have
brightened her up somewhat; and with a
careless and cheerful air she goes over to the
flower borders and begins culling an assortment
of various-hued blossoms.  The evening is
becoming cooler; she is not so much afraid of
the sun's glare; it is a pleasant task; and she
is singing, or humming, snatches of songs of
the most heterogeneous character.

   |  *Then fill up a bumper!—what can I do less*
   |  *Than drink to the health of my bonny Black Bess!*

—this is the point at which she has arrived
when she suddenly becomes silent, and for a
second her face is suffused with a conscious
colour.  It is our young Doctor who has
appeared on the gravel path.  She does not
rise from her stooping position; but she hurries
with her work.

"You are going to decorate the dinner-table,
I suppose?" he says, somewhat timidly.

"Yes," she answers, without raising her
head.  The fingers work nimbly enough: why
so much hurry?

"You will take some down to the yacht,
too?" he says.  "Everything is quite ready
now for the start to-morrow."

"Oh, yes!" she says.  "And I think I have
enough now for the table.  I must go in."

"Miss Avon," he says; and she stops—with
her eyes downcast.  "I wanted to say a word
to you.  You have once or twice spoken about
going away.  I wanted to ask you—you won't
think it is any rudeness.  But if the reason
was—if it was the presence of any one that was
distasteful to you——"

"Oh, I hope no one will think that!" she
answers, quickly; and for one second the soft,
black, pathetic eyes meet his.  "I am very
happy to be amongst such good friends—too
happy, I think—I, I must think of other
things——"

And here she seems to force this embarrassment
away from her; and she says to him,
with quite a pleasant air—

"I am so glad to hear that the *White Dove*
will sail so much better now.  It must be so
much more pleasant for you, when you
understand all about it."

And then she goes into the house to put
the flowers on the table.  He, left alone, goes
over to the iron seat beneath the ash tree;
and takes up the book she has been reading,
and bends his eyes on the page.  It is not
the book he is thinking about.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LAIRD'S PLANS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIII.


.. class:: center medium bold

   THE LAIRD'S PLANS.

.. vspace:: 2

Who is first up to thrust aside those delusive
yellow blinds that suggest sunshine whether
the morning be fair or foul?  But the first
glance through the panes removes all apprehensions:
the ruffled bay, the fluttering ensign, the
shining white wings of the *White Dove* are all
a summons to the slumbering house.  And the
mistress of Castle Osprey, as soon as she is
dressed, is up stairs and down stairs like a furred
flash of lightning.  Her cry and potent
command—a reminiscence of certain transatlantic
experiences—is, "*All aboard for Dan'ls!*"  She
will not have so fine a sailing morning
wasted, especially when Dr. Angus Sutherland
is with us.

Strangely enough, when at last we stand on
the white decks, and look round on the shining
brass and varnished wood, and help to stow
away the various articles needed for our cruise,
he is the least excited of all those chattering
people.  There is a certain conscious elation
on starting on a voyage, especially on a
beautiful morning; but there also may be some
vague and dim apprehension.  The beginning
is here; but the end?  Angus walked about
with Captain John, and was shown all that
had been done to the yacht, and listened in
silence.

But the rest were noisy enough, calling for
this and that, handing things down the
companion, and generally getting in the way of the
steward.

"Well, Fred," says our facetious Laird,
"have ye hung up all the game that Mr. Smith
brought back from the moor yesterday?"
and Master Fred was so much tickled by this
profound joke that he had to go down into the
forecastle to hide his grinning delight, and
went covertly smiling about his work for the
next quarter of an hour.

Then the hubbub gradually ceased; for the
boats had been swung to the davits, and the
*White Dove* was gently slipping away from her
moorings.  A fine northerly breeze; a ruffled
blue sea; and the south all shining before her!
How should we care whither the beautiful bird
bore us?  Perhaps before the night fell we
should be listening for the singing of the
mermaid of Colonsay.

The wooded shores slowly drew away; the
horizon widened; there was no still blue, but a
fine windy grey, on the vast plain of the sea
that was opening out before us.

"Oh, yes, mem!" says John of Skye to Miss
Avon.  "I wass sure we would get a good
breeze for Mr. Sutherland when he will come
back to the yat."

Miss Avon does not answer: she is looking at
the wide sea, and at the far islands, with
somewhat wistful eyes.

"Would you like to tek the tiller, now,
mem?" says the bearded skipper, in his most
courteous tones.  "Mr. Sutherland was aye very
proud to see ye at the tiller."

"No, thank you, John," she says.

And then she becomes aware that she has—in
her absent mood—-spoken somewhat curtly;
so she turns and comes over to him, and says
in a confidential way—

"To tell you the truth, John, I never feel
very safe in steering when the yacht is going
before the wind.  When she is close-hauled I
have something to guide me; but with the
wind coming behind I know I may make a
blunder without knowing why."

"No, no, mem; you must not let Mr. Sutherland
hear you say that: when he was
so prood o' learnin' ye; and there is no dancher
at ahl of your making a plunder."

But at this moment our young Doctor
himself comes on deck; and she quickly moves
away to her camp-stool, and plunges herself
into a book; while the attentive Mr. Smith
provides her with a sunshade and a footstool.
Dr. Sutherland cannot, of course, interfere with
her diligent studies.

Meanwhile our hostess is below, putting a
few finishing touches to the decoration of the
saloon; while the Laird, in the blue-cushioned
recess at the head of the table, is poring over
*Municipal London*.  At length he raises his
eyes, and says to his sole companion—

"I told ye, ma'am, he was a good lad—a biddable
lad—did I not?"

"You are speaking of your nephew, of
course," she says.  "Well; it is very kind of
him to offer to turn out of his state-room in
favour of Dr. Sutherland; but there is really
no need for it.  Angus is much better
accustomed to roughing it on board a yacht."

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," says the Laird,
with judicial gravity.  "Howard is in the right
there too.  He must insist on it.  Dr. Sutherland
is your oldest friend.  Howard is here on
a kind of sufferance.  I am sure we are both of
us greatly obliged to ye."

Here there was the usual deprecation.

"And I will say," observes the Laird, with
the same profound air, "that his conduct since
I sent for him has entirely my approval—entirely
my approval.  Ye know what I mean.
I would not say a word to him for the world—no,
no—after the first intimation of my wishes, no
coercion.  Every one for himself: no coercion."

She does not seem so overjoyed as might
have been expected.

"Oh, of course not!" she says.  "It is only
in plays and books that anybody is forced into
a marriage; at least you don't often find a man
driven to marry anybody against his will.  And
indeed, sir," she adds, with a faint smile, "you
rather frightened your nephew at first.  He
thought you were going to play the part of a
stage guardian, and disinherit him if he did not
marry the young lady.  But I took the liberty
of saying to him that you could not possibly be
so unreasonable.  Because, you know, if Mary
refused to marry him, how could that be any
fault of his?"

"Precisely so," said the Laird, in his grand
manner.  "A most judeecious and sensible
remark.  Let him do his part, and I am
satisfied.  I would not exact impossibeelities
from any one, much less from one that I have
a particular regard for.  And, as I was saying,
Howard is a good lad."

The Laird adopted a lighter tone.

"Have ye observed, ma'am, that things are
not at all unlikely to turn out as we wished?"
he said, in a half-whisper; and there was a
secret triumph in his look.  "Have ye observed?
Oh, yes! young folks are very shy; but their
elders are not blind.  Did ye ever see two
young people that seemed to get on better
together on so short an acquaintance?"

"Oh, yes!" she says, rather gloomily; "they
seem to be very good friends."

"Yachting is a famous thing for making
people acquainted," says the Laird, with
increasing delight.  "They know one another
now as well as though they had been friends
for years on the land.  Has that struck ye now
before?"

"Oh, yes!" she says.  There is no delight
on *her* face.

"It will jist be the happiness of my old age,
if the Lord spares me, to see these two
established at Denny-mains," says he, as if he were
looking at the picture before his very eyes.  "And
we have a fine soft air in the west of Scotland;
it's no like asking a young English leddy to
live in the bleaker parts of the north, or among
the east winds of Edinburgh.  And I would
not have the children sent to any public school,
to learn vulgar ways of speech and clipping of
words.  No, no; I would wale out a young
man from our Glasgow University—one familiar
with the proper tradeetions of the English
language; and he will guard against the
clipping fashion of the South, just as against the
yaumering of the Edinburgh bodies.  Ah will
wale him out maself.  But no too much
education: no, no; that is the worst gift ye can
bestow upon bairns.  A sound constitution;
that is first and foremost.  I would rather see
a lad out and about shooting rabbits than shut
up wi' a pale face among a lot of books.  And
the boys will have their play, I can assure ye;
I will send that fellow Andrew about his
business if he doesna stop netting and snaring.
What do I care about the snipping at the
shrubs?  I will put out turnips on the verra
lawn, jist to see the rabbits run about in the
morning.  The boys shall have their play at
Denny-mains, I can assure ye; more play than
school-hours, or I'm mistaken!"

The Laird laughed to himself just as if
he had been telling a good one about Homesh.

"And no muzzle-loaders," he continued, with
a sudden seriousness.  "Not a muzzle-loader
will I have put into their hands.  Many's the
time it makes me grue to think of my loading
a muzzle-loader when I was a boy—loading
one barrel, with the other barrel on full-cock,
and jist gaping to blow my fingers off.  I'm
thinking Miss Mary—though she'll no be
Miss Mary then—will be sore put to when
the boys bring in thrushes and blackbirds they
have shot; for she's a sensitive bit thing;
but what I say is, better let them shoot
thrushes and blackbirds than bring them up
to have white faces ower books.  Ah tell ye
this: I'll give them a sovereign a-piece for
every blackbird they shoot on the wing!"

The Laird had got quite excited; he did
not notice that *Municipal London* was
dangerously near the edge of the table.

"Andrew will not objeck to the shooting
o' blackbirds," he said, with a loud laugh—as
if there was something of Homesh's vein in
that gardener.  "The poor crayture is just daft
about his cherries.  That's another thing; no
interference with bairns in a garden.  Let
them steal what they like.  Green apples? bless
ye, they're the life o' children!  Nature
puts everything to rights.  She kens better
than books.  If I catched the schoolmaster
lockin' up they boys in their play-hours, my
word but I'd send him fleein'!"

He was most indignant with this school-master,
although he was to be of his own
"waling."  He was determined that the lads
should have their play, lessons or no lessons.
Green apples he preferred to Greek.  The
dominie would have to look out.

"Do you think, ma'am," he says, in an
insidious manner; "do ye think she would
like to have a furnished house in London for
pairt of the year?  She might have her friends
to see——"

Now at last this is too much.  The gentle,
small creature has been listening with a fine,
proud, hurt air on her face, and with tears
near to her eyes.  Is it thus that her Scotch
student, of whom she is the fierce champion,
is to be thrust aside?

"Why," she says, with an indignant warmth;
"you take it all for granted!  I thought it was
a joke.  Do you really think your nephew is
going to marry Mary?  And Angus Sutherland
in love with her!"

"God bless me!" exclaimed the Laird, with
such a start that the bulky *Municipal London*
banged down on the cabin floor.

Was it the picking up of that huge tome,
or the consciousness that he had been betrayed
into an unusual ejaculation, that crimsoned the
Laird's face?  When he sate upright again,
however, wonder was the chief expression
visible in his eyes.

"Of course I have no right to say so," she
instantly and hurriedly adds: "it is only a
guess—a suspicion.  But haven't you seen it?
And until quite recently I had other suspicions,
too.  Why, what do you think would induce
a man in Angus Sutherland's position to spend
such a long time in idleness?"

But by this time the Laird had recovered
his equanimity.  He was not to be disturbed
by any bogie.  He smiled serenely.

"We will see, ma'am; we will see.  If it
is so with the young man, it is a peety.  But
you must admit yourself that ye see how things
are likely to turn out?"

"I don't know," she said, with reluctance:
she would not admit that she had been
grievously troubled during the past few days.
"Very well, ma'am, very well," said the
Laird, blithely.  "We will see who is right.
I am not a gambler, but I would wager ye a
gold ring, a sixpence, and a silver thimble
that I am no so far out.  I have my eyes
open; oh, aye!  Now I am going on deck
to see where we are."

And so the Laird rose, and put the bulky
volume by, and passed along the saloon to
the companion.  We heard

   |  *Sing tántara!  Sing tántara!*

as his head appeared.  He was in a gay
humour.

Meanwhile the *White Dove*, with all sail
set, had come along at a spanking pace.  The
weather threatened change, it is true; there
was a deep gloom overhead; but along the
southern horizon there was a blaze of yellow
light which had the odd appearance of being
a sunset in the middle of the day; and in this
glare lay the long blue promontory known
as the Rhinns of Islay, within sight of the
Irish coast.  And so we went down by Easdail,
and past Colipoll and its slate-quarries; and
we knew this constant breeze would drive us
through the swirls of the Dorus Mohr—the
"Great Gate."  And were we listening, as
we drew near in the afternoon to the
rose-purple bulk of Scarba, for the low roar of
Corrievrechan?  We knew the old refrain:—

   |  *As you pass through Jura's Sound*
   |    *Bend your course by Scarba's shore;*
   |  *Shun, oh, shun the gulf profound*
   |    *Where Corrievrechan's surges roar!*
   |

But now there is no ominous murmur along
those distant shores.  Silence and a sombre
gloom hang over the two islands.  We are
glad to shun this desolate coast; and glad
that the *White Dove* is carrying us away to
the pleasanter south, when, behold! behold! another
sight!  As we open out the dreaded
gulf, Corrievrechan itself becomes but an open
lane leading out to the west; and there, beyond
the gloom, amid the golden seas, lies afar the
music-haunted Colonsay!  It is the calm of
the afternoon; the seas lie golden around the
rocks; surely the sailors can hear her singing
now for the lover she lost so long ago!  What
is it that thrills the brain so, and fills the eyes
with tears, when we can hear no sound at all
coming over the sea?

It is the Laird who summons us back to
actualities.

"It would be a strange thing," says he,
"if Tom Galbraith were in that island at this
very meenit.  Ah'm sure he was going there."

And Captain John helps.

"I not like to go near Corrievrechan," he
says, with a grin, "when there is a flood tide
and half a gale from the sou'-west.  It is an
ahfu' place," he adds, more seriously, "an
ahfu' place."

"I should like to go through," Angus
Sutherland says, quite inadvertently.

"Aye, would ye, sir?" says Captain John,
eagerly.  "If there wass only you and me on
board, I would tek you through ferry well—with
the wind from the norrard and an ebb
tide.  Oh, yes!  I would do that; and maybe
we will do it this year yet!"

"I do not think I am likely to see
Corrievrechan again this year," said he, quite
quietly—so quietly that scarcely any one
heard.  But Mary Avon heard.

Well, we managed, after all, to bore
through the glassy swirls of the Dorus
Mohr—the outlying pickets, as it were, of
the fiercer whirlpools and currents of
Corrievrechan—and the light breeze still
continuing we crept along in the evening past
Crinan, and along the lonely coast of
Knapdale, with the giant Paps of Jura darkening
in the west.  Night fell; the breeze almost
died away; we turned the bow of the *White
Dove* towards an opening in the land, and
the flood tide gently bore her into the wide,
silent, empty loch.  There did not seem to
be any light on the shores.  Like a tall,
grey phantom the yacht glided through the
gloom; we were somewhat silent on deck.

But there was a radiant yellow glow coming
through the skylight; and Master Fred had
done his best to make the saloon cheerful
enough.  And where there is supper there
ought to be other old-fashioned
institutions—singing, for example; and how long was it
since we had heard anything about the
Queen's Maries, or "Ho, ro, clansmen!" or
the Irish Brigade?  Nobody, however,
appeared to think of these things.  This was
a silent and lonely loch, and the gloom of
night was over land and water; but we still
seemed to have before our eyes the far island
amid the golden seas.  And was there not
still lingering in the night air some faint echo
of the song of Colonsay?  It is a heart-breaking
song; it is all about the parting of lovers.





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.. _`A SUNDAY IN FAR SOLITUDES`:

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   CHAPTER XIV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   A SUNDAY IN FAR SOLITUDES.

.. vspace:: 2

Mary Avon is seated all alone on deck,
looking rather wistfully around her at this
solitary Loch-na-Chill—that is, the Loch of
the Burying Place.  It is Sunday morning,
and there is a more than Sabbath peace
dwelling over sea and shore.  Not a ripple
on the glassy sea; a pale haze of sunshine
on the islands in the south; a stillness as of
death along the low-lying coast.  A seal rises
to the surface of the calm sea, and regards
her for a moment with his soft black eyes;
then slowly subsides.  She has not seen him;
she is looking far away.

Then a soft step is heard on the companion;
and the manner of the girl instantly
changes.  Are these tears that she hastily
brushes aside?  But her face is all smiles to
welcome her friend.  She declares that she
is charmed with the still beauty of this remote
and solitary loch.

Then other figures appear; and at last we
are all summoned on deck for morning service.
It is not an elaborate ceremony; there are
no candles, or genuflexions, or embroidered
altar-cloths.  But the Laird has put on a
black frock coat, and the men have put aside
their scarlet cowls and wear smart sailor-looking
cloth caps.  Then the Laird gravely
rises, and opens his book.

Sometimes, it is true, our good friend has
almost driven us to take notice of his accent,
and we have had our little jokes on board
about it; but you do not pay much heed to
these peculiarities when the strong and
resonant voice—amid the strange silence of
this Loch of the Burying Place—reads out
the 103rd Psalm: "Like as a father peetieth
his children," he may say; but one does not
heed that.  And who is to notice that, as
he comes to these words, he lifts his eyes
from the book and fixes them for a moment
on Mary Avon's downcast face?  "Like as
a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth them that fear Him.  For He knoweth
our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower
of the field, so he flourisheth.  For the wind
passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place
thereof shall know it no more.  But the mercy
of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
upon them that fear Him, and His righteousness
unto children's children."  Then, when
he had finished the Psalm, he turned to the
New Testament, and read in the same slow
and reverent manner the 6th chapter of
Matthew.  This concluded the service; it
was not an elaborate one.

Then, about an hour afterwards, the Laird,
on being appealed to by his hostess, gave it
as his opinion that there would be no Sabbath
desecration at all in our going ashore to
examine the ruins of what appeared to be an
ancient chapel, which we could make out by
the aid of our glasses on the green slope above
the rocks.  And as our young friends—Angus
and the Youth—idly paddled us away from
the yacht, the Laird began to apologise to his
hostess for not having lengthened the service
by the exposition of some chosen text.

"Ye see, ma'am," he observed, "some are
gifted in that way, and some not.  My father,
now, had an amazing power of expounding
and explaining—I am sure there was nothing
in *Hutcheson's Exposeetion* he had not in his
memory.  A very famous man he was in those
days as an Anti-Lifter—very famous; there
were few who could argue with him on that
memorable point."

"But what did you call him, sir?" asks
his hostess, with some vague notion that the
Laird's father had lived in the days of
body-snatchers.

"An Anti-Lifter: it was a famous controversy;
but ye are too young to remember of
it perhaps.  And now in these days we are
more tolerant, and rightly so; I do not care
whether the minister lifts the sacramental
bread before distribution or not, now that
there is no chance of Popery getting into our
Presbyterian Church in disguise.  It is the
speerit, not the form, that is of importance:
our Church authoritatively declares that the
efficacy of the sacraments depends not 'upon
any virtue in them or in him that doth
administer them.'  Aye; that is the cardinal
truth.  But in those days they considered it
right to guard against Popery in every
manner; and my father was a prominent
Anti-Lifter; and well would he argue and expound
on that and most other doctrinal subjects.
But I have not much gift that way," added
the Laird, modestly; quite forgetting with
what clearness he had put before us the chief
features of the great Semple case.

"I don't think you have anything to regret,
sir," said our young Doctor, as he carelessly
worked the oar with one hand, "that you did
not bother the brains of John and his men
with any exposition of the Sermon on the
Mount.  Isn't it an odd thing that the
common fishermen and boatmen of the Sea of
Galilee understood the message Christ brought
them just at once? and now a days, when we
have millions of churches built, and millions
of money being spent, and tons upon tons of
sermons being written every year, we seem
only to get further and further into confusion
and chaos.  Fancy the great army of
able-bodied men that go on expounding and
expounding; and the learning and time and
trouble they bestow on their work; and
scarcely any two of them agreed; while the
people who listen to them are all in a fog.
Simon Peter, and Andrew, and the sons of
Zebedee, must have been men of the most
extraordinary intellect.  They understood at
once; they were commissioned to teach; and
they had not even a Shorter Catechism to
go by."

The Laird looked at him doubtfully.  He
did not know whether to recognise in him a
true ally or not.  However, the mention of
the Shorter Catechism seemed to suggest solid
ground; and he was just about entering into
the question of the Subordinate Standards
when an exclamation of rage on the part of
his nephew startled us.  That handsome lad,
during all this theological discussion, had been
keeping a watchful and matter-of-fact eye on
a number of birds on the shore; and now
that we were quite close to the sandy
promontory, he had recognised them.

"Look! look!" he said, in tones of mingled
eagerness and disappointment.  "Golden
plovers, every one of them!  Isn't it too
bad?  It's always like this on Sunday.  I
will bet you won't get within half a mile of
them to-morrow!"

And he refused to be consoled as we landed
on the sandy shore; and found the golden-dusted,
long-legged birds running along before
us, or flitting from patch to patch of the moist
greensward.  We had to leave him behind in
moody contemplation as we left the shore and
scrambled up the rugged and rocky slope to
the ruins of this solitary little chapel.

There was an air of repose and silence
about these crumbling walls and rusted gates
that was in consonance with a habitation of
the dead.  And first of all, outside, we came
upon an upright Iona cross, elaborately carved
with strange figures of men and beasts.  But
inside the small building, lying prostrate among
the grass and weeds, there was a collection
of those memorials that would have made an
antiquarian's heart leap for joy.  It is to be
feared that our guesses about the meaning of
the emblems on the tombstones were of a
crude and superficial character.  Were these
Irish chiefs, those stone figures with the long
sword and the harp beside them?  Was the
recurrent shamrock a national or religious
emblem?  And why was the effigy of this
ancient worthy accompanied by a pair of
pincers, an object that looked like a
tooth-comb, and a winged griffin?  Again, outside
but still within the sacred walls, we came upon
still further tombs of warriors, most of them
hidden among the long grass; and here and
there we tried to brush the weeds away.  It
was no bad occupation for a Sunday morning,
in this still and lonely burial-place above the
wide seas.

On going on board again we learned from
John of Skye that there were many traces of
an ancient ecclesiastical colonisation about this
coast; and that in especial there were a ruined
chapel and other remains on one of a small
group of islands that we could see on the
southern horizon.  Accordingly, after luncheon,
we fitted out an expedition to explore that
distant island.  The Youth was particularly
anxious to examine these ecclesiastical
remains; he did not explain to everybody that
he had received from Captain John a hint
that the shores of this sainted island swarmed
with seals.

And now the gig is shoved off; the four
oars strike the glassy water; and away we
go in search of the summer isles in the south.
The Laird settles himself comfortably in the
stern; it seems but natural that he should take
Mary Avon's hand in his, just as if she were
a little child.

"And ye must know, Miss Mary," he says,
quite cheerfully, "that if ever ye should come
to live in Scotland, ye will not be persecuted
with our theology.  No, no; far from it; we
respect every one's religion, if it is sincere;
though we cling to our own.  And why should
we not cling to it, and guard it from error?
We have had to fight for our civil and religious
leeberties inch by inch, foot by foot; and we
have won.  The blood of the saints has not
been shed in vain.  The cry of the dying and
wounded on many a Lanarkshire moor—when
the cavalry were riding about, and hewing and
slaughtering—was not wasted on the air!
The Lord heard, and answered.  And we do
well to guard what we have gained; and, if
need were, there are plenty of Scotsmen alive
at this day who would freely spend their lives
in defending their own releegion.  But ye
need not fear.  These are the days of great
toleration.  Ye might live in Scotland all your
life, and not hear an ill word said of the
Episcopal Church!"

After having given this solemn assurance
the Laird cast a glance of sly humour at
Angus Sutherland.

"I will confess," said he, "when Dr. Sutherland
brought that up this morning about Peter
and Andrew, and James and John, I was a bit
put out.  But then," he added, triumphantly,
"ye must remember that in those days they
had not the inseedious attacks of Prelacy to
guard against.  There was no need for them
to erect bulwarks of the faith.  But in our
time it is different, or rather it has been
different.  I am glad to think that we of the
Scotch Church are emancipated from the fear
of Rome; and I am of opeenion that with
the advancing times they are in the right who
advocate a little moderation in the way of
applying and exacting the Standards.  No,
no; I am not for bigotry.  I assure ye, Miss
Mary, ye will find far fewer bigots in Scotland
than people say."

"I have not met any, sir," remarks Miss Mary.

"I tell ye what," said he, solemnly; "I am
told on good authority that there is a
movement among the U. P. Presbytery to send up
to the Synod a sort of memorial with regard
to the Subordinate Standards—that is, ye
know, the Westminster Confession of Faith
and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms—just
hinting, in a mild sort of way, that these are
of human composition, and necessarily
imperfect; and that a little amount of—of——"

The Laird could not bring himself to pronounce
the word "laxity."  He stammered and
hesitated, and at last said—

"Well; a little judeecious liberality of
construction—do ye see?—on certain points is
admissible, while clearly defining other points on
which the Church will not admit of question.
However, as I was saying, we have little fear
of Popery in the Presbyterian Church now;
and ye would have no need to fear it in your
English Church if the English people were
not so sorely wanting in humour.  If they had
any sense of fun they would have laughed
those millinery, play-acting people out o' their
Church long ago——"

But at this moment it suddenly strikes the
Laird that a fair proportion of the people he
is addressing are of the despised English race;
and he hastily puts in a disclaimer.

"I meant the clergy, of course," says he,
most unblushingly, "the English clergy, as
having no sense of humour at all—none at
all.  Dear me, what a stupid man I met at
Dunoon last year!  There were some people
on board the steamer talking about Homesh—ye
know, he was known to every man who
travelled up and down the Clyde—and they
told the English clergyman about Homesh
wishing he was a stot.  'Wishing he was a
what?' says he.  Would ye believe it, it took
about ten meenutes to explain the story to
him bit by bit; and at the end of it his face
was as blank as a bannock before it is put on
the girdle!"

We could see the laughter brimming in the
Laird's eyes; he was thinking either of the
stot or some other story about Homesh.  But
his reverence for Sunday prevailed.  He fell
back on the Standards; and was most anxious
to assure Miss Avon that, if ever she were to
live in Scotland, she would suffer no persecution
at all, even though she still determined
to belong to the Episcopal Church.

"We have none in the neighbourhood of
Strathgovan," he remarked, quite simply; "but
ye could easily drive in to Glasgow"—and he
did not notice the quick look of surprise and
inquiry that Angus Sutherland immediately
directed from the one to the other.  But Mary
Avon was poking down.

It was a long pull; but by and by the
features of the distant island became clearer;
and we made out an indentation that probably
meant a creek of some sort.  But what was
our surprise, as we drew nearer and nearer to
what we supposed to be an uninhabited island,
to find the topmast of a vessel appearing over
some rocks that guard the entrance to the
bay?  As we pulled into the still waters, and
passed the heavy black smack lying at anchor,
perhaps the two solitary creatures in charge
of her were no less surprised at the appearance
of strangers in these lonely waters.  They
came ashore just as we landed.  They explained,
in more or less imperfect English, that
they were lobster-fishers; and that this was a
convenient haven tor their smack, while they
pulled in their small boat round the shores to
look after the traps.  And if—when the Laird
was not looking—his hostess privately negotiated
for the sale of half-a-dozen live lobsters,
and if young Smith also took a quiet opportunity
of inquiring about the favourite resorts
of the seals; what then?  Mice will play
when they get the chance.  The Laird was
walking on with Mary Avon; and was telling
her about the Culdees.

And all the time we wandered about the
deserted island, and explored its ruins, and
went round its bays, the girl kept almost
exclusively with the Laird, or with her other
and gentle friend; and Angus had but little
chance of talking to her or walking with her.
He was left pretty much alone.  Perhaps he
was not greatly interested in the ecclesiastical
remains.  But he elicited from the two lobster-fishers
that the hay scattered on the floor of
the chapel was put there by fishermen, who
used the place to sleep in when they came to
the island.  And they showed him the curious
tombstone of the saint, with its sculptured
elephant and man on horseback.  Then he
went away by himself to trace out the remains
of a former civilisation on the island; the
withered stumps of a blackthorn hedge, and
the abundant nettle.  A big rat ran out; the
only visible tenant of the crumbled habitation.

Meanwhile the others had climbed to the
summit of the central hill; and behold! all
around the smooth bays were black and shining
objects, like the bladders used on fishermen's
nets.  But these moved this way and that;
sometimes there was a big splash as one
disappeared.  The Youth sate and regarded this
splendid hunting-ground with a breathless
interest.

"I'm thinking ye ought to get your sealskin
to-morrow, Miss Mary," says the Laird, for
once descending to worldly things.

"Oh, I hope no one will be shot for me!"
she said.  "They are such gentle creatures."

"But young men will be young men, ye
know," said he, cheerfully.  "When I was
Howard's age, and knew I had a gun within
reach, a sight like that would have made
my heart jump."

"Yes," said the nephew; "but you never do
have a sight like that when you have a
rifle within reach."

"Wait till to-morrow—wait till to-morrow,"
said the Laird, cheerfully.  "And now we will
go down to the boat.  It is a long pull back to
the yacht."

But the Laird's nephew got even more savage
as we rowed back in the calm, pale twilight.
Those wild duck would go whirring by within
easy shot—apparently making away to the
solitudes of Loch Swen.  Then that greyish-yellow
thing on the rocks—could it be a sheep?
We watched it for several minutes, as the gig
went by in the dusk; then, with a heavy
plunge or two, the seal floundered down and
into the water.  The splash echoed through
the silence.

"Did you ever see the like of that?" the
Youth exclaimed, mortified beyond endurance.
"Did you ever?  As big as a cow!  And as
sure as you get such a chance, it is Sunday!"

"I am very glad," says Miss Avon.  "I
hope no one will shoot a seal on my account."

"The seal ought to be proud to have such a
fate," said the Laird, gallantly.  "Ye are
saving him from a miserable and lingering
death of cold, or hunger, or old age.  And
whereas in that case nobody would care
anything or see anything more about him, ye
give him a sort of immortality in your
dining-room, and ye are never done admiring
him.  A proud fellow he ought to be.  And if
the seals about here are no very fine in their
skins, still it would be a curiosity, and at
present we have not one at all at Denny-mains."

Again this reference to Denny-mains:
Angus Sutherland glanced from one to the
other; but what could he see in the dusk?

Then we got back to the yacht: what a
huge grey ghost she looked in the gloom!
And as we were all waiting to get down the
companion, Angus Sutherland put his hand on
his hostess's arm, and stayed her.

"You must be wrong," said he, simply.  "I
have offended her somehow.  She has not
spoken ten words to me to-day."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`HIDDEN SPRINGS`:

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   CHAPTER XV.


.. class:: center medium bold

   HIDDEN SPRINGS.

.. vspace:: 2

"Well, perhaps it is better, after all," says a
certain person, during one of those opportunities
for brief conjugal confidences that are
somewhat rare on board ship.  She sighs as
she speaks.  "I thought it was going to be
otherwise.  But it will be all the better for
Angus not to marry for some years to come.
He has a great future before him; and a wife
would really be an encumbrance.  Young
professional men should never marry; their
circumstances keep on improving, but they
can't improve their wives."

All this is very clear and sensible.  It is not
always that this person talks in so matter-of-fact
a way.  If, however, everything has turned
out for the best, why this sudden asperity with
which she adds—

"But I did not expect it of Mary."

And then again—

"She might at least be civil to him."

"She is not uncivil to him.  She only avoids
him."

"I consider that her open preference for
Howard Smith is just a little bit too
ostentatious," she says, in rather an injured way.
"Indeed, if it comes to that, she would appear
to prefer the Laird to either of them.  Any
stranger would think she wanted to marry
Denny-mains himself."

"Has it ever occurred to you," is the
respectful question, "that a young woman—say
once in a century—may be in that state of
mind in which she would prefer not to marry
anybody?"

Abashed?  Not a bit of it!  There is a
calm air of superiority on her face: she is
above trifles and taunts.

"If unmarried women had any sense," she
says, "that would be their normal state of
mind."

And she might have gone on enlarging on
this text, only that at this moment Mary Avon
comes along from the ladies' cabin; and the
morning greetings take place between the two
women.  Is it only a suspicion that there is a
touch of coldness in the elder woman's manner?
Is it possible that her love for Mary Avon may
be decreasing by ever so little a bit?

Then Angus comes down the companion:
he has got some wild flowers; he has been
ashore.  And surely he ought to give them to
the younger of the two women: she is of the
age when such pretty compliments are a natural
thing.  But no.  The flowers are for his
hostess—for the decoration of her table; and
Mary Avon does not look up as they are
handed along.

Then young Mr. Smith makes his appearance;
he has been ashore too.  And his
complaints and protests fill the air.

"Didn't I tell you?" he says, appealing
more especially to the women-folk for
sympathy.  "Didn't I tell you?  You saw all
those golden plover yesterday, and the wild
duck further up the loch: there is not a sign of
one of them!  I knew it would be so.  As sure
as Monday begins, you never get a chance!
I will undertake to say that when we get to
those islands where all the seals were yesterday,
we sha'n't see one to-day!"

"But are we to stop here a whole day in
order to let you go and shoot seals?" says his
hostess.

"You can't help it," says he, laughing.
"There isn't any wind."

"Angus," she says—as if nobody knew
anything about the wind but the young
Doctor—"is that so?"

"Not a doubt of it," he says.  "But it is a
beautiful day.  You might make up a luncheon-party,
and have a pic-nic by the side of the
Saint's Well—down in the hollow, you know."

"Much chance I shall have with the seals,
then!" remarks the other young man,
good-naturedly enough.

However, it is enough that the suggestion
has come from Angus Sutherland.  A pic-nic
on the Island of the Saints is forthwith
commanded—seals or no seals.  And while Master
Fred, immediately after breakfast, begins his
preparations, the Laird helps by carefully
putting a corkscrew in his pocket.  It is his
invariable custom.  We are ready for any
emergency.

And if the golden plover, and mergansers,
and seals appear to know that the new,
busy, brisk working-days have begun again,
surely we ought to know it too.  Here are the
same silent shores; and the calm blue seas
and blue sky; and the solitary islands in the
south—all just as they were yesterday; but we
have a secret sense that the lassitude and
idleness of Sunday are over, and that there is
something of freedom in the air.  The Laird
has no longer any need to keep a check on his
tongue: those stories about Homesh may
bubble up to the surface of his mind just as
they please.  And indeed he is exceedingly
merry and facetious as the preparations go on
for this excursion.  When at length he gets
into the stern of the boat he says to his
companion—

   |  *"There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,*
   |  *And Mary Avon, and me.*

—What ails ye, lass?  I have not heard much
of your singing of late."

"You would not have me sing profane songs
on Sunday?" she says, demurely.

"No; but I mean long before Sunday.
However," he says, cheerfully, and looking at
her, "there is a wonderful change in
ye—wonderful!  Well do I mind the day I first
saw ye, on the quay; though it seems a long
time since then.  Ye were a poor white bit
thing then; I was astonished; and the next
day too, when ye were lame as well, I said to
myself, 'Well; it's high time that bit lass had
a breath o' the sea air.'  And now—why ye
just mind me o' the lasses in the Scotch
songs—the country lasses, ye know—with the fine
colour on your face."

And indeed this public statement did not
tend to decrease the sun-brown that now tinged
Mary Avon's cheeks.

"These lads," said he—no doubt referring to
his nephew and to Angus Sutherland, who
were both labouring at the long oars—"are
much too attentive to ye, putting ye under the
shadow of the sails, and bringing ye parasols
and things like that.  No, no; don't you be
afraid of getting sun-burned; it is a comely
and wholesome thing: is it not reasonable that
human beings need the sunlight as much as
plants?  Just ask your friend Dr. Sutherland
that; though a man can guess as much without
a microscope.  Keep ye in the sun, Miss
Mary; never mind the brown on your cheeks,
whatever the young men say: I can tell ye ye
are looking a great deal better now than when
ye stepped on shore—a shilpit pale bit thing—on
that afternoon."

Miss Avon had not been in the habit of
receiving lectures like this about her
complexion, and she seemed rather confused; but
fortunately the measured noise of the rowlocks
prevented the younger men from overhearing.

   |  *"There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,*
   |  *And Mary Avon, and me."—*

continued the Laird, in his facetious way; and
he contentedly patted the hand of the girl
beside him.  "I fear I am growing very fond
of idleness."

"I am sure, sir, you are so busy during the
rest of the year," says this base flatterer, "that
you should be able to enjoy a holiday with a
clear conscience."

"Well, perhaps so—perhaps so," said the
Laird, who was greatly pleased.  "And yet,
let one work as hard as one can, it is singular
how little one can do, and what little thanks ye
get for doing it.  I am sure those people in
Strathgovan spend half their lives in
fault-finding; and expect ye to do everything they
can think of without asking them for a farthing.
At the last meeting of the ratepayers in the
Burgh Hall I heckled them, I can tell ye.  I
am not a good speaker—no, no; far from it;
but I can speak plain.  I use words that can
be driven into people's heads; and I will say
this, that some o' those people in Strathgovan
have a skull of most extraordinar' thickness.
But said I to them, 'Do ye expect us to work
miracles?  Are we to create things out of
nothing?  If the rates are not to be increased,
where are the new gas-lamps to come from?
Do ye think we can multiply gas-lamps as the
loaves and fishes were multiplied?'  I'm
thinking," added the Laird, with a burst of
hearty laughter, "that the thickest-skulled of
them all understood that—eh?"

"I should hope so," remarked Miss Avon.

Then the measured rattle of the oars: it
wants hard pulling against this fiercely running
tide; indeed, to cheat it in a measure, we have
to keep working along the coast and across
the mouth of Loch Swen.

   |  *"There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton,*
   |  *And Mary Avon, and me"—*

says the Laird, as a playful introduction to
another piece of talking.  "I have been asking
myself once or twice whether I know any one in
the whole kingdom of Scotland better than you."

"Than me, sir?" she says, with a start of
surprise.

"Yes," he says, sententiously.  "That is
so.  And I have had to answer myself in the
naygative.  It is wonderful how ye get to
know a person on board a yacht.  I just feel
as if I had spent years and years with ye;
so that there is not any one I know with
whom I am better acquaint.  When ye come
to Denny-mains, I shall be quite disappointed
if ye look surprised or strange to the place.
I have got it into my head that ye must
have lived there all your life.  Will ye
undertake to say," he continues, in the same airy
manner, "that ye do not know the little
winding path that goes up through the trees
to the flag-staff—eh?"

"I'm afraid I don't remember it," she says,
with a smile.

"Wait till ye see the sunsets ye can see
from there!" he says, proudly.  "We can see
right across Glasgow to Tennants' Stalk; and
in the afternoon the smoke is all turning red
and brown with the sunset—many's and many's
the time I have taken Tom Galbraith to the
hill, and asked him whether they have finer
sunsets at Naples or Venice.  No, no; give
me fire and smoke and meestery for a strong
sunset.  But just the best time of the year,
as ye'll find out"—and here he looked in a
kindly way at the girl—"where there is a
bit wood near the house, is the spring-time.
When ye see the primroses and the blue-bells
about the roots of the trees—when ye see
them so clear and bright among the red of
the withered leaves—well, ye cannot help
thinking about some of our old Scotch songs,
and there's something in that that's just like
to bring the tears to your een.  We have a
wonderful and great inheritance in these songs,
as ye'll find out, my lass.  You English know
only of Burns; but a Scotchman, who is
familiar with the ways and the feelings and
the speech of the peasantry, has a sort o'
uncomfortable impression that Burns is at
times just a bit artifeecial and
leeterary—especially when he is masquerading in fine
English; though at other times ye get the
real lilt—what a man would sing to himself
when he was all alone at the plough, in the
early morning, and listening to the birds
around him.  But there are others that we
are proud of, too—Tannahill, and John Mayne,
that wrote about *Logan Braes*; and Hogg,
and Motherwell: I'm sure o' this, that when
ye read Motherwell's *Jeanie Morrison*, ye'll
no be able to go on for greetin'."

"I beg your pardon?" said Miss Avon.

But the Laird is too intent on recalling some
of the lines to notice that she has not quite
understood him.

"They were school-mates," he says, in an
absent way.  "When school was over, they
wandered away like lad and lass; and he
writes the poem in after-life, and speaks to
her he has never seen since.

   |  *"Oh, mind ye, love, how oft we left*
   |    *The deavin' dinsome toun,*
   |  *To wander by the green burn-side,*
   |    *And hear its water croon?*
   |  *The simmer leaves hung ower our heads,*
   |    *The flowers burst round our feet;*
   |  *And in the gloamin' o the wood*
   |    *The throssil whistled sweet.*
   |
   |      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*
   |
   |  *"And on the knowe aboon the burn*
   |    *For hours thegither sat*
   |  *In the silentness o' joy, till baith*
   |    *Wi' very gladness grat!*
   |  *Aye, aye, dear Jeanie Morrison,*
   |    *Tears trinkled down your cheek,*
   |  *Like dew-beads on a rose, yet nane*
   |    *Had ony power to speak!"*

The Laird's voice faltered for a moment; but
he pretended he had great difficulty in
remembering the poem, and confessed that he
must have mixed up the verses.  However,
he said he remembered the last one.

   |  *"O dear, dear Jeanie Morrison,*
   |    *Since we were sundered young,*
   |  *I've never seen your face, nor heard*
   |    *The music of your tongue;*
   |  *But I could hug all wretchedness,*
   |    *And happy could I dee,*
   |  *Did I but ken your heart still dreamed*
   |    *O' bygane days and me!"*
   |

Just as he finished, the old Laird turned
aside his head.  He seemed to be suddenly
interested in something over at the mouth of
Loch Swen.  Then he quickly passed his red
silk handkerchief across his face, and said, in
a gay manner—though he was still looking in
that alien direction—

"This is a desperate hard pull.  We had
nothing like this yesterday.  But it will do
the lads good; it will take the stiffness out
of their backs."

However, one of the lads—to wit, the Laird's
nephew—admitted at length that he had had
quite enough of it, and gave up his oar to
the man he had relieved.  Then he came into
the stern, and was very pleasant and talkative;
and said he had quite made up his mind to
find all the seals gone from the shores of
the sacred island.

So formidable, indeed, was the tide, that we
had to keep well away to the south of the
island before venturing to make across for it;
and when at length we did put the bow straight
for the little harbour, the mid-channel current
swept us away northward, as if the gig had
been a bit of cork.  But the four oars kept
manfully to their work; and by dint of hard
pulling and pertinacious steering we managed
to run into the little bay.

We found it quite deserted.  The two
lobster-fishers had left in the morning; we
were in sole possession of this lonely island,
set amid the still summer seas.

But by this time it was nearly noon; and
so it was arranged that the men of the party
should content themselves with a preliminary
expedition, to find out, by stealthy crawlings
out to the various bays, where the seals were
chiefly congregated; while the women were
to remain by the Saints' Well, to help Fred
to get luncheon spread out and arranged.  And
this was done; and thus it happened that,
after Master Fred had finished his work, and
retired down to his mates in the gig, the two
women-folk were left alone.

"Why, Mary," said the one of them, quite
cheerfully (as we afterwards heard), "it is quite
a long time since you and I had a chat together."

"Yes, it is."

"One gets so often interfered with on board,
you know.  Aren't you going to begin now
and make a sketch?"

She had brought with her her sketching
materials; but they were lying unopened on
a rock hard by.

"No, I think not," she said, listlessly.

"What is the matter with you?" said her
kind friend, pretending to laugh at her.  "I
believe you are fretting over the loss of the
money, after all."

"Oh, no: I hope you do not think I am
fretting!" said she, anxiously.  "No one has
said that?  I am really quite content—I am
very—happy."

She managed to say the word.

"I am very glad to hear it," said her friend;
"but I have a great mind to scold you all
the same."

The girl looked up.  Her friend went over
to her, and sate down beside her, and took
her hand in hers.

"Don't be offended, Mary," she said,
good-naturedly.  "I have no right to interfere;
but Angus is an old friend of mine.  Why do
you treat him like that?"

The girl looked at her with a sort of quick,
frightened, inquiring glance; and then said—as
if she were almost afraid to hear herself
speak—

"Has he spoken to you?"

"Yes.  Now don't make a mole-hill into
a mountain, Mary.  If he has offended you, tell
him.  Be frank with him.  He would not vex
you for the world: do you think he would?"

The girl's hand was beginning to tremble a
good deal; and her face was white, and piteous.

"If you only knew him as well as I do,
you would know he is as gentle as a child:
he would not offend any one.  Now, you will
be friends with him again, Mary?"

The answer was a strange one.  The girl
broke into a fit of wild crying, and hid her
face in her friend's bosom, and sobbed there
so that her whole frame was shaken with the
violence of her misery.

"Mary, what is it?" said the other, in great
alarm.

Then, by and by, the girl rose, and went
away over to her sketching materials for a
minute or two.  Then she returned: her face
still rather white, but with a certain cold and
determined look on it.

"It is all a mistake," said she, speaking
very distinctly.  "Dr. Sutherland has not
offended me in the least: please tell him so
if he speaks again.  I hope we shall always
be good friends."

She opened out her colour-box.

"And then," said she, with an odd laugh,
"before you think I have gone crazed, please
remember it isn't every day one loses such
an enormous fortune as mine."

She began to get her other sketching things
ready.  And she was very cheerful about it,
and very busy; and she was heard to be
singing to herself—

   |  *Then fill up a bumper: what can I do less*
   |  *Than drink to the health of my bonny Black Bess?*

But her friend, when by chance she turned
her head a little bit, perceived that the pale
and piteous face was still wet with tears; and
the praises of Black Bess did not wholly
deceive her.

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END OF VOL. II.

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LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, BREAD STREET HILL.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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   NOVELS BY WILLIAM BLACK.

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MACLEOD OF DARE.
THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON.
A PRINCESS OF THULE.
MADCAP VIOLET.
GREEN PASTURES AND PICCADILLY.
THE MAID OF KILLEENA, and other Tales.

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MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON.

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