CHAPTER VIII. “O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!”

CONSIDER what a task this unhappy man Ingram had voluntarily undertaken! Here were two young people presumably in love. One of them was laid under suspicion by several previous love affairs, though none of these, doubtless, had been so serious as the present. The other scarcely knew her own mind, or, perhaps, was afraid to question herself too closely, lest all the conflict between duty and inclination, with its fears and anxieties and troubles, should be too suddenly revealed. Moreover, this girl was the only daughter of a solitary and irascible old gentleman living in a remote island; and Ingram had not only undertaken that the love affairs of the young folks should come all right—thus assuming a responsibility which might have appalled the bravest—but was also expected to inform the King of Borva that his daughter was about to be taken away from him.

Of course, if Sheila had been a properly brought up young lady, nothing of this sort would have been necessary. We all know what the properly brought up young lady does under such circumstances. She goes straight to her papa and mamma and says, “My dear papa and mamma, I have been taught by my various instructors that I ought to have no secrets from my dear parents; and I therefore hasten to lay aside any little shyness or modesty or doubt of my own wishes I might feel, for the purpose of explaining to you the extent to which I have become a victim to the tender passion, and of soliciting your advice. I also place before you these letters I have received from the gentleman in question: probably they were sent in confidence to me, but I must banish any scruples that do not coincide with my duty to you. I may say that I respect, and even admire Mr. So-and-So; and I should be unworthy of the care bestowed upon my education by my dear parents, if I were altogether insensible to the advantages of his worldly position. But beyond this point I am at a loss to define my sentiments; and so I ask you, my dear papa and mamma, for permission to study the question for some little time longer, when I may be able to furnish you with a more accurate report of my feelings. At the same time, if the interest I have in this young man is likely to conflict with the duty I owe to my dear parents, I ask to be informed of the fact; and I shall then teach myself to guard against the approach of that insidious passion which might make me indifferent to the higher calls and interests of life.”

Happy the man who marries such a woman! No agonizing quarrels and delirious reconciliations, no piteous entreaties, and fits of remorse, and impetuous self-sacrifices await him, but a beautiful, methodical, placid life, as calm and accurate, and steadily progressive as the multiplication table. His household will be a miracle of perfect arrangement. The relations between the members of it will be as strictly defined as the pattern of the paper on the walls. And how can a quarrel arise when a dissecter of the emotions is close at hand to say where the divergence of opinion or interest began. And how can a fit of jealousy be provoked in the case of a person who will split up her affections into fifteen parts, give ten-fifteenths to her children, three-fifteenths to her parents, and the remainder to her husband? Should there be any dismal fractions going about, friends and acquaintances may come in for them.

But how was Sheila to go to her father and explain to him what she could not explain to herself? She had never dreamed of marriage. She had never thought of having to leave Borva and her father’s house. But she had some vague feeling that in the future lay many terrible possibilities that she did not as yet dare to look at—until, at least, she was more satisfied as to the present. And how could she go to her father with such a chaos of unformed wishes and fears to place before him? That such a duty should have devolved upon Ingram was certainly odd enough, but it was not her doing. His knowledge of the position of these young people was not derived from her. But, having got it, he had himself asked her to leave the whole affair in his hands, with that kindness and generosity which had more than once filled her heart with an unspeakable gratitude toward him.

“Well, you are a good fellow!” said Lavender to him, when he heard of this decision.

“Bah!” said the other with a shrug of his shoulders, “I mean to amuse myself. I shall move you about like pieces on a chess-board, and have a pretty game with you. How to checkmate the king with a knight and a princess in any number of moves you like—that is the problem; and my princess has a strong power over the king where she is just now.”

“It’s an uncommonly awkward business, you know, Ingram,” said Lavender, ruefully.

“Well, it is. Old Mackenzie is a tough old fellow to deal with, and you’ll do no good by making a fight of it. Wait! Difficulties don’t look so formidable when you take them one by one as they turn up. If you really love the girl, and mean to take your chance of getting her, and if she cares enough for you to sacrifice a good deal for your sake, there is nothing to fear.”

“I can answer for myself, anyway,” said Lavender, in a tone of voice that Ingram rather liked; the young man did not always speak with the same quietness, thoughtfulness, and modesty.

And how naturally and easily it came about, after all! They were back again at Borva. They had driven around and about Lewis, and had finished up with Stornoway; and, now that they had got back to the island in Loch Roag, the quaint little drawing-room had, even to Lavender, a homely and friendly look. The big stuffed fishes and the sponge shells were old acquaintances; and he went to hunt up Sheila’s music just as if he had known that dusky corner for years.

“Yes, yes,” called Mackenzie, “it iss the English songs we will try now.”

He had a notion that he was himself rather a good hand at a part song—just as Sheila had innocently taught him to believe that he was a brilliant whist player when he had mastered the art of returning his partner’s lead—but fortunately at this moment he was engaged with a long pipe and a big tumbler of hot whisky and water. Ingram was similarly employed, lying back in a cane-bottomed easy-chair, and placidly watching the smoke ascending to the roof. Sometimes he cast an eye to the young folks at the other end of the room. They formed a pretty sight, he thought. Lavender was a good-looking fellow enough, and there was something pleasing in the quiet and assiduous fashion in which he waited upon Sheila, and in the almost timid way in which he spoke to her. Sheila herself sat at the piano, clad all in slate-gray silk, with a narrow band of scarlet velvet around her neck; and it was only by a chance turning of the head that Ingram caught the tender and handsome profile, broken only by the onward sweep of the long eyelashes.

“Love in thine eyes for ever plays,”

Sheila sang, with her father keeping time by patting his forefinger on the table.

“He in thy snowy bosom strays,”

sang Lavender; and then the two voices joined together:

“He makes thy rosy lips his care,
And walks the mazes of thy hair.”

Or were there not three voices? Surely, from the back part of the room the musicians could hear a wandering bass come in from time to time, especially at such portions as “Ah, he never—ah, he never touched thy heart!” which old Mackenzie considered very touching. But there was something quaint and friendly and pleasant in the pathos of those English songs, which made them far more acceptable to him than Sheila’s wild and melancholy legends of the sea. He sang “Ah, he never, never touched thy heart!” with an outward expression of grief, but with much inward satisfaction. Was it the quaint phraseology of the old duets that awoke in him some faint ambition after histrionic effect? At all events, Sheila proceeded to another of his favorites, “All’s Well,” and here, amid the brisk music, the old man had an excellent opportunity of striking in at random

The careful watch patrols the deck
To guard the ship from foes or wreck.

These two lines he had absolutely mastered, and always sang them, whatever might be the key he happened to light on, with great vigor. He soon went to the length of improvising a part for himself in the closing passages, and laid down his pipe altogether as he sang—

What cheer? Brother, quickly tell!
Above! Below! Good-night! All, all’s well!

From that point, however, Sheila and her companion wandered away into fields of melody whither the King of Borva could not follow them; so he was content to resume his pipe and listen placidly to the pretty airs. He caught but bits and fragments of phrases and sentiments, but they evidently were comfortable, merry, good-natured songs for the young folks to sing. There was a good deal of love-making, and rosy morns appearing, and merry zephyrs, and such odd things, which, sung briskly and gladly by two young and fresh voices, rather drew the hearts of contemplative listeners to the musicians.

“They sing very well, whatever,” said Mackenzie with a critical air to Ingram, when the young people were so busily engaged with their own affairs as apparently to forget the presence of the others. “Oh yes, they sing very well whatever; and what should the young folks sing about but making love and courting, and all that?”

“Natural enough,” said Ingram, looking rather wistfully at the two at the other end of the room. “I suppose Sheila will have a sweetheart some day?”

“Oh, yes, Sheila will hef a sweetheart some day,” said her father, good-humoredly. “Sheila is a good-looking girl; she will hef a sweetheart some day.”

“She will be marrying, too, I suppose,” said Ingram cautiously.

“Oh, yes, she will marry—Sheila will marry; what will be the life of a young girl if she does not marry?”

At this moment, as Ingram afterward described it, a sort of “flash of inspiration” darted in upon him, and he resolved there and then to brave the wrath of the old king, and place all the conspiracy before him, if only the music kept loud enough to prevent his being overheard.

“It will be hard on you to part with Sheila when she marries,” said Ingram, scarcely daring to look up.

“Oh, ay, it will be that,” said Mackenzie, cheerfully enough. “But it iss every one will hef to do that, and no great harm comes of it. Oh, no, it will not be much whatever; and Sheila, she will be very glad in a little while after, and it will be enough for me to see that she is ferry contented and happy. The young folk must marry, you will see; and what is the use of marrying if it is not when they are young? But Sheila, she will think of none of these things. It was young Mr. MacIntyre of Sutherland—you hef seen him last year in Stornoway; he has three thousand acres of a deer forest in Sutherland—and he will be ferry glad to marry my Sheila. But I will say to him, ‘It is not for me to say yes or no to you, Mr. MacIntyre: it is Sheila herself will tell you that.’ But he was afraid to speak to her; and Sheila herself will know nothing of why he came twice to Borva the last year.”

“It is very good of you to leave Sheila quite unbiased in her choice,” said Ingram: “many fathers would have been sorely tempted by that deer forest.”

Old Mackenzie laughed a loud laugh of derision that fortunately did not stop Lavender’s execution of “I would that my love would silently.”

“What the teffle,” said Mackenzie, “hef I to want a deer forest for my Sheila? Sheila is no fisherman’s lass. She has plenty for herself, and she will marry just the young man she wants to marry, and no other one; that is what she will do, by Kott!”

All this was most hopeful. If Mackenzie had himself been advocating Lavender’s suit, could he have said more? But, notwithstanding all these frank and generous promises, dealing with a future which the old man considered as indefinitely remote, Ingram was still afraid of the announcement he was about to make.

“Sheila is fortunately situated,” he said, “in having a father who thinks only of her happiness. But I suppose she has never yet shown a preference for any one?”

“Not for any one but yourself,” said her father, with a laugh.

And Ingram laughed, too, but in an embarrassed way, and his sallow face grew darker with a blush. Was there not something painful in the unintentional implication that of course Ingram could not be considered a possible lover of Sheila’s, and that the girl herself was so well aware of it that she could openly testify to her regard for him?

“And it would be a good thing for Sheila,” continued her father, more gravely, “if there was any young man about the Lewis that she would tek a liking to; for it will be some day I can no more look after her, and it would be bad for her to be left alone all by herself in the island.”

“And you don’t think you see before you now some one who might take on him the charge of Sheila’s future?” said Ingram, looking toward Lavender.

“The English gentleman?” said Mackenzie, with a smile. “No, that anyway is not possible.”

“I fancy it is more than possible,” said Ingram, resolved to go straight at it. “I know for a fact that he would like to marry your daughter, and I think that Sheila, without knowing it herself almost, is well inclined toward him.”

The old man started up from his chair: “Eh? what! my Sheila?”

“Yes, papa,” said the girl, turning around at once.

She caught sight of a strange look on his face, and in an instant was by his side; “Papa, what is the matter with you?”

“Nothing, Sheila, nothing,” he said, impatiently. “I am a little tired of the music, that is all. But go on with the music. Go back to the piano, Sheila, and go on with the music, and Mr. Ingram and me, we will go outside for a little while.”

Mackenzie walked out of the room, and said aloud in the hall, “Ay, are you coming, Mr. Ingram? It iss a fine night, this night, and the wind is in a very good way for the weather.”

And then, as he went out to the front, he hummed aloud, so that Sheila should hear:

Who goes there? Stranger, quickly tell!
A friend! The word? Good-night! All’s well!
All’s well! Good-night! All’s well!

Ingram followed the old man outside with a somewhat guilty conscience suggesting odd things to him. Would it not be possible now to shut one’s ears for the next half hour? Angry words were only little perturbations in the air. If you shut your ears till they were all over, what harm could be done? All the big facts of life would remain the same. The sea, the sky, the hills, the human beings around you, even your desire of sleep for the night, and your wholesome longing for breakfast in the morning, would all remain, and the angry words would have passed away. But perhaps it was a proper punishment that he should now go out and bear all the wrath of this fierce old gentleman, whose daughter he had conspired to carry off. Mackenzie was walking up and down the path outside, in the cool and silent night. There was not much moon now, but a clear and lambent twilight showed all the familiar features of Loch Roag and the Southern hills, and down there in the bay you could vaguely make out the Maighdean-mharra rocking in the tiny waves that washed in on the white shore. Ingram had never looked on this pretty picture with a less feeling of delight!

“Well, you see, Mr. Mackenzie,” he was beginning, “you must make this excuse for him—”

But Mackenzie put aside Lavender at once. It was all about Sheila that he wanted to know. There was no anger in his words; only a great anxiety and sometimes an extraordinary and pathetic effort to take a philosophical view of the situation. What had Sheila said? Was Sheila deeply interested in the young man? Would it please Sheila if he was to go in-doors and give at once his free consent to her marrying this Mr. Lavender?

“Oh, you must not think,” said Mackenzie, with a certain loftiness of air, even amidst his great perturbation and anxiety—“you must not think I hef not foreseen all this. It wass some day or other Sheila will be sure to marry; and although I did not expect—no, I did not expect that—that she would marry a stranger and an Englishman, if it will please her, that is enough. You cannot tell a young lass the one she should marry; it iss all a chance the one she likes, and if she does not marry him it is better she will not marry at all. Oh, yes, I know that ferry well. And I hef known there wass a time coming when I would give away my Sheila to some young man; and there iss no use complaining of it. But you hef not told me much about this young man, or I hef forgotten; it is the same thing whatever. He has not much money, you said—he is waiting for some money. Well, this is what I will do, I will give him all my money if he will come and live in the Lewis.”

All the philosophy he had been mustering up fell away from that last sentence. It was like the cry of a drowning man who sees the last lifeboat set out for shore, leaving him to his fate. And Ingram had not a word to say in reply to that piteous entreaty.

“I do not ask him to stop in Borva; no, it iss a small place for one that hass lived in a town. But the Lewis, that is quite different; and there iss very good houses in Stornoway.”

“But, surely, sir,” said Ingram, “you need not consider all this just yet. I am sure neither of them has thought any such thing.”

“No,” said Mackenzie, recovering himself, “perhaps not. But we hef our duties to look at the future of young folks. And you will say that Mr. Lavender hass only expectations of money?”

“Well, the expectation is almost a certainty. His aunt, I have told you, is a very rich old lady, who has no other near relations, and she is extremely fond of him, and would do anything for him. I am sure the allowance he has now is greatly in excels of what she spends on herself.”

“But they might quarrel, you know—they might quarrel. You hef always to look to the future; they might quarrel and what will he do then?”

“Why, you don’t suppose he couldn’t support himself if the worst were to come to the worst? He is an amazingly clever fellow—”

“Ah, that is very good,” said Mackenzie in a cautious sort of way, “but has he ever made any money?”

“Oh, I fancy not—nothing to speak of. He has sold some pictures, but I think he has given more away.”

“Then it iss not easy, tek my word for it, Mr. Ingram, to begin a new trade when you are twenty-five years of age, and the people who will tek your pictures for nothing, will they pay for them if you wanted the money?”

It was obviously the old man’s eager wish to prove to himself that, somehow or other, Lavender might come to have no money, and be made dependent on his father-in-law. So far, indeed, from sharing the sentiments ordinarily attributed to that important relative, he would have welcomed with a heartfelt joy the information that the man who, as he expected, was about to marry his daughter, was absolutely penniless. Not even all the attractions of that deer forest in Sutherlandshire—particularly fascinating as they must have been to a man of his education and surroundings—had been able to lead the old King of Borva even into hinting to his daughter that the owner of that property would like to marry her. Sheila was to choose for herself. She was not like a fisherman’s lass, bound to consider ways and means. And now that she had chosen, or at least indicated the possibility of her doing so, her father’s chief desire was that his future son-in-law should come and take and enjoy his money, so only that Sheila might not be carried away from him forever.

“Well, I will see about it,” said Mackenzie, with an affectation of cheerful and practical shrewdness. “Oh, yes, I will see about it when Sheila has made up her mind. He is a very good young man, whatever—”

“He is the best-hearted fellow I know,” said Ingram, warmly. “I don’t think Sheila has much to fear if she marries him. If you had known him as long as I have, you would know how considerate he is to everybody about him, how generous he is, how good-natured and cheerful, and so forth; in short, he is a thorough good fellow, and that’s what I have to say about him.”

“It iss well for him he will hef such a champion,” said Mackenzie, with a smile; “there is not many Sheila will pay attention to as she does to you.”

They went indoors again, Ingram scarcely knowing how he had got so easily through the ordeal, but very glad it was over.

Sheila was still at the piano, and on their entering she said, “Papa, here is a song you must learn to sing with me.”

“And what iss it, Sheila?” he said, going over to her.

“ ‘Time has not thinned my flowing hair.’ ”

He put his hand on her head and said, “I hope it will be a long time before he will thin your hair, Sheila.”

The girl looked up surprised. Scotch folks are, as a rule, somewhat reticent in their display of affection, and it was not often that her father talked to her in that way. What was there in his face that made her glance instinctively toward Ingram. Somehow or other her hand sought her father’s hand, and she rose and went away from the piano, with her head bent down and tears beginning to tell in her eyes.

“Yes, that is a capital song,” said Ingram, loudly. “Sing ‘The Arethusa,’ Lavender—‘Said the saucy Arethusa.’ ”

Lavender, knowing what had taken place, and not daring to follow with his eyes Sheila and her father, who had gone to the other end of the room, sang the song. Never was a gallant and devil-may-care sea-song sung so hopelessly without spirit. But the piano made a noise, and the verses took up time. When he had finished he almost feared to turn around, and yet there was nothing dreadful in the picture that presented itself. Sheila was sitting on her father’s knee, with her head buried in his bosom, while he was patting her head and talking in a low voice to her. The King of Borva did not look particularly fierce.

“Yes, it iss a teffle of a good song,” he said, suddenly. “Now get up, Sheila, and go and tell Mairi we will have a bit of bread and cheese before going to bed. And there will be a little hot water wanted in the other room, for this room it iss too full of the smoke.”

Sheila, as she went out of the room, had her head cast down, and, perhaps, an extra tinge of color in her young and pretty face. But surely, Lavender thought to himself as he watched her anxiously, she did not look grieved. As for her father, what should he do now? Turn suddenly around and beg Mackenzie’s pardon, and throw himself on his generosity? When he did, with much inward trembling, venture to approach the old man, he found no such explanation possible. The King of Borva was in one of his grandest moods—dignified, courteous, cautious, and yet inclined to treat everybody and everything with a sort of lofty good humor. He spoke to Lavender in the most friendly way, but it was about the singular and startling fact that modern research had proved many of the Roman legends to be utterly untrustworthy. Mr. Mackenzie observed that the man was wanting in proper courage who feared to accept the results of such inquiries. It was better that we should know the truth, and then the kings who had really made Rome great might emerge from the fog of tradition in their proper shape. There was something quite sympathetic in the way he talked of those ill-treated sovereigns, whom the vulgar mind had clothed in mist.

Lavender was sorely beset by the rival claims of Rome and Borva upon his attention. He was inwardly inclined to curse Numa Pompilius—which would have been ineffectual—when he found that personage interfering with a wild effort to discover why Mackenzie should treat him in this way. And then it occurred to him that, as he had never said a word to Mackenzie about this affair, it was too much to expect that Sheila’s father should himself open the subject. On the contrary, Mackenzie was bent on extending a grave courtesy to his guest, so that the latter should not feel ill at ease until it suited himself to make any explanations he might choose. It was not Mackenzie’s business to ask this young man if he wanted to marry Sheila. No. The king’s daughter, if she were to be won at all, was to be won by a suitor; and it was not for her father to be in a hurry about it. So Lavender got back into the region of early Roman history, and tried to recall what he had learned in Livy, and quite coincided with everything that Niebuhr had said or proved, and with everything that Mackenzie thought Niebuhr had said or proved. He was only too glad, indeed, to find himself talking to Sheila’s father in this friendly fashion.

Then Sheila came in and told them that supper was laid in the adjoining room. At that modest meal a great good humor prevailed. Sometimes, it is true, it occurred to Ingram that Sheila occasionally cast an anxious glance to her father, as if she were trying to discover whether he was really satisfied, or whether he were not merely pretending satisfaction to please her; but for the rest the party was a most friendly and merry one. Lavender, naturally enough, was in the highest of spirits, and nothing could exceed the light-hearted endeavors he made to amuse, and interest, and cheer his companions. Sheila, indeed, sat up later than usual, even although pipes were lit again, and the slate-gray silk likely to bear witness to the fact in the morning. How comfortable and homely was this sort of life in the remote stone building overlooking the sea! He began to think that he could live always in Borva if only Sheila were with him as his companion.

Was it an actual fact, then, he asked himself next morning, that he stood confessed to the small world of Borva as Sheila’s accepted lover? Not a word on the subject had passed between Mackenzie and himself, and yet he found himself assuming the position of a younger relative, and rather expecting advice from the old man. He began to take a great interest too, in the local administration of the island. He examined the window-fastenings of Mackenzie’s house, and saw that they would be useful in the winter, and expressed to Sheila’s father his confidential opinion that the girl should not be allowed to go out in the Maighdean-mhara without Duncan.

“She will know as much about boats as Duncan himself,” said her father, with a smile. “But Sheila will not go out when the rough weather begins.”

“Of course, you keep her indoors then,” said the younger man, already assuming some little charge over Sheila’s comfort.

The father laughed aloud at this simplicity on the part of the Englishman:

“If we wass to keep indoors in the bad weather, it would be all the winter we would be indoors! There iss no day at all Sheila will not be out some time or other; and she is never so well as in the hard weather, when she will be out always in the snow and the frost, and hef plenty of exercise and amusement.”

“She is not often ailing, I suppose?” said Lavender.

“She is as strong as a young pony, that’s what Sheila is,” said her father, proudly. “And there’s no one in the island will run so fast, or walk so long without tiring, or carry things from the shore as she will—not one.”

But here he suddenly checked himself. “That is,” he said, with some little expression of annoyance, “I wass saying Sheila could do that if it wass any use; but she will not do such things, like a fisherman’s lass that hass to keep in the work.”

“Oh, of course not,” said Lavender, hastily. “But still, you know, it is pleasant to know she is so strong and well.”

And at this moment Sheila herself appeared, accompanied by her great deerhound, and testifying by the bright color in her face to the assurances of her health her father had been giving. She had just come up and over the hill at Borvapost, while as yet breakfast had not been served. Somehow or other, Lavender fancied she never looked so bright and bold and handsome as in the early morning, with the fresh sea-air tingling the color of her cheeks, and the sunlight shining in the clear eyes or giving from time to time a glimpse of her perfect teeth. But this morning she did not seem quite so frankly merry as usual. She patted her deerhound’s head, and rather kept her eyes away from her father and his companions. And then she took Brass away to give him his breakfast, just as Ingram appeared to bid her good-morning and ask her what she meant by being about so early.

How anxiously Lavender now began to calculate on the remaining days of their stay in Borva! They seemed so few. He got up at preposterously early hours to make each day as long as possible, but it slipped away with a fatal speed; and already he began to think of Stornoway and the Clansman and his bidding good-bye to Sheila. He had said no more to her of any pledge as regarded the future. He was content to see that she was pleased to be with him; and happy indeed were their rambles about the island, their excursions in Sheila’s boat, their visits to the White Water in search of salmon. Nor had he yet spoken to Sheila’s father. He knew that Mackenzie knew, and both seemed to take it for granted that no good could come of a formal explanation until Sheila herself should make her wishes known. That, indeed, was the only aspect of the case that apparently presented itself to the old King of Borva. He forgot altogether those precautions and investigations which are supposed to occupy the mind of a future father-in-law, and only sought to see how Sheila was affected toward the young man who was soon about to leave the island. When he saw her pleased to be walking with Lavender and talking with him of an evening, he was pleased, and would rather have a cold dinner than break in upon them to hurry them home. When he saw her disappointed because Lavender had been unfortunate in his salmon-fishing, he was ready to swear at Duncan for not having had the fish in better temper. And the most of his conversation with Ingram consisted of an endeavor to convince himself that, after all, what had happened was for the best, and that Sheila seemed to be happy.

But somehow or other, when the time for their departure was drawing near, Mackenzie showed a strange desire that his guests should spend the last two days in Stornoway. When Lavender first heard this proposal he glanced towards Sheila, and his face showed clearly his disappointment.

“But Sheila will go with us, too,” said her father, replying to that unuttered protest in the most innocent fashion; and then Lavender’s face brightened again, and he said that nothing would give him greater pleasure than to spend two days in Stornoway.

“And you must not think,” said Mackenzie, anxiously, “that one day or two days or a great many days will show you all the fine things about Stornoway. And if you were to live in Stornoway you would find very good acquaintances and friends there; and in the autumn, when the shooting begins, there are many English who will come up, and there will be ferry great doings at the castle. And there is some gentlemen now at Grimersta whom you hef not seen, and they are ferry fine gentlemen; and at Garra-na-hina there iss two more gentlemen for the salmon-fishing. Oh, there iss a great many fine people in the Lewis, and it is not all as lonely as Borva.”

“If it is half as pleasant a place to live in as Borva, it will do,” said Lavender, with a flush of enthusiasm in his face, as he looked toward Sheila, and saw her pleased and downcast eyes.

“But it iss not to be compared,” said Mackenzie, eagerly. “Borva, that is nothing at all; but the Lewis, it is a ferry different thing to live in the Lewis; and many English gentlemen hef told me they would like to live always in the Lewis.”

“I think I should, too,” said Lavender, lightly and carelessly, little thinking what importance the old man immediately and gladly put upon the admission.

From that moment, Lavender, though unconscious of what had happened, had nothing to fear in the way of opposition from Sheila’s father. If he had there and then boldly asked Mackenzie for his daughter, the old man would have given his consent freely, and bade Lavender to go to Sheila herself.

And so they set sail, one pleasant afternoon, from Borvapost, and the light wind that ruffled the blue of Loch Roag gently filled the mainsail of the Maighdean-mhara as she lightly ran down the tortuous channel.

“I don’t like to go away from Borva,” said Lavender, in a low voice, to Sheila, “but I might have been leaving the island with greater regret, for, you know, I expect to be back soon.”

“We shall always be glad to see you,” said the girl; although he would rather have had her say “I” than “we,” there was something in the tone of her voice that contented him.

At Garra-na-hina, Mackenzie pointed out with a great interest to Lavender a tall man who was going down through some meadows to the Amhuinn Dhubh, “the Black River.” He had a long rod over his shoulder, and behind him, at some distance, followed a shorter man, who carried a gaff and landing-net. Mackenzie anxiously explained to Lavender that the tall figure was that of an Englishman. Lavender accepted the statement. But would he not go down to the river and make his acquaintance! Lavender could not understand why he should be expected to take so great an interest in an ordinary English sportsman.

“Ferry well,” said Mackenzie, a trifle disappointed, “but you would find several of the English in the Lewis if you was living here.”

These two days in Stornoway were very pleasant. On their previous visit to the town, Mackenzie had given up much of his time to business affairs, and was a good deal away from his guests, but now he devoted himself to making them particularly comfortable in the place, and amusing them in every possible way. He introduced Lavender, in especial, to all his friends there, and was most anxious to impress on the young man that life in Stornoway was, on the whole, rather a brilliant affair. Then was there a finer point from which you could start at will for Inverness, Oban, and such great centres of civilization? Very soon there would even be a telegraphic cable laid to the mainland. Was Mr. Lavender aware that frequently you could see the Sutherland hills from this very town of Stornoway?

There Sheila laughed, and Lavender, who kept watching her face always, to read all her fancies and sentiments and wishes in the shifting lights of it, immediately demanded an explanation.

“It is no good thing,” said Sheila, “to see the Sutherland hills often, for when you see them it means to rain.”

But Lavender had not been taught to fear the rain of the Western Isles. The weather seemed to have conspired with Mackenzie to charm the young man with the island. At this moment, for example, they were driving away from Stornoway along the side of the great bay Northward, until it finds its furtherest promontory in Tiumpan Head. What magnificence of color shone around them in the hot sunlight! Where the ruffled blue sea came near the long sweep of yellow sand, it grew to a bright transparent green. The splendid curve of the bay showed a gleaming line of white where the waves broke in masses of hissing foam; and beyond that curve again long promontories of dark red conglomerate ran out into the darker waters of the sea, with their summits shining with the bright sea-grass. Here, close at hand, were warm meadows, with calves and lambs cropping the sweet-scented Dutch clover. A few huts, shaped like bee-hives, stood by the roadside, close by some deep peat cuttings. There was a cutting in the yellow sand of the bay for the pulling up of the captured whales. Now and then you could see a solan dart down from the blue heavens into the deep blue of the sea, sending up a spurt of water twenty feet high as he disappeared; and far onward between the red precipices and the ruffled waters herds of white sea-fowl flew from crag to crag, or dropped upon the sea to rise and fall with the waves.

At the small hamlet of Gress they got a large rowing-boat manned by sturdy fishermen, and set out to explore the great caves formed in the mighty wall of conglomerate that here fronts the sea. The wild-fowl flew about them, screaming and yelling at being disturbed. The long swell of the sea lifted the boat, passed from under it, and went on with majestic force to crash on the glowing red crags and send jets of foam flying up the face of them. They captured one of the sea-birds—a young thing about as big as a hen, with staring eyes, scant feathers, and a long beak with which it instinctively tried to bite its enemies—and the parents of it kept swooping down over the boat, uttering shrill cries, until their offspring was restored to the surface of the water. They went into the great loud-sounding caverns, getting a new impression of the extraordinary clearness of the sea-water by the depth at which the bottom was visible; and here their shouts occasionally called up from some dim twilight recess, far in among the perilous rocks, the head of a young seal which would instantly dive again and be seen no more. They watched the salmon splash in the shallower creeks where the sea had scooped out a tiny bay of ruddy sand, and then a slowly rolling porpoise would show his black back above the water and silently disappear again. All this was pleasant enough on a pleasant morning, in fresh sea-air and sunlight, in holiday time; and was there any reason, Mackenzie may fairly have thought, why this young man, if he did marry Sheila, should not come and live in a place where so much healthy amusement was to be found?

And in the evening, too, when they had climbed to the top of the hills on the South of Stornoway harbor, did not the little town look sufficiently picturesque, with its white houses, its shipping, its great castle and plantations lying in shadow under the green of the Eastern sky? Then away to the West what a strange picture presented itself! Thick bands of gray cloud lay across the sky, and the sunlight from behind them sent down great rays of misty yellow on the endless miles of moor. But how was it that, as these shafts of sunlight struck on the far and successive ridges of the moorland, each long undulation seemed to become transparent, and all the island appeared to consist of great golden-brown shells heaped up behind each other, with the sunlight shining through?

“I have tried a good many new effects since coming up here,” said Lavender, “but I shall not try that.”

“Oh, it iss nothing—it iss nothing at all,” said Mackenzie with a stupid air of unconcern. “There iss much more beautiful things than that in the island, but you will hef need of a ferry long time before you will find it all out. That—that iss nothing at all.”

“You will perhaps make a picture of it some other time,” said Sheila, with her eyes cast down, and as he was standing by her at the time, he took her hand and pressed it and said, “I hope so.”

Then, that night. Did not every hour produce some new and wonderful scene, or was it only that each minute grew to be so precious, and that the enchantment of Sheila’s presence filled the air around him? There was no moon, but the stars shone over the bay and the harbor and the dusky hills beyond the castle. Every few seconds the light-house at Arnish Point sent out its wild glare of orange fire into the heart of the clear darkness, and then as suddenly faded out and left the eyes too bewildered to make out the configuration of the rocks. All over the Northwest there still remained the pale glow of the twilight, and somehow Lavender seemed to think that that strange glow belonged to Sheila’s home in the West, and that the people in Stornoway knew nothing of the wonders of Loch Roag and of the nights there. Was he likely ever to forget?

“Good-bye, Sheila,” he said next morning, when the last signal had been given and the Clansman was about to move from her moorings.

She had bidden good-bye to Ingram already, but somehow she could not speak to his companion just at this last moment. She pressed his hand and turned away, and went ashore with her father. Then the big steamer throbbed its way out of the harbor, and by and by the island of Lewis lay but as a thin blue cloud along the horizon; and who could tell that human beings, with strange hopes and fancies and griefs, were hidden away in that pale line of vapor?