Some typographical errors have been corrected;

a list follows the text

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CONTENTS

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Part I. Chapter I., II., III. Part II. IV., V. Part III. VI., VII. Part IV. VIII., IX. Part V. X., XI. Part VI. XII., XIII. Part VII. XIV., XV. Part VIII. XVI., XVII., XVIII. Part IX. XIX., XX., XXI. Part X. XXII., XXIII., XXIV. Part XI. XXV., XXVI., XXVII.

(etext transcriber's note)

A PRINCESS OF THULE.

BY

W I L L I A M   B L A C K,

AUTHOR OF
“A DAUGHTER OF HETH,” “MADCAP VIOLET,” “STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON,” Etc.


NEW YORK:
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY,
14 & 16 Vesey Street.

A PRINCESS OF THULE.

———
By WILLIAM BLACK.
———

CHAPTER I.

“LOCHABER NO MORE.”

ON a small headland of the distant island of Lewis, an old man stood looking out on a desolate waste of rain-beaten sea. It was a wild and wet day. From out of the lowering Southwest fierce gusts of wind were driving up volumes and flying rags of clouds, and sweeping onward at the same time the gathering waves that fell hissing and thundering on the shore. Far as the eye could reach, the sea and the air and the sky seemed to be one indistinguishable mass of whirling and hurrying vapor, as if beyond this point there were no more land, but only wind and water, and the confused and awful voice of their strife.

The short, thick-set, powerfully-built man who stood on this solitary point paid little attention to the rain that ran off the peak of his sailor’s cap, or to the gusts of wind that blew about his bushy gray beard. He was still following, with an eye accustomed to pick out objects far at sea, one speck of purple that was now fading into the gray mist of the rain; and the longer he looked the less it became, until the mingled sea and sky showed only the smoke that the great steamer left in its wake. As he stood there, motionless and regardless of everything around him, did he cling to the fancy that he could still trace out the path of the vanished ship? A little while before it had passed almost close to him. He had watched it steam out of Stornoway Harbor. As the sound of the engines came nearer and the big boat went by, so that he could have almost called to it, there was no sign of emotion on the hard and stern face, except, perhaps, that the lips were held firm and a sort of frown appeared over the eyes. He saw a tiny white handkerchief being waved to him from the deck of the vessel; and he said, almost as though he were addressing some one there:

“My good little girl!”

But in the midst of that roaring of the sea and the wind how could any such message be delivered? And already the steamer was away from the land, standing out to the lonely plain of waters, and the sound of the engines had ceased, and the figures on the deck had grown faint and visionary. But still there was that one speck of white visible; and the man knew that a pair of eyes that had many a time looked into his own—as if with a faith that such intercommunion could never be broken—were now trying, through overflowing and blinding tears, to send him a last look of farewell.

The gray mists of the rain gathered within their folds the big vessel and all the beating hearts it contained, and the fluttering of that little token disappeared with it. All that remained was the sea, whitened by the rushing of the wind and the thunder of waves on the beach. The man, who had been gazing so long down into the Southeast, turned his face landward and set out to walk over a tract of wet grass and sand toward a road that ran near by. There was a large wagonette of varnished oak and a pair of small powerful horses waiting for him there; and having dismissed the boy who had been in charge, he took the reins and got up. But even yet the fascination of the sea and of that sad farewell was upon him, and he turned once more, as if, now that sight could yield him no further tidings, he would send her one more word of good-by. “My poor little Sheila!” That was all he said; and then he turned to the horses and sent them on, with his head down to escape the rain, and a look on his face like that of a dead man.

As he drove through the town of Stornoway the children playing within the shelter of the cottage doors called to each other in a whisper and said: “That is the King of Borva.”

But the elderly people said to each other, with a shake of the head, “It iss a bad day, this day, for Mr. Mackenzie, that he will be going home to an empty house. And it will be a ferry bad thing for the poor folk of Borva, and they will know a great difference, now that Miss Sheila iss gone away, and there is nobody—not anybody at all—left in the island to tek the side of the poor folk.”

He looked neither to the right nor to the left, though he was known to many of the people, as he drove away from the town into the heart of the lonely and desolate land. The wind had so far died down, and the rain had considerably lessened, but the gloom of the sky was deepened by the drawing on of the afternoon, and lay heavily over the dreary wastes of moor and hill. What a wild and dismal country was this which lay before and all around him, now that the last traces of human occupation were passed! There was not a cottage, not a stone wall, not a fence, to break the monotony of the long undulations of moorland, which in the distance rose into a series of hills that were black under the darkened sky. Down from those mountains ages ago, glaciers had slowly crept to eat out hollows in the plains below; and now in those hollows were lonely lakes, with not a tree to break the line of their melancholy shores. Everywhere around were the traces of this glacier drift—great gray boulders of gneiss fixed fast into the black peat moss, or set amid the browns and greens of the heather. The only sound to be heard in this wilderness of rock and morass was the rushing of various streams, rain-swollen and turbid, that plunged down their narrow channels to the sea.

The rain now ceased altogether, but the mountains in the far south had grown still darker, and to the fishermen passing by the coast it must have seemed as though the black peaks were holding converse with the lowering clouds, and that the silent moorland beneath was waiting for the first roll of the thunder. The man who was driving along this lonely route sometimes cast a glance down toward this threatening of a storm, but he paid little heed to it. The reins lay loose on the backs of the horses, and at their own pace they followed, hour after hour, the rising and falling road that led through the moorland and past the gloomy lakes. He may have recalled mechanically the names of those stretches of water—The Lake of the Sheiling, the Lake of the Oars, the Lake of the Fine Sand, and so forth—to measure the distance he had traversed; but he seemed to pay little attention to the objects around him, and it was with a glance of something like surprise, that he suddenly found himself overlooking that great sea-loch on the western side of the island in which was his home.

He drove down the hill to the solitary little inn of Gara-na-hina. At the door, muffled up in a warm woolen plaid, stood a young girl, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and diffident in look.

“Mr. Mackenzie,” she said, with that peculiar and pleasant intonation that marks the speech of the Hebridean who has been taught English in the schools, “it was Miss Sheila wrote to me to Suainabost, and she said I might come down from Suainabost and see if I can be of any help to you in the house.”

The girl was crying, although the blue eyes looked bravely through the tears as if to disprove the fact.

“Ay, my good lass,” he said, putting his hand gently on her head, “and it wass Sheila wrote to you?”

“Yes, sir, and I hef come down from Suainabost.”

“It is a lonely house you will be going to,” he said, absently.

“But Miss Sheila said I wass—I wass to—” But here the young girl failed in her effort to explain that Miss Sheila had asked her to go down to make the house less lonely. The elderly man in the wagonette seemed scarcely to notice that she was crying; he bade her come up beside him; and when he had got her into the wagonette he left some message with the innkeeper, who had come to the door, and drove off again.

They drove along the high land that overlooks a portion of Loch Roag, with its wonderful network of islands and straits, and then they stopped on the lofty plateau of Callernish, where there was a man waiting to take the wagonette and horses.

“And you would be seeing Miss Sheila away, sir?” said the man; “and it was Duncan Macdonald will say that she will not come back no more to Borva.”

The old man with the big gray beard only frowned and passed on. He and the girl made their way down the side of the rocky hill to the shore, and here there was an open boat awaiting them. When they approached, a man considerably over six feet in height, keen-faced, gray-eyed, straight-limbed and sinewy in frame, jumped into the big and rough boat and began to get ready for their departure. There was just enough wind to catch the brown mainsail, and the King of Borva took the tiller, his henchman sitting down by the mast. And no sooner had they left the shore and stood out towards one of the channels of this arm of the sea, than the tall, spare keeper began to talk of that which made his master’s eye grow dark. “Ah, well,” he said, in the plaintive drawling of his race, “and it iss an empty house you will be going to, Mr. Mackenzie; and it iss a bad thing for us all that Miss Sheila hass gone away; and it iss many’s ta time she will hef been wiss me in this very boat—”

“—— —— —— —— you, Duncan Macdonald!” cried Mackenzie, in an access of fury, “what will you talk of like that? It iss every man, woman and child on the island will talk of nothing but Sheila! I will drive my foot through the bottom of the boat if you do not hold your peace!”

The tall gillie patiently waited until his master had exhausted his passion, and then he said, as if nothing had occurred: “And it will not do much good, Mr. Mackenzie, to tek ta name o’ God in vain; and there will be much more of trinking in ta island, and it will be a great difference mirover. And she will be so far away that no one will see her no more—far away beyond ta sound of Sleat, and far away beyond Oban, as I hef heard people say. And what will she do in London, when she has no boat at all, and she will never go out to ta fishing? And I will hear people say that you will walk a whole day and never come to ta sea, and what will Miss Sheila do for that? And she will tame no more o’ ta wild ducks’ young things, and she will find out no more o’ ta nests in the rocks, and she will hef no more horns when the deer is killed, and she will go out no more to see ta cattle swim across Loch Roag when they go to ta sheilings. It will be all different, all different, now; and she will never see us no more. And it iss as bad as if you was a poor man, Mr. Mackenzie, and had to let your sons and your daughters go away to America, and never come back no more. And she ta only one in your house! And it wass the son of Mr. Macintyre, of Sutherland, he would have married her, and come to live on ta island, and not have Miss Sheila go away among strangers that doesna ken her family, and will put no store by her, no more than if she was a fisherman’s lass. It wass Miss Sheila herself had a sore heart tis morning when she went away; and she turned and she looked at Borva as the boat came away, and I said, ’Tis iss the last time Miss Sheila will be in her boat, and she will not come no more again to Borva.”

Mr. Mackenzie heard not one word or syllable of all this. The dead, passionless look had fallen over the powerful features, and the deep-set eyes were gazing, not on the actual Loch Roag before them, but on a stormy sea that lies between Lewis and Skye, and on a vessel disappearing in the midst of the rain. It was by a sort of instinct that he guided this open boat through the channels, which were now getting broader as they neared the sea, and the tall and grave-faced keeper might have kept up his garrulous talk for hours without attracting a look or a word.

It was now the dusk of the evening, and wild and strange indeed was the scene around the solitary boat as it slowly moved along. Large islands—so large that any one of them might have been mistaken for the mainland—lay over the dark waters of the sea, remote, untenanted and silent. There were no white cottages along these rocky shores; only a succession of rugged cliffs and sandy bays, but half mirrored in the sombre water below. Down in the South the mighty shoulders and peaks of Suainabhal and its sister mountains were still darker than the darkening sky; and when at length the boat had got well out from the network of islands and fronted the broad waters of the Atlantic, the great plain of the western sea seemed already to have drawn around it the solemn mantle of the night.

“Will you go to Borvapost, Mr. Mackenzie, or will we run her into your own house?” asked Duncan—Borvapost being the name of the chief village on the island.

“I will not go on to Borvapost,” said the old man, peevishly. “Will they not have plenty to talk about at Borvapost?”

“And it iss no harm tat ta folk will speak of Miss Sheila,” said the gillie with some show of resentment: “it iss no harm tey will be sorry she is gone away—no harm at all, for it was many things tey had to thank Miss Sheila for; and now it will be all ferry different—”

“I tell you, Duncan Macdonald, to hold your peace!” said the old man, with a savage glare of the deep-set eyes; and then Duncan relapsed into a sulky silence, and the boat held on its way.

In the gathering twilight a long gray curve of sand became visible, and into the bay thus indicated Mackenzie turned his small craft. This indentation of the island seemed as blank of human occupation as the various points and bays they had passed, but as they neared the shore a house came into sight, about half way up the slope rising from the sea to the pasture land above. There was a small stone pier jutting out at one portion of the bay, where a mass of rocks was embedded in the white sand; and here at length the boat was run in, and Mackenzie helped the young girl ashore.

The two of them, leaving the gillie to moor the little vessel that had brought them from Callernish, went silently toward the shore, and up the narrow road leading to the house. It was a square, two-storied substantial building of stone, but the stone had been liberally oiled to keep out the wet, and the blackness thus produced had not a very cheerful look. Then, on this particular evening the scant bushes surrounding the house hung limp and dark in the rain, and amid the prevailing hues of purple, blue-green and blue, the bit of scarlet coping running around the black house was wholly ineffective in relieving the general impression of dreariness and desolation.

The King of Borva walked into a large room, which was but partially lit by two candles on the table and by the blaze of a mass of peats in the stone fire-place, and threw himself into a big easy-chair. Then he suddenly seemed to recollect his companion, who was timidly standing near the door, with her shawl still around her head.

“Mairi,” he said, “go and ask them to give you some dry clothes. Your box it will not be here for half an hour yet.” Then he turned to the fire.

“But you yourself, Mr. Mackenzie, you will be ferry wet—”

“Never mind me, my lass; go and get yourself dried.”

“But it wass Miss Sheila,” began the girl diffidently—“it wass Miss Sheila asked me—she asked me to look after you, sir—”

With that he rose abruptly, and advanced to her and caught her by the wrist. He spoke quite quietly to her, but the girl’s eyes, looking up at the stern face, were a trifle frightened.

“You are a ferry good little girl, Mairi,” he said slowly, “and you will mind what I say to you. You will do what you like in the house, you will take Sheila’s place as much as you like, but you will mind this—not to mention her name, not once. Now go away, Mairi, and find Scarlett Macdonald, and she will give you some dry clothes; and you will tell her to send Duncan down to Borvapost, and bring up John the Piper and Alisternan-Each, and the lads of the Nighean dubh, if they are not gone home to Habost yet. But it iss John the Piper must come directly.”

The girl went away to seek counsel of Scarlett Macdonald, Duncan’s wife, and Mr. Mackenzie proceeded to walk up and down the big and half-lit chamber. Then he went to the cupboard, and put out on the table a number of tumblers and glasses, with two or three odd-looking bottles of Norwegian make, consisting of four semicircular tubes of glass, meeting at top and bottom, leaving the center of the vessel thus formed open. He stirred up the blazing peats in the fire-place. He brought down from a shelf a box filled with coarse tobacco, and put it on the table. But he was evidently growing impatient, and at last he put on his cap again and went out into the night.

The air blew cold in from the sea, and whistled through the bushes that Sheila had trained about the porch. There was no rain now, but a great and heavy darkness brooded overhead, and in the silence he could hear the breaking of the waves along the hard coast. But what was this other sound he heard, wild and strange in the stillness of the night—a shrill and plaintive cry that the distance softened, until it almost seemed to be the calling of a human voice? Surely those were words he heard, or was it only that the old, sad air spoke to him?

For Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more, Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.

That was the message that came to him out of the darkness, and it seemed to him as if the sea and the night and the sky were wailing over the loss of his Sheila. He walked away from the house and up the hill behind. Led by the sound of the pipes, that grew louder and more unearthly as he approached, he found himself at length on a bit of high table-land overlooking the sea, where Sheila had had a rude bench of iron and wood fixed into the rock. On this bench sat a little old man, humpbacked and bent, and with long white hair falling down to his shoulders. He was playing the pipes—not wildly and fiercely, as if he were at a drinking-bout of the lads come home from the Caithness fishing, nor yet gaily and proudly, as if he were marching at the head of a bridal procession, but slowly, mournfully, monotonously, as though he were having the pipes talk to him.

Mackenzie touched him on the shoulder, and the old man started. “Is it you, Mr. McKenzie?” he said in Gaelic. “It is a great fright you have given me.”

“Come down to the house, John. The lads from Habost and Alister, and some more will be coming; and you will get a ferry good dram, John, to put wind in the pipes.”

“It’s no dram I’m thinking of, Mr. Mackenzie,” said the old man. “And you will have plenty of company without me. But I will come down to the house, Mr. Mackenzie—oh, yes, I will come down to the house—but in a little while I will come to the house.”

Mackenzie turned from him with a petulant exclamation, and went along and down the hill rapidly, as he could hear voices in the darkness. He had just got into the house when his visitors arrived. The door of the room was opened, and there appeared some six or eight tall and stalwart men, mostly with profuse brown beards and weather-beaten faces, who advanced into the chamber with some show of shyness. Mackenzie offered them a rough and hearty welcome, and as soon as their eyes had got accustomed to the light bade them help themselves to the whisky on the table. With a certain solemnity each poured out a glass and drank “Shlainte!” to his host as if it were some funeral rite. But when he bade them replenish their glasses, and got them seated with their faces to the blaze of the peats, then the flood of Gaelic broke loose. Had the wise little girl from Suainabost warned these big men? There was not a word about Sheila uttered. All their talk was of the reports that had come from Caithness, and of the improvements of the small harbor near the Butt, and of the black sea-horse that had been seen in Lock Suainabhal, and of some more sheep having been found dead on the Pladda Isles, shot by the men of the English smacks. Pipes were lit, the peat stirred up anew, another glass or two of whisky drunk, and then, through the haze of the smoke, the brown faces of the men could be seen in eager controversy, each talking faster than the other, and comparing facts and fancies that had been brooded over through solitary nights of waiting on the sea. Mackenzie did not sit down with them; he did not even join them in their attention to the curious whisky-flasks. He paced up and down the opposite side of the room, occasionally being appealed to with a story or question, and showing by his answers that he was but vaguely hearing the vociferous talk of his companions. At last he said, “Why the teffle does not John the Piper come? Here, you men—you sing a song, quick! None of your funeral songs, but a good brisk one of trinking and fighting.”

But were not nearly all their songs—like those of all dwellers on a rocky and dangerous coast—of a sad and sombre hue, telling of maidens whose lovers were drowned, and of wives bidding farewell to husbands they were never to see again? Slow and mournful are the songs that the Northern fishermen sing as they set out in the evening, with the creaking of the long oars keeping time to the music, until they get out beyond the shore to hoist the red mainsail and catch the breeze blowing over from the regions of the sunset. Not one of these Habost fishermen could sing a brisk song, but the nearest approach to it was a ballad in praise of a dark-haired girl, which they, owning the Nighean dubh, were bound to know. And so one young fellow began to sing, “Mo Nighean dubh d’fhas boidheach dubh, mo Nighean dubhna treig mi,”[1] in a slow and doleful fashion, and the others joined in the chorus with a like solemnity. In order to keep time, four of the men followed the common custom of taking a pocket handkerchief (in this case an immense piece of brilliant red silk, which was evidently the pride of its owner), and holding it by the four corners letting it slowly rise and fall as they sang. The other three men laid hold of a bit of rope, which they used for the same purpose. “Mo Nighean dubh,” unlike most of the Gaelic songs, has but a few verses; and, as soon as they were finished, the young fellow, who seemed pleased with his performance, started another ballad. Perhaps he had forgotten his host’s injunction, perhaps he knew no merrier song, but at any rate he began to sing the “Lament of Monaltrie.” It was one of Sheila’s songs. She had sung it the night before in this very room, and her father had listened to her describing the fate of young Monaltrie as if she had been foretelling her own, and scarcely dared to ask himself if ever again he should hear the voice that he loved so well. He could not listen to the song. He abruptly left the room and went out once more into the cool night-air and the darkness. But even here he was not allowed to forget the sorrow he had been vainly endeavoring to banish, for in the far distance the pipes still played the melancholy wail of Lochaber.

Lochaber no more! Lochaber no more!

—that was the only solace brought him by the winds from the sea; and there were tears running down the hard gray face as he said to himself, in a broken voice, “Sheila, my little girl, why did you go away from Borva?”

CHAPTER II.

THE FAIR-HAIRED STRANGER.

“WHY you must be in love with her yourself!”

“I in love with her? Sheila and I are too old friends for that!”

The speakers were two young men seated in the stern of the steamer Clansman as she ploughed her way across the blue and rushing waters of the Minch. One of them was a tall young fellow of three-and-twenty, with fair hair and light blue eyes, whose delicate and mobile features were handsome enough in their way, and gave evidence of a nature at once sensitive, nervous and impulsive. He was clad in light gray from head to heel—a color that suited his fair complexion and yellow hair; and he lounged about the white deck in the glare of the sunlight, steadying himself from time to time as an unusually big wave carried the Clansman aloft for a second or two, and then sent her staggering and groaning into a hissing trough of foam. Now and again he would pause in front of his companion, and talk in a rapid, playful, and even eloquent fashion for a minute or two; and then, apparently a trifle annoyed by the slow and patient attention which greeted his oratorical efforts, would start off once more on his unsteady journey up and down the white planks.

The other was a man of thirty-eight, of middle height, sallow complexion and generally insignificant appearance. His hair was becoming prematurely gray. He rarely spoke. He was dressed in a suit of rough blue cloth, and indeed looked somewhat like a pilot who had gone ashore, taken to study and never recovered himself. A stranger would have noticed the tall and fair young man who walked up and down the gleaming deck, evidently enjoying the brisk breeze that blew about his yellow hair, and the sunlight that touched his pale and fine face or sparkled on his teeth when he laughed, but would have paid little attention to the smaller, brown-faced, gray-haired man, who lay back on the bench with his two hands clasped around his knee, and with his eye fixed on the southern heavens, while he murmured to himself the lines of some ridiculous old Devonshire ballad or replied in monosyllables to the rapid and eager talk of his friend.

Both men were good sailors, and they had need to be, for although the sky above them was as blue and clear as the heart of the sapphire, and although the sunlight shone on the decks and the rigging, a strong north-easter had been blowing all the morning, and there was a considerable sea on. The far blue plain was whitened with the tumbling crests of the waves, that shone and sparkled in the sun, and ever and anon a volume of water would strike the Clansman’s bow, rise high in the air with the shock, and fall in heavy showers over the forward decks. Sometimes, too, a wave caught her broadside, and sent a handful of spray over the two or three passengers who were safe in the stern; but the decks here remained silvery and white, for the sun and wind speedily dried up the traces of the sea-showers.

At length the taller of the young men came and sat down by his companion: “How far to Stornoway yet?”

“An hour.”

“By Jove, what a distance! All day yesterday getting up from Oban to Skye, all last night churning our way up to Loch Gair, all to-day crossing to this outlandish island, that seems as far away as Iceland;—and for what?”

“But don’t you remember the moonlight last night as we sailed by the Cuchullins? And the sunrise this morning as we lay in Loch Gair? Were not these worth coming for.”

“But that was not what you came for, my dear friend. No. You came to carry off this wonderful Miss Sheila of yours, and of course you wanted somebody to look on; and here I am, ready to carry the ladder and the dark lantern and the marriage-license. I will saddle your steeds for you and row you over lakes, and generally do anything to help you in so romantic an enterprise.”

“It is very kind of you, Lavender,” said the other with a smile, “but such adventures are not for old fogies like me. They are the exclusive right of young fellows like you, who are tall and well-favored, have plenty of money and good spirits, and have a way with you that all the world admires. Of course the bride will tread a measure with you. Of course all the bridesmaids would like to see you marry her. Of course she will taste the cup you offer her. Then a word in her ear, and away you go as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and as if the bridegroom was a despicable creature merely because God had only given him five feet six inches. But you couldn’t have a Lochinvar five feet six.”

The younger man blushed like a girl and laughed a little, and was evidently greatly pleased. Nay, in the height of his generosity he began to protest. He would not have his friend imagine that women cared only for stature and good looks. There were other qualities. He himself had observed the most singular conquests made by men who were not good-looking, but who had a certain fascination about them. His own experience of women was considerable, and he was quite certain that the best women, now—the sort of women whom a man would respect—the women who had brains—

And so forth and so forth. The other listened quite gravely to these well-meant, kindly, blundering explanations, and only one who watched his face narrowly could have detected in the brown eyes a sort of amused consciousness of the intentions of the amiable and ingenuous youth.

“Do you really mean to tell me, Ingram,” continued Lavender, in his rapid and impetuous way, “do you mean to tell me that you are not in love with this Highland princess? For ages back you have talked of nothing but Sheila. How many an hour have I spent in clubs, up the river, down at the coast, everywhere, listening to your stories of Sheila, and your praises of Sheila, and your descriptions of Sheila! It was always Sheila, and again Sheila, and still again Sheila. But, do you know, either you exaggerated or I failed to understand your descriptions; for the Sheila I came to construct out of your talk, is a most incongruous and incomprehensible creature. First, Sheila knows about stone and lime and building; and then I suppose her to be a practical young woman, who is a sort of overseer to her father. But Sheila, again, is romantic and mysterious, and believes in visions and dreams; and then I take her to be an affected school-miss. But then Sheila can throw a fly and play her sixteen-pounder, and Sheila can adventure upon the lochs in an open boat, managing the sail herself; and then I find her to be a tom-boy. But, again, Sheila is shy and rarely speaks, but looks unutterable things with her soft and magnificent eyes; and what does that mean but that she is an ordinary young lady, who has not been in society, and who is a little interesting, if a little stupid, while she is unmarried, and who, after marriage, calmly and complacently sinks into the dull domestic hind, whose only thought is of butchers’ bills and perambulators!”

This was a fairly long speech, but it was no longer than many which Frank Lavender was accustomed to utter when in the vein for talking. His friend and companion did not pay much heed. His hands were still clasped around his knee, his head leaning back, and all the answer he made was to repeat, apparently to himself, these not very pertinent lines:

“In Ockington, in Devonsheer, My vather he lived vor many a yeer: And I, his son, with him did dwell, To tend his sheep: ’twas doleful well. Diddle-diddle!”

“You know, Ingram, it must be precious hard for man who has to knock about in society, and take his wife with him, to have to explain to everybody that she is in reality a most unusual and gifted young person, and that she must not be expected to talk. It is all very well for him in his own house—that is to say, if he can preserve all the sentiment that made her shyness fine and wonderful before their marriage—but a man owes a little to society, even in choosing a wife.”

Another pause.

“It happened on a zartin day Four-score o’ the sheep they rinned astray Says vather to I, ‘Jack, rin arter ’m, du!’ Says I to vather, ‘I’m darned if I du!’ Diddle-diddle!”

“Now you are the sort of a man, I should think, who would never get careless about your wife. You would always believe about her what you believed at first; and I dare say you would live very happily in your own house if she was a decent sort of woman. But you would have to go out into society sometimes; and the very fact that you had not got careless—as many men would, leaving their wives to produce any sort of impression they might—would make you vexed that the world could not, off-hand, value your wife as you fancy she ought to be valued. Don’t you see?”

This was the answer:

“Puvoket much at my rude tongue, A dish o’ brath at me he vlung, Which so incensed me to wrath, That I up an’ knack un instantly to arth, Diddle-diddle!”

“As for your Princess Sheila, I firmly believe you have some romantic notion of marrying her and taking her up to London with you. If you seriously intend such a thing, I shall not argue with you. I shall praise her by the hour together, for I may have to depend on Mrs. Edward Ingram for my admission to your house. But if you only have the fancy as a fancy, consider what the result would be. You say she has never been to a school; that she has never had the companionship of a girl of her own age; that she has never read a newspaper; that she has never been out of this island; and that almost her sole society has been that of her mother, who educated her and tended her, and left her as ignorant of the real world as if she had lived all her life in a lighthouse. Goodness gracious! what a figure such a girl would cut in South Kensington!”

“My dear fellow,” said Ingram at last, “don’t be absurd. You will soon see what are the relations between Sheila Mackenzie and me, and you will be satisfied. I marry her? Do you think I would take the child to London to show her its extravagance and shallow society, and break her heart with thinking of the sea, and of the rude islanders she knew, and of their hard and bitter struggle for life? No. I should not like to see my wild Highland doe shut up in one of your southern parks, among your tame fallow-deer. She would look at them askance. She would separate herself from them, and by and by she would make one wild effort to escape and kill herself. That is not the fate in store for our good little Sheila; so you need not make yourself unhappy about her or me.

‘Now all ye young men, of every persuasion, Never quarl wi’ your vather upon any occasion; For instead of being better, you’ll vind you’ll be wuss, For he’ll kick you out o’ doors, without a varden in your puss! Diddle-diddle!’ ”

“Talking of Devonshire, how is that young American lady you met at Torquay in the Spring?”

“There, now, is the sort of woman a man would be safe in marrying!”

“And how?”

“Oh, well, you know,” said Frank Lavender, “I mean the sort of woman who would do you credit—hold her own in society, and that sort of thing. You must meet her some day. I tell you, Ingram, you will be delighted and charmed with her manners, and her grace, and the clever things she says; at least, everybody else is.”

“Ah, well!”

“You don’t seem to care much for brilliant women,” remarked the other, rather disappointed that his companion showed so little interest.

“Oh, yes, I like brilliant women very well. A clever woman is always a pleasanter companion than a clever man. But you were talking of the choice of a wife; and pertness in a girl, although it may be amusing at the time, may become something else by and by. Indeed, I shouldn’t advise a young man to marry an epigrammatist, for you see her shrewdness and smartness are generally the result of experiences in which he has had no share.”

“There may be something in that,” said Lavender; “but of course, you know, with a widow it is different; and Mrs. Lorraine never does go in for the ingenue.”

The pale blue cloud that had for some time been lying faintly along the horizon now came nearer and more near, until they could pick out something like the configuration of the island, its bays and promontories and mountains. The day seemed to become warmer as they got out of the driving wind of the Channel, and the heavy roll of the sea had so far subsided. Through comparatively calm water the great Clansman drove her away, until, on getting near the land and under shelter of the peninsula of Eye, the voyagers found themselves on a beautiful blue plain, with the spacious harbor of Stornoway opening out before them. There, on the one side, lay a white and cleanly town, with its shops, and quays and shipping. Above the bay in front stood a great gray castle, surrounded by pleasure-grounds and terraces and gardens; while on the southern side the harbor was overlooked by a semi-circle of hills, planted with every variety of tree. The white houses, the blue bay and the large gray building set amid green terraces and overlooked by wooded hills, formed a bright and lively little picture on this fresh and brilliant forenoon; and young Lavender, who had a quick eye for compositions which he was always about to undertake, but which never appeared on canvas, declared enthusiastically that he would spend a day or two in Stornoway on his return from Borva, and take home with him some sketch of the place.

“And is Miss Sheila on the quay, yonder?” he asked.

“Not likely,” said Ingram. “It is a long drive across the island, and I suppose she would remain at home to look after our dinner in the evening.”

“What? The wonderful Princess Sheila look after our dinner! Has she visions among the pots and pans, and does she look unutterable things when she is peeling potatoes?”

Ingram laughed: “There will a pretty alteration in your tune in a couple of days. You are sure to fall in love with her, and sigh desperately for a week or two. You always do when you meet a woman anywhere. But it won’t hurt you much, and she wont know anything about it.”

“I should rather like to fall in love with her to see how furiously jealous you would become. However, here we are.”

“And there is Mackenzie—the man with the big gray beard and the peaked cap—and he is talking to the chamberlain of the island.”

“What does he get up on his wagonette for, instead of coming on board to meet you?”

“Oh, that is one of his little tricks,” said Ingram, with a good-humored smile. “He means to receive us in state, and impress you, a stranger, with his dignity. The good old fellow has a hundred harmless ways like that, and you must humor him. He has been accustomed to be treated en roi, you know.”

“Then the papa of the mysterious princess is not perfect?”

“Perhaps I ought to tell you now that Mackenzie’s oddest notion is that he has a wonderful skill in managing men, and in concealing the manner of his doing it. I tell you this that you mayn’t laugh and hurt him when he is attempting something that he considers particularly crafty, and that a child could see through.”

“But what is the aim of it all?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“He does not do a little bet occasionally?”

“Oh, dear! no. He is the best and honestest fellow in the world, but it pleases him to fancy that he is profoundly astute, and that other people don’t see the artfulness with which he reaches some little result that is not of the least consequence to anybody.”

“It seems to me,” remarked Mr. Lavender, with a coolness and shrewdness that rather surprised his companion, “that it would not be difficult to get the King of Borva to assume the honors of a papa-in-law.”

The steamer was moored at last; the crowd of fishermen and loungers drew near to meet their friends who had come up from Glasgow—for there are few strangers, as a rule, arriving at Stornoway to whet the curiosity of the islanders—and the tall gillie who had been standing by Mackenzie’s horses came on board to get the luggage of the young men.

“Well, Duncan,” said the elder of them, “and how are you, and how is Mr. Mackenzie, and how is Miss Sheila? You have not brought her with you, I see.”

“But Miss Sheila is ferry well, whatever, Mr. Ingram, and it is a great day, this day, for her, tat you will be coming to the Lewis; and it wass tis morning she wass up at ta break o’ day, and up ta hills ta get some bits o’ green things for ta rooms you will hef, Mr. Ingram. Ay, it iss a great day, tis day, for Miss Sheila.”

“By Jove, they all rave about Sheila up in this quarter!” said Lavender, giving Duncan a fishing-rod and a bag he had brought from the cabin. “I suppose in a week’s time I shall begin to rave about her, too. Look sharp, Ingram, and let us have audience of His Majesty.”

The King of Borva fixed his eye on young Lavender, and scanned him narrowly as he was being introduced. His welcome of Ingram had been most gracious and friendly, but he received his companion with something of a severe politeness. He requested him to take a seat beside him, so that he might see the country as they went across to Borva; and Lavender having done so, Ingram and Duncan got into the body of the wagonette, and the party drove off.

Passing through the clean and bright little town, Mackenzie suddenly pulled up his horses in front of a small shop, in the windows of which some cheap bits of jewelry were visible. The man came out, and Mr. Mackenzie explained with some care and precision that he wanted a silver brooch of a particular sort. While the jeweler had returned to seek the article in question, Frank Lavender was gazing around him in some wonder at the appearance of so much civilization on this remote and rarely visited island. There were no haggard savages, unkempt and scantily clad, coming forth from their dens in the rocks to stare wildly at the strangers. On the contrary, there was a prevailing air of comfort and “bien-ness” about the people and their houses. He saw handsome girls with coal-black hair and fresh complexions, who wore short and thick blue petticoats, with a scarlet tartan shawl wrapped around their bosom and fastened at the waist; stalwart, thick-set men, in loose blue jacket and trowsers and scarlet cap, many of them with bushy red beards; and women of extraordinary breadth of shoulder, who carried enormous loads in a creel strapped on their backs, while they employed their hands in contentedly knitting stockings as they passed along. But what was the purpose of these mighty loads of fish-bones they carried—burdens that would have appalled a railway porter of the South?

“You will see, sir,” observed the King of Borva, in reply to Lavender’s question, “there is not much of the phosphates in the grass of this island; and the cows they are mad to get the fish-bones to lick, and it is many of them you cannot milk unless you put the bones before them.”

“But why do the lazy fellows lounging about there let the women carry those enormous loads?”

Mr. Mackenzie stared: “Lazy fellows! They hef harder work than any who will know of in your country; and besides the fishing, they will do the ploughing and much of the farm work. And iss the women to do none at all? That iss the nonsense that my daughter talks; but she has got it out of books, and what do they know how the poor people hef to live?”

At this moment the jeweler returned with some half dozen brooches displayed on a plate, and shining with all the brilliancy of cairngorm stones, polished silver and variously-colored pebbles.

“Now, John Mackintyre, this is a gentleman from London,” said Mackenzie, regarding the jeweler sternly, “and he will know all apout such fine things, and you will not put a big price on them.”

It was now Lavender’s turn to stare, but he good-naturedly accepted the duties of referee, and eventually a brooch was selected and paid for, the price being six shillings. Then they drove on again.

“Sheila will know nothing of this; it will be a great surprise for her,” said Mackenzie, almost to himself, as he opened the white box, and saw the glaring piece of jewelry lying on the white cotton.

“Good Heavens, sir,” cried Frank Lavender, “you don’t mean to say you bought that brooch for your daughter?”

“And why not?” said the King of Borva, in great surprise.

The young man perceived his mistake, grew considerably confused, and only said: “Well, I should have thought that—that some small piece of gold jewelry, now, would be better suited for a young lady.”

Mackenzie smiled shrewdly: “I had something to go on. It was Sheila herself was in Stornoway three weeks ago, and she was wanting to buy a brooch for a young girl who had come down to us from Suainabost, and is very useful in the kitchen, and it wass a brooch, just like this one, she gave to her.”

“Yes, to a kitchen-maid,” said the young man, meekly.

“But Mairi is Sheila’s cousin,” said Mackenzie, with continued surprise.

“Lavender does not understand Highland ways yet, Mr. Mackenzie,” said Ingram, from behind. “You know we, in the South, have different fashions. Our servants are nearly always strangers to us—not relations and companions.”

“Oh, I hef peen in London myself,” said Mackenzie, in somewhat of an injured tone; and then he added, with a touch of satisfaction: “and I hef been in Paris, too.”

“And Miss Sheila, has she been in London?” asked Lavender, feigning ignorance.

“She has never been out of the Lewis.”

“But don’t you think the education of a young lady should include some little experience of traveling?”

“Sheila, she will be educated quite enough; and is she going to London or Paris without me?”

“You might take her.”

“I have too much to do on the island now, and Sheila has much to do. I do not think she will ever see any of those places, and she will not be much the worse.”

Two young men off for their holidays, a brilliant day shining all around them, the sweet air of the sea and the moorland blowing about them—this little party that now drove away from Stornoway ought to have been in the best of spirits. And indeed the young fellow who sat beside Mackenzie was bent on pleasing his host by praising everything he saw. He praised the gallant little horses that whirled them past the plantations and into the open country. He praised the rich black peat that was visible in long lines and heaps, where the townspeople were slowly eating into the moorland. Then all these traces of occupation were left behind, and the travelers were alone in the untenanted heart of the island, where the only sounds audible were the humming of insects in the sunlight and the falling of the streams. Away in the south the mountains were of a silvery and transparent blue. Nearer at hand the rich reds and browns of the moorland softened into a tender and beautiful green on nearing the margins of the lakes; and these stretches of water were now as fair and bright as the sky above them, and were scarcely ruffled by the moorfowl moving out from the green rushes. Still nearer at hand great masses of white rock lay embedded in the soft soil; and what could have harmonized better with the rough and silver-gray surface than the patches of rose-red bell-heather that grew up in the clefts or hung over their summits. The various and beautiful colors around seemed to tingle with light and warmth as the clear sun shone on them and the keen mountain air blew over them; and the King of Borva was so far thawed by the enthusiasm of his companions that he regarded the fair country with a pleased smile, as if the enchanted land belonged to him, and as if the wonderful colors and the exhilarating air and the sweet perfumes were of his own creation.

Mr. Mackenzie did not know much about tints and hues, but he believed what he heard; and it was perhaps, after all, not very surprising that a gentleman from London, who had skill of pictures and other delicate matters, should find strange marvels in a common stretch of moor, with a few lakes here and there, and some lines of mountains only good for sheilings. It was not for him to check the raptures of his guest. He began to be friendly with the young man, and could not help regarding him as a more cheerful companion than his neighbor Ingram, who would sit by your side for an hour at a time without breaking the monotony of the horses’ tramp with a single remark. He had formed a poor opinion of Lavender’s physique from the first glimpse he had of his white fingers and girl-like complexion; but surely a man who had such a vast amount of good spirits and such a rapidity of utterance must have something corresponding to these qualities in substantial bone and muscle. There was something pleasing and ingenuous too about this flow of talk. Men who had arrived at years of wisdom, and knew how to study and use their fellows, were not to be led into these betrayals of their secret opinions; but for a young man—what could be more pleasing than to see him lay open his soul to the observant eye of a master of men? Mackenzie began to take a great fancy to young Lavender.

“Why,” said Lavender, with a fine color mantling in his cheeks as the wind caught them on a higher portion of the road, “I had heard of Lewis as a most bleak and desolate island, flat moorland and lake, without a hill to be seen. And everywhere I see hills, and yonder are great mountains which I hope to get nearer before we leave.”

“We have mountains in this island,” remarked Mackenzie slowly as he kept his eye on his companion, “we have mountains in this island sixteen thousand feet high.”

Lavender looked sufficiently astonished, and the old man was pleased. He paused for a moment or two and said. “But this iss the way of it: you will see that the middle of the mountains it has all been washed away by the weather, and you will only have the sides now dipping one way and the other at each side o’ the island. But it iss a very clever man in Stornoway will tell me that you can make out what wass the height o’ the mountain, by watching the dipping of the rocks on each side; and it iss an older country, this island, than any you will know of; and there were the mountains sixteen thousand feet high long before all this country and all Scotland and England wass covered with ice.”

The young man was very desirous to show his interest in this matter, but did not know very well how. At last he ventured to ask whether there were any fossils in the blocks of gneiss that were scattered over the moorland.

“Fossils?” said Mackenzie. “Oh, I will not care much about such small things. If you will ask Sheila, she will tell you all about it, and about the small things she finds growing on the hills. That is not of much consequence to me; but I will tell you what is the best thing the island grows; it is good girls and strong men—men that can go to the fishing and come back to plough the fields and cut the peat and build the houses, and leave the women to look after the fields and the gardens when they go back again to the fisheries. But it is the old people—they are ferry cunning, and they will not put their money in the bank at Stornoway, but will hide it away about the house, and then they will come to Sheila and ask for money to put a pane of glass in their house. And she has promised that to every one who will make a window in the wall of their house; and she is very simple with them and does not understand the old people that tell lies. But when I hear of it I say nothing to Sheila—she will know nothing about it—but I have a watch put upon the people; and it was only yesterday I will take back two shillings she gave to an old woman of Borvabost that told many lies. What does a young thing know of these old people? She will know nothing at all, and it is better for some one else to look after them, but not to speak one word of it to her.”

“It must require great astuteness to manage a primitive people like that,” said young Lavender, with an air of conviction; and the old man eagerly and proudly assented, and went on to tell of the manifold diplomatic arts he used in reigning over his small kingdom, and how his subjects lived in blissful ignorance that this controlling power was being exercised.

They were startled by an exclamation from Ingram, who called to Mackenzie to pull up the horses just as they were passing over a small bridge.

“Look there, Lavender, did you ever see salmon jumping like that? Look at the size of them!”

“Oh, it iss nothing,” said Mackenzie, driving on again. “Where you will see the salmon, it is in the narrows of Loch Roag, where they come into the rivers, and the tide is low. Then you will see them jumping; and if the water wass too low for a long time, they will die in hundreds and hundreds.”

“But what makes them jump before they get into the rivers?”

Old Mackenzie smiled a crafty smile, as if he had found out all the ways and the secrets of the salmon. “They will jump to look about them—that iss all.”

“Do you think a salmon can see where he is going?”

“And maybe you will explain this to me, then,” said the king, with a compassionate air, “how iss it the salmon will try to jump over some stones in the river, and he will see he can’t go over them; but does he fall straight down on the stones and kill himself? Neffer—no, neffer. He will get back to the pool he left by turning in the air; that is what I hef seen hundreds of times myself.”

“Then they must be able to fly as well as see in the air.”

“You may say about it what you will please, but that is what I know—that is what I know ferry well myself.”

“And I should think there were not many people in the country who knew more about salmon than you,” said Frank Lavender. “And I hear, too, that your daughter is a great fisher.”

But this was a blunder. The old man frowned; “Who will tell you such nonsense? Sheila has gone out many times with Duncan, and he will put a rod in her hand; yes, and she will have caught a fish or two, but it iss not a story to tell. My daughter she will have plenty to do about the house without any of such nonsense. You will expect to find us all savages, with such stories of nonsense.”

“I am sure not,” said Lavender, warmly. “I have been very much struck with the civilization of the island, so far as I have seen it; and I can assure you I have always heard of Miss Sheila as a singularly accomplished young lady.”

“Yes,” said Mackenzie, somewhat mollified, “Sheila has been well brought up; she is not a fisherman’s lass, running about wild and catching the salmon. I cannot listen to such nonsense, and it iss Duncan will tell it.”

“I can assure you, no. I have never spoken to Duncan. The fact is, Ingram mentioned that your daughter had caught a salmon or two—as a tribute to her skill, you know.”

“Oh, I know it wass Duncan,” said Mackenzie, with a deeper frown coming over his face. “I will hef some means taken to stop Duncan from talking such nonsense.”

The young man knowing nothing as yet of the childlike obedience paid to the King of Borva by his islanders, thought to himself, “Well, you are a strong and self-willed old gentleman, but if I were you I should not meddle much with that tall keeper with the eagle beak and the gray eyes. I should not like to be a stag, and know that fellow was watching me somewhere with a rifle in his hands.”

At length they came upon the brow of the hill overlooking Gara-na-hina[2] and the panorama of the western lochs and mountains. Down there on the side of the hill was the small inn, with its little patch of garden; then a few moist meadows leading over to the estuary of the Black river; and beyond that an illimitable prospect of heathy undulations rising into the mighty peaks of Cracabhal, Mealasabhal and Suainabhal. Then on the right, leading away to the as yet invisible Atlantic, lay the blue plain of Loch Roag, with a margin of yellow seaweed along its shores, where the rocks revealed themselves at low water, and with a multitude of large, variegated and verdant islands which hid from sight the still greater Borva beyond.

They stopped to have a glass of whisky at Gara-na-hina, and Mackenzie got down from the wagonette and went into the inn.

“And this is a Highland loch!” said Lavender, turning to his companion from the South. “It is an enchanted sea; you could fancy yourself in the Pacific, if only there were some palm trees on the shores of the islands. No wonder you took for an Eve any sort of woman you met in such a paradise!”

“You seem to be thinking a good deal about that young lady.”

“Well, who would not wish to make the acquaintance of a pretty girl, especially when you have plenty of time on your hands, and nothing to do but pay her little attentions, you know, and so forth, as being the daughter of your host?”

There was no particular answer to such an incoherent question, but Ingram did not seem so well pleased as he had been with the prospect of introducing his friend to the young Highland girl whose praises he had been reciting for many a day.

However, they drank their whisky, drove on to Callernish, and here paused for a minute or two to show the stranger a series of large so-called Druidical stones which occupy a small station overlooking the loch. Could anything have been more impressive than the sight of these solitary gray pillars placed on this bit of table-land high over the sea, and telling of a race that vanished ages ago, and left the surrounding plains, and hills, and shores a wild and untenanted solitude? But, somehow Lavender did not care to remain among those voiceless monuments of a forgotten past. He said he would come and sketch them some other day. He praised the picture all around, and then came back to the stretch of ruffled blue water lying at the base of the hill. “Where was Mr. Mackenzie’s boat?” he asked.

They left the high plain, with its Tuirsachan,[3] or Stones of Mourning, and descended to the side of the loch. In a few moments, Duncan, who had been disposing of the horses and the wagonette, overtook them, got ready the boat, and presently they were cutting asunder the bright blue plain of summer waves.

At last they were nearing the King of Borva’s home, and Ingram began to study the appearance of the neighboring shores, as if he would pick out some feature of the island he remembered. The white foam hissed down the side of the open boat. The sun burned hot on the brown sail. Far away over the shining plain the salmon were leaping into the air, catching a quick glint of silver on their scales before they splashed again into the water. Half a dozen sea-pyes, with their beautiful black and white plumage and scarlet beaks and feet, flew screaming out from the rocks and swept in rapid circles above the boat. A long flight of solan geese could just be seen slowly sailing along the westward horizon. As the small craft got out toward the sea the breeze freshened slightly, and she lay over somewhat as the brine-laden winds caught her and tingled on the cheeks of her passengers from the softer South. Finally, as the great channel widened out, and the various smaller islands disappeared behind, Ingram touched his companion on the shoulder, looked over to a long and low line of rock and hill, and said, “Borva!”

And this was Borva!—nothing visible but an indefinite extent of rocky shore, with here and there a bay of white sand, and over that a table-land of green pasture, apparently uninhabited.

“There are not many people on the island,” said Lavender, who seemed rather disappointed with the look of the place.

“There are three hundred,” said Mackenzie with the air of one who had experienced the difficulties of ruling over three hundred islanders.

He had scarcely spoken when his attention was called by Duncan to some object that the gillie had been regarding for some minutes back.

“Yes, it is Miss Sheila,” said Duncan.

A sort of flush of expectation passed over Lavender’s face, and he sprang to his feet. Ingram laughed. Did the foolish youth fancy he could see half as far as this gray-eyed, eagle-faced man, who had now sunk into his accustomed seat by the mast? There was nothing visible to ordinary eyes but a speck of a boat, with a single sail up, which was, apparently, in the distance, running in for Borva.

“Ay, ay, ay,” said Mackenzie in a vexed way, “it is Sheila, true enough; and what will she do out in the boat at this time, when she wass to be at home to receive the gentlemen that hef come all the way from London?”

“Well, Mr. Mackenzie,” said Lavender, “I should be sorry to think that our coming had interfered in any way whatever with your daughter’s amusements.”

“Amusements!” said the old man with a look of surprise. “It iss not amusements she will go for; that is no amusements for her. It is for some teffle of a purpose she will go, when it iss the house that is the proper place for her, with friends coming from so great a journey.”

Presently it became clear that a race between the two boats was inevitable, both of them making for the same point. Mackenzie would take no notice of such a thing, but there was a grave smile on Duncan’s face, and something like a look of pride in his keen eyes.

“There iss no one, not one,” he said, almost to himself, “will take her in better that Miss Sheila—not one in ta island. And it wass me tat learnt her every bit o’ ta steering about Borva.”

The strangers could now make out that in the other boat there were two girls—one seated in the stern, the other by the mast. Ingram took out his handkerchief and waved it: a similar token of recognition was floated out from the other vessel. But Mackenzie’s boat presently had the better of the wind, and slowly drew on ahead, until, when her passengers landed on the rude stone quay, they found the other and smaller craft still some little distance off.

Lavender paid little attention to his luggage. He let Duncan do with it what he liked. He was watching the small boat coming in, and getting a little impatient, and perhaps a little nervous, in waiting for a glimpse of the young lady in the stern. He could vaguely make out that she had an abundance of dark hair looped up; that she wore a small straw hat with a short white feather in it; and that, for the rest, she seemed to be habited entirely in some rough and close-fitting costume of dark blue. Or was there a glimmer of a band of rose-red around her neck?

The small boat was cleverly run alongside the jetty: Duncan caught her bow and held her fast, and Miss Sheila, with a heavy string of lythe in her right hand, stepped, laughing and blushing, on to the quay. Ingram was there. She dropped the fish on the stones and took his two hands in hers, and without uttering a word, looked a glad welcome into his face. It was a face capable of saying unwritten things—fine and delicate in form, and yet full of an abundance of health and good spirits that shone in deep gray-blue eyes. Lavender’s first emotion was one of surprise that he should have heard this handsome, well-knit and proud-featured girl called “little Sheila,” and spoken of in a pretty and caressing way. He thought there was something almost majestic in her figure, in the poising of her head and the outline of her face. But presently he began to perceive some singular suggestions of sensitiveness and meekness in the low, sweet brow, in the short and exquisitely curved upper lip, and in the look of the tender blue eyes, which had long, black eyelashes to give them a peculiar and indefinable charm. All this he noticed hastily and timidly as he heard Ingram, who still held the girl’s hands in his, saying, “Well, Sheila, and you haven’t quite forgotten me? And you are grown such a woman now: why, I musn’t call you Sheila any more, I think. But let me introduce you to my friend, who has come all the way from London to see all the wonderful things at Borva.”

If there was any embarrassment or blushing during that simple ceremony it was not on the side of the Highland girl, for she frankly shook hands with him and said, “Are you very well?”

The second impression which Lavender gathered from her was, that nowhere in the world was English pronounced so beautifully as in the Island of Lewis. The gentle intonation with which she spoke was so tender and touching—the slight dwelling on the e in “very” and “well” seemed to have such a sound of sincerity about it that he could have fancied he had been a friend of hers for a lifetime. And if she said “ferry” for “very,” what then? It was the most beautiful English he had ever heard.

The party now moved off toward the shore, above the long white curve of which Mackenzie’s house was visible. The old man himself led the way, and had, by his silence, apparently not quite forgiven his daughter for having been absent from home when his guests arrived.

“Now, Sheila,” said Ingram, “tell me all about yourself; what have you been doing?”

“This morning?” said the girl, walking beside him, with her hand laid on his arm, and with the happiest look on her face.

“This morning, to begin with. Did you catch those fish yourself?”

“Oh, no, there was no time for that. And it was Mairi and I saw a boat coming in, and it was going to Mevaig, but we overtook it, and got some of the fish, and we thought we should be back before you came. However, it is no matter since you are here. And you have been very well! And did you see any differences in Stornoway when you came over?”

Lavender began to think that Styornoway sounded ever so much more pleasant than mere Stornoway.

“We had not a minute to wait in Stornoway. But tell me, Sheila, all about Borva and yourself; that is better than Stornoway. How are your schools getting on? And have you bribed or frightened all the children into giving up Gaelic yet? How is John the Piper? and does the Free Church minister still complain of him? And have you caught any more wild ducks and tamed them? And are there any gray geese up at Lochan-Eilean?”

“Oh, that is too many at once,” said Sheila, laughing. “But I am afraid your friend will find Borva very lonely and dull. There is not much there at all, for all the lads are away at the Caithness fishing. And you should have shown him all about Stornoway, and taken him up to the castle and the beautiful gardens.”

“He has seen all sorts of castles, Sheila, and all sorts of gardens in every part of the world. He has seen everything to be seen in the great cities and countries that are only names to you. He has traveled in France, Italy, Russia, Germany, and seen all the big towns that you hear of in history.”

“That is what I should like to do if I were a man,” said Sheila; “and many and many a time I wished I had been a man, that I could go to the fishing and work in the fields, and, then, when I had enough money, go away and see other countries and strange people.”

“But if you were a man I should not have come all the way from London to see you,” said Ingram, patting the hand that lay on his arm.

“But if I were a man,” said the girl, quite frankly, “I should go up to London to see you.”

Mackenzie smiled grimly, and said, “Sheila, it is nonsense you will talk.”

At this moment Sheila turned around and said, “Oh, we have forgotten poor Mairi. Mairi, why did you not leave the fish for Duncan? They are too heavy for you. I will carry them to the house.”

But Lavender sprang forward, and insisted on taking possession of the thick cord with its considerable weight of lythe.

“This is my cousin, Mairi,” said Sheila; and forthwith the young, fair-faced, timid-eyed girl shook hands with the gentlemen, and said, just as if she had been watching Sheila, “And are you ferry well, sir?”

For the rest of the way up to the house Lavender walked by the side of Sheila; and as the string of lythe had formed the introduction to their talk, it ran pretty much upon natural history. In about five minutes she had told him more about sea-birds and fish than ever he knew in his life; and she wound up this information by offering to take him out on the following morning, that he might himself catch some lythe.

“But I am a wretchedly bad fisherman, Miss Mackenzie,” he said. “It is some years since I tried to throw a fly.”

“Oh, there is no need for good fishing when you catch lythe,” she said earnestly. “You will see Mr. Ingram catch them. It is only a big white fly you will need, and a long line, and when the fish takes the fly, down he goes—a great depth. Then when you have got him and he is killed, you must cut the sides, as you see that is done, and string him to a rope and trail him behind the boat all the way home. If you do not do that it is no use at all to eat. But if you like the salmon-fishing my papa will teach you that. There is no one,” she added proudly, “can catch salmon like my papa—not even Duncan—and the gentlemen who come in the autumn to Stornoway, they are quite surprised when my papa goes to fish with them.”

“I suppose he is a good shot, too,” said the young man, amused to notice the proud way in which the girl spoke of her father.

“Oh, he can shoot anything. He will shoot a seal if he comes up but for one moment above the water; and all the birds—he will get you all the birds if you will wish to take any away with you. We have no deer on the island—it is too small for that—but in the Lewis and in Harris there are many, many thousands of deer, and my papa has many invitations when the gentlemen come up in the autumn; and if you look in the game-book of the lodges you will see there is not any one who has shot so many deer as my papa—not any one whatever.”

At length they reached the building of dark and rude stone-work, with its red coping, its spacious porch, and its small enclosure of garden in front. Lavender praised the flowers in this enclosure; he guessed they were Sheila’s particular care; but in truth there was nothing rare or delicate among the plants growing in this exposed situation. There were a few clusters of large yellow pansies, a calceolaria or two, plenty of wallflower, some clove-pinks, and an abundance of sweet-william in all manner of colors. But the chief beauty of the small garden was a magnificent tree-fuchsia which grew in front of one of the windows, and was covered with deep rose-red flowers set amid its small and deep-green leaves. For the rest, a bit of honeysuckle was turned up one side of the porch, and at the small wooden gate there were two bushes of sweetbrier that filled the warm air with fragrance.

Just before entering the house the two strangers turned to have a look at the spacious landscape lying all around in the perfect calm of a Summer day. And lo! before them there was but a blinding mass of white that glared upon their eyes, and caused them to see the far sea and the shores and hills as but faint shadows appearing through a silvery haze. A thin fleece of cloud lay across the sun, but the light was nevertheless so intense that the objects near at hand—a disused boat lying bottom upward, an immense anchor of foreign make, and some such things—seemed to be as black as night as they lay on the warm road. But when the eye got beyond the house and the garden, and the rough hillside leading down to Loch Roag, all the world appeared to be a blaze of calm, silent and luminous heat. Suainabhal and its brother mountains were only as clouds in the south. Along the western horizon the portion of the Atlantic that could be seen lay like a silent lake under a white sky. To get any touch of color they had to turn eastward, and there the sunlight faintly fell on the green shores of Borva, on the narrows of Loch Roag, and the loose red sail of a solitary smack that was slowly coming round a headland. They could hear the sound of the long oars. A pale line of shadow lay in the wake of the boat, but otherwise the black hull and the red sail seemed to be coming through a plain of molten silver. When the young men turned to go into the house the hall seemed a cavern of impenetrable darkness, and there was a flush of crimson light dancing before their eyes.

When Ingram had his room pointed out Lavender followed him into it and shut the door.

“By Jove, Ingram,” he said, with a singular light of enthusiasm on his handsome face, “what a beautiful voice that girl has! I have never heard anything so soft and musical in all my life, and then when she smiles what perfect teeth she has! And then, you know, there is an appearance, a style, a grace about her figure—but, I say, do you seriously mean to tell me you are not in love with her?”

“Of course I am not,” said the other, impatiently, as he was busily engaged with his portmanteau.

“Then let me give you a word of information,” said the young man, with an air of profound shrewdness; “she is in love with you.”

Ingram rose with some little touch of vexation on his face; “Look here, Lavender, I am going to talk to you seriously. I wish you wouldn’t fancy that every one is in that condition of simmering love-making you delight in. You never were in love, I believe—I doubt whether you ever will be—but you are always fancying yourself in love, and writing very pretty verses about it and painting very pretty heads. I like the verses and the paintings well enough, however they are come by; but don’t mislead yourself into believing that you know anything whatever of a real or serious passion by having engaged in all sorts of imaginative and semi-poetical dreams. It is a much more serious thing than that, mind you, when it comes to a man. And, for Heaven’s sake, don’t attribute any of that sort of sentimental make-believe to either Sheila Mackenzie or myself. We are not romantic folks. We have no imaginative gifts whatever, but we are very glad, you know, to be attentive and grateful to those who have. The fact is, I don’t think it quite fair—”

“Let us suppose I am lectured enough,” said the other, somewhat stiffly. “I suppose I am as good a judge of the character of women as most other men, although I am no great student, and have no hard and dried rules of philosophy at my fingers’ ends. Perhaps, however, one may learn more by mixing with other people and going out into the world, than by sitting in a room with a dozen of books, and persuading one’s self that men and women are to be studied in that fashion.”

“Go away, you stupid boy, and unpack your portmanteau, and don’t quarrel with me,” said Ingram, putting out on the table some things he had brought for Sheila; “and if you are friendly with Sheila and treat her like a human being, instead of trying to put a lot of romance and sentiment about her, she will teach you more than you could learn in a hundred drawing-rooms in a thousand years.”

CHAPTER III.

THERE WAS A KING IN THULE.

HE never took that advice. He had already transformed Sheila into a heroine during the half hour of their stroll from the beach and around the house. Not that he fell in love with her at first sight, or anything even approaching to that. He merely made her the central figure of a little speculative romance, as he had made many another woman before. Of course, in these little fanciful dramas, written along the sky-line, as it were, of his life, he invariably pictured himself as the fitting companion of the fair creatures he saw there. Who but himself could understand the sentiment of her eyes, and teach her little love-ways, and express unbounded admiration of her? More than one practical young woman, indeed, in certain circles of London society, had been informed by her friends that Mr. Lavender was dreadfully in love with her; and had been much surprised, after this confirmation of her suspicions, that he sought no means of bringing the affair to a reasonable and sensible issue. He did not even amuse himself by flirting with her, as men would willingly do who could not be charged with any serious purpose whatever.

His devotion was more mysterious and remote. A rumor would get about that Mr. Lavender had finished another of those charming heads in pastel, which, at a distance, reminded one of Greuze, and that Lady So-and-so, who had bought it forthwith, had declared that it was the image of this young lady, who was partly puzzled and partly vexed by the incomprehensible conduct of her reputed admirer. It was the fashion, in these social circles, to buy those heads of Lavender when he chose to paint them. He had achieved a great reputation by them. The good people liked to have genius in their own set whom they had discovered, and who was only to be appreciated by persons of exceptional taste and penetration. Lavender, the uninitiated were assured, was a most brilliant and cultivated young man. He had composed some charming songs, he had written, from time to time, some quite delightful little poems, over which fair eyes had grown full and liquid. Who had not heard of the face that he painted for a certain young lady whom every one expected him to marry?

The young man escaped a great deal of the ordinary consequences of this petting, but not all. He was at bottom really true-hearted, frank and generous—generous even to an extreme—but he had a habit of producing striking impressions which dogged and perverted his every action and speech. He disliked losing a few shillings at billiards, but he did not mind losing a few pounds; the latter was good for a story. Had he possessed any money to invest in shares, he would have been irritated by small rises or small falls; but he would have been vain of a big rise, and he would have regarded a big fall with equanimity, as placing him in a dramatic light. The exaggerations produced by this habit of his fostered strange delusions in the minds of people who did not know him very well: and sometimes the practical results, in the way of expected charities or what not, amazed him. He could not understand why people should have made such mistakes, and resented them as an injustice.

And as they sat at dinner on this still, brilliant evening in Summer, it was Sheila’s turn to be clothed in the garments of romance. Her father, with his great gray beard and heavy brow, became the King of Thule, living in this solitary house overlooking the sea, and having memories of a dead sweetheart. His daughter, the princess, had the glamor of a thousand legends dwelling in her beautiful eyes; and when she walked by the shores of the Atlantic, that were now getting yellow under the sunset, what strange and unutterable thoughts must appear in the wonder of her face! He remembered no more how he had pulled to pieces Ingram’s praises of Sheila. What had become of the “ordinary young lady, who would be a little interesting, if a little stupid, before marriage, and after marriage sink into the dull, domestic hind?” There could be no doubt that Sheila often sat silent for a considerable time, with her eyes fixed on her father’s face when he spoke, or turning to look at some other speaker. Had Lavender now been asked if this silence had not a trifle of dullness in it, he would have replied by asking if there were dullness in the stillness and the silence of the sea. He grew to regard her calm and thoughtful look as a sort of spell; and if you had asked him what Sheila was like, he would have answered by saying that there was moonlight in her face.

The room, too, in which this mystic princess sat, was strange and wonderful. There were no doors visible, for the four walls were throughout covered by paper of foreign manufacture, representing spacious Tyrolese landscapes and incidents of the chase. When Lavender had first entered this chamber his eye had been shocked by these coarse and prominent pictures—by the green rivers, the blue lakes and the snow-peaks that rose above certain ruddy chalets. Here a chamois was stumbling down a ravine, and there an operatic peasant some eight or ten inches in actual length, was pointing a gun. The large figures, the coarse colors, the impossible scenes—all this looked, at first sight, to be in the worst possible taste, and Lavender was convinced that Sheila had nothing to do with the introduction of this abominable decoration. But somehow, when he turned to the line of ocean that was visible from the window, to the lonely shores of the island and the monotony of colors showing in the still picture without, he began to fancy that there might be a craving up in these latitudes for some presentation, however rude and glaring, of the richer and more variegated life of the South. The figures and mountains on the walls became less prominent. He saw no incongruity in a whole chalet giving way and allowing Duncan, who waited at table, to bring from this aperture to the kitchen a steaming dish of salmon, while he spoke some words in Gaelic to the servants at the other end of the tube. He even forgot to be surprised at the appearance of little Mairi, with whom he had shaken hands a little while before, coming round the table with potatoes. He did not, as a rule, shake hands with servant-maids, but was not this fair-haired, wistful-eyed girl some relative, friend or companion of Sheila’s, and had he not already begun to lose all perception of the incongruous or the absurd in the strange pervading charm with which Sheila’s presence filled the place?

He suddenly found Mackenzie’s deep-set eyes fixed upon him, and became aware that the old man had been mysteriously announcing to Ingram that there were more political movements abroad than people fancied. Sheila sat still and listened to her father as he expounded these things, and showed that, although at a distance, he could perceive the signs of the times. Was it not incumbent, moreover, on a man who had to look after a number of poor people and simple folks, that he should be on the alert?

“It iss not bekass you will live in London you will know everything,” said the King of Borva, with a certain significance in his tone. “There iss many things a man does not see at his feet that another man will see who is a good way off. The International, now—”

He glanced furtively at Lavender.

“—I hef been told there will be agents going out every day to all parts of this country and other countries, and they will hef plenty of money to live like gentlemen, and get among the poor people, and fill their minds with foolish nonsense about a revolution. Oh yes, I hear about it all, and there iss many members of Parliament in it; and it is every day they will get farther and farther, all working hard, though no one sees them who does not understand to be on the watch.”

Here again the young man received a quiet, scrutinizing glance; and it began to dawn upon him, to his infinite astonishment, that Mackenzie half suspected him of being an emissary of the International. In the case of any other man he would have laughed and paid no heed, but how could he permit Sheila’s father to regard him with any such suspicion?

“Don’t you think, sir,” he said boldly, “that those Internationalists are a lot of incorrigible idiots?”

As if a shrewd observer of men and motives were to be deceived by such a protest! Mackenzie regarded him with increased suspicion, although he endeavored to conceal the fact that he was watching the young man from time to time. Lavender saw all the favor he had won during the day disappearing, and moodily wondered when he should have a chance of explanation.

After dinner they went outside and sat down on a bench in the garden, and the men lit their cigars. It was a cool and pleasant evening. The sun had gone down in the red fire behind the Atlantic, and there was still left a rich glow of crimson in the West, while overhead, in the pale yellow of the sky, some filmy clouds of rose-color lay motionless. How calm was the sea out there, and the whiter stretch of water coming into Loch Roag! The cool air of the twilight was scented with sweetbrier. The wash of the ripples along the coast could be heard in the stillness. It was a time for lovers to sit by the sea, careless of the future or the past.

But why would this old man keep prating of his political prophecies? Lavender asked of himself. Sheila had spoken scarcely a word all the evening; and of what interest could it be to her to listen to theories of revolution and the dangers besetting our hot-headed youth? She merely stood by the side of her father, with her hand on his shoulder. He noticed, however, that she paid particular attention whenever Ingram spoke; and he wondered whether she perceived that Ingram was partly humoring the old man, at the same time that he was pleasing himself with a series of monologues, interrupted only by his cigar.

“That is true enough, Mr. Mackenzie,” Ingram would say, laying back with his two hands clasped around his knee, as usual; “you’ve got to be careful of the opinions that are spread abroad, even in Borva, where not much danger is to be expected. But I don’t suppose our young men are more destructive in their notions than young men always have been. You know every fellow starts in life by knocking down all the beliefs he finds before him, and then spends the rest of his life in setting them up again. It is only after some years he gets to know that all the wisdom of the world lies in the old commonplaces he once despised. He finds that the old familiar ways are the best, and he sinks into being a commonplace person, with much satisfaction to himself. My friend Lavender, now, is continually charging me with being commonplace. I admit the charge. I have drifted back into all the old ways and beliefs—about religion and marriage, and patriotism, and what not—that ten years ago I should have treated with ridicule.”

“Suppose the process continues?” suggested Lavender, with some evidence of pique.

“Suppose it does,” continues Ingram carelessly. “Ten years hence I may be proud to become a vestryman, and have the most anxious care about the administration of the rates. I shall be looking after the drainage of houses and the treatment of paupers, and the management of Sunday-schools—but all this is an invasion of your province, Sheila,” he suddenly added, looking up to her.

The girl laughed and said, “Then I have been commonplace from the beginning?”

Ingram was about to make all manner of protests and apologies, when Mackenzie said, “Sheila, it wass time you go in-doors, if you have nothing about your head. Go in and sing a song to us, and we will listen to you; and not a sad song, but a good merry song. These teffles of the fishermen, it iss always drownings they will sing about from the morning till the night.”

Was Sheila about to sing in this clear, strange twilight, while they sat there and watched the yellow moon come up behind the Southern hills? Lavender had heard so much of her singing of these fishermen’s ballads that he could think of nothing more to add to the enchantment of this wonderful night. But he was disappointed. The girl put her hand on her father’s head, and reminded him that she had had her big greyhound, Bras, imprisoned all the afternoon, that she had to go down to Borvapost, with a message for some people who were leaving by the boat in the morning, and would the gentleman therefore excuse her not singing to them for this one evening?

“But you cannot go away down to Borvapost by yourself, Sheila,” said Ingram. “It will be dark before you return.”

“It will not be darker than this all the night through,” said the girl.

“But I hope you will let us go with you,” said Lavender, rather anxiously; and she assented with a gracious smile, and went to fetch the great deerhound that was her constant companion.

And lo! he found himself walking with a princess in the wonderland through that magic twilight that prevails in Northern latitudes. Mackenzie and Ingram had gone on in front. The large deerhound, after regarding him attentively, had gone to his mistress’ side, and remained closely there. Lavender could scarcely believe his ears that the girl was talking to him lightly and frankly, as though she had known him for years, and was telling him of all her troubles with the folks at the Borvapost, and of those poor people whom she was now going to see. No sooner did he understand that they were emigrants, and that they were going to Glasgow before leaving finally for America, than in quite an honest and enthusiastic fashion he began to bewail the sad fate of such poor wretches as have to forsake their native land, and to accuse the aristocracy of the country of every act of selfishness, and to charge the Government of shameful indifference. But Sheila brought him up suddenly. In the gentlest fashion she told him that she knew of these poor people, and how emigration affected them, and so forth, until he was ready to curse the hour in which he had blundered into taking a side on a question about which he cared nothing and knew less.

“But some other time,” continued Sheila, “I will tell you what we do here, and I will show you a great many letters I have from friends of mine who have gone to Greenock and to New York and Canada. Oh, yes, it is very bad for the old people; they never get reconciled to the change—never; but it is very good for the young people, and they are glad of it, and are much better off than they were here. You will see how proud they are of the better clothes they have, and of good food, and of money to put in the bank; and how could they get that in the Highlands, where the land is so poor that a small piece is no use, and they have not money to rent the large sheep farms? It is very bad to have people go away—it is very hard on many of them—but what can they do? The piece of ground that was very good for the one family, that is expected to keep the daughters when they marry, and the sons when they marry, and then there are five or six families to live on it. And hard work—that will not do much with very bad land and the bad weather we have here. The people get downhearted when they have their crops spoiled by the long rain, and they cannot get their peats dried; and very often the fishing turns out bad, and they have no money at all to carry on the farm. But now you will see Borvapost.”

Lavender had to confess that this wonderful princess would persist in talking in a very matter-of-fact way. All the afternoon, while he was weaving a luminous web of imagination around her, she was continually cutting it asunder, and stepping forth as an authority on the growing of some wretched plants or the means by which rain was to be excluded from window-sills. And now, in this strange twilight, when she ought to have been singing of the cruelties of the sea or listening to half-forgotten legends of mermaids, she was engaged with the petty fortunes of men and girls who were pleased to find themselves prospering in the Glasgow police force or educating themselves in a milliner’s shop in Edinburgh. She did not appear conscious that she was a princess. Indeed, she seemed to have no consciousness of herself at all, and was altogether occupied in giving him information about practical subjects in which he professed a profound interest he certainly did not feel.

But even Sheila, when they had reached the loftiest part of their route, and could see beneath them the island and the water surrounding it, was struck by the exceeding beauty of the twilight, and as for her companion, he remembered it many a time thereafter as if it were a dream of the sea. Before them lay the Atlantic—a pale line of blue, still, silent and remote. Overhead, the sky was of a clear, pale gold, with heavy masses of violet cloud stretched across from North to South, and thickening as they got near to the horizon. Down at their feet, near the shore, a dusky line of huts and houses was scarcely visible, and over these lay a pale blue film of peat-smoke that did not move in the still air. Then they saw the bay into which the White Water runs, and they could trace the yellow glimmer of the river stretching into the island through a level valley of bog and morass. Far away, toward the East, lay the bulk of the island—dark green undulations of moorland and pasture; and there, in the darkness, the gable of one white house had caught the clear light of the sky, and was gleaming Westward like a star. But all this was as nothing to the glory that began to shine in the Southeast, where the sky was of a pale violet over the peaks of Melasabhal and Suainabhal. There, into the beautiful dome, rose the golden crescent of the moon, warm in color, as though it still retained the last rays of the sunset. A line of quivering gold fell across Loch Roag, and touched the black hull and spars of the boat in which Sheila had been sailing in the morning. That bay down there, with its white sands and massive rocks, its still expanse of water and its background of mountain peaks palely colored by the yellow moonlight, seemed really a home for a magic princess who was shut off from all the world. But here, in front of them, was another sort of sea and another sort of life—a small fishing village, hidden under a cloud of pale peat-smoke, and fronting the great waters of the Atlantic itself, which lay under a gloom of violet clouds.

“Now,” said Sheila, with a smile, “we have not always weather as good as this in the island. Will you not sit on the bench over there with Mr. Ingram, and wait until my papa and I come up from the village again?”

“May not I go down with you?”

“No. The dogs would learn you were a stranger, and there would be a great deal of noise, and there will be many of the poor people asleep.”

So Sheila had her way; and she and her father went down the hillside into the gloom of the village, while Lavender went to join his friend Ingram, who was sitting on the wooden bench silently smoking a clay pipe.

“Well, I have never seen the like of this,” said Lavender, in his impetuous way; “it is worth going a thousand miles to see. Such colors and such clearness! and then the splendid outlines of those mountains, and the grand sweep of this loch! This is the sort of thing that drives me to despair, and might make one vow never to touch a brush again. And Sheila says it will be like this all the night through.”

He was unaware that he had spoken of her in a very familiar way, but Ingram noticed it.

“Ingram,” he said, suddenly, “that is the first girl I have ever seen whom I should like to marry.”

“Stuff!”

“But it is true. I have never seen any one like her—so handsome, so gentle, and yet so very frank in setting you right. And then she is so sensible, you know, and not too proud to have much interest in all sorts of common affairs—”

There was a smile in Ingram’s face, and his companion stopped in some vexation: “You are not a very sympathetic confidant.”

“Because I know the story of old. You have told it me about twenty women; and it is always the same. I tell you, you don’t know anything at all about Sheila Mackenzie yet; perhaps you never may. I suppose you will make a heroine of her, and will fall in love with her for a fortnight, and then go back to London and get cured by listening to the witticisms of Mrs. Lorraine.”

“Thank you very much.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to offend you. Some day, no doubt, you will love a woman for what she is, not for what you fancy her to be; but that is a piece of good fortune that seldom occurs to a youth of your age. To marry in a dream, and wake up six months afterwards—that is the fate of ingenuous twenty-three. But don’t you let Mackenzie hear you talk of marrying Sheila, or he’ll have some of his fishermen throw you into Loch Roag.”

“There, now, that is one point I can’t understand about her,” said Lavender, eagerly. “How can a girl of her shrewdness and good sense have such a belief in that humbugging old idiot of a father of hers, who fancies me a political emissary, and plays small tricks to look like diplomacy? It is always ‘My papa can do this,’ and ‘My papa can do that,’ and ‘There is no one at all like my papa.’ And she is continually fondling him, and giving little demonstrations of affection, of which he takes no more notice than if he were an Arctic bear.”

Ingram looked up with some surprise in his face. “You don’t mean to say, Lavender,” he said, slowly, “that you are already jealous of the girl’s own father?”

He could not answer, for at this moment Sheila, her father and the big greyhound came up the hill. And again it was Lavender’s good fortune to walk with Sheila across the moorland path they had traversed some little time before. And now the moon was still higher in the heavens, and the yellow lane of light that crossed the violet waters of Loch Roag quivered in a deeper gold. The night air was scented with the Dutch clover growing down by the shore. They could hear the curlew whistling and the plover calling amid that monotonous plash of the waves that murmured all around the coast. When they returned to the house the darker waters of the Atlantic and the purple clouds of the West were shut out of sight, and before them there was only the liquid plain of Loch Roag, with its pathway of yellow fire, and far away on the other side the shoulders and peaks of the Southern mountains, that had grown gray and clear and sharp in the beautiful twilight. And this was Sheila’s home.

PART II.

CHAPTER IV.

ROMANCE-TIME.

EARLY morning at Borva, fresh, luminous and rare; the mountains in the South grown pale and cloud-like under a sapphire sky; the sea ruffled into a darker blue by a light breeze from the west; and the sunlight lying hot on the red gravel and white shells around Mackenzie’s house. There is an odor of sweetbrier about, hovering in the warm, still air, except at such times as the breeze freshens a bit, and brings around the shoulder of the hill the cold, strange scent of the rocks and the sea beyond.

And on this fresh and pleasant morning Sheila sat in the big garden-seat in front of the house, talking to the stranger to whom she had been introduced the day before. He was no more a stranger, however, to all appearance, for what could be more frank and friendly than their conversation, or more bright and winning than the smile with which she frequently turned to speak or to listen? Of course, this stranger could not be her friend as Mr. Ingram was—that was impossible. But he talked a great deal more than Mr. Ingram, and was apparently more anxious to please and be pleased; and indeed was altogether very winning and courteous and pleasant in his ways. Beyond this vague impression Sheila ventured upon no further comparison between the two men. If her older friend had been down, she would doubtless have preferred talking to him about all that had happened in the island since his last visit; but here was this newer friend thrown, as it were, upon her hospitality, and eager, with a most respectful and yet simple and friendly interest, to be taught all that Ingram already knew. Was he not, too, in mere appearance like one of the princes she had read of in many an ancient ballad—tall and handsome and yellow-haired, fit to have come sailing over the sea, with a dozen merry comrades, to carry off some sea-king’s daughter to be his bride? Sheila began to regret that the young man knew so little about the sea and the Northern islands and those old-time stories; but then he was very anxious to learn.

“You must say Mach-Klyoda instead of Macleod,” she was saying to him, “if you like Styornoway better than Stornoway. It is the Gaelic, that is all.”

“Oh, it is ever so much prettier,” said young Lavender, with a quite genuine enthusiasm in his face, not altogether begotten of the letter y; “and, indeed, I don’t think you can possibly tell how singularly pleasant and quaint it is to an English ear to hear just that little softening of the vowels that the people have here, I suppose you don’t notice that they say gyarden, for garden—”

“They!” As if he had paid attention to the pronunciation of any one except Sheila herself.

“But not quite so hard as I pronounce it. And so with a great many other words, that are softened and sweetened and made almost poetical in their sound by the least bit of inflection. How surprised and pleased English ladies would be to hear you speak! Oh! I beg your pardon—I did not mean to—I—I beg your pardon—”

Sheila seemed a little astonished by her companion’s evident mortification, and said with a smile, “If others speak so in the island, of course I must too; and you say it does not shock you.”

His distress at his own rudeness now found an easy vent. He protested that no people could talk English like the people of Lewis. He gave Sheila to understand that the speech of English folks was as the croaking of ravens compared with the sweet tones of the Northern isles; and this drew him on to speak of his friends in the South, and of London, and the chances of Sheila ever going thither.

“It must be so strange never to have seen London,” he said. “Don’t you ever dream of what it is like? Don’t you ever try to think of a great space, nearly as big as this island, all covered over with large houses, the roads between the houses all made of stone, and great bridges going over the rivers, with railway trains standing? By the way, you have never seen a railway engine?”

He looked at her for a moment in astonishment, as if he had not hitherto realized to himself the absolute ignorance of the remote princess. Sheila, with some little touch of humor appearing in her calm eyes, said: “But I am not quite ignorant of all these things. I have seen pictures of them, and my papa has described them so often that I will feel as if I had seen them all; and I do not think that I should be surprised, except, perhaps, by the noise of the big towns. It was many a time my papa told me of that; but he says I cannot understand it, nor the great distance of land you travel over to get to London. That is what I do not wish to see. I was often thinking of it, and that to pass so many places that you do not know would make you very sad.”

“That can be easily avoided,” he said, lightly. “When you go to London you must go from Glasgow or Edinburgh in a night train, and fall fast asleep, and in the morning you will find yourself in London, without having seen anything.”

“Just as if one had gone across a great distance of sea, and come to another island you will never see before,” said Sheila, with the gray-blue eyes under the black eyelashes grown strange and distant.

“But you must not think of it as a melancholy thing,” he said, almost anxiously. “You will find yourself among all sorts of gaities and amusements; you will have cheerful people around you, and plenty of things to see; you will drive in beautiful parks, and go to theatres, and meet people in large and brilliant rooms, filled with flowers, and silver, and light. And all through the winter, that must be so cold and dark up here, you will find an abundance of warmth and light, and plenty of flowers, and every sort of pleasant thing. You will hear no more of those songs of drowned people; and you will be afraid no longer of storms, or listen to the waves at night; and by-and-by, when you have got quite accustomed to London, and got a great many friends, you might be disposed to stay there altogether; and you would grow to think of this island as a desolate and melancholy place, and never seek to come back.”

The girl rose suddenly and turned to a fuchsia tree, pretending to pick some of its flowers. Tears had sprung to her eyes unbidden, and it was in rather an uncertain voice that she said, still managing to conceal her face: “I like to hear you talk of those places, but—but I will never leave Borva.”

What possible interest could he have in combating this decision so anxiously, almost so imploringly? He renewed his complaints against the melancholy of the sea and the dreariness of the Northern winters. He described again and again the brilliant lights and colors of town life in the South. As a mere matter of experience and education she ought to go to London; and had not her papa as good as intimated his intention of taking her?

In the midst of these representations a step was heard in the hall, and then the girl looked around with a bright light on her face.

“Well, Sheila,” said Ingram, according to his custom, and both the girl’s hands were in his the next minute, “you are down early. What have you been about? Have you been telling Mr. Lavender about the Black Horse of Loch Suainabhal?”

“No; Mr. Lavender has been telling me of London.”

“And I have been trying to induce Miss Mackenzie to pay us a visit, so that we may show her the difference between a city and an island. But all to no purpose. Miss Mackenzie seems to like hard winters, and darkness, and cold; and as for that perpetual and melancholy and cruel sea that in the winter time, I should fancy, might drive anybody into a lunatic asylum—”

“Ah, you must not talk badly of the sea,” said the girl, with all her courage and brightness returned to her face: “It is our very good friend. It gives us food, and keeps many people alive. It carries the lads away to other places, and brings them back with money in their pockets—”

“And sometimes it smashes a few of them on the rocks, or swallows up a dozen families, and the next morning it is as smooth and treacherous and fair as if nothing had happened.”

“But that is not the sea at all,” said Sheila; “that is the storms that will wreck the boats; and how can the sea help that? When the sea is left alone the sea is very good to us.”

Ingram laughed aloud and patted the girl’s head fondly; and Lavender, blushing a little, confessed he was beaten, and that he would never again, in Miss Mackenzie’s presence, say anything against the sea.

The King of Borva now appearing, they all went in to breakfast; and Sheila sat opposite the window, so that all the light coming in from the clear sky and the sea was reflected upon her face, and lit up every varying expression that crossed it or that shone up in the beautiful deeps of her eyes. Lavender, his own face in shadow, could look at her from time to time, himself unseen; and as he sat in almost absolute silence, and noticed how she talked with Ingram, and what deference she paid him, and how anxious she was to please him, he began to wonder if he should ever be admitted to a like friendship with her. It was so strange, too, that this handsome, proud-featured, proud-spirited girl should so devote herself to the amusement of a man like Ingram, and, forgetting all the court that should have been paid to a pretty woman, seem determined to persuade him that he was conferring a favor upon her by every word and look. Of course, Lavender admitted to himself, Ingram was a very good sort of a fellow—a very good sort of a fellow, indeed. If any one was in a scrape about money, Ingram would come to the rescue without a moment’s hesitation, although the salary of a clerk in the Board of Trade might have been made the excuse, by any other man, for a very justifiable refusal. He was very clever, too—had read much, and all that kind of thing. But he was not the sort of man you might expect to get on well with women. Unless with very intimate friends he was a trifle silent and reserved. Often he was inclined to be pragmatic and sententious, and had a habit of saying unpleasantly better things when some careless joke was being made.

He was a little dingy in appearance, and a man who had a somewhat cold manner, who was sallow of face, who was obviously getting gray, and who was generally insignificant in appearance, was not the sort of man, one would think, to fascinate an exceptionally handsome girl, who had brains enough to know the fineness of her own face. But here was this princess paying attentions to him, such as must have driven a more impressionable man out of his senses, while Ingram sat quiet and pleased, sometimes making fun of her, and generally talking to her as if she were a child. Sheila had chatted very pleasantly with him, Lavender, in the morning, but it was evident that her relations with Ingram were of a very different kind, such as he could not well understand. For it was scarcely possible that she could be in love with Ingram, and yet, surely the pleasure that dwelt in her expressive face, when she spoke to him or listened to him, was not the result of a mere friendship.

If Lavender had been told at that moment that these two were lovers, and that they were looking forward to an early marriage, he would have rejoiced with an enthusiasm of joy. He would have honestly and cordially shaken Ingram by the hand; he would have made plans for introducing the young bride to all the people he knew; and he would have gone straight off, on reaching London, to buy Sheila a diamond necklace, even if he had to borrow the money from Ingram himself.

“And have you got rid of the Airgiod-cearc,[4] Sheila?” said Ingram, suddenly breaking in upon these dreams; “or does every owner of hens still pay his annual shilling to the Lord of Lewis?”

“It is not away yet,” said the girl, “but when Sir James comes in the autumn I will go over to Stornoway and ask him to take away the tax; and I know he will do it, for what is the shilling worth to him, when he has spent thousands and thousands of pounds on the Lewis? But it will be very hard on some of the poor people that only keep one or two hens; and I will tell Sir James of all that—”

“You will do nothing of the kind, Sheila,” said her father, impatiently. “What is the Airgiod-cearc to you, that you will go over to Stornoway only to be laughed at and make a fool of yourself?”

“That is nothing—not anything at all,” said the girl, “if Sir James will only take away the tax.”

“Why, Sheila, they would treat you as another Lady Godiva,” said Ingram, with a good-humored smile.

“But Miss Mackenzie is quite right,” exclaimed Lavender, with a sudden flush of color leaping into his handsome face, and an honest glow of admiration into his eyes. “I think it is a very noble thing for her to do, and nobody, either in Stornoway or anywhere else, would be such a brute as to laugh at her for trying to help those poor people, who have not too many friends and defenders, God knows.”

Ingram looked surprised. Since when had the young gentleman across the table acquired such a singular interest in the poorer classes, of whose very existence he had for the most part seemed unaware? But the enthusiasm in his face seemed quite honest; there could be no doubt of that. As for Sheila, with a beating heart she ventured to send to her companion a brief and timid glance of gratitude, which the young man observed, and never forgot.

“You will not know what it is all about,” said the King of Borva, with a peevish air, as though it were too bad that a person of his authority should have to descend to details about a petty hen-tax. “It is many and many a tax and a due Sir James will take away from his tenants in the Lewis, and he will spend more money a thousand times than ever he will get back; and it was this Airgiod-cearc, it will stand in the place of a great many things taken away, just to remind the folk that they have not their land all in their own right. It is many things you will have to do in managing the poor people, not to let them get too proud, or forgetful of what they owe to you; and now there is no more tacksmen to be the masters of the small crofters, and the crofters they would think they were landlords themselves if there were no dues for them to pay.”

“I have heard of those middlemen; they were dreadful tyrants and thieves, weren’t they?” said Lavender. Ingram kicked his foot under the table. “I mean, that was the popular impression of them—a vulgar error, I presume,” continued the young man, in the coolest manner. “And so you have got rid of them? Well, I dare say many of them were honest men, and suffered very unjustly in common report.”

Mackenzie answered nothing, but his daughter said quickly: “But you know, Mr. Lavender, they have not gone away merely because they cease to have the letting of the land to the crofters. They have still their old holdings, and so have the crofters, in most cases. Every one now holds direct from the proprietor, that is all.”

“So that there is no difference between the former tacksman and his serf, except the relative size of their farms?”

“Well, the crofters have no leases, but the tacksmen have,” said the girl, somewhat timidly; and then she added: “But you have not decided yet, Mr. Ingram, what you will do to-day. It is too clear for the salmon fishing. Will you go over to Meavig and show Mr. Lavender the Bay of Uig and the seven hunters?”

“Surely we must show him Borvapost first, Sheila,” said Ingram. “He saw nothing of it last night in the dark, and I think if you offered to take Mr. Lavender around in your boat, and show him what a clever sailor you are, he would prefer that to walking over the hill.”

“I can take you all around in the boat, certainly,” said the girl, with a quick blush of pleasure; and forthwith a message was sent to Duncan that cushions should be taken down to the Maighdean-mhara, the little vessel of which Sheila was both skipper and pilot.

How beautiful was the fair sea-picture that lay around them as the Maighdean-mhara stood out to the mouth of Loch Roag on this bright Summer morning! Sheila sat in the stern of the small boat, her hand on the tiller. Lufrath lay at her feet, his nose between the long and shaggy paws. Duncan, grave and watchful as to the wind and the points of the coast, sat amidships, with the sheets of the mainsail held fast, and superintended the seamanship of his young mistress with a respectful but most evident pride. And as Ingram had gone off with Mackenzie to walk over the White Water before going down to Borvapost, Frank Lavender was Sheila’s sole companion out in this wonderland of rock and sea and blue sky.

He did not talk much to her, and she was so well occupied with the boat that he could regard with impunity the shifting lights and graces of her face and all the wonder and winning depths of her eyes. The sea was blue around them; the sky overhead had not a speck of cloud in it; the white sand-bays, the green stretches of pasture and the far and spectral mountains trembled in a haze of sunlight. Then there was all the delight of the fresh and cool wind, the hissing of the water along the boat, and the joyous rapidity with which the small vessel, lying over a little, ran through the crisply curling waters, and brought into view the newer wonders of the opening sea.

Was it not all a dream, that he should be sitting by the side of this sea-princess, who was attended only by her deerhound and the tall keeper? And if a dream, why should it not go on forever? To live forever in this magic land—to have the princess herself carry him in this little boat into the quiet bays of the islands, or out at night, in the moonlight, on the open sea—to forget forever the godless South and its social phantasmagoria, and live in this beautiful and distant solitude, with the solemn secrets of the hills and the moving deep forever present to the imagination, might not that be a nobler life? And some day or other he would take this island-princess up to London, and he would bid the women that he knew—the scheming mothers and the doll-like daughters—stand aside from before this perfect work of God. She would carry with her the mystery of the sea in the deeps of her eyes, and the music of the far hills would be heard in her voice, and all the sweetness and purity and brightness of the clear Summer skies would be mirrored in her innocent soul. She would appear in London as some wild-plumaged bird hailing from distant climes, and before she had lived there long enough to grow sad, and have the weight of the city cloud the brightness of her eyes, she would be spirited away again into this strange sea-kingdom, where there seemed to be perpetual sunshine and the light music of the waves.

Poor Sheila! She little knew what was expected of her, or the sort of drama into which she was being thrown as a central figure. She little knew that she, a simple Highland girl, was being transformed into a wonderful creature of romance, who was to put to shame the gentle dames and maidens of London society, and do many other extraordinary things. But what would have appeared the most extraordinary of all these speculations, if she had only known of them, was the assumption that she would marry Frank Lavender. That the young man had quite naturally taken for granted; but, perhaps, only as a basis for his imaginative scenes. In order to do these fine things she would have to be married to somebody, and why not to himself? Think of the pride he would have in leading this beautiful girl, with her quaint manners and fashion of speech, into a London drawing-room! Would not every one wish to know her? Would not everyone listen to her singing of those Gaelic songs? for, of course, she must sing well. Would not all his artist friends be anxious to paint her? and she would go to the Academy to convince the loungers there how utterly the canvas had failed to catch the light and dignity and sweetness of her face.

When Sheila spoke he started.

“Did you not see it?”

“What?”

“The seal; it rose for a moment just over there,” said the girl, with a great interest visible in her eyes.

The beautiful dreams he had been dreaming were considerably shattered by this interruption. How could a fairy princess be so interested in some common animal showing its head out of the sea? It also occurred to him, just at this moment, that if Sheila and Mairi went out in this boat by themselves, they must be in the habit of hoisting up the mainsail; and was such rude and coarse work befitting the character of a princess?

“He looks very like a black man in the water, when his head comes up,” said Sheila—“when the water is smooth, so that you will see him look at you. But I have not told you yet about the Black Horse that Alister-nan-Each saw at Loch Suainabhal one night. Loch Suainabhal, that is inland and fresh water—so it was not a seal; but Alister was going along the shore, and he saw it lying up by the road, and he looked at it for a long time. It was quite black, and he thought it was a boat; but when he came near, he saw it begin to move, and then it went down across the shore, and splashed into the loch. And it had a head bigger than a horse, and quite black, and it made a noise as it went down the shore to the loch.”

“Don’t you think Alister must have been taking a little whisky, Miss Mackenzie?”

“No, not that, for he came to me just after he will see the beast.”

“And do you really believe he saw such an animal?” said Lavender, with a smile.

“I do not know,” said the girl, gravely. “Perhaps it was only a fright, and he imagined he saw it; but I do not know it is impossible there can be such an animal at Loch Suainabhal. But that is nothing; it is of no consequence. But I have seen stranger things than the Black Horse, that many people will not believe.”

“May I ask what they are?” he said, gently.

“Some other time, perhaps, I will tell you; but there is much explanation about it, and, you see, we are going in to Borvapost.”

Was this, then, the capital of the small empire over which the princess ruled? He saw before him but a long row of small huts or hovels, resembling beehives, which stood above the curve of a white bay, and at one portion of the bay was a small creek, near which a number of large boats, bottom upward, lay on the beach. What odd little dwellings those were! The walls, a few feet high, were built of rude blocks of stone or slices of turf, and from those low supports rose a rounded roof of straw, which was thatched over by a further layer of turf. There were few windows, and no chimneys at all—not even a hole in the roof. And what was meant by the two men, who, standing on one of the turf walls, were busily engaged in digging into the rich brown and black thatch and heaving it into a cart? Sheila had to explain to him that while she was doing everything in her power to get the people to suffer the introduction of windows, it was hopeless to think of chimneys; for by carefully guarding against the egress of the peat smoke, it slowly saturated the thatch of the roof, which at certain periods of the year was then taken off to dress the fields, and a new roof of straw put on.

By this time they had run the Maighdean-mhara—the “Sea Maiden” into a creek, and were climbing up the steep beach of shingle that had been worn smooth by the unquiet waters of the Atlantic.

“And will you want to speak to me, Ailasa?” said Sheila, turning to a small girl who had approached her somewhat diffidently.

She was a pretty little thing, with a round, fair face, tanned by the sun, brown hair and soft, dark eyes. She was bare-headed, bare-footed and bare-armed, but she was otherwise smartly dressed, and she held in her hand an enormous flounder, apparently about half as heavy as herself.

“Will ye hef the fesh, Miss Sheila,” said the small Ailasa, holding out the flounder, but looking down all the same.

“Did you catch it yourself, Ailasa?”

“Yes, it wass Donald and me; we wass out in a boat, and Donald had a line.”

“And it is a present for me?” said Sheila, patting the small head and its wild and soft hair. “Thank you, Ailasa. But you must ask Donald to carry it up to the house and give it to Mairi. I cannot take it with me just now, you know.”

There was a small boy cowering behind one of the upturned boats, and by his furtive peepings showing that he was in league with his sister. Ailasa, not thinking that she was discovering his whereabouts, turned quite naturally in that direction, until she was suddenly stopped by Lavender, who called to her and put his hand in his pocket. But he was too late. Sheila had stepped in, and with a quick look, which was all the protest that was needed, shut her hand over the half crown he had in his fingers.

“Never mind, Ailasa,” she said. “Go away and get Donald, and bid him carry the fish up to Mairi.”

Lavender put up the half-crown in his pocket in a somewhat dazed fashion; what he chiefly knew was that Sheila had for a moment held his hand in hers, and that her eyes had met his.

Well, that little incident of Ailasa and the flounder was rather pleasant to him. It did not shock the romantic associations he had begun to weave around his fair companion. But when they had gone up to the cottages—Mackenzie and Ingram not yet having arrived—and when Sheila proceeded to tell him about the circumstances of the fishermen’s lives, and to explain how such and such things were done in the fields and pickling-houses, and so forth, Lavender was a little disappointed. Sheila took him into some of the cottages, or rather hovels, and he vaguely knew in the darkness that she sat down by the low glow of the peat-fire, and began to ask the women about all sorts of improvements in the walls and windows and gardens, and what not. Surely it was not for a princess to go advising people about particular sorts of soap, or offering to pay for a pane of glass if the husband of the woman would make the necessary aperture in the stone-wall. The picture of Sheila appearing as a sea-princess in a London drawing-room was all very beautiful in its way, but here she was discussing as to the quality given to broth by the addition of a certain vegetable which she offered to send down from her own garden, if the cottager in question would try to grow it.

“I wonder, Miss Mackenzie,” he said, at length, when they got outside, his eyes dazed with the light and smarting with the peat-smoke, “I wonder you can trouble yourself with such little matters, that those people should find out for themselves.”

The girl looked up with some surprise: “That is the work I have to do. My papa cannot do everything in the island.”

“But what is the necessity for your bothering yourself about such things? Surely they ought to be able to look after their own gardens and houses. It is no degradation—certainly not; for anything you interested yourself in would become worthy of attention by the very fact—but, after all, it seems such a pity you should give up your time to these commonplace details.”

“But some one must do it,” said the girl, quite innocently, “and my papa has no time. And they will be very good in doing what I ask them—everyone in the island.”

Was this a willful affectation? he said to himself. Or was she really incapable of understanding that there was anything incongruous in a young lady of her position, education and refinement busying herself with the curing of fish and the cost of lime? He had himself marked the incongruity long ago, when Ingram had been telling him of the remote and beautiful maiden whose only notions of the world had been derived from literature—who was more familiar with the magic land in which Endymion wandered than with any other—and that at the same time she was about as good as her father at planning a wooden bridge over a stream. When Lavender had got outside again—when he found himself walking with her along the white beach in front of the blue Atlantic—she was again the princess of his dreams. He looked at her face, and he saw in her eyes that she must be familiar with all the romantic nooks and glades of English poetry. The plashing of the waves down there and the music of her voice recalled the sad legends of the fishermen he hoped to hear her sing. But ever and anon there occurred a jarring recollection—whether arising from a contradiction between his notion of Sheila and the actual Sheila, or whether from some incongruity in itself, he did not stop to consider. He only knew that a beautiful maiden who had lived by the sea all her life, and who had followed the wanderings of Endymion in the enchanted forest, need not have been so particular about a method of boiling potatoes, or have shown so much interest in a pattern for children’s frocks.

Mackenzie and Ingram met them. There was the usual “Well, Sheila?” followed by a thousand questions about the very things she had been inquiring into. That was one of the odd points about Ingram that puzzled and sometimes vexed Lavender; for if you are walking home at night it is inconvenient to be accompanied by a friend who would stop to ask about the circumstances of some old crone hobbling along the pavement, or who could, on his own door-step, stop to have a chat with a garrulous policeman. Ingram was about as odd as Sheila herself in the attention he paid to those wretched cotters and their doings. He could not advise on the important subject of broth, but he would have tasted it by way of discovery, even if it had been presented to him in a tea-cup. He had already been prowling around the place with Mackenzie. He had inspected the apparatus in the creek for hauling up the boats. He had visited the curing houses. He had examined the heaps of fish drying on the beach. He had drunk whisky with John the Piper and shaken hands with Alister-nan-Each. And now he had come to tell Sheila that the piper was bringing down luncheon from Mackenzie’s house, and that after they had eaten and drunk on the white beach they would put out the Maighdean-mhara once more to sea, and sail over to Mevaig, that the stranger might see the wondrous sands of the Bay of Uig.

But it was not in consonance with the dignity of a king that his guests should eat from off the pebbles, like so many fishermen, and when Mairi and another girl brought down the baskets, luncheon was placed in the stern of the small vessel, while Duncan got up the sails and put out from the stone quay. As for John the Piper, was he insulted for having been sent on a menial errand? They had scarcely got away from the shore when the sounds of the pipes were wafted to them from the hillside above, and it was the “Lament of Mackrimmon” that followed them out to sea:

Mackrimmon shall no more return, Oh never, never more return!

That was the wild and ominous air that was skirling up on the hillside; and Mackenzie’s face, as he heard it, grew wroth. “That teffle of a piper, John!” he said, “will be playing Cha till mi tuiligh?”

“It is out of mischief, papa,” said Sheila—“that is all.”

“It will be more than mischief if I burn his pipes and drive him out of Borva. Then there will be no more of mischief.”

“It is very bad of John to do that,” said Sheila to Lavender, apparently in explanation of her father’s anger, “for we have given him shelter here when there will be no more pipes in all the Lewis. It was the Free Church ministers, they put down the pipes, for there was too much wildness at the marriages when the pipes would play.”

“And what do the people dance to now?” asked the young gentleman, who seemed to resent this paternal government.

Sheila laughed in an embarrassed way.

“Miss Mackenzie would rather not tell you,” said Ingram. “The fact is, the noble mountaineers of these districts have had to fall back on the Jew’s harp. The ministers allow the instrument to be used—I suppose because there is a look of piety in the name. But the dancing doesn’t get very mad when you have two or three young fellows playing a strathspey on a bit of a trembling wire.”

“That teffle of a piper John!” growled Mackenzie, under his breath; and so the Maighdean-mhara lightly sped on her way, opening out the various headlands of the islands, until at last she got into the narrows by Eilean-Aird-Meinish, and ran up the long arm of the sea to Mevaig.

They landed and went up the rocks. They passed two or three small white houses overlooking the still, green waters of the sea, and then, following the line of a river, plunged into the heart of a strange and lonely district, in which there appeared to be no life. The river track took them up a green glen, the sides of which were about as sheer as a railway cutting. There were no trees or bushes about, but the green pasture along the bed of the valley wore its brightest colors in the warm sunlight, and far up on the hillsides the browns and crimsons of the heather and the silver gray of the rocks trembled in the white haze of the heat. Over that again the blue sky, as still and silent as the world below.

They wandered on, content with idleness and a fine day. Mr. Mackenzie was talking with some little loudness, so that Lavender might hear, of Mr. John Stuart Mill, and was anxious to convey to Ted Ingram that a wise man, who is responsible for the well-being of his fellow creatures, will study all sides of all questions, however dangerous. Sheila was doing her best to entertain the stranger, and he, in a dream of his own, was listening to the information she gave him. How much of it did he carry away? He was told that the gray goose built its nest in the rushes at the edge of lakes; Sheila knew several nests in Borva. Sheila also caught the young of the wild duck when the mother was guiding them down the hill-rivulets to the sea. She had tamed many of them, catching them thus before they could fly. The names of most of the mountains about here ended in bhal, which was a Gaelic corruption of the Norse fiall, a mountain. There were many Norse names all through the Lewis, but more particularly towards the Butt. The termination bost, for example, at the end of many words, meant an inhabited place, but she fancied bost was Danish. And did Mr. Lavender know of the legend connected with the air of Cha till, cha till mi tuille?

Lavender started as from a trance, with an impression that he had been desperately rude. He was about to say that the gray gosling in the legend could not speak Scandinavian, when he was interrupted by Mr. Mackenzie turning and asking him if he knew from what ports the English smacks hailed that came up hither to the cod and the ling fishing for a couple of months in the autumn. The young man said he did not know. There were many fishermen at Brighton. And when the King of Borva turned to Ingram, to see why he was shouting with laughter, Sheila suddenly announced to the party that before them lay the great Bay of Uig.

It was certainly a strange and impressive scene. They stood on the top of a lofty range of hills, and underneath them lay a vast semicircle, miles in extent, of gleaming white sand, that had in by-gone ages been washed in by the Atlantic. Into this vast plain of silver whiteness the sea, entering by a somewhat narrow portal, stretched in long arms of a pale blue. Elsewhere the great crescent of sand was surrounded by a low line of rocky hill, showing a thousand tints of olive-green and gray and heather purple; and beyond that again rose the giant bulk of Mealasabhal, grown pale in the heat, into the Southern sky. There was not a ship visible along the blue plain of the Atlantic. The only human habitation to be seen in the strange world beneath them was a solitary manse. But away toward the summit of Mealasabhal two specks slowly circled in the air, which Sheila thought were eagles; and far out on the Western sea, lying like dusky whales in the vague blue, were the Plada Islands—the remote and unvisited Seven Hunters—whose only inhabitants are certain flocks of sheep belonging to dwellers on the main land of Lewis.

The travelers sat down on a low rock of gneiss to rest themselves, and then and there did the King of Borva recite his grievances and rage against the English smacks. Was it not enough that they should in passing steal the sheep, but that they should also, in mere wantonness, stalk them as deer, wounding them with rifle bullets, and leaving them to die among the rocks. Sheila said bravely that no one could tell that it was the English fishermen who did that. Why not the crews of merchant vessels, who might be of any nation? It was unfair to charge upon any body of men such a despicable act, when there was no proof of it whatever.

“Why, Sheila,” said Ingram, with some surprise, “you never doubted before that it was the English smacks that killed the sheep.”

Sheila cast down her eyes and said nothing.

Was the sinister prophecy of John the Piper to be fulfilled? Mackenzie was so much engaged in expounding politics to Ingram, and Sheila was so proud to show her companion all the wonders of Uig, that when they returned to Mevaig in the evening the wind had altogether gone down and the sea was as a sea of glass. But if John the Piper had been ready to foretell for Mackenzie the fate of Mackrimmon, he had taken means to defeat destiny by bringing over from Borvapost a large and heavy boat pulled by six rowers. These were not strapping young fellows, clad in the best blue cloth to be got in Stornoway, but elderly men, gray, wrinkled, weather-beaten and hard of face, who sat stolidly in the boat and listened with a sort of bovine gaze to the old hunchback’s wicked stories and jokes. John was in a mischievous mood, but Lavender, in a confidential whisper, informed Sheila, that her father would speedily be avenged on the inconsiderate piper.

“Come, men, sing us a song, quick!” said Mackenzie, as the party took their seats in the stern and the great oars splashed into the sea of gold. “Look sharp, John, and no teffle of a drowning song!”

In a shrill, high, querulous voice the piper, who was himself pulling one of the two stroke oars, began to sing, and then the men behind him gathering courage, joined in an octave lower, their voices being even more uncertain and lugubrious than his own. These poor fishermen had not had the musical education of Clan-Alpine’s warriors. The performance was not enlivening, and as the monotonous and melancholy sing-song that kept time to the oars told its story in Gaelic, all that the English strangers could make out was an occasional reference to Jura or Scarba or Isla. It was, indeed, the song of an exile shut up in “sea-worn Mull,” who was complaining of the wearisome look of the neighboring islands.

“But why do you sing such Gaelic as that, John?” said young Lavender, confidently. “I should have thought a man in your position—the last of the Hebridean bards—would have known the classical Gaelic. Don’t you know the classical Gaelic?”

“There iss only the wan sort of Kâllic, and it is a ferry goot sort of Kâllic,” said the piper, with some show of petulance.

“Do you mean to tell me you don’t know your own tongue? Do you not know what the greatest of all the bards wrote about your own island? ‘O et præsidium et dulce decus meum, agus, Tityre tu catulæ recubans sub tegmine Styornoway, Arma virumque cano, Macklyoda et Borvapost sub tegmine fagi?’ ”

Not only John the Piper, but all the men behind him, began to look amazed and sorely troubled; and all the more so that Ingram—who had picked up more Gaelic words than his friend—came to his assistance, and began to talk to him in this unknown tongue. They heard references in the conversation to persons and things with which they were familiar in their own language, but still accompanied by much more they could not understand.

The men now began to whisper awe-stricken questions to each other, and at last John the Piper could not restrain his curiosity. “What in the name of Kott is tat sort of Kâllic?” he asked, with some look of fear in his eyes.

“You are not such a student, John,” said Lavender, carelessly, “but still a man in your position should know something of your own language. A bard, a poet, and not know the classical form of your own tongue!”

“Is it ta Welsh Kâllic?” cried John, in desperation, for he knew that the men behind him would carry the story of his ignorance all over Borvapost.

“The Welsh Gaelic? No. I see you will have to go to school again.”

“There iss no more Kâllic in ta schools,” said the piper, eagerly seizing the excuse. “It iss Miss Sheila; she will hef put away all ta Kâllic from ta schools.”

“But you were born half a century before Miss Sheila; how is it that you neglected to learn that form of Gaelic that has been sacred to the use of the bards and poets since the time of Ossian?”

There were no more quips or cranks for John the Piper during the rest of the pull home. The wretched man relapsed into a moody silence and worked methodically at his oar, brooding over this mysterious language of which he had not even heard. As for Lavender, he turned to Mackenzie and begged to know what he thought of affairs in France.

And so they sailed back to Borvapost over the smooth water that lay like a lake of gold. Was it not a strange sight to see the Atlantic one vast and smooth yellow plain under the great glow of saffron that spread across the regions of the sunset? It was a world of light, unbroken but by the presence of a heavy coaster that had anchored in the Bay, and that sent a long line of trembling black down on the perfect mirror of the sea. As they got near the shore, the portions that were in shadow showed with a strange distinctness the dark green of the pasture and the sharp outlines of the rocks; and there was a cold scent of sea-weed in the evening air. The six heavy oars plashed into the smooth bay. The big boat was moored to the quay, and its passengers landed once more in Borva. And when they turned, on their way home, to look from the brow of the hill, on which Sheila had placed a garden seat, lo! all the West was on fire, the mountains in the South had grown dark on their Eastern side, and the plain of the sea was like a lake of blood, with the heavy hull and masts of the coaster grown large and solemn and distant. There was scarcely a ripple around the rocks at their feet to break the stillness of the approaching twilight.

So another day had passed, devoid of adventure or incident. Lavender had not rescued his wonderful princess from an angry sea, nor had he shown prowess in slaying a dozen stags, nor in any way distinguished himself. To all outward appearance the relations of the party were the same at night as they had been in the morning. But the greatest crises of life steal on us imperceptibly, and have sometimes occurred and wound us in their consequences before we know. The memorable things in a man’s career are not always marked by some sharp convulsion. The youth does not necessarily marry the girl whom he happens to fish out of a mill-pond; his life may be far more definitely shaped for him at a prosaic dinner-table, where he fancies he is only thinking of the wines. We are indeed but as children seated on the shore, watching the ripples that come on to our feet; and while the ripples unceasingly repeat themselves, and while the hour that passes is but as the hour before it, constellation after constellation has gone by over our heads unheeded, and we wake with a start to find ourselves in a new day, with all our former life cut off from us and become as a dream.

CHAPTER V.

SHEILA SINGS.

A KNOCKING at Ingram’s door.

“Well, what’s the matter?”

“Will ye be goin’ to ta fishin’, Mr. Ingram?”

“Is that you, Duncan? How the devil have you got over from Mevaig at this hour of the morning?”

“Oh, there wass a bit breeze tis morning, and I hef prought over ta Maighdean-mhara. And there iss a very good ripple on ta water, if you will tak ta other gentleman to try for ta salmon.”

“All right. Hammer at his door until he gets up. I shall be ready in ten minutes.”

About half an hour thereafter the two young men were standing at the front of Mackenzie’s house examining the enormous rod that Duncan had placed against the porch. It was still early morning, and there was a cold wind blowing in from the sea, but there was not a speck of cloud in the sky, and the day promised to be hot. The plain of the Atlantic was no longer a sheet of glass; it was rough and gray, and far out an occasional quiver of white showed where a wave was hissing over. There was not much of a sea on, but the heavy wash of the water around the rocks and sandy bays could be distinctly heard in the silence of the morning.

And what was this moving object down there by the shore where the Maighdean-mhara lay at anchor? Both the young men at once recognized the glimmer of the small white feather and the tightly-fitting blue dress of the sea-princess.

“Why, there is Sheila!” cried Ingram. “What in all the world is she about at such an hour?”

At this moment Duncan came out with a book of flies in his hand, and he said in rather a petulant way, “And it iss no wonder Miss Sheila will be out. And it was Miss Sheila herself will tell me to see if you will go to ta White Water and try for a salmon.”

“And she is bringing up something from the boat; I must go and carry it for her,” said Lavender, making down the path to the shore with the speed of a deer.

When Sheila and he came up the hill, there was a fine color in the girl’s face from her morning’s exertions, but she was not disposed to go in-doors to rest. On the contrary, she was soon engaged in helping Mairi to bring in some coffee to the parlor, while Duncan cut slices of ham and cold beef big enough to have provisioned a fishing-boat bound for Caithness. Sheila had had her breakfast; so she devoted all her time to waiting upon her guests, until Lavender could scarcely eat through the embarrassment produced by her noble servitude. Ingram was not so sensitive, and made a very good meal indeed.

“Where’s your father, Sheila?” said Ingram, when the last of their preparations had been made and they were about to start for the river. “Isn’t he up yet?”

“My father?” said the girl, with the least possible elevation of her eyebrows—“he will be down at Borvapost an hour ago. And I hope that John the Piper will not see him this morning. But we must make haste, Mr. Ingram, for the wind will fall when the sun gets stronger, and then your friend will have no more of the fishing.”

So they set out, and Ingram put Sheila’s hand on his arm, and took her along with him in that fashion, while the tall gillie walked behind with Lavender, who was or was not pleased with the arrangement. The young man, indeed, was a trifle silent, but Duncan was in an amiable and communicative mood, and passed the time in telling him stories of the salmon he had caught, and of the people who had tried to catch them and failed. Sheila and Ingram certainly went a good pace up the hill and around the summit of it, and down again into the valley of the White Water. The light step of the girl seemed to be as full of spring as the heather on which she trod; and as for her feet getting wet, the dew must have soaked them long ago. She was in the brightest of spirits. Lavender could hear her laughing in a low, pleased fashion, and then presently her head would be turned up toward her companion, and all the light of some humorous anecdote would appear in her face and in her eloquent eyes, and it would be Ingram’s turn to break out into one of those short, abrupt laughs that had something sardonic in them.

But hark! From the other side of the valley comes another sound, the faint and distant skirl of the pipes, and yonder is the white-haired hunchback, a mere speck in a waste of brown and green morass. What is he playing to himself now?

“He is a foolish fellow, that John,” said the tall keeper, “for if he comes down to Borvapost this morning, it iss Mr. Mackenzie will fling his pipes in ta sea, and he will haf to go away and work in ta steamboat. He iss a very foolish fellow; and it wass him tat wass goin’ in ta steamboat before, and he went to a tailor in Styornoway, and he said to him, ‘I want a pair o’ troosers.’ And the tailor said to him, ‘What sort o’ troosers iss it you will want?’ And he said to him, ‘I want a pair o’ troosers for a steamboat.’ A pair o’ troosers for a steamboat!—he is a teffle of a foolish fellow. And it wass him that went in ta steamboat with a lot o’ freens o’ his, that wass a goin’ to Skye to a big weddin’ there; and it wass a very bad passage, and when tey got into Portree, the captain said to him, ‘John, where iss all your freens that tey do not come ashore?’ And he said to him, ‘I hef peen down below, sir, and four-thirds o’ ta whole o’ them are a’ half-troonded and sick and tead.’ Four-thirds o’ ta whole o’ them! And he iss just the ferry man to laugh at every other pody when it iss a mistake you will make in ta English.”

“I suppose,” said Lavender, “you found it rather difficult to learn good English?”

“Well, sir, I hefna got ta good English yet. But Miss Sheila she has put away all the Gaelic from the schools, and the young ones they will learn more of ta good English after that.”

“I wish I knew as much Gaelic as you know English,” said the young man.

“Oh, you will soon learn. It iss ferry easy if you will only stay in ta island.”

“It would take me several months to pick it up, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes—nine or six—that will do,” said Duncan. “You will begin to learn ta names o’ ta Islands and ta places. There now, as far as you can see is ta Seann Bheinn; and it means ta old hill. And there is a rock there; it is Stac-nan-Balg—”

Here Duncan looked rather perplexed.

“Yes,” said Lavender; “what does that mean?”

“It means—it means,” said Duncan, in still greater perplexity, and getting a little impatient, “it means—stac, tat iss a steep rock; Stac-nan-Balg—it means—well, sir, it is ower deep for ta English.”

The tone of mortification in which Duncan uttered these words warned Lavender that his philological studies might as well cease; and indeed Sheila and Ingram had by this time reached the banks of the White Water, and were waiting Duncan and his majestic rod.

It was much too bright and pleasant a morning for good fishing, but there was a fair ripple on the pools of the stream where ever and anon a salmon fresh run from the sea would leap into the air, showing a gleaming curve of silver to the sunlight. The splash of the big fish seemed an invitation, and Duncan was all anxiety to teach the stranger, who, as he fancied, knew nothing about throwing a fly. Ingram lay down on a rock some little distance back from the banks, and put his hands beneath his head and watched the operations going forward. But was it really Duncan who was to teach the stranger? It was Sheila who picked out flies for him. It was Sheila who held the rod while he put them on the line. It was Sheila who told where the bigger salmon usually lay—under the opposite bank of the broad and almost lake-like pool into which the small but rapid White Water came tumbling and foaming down its narrow channel of rocks and stones.

Then Sheila waited to see her pupil begin. He had evidently a little difficulty about the big double-handed rod, a somewhat more formidable engine of destruction than the supple little thing with which he had whipped the streams of Devonshire and Cornwall.

The first cast sent both flies and a lump of line tumbling on to the pool, and would have driven the boldest of salmon out of its wits. The second pretty nearly took a piece out of Ingram’s ear, and made him shift his quarters with rapidity. Duncan gave him up in despair. The third cast dropped both flies with the lightness of a feather in the running waters of the other side of the pool; and the next second there was a slight wave along the surface, a dexterous jerk with the butt, and presently the line was whirled out into the middle of the pool, running rapidly off the reel from the straining rod.

“Plenty o’ line, sir, plenty o’ line!” shouted Duncan, in a wild fever of anxiety, for the fish had plunged suddenly.

Ingram had come running down to the bank. Sheila was all excitement and interest as she stood and watched every slackening or tightening of the line as the fish went up the pool and down the pool, and crossed the current in his efforts to escape. The only self-possessed person, indeed, was Lavender himself, who presently said, “Miss Mackenzie, won’t you take the rod now and have the honor of landing him? I don’t think he will show much more fight.”

At this moment, however, the line slackened suddenly, and the fish threw himself clean out of the water, turning a complete somersault. It was a dangerous moment, but the captive was well hooked, and in his next plunge Lavender was admonished by Duncan to keep a good strain on him.

“I will take the second one,” Sheila promised, “if you like; but you must surely land your first salmon yourself.”

I suppose nobody but a fisherman can understand the generosity of the offer made by the young man. To have hooked your first salmon—to have its first wild rushes and plunges safely over—and to offer to another the delight of bringing him victoriously to bank! But Sheila knew. And what could have surpassed the cleverness with which he had hooked the fish, and the coolness and courage he showed throughout the playing of him, except this more than royal offer on the part of the young hero?

The fish was losing strength. All the line had been got in, although the forefinger of the fisherman felt the pulse of his captive, as it were, ready for any expiring plunge. They caught occasional glimpses of a large white body gliding through the ruddy-brown water. Duncan was down on his knees more than once, with the landing-net in his hand, but again and again the big fish would sheer off, with just such indications of power as to make his conqueror cautious. At length he was guided slowly in to the bank. Behind him the landing-net was gently let into the water—then a quick forward movement, and a fourteen pounder was scooped up and flung upon the bank, landing-net and all. “Hurrah!” cried Ingram, and Lavender blushed like a school-girl; and Sheila, quite naturally and without thinking, shook hands with him and said, “I congratulate you;” and there was more congratulation in her glad eyes than in that simple little gesture.

It was a good beginning, and of course the young man was very much pleased to show Sheila that he was no mere lily-fingered idler about town. He buckled to his work in earnest. With a few more casts he soon got into the way of managing the big rod; and every time the flies fell lightly on the other side of the pool, to be dragged with gentle jerks across the foaming current of the stream. Ingram went back to his couch on the rock. He lay and watched the monotonous flinging back of the long rod, the light whistle of the line through the air, and the careful manipulation of the flies through the water. Or was it something else that he was watching—something that awakened in his mind a sudden sense of surprise and fear, and a new and strange consciousness that he had been guiltily remiss?

Sheila was wholly pre-occupied with her companion and his efforts. He had had one or two rises, but had struck either too soon or too late, until at last there was a terrific plunge and rush, and again the line was whirled out. But Duncan did not like the look of it somehow. The fish had been sheering off when it was hooked, and the deep plunge at the outset was ugly.

“Now will you take the rod?” said Lavender to Sheila.

But before she could answer the fish had come rushing up to the surface, and had thrown itself out of the water, so that it fell on the opposite bank. It was a splendid animal, and Duncan, despite his doubts, called out to Lavender to slacken his hold. There was another spring into the air, the fish fell with a splash into the water, and the line was flying helplessly into the air with the two flies floating about.

“Ay,” said Duncan, with a sigh, “it wass foul-hooked. It wass no chance of catching him whatever.”

Lavender was most successful next time, however, with a pretty little grilse of about half a dozen pounds, that seemed to have in him the spirit and fight of a dozen salmon. How he rushed and struggled, how he plunged and sulked, how he burrowed along the banks, and then ran out to the middle of the pool, and then threw himself into the air, with the line apparently, but not really, doubling up under him. All these things can only be understood by the fisherman who has played in a Highland stream a wild and powerful little grilse fresh in from the salt water. And it was Sheila who held him captive, who humored him when he sulked, and gently guided him away from dangerous places, and kept him well in hand when he tried to cross the current, until at last, all the fierceness gone out of him, he let himself be tenderly inveigled into the side of the pool, where Duncan, by a dexterous movement, surrounded him with network and placed his shining body among the bright green grass.

But Ingram was not so overjoyed this time. He complimented Sheila in a friendly way, but he was rather grave, and obviously did not care for this business of fishing. And so Sheila, fancying that he was rather dull because he was not joining in the sport, proposed that he should walk back to the house with her, leaving Mr. Lavender with Duncan. And Ingram was quite ready to do so.

But Lavender protested that he cared very little for salmon-fishing. He suggested that they should all go back together. The sun was killing the wind, and soon the pools would be as clear as glass. Had they not better try in the afternoon, when, perhaps, the breeze would freshen? And so they walked back to the house.

On the garden-seat a book lay open. It was Mr. Mill’s “Essay on Liberty,” and it had evidently been left there by Mr. Mackenzie, perhaps—who knows?—to hint to his friends from the South that he was familiar with the problems of the age. Lavender winked to Ingram, but somehow his companion seemed in no humor for a joke.

They had luncheon then, and after luncheon Ingram touched Lavender on the shoulder, and said, “I want to have a word with you privately. Let’s walk down to the shore.”

And so they did; and when they had got some little distance from the house, Ingram said: “Look here, Lavender. I mean to be frank with you. I don’t think it fair that you should try to drag Sheila Mackenzie into a flirtation. I knew you would fall in love with her. For a week or two, that does not matter—it harms no one. But I never thought of the chance of her being led into such a thing, for what is a mere passing amusement to you would be a very serious thing to her.”

“Well?”

“Well? Is not that enough? Do you think it fair to take advantage of this girl’s innocence of the world?”

Lavender stopped in the middle of the path, and said, somewhat stiffly, “This may be as well settled at once. You have talked of flirtation and all that sort of thing. You may regard it as you please, but before I leave this island I mean to ask Sheila Mackenzie to be my wife.”

“Why, you are mad!” cried Ingram, amazed to see that the young man was perfectly serious.

The other shrugged his shoulders.

“Do you mean to say,” continued Ingram, “that even supposing Sheila would consent—which is impossible—you would try to take away that girl from her father?”

“Girls must leave their fathers sometime or other,” said Lavender, somewhat sullenly.

“Not unless they are asked.”

“Oh, well, they are sure to be asked, and they are sure to go. If their mothers had not done so before them, where would they be? It’s all very well for you to talk about it, and argue it out as a theory, but I know what the facts of the case are, and what any man in my position would do; and I know that I am careless of any consequences, so long as I can secure her for my wife.”

“Apparently you are—careless of any consequences to herself or those about her.”

“But what is your objection, Ingram?” said the young man, suddenly abandoning his defiant manner; “why should you object? Do you think I would make a bad husband to the woman I married?”

“I believe nothing of the sort. I believe you would make a very good husband, if you were to marry a woman whom you know something about, and whom you had really learned to love and respect through your knowledge of her. I tell you, you know nothing about Sheila Mackenzie as yet. If you were to marry her to-morrow, you would discover in six months she was a woman wholly different from what you had expected.”

“Very well, then,” said Lavender, with an air of triumph; “you can’t deny this; you think so much of her that the real woman I would discover must be better than the one I imagine; and so you don’t expect I shall be disappointed?”

“If you marry Sheila Mackenzie you will be disappointed—not through her fault, but your own. Why, a more preposterous notion never entered a man’s head! She knows nothing of your friends or your ways of life; you know nothing of hers. She would be miserable in London, even if you could persuade her father to go with her, which is the most unlikely thing in the world. Do give up this foolish idea, like a good fellow, and do it before Sheila is dragged into a flirtation that may have the most serious consequences to her.”

Lavender would not promise, but all that afternoon various resolutions and emotions were struggling within him for mastery, insomuch that Duncan could not understand the blundering way in which he whipped the pools. Mackenzie, Sheila and Ingram had gone off to pay a visit to an old crone who lived in a neighboring island, and in whom Ingram had been much interested a few years before; so that Lavender had an opportunity of practicing the art of salmon-fishing without interruptions. But all the skill he had shown in the morning seemed to have deserted him; and at last he gave the rod to Duncan, and sitting down on a top-coat flung on the wet heather, indolently watched the gillie’s operations.

Should he at once fly from temptation and return to London? Would it not be heroic to leave this old man in possession of his only daughter? Sheila would never know of the sacrifice, but what of that? It might be for her happiness that he should go.

But when a young man is in love, or fancies himself in love, with a young girl, it is hard for him to persuade himself that anybody else can make her as happy as he might. Who could be so tender to her, so watchful over her, as himself? He does not reflect that her parents have had the experience of years in taking care of her, while he would be a mere novice at the business. The pleasure with which he regards the prospect of being constantly with her he transfers to her, and she seems to demand it of him as a duty that he should confer upon her this new happiness.

Lavender met Sheila in the evening, and he was yet undecided. Sometimes he fancied, when their eyes met unexpectedly, that there was something wistful as well as friendly in her look; was she, too, dreaming of the vague possibilities of the future? This was strange, too, that after each of these little chance reveries she seemed to be moved by a resolution to be more than usually affectionate toward her father, and would go around the table and place her hand on his shoulder and talk to him. Perhaps these things were but delusions begotten of his own imaginings, but the possibility of their being real agitated him not a little, and he scarcely dared to think what might follow.

That evening Sheila sang, and all his half-formed resolutions vanished into air. He sat in a corner of the curious, dimly-lit and old-fashioned chamber, and, lying back in the chair, abandoned himself to dreams as Sheila sang the mystic songs of the Northern coast. There was something strangely suggestive of the sea in the room itself, and all her songs were of the sea. It was a smaller room than the large apartment in which they had dined, and it was filled with curiosities from distant shores, and with the strange captures made by the Borva fishermen. Everywhere, too, were the trophies of Mackenzie’s skill with rod and rifle. Deer’s horns, seal skins, stuffed birds, salmon in glass cases, masses of coral, enormous shells, and a thousand similar things made the little drawing-room a sort of grotto; but it was a grotto within hearing of the sound of the sea, and there was no musty atmosphere in a room that was open all day to the cold winds of the Atlantic.

With a smoking tumbler of whisky and water before him, the King of Borva sat at the table, poring over a large volume containing plans for bridges. Ingram was seated at the piano in continual consultation with Sheila about her songs. Lavender, in the dusky corner, lay and listened, with all sorts of fancies crowding in upon him as Sheila sang of the sad and wild legends of her home. Was it by chance, then, he asked himself, that these songs seemed so frequently to be the lamentation of a Highland girl for a fair-haired lover beyond the sea? First of all, she sang the “Wail of Dunevegan,” and how strangely her voice thrilled with the sadness of the song!—

Morn, oh mantle thy smiles of gladness! Night, oh come with thy clouds of sadness! Earth, thy pleasures to me seem madness! Macleod, my leal love, since thou art gone. Dunevegan, oh! Dunevegan, oh! Dunevegan! Dunevegan!

It was as in a dream that he heard Ingram talking in a matter-of-fact way about the airs, and asking the meaning of certain lines of Gaelic to compare them with the stiff and old-fashioned phrases of the translation. Surely this girl must have sat by the shore and waited for her absent lover, or how could she sing with such feeling?—

Say, my love, why didst thou tarry Far over the deep sea? Knew’st thou not my heart was weary, Heard’st thou not how I sighed for thee? Did no light wind bear my wild despair Far over the deep sea?

He could imagine that beautiful face grown pale and wild with anguish. And then some day, as she went along the lonely island, with all the light of hope gone out of her eyes, and with no more wistful glances cast across the desolate sea, might not the fair-haired lover come at last, and leap ashore to clasp her in his arms, and hide the wonder-stricken eyes and the glad face in his bosom? But Sheila sang of no such meeting. The girl was always alone, her lover gone away from her across the sea or into the wilds.

Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries: Why tarries the youth with the bright yellow hair? Oh long on the mountain he tarries, he tarries: Why seeks he the hill when his flock is not there?

That was what he heard her sing, until it seemed to him that her singing was a cry to be taken away from these melancholy surroundings of sea and shore, and carried to the secure and comfortable South, to be cherished and tended and loved. Why should this girl be left to live a cruel life up in these wilds, and to go through this world without knowing anything of the happy existence that might have been hers? It was well for harder and stronger natures to withstand the buffetings of wind and rain, and be indifferent to the melancholy influences of the lonely sea and the darkness of the Northern winters; but for her—for this beautiful, sensitive, tender-hearted girl—surely some other and gentler fate was in store. What he, at least, could do, he would. He would lay his life at her feet; and if she chose to go away from this bleak and cruel home to the sunnier South, would not he devote himself, as never a man had given himself to a woman before, to the constant duty of enriching her life with all the treasures of admiration and respect and love?

It was getting late, and Sheila retired. As she bade “good night” to him, Lavender fancied her manner was a little less frank toward him than usual, and her eyes were cast down. All the light of the room seemed to go with her when she went.

Mackenzie mixed another tumbler of toddy, and began to expound to Ingram his views upon deer-forests and sheep-farms. Ingram lit a cigar, stretched out his legs and proceeded to listen with much complacent attention. As for Lavender, he sat awhile, hearing vaguely the sounds of his companions’ voices, and then, saying he was a trifle tired, he left and went to his own room. The moon was then clearly shining over Suainabhal, and a pathway of glimmering light lay across Loch Roag.

He went to bed, but not to sleep. He had resolved to ask Sheila Mackenzie to be his wife, and a thousand conjectures as to the future were floating about his imagination. In the first place, would she listen to his prayer? She knew nothing of him beyond what she might have heard from Ingram. He had had no opportunity, during their friendly talking, of revealing to her what he thought of herself; but might she not have guessed it? Then her father—what action might not this determined old man take in the matter? Would his love for his daughter prompt him to consider her happiness alone?

All these things, however, were mere preliminaries, and the imagination of the young man soon overleapt them. He began to draw pictures of Sheila as his wife in their London home, among his friends, at Hastings, at Ascot, in Hyde Park. What would people say of the beautiful sea-princess with the proud air, the fearless eye and the gentle and musical voice? Hour after hour he lay and could not sleep; a fever of anticipation, of fear and hope combined, seemed to stir in his blood and throb in his brain. At last, in a paroxysm of unrest, he rose, hastily dressed himself, stole down stairs, and made his way out into the cool air of the night.

It could not be the coming dawn that revealed to him the outlines of the shore and the mountains and the loch? The moon had already sunk in the Southwest; not from her came that strange clearness by which all these objects were defined. Then the young man bethought him of what Sheila had said of the twilight in these latitudes, and, turning to the North, he saw there a pale glow which looked as if it were the last faint traces of some former sunset. All over the rest of the heavens something of the same metallic clearness reigned, so that the stars were pale, and a gray hue lay over the sea, and over the island, the white bays, the black rocks and the valleys, in which lay a scarcely perceptible mist.

He left the house and went vaguely down to the sea. The cold air, scented strongly with the seaweed, blew about him, and was sweet and fresh on the lips and the forehead. How strange was the monotonous sound of the waves, mournful and distant, like the sound in a sea-shell! That alone spoke in the awful stillness of the night, and it seemed to be telling of those things which the silent stars and the silent hills had looked down on for ages and ages. Did Sheila really love this terrible thing, with its strange voice talking in the night, or did she not secretly dread it and shudder at it when she sang of all that old sadness? There was ringing in his ears the “Wail of Dunevegan” as he listened for a while to the melancholy plashing of the waves all around the lonely shores; and there was a cry of “Dunevegan, oh! Dunevegan, oh!” weaving itself curiously with those wild pictures of Sheila in London, which were still floating before his imagination.

He walked away around the coast, seeing almost nothing of the objects around him, but conscious of the solemn majesty of the mountains and the stillness of the throbbing stars. He could have called aloud, “Sheila! Sheila!” but that all the place seemed associated with her presence; and might he not turn suddenly to find her figure standing by him, with her face grown wild and pale as it was in the ballad, and a piteous and awful look in her eyes? He scarcely dared look around, lest there should be a phantom Sheila appealing to him for compassion, and complaining against him with her speechless eyes for a wrong that he could not understand. He fled from her, but he knew that she was there; and all the love in his heart went out to her as if beseeching her to go away and forsake him, and forgive him the injury of which she seemed to accuse him. What wrong had he done her that he should be haunted by this spectre, that did not threaten, but only looked piteously toward him with eyes full of entreaty and pain?

He left the shore, and blindly made his way up to the pasture-land above, careless whither he went. He knew not how long he had been away from the house, but here was a small fresh-water lake set around about with rushes, and far over there in the East lay a glimmer of the channels between Borva and Lewis. But soon there was another light in the East, high over the low mists that lay along the land. A pale blue-gray arose in the cloudless sky, and the stars went out one by one. The mists were seen to lie in thicker folds along the desolate valleys. Then a faintly yellow-whiteness stole up into the sky, and broadened and widened, and, behold! the little moorland loch caught a reflection of the glare, and there was a streak of crimson here and there on the dark-blue surface of the water. Loch Roag began to brighten. Suainabhal was touched with rose-red on its Eastern slopes. The Atlantic seemed to rise out of its purple sleep with the new light of a new dawn; and then there was a chirruping of birds over the heath, and the first shafts of the sunlight ran along the surface of the sea, and lit up the white wavelets that were breaking on the beach. The new day struck upon him with a strange sense of wonder. Where was he? Whither had gone the wild visions of the night, the feverish dread, the horrible forebodings? The strong mental emotion that had driven him out now produced its natural reaction; he looked about in a dazed fashion at the revelation of light around him, and felt himself trembling with weakness. Slowly, blindly, and hopelessly he set to walk back across the island, with the sunlight of the fresh morning calling into life ten thousand audible things of the moorland around him.

And who was this that stood at the porch of the house in the clear sunshine? Not the pale and ghastly creature who had haunted him during those wild hours, but Sheila herself, singing some snatches of a song, and engaged in watering the two bushes of sweet-brier at the gate. How bright and roseate and happy she looked, with the fine color of her face lit up by the fresh sunlight, and the brisk breeze from the sea stirring now and again the loose masses of her hair! Haggard and faint as he was, he would have startled her if he had gone up to her then. He dared not approach her. He waited until she had gone around to the gable of the house to water the plants there, and then he stole into the house and upstairs, and threw himself upon the bed. And outside he still heard Sheila singing lightly to herself as she went about her ordinary duties, little thinking in how strange and wild a drama her wraith had that night taken part.

PART III.

CHAPTER VI.

AT BARVAS BRIDGE.

VERY soon, indeed, Ingram began to see that his friend had spoken to him quite frankly, and that he was really bent on asking Sheila to become his wife. Ingram contemplated this prospect with some dismay, and with some vague consciousness that he was himself responsible for what he could not help regarding as a disaster. He had half expected that Frank Lavender would, in his ordinary fashion, fall in love with Sheila—for about a fortnight. He had joked him about it, even before they came within sight of Sheila’s home.

He had listened with a grim humor to Lavender’s outbursts of admiration, and only asked himself how many times he had heard the same phrases before. But now things were looking more serious, for the young man had thrown himself into the prosecution of his new project with all the generous poetic enthusiasm of a highly impulsive nature. Ingram saw that everything a young man could do to win the heart of a young girl Lavender would do; and Nature had dowered him richly with various means of fascination. Most dangerous of all of these was a gift of sincerity that deceived himself. He could assume an opinion or express an emotion at will, with such genuine fervor that he himself forgot how recently he had acquired it, and was able to convince his companion for the moment that it was a revelation of his inmost soul. It was this charm of impetuous sincerity which had fascinated Ingram himself years before, and made him cultivate the acquaintance of a young man whom he at first regarded as a somewhat facile, talkative and histrionic person. Ingram perceived, for example, that young Lavender had so little regard for public affairs that he would have been quite content to see our Indian empire go, for the sake of eliciting a sarcasm from Lord Westbury; but at the same time, if you had appealed to his nobler instincts, and placed before him the condition of a certain populace suffering from starvation, he would have done all in his power to aid them; he would have written letters to the newspapers, would have headed subscriptions, and would have ended by believing that he had been the constant friend of the people of India throughout his life, and was bound to stick to them to the end of it.

As often as not he borrowed his fancies and opinions from Edward Ingram himself, who was amused and gratified at the same time to find his humdrum notions receive a dozen new lights and colors when transferred to the warmer atmosphere of his friend’s imagination. Ingram would even consent to receive from his younger companion advice, impetuously urged and richly illustrated, which he had himself offered in similar terms months before. At this very moment he could see that much of Lavender’s romantic conceptions of Sheila’s character was only an exaggeration of some passing hints he, Ingram, had dropped, as the Clansman was steaming into Stornoway. But then they were ever so much more beautiful. Ingram held to his conviction that he himself was a distinctly commonplace person. He had grown reconciled to the ordinary grooves of life. But young Lavender was not commonplace; he fancied he could see in him an occasional flash of something that looked like genius; and many and many a time, in regarding the brilliant and facile powers, the generous impulses, and the occasional ambitions of his companion, he wondered whether these would ever lead to anything in the way of production, or even of consideration of character, or whether they would merely remain the passing sensations of an indifferent idler. Sometimes, indeed, he devoutly wished that Lavender had been born a stonemason.

But all these pleasant and graceful qualities, which had made the young man an agreeable companion, were a serious danger now; for was it not but too probable that Sheila, accustomed to the rude and homely ways of the islanders, would be attracted and pleased and fascinated by one who had about him so much of a soft and Southern brightness with which she was wholly unfamiliar? This open-hearted frankness of his placed all his best qualities in the sunshine, as it were: she could not fail to see the singular modesty and courtesy of his bearing towards women, his gentle manners, his light-heartedness, his passionate admiration of the self-sacrifice of others, and his sympathy with their sufferings! Ingram would not have minded much if Lavender alone had been concerned in the dilemma now growing imminent; he would have left him to flounder out as he had got out of previous ones. But he had been surprised and pained, and even frightened, to detect in Sheila’s manner some faint indications—so faint that he was doubtful what construction to put on them—of a special interest in the young stranger whom he had brought with him to Borva.

What could he do in the matter supposing his suspicions were correct? Caution Sheila?—it would be an insult. Warn Mackenzie?—the King of Borva would fly into passion with everybody concerned, and bring endless humiliation on his daughter, who had probably never dreamed of regarding Lavender except as a chance acquaintance. Insist upon Lavender going South at once?—that would merely goad the young man into obstinacy. Ingram found himself in a grievous difficulty, afraid to say how much of it was of his own creation. He had no selfish sentiments of his own to consult: if it were to become evident that the happiness of Sheila and of his friend depended on their marrying each other, he was ready to forward such a project with all the influence at his command. But there were a hundred reasons why he should dread such a marriage. He had already mentioned several of them to Lavender in trying to dissuade the young man from his purpose. A few days had passed since then, and it was clear that Lavender had abandoned all notion of fulfilling those resolutions he had vaguely formed. But the more Ingram thought over the matter, and the further he recalled the ancient proverbs and stories about the fate of intermeddlers, the more evident it became to him that he could take no immediate action in the affair. He would trust to the chapter of accidents to save Sheila from what he considered a disastrous fate. Perhaps Lavender would repent. Perhaps Mackenzie, continually on the watch for small secrets, would discover something, and bid his daughter stay in Borva while his guests proceeded on their tour through Lewis. In any case, it was not all certain that Lavender would be successful in his suit. Was the heart of a proud-spirited, intelligent and busily-occupied girl to be won in a matter of three weeks or a month? Lavender would go South, and no more would be heard of it.

This tour around the island of Lewis, however, was not likely to favor much any such easy escape from the difficulty. On a certain morning the larger of Mr. Mackenzie’s boats carried the holiday party away from Borva; and, even at this early stage, as they sat at the stern of the heavy craft, Lavender had arrogated to himself the exclusive right of waiting upon Sheila. He had constituted himself her companion in all their excursions about Borva which they had undertaken, and now, on this longer journey, they were to be once more thrown together. It did seem a little hard that Ingram should be relegated to Mackenzie and his theories of government; but did he not profess to prefer that? Like most men, who have got beyond five-and-thirty, he was rather proud of considering himself an observer of life. He stood aside, as a spectator, and let other people, engaged in all manner of eager pursuits, pass before him for review. Toward young folks, indeed, he assumed a good-naturedly paternal air, as if they were but, as shy-faced children, to be humored. Were not their love affairs a pretty spectacle? As for himself, he was far beyond all that. The illusions of love-making, the devotion, and ambition, and dreams of courtship were no longer possible to him, but did they not constitute, on the whole, a beautiful and charming study, that had about it, at times, some little touches of pathos? At odd moments, when he saw Sheila and Lavender walking together in the evening, he was himself half inclined to wish that something might come of the young man’s determination. It would be so pleasant to play the part of a friendly counselor, to humor the follies of the young folks, to make jokes at their expense, and then, in the midst of their embarrassment and resentment, to go forward and pet them a little, and assure them of a real and earnest sympathy.

“Your time is to come,” Lavender said to him suddenly after he had been exhibiting some of his paternal forbearance and consideration; “you will get a dreadful twist some day, my boy. You have been doing nothing but dreaming about women, but some day or other you will wake up and find yourself captured and fascinated beyond anything you have ever seen in other people, and then you will discover what a desperately real thing it is.”

Ingram had a misty impression that he had heard something like this before. Had he not given Lavender some warning of the same kind? But he was so much accustomed to hear those vague repetitions of his own remarks, and was, on the whole, so well pleased to think that his commonplace notions should take root and flourish in this goodly soil, that he never thought of asking Lavender to quote his authority for those profound observations on men and things.

“Now, Miss Mackenzie,” said the young man as the big boat was drawing near to Callernish, “what is to be our first sketch in Lewis?”

“The Callernish Stones, of course,” said Mackenzie himself; “it iss more than one hass come to the Lewis to see the Callernish Stones.”

Lavender had promised to the King of Borva a series of water-color drawings of Lewis, and Sheila was to choose the subjects from day to day. Mackenzie was gratified by this proposal, and accepted it with much magnanimity; but Sheila knew that before the offer was made Lavender had come to her and asked her if she cared about sketches, and whether he might be allowed to take a few on this journey and present them to her. She was very grateful, but suggested that it might please her papa if they were given to him. Would she superintend them, then, and choose the topics for illustration? Yes, she would do that; and so the young man was furnished with a roving commission.

He brought her a little sepia sketch of Borvapost, its huts, its bay, and its upturned boats on the beach. Sheila’s expressions of praise, the admiration and pleasure that shone in her eyes, would have turned any young man’s head. But her papa looked at the picture with a critical eye, and remarked, “Oh, yes, it is ferry good, but is not the color of Loch Roag at all. It is the color of a river where there is a flood of rain. I have neffer at all seen Loch Roag a brown color—neffer at all.”

It was clear then, that the subsequent sketches could not be taken in sepia, and so Lavender proposed to make a series of pencil-drawings, which could be washed in with color afterward. There was one subject, indeed, which since his arrival in Lewis he had tried to fix on paper by every conceivable means in his power, and that was Sheila herself. He had spoiled innumerable sheets of paper in trying to get some likeness of her which would satisfy himself, but all his usual skill seemed somehow to have gone from him. He could not understand it. In ordinary circumstances he could have traced in a dozen lines a portrait that would at least have shown a superficial likeness: he could have multiplied portraits by the dozen of old Mackenzie or Ingram or Duncan, but here he seemed to fail utterly. He invited no criticism, certainly. These efforts were made in his own room, and he asked no one’s opinion as to the likeness. He could, indeed, certify to himself that the drawing of the features was correct enough. There was the sweet and placid forehead, with its low masses of dark hair; there the short upper lip, the finely carved mouth, the beautifully-rounded chin and throat; and there the frank, clear, proud eyes, with their long lashes and highly-curved eyebrows. Sometimes, too, a touch of color added warmth to the complexion, put a glimmer of the blue sea beneath the long, black eyelashes, and drew a thread of scarlet around the white neck.

But was this Sheila? Could he take this sheet of paper to his friends in London and say, Here is the magical princess whom I hope to bring to you from the North, with all the glamour of the sea around her? He felt instinctively that there would be an awkward pause. The people would praise the handsome, frank, courageous head, and look upon the bit of red ribbon around the neck as an effective artistic touch. They would hand him back the paper with a compliment, and he would find himself in an agony of unrest because they had misunderstood the portrait, and seen nothing of the wonder that encompassed this Highland girl as if with a garment of mystery and dreams.

So he tore up portrait after portrait—more than one of which would have startled Ingram by its truth—and then, to prove to himself that he was not growing mad, he resolved to try a portrait of some other person. He drew a head of old Mackenzie in chalk, and was amazed at the rapidity and facility with which he executed the task. Then there could be no doubt as to the success of the likeness nor as to the effect of the picture. The King of Borva, with his heavy eyebrows, his aquiline nose, his keen gray eyes and flowing beard, offered a fine subject; and there was something really royal and massive and noble in the head that Lavender, well satisfied with his work, took down stairs one evening. Sheila was alone in the drawing-room, turning over some music.

“Miss Mackenzie,” he said, rather kindly, “would you look at this?”

Sheila turned around, and the sudden light of pleasure that leapt to her face was all the praise and all the assurance he wanted. But he had more than that. The girl was grateful to him beyond all the words she could utter; and when he asked her if she would accept the picture, she thanked him by taking his hand for a moment, and then she left the room to call in Ingram and her father. All the evening there was a singular look of happiness on her face. When she met Lavender’s eyes with hers there was a frank and friendly look of gratitude ready to reward him. When had he earned so much before by a simple sketch? Many and many a portrait, carefully executed and elaborately framed, had he presented to his lady friends in London, to receive from them a pretty note and a few words of thanks when next he called. Here with a rough chalk sketch he had awakened an amount of gratitude that almost surprised him, in the most beautiful and tender soul in this world; and had not this princess among women taken his hand for a moment as a childlike way of expressing her thanks, while her eyes spoke more than her lips? And the more he looked at those eyes, the more he grew to despair of ever being able to put down the magic of them in lines and colors.

At length, Duncan got the boat into the small creek at Callernish, and the party got out on the shore. As they were going up the steep path leading to the plain above, a young girl met them, who looked at them in rather a strange way. She had a fair, pretty, wondering face, with singularly high eyebrows, and clear, light blue eyes.

“How are you, Eily?” said Mackenzie, as he passed on with Ingram.

But Sheila, on making the same inquiry, shook hands with the girl, who smiled in a confidential way, and, coming quite close, nodded and pointed down to the water’s edge.

“Have you seen them to-day, Eily?” said Sheila, still holding the girl by the hands, and looking at the fair, pretty, strange face.

“It wass sa day before yesterday,” she answered, in a whisper, while a pleased smile appeared on her face, “and sey will be here sa night.”

“Good-bye, Eily; take care you don’t stay out at night and catch cold, you know,” said Sheila; and then, with another little nod and a smile, the young girl went down the path.

“It is Eily of-the-Ghosts, as they call her,” said Sheila to Lavender as they went on; “the poor thing fancies she sees little people about the rocks, and watches for them. But she is very good and quiet, and she is not afraid of them, and she does no harm to any one. She does not belong to the Lewis—I think she is from Islay—but she sometimes comes to pay us a visit at Borva, and my papa is very kind to her.”

“Mr. Ingram does not appear to know her; I thought he was acquainted with every one in the island,” said Lavender.

“She was not here when he has been in the Lewis before,” said Sheila; “but Eily does not like to speak to strangers, and I do not think you could get her to speak to you if you tried.”

Lavender had paid but little attention to the “false men” of Callernish when first he saw them, but now he approached the long lines of big stones upon this lonely plateau with a new interest; for Sheila had talked to him about them many a time in Borva, and had asked his opinion about their origin and their age. Was the central circle of stones an altar, with the other series marking the approaches to it? Or, was it the grave of some great chieftain, with the remaining stones indicating the graves of his relations and friends? Or was it the commemoration of some battle in olden times, or the record of astronomical or geometrical discoveries, or a temple once devoted to serpent-worship, or what? Lavender, who knew absolutely nothing at all about the matter, was probably as well qualified as anybody else to answer these questions, but he forebore. The interest, however, that Sheila showed in such things he very rapidly acquired. When he came to see the rows of stones a second time he was much impressed by their position on this bit of hill overlooking the sea. He sat down on his camp-stool with the determination that, although he could not satisfy Sheila’s wistful questions, he would present her with some little sketch of these monuments and their surroundings, which might catch up something of the mysterious loneliness of the scene.

He would not, of course, have the picture as it then presented itself. The sun was glowing on the grass around him, and lighting up the tall, gray pillars of stone with a cheerful radiance. Over there the waters of Loch Roag were bright and blue, and beyond the lake the undulations of moorland were green and beautiful, and the mountains in the South grown pale as silver in the heat. Here was a pretty young lady, in a rough blue traveling dress and a hat and feather, who was engaged in picking up wild flowers from the warm heath. There was a gentleman from the office of the Board of Trade, who was sitting on the grass, nursing his knees and whistling. From time to time the chief figure in the foreground was an elderly gentleman, who evidently expected that he was going to be put into the picture, and who was occasionally dropping a cautious hint that he did not always wear this rough-and-ready sailor’s costume. Mackenzie was also most anxious to point out to the artist the names of the hills and districts lying to the south of Loch Roag, apparently with the hope that the sketch would have a certain topographical interest for future visitors.

No; Lavender was content at that moment to take down the outlines of the great stones and the configuration of the lake and hill beyond, but by and by he would give another sort of atmosphere to this wild scene. He would have rain and darkness spread over the island, with the low hills in the South grown desolate and remote, and the waters of the sea covered with gloom. No human figure should be visible on this remote plain, where these strange memorials had stood for centuries exposed to Western gales and the stillness of the Winter nights, and the awful silence of the stars. Would not Sheila, at least, understand the bleakness and desolation of the picture? Of course her father would like to have everything blue and green. He seemed a little disappointed when it was clear that no distant glimpse of Borva could be introduced into the sketch. But Sheila’s imagination would be captured by this sombre picture, and perhaps by and by in some other land, amid fairer scenes and in a more generous climate, she might be less inclined to hunger for the dark and melancholy North when she looked on this record of its gloom and sadness.

“Iss he going to put any people in the pictures?” said Mackenzie in a confidential whisper to Ingram.

Ingram got up from the grass, and said with a yawn, “I don’t know. If he does, it will be afterward. Suppose we go along to the wagonette and see if Duncan has brought everything up from the boat?”

The old man seemed rather unwilling to be cut out of this particular sketch, but he went, nevertheless; and Sheila, seeing the young man left alone, and thinking that not quite fair, went over to him and asked if she might be permitted to see as much as he had done.

Lavender shut up the book.

“No,” he said with a laugh, “you shall see it to-night. I have sufficient memoranda to work something out of by and by. Shall we have another look at the circle up there?”

He folded up and shouldered his camp-stool, and they walked up to the point at which the lines of the “mourners” converged. Perhaps he was moved by a great antiquarian curiosity; at all events, he showed a singular interest in the monuments, and talked to his companion about all the possible theories connected with such stones in a fashion that charmed her greatly. She was easily persuaded that the Callernish “Fir-Bhreige” were the most interesting relics in the world. He had seen Stonehenge, but Stonehenge was too scattered to be impressive. There was more mystery about the means by which the inhabitants of a small island could have hewn and carved and erected these blocks; there was, moreover, the mystery about the vanished population itself. Yes, he had been to Carnac also. He had driven down from Auray in a lumbering old trap, his coachman being unable to talk French. He had seen the half-cultivated plain on which there were rows and rows of small stones, scarcely to be distinguished from the stone walls of the adjoining farms. What was there impressive about such a sight when you went into a house and paid a franc to be shown the gold ornaments picked up about the place? Here, however, was a perfect series of those strange memorials, with the long lanes leading up to a circle, and the tallest of all the stones placed on the Western side of the circle, perhaps as the headstone of the buried chief. Look at the position, too—the silent hill, the waters of the sea-loch around it, and beyond that the desolation of miles of untenanted moorland. Sheila looked pleased that her companion, after coming so far, should have found something worth looking at in the Lewis.

“Does it not seem strange,” he said suddenly, “to think of young folks of the present day picking up wild flowers from among these old stones?” He was looking at a tiny bouquet which she had gathered.

“Will you take them?” she said, quite simply and naturally, offering him the flowers. “They may remind you some time of Callernish.”

He took the flowers and regarded them for a moment in silence, and then he said gently, “I do not think I shall want these to remind me of Callernish. I shall never forget our being here.”

At this moment, perhaps fortunately, Duncan appeared, and came along toward the young people with a basket in his hand.

“It wass Mr. Mackenzie will ask if ye will tek a glass o’ whisky, sir, and a bit o’ bread and cheese. And he wass sayin’ there was no hurry at all, and he will wait for you for two hours or half an hour whatever.”

“All right, Duncan; go back and tell him I have finished, and we shall be there directly. No, thank you, don’t take out the whisky—unless, Miss Mackenzie,” added the young man with a smile, “Duncan can persuade you.”

Duncan looked with amazement at the man who dared to joke about Miss Sheila taking whisky, and without waiting for any further commands indignantly shut the lid of the basket and walked off.

“I wonder, Miss Mackenzie,” said Lavender, as they went along the path down the hill—“I wonder what you would say if I happened to call you Sheila by mistake?”

“I should be glad if you did that. Every one calls me Sheila,” said the girl quietly enough.

“You would not be vexed?” he said, regarding her with a little surprise.

“No; why should I be vexed?” she answered; and she happened to look up, and he saw what a clear light of sincerity there was shining in her eyes.

“May I then call you Sheila?”

“Yes.”

“But—but—” he said, with a timidity and embarrassment of which she showed no trace whatever—“but people might think it strange, you know; and yet I should greatly like to call you Sheila; only, not before other people perhaps.”

“But why not?” she said, with her eyebrows just raised a little. “Why should you wish to call me Sheila at one time and not at the other? It is no difference whatever, and every one calls me Sheila.”

Lavender was a little disappointed. He had hoped, when she consented in so friendly a manner to his calling her by any name he chose, that he could have established this little arrangement, which would have had about it something of the nature of a personal confidence. Sheila would evidently have none of that. Was it that she was really so simple and frank in her ways that she did not understand why there should be such a difference, and what it might imply, or was she well aware of everything he had been wishing, and able to assume this air of simplicity and ignorance with a perfect grace? Ingram, he reflected, would have said at once that to suspect Sheila of such duplicity was to insult her; but then Ingram was perhaps himself a trifle too easily imposed on, and he had notions about women, despite all his philosophical reading and such like, that a little more mingling in society might have caused him to alter. Frank Lavender confessed to himself that Sheila was either a miracle of ingenuousness or a thorough mistress of the art of assuming it. On the one hand, he considered it almost impossible for a woman to be so disingenuous; on the other hand, how could this girl have taught herself, in the solitude of a savage island, a species of histrionicism which women in London circles strove for years to acquire, and rarely acquired in any perfection? At all events, he said to himself, while he reserved his opinion on this point, he was not going to call Sheila, Sheila before folks who would know what that meant. Mr. Mackenzie was evidently a most irascible old gentleman. Goodness only knew what sort of law prevailed in these wild parts; and to be seized at midnight by a couple of brawny fishermen, to be carried down to a projecting ledge of rock! Had not Ingram already hinted that Mackenzie would straightway throw into Loch Roag the man who should offer to carry away Sheila from him?

But how could these doubts of Sheila’s sincerity last? He sat opposite her in the wagonette, and the perfect truth of her face, of her frank eyes and of her ready smile met him at every moment, whether he talked to her or to Ingram, or listened to old Mackenzie, who turned from time to time from the driving of the horses to inform the stranger of what he saw around him. It was the most brilliant of mornings. The sun burned on the white road, on the green moorland, on the gray lichened rocks with their crimson patches of heather. As they drove by the curious convolutions of this rugged coast the sea that lay beyond these recurring bays and points was of a windy green, with here and there a streak of white, and the fresh breeze blowing across to them tempered the fierce heat of the sun. How cool, too, were those little fresh-water lakes they passed, the clear blue and white of them stirred into wavelets that moved the reeds and left air-bubbles about the half-submerged stones! Were not those wild geese over there, flapping in the water with their huge wings and taking no notice of the passing strangers? Lavender had never seen this lonely coast in times of gloom, with those little lakes becoming sombre pools, and the outline of the rocks beyond lost in the driving mist of the sea and the rain. It was altogether a bright and beautiful world he had got into, and there was in it but one woman, beautiful beyond his dreams. To doubt her was to doubt all women. When he looked at her he forgot the caution and distrust and sardonic self-complacency his Southern training had given him. He believed, and the world seemed to be filled with a new light.

“That is Loch-na-Muil’ne,” Mackenzie was saying, “and it iss the Loch of the Mill; and over there, that is Loch-a-Bhaile, and that iss the Loch of the Town; but where iss the loch and the town now? It wass many hundreds of years before there will be numbers of people in this place; and you will come to Dun Charlobhaidh, which is a great castle, by and by. And what wass it will drive away the people, and leave the land to the moss, but that there wass no one to look after them? ‘When the natives will leave Islay, farewell to the peace of Scotland.’ That iss a good proverb. And if they have no one to mind them, they will go away altogether. And there is no people more obedient than the people of the Highlands—not anywhere; for you know that we say: ‘Is it the truth, as if you were speaking before kings?’ And now, there is the castle, and there wass many people living here when they could build that.”

It was, in truth, one of those circular forts, the date of which has given rise to endless conjecture and discussion. Perched up on a hill, it overlooked a number of deep and narrow valleys that ran landward, while the other side of the hill sloped down to the sea-shore. It was a striking object, this tumbling mass of dark stones standing high over the green hollows and over the light plain of the sea. Was there not here material for another sketch for Sheila? While Lavender had gone away over the heights and hollows to choose his point of view a rough and ready luncheon had been spread out in the wagonette, and when he returned, perspiring and considerably blown, he found old Mackenzie measuring out equal portions of peat-water and whisky, Duncan flicking the enormous “clegs” from off the horses’ necks, Ingram trying to persuade Sheila to have some sherry out of a flask he carried, and everybody in very good spirits over such an exciting event as a roadside luncheon on a summer forenoon.

The King of Borva had by this time become excellent friends with the young stranger who had ventured into his dominions. When the old gentleman had sufficiently impressed on everybody that he had observed all necessary precautions in studying the character and inquiring into the antecedents of Lavender, he could not help confessing to a sense of lightness and vivacity that the young man seemed to bring with him and shed around him. Nor was this matter of the sketches the only thing that had particularly recommended Lavender to the old man. Mackenzie had a most distinct dislike to Gaelic songs. He could not bear the monotonous melancholy of them. When Sheila, sitting by herself, would sing these strange old ballads of an evening, he would suddenly enter the room, probably find her eyes filled with tears, and then he would in his inmost heart devote the whole of Gaelic minstrelsy and all its authors to the infernal gods. Why should people be forever maddening themselves with the stories of other folks’ misfortunes? It was bad enough for those poor people, but they had borne their sorrows and died, and were at peace. Surely it was better that we should have songs about ourselves—drinking or fighting, if you like—to keep up the spirits, to lighten the serious cares of life, and drown for a while the responsibility of looking after a whole population of poor, half-ignorant, unphilosophical creatures.

“Look now,” he would say, speaking of his own tongue, “look at this teffle of a language! It has no present tense to its verbs; the people they are always looking forward to a melancholy future or looking back to a melancholy past. In the name of Kott, hef we not got ourselves to live? This day we live in is better than any day that wass before or iss to come, bekass it is here we are alive. And I will hef no more of these songs about crying, and crying, and crying!”

Now Sheila and Lavender, in their musical mutual confidences, had at an early period discovered that each of them knew something of the older English duets, and forthwith they tried a few of them, to Mackenzie’s extreme delight. Here, at last, was a sort of music he could understand—none of your moanings of widows and cries of luckless girls to the sea, but good commonsense songs, in which the lads kissed the lasses with a will, and had a good drink afterward and a dance on the green on their homeward way. There was fun in those happy May-fields, and good health and briskness in the ale-house choruses, and throughout them all a prevailing cheerfulness and contentment with the conditions of life certain to recommend itself to the contemplative mind.

Mackenzie never grew tired of hearing those simple ditties. He grew confidential with the young man, and told him that those fine, commonsense songs recalled pleasant scenes to him. He, himself, knew something of English village life. When he had been up to see the great Exhibition, he had gone to visit a friend living in Brighton, and he had surveyed the country with an observant eye. He had remarked several village-greens, with the May-poles standing here and there in front of the cottages, emblazoned with beautiful banners. He had, it is true, fancied that the May-pole should be in the centre of the green; but the manner in which the waves of population swept here and there, swallowing up open spaces and so forth, would account to a philosophical person for the fact that the May-poles were now close to the village shops.

“Drink to me only with thine eyes,” hummed the King of Borva to himself as he sent the two little horses along the coast road on this warm Summer day. He had heard the song for the first time on the previous evening. He had no voice to speak of; he had missed the air, and these were all the words he remembered; but it was a notable compliment, all the same, to the young man who had brought these pleasant tunes to the island.

And so they drove on through the keen salt air, with the sea shining beside them and the sky shining over them; and in the afternoon they arrived at the small, remote and solitary inn of Barvas, placed near the confluence of several rivers that flow through Loch Barvas (or Barabbas) to the sea. Here they proposed to stop the night, so that Lavender, when his room had been assigned to him, begged to be left alone for an hour or two, that he might throw a little color into his sketch of Callernish. What was there to see at Barvas? Why, nothing but the channels of the brown streams, some pasture land and a few huts, then the unfrequented lake, and beyond that, some ridges of white sand standing over the shingly beach of the sea. He would join them at dinner. Mackenzie protested in a mild way; he really wanted to see how the island was to be illustrated by the stranger. There was a greater protest, mingled with compassion and regret, in Sheila’s eyes; but the young man was firm. So they let him have his way, and gave him full possession of the common sitting-room, while they set off to visit the school and the Free Church manse and what not in the neighborhood.

Mackenzie had ordered dinner at eight, to show that he was familiar with the ways of civilized life; and when they returned at that hour, Lavender had two sketches finished.

“Yes, they are very good,” said Ingram, who was seldom enthusiastic about his friend’s work.

But old Mackenzie was so vastly pleased with the picture, which represented his native place in the brightest of sunshine and colors, that he forgot to assume a critical air. He said nothing against the rainy and desolate version of the scene that had been given to Sheila—it was good enough to please the child. But here was something brilliant, effective, cheerful; and he alarmed Lavender not a little by proposing to get one of the natives to carry this treasure, then and there, back to Borvapost. Both sketches were ultimately returned to his book, and then Sheila helped him to remove his artistic apparatus from the table on which their plain and homely meal was to be placed. As she was about to follow her father and Ingram, who had left the room, she paused for a moment, and said to Lavender, with a look of frank gratitude in her eyes: “It is very good of you to have pleased my papa so much. I know when he is pleased, though he does not speak of it; and it is not often he will be so much pleased.”

“And you, Sheila?” said the young man, unconscious of the familiarity he was using, and only remembering that she had scarcely thanked him for the other sketch.

“Well, there is nothing that will please me so much as to see him pleased,” she said, with a smile.

He was about to open the door for her, but he kept his hand on the handle, and said, earnestly enough: “But that is such a small matter—an hour’s work. If you only knew how gladly I would live all my life here if only I could do you some greater service—”

She looked a little surprised, and then for one brief second reflected. English was not wholly familiar to her; perhaps she had failed to catch what he really meant. But at all events she said, gravely and simply: “You would soon tire of living here; it is not always a holiday.” And then, without lifting her eyes to his face, she turned to the door, and he opened it for her, and she was gone.

It was about ten o’clock when they went outside for their evening stroll, and all the world had grown enchanted since they had seen it in the colors of the sunset. There was no night, but a strange clearness over the sky and the earth, and down in the South the moon was rising over the Barvas hills. In the dark-green meadows the cattle were still grazing. Voices of children could be heard in the far distance, with the rumbling of a cart coming through the silence, and the murmur of the streams flowing down to the loch. The loch itself lay like a line of dusky yellow in a darkened hollow near the sea, having caught on its surface the pale glow of the Northern heavens, where the sun had gone down hours before. The air was warm, and yet fresh with the odors of the Atlantic, and there was a scent of Dutch clover coming across from the sandy pastures nearer the coast. The huts of the small hamlet could but faintly be made out beyond the dark and low-lying pastures, but a long, pale line of blue smoke lay in the motionless air, and the voices of the children told of open doors. Night after night this same picture, with slight variations of position, had been placed before the stranger who had come to view these solitudes, and night after night it seemed to him to grow more beautiful. He could put down on paper the outlines of an every-day landscape, and give them a dash of brilliant color to look well on a wall; but how to carry away, except in the memory, any impression of the strange, lambent darkness, the tender hues, the loneliness and the pathos of those Northern twilights?

They walked down by the side of one of the streams towards the sea. But Sheila was not his companion on this occasion. Her father laid hold of him, and was expounding to him the rights of capitalists and various other matters.

But by and by Lavender drew his companion on to talk of Sheila’s mother; and here, at least, Mackenzie was neither tedious nor ridiculous nor unnecessarily garrulous. It was with a strange interest the young man heard the elderly man talk of his courtship, his marriage, the character of his wife, and her goodness and beauty. Was it not like looking at a former Sheila? and would not this Sheila now walking before him go through the same tender experiences, and be admired and loved and petted by everybody as this other girl had been, who brought with her the charm of winning ways, and a gentle nature, into these rude wilds? It was the first time he had heard Mackenzie speak of his wife, and it turned out to be the last; but from that moment the older man had something of dignity in the eyes of this younger man, who had merely judged him by his little foibles and eccentricities, and would have been ready to dismiss him contemptuously as a buffoon. There was something, then, behind that powerful face, with its deep cut lines, its heavy eyebrows, and piercing and sometimes sad eyes, besides a mere liking for tricks of childish diplomacy? Lavender began to have some respect for Sheila’s father, and made a resolution to guard against the impertinence of humoring him too ostentatiously.

Was it not hard, though, that Ingram, who was so cold and unimpressionable, who smiled at the notion of marrying, and who was probably enjoying his pipe quite as much as Sheila’s familiar talk, should have the girl all to himself on this witching night? They reached the shores of the Atlantic. There was not a breath of wind coming in from that sea, but the air seemed even sweeter and cooler as they sat down on the great bank of shingle. Here and there birds were calling, and Sheila could distinguish each one of them. As the moon rose a faint golden light began to tremble here and there on the waves, as if some subterranean caverns were lit up and sending up to the surface faint and fitful rays of their splendor. Farther along the coast the tall banks of white sand grew white in the twilight, and the outlines of the dark pasture-land behind grew more distinct.

But when they rose to go back to Barvas the moonlight had grown full and clear, and the long and narrow loch had a pathway of gold across, stretching from the reeds and sedges of the one side to the reeds and sedges of the other. And now Ingram had gone on to join Mackenzie, and Sheila walked behind with Lavender, and her face was pale and beautiful in the moonlight.

“I shall be very sorry when I have to leave Lewis,” he said, as they walked along the path leading through the sand and the clover; and there could be no doubt that he felt the regret expressed in the words.

“But it is no use to speak of leaving us yet,” said Sheila, cheerfully; “it is a long time before you will go away from the Lewis.”

“And I fancy I shall always think of the island just as it is now—with the moonlight over there, and a loch near, and you walking through the stillness. We have had so many evening walks like this.”

“You will make us very vain of our island,” said the girl with a smile, “if you will speak like that always to us. Is there no moonlight in England? I have pictures of English scenery that will be far more beautiful than any we have here; and if there is the moon here, it will be there too. Think of the pictures of the river Thames that my papa showed you last night—”

“Oh, but there is nothing like this in the South,” said the young man impetuously. “I do not believe there is in the world anything so beautiful as this. Sheila, what would you say if I resolved to come and live here always?”

“I should like that very much—more than you would like it, perhaps,” she said, with a bright laugh.

“That would please you better than for you to go always and live in England, would it not?”

“But that is impossible,” she said. “My papa would never think of living in England.”

For some time after he was silent. The two figures in front of them walked steadily on, an occasional roar of laughter from the deep chest of Mackenzie startling the night air, and telling of Ingram’s being in a communicative mood. At last Lavender said: “It seems to me a great pity that you should live in this remote place, and have so little amusement, and see so few people of tastes and education like your own. Your papa is so much occupied—he is so much older than you, too—that you must be left to yourself so much; whereas if you had a companion of your own age, who could have the right to talk frankly to you, and go about with you and take care of you.”

By this time they had reached the little wooden bridge crossing the stream, and Mackenzie and Ingram had got to the inn, where they stood in front of the door in the moonlight. Before ascending the steps of the bridge, Lavender, without pausing in his speech, took Sheila’s hand and said suddenly: “Now, don’t let me alarm you, Sheila, but suppose at some distant day—as far away as you please—I came and asked you to let me be your companion then and always, wouldn’t you try?”

She looked up with a startled glance of fear in her eyes, and withdrew her hand from him.

“No, don’t be frightened,” he said, quite gently. “I don’t ask you for any promise. Sheila, you must know I love you—you must have seen it. Will you not let me come to you at some future time—a long way off—that you may tell me then? Won’t you try to do that?”

There was more in the tone of his voice than in his words. The girl stood irresolute for a second or two, regarding him with a strange, wistful, earnest look; and then a great gentleness came into her eyes, and she put out her hand to him and said in a low voice, “perhaps.”

But there was something so grave and simple about her manner at this moment that he dared not somehow receive it as a lover receives the first admission of love from the lips of a maiden. There had been something of a strange inquiry in her face as she regarded him for a second or two; and now that her eyes were bent on the ground, it seemed to him that she was trying to realize the full effect of the concession she had made. He would not let her think. He took her hand and raised it respectfully to his lips, and then he led her forward to the bridge. Not a word was spoken between them while they crossed the shining space of moonlight to the shadow of the house; and as they went in-doors he caught but one glimpse of her eyes, and they were friendly and kind toward him, but evidently troubled. He saw no more that night.

So he had asked Sheila to be his wife, and she had given him some timid encouragement as to the future. Many a time within these last few days had he sketched out an imaginative picture of the scene. He was familiar with the passionate rapture of lovers on the stage, in books, and in pictures; and he had described himself (to himself) as intoxicated with joy, anxious to let the whole world know of his good fortune, and above all to confide the tidings of his happiness to his constant friend and companion. But now, as he sat in one corner of the room, he almost feared to be spoken to by the two men who sat at the table with steaming glasses before them. He dared not tell Ingram: he had no wish to tell him, even if he had got him alone. And as he sat there and recalled the incident that had just occurred by the side of the little bridge, he could not wholly understand its meaning. There had been none of the eagerness, the coyness, the tumult of joy he had expected; all he could remember clearly was the long look that the large, earnest, troubled eyes had fixed upon him, while the girl’s face, grown pale in the moonlight, seemed somehow ghost-like and strange.

CHAPTER VII.

AN INTERMEDDLER.

BUT in the morning all these idle fancies fled with the life and color and freshness of a new day. Loch Barvas was ruffled into a dark blue by the Westerly wind, and doubtless the sea out there was running in, green and cold, to the shore. The sunlight was warm about the house. The trout were leaping in the shallow brown streams, and here and there a white butterfly fluttered across the damp meadows. Was not that Duncan down by the river, accompanied by Ingram? There was a glimmer of a rod in the sunshine; the two poachers were after trout for Sheila’s breakfast.

Lavender dressed, went outside and looked about for the nearest way down to the stream. He wished to have a chance of saying a word to his friend before Sheila or her father should appear. And at last he thought he could do no better than go across to the bridge, and so make his way down to the banks of the river.

What a fresh morning it was, with all sorts of sweet scents in the air! And here, sure enough, was a pretty picture in the early light—a young girl coming over the bridge carrying a load of green grass on her back. What would she say if he asked her to stop for a moment that he might sketch her pretty costume? Her head-dress was a scarlet handkerchief, tied behind; she wore a tight-fitting bodice of cream-white flannel and petticoats of gray flannel, while she had a waist-belt and pouch of brilliant blue. Did she know of these harmonies of color or of the picturesqueness of her appearance as she came across the bridge in the sunlight? As she drew near she stared at the stranger with the big, dumb eyes of a wild animal. There was no fear, only a sort of surprised observation in them. And as she passed she uttered, without a smile, some brief and laconic salutation in Gaelic, which, of course, the young man could not understand. He raised his cap, however, and said “Good morning!” and went on, with a fixed resolve to learn all the Gaelic that Duncan could teach him.

Surely the tall keeper was in excellent spirits this morning. Long before he drew near, Lavender could hear, in the still of the morning, that he was telling stories about John the Piper, and of his adventures in such distant parts as Portree and Oban, and even in Glasgow.

“And it was Allan M’Gillivray, of Styornoway,” Duncan was saying, as he industriously whipped the shallow runs of the stream, “will go to Glasgow with John; and they went through ta Crinan Canal. Wass you through ta Crinan Canal, sir?”

“Many a time.”

“Ay, jist that. And I hef been told it iss like a river with ta sides o’ a house to it; and what would Allan care for a thing like that, when he hass been to America more than twice or four times? And it wass when he fell into the canal, he was ferry nearly trooned for all that; and when they pulled him to ta shore he wass a ferry angry man. And this iss what John says that Allan will say when he wass on the side of the canal: ‘Kott,’ says he, ‘if I was trooned here, I would show my face in Styornoway no more.’ But perhaps it iss not true, for he will tell many lies, does John the Piper, to hef a laugh at a man.”

“The Crinan Canal is not to be despised, Duncan,” said Ingram, who was sitting on the red sand of the bank, “when you are in it.”

“And do you know what John says that Allan will say to him the first time they went ashore at Glasgow?”

“I am sure I don’t.”

“It was many years ago, before that Allan will be going many times to America, and he will neffer hef seen such fine shops and ta big houses and hundreds and hundreds of people, every one with shoes on their feet. And he will say to John, ‘John, ef I had known in time I should hef been born here.’ But no one will believe it iss true, he is such a teffle of a liar, that John; and he will hef some stories about Mr. Mackenzie himself, as I hef been told, that he will tell when he goes to Styornoway. But John is a ferry cunning fellow, and will not tell any such stories in Borva.”

“I suppose if he did, Duncan, you would dip him in Loch Roag.”

“Oh, there iss more than one,” said Duncan, with a grim twinkle in his eye—“there iss more than one that would hef a joke with him if he was to tell stories about Mr. Mackenzie.”

Lavender had been standing listening, unknown to both. He now went forward and bade them good-morning, and then, having had a look at the trout that Duncan had caught, pulled Ingram up from the bank, put his arm in his and walked away with him.

“Ingram,” he said, suddenly, with a laugh and a shrug, “you know I always come to you when I’m in a fix.”

“I suppose you do,” said the other, “and you are always welcome to whatever help I can give you. But sometimes it seems to me you rush into fixes with the sort of notion that I am responsible for getting you out.”

“I can assure you nothing of the kind is the case. I could not be so ungrateful. However, in the meantime—that is—the fact is, I asked Sheila last night if she should marry me.”

“The devil you did!”

Ingram dropped his companion’s arm and stood looking at him.

“Well, I knew you would be angry,” said the younger man in a tone of apology. “And I know I have been too precipitate, but I thought of the short time we should be remaining here, and of the difficulty of getting an explanation made at an another time; and it was really only to give her a hint as to my own feelings that I spoke. I could not bear to wait any longer.”

“Never mind about yourself,” said Ingram, somewhat curtly. “What did Sheila say?”

“Well, nothing definite. What could you expect a girl to say after so short an acquaintance? But this I can tell you, that the proposal is not altogether distasteful to her, and that I have permission to speak to her at some future time, when we have known each other longer.”

“You have?”

“Yes.”

“You are quite sure?”

“Certain.”

“There is no mistake about her silence, for example, that might have led you into misinterpreting her wishes altogether?”

“Nothing of the kind is possible. Of course I could not ask the girl for any promise, or anything of that sort. All I asked was, whether she would allow me at some future time to ask her more definitely; and I am so well satisfied with her reply that I am convinced I shall marry her.”

“And is this the fix you wish me to help you out of?” said Ingram, rather coldly.

“Now, Ingram,” said the younger man in penitential tones, “don’t cut up rough about it. You know what I mean. Perhaps I have been hasty and inconsiderate about it; but one thing you may be sure, that Sheila will never have to complain of me if she marries me. You say I don’t know her yet, but there will be plenty of time before we are married. I don’t propose to carry her off to-morrow morning. Now, Ingram, you know what I mean about helping me in the fix—helping me with her father you know, and with herself, for the matter of that. You can do anything with her, she has such a belief in you. You should hear how she talks of you—you never heard anything like it.”

It was an innocent bit of flattery, and Ingram smiled good-naturedly at the boy’s ingenuousness. After all, was he not more loveable and more sincere in this little bit of simple craft, used in the piteousness of his appeal, than when he was giving himself the airs of a man-about-town, and talking of women in a fashion which, to do him justice, expressed nothing of his real sentiments?

Ingram walked on, and said in his slow and deliberate way, “You know I opposed this project of yours from the first. I don’t think you have acted fairly by Sheila or her father, or myself who brought you out here. But if Sheila has been drawn into it, why, then, the whole affair is altered, and we’ve got to make the best of a bad business.”

“I was sure you would say that,” exclaimed the younger man with a brighter light appearing on his face. “You may call me all the hard names you like; I deserve them all, and more. But then, as you say, since Sheila is in it, you’ll do your best, won’t you?”

Frank Lavender could not make out why the taciturn and sallow-faced man walking beside him seemed to be greatly amused by this speech, but he was in no humor to take offence. He knew that once Ingram had promised him his help he would not lack all the advocacy, the advice, and even the money—should that become necessary—that a warm-hearted and disinterested friend could offer. Many and many a time Ingram had helped him, and now he was to come to his assistance in the most serious crisis of his life. Ingram would remove Sheila’s doubts. Ingram would persuade old Mackenzie that girls had to get married some time or other, and that Sheila ought to live in London. Ingram would be commissioned to break the news to Mrs. Lavender. But here, when the young man thought of the interview with his aunt which he would have to encounter, a cold shiver passed through his frame. He would not think of it. He would enjoy the present hour. Difficulties only grew the bigger the more they were looked at; when they were left to themselves they frequently disappeared. It was another proof of Ingram’s kindness that he had not even mentioned the old lady down in Kensington who was likely to have something to say about this marriage.

“There are a great many difficulties in the way,” said Ingram, thoughtfully.

“Yes,” said Lavender, with much eagerness, “but then, look! You may be sure that if we get over these, Sheila will know well who managed it, and she will not be ungrateful to you, I think. If we ever should be married I am certain she will always look on you as her greatest friend.”

“It is a big bribe,” said the elder man, perhaps a trifle sadly; and Lavender looked at him with some vague return of a suspicion that some time or other Ingram must himself have been in love with Sheila.

They returned to the inn, where they found Mackenzie busy with a heap of letters and newspapers that had been sent across to him from Stornoway. The whole of the breakfast-table was littered with wrappers and big blue envelopes; where was Sheila, who usually waited on her father at such times to keep his affairs in order?

Sheila was outside, and Lavender saw her through the open window. Was she not waiting for him, that she should pace up and down by herself, with her face turned away from the house? He immediately went out and went over to her, and she turned to him as he approached. He fancied she looked a trifle pale, and far less bright and joyous than the ordinary Sheila.

“Mr. Lavender,” she said, walking away from the house, “I wish very much to speak to you for a moment. Last night it was all a misfortune that I did not understand; and I wish you to forget that a word was ever spoken about that.”

Her head was bent down and her speech was low and broken; what she failed to explain in words her manner explained for her. But her companion said to her, with alarm and surprise in his tone: “Why, Sheila! You cannot be so cruel! Surely you need not feel any embarrassment through so slight a promise. It pledges you to nothing—it leaves you quite free; and some day, if I come and ask you then a question I have not asked you yet, then will be time enough to give me an answer.”

“Oh, no, no!” said the girl, obviously in great distress, “I cannot do that. It is unjust to you to let you think of it and hope about it. It was last night everything was strange to me—I did not understand then—but I have thought about it all the night through, and now I know.”

“Sheila!” called her father from the inside of the inn, and she turned to go.

“But you do not ask that, do you?” he said. “You are only frightened a little bit just now, but that will go away. There is nothing to be frightened about. You have been thinking over it, and imagining impossible things; you have been thinking of leaving Borva altogether—”

“Oh, that I can never do!” she said, with a pathetic earnestness.

“But why think of such a thing?” he said. “You need not look at all the possible troubles of life when you take such a simple step as this. Sheila, don’t be hasty in any such resolve; you may be sure all the gloomy things you have been thinking of will disappear when we get close to them. And this is such a simple thing. I don’t ask you to say you will be my wife—I have no right to ask you yet—but I have only asked permission of you to let me think of it; and even Mr. Ingram sees no great harm in that.”

“Does he know?” she said, with a start of surprise and fear.

“Yes,” said Lavender, wishing he had bitten his tongue in two before he had uttered the word. “You know we have no secrets from each other; and to whom could I go for advice but to your oldest friend?”

“And what did he say?” she asked, with a strange look in her eyes.

“Well, he sees a great many difficulties, but he thinks they will easily be got over.”

“Then,” she said, with her eyes again cast down and a certain sadness in her tone, “I must explain to him, too, and tell him I had no understanding of what I said last night.”

“Sheila, you won’t do that!” urged the young man. “It means nothing—it pledges you to nothing.”

“Sheila! Sheila!” cried her father, cheerily, from the window, “come in and let us hef our breakfast.”

“Yes, papa,” said the girl, and she went into the house, followed by her companion.

But how could she find an opportunity of making this explanation? Shortly after breakfast the wagonette was at the door of the little Barvas inn, and Sheila came out of the house and took her place in it with an unusual quietness of manner and hopelessness of look. Ingram, sitting opposite to her, and knowing nothing of what had taken place, fancied that this was but an expression of girlish timidity, and that it was his business to interest her and amuse her until she should forget the strangeness and newness of her position. Nay, as he had resolved to make the best of matters as they stood, and as he believed that Sheila had half confessed to a special liking for his friend from the South, what more fitting thing could he do than endeavor to place Lavender in the most favorable light in her eyes? He began to talk of all the brilliant and successful things the young man had done as fully as he could before himself. He contrived to introduce pretty anecdotes of Lavender’s generosity; and there were plenty of these, for the young fellow had never a thought of consequences if he was touched by a tale of distress, and if he could help the sufferer either with his own or any one else’s money. Ingram talked of all their excursions together, in Devonshire, in Brittany and elsewhere, to impress on Sheila how well he knew his friend and how long their intimacy had lasted. At first the girl was singularly reserved and silent, but somehow, as pleasant recollections were multiplied, and as Lavender seemed to have been always the associate and companion of this old friend of hers, some brighter expression came into her face and she grew more interested. Lavender, not knowing whether or not to take her decision of that morning as final, and not wholly perceiving the aim of this kindly chat on the part of his friend, began to see, at least, that Sheila was pleased to hear the two men help out each other’s stories about their pedestrian excursions, and that she at last grew bold enough to look up and meet his eyes in a timid fashion when she asked him a question.

So they drove along by the side of the sea, the level and well-made road leading them through miles and miles of rough moorland, with here and there a few huts or a sheep-fold to break the monotony of the undulating sky-line. Here and there, too, there were great cuttings of the peat-moss, with a thin line of water in the foot of the deep, black trenches. Sometimes, again, they would escape altogether from any traces of human habitation, and Duncan would grow excited in pointing out to Miss Sheila the young grouse that had run off the road into the heather, where they stood and eyed the passing carriage with anything but a frightened air. And while Mackenzie hummed something resembling, but very vaguely resembling, “Love in thine eyes sits beaming,” and while Ingram, in his quiet, desultory, and often sardonic fashion, amused the young girl with stories of her lover’s bravery and kindness and dare-devil escapades, the merry trot of the horses beat time to the bells on their necks, the fresh West wind blew a cloud of white dust away over the moorland behind them, there was a blue sky shining all around them, and the blue Atlantic basking in the light.

They stopped a few moments at both the hamlets of Suainabost and Tabost to allow Sheila to pay a hurried visit to one or two of the huts, while Mackenzie, laying hold of some of the fishermen he knew, got them to show Lavender the curing-house, in which the young gentleman professed himself profoundly interested. They also visited the school-house, and Lavender found himself beginning to look upon a two-storied building with windows as something imposing, and a decided triumph of human skill and enterprise. But what was the school-house of Tabost to the grand building at the Butt? They had driven away from the high-road by a path leading through long and sweet-smelling pastures of Dutch clover; they had got up from these sandy swathes to a table-land of rock; and here and there they got glimpses of fearful precipices leading sheer down to the boiling and dashing sea. The curious contortions of the rocks, the sharp needles of them springing in isolated pillars from out of the water, the roar of the eddying currents that swept through the chasms and dashed against the iron-bound shore, the wild sea-birds that flew about and screamed over the rushing waves and the surge, naturally enough drew the attention of the strangers altogether away from the land; and it was with a start of surprise they found themselves before an immense mass of yellow stone-work—walls, house, and tower—that shone in the sunlight. And here were the lighthouse-keeper and his wife, delighted to see strange faces and most hospitably inclined; insomuch that Lavender, who cared little for luncheon at any time, was constrained to take as much bread and cheese and butter and whisky as would have made a ploughman’s dinner. It was a strange sort of a meal this, away out at the end of the world, as it were. The snug little room might have been in the Marylebone road; there were photographs about, a gay label on the whisky bottle, and other signs of an advanced civilization; but outside nothing but the wild precipices of the coast, a surging sea that seemed almost to surround the place, the wild screaming of the sea-birds, and a single ship appearing like a mere speck on the Northern horizon.

They had not noticed the wind much as they drove along; but now, when they went out on the high table-land of rock, it seemed to be blowing half a gale across the sea. The sunlight sparkled on the glass of the lighthouse, and the great yellow shaft of stone stretched away upward into a perfect blue. As clear a blue lay far beneath them when the sea came rushing in among the lofty crags and sharp pinnacles of rock, bursting into foam at their feet and sending long jets of white spray up into the air. In front of the great wall of rock the sea-birds wheeled and screamed, and on the points of some of the islands stood several scarts, motionless figures of jet black on the soft brown and green of the rock. And what was this island they looked down upon from over one of the bays? Surely a mighty reproduction by Nature herself of the Sphynx of the Egyptian plains. Could anything have been more striking and unexpected and impressive than the sudden discovery of this great mass of rock resting in the wild sea, its hooded head turned away toward the North and hidden from the spectator on land, its gigantic bulk surrounded by a foam of breakers? Lavender, with his teeth set hard against the wind, must needs take down the outlines of this strange scene upon paper, while Sheila crouched at her father’s side for shelter, and Ingram was chiefly engaged in holding on to his cap.

“It blows here a bit,” said Lavender amid the roar of the waves. “I suppose in the Winter-time the sea will sometimes break across this place?”

“Ay, and over the top of the light-house, too,” said Mackenzie with a laugh, as though he was rather proud of the way his native seas behaved.

“Sheila,” said Ingram, “I never saw you take refuge from the wind before.”

“It is because we will be standing still,” said the girl, with a smile which was scarcely visible, because she had half hidden her face in her father’s great gray beard. “But when Mr. Lavender is finished we will go down to the great hole in the rocks that you will have seen before, and perhaps he will make a picture of that, too.”

“You don’t mean to say you would go down there, Sheila?” said Ingram, “and in this wind!”

“I have been down many times before.”

“Indeed, you will do nothing of the kind, Sheila,” said her father; “you will go back to the light-house if you like—yes, you may do that—and I will go down the rocks with Mr. Lavender; but it iss not for a young lady to go about among the rocks, like a fisherman’s lad that wants the birds’ eggs or such nonsense.”

It was quite evident that Mackenzie had very little fear of his daughter not being able to accomplish the descent of the rocks safely enough; it was a matter of dignity. And so Sheila was at length persuaded to go across the plain to a sheltered place, to await there until the others should clamber down to the great and naturally-formed tunnel through the rocks that the artist was to sketch.

Lavender was ill at ease. He followed his guide mechanically as they made their way, in zigzag fashion, down the precipitous slopes and over slippery plateaus; and when at last he came in sight of the mighty arch, the long cavern, and the glimmer of sea and shore that could be seen through it, he began to put down the outlines of the picture as rapidly as possible, but with little interest in the matter. Ingram was sitting on the bare rocks beside him, Mackenzie was some distance off—should he tell his friend of what Sheila had said in the morning? Strict honesty, perhaps, demanded as much, but the temptation to say nothing was great. For it was evident that Ingram was now well inclined to the project, and would do his best to help it on; whereas, if once he knew that Sheila had resolved against it, he, too, might take some sudden step—such as insisting on their immediate return to the midland—which would settle the matter forever. Sheila had said she would herself make the necessary explanation to Ingram, but she had not done so: perhaps she might lack the courage or an opportunity to do so, and in the meantime was not the interval altogether favorable to his chances? Doubtless she was a little frightened at first. She would soon get less timid, and would relent and revoke her decision of the morning. He would not, at present at any rate, say anything to Ingram.

But when they had got up again to the summit of the rocks, an incident occurred that considerably startled him out of these vague and anxious speculations. He walked straight over to the sheltered spot in which Sheila was waiting. The rushing of the wind doubtless drowned the sound of his footsteps, so that he came on her unawares; and on seeing him she rose suddenly from the rock on which she had been sitting, with some effort to hide her face away from him. But he had caught a glimpse of something in her eyes that filled him with remorse.

“Sheila,” he said, going forward to her, “what is the matter? What are you unhappy about?”

She could not answer; she held her face turned from him and cast down; and then, seeing her father and Ingram in the distance, she set out to follow them to the lighthouse. Lavender walking by her side, and wondering how he could deal with the distress that was only too clearly written on her face.

“I know it is I who have grieved you,” he said in a low voice, “and I am very sorry. But if you will tell me what I can do to remove this unhappiness I will do it now. Shall I consider our talking together of last night as if it had not taken place at all?”

“Yes,” she said in as low a voice, but clear and sad, and determined in its tone.

“And I shall speak no more to you about this affair until I go away altogether?”

And again she signified her assent, gravely and firmly.

“And then,” he said, “you will soon forget all about it, for, of course, I shall never come back to Lewis again.”

“Never?”

The word had escaped her unwillingly, and it was accompanied by a quick upturning of the face and a frightened look in the beautiful eyes.

“Do you wish me to come back?” he said.

“I should not wish you to go way from the Lewis through any fault of mine, and say that we should never see you again,” said the girl in measured tones, as if she were nerving herself to make the admission, and yet fearful of saying too much.

By this time Mackenzie and Ingram had gone around the big wall of the light-house; there were no human beings on this lonely bit of heath but themselves. Lavender stopped her and took her hand, and said, “Don’t you see, Sheila, how I must never come back to Lewis if all this is to be forgotten? And all I want you to say is, that I may come some day to see if you can make up your mind to be my wife. I don’t ask that yet; it is out of the question, seeing how short a time you have known anything about me, and I cannot wish you to trust me as I can trust you. It is a very little thing I ask—only to give me a chance at some future time, and then, if you don’t care for me sufficiently to marry me, or if anything stands in the way, all you need do is to send me a single word, and that will suffice. This is no terrible thing that I beg from you, Sheila. You needn’t be afraid of it.”

But she was afraid; there was nothing but fear and doubt and grief in her eyes, as she gazed in the unknown world laid open before her.

“Can’t you ask someone to tell you that it is nothing dreadful—Mr. Ingram, for example?”

“I could not.”

“Your papa, then,” he said, driven to this desperate resource by his anxiety to save her from pain.

“Not yet—not just yet,” she said, almost wildly; “for how could I explain to him? He would ask me what my wishes were; what could I say? I do not know; I cannot tell myself; and—and—I have no mother to ask.” And here all the strain of self-control gave way, and the girl burst into tears.

“Sheila, dear Sheila,” he said, “why don’t you trust your own heart, and let that be your guide? Won’t you say this one word, Yes, and tell me that I am to come back to Lewis some day, and ask to see you, and get a message from one look of your eyes? Sheila, may not I come back?”

If there was a reply it was so low that he scarcely heard it; but somehow—whether from the small hand that lay in his, or from the eyes that sent one brief message of trust and hope through their tears—his question was answered; and from that moment he felt no more misgivings, but let his love for Sheila shine out and blossom in whatever light of fancy and imagination he could bring to bear on it, without any doubts as to the future.

How the young fellow laughed and joked as the party drove away again from the Butt, down the long coast-road to Barvas! He was tenderly respectful and a little moderate in tone when he addressed Sheila, but with the others he gave way to a wild exuberance of spirits that delighted Mackenzie beyond measure. He told stories of the odd old gentlemen of his club, of their opinions, their ways, their dress. He sang the song of the Arethusa and the wilds of Lewis echoed with a chorus which was not just as harmonious as it might have been. He sang the “Jug of Punch,” and Mackenzie said that was a teffle of a good song. He gave imitations of some of Ingram’s companions at the Board of Trade, and showed Sheila what the inside of a government office was like. He paid Mackenzie the compliment of asking him for a drop of something out of his flask, and in return he insisted on the King smoking a cigar which, in point of age and sweetness and fragrance, was really the sort of a cigar you would naturally give to the man whose only daughter you wanted to marry.

Ingram understood all this, and was pleased to see the happy look that Sheila wore. He talked to her with even a greater assumption than usual of fatherly fondness; and if she was a little shy, was it not because she was conscious of so great a secret? He was even unusually complaisant to Lavender, and lost no opportunity of paying him indirect compliments that Sheila could overhear.

“You poor young things!” he seemed to be saying to himself, “you’ve got all your troubles before you; but, in the meantime you can make yourselves as happy as you can.”

Was the weather at last about to break? As the afternoon wore on the heavens became overcast, for the wind had gone back from the course of the sun, and had brought up great masses of cloud from the rainy Southwest.

“Are we going to have a storm?” said Lavender, looking along the Southern sky, where the Barvas hills were momentarily growing blacker under the gathering darkness overhead.

“Storm?” said Mackenzie, whose notions of what constituted a storm were probably different from those of his guest. “No, there will be no storm. But it is no bad thing if we get back to Barvas very soon.”

Duncan sent the horses on, and Ingram looked out Sheila’s water-proof and the rugs. The Southern sky certainly looked ominous. There was a strange intensity of color in the dark landscape, from the deep purple of the Barvas hills, coming forward to the deep green of the pasture-land around them, and the rich reds and browns of the heather and the peat-cuttings. At one point of the clouded and hurrying sky, however, there was a soft and vaporous line of yellow in the gray; and under that, miles away in the West, a great dash of silver light struck upon the sea, and glowed there so that the eye could scarcely bear it. Was it the damp that brought the perfumes of the moorlands so distinctly toward them—the bog-myrtle, the water-mint and the wild thyme? There were no birds to be heard. The crimson masses of heather on the gray rocks seemed to have grown richer and deeper in color, and the Barvas hills had become large and weird in the gloom.

“Are you afraid of thunder!” said Lavender to Sheila.

“No,” said the girl, looking frankly toward him with her glad eyes, as though he had pleased her by asking that not very striking question. And then she looked around at the sea and the sky in the South, and said quietly: “But there will be no thunder; it is too much wind.”

Ingram, with a smile which he could scarcely conceal, hereupon remarked, “You’re sorry, Lavender, I know. Wouldn’t you like to shelter somebody in danger, or attempt a rescue, or do something heroic?”

“And Mr. Lavender would do that if there was any need,” said the girl, bravely, “and then it would be nothing to laugh at.”

“Sheila, you bad girl! how dare you talk like that to me?” said Ingram; and he put his arm within hers and said he would tell her a story.

But this race to escape the storm was needless, for they were just getting within sight of Barvas when a surprising change came over the dark and thunderous afternoon. The hurrying masses of cloud in the West parted for a little space, and there was a sudden and fitful glimmer of a stormy blue sky. Then a strange soft yellow and vaporous light shone across to the Barvas hills and touched up palely the great slopes, rendering them distant, ethereal and cloud-like. Then a shaft or two of wild light flashed down upon the landscape beside them. The cattle shone red in the brilliant green pastures. The gray rocks glowed in their setting of moss. The stream going by Barvas Inn was a streak of gold in its sandy bed. And then the sky above them broke into great billows of cloud—tempestuous and rounded masses of golden vapor that burned with the wild glare of the sunset. The clear spaces in the sky widened, and from time to time the wind sent ragged bits of yellow cloud across the shining blue. All the world seemed to be on fire, and the very smoke of it, the majestic masses of vapor that rolled by overhead, burned with a bewildering glare. Then, as the wind still blew hard, and kept veering around to the Northwest, the fiercely-lit clouds were driven over one by one, leaving a pale and serene sky to look down on the sinking sun and the sea. The Atlantic caught the yellow glow on its tumbling waves, and a deeper color stole across the slopes and peaks of the Barvas hills. Whither had gone the storm? There were still some banks of clouds away up in the Northeast, and in the clear green of the evening sky they had their distant grays and purples faintly tinged with rose.

“And so you are anxious and frightened, and a little pleased?” said Ingram to Sheila that evening, after he had frankly told her what he knew, and invited her further confidence. “That is all I can gather from you, but it is enough. Now you can leave the rest to me.”

“To you?” said the girl, with a blush of pleasure and surprise.

“Yes. I like new experiences. I am going to become an intermeddler now. I am going to arrange this affair, and become the negotiator between all the parties; and then, when I have secured the happiness of the whole of you, you will all set upon me and beat me with sticks, and thrust me out of your houses.”

“I do not think,” said Sheila, looking down, “that you need have much fear of that, Mr. Ingram.”

“Is the world going to alter because of me?”

“I would rather not have you try to do anything that is likely to get you into unhappiness,” she said.

“Oh, but that is absurd. You timid young folks can’t act for yourselves. You want agents and instruments that have got hardened by use. Fancy the condition of our ancestors, you know, before they had the sense to invent steel claws to tear their food in pieces—what could they do with their fingers? I am going to be your knife and fork, Sheila, and you’ll see what I shall carve out for you. All you’ve got to do is to keep your spirits up, and believe that nothing dreadful is going to take place merely because some day you will be asked to marry. You let things take their ordinary course. Keep your spirits up—don’t neglect your music or your dinner or your poor people down in Borvapost—and you’ll see it will all come right enough. In a year or two, or less than that, you will marry contentedly and happily, and your papa will drink a good glass of whisky at the wedding and make jokes about it, and everything will be as right as the mail. That’s my advice; see you attend to it.”

“You are very kind to me,” said the girl, in a low voice.

“But if you begin to cry, Sheila, then I throw up my duties. Do you hear? Now look: there goes Mr. Lavender down to the boat with a bundle of rugs, and I suppose you mean me to imperil my precious life by sailing about these rocky channels in the moonlight? Come along down to the shore; and mind you please your papa by singing ‘Love in thine eyes’ with Mr. Lavender, and if you would add to that ‘The Minute Gun at Sea,’ why, you know, I may as well have my little rewards for intermeddling now, as I shall have to suffer afterward.”

“Not through me,” said Sheila, in rather an uncertain voice; and then they went down to the Maighdean-mhara.

PART IV.

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?

CHAPTER IX.

‘FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!’

A NIGHT journey from Greenock to London is a sufficiently prosaic affair in ordinary circumstances, but it need not be always so. What if a young man, apparently occupied in making himself comfortable and in talking nonsense to his friend and companion, should be secretly calculating how the journey could be made most pleasant to a bride, and that bride his bride? Lavender made experiments with regard to the ways and tempers of guards; he borrowed planks of wood with which to make sleeping-couches of an ordinary first-class carriage; he bribed a certain official to have the compartment secured; he took note of the time when, and the place where refreshments could be procured; all these things he did, thinking of Sheila. And when Ingram, sometimes surprised by his good-nature, and occasionally remonstrating against his extravagance, at last fell asleep on the more or less comfortable cushions stretched across the planks, Lavender would have him wake up again, that he might be induced to talk once more about Sheila. Ingram would make use of some wicked words, rub his eyes, ask what was the last station they had passed, and then begin to preach to Lavender about the great obligations he was under to Sheila, and what would be expected of him in after times.

“You are coming away just now,” he would say, while Lavender, who could not sleep at all, was only anxious that Sheila’s name should be mentioned, “enriched with a greater treasure than falls to the lot of most men. If you know how to value that treasure, there is not a king or emperor in Europe who should not envy you.”

“But don’t you think I value it?” the other would say, anxiously.

“We’ll see about that afterwards, by what you do. But in the meantime you don’t know what you have won. You don’t know the magnificent single-heartedness of that girl, her keen sense of honor, nor the strength of character, of judgment and decision that lies beneath her apparent simplicity. Why, I have known Sheila now—But what’s the use of talking?”

“I wish you would talk, though, Ingram,” said his companion, quite submissively. “You have known her longer than I. I am willing to believe all you say of her, and anxious, indeed, to know as much about her as possible. You don’t suppose I fancy she is anything less than you say?”

“Well,” said Ingram, doubtfully, “perhaps not. The worst of it is, that you take such odd readings of people. However, when you marry her, as I now hope you may, you will soon find out; and then, if you are not grateful, if you don’t understand and appreciate then the fine qualities of this girl, the sooner you put a millstone around your neck and drop over Chelsea Bridge the better.”

“She will always have in you a good friend to look after her when she comes to London.”

“Oh, don’t imagine I mean to thrust myself in at your breakfast table to give you advice. If a husband and wife cannot manage their own affairs satisfactorily, no third person can; and I am getting to be an elderly man, who likes peace and comfort and his own quiet.”

“I wish you wouldn’t talk such nonsense,” said Lavender impetuously. “You know you are bound to marry, and the woman you ask to marry you will be a precious fool if she refuses. I don’t know, indeed, how you and Sheila ever escaped—”

“Look here, Lavender,” said his companion, speaking in a somewhat more earnest fashion, “if you marry Sheila Mackenzie I suppose I may see something of both of you from time to time. But you are naturally jealous and exacting, as is the way with many good fellows who have had too much of their own will in the world; and if you start off with the notion now that Sheila and I might ever have married, or that such a thing was ever thought of by either of us, the certain consequence will be that you will become jealous of me, and that in time I shall have to stop seeing either of you if you happen to be living in London.”

“And if ever the time comes,” said Lavender, lightly, “when I prove myself such a fool, I hope I shall remember that a millstone can be bought in Victoria road and that Chelsea Bridge is handy.”

“All right; I’m going to sleep.”

For sometime after Ingram was permitted to rest in peace, and it was not until they had reached some big station or other toward morning that he woke. Lavender had never closed his eyes.

“Haven’t you been asleep?”

“No.”

“What’s the matter now?”

“My aunt.”

“You seemed to have acquired a trick recently of looking at all the difficulties of your position at once. Why don’t you take them singly? You’ve just got rid of Mackenzie’s opposition; that might have contented you for a while.”

“I think the best plan will be to say nothing of this to my aunt, at present. I think we ought to get married first, and when I take Sheila to see her as my wife, what can she say then?”

“But what is Sheila likely to say before then? And Sheila’s father? You must be out of your mind.”

“There will be a pretty scene, then, when I tell her.”

“Scenes don’t hurt anybody, unless when they end in brickbats or decanters. Your aunt must know you would marry some day.”

“Yes, but you know whom she wished me to marry.”

“That’s nothing. Every old lady has a fancy for imagining possible marriages; but your aunt is a reasonable woman, and could not possibly object to your marrying a girl like Sheila.”

“Oh, couldn’t she? Then you don’t know her; ‘Frank, my dear, what are the arms borne by your wife’s family?’ ‘My dear aunt I will describe them to you as becomes a dutiful nephew. The arms are quarterly; first and fourth, vert, a herring, argent; second and third, azure, a solan-goose, volant, or. The crest, out of a crown vallery, argent, a cask of whisky, gules. Supporters, dexter, a gillie; sinister, a fisherman.’ ”

“And a very good coat-of-arms, too. You might add the motto Ultimus regum. Or Atavis editus regibus. Or Tyrrhena regum progenies. To think that your aunt would forbid you wedding a king’s daughter!”

“I should wed the king’s daughter, aunt or no aunt, in any case; but, you see, it would be uncommonly awkward, just as old Mackenzie would want to know something more particular about my circumstances; and he might ask for references to the old lady herself, just as if I were a tenant about to take a house.”

“I have given him enough references. Go to sleep, and don’t bother yourself.”

But now Ingram found himself just as unable as his companion to escape into unconsciousness, and so he roused himself thoroughly, and began to talk about Lewis and Borva and the Mackenzies, and the duties and responsibilities Lavender would undertake in marrying Sheila.

“Mackenzie,” he said, “will expect you to live in Stornoway at least half the year, and it will be very hard on him if you don’t.”

“Oh, as to that,” said the other, “I should have no objection; but, you see, if I am to get married I really think I ought to try to get into some position of earning my own living or helping toward it, you know; I begin to see how galling this sort of dependence on my aunt might be if I wished to act for myself. Now, if I were to begin to do anything, I could not go and bury myself in Lewis for half the year—just at first; by and by, you know, it might be different. But don’t you think I ought to begin and do something?”

“Most certainly. I have often wished you had been born a carpenter or painter or glazier.”

“People are not born carpenters or glaziers, but sometimes they are born painters. I think I have been born nothing; but I am willing to try, more especially as I think Sheila would like it.”

“I know she would.”

“I will write and tell her the moment I get to London.”

“I would fix first what your occupation was to be, if I were you. There is no hurry about telling Sheila, although she will be very glad to get as much news of you as possible, and I hope you will spare no time or trouble in pleasing her in that line. By-the-way, what an infamous shame it was of you to go and gammon old Mackenzie into the belief that he can read poetry! Why, he will make that girl’s life a burden to her. I heard him propose to read Paradise Lost to her as soon as the rain set in.”

“I didn’t gammon him,” said Lavender, with a laugh, “Every man thinks he can read poetry better than every other man, even as every man fancies that no one gets cigars as good and as cheap as he does, and that no one can drive a horse safely but himself. My talking about his reading was not as bad as Sheila’s persuading him that he can play whist. Did you ever know a man who did not believe that everybody else’s reading of poetry was affected, stilted and unbearable? I know Mackenzie must have been reading poetry to Sheila long before I mentioned it to him.”

“But that suggestion about his resonant voice and the Crystal Palace!”

“That was a joke.”

“He did not take it as a joke, and neither did Sheila.”

“Well, Sheila would believe that her father could command the Channel fleet, or turn out the present ministry, or build a bridge to America, if only anybody hinted it to her. Touching that Crystal Palace; did you observe how little notion of size she could have got from pictures when she asked me if the Crystal Palace was much bigger than the hot-houses at Lewis Castle?”

“What a world of wonder the girl is coming into!” said the other, meditatively. “But it will be all lit up by one sun if only you take care of her and justify her belief in you.”

“I have not much doubt,” said Lavender, with a certain modest confidence in his manner, which had repeatedly of late pleased his friend.

Even Sheila herself could scarcely have found London more strange than did the two men who had just returned from a month’s sojourn in the Northern Hebrides. The dingy trees in Euston Square, the pale sunlight that shone down on the gray pavements, the noise of the omnibuses and carts, the multitude of strangers, the blue and mist-like smoke that hung about Tottenham Court Road—all were as strange to them as the sensation of sitting in a hansom and being driven along by an unseen driver. Lavender confessed afterward that he was pervaded by an odd sort of desire to know whether there was anybody in London at all like Sheila. Now and again a smartly-dressed girl passed along the pavement; what was it that made the difference between her and the other girl whom he had just left? yet he wished to have the difference as decided as possible, when some bright, fresh-colored, pleasant-looking girl passed, he was anxious to prove to himself that she was not to be compared with Sheila. Where in all London could you find eyes that told so much? He forgot to place the specialty of Sheila’s eyes in the fact of their being a dark gray-blue under black eyelashes. What he did remember was that no eyes could possibly say the same things to him as they had said. And where in all London was the same sweet aspect to be found, or the same unconsciously proud and gentle demeanor, or the same tender friendliness expressed in a beautiful face? He would not say anything against London women for all that. It was no fault of theirs that they could not be sea-kings’ daughters, with the courage and frankness and sweetness of the sea gone into their blood. He was only too pleased to have proved to himself, by looking at some half-dozen pretty shop-girls, that not in London was there any one to compare with Princess Sheila.

For many a day thereafter Ingram had to suffer a good deal of this sort of lover’s logic, and bore it with great fortitude. Indeed, nothing pleased him more than to observe that Lavender’s affection, so far from waning, engrossed more and more of his thought and his time; and he listened with unfailing good-nature and patience to the perpetual talk of his friend about Sheila and her home, and the future that might be in store for both of them. If he had accepted half the invitations to dinner sent down to him at the Board of Trade by his friend, he would scarcely ever have been out of Lavender’s club. Many a long evening they passed in this way—either in Lavender’s rooms in King street or in Ingram’s lodgings in Sloane street. Ingram quite consented to lie in a chair and smoke, sometimes putting in a word of caution to bring Lavender back from the romantic Sheila to the real Sheila, sometimes smiling at some wild proposal or statement on the part of his friend, but always glad to see that the pretty idealisms planted during their stay in the far North were in no danger of dying out down here in the South. Those were great days, too, when a letter arrived from Sheila. Nothing had been said about their corresponding, but Lavender had written shortly after his arrival in London and Sheila had answered for her father and herself. It wanted but a very little amount of ingenuity to continue the interchange of letters thus begun; and when the well-known envelope arrived high holiday was immediately proclaimed by the recipient of it. He did not show Ingram these letters, of course, but the contents of them were soon bit by bit revealed. He was also permitted to see the envelope, as if Sheila’s handwriting had some magical charm about it. Sometimes, indeed, Ingram had himself a letter from Sheila, and that was immediately shown to Lavender. Was he pleased to find that these communications were excessively business-like—describing how the fishing was going on, what was doing in the schools, and how John the Piper was conducting himself, with talk about the projected telegraphic cable, the shooting in Harris, the health of Bras, and other esoteric matters?

Lavender’s communications with the King of Borva were of a different nature. Wonderful volumes on building, agriculture, and what not, tobacco hailing from certain royal sources in the neighborhood of the Pyramids, and now and again a new sort of rifle or some fresh invention in fishing-tackle—these were the sort of things that found their way to Lewis. And then in reply came haunches of venison, and kegs of rare whisky and skins of wild animals, which, all very admirable in their way, were a trifle cumbersome in a couple of moderate rooms in King street, St. James’. But here Lavender hit upon a happy device. He had long ago talked to his aunt about the mysterious potentate in the far North, who was the ruler of man, beast and fish, and who had an only daughter. When these presents arrived, Mrs. Lavender was informed that they were meant for her, and was given to understand that they were the propitiatory gifts of a half-savage monarch who wished to seek her friendship. In vain did Ingram warn Lavender of the possible danger of this foolish joke. The young man laughed, and would come down to Sloane street with another story of his success as an envoy of the distant King.

And so the months went slowly by, and Lavender raved about Sheila, and dreamed about Sheila, and was always going to begin some splendid achievement for Sheila’s sake, but never just managed to begin. After all, the future did not look very terrible, and the present was satisfactory enough. Mrs. Lavender had no objection whatever to listening to his praises of Sheila, and had even gone the length of approving of the girl’s photograph when it was shown her. But at the end of six months Lavender suddenly went down to Sloane street, found Ingram in his lodgings, and said, “Ingram, I start for Lewis to-morrow.”

“The more fool you!” was the complacent reply.

“I can’t bear this any longer; I must go and see her.”

“You’ll have to bear worse if you go. You don’t know what getting to Lewis is in the Winter. You’ll be killed with cold before you see the Minch.”

“I can stand a good bit of cold when there’s a reason for it,” said the young man; “and I have written to Sheila to say I should start to-morrow.”

“In that case I had better make use of you. I suppose you won’t mind taking up to Sheila a sealskin jacket that I have bought for her?”

“That you have bought for her!” said the other.

How could he have spared fifteen pounds out of his narrow income for such a present? And yet he laughed at the idea of his ever having been in love with Sheila.

Lavender took the sealskin jacket with him, and started on his journey to the North. It was certainly all that Ingram had prophesied in the way of discomfort, hardship and delay. But one forenoon, Lavender, coming up from the cabin of the steamer into which he had descended to escape from the bitter wind and the sleet, saw before him a strange thing. In the middle of the black sea and under a dark gray sky lay a long wonder-land of gleaming snow. Far as the eye could see the successive headlands of pale white jutted out into the dark ocean, until in the South they faded into a gray mist and became invisible. And when they got into Stornoway harbor, how black seemed the waters of the little bay, and the hulls of the boats, and the windows of the houses against the blinding white of the encircling hills!

“Yes,” said Lavender to the captain, “it will be a cold drive across to Loch Roag. I shall give Mackenzie’s man a good dram before we start.”

But it was not Mackenzie’s notion of hospitality to send Duncan to meet an honored guest, and ere the vessel was fast moored Lavender had caught sight of the well-known pair of horses and the brown wagonette, and Mackenzie stamping up and down in the trampled snow. And this figure close down to the edge of the quay? Surely, there was something about the thick gray shawl, the white feather, the set of the head, that he knew!

“Why, Sheila!” he cried, jumping ashore before the gangway was shoved across, “whatever made you come to Stornoway on such a day?

“And it is not much my coming to Stornoway, if you will come all the way from England to the Lewis,” said Sheila, looking up with her bright and glad eyes.

For six months he had been trying to recall the tones of her voice in looking at her picture, and had failed; now he fancied that she spoke more sweetly and musically than ever.

“Ay, ay,” said Mackenzie, when he had shaken hands with the young man, “it wass a piece of foolishness, her coming over to meet you in Styornoway; but the girl will be neither to hold nor to bind when she teks a foolishness into her head.”

“Is this the character I hear of you, Sheila?” he said; and Mackenzie laughed at his daughter’s embarrassment, and said she was a good lass for all that, and bundled both the young folks into the inn, where luncheon had been provided, with a blazing fire in the room, and a kettle of hot water steaming beside it.

When they got to Borva, Lavender began to see that Mackenzie had laid the most subtle plans for reconciling him to the hard weather of these Northern Winters; and the young man, nothing loth, fell into his ways, and was astonished at the amusement and interest that could be got out of a residence in this bleak island at such a season. Mackenzie discarded at once the feeble protection against cold and wet which his guest had brought with him. He gave him a pair of his own knickerbockers and enormous boots; he made him wear a frieze coat borrowed from Duncan; he insisted on his turning down the flap of a sealskin cap and tying the ends under his chin; and thus equipped they started on many a rare expedition around the coast. But on their first going out, Mackenzie, looking at him, said with some chagrin, “Will they wear gloves when they go shooting in your country?”

“Oh,” said Lavender, “these are only a pair of old dogskins I use chiefly to keep my hands clean. You see I have cut out the trigger finger. And they keep your hands from being numbed, you know, with the cold or the rain.”

“There will be not much need of that after a little while,” said Mackenzie; and indeed, after half an hour’s tramping over snow and climbing over rocks, Lavender was well inclined to please the old man by tossing the gloves into the sea, for his hands were burning with heat.

Then the pleasant evenings after all the fatigues of the day were over, clothes changed, dinner despatched, and Sheila at the open piano in that warm little drawing-room, with its strange shells and fishes and birds!

Love in thine eyes for ever plays; He in thy snowy bosom strays,

they sang, just as in the by-gone times of Summer; and now old Mackenzie had got on a bit further in his musical studies, and could hum with the best of them,

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

There was no Winter at all in the snug little room, with its crimson fire and closed shutters and songs of happier times. “When the rosy morn appearing” had nothing inappropriate in it; and if they particularly studied the words of “Oh wert thou in the cauld blast,” it was only that Sheila might teach her companion the Scotch pronunciation, as far as she knew it. And once, half in joke, Lavender said he could believe it was Summer again if Sheila had only on her slate-gray silk dress, with the red ribbon around her neck; and sure enough, after dinner she came down in that dress, and Lavender took her hand and kissed it in gratitude. Just at that moment, too, Mackenzie began to swear at Duncan for not having brought him his pipe, and not only went out of the room for it, but was a full half hour in finding it. When he came in again he was singing carelessly,

Love in thine eyes for ever plays.

just as if he had got his pipe around the corner.

For it had been all explained by this time, you know, and Sheila had in a couple of trembling words pledged away her life, and her father had given his consent. More than that he would have done for the girl, if need were; and when he saw the perfect happiness shining in her eyes—when he saw that, through some vague feelings of compunction or gratitude, or even exuberant joy, she was more than usually affectionate toward himself—he grew reconciled to the ways of Providence, and was ready to believe that Ingram had done them all a good turn in bringing his friend from the South with him. If there was any haunting fear at all, it was about the possibility of Sheila’s husband refusing to live in Stornoway even for half the year or a portion of the year; but did not the young man express himself as delighted beyond measure with Lewis and the Lewis people, and the sports and scenery and climate of the island? If Mackenzie could have bought fine weather at twenty pounds a day, Lavender would have gone back to London with the conviction that there was only one thing better than Lewis in Summer-time, and that was Lewis in time of snow and frost.

The blow fell. One evening a distinct thaw set in, during the night the wind went around to Southwest, and in the morning, lo! the very desolation of desolation. Suainabhal, Mealasabhal, Cracabhal were all hidden away behind dreary folds of mist; a slow and steady rain poured down from the lowering skies on the wet rocks, the marshy pasture land and the leafless bushes; the Atlantic lay dark under a gray fog, and you could scarcely see across the loch in front of the house. Sometimes the wind freshened a bit, and howled about the house or dashed showers against the streaming panes; but ordinarily there was no sound but the ceaseless hissing of the rain on the wet gravel at the door and the rush of the waves along the black rocks. All signs of life seemed to have fled from the earth and the sky. Bird and beast had alike taken shelter, and not even a gull or a sea-pye crossed the melancholy lines of moorland, which were half obscured by the mist of the rain.

“Well, it can’t be fine weather always,” said Lavender, cheerfully, when Mackenzie was affecting to be greatly surprised to find such a thing as rain in the Island of Lewis.

“No, that iss quite true,” said the old man. “It wass ferry good weather we were having since you hef come here. And what iss a little rain?—Oh, nothing at all. You will see it will go away whenever the wind goes around.”

With that Mackenzie would again go out to the front of the house, take a turn up and down the wet gravel, and pretend to be scanning the horizon for signs of a change. Sheila, a good deal more honest, went about her household duties, saying merely to Lavender, “I am very sorry the weather has broken, but it may clear before you go away from Borva.”

“Before I go? Do you expect it to rain for a week?”

“Perhaps it will not, but it is looking very bad to-day,” said Sheila.

“Well, I don’t care,” said the young man, “though it should rain the skies down, if only you would keep in doors, Sheila. But you do go out in such a reckless fashion. You don’t seem to reflect that it is raining.”

“I do not get wet,” she said.

“Why, when you came up from the shore half an hour ago your hair was as wet as possible, and your face all red and gleaming with the rain.”

“But I am none the worse. And I am not wet now. It is impossible that you will always keep in a room if you have things to do; and a little rain does not hurt any one.”

“It occurs to me, Sheila,” he observed slowly, “that you are an exceedingly obstinate and self-willed young person, and that no one has ever exercised any proper control over you.”

She looked up for a moment with a sudden glance of surprise and pain; but she saw in his eyes that he meant nothing, and she went forward to him, putting her hand in his hand, and saying with a smile, “I am very willing to be controlled.”

“Are you really?”

“Yes.”

“Then hear my commands. You shall not go out in time of rain without putting something over your head or taking an umbrella. You shall not go out in the Maighdean-mhara without taking some one with you besides Mairi. You shall never, if you are away from home, go within fifty yards of the sea, so long as there is snow on the rocks.”

“But that is so very many things already; is it not enough?” said Sheila.

“You will faithfully remember and observe these rules?”

“I will.”

“Then you are a more obedient girl then I imagined or expected; and you may now, if you are good, have the satisfaction of offering me a glass of sherry and a biscuit, for, rain or no rain, Lewis is a dreadful place for making people hungry.”

Mackenzie need not have been afraid. Strange as it may appear, Lavender was well content with the wet weather. No depression or impatience or remonstrance was visible on his face when he went to the blurred windows, day after day, to see only the same desolate picture—the dark sea, the wet rocks, the gray mists over the moorland and the shining of the red gravel before the house. He would stand with his hands in his pocket and whistle “Love in thine eyes forever plays,” just as if he were looking out on a cheerful Summer sunrise. When he and Sheila went to the door, and were received by a cold blast of wet wind and a driving shower of rain, he would slam the door to again, with a laugh, and pull the girl back into the house. Sometimes she would not be controlled; and then he would accompany her about the garden as she attended to her duties, or would go down to the shore with her to give Bras a run. From these excursions he returned in the best of spirits, with a fine color in his face; until, having got accustomed to heavy boots, impervious frieze and the discomfort of wet hands, he grew to be about as indifferent to the rain as Sheila herself, and went fishing or shooting or boating with much content, whether it was wet or dry.

“It has been the happiest month of my life—I know that,” he said to Mackenzie as they stood together on the quay at Stornoway.

“And I hope you will hef many like it in the Lewis,” said the old man, cheerfully.

“I think I should soon learn to become a Highlander up here,” said Lavender, “if Sheila would only teach me the Gaelic.”

“The Gaelic!” cried Mackenzie impatiently. “The Gaelic! It is none of the gentlemen who will come here in the Autumn will want the Gaelic; and what for would you want the Gaelic—ay, if you was staying here all the year round?”

“But Sheila will teach me all the same, won’t you, Sheila?” he said, turning to his companion, who was gazing somewhat blankly at the rough steamer and at the rough gray sea beyond the harbor.

“Yes,” said the girl; she seemed in no mood for joking.

Lavender returned to town more in love than ever; and soon the news of his engagement was spread abroad, he nothing loath. Most of his club-friends laughed, and prophesied it would come to nothing. How could a man in Lavender’s position marry anybody but an heiress? He could not afford to go and marry a fisherman’s daughter. Others came to the conclusion that artists and writers and all that sort of people were incomprehensible, and said “Poor beggar!” when they thought of the fashion in which Lavender had ruined his chances in life. His lady friends, however, were much more sympathetic. There was a dash of romance in the story; and would not the Highland girl be a curiosity a little while after she came to town! Was she like any of the pictures Mr. Lavender had hanging up in his rooms? Had he not even a sketch of her? An artist, and yet not have a portrait of the girl he had chosen to marry? Lavender had no portrait of Sheila to show. Some little photographs he had he kept for his own pocket-book, while in vain had he tried to get some sketch or picture that would convey to the world of his friends and acquaintances some notion of his future bride. They were left to draw on their imagination for some presentment of the coming princess.

He told Mrs. Lavender, of course. She said little, but sent for Edward Ingram. Him she questioned in a cautious, close and yet apparently indifferent way, and then merely said that Frank was very impetuous, that it was a pity he had resolved on marrying out of his own sphere of life, but that she hoped the young lady from the Highlands would prove a good wife to him.

“I hope he will prove a good husband to her,” said Ingram, with unusual sharpness.

“Frank is very impetuous.” That was all Mrs. Lavender would say.

By and by, as the spring grew on, and the time of the marriage was coming nearer, the important business of taking and furnishing a house for Sheila’s reception occupied the attention of the young man from morning till night. He had been somewhat disappointed at the cold fashion in which his aunt looked upon his choice, admitting everything he had to say in praise of Sheila, but never expressing any approval of his conduct, or hope about the future; but now she showed herself most amiably and generously disposed. She supplied the young man with abundant funds wherewith to furnish the house according to his own fancy. It was a small place, fronting a somewhat commonplace square in Notting Hill, but it was to be a miracle of artistic adornment inside. He tortured himself for days over rival shades and hues; he drew designs for the chairs; he himself painted a good deal of paneling; and, in short, gave up his whole time to making Sheila’s future home beautiful. His aunt regarded these preparations with little interest, but she certainly gave her nephew ample means to indulge the eccentricities of his fancy.

“Isn’t she a dear old lady?” said Lavender one night to Ingram. “Look here! A check, received this morning, for two hundred pounds, for plate and glass.”

Ingram looked at the bit of pale green paper: “I wish you had earned the money yourself, or done without the plate until you could buy it with your own money.”

“Oh, confound it, Ingram! you carry your puritanical theories too far. Doubtless I shall earn my own living by and by. Give me time.”

“It is now nearly a year since you thought of marrying Sheila Mackenzie, and you have not done a stroke of work yet.”

“I beg your pardon. I have worked a good deal of late, as you will see when you come up to my rooms.”

“Have you sold a single picture since last summer?”

“I cannot make people buy my pictures if they don’t choose to do so.”

“Have you made any effort to get them sold, or to come to any arrangement with any of the dealers?”

“I have been too busy of late—looking after this house, you know,” said Lavender with an air of apology.

“You were not too busy to paint a fan for Mrs. Lorraine, that people say must have occupied you for months.”

Lavender laughed: “Do you know, Ingram, I think you are jealous of Mrs. Lorraine, on account of Sheila? Come, you shall go and see her.”

“No, thank you.”

“Are you afraid of your Puritan principles giving way?”

“I am afraid that you are a very foolish boy,” said the other, with a good-humored shrug of resignation; “but I hope to see you mend when you marry.”

“Ah, then you will see a difference!” said Lavender, seriously; and so the dispute ended.

It had been arranged that Ingram should go up to Lewis to the marriage, and after the ceremony in Stornoway return to Borva with Mr. Mackenzie, to remain with him a few days. But at the last moment Ingram was summoned down to Devonshire on account of the serious illness of some near relative, and accordingly Frank Lavender started by himself to bring back with him his Highland bride. His stay in Borva was short enough on this occasion. At the end of it there came a certain wet and boisterous day, the occurrences in which he afterwards remembered as if they had taken place in a dream. There were many faces about, a confusion of tongues, a good deal of dram-drinking, a skirl of pipes, and a hurry through the rain; but all these things gave place to the occasional glance he got from a pair of timid and trusting and beautiful eyes. Yet Sheila was not Sheila in that dress of white, with her face a trifle pale. She was more his own Sheila when she had donned her rough garments of blue, and when she stood on the wet deck of the vessel, with a great gray shawl around her, talking to her father with a brave effort at cheerfulness, although her lip would occasionally quiver as one or other of her friends from Borva—many of them barefooted children—came up to bid her good-bye. Her father talked rapidly, with a grand affectation of indifference. He swore at the weather. He bade her see that Bras was properly fed, and if the sea broke over his box in the night, he was to be rubbed dry, and let out in the morning for a run up and down the deck. She was not to forget the parcel directed to an innkeeper at Oban. They would find Oban a very nice place at which to break the journey to London, but as for Greenock, Mackenzie could find no words with which to describe Greenock.

And then, in the midst of all this, Sheila suddenly said, “Papa, when does the steamer leave?”

“In a few minutes. They have got nearly all the cargo on board.”

“Will you do me a great favor, papa?”

“Ay, but what is it, Sheila?”

“I want you not to stay here till the boat sails, and then you will have all the people on the quay vexing you when you are going away. I want you to bid good-bye to us now, and drive away around to the point, and we shall see you the last of all when the steamer has got out of the harbor.”

“Ferry well, Sheila, I will do that,” he said, knowing well why the girl wished it.

So father and daughter bade good-bye to each other; and Mackenzie went on shore with his face down, and said not a word to any of his friends on the quay, but got into the wagonette, and, lashing his horses, drove rapidly away. As he had shaken hands with Lavender, Lavender had said to him, “Well, we shall soon be back in Borva again to see you;” and the old man had merely tightened the grip of his hand as he left.

The roar of the steam-pipes ceased, the throb of the engines struck the water, and the great steamer steamed away from the quay and out of the plain of the harbor into a wide world of gray waves and wind and rain. There stood Mackenzie as they passed, the dark figure clearly seen against the pallid colors of the dismal day; and Sheila waved a handkerchief to him until Stornoway and its lighthouse and all the promontories and bays of the great island had faded into the white mists that lay along the horizon. And then, her arm fell to her side, and for a moment she stood bewildered, with a strange look in her eyes of grief, and almost of despair.

“Sheila, my darling, you must go below now,” said her companion; “you are almost dead with cold.”

She looked at him for a moment as though she had scarcely heard what he said. But his eyes were full of pity for her; he drew her closer to him, and put his arms around her, and then she hid her head in his bosom and sobbed there like a child.

PART V.

CHAPTER X.

FAIRY-LAND.

“WELCOME to London—!”

He was about to add “Sheila,” but suddenly stopped. The girl, who had hastily come forward to meet him with a glad look in her eyes and with both hands out-stretched, doubtless perceived the brief embarrassment of the moment, and was perhaps a little amused by it. But she took no notice of it; she merely advanced to him and caught both his hands, and said, “And are you very well?”

It was the old and familiar salutation, uttered in the same odd, gentle, insinuating fashion, and in the same low and sweet voice. Sheila’s stay in Oban and the few days she had already spent in London, had not taught her the difference between “very” and “ferry.”

“It is so strange to hear you speak in London—Mrs. Lavender,” he said, with rather a wry face as he pronounced her full and proper title.

And now it was Sheila’s turn to look a bit embarrassed and color, and appear uncertain whether to be vexed or pleased, when her husband himself broke in in his usual impetuous fashion: “I say, Ingram, don’t be a fool! Of course you must call her Sheila—unless when there are people here, and then you must please yourself. Why, the poor girl has enough of strange things and names about her already. I don’t know how she keeps her head. It would bewilder me, I know; but I can see that, after she has stood at the window for a time, and begun to get dazed by all the wonderful sights and sounds outside, she suddenly withdraws and fixes all her attention on some little domestic duty, just as if she were hanging on to the practical things of life to assure herself it isn’t all a dream. Isn’t that so, Sheila?” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

“You ought not to watch me like that,” she said with a smile. “But it is the noise that is most bewildering. There are many places I will know already when I see them, many places and things I have known in pictures; but now the size of them, and the noise of carriages, and the people always passing, always different, always strangers, so that you never see the same people any more. But I am getting very much accustomed to it.”

“You are trying very hard to get accustomed to it, any way, my good girl,” said her husband.

“You need not be in a hurry; you may begin to regret some day that you have not a little of that feeling of wonder left,” said Ingram. “But you have not told me anything of what you think about London, and of how you like it, and how you like your house, and what you have done with Bras, and a thousand other things.”

“I well tell you all that directly, when I have got for you some wine and some biscuits.”

“Sheila, you can ring for them,” said her husband, but she had by that time departed on her mission. Presently she returned, and waited upon Ingram just as if she had been in her father’s house in Borva, with the gentlemen in a hurry to go out to the fishing, and herself the only one who could serve them.

She put a small table close by the French window; she drew back the curtains as far as they would go, to show the sunshine of a bright forenoon in May lighting up the trees in the square and gleaming on the pale and tall fronts of the houses beyond; and she wheeled in three low easy-chairs, so as to front this comparatively cheerful prospect. Somehow or other, it seemed quite natural that Sheila should wheel in those chairs. It was certainly no disrespect on the part of either her husband or her visitor which caused both of them to sit still and give her her own way about such things. Indeed, Lavender had not as yet ever attempted to impress upon Sheila the necessity of cultivating the art of helplessness.

That, with other social graces, would, perhaps, come in good time. She would soon acquire the habits and ways of her friends and acquaintances, without his trying to force upon her a series of affectations, which would only embarrass her and cloud the perfect frankness and spontaneity of her nature. Of one thing he was quite assured—that whatever mistakes Sheila might make in society they would never render her ridiculous. Strangers might not know the absolute sincerity of every word and act, which gave her a courage that had no fear of criticism, but they could at least see the simple grace and dignity of the girl, and that natural ease of manner which is beyond the reach of cultivation, being mainly the result of a thorough consciousness of honesty. To burden her with rules and regulations of conduct would be to produce the very catastrophes he wished to avoid. Where no attempt is made, failure is impossible; and he was meanwhile well content that Sheila should simply appear as Sheila, even although she might draw in a chair for a guest, or so far forget her dignity as to pour out some wine for her husband.

“After all, Sheila,” said Lavender, “hadn’t I better begin and tell Ingram about your surprise and delight when you came near Oban and saw the tall hotels and the trees? It was the trees, I think, that struck you most, because, you know, those in Lewis—well, to tell the truth—the fact is, the trees of Lewis—as I was saying, the trees of Lewis are not just—they cannot be said to be—”

“You bad boy, to say anything against the Lewis!” exclaimed Sheila; and Ingram held that she was right, and that there were certain sorts of ingratitude more disgraceful than others, and that this was just about the worst.

“Oh, I have brought all the good away from Lewis,” said Lavender with a careless impertinence.

“No,” said Sheila, proudly. “You have not brought away my papa, and there is not any one in this country I have seen as good as he is.”

“My dear, your experience of the thirty millions of folks in these islands is quite convincing. I was wholly in the wrong; and if you forgive me we shall celebrate our reconciliation in a cigarette—that is to say, Ingram and I will perform the rites, and you can look on.”

So Sheila went away to get the cigarettes also.

“You don’t say you smoke in your drawing-room, Lavender?” said Ingram, mindful of the fastidious ways of his friend, even when he had bachelor’s rooms in King street.

“Don’t I, though? I smoke everywhere—all over the place. Don’t you see we have no visitors yet. No one is supposed to know we have come South. Sheila must get all sorts of things before she can be introduced to my friends and my aunt’s friends, and the house must be put to rights, too. You wouldn’t have her go to see my aunt in that sailor’s costume she used to rush about in up in Lewis?”

“That is precisely what I would have,” said Ingram, “She cannot look more handsome in any other dress.”

“Why, my aunt would fancy I had married a savage; I believe she fears something of the sort now.”

“And you haven’t told even her that you are in London?”

“No.”

“Well, Lavender, that is a precious silly performance. Suppose she hears of your being in town, what will you say to her?”

“I should tell her I wanted a few days to get my wife properly dressed before taking her about.”

Ingram shrugged his shoulders: “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps, indeed, it would be better if you waited six months before you introduced Sheila to your friends. At present you seem to be keeping the foot-lights turned down until everything is ready for the first scene, and then Sheila is to burst upon society in a blaze of light and color. Well, that is harmless enough; but look here! You don’t know much about her yet; you will be mainly anxious to hear what the audience, as it were, say of her; and there is just a chance of your adopting their impressions and opinions of Sheila, seeing that you have no very fixed ones of your own. Now, what your social circle may think about her is a difficult thing to decide; and I confess I would rather have seen you remain six months in Lewis before bringing her up here.”

Ingram was at least a candid friend. It was not the first nor the hundredth time that Frank Lavender had to endure small lectures, uttered in a slow, deliberate voice, and yet with an indifference of manner which showed that Ingram cared very little how sharply his words struck home. He rarely even apologized for his bluntness. These were his opinions; Lavender could take them or leave them, as he liked. And the younger man, after finding his face flush a bit on being accused of wishing to make a dramatic impression with Sheila’s entrance into London society, laughed in an embarrassed way, and said, “It is impossible to be angry with you, Ingram, and yet you do talk so absurdly. I wonder who is likely to know more about the character of a girl than her own husband?”

“You may in time; you don’t now,” said Ingram, carefully balancing a biscuit on the point of his finger.

“The fact is,” said Lavender, with good-natured impatience, “you are the most romantic card I know, and there is no pleasing you. You have all sorts of exalted notions about things, about sentiments and duties, and so forth. Well, all that is true enough, and would be right enough if the world were filled with men and women like yourself; but then it isn’t, you see, and one has to give in to conventionalities of dress and living and ceremonies, if one wants to retain one’s friends. Now, I like to see you going about with that wide-awake—it suits your brown complexion and beard—and that stick that would do for herding sheep; and the costume looks well, and is business-like and excellent when you’re off for a walk over the Surrey downs or lying on the river-banks about Henley or Cookham; but it isn’t, you know, the sort of costume for a stroll in the Park.”

“Whenever God withdraws from me my small share of common sense,” said Ingram, slowly, “so far that I shall begin to think of having my clothes made for the purpose of walking in Hyde Park, well—”

“But don’t you see,” said Lavender, “that one must meet one’s friends, especially when one is married; and when you know that at a certain hour in the forenoon they are all to be found in a particular place, and that a very pleasant place, and that you will do yourself good by having a walk in the fresh air, and so forth, I really don’t see anything very immoral in going down for an hour or so to the Park.”

“Don’t you think the pleasure of seeing one’s friends might be postponed till one had done some sort of good day’s work?”

“There now!” cried Lavender, “that is another of your delusions. You are always against superstitions, and yet you make work a fetish. You do with work just as women do with duty; they carry about with them a convenient little God, and they are always worshiping it with small sacrifices, and complimenting themselves on a series of little martyrdoms that are of no good to anybody. Of course, duty wouldn’t be duty if it wasn’t disagreeable, and when they go nursing the sick—and they could get it better done for fifteen shillings a week by somebody else—they don’t mind coming back to their families with the seeds of typhus about their gowns; and when they crush the affections in order to worship at the shrine of duty, they don’t consider that they may be making martyrs of other folks, who don’t want martyrdom and get no sort of pleasure out of it. Now, what in all the world is the good of work as work? I believe that work is an unmistakable evil, but when it is a necessity I suppose you get some sort of selfish satisfaction in overcoming it; and doubtless if there was any immediate necessity in my case—I don’t deny the necessity may arise, and that I should like nothing better than to work for Sheila’s sake—”

“Now, you are coming to the point,” said Ingram, who had been listening with his usual patience to his friend’s somewhat chaotic speculations. “Perhaps you may have to work for your wife’s sake and your own; and I confess I am surprised to see you so content with your present circumstances. If your aunt’s property legally reverted to you, if you had any sort of family claim on it, that would make some little difference; but you know that any sudden quarrel between you might leave you penniless to-morrow.”

“In which case I should begin to work to-morrow, and I should come to you for my first commission.”

“And you shouldn’t have it. I would leave you to go and fight the world for yourself; without which a man knows nothing of himself or of his relations with those around him.”

“Frank, dear, here are the cigarettes,” said Sheila, at this point; and as she came and sat down the discussion ceased.

For Sheila began to tell her friend of all the strange adventures that had befallen her since she left the far island of Lewis—how she had seen with fear the great mountains of Skye lit up by the wild glare of a stormy sunrise; how she had seen with astonishment the great fir woods of Armadale; and how green and beautiful were the shores of the Sound of Mull. And then Oban, with its shining houses, its blue bay, and its magnificent trees, all lit up by a fair and still sunshine! She had not imagined there was anywhere in the world so beautiful a place, and could scarcely believe that London itself was more rich and noble and impressive; for there were beautiful ladies walking along the broad pavements, and there were shops with large windows that seemed to contain everything that the mind could desire, and there was a whole fleet of yachts in the bay. But it was the trees, above all, that captivated her; and she asked if they were lords who owned those beautiful houses built up on the hill, and half smothered among lilacs and ash trees and rowan trees and ivy.

“My darling,” Lavender had said to her, “if your papa were to come and live here, he could buy half a dozen of those cottages, gardens and all. They are mostly the property of well-to-do shopkeepers. If this little place takes your fancy, what will you say when you go South—when you see Wimbledon and Richmond and Kew, with their grand old commons and trees? Why, you could hide Oban in a corner of Richmond Park!”

“And my papa has seen all those places!”

“Yes. Don’t you think it strange he should have seen them all, and known he could live in any one of them, and then gone away back to Borva?”

“But what would the poor people have done if he had never gone back?”

“Oh, some one else would have taken his place.”

“And then, if he were living here or in London, he might have got tired, and he might have wished to go back to the Lewis and see all the people he knew; and then he would come among them like a stranger, and have no house to go to.”

Then Lavender said quite gently, “Do you think, Sheila, you will ever tire of living in the South?”

The girl looked up quickly, and said, with a sort of surprised questioning in her eyes, “No, not with you. But then we shall often go to the Lewis?”

“Oh, yes,” her husband said, “as often as we can conveniently. But it will take some time at first, you know, before you get to know all my friends who are to be your friends, and before you get properly fitted into our social circle. That will take you a long time, Sheila, and you may have many annoyances or embarrassments to encounter; but you won’t be very much afraid, my girl?”

Sheila merely looked up to him; there was no fear in the frank, brave eyes.

The first large town she saw struck a cold chill to her heart. On a wet and dismal afternoon they sailed into Greenock. A heavy smoke hung about the black building-yards and the dirty quays; the narrow and squalid streets were filled with mud, and only the poorer sections of the population waded through the mire or hung disconsolately about the corners of the thoroughfares. A gloomier picture could not well be conceived; and Sheila, chilled with the long and wet sail, and bewildered by the noise and bustle of the harbor, was driven to the hotel with a sore heart and a downcast face.

“This is not like London, Frank?” she said, pretty nearly ready to cry with disappointment.

“This? No. Well, it is like a part of London, certainly, but not the part you will live in.”

“But how can we live in the one place without passing the other and being made miserable by it? There was no part of Oban like this.”

“Why, you will live miles away from the docks and quays of London. You might live for a lifetime in London without ever knowing it had a harbor. Don’t you be afraid, Sheila. You will live in a district where there are far finer houses than any you saw in Oban, and far finer trees; and within a few minutes’ walk you will find great gardens and parks, with lakes in them and wild fowls, and you will be able to teach the boys about how to set the helm and the sails when they are launching their small boats.”

“I should like that,” said Sheila, her face brightening.

“Perhaps you would like a boat yourself?”

“Yes,” she said, frankly. “If there were not many people there, we might go out sometimes in the evening—”

Her husband laughed and took her hand: “You don’t understand, Sheila. The boats the boys have are little things a foot or two long—like the one in your papa’s bedroom in Borva. But many of the boys would be greatly obliged to you if you would teach them how to manage the sails properly, for sometimes dreadful shipwrecks occur.”

“You must bring them to our house. I am very fond of little boys, when they begin to forget to be shy, and let you become acquainted with them.”

“Well,” said Lavender, “I don’t know many of the boys who sail boats in the Serpentine; you will have to make their acquaintance yourself. But I know one boy whom I must bring to the house. He is a German-Jew boy, who is going to be another Mendelssohn, his friends say. He is a pretty boy, with ruddy-brown hair, big black eyes, and a fine forehead, and he really sings and plays delightfully. But you know, Sheila, you must not treat him as a boy; for he is over fourteen, I should think; and if you were to kiss him—”

“He might be angry,” said Sheila, with perfect simplicity.

“I might,” said Lavender; and then, noticing that she seemed a little surprised, he merely patted her head and bade her go and get ready for dinner.

Then came the great climax of Sheila’s southward journey—her arrival in London. She was all anxiety to see her future home; and, as luck would have it, there was a fair spring morning shining over the city. For a couple of hours before she had sat and looked out of the carriage-window as the train whirled rapidly through the scarcely awakened country, and she had seen the soft and beautiful landscapes of the South lit up by the early sunlight. How the bright little villages shone, with here and there a gilt weathercock glittering on the spire of some small gray church, while as yet in many valleys a pale gray mist lay along the bed of the level streams, or clung to the dense woods on the upland heights! Which was the more beautiful—the sharp, clear picture, with its brilliant colors and its awakening life, or the more mystic landscape over which was still drawn the tender veil of the morning haze? She could not tell. She only knew that England, as she then saw it, seemed a great country that was very beautiful, that had few inhabitants, and that was still and sleepy and bathed in sunshine. How happy must the people be who lived in those quiet green valleys by the side of slow and smooth rivers, and amid great woods and avenues and stately trees, the like of which she had not imagined in her dreams.

But from the moment they got out at Euston Square she seemed a trifle bewildered, and could only do implicitly as her husband bade her—clinging to his hand, for the most part, as if to make sure of guidance. She did, indeed, glance somewhat nervously at the hansom into which Lavender put her, apparently asking how such a tall and narrow two-wheeled vehicle could be prevented toppling over. But when he, having sent on all their luggage by a respectable old four-wheeler, got into the hansom beside her, and put his hand inside her arm, and bade her be of good cheer, that she should have such a pleasant morning to welcome her to London, she said, “Yes,” mechanically, and only looked out in a wistful fashion at the great houses and trees of Euston Square, the mighty and roaring stream of omnibuses, the droves of strangers, mostly clad in black, as if they were going to church, and the pale blue smoke that seemed to mix with the sunshine and make it cold and distant.

They were in no hurry, these two, on that still morning, and so, to impress Sheila all at once with a sense of the greatness and grandeur of London, he made the cabman cut down by Park Crescent and Portland Place to Regent Circus. Then they went along Oxford Street; and there were crowded omnibuses taking young men into the city, while all the pavements were busy with hurrying passersby. What multitudes of unknown faces, unknown to her and unknown to each other? These people did not speak; they only hurried on, each intent upon his own affairs, caring nothing, apparently, for the din around them, and looking so strange and sad in their black clothes in the pale and misty sunlight.

“You are in a trance, Sheila,” he said.

She did not answer. Surely she had wandered into some magical city, for now the houses on one side of the way suddenly ceased, and she saw before her a great and undulating extent of green, with a border of beautiful flowers, and with groups of trees that met the sky all along the Southern horizon. Did the green and beautiful country she had seen shoot in thus into the heart of the town, or was there another city far away on the other side of the trees? The place was almost as deserted as those still valleys she had passed by in the morning. Here, in the street, there was the roar of a passing crowd, but there was a long and almost deserted stretch of park, with winding roads and umbrageous trees, on which the wan sunlight fell from between loose masses of half-golden cloud.

Then they passed Kensington Gardens, and there were more people walking down the broad highways between the elms.

“You are getting nearly home now, Sheila,” he said, “and you will be able to come and walk in these avenues whenever you please.”

Was this, then, her home? this section of a barrack-row of dwellings, all alike in steps, pillars, doors and windows? When she got inside the servant who had opened the door bobbed a curtsey to her; should she shake hands with her and say, “And are you ferry well?” But at this moment Lavender came running up the steps, playfully hurried her into the house and up the stairs, and led her into her own drawing-room. “Well, darling, what do you think of your home, now that you see it?”

Sheila looked around timidly. It was not a big room, but it was a palace in height and grandeur and color compared with that little museum in Borva in which Sheila’s piano stood. It was all so strange and beautiful—the split pomegranates and quaint leaves on the upper part of the walls, and underneath a dull slate-color, where the pictures hung; the curious paintings on the frames of the mirrors; the brilliant curtains, with their stiff and formal patterns. It was not very much like a home as yet; it was more like a picture that had been carefully planned and executed; but she knew how he had thought of pleasing her in choosing these things, and without saying a word she took his hand and kissed it. And then she went to one of the three tall French windows and looked out on the square. There, between the trees, was a space of beautiful soft green, and some children dressed in bright dresses, and attended by a governess in sober black, had just begun to play croquet. An elderly lady with a small white dog was walking along one end of the graveled paths. An old man was pruning some bushes.

“It is very still and quiet here,” said Sheila. “I was afraid that we should have to live in that terrible noise always.”

“I hope you won’t find it dull, my darling,” he said.

“Dull, when you are here?”

“But I cannot always be here, you know?”

She looked up.

“You see, a man is so much in the way if he is dawdling about the house all day long. You would begin to regard me as a nuisance, Sheila, and would be for sending me out to play croquet with those young Carruthers, merely that you might get the rooms dusted. Besides, you know I couldn’t work here: I must have a studio of some sort—in the neighborhood, of course. And then you will give me your orders in the morning as to when I am to come round for luncheon or dinner.”

“And you will be alone all day at your work?”

“Yes.”

“Then I will come and sit with you, my poor boy,” she said.

“Much work I should do in that case!” he said. “But we’ll see. In the meantime go up stairs and get your things off; that young person below has breakfast ready, I dare say.”

“But you have not shown me yet where Mr. Ingram lives,” said Sheila before she went to the door.

“Oh, that is miles away. You have only seen a little bit of London yet. Ingram lives about as far away from here as the distance you have just come, but in another direction.”

“It is like a world made of houses,” said Sheila, “and all filled with strangers. But you will take me to see Mr. Ingram?”

“By-and-by, yes. But he is sure to drop in on you as soon as he fancies you are settled in your new home.”

And here, at last, was Mr. Ingram come; and the mere sound of his voice seemed to carry her back to Borva, so that in talking to him and waiting on him as of old, she would scarcely have been surprised if her father had walked in to say that a coaster was making for the harbor, or that Duncan was going over to Stornoway and Sheila would have to give him commissions. Her husband did not take the same interest in the social and political affairs of Borva that Mr. Ingram did. Lavender had made a pretence of assisting Sheila in her work among the poor people, but the effort was a hopeless failure. He could not remember the name of a poor family that wanted a new boat, and was visibly impatient when Sheila would sit down to write out for some aged crone a letter to her grandson in Canada. Now, Ingram, for the mere sake of occupation, had qualified himself during his various visits to Lewis, so that he might have become the home minister of the King of Borva; and Sheila was glad to have one attentive listener as she described all the wonderful things that had happened in the island since the previous Summer.

But Ingram had got a full and complete holiday on which to come up and see Sheila; and he had brought with him the wild and startling proposal that in order that she should take her first plunge into the pleasures of civilized life, her husband and herself should drive down to Richmond and dine at the Star and Garter.

“What is that?” said Sheila.

“My dear girl,” said the husband, seriously, “your ignorance is something fearful to contemplate. It is quite bewildering. How can a person who does not know what the Star and Garter is, be told what the Star and Garter is?”

“But I am willing to go and see,” said Sheila.

“Then I must look after getting a brougham,” said Lavender, rising.

“A brougham on such a day as this?” exclaimed Ingram. “Nonsense! Get an open trap of some sort; and Sheila, just to please me, will put on that very blue dress she used to wear in Borva, and the hat and the white feather, if she has got them.”

“Perhaps you would like me to put on a sealskin cap and a red handkerchief instead of a collar,” observed Lavender, calmly.

“You may do as you please. Sheila and I are going to dine at the Star and Garter.”

“May I put on that blue dress?” said the girl, going up to her husband.

“Yes, of course, if you like,” said Lavender, meekly, going off to order the carriage, and wondering by what route he could drive those two maniacs down to Richmond, so that none of his friends should see them.

When he came back again, bringing with him a landau, which could be shut up for the homeward journey at night, he had to confess that no costume seemed to suit Sheila so well as the rough sailor-dress; and he was so pleased with her appearance that he consented at once to let Bras go with them in the carriage, on condition that Sheila should be responsible for him. Indeed, after the first shiver of driving away from the square was over, he forgot that there was much unusual about the look of his odd pleasure-party. If you had told him eighteen months before, that on a bright day in May, just as the people were going home from the Park for luncheon, he would go for a drive in a hired trap, with one horse, his companions being a man with a brown wide-awake, a girl, dressed as though she were the owner of a yacht, and an immense deerhound, and that in this fashion he would dare to drive up to the Star and Garter and order dinner, he would have bet five hundred to one that such a thing would never occur so long as he preserved his senses. But somehow he did not mind much. He was very much at home with those two people beside him; the day was bright and fresh; the horse went a good pace; and once they were over Hammersmith Bridge and out among fields and trees, the country looked exceedingly pretty, and the beauty of it was mirrored in Sheila’s eyes.

“I can’t quite make you out in that dress, Sheila,” he said “I am not sure whether it is real and business-like or a theatrical costume. I have seen girls on Ryde Pier with something of the same sort on, only a good deal more pronounced, you know, and they looked like sham yachtsmen; and I have seen stewardesses wearing that color and texture of cloth—”

“But why not have it as it is,” said Ingram—“a solitary costume produced by certain conditions of climate and duties, acting in conjunction with a natural taste for harmonious coloring and simple form? That dress, I will maintain, sprang as naturally from the salt sea as Aphrodite did; and the man who suspects artifice in it or invention, has had his mind perverted by the skepticism of modern society.”

“Is my dress so very wonderful?” said Sheila, with a grave complaisance. “I am pleased that the Lewis has produced such a fine thing, and perhaps you would like me to tell you its history. It was my papa bought a piece of blue serge in Stornoway; it cost three shillings sixpence a yard, and a dressmaker in Stornoway cut it for me, and I made it myself. That is all the history of the wonderful dress.”

Suddenly Sheila seized her husband’s arm. They had got down to the river by Mortlake; and there, on the broad bosom of the stream, a long and slender boat was shooting by, pulled by four oarsmen clad in white flannel.

“How can they go out in such a boat?” said Sheila, with great alarm visible in her eyes. “It is scarcely a boat at all; and if they touch a rock or the wind catches them—”

“Don’t be frightened, Sheila,” said her husband. “They are quite safe. There are no rocks in our rivers, and the wind does not give us squalls here like those on Loch Roag. You will see hundreds of those boats by and by, and perhaps you yourself will go out in one.”

“Oh, never, never!” she said, almost with a shudder.

“Why, if the people here heard you they would not know how brave a sailor you are. You are not afraid to go out at night by yourself on the sea, and you won’t go on a smooth inland river—”

“But those boats; if you touch them they must go over.”

She seemed glad to get away from the river. She could not be persuaded of the safety of the slender craft of the Thames; and indeed for some time after seemed so strangely depressed that Lavender begged and prayed of her to tell him what was the matter. It was simple enough. She had heard him speak of his boating adventures. Was it in such boats as that she had just seen? and might he not be some day going out in one of them, and an accident—the breaking of an oar, a gust of wind—

There was nothing for it but to reassure her by a solemn promise that in no circumstances whatever would he, Lavender, go into a boat without her express permission, whereupon Sheila was as grateful to him as though he had dowered her with a kingdom.

This was not the Richmond Hill of her fancy—this spacious height, with its great mansions, its magnificent elms, and its view of all the Westward and wooded country, with the blue-white streak of the river winding through the green foliage. Where was the farm? The famous Lass of Richmond Hill must have lived on a farm, but here surely were the houses of great lords and nobles, which had apparently been there for years and years. And was this really a hotel that they stopped at—this great building that she could only compare to Stornoway Castle?

“Now, Sheila,” said Lavender, after they had ordered dinner and gone out, “mind you keep a tight hold on that leash, for Bras will see strange things in the Park.”

“It is I who will see strange things,” she said; and the prophecy was amply fulfilled. For as they went along the broad path, and came better into view of the splendid undulation of woodland and pasture and fern, when on the one hand they saw the Thames, far below them, flowing through the green and spacious valley, and on the other hand caught some dusky glimpse of the far white houses of London, it seemed to her that she had got into a new world, and that this world was far more beautiful than the great city she had left. She did not care so much for the famous view from the hill. She had cast one quick look to the horizon, with one throb of expectation that the sea might be there. There was no sea there—only the faint blue of long lines of country apparently without limit. Moreover, over the Western landscape a faint haze prevailed, that increased in the distance and softened down the more distant woods into a sober gray. That great extent of wooded plain, lying sleepily in its pale mists, was not so cheerful as the scene around her, where the sunlight was sharp and clear, the air fresh, the trees flooded with a pure and bright color.

Here, indeed, was a cheerful and beautiful world, and she was full of curiosity to know all about it and its strange features. What was the name of this tree? and how did it differ from that? Were not these rabbits over by the fence? and did rabbits live in the midst of trees and bushes? What sort of wood was the fence made of? and was it not terribly expensive to have such a protection? Could not he tell the cost of a wooden fence? Why did they not use wire netting? Was not that a loch away down there? and what was its name? A loch without a name! Did the salmon come up to it? and did any sea birds ever come inland and build their nests on its margin?

“Oh, Bras, you must come and look at the loch. It is a long time since you will see a loch.”

And away she went through the thick breckan, holding on to the swaying leash that held the galloping grayhound, and running swiftly as though she had been making down for the shore to get out the Maighdean-mhara.

“Sheila,” called her husband, “don’t be foolish!”

“Sheila,” called Ingram, “have pity on an old man!”

Suddenly she stopped. A brace of partridges had sprung up at some distance, and, with a wild whirr of their wings, were now directing their low and rapid flight toward the bottom of the valley.

“What birds are those?” she said peremptorily.

She took no notice of the fact that her companions were pretty nearly too blown to speak. There was a brisk life and color in her face, and all her attention was absorbed in watching the flight of the birds. Lavender fancied he saw in the fixed and keen look something of old Mackenzie’s gray eye; it was the first trace of a likeness to her father he had seen.

“You bad girl!” he said, “they are partridges.”

She paid no heed to this reproach, for what were those other things over there underneath the trees? Bras had pricked up his ears, and there was a strange excitement in his look and in his trembling frame.

“Deer!” she cried, with her eyes as fixed as were those of the dog beside her.

“Well,” said the husband calmly; “what although they are deer?”

“But Bras—” she said; and with that she caught the leash with both her hands.

“Bras won’t mind them if you keep him quiet. I suppose you can manage him better than I can. I wish we had brought a whip.”

“I would rather let him kill every deer in the Park than touch him with a whip,” said Sheila proudly.

“You fearful creature, you don’t know what you say. That is high treason. If George Ranger heard you he would have you hanged in front of the Star and Garter.”

“Who is George Ranger?” said Sheila with an air, as if she had said, “Do you know that I am the daughter of the King of Borva, and whoever touches me will have to answer to my papa, who is not afraid of any George Ranger?”

“He is a great lord who hangs all persons who disturb the deer in this Park.”

“But why do they not go away?” said Sheila, impatiently. “I have never seen any deer so stupid. It is their own fault if they are disturbed; why do they remain so near to people and to houses?”

“My dear child, if Bras wasn’t here you would probably find some of those deer coming up to see if you had any bits of sugar or pieces of bread about your pockets.”

“Then they are like sheep—they are not like deer,” she said, with some contempt. “If I could only tell Bras that it is sheep he will be looking at, he would not look any more. And so small they are! They are as small as the roe, but they have horns as big as many of the red deer. Do people eat them?”

“I suppose so.”

“And what will they cost?”

“I am sure I can’t tell you.”

“Are they as good as the roe or the big deer?”

“I don’t know that, either. I don’t think I ever ate fallow-deer. But you know they are not kept here for that purpose. A great many gentlemen in this country keep a lot of them in their parks merely to look pretty. They cost a great deal more than they produce.”

“They must eat up a great deal of fine grass,” said Sheila, almost sorrowfully. “It is a beautiful ground for sheep—no rushes, no peat-moss, only fine, good grass and dry land. I should like my papa to see all this beautiful ground.”

“I fancy he has seen it.”

“Was my papa here?”

“I think he said so.”

“And did he see those deer?”

“Doubtless.”

“He never told me of them.”

By this time they had pretty nearly got down to the little lake, and Bras had been alternately coaxed and threatened into a quiescent mood. Sheila evidently expected to hear a flapping of sea-fowls’ wings when they got near the margin, and looked all around for the first sudden dart from the banks. But a dead silence prevailed, and as there were neither fish nor birds to watch, she went along to a wooden bench and sat down there, one of her companions on each hand. It was a pretty scene that lay before her—the small stretch of water ruffled with the wind, but showing a dash of blue sky here and there, the trees in the inclosure beyond clad in their summer foliage, the smooth green sward shining in the afternoon sunlight. Here, at least, was absolute quiet after the roar of London; and it was somewhat wistfully that she asked her husband how far this place was from her home, and whether, when he was at work, she could not come down here by herself.

“Certainly,” he said, never dreaming that she would think of doing such a thing.

By-and-by they returned to the hotel, and while they sat at dinner a great fire of sunset spread over the West, and the far woods became of a rich purple, streaked here and there with lines of a pale white mist. The river caught the glow of the crimson clouds above, and shone duskily red amid the dark green of the trees. Deeper and deeper grew the color of the sun as it sank to the horizon, until it disappeared behind one low bar of purple cloud, and the wild glow in the West slowly faded away, the river became pallid and indistinct, the white mists over the distant woods seemed to grow denser, and then, as here and there a lamp was lit far down in the valley, one or two pale stars appeared in the sky overhead, and the night came on apace.

“It is so strange,” Sheila said, “to find the darkness coming on and not to hear the sound of the waves. I wonder if it is a fine night at Borva!”

Her husband went over to her and led her back to the table, where the candles, shining over the white cloth and the colored glasses, offered a more cheerful picture than the deepening landscape outside. They were in a private room, so that when dinner was over, Sheila was allowed to amuse herself with the fruit, while her two companions lit their cigars. Where was the quaint old piano now, and the glass of hot whisky and water, and the “Lament of Monaltrie” or “Love in thine eyes for ever plays?” It seemed but for the greatness of the room, to be a repetition of one of those evenings at Borva, that now belonged to a far off past. Here was Sheila, not minding the smoke, listening to Ingram as of old, and sometimes saying something in that sweetly inflected speech of hers; here was Ingram, talking, as it were, out of a brown study, and morosely objecting to pretty nearly everything Lavender said, but always ready to prove Sheila right; and Lavender himself, as unlike a married man as ever, talking impatiently, impetuously and wildly, except at such times as he said something to his young wife, and then some brief smile and look, or some pat on the hand said more than words. But where, Sheila may have thought, was the one wanting to complete the group? Has he gone down to Borvapost to see about the cargoes of fish to be sent off in the morning? Perhaps he is talking to Duncan outside about the cleaning of the guns, or making up cartridges in the kitchen. When Sheila’s attention wandered away from the talk of her companions she could not help listening for the sound of the waves; and as there was no such message coming to her from the great wooded plain without, her fancy took her away across that mighty country she had traveled through, and carried her up to the island of Loch Roag, until she almost fancied she could smell the peat-smoke in the night air, and listen to the sea, and hear her father pacing up and down the gravel outside the house, perhaps thinking of her as she was thinking of him.

This little excursion to Richmond was long remembered by those three. It was the last of their meetings before Sheila was ushered into the big world to busy herself with new occupations and cares. It was a pleasant little journey throughout, for as they got into the landau to drive back to town, the moon was shining high up in the Southern heavens, and the air was mild and fresh, so that they had the carriage opened, and Sheila, well wrapped up, lay and looked around her with a strange wonder and joy as they drove underneath the shadow of the trees and out again into the clear sheen of the night. They saw the river, too, flowing smoothly and palely down between its dark banks; and somehow here the silence checked them, and they hummed no more those duets they used to sing up at Borva. Of what were they thinking, then, as they drove through the clear night along the lonely road? Lavender, at least, was rejoicing at his great good fortune that he had secured for ever to himself the true-hearted girl who now sat opposite to him, with the moonlight touching her face and hair; and he was laughing to himself at the notion that he did not properly appreciate her, or understand her, or perceive her real character. If not he, who then? Had he not watched every turn of her disposition, every expression of her wishes, every grace of her manner and look of her eyes? and was he not overjoyed to find that the more he knew of her the more he loved her?

Marriage had increased rather than diminished the mystery and wonder he had woven about her. He was more her lover now than he had been before his marriage. Who could see in her eyes what he saw? Elderly folks can look at a girl’s eyes and see that they are brown or blue or green, as the case may be; but the lover looks at them and sees in them the magic mirror of a hundred possible worlds. How can he fathom the sea of dreams that lies there, or tell what strange fancies or reminiscences may be involved in an absent look? Is she thinking of starlit nights on some distant lake, or of the old by-gone days on the hills? All her former life is told there, and yet but half told, and he longs to become possessed of all the beautiful past that she has seen. Here is a constant mystery to him, and there is a singular and wistful attraction for him in those still deeps where the thoughts and dreams of an innocent soul lie but half revealed. He does not see those things in the eyes of women he is not in love with; but when, in after years, he is carelessly regarding this or the other woman, some chance look, some brief and sudden turn of expression, will recall to him, as with a stroke of lightning, all the old wonder-time, and his heart will go nigh to breaking to think that he has grown old, and that he has forgotten so much, and that the fair, wild days of romance and longing are passed away forever.

“Ingram thinks I don’t understand you yet, Sheila,” he said to her, after they had got home and their friends had gone.

Sheila only laughed, and said, “I don’t understand myself sometimes.”

“Eh? What?” he cried. “Do you mean to say that I have married a conundrum? If I have I don’t mean to give you up, anyway, so you may go and get a biscuit and a drop of the whisky we brought from the North with us.”

CHAPTER XI.

THE FIRST PLUNGE.

FRANK LAVENDER was a good deal more concerned than he chose to show about the effect that Sheila was likely to produce on his aunt; and when at length the day arrived on which the young folks were to go down to Kensington Gore, he had inwardly to confess that Sheila seemed a great deal less perturbed than himself. Her perfect calmness and self-possession surprised him. The manner in which she had dressed herself, with certain modifications which he could not help approving, according to the fashion of the time, seemed to him a miracle of dexterity; and how had she acquired the art of looking at ease in this attire, which was much more cumbrous than she had usually worn in Borva?

If Lavender had but known the truth, he would have begun to believe something of what Ingram had vaguely hinted. This poor girl was looking toward her visit to Kensington Gore as the most painful trial of her life. While she was outwardly calm and firm, and even cheerful, her heart sank within her as she thought of the dreaded interview. Those garments which she wore with such an appearance of ease and comfort, had been the result of many an hour of anxiety, for how was she to tell, from her husband’s raillery, what colors the terrible old lady in Kensington would probably like? He did not know that every word he said in joke about his aunt’s temper, her peevish ways, the awful consequences of offending her, and so forth, were like so many needles stuck into the girl’s heart, until she was ready to cry out to be released from this fearful ordeal. Moreover, as the day came near what he could not see in her she saw in him. Was she likely to be reassured when she perceived that her husband, in spite of all his fun, was really anxious, and when she knew that some blunder on her part might ruin him? In fact, if he had suspected for a moment that she was really trembling to think of what might happen, he might have made some effort to give her courage. But apparently Sheila was as cool and collected as if he had been going to see John the Piper. He believed she could have gone to be presented to the Queen without a single tremor of heart.

Still, he was a man, and therefore bound to assume an air of patronage. “She won’t eat you, really,” he said to Sheila, as they were driving in a hansom down Kensington Palace Gardens. “All you have got to do is to believe in her theories of food. She won’t make you a martyr to them. She measures every half ounce of what she eats, but she won’t starve you; and I am glad to think, Sheila, that you have brought a remarkably good and sensible appetite with you from the Lewis. Oh, by the way, take care you say nothing against Marcus Aurelius.”

“I don’t know who he was, dear,” observed Sheila, meekly.

“He was a Roman emperor and a philosopher. I suppose it was because he was an emperor that he found it easy to be a philosopher. However, my aunt is nuts on Marcus Aurelius: I beg your pardon, you don’t know the phrase. My aunt makes Marcus Aurelius her Bible, and she is sure to read you bits from him, which you must believe, you know.”

“I will try,” said Sheila, doubtfully, “but if—”

“Oh, it has nothing to do with religion. I don’t think anybody knows what Marcus Aurelius means, so you may as well believe it. Ingram swears by him, but he is always full of odd crotchets.”

“Does Mr. Ingram believe in Marcus Aurelius?” said Sheila, with some accession of interest.

“Why, he gave my aunt the book years ago—confound him!—and ever since she has been a nuisance to her friends. For my own part, you know, I don’t believe that Marcus Aurelius was quite such an ass as Plato. He talks the same sort of perpetual commonplaces, but it isn’t about the true, the good and the beautiful. Would you like me to repeat one of the dialogues of Plato—about the immorality of Mr. Cole and the moral effect of the South Kensington Museum?”

“No, dear, I shouldn’t,” said Sheila.

“You deprive yourself of a treat, but never mind. Here we are at my aunt’s house.”

Sheila timidly glanced at the place, while her husband paid the cabman. It was a tall, narrow, dingy-looking house of dark brick, with some black-green ivy at the foot of the walls, and with crimson curtains formally arranged in every one of the windows. If Mrs. Lavender was a rich old lady, why did she live in such a gloomy building? Sheila had seen beautiful white houses in all parts of London; her own house, for example, was ever so much more cheerful than this one, and yet she had heard with awe of the value of this depressing little mansion in Kensington Gore.

The door was opened by a man, who showed them upstairs and announced their names. Sheila’s heart beat quickly. She entered the drawing-room with a sort of mist before her eyes, and found herself going forward to a lady who sat at the farther end. She had a strangely vivid impression, amid all her alarm, that this old lady looked like the withered kernel of a nut. Or, was she not like a cockatoo? It was through no anticipation of dislike to Mrs. Lavender that the imagination of the girl got hold of that notion. But the old lady held her head like a cockatoo. What was there, moreover, about the decorations of her head that reminded one of a cockatoo when it puts up its crest and causes its feathers to look like sticks of celery.

“Aunt Caroline, this is my wife.”

“I am glad to see you, dear,” said the old lady, giving her hand, but not rising. “Sit down. When you are a little nervous you ought to sit down. Frank, give me that ammonia from the mantelpiece.”

It was a small glass phial, and labeled “Poison.” She smelt the stopper, and then handed it to Sheila, telling her to do the same.

“Why did your maid do your hair in such a way?” she asked suddenly.

“I haven’t got a maid,” said Sheila, “and I always do my hair so.”

“Don’t be offended. I like it. But you must not make a fool of yourself. Your hair is too much that of a country beauty going to a ball. Paterson will show you how to do your hair.”

“Oh, I say, aunt,” cried Lavender, with a fine show of carelessness, “you mustn’t go and spoil her hair. I think it is very pretty as it is, and that woman of yours would simply go and make a mop of it. You’d think the girls nowadays dressed their hair by shoving their head into a furze bush and giving it a couple of turns.”

She paid no heed to him, but turned to Sheila and said, “You are an only child?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you leave your father?”

The question was rather a cruel one, and it stung Sheila into answering bravely. “Because my husband wished me.”

“Oh! You think your husband is to be the first law of your life?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Even when he is only silly Frank Lavender?”

Sheila rose. There was a quivering of her lips, but no weakness in the proud, indignant look of her eyes:

“What you may say of me, that I do not care. But I will not remain to hear my husband insulted.”

“Sheila,” said Lavender, vexed and anxious, and yet pleased at the same time by the courage of the girl—“Sheila, it is only a joke. You must not mind; it is only a bit of fun.”

“I do not understand such jests,” she said, calmly.

“Sit down, like a good girl,” said the old lady with an air of absolute indifference. “I did not mean to offend you. Sit down and be quiet. You will destroy your nervous system if you give way to such impulses. I think you are healthy. I like the look of you, but you will never reach a good age, as I hope to do, except by moderating your passions. That is well; now take the ammonia again and give it to me. You don’t wish to die young, I suppose?”

“I am not afraid of dying,” said Sheila.

“Ring the bell, Frank.”

He did so, and a tall, spare, grave-faced woman appeared.

“Paterson, you must put luncheon on at two-ten. I ordered it at one-fifty, did I not?”

“Yes, m’m.”

“See that it is served at two-ten, and take this young lady and get her hair properly done. You understand? My nephew and I will wait luncheon for her.”

“Yes, m’m.”

Sheila rose with a great swelling in her throat. All her courage had ebbed away. She had reflected how pained her husband would be if she did not please this old lady; and she was now prepared to do anything she was told, to receive meekly any remarks that might be made to her, to be quite obedient and gentle and submissive. But what was this tall and terrible woman going to do to her? Did she really mean to cut away those great masses of hair to which Mrs. Lavender had objected! Sheila would have let her hair be cut willingly for her husband’s sake; but as she went to the door some wild and despairing notions came into her head of what her husband might think of her when once she was shorn of this beautiful personal feature. Would he look at her with surprise—perhaps even with disappointment?

“Mind you don’t keep luncheon late,” he said to her as she passed him.

She but indistinctly heard him, so great was the trembling within her. Her father would scarcely know his altered Sheila when she went back to Borva; and what would Mairi say—Mairi who had many a time helped her to arrange those long tresses, and who was as proud of them as if they were her own? She followed Mrs. Lavender’s tall maid up-stairs. She entered a small dressing-room and glanced nervously around. Then she suddenly turned, looked for a moment at the woman, and said, with tears rushing up into her eyes: “Does Mrs. Lavender wish me to cut my hair?”

The woman regarded her with astonishment. “Cut, miss?—ma’am. I beg your pardon. No, ma’am, not at all. I suppose it is only some difference in the arrangement, ma’am. Mrs. Lavender is very particular about the hair, and she has asked me to show several ladies how to dress the hair in the way she likes. But perhaps you would prefer letting it remain as it is, ma’am?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” said Sheila. “I should like to have it just as Mrs. Lavender wishes—in every way just as she wishes. Only it will not be necessary to cut any?”

“Oh, no, miss—ma’am; and it would be a great pity, if I may say so, to cut your hair.”

Sheila was pleased to hear that. Here was a woman who had a large experience in such matters among those very ladies of her husband’s social circle whom she had been a little afraid to meet. Mrs. Paterson seemed to admire her hair as much as the simple Mairi had done; and Sheila soon began to have less fear of the terrible tiring woman, who forthwith proceeded with her task.

The young wife went down stairs with a tower upon her head. She was very uncomfortable. She had seen, it is true, that this method of dressing the hair really became her—or rather would become her in certain circumstances. It was grand, imposing, statuesque, but then she did not feel statuesque just at this moment. She could have dressed herself to suit this style of hair; she could have worn it with confidence if she had got it up herself; but here she was the victim of an experiment. She felt like a school girl about, for the first time, to appear in public in a long dress, and she was terribly afraid her husband would laugh at her. If he had any such inclination he courteously suppressed it. He said the massive simplicity of this dressing of the hair suited her admirably. Mrs. Lavender said that Paterson was an invaluable woman; and then they went down to the dining-room on the ground floor, where luncheon had been laid.

The man who had opened the door waited on the two strangers; the invaluable Paterson acted as a sort of hench-woman to her mistress, standing by her chair and supplying her wants. She also had the management of a small pair of silver scales, in which pretty nearly everything that Mrs. Lavender took in the way of solid food was carefully and accurately weighed. The conversation was chiefly alimentary, and Sheila listened with a growing wonder to the description of the devices by which the ladies of Mrs. Lavender’s acquaintances were wont to cheat fatigue or win an appetite or preserve their color. When by accident the girl herself was appealed to, she had to confess to an astonishing ignorance of all such resources. She knew nothing of the relative strengths and effects of wines, though she was frankly ready to make any experiment her husband recommended. She knew what camphor was, but had never heard of bismuth. On cross-examination she had to admit that eau-de-cologne did not seem to her likely to be a pleasant liquor before going to a ball. Did she not know the effect on brown hair of washing it in soda-water every night? She was equably confessing her ignorance on all such points when she was startled by a sudden question from Mrs. Lavender. Did she know what she was doing?

She looked at her plate; there was on it a piece of cheese to which she had thoughtlessly helped herself. Somebody had called it Roquefort—that was all she knew.

“You have as much there, child, as would kill a ploughman; and I suppose you would not have had the sense to leave it.”

“Is it poison?” said Sheila, regarding her plate with horror.

“All cheese is. Paterson, my scales.”

She had Sheila’s plate brought to her, and the proper modicum of cheese cut, weighed and sent back.

“Remember, whatever house you are in, never to have more Roquefort than that.”

“It would be simpler to do without,” said Sheila.

“It would be simple enough to do without a great many things,” said Mrs. Lavender, severely. “But the wisdom of living is to enjoy as many different things as possible, so long as you do so in moderation and preserve your health. You are young—you don’t think of such things. You think, because you have good teeth and a clear complexion, you can eat anything. But that won’t last. A time will come. Do you not know what the great Emperor Marcus Antoninus says?—‘In a little while thou wilt be nobody and nowhere, like Hadrianus and Augustus.’ ”

“Yes,” said Sheila.

She had not enjoyed her luncheon much; she would rather have had a ham sandwich and a glass of spring water on the side of a Highland hill than this varied and fastidious repast accompanied by a good deal of physiology; but it was too bad that, having successfully got through it, she should be threatened with annihilation immediately afterward. It was no sort of consolation to her to know that she would be in the same plight with two emperors.

“Frank, you can go and smoke a cigar in the conservatory if you please. Your wife will come up-stairs with me and have a talk.”

Sheila would much rather have gone into the conservatory also, but she obediently followed Mrs. Lavender up-stairs and into the drawing-room. It was rather a melancholy chamber, the curtains shutting out most of the daylight, and leaving you in a semi-darkness that made the place look big and vague and spectral. The little, shrivelled woman, with the hard and staring eyes and silver-gray hair, bade Sheila sit down beside her. She herself sat by a small table, on which there were a tiny pair of scales, a bottle of ammonia, a fan, and a book bound in an old-fashioned binding of scarlet morocco and gold. Sheila wished this old woman would not look at her so. She wished there was a window open or a glint of sunlight coming in somewhere. But she was glad that her husband was enjoying himself in the conservatory, and that for two reasons. One of them was, that she did not like the tone of his talk while he and his aunt had been conversing together about the cosmetics and such matters. Not only did he betray a marvelous acquaintance with such things, but he seemed to take an odd sort of pleasure in exhibiting his knowledge. He talked about the tricks of fashionable women in a mocking way that Sheila did not quite like; and of course she naturally threw the blame on Mrs. Lavender. It was only when this old lady exerted a godless influence over him that her good boy talked in such a fashion. There was nothing of that about him in Lewis, nor yet at home in a certain snug little smoking-room which these two had come to consider the most comfortable corner in the house. Sheila began to hate women who used lip-salve, and silently recorded a vow that never, never, never would she wear anybody’s hair but her own.

“Do you suffer from headaches?” said Mrs. Lavender, abruptly.

“Sometimes,” said Sheila.

“How often? What is an average? Two a week?”

“Oh, sometimes I have not a headache for three or four months at a time.”

“No toothache?”

“No.”

“What did your mother die of?”

“It was a fever,” said Sheila, in a low voice, “and she caught it while she was helping a family that was very bad with the fever.”

“Does your father ever suffer from rheumatism?”

“No,” said Sheila. “My papa is the strongest man in the Lewis—I am sure of that.”

“But the strongest of us, you know,” said Mrs. Lavender, looking hardly at the girl—“the strongest of us will die and go into the general order of the universe; and it is a good thing for you that, as you say, you are not afraid. Why should you be afraid? Listen to this passage.” She opened the red book, and guided herself to a certain page by one of a series of colored ribbons: “ ‘He who fears death either fears the loss of sensation or a different kind of sensation. But if thou shalt have no sensation, neither wilt thou feel any harm; and if thou shalt acquire another kind of sensation, thou will be a different kind of living being, and thou wilt not cease to live.’ Do you perceive the wisdom of that?”

“Yes,” said Sheila, and her own voice seemed hollow and strange to her in this big and dimly-lit chamber.

Mrs. Lavender turned over a few more pages and proceeded to read again; and as she did so, in a slow, unsympathetic, monotonous voice, a spell came over the girl, the weight at her heart grew more and more intolerable, and the room seemed to grow darker: “ ‘Short, then, is the time which every man lives, and small the nook of the earth where he lives; and short, too, the longest posthumous fame, and even this only continued by a succession of poor human beings, who will very soon die, and who know not even themselves, much less him who died long ago.’ You cannot do better than ask your husband to buy you a copy of this book and give it special study. It will comfort you in affliction, and reconcile you to whatever may happen to you. Listen: ‘Soon will the earth cover us all! then the earth, too, will change, and the things also which result from change will continue to change forever, and these again forever. For if a man reflects on the changes and transformations which follow one another like wave after wave, and with their rapidity, he will despise everything which is perishable.’ Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” said Sheila, and it seemed to her that she was being suffocated. Would not the gray walls burst asunder and show her one glimpse of the blue sky before she sank into unconsciousness? The monotonous tones of this old woman’s voice sounded like the repetition of a psalm over a coffin. It was as if she was already shut out of life, and could only hear, in a vague way, the dismal words being chanted over her by the people in the other world. She rose, steadied herself for a moment by placing her hand on the back of the chair, and managed to say: “Mrs. Lavender, forgive me for one moment; I wish to speak to my husband.”

She went to the door—Mrs. Lavender being too surprised to follow her—and made her way down stairs. She had seen the conservatory at the end of a certain passage. She reached it, and then she scarcely knew any more, except that her husband caught her in his arms as she cried: “Oh, Frank, Frank, take me away from this house! I am afraid; it terrifies me!”

“Sheila, what on earth is the matter? Here, come out into the fresh air. By Jove, how pale you are! Will you have some water?”

He could not get to understand thoroughly what had occurred. What he clearly did learn from Sheila’s disjointed and timid explanations was that there had been another “scene,” and he knew that of all things in the world his aunt hated “scenes” the worst. As soon as he saw that there was little the matter with Sheila beyond considerable mental perturbation, he could not help addressing some little remonstrance to her, and reminding her how necessary it was that she should not offend the old lady up-stairs.

“You should not be so excitable, Sheila,” he said. “You take such exaggerated notions about things. I am sure my aunt meant nothing unkind. And what did you say when you came away?”

“I said I wanted to see you. Are you angry with me?”

“No, of course not. But then, you see, it is a little vexing just at this moment. Well, let us go up-stairs at once, and try to make up some excuse, like a good girl. Say you felt faint—anything.”

“And you will come with me?”

“Yes. Now do try, Sheila, to make friends with my aunt. She is not such a bad sort of creature as you seem to think. She’s been very kind to me—she’ll be very kind to you when she knows you more.”

Fortunately no excuse was necessary, for Mrs. Lavender, in Sheila’s absence, had arrived at the conclusion that the girl’s temporary faintness was due to that piece of Roquefort.

“You see, you must be careful,” she said, when they entered the room. “You are unaccustomed to a great many things you will like afterward.”

“And the room is a little close,” said Lavender.

“I don’t think so,” said his aunt, sharply; “look at the barometer.”

“I didn’t mean for you and me, Aunt Caroline,” he said, “but for her. Sheila has been accustomed to live almost wholly in the open air.”

“The open air in moderation is an excellent thing. I go out myself every afternoon, wet or dry. And I was going to propose, Frank, that you should leave her here with me for the afternoon, and come back and dine with us at seven. I am going out at four-thirty, and she could go with me.”

“It’s very kind of you, Aunt Caroline, but we have promised to call on some people close by here at four.”

Sheila looked up frightened. The statement was an audacious perversion of the truth. But then Frank Lavender knew very well what his aunt meant by going into the open air every afternoon, wet or dry. At one certain hour her brougham was brought around, she got into it and had both doors and windows hermetically sealed, and then, in a semi-somnolent state, she was driven slowly and monotonously around the Park. How would Sheila fare if she were shut up in this box? He told a lie with great equanimity, and saved her.

Then Sheila was taken away to get on her things, and her husband waited, with some little trepidation, to hear what his aunt would say about her. He had not long to wait.

“She’s got a bad temper, Frank.”

“Oh, I don’t think so, Aunt Caroline,” he said, considerably startled.

“Mark my words, she’s got a bad temper, and she is not nearly so soft as she tries to make out. That girl has a great deal of firmness, Frank.”

“I find her as gentle and submissive as a girl could be—a little too gentle, perhaps, and anxious to study the wishes of other folks.”

“That is all very well with you. You are her master. She is not likely to quarrel with her bread and butter. But you’ll see if she does not hold her own when she gets among your friends.”

“I hope she will hold her own.”

The old lady only shook her head.

“I am sorry you should have taken a prejudice against her, Aunt Caroline,” said the young man, humbly.

“I take a prejudice! Don’t let me hear the word again, Frank. You know I have no prejudices. If I cannot give you a reason for anything, I believe then I cease to believe it.”

“You have not heard her sing,” he said, suddenly remembering that this means of conquering the old lady had been neglected.

“I have no doubt she has many accomplishments,” said Aunt Caroline, coldly. “In time, I suppose, she will get over that extraordinary accent she has.”

“Many people like it.”

“I dare say you do—at present. But you may tire of it. You married her in a hurry, and you have not got rid of your romance yet. At the same time, I dare say she is a very good sort of girl, and will not disgrace you if you instruct and manage her properly. But remember my words—she has a temper, and you will find it out if you thwart her.”

How sweet and fresh the air was, even in Kensington, when Sheila, having dressed and come down stairs, and after having dutifully kissed Mrs. Lavender and bade her good-bye, went outside with her husband! It was like coming back to the light of day from inside the imaginary coffin in which she had fancied herself placed. A soft West wind was blowing over the Park, and a fairly clear sunlight shining on the May green of the trees. And then she hung on her husband’s arm, and she had him to speak to instead of the terrible old woman who talked about dying.

And yet she hoped she had not offended Mrs. Lavender, for Frank’s sake. What he thought about the matter he prudently resolved to conceal.

“Do you know that you have greatly pleased my aunt?” he said, without the least compunction. He knew that if he breathed the least hint about what had actually been said, any possibly amity between the two women would be rendered impossible forever.

“Have I, really?” said Sheila, very much astonished, but never thinking for a moment of doubting anything said by her husband.

“Oh, she likes you awfully,” he said, with an infinite coolness.

“I am so glad!” said Sheila, with her face brightening. “I was so afraid, dear, I had offended her. She did not look pleased with me.”

By this time they had got into a hansom, and were driving down to the South Kensington Museum. Lavender would have preferred going into the Park, but what if his aunt, in driving by, were to see them? He explained to Sheila the absolute necessity of his having to tell that fib about the four o’clock engagement; and when she heard described the drive in the closed brougham, which she had escaped, perhaps she was not so greatly inclined as she ought to have been to protest against that piece of wickedness.

“Oh, yes, she likes you awfully,” he repeated, “and you must get to like her. Don’t be frightened at her harsh way of saying things; it is only a mannerism. She is really a kind-hearted woman, and would do anything for me. That’s her best feature, looking at her character from my point of view.”

“How often must we go to see her?” asked Sheila.

“Oh, not very often. But she will get up dinner parties, at which you will be introduced to batches of her friends. And then the best thing you can do is to put yourself under her instructions, and take her advice about your dress and such matters, just as you did about your hair. That was very good of you.”

“I am glad you were pleased with me,” said Sheila. “I will do what I can to like her. But she must talk more respectfully of you.”

Lavender laughed that little matter off as a joke, but it was no joke to Sheila. She would try to like that old woman—yes; her duty to her husband demanded that she should. But there are some things that a wife—especially a girl who has been newly made a wife—will never forget; which, on the contrary, she will remember with burning cheeks and anger and indignation.

PART VI.

CHAPTER XII.

TRANSFORMATION.

HAD Sheila, then, Lavender could not help asking himself, a bad temper, or any other qualities and characteristics which were apparent to other people, but not to him? Was it possible that, after all, Ingram was right, and that he had yet to learn the nature of the girl he had married? It would be unfair to say that he suspected something wrong about his wife—that he fancied she had managed to conceal something—merely because Mrs. Lavender had said that Sheila had a bad temper; but here was another person who maintained that when the days of his romance were over he would see the girl in another light.

Nay, as he continued to ask himself, had not the change already begun? He grew less and less accustomed to see in Sheila a beautiful wild sea-bird that had fluttered down for a time into a strange home in the South. He had not quite forgotten or abandoned those imaginative scenes in which the wonderful sea-princess was to enter crowded drawing-rooms and have all the world standing back to regard her and admire her and sing her praises. But now he was not so sure that that would be the result of Sheila’s entrance into society. As the date of a certain dinner-party drew near, he began to wish she was more like the women he knew. He did not object to her strange, sweet ways of speech, nor to her odd likes and dislikes, nor even to an unhesitating frankness that nearly approached rudeness sometimes in its scorn of all compromise with the truth; but how would others regard these things? He did not wish to gain the reputation of having married an oddity.

“Sheila,” he said, on the morning of the day on which they were going to this dinner-party, “you should not say like-a-ness. There are only two syllables in likeness. It really does sound absurd to hear you say like-a-ness.”

She looked up to him, with a quick trouble in her eyes. When had he spoken to her so petulantly before? And then she cast down her eyes again, and said, submissively, “I will try not to speak like that. When you go out I take a book and read aloud, and try to speak like you; but I cannot learn all at once.”

“I don’t mind,” he said; “but, you know, other people must think it so odd. I wonder why you should always say gyarden for garden now, when it is just as easy to say garden?”

Once upon a time he had said there was no English like the English spoken in Lewis, and had singled out this very word as typical of one peculiarity in the pronunciation. But she did not remind him of that. She only said, in the same simple fashion, “If you will tell me my faults, I will try to correct them.”

She turned away from him to get an envelope for a letter she had been writing to her father. He fancied something was wrong, and perhaps some touch of compunction smote him, for he went after her and took her hand, and said, “Look here, Sheila. When I point out any trifles like that, you must not call them faults, and fancy that I have any serious complaint to make. It is for your own good that you should meet the people who will be your friends on equal terms, and give them as little as possible to talk about.”

“I should not mind their talking about me,” said Sheila, with her eyes still cast down, “but it is your wife they must not talk about; and if you will tell me anything I do wrong I will correct it.”

“Oh, you must not think it is anything so serious as that. You will soon pick up from the ladies you will meet some notion of how you differ from them; and if you should startle or puzzle them a little at first by talking about the chances of the fishing or the catching of wild duck, or the way to reclaim bog-land, you will soon get over all that.”

Sheila said nothing, but she made a mental memorandum of three things she was not to speak about. She did not know why these subjects should be forbidden, but she was in a strange land and going to see strange people, whose habits were different from hers. Moreover, when her husband had gone she reflected that these people, having no fishing and peat-mosses, and no wild-duck, could not possibly be interested in such affairs; and thus she fancied she perceived the reason why she should avoid all mention of these things.

When, in the evening, Sheila came down dressed and ready to go out, Lavender had to admit to himself that he had married an exceedingly beautiful girl, and that there was no country gawkiness about her manner, and no placid insipidity about her proud and handsome face. For one brief moment, he triumphed in his heart, and had some wild glimpse of his old project of startling his small world with this vision from the Northern seas. But when he got into the hired brougham, and thought of the people he was about to meet, and of the manner in which they would carry away such and such impressions of the girl, he lost faith in that admiration. He would much rather have had Sheila unnoticeable and unnoticed—one who would quietly take her place at the dinner-table, and attract no more special attention than the flowers, for example, which every one would glance at with some satisfaction, and then forget in the interest of talking and dining. He was quite conscious of his own weakness in thus fearing social criticism. He knew that Ingram would have taken Sheila anywhere in her blue serge dress, and been quite content and oblivious of observation. But then Ingram was independent of these social circles in which a married man must move, and in which his position is often defined for him by the disposition and manners of his wife. Ingram did not know how women talked. It was for Sheila’s own sake, he persuaded himself, that he was anxious about the impression she should make, and that he had drilled her in all that she should do and say.

“Above all things,” he said, “mind you take no notice of me. Another man will take you in to dinner, of course, and I shall take in somebody else, and we shall not be near each other. But it’s after dinner, I mean: when the men go into the drawing-room don’t you come and speak to me or take any notice of me whatever.”

“Mayn’t I look at you, Frank?”

“If you do, you’ll have half a dozen people all watching you, saying to themselves or to each other, ‘Poor thing! she hasn’t got over her infatuation yet. Isn’t it pretty to see how naturally her eyes turn toward him?’ ”

“But I shouldn’t mind them saying that,” said Sheila, with a smile.

“Oh, you musn’t be pitied in that fashion. Let them keep their compassion to themselves.”

“Do you know, dear,” said Sheila, very quietly, “that I think you exaggerate the interest people will take in me? I don’t think I can be of such importance to them. I don’t think they will be watching me as you fancy.”

“Oh, you don’t know,” he said. “I know they fancy I have done something romantic, heroic and all that kind of thing, and they are curious to see you.”

“They cannot hurt me by looking at me,” said Sheila simply. “And they will soon find out how little there is to discover.”

The house being in Holland Park, they had not far to go; and just as they were driving up to the door a young man, slight, sandy-haired, and stooping, got out of a hansom and crossed the pavement.

“By Jove!” said Lavender, “there is Redburn. I did not know he knew Mrs. Lorraine and her mother. That is Lord Arthur Redburn, Sheila; mind, if you should talk to him, not to call him ‘my lord.’ ”

Sheila laughed and said, “How am I to remember all these things?”

They got into the house, and by-and-by Lavender found himself, with Sheila on his arm, entering a drawing-room to present her to certain of his friends. It was a large room, with a great deal of gilding and color about it, and with a conservatory at the further end; but the blaze of light had not so bewildering an effect on Sheila’s eyes as the appearance of two ladies to whom she was now introduced. She had heard much about them. She was curious to see them. Many a time had she thought over the strange story Lavender had told her of the woman who heard that her husband was dying in a hospital during the war, and started off, herself and her daughter, to find him out; how there was in the same hospital another dying man whom they had known some years before, and who had gone away because the girl would not listen to him; how this man, being very near to death, begged that the girl would do him the last favor he would ask of her, of wearing his name and inheriting his property; and how, some few hours after the strange and sad ceremony had been performed, he breathed his last, happy in holding her hand. The father died next day, and the two widows were thrown upon the world, almost without friends, but not without means. This man, Lorraine, had been possessed of considerable wealth, and the girl who had suddenly become mistress of it found herself able to employ all possible means in assuaging her mother’s grief. They began to travel. The two women went from capital to capital, until at last they came to London; and here, having gathered around them a considerable number of friends, they proposed to take up their residence permanently. Lavender had often talked to Sheila about Mrs. Lorraine; about her shrewdness, her sharp sayings, and the odd contrast between this clever, keen, frank woman of the world and the woman one would have expected to be the heroine of a pathetic tale.

But were there two Mrs. Lorraines? That had been Sheila’s first question to herself when, after having been introduced to one lady under that name, she suddenly saw before her another, who was introduced to her as Mrs. Kavanagh. The mother and daughter were singularly alike. They had the same slight and graceful figure, which made them appear, taller than they really were, the same pale, fine, and rather handsome features, the same large, clear gray eyes, and apparently the same abundant mass of soft, fair hair, heavily plaited in the latest fashion. They were both dressed entirely in black, except that the daughter had a band of blue round her slender waist. It was soon apparent, too, that the manner of the two women was singularly different; Mrs. Kavanagh bearing herself with a certain sad reserve that almost approached melancholy at times, while her daughter, with more life and spirit in her face, passed rapidly through all sorts of varying moods until one could scarcely tell whether the affectation lay in a certain cynical audacity in her speech, or whether it lay in her assumption of a certain coyness and archness, or whether there was any affectation at all in the matter. However that might be, there could be no doubt about the sincerity of those gray eyes of hers. There was something almost cruelly frank in the clear look of them; and when her face was not lit by some passing smile, the pale and fine features seemed to borrow something of severity from her unflinching, calm and dispassionate habit of regarding those around her.

Sheila was prepared to like Mrs. Lorraine from the first moment she had caught sight of her. The honesty of the gray eyes attracted her. And, indeed, the young widow seemed very much interested in the young wife, and, so far as she could, in that awkward period just before dinner, strove to make friends with her. Sheila was introduced to a number of people, but none of them pleased her as well as Mrs. Lorraine. Then dinner was announced, and Sheila found that she was being escorted across the passage to the room on the other side by the young man whom she had seen get out of the hansom.

This Lord Arthur Redburn was the younger son of a great Tory duke; he represented in the House a small country borough, which his father practically owned; he had a fair amount of ability, an uncommonly high opinion of himself, and a certain affectation of being bored by the frivolous ways and talk of ordinary society. He gave himself credit for being the clever member of the family; and if there was any cleverness going, he had it; but there were some who said that his reputation in the House and elsewhere as a good speaker was mainly based on the fact that he had an abundant assurance, and was not easily put out. Unfortunately, the public could come to no decision on the point, for the reporters were not kind to Lord Arthur, and the substance of his speeches was as unknown to the world as his manner of delivering them.

Now, Mrs. Lorraine had intended to tell this young man something about the girl whom he was to take in to dinner, but she herself had been so occupied with Sheila that the opportunity escaped her. Lord Arthur accordingly knew only that he was beside a very pretty woman, who was a Mrs. Somebody—the exact name he had not caught—and that the few words she had spoken were pronounced in a curious way. Probably, he thought, she was from Dublin.

He also arrived at the conclusion that she was too pretty to know anything about the Deceased Wife’s Sister bill, in which he was, for family reasons, deeply interested, and considered it more likely that she would prefer to talk about theatres and such things.

“Were you at Covent Garden last night?” he said.

“No,” answered Sheila. “But I was there two days ago, and it is very pretty to see the flowers and the fruit; and then they smell so sweetly as you walk through.”

“Oh, yes, it is delightful,” said Lord Arthur. “But I was speaking of the theatre.”

“Is there a theatre in there?”

He stared at her, and inwardly hoped she was not mad.

“Not in among the shops, no. But don’t you know Covent Garden Theatre?”

“I have never been in any theatre, not yet,” said Sheila.

And then it began to dawn upon him that he must be talking to Frank Lavender’s wife. Was there not some rumor about the girl having come from a remote part of the Highlands? He determined on a bold stroke: “You have not been long enough in London to see the theatres, I suppose?”

And then Sheila, taking it for granted that he knew her husband very well, and that he was quite familiar with all the circumstances of the case, began to chat to him freely enough. He found that this Highland girl, of whom he heard vaguely, was not at all shy. He began to feel interested. By and by he actually made efforts to assist her frankness, by becoming equally frank, and by telling her all he knew of the things with which they were mutually acquainted. Of course, by this time they had got up into the Highlands. The young man had himself been in the Highlands—frequently, indeed. He had never crossed to Lewis, but he had seen the island from the Sutherlandshire coast. There were very many deer in Sutherlandshire, were there not? Yes, he had been out a great many times, and had had his share of adventures. Had he not gone out there before daylight, and waited on the top of a hill, hidden by some rocks, to watch the mist clear along the hillsides and in the valley below? Did he not tremble when he fired his first shot, and had not something passed before his eyes, so that he could not see for a moment whether the stag had fallen, or was away like lightning down the bed of the stream? Somehow or other, Lord Arthur found himself relating all his experiences, as if he were a novice begging for the good opinion of a master. She knew all about it, obviously, and he would tell her his small adventures, if only that she might laugh at him. But Sheila did not laugh. She was greatly delighted to have this talk about the hills, and the deer, and the wet mornings. She forgot all about the dinner before her. The servants whipped off successive plates without her seeing anything of them; they received random answers about wine, so that she had three full glasses standing by her untouched! She was no more in Holland Park at that moment than were the wild animals of which she spoke so proudly and lovingly. If the great and frail masses of flowers on the table brought her any perfume at all, it was a scent of peat-smoke. Lord Arthur thought that his companion was a little too frank and confiding, or rather that she would have been had she been talking to any one but himself. He rather liked it. He was pleased to have established friendly relations with a pretty woman in so short a space; but ought not her husband to give her a hint about not admitting all and sundry to the enjoyment of these favors? Perhaps, too, Lord Arthur felt bound to admit to himself there were some men who, more than others, inspired confidence in women. He laid no claims to being a fascinating person, but he had had his share of success, and considered that Sheila showed discrimination, as well as good nature, in talking so to him. There was, after all, no necessity for her husband to warn her. She would know how to guard against admitting all men to a like intimacy. In the meantime, he was very well pleased to be sitting beside this pretty and agreeable companion, who had an abundant fund of good spirits, and who showed no sort of conscious embarrassment in thanking you with a bright look of her eyes, or by a smile when you told her something that pleased or amused her.

But these flattering little speculations were doomed to receive a sudden check. The juvenile M. P. began to remark that a shade occasionally crossed the face of his fair companion, and that she sometimes looked a little anxiously across the table, where Mr. Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine were seated, half hidden from view by a heap of silver and flowers in the middle of the board. But though they could not easily be seen, except at such moments as they turned to address some neighbor, they could be distinctly enough heard when there was any lull in the general conversation. And what Sheila heard did not please her. She began to like that fair, clear-eyed young woman less. Perhaps her husband meant nothing by the fashion in which he talked of marriage and the condition of a married man, but she would rather have not heard him talk so. Moreover, she was aware that in the gentlest possible fashion Mrs. Lorraine was making fun of her companion, and exposing him to small and graceful shafts of ridicule; while he seemed, on the whole, to enjoy these attacks.

The ingenuous self-love of Lord Arthur Redburn, M. P., was severely wounded by the notion that, after all, he had been made a cat’s paw of by a jealous wife. He had been flattered by this girl’s exceeding friendliness; he had given her credit for genuine impulsiveness, which seemed to him as pleasing as it was uncommon; and he had, with the moderation expected of a man in politics, who hoped some day to assist in the government of the nation, by accepting a junior lordship, admired her. But was it all pretence? Was she paying court to him merely to annoy her husband? Had her enthusiasm about the shooting of red deer been prompted by a wish to attract a certain pair of eyes at the other side of the table? Lord Arthur began to sneer at himself for having been duped. He ought to have known. Women were as much women in a Hebridean Island as in Bayswater. He began to treat Sheila with a little more coolness, while she became more and more pre-occupied with the couple across the table, and sometimes was innocently rude in answering his questions somewhat at random.

When the ladies were going into the drawing-room, Mrs. Lorraine put her hand within Sheila’s arm and led her to the entrance to the conservatory. “I hope we shall be friends,” she said.

“I hope so,” said Sheila, not very warmly.

“Until you get better acquainted with your husband’s friends you will feel rather lonely at being left as at present, I suppose.”

“A little,” said Sheila.

“It is a silly thing altogether. If men smoked after dinner I could understand it. But they merely sit, looking at wine they don’t drink, talking a few commonplaces and yawning.”

“Why do they do it, then?” said Sheila.

“They don’t do it everywhere. But here we keep to the manners and customs of the ancients.”

“What do you know about the manners of the ancients?” said Mrs. Kavanagh, tapping her daughter’s shoulder as she passed with a sheet of music.

“I have studied them frequently, mamma,” said the daughter with composure, “in the monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens.”

The mamma smiled, and passed on to place the music on the piano. Sheila did not understand what her companion had said; and indeed Mrs. Lorraine immediately turned, with the same calm, fair face and fearless eyes, to ask Sheila whether she would not, by and by, sing one of those Northern songs of which Mr. Lavender had told her.

A tall girl with her back hair tied in a knot and her costume copied from a well-known pre-Raphaelite drawing, sat down to the piano and sang a mystic song of the present day, in which the moon, the stars and other natural objects behaved strangely, and were somehow mixed up with the appeal of a maiden who demanded that her dead lover should be reclaimed from the sea.

“Do you ever go down to your husband’s studio?” said Mrs. Lorraine.

She glanced toward the lady at the piano.

“Oh, you may talk,” said Mrs. Lorraine, with the least expression of contempt in her gray eyes. “She is singing to gratify herself, not us.”

“Yes, I sometimes go down,” said Sheila in as low a voice as she could manage without falling into a whisper, “and it is such a dismal place. It is very hard on him to have to work in a big bare room like that, with the windows half blinded. But sometimes I think Frank would rather have me out of the way.”

“And what would he do if both of us were to pay him a visit?” said Mrs. Lorraine. “I should so like to see the studio! Won’t you call for me some day and take me with you?”

Take her with her, indeed! Sheila began to wonder that she did not propose to go alone. Fortunately, there was no need to answer the question, for at this moment the song came to an end, and there was a general movement and murmur of gratitude.

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Lorraine to the lady who had sung the song, and was now returning to the photographs she had left, “thank you very much. I knew some one would instantly ask you to sing that song; it is the most charming of all your songs, I think, and how well it suits your voice, too!”

Then she turned to Sheila again: “How did you like Lord Arthur Redburn?”

“I think he is a very good young man.”

“Young men are never good, but they may be very amiable,” said Mrs. Lorraine, not perceiving that Sheila had blundered on a wrong adjective, and that she had really meant that she thought him honest and pleasant.

“You did not speak at all, I think, to your neighbor on the right; that was wise of you. He is a most insufferable person, but mamma bears with him for the sake of his daughter, who sang just now. He is too rich. And he smiles blandly, and takes a sort of after-dinner view of things, as if he coincided with the arrangements of Providence. Don’t you take coffee? Tea, then. I have met your aunt—I mean Mr. Lavender’s aunt; such a dear old lady she is.”

“I don’t like her,” said Sheila.

“Oh, don’t you really?”

“Not at present, but I shall try to like her.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Lorraine, calmly, “you know she has her peculiarities. I wish she wouldn’t talk so much about Marcus Antoninus and doses of medicine. I fancy I smell calomel when she comes near. I suppose if she were in a pantomime, they’d dress her up as a phial, tie a string around her neck and label her ‘Poison.’ Dear me, how languid one gets in this climate! Let us sit down. I wish I was as strong as mamma.”

They sat down together, and Mrs. Lorraine evidently expected to be petted and made much of by her new companion. She gave herself pretty little airs and graces, and said no more cutting things about anybody. And Sheila somehow found herself being drawn to the girl, so that she could scarcely help taking her hand, and saying how sorry she was to see her so pale and fine and delicate. The hand, too, was so small that the tiny white fingers seemed scarcely bigger than the claws of a bird. Was not that slender waist, to which some little attention was called by a belt of bold blue, just a little too slender for health, although the bust and shoulders were exquisitely and finely proportioned?

“We were at the Academy all the morning, and mamma is not a bit tired. Why has not Mr. Lavender anything at the Academy? Oh, I forgot,” she added, with a smile. “Of course, he has been very much engaged. But now I suppose he will settle down to work.”

Sheila wished that this fragile-looking girl would not so continually refer to her husband, but how was any one to find fault with her when she put a little air of plaintiveness into the ordinarily cold gray eyes, and looked at her small hand as much as to say, “The fingers there are very small, and even whiter than the glove that covers them. They are the fingers of a child, who ought to be petted.”

Then the men came in from the dining-room. Lavender looked around to see where Sheila was—perhaps with a trifle of disappointment that she was not the most prominent figure there. Had he expected to find all the women surrounding her and admiring her, and all the men going up to pay court to her? Sheila was seated near a small table, and Mrs. Lorraine was showing her something. She was just like anybody else. If she was a wonderful sea-princess who had come into a new world, no one seemed to observe her. The only thing that distinguished her from the women around her was her freshness of color, and the unusual combination of black eyelashes and dark blue eyes. Lavender had arranged that Sheila’s first appearance in public should be at a very quiet little dinner party, but even here she failed to create any profound impression. She was, as he had to confess to himself again, just like anybody else.

He went over to where Mrs. Lorraine was, and sat down beside her. Sheila, remembering his injunctions, felt bound to leave him there; and as she rose to speak to Mrs. Kavanagh, who was standing by, that lady came and begged her to sing a Highland song. By this time Lavender had succeeded in interesting his companion about something or other, and neither of them had noticed that Sheila had gone to the piano, attended by the young politician who had taken her in to dinner. Nor did they interrupt their talk merely because some one had played a few bars of prelude. But what was this that suddenly startled Lavender to the heart, causing him to look up with surprise? He had not heard the air since he was in Borva, and when Sheila sang

Hark, hark! the horn On mountain-breezes borne, Awake, it is morn, Awake, Monaltrie!

all sorts of reminiscences came rushing in upon him. How often had he heard that wild story of Monaltrie’s flight sung out in the small chamber over the sea, with a sound of the waves outside and a scent of sea-weed coming in at the door and the window! It was from the shores of Borva that young Monaltrie must have fled. It must have been in Borva that his sweetheart sat in her bower and sang, the burden of all her singing being, “Return, Monaltrie!” And then, as Sheila sang now, making the monotonous and plaintive air wild and strange—

What cries of wild despair Awake the sultry air? Frenzied with anxious care, She seeks Monaltrie—

he heard no more of the song. He was thinking of by-gone days in Borva, and of old Mackenzie living in his lonely house there. When Sheila had finished singing he looked at her, and it seemed to him that she was still that beautiful princess whom he had wooed on the shores of the Atlantic. And if those people did not see her as he saw her, ought he to be disappointed because of their blindness?

But if they saw nothing mystic or wonderful about Sheila, they, at all events, were considerably surprised by the strange sort of music she sang. It was not of a sort commonly heard in a London drawing-room. The pathos of its minor chords, its abrupt intervals, startling and wild in their effect, and the slowly subsiding wail in which it closed, did not much resemble the ordinary drawing-room “piece.” Here, at least, Sheila had produced an impression; and presently there was a heap of people around the piano, expressing their admiration, asking questions, and begging her to continue. But she rose. She would rather not sing just then. Whereupon Lavender came to her and said, “Sheila, won’t you sing that wild one about the farewell—that has the sound of the pipes in it, you know?”

“Oh, yes,” she said directly.

Lavender went back to his companion.

“She is very obedient to you,” said Mrs. Lorraine, with a smile.

“Yes, at present,” he said; and he thought meanly of himself for saying it, the moment the words were uttered:

Oh, soft be thy slumbers, by Tigh na-linne’s waters; Thy late-wake was sung by Macdiarmid’s fair daughters; But far in Lochaber the true heart was weeping, Whose hopes are entombed in the grave where thou’rt sleeping.

So Sheila sang, and it seemed to the people that this ballad was even more strange than its predecessor. When the song was over, Sheila seemed rather anxious to get out of the crowd, and, indeed, walked away into the conservatory to have a look at the flowers.

Yes, Lavender had to confess to himself, Sheila was just like anybody else in this drawing-room. His sea-princess had produced no startling impression. He forgot that he had just been teaching her the necessity of observing the ways and customs of the people around her, so that she might avoid singularity.

On one point, at least, she was resolved she would attend to his counsels; she would not make him ridiculous by any show of affection before the eyes of strangers. She did not go near him the whole evening. She remained for the most part in that half-conservatory, half-ante-room at the end of the drawing-room; and when any one talked to her she answered, and when she was left alone she turned to the flowers. All this time, however, she could observe that Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine were very much engrossed in their conversation; that she seemed very much amused, and he at times a trifle embarrassed; and that both of them had apparently forgotten her existence. Mrs. Kavanagh was continually coming to Sheila and trying to coax her back into the larger room, but in vain. She would rather not sing any more that night. She liked to look at the flowers. She was not tired at all, and she had already seen those wonderful photographs about which everybody was talking.

“Well, Sheila, how did you enjoy yourself?” said her husband, as they were driving home.

“I wish Mr. Ingram had been there,” said Sheila.

“Ingram! He would not have stopped in the place five minutes, unless he could play the part of Diogenes and say rude things to everybody all around. Were you at all dull?”

“A little.”

“Didn’t somebody look after you?”

“Oh, yes; many persons were very kind. But—but—”

“Well?”

“Nobody seemed to be better off than myself. They all seemed to be wanting something to do; and I am sure they were all very glad to come away.”

“No, no, no, Sheila. That is only your fancy. You were not much interested, that is evident; but you will get on better when know more of the people. You were a stranger—that is what disappointed you—but you will not always be a stranger.”

Sheila did not answer. Perhaps she contemplated, with no great hope or longing, the possibility of her coming to like such a method of getting through an evening. At all events, she looked forward with no great pleasure to the chance of her having to become friends with Mrs. Lorraine. All the way home Sheila was examining her own heart to try to discover why such bitter feelings should be there. Surely that girl was honest; there was honesty in her eyes. She had been most kind to Sheila herself. And was there not at times, when she abandoned the ways and speech of a woman of the world, a singular coy fascination about her that any man might be excused for yielding to, even as any woman might yield to it? Sheila fought with herself, and resolved that she would cast forth from her heart those harsh fancies and indignant feelings that seemed to have established themselves there. She would not hate Mrs. Lorraine.

As for Lavender, what was he thinking of, now that he and his young wife were driving home from their first experiment in society? He had to confess to a certain sense of failure. His dreams had not been realized. Every one who had spoken to him had conveyed to him, as freely as good manners would admit, their congratulations and their praises of his wife. But the impressive scenes he had been forecasting were out of the question. There was a little curiosity about her on the part of those who knew her story, and that was all. Sheila bore herself very well. She made no blunders. She had a good presence, she sang well, and every one could see that she was handsome, gentle and honest. Surely, he argued with himself, that ought to content the most exacting. But, in spite of all argument, he was not content. He did not regret that he had sacrificed his liberty in a freak of romance; he did not even regard the fact of a man in his position having dared to marry a penniless girl as anything very meritorious or heroic; but he had hoped that the dramatic circumstances of the case would be duly recognized by his friends, and that Sheila would be an object of interest and wonder and talk in a whole series of social circles. But the result of his venture was different. There was only one married man the more in London, and London was not disposed to pay any particular heed to that circumstance.

CHAPTER XIII.

BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.

IF Frank Lavender had been told that his love for his wife was in danger of waning, he would have laughed the suggestion to scorn. He was as fond of her and as proud of her as ever. Who knew as well as himself the tenderness of her heart, the delicate sensitiveness of her conscience, the generosity of self-sacrifice she was always ready to bestow? and was he likely to become blind, so that he should fail to see how fair and frank and handsome she was? He had been disappointed, it is true, in his fancies about the impression she would produce on his friends; but what a trifle was that! The folly of those fancies was his own. For the rest, he was glad that Sheila was not so different from the other women whom he knew. He hit upon the profound reflection, as he sat alone in his studio, that a man’s wife, like his costume, should not be so remarkable as to attract attention. The perfection of dress was that you should be unconscious of its presence; might that not be so with marriage? After all, it was better he had not bound himself to lug about a lion whenever he visited people’s houses.

Still, there was something. He found himself a good deal alone. Sheila did not seem to care much for going into society; and, although he did not much like the notion of going by himself, nevertheless one had certain duties towards one’s friends to perform. She did not even care to go down to the Park of a forenoon. She always professed her readiness to go, but he fancied it was a trifle tiresome for her; and so, when there was nothing particular going on in the studio, he would walk down through Kensington Gardens himself, and have a chat with some friends, followed generally by luncheon with this or the other party of them. Sheila had been taught that she ought not to come so frequently to that studio. Bras would not lie quiet. Moreover, if dealers or other strangers should come in, would they not take her for a model? So Sheila stayed at home; and Mr Lavender, after having dressed with care in the morning—with very singular care, indeed, considering that he was going to his work—used to go down to his studio to smoke a cigarette. The chances were that he was not in the humor for working. He would sit down in an easy-chair and kick his heels on the floor for a time, watching, perhaps, the sunlight come in through the upper part of the windows and paint yellow squares on the opposite wall. Then he would go out, and lock the door behind him, leaving no message whatever for those crowds of importunate dealers, who, as Sheila fancied, were besieging him with offers in one hand and purses of gold in the other.

One morning, after she had been in-doors for two or three days, and had grown hopelessly tired of the monotony of watching that sunlit square, she was filled with an unconquerable longing to go away, for however brief a space, from the sight of houses. The morning was sweet, and clear, and bright, white clouds were slowly crossing a fair blue sky, and a fresh and cool breeze was blowing in at the open French windows.

“Bras,” she said, going down stairs and out into the small garden, “we are going into the country.”

The great deerhound seemed to know, and rose and came to her with great gravity, while she clasped on the leash. He was no frisky animal to show his delight by yelping and gamboling, but he laid his long nose in her hand, and slowly wagged the down-drooping curve of his shaggy tail; and then he placidly walked by her side up into the hall, where he stood awaiting her.

She would go along and beg of her husband to leave his work for a day, and go with her for a walk down to Richmond Park. She had often heard Mr. Ingram speak of walking down, and she remembered that much of the road was pretty. Why should not her husband have one holiday?

“It is such a shame,” she had said to him that morning as he left, “that you will be going into that gloomy place, with its bare walls and chairs, and the windows so that you cannot see out of them!”

“I must get some work done somehow, Sheila,” he said, although he did not tell her that he had not finished a picture since his marriage.

“I wish I could do some of it for you,” she said.

“You! All the work you’re good for is catching fish and feeding ducks and planting things in gardens. Why don’t you come down and feed the ducks in the Serpentine?”

“I should like to do that,” she answered. “I will go any day with you.”

“Well,” he said, “you see, I don’t know until I get along to the studio whether I can get away for the forenoon; and then if I were to come back here, you would have little or no time to dress. Good-bye, Sheila.”

“Good-bye,” she said to him; giving up the Serpentine without much regret.

But the forenoon had turned out so delightful that she thought she would go along to the studio, and hale him out of that gaunt and dingy apartment. She should take him away from town; therefore, she might put on that rough, blue dress in which she used to go boating in Loch Roag. She had lately smartened it up a bit with some white braid, and she hoped he would approve.

Did the big hound know the dress? He rubbed his head against her arm and hand when she came down, and looked up and whined almost inaudibly.

“You are going out, Bras, and you must be a good dog and not try to go after the deer. Then I will send a very good story of you to Mairi; and when she comes to London after the harvest is over, she will bring you a present from the Lewis, and you will be very proud.”

She went out into the square, and was, perhaps, a little glad to get away from it, as she was not sure of the blue dress and the small hat with its sea-gull’s feather being precisely the costume which she ought to wear. When she got into the Uxbridge road she breathed more freely, and in the lightness of her heart she continued the conversation with Bras, giving that attentive animal a vast amount of information, partly in English, partly in Gaelic, which he answered only by a low whine or a shake of his shaggy head.

But these confidences were suddenly interrupted. She had got down to Addison Terrace, and was contentedly looking at the trees and chatting to the dog, when by accident her eyes happened to light on a brougham that was driving past. In it—she beheld them both clearly for a brief second—were her husband and Mrs. Lorraine so engaged in conversation that neither of them saw her. Sheila stood on the pavement for a couple of minutes absolutely bewildered. All sorts of wild fancies and recollections came crowding in upon her—reasons why her husband was unwilling that she should visit his studio, why Mrs. Lorraine never called on her, and so forth, and so forth. She did not know what to think for a time; but presently all this tumult was stilled, and she had resolved her doubts and made up her mind as to what she should do. She would not suspect her husband—that was the one sweet security to which she clung. He had made use of no duplicity; if there were duplicity in the case at all he could not be the author of it. The reasons for his having of late left her so much alone were the true reasons. And if this Mrs. Lorraine should amuse him and interest him, who ought to grudge him this break in the monotony of his work? Sheila knew that she herself disliked going to those fashionable gatherings to which Mrs. Lorraine went, and to which Lavender had been accustomed to go before he was married. How could she expect him to give up all his old habits and pleasures for her sake? She would be more generous. It was her own fault that she was not a better companion for him, then, to think hardly of him because he went to the Park with a friend instead of going alone?

Yet there was a great bitterness and grief in her heart as she turned and walked on. She spoke no more to the deerhound by her side. There seemed to be less sunlight in the air, and the people and carriages passing were hardly so busy and cheerful and interesting as they had been. But all the same, she would go to Richmond Park, and by herself; for what was the use in calling in at the studio? and how could she go back home and sit in the house, knowing that her husband was away at some flower-show or morning concert, or some such thing, with that young American lady?

She knew no other road to Richmond than that by which they had driven shortly after her arrival in London; and so it was that she went down and over Hammersmith Bridge, and around by Mortlake, and so on by East Sheen. The road seemed terribly long. She was an excellent walker, and in ordinary circumstances would have done the distance without fatigue; but when at length she saw the gates of the Park before her, she was at once exceedingly tired and almost faint from hunger. Here was the hotel in which they had dined; should she enter? The place seemed very grand and forbidding; she had scarcely even looked at it as she went up the steps with her husband by her side. However, she would venture, and accordingly she went up into the vestibule, looking rather timidly about. A young gentleman, apparently not a waiter, approached her and seemed to wait for her to speak. It was a terrible moment. What was she to ask for? and could she ask it of this young man? Fortunately, he spoke first, and asked her if she wished to go into the coffee-room, and if she expected any one.

“No, I do not expect any one,” she said; and she knew that he would perceive the peculiarity of her accent; “but if you will be kind enough to tell me where I may have a biscuit—”

It occurred to her that to go into the Star and Garter for a biscuit was absurd; and she added, wildly, “or anything to eat.”

The young man obviously regarded her with some surprise, but was very courteous, and showed her into the coffee-room and called a waiter to her. Moreover, he gave permission for Bras to be admitted into the room, Sheila promising that he would lie under the table and not budge an inch. Then she looked around. There were only three persons in the room—one, an old lady seated by herself in a far corner, the other two being a couple of young folks too much engrossed with each other to mind any one else. She began to feel more at home. The waiter suggested various things for lunch, and she made her choice of something cold. Then she mustered up courage to ask for a glass of sherry. How she would have enjoyed all this as a story to tell to her husband but for that incident of the morning! She would have gloried in her outward bravery, and made him smile with a description of her inward terror. She would have written about it to the old man in Borva, and bid him consider how she had been transformed, and what strange scenes Bras was now witnessing.

But all that was over. She felt as if she could no longer ask her husband to be amused by her childish experiences; and as for writing to her father, she dared not write to him in her present mood. Perhaps some happier time would come. Sheila paid her bill. She had heard her husband and Mr. Ingram talking about tipping waiters, and knew that she ought to give something to the man who had attended on her. But how much? He was a very august-looking person, with formally-cut whiskers and a severe expression of face. When he had brought back the change to her she timidly selected a half-crown and offered it to him. There was a little glance of surprise; she feared she had not given him enough. Then he said “Thank you!” in a vague and distant fashion, and she knew that she had not given him enough. But it was too late. Bras was summoned from under the table, and again she went out into the fresh air.

“Oh, my good dog!” she said to him, as they together walked up to the gates and into the Park, “this is a very extravagant country. You have to pay half-a-crown to a servant for bringing you a piece of cold pie, and then he looks as if he were not paid enough. And Duncan, who will do everything about the house, and will give us all our dinners, it’s only a pound a week he will get, and Scarlett has to be kept out of that. And wouldn’t you like to see poor old Scarlett again?”

Bras whined, as if he understood every word.

“I suppose now she is hanging out the washing on the gooseberry bushes, and you know the song she always used to sing then? Don’t you know that Scarlett carried me about long before you were born, for you are a mere infant compared with me? And she used to sing to me:

“Ged’ bheirte mi’ bho’n bhas so, Mho Sheila bheag òg!”

And that is what she is singing just now in the garden; and Mairi she is bringing the things out of the washing house. Papa is over in Stornoway this morning, arranging his accounts with the people there; and perhaps he is down at the quay, looking at the Clansman, and wondering when she is to bring me into the harbor. The castle is all shut up, you know, with cloths over all the wonderful things, and the curtains all down, and most of the shutters shut. Do you think papa has got my letter in his pocket, and does he read it over and over again, as I read all his letters to me over and over again? Ah-h! You bad dog!”

Bras had forgotten to listen to his mistress in the excitement of seeing in the distance a large herd of deer under certain trees. She felt by the leash that he was trembling in every limb with expectation, and straining hard on the collar. Again and again she admonished him in vain, until she had at last to drag him away down the hill, putting a small plantation between him and the herd. Here she found a large umbrageous chestnut tree, with a wooden seat around its trunk, and so she sat down in the green twilight of the leaves, while Bras came and put his head in her lap. Out beyond the shadow of the tree all the world lay bathed in sunlight, and a great silence brooded over the long undulations of the Park, where not a human being was within sight. How strange it was, she fell to thinking, that within a short distance there were millions of men and women, while here she was absolutely alone? Did they not care, then, for the sunlight and the trees and the sweet air? Were they so wrapped up in those social observances that seemed to her so barren of interest?

“They have a beautiful country here,” she said, talking in a rambling and wistful way to Bras, and scarcely noticing the eager light in his eyes, as if he were trying to understand. “They have no rain and no fog; almost always blue skies, and the clouds high up and far away. And the beautiful trees they have, too! you never saw anything like that in the Lewis, not even at Stornoway. And the people are so rich and beautiful in their dress, and all the day they have only to think how to enjoy themselves and what new amusements is for the morrow. But I think they are tired of having nothing to do; or, perhaps, you know, they are tired because they have nothing to fight against—no hard weather and hunger and poverty. They do not care for each other as they would if they were working on the same farm, and trying to save up for the Winter; or if they were going out to the fishing, and very glad to come home again from Caithness to find all the old people very well and the young ones ready for a dance and a dram, and much joy and laughing and telling of stories. It is a very great difference there will be in the people—very great.”

Bras whined: perhaps he understood her better now that she had involuntarily fallen into something of her old accent and habit of speech.

“Wouldn’t you like, Bras, to be up in Borva again—only for this afternoon? All the people would come running out; and it is little Ailasa, she would put her arms around your neck; and old Peter McTavish, he would hear who it was, and come out of his house groping by the wall, and he would say, ‘Pless me! iss it you, Miss Sheila, indeed and mirover? It iss a long time since you hef left the Lewis.’ Yes it is a long time—a long time; and I will be almost forgotten what it is like sometimes when I try to think of it. Here it is always the same—the same houses, the same soft air, the same still sunlight, the same things to do and places to see—no storms shaking the windows or ships running into the harbor, and you cannot go down to the shore to see what has happened, or up the hill to look how the sea is raging. But it is one day we will go back to the Lewis—oh, yes, we will go back to the Lewis!”

She rose and looked wistfully around her, and then turned with a sigh to make her way to the gates. It was with no especial sort of gladness that she thought of returning home. Here, in the great stillness, she had been able to dream of the far island which she knew, and to fancy herself for a few minutes there; now she was going back to the dreary monotony of her life in that square, and to the doubts and anxieties which had been suggested to her in the morning. The world she was about to enter once more seemed so much less homely, so much less full of interest and purpose, than that other and distant world she had been wistfully regarding for a time. The people around her hid neither the joys nor the sorrows with which she had been taught to sympathize. Their cares seemed to her to be exaggeration of trifles—she could feel no pity for them; their satisfaction was derived from sources unintelligible to her. And the social atmosphere around her seemed still and close and suffocating; so that she was like to cry out at times for one breath of God’s clear wind—for a shaft of lightning even—to cut through the sultry and drowsy sameness of her life.

She had almost forgotten the dog by her side. While sitting under the chestnut she had carelessly and loosely wound the leash around his neck in the semblance of a collar, and when she arose and came away she let the dog walk by her side without undoing the leash and taking proper charge of him. She was thinking of far other things, indeed, when she was startled by some one calling to her, “Look out, Miss, or you’ll have your dog shot!”

She turned and caught a glimpse of what sent a thrill of terror to her heart. Bras had sneaked off from her side—had trotted lightly over the breckans, and was now in full chase of a herd of deer which were flying down the slope on the other side of the plantation. He rushed now at one, now at another, the very number of chances presented to him proving the safety of the whole herd. But as Sheila, with a swift flight that would have astonished most town-bred girls, followed the wild chase and came to the crest of the slope, she could see that the hound had at length singled out a particular deer—a fine buck, with handsome horns, that was making straight for the foot of the valley. The herd, that had been much scattered, were now drawing together again, though checking nothing of their speed; but this single buck had been driven from his companions, and was doing his utmost to escape from the fangs of the powerful animal behind him.

What could she do but run wildly and breathlessly on? The dog was now far beyond the reach of her voice. She had no whistle. All sorts of fearful anticipations rushed in on her mind, the most prominent of all being the anger of her father if Bras were shot. How could she go back to Borva with such a tale? and how could she live in London without this companion who had come with her from the far North? Then what terrible things were connected with the killing of deer in a royal park! She remembered vaguely what Mr. Ingram and her husband had been saying; and while these things had been crowding in upon her she felt her strength beginning to fail, while both the dog and the deer had disappeared altogether from sight.

Strange, too, that in the midst of her fatigue and fright, while she still managed to struggle on with a sharp pain at her heart and a sort of mist before her eyes, she had a vague consciousness that her husband would be deeply vexed, not by the conduct or the fate of Bras, but by her being the heroine of so mad an adventure. She knew that he wished her to be serious and subdued and proper, like the ladies whom she met, while an evil destiny seemed to dog her footsteps and precipitate her into all sorts of erratic mishaps and “scenes.” However, this adventure was likely soon to have an end. She could go no further. Whatever had become of Bras, it was in vain for her to think of pursuing him. When she at length reached a broad and smooth road leading through the pasture, she could only stand still and press her two hands over her heart, while her head seemed giddy, and she did not see two men who had been standing on the road close by, until they came up and addressed her.

Then she started and looked around, finding before her two men who were apparently laborers of some sort, one of them having a shovel over his shoulder.

“Beg your pardon, miss, but wur that your dawg?”

“Yes,” she said, eagerly. “Could you get him? Did you see him go by? Do you know where he is?”

“Me and my mate saw him go by, sure enough; but as for getting him—why the keepers’ll have shot him by this time.”

“Oh, no?” cried Sheila, almost in tears, “they must not shoot him. It was my fault. I will pay them for all the harm he has done. Can’t you tell me which way he will go past?”

“I don’t think, miss,” said the spokesman, quite respectfully, “as you can go much furder. If you would sit down and rest yourself, and keep an eye on this ’ere shovel, me and my mate will have a hunt arter the dawg.”

Sheila not only accepted the offer gratefully, but promised to give them all the money she had if only they would bring back the dog unharmed. She made this offer in consequence of some talk between her husband and her father which she had overheard. Lavender was speaking of the civility he had frequently experienced at the hands of Scotch shepherds, and of the independence with which they refused to accept any compensation even for services which cost them a good deal of time and trouble. Perhaps it was to please Sheila’s father, but, at any rate, the picture the young man drew of the venality and the cupidity of the folks in the South was a desperately dark one. Ask the name of a village, have your stick picked up for you from the pavement, get into a cab or get out of it, and directly there was a touch of the cap and an unspoken request for coppers. Then, as the services rendered rose in importance, so did the fees—to waiters, to coachmen, to gamekeepers. These things and many more sank into Sheila’s heart. She heard and believed, and came down to the South with the notion that every man and woman who did you the least service expected to be paid handsomely for it. What, therefore, could she give those two men if they brought back her deerhound but all the money she had?

It was a hard thing to wait here in the greatest doubt and uncertainty while the afternoon was visibly waning. She began to grow afraid. Perhaps the men had stolen the dog, and left her with this shovel as a blind. Her husband must have come home, and would be astonished and perplexed by her absence. Surely, he would have the sense to dine by himself, instead of waiting for her; and she reflected with some glimpse of satisfaction that she had left everything connected with dinner properly arranged, so that he should have nothing to grumble at.

“Surely,” she said to herself as she sat there, watching the light on the grass and the trees getting more and more yellow—“surely I am very wicked or very wretched to think of his grumbling in any case. If he grumbles, it is because I will attend too much to the affairs of the house, and not amuse myself enough. He is very good to me, and I have no right to think of his grumbling. And I wish I cared to amuse myself more—to be more of a companion to him; but it is so difficult among all those people.”

The revery was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the grass behind, and she turned quickly to find the two men approaching her, one of them leading the captive Bras by the leash. Sheila sprang to her feet with a great gladness. She did not care even to accuse the culprit, whose consciousness of guilt was evident in his look and in the droop of his tail. Bras did not once turn his eyes to his mistress. He hung down his head, while he panted rapidly, and she fancied she saw some smearing of blood on his tongue and on the side of his jaw. Her fears on this head were speedily confirmed.

“I think, miss, as you’d better take him out o’ the Park as soon as may be, for he’s got a deer killed close by the Robin Hood Gate, in the trees there; and if the keepers happen on it afore you leave the Park, you’ll get into trouble.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Sheila, retaining her composure bravely, but with a terrible sinking of the heart, “and how can I get to the nearest railway station?”

“You’re going to London, miss?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I suppose the nearest is Richmond, but it would be quieter for you—don’t you see, miss—if you was to go along to the Roehampton Gate and go to Barnes.”

“Will you show me the gate?” said Sheila, choosing the quieter route at once.

But the men themselves did not at all like the look of accompanying her and this dog through the Park. Had they not already condoned a felony, or done something equally dreadful, in handing to her a dog that had been found keeping watch and ward over a slain buck? They showed her the road to the Roehampton Gate, and then they paused before continuing on their journey.

The pause meant money. Sheila took out her purse. There were three sovereigns and some silver in it, and the entire sum, in fulfillment of her promise, she held out to him who had so far conducted the negotiations.

Both men looked frightened. It was quite clear that either good feeling or some indefinite fear of being implicated in the killing of the deer caused them to regard this big bribe as something they could not meddle with; and at length, after a pause of a second or two, the spokesman said with great hesitation, “Well, miss, you kept your word, but me and my mate—well, if so be as it’s the same to you—’d rather have summut to drink your health.”

“Do you think it is too much?”

The man looked at his neighbor, who nodded.

“It was only for ketchin’ of a dawg, miss, don’t you see?” he remarked slowly, as if to impress upon her that they had had nothing to do with the deer.

“Will you take this, then?” and she offered them half a crown each.

Their faces lightened considerably; they took the money, and with a formal expression of thanks moved off, but not before they had taken a glance around to see that no one had been a witness of this interview.

And so Sheila had to walk away by herself, knowing that she had been guilty of a dreadful offence, and that at any moment she might be arrested by the officers of the law. What would the old King of Borva say if he saw his only daughter in the hands of two policemen? and would not all Mr. Lavender’s fastidious and talkative and wondering friends pass about the newspaper report of her trial and conviction? A man was approaching her. As he drew near her heart failed her, for might not this be the mysterious George Ranger himself, about whom her husband and Mr. Ingram had been talking? Should she drop on her knees at once and confess her sins, and beg him to let her off? If Duncan were with her, or Mairi, or even old Scarlett Macdonald, she would not have cared so much, but it seemed so terrible to meet this man alone.

However, as he drew near he did not seem a fierce person. He was an old gentleman, with voluminous white hair, who was dressed all in black, and carried an umbrella on this warm and bright afternoon. He regarded her and the dog in a distant and contemplative fashion, as though he would probably try to remember some time after that he had really seen them; and then he passed on. Sheila began to breathe more freely. Moreover, here was the gate, and once she was in the high road, who could say anything to her? Tired as she was, she still walked rapidly on; and, in due time, having had to ask the way once or twice, she found herself at Barnes Station.

By-and-by the train came in; Bras was committed to the care of the guard, and she found herself alone in a railway carriage for the first time in her life. Her husband had told her that whenever she felt uncertain of her whereabouts, if in the country, she was to ask for the nearest station and get a train to London; if in town she was to get into a cab and give the driver her address. And, indeed, Sheila had been so much agitated and perplexed during this afternoon that she acted in a sort of mechanical fashion, and really escaped the nervousness which otherwise would have attended the novel experience of purchasing a ticket and arranging about the carriage of a dog in the break-van. Even now, when she found herself traveling alone, and shortly to arrive at a part of London she had never seen, her crowding thoughts and fancies were not about her own situation, but about the reception she would receive from her husband. Would he be vexed with her? Or pity her? Had he called with Mrs. Lorraine to take her somewhere, and found her gone? Had he brought home some bachelor friends to dinner, and been chagrined to find her not in the house?

It was getting dusk when the slow four-wheeler approached Sheila’s home. The hour for dinner had long gone by. Perhaps her husband had gone away somewhere looking for her, and she would find the house empty.

But Frank Lavender came to meet his wife in the hall, and said, “Where have you been?”

She could not tell whether there was anger or kindness in his voice, and she could not well see his face. She took his hand and went into the dining-room, which was also dusk, and standing there told him all her story.

“This is too bad, Sheila,” he said, in atone of deep vexation. “By Jove! I’ll go and thrash the dog within an inch of his life.”

“No,” she said, drawing herself up; and for one brief second—could he have but seen her face—there was a touch of old Mackenzie’s pride and firmness about the ordinarily gentle lips. It was but for a second. She cast down her eyes and said, meekly, “I hope you won’t do that, Frank. The dog is not to blame. It was my fault.”

“Well, really, Sheila,” he said, “you are very thoughtless. I wish you would take some little trouble to act as other women act, instead of constantly putting yourself and me in the most awkward positions. Suppose I had brought any one home to dinner, now? And what am I to say to Ingram? for, of course, I went direct to his lodgings when I discovered that you were nowhere to be found. I fancied some mad freak had taken you there; and I should not have been surprised. Indeed, I don’t think I should be surprised at anything you do. Do you know who was in the hall when I came in this afternoon?”

“No,” said Sheila.

“Why, that wretched old hag who keeps the fruit-stall. And it seems you gave her and all her family tea and cake in the kitchen last night.”

“She is a poor woman,” said Sheila, humbly.

“A poor old woman!” he said, impatiently. “I have no doubt she is a lying old thief, who would take an umbrella or a coat, if only she could get the chance. It is really too bad, Sheila, you having all those persons about you, and demeaning yourself by attending on them. What must the servants think of you?”

“I do not heed what any servants think of me,” she said.

She was now standing erect, with her face quite calm.

“Apparently not,” he said, “or you would not go and make yourself ridiculous before them.”

Sheila hesitated for a moment, as if she did not understand; and then she said, as calmly as before, but with a touch of indignation about the proud and beautiful lips, “And if I make myself ridiculous by attending to poor people, it is not my husband who should tell me so.”

She turned and walked out, and he was too surprised to follow her. She went up stairs to her own room, locked herself in and threw herself on the bed. And then all the bitterness of her heart rose up as if in a flood—not against him, but against the country in which he lived, and the society which had contaminated him, and the ways and habits which seemed to create a barrier between herself and him, so that she was a stranger to him, and incapable of becoming anything else. It was a crime that she should interest herself in the unfortunate creatures round about her, that she should talk to them as if they were not human beings like herself, and have a great sympathy with their small hopes and aims; but she would not have been led into such a crime if she had cultivated from her infancy upward a consistent self-indulgence, making herself the centre of a world of mean desires and petty gratifications. And then she thought of the old and beautiful days up in the Lewis, where the young English stranger seemed to approve of her simple ways and her charitable work, and where she was taught to believe that in order to please him she had only to continue to be what she was then.

There was no great gulf of time between that period and this; but what had not happened in the interval? She had not changed—at least she hoped she had not changed. She loved her husband with her whole heart and soul; her devotion was as true and constant as she herself could have wished it to be when she dreamed of the duties of a wife in the days of her maidenhood. But all around her was changed. She had no longer the old freedom—the old delight in living from day to day—the active work, and the enjoyment of seeing where she could help and how she could help the people around her. When, as if by the same sort of instinct that makes a wild animal retain in captivity the habits which were necessary to its existence when it lived in freedom, she began to find out the circumstances of such unfortunate people as were in her neighborhood, some little solace was given to her; but these people were not friends to her, as the poor folk of Borvapost had been. She knew, too, that her husband would be displeased if he found her talking with a washerwoman over her family matters, or even advising one of her own servants about the disposal of her wages; so that, while she concealed nothing from him, these things nevertheless had to be done exclusively in his absence. And was she in so doing really making herself ridiculous? Did he consider her ridiculous? Or was it not merely the false and enervating influences of the indolent society in which he lived that had poisoned his mind, and drawn him away from her as though into another world?

Alas! if he were in this other world, was not she quite alone? What companionship was there possible between her and the people in this new and strange land into which she had ventured? As she lay on the bed, with her head hidden down in the darkness, the pathetic wail of the captive Jews seemed to come and go through the bitterness of her thoughts, like some mournful refrain: “By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion.” She almost heard the words, and the reply that rose up in her heart was a great yearning to go back to her own land, so that her eyes were filled with tears in thinking of it, and she lay and sobbed there in the dusk. Would not the old man living all by himself in that lonely island be glad to see his little girl back again in the old house? And she would sing to him as she used to sing, not as she had been singing to those people whom her husband knew, “For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” And she had sung in the strange land, among the strange people, with her heart breaking, with thoughts of the sea and the hills, and the rude and sweet and simple ways of the old by-gone life she had left behind her.

“Sheila!”

She thought it was her father calling to her, and she rose with a cry of joy. For one wild moment she fancied that outside were all the people she knew—Duncan and Scarlett and Mairi—and that she was once more at home, with the sea all around her, and the salt, cold air.

“Sheila, I want to speak to you.”

It was her husband. She went to the door, opened it, and stood there penitent and with downcast face.

“Come, you must not be silly,” he said, with some kindness in his voice. “You have had no dinner. You must be hungry.”

“I do not care for any; there is no use troubling the servants when I would rather lie down,” she said.

“The servants! You surely don’t take so seriously what I said about them, Sheila? Of course you don’t need to care what the servants think. And in any case they have to bring up dinner for me, so you may as well come and try.”

“Have you not had dinner?” she said timidly.

“Do you think I could sit down and eat with the notion that you might have tumbled into the Thames or been kidnapped, or something?”

“I am very sorry,” she said, in a low voice, and in the gloom he felt his hand taken and carried to her lips. Then they went down stairs in the dining-room, which was now lit up by a blaze of gas and candles.

During dinner, of course, no very confidential talking was possible, and, indeed, Sheila had plenty to tell of her adventures at Richmond. Lavender was now in a more amiable mood, and was disposed to look on the killing of the roebuck as rather a good joke. He complimented Sheila on her good sense in having gone in at the Star and Garter for lunch; and altogether better relations were established between them.

But when dinner was finally over, and the servants dismissed, Lavender placed Sheila’s easy-chair for her as usual, drew his own near hers, and lit a cigarette.

“Now, tell me, Sheila,” he said, “were you really vexed with me when you went up stairs and locked yourself in your room? Did you think I meant to displease you or say anything harsh to you?”

“No, not any of those things,” she said calmly; “I wished to be alone—to think over what had happened. And I was grieved by what you said, for I think you cannot help looking at many things not as I will look at them. That is all. It is my bringing up in the Highlands, perhaps.”

“Do you know, Sheila, it sometimes occurs to me that you are not quite comfortable here? And I can’t make out what is the matter. I think you have a perverse fancy that you are different from the people you meet, and that you cannot be like them, and all that sort of thing. Now, dear, that is only a fancy. There need be no difference if you only will take a little trouble.”

“Oh, Frank!” she said, going over and putting her hand on his shoulder, “I cannot take that trouble. I cannot try to be like those people. And I see a great difference in you since you have come back to London, and you are getting to be like them and say the things they say. If I could only see you, my own darling, up in the Lewis again, with rough clothes on and a gun in your hand, I should be happy. You were yourself up there, when you were helping us in the boat, or when you were bringing home the salmon, or when we were all together at night in the little parlor, you know—”

“My dear, don’t get excited. Now sit down and I will tell you all about it. You seem to have the notion that people lose all their finer sentiments simply because they don’t, in society, burst into raptures over them. You mustn’t imagine all those people are selfish and callous merely because they preserve a decent reticence. To tell you the truth, that constant profession of noble feelings you would like to see would have something of ostentation about it.”

Sheila only sighed. “I do not wish them to be altered,” she said by and by, with her eyes growing pensive; “all I know is, that I could not live the same life. And you—you seemed to be happier up in the Highlands than you have ever been since.”

“Well, you see, a man ought to be happy when he is enjoying a holiday in the country along with the girl he is engaged to. But if I had lived all my life killing salmon and shooting wild duck, I should have grown up an ignorant boor, with no more sense of—”

He stopped for he saw that the girl was thinking of her father.

“Well, look here, Sheila. You see how you are placed—how we are placed, rather. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to get to understand those people you look askance at, and establish better relations with them, since you have got to live among them? I can’t help thinking you are too much alone, and you can’t expect me to stay in the house always with you. A husband and wife cannot be continually in each other’s company, unless they want to grow heartily tired of each other. Now, if you would only lay aside those suspicions of yours, you would find the people just as honest and generous and friendly as any other sort of people you ever met, although they don’t happen to be fond of expressing their goodness in their talk.”

“I have tried, dear—I will try again,” said Sheila.

She resolved that she would go down and visit Mrs. Lavender next day, and try to be interested in the talk of such people as might be there. She would bring away some story about this or the other fashionable woman or noble lord, just to show her husband that she was doing her best to learn. She would drive patiently around the Park in that close little brougham, and listen attentively to the moralities of Marcus Aurelius. She would make an appointment to go with Mrs. Lavender to a morning concert: and she would endeavor to muster up courage to ask any ladies who might be there to lunch with her on that day, and go afterward to this same entertainment. All these things, and many more, Sheila silently vowed to herself she would do, while her husband sat and expounded to her his theories of the obligations which society demanded of its members.

But her plans were suddenly broken asunder.

“I met Mrs. Lorraine accidentally to-day,” he said.

It was his first mention of the young American lady. Sheila sat in mute expectation.

“She always asks very kindly after you.”

“She is very kind.”

He did not say, however, that Mrs. Lorraine had more than once made distinct propositions, when in his company, that they should call in for Sheila, and take her out for a drive or to a flower show, or some such place, while Lavender had always some excuse ready.

“She is going to Brighton to-morrow, and she was wondering whether you would care to run down for a day or two.”

“With her?” said Sheila, recoiling from such a proposal, instinctively.

“Of course not. I should go. And then, at last, you know, you would see the sea, about which you have been dreaming for ever so long.”

The sea! There was a magic in the very word that could, almost at any moment, summon tears to her eyes. Of course she accepted right gladly. If her husband’s duties were so pressing that the long-talked-of journey to Lewis and Borva had to be repeatedly and indefinitely postponed, here at least would be a chance of looking again at the sea—of drinking in the freshness and light and color of it—of renewing her old and intimate friendship with it that had been broken off for so long by her stay in this city of perpetual houses and still sunshine.

“You can tell her you will go when you see her to-night at Lady Mary’s. By the way, isn’t it time for you to begin to dress?”

“Oh, Lady Mary’s!” repeated Sheila mechanically, who had quite forgotten about her engagement for that evening.

“Perhaps you are too tired to go,” said her husband.

She was a little tired, in truth. But surely, just after her promises, spoken and unspoken, some little effort was demanded of her; so she bravely went to dress, and in about three-quarters of an hour was ready to drive down to Curzon Street. Her husband had never seen her look so pleased before in going out to any party. He flattered himself that his lecture had done her some good. There was fair common sense in what he had said, and although, doubtless, a girl’s romanticism was a pretty thing, it would have to yield to the actual requirements of society. In time he should educate Sheila.

But he did not know what brightened the girl’s face all that night, and put a new life into the beautiful eyes, so that even those who knew her best were struck by her singular beauty. It was the sea that was coloring Sheila’s eyes. The people around her, the glare of the candles, the hum of talking and the motion of certain groups dancing over there in the middle of the throng—all were faint and visionary, for she was busily wondering what the sea would be like the next morning, and what strange fancies would strike her when once more she walked on sand and heard the roar of waves. That, indeed, was the sound that was present in her ears while the music played and the people murmured around her. Mrs. Lorraine talked to her, and was surprised and amused to notice the eager fashion in which the girl spoke of their journey of the next day. The gentleman who took her in to supper found himself catechised about Brighton in a manner which afforded him more occupation than enjoyment. And when Sheila drove away from the house at two in the morning she declared to her husband that she had enjoyed herself extremely, and he was glad to hear it; and she was particularly kind to himself in getting him his slippers, and fetching him that final cigarette which he always had on reaching home; and then she went off to bed to dream of ships and flying clouds and cold winds, and a great and beautiful blue plain of waves.

PART VII.

CHAPTER XIV.

DEEPER AND DEEPER.

NEXT morning Sheila was busy with her preparations for departure, when she heard a hansom drive up. She looked out and saw Mr. Ingram step out; and before he had time to cross the pavement she had run around and opened the door, and stood at the top of the steps to receive him. How often had her husband cautioned her not to forget herself in this monstrous fashion!

“Do you think I had run away? Have you come to see me?” she said, with a bright, roseate gladness on her face, which reminded him of many a pleasant morning in Borva.

“I did not think you had run away, for, you see, I have brought you some flowers;” but there was a sort of blush in the sallow face, and perhaps the girl had some quick fancy or suspicion that he had brought this bouquet to prove that he knew everything was right, and that he expected to see her. It was only a part of his universal kindness and thoughtfulness, she considered.

“Frank is up stairs,” she said, “getting ready some things to go to Brighton. Will you come into the breakfast-room? Have you had breakfast?”

“Oh, you were going to Brighton?”

“Yes,” she said, and somehow something moved her to add quickly, “but not for long, you know. Only a few days. It is many a time you will have told me of Brighton long ago in the Lewis, but I cannot understand a large town being beside the sea, and it will be a great surprise to me, I am sure of that.”

“Ay, Sheila,” he said, falling into the old habit quite naturally, “you will find it different from Borvapost. You will have no scampering about the rock, with your head bare and your hair flying about. You will have to dress more correctly there than here even; and, by the way, you must be busy getting ready; so I will go.”

“Oh, no,” she said, with a quick look of disappointment, “you will not go yet. If I had known you were coming—but it was very late when we got home this morning: two o’clock it was.”

“Another ball?”

“Yes,” said the girl, but not very joyfully.

“Why, Sheila,” he said, with a grave smile on his face, “you are becoming quite a woman of fashion now. And you know I can’t keep up an acquaintance with a fine lady, who goes to all these grand places, and knows all sorts of swell people; so you’ll have to cut me, Sheila.”

“I hope I shall be dead before that time ever comes,” said the girl, with a sudden flash of indignation in her eyes. Then she softened: “But it is not kind for you to laugh at me.”

“Of course I did not laugh at you,” he said, taking both her hands in his, “although I used to sometimes when you were a little girl and talked very wild English. Don’t you remember how vexed you used to be, and how pleased you were when your papa turned the laugh against me by getting me to say that awful Gaelic sentence about ‘A young calf ate a raw egg!’ ”

“Can you say it now?” said Sheila, with her face getting bright and pleased again. “Try it after me. Now listen.”

She uttered some half dozen of the most extraordinary sounds that any language ever contained, but Ingram would not attempt to follow her. She reproached him with having forgotten all that he had learnt in Lewis, and said she should no longer look on him as a possible Highlander.

“But what are you now?” he asked. “You are no longer that wild girl who used to run out to sea in the Maighdean-mhara whenever there was the excitement of a storm coming on.”

“Many times,” she said, slowly and wistfully, “I will wish that I could be that again for a little while.”

“Don’t you enjoy, then, all those fine gatherings you go to?”

“I try to like them.”

“And you don’t succeed?”

He was looking at her gravely and earnestly, and she turned away her head and did not answer. At this moment Lavender came down stairs and entered the room.

“Halloo, Ingram, my boy! glad to see you! What pretty flowers! It’s a pity we can’t take them to Brighton with us.”

“But I intend to take them,” said Sheila, firmly.

“Oh, very well, if you don’t mind the bother,” said her husband. “I should have thought your hands would have been full; you know you’ll have to take everything with you you would want in London. You will find that Brighton isn’t a dirty little fishing-village in which you’ve only to tuck up your dress and run about anyhow.”

“I never saw a dirty little fishing-village,” said Sheila, quietly.

Her husband laughed: “I meant no offense. I was not thinking of Borvapost at all. Well, Ingram, can’t you run down and see us while we are at Brighton?”

“Oh, do, Mr. Ingram?” said Sheila, with quite a new interest in her face; and she came forward as though she would have gone down on her knees and begged this great favor of him. “Do Mr. Ingram! We should try to amuse you some way, and the weather is sure to be fine. Shall we keep a room for you? Can you come on Friday and stay till Monday? It is a great difference there will be in the place if you come down.”

Ingram looked at Sheila, and was on the point of promising, when Lavender added: “And we shall introduce you to that young American lady whom you are so anxious to meet.”

“Oh, is she to be there?” he said, looking rather curiously at Lavender.

“Yes, and her mother. We are going down together.”

“Then I’ll see whether I can in a day or two,” he said, but in a tone which pretty nearly convinced Sheila that she should not have her stay at Brighton made pleasant by the company of her old friend and associate.

However, the mere anticipation of seeing the sea was much; and when they had got into a cab and were going down to Victoria Station, Sheila’s eyes were filled with a joyful anticipation. She had discarded altogether the descriptions of Brighton that had been given her. It is one thing to receive information, and another to reproduce it in an imaginative picture; and in fact her imagination was busy with its own work while she sat and listened to this person or the other speaking of the seaside town she was going to. When they spoke of promenades and drives and miles of hotels and lodging houses, she was thinking of the sea-beach and of the boats and of the sky-line with its distant ships. When they told her of private theatricals and concerts and fancy-dress balls, she was thinking of being out on the open sea, with a light breeze filling the sails, and a curl of white foam rising at the bow and sweeping and hissing down the sides of the boat. She would go down among the fishermen when her husband and his friends were not by, and talk to them, and get to know what they sold their fish for down here in the South. She would find out what their nets cost, and if there was anybody in authority to whom they could apply for an advance of a few pounds in case of hard times. Had they their cuttings of peat free from the nearest mossland? and did they dress their fields with the thatch that had got saturated with the smoke? Perhaps some of them could tell her where the crews hailed from that had repeatedly shot the sheep of the Flannen Isles. All these and a hundred other things she would get to know; and she might procure and send to her father some rare bird or curiosity of the sea, that might be added to the little museum in which she used to sing in days gone by, when he was busy with his pipe and his whisky.

“You are not much tired, then, by your dissipation of last night?” said Mrs. Kavanagh to her at the station, as the slender, fair-haired, grave lady looked admiringly at the girl’s fresh color and bright gray-blue eyes. “It makes one envy you to see you looking so strong and in such good spirits.”

“How happy you must be always!” said Mrs. Lorraine; and the younger lady had the same sweet, low and kindly voice as her mother.

“I am very well, thank you,” said Sheila, blushing somewhat, and not lifting her eyes, while Lavender was impatient that she had not answered with a laugh and some light retort, such as would have occurred to almost any woman in the circumstances.

On the journey down, Lavender and Mrs. Lorraine, seated opposite each other in two corner seats, kept up a continual cross-fire of small pleasantries, in which the young American lady had distinctly the best of it, chiefly by reason of her perfect manner. The keenest thing she said was said with a look of great innocence and candor in the large gray eyes; and then directly afterward she would say something very nice and pleasant in precisely the same voice, as if she could not understand that there was any effort on the part of either to assume an advantage. The mother sometimes turned and listened to this aimless talk with an amused gravity, as of a cat watching the gambols of a kitten, but generally she devoted herself to Sheila, who sat opposite her. She did not talk much, and Sheila was glad of that, but the girl felt that she was being observed with some little curiosity. She wished that Mrs. Kavanagh would turn those observant gray eyes of hers away in some other direction. Now and again Sheila would point out what she considered strange or striking in the country outside, and for a moment the elderly lady would look out. But directly afterward the gray eyes would come back to Sheila, and the girl knew they were upon her.

At last she so persistently stared out of the window that she fell to dreaming, and all the trees and the meadows and the farm-houses and the distant heights and hollows went past her as though they were in a sort of mist, while she replied to Mrs. Kavanagh’s chance remarks in a mechanical fashion, and could only hear as a monotonous murmur the talk of the two people at the other side of the carriage. How much of the journey did she remember? She was greatly struck by the amount of open land in the neighborhood of London—the commons between Wandsworth and Streatham, and so forth—and she was pleased with the appearance of the country about Red Hill. For the rest, a succession of fair green pictures passed by her, all bathed in a calm, half-misty Summer sunlight; then they pierced the chalk-hills (which Sheila, at first sight, fancied were of granite) and rumbled through the tunnels. Finally, with just a glimpse of a great mass of gray houses filling a vast hollow and stretching up the bare green downs beyond, they found themselves in Brighton.

“Well, Sheila, what do you think of the place?” her husband said to her with a laugh as they were driving down the Queen’s road.

She did not answer.

“It is not like Borvapost, is it?”

She was too bewildered to speak. She could only look about her with a vague wonder and disappointment. But surely this great city was not the place they had come to live in? Would it not disappear somehow, and they would get away to the sea and the rocks and the boats?

They passed into the upper part of West Street, and here was another thoroughfare, down to which Sheila glanced with no great interest. But the next moment there was a quick catching of her breath, which almost resembled a sob, and a strange glad light sprang into her eyes. Here, at last, was the sea! Away beyond the narrow thoroughfare she could catch a glimpse of a great green plain—yellow-green it was in the sunlight—that the wind was whitening here and there with tumbling waves. She had not noticed that there was any wind in-land—there everything seemed asleep—but here there was a fresh breeze from the South, and the sea had been rough the day before, and now it was of this strange olive color, streaked with the white curls of foam that shone in the sunlight. Was there not a cold scent of sea-weed, too, blown up this narrow passage between the houses?

And now the carriage cut around the corner and whirled out into the glare of the Parade, and before her the great sea stretched out its leagues of tumbling and shining waves, and she heard the water roaring along the beach, and far away at the horizon she saw a phantom ship. She did not even look at the row of splendid hotels and houses, at the gayly-dressed folks on the pavement, at the brilliant flags that were flapping and fluttering on the New Pier and about the beach. It was the great world of shining water beyond that fascinated her, and awoke in her a strange yearning and longing, so that she did not know whether it was grief or joy that burned in her heart and blinded her eyes with tears. Mrs. Kavanagh took her arm as they were going up the steps of the hotel, and said in a friendly way, “I suppose you have some sad memories of the sea?”

“No,” said Sheila, bravely, “it is always pleasant to me to think of the sea; but it is a long time since—since—”

“Sheila,” said her husband, abruptly, “do tell me if all your things are here;” and then the girl turned, calm and self-collected, to look after rugs and boxes.

When they were finally established in the hotel, Lavender went off to negotiate for the hire of a carriage for Mrs. Kavanagh during her stay, and Sheila was left with the two ladies. They had tea in their sitting-room, and they had it at one of the windows, so that they could look out on the stream of people and carriages now beginning to flow by in the clear yellow light of the afternoon. But neither the people nor the carriages had much interest for Sheila, who, indeed, sat for the most part silent, intently watching the various boats that were putting out or coming in, and busy with conjectures which she knew there was no use placing before her two companions.

“Brighton seems to surprise you very much,” said Mrs. Lorraine.

“Yes,” said Sheila, “I have been told all about it, but you will forget all that; and this is very different from the sea at home—at my home.”

“Your home is in London now,” said the elder lady, with a smile.

“Oh, no!” said Sheila, most anxiously and earnestly. “London, that is not our home at all. We live there for a time—that will be quite necessary—but we shall go back to the Lewis some day soon—not to stay altogether, but enough to make it as much our home as London.”

“How do you think Mr. Lavender will enjoy living in the Hebrides?” said Mrs. Lorraine, with a look of innocent and friendly inquiry in her eyes.

“It was many a time that he has said he never liked any place so much,” said Sheila with something of a blush; and then she added with growing courage, “for you must not think he is always like what he is here. Oh, no! When he is in the Highlands there is no day that is nearly long enough for what has to be done in it; and he is up very early, and away to the hills or the loch with a gun or a salmon-rod. He can catch the salmon very well—oh, very well for one that is not accustomed—and he will shoot as well as any one that is in the island, except my papa. It is a great deal to do there will be in the island, and plenty of amusement; and there is not much chance—not any whatever—of his being lonely or tired when we go to live in the Lewis.”

Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter were both amused and pleased by the earnest and rapid fashion in which Sheila talked. They had generally considered her to be a trifle shy and silent, not knowing how afraid she was of using wrong idioms or pronunciations; but here was one subject on which her heart was set, and she had no more thought as to whether she said like-a-ness or likeness, or whether she said gyarden or garden. Indeed, she forgot more than that. She was somewhat excited by the presence of the sea and the well-remembered sound of the waves; and she was pleased to talk about her life in the North, and about her husband’s stay there, and how they should pass the time when she returned to Borva. She neglected altogether Lavender’s instructions that she should not talk about fishing or cooking or farming to his friends. She incidentally revealed to Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter a great deal more about the household at Borva than he would have wished to be known. For how could they understand about his wife having her own cousin to serve at table? And what would they think of a young lady who was proud of making her father’s shirts? Whatever these two ladies may have thought, they were very obviously interested, and if they were amused, it was in a far from unfriendly fashion. Mrs. Lorraine professed herself quite charmed with Sheila’s descriptions of her island-life, and wished she could go up to Lewis to see all these strange things. But when she spoke of visiting the island when Sheila and her husband were staying there, Sheila was not nearly so ready to offer her a welcome as the daughter of a hospitable old Highland man ought to have been.

“And will you go out in a boat now?” said Sheila, looking down to the beach.

“In a boat! What sort of a boat?” said Mrs. Kavanagh.

“Any of those little sailing boats; it is very good they are, as far as I can see.”

“No, thank you,” said the elder lady, with a smile, “I am not fond of small boats, and the company of the men who go with you might be a little objectionable, I should fancy.”

“But you need not take any men,” said Sheila; “the sailing of one of those little boats, it is very simple.”

“Do you mean to say you could manage the boat by yourself?”

“Oh yes! It is very simple. And my husband he will help me.”

“And what would you do if you went out?”

“We might try the fishing. I do not see where the rocks are, but we would go off to the rocks and put down the anchor and try the lines. You would have some ferry good fish for breakfast in the morning.”

“My dear child,” said Mrs. Kavanagh, “you don’t know what you propose to us. To go and roll about in an open boat in these waves—we should be ill in five minutes. But I suppose you don’t know what seasickness is?”

“No,” said Sheila, “but I will hear my husband speak of it often. And it is only in crossing the Channel that people will get sick.”

“Why, this is the Channel.”

Sheila stared. Then she endeavored to recall her geography. Of course, this must be a part of the Channel, but if the people in the South became ill in this weather, they must be feeble creatures. Her speculations on this point were cut short by the entrance of her husband, who came to announce that he had not only secured a carriage for a month, but that it would be around at the hotel door in half an hour; whereupon the two American ladies said they would be ready, and left the room.

“Now go off and get dressed, Sheila,” said Lavender.

She stood for a moment irresolute.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation—“if you would allow me to go by myself—if you would go to the driving, and let me go down to the shore!”

“Oh, nonsense!” he said. “You will have people fancying you are only a school-girl. How can you go down to the beach by yourself among all those loafing vagabonds, who would pick your pockets or throw stones at you? You must behave like an ordinary Christian. Now do, like a good girl, get dressed and submit to the restraints of civilized life. It won’t hurt you much.”

So she left, to lay aside, with some regret, her rough blue dress, and he went down-stairs to see about ordering dinner.

Had she come down to the sea, then, only to live the life that had nearly broken her heart in London? It seemed so. They drove up and down the Parade for about an hour and a half, and the roar of the carriages drowned the rush of the waves. Then they dined in the quiet of this still Summer evening, and she could only see the sea as a distant and silent picture through the windows, while the talk of her companions was either about the people whom they had seen while driving, or about matters of which she knew nothing. Then the blinds were drawn and the candles lit, and still their conversation murmured around her unheeding ears. After dinner, her husband went down to the smoking-room of the hotel to have a cigar, and she was left with Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter. She went to the window, and looked through a chink in the Venetian blinds. There was a beautiful clear twilight abroad, the darkness still of a soft gray, and up in the pale yellow-green of the sky a large planet burned and throbbed. Soon the sea and the sky would darken, the stars would come forth in thousands and tens of thousands, and the moving water would be struck with a million trembling spots of silver as the waves came onward to the beach.

“Mayn’t we go out for a walk till Frank has finished his cigar?” said Sheila.

“You couldn’t go out walking at this time of night,” said Mrs. Kavanagh, in a kindly way, “you would meet the most unpleasant persons. Besides going out into the night air would be most dangerous.”

“It is a beautiful night,” said Sheila, with a sigh. She was still standing at the window.

“Come,” said Mrs. Kavanagh, going over to her, and putting her hand in her arm, “we cannot have any moping, you know. You must be content to be dull with us for one night; and after to-night we shall see what we can do to amuse you.”

“Oh, but I don’t want to be amused!” cried Sheila, almost in terror, for some vision flashed on her mind of a series of parties. “I would much rather be left alone and allowed to go about by myself. But it is very kind of you,” she hastily added, fancying that her speech had been somewhat ungracious—“it is very kind of you, indeed.”

“Come, I promised to teach you cribbage, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” said Sheila, with much resignation, and she walked to the table, and sat down.

Perhaps, after all, she could have spent the rest of the evening with some little equanimity in patiently trying to learn this game, in which she had no interest whatever, but her thoughts and fancies were soon drawn away from cribbage. Her husband returned. Mrs. Lorraine had been for some little time at the big piano at the other side of the room, amusing herself by playing snatches of anything she happened to remember, but when Mr. Lavender returned she seemed to wake up. He went over to her, and sat down by the piano.

“Here,” she said, “I have all the duets and songs you spoke of, and I am quite delighted with those I have tried. I wish mamma would sing a second to me; how can one learn without practising? And there are some of those duets I really should like to learn after what you have said of them.”

“Shall I become a substitute for your mamma?” he said.

“And sing the second, so that I may practise? Your cigar must have left you in a very amiable mood.”

“Well, suppose we try,” he said; and he proceeded to open out the roll of music which she had brought down.

“Which shall we take first?” he asked.

“It does not much matter,” she answered, indifferently, and indeed she took up one of the duets at haphazard.

What was it made Mrs. Kavanagh’s companion suddenly lift her eyes from the cribbage-board and look with surprise to the other end of the room? She had recognized the little prelude to one of her own duets, and it was being played by Mrs. Lorraine. And it was Mrs. Lorraine who began to sing in a sweet, expressive and well-trained voice of no great power—

Love in thine eyes forever plays;

and it was she to whom the answer was given—

He in thy snowy bosom strays;

and then Sheila, sitting stupefied and pained and confused, heard them sing together—

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

She had not heard the short conversation which had introduced this music; and she could not tell but that her husband had been practising these duets—her duets—with some one else. For presently they sang “When the rosy morn appearing,” and “I would that my love could silently,” and others, all of them, in Sheila’s eyes, sacred to the time when she and Lavender used to sit in the little room in Borva. It was no consolation to her that Mrs. Lorraine had but an imperfect acquaintance with them; that oftentimes she stumbled and went back over a bit of the accompaniment; that her voice was far from being striking. Lavender, at all events, seemed to heed none of these things. It was not as a music master that he sang with her. He put as much expression of love into his voice as ever he had done in the old days when he sang with his future bride. And it seemed so cruel that this woman should have taken Sheila’s own duets from her to sing before her with her own husband.

Sheila learnt little more cribbage that evening. Mrs. Kavanagh could not understand how her pupil had become embarrassed, inattentive, and even sad, and asked her if she was tired. Sheila said she was very tired and would go. And when she got her candle, Mrs. Lorraine and Lavender had just discovered another duet, which they felt bound to try together as the last.

This was not the first time she had been more or less vaguely pained by her husband’s attentions to this young American lady; and yet she would not admit to herself that he was any in the wrong. She would entertain no suspicion of him. She would have no jealousy in her heart, for how could jealousy exist with a perfect faith? And so she had repeatedly reasoned herself out of these tentative feelings, and resolved that she would do neither her husband nor Mrs. Lorraine the injustice of being vexed with them. So it was now. What more natural than that Frank should recommend to any one the duets of which he was particularly fond? What more natural than that this young lady should wish to show her appreciation of those songs by singing them? and who was to sing with her but he? Sheila would have no suspicion of either; and so she came down next morning determined to be very friendly with Mrs. Lorraine.

But that forenoon another thing occurred which nearly broke down all her resolves.

“Sheila,” said her husband, “I don’t think I ever asked you whether you rode?”

“I used to ride many times at home,” she said.

“But I suppose you’d rather not ride here,” he said. “Mrs. Lorraine and I propose to go out presently; you’ll be able to amuse yourself somehow till we come back.”

Mrs. Lorraine had indeed gone to put on her habit, and her mother was with her.

“I suppose I may go out,” said Sheila. “It is so very dull indoors, and Mrs. Kavanagh is afraid of the East wind, and she is not going out.”

“Well, there’s no harm about your going out,” answered Lavender, “but I should have thought you’d have liked the comfort of watching the people pass, from the window.”

She said nothing, but went off to her own room and dressed to go out. Why, she knew not, but she felt that she would rather not see her husband and Mrs. Lorraine start from the hotel-door. She stole down-stairs without going into the sitting-room, and then, going through the great hall and down the steps, found herself free and alone in Brighton.

It was a beautiful, bright, clear day, though the wind was a trifle chilly, and all around her there was a sense of space and light and motion in the shining skies, the far clouds and the heaving and noisy sea. Yet she had none of the gladness of heart with which she used to rush out of the house at Borva to drink in the fresh, salt air, and feel the sunlight on her cheeks. She walked away, with her face wistful and pensive, along the King’s road, scarcely seeing any of the people who passed her; and the noise of the crowd and of the waves hummed in her ears in a distant fashion, even as she walked along the wooden railing over the beach. She stopped and watched some men putting off a heavy fishing-boat, and she still stood and looked long after the boat was launched. She would not confess to herself that she felt lonely and miserable; it was the sight of the sea that was melancholy. It seemed so different from the sea off Borva, that had always to her a familiar and friendly look, even when it was raging and rushing before a Southwest wind. Here this sea looked vast and calm and sad, and the sound of it was not pleasant to her ears, as was the sound of the waves on the rocks at Borva. She walked on, in a blind and unthinking fashion, until she had got far up the Parade, and could see the long line of monotonous white cliff meeting the dull blue plain of the waves until both disappeared in the horizon.

She returned to the King’s road a trifle tired, and sat down on one of the benches there. The passing of the people would amuse her; and now the pavement was thronged with a crowd of gayly-dressed folks, and the centre of the thoroughfare brisk with the constant going and coming of riders. She saw strange old women painted, powdered and bewigged in hideous imitation of youth, pounding up and down the level street, and she wondered what wild hallucinations possessed the brains of these poor creatures. She saw troops of beautiful young girls, with flowing hair, clear eyes and bright complexions, riding by, a goodly company, under charge of a riding-mistress, and the world seemed to grow sweeter when they came into view. But while she was vaguely gazing and wondering and speculating, her eyes were suddenly caught by two riders whose appearance sent a throb to her heart. Frank Lavender rode well, so did Mrs. Lorraine; and, though they were paying no particular attention to the crowd of passers-by, they doubtless knew that they could challenge criticism with an easy confidence. They were laughing and talking to each other as they went rapidly by; neither of them saw Sheila. The girl did not look after them. She rose and walked in the other direction, with a greater pain at her heart than had been there for many a day.

What was this crowd? Some dozen or so of people were standing around a small girl, who, accompanied by a man, was playing a violin, and playing it very well, too. But it was not the music that attracted Sheila to the child, but partly that there was a look about the timid, pretty face and modest and honest eyes that reminded her of little Ailasa, and partly because, just at this moment, her heart seemed to be strangely sensitive and sympathetic. She took no thought of the people looking on. She went forward to the edge of the pavement, and found that the small girl and her companion were about to go away. Sheila stopped the man.

“Will you let your little girl come with me into this shop?”

It was a confectioner’s shop.

“We were going home to dinner,” said the man, while the small girl looked up with wondering eyes.

“Will you let her have dinner with me, and you will come back in a half an hour?”

The man looked at the little girl; he seemed to be really fond of her, and saw that she was very willing to go. Sheila took her hand and led her into the confectioner’s shop, putting her violin on one of the small marble tables while they sat down at another. She was probably not aware that two or three idlers had followed them, and were staring with might and main in at the door of the shop.

What could this child have thought of the beautiful and yet sad-eyed lady who was so kind to her, who got her all sorts of things with her own hands and asked her all manner of questions in a low, gentle and sweet voice? There was not much in Sheila’s appearance to provoke fear or awe. The little girl, shy at first, got to be a little more frank, and told her hostess when she rose in the morning, how she practised, the number of hours they were out during the day, and many of the small incidents of her daily life. She had been photographed, too, and her photograph was sold in one of the shops. She was very well content; she liked playing, the people were kind to her, and she did not often get tired.

“Then I shall see you often if I stay in Brighton?” said Sheila.

“We go out every day when it does not rain very hard.”

“Perhaps some wet day you will come and see me, and you will have some tea with me; would you like that?”

“Yes, very much,” said the small musician, looking up frankly.

Just at this moment, the half hour having fully expired, the man appeared at the door.

“Don’t hurry,” said Sheila to the little girl; “sit still and drink out the lemonade, then I will give you some little parcels which you must put in your pocket.”

She was about to rise to go to the counter when she suddenly met the eyes of her husband, who was calmly staring at her. He had come out, after their ride, with Mrs. Lorraine to have a stroll up and down the pavements, and had, in looking in at the various shops, caught sight of Sheila quietly having luncheon with this girl whom she had picked up in the streets.

“Did you ever see the like of that?” he said to Mrs. Lorraine. “In open day, with people staring in, and she has not even taken the trouble to put the violin out of sight!”

“The poor child means no harm,” said his companion.

“Well, we must get her out of this somehow,” he said; and so they entered the shop.

Sheila knew she was guilty the moment she met her husband’s look, though she had never dreamed of it before. She had, indeed, acted quite thoughtlessly—perhaps chiefly moved by a desire to speak to some one and to befriend some one in her own loneliness.

“Hadn’t you better let this little girl go?” said Lavender to Sheila, somewhat coldly, as soon as he had ordered an ice for his companion.

“When she has finished her lemonade she will go,” said Sheila, meekly. “But I have to buy some things for her, first.”

“You have got a whole lot of people around the door,” he said.

“It is very kind of the people to wait for her,” answered Sheila, with the same composure. “We have been here half an hour. I suppose they will like her music very much.”

The little violiniste was now taken to the counter and her pockets stuffed with packages of sugared fruits and other deadly delicacies; then she was permittted to go with half a crown in her hand. Mrs. Lorraine patted her shoulder in passing, and said she was a pretty little thing.

They went home to luncheon. Nothing was said about the incident of the forenoon, except that Lavender complained to Mrs. Kavanagh in a humorous way, that his wife had a most extraordinary fondness for beggars, and that he never went home of an evening without expecting to find her dining with the nearest scavenger and his family. Lavender, indeed, was in an amiable frame of mind at the meal (during the progress of which Sheila sat by the window, of course, for she had already lunched in company with the tiny violiniste), and was bent on making himself as agreeable as possible to his two companions. Their talk had drifted toward the wanderings of the two ladies on the Continent; from that to the Niebelungen frescoes in Munich; from that to the Niebelungen itself, and then by easy transition to the ballads of Uhland and Heine. Lavender was in one of his most impulsive and brilliant moods—gay and jocular, tender and sympathetic by turns, and so obviously sincere in all that his listeners were delighted with his speeches and assertions and stories, and believed them as implicitly as he did himself.

Sheila, sitting at a distance, saw and heard, and could not help recalling many an evening in the far North when Lavender used to fascinate every one around him by the infection of his warm and poetic enthusiasm. How he talked, too—telling the stories of these quaint and pathetic ballads in his own rough and ready translations—while there was no self-consciousness in his face, but a thorough warmth of earnestness; and sometimes, too, she would notice a quiver of the under lip that she knew of old, when some pathetic point or phrase had to be indicated rather than described. He was drawing pictures for them as well as telling stories—of the three students entering the room in which the landlady’s daughter lay dead—of Barbarossa in his cave—of the child who used to look up at Heine as he passed her in the street, awe-stricken by his pale and strange face—of the last of the band of companions who sat in the solitary room in which they had sat, and drank to their memory—of the King of Thule, and the deserter from Strasburg, and a thousand others.

“But is there any of them—is there anything in the world—more pitiable than that pilgrimage to Kevlaar?” he said. “You know it, of course. No? Oh, you must, surely. Don’t you remember the mother who stood by the bedside of her sick son, and asked him whether he would not rise to see the great procession go by the window; and he tells her that he cannot, he is so ill; his heart is breaking for thinking of his dead Gretchen? You know the story, Sheila. The mother begs him to rise and come with her, and they will join the band of pilgrims going to Kevlaar, to be healed there of their wounds by the Mother of God. Then you find them at Kevlaar, and all the maimed and the lame people have come to the shrine; and whichever limb is diseased, they make a waxen image of that and lay it on the altar, and then they are healed. Well, the mother of this poor lad takes wax and forms a heart out of it, and says to her son, ‘Take that to the Mother of God, and she will heal your pain.’ Sighing, he takes the wax heart in his hand, and, sighing, he goes to the shrine; and there, with tears running down his face, he says: ‘O beautiful Queen of Heaven, I am come to tell you my grief. I lived with my mother in Cologne; near us lived Gretchen, who is dead now. Blessed Mary, I bring you this wax heart, heal the wound in my heart.’ And then—and then—”

Sheila saw his lip tremble. But he frowned and said impatiently: “What a shame it is to destroy such a beautiful story! You can have no idea of it—of its simplicity and tenderness—”

“But pray let us hear the rest of it,” said Mrs. Lorraine, gently.

“Well, the last scene, you know, is a small chamber, and the mother and her sick son are asleep. The Blessed Mary glides into the chamber and bends over the young man, and puts her hand lightly on his heart. Then she smiles and disappears. The unhappy mother has seen all this in a dream, and now she awakes, for the dogs are barking loudly. The mother goes over to the bed of her son, and he is dead, and the morning light touches his pale face. And then the mother folds her hands, and says—”

He rose hastily with a gesture of fretfulness, and walked over to the window at which Sheila sat, and looked out. She put her hand up to his; he took it.

“The next time I try to translate Heine,” he said, making it appear that he had broken off through vexation, “something strange will happen.”

“It is a beautiful story,” said Mrs. Lorraine, who had herself been crying a little bit in a covered way, “I wonder I have not seen a translation of it. Come, mamma, Lady Leveret said we were not to be after four.”

So they rose and left, and Sheila was alone with her husband, and still holding his hand. She looked up at him timidly, wondering, perhaps, in her simple way, as to whether she should not now pour out her heart to him and tell him all her griefs and fears and yearnings. He had obviously been deeply moved by the story he had told so roughly; surely now was a good opportunity of appealing to him, and begging for sympathy and compassion.

“Frank,” she said, and she rose and came close, and bent down her head to hide the color in her face.

“Well?” he answered, a trifle coldly.

“You won’t be vexed with me,” she said, in a low voice, and with her heart beginning to beat rapidly.

“Vexed with you; about what?” he said, abruptly.

Alas! all her hopes had fled. She shrank from the cold stare with which she knew he was regarding her. She felt it to be impossible that she should place before him those confidences with which she had approached him; and so, with a great effort, she merely said: “Are we to go to Lady Leveret’s?”

“Of course we are,” he said, “unless you would rather go to see some blind fiddler or beggar. It is really too bad of you, Sheila, to be so forgetful; what if Lady Leveret, for example, had come into that shop? It seems to me you are never satisfied with meeting the people you ought to meet, but that you must go and associate with all the wretched cripples and beggars you can find. You should remember you are a woman, and not a child—that people will talk about what you do if you go on in this mad way. Do you ever see Mrs. Kavanagh or her daughter do any of these things?”

Sheila had let go his hand; her eyes were still turned toward the ground. She had fancied that a little of that emotion that had been awakened in him by the story of the German mother and her son might warm his heart toward herself, and render it possible for her to talk to him frankly about all that she had been dimly thinking, and more definitely suffering. She was mistaken, that was all.

“I will try to do better, and please you,” she said; and then she went away.

CHAPTER XV.

A FRIEND IN NEED.

WAS it a delusion that had grown up in the girl’s mind, and held full possession of it—that she was in a world with which she had no sympathy, that she should never be able to find a home there, that the influences of it were gradually and surely stealing from her her husband’s love and confidence? Or was this longing to get away from the people and the circumstances that surrounded her but the unconscious promptings of an incipient jealousy? She did not question her own mind closely on these points. She only vaguely knew that she was miserable, and that she could not tell her husband of the weight that pressed on her heart.

Here, too, as they drove along to have tea with a certain Lady Leveret, who was one of Lavender’s especial patrons, and to whom he had introduced Mrs. Kavanagh and her daughter, Sheila felt that she was a stranger, an interloper, a “third wheel to the cart.” She scarcely spoke a word. She looked at the sea, but she had almost grown to regard that great plain of smooth water as a melancholy and monotonous thing—not the bright and boisterous sea of her youth, with its winding channels, its secret bays and rocks, its salt winds and rushing waves. She was disappointed with the perpetual wall of white cliff, where she had expected to see something of the black and rugged shore of the North. She had as yet made no acquaintance with the sea-life of the place; she did not know where the curers lived; whether they gave the fishermen credit and cheated them; whether the people about here made any use of the back of the dog-fish, or could, in hard seasons, cook any of the wild-fowl; what the ling and the cod and the skate fetched; where the wives and the daughters sat and spun and carded their wool; whether they knew how to make a good dish of cockles boiled in milk. She smiled to herself when she thought of asking Mrs. Lorraine about any such things; but she still cherished some vague hope that before she left Brighton she would have some little chance of getting near to the sea and learning a little of the sea-life down in the South.

And as they drove along the King’s Road on this afternoon she suddenly called out, “Look, Frank!”

On the steps of the Old Ship Hotel stood a small man with a brown face, a brown beard and a beaver hat, who was calmly smoking a wooden pipe, and looking at an old woman selling oranges in front of him.

“It is Mr. Ingram,” said Sheila.

“Which is Mr. Ingram?” asked Mrs. Lorraine, with considerable interest, for she had often heard Lavender speak of his friend. “Not that little man?”

“Yes,” said Lavender, coldly; he could have wished that Ingram had had some little more regard for appearances in so public a place as the main thoroughfare of Brighton.

“Won’t you stop and speak to him?” said Sheila, with great surprise.

“We are late already,” said her husband. “But if you would rather go back and speak to him than go on with us, you may.”

Sheila said nothing more; and so they drove on to the end of the Parade, where Lady Leveret held possession of a big white house with pillars, overlooking the broad street and the sea.

But next morning she said to him, “I suppose you will be riding with Mrs. Lorraine this morning?”

“I suppose so.”

“I should like to go and see Mr. Ingram, if he is still there,” she said.

“Ladies don’t generally call at hotels and ask to see gentlemen; but of course you don’t care for that.”

“I shall not go if you do not wish me.”

“Oh, nonsense. You may as well go. What is the use of professing to keep observances that you don’t understand? And it will be some amusement for you, for I dare say both of you will immediately go and ask some old cab-driver to have luncheon with you, or buy a nosegay of flowers for his horse.”

The permission was not very gracious, but Sheila accepted it, and very shortly after breakfast she changed her dress and went out. How pleasant it was to know that she was going to see her old friend, to whom she could talk freely! The morning seemed to know of her gladness, and to share in it, for there was a brisk Southerly breeze blowing fresh in from the sea, and the leaves were leaping white in the sunlight. There was no more sluggishness in the air, or the gray sky, or the leaden plain of the sea. Sheila knew that the blood was mantling in her cheeks; that her heart was full of joy; that her whole frame so tingled with life and spirit that, had she been in Borva, she would have challenged her deerhound to a race, and fled down the side of the hill with him to the small bay of white sand below the house. She did not pause for a minute when she reached the hotel. She went up the steps, opened the door, and entered the square hall. There was an odor of tobacco in the place, and several gentlemen standing about rather confused her, for she had to glance at them in looking for a waiter. Another minute would probably have found her a trifle embarrassed, but that, just at this crisis, she saw Ingram himself come out of a room, with a cigarette in his hand. He threw away the cigarette, and came forward to her, with amazement in his eyes.

“Where is Mr. Lavender? Has he gone into the smoking-room for me?” he asked.

“He is not here,” said Sheila. “I have come for you by myself.”

For a moment, too, Ingram felt the eyes of the men on him, but directly he said, with a fine air of carelessness, “Well, that is very good of you. Shall we go out for a stroll until your husband comes?”

So he opened the door and followed her outside into the fresh air and the roar of the waves.

“Well, Sheila,” he said, “this is very good of you, really; where is Mr. Lavender?”

“He generally rides with Mrs. Lorraine in the morning.”

“And what do you do?”

“I sit at the window.”

“Don’t you go boating?”

“No, I have not been in a boat. They do not care for it. And yesterday it was a letter to papa I was writing, and I could tell him nothing about the people here or the fishing.”

“But you could not in any case, Sheila. I suppose you would like to know what they pay for their lines, and how they dye their wool, and so on; but you would find the fishermen here don’t live in that way at all. They are all civilized, you know. They buy their clothing in the shops. They never eat any sort of seaweed or dye with it, either. However, I will tell you all about it by-and-by. At present I suppose you are returning to your hotel.”

A quick look of pain and disappointment passed over her face as she turned to him for a moment with something of entreaty in her eyes.

“I came to see you,” she said. “But perhaps you have an engagement. I do not wish to take up any of your time; if you please, I will go back alone to—”

“Now, Sheila,” he said, with a smile, and with the old friendly look she knew so well, “you must not talk like that to me. I won’t have it. You know I came down to Brighton because you asked me to come; and my time is altogether at your service.”

“And you have no engagement just now?” said Sheila, with her face brightening.

“No.”

“And you will take me down to the shore to see the boats and nets? Or could we go out and run along the coast for a few miles? It is a very good wind.”

“Oh, I should be very glad,” said Ingram slowly. “I should be delighted. But, you see, wouldn’t your husband think it—wouldn’t he you know—wouldn’t it seem just a little odd to him if you were to go away like that?”

“He is to go riding with Mrs. Lorraine,” said Sheila quite simply. “He does not want me.”

“Of course you told him you were coming to see—you were going to call at the Old Ship?”

“Yes. And I am sure he would not be surprised if I did not return for a long time.”

“Are you quite sure, Sheila?”

“Yes, I am quite sure.”

“Very well. Now I shall tell you what I am going to do with you. I shall first go and bribe some mercenary boatman to let us have one of those small boats committed to our own exclusive charge. I shall constitute you skipper and pilot of the craft, and hold you responsible for my safety. I shall smoke a pipe to prepare me for whatever may befall.”

“Oh, no,” said Sheila. “You must work very hard, and I will see whether you remember all that I taught you in the Lewis. And if we can have some long lines we might get some fish. Will they pay more than thirty shillings for their long lines in this country?”

“I don’t know,” said Ingram. “I believe most of the fishermen here live upon the shillings they get from the passers-by after a little conversation about the weather and their hard lot in life; so that one doesn’t talk to them more than one can help.”

“But why do they need the money? Are there no fish?”

“I don’t know that, either. I suppose there is some good fishing in the Winter, and sometimes in the Summer they get some big shoals of mackerel.”

“It was a letter I had last week from the sister of one of the men of the Nighean-dubh, and she will tell me that they have been very lucky all through the last season, and it was near six thousand ling they got.”

“But I suppose they are in debt to some curer up about Habost?”

“Oh, no; not at all. It is their own boat; it is not hired to them. And it is a very good boat whatever.”

That unlucky “whatever” had slipped out inadvertently: the moment she had uttered it she blushed and looked timidly toward her companion, fearing that he had noticed it. He had not. How could she have made such a blunder? she asked herself. She had been most particular about the avoidance of the word, even in the Lewis. The girl did not know that from the moment she had left the steps of the Old Ship in company with that good friend of hers she had unconsciously fallen into much of her old pronunciation and her old habit of speech; while Ingram, much more familiar with the Sheila of Borvapost and Loch Roag than with the Sheila of Notting Hill and Kensington Gardens did not perceive the difference, but was mightily pleased to hear her talk in any fashion whatsoever.

By fair means or foul, Ingram managed to secure a pretty little sailing vessel which lay at anchor out near the New Pier, and when the pecuniary negotiations were over, Sheila was invited to walk down over the loose stones of the beach and take command of the craft. The boatman was still very doubtful. When he had pulled them out to the boat, however, and put them on board, he speedily perceived that his handsome young lady not only knew everything that had to be done in the way of getting the small vessel ready, but had a very smart and business-like way of doing it. It was very obvious that her companion did not know half as much about the matter as she did; but he was obedient and watchful, and presently they were ready to start. The man put off in his boat to shore again, much relieved in mind, but not a little puzzled to understand where the young lady had picked up not merely her knowledge of boats, but the ready way in which she put her delicate hands to hard work, and the prompt and effectual fashion in which she accomplished it.

“Shall I belay away the jib or reef the upper hatchways?” Ingram called out to Sheila when they had fairly got under way.

She did not answer for a moment; she was still watching with a critical eye the manner in which the boat answered to her wishes; and then, when everything promised well and she was quite satisfied, she said, “If you will take my place for a moment and keep a good lookout, I will put on my gloves.”

She surrendered the tiller and the mainsail sheets into his care, and, with another glance ahead, pulled out her gloves.

“You did not use to fear the saltwater or the sun on your hands, Sheila,” said her companion.

“I do not now,” she said, “but Frank would be displeased to see my hands brown. He has himself such pretty hands.”

What Ingram thought about Frank Lavender’s delicate hands he was not going to say to his wife; and indeed he was called upon at this moment to let Sheila resume her post, which she did with an air of great satisfaction and content.

And so they ran lightly through the curling and dashing water on this brilliant day, caring little indeed for the great town that lay away to leeward, with its shining terraces surmounted by a faint cloud of smoke. Here all the roar of carriages and people was unheard; the only sound that accompanied their talk was the splashing of the waves at the prow, and the hissing and gurgling of the water along the boat. The South wind blew fresh and sweet around them, filling the broad white sails and fluttering the small pennon up there in the blue. It seemed strange to Sheila that she should be so much alone with so great a town close by—that under the boom she could catch a glimpse of the noisy Parade without hearing any of its noise. And there, away to windward, there was no mere trace of city life—only the great blue sea, with its waves flowing on toward them from out of the far horizon, and with here and there a pale ship just appearing on the line where the sky and ocean met.

“Well, Sheila, how do you like being on the sea again?” said Ingram, getting out his pipe.

“Oh, very well. But you must not smoke Mr. Ingram; you must attend to the boat.”

“Don’t you feel at home in her yet?” he asked.

“I am not afraid of her,” said Sheila, regarding the lines of the small craft with the eye of a shipbuilder, “but she is very narrow in the beam, and she carries too much sail for so small a thing. I suppose they have not any squalls on this coast, where you have no hills and no narrows to go through.”

“It doesn’t remind you of Lewis, does it?” he said, filling his pipe all the same.

“A little—out there it does,” she said, turning to the broad plain of the sea, “but it is not much that is in this country that is like the Lewis; sometimes I think that I shall be a stranger when I go back to the Lewis, and the people will scarcely know me, and everything will be changed.”

He looked at her for a second or two. Then he laid down his pipe, which had not been lit, and said to her gravely, “I want you to tell me, Sheila, why you have got into a habit lately of talking about many things, and especially about your home in the North, in that sad way. You did not do that when you came to London first; and yet it was then that you might have been struck and shocked by the difference. You had no home-sickness for a long time. But is it home-sickness, Sheila?”

How was she to tell him? For an instant she was on the point of giving him all her confidence; and then, somehow or other, it occurred to her that she would be wronging her husband in seeking such sympathy from a friend as she had been expecting, and expecting in vain, from him.

“Perhaps it is home-sickness,” she said, in a low voice, while she pretended to be busy tightening up the mainsail sheet. “I should like to see Borva again.”

“But you don’t want to live there all your life?” he said. “You know that would be unreasonable, Sheila, even if your husband could manage it; and I don’t suppose he can. Surely your papa does not expect you to go and live in Lewis always?”

“Oh, no,” she said, eagerly. “You must not think my papa wishes anything like that. It will be much less than that he was thinking of when he used to speak to Mr. Lavender about it. And I do not wish to live in the Lewis always; I have no dislike to London—none at all—only that—that—” And here she paused.

“Come, Sheila,” he said in the old paternal way to which she had been accustomed to yield up all her own wishes in the old days of their friendship, “I want you to be frank with me, and tell me what is the matter. I know there is something wrong; I have seen it for some time back. Now, you know I took the responsibility of your marriage on my shoulders, and I am responsible to you, and to your papa and myself for your comfort and happiness. Do you understand?”

She still hesitated, grateful in her inmost heart, but still doubtful as to what she should do.

“You look on me as an intermeddler,” he said with a smile.

“No, no,” she said; “you have always been our best friend.”

“But I have intermeddled, none the less. Don’t you remember when I told you that I was prepared to accept the consequences?”

It seemed so long a time since then!

“And once having to intermeddle, I can’t stop it, don’t you see? Now, Sheila, you’ll be a good little girl and do what I tell you. You’ll take the boat a long way out; we’ll put her head around, take down the sails, and let her tumble about and drift for a time, till you tell me all about your troubles, and then we’ll see what can be done.”

She obeyed in silence with her face grown grave enough in anticipation of the coming disclosures. She knew that the first plunge into them would be keenly painful to her, but there was a feeling at her heart that, this penance over, a great relief would be at hand. She trusted this man as she would have trusted her own father. She knew that there was nothing on earth he would not attempt if he fancied it would help her. And she knew, too, that having experienced so much of his great unselfishness and kindness and thoughtfulness, she was ready to obey him implicitly in anything that he could assure her was right for her to do.

How far away seemed the white cliffs now, and the faint green downs above them! Brighton, lying farther to the West, had become dim and yellow, and over it a cloud of smoke lay thick and brown in the sunlight. A mere streak showed the line of the King’s road and all its carriages and people; the beach beneath could just be made out by the white dots of the bathing-machines; the brown fishing-boats seemed to be close in shore; the two piers were foreshortened into small dusky masses marking the beginning of the sea. And then from these distant and faintly-defined objects out here to the side of the small white and pink boat, that lay lightly in the lapping water, stretched that great and moving network of waves, with here and there a sharp gleam of white foam curling over amid the dark blue-green.

Ingram took his seat by Sheila’s side, so that he should not have to look in her downcast face; and then with some little preliminary nervousness and hesitation, the girl told her story. She told it to sympathetic ears, and yet Ingram, having partly guessed how matters stood, and anxious, perhaps, to know whether much of her trouble might not be merely the result of fancies which could be reasoned and explained away, was careful to avoid anything like corroboration. He let her talk in her own simple and artless way: and the girl spoke to him, after a little while, with an earnestness which showed how deeply she felt her position. At the very outset she told him that her love for her husband had never altered for a moment—that all the prayers and desire of her heart were that they two might be to each other as she had at one time hoped they would be when he got to know her better.

She went over all the story of her coming to London, of her first experiences there, of the conviction that grew upon her that her husband was somehow disappointed with her, and was anxious now that she should conform to the ways and habits of the people with whom he associated. She spoke of her efforts to obey his wishes, and how heartsick she was with her failures, and of the dissatisfaction which he showed. She spoke of the people to whom he devoted his life, of the way in which he passed his time, and of the impossibility of her showing him, so long as he thus remained apart from her, the love she had in her heart for him, and the longing for sympathy which that love involved. And then she came to the question of Mrs. Lorraine; and here it seemed to Ingram she was trying at once to put her husband’s conduct in the most favorable light, and to blame herself for her unreasonableness. Mrs. Lorraine was a pleasant companion to him, she could talk cleverly and brightly, she was pretty, and she knew a large number of his friends. Sheila was anxious to show that it was the most natural thing in the world that her husband, finding her so out of communion with his ordinary surroundings, should make an especial friend of this graceful and fascinating woman. And if at times it hurt her to be left alone—but here the girl broke down somewhat, and Ingram pretended not to know that she was crying.

These were strange things to be told to a man, and they were difficult to answer. But out of these revelations—which rather took the form of a cry than of any distinct statement—he formed a notion of Sheila’s position sufficiently exact; and the more he looked at it the more alarmed and pained he grew, for he knew more of her than her husband did. He knew the latent force of character that underlay all her submissive gentleness. He knew the keen sense of pride her Highland birth had given her; and he feared what might happen if this sensitive and proud heart of hers were driven into rebellion by some possibly unintentional wrong. And this high-spirited, fearless, honor-loving girl—who was gentle and obedient, not through any timidity or limpness of character, but because she considered it her duty to be gentle and obedient—was to be cast aside and have her tenderest feelings outraged and wounded for the sake of an unscrupulous, shallow-brained woman of fashion, who was not fit to be Sheila’s waiting-maid. Ingram had never seen Mrs. Lorraine, but he had formed his own opinion of her. The opinion, based upon nothing, was wholly wrong, but it served to increase, if that were possible, his sympathy with Sheila, and his resolve to interfere on her behalf at whatever cost.

“Sheila,” he said, gravely putting his hand on her shoulder as if she were still the little girl who used to run wild with him about the Borva rocks, “you are a good woman.”

He added to himself that Lavender knew little of the value of the wife he had got, but he dared not say that to Sheila, who would suffer no imputation against her husband to be uttered in her presence, however true it might be, or however much she had cause to know it to be true.

“And, after all,” he said in a lighter voice, “I think I can do something to mend all this. I will say for Frank Lavender that he is a thoroughly good fellow at heart, and that when you appeal to him, and put things fairly before him, and show him what he ought to do, there is not a more honorable and straightforward man in the world. He has been forgetful, Sheila. He has been led away by these people, you know, and has not been aware of what you were suffering. When I put the matter before him, you will see it will be all right; and I hope to persuade him to give up this constant idling and take to his work, and have something to live for. I wish you and I together could get him to go away from London altogether—get him to take to serious landscape painting on some wild coast—the Galway coast, for example.”

“Why not the Lewis?” said Sheila, her heart turning to the North as naturally as the needle.

“Or the Lewis. And I should like you and him to live away from hotels and luxuries, and all such things; and he would work all day, and you would do the cooking in some small cottage you could rent, you know.”

“You make me so happy in thinking of that,” she said, with her eyes growing well again.

“And why should he not do so? There is nothing romantic or idyllic about it, but a good, wholesome, plain sort of life, that is likely to make an honest painter of him, and bring both of you some well-earned money. And you might have a boat like this.”

“We are drifting too far in,” said Sheila, suddenly rising. “Shall we go back now?”

“By all means,” he said; and so the small boat was put under canvas again, and was soon making way through the breezy water.

“Well, all this seems simple enough, doesn’t it?” said Ingram.

“Yes,” said the girl, with her face full of hope.

“And then, of course, when you are quite comfortable together, and making heaps of money, you can turn around and abuse me, and say I made all the misery to begin with.”

“Did we do so before when you were very kind to us?” she said in a low voice.

“Oh, but that was different. To interfere on behalf of two young folks who are in love with each other is dangerous, but to interfere between two people who are married—that is a certain quarrel. I wonder what you will say when you are scolding me, Sheila, and bidding me get out of the house? I have never heard you scold. Is it Gaelic or English you prefer?”

“I prefer whichever can say the nicest things to my very good friends, and tell them how grateful I am for their kindness to me.”

“Ah, well, we’ll see.”

When they got back to shore it was half-past one.

“You will come and have some luncheon with us?” said Sheila when they had gone up the steps and into the King’s road.

“Will that lady be there?”

“Mrs. Lorraine? Yes.”

“Then I’ll come some other time.”

“But why not come now?” said Sheila. “It is not necessary that you will see us only to speak about those things we have been talking over?”

“Oh, no, not at all. If you and Mr. Lavender were by yourselves, I should come at once.”

“And are you afraid of Mrs. Lorraine?” said Sheila, with a smile. “She is a very nice lady, indeed: you have no cause to dislike her.”

“But I don’t want to meet her, Sheila, that is all,” he said; and she knew well, by the precision of his manner, that there was no use trying to persuade him further.

He walked along to the hotel with her, meeting a considerable stream of fashionably-dressed folks on the way; and neither he nor she seemed to remember that his costume—a blue pilot jacket, not a little worn and soiled with the salt water, and a beaver hat that had seen a good deal of rough weather in the Highlands—was a good deal more comfortable than elegant. He said to her, as he left her at the hotel: “Would you mind telling Lavender I shall drop in at half-past three, and that I expect to see him in the coffee-room? I shan’t keep him five minutes.”

She looked at him for a moment, and he saw that she knew what this appointment meant, for her eyes were full of gladness and gratitude. He went away pleased at heart that she put so much trust in him. And in this case he should be able to reward that confidence, for Lavender was really a good sort of fellow, and would at once be sorry for the wrong he had unintentionally done, and be only too anxious to set it right. He ought to leave Brighton at once, and London, too. He ought to go away into the country or by the seaside, and begin working hard to earn money and self-respect at the same time; and then, in his friendly solitude, he would get to know something about Sheila’s character, and begin to perceive how much more valuable were these genuine qualities of heart and mind than any social graces such as might lighten up a dull drawing-room. Had Lavender yet learnt to know the worth of an honest woman’s perfect love and unquestioning devotion? Let these things be put before him, and he would go and do the right thing, as he had many a time done before, in obedience to the lecturing of his friend.

Ingram called at half-past three, and went into the coffee-room. There was no one in the long, large room, and he sat down at one of the small tables by the windows, from which a bit of lawn, the King’s road and the sea beyond were visible. He had scarcely taken his seat when Lavender came in.

“Halloo, Ingram! how are you?” he said in his freest and friendliest way. “Won’t you come up-stairs? Have you had lunch? Why did you go to the Ship?”

“I always go to the Ship,” he said. “No, thank you, I won’t go up-stairs.”

“You are a most unsociable sort of brute!” said Lavender frankly. “Will you take a glass of sherry?”

“No, thank you.”

“Will you have a game of billiards?”

“No, thank you. You don’t mean to say you would play billiards on such a day as this?”

“It is a fine day, isn’t it?” said. Lavender, turning carelessly to look at the sunlit road and the blue sea. “By the way, Sheila tells me you and she were out sailing this morning. It must have been very pleasant, especially for her; for she is mad about such things. What a curious girl she is, to be sure! Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t know what you mean by curious,” said Ingram, coldly.

“Well, you know, strange—odd—unlike other people in her ways and her fancies. Did I tell you about my aunt taking her to see some friends of hers at Norwood? No? Well, Sheila had got out of the house somehow (I suppose their talking did not interest her), and when they went in search of her they found her in the cemetery, crying like a child.”

“What about?”

“Why,” said Lavender, with a smile, “merely because so many people had died. She had never seen anything like that before; you know the small church-yards up in Lewis, with their inscriptions in Norwegian and Danish and German. I suppose the first sight of all the white stones at Norwood was too much for her.”

“Well, I don’t see much of a joke in that,” said Ingram.

“Who said there was any joke in it?” cried Lavender, impatiently. “I never knew such a cantankerous fellow as you are. You are always fancying I am finding fault with Sheila, and I never do anything of the kind. She is a very good girl indeed. I have every reason to be satisfied with the way our marriage has turned out.”

“Has she?”

The words were not important, but there was something in the tone in which they were spoken that suddenly checked Frank Lavender’s careless flow of speech. He looked at Ingram for a moment with some surprise, and then he said, “What do you mean?”

“Well, I will tell you what I mean,” said Ingram, slowly. “It is an awkward thing for a man to interfere between husband and wife, I am aware—he gets something else than thanks for his pains, ordinarily—but sometimes it has to be done, thanks or kicks. Now, you know, Lavender, I had a good deal to do with helping forward your marriage in the North; and I don’t remind you of that to claim anything in the way of consideration, but to explain why I think I am called on to speak to you now.”

Lavender was at once a little frightened and a little irritated. He half guessed what might be coming, from the slow and precise manner in which Ingram talked. That form of speech had vexed him many a time before, for he would rather have had any amount of wild contention and bandying about of reproaches than the calm, unimpassioned and sententious setting forth of his shortcomings to which this sallow little man was, perhaps, too much addicted.

“I suppose Sheila has been complaining to you, then?” said Lavender, hotly.

“You may suppose what absurdities you like,” said Ingram, quietly; “but it would be a good deal better if you would listen to me patiently, and deal in a common sense fashion with what I have got to say. It is nothing very desperate. Nothing has happened that is not of easy remedy, while the remedy would leave you and her in a much better position, both as regards your own estimation of yourselves and the opinion of your friends.”

“You are a little roundabout, Ingram,” said Lavender, “and ornate. But I suppose all lectures begin so. Go on.”

Ingram laughed: “If I am too formal it is because I don’t want to make mischief by any exaggeration. Look here! A long time before you were married I warned you that Sheila had very keen and sensitive notions about the duties that people ought to perform, about the dignity of labor, about the proper occupations of a man, and so forth. These notions you may regard as romantic and absurd, if you like, but you might as well try to change the color of her eyes as attempt to alter any of her beliefs in that direction.”

“And she thinks that I am idle and indolent because I don’t care what a washerwoman pays for her candles?” said Lavender, with impetuous contempt. “Well, be it so. She is welcome to her opinion. But if she is grieved at heart because I can’t make hob-nailed boots, it seems to me that she might as well come and complain to myself, instead of going and detailing her wrongs to a third person, and calling for his sympathy in the character of an injured wife.”

For an instant the dark eyes of the man opposite him blazed with a quick fire, for a sneer at Sheila was worse than an insult to himself; but he kept quite calm, and said, “That, unfortunately, is not what is troubling her.”

Lavender rose abruptly, took a turn up and down the empty room, and said, “If there is anything the matter, I prefer to hear it from herself. It is not respectful to me that she should call in a third person to humor her whims and fancies.”

“Whims and fancies!” said Ingram, with that dark light returning to his eyes. “Do you know what you are talking about? Do you know that while you are living on the charity of a woman you despise, and dawdling about the skirts of a woman who laughs at you, you are breaking the heart of a girl who has not her equal in England? Whims and fancies! Good God, I wonder how she ever could have—”

He stopped, but the mischief was done. These were not prudent words to come from a man who wished to step in as a mediator between husband and wife; but Ingram’s blaze of wrath, kindled by what he considered the insufferable insolence of Lavender in thus speaking of Sheila, had swept all notions of prudence before it. Lavender, indeed, was much cooler than he was, and said, with an affectation of carelessness, “I am sorry you should vex yourself so much about Sheila. One would think you had had the ambition yourself, at some time or other, to play the part of husband to her; and doubtless then you would have made sure that all her idle fancies were gratified. As it is, I was about to relieve you from the trouble of further explanation by saying that I am quite competent to manage my own affairs, and that if Sheila has any complaint to make she must make it to me.”

Ingram rose, and was silent for a moment.

“Lavender,” he said, “it does not matter much whether you and I quarrel—I was prepared for that, in any case—but I ask you to give Sheila a chance of telling you what I had intended to tell you.”

“Indeed, I shall do nothing of the sort. I never invite confidence. When she wishes to tell me anything she knows I am ready to listen. But I am quite satisfied with the position of affairs as they are at present.”

“God help you, then!” said his friend, and went away, scarcely daring to confess to himself how dark the future looked.