Now the question was whether she could get through the arch. She pushed her basket through first, and then her own head; and she saw what made her lie still for some little time. The arch opened upon a cove, deep and narrow, between projecting rocks. A small raft rose and fell on the surface of the water; and on the raft stood a man, steading himself with his legs wide apart, while he held a rope with both hands, and gazed intently upwards. The raft was in a manner anchored; tied with ropes to masses of rock on each side of the cove; but it still pitched so much that Lady Carse thought the situation of the man very perilous: and she, therefore, made no noise, lest she should startle him. She little dreamed how safe was his situation compared with that of the comrade he was watching.

In a short time the man changed his occupation. He relaxed his hold of the rope, fastened it to a corner of the raft, gazed about him like a man of leisure, and then once more looked upwards, holding out his arms as if to catch something good. And immediately a shower of sea-birds began to fall: now one, now three, now one again: down they came, head foremost, dead as a stone. Two fell into the water; but he fished them up with a stick with a noose of hair at the end, and flung them on the heap in the middle of the raft.

When the shower began to slacken, Lady Carse thought it the time to make herself heard. She put her head and shoulders through the low arch, and asked the man if he thought she could get through. His start at the voice, his bewildered look down the face of the rock, and the scared expression of his countenance when he discovered the face that peeped out at the bottom, amused Lady Carse extremely. She did not remember how unlike her fair complexion and her hair were to those of the women of these islands, nor that a stranger was in this place more rare than a ghost. And as for the man—what could he suppose but that the handsome face that he saw peeping out, laughing, from the base of the precipice, was that of some rock spirit, sent perhaps for mischief? However, in course of time the parties came to an explanation; that is, of all that the lady said, the man caught one word—Macdonald; and he saw that she had a basket of cockles, and knew the basket to be of island manufacture. Moreover he found, when he ventured to help her out, that her hand was of flesh and blood, though he had never before seen one so slender and white.

When she stood upright on the margin of the creek, what a scene it was! Clear as the undulating waters were, no bottom was visible. Their darkness and depth sent a chill through her frame. Overhead the projecting rocks nearly shut out the sky, while the little strip that remained was darkened by a cloud of fluttering and screaming sea-birds. The cause of their commotion was pointed out to her. A man, whom she could scarcely have distinguished but for the red cap on his head, was on the face of the precipice; now appearing still, now moving, she could not tell how, for the rock appeared to her as smooth up there as the wall of a house. But it was not so—there were ledges; and on one of these he stood, plundering the nests of the sea fowl, which were screaming round his head.

"Rollo?" the lady asked, as she turned away, her brain reeling at the sight she had seen.

"Rollo," replied the man, now entirely satisfied. No spirit would want to be told who anyone was.

And now Rollo was to descend. His comrade again stepped upon the raft, pushed out to the middle of the channel, secured the raft, grasped the rope, and steadied himself. Lady Carse thought she could not look; but she glanced up now and then, when there was a call from above, or a question from below, or when there was a fling of the rope or a pause in the proceedings. When Rollo at last slid down upon the raft, hauled it to shore, and jumped on the rock beside her, he was as careless as a hedger coming home to breakfast, while she was trembling in every limb.

And Rollo was thinking more of his breakfast than of the way he had earned it, or of the presence of a stranger. He was a stout, and now hungry, lad of eighteen, to whom any precipice was no more startling than a ladder is to a builder. And, as his mother had taught him to speak English, and he had on that account been employed to communicate with such strangers as had now and then come to the island during Macdonald's absence, he was little embarrassed by the apparition of the lady. He was chiefly occupied with his pouchful of eggs, there being more than he had expected to find so late in the season. It was all very well, he said, for their provision to-day; but it was a sign that somebody knew this cove as well as themselves, and that it was no longer a property to himself and his comrade.

"How so?" inquired the lady. "How can you possibly tell by the eggs that anyone has been here?"

Rollo glanced at his comrade, in a sort of droll assurance that it could be no voice from the grave, no ghostly inhabitant of a cave, who could require to have such a matter explained. He then condescendingly told her that when the eggs of the eider-duck are taken she lays more; and this twice over, before giving up in despair. Of course, this puts off the season of hatching; and when, therefore, eggs are found fresh so late in the season, it is pretty plain that someone has been there to take those earlier laid. Rollo seemed pleased that the lady could comprehend this when it was explained to her. He gave her an encouraging nod, and began to scramble onward over the rocks, his companion being already some paces in advance of him. The lady followed with her basket as well as she could; but she soon found herself alone, and in not the most amiable mood at being thus neglected. She had not yet learned that she was in a place where women are accustomed to shift for themselves, and precedence is not thought of, except by the fireside, with aged people or a minister of the Gospel in presence.

She smoothed her brow, however, when she regained sight of the young men. They were on their knees in the entrance of a cavern, carefully managing a smouldering peat so as to obtain a fire. It was ticklish work; for the peat had been left to itself rather too long; and chips and shavings were things never seen in these parts. A wisp of dry grass, or a few fibres of heather, were made to serve instead; and it was not easy to create with these heat enough to kindle fresh peats. At last, however, it was done; and eggs were poked in, here and there, to roast. The cockles must be roasted, too; and two or three little mouse-coloured birds, the young of the eider-duck, were broiled as soon as plucked. So much for the eating. As for the drinking, there was nothing but pure whisky, unless the lady could drink sea-water. Thirsty as she was she thought of the drip in the cave; but, besides that it was far to go, and scanty when obtained, she remembered all the slime she had seen, and she did not know whence that drip came. So she gulped down two or three mouthfuls of whisky, and was surprised to find how little she disliked it, and how well it agreed with her after her walk.

As soon as Rollo could attend to her, she told him where she had spent the night—how she had resolved to live with his mother, and in sight of the harbour—and how she wanted two or more rooms built for her at the end of the widow's cottage, unless, indeed, she could get a boat built instead, to take her over to the main, for which she would engage to pay hereafter whatever should be asked. Rollo told his companion this; and they both laughed so at the idea of the boat, that the lady rose in great anger, and walked away. Rollo attended her, and pointed to his raft, saying that there was no other such craft as even that in the island; and people did not think of boats, even in their dreams, though he could fancy that any lady in the south might, for he had heard that boats were common in the south. But, he went on to say, if she could not have a boat, she might have a house.

"Will you help to build it?" asked the lady. "Will your companion—will all the people you know—help me to build it?"

"Why, yes," Rollo replied. "We shall have to build some sort of a cottage for the minister that is coming—for the minister and his wife; and we may as well—"

"Minister! Is there a minister coming?" cried the lady.

"O thank God, whose servant he is! Thank God for sending me deliverance, as He surely will by these means!" She had sunk on her knees. Rollo patted her on the shoulder and said the folk were certainly coming. What to make of Rollo she did not know. He treated her as if she were a child. He used a coaxing way of talking, explained to her the plainest things before her eyes, and patted her on the shoulder. She drew away, looking very haughtily at him, but he only nodded.

"Why was I not told before that the minister and his wife were coming? Macdonald did not tell me. Your mother did not tell me."

"They do not know it yet. They seldom know things till I tell them; and I did not want to be kept at home to build a house till I had got some business of my own done."

He would not tell how he had obtained his information; but explained that it was the custom for a minister to live for some time on each of the outlying islands, where there were too few people to retain a constant pastor. This island was too little inhabited to have had a minister on its shores since the chapel had gone to ruin, a hundred years before—but the time was at hand at last. There had been a disappointment in some arrangements in the nearest neighbour islet; and Mr Ruthven and his wife were appointed to reside here for a year or more, as might appear desirable. Rollo considered this great news. Children and betrothed persons would be brought hither to be baptised and married—arriving perhaps more than once in the course of the year; and it would be strange if the minister were not, in that time, to be sent for in a boat to bury somebody. Or, perhaps, a funeral or two might come to the old chapel. Some traffic there must be; and that would make it a great year for Rollo. And, to begin with, there would be the house to build; and he might be sent for materials. He should like that, though he did not much fancy the trouble of the building.

After a moment's thought the lady asked him if he could not keep the secret of the minister's coming till the last possible hour. She would reward him well if he would get the house built as for her. Seeing how precious was the opportunity, she gave Rollo her confidence, showed him how it would tend to satisfy Macdonald if she appeared to be settling herself quietly in the island; whereas, if he knew of the approach of vessels with strangers, he would probably imprison her, or carry her away to some yet wilder and more remote speck in the ocean. Rollo saw something of her reasons, and said patronisingly, "Why, you talk like an island woman now. You might almost have lived here, by the way you understand things."

Yet better did he apprehend her promises of vast rewards, if he would do exactly as she wished. There was an air about her which enabled him to fancy her some queen or other powerful personage; and as it happened to suit him to keep the secret till the last moment, he promised, for himself and his comrade, to be discreet, and obey orders.

This settled, the lady turned homewards, with a basket full of eggs, and fish, and young birds, and news for the widow that her son was safe, and not far off, and about to come home to try his hand at building a house.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

THE WAITING OF THE WISE.

The house proceeded well. Macdonald had no express orders about it; but he had express orders to keep Lady Carse on the island, and, if possible, in a quiet and orderly state of manners. When he saw how completely engrossed she was in the building of this dwelling, and what a close friendship she appeared to have formed with Annie Fleming, he believed that she was a woman of a giddy mind and strong self-will, who might be managed by humouring. If he could assist her in providing herself with a succession of new objects, he hoped that she might be kept from mischief and misery, as a child is by a change of toys. He would try this method, and trust to his chief's repaying him any expenses incurred for the strange lady's sake. So he granted the use of his ponies and his people,—now a man or two,—and now their wives, to bring stones and earth and turf, and to twist heather bands. Once or twice he came himself, and lent a strong hand to raise a corner-stone, and help to lay the hearthstone. The house consisted of two rooms, divided by a passage. If Lady Carse had chosen to admit the idea of remaining after the arrival of the Ruthvens, she would have added a third room; but she had resolved that she would leave the island in the vessel which brought them, or in the next that their arrival would bring: and she would not dwell for an instant on any doubt of accomplishing her purpose.

So the thick walls rose, and the low roof was on, and the thatch well bound down, and secured moreover with heavy stones, before the autumn storms arrived. And before the hard rains came down, all Macdonald's ponies were one evening seen approaching in a string, laden with peat—a present to the lady. In the course of the day there was stacked, at the end of her cottage, enough to last for some months. When the widow came out to see it and wish her joy—for a good stack of well dried peat was the richest of all possessions in that region—the lady smiled as cheerfully as Annie; not at the peat, however, but at the thought that she should see little or none of it burn. She intended to dispose of her winter evenings far otherwise.

As for the widow, she was thankful now that she had never thought her situation dreary. If, in her former solitude, when her boy was absent, she had murmured at that solitude, her present feelings would have been a rebuke to her. She was not happy now; so far from it, that her former life appeared, in comparison with it, as happy as she could desire. Perhaps it had been too peaceful, she thought, and she might need some exercise of patience. It was a great advantage, certainly, for both herself and Rollo to hear the thing; the lady could tell of ways of living in other places, and to learn such a variety of knowledge from a person so much better informed than themselves. But then this knowledge appeared to be all so unsanctified! It did not make the poor lady herself strong in heart and peaceful in spirit. It was wonderful, and very stirring to the mind, to learn how wise people were who lived in cities and what great ability was required to conduct the affairs of life where men were gathered together in numbers; but then these wonders did not seem to impress those who lived in the midst of them. There was no sign that they were watching and praising God's hand working among the faculties of men, as more retired people do in much meaner things— in the warmth which the eider-duck gives to her eggs by wrapping them in down from her own breast, and the punctuality with which the herring shoals pass by in May and October, making the sea glitter with life and light as they go. She feared that when people lived out of sight of green pastures and still waters—and she looked at the moment upon the down on which the goats were browsing, and the fresh water pool, where the dragon fly hovered for a few hot days in summer—when men lived out of sight of green pastures and still waters, she feared that they became perplexed in a sort of Babel, where the call of the shepherd was too gentle to be heard. At least, it appeared thus from the effect upon Rollo of the lady's conversation. She had always feared for him the effect of seeing the world, as she remembered the world—of his seeing it before he had better learned to see God everywhere, and to be humble accordingly—and the conversation he now heard was to him much like being on the mainland, and even in a town. It had not made him more humble, or more kind, or more helpful; except, indeed, to the lady— there was nothing he would not do to help her.

And here Annie sighed and smiled at once, as the thought struck her that while she was mourning over other people's corruption she was herself not untouched. She detected herself admitting some dislike to the lady because she so occupied Rollo that he had left off supplying his mother with fishes' livers and seal-fat for oil. The best season had passed:— she had spoken to him several times not to lose the six-weeks-old seals; but he had not attended to it; and now her stock of oil was very low; and the long winter nights were before her. She must speak to Macdonald to procure her some oil. But very strictly must she speak to herself about this new trouble of discontent. Did she not know that He who appointed her dwelling-place on that height, and who marked her for her life's task by that touch on her heart-strings the night she saw her husband drown, would supply the means? If her light was to be set on the hill for men to see from the tossing billows and be saved, it would be taken care of that, as of old, the widow's cruise of oil did not fail. What she had to look to was that the lamp of her soul did not grow dim and go out. How lately was she thanking God for the new opportunities afforded her by the arrival of this stranger! and now she was shrinking from these very opportunities, and finding fault with everybody before herself!

There was some little truth in this, and it was very natural; for this kind of trial was new to Annie. But she never yielded to it again—not even when the trial was such as few would have been able to bear.

As the dark blustering month of November advanced, the widow's rheumatism came on more severely than ever before. She had given up her bed to Lady Carse, and when Rollo was at home, slept on the floor, on some ashes covered with a blanket; the only materials for a bed which she had been able to command, as Rollo had been too busy to get seal-skins, or go to any distance for heather while it was soft. She had caught cold repeatedly, and was likely to have a bad winter with her rheumatism, however soon the lady might get into her own house and yield up the widow's bed. One gusty afternoon, when the wet fogs were driving past, Annie waited long for the lady and Rollo to come in to the evening meal. She could not think what detained them next door in such weather; for it was no weather for working—besides that, it was getting dark. She could not, with her stiff and painful limbs, go out of doors; and when she perceived that her smallest lamp was gone, she satisfied herself that they had some particular work to finish for which they needed light, and would come in when it was done.

But it grew dark, and the wind continued to rise, and they did not appear. They did not mean to appear this night. Macdonald had been informed, at last, from his chief, of the intended arrival of the minister and his lady; had been very angry at the long concealment of the news, and would now, Lady Carse apprehended, keep a careful watch over her, and probably confine her till the expected boats had come and gone. So she and her accomplices at once repaired to the cave—a cave which Rollo was sure none of Macdonald's people had discovered—where for some time past Rollo and his comrade had stored dried fish, such small parcels of oatmeal as they could obtain, and plenty of peat for fuel. There they were now sitting at supper over a good fire, kindled in a deep sand, which would afford a warm and soft bed—they were at supper while the widow was waiting for them in pain and anxiety—and, at last, in cold and dreariness.

When the fire was low, she rose painfully from her seat, to feed it, and to trim and light the lamp. Alas! there were no peats in the corner. She knew there were plenty at mid-day: but Lady Carse had, at the last moment, bethought herself that the fuel in the cave might be damp, and had carried off those in the corner, desiring Rollo to bring in more from the stack to dry; and this Rollo had neglected to do. The fire would be quite out in an hour. Annie saw that she must attempt to get out to the stack. She did attempt it; but the stormy blast and the thick cold drizzle so drove against her that she could not stand it, and could only with difficulty shut the door. She turned to her lamp, to light it while the fire was yet alive. There was but little oil in it. She reached out her hand for the oil can. It was not there. Rollo had considered that the lady would want light in the cave; Lady Carse had considered that the widow might for one night make a good fire serve her purposes; and so the oil can was gone to the same place with the peats.

Annie sank down on her seat, almost subdued. Not quite subdued, however, even by this threat of the baffling of the great object of her life. Not quite subdued, for her heart and her ear were yet open to the voices of nature.

The scream of a sea-bird reached her, as the creature was swept by on the blast.

"That is for me," she said to herself, the blood returning to her stricken heart and pale cheek. "How God sends His creatures to teach us at the moment when we need His voice! I have seen the cormorant sitting in his hole in wintry weather,—sitting there for days together, hungry and cold, trying now and then to get out, and driven back by such a blast as he cannot meet,—by such a blast as this. And then he sits on patiently, and moves no more till the wind lulls and the sky clears. And if his wing is weak at first it soon strengthens. The blast drives me back to-night; but I, who have thoughts to rest upon, may well bear what a winged creature can. That screamer was sent to me. I wonder what has become of it. I hope it is not swept quite away."

But it would not do to sit thinking while the fire was just out, and the lamp likely to burn only an hour. She lighted the lamp with difficulty,—with a beating heart and trembling hands, lest the last available spark should go out first. But the wick caught; and the lamp was placed in the window, sending, as it seemed to Annie, a gleam through the night of her own mind, as well as through that of the stormy air. It quickened her invention and her hopes.

"There is an hour yet," thought she. "I am sure it will burn an hour; and something may be sent by that time."

She took off her cotton handkerchief, tore off the hem, and ravelled out the cotton as quickly as she could, and twisted it into a wick which she thought she could fix by a skewer across a tin cup from which Rollo drank his whisky when at home. She brought down from the chimney and looked over rapidly all the oily parts of the fish, and every fatty portion of the dried meat hung up in the smoke for winter use; and these she made a desperate endeavour to melt in the flames of her lamp. She wrung out a few drops,—barely enough to soak her wick. This would not burn five minutes. She persevered to the last moment,—saying to herself, "Not once for these seventeen years since I saw my husband drown, has there been a dark night between this window and the sea. Not once has my spark been put out: and I will not think it now. God can kindle fire where He pleases. I have heard tell that people in foreign countries have seen a lightning-shaft dart down into a forest, and make a tree blaze up like a torch. God has His own ways."

All the while her hands wrought so busily that she scarcely felt their aching in the cold of the night. But now her new wick was wanted, for the old was going out. It blazed up, but she saw it must soon be gone. She broke up her old stool, all shattered as it was already. Some splinters she stuck one after another into the lamp; and then she burned the larger pieces in the hearth, saying to herself incessantly, as if for support, "God has His own ways."

But the rising and falling flame became more and more uncertain; and at last, very suddenly, it went quite out. There was not, in another minute, a spark left.

For a while there was silence in the cottage, now dark for the first time since Annie was a widow. She crept to her cold bed; and there, under cover of the strange darkness she shed a few tears. But soon she said to herself, "God has His own ways of kindling our spirits as well as the flame of a lamp. Perhaps by humbling me, or by changing my duty when I became too fond of it, He may warm my heart to new trust in Him. His will be done! But He will let me pray that there may be none in the harbour this night who may drown, or be buffeted in the storm because He is pleased to darken my light."

Before she had quite calmed her heart with this prayer, there was noise at a little distance, and red gleams on the fitful mist which drove past the window; and then followed a loud knocking at the door.

It was Macdonald with his people, come to see whether the lady was safe. He looked perplexed and uneasy when Annie told him that she could not think that the lady could be otherwise than safe, now she knew the places about the island so well, and was so fearless. It often happened that she was absent for a night and day; and no doubt the storm had this night detained her and her companions in some sheltered place,—some place where, she had reason to believe, they had fire and light. As for herself, when Annie saw the torch that Macdonald carried, her eyes glistened in the blaze, and she said once more in the depth of her mind, "Surely God has His own ways."

Macdonald was very wrathful when he learned by questioning Annie how it was that her house was dark. As he hastily kindled the peats he brought in from the stack, he muttered that it seemed to have pleased God to afflict the island again with a witch, after all the pains that were taken twenty years before, as he well remembered, to clear the place of one. This woman must be a witch—

"Nay," said Annie. "I take her to be sent to us for good. Let us wait and learn."

"Good? What good?"

"It is through her, you see, that I find how kind a neighbour you are, at need," replied Annie; not adding aloud what she was thinking of,—how this night had proved that God brings help at the least likely moments.

"She is a witch," Macdonald persisted. "No power short of that could have quenched your lamp, and drawn away your only son from honouring his parent to be a slave to a stranger."

As Annie could not at the moment speak, Macdonald went on raising a flame meantime by flapping the end of his plaid.

"It is the chapel, I know. Things have never gone well for any length of time here since the chapel fell completely down, and the bleat of the kid came out from where the psalm ought to sound. We must apply ourselves to build up the chapel; and, as there is a minister coming, we may hope to be released from witches and every kind of curse."

"There will be little room for any kind of curse," thought Annie, "when the minister has taught us to 'be kindly affectioned one to another,' and not to make our little island more stormy with passions than it ever is with tempests of wind and hail."

"There, now, there is a good fire for you," said Macdonald, rising from his knees; "and I won't ask you. Annie, what was in your mind as the blaze made your eyes shine. I won't ask you, because you might tell me that I am in need of the minister, to make me merciful to a banished lady. Ah, your smile shows that that is what you were thinking of. But I can tell you this: she is a wicked woman. Her father committed murder, and she is quite able and willing to do the same thing. So I must go and find her, and take care that her foot is set in no boat but mine."

"Yours?"

"Yes. I must carry her out of the way of all boats but mine. This island was chosen for such a purpose, and now—"

"And now," said Annie, "if the lady is afflicted with such hardness of heart, is it not cruel to take her away from God's word and worship, just when there is a minister coming? Oh, Macdonald! what would you do to one who should carry away your poor sick little Malcolm to Saint Kilda, just when your watching eye caught sight of an eastward sail, and you knew it was the physician coming; sent, moreover, for Malcolm's sake? What would you think then, Macdonald?"

"I should think that if Sir Alexander was in it there could be nothing done, and there ought to be nothing said. And Sir Alexander is in this, so I must go."

While Macdonald and his people were beating about among the caves, as morning drew on, Lady Carse and Rollo slipped up to the house, partly to secure a few more comforts that they had a mind for, and partly to obtain a wide view over the sea, and a certainty whether any boats were in sight.

"Have you brought up my oil can, Rollo?" asked his mother. "If not, you must go for it, and never again touch it without my leave."

"I took it," said Lady Carse; "and I cannot spare it."

"It cannot be spared from this room, my lady. It never left this room before but by my order, and it never must again."

"It shall never leave the place where it now is," declared Lady Carse, reddening. "I threw myself on your hospitality, and you grudge me light in the night. You, who are housed in a cottage of your own, with a fire, and everything comfortable about you—that is, every comfort that a poor woman like you knows how to value. You think yourself very religious, I am aware, and I rather believe you think yourself charitable, too; and you grudge me your oil can, when there is no one thing on earth you can do for me but lend it."

"Your way of thinking is natural, my lady, till you better know me and my duty. But to-day I must say that the oil can is mine, and I cannot lend it. You will please desire Rollo to bring it to me."

"I know well enough about you and your duty, as you call it. I know your particularity about a fancy of your own. I know well enough how obstinate you are about it, and how selfish, that you would sacrifice me to your whim about your duty, and your husband, and all that set of notions. And I know more. I know what it is to have a husband, and that you ought to be thankful that yours was gone before he could play the tyrant over you. You pretend to speak with authority because this cottage is yours, and your precious oil can, and your rotten old bedstead. But, besides that, I can teach you many things. You may be assured I can pay you for more oil than I shall burn to the end of my days, and for more sleeps than I hope ever to have on your old bed. You need not fear but that I shall pay for everything—pay more money than you ever saw in your life."

"Money will not do, madam. I must have my oil can. Rollo will fetch it. And you will lie down, my lady—lie down and rest on my old bed, without thinking of money, or of anything but ease to your head and your weary heart. Lie down in safety here, madam, for your head and your heart are aching sadly."

"What do you know about my head and heart aching?"

"By more signs than one. When anyone is hunted like the deer upon the hills—"

Lady Carse groaned.

"That is only for a while, however," said Annie, tenderly. "When there is peace of mind, there is no one to hunt us—no one to hurt us. We abide here or anywhere; for the shadow of the Almighty is everywhere. No one can hunt us from it, nor hurt us within it. And I assure you, my lady, this is the place of all places for peace of mind."

"I hurt you just now, however," said the lady; "and I left you little peace of mind last night."

"If so, it must be my own fault," said Annie, cheerfully. "But never mind that. I never have any troubles now hardly; and you, madam, have so many, and such sad ones."

"That is true," said Lady Carse, as burning tears forced their way. "You never knew—you cannot conceive—such misery as mine."

Annie kissed the hand which was wet with those scalding tears, and laid her own hand on the head which was shaken on the pillow with sobs.

After a time, the lady murmured out, "This seems very childish: but it is so long—so long since anyone—since I met with any tenderness—any affection from anyone!"

"Is that it?" said the widow, cheerfully. "Well—this is a poor place enough; and we are no companions for anybody beyond ourselves: but what you speak of is ours to give. That you may always depend on here."

"In spite of anything I may say or do? You see how hasty I am at times. Will you love me and caress me, through anything I may say or do?"

"No doubt," replied Annie, smiling. "It will be the happiest way if you constrain us to love and cherish you as your due. But if not, these are charities that God has put into every hand that is reached out to Him, that the very humblest and poorest may have the best of alms to give."

"Alms!" sighed the lady. She shook off the kind hand that was upon her aching brow, for the thought struck upon her heart that she was a destitute beggar for those smallest offices of kindness and courtesy which she had not affections or temper to reciprocate or claim.



CHAPTER NINE.

THE COVE.

Rollo brought word that Macdonald and his people had left the eastern caves, and were now exploring the large northern one called Asdrafil. It was time the lady was returning to her hiding place.

"O dear!" exclaimed she. "May I not rest under a roof for one night? Will Macdonald come here again so soon?"

The widow had little doubt he would. He would be popping in at all times of the day or night till he could learn where his prisoner was. She could not advise the lady to stay here, if she wished to remain on the island till the minister came.

"I must," said Lady Carse. "But I dread that cave. I hate it, with its echoes that startle one every moment, and the rough walls that look so strangely in the red light of the fire. I hate it. But," she continued impetuously, "no matter! I hate this place" (looking round with disgust). "I hate every place that I ever was in. I wish I was dead. I wish I had never been born. Now don't look at me so piteously. I won't be pitied. I can't bear to be pitied: and do you think I will let you pity me? No, indeed, I may have my own troubles. God knows I have troubles enough. But I would not change places with you—no, not for all else that God or man could give me. Now what are you smiling at? Woman, do you mean to insult my misfortunes? I am brought low indeed, if I am to be smiled at by a hag in a desert—I who once—O! I see; you don't choose to yield me the small respect of listening to what I say."

Annie was now looking round her cottage to see what she could send down to render the lady more comfortable in her retreat. She tried to absorb her own attention in this business till Lady Carse should have exhausted her anger and become silent. But Lady Carse once again seized the oil can.

"Pardon me, madam," said Annie, "I cannot spare that, as you know. Rollo is carrying some things that I hope may make you comfortable. If you see anything else that you wish for, you shall have it—anything but my lamp and my oil."

"The oil is the only thing I want; and a small matter it is for me, who had dozens of wax-lights burning in my house at Edinburgh, and will have dozens more before I die."

"Your fire must serve you, madam. I give you what I have to bestow. My light is not mine to give: it belongs to wanderers on the sea. You cannot think, madam, of taking what belongs, as I may say, neither to you nor me."

Lady Carse had that in her countenance at this moment which alarmed the widow for her light; and she therefore desired her son, with authority, to relieve the lady of the oil can, and trim the lamp ready for night.

Lady Carse, setting her teeth, and looking as malicious as an ill-bred cur, said that if the light belonged to nobody here nobody else should have the benefit of it; and attempted to empty the oil upon the hearth. This was more than Rollo was disposed to permit. He seized her arm with no gentle grasp, and saved all the oil but a few drops, which blazed amongst the peats. He moreover told the lady, with an air of superiority, that he had almost begun to think she had as much wit as the islanders; but that he now saw his mistake; and she must manage her own affairs. He should stay with his mother to-night.

It was his mother who, rebuking his incivility, desired him to attend upon the lady. It was his mother who, when Lady Carse burst away from them and said she would be followed by nobody, awoke in Rollo something of the feeling which she herself entertained.

"Carry down these things," she said. "It is too true; as she says, that every place is hateful to her; and that is the more reason why we should do what we can to make some comfort in the place she is in."

"But she says such things to you, mother! I don't want to hear any more such things."

"When people are in torment, Rollo, they do not know what they say. And she has much to torment her, poor lady! Now go; and let us try to hide her from Macdonald. If she and the minister can have speech of each other, I trust she may become more settled in mind. You know God has made His creatures to differ one from another. There are some that sit all the more still in storms; and there are others that are sadly bewildered in tempests: but, if one ray of God's sun is sent to them, it is like a charm. They stop and watch it; and when it spreads about them, it seems to change their nature: they lie down and bask in it, and find content. It may be so with this lady if the minister gives her a glimpse of light from above."

"She shall not be carried off, if David and I can hide her," declared Rollo. "One of us must watch the Macdonalds, while the other entertains the lady."

"While she entertains you, you mean," said Annie, smiling. "She has many wonderful things to tell to such as we are."

"Not more than we have to tell her. Why, mother, she knows no more—"

"Well, well," said the mother, smiling; "you cannot do wrong in amusing her to the best of your ability, till she can see the minister, and hear better things. So go, my son."

Rollo trimmed the lamp; saw that his mother was provided with fuel and water, and departed; leaving her maternal heart cheered, so that her almost bare cottage was like a palace to her. She was singing when Macdonald put his head in, as he said, to bid her good night, but in fact to see if Lady Carse had come home, David and Rollo acted in turn as scouts; and from their report it appeared that, though the minister's boat had not shown itself, there was a blockade of the eastern caves. The lady's retreat was certainly suspected to be somewhere in this part of the shore; for some of Macdonald's people were always in sight. Now and then, a man, or a couple of women, came prying along the rocks; and once two men took shelter in a cave which adjoined that in which the trembling lady was sitting, afraid to move, and almost to breathe, lest the echoes should betray her. The entrance to her retreat was so curiously concealed by projections of rock, that she had nothing to fear but from sound. But she could not be sure of this; and she would have extinguished her fire by heaping sand upon it, and left herself in total darkness in a labyrinth which was always sufficiently perplexing, if Rollo had not held her hand. He stepped cautiously through the sand to the nearest point to the foe, listened awhile, and then smiled and nodded to Lady Carse, and seemed wonderfully delighted. This excited her impatience so much that it seemed to her that the enemy would never decamp. She was obliged to control herself; but by the time she might speak, she was very irritable. She told Rollo not to grin and fidget in that manner, but to let her know his news.

"Great news!" Rollo declared. "The sloop which was to bring the minister and his wife was to lie-to this very night, in a deep cove close at hand; and the reason for its coming here, instead of into the harbour, was—the best of reasons for the lady—that Macdonald had fears that the Macleods who manned the vessel would be friendly to his prisoner. So the minister and his party were to be landed in the sloop's yawl; and the sloop was to be quietly brought into the cove after dark, that the lady, supposed to be still on the island, might not have any opportunity of getting on board."

This did appear a most promising opportunity of deliverance. The sloop came round when expected; and, soon after she was moored, Rollo and David went on their raft, and spoke from it to a man who appeared to be in command, and who was, after some time, persuaded to think that he could, for sufficient payment, go so far out of his way as to land a lady passenger on the main—the lady being in anxiety about her family, and able to pay handsomely for an early opportunity of joining them. The negotiation was rather a long one, as some of the points were difficult to arrange; and the master of the vessel appeared somewhat careless about the whole matter. But at last Lady Carse's anxious ear heard the slight splash of the raft approaching through the water; and then the tall figures of the young men were dimly seen between her and the sky. Her tongue was so parched that she could not speak the question which swelled in her heart.

"Come," said Rollo, aloud. "The master will land you on the main. You had better get on board now, before the sea roughens. Come, they are looking out for you."

Lady Carse endeavoured to make haste; but her limbs would hardly support her. Her companions lifted her upon the raft, and one held her steady while the other paddled. Strong arms were ready on board the sloop to hoist her up and carry her to a heap of plaids, made into a sort of bed on deck. In another moment she sprang up, saying that she must speak to her companions one more word. A sailor who stood over her held her back; but she declared that she must thank those who had rendered her a great service. At the bidding of someone who spoke in Gaelic, the sailor withdrew his opposition, and she tottered to the side of the vessel, called to Rollo, desired him to give her love to his mother, and promised that he and David should find that she was not ungrateful.

Rollo and his comrade leaped ashore with a comfortable feeling that their business was all achieved; but yet with some little regret at losing the excitements of their late employment, and of the lady's presence and conversation. They talked her over while eating their suppers, wondered what rewards she would send, and how angry Macdonald would be; and they were about to lie down to sleep, when the night air was rent by such a scream as they had never heard. They ran out upon the rocks, and there they heard from the sloop shriek upon shriek.

"What is it?" exclaimed David. "They are murdering her!"

"No," said Rollo, after a pause. "They may be up to that, if this is a trick; but they would not do it here, nor so soon. They could do it more safely between this and Saint Kilda, with a rope and heavy stone. No—they are not murdering her, whoever they may be."

"What, then? Who are they?"

"It may be a trick, and that would put the lady in a great passion; and when she is in a passion, let me tell you, not all the birds in the face of this rock can make more noise. I am not sure, but I think that is a passionate scream."

"I wish it would leave off," said David, turning away. "I don't like it."

"If you don't like it," said Rollo, "I should hardly think she can. I must see about it. I think it is a trick, and that she is in a passion."

It was a trick from beginning to end. It was Macdonald's sloop; and Macdonald himself was on board, prepared to carry his prisoner to Saint Kilda. The conversation overheard by Rollo in the cavern was a trick. A similar conversation had been held that day in every cave known to Macdonald along that part of the shore, in hopes of some one version being overheard by the lady's accomplices. She had fallen into the trap very easily.

"And now," said Macdonald to a clansman, "I have nearly done with the business. We have only to land her in Saint Kilda; and then it will be the Macleod's affair. I shall be glad to have done with the witch. I have no wish to carry people anywhere against their wishes; and I never would, if Sir Alexander Macdonald were not in it. But I shall have done with the business presently."



CHAPTER TEN.

WHICH REFUGE?

Macdonald's self congratulations were premature. He had more uneasiness to undergo about the lady than he had suffered yet. When her screams of rage had sunk into sobs and moans, and these again had been succeeded by silence, he had left her undisturbed to cry herself to sleep. At daylight he had gone to take a look, but she had, as he supposed, muffled herself up in the plaids provided for her, so as to cover her head, and thus conceal her face. But it soon after appeared that these plaids had nothing under them—the lady was not there.

No one had seen her move; and it must have been done in the thickest darkness of the night. One man had heard a splash in the water alongside. A cotton handkerchief, which she had worn on her head, was found floating. It was to be feared that the lady had drowned herself. After searching about in the neighbourhood all day, Macdonald departed in his vessel, leaving a man to watch, in case of the body being thrown up among the rocks. He had now no doubt of her death; and with a heavy heart he went to confide this event—unfortunate for him, whether so or not for anyone else—first to friends on the island, and next to his chief. He met the minister on his landing, and took the opportunity of whispering his news to some of those who came down to greet the pastor, to his own wife, and to Annie Fleming, desiring them not to inform the pastor, without his permission, that such a person as Lady Carse had been among them. Then he set sail for Skye, to tell Sir Alexander, with what face he might, that the poor lady would trouble them no more. It would have been a vast relief to him to have anticipated the way in which his chief would receive the news—how he would say that a great perplexity was thus solved—that no harm could ensue, as the lady was buried so long ago at Edinburgh—and that he had himself many times repented having gone into the affair, and that he never would, but for political and party reasons, and that he was heartily glad now to be quit of it, in any way—to say nothing of this being, after all, a happy event for the wretched lady herself and all belonging to her.

Meanwhile Lady Carse was not yet out of their way. She had still voice to utter political secrets, and temper all eager to punish her foes. She had slipped away in the dark, thrown herself overboard when she found Rollo below, got drenched with sea-water and bruised against the rocks, but was safe in hiding again.

Rollo's trouble was, that she laughed so heartily and so incessantly for some time, that there was danger of her merriment betraying her. He told her at last that she must try if she would leave off laughing when left to herself. If she could not, she would then, at any rate, cause no one but herself to be taken. He should go by a way of his own to a point whence he could look out and see what was doing at sea and ashore.

When he reappeared, it was with a face which would have stopped any laughter on the side of the lady, if the laughter had not stopped of itself long before. She must not hope to escape by the minister's boat. Macdonald had so managed his plot as to allure the lady into his boat just when she should have been attempting to get on board the other. It was too late now.

The lady would not be finally convinced of this till, by Rollo's assistance, she had reached the spot whence she could observe the facts for herself. The knowledge that there was a watch set below, who would not fail to take her alive, though his affair was to pick up her dead body, kept her from yielding to audible grief, but never had she been more convulsed with passion. She pulled up the heather by handfuls. She dashed her head against the ground, till Rollo restrained her.

On the dun wintry sea a vessel was sailing northwards. It had deposited the pastor and his lady, and had actually passed and repassed the very shore where she had been concealed. The long looked for vessel had come and gone. Another was sailing eastwards in the direction she longed to go. This was Macdonald's; and seeing that it was going to Skye or the main, she now bitterly lamented having left it. She would not believe a word about the intention to carry her to Saint Kilda. She would rather believe her own eyes, and passionately condemned herself for her haste in returning to this dreary island.

Rollo next turned her attention to the little procession which appeared upon the hills, bringing the pastor and his wife to their new abode. She looked that way; she saw the group ascending the hill—a sight so unusual in this place, that Rollo was much excited about it; but her eyes kept filling with tears, and she was so heart-sick that she could not bear any thoughts but of her own troubles. She desired Rollo to leave her. She wanted to be alone; nobody had any feeling for her; people might go and amuse themselves; all she wanted was to live and die alone.

Rollo knew that she could not do that, but he wished to go where others were going—said to himself that the lady would be the better for being left to herself for awhile, and left her accordingly. He first asked her whether he should help her down to the cave, but she made no answer, so he walked off, leaving her lying on the heather in a cold and dreary place.

She did not feel the cold, and she was too dreary within to be sensible of the desolation without. How deserted she felt as she saw Rollo walking away, quickening his pace to a run when he reached the down. It might be said that she was without a hope in heaven or on earth, but that passion always hopes for its own gratification—always expects it, in defiance of all probability, and in opposition to all reason. This is one chief mode in which the indulgence of any kind of passion is corrupting. It injures the integrity of the faculties and the truthfulness of the mind, inducing its victims to trust to chances instead of likelihood, and to dwell upon extravagances till they become incapable of seeing things as they are.

So Lady Carse now presently forgot that she was alone on a hill in a far island of the Hebrides, with no means of getting away, and no chance of letting any friend know that she was not buried long ago—and her imagination was busy in London. She fancied herself there, and, if once there, how she would accomplish her revenge. She imagined herself talking to the minister, and repeating to him the things her husband had written and said against himself and the royal family. She imagined herself introduced to the king, and telling into his anxious ear the tidings of the preparations made for driving him from the throne and restoring the exiled family. She imagined the list made out of the traitors to be punished, at the top of which she would put the names of her own foes—her husband first, and Lord Lovat next. She imagined the king's grateful command to her to accompany his messengers to Scotland, that she might guide and help them to seize the offenders. She clasped her hands behind her head in a kind of rapture when she pictured to herself the party stealing a march upon her formal husband, presenting themselves before him, and telling him what they came for—marking, and showing him how they marked his deadly paleness, perhaps by making courteous inquiries about his health. She feasted her fancy on scenes in the presence of her old acquaintance, Duncan Forbes, when she would distress him by driving home her charges against the friends of his youth, and by appeals to his loyalty, which he could not resist. She pictured to herself the trials and the sentences—and then the executions—her slow driving through the streets in her coach in her full triumph, people pointing her out all the way as the lady who was pretended to be dead and buried, but who had come back, in favour with the king, to avenge him and herself at once on their common enemies. She wondered whether Lord Lovat's cool assurance would give way at such a moment—she almost feared not—almost shrank already from the idea of some wounding gibe—frowned and clenched her hands while fancying what it would be, and then smiled at the thought of how she would smile, and bow an eternal farewell to the dying man, reminding him of her old promise to sit at a window and see his head fall.

But the astonishment to all Edinburgh would be when she should look on triumphantly to see her husband die. He had played the widower in sight of all Edinburgh, and now it would be seen how great was the lie, and nobody could dispute that the widowhood was hers. She hoped that he would turn his prim figure and formal face her way, that she might make him, too, an easy bow, showing how she despised the hypocrite, and how completely he had failed in breaking her spirit. She hoped she should be in good looks at that time, not owning the power of her enemies by looking worn and haggard. She must consider her appearance a little more than she had done lately in view of this future time. Her being somewhat weather-browned would not matter; it would be rather an advantage, as testifying to her banishment; but she must be in comfortable plight, and for this purpose—

Here her meditations were cut short by the approach of some people. She heard a pony's feet on the rock, and caught sight of a woman's head, wrapped in a plaid, as the party mounted directed towards her. It was too late for escape—and there was no need. The woman on the pony was Annie; and nobody else was there but Rollo.

"The wonder is that you are not frozen," said Rollo, "if you have been lying here all this time. You look as red in the face, and as warm as if you had been by the fire below in the snug sand. And that is where we must go now directly; for mother cannot stand the cold up here. She would come, as it happened she could have one of Macdonald's ponies to-day. Well, I cannot but think how you could keep yourself warm, unless you are a witch as Macdonald says you are."

"It is the mother's heart in her, Rollo, that keeps out the cold and the harm," said Annie. "It may be a wonder to you; for how should you know what it is to have had a hope of seeing one's children, to have dreamed of nothing else, waking or sleeping, and then to find it nothing but a dream. See her now, Rollo, as the cold comes over her heart. The heart can live warm on its own thoughts, when it is chilling to hear another voice speak of them."

Lady Carse was now very pale. She had once said, and then fully believed it, that she had no shame. It was long since she had felt shame. She felt it now, when it struck her that during all her long reveries about her escape and her restoration to the world, not one thought of her children had entered into the imagery of her dream. Like all people of strong passions, she had taken for granted that there was something grand and fine in the intensity of her feelings. Now, for a moment, the clear mirror of Annie's mind was held up before her own, and she saw herself as she was. For one instant she perceived that she was worthy of her husband's detestation. But she was not one to tolerate painful and humbling ideas long. She recurred to her unequalled wrongs, and was proud and comforted. She walked down to her retreat without looking behind her, leaving Rollo to tether the pony, and help his mother down as he could.

When Annie entered the cave, the drops were standing on her face, so great had been the pain to her rheumatic limbs on descending to the shore.

"But," said she, as she sank down on the sand by the smouldering fire, "I could not but come, when I heard from Rollo that you were still breathing God's air."

"Do you mean that that was good news or bad?"

"Oh, good! Surely good news. At first, for a moment after Macdonald told me you were drowned in the night, I felt thankful that your troubles were over. But I soon saw it the right way; and when Rollo whispered you were—"

"What do you mean by seeing it the right way? How do you know that your first feeling was not the right one? I am sure it was the kindest to me. You think yourself religious, and so you ought to be glad when an unhappy person is 'where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.'"

Annie did not reply. She was looking at the fire, and by its light it might be seen that tears were gathering in her eyes.

"Ah!" said the irritable lady, "you, and such as you, who think you abide in the Scriptures so that nothing can move you; what becomes of you when you are answered by Scripture?"

"I do not feel myself answered," Annie quietly replied. "Oh, indeed!"

"I feel what you said out of Scripture to be quite true; and that it is a great blessing that God has set the quiet grave before our eyes for such as can find no other rest. But I would not forget that there is another and a better rest, without waiting for the grave."

"You are so narrow, Annie! You judge of everybody by yourself!"

"That is a great danger I know," Annie agreed. "And I cannot speak from my own knowledge of being troubled by the wicked. But I have read and heard much of good men who were buffeted by the wicked for the best part of their lives, and at last got over being troubled by it, and more than that."

"Ah! gloried in it, no doubt. Everyone is proud of something; and they were proud of that."

"Some such I fear there may have often been, madam; but I was not thinking of those that could fall into such a snare as being proud of the ill-will of their brethren. I was thinking of some who felt the ill opinion of their brethren to be very humbling, and who humbled themselves to bear it. Then in time they had comfort in forgiving their enemies, and at last they grew fit for a sweeter pleasure still which yet remained. Not that, as I believe, they spoke of it, unless at moments when the joy would speak for itself; but then it has been known to burst forth from the lips of the persecuted—from some as cruelly persecuted as you, madam, that of all the thrillings that God's spirit makes in men's hearts, there is none so sweet as the first stirrings of the love of enemies."

There was no answer, and Annie went on.

"I could believe that there is no love so altogether good—at least for us here. It is as yearning as that of a mother for her child, and as tender as that of lovers; and I should say, more holy than either, for theirs is natural to them in their mortal life, though it may be the purest part of it; the other love is an instinct belonging to the immortal life, a tongue of fire, sent down upon the head of a chosen one here and there, gifting them with the language of angels, to tell us on this side the grave what we shall find beyond. One must see that to such as these the wicked have ceased from troubling, and their weariness has long sunk into rest without help from death."

Lady Carse sighed.

"This was why I was glad, madam, to hear that death had not overtaken you yet. If you may enter into a living rest which we may see, that will, under God's blessing, be better than the blank rest of going away from your enemies, when their old wrongs may be still in your heart, making death a stinging serpent instead of a guiding dove."

Some sweet old words here occurred to Lady Carse, linked with a sweet old psalm tune—words of longing to have wings like a dove, to flee away and be at rest. She murmured these words; and they brought softening tears.

"You see, madam," said Annie, "your nest is made for you. You have been permitted to flee away from your enemies! now you are not to have wings, for the sails of the vessels are out of sight, and this makes it plain that here is to be your nest. It is but a stormy place to abide in, to be sure; but if Christ be sought, He is here to command peace, and the winds and the sea obey Him."

"I cannot stay here," sobbed Lady Carse. "I cannot give up my hopes and my efforts—the only aim of my life."

"It is hard," said the widow, with starting tears. "The last thing that a mother can give up,—the very last thing she can lay freely into God's hand is her yearning for her children. But you will—"

"It is not my children that I most want. You say falsely that they are the last to be given up. There is—"

"Falsely!" cried Rollo, springing to his feet. "My mother speak falsely! If you dare—"

"Gently, my boy," said Annie. "We have not heard what the lady means."

"Be quiet, Rollo," said Lady Carse. "Your mother speaks falsely as regards me; but I do not say that it is not after her own kind that she speaks. If God gives me to see my children, I will thank him devoutly; but there is another thing that I want more—revenge on all my enemies, and on my husband first."

Rollo looked breathlessly at his mother. Her face was calm; but he could see in the dim red light its expression of infinite sorrow. She asked her son to help her to rise and go.

"I came," said she to Lady Carse, "to entreat you to come among us, and rest in a spirit of surrender to God, on His clear showing that He chooses this to be your abiding place; and one reason for my coming was to tell you that the minister has brought his children, lest the sight of a child's face should move you too suddenly. But I see that your thoughts are on other things; and that your spirit of surrender has yet to be prayed for. Next Sabbath, we are to have worship once more, and—"

"Where?"

"In the old chapel, if it can be enclosed by that time. If not, we must wait another week: but I think it will be done. It needs but a word, madam, and the minister will ask all our prayers for one under affliction—"

"By no means. I forbid you to speak of me, in one way or another, to the minister or his wife. I insist on my wishes being observed in this."

"Certainly, madam. It is not for us to interfere with your plans."

"Then go; go both of you: and do not come near me without my leave. I want to be alone—I want to be at rest; that is—"

"Ay—at rest," said Annie, half aloud. She was thinking that there would be prayers from one heart at least in the chapel for peace to a troubled spirit.

And she did not wait for the Sabbath to pray. As, assisted by her son, she painfully ascended to the heights, she saw the birds fly in and out, and hover round on the face of the precipice, as at a bidding she did not hear, she could not but silently ask that God would send His dove to harbour in the hollow of this rock with one who sorely needed a visitation of His peace.



CHAPTER ELEVEN.

FOLDING THE FLOCK.

After the busiest week known in the island by anybody living there, the Sabbath-day came in, calm and mild. The winters, however stormy, were never severely cold in this sea-beaten spot. It was seldom that ice was seen; and it was never more than half an inch thick. When, as on this Sunday, the wind was lulled and the sky was clear, the climate was as mild as in spring on the mainland. As soon as the aspect of the sunrise showed the experienced that the day would be fair, busy hands moved into the old roofless chapel the pulpit and benches which the pastor had brought with him—the pulpit being a mere desk of unpainted wood, and the benches of the roughest sort. For these the interior space of the old building had been cleared during the week; the floor was trodden hard and even; the walls were so far repaired as to make a complete enclosure; and some rough stones were placed as steps whereby to enter the burying-ground. Some willing hands had done more—had cleared the burying-ground of stones, so that the graves, though sunk, and unmarked by any memorial but a rough and broken headstone here and there, could be distinguished by an eye interested in searching out the dead of a century ago.

Another week, if sufficiently fair, was to see the walls finished and the roof on: and afterwards would be discharged the pious task of enclosing the burying-ground, and preparing room for those whom death would lay to rest in their own island. While the minister remained here, no more of the dead would be carried over the sea to some place where there was a pastor to commit them to the grave. Room was to be secured for the graves of the fifty people who were now living on the island, and for their children after them: and to all the inhabitants the island appeared a better place when this arrangement was made.

In the weak sunlight of that Sunday morning appeared gay groups of people, all excited with the great thought that they were going to the kirk. They were wonderfully cell clad. How such clothes could come out of such dwellings would have been a marvel to any stranger. Festival days were so rare that a holiday dress lasted for many years. The women's cloth coats fitted at any age; and the caps with gay ribbons and bright cotton handkerchiefs did not wear out. On this remarkable day all wore their best, and a pretty sight it was to see the whole fifty people drawing towards the chapel as the pastor, his wife, and two children, issued from their lowly abode to meet the flock for the first time.

Presently the island might have appeared deserted. Far round as the eye could reach not a human being was visible outside the chapel. But something was heard which told that the place was not only inhabited, but Christianised. The slow psalm rose into the still air. Everyone who could speak could sing a psalm. It was a practice lovingly kept up in every house. Some voices were tremulous, and a few failed; but this was from emotion. The strongest was Annie's, for hers was the most practised. It was her wont to sing some of the many psalms she knew on summer days, when she sat at work on the platform of her house, and on winter nights, when Rollo was away. Now that she was once more joining in social worship, her soul was joyful, and she sang strong and clear— perhaps the more so for the thought of the one absent person, pining in the cavern on the shore, or looking from afar, in desolation of heart, at the little throng who came privileged to worship. Perhaps Annie's voice might unconsciously rise as if to reach the lonely one, and invite her to come to the house of God and seek rest. However this might be, Annie's tones so animated some hearts and strengthened some voices as that the psalm might be, and was, heard a long way off. It reached an unwilling ear, and drew forward reluctant steps. The links of old association, are, however, the strongest of chains, and no charm is so magical as that of religious emotion. Lady Carse was drawn nearer and nearer, in hope of hearing ano, her psalm, till the solemn tones of prayer reached her, and presently she was crouching under the wall outside, weeping like a sinner who dares not knock at the gate of heaven.

Before the service was quite finished, angry voices were heard from without, almost overpowering that of the pastor as he gave the blessing. One of Macdonald's people, who had stepped out to collect the ponies for some of the women and children, had seen the lady, and, after one start back as from the ghost of a drowned woman, had laid hold of her gown, and said she must stay where she could be spoken with by Macdonald on his return from Skye. She struggled to escape, and did break away— not down the hill, but into the chapel.

The consternation was inexpressible. The people, supposing her drowned, took her for a ghost, though there was no ghostly calm about her; but her eyes were swollen, her hair disordered, her lips quivering with violent emotion. There was a solemnity about her, too; for extreme anguish is always solemn, in proportion as it approaches to despair. She rushed to the front of the pulpit, and held out her hands, exclaiming aloud to Mr Ruthven that she was the most persecuted and tormented of human beings; that she appealed to him against her persecutors; and if he did not see her righted, she warned him that he would be damned deeper than hell. Mrs Ruthven shuddered, and left her seat to place herself by her husband. And now she encountered the poor lady's gaze, and, moreover, had her own grasped as it had never been before.

"Are these children yours?" she was asked.

"Yes," faltered Mrs Ruthven.

"Then you must help me to recover mine. Had you ever,"—and here she turned to the pastor—"had you ever an enemy?" Her voice turned hoarse as she uttered the word.

"No—yes—Oh, yes!" said he. "I have had enemies, as every man has."

"Then, as you wish them abased and tormented, you must help me to abase and torment mine—my husband, and Lord Lovat—"

"Lord Lovat!" repeated many wondering voices.

"And Sir Alexander Macdonald; and his tenant of this place; and—"

As Mr Ruthven looked round him, perplexed and amazed, one of Macdonald's people went up to him, and whispered into his ear that this lady had come from some place above or below, for she was drowned last week. Mr Ruthven half smiled.

"I will know," cried the lady, "what that fellow said. I will hear what my enemies tell you against me. My only hope is in you. I am stolen from Edinburgh; they pretended to bury me there—Eh? what?" she cried, as another man whispered something into the pastor's other ear. "Mad! There! I heard it. I heard him say I was mad. Did he not tell you I was mad?"

"He did; and one cannot—really I cannot—"

As he looked round again in his perplexity, the widow rose from her seat, and said, "I know this lady; my son and I know her better than anyone else in the island does; and we should say that she is not mad."

"Not mad!" Mr Ruthven said, with a mingling of surprise in his tone which did not escape the jealous ear of Lady Carse.

"Not mad, sir; but grievously oppressed. If you could quietly hear the story, sir, at a fitting time—"

"Ay, ay; that will be best," declared Mr Ruthven.

"Let me go home with you," said Lady Carse. "I will go home with you; and—"

Mrs Ruthven exchanged a glance with her husband, and then said, in an embarrassed way, while giving a hand to each of the two children who were clinging to her, that their house was very small, extremely small indeed, with too little room for the children, and none whatever left over.

"It is my house," exclaimed Lady Carse, impatiently. "It was built with a view to you; but it was done under my orders, and I have a claim upon it. And what ails the children?" she cried, in a tone which made the younger cry aloud. "What are they afraid of?"

"I don't know, I am sure," said their mother, helping them, however, to hide their faces in her gown. "But—"

Again Annie rose and said, "There could be no difficulty about a place for the lady if she would be pleased to do as she did before—live in her cottage. The two dwellings might almost be called one, and if the lady would go home with her—"

Gratitude was showered on Annie from all the parties. As the lady moved slowly towards the widow's house, holding Annie's arm, and weeping as she went, and followed by the Ruthvens, the eyes of all the Macdonalds gazed after her, in a sort of doubt whether she were a witch, or a ghost, or really and truly a woman.

As soon as Macdonald's sloop could be discerned on its approach the next day, Mr Ruthven went down, and paced the shore while daylight lasted, though assured that the vessel would not come up till night. As soon as a signal could be made in the morning for the yawl, he passed to the sloop, where he had a conference with Macdonald, the consequence of which was, that as soon as he was set ashore the sloop again stood out to sea.

Mrs Ruthven and Lady Carse saw this, as they stood hand in hand at the door of the new dwelling. They kissed each other at the sight. They had already kissed each other very often, for they called themselves dear and intimate friends who had now one great common object in life— to avenge Lady Carse's wrongs.

"Well, what news?" they both cried, as Mr Ruthven came towards them, panting from the haste with which he had ascended.

"The tenant is gone back," said he, "he has returned to Sir Alexander to contradict his last news—of your being drowned. By-the-way, I promised to contradict it, too—to the man who is watching for the body every tide."

"Oh, he must have heard the facts from some of the people at the chapel."

"If he had he would not believe them, Macdonald says, on any other authority than his. Nor will he leave his post till he finds the body, or—"

"Or sees me," cried Lady Carse, laughing. "Come, let us go and call to him, and tell him he may leave off poking among the weeds. Come; I will show you the way."

And she ran on with the spirits and pace of a girl. Mr and Mrs Ruthven looked at each other with smiles, and Mrs Ruthven exclaimed, "What a charming creature this was, and how shocking it was to think of her cruel fate." Mr Ruthven shook his head and declared that he regarded the conduct of her persecutors with grave moral disapprobation. Meantime Lady Carse looked back, beckoned to them with her hand, and stamped with her foot, because they were stopping to talk.

"What a simple creature she is! So childlike!" exclaimed Mrs Ruthven.

"We must quicken our pace, my dear," replied her husband. "It would not be right to detain the lady when she wishes to proceed."

But now Lady Carse was beckoning to somebody else—to little Kate Ruthven, who, with her brother Adam, was peeping from the door of their new home.

"Come, Katie," said her mother, "don't you see that Lady Carse calls you? Bring Adam, and go with us."

Kate turned very red, but did not come. Lady Carse came laughing back to fetch them; but they bolted into the house, and, when still pursued, scrambled under a bed. When caught, they screamed.

"Well, to be sure," cried their mother; "what behaviour when a lady asks you to go with her! I declare I am quite ashamed."

Papa now came up, and said—

"My dears, I do not approve such behaviour as this."

Kate began to sob, and Adam followed her example.

"There, now, do not cry," said papa; "I cannot permit you to cry. You may go with Lady Carse. Lady Carse is so kind as to wish you to go with her. You will like to go with the lady. Why do you not reply, my dears. You must reply when spoken to. You will like to go with the lady—eh?"

"No," murmured Kate.

"No," whispered Adam.

"I am astonished," papa declared. "I never saw them conduct themselves in this manner before. Did you, my dear?"

"No; but it is an accident, I dare say. Something has put them out."

"I must ascertain the cause, however," papa declared. "Such an incident must not pass uncorrected. Listen to me, my dears, and answer me when I ask you a question. Look at this lady."

Kate slowly lifted her eyes, and Adam then did the same. They seemed on the verge of another scream; and this was not extraordinary; for Lady Carse was not laughing now, but very far from it. There was something in her face that made the children catch at mamma's gown.

"Listen to me, my dears," papa went on; "and reply when I ask you a question. This good lady is going to live with us—"

A deeper plunge into the folds of mamma's gown.

"And from this time forwards you must love this lady. You love this lady now, my dears, don't you?"

After as long a pause as they dared make, the children said, "No."

"Well, I never heard—!" exclaimed mamma.

"What can possess them?" inquired papa. "My dears, why do you not love the lady, eh,—Kate?"

"I don't know," said Kate.

"You don't know?—That is foolish. Adam, why do you not love this lady who is to live with us? Do not tell me that you don't know, for that is foolish. Why do you not love the lady?"

"Because I can't."

"Why, that is worse still. How perverse," he said, looking at the ladies, "how perverse is the human heart. My dear, you can, and you must do what is right. You may love me and your mamma first, and next you must love this lady. Say you will try."

"I'll try," said Kate.

Adam whimpered a little longer; but then he also said, "I'll try."

"That is right. That is the least you can say after your extraordinary behaviour. Now you may go with the lady, as she is so kind as to wish it."

Lady Carse moved off in silence; and the children, tightly grasping each other's hands, followed as if going to a funeral.

"Jump, my dears," said papa, when they had reached the down. "Jump about: you may be merry now."

Both looked as if they were immediately going to cry. "What now, Adam?" stooping down that the child might speak confidentially to him, but saying to Lady Carse as he did so, that it was necessary sometimes to condescend to the weakness of children. "Adam, tell me why you are not merry, when I assure you you may."

"I can't," whispered Adam.

"You can't! What a sudden fit of humility this boy has got, that he can't do anything to-day. Unless, however, it be true, well-grounded humility, I fear—"

Mamma now tried what she could do. She saw, by Lady Carse's way of walking on by herself, that she was displeased; and, under the inspiration of this grief, Mrs Ruthven so strove to make her children agreeable by causing them to forget everything disagreeable, that they were soon like themselves again. Mamma permitted them to look for hens' eggs among the whins, because they had heard that when she was a little girl she used to look for them among bushes in a field. There was no occasion to tell them at such a critical moment for their spirits that it was mid-winter, or that whins would be found rather prickly by poultry, or that there were no hens in the island but Mrs Macdonald's well sheltered pets. They were told that the first egg they found was to be presented to Lady Carse; and they themselves might divide the next.

Their mother's hope, that if they did not find hens' eggs, they might light upon something else, was not disappointed. Perhaps she took care that it should not. Adam found a barley-cake on the sheltered side of a bush; and it was not long before Kate found one just as good. They were desired to do with these what they would have done with the eggs— present one to Lady Carse and divide the other. As they were very hungry, they hastened to fulfil the condition of beginning to eat. Again grasping one another's hands, they walked with desperate courage up to Lady Carse, and held out a cake, without yet daring, however, to look up.

"Well, what is that?" she asked sharply.

"A barley-cake."

"Who bade you bring it to me?"

"Mamma."

"You would not have brought it if mamma had not bid you?"

"No."

"Allow me to suggest," observed papa, "that they would not have ventured. It would be a liberty unbecoming their years to—"

"Oh, nonsense!" cried Lady Carse; "I hate these put-up manners. No, miss—no, young master—I will not take your cake. I take gifts only from those I love; and if you don't love me, I don't love you—and so there is a Rowland for your Oliver."

The children did not know anything about Rowlands and Olivers; but they saw that the lady was very angry—so angry that they took to their heels, scampered away over the downs, and never stopped till they reached home, and had hidden themselves under the bed.

They were not followed. Punishment for their act of absconding was deferred till Lady Carse's errand should be finished. When once down among the rocks, Lady Carse was eager to show her dear friends all the secrets of her late hiding. As soon as Macdonald's watchman was convinced by the lady that she was not drowned, and by the minister that he might go home—as soon as he was fairly out of sight, the wonders of the caves were revealed to the pastor and his wife. The party were so interested in the anecdotes belonging to Lady Carse's season of retreat, that they did not observe, sheltered as they were in eastern caves, that a storm was coming up from the west—one of the tempests which frequently rise from that quarter in the winter season, and break over the Western Islands.

The children were aware of it before their parents. When they found they were not followed, they soon grew tired of whispering under the bed, and came cautiously forth.

It was very dark, strangely dark, till a glare of lightning came, which was worse than the darkness. But the thunder was worse: it growled fearfully, so as to make them hold their breath. The next clap made them cry. After that cry came help.

The widow heard the wail from next door, and called to the children from her door; and glad enough were they to take refuge with a grown-up person who smiled and spoke cheerfully, in spite of the thunder.

"Are you not afraid of the thunder?" asked Kate, nestling so close to the widow that she was advised to take care lest the sharp bone knitting needles went into her eyes. "But are not you afraid of the thunder?"

"Oh, no!"

"Why?"

"Because I am not afraid of anything."

"What, not of anything at all?"

"Not of anything at all. And there are many things much more harmful than thunder."

"What things?"

"The wind is, perhaps, the most terrible of all."

"How loud it is now!" said Adam, shivering as the rushing storm drowned his voice. When the gust had passed, the widow said, "It was not the wind that made all that noise, it was a dash of hail. Ah! if I do fear anything, it is large hail; not because it will hurt me, but because it may break my window, and let in the wind to blow out my lamp."

"But why do not things hurt you? If the lightning was to kill you—"

"That would not hurt me," said the widow, smiling. "I do not call that being hurt, more than dying in any other way that God pleases."

"But if it did not kill you quite, but hurt you—hurt you very much indeed—burned you, or made you blind?"

"Then I should know that it was no hurt, but in some way a blessing, because the lightning comes from God. I always like to see it, because—There!" she said, as a vivid flash illumined the place. "Did you ever see anything so bright as that? How should we ever fancy the brightness of God's throne, if He did not send us a single ray, now and then, in this manner—one single ray, which is as much as we can bear? I dare say you have heard it read in church how all things are God's messengers, without any word being said about their hurting us,—'fire and hail;' here they are!"

When that gust was past, she went on, "'Snow and vapour, stormy winds fulfilling His word.' Here we are in the midst of the fire and the hail and the stormy winds. If we looked out, perhaps we might see the 'snow and vapour.'"

The children did not seem to wish it.

"Then again," the widow went on, "we are told that 'He causeth His wind to blow, and the waters flow.' I am sure I can show you that. I am sure the sea must have risen much already, before such a wind as this. Come!" she continued, wrapping her plaid round herself and the children; "keep close to me and you will not be cold. The cold has not come yet: and if we stand under the sheltered side of the house we shall not be blown. Hark! there is the roar of the waves when the thunder stops. Now we shall see how 'He causeth His wind to blow and the waters flow.'"

She looked so cheerful and promised them such a sight, that they did not like to beg to stay within. Though the hail came pelting in gusts, there was no rain at present to wet them. The wind almost strangled them at the first moment; but they were under the eastern gable of the cottage in an instant, out of the force of the blast.

There they sat down, all huddled together; and there the children saw more than they had been promised.