s 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 round 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 the 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