way among strangers that doesna ken her family, and will put no
store by her, no more than if she wass 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 the
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 Borvabost, Mr. Mackenzie, or will we run her into your
own house?" asked Duncan--Borvabost being the name of the chief village
on the island.

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

"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 wass 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