him; and also his brother, who died before
it was finished."

"Where is your son?" inquired the lady. "If he will undertake to work
for me, I will get it done. Where is your son? And what is his
business?"

"I do not know exactly where he is."

"Well, but is he on the island?"

"I believe so. He comes and goes according to his business. In the
early summer he seeks eggs all over the island; and, somewhat later, the
eider-down. When he can get nothing better he brings the birds
themselves."

"What do you do with them?"

"We keep the feathers, and also the skins. The skins are warm to cover
the feet with, when made into socks. If the birds are not very old, we
salt them for winter food: and at worst, I get some oil from them. But
I get most oil from the young seals, and from the livers of the fish he
catches at times."

"Fish! then he has a boat! Does he go out in a boat to fish?"

"I can hardly say that he has a boat," replied the mother, with an
extraordinary calmness of manner that told of internal effort. "Our
caverns run very deep into the rocks; and the ledges run out far into
the sea. Rollo has made a kind of raft of the driftwood he found: and
on this he crosses the water in the caverns, and passes from ledge to
ledge, fishing as he goes. This is our only way of getting fish, except
when a chance boat comes into the harbour."

"Could that raft go out on a calm day,--on a very smooth sea,--to meet
any boat at a distance?"

"Impossible! madam. I think it too dangerous in our smallest coves to
be used without sin. It is against my judgment that Rollo ever goes
round the end of a ledge, which he has been seen to do."

"But it is impossible to get a boat? Have you never had a boat?"

"We once had a boat, madam: and it was lost." Even the selfish Lady
Carse reproached herself for her question. It struck her now that boat
and husband had been lost together; for Macdonald had told her that
Annie Fleming had seen her husband drown.

"I wish I knew where Rollo is," she said to break the silence. "I think
something might be done. I think I could find a way. Do not you wish
you knew where he was?"

"No, madam."

"Well! perhaps you might be uneasy about him if you did. But which way
did he go?"

The widow pointed northwards, where huge masses of rock appeared tumbled
one upon another, and into the sea, at the base of a precipice two
hundred feet high. She further told, in reply to