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