f welcome. Then he could make out the dark figures on the quay, and the
hoisting of the lugsail, and the putting off of the boat. It was not a
good day for observing things, for heavy clouds were quickly passing
over, followed by bewildering gleams of a sort of watery sunlight; but
as it happened, one of these sudden flashes chanced to light up a small
plateau on the side of the hill above the quarry, just as the glass was
directed on that point. Surely--surely--these two figures?

"Why, it is the mother--and Janet!" he cried.

He hastily gave the glass to his companion.

"Look!" said he. "Don't you think that is Lady Macleod and my cousin?
What could have tempted the old lady to come away down there on such a
squally day?"

"Oh yes, I think it is the ladies," said the captain; and then he added,
with a friendly smile, "and I think it is to see you all the sooner, Sir
Keith, that they have come down to the shore."

"Then," said he, "I must go down and get my gillie, and show him his
future home."

He went below the hurricane deck to a corner in which Oscar was chained
up. Beside the dog, sitting on a campstool, and wrapped round with a
tartan plaid, was the person whom Macleod had doubtless referred to as
his gillie. He was not a distinguished-looking attendant to be
travelling with a Highland chieftain.

"Johnny, my man, come on deck now, and I will show you where you are
going to live. You're all right now, aren't you? And you will be on the
solid land again in about ten minutes."

Macleod's gillie rose--or, rather, got down--from the campstool, and
showed himself to be a miserable, emaciated child of ten or eleven, with
a perfectly colorless face, frightened gray eyes, and starved white
hands. The contrast between the bronzed and bearded sailors--who were
now hurrying about to receive the boat from Dare--and this pallid and
shrunken scrap of humanity was striking; and when Macleod took his hand,
and half led and half carried him up on deck, the look of terror that he
directed on the plunging waters all around showed that he had not had
much experience of the sea. Involuntarily he had grasped hold of
Macleod's coat as if for protection.

"Now, Johnny, look right ahead. Do you see the big house on the cliffs
over yonder?"

The child, still clinging on to his protector, looked all round with the
dull, pale eyes, and at length said,--

"No."

"Can't you see that house, poor chap? Well, do you see that boat