will want you to do
this;' and then he will leave twenty or thirty shops, ay, fifty and a
hundred shops, and think no more of them at all. Oh yes, it is very true
what you say Sir Keith. There is no one knows better than I the
soundings in Loch Scridain and Loch Tua; and you have said yourself that
there is not a bank or a rock about the islands that I do not know; but
I have not been to London--no, I have not been to London. But is there
any great trouble in getting to London? No, none at all, when we have
Colin Laing on board."

Macleod was apparently making a gay joke of the matter; but there was an
anxious, intense look in his eyes all the same--even when he was
staring absently at the table before him.

"Oh yes, Hamish," he said, laughing in a constrained manner, "that would
be a fine story to tell. And you would become very famous--just as if
you were working for fame in a theatre; and all the people would be
talking about you. And when you got to London, how would you get through
the London streets?"

"It is my cousin who would show me the way: has he not been to London
more times than I have been to Stornoway?"

"But the streets of London--they would cover all the ground between here
and Loch Scridain; and how would you carry the young lady through them?"

"We would carry her," said Hamish, curtly.

"With the bagpipes to drown her screams?"

"I would drown her screams myself," said Hamish, with a sudden
savageness; and he added something that Macleod did not hear.

"Do you know that I am a magistrate, Hamish?"

"I know it, Sir Keith."

"And when you come to me with this proposal, do you know what I should
do?"

"I know what the old Macleods of Dare would have done," said Hamish,
proudly, "before they let this shame come on them. And you, Sir
Keith--you are a Macleod, too; ay, and the bravest lad that ever was
born in Castle Dare! And you will not suffer this thing any longer, Sir
Keith; for it is a sore heart I have from the morning till the night;
and it is only a serving-man that I am; but sometimes when I will see
you going about--and nothing now cared for, but a great trouble on your
face--oh, then I say to myself, 'Hamish, you are an old man, and you
have not long to live; but before you die you will teach the fine
English madam what it is to bring a shame on Sir Keith Macleod!'"

"Ah, well, good-night-now, Hamish; I am tired," he said; and the old man
slowly left.

He was tired--if one mi