It was clear, then, that the subsequent sketches could not be taken in sepia, and so Lavender proposed to make a series of pencil-drawings, which could be washed in with color afterward. There was one subject, indeed, which since his arrival in Lewis he had tried to fix on paper by every conceivable means in his power, and that was Sheila herself. He had spoiled innumerable sheets of paper in trying to get some likeness of her which would satisfy himself, but all his usual skill seemed somehow to have gone from him. He could not understand it. In ordinary circumstances he could have traced in a dozen lines a portrait that would at least have shown a superficial likeness: he could have multiplied portraits by the dozen of old Mackenzie or Ingram or Duncan, but here he seemed to fail utterly. He invited no criticism, certainly. These efforts were made in his own room, and he asked no one's opinion as to the likeness. He could, indeed, certify to himself that the drawing of the features was correct enough. There was the sweet and placid forehead with its low masses of dark hair; there the short upper lip, the finely-carved mouth, the beautifully-rounded chin and throat; and there the frank, clear, proud eyes, with their long lashes and highly-curved eyebrows. Sometimes, too, a touch of color added warmth to the complexion, put a glimmer of the blue sea beneath the long black eyelashes, and drew a thread of scarlet round the white neck. But was this Sheila? Could he take this sheet of paper to his friends in London and say, Here is the magical princess whom I hope to bring to you from the North, with all the glamour of the sea around her? He felt instinctively that there would be an awkward pause. The people would praise the handsome, frank, courageous head, and look upon the bit of red ribbon round the neck as an effective artistic touch. They would hand him back the paper with a compliment, and he would find himself in an agony of unrest because they had misunderstood the portrait, and seen nothing of the wonder that encompassed this Highland girl as if with a garment of mystery and dreams.

So he tore up portrait after portrait—more than one of which would have startled Ingram by its truth—and then, to prove to himself that he was not growing mad, he resolved to try a portrait of some other person. He drew a head of old Mackenzie in chalk, and was amazed at the rapidity and facility with which he executed the task. Then there could be no doubt as to the success of the likeness nor as to the effect of the picture. The King of Borva, with his heavy eyebrows, his aquiline nose, his keen gray eyes and flowing beard, offered a fine subject; and there was something really royal and massive and noble in the head that Lavender, well satisfied with his work, took down stairs one evening. Sheila was alone in the drawing-room, turning over some music.

"Miss Mackenzie," he said rather kindly, "would you look at this?"

Sheila turned round, and the sudden light of pleasure that leapt to her face was all the praise and all the assurance he wanted. But he had more than that. The girl was grateful to him beyond all the words she could utter; and when he asked her if she would accept the picture, she thanked him by taking his hand for a moment, and then she left the room to call in Ingram and her father. All the evening there was a singular look of happiness on her face. When she met Lavender's eyes with hers there was a frank and friendly look of gratitude ready to reward him. When had he earned so much before by a simple sketch? Many and many a portrait, carefully executed and elaborately framed, had he presented to his lady friends in London, to receive from them a pretty note and a few words of thanks when next he called. Here with a rough chalk sketch he had awakened an amount of gratitude that almost surprised him in the most beautiful and tender soul in the world; and had not this princess among women taken his hand for a moment as a childlike way of expressing her thanks, while her eyes spoke more than her lips? And the more he looked at those eyes, the more he grew to despair of ever being able to put down the magic of them in lines and colors.

At length Duncan got the boat into the small creek at Callernish, and the party got out on the shore. As they were going up the steep path leading to the plain above a young girl met them, who looked at them in rather a strange way. She had a fair, pretty, wondering face, with singularly high eyebrows and clear, light-blue eyes.

"How are you, Eily?" said Mackenzie as he passed on with Ingram.

But Sheila, on making the same inquiry, shook hands with the girl, who smiled in a confidential way, and, coming quite close, nodded and pointed down to the water's edge.

"Have you seen them to-day, Eily?" said Sheila, still holding the girl by the hands, and looking at the fair, pretty, strange face.

"It wass sa day before yesterday," she answered in a whisper, while a pleased smile appeared on her face, "and sey will be here sa night."

"Good-bye, Eily: take care you don't stay out at night and catch cold, you know," said Sheila; and then, with another little nod and a smile, the young girl went down the path.

"It is Eily-of-the-Ghosts, as they call her," said Sheila to Lavender as they went on: "the poor thing fancies she sees little people about the rocks, and watches for them. But she is very good and quiet, and she is not afraid of them, and she does no harm to any one. She does not belong to the Lewis—I think she is from Islay—but she sometimes comes to pay us a visit at Borva, and my papa is very kind to her."

"Mr. Ingram does not appear to know her: I thought he was acquainted with every one in the island," said Lavender.

"She was not here when he has been in the Lewis before," said Sheila; "but Eily does not like to speak to strangers, and I do not think you could get her to speak to you if you tried."

Lavender had paid but little attention to the "false men" of Callernish when first he saw them, but now he approached the long lines of big stones up on this lonely plateau with a new interest; for Sheila had talked to him about them many a time in Borva, and had asked his opinion about their origin and their age. Was the central circle of stones an altar, with the other series marking the approaches to it? Or was it the grave of some great chieftain, with the remaining stones indicating the graves of his relations and friends? Or was it the commemoration of some battle in olden times, or the record of astronomical or geometrical discoveries, or a temple once devoted to serpent-worship, or what? Lavender, who knew absolutely nothing at all about the matter, was probably as well qualified as anybody else to answer these questions, but he forbore. The interest, however, that Sheila showed in such things he very rapidly acquired. When he came to see the rows of stones a second time he was much impressed by their position on this bit of hill overlooking the sea. He sat down on his camp-stool with the determination that, although he could not satisfy Sheila's wistful questions, he would present her with some little sketch of these monuments and their surroundings which might catch up something of the mysterious loneliness of the scene.

He would not, of course, have the picture as it then presented itself. The sun was glowing on the grass around him, and lighting up the tall gray pillars of stone with a cheerful radiance. Over there the waters of Loch Roag were bright and blue, and beyond the lake the undulations of moorland were green and beautiful, and the mountains in the south grown pale as silver in the heat. Here was a pretty young lady, in a rough blue traveling-dress and a hat and feather, who was engaged in picking up wild-flowers from the warm heath. There was a gentleman from the office of the Board of Trade, who was sitting on the grass, nursing his knees and whistling. From time to time the chief figure in the foreground was an elderly gentleman, who evidently expected that he was going to be put into the picture, and who was occasionally dropping a cautious hint that he did not always wear this rough-and-ready sailor's costume. Mackenzie was also most anxious to point out to the artist the names of the hills and districts lying to the south of Loch Roag, apparently with the hope that the sketch would have a certain topographical interest for future visitors.

No: Lavender was content at that moment to take down the outlines of the great stones and the configuration of lake and hill beyond, but by and by he would give another sort of atmosphere to this wild scene. He would have rain and darkness spread over the island, with the low hills in the south grown desolate and remote, and the waters of the sea covered with gloom. No human figure should be visible on this remote plain, where these strange memorials had stood for centuries, exposed to western gales and the stillness of the winter nights and the awful silence of the stars. Would not Sheila, at least, understand the bleakness and desolation of the picture? Of course her father would like to have everything blue and green. He seemed a little disappointed when it was clear that no distant glimpse of Borva could be introduced into the sketch. But Sheila's imagination would be captured by this sombre picture, and perhaps by and by in some other land, amid fairer scenes and in a more generous climate, she might be less inclined to hunger for the dark and melancholy North when she looked on this record of its gloom and its sadness.

"Iss he going to put any people in the pictures?" said Mackenzie in a confidential whisper to Ingram.

Ingram got up from the grass, and said with a yawn, "I don't know. If he does, it will be afterward. Suppose we go along to the wagonette and see if Duncan has brought everything up from the boat?"

The old man seemed rather unwilling to be cut out of this particular sketch, but he went nevertheless; and Sheila, seeing the young man left alone, and thinking that not quite fair, went over to him and asked if she might be permitted to see as much as he had done.

Lavender shut up the book.

"No," he said with a laugh, "you shall see it to-night. I have sufficient memoranda to work something out of by and by. Shall we have another look at the circle up there?"

He folded up and shouldered his camp-stool, and they walked up to the point at which the lines of the "mourners" converged. Perhaps he was moved by a great antiquarian curiosity: at all events, he showed a singular interest in the monuments, and talked to his companion about all the possible theories connected with such stones in a fashion that charmed her greatly. She was easily persuaded that the Callernish "Fir-Bhreige" were the most interesting relics in the world. He had seen Stonehenge, but Stonehenge was too scattered to be impressive. There was more mystery about the means by which the inhabitants of a small island could have hewn and carved and erected these blocks: there was, moreover, the mystery about the vanished population itself. Yes, he had been to Carnac also. He had driven down from Auray in a rumbling old trap, his coachman being unable to talk French. He had seen the half-cultivated plain on which there were rows and rows of small stones, scarcely to be distinguished from the stone walls of the adjoining farms. What was there impressive about such a sight when you went into a house and paid a franc to be shown the gold ornaments picked up about the place? Here, however, was a perfect series of those strange memorials, with the long lanes leading up to a circle, and the tallest of all the stones placed on the western side of the circle, perhaps as the headstone of the buried chief. Look at the position, too—the silent hill, the waters of the sea-loch around it, and beyond that the desolation of miles of untenanted moorland. Sheila looked pleased that her companion, after coming so far, should have found something worth looking at in the Lewis.

"Does it not seem strange," he said suddenly, "to think of young folks of the present day picking up wild-flowers from among these old stones?" He was looking at a tiny bouquet which she had gathered.

"Will you take them?" she said, quite simply and naturally offering him the flowers. "They may remind you some time of Callernish."

He took the flowers, and regarded them for a moment in silence, and then he said gently, "I do not think I shall want these to remind me of Callernish. I shall never forget our being here."

At this moment, perhaps fortunately, Duncan appeared, and came along toward the young people with a basket in his hand.

"It wass Mr. Mackenzie will ask if ye will tek a glass o' whisky, sir, and a bit o' bread and cheese. And he wass sayin' there wass no hurry at all, and he will wait for you for two hours or half an hour whatever."

"All right, Duncan: go back and tell him I have finished, and we shall be there directly. No, thank you, don't take out the whisky—unless, Miss Mackenzie," added the young man with a smile, "Duncan can persuade you."

Duncan looked with amazement at the man who dared to joke about Miss Sheila taking whisky, and without waiting for any further commands indignantly shut the lid of the basket and walked off.

"I wonder, Miss Mackenzie," said Lavender as they went along the path and down the hill—"I wonder what you would say if I happened to call you Sheila by mistake?"

"I should be glad if you did that. Every one calls me Sheila," said the girl quietly enough.

"You would not be vexed?" he said, regarding her with a little surprise.

"No: why should I be vexed?" she answered; and she happened to look up, and he saw what a clear light of sincerity there was shining in her eyes.

"May I then call you Sheila?"

"Yes."

"But—but—" he said, with a timidity and embarrassment of which she showed no trace whatever—"but people might think it strange, you know; and yet I should greatly like to call you Sheila; only, not before other people perhaps."

"But why not?" she said with her eyebrows just raised a little. "Why should you wish to call me Sheila at one time and not at the other? It is no difference whatever, and every one calls me Sheila."

Lavender was a little disappointed. He had hoped, when she consented in so friendly a manner to his calling her by any name he chose, that he could have established this little arrangement, which would have had about it something of the nature of a personal confidence. Sheila would evidently have none of that. Was it that she was really so simple and frank in her ways that she did not understand why there should be such a difference, and what it might imply, or was she well aware of everything he had been wishing, and able to assume this air of simplicity and ignorance with a perfect grace? Ingram, he reflected, would have said at once that to suspect Sheila of such duplicity was to insult her; but then Ingram was perhaps himself a trifle too easily imposed on, and he had notions about women, despite all his philosophical reading and such like, that a little more mingling in society might have caused him to alter. Frank Lavender confessed to himself that Sheila was either a miracle of ingenuousness or a thorough mistress of the art of assuming it. On the one hand, he considered it almost impossible for a woman to be so disingenuous; on the other hand, how could this girl have taught herself, in the solitude of a savage island, a species of histrionicism which women in London circles strove for years to acquire, and rarely acquired in any perfection? At all events, he said to himself, while he reserved his opinion on this point, he was not going to call Sheila Sheila before folks who would know what that meant. Mr. Mackenzie was evidently a most irascible old gentleman. Goodness only knew what sort of law prevailed in these wild parts; and to be seized at midnight by a couple of brawny fishermen, to be carried down to a projecting ledge of rock—! Had not Ingram already hinted that Mackenzie would straightway throw into Loch Roag the man who should offer to carry away Sheila from him?

But how could these doubts of Sheila's sincerity last? He sat opposite her in the wagonette, and the perfect truth of her face, of her frank eyes and of her ready smile met him at every moment, whether he talked to her or to Ingram, or listened to old Mackenzie, who turned from time to time from the driving of the horses to inform the stranger of what he saw around him. It was the most brilliant of mornings. The sun burned on the white road, on the green moorland, on the gray-lichened rocks with their crimson patches of heather. As they drove by the curious convolutions of this rugged coast, the sea that lay beyond these recurring bays and points was of a windy green, with here and there a streak of white, and the fresh breeze blowing across to them tempered the fierce heat of the sun. How cool, too, were those little fresh-water lakes they passed, the clear blue and white of them stirred into wavelets that moved the reeds and left air-bubbles about the half-submerged stones! Were not those wild-geese over there, flapping in the water with their huge wings and taking no notice of the passing strangers? Lavender had never seen this lonely coast in times of gloom, with those little lakes become sombre pools, and the outline of the rocks beyond lost in the driving mist of the sea and the rain. It was altogether a bright and beautiful world he had got into, and there was in it but one woman, beautiful beyond his dreams. To doubt her was to doubt all women. When he looked at her he forgot the caution and distrust and sardonic self-complacency his southern training had given him. He believed, and the world seemed to be filled with a new light.

"That is Loch-na-Muirne," Mackenzie was saying, "and it iss the Loch of the Mill; and over there that is Loch-a-Bhaile, and that iss the Loch of the Town; but where iss the loch and the town now? It wass many hundreds of years before there will be numbers of people in this place; and you will come to Dun Charlobhaidh, which is a great castle, by and by. And what wass it will drive away the people, and leave the land to the moss, but that there wass no one to look after them? 'When the natives will leave Islay, farewell to the peace of Scotland.' That iss a good proverb. And if they have no one to mind them, they will go away altogether. And there is no people more obedient than the people of the Highlands—not anywhere; for you know that we say, 'Is it the truth, as if you were speaking before kings?' And now there is the castle, and there wass many people living here when they could build that."

It was, in truth, one of those circular forts the date of which has given rise to endless conjecture and discussion. Perched up on a hill, it overlooked a number of deep and narrow valleys that ran landward, while the other side of the hill sloped down to the sea-shore. It was a striking object, this tumbling mass of dark stones standing high over the green hollows and over the light plain of the sea. Was there not here material for another sketch for Sheila? While Lavender had gone away over the heights and hollows to choose his point of view a rough and ready luncheon had been spread out in the wagonette, and when he returned, perspiring and considerably blown, he found old Mackenzie measuring out equal portions of peat-water and whisky, Duncan flicking the enormous "clegs" from off the horses' necks, Ingram trying to persuade Sheila to have some sherry out of a flask he carried, and everybody in very good spirits over such an exciting event as a roadside luncheon on a summer forenoon.

The King of Borva had by this time become excellent friends with the young stranger who had ventured into his dominions. When the old gentleman had sufficiently impressed on everybody that he had observed all necessary precaution in studying the character and inquiring into the antecedents of Lavender, he could not help confessing to a sense of lightness and vivacity that the young man seemed to bring with him and shed around him. Nor was this matter of the sketches the only thing that had particularly recommended Lavender to the old man. Mackenzie had a most distinct dislike to Gaelic songs. He could not bear the monotonous melancholy of them. When Sheila, sitting by herself, would sing these strange old ballads of an evening, he would suddenly enter the room, probably find her eyes filled with tears, and then he would in his inmost heart devote the whole of Gaelic minstrelsy and all its authors to the infernal gods. Why should people be for ever saddening themselves with the stories of other folks' misfortunes? It was bad enough for those poor people, but they had borne their sorrows and died, and were at peace. Surely it was better that we should have songs about ourselves—drinking or fighting, if you like—to keep up the spirits, to lighten the serious cares of life, and drown for a while the responsibility of looking after a whole population of poor, half-ignorant, unphilosophical creatures.

"Look, now," he would say, speaking of his own tongue, "look at this teffle of a language! It has no present tense to its verbs: the people they are always looking forward to a melancholy future or looking back to a melancholy past. In the name of Kott, hef we not got ourselves to live? This day we live in is better than any day that wass before or iss to come, bekass it is here and we are alive. And I will hef no more of these songs about crying, and crying, and crying!"

Now Sheila and Lavender, in their mutual musical confidences, had at an early period discovered that each of them knew something of the older English duets, and forthwith they tried a few of them, to Mackenzie's extreme delight. Here, at last, was a sort of music he could understand—none of your moanings of widows and cries of luckless girls to the sea, but good common-sense songs, in which the lads kissed the lasses with a will, and had a good drink afterward, and a dance on the green on their homeward way. There was fun in those happy Mayfields, and good health and briskness in the ale-house choruses, and throughout them all a prevailing cheerfulness and contentment with the conditions of life certain to recommend itself to the contemplative mind. Mackenzie never tired of hearing those simple ditties. He grew confidential with the young man, and told him that those fine, common-sense songs recalled pleasant scenes to him. He himself knew something of English village life. When he had been up to see the Great Exhibition he had gone to visit a friend living in Brighton, and he had surveyed the country with an observant eye. He had remarked several village-greens, with the May-poles standing here and there in front of the cottages, emblazoned with beautiful banners. He had, it is true, fancied that the May-pole should be in the centre of the green; but the manner in which the waves of population swept here and there, swallowing up open spaces and so forth, would account to a philosophical person for the fact that the May-poles were now close to the village-shops.

"Drink to me only with thine eyes," hummed the King of Borva to himself as he sent the two little horses along the coast-road on this warm summer day. He had heard the song for the first time on the previous evening. He had no voice to speak of; he had missed the air, and these were all the words he remembered; but it was a notable compliment all the same to the young man who had brought these pleasant tunes to the island. And so they drove on through the keen salt air, with the sea shining beside them and the sky shining over them; and in the afternoon they arrived at the small, remote and solitary inn of Barvas, placed near the confluence of several rivers that flow through Loch Barvas (or Barabhas) to the sea. Here they proposed to stop the night, so that Lavender, when his room had been assigned to him, begged to be left alone for an hour or two, that he might throw a little color into his sketch of Callernish. What was there to see at Barvas? Why, nothing but the channels of the brown streams, some pasture-land and a few huts, then the unfrequented lake, and beyond that some ridges of white sand standing over the shingly beach of the sea. He would join them at dinner. Mackenzie protested in a mild way: he really wanted to see how the island was to be illustrated by the stranger. There was a greater protest, mingled with compassion and regret, in Sheila's eyes; but the young man was firm. So they let him have his way, and gave him full possession of the common sitting-room, while they set off to visit the school and the Free-Church manse and what not in the neighborhood.

Mackenzie had ordered dinner at eight, to show that he was familiar with the ways of civilized life; and when they returned at that hour Lavender had two sketches finished.

"Yes, they are very good," said Ingram, who was seldom enthusiastic about his friend's work.

But old Mackenzie was so vastly pleased with the picture, which represented his native place in the brightest of sunshine and colors, that he forgot to assume a critical air. He said nothing against the rainy and desolate version of the scene that had been given to Sheila: it was good enough to please the child. But here was something brilliant, effective, cheerful; and he alarmed Lavender not a little by proposing to get one of the natives to carry this treasure, then and there, back to Borvabost. Both sketches were ultimately returned to his book, and then Sheila helped him to remove his artistic apparatus from the table on which their plain and homely meal was to be placed. As she was about to follow her father and Ingram, who had left the room, she paused for a moment and said to Lavender, with a look of frank gratitude in her eyes, "It is very good of you to have pleased my papa so much. I know when he is pleased, though he does not speak of it; and it is not often he will be so much pleased."

"And you, Sheila?" said the young man, unconscious of the familiarity he was using, and only remembering that she had scarcely thanked him for the other sketch.

"Well, there is nothing that will please me so much as to see him pleased," she said with a smile.

He was about to open the door for her, but he kept his hand on the handle, and said, earnestly enough, "But that is such a small matter—an hour's work. If you only knew how gladly I would live all my life here if only I could do you some greater service—"

She looked a little surprised, and then for one brief second reflected. English was not wholly familiar to her: perhaps she had failed to catch what he really meant. But at all events she said gravely and simply, "You would soon tire of living here: it is not always a holiday." And then, without lifting her eyes to his face, she turned to the door, and he opened it for her and she was gone.

It was about ten o'clock when they went outside for their evening stroll, and all the world had grown enchanted since they had seen it in the colors of the sunset. There was no night, but a strange clearness over the sky and the earth, and down in the south the moon was rising over the Barvas hills. In the dark green meadows the cattle were still grazing. Voices of children could be heard in the far distance, with the rumble of a cart coming through the silence, and the murmur of the streams flowing down to the loch. The loch itself lay like a line of dusky yellow in a darkened hollow near the sea, having caught on its surface the pale glow of the northern heavens, where the sun had gone down hours before. The air was warm and yet fresh with the odors of the Atlantic, and there was a scent of Dutch clover coming across from the sandy pastures nearer the coast. The huts of the small hamlet could but faintly be made out beyond the dark and low-lying pastures, but a long, pale line of blue smoke lay in the motionless air, and the voices of the children told of open doors. Night after night this same picture, with slight variations of position, had been placed before the stranger who had come to view these solitudes, and night after night it seemed to him to grow more beautiful. He could put down on paper the outlines of an every-day landscape, and give them a dash of brilliant color to look well on a wall; but how to carry away, except in the memory, any impression of the strange lambent darkness, the tender hues, the loneliness and the pathos of those northern twilights?

They walked down by the side of one of the streams toward the sea. But Sheila was not his companion on this occasion. Her father had laid hold of him, and was expounding to him the rights of capitalists and various other matters. But by and by Lavender drew his companion on to talk of Sheila's mother; and here, at least, Mackenzie was neither tedious nor ridiculous nor unnecessarily garrulous. It was with a strange interest the young man heard the elderly man talk of his courtship, his marriage, the character of his wife, and her goodness and beauty. Was it not like looking at a former Sheila? and would not this Sheila now walking before him go through the same tender experiences, and be admired and loved and petted by everybody as this other girl had been, who brought with her the charm of winning ways and a gentle nature into these rude wilds? It was the first time he had heard Mackenzie speak of his wife, and it turned out to be the last; but from that moment the older man had something of dignity in the eyes of this younger man, who had merely judged of him by his little foibles and eccentricities, and would have been ready to dismiss him contemptuously as a buffoon. There was something, then, behind that powerful face, with its deep-cut lines, its heavy eyebrows and piercing and sometimes sad eyes, besides a mere liking for tricks of childish diplomacy. Lavender began to have some respect for Sheila's father, and made a resolution to guard against the impertinence of humoring him too ostentatiously.

Was it not hard, though, that Ingram, who was so cold and unimpressionable, who smiled at the notion of marrying, and who was probably enjoying his pipe quite as much as Sheila's familiar talk, should have the girl all to himself on this witching night? They reached the shores of the Atlantic. There was not a breath of wind coming in from the sea, but the air seemed even sweeter and cooler as they sat down on the great bank of shingle. Here and there birds were calling, and Sheila could distinguish each one of them. As the moon rose a faint golden light began to tremble here and there on the waves, as if some subterranean caverns were lit up and sending to the surface faint and fitful rays of their splendor. Farther along the coast the tall banks of white sand grew white in the twilight, and the outlines of the dark pasture-land behind grew more distinct.

But when they rose to go back to Barvas the moonlight had grown full and clear, and the long and narrow loch had a pathway of gold across, stretching from the reeds and sedges of the one side to the reeds and sedges of the other. And now Ingram had gone on to join Mackenzie, and Sheila walked behind with Lavender, and her face was pale and beautiful in the moonlight.

"I shall be very sorry when I have to leave Lewis," he said as they walked along the path leading through the sand and the clover; and there could be no doubt that he felt the regret expressed in the words.

"But it is no use to speak of leaving us yet," said Sheila cheerfully: "it is a long time before you will go away from the Lewis."

"And I fancy I shall always think of the island just as it is now—with the moonlight over there, and a loch near, and you walking through the stillness. We have had so many evening walks like this."

"You will make us very vain of our island," said the girl with a smile, "if you will speak like that always to us. Is there no moonlight in England? I have pictures of English scenery that will be far more beautiful than any we have here; and if there is the moon here, it will be there too. Think of the pictures of the river Thames that my papa showed you last night—"

"Oh, but there is nothing like this in the South," said the young man impetuously. "I do not believe there is in the world anything so beautiful as this. Sheila, what would you say if I resolved to come and live here always?"

"I should like that very much—more than you would like it, perhaps," she said with a bright laugh.

"That would please you better than for you to go always and live in England, would it not?"

"But that is impossible," she said. "My papa would never think of living in England."

For some time after he was silent. The two figures in front of them walked steadily on, an occasional roar of laughter from the deep chest of Mackenzie startling the night air, and telling of Ingram's being in a communicative mood. At last Lavender said, "It seems to me so great a pity that you should live in this remote place, and have so little amusement, and see so few people of tastes and education like your own. Your papa is so much occupied—he is so much older than you, too—that you must be left to yourself so much; whereas if you had a companion of your own age, who could have the right to talk frankly to you, and go about with you, and take care of you—"

By this time they had reached the little wooden bridge crossing the stream, and Mackenzie and Ingram had got to the inn, where they stood in front of the door in the moonlight. Before ascending the steps of the bridge, Lavender, without pausing in his speech, took Sheila's hand and said suddenly, "Now don't let me alarm you, Sheila, but suppose at some distant day—as far away as you please—I came and asked you to let me be your companion then and always, wouldn't you try?"

She looked up with a startled glance of fear in her eyes, and withdrew her hand from him.

"No, don't be frightened," he said quite gently. "I don't ask you for any promise. Sheila, you must know I love you—you must have seen it. Will you not let me come to you at some future time—a long way off—that you may tell me then? Won't you try to do that?"

There was more in the tone of his voice than in his words. The girl stood irresolute for a second or two, regarding him with a strange, wistful, earnest look; and then a great gentleness came into her eyes, and she put out her hand to him and said in a low voice, "Perhaps."

But there was something so grave and simple about her manner at this moment that he dared not somehow receive it as a lover receives the first admission of love from the lips of a maiden. There had been something of a strange inquiry in her face as she regarded him for a second or two; and now that her eyes were bent on the ground it seemed to him that she was trying to realize the full effect of the concession she had made. He would not let her think. He took her hand and raised it respectfully to his lips, and then he led her forward to the bridge. Not a word was spoken between them while they crossed the shining space of moonlight to the shadow of the house; and as they went indoors he caught but one glimpse of her eyes, and they were friendly and kind toward him, but evidently troubled. He saw her no more that night.

So he had asked Sheila to be his wife, and she had given him some timid encouragement as to the future. Many a time within these last few days had he sketched out an imaginative picture of the scene. He was familiar with the passionate rapture of lovers on the stage, in books and in pictures; and he had described himself (to himself) as intoxicated with joy, anxious to let the whole world know of his good fortune, and above all to confide the tidings of his happiness to his constant friend and companion. But now, as he sat in one corner of the room, he almost feared to be spoken to by the two men who sat at the table with steaming glasses before them. He dared not tell Ingram: he had no wish to tell him, even if he had got him alone. And as he sat there and recalled the incident that had just occurred by the side of the little bridge, he could not wholly understand its meaning. There had been none of the eagerness, the coyness, the tumult of joy he had expected: all he could remember clearly was the long look that the large, earnest, troubled eyes had fixed upon him, while the girl's face, grown pale in the moonlight, seemed somehow ghost-like and strange.

CHAPTER VII.

AN INTERMEDDLER.

But in the morning all these idle fancies fled with the life and color and freshness of a new day. Loch Barvas was ruffled into a dark blue by the westerly wind, and doubtless the sea out there was rushing in, green and cold, to the shore. The sunlight was warm about the house. The trout were leaping in the shallow brown streams, and here and there a white butterfly fluttered across the damp meadows. Was not that Duncan down by the river, accompanied by Ingram? There was a glimmer of a rod in the sunshine: the two poachers were after trout for Sheila's breakfast.

Lavender dressed, went outside and looked about for the nearest way down to the stream. He wished to have a chance of saying a word to his friend before Sheila or her father should appear. And at last he thought he could do no better than go across to the bridge, and so make his way down the banks of the river.

What a fresh morning it was, with all sorts of sweet scents in the air! And here, sure enough, was a pretty picture in the early light—a young girl coming over the bridge carrying a load of green grass on her back. What would she say if he asked her to stop for a moment that he might sketch her pretty costume? Her head-dress was a scarlet handkerchief, tied behind: she wore a tight-fitting bodice of cream-white flannel and petticoats of gray flannel, while she had a waistbelt and pouch of brilliant blue. Did she know of these harmonies of color or of the picturesqueness of her appearance as she came across the bridge in the sunlight? As she drew near she stared at the stranger with the big, dumb eyes of a wild animal. There was no fear, only a sort of surprised observation in them. And as she passed she uttered, without a smile, some brief and laconic salutation in Gaelic, which of course the young man could not understand. He raised his cap, however, and said "Good-morning!" and went on, with a fixed resolve to learn all the Gaelic that Duncan could teach him.

Surely the tall keeper was in excellent spirits this morning. Long before he drew near, Lavender could hear, in the stillness of the morning, that he was telling stories about John the Piper, and of his adventures in such distant parts as Portree and Oban, and even in Glasgow.

"And it wass Allan M'Gillivray of Styornoway," Duncan was saying as he industriously whipped the shallow runs of the stream, "will go to Glasgow with John; and they went through ta Crinan Canal. Wass you through ta Crinan Canal, sir?"

"Many a time."

"Ay, jist that. And I hef been told it iss like a river with ta sides o' a house to it; and what would Allan care for a thing like that, when he hass been to America more than twice or four times? And it wass when he fell into the canal, he was ferry nearly trooned for all that; and when they pulled him to ta shore he wass a ferry angry man. And this iss what John says that Allan will say when he wass on the side of the canal: 'Kott,' says he, 'if I wass trooned here, I would show my face in Styornoway no more!' But perhaps it iss not true, for he will tell many lies, does John the Piper, to hef a laugh at a man."

"The Crinan Canal is not to be despised, Duncan," said Ingram, who was sitting on the red sand of the bank, "when you are in it."

"And do you know what John says that Allan will say to him the first time they went ashore at Glasgow?"

"I am sure I don't."

"It wass many years ago, before that Allan will be going many times to America, and he will neffer hef seen such fine shops and ta big houses and hundreds and hundreds of people, every one with shoes on their feet. And he will say to John, 'John, ef I had known in time I should hef been born here.' But no one will believe it iss true, he is such a teffle of a liar, that John; and he will hef some stories about Mr. Mackenzie himself, as I hef been told, that he will tell when he goes to Styornoway. But John is a ferry cunning fellow, and will not tell any such stories in Borva."

"I suppose if he did, Duncan, you would dip him in Loch Roag?"

"Oh, there iss more than one," said Duncan with a grim twinkle in his eye—"there iss more than one that would hef a joke with him if he was to tell stories about Mr. Mackenzie."

Lavender had been standing listening, unknown to both. He now went forward and bade them good-morning, and then, having had a look at the trout that Duncan had caught, pulled Ingram up from the bank, put his arm in his and walked away with him.

"Ingram," he said suddenly, with a laugh and a shrug, "you know I always come to you when I'm in a fix."

"I suppose you do," said the other, "and you are always welcome to whatever help I can give you. But sometimes it seems to me you rush into fixes, with the sort of notion that I am responsible for getting you out."

"I can assure you nothing of the kind is the case. I could not be so ungrateful. However, in the mean time—that is—the fact is, I asked Sheila last night if she would marry me."

"The devil you did!"

Ingram dropped his companion's arm and stood looking at him.

"Well, I knew you would be angry," said the younger man in a tone of apology. "And I know I have been too precipitate, but I thought of the short time we should be remaining here, and of the difficulty of getting an explanation made at another time; and it was really only to give her a hint as to my own feelings that I spoke. I could not bear to wait any longer."

"Never mind about yourself," said Ingram somewhat curtly: "what did Sheila say?"

"Well, nothing definite. What could you expect a girl to say after so short an acquaintance? But this I can tell you, that the proposal is not altogether distasteful to her, and that I have her permission to speak of it at some future time, when we have known each other longer."

"You have?"

"Yes."

"You are quite sure?"

"Certain."

"There is no mistake about her silence, for example, that might have led you into misinterpreting her wishes altogether?"

"Nothing of the kind is possible. Of course I could not ask the girl for any promise, or anything of that sort. All I asked was, whether she would allow me at some future time to ask her more definitely; and I am so well satisfied with the reply that I am convinced I shall marry her."

"And is this the fix you wish me to help you out of?" said Ingram rather coldly.

"Now, Ingram," said the younger man in penitential tones, "don't cut up rough about it. You know what I mean. Perhaps I have been hasty and inconsiderate about it; but of one thing you may be sure, that Sheila will never have to complain of me if she marries me. You say I don't know her yet, but there will be plenty of time before we are married. I don't propose to carry her off to-morrow morning. Now, Ingram, you know what I mean about helping me in the fix—helping me with her father, you know, and with herself, for the matter of that. You can do anything with her, she has such a belief in you. You should hear how she talks of you—you never heard anything like it."

It was an innocent bit of flattery, and Ingram smiled good-naturedly at the boy's ingenuousness. After all, was he not more lovable and more sincere in this little bit of simple craft, used in the piteousness of his appeal, then when he was giving himself the airs of a man-about-town, and talking of women in a fashion which, to do him justice, expressed nothing of his real sentiments?

Ingram walked on, and said in his slow and deliberate way, "You know I opposed this project of yours from the first. I don't think you have acted fairly by Sheila or her father, or myself who brought you here. But if Sheila has been drawn into it, why, then, the whole affair is altered, and we've got to make the best of a bad business."

"I was sure you would say that," exclaimed the younger man with a brighter light appearing on his face. "You may call me all the hard names you like: I deserve them all, and more. But then, as you say, since Sheila is in it, you'll do your best, won't you?"

Frank Lavender could not make out why the taciturn and sallow-faced man walking beside him seemed to be greatly amused by this speech, but he was in no humor to take offence. He knew that once Ingram had promised him his help he would not lack all the advocacy, the advice, and even the money—should that become necessary—that a warm-hearted and disinterested friend could offer. Many and many a time Ingram had helped him, and now he was to come to his assistance in the most serious crisis of his life. Ingram would remove Sheila's doubts. Ingram would persuade old Mackenzie that girls had to get married some time or other, and that Sheila ought to live in London. Ingram would be commissioned to break the news to Mrs. Lavender—But here, when the young man thought of the interview with his aunt which he would have to encounter, a cold shiver passed through his frame. He would not think of it. He would enjoy the present hour. Difficulties only grew the bigger the more they were looked at: when they were left to themselves they frequently disappeared. It was another proof of Ingram's kindliness that he had not even mentioned the old lady down in Kensington who was likely to have something to say about this marriage.

"There are a great many difficulties in the way," said Ingram thoughtfully.

"Yes," said Lavender with much eagerness, "but then, look! You may be sure that if we get over these, Sheila will know well who managed it, and she will not be ungrateful to you, I think. If we ever should be married, I am certain she will always look on you as her greatest friend."

"It is a big bribe," said the elder man, perhaps a trifle sadly; and Lavender looked at him with some vague return of a suspicion that some time or other Ingram must himself have been in love with Sheila.

They returned to the inn, where they found Mackenzie busy with a heap of letters and newspapers that had been sent across to him from Stornoway. The whole of the breakfast-table was littered with wrappers and big blue envelopes: where was Sheila, who usually waited on her father at such times to keep his affairs in order?

Sheila was outside, and Lavender saw her through the open window. Was she not waiting for him, that she should pace up and down by herself, with her face turned away from the house? He immediately went out and went over to her, and she turned to him as he approached. He fancied she looked a trifle pale, and far less bright and joyous than the ordinary Sheila.

"Mr. Lavender," she said, walking away from the house, "I wish very much to speak to you for a moment. Last night it was all a misfortune that I did not understand; and I wish you to forget that a word was ever spoken about that."

Her head was bent down, and her speech was low and broken: what she failed to explain in words her manner explained for her. But her companion said to her, with alarm and surprise in his tone, "Why, Sheila! You cannot be so cruel! Surely you need not fear any embarrassment through so slight a promise. It pledges you to nothing—it leaves you quite free; and some day, if I come and ask you then a question I have not asked you yet, that will be time enough to give me an answer."

"Oh no, no!" said the girl, obviously in great distress, "I cannot do that. It is unjust to you to let you think of it and hope about it. It was last night everything was strange to me—I did not understand then—but I have thought about it all the night through, and now I know."

"Sheila!" called her father from the inside of the inn, and she turned to go.

"But you do not ask that, do you?" he said. "You are only frightened a little bit just now, but that will go away. There is nothing to be frightened about. You have been thinking over it, and imagining impossible things: you have been thinking of leaving Borva altogether—"

"Oh, that I can never do!" she said with a pathetic earnestness.

"But why think of such a thing?" he said. "You need not look at all the possible troubles of life when you take such a simple step as this. Sheila, don't be hasty in any such resolve: you may be sure all the gloomy things you have been thinking of will disappear when we get close to them. And this is such a simple thing. I don't ask you to say you will be my wife—I have no right to ask you yet—but I have only asked permission of you to let me think of it; and even Mr. Ingram sees no great harm in that."

"Does he know?" she said with a start of surprise and fear.

"Yes," said Lavender, wishing he had bitten his tongue in two before he had uttered the word. "You know we have no secrets from each other; and to whom could I go for advice but to your oldest friend?"

"And what did he say?" she asked with a strange look in her eyes.

"Well, he sees a great many difficulties, but he thinks they will easily be got over."

"Then," she said, with her eyes again cast down and a certain sadness in her tone, "I must explain to him too, and tell him I had no understanding of what I said last night."

"Sheila, you won't do that!" urged the young man. "It means nothing—it pledges you to nothing."

"Sheila! Sheila!" cried her father cheerily from the window, "come in and let us hef our breakfast."

"Yes, papa," said the girl, and she went into the house, followed by her companion.

But how could she find an opportunity of making this explanation? Shortly after breakfast the wagonette was at the door of the little Barvas inn, and Sheila came out of the house and took her place in it with an unusual quietness of manner and hopelessness of look. Ingram, sitting opposite to her, and knowing nothing of what had taken place, fancied that this was but an expression of girlish timidity, and that it was his business to interest her and amuse her until she should forget the strangeness and newness of her position. Nay, as he had resolved to make the best of matters as they stood, and as he believed that Sheila had half confessed to a special liking for his friend from the South, what more fitting thing could he do than endeavor to place Lavender in the most favorable light in her eyes? He began to talk of all the brilliant and successful things the young man had done as fully as he could before himself. He contrived to introduce pretty anecdotes of Lavender's generosity; and there were plenty of these, for the young fellow had never a thought of consequences if he was touched by a tale of distress, and if he could help the sufferer either with his own or any one else's money. Ingram talked of all their excursions together, in Devonshire, in Brittany and elsewhere, to impress on Sheila how well he knew his friend and how long their intimacy had lasted. At first the girl was singularly reserved and silent, but somehow, as pleasant recollections were multiplied, and as Lavender seemed to have been always the associate and companion of this old friend of hers, some brighter expression came into her face and she grew more interested. Lavender, not knowing whether or not to take her decision of that morning as final, and not wholly perceiving the aim of this kindly chat on the part of his friend, began to see at least that Sheila was pleased to hear the two men help out each other's stories about their pedestrian excursions, and that she at last grew bold enough to look up and meet his eyes in a timid fashion when she asked him a question.

So they drove along by the side of the sea, the level and well-made road leading them through miles and miles of rough moorland, with here and there a few huts or a sheepfold to break the monotony of the undulating sky-line. Here and there, too, there were great cuttings of the peat-moss, with a thin line of water in the foot of the deep black trenches. Sometimes, again, they would escape altogether from any traces of human habitation, and Duncan would grow excited in pointing out to Miss Sheila the young grouse that had run off the road into the heather, where they stood and eyed the passing carriage with anything but a frightened air. And while Mackenzie hummed something resembling, but very vaguely resembling, "Love in thine eyes sits beaming," and while Ingram, in his quiet, desultory, and often sardonic fashion, amused the young girl with stories of her lover's bravery and kindness and dare-devil escapades, the merry trot of the horses beat time to the bells on their necks, the fresh west wind blew a cloud of white dust away over the moorland behind them, there was a blue sky shining all around them, and the blue Atlantic basking in the light.

They stopped for a few minutes at both the hamlets of Suainabost and Tabost to allow Sheila to pay a hurried visit to one or two of the huts, while Mackenzie, laying hold of some of the fishermen he knew, got them to show Lavender the curing-houses, in which the young gentleman professed himself profoundly interested. They also visited the school-house, and Lavender found himself beginning to look upon a two-storied building with windows as something imposing and a decided triumph of human skill and enterprise. But what was the school-house of Tabost to the grand building at the Butt? They had driven away from the high-road by a path leading through long and sweet-smelling pastures of Dutch clover; they had got up from these sandy swathes to a table-land of rock; and here and there they caught glimpses of fearful precipices leading sheer down to the boiling and dashing sea. The curious contortions of the rocks, the sharp needles of them springing in isolated pillars from out of the water, the roar of the eddying currents that swept through the chasms and dashed against the iron-bound shore, the wild sea-birds that flew about and screamed over the rushing waves and the surge, naturally enough drew the attention of the strangers altogether away from the land; and it was with a start of surprise they found themselves before an immense mass of yellow stone-work—walls, house and tower—that shone in the sunlight. And here were the light-house-keeper and his wife, delighted to see strange faces and most hospitably inclined; insomuch that Lavender, who cared little for luncheon at any time, was constrained to take as much bread and cheese and butter and whisky as would have made a ploughman's dinner. It was a strange sort of meal this, away out at the end of the world, as it were. The snug little room might have been in the Marylebone road: there were photographs about, a gay label on the whisky-bottle, and other signs of an advanced civilization; but outside nothing but the wild precipices of the coast, a surging sea that seemed almost to surround the place, the wild screaming of the sea-birds, and a single ship appearing like a mere speck on the northern horizon.

They had not noticed the wind much as they drove along; but now, when they went out on to the high table-land of rock, it seemed to be blowing half a gale across the sea. The sunlight sparkled on the glass of the lighthouse, and the great yellow shaft of stone stretched away upward into a perfect blue. As clear a blue lay far beneath them when the sea came rushing in among the lofty crags and sharp pinnacles of rock, bursting into foam at their feet, and sending long jets of white spray up into the air. In front of the great wall of rock the sea-birds wheeled and screamed, and on the points of some of the islands stood several scarts, motionless figures of jet black on the soft brown and green of the rock. And what was this island they looked down upon from over one of the bays? Surely a mighty reproduction by Nature herself of the Sphynx of the Egyptian plains. Could anything have been more striking and unexpected and impressive than the sudden discovery of this great mass of rock resting in the wild sea, its hooded head turned away toward the north and hidden from the spectator on land, its gigantic bulk surrounded by a foam of breakers? Lavender, with his teeth set hard against the wind, must needs take down the outlines of this strange scene upon paper, while Sheila crouched at her father's side for shelter, and Ingram was chiefly engaged in holding on to his cap.

"It blows here a bit," said Lavender amid the roar of the waves. "I suppose in the winter-time the sea will sometimes break across this place?"

"Ay, and over the top of the lighthouse too," said Mackenzie with a laugh, as though he was rather proud of the way his native seas behaved.

"Sheila," said Ingram, "I never saw you take refuge from the wind before."

"It is because we will be standing still," said the girl with a smile which was scarcely visible, because she had half hidden her face in her father's great gray beard. "But when Mr. Lavender is finished we will go down to the great hole in the rocks that you will have seen before, and perhaps he will make a picture of that too."

"You don't mean to say you would go down there, Sheila?" said Ingram, "and in this wind?"

"I have been down many times before."

"Indeed, you will do nothing of the kind, Sheila," said her father: "you will go back to the lighthouse if you like—yes, you may do that—and I will go down the rocks with Mr. Lavender; but it iss not for a young lady to go about among the rocks, like a fisherman's lad that wants the birds' eggs, or such nonsense."

It was quite evident that Mackenzie had very little fear of his daughter not being able to accomplish the descent of the rocks safely enough: it was a matter of dignity. And so Sheila was at length persuaded to go across the plain to a sheltered place, to wait there until the others should clamber down to the great and naturally-formed tunnel through the rocks that the artist was to sketch.

Lavender was ill at ease. He followed his guide mechanically as they made their way, in zigzag fashion, down the precipitous slopes and over slippery plateaus; and when at last he came in sight of the mighty arch, the long cavern, and the glimmer of sea and shore that could be seen through it, he began to put down the outlines of the picture as rapidly as possible, but with little interest in the matter. Ingram was sitting on the bare rocks beside him, Mackenzie was some distance off: should he tell his friend of what Sheila had said in the morning? Strict honesty, perhaps, demanded as much, but the temptation to say nothing was great. For it was evident that Ingram was now well inclined to the project, and would do his best to help it on; whereas, if once he knew that Sheila had resolved against it, he too might take some sudden step—such as insisting on their immediate return to the mainland—which would settle the matter for ever. Sheila had said she would herself make the necessary explanation to Ingram, but she had not done so: perhaps she might lack the courage or an opportunity to do so, and in the mean time was not the interval altogether favorable to his chances? Doubtless she was a little frightened at first. She would soon get less timid, and would relent and revoke her decision of the morning. He would not, at present at any rate, say anything to Ingram.

But when they had got up again to the summit of the rocks, an incident occurred that considerably startled him out of these vague and anxious speculations. He walked straight over to the sheltered spot in which Sheila was waiting. The rushing of the wind doubtless drowned the sound of his footsteps, so that he came on her unawares; and on seeing him she rose suddenly from the rock on which she had been sitting, with some effort to hide her face away from him. But he had caught a glimpse of something in her eyes that filled him with remorse.

"Sheila," he said, going forward to her, "what is the matter? What are you unhappy about?"

She could not answer; she held her face turned from him and cast down; and then, seeing her father and Ingram in the distance, she set out to follow them to the lighthouse, Lavender walking by her side, and wondering how he could deal with the distress that was only too clearly written on her face.

"I know it is I who have grieved you," he said in a low voice, "and I am very sorry. But if you will tell me what I can do to remove this unhappiness, I will do it now. Shall I consider our talking together of last night as if it had not taken place at all?"

"Yes," she said in as low a voice, but clear and sad and determined in its tone.

"And I shall speak no more to you about this affair until I go away altogether?"

And again she signified her assent, gravely and firmly.

"And then," he said, "you will soon forget all about it; for of course I shall never come back to Lewis again."

"Never?"

The word had escaped her unwillingly, and it was accompanied by a quick upturning of the face and a frightened look in the beautiful eyes.

"Do you wish me to come back?" he said.

"I should not wish you to go away from the Lewis through any fault of mine, and say that we should never see you again," said the girl in measured tones, as if she were nerving herself to make the admission, and yet fearful of saying too much.

By this time Mackenzie and Ingram had gone round the big wall of the lighthouse: there were no human beings on this lonely bit of heath but themselves. Lavender stopped her and took her hand, and said, "Don't you see, Sheila, how I must never come back to Lewis if all this is to be forgotten? And all I want you to say is, that I may come some day to see if you can make up your mind to be my wife. I don't ask that yet: it is out of the question, seeing how short a time you have known anything about me, and I cannot wish you to trust me as I can trust you. It is a very little thing I ask—only to give me a chance at some future time, and then, if you don't care for me sufficiently to marry me, or if anything stands in the way, all you need do is to send me a single word, and that will suffice. This is no terrible thing that I beg from you, Sheila. You needn't be afraid of it."

But she was afraid: there was nothing but fear and doubt and grief in her eyes as she gazed into the unknown world laid open before her.

"Can't you ask some one to tell you that it is nothing dreadful—Mr. Ingram, for example?"

"I could not."

"Your papa, then," he said, driven to this desperate resource by his anxiety to save her from pain.

"Not yet—not just yet," she said almost wildly, "for how could I explain to him? He would ask me what my wishes were: what could I say? I do not know. I cannot tell myself; and—and—I have no mother to ask." And here all the strain of self-control gave way, and the girl burst into tears.

"Sheila, dear Sheila," he said, "why won't you trust your own heart, and let that be your guide? Won't you say this one word Yes, and tell me that I am to come back to Lewis some day, and ask to see you, and get a message from one look of your eyes? Sheila, may not I come back?"

If there was a reply it was so low that he scarcely heard it; but somehow—whether from the small hand that lay in his, or from the eyes that sent one brief message of trust and hope through their tears—his question was answered; and from that moment he felt no more misgivings, but let his love for Sheila spread out and blossom in whatever light of fancy and imagination he could bring to bear on it, careless of any future.

How the young fellow laughed and joked as the party drove away again from the Butt, down the long coast-road to Barvas! He was tenderly respectful and a little moderate in tone when he addressed Sheila, but with the others he gave way to a wild exuberance of spirits that delighted Mackenzie beyond measure. He told stories of the odd old gentlemen of his club, of their opinions, their ways, their dress. He sang the song of the Arethusa, and the wilds of Lewis echoed with a chorus which was not just as harmonious as it might have been. He sang the "Jug of Punch," and Mackenzie said that was a teffle of a good song. He gave imitations of some of Ingram's companions at the Board of Trade, and showed Sheila what the inside of a government office was like. He paid Mackenzie the compliment of asking him for a drop of something out of his flask, and in return he insisted on the King smoking a cigar which, in point of age and sweetness and fragrance, was really the sort of cigar you would naturally give to the man whose only daughter you wanted to marry.

Ingram understood all this, and, was pleased to see the happy look that Sheila wore. He talked to her with even a greater assumption than usual of fatherly fondness; and if she was a little shy, was it not because she was conscious of so great a secret? He was even unusually complaisant to Lavender, and lost no opportunity of paying him indirect compliments that Sheila could overhear.

"You poor young things!" he seemed to be saying to himself, "you've got all your troubles before you; but in the mean time you may make yourselves as happy as you can."

Was the weather at last about to break? As the afternoon wore on the heavens became overcast, for the wind had gone back from the course of the sun, and had brought up great masses of cloud from the rainy south-west.

"Are we going to have a storm?" said Lavender, looking along the southern sky, where the Barvas hills were momentarily growing blacker under the gathering darkness overhead.

"A storm?" said Mackenzie, whose notions on what constituted a storm were probably different from those of his guest. "No, there will be no storm. But it is no bad thing if we get back to Barvas very soon."

Duncan sent the horses on, and Ingram looked out Sheila's waterproof and the rugs. The southern sky certainly looked ominous. There was a strange intensity of color in the dark landscape, from the deep purple of the Barvas hills, coming forward to the deep green of the pasture-land around them, and the rich reds and browns of the heath and the peat-cuttings. At one point of the clouded and hurrying sky, however, there was a soft and vaporous line of yellow in the gray; and under that, miles away in the west, a great dash of silver light struck upon the sea, and glowed there so that the eye could scarcely bear it. Was it the damp that brought the perfumes of the moorland so distinctly toward them—the bog-myrtle, the water-mint and wild thyme? There were no birds to be heard. The crimson masses of heather on the gray rocks seemed to have grown richer and deeper in color, and the Barvas hills had become large and weird in the gloom.

"Are you afraid of thunder?" said Lavender to Sheila.

"No," said the girl, looking frankly toward him with her glad eyes, as though he had pleased her by asking that not very striking question. And then she looked round at the sea and the sky in the south, and said quietly, "But there will be no thunder: it is too much wind."

Ingram, with a smile which he could scarcely conceal, hereupon remarked, "You're sorry, Lavender, I know. Wouldn't you like to shelter somebody in danger or attempt a rescue, or do something heroic?"

"And Mr. Lavender would do that if there was any need," said the girl bravely, "and then it would be nothing to laugh at."

"Sheila, you bad girl! how dare you talk like that to me?" said Ingram; and he put his arm within hers and said he would tell her a story.

But this race to escape the storm was needless, for they were just getting within sight of Barvas when a surprising change came over the dark and thunderous afternoon. The hurrying masses of cloud in the west parted for a little space, and there was a sudden and fitful glimmer of a stormy blue sky. Then a strange soft yellow and vaporous light shot across to the Barvas hills, and touched up palely the great slopes, rendering them distant, ethereal and cloud-like. Then a shaft or two of wild light flashed down upon the landscape beside them. The cattle shone red in the brilliant green pastures. The gray rocks glowed in their setting of moss. The stream going by Barvas Inn was a streak of gold in its sandy bed. And then the sky above them broke into great billows of cloud—tempestuous and rounded masses of golden vapor that burned with the wild glare of the sunset. The clear spaces in the sky widened, and from time to time the wind sent ragged bits of yellow cloud across the shining blue. All the world seemed to be on fire, and the very smoke of it, the majestic masses of vapor that rolled by overhead, burned with a bewildering glare. Then, as the wind still blew hard, and kept veering round again to the north-west, the fiercely-lit clouds were driven over one by one, leaving a pale and serene sky to look down on the sinking sun and the sea. The Atlantic caught the yellow glow on its tumbling waves, and a deeper color stole across the slopes and peaks of the Barvas hills. Whither had gone the storm? There were still some banks of clouds away up in the north-east, and in the clear green of the evening sky they had their distant grays and purples faintly tinged with rose.

"And so you are anxious and frightened, and a little pleased?" said Ingram to Sheila that evening, after he had frankly told her what he knew, and invited her further confidence. "That is all I can gather from you, but it is enough. Now you can leave the rest to me."

"To you?" said the girl with a blush of pleasure and surprise.

"Yes. I like new experiences. I am going to become an intermeddler now. I am going to arrange this affair, and become the negotiator between all the parties; and then, when I have secured the happiness of the whole of you, you will all set upon me and beat me with sticks, and thrust me out of your houses."

"I do not think," said Sheila, looking down, "that you have much fear of that, Mr. Ingram."

"Is the world going to alter because of me?"

"I would rather not have you try to do anything that is likely to get you into unhappiness," she said.

"Oh, but that is absurd. You timid young folks can't act for yourselves. You want agents and instruments that have got hardened by use. Fancy the condition of our ancestors, you know, before they had the sense to invent steel claws to tear their food in pieces—what could they do with their fingers? I am going to be your knife and fork, Sheila, and you'll see what I shall carve out for you. All you've got to do is to keep your spirits up, and believe that nothing dreadful is going to take place merely because some day you will be asked to marry. You let things take their ordinary course. Keep your spirits up—don't neglect your music or your dinner or your poor people down in Borvabost—and you'll see it will all come right enough. In a year or two, or less than that, you will marry contentedly and happily, and your papa will drink a good glass of whisky at the wedding and make jokes about it, and everything will be as right as the mail. That's my advice: see you attend to it."

"You are very kind to me," said the girl in a low voice.

"But if you begin to cry, Sheila, then I throw up my duties. Do you hear? Now look: there goes Mr. Lavender down to the boat with a bundle of rugs, and I suppose you mean me to imperil my precious life by sailing about these rocky channels in the moonlight? Come along down to the shore; and mind you please your papa by singing 'Love in thine eyes' with Mr. Lavender. And if you would add to that 'The Minute Gun at Sea,' why, you know, I may as well have my little rewards for intermeddling now, as I shall have to suffer afterward."

"Not through me," said Sheila in rather an uncertain voice; and then they went down to the Maighdean-mhara.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]



AT ODDS.

The snow had lain upon the ground From gray November into March, And lingering April hardly saw The tardy tassels of the larch, When sudden, like sweet eyes apart, Looked down the soft skies of the spring, And, guided by alluring signs, Came late birds on impatient wing.

And when I found a shy white flower— The first love of the amorous sun, That from the cold clasp of the earth The passion of his looks had won— I said unto my brooding heart, Which I had humored in its way, "Give sorrow to the winds that blow: Let's out and have a holiday!"

My heart made answer unto me: "Where are the faint white chestnut-blooms? Where are the thickets of wild rose— Dim paths that lead to odorous glooms?" "They are not yet. But listen, Heart! I hear a red-breast robin call: I see a golden glint of light Where lately-loosened waters fall."

I waited long, but no reply Came from my strangely silent heart: I left the open, sunlit mead, And walked a little way apart, Where gloomy pines their shadows cast, And brown pine-needles made below A sober covering for the place, Where scarce another thing could grow.

And then I said unto my heart, "Now, we are in the dark, I pray What is it I must do for thee That thou mayst make a holiday? Was ever fresher blue above? Was ever blither calm around? The purple promise of the spring Is writ in violets on the ground.

"Comes, blown across my face, the breath Of apple-blossoms far away: Hast thou no memories, my heart, As sweet and beautiful as they?" And while I spoke I stood beside A low mound fashioned like a grave, And covered thick with last year's leaves, Set in the forest's spacious nave.

And there I heard a little sound, The flutter of a feeble wing, And saw upon the grave-like mound A bird that never more would sing. I took it up, and first I laid The quivering plumage to my cheek, Then tenderly upon my breast, And sorrowed, seeing it so weak.

Up spoke my sore reproachful heart: "And now how happens it, I pray, Thou dost not press the wounded bird To sing and make a holiday?" I made no answer then, but went Into the dark wood's darkest deep, And on my breast the bird lay dead, And all around was still as sleep.

"There be that walk among the graves," At length, "repining heart," I said— "Who carry slain loves in their breasts, Yet smile like angels o'er their dead. And thou! Why wilt thou shame me thus, Saying, for ever, Nay and Nay?" Then said my heart, "To conquer pain Is not to make a holiday.

"And they who walk upon the heights, Not hurtled by the passing storm, Have carried long in lower lands The grievous burdens that deform The small of faith, the weak of heart, The narrow-minded and untrue, Who doubt if any heaven is left When clouds are blown across its blue.

"And they are not of those who seek To put unsolved things away, Too early saying to their hearts, 'Come out, for it is holiday!' And often 'tis the shallowest soul That makes unseemly laughter ring, That dares not bide amid its ghosts, And, lest it weep, must try to sing.

"Wait till the tooth of pain is dulled; Wait till the wound is overgrown: Not in a day the moss hath made So fair this once unsightly stone." Then was I silent, but less wroth, Content my heart should have its way. Believing that in God's fit time We yet should keep our holiday.

HOWARD GLYNDON.



PHILADELPHIA ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.

Zoological gardens for Philadelphia have been a dream for many years, and spasmodic efforts have been made from time to time to produce the reality, but as yet nothing tangible has resulted. The idea has been too inchoate to develop much enthusiasm, and year after year our citizens have returned from enjoying the delights of foreign gardens, and mildly wondered, in the true Philadelphia style, why we should not have them. Nor is this marvelous when we consider the present condition of the proposed Centennial Exhibition, which, it is mortifying to confess, languishes for want of proper support. It cannot be denied that in this undertaking an opportunity is presented that would be eagerly seized, with all its attendant labor and expense, by any one of the States, and that it was with great difficulty, and only because of the self-evident incongruity of holding it elsewhere, that we were permitted by the national authorities to celebrate the anniversary in Philadelphia. It is in connection with this, and as a part thereof, that the Zoological Gardens deserve immediate attention, as an additional, and next to the grand exhibition itself the principal, attraction to the hundreds of thousands who will visit the City of Brotherly Love on the Fourth of July, 1876. The plan on the next page shows the ground which has been granted by the Commissioners of the Fairmount Park to the Philadelphia Zoological Society. The gentlemen who have taken the matter in hand are well known for their energy and breadth of view, and if sustained in their endeavors will carry out the scheme in a manner worthy of this great and growing city.

In undertaking this work the managers have the advantage of the experience and counsel of similar societies in the Old World, and particularly of the magnificent London Zoological Gardens, the officers of which are extremely interested in the success of the enterprise here, and are prepared to aid, by advice and contributions, the Philadelphia Garden. A description of the English society may be useful in forming an opinion of the feasibility and advantages of the proposed scheme. The London Zoological Society was organized in 1826, under the auspices of Sir Humphry Davy, Sir Stamford Raffles and other eminent men, for the advancement of zoology and animal physiology, and for the introduction and acclimatization of subjects of the animal kingdom. By the charter, granted March 27, 1829, Henry, marquis of Lansdowne, George, Lord Auckland, Charles Baring Wall, Joseph Sabine and Nicholas Aylward Vigors, Esqs., were created the first fellows. These gentlemen were empowered to admit such other persons to be fellows, honorary members, foreign members and corresponding members as they might think fit, and to appoint twenty-one of the fellows to be the council, which should manage the entire affairs of the society and elect members thereof until the 29th of May following; at which time and annually thereafter the society should hold a meeting, and by ballot remove five of this council, and elect five others in their place, being fellows of the society, who, with those remaining, should constitute the council for the ensuing year. It will thus be seen that every year five of the council are voted out, and five others elected in their stead, thus retaining a large proportion of managers acquainted with the workings of the organization.



By the by-laws fellows are required to pay twenty-five dollars initiation fee and fifteen dollars per annum, or one hundred and fifty dollars at once in lieu of such dues. Annual subscribers pay the same amount yearly, but no initiation fee, and they are not permitted to vote at elections. Ladies are admitted as fellows upon the same terms and with the same privileges; with the addition, however, that they are allowed to vote by proxy.

Fellows have personal admission to the Gardens, with two companions, daily, and receive orders, to be signed by them, admitting two persons on each Saturday and Sunday in the year. They are also entitled to twenty free tickets of admission. Sundays are set apart specially for fellows and their friends, the general public not being admitted.

The society has business and scientific meetings—the latter monthly—and these are very largely attended and of the most interesting character. New and remarkable subjects of zoology are exhibited, papers and communications on animal physiology and zoology are read, and animated discussions carried on. An abstract of the proceedings is regularly forwarded to the scientific journals and newspapers. The society also publishes a large variety of zoological matter, which is furnished to fellows at one-fourth less than the price to strangers. Every addition to the collection of the society has its picture taken upon its entrance, and very handsome colored plates of those which are rare or curious are inserted in these publications. The sales from this source realized last year over thirty-seven hundred dollars.

In 1871 the income of the society was $123,101, of which $69,000 were from admissions to the Gardens, $9507 from Garden sales and rent of refreshment-rooms, $3750 from the society's publications, and $39,415 from dues of fellows and annual subscribers. The expenses for the same year were $106,840, the principal items being—salaries, wages and pensions, $21,790; cost and carriage of animals, $10,560; provisions, $20,430; menagerie expenses, $10,480; Garden expenses, $3465. The annual income has so much exceeded the expenses during the last ten years that the society has been able to devote over two hundred and thirty thousand dollars of such surplus to the permanent embellishment of its Gardens, and still retain some fifty thousand dollars as a reserve fund.

In the collection of the society are 590 quadrupeds, 1227 birds and 255 reptiles—altogether 2072. The quantity and various kinds of food—the knowledge of the tastes and necessities of the animals—the temperature, ventilation, habitations and so on of such a large assortment of different species—necessitate the employment of trained and skillful servants and scientific officers. It has been seen that the provisions and menagerie expenses alone exceed $30,000, and it must be remembered that the most difficult part, the brain-work, the knowledge—without which the whole would be a failure—is furnished the society by its council entirely free.

The collection of living animals is the finest in existence, and is daily increasing. Scattered everywhere are its corresponding members, keeping it advised of every opportunity to augment its stores: its agents have penetrated and are still exploring the desert and the jungle, braving the heats of the equator, and the terrible winters of the ice-bound regions of the globe, to furnish every possible link in the grand procession of organized life.

A large proportion of the most wonderful and valuable part of the collection has been presented by crowned heads and governors of different countries, British consuls, other zoological societies, British naval and military officers stationed in foreign ports and posts, Englishmen of wealth and travelers. The donations to the society for the year 1871 would alone be sufficient to establish a Garden at Fairmount Park which would be the finest in America. They amounted to over five hundred in number, and include almost every description of animal, from a tiger to a monkey, and from an imperial eagle to a humming-bird. With our present connection by rail and steamer with the East and West Indies, and other distant regions, let it only be generally known that such a Garden as is now proposed exists in Philadelphia, and it will receive contributions from all parts of the world. The Philadelphia society has already had numerous offers of animals, birds and reptiles, and the promise of any number for the mere cost of transportation. The officers of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington have expressed their willingness and desire to hand over to any proper association the many curious animals constantly offered it. The societies of Europe, many of whose managers have been in communication with the one started here, are extremely anxious that a collection of American animals, birds, reptiles and fishes shall be made. It will be wholly unique, and will attract zoologists from every part of the world, permitting them, for the first time, to study the habits of many new species. This continent has a wealth of subjects of the animal kingdom as yet almost unexplored. The birds are absolutely innumerable, and the immense rivers produce fishes of the most marvelous character and but little known. In the Berlin Garden, rapidly becoming a rival to the one in London, one of the greatest attractions, if not the chief, is the American beaver: an assemblage of a number of these on the banks of the Schuylkill, giving an opportunity of witnessing their astonishing sagacity, would of itself be an attractive exhibition.

The Zoological Society of Philadelphia was incorporated by act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, approved March 21, 1859. The site selected at that time, and approved by City Councils, was five acres of the extreme south-eastern corner of the then Park, consisting of Sedgeley and Lemon Hill, and containing about two hundred acres. A meeting of certain prominent and influential citizens interested in the subject was held, and the matter carefully discussed. At subsequent meetings a constitution and by-laws were adopted, officers elected and plans proposed for raising the necessary funds. The officers of the society at that time were as follows: President, Dr. William Camac; Vice-Presidents, William R. Lejee and James C. Hand; Recording Secretary, Fairman Rogers; Corresponding Secretary, Dr. John L. LeConte; Treasurer, P. Pemberton Morris; Managers, Frederick Graeff, Thomas Dunlap, Charles E. Smith, John Cassin, William S. Vaux, J. Dickinson Sergeant, Dr. Wilson C. Swann, W. Parke Foulke, Francis R. Cope and Samuel Powel; Trustees of the Permanent Fund, Evans Rogers, Charles Macalester and James Dundas.[A]

Soon after this the rebellion broke out, and in the clash of arms, the terrible anxieties of the times, and the fevered pursuit of wealth that followed the inflation of the currency, the subject of zoological gardens entirely disappeared. Many of those whose names appear as officially connected with the association, and whose purses and influence would now be warmly exerted in its favor, have passed away, to the irreparable loss of the society. Those who remain have revived the project with sanguine hopes of its accomplishment. The increased wealth since the inception of the idea in 1859, the enlarged size of the Park, the growth of the city and the prospect of the Centennial, have widened the views of the society, and it is confidently anticipated that a Garden will be established, with a collection and all the necessary appurtenances, that will equal in a few years the superb one of London. The strangers that will flock here in 1876 will one and all visit the Zoological Gardens if in any sort of condition for display at that time. In 1851, the year of the great Exhibition of London, the number of visitors to the Zoological Gardens increased from 360,402 in the year before to 667,243; and in 1862, the time of the second and International Exhibition, it leaped from 381,337 in 1861 to 682,205. The number of visitors to the London Garden has been steadily on the increase since its foundation. In 1863 the largest number up to that time, except the Exhibition years, was 468,700, and by regular progression annually it reached in 1871 the large amount of 595,917 persons.

The situation of our proposed Gardens is most admirable in every way. Stretching along the west bank of the Schuylkill for nearly a third of a mile; opposite the principal entrance to the Park on one side, and the West Philadelphia approach by Thirty-fifth street on the other; directly on the route to the Centennial Exhibition; contiguous to the great railroad artery of the United States, the Pennsylvania Central, a sideling from which will enter the receiving-house of the society (marked D on the plan), and thus enable animals and curiosities from all parts of the United States to be carried without change of cars directly to the Gardens, or from the East Indies, China, Japan, South America and the Pacific islands with but one trans-shipment, while the canal alongside enables freights of all kinds and from any part of the world to be deposited at the very entrance-gates; the ground rolling and fertile, rising in the centre, and sufficiently elevated to be away from the floods of the river; larger by some acres than the Zoological Garden of London; interspersed with handsome trees, many of them of noble size, planted by John Penn, whose family mansion, "Solitude," still stands (35) within the proposed enclosure, and with slight alterations will make a handsome museum for the society; the old West Philadelphia Waterworks (20) only needing an engine to force the water into the lake, around which will be the abodes of the aquatic animals, and from whence the natural slope of the land will permit the irrigation of the whole tract; the great sewer for the use of the western portion of the city, now in process of construction, passing through the southern end of the Garden, and running along the bank of the river to empty below the dam; convenient to all parts of the city by means of the city railways and the Reading Railroad;—these and many other advantages, which an examination of the illustration of the grounds will naturally suggest, produce a combination unsurpassed and unsurpassable anywhere. Is it exaggeration to say that the Philadelphia Zoological Gardens, once properly established, would not only be regarded with pride and affection by the citizens, but very materially benefit the whole city? Imagine the grounds handsomely laid out in walks and drives, bordered with grass and flowers, terraced from the river; tables and chairs scattered about on the green sward under the trees; a band of music; the cool breezes from the Schuylkill; opposite, the beautiful Lemon Hill Park, with its broad drive alongside the bank: could anything be more attractive and wholesome to the hundreds of thousands who through the hot months of this uncommonly hot city are obliged to remain within its limits?

Assuming, then, the advantages of a Zoological Garden in Philadelphia, what is necessary for success and what business inducements (to consider it in that light) can the society hold out to obtain sufficient money to procure its collection of living animals, and provide for their suitable accommodation and increase? The number of members is now two hundred, who pay five dollars initiation and the same amount annually, which gives them continual admission to the proposed Garden. Fifty dollars secures a life-membership free from any further subscription. The sum now in the treasury is two thousand dollars, and although at the last meeting twenty-one new names were proposed, and many more persons have announced their intention of joining, it is apparent that by this means the society will never accomplish its object. Begging subscriptions, without offering a pecuniary return therefor, is repugnant to the officers, and the following plan has been adopted for procuring the necessary funds. Certificates of stock are to be issued of not less than fifty dollars each. All receipts derived from the Gardens and collections of the society are to be applied annually—first, to the maintenance of the establishment; second, to the payment of six per cent. on the stock; and third, any balance remaining to go to the gradual extension of the collections of the society and the improvement of its grounds.