here first, to
look round, we had only horses hired from Edinburgh, and a Lowlander--mark
you, a _Lowlander_--to drive. He was in the stable one afternoon--the
old stable, we have pulled it down--when suddenly the horses began to
kick and rear. He looked round to the open door, and there stood a huge
Highlander in our tartans, with musket, pistols, claymore, dirk, skian,
and all, and soft brogues of untanned leather on his feet. The coachman,
in a panic, made a blind rush at the figure, but behold, there was
nobody, and a boy outside had seen no man. The horses were trembling and
foaming. Now it was a Lowlander from Teviotdale that saw the man, and
the crofters were delighted. They said the figure was the chief that
fell at Culloden, come to welcome us back. So you must not despair of
us, Mr. Blake, and you, that have "the sight," may see Eachain yourself,
who knows?'

This happy turn of the conversation exactly suited Blake. He began to be
very amusing about magic, and brownies, and 'the downy she,' as Miss
Macrae called the People of Peace. The ladies presently declared that
they were afraid to go to bed; so they went, Miss Macrae indicating her
displeasure to Merton by the coldness of her demeanour.

The men, who were rather dashed by the pleasant intelligence which the
telegraph had communicated, sat up smoking for a while, and then retired
in a subdued state of mind.

Next morning, which was Sunday, Merton appeared rather late at breakfast,
late and pallid. After a snatch of disturbed slumber, he had wakened, or
seemed to waken, fretting a good deal over the rusticity of his bearing
towards Blake, and over his hopeless affair of the heart. He had vexed
his lady. 'If he is good enough for his hosts, he ought to be good
enough for their guests,' thought Merton. 'What a brute, what a fool I
am; I ought to go. I will go! I ought not to take coffee after dinner,
I know I ought not, and I smoke too much,' he added, and finally he went
to breathe the air on the roof.

The night was deadly soft and still, a slight mist hid the furthest
verges of the sea's horizon. Behind it, the summer lightning seemed like
portals that opened and shut in the heavens, revealing a glory without
form, and closing again.

'I don't wonder that these Irish poets dreamed of Isles of Paradise out
there:

'Lands undiscoverable in the unheard-of West,
Round which the strong stream of a sacred sea
Runs without wind