ng and shining after the bath, while ever
and anon the huge promontory of Ru-Treshanish shows a gloomy purple far
in the north. But the wind and the weather may do what they like to-day;
for has not the word just come down from the hill that the smoke of the
steamer has been made out in the south? and old Hamish is flying this
way and that, fairly at his wits' end with excitement; and Janet Macleod
has cast a last look at the decorations of heather and juniper in the
great hall; while Lady Macleod, dressed in the most stately fashion, has
declared that she is as able as the youngest of them to walk down to the
point to welcome home her son.

"Ay, your leddyship, it is very bad," complains the distracted Hamish,
"that it will be so rough a day this day, and Sir Keith not to come
ashore in his own gig, but in a fishing-boat, and to come ashore at the
fishing quay, too; but it is his own men will go out for him, and not
the fishermen at all, though I am sure they will hef a dram whatever
when Sir Keith comes ashore. And will you not tek the pony, your
leddyship? for it is a long road to the quay."

"No, I will not take the pony, Hamish," said the tall, white-haired
dame, "and it is not of much consequence what boat Sir Keith has, so
long as he comes back to us. And now I think you had better go down to
the quay yourself, and see that the cart is waiting and the boat ready."

But how could old Hamish go down to the quay? He was in his own person
skipper, head keeper, steward, butler, and general major-domo, and ought
on such a day as this to have been in half a dozen places at once. From
the earliest morning he had been hurrying hither and thither, in his
impatience making use of much voluble Gaelic. He had seen the yacht's
crew in their new jersies. He had been round the kennels. He had got out
a couple of bottles of the best claret that Castle Dare could afford. He
had his master's letters arranged on the library table, and had given a
final rub to the guns and rifles on the rack. He had even been down to
the quay, swearing at the salmon-fishers for having so much lumber lying
about the place where Sir Keith Macleod was to land. And if he was to go
down to the quay now, how could he be sure that the ancient Christina,
who was mistress of the kitchen as far as her husband Hamish would allow
her to be, would remember all his instructions? And then the little
granddaughter Christina, would she remember her part in the
cere