firm lines of
his face. Glad youth shone there, and the health begotten of hard
exposure to wind and weather. What was life to him but a laugh: so long
as there was a prow to cleave the plunging seas, and a glass to pick out
the branching antlers far away amidst the mists of the corrie? To please
his mother, on this the last night of his being at home, he wore the
kilts; and he had hung his broad blue bonnet, with its sprig of
juniper--the badge of the clan--on the top of one of many pikes and
halberds that stood by the great fireplace. Opposite him, on the old
lady's left hand, sat his cousin, or rather half-cousin, the
plain-featured but large-hearted Janet, whom the poor people about that
neighborhood regarded as being something more than any mere mortal
woman. If there had been any young artist among that Celtic peasantry
fired by religious enthusiasm to paint the face of a Madonna, it would
have been the plain features of Janet Macleod he would have dreamed
about and striven to transfer to his canvas. Her eyes were fine, it is
true: they were honest and tender; they were not unlike the eyes of the
grand old lady who sat at the head of the table; but, unlike hers, they
were not weighted with the sorrow of years.

"It is a dark hour you have chosen to go away from your home," said the
mother; and the lean hand, resting on the table before her, trembled
somewhat.

"Why, mother," the young man said, lightly, "you know I am to have
Captain ----'s cabin as far as Greenock; and there will be plenty of
time for me to put the kilts away before I am seen by the people."

"Oh, Keith," his cousin cried--for she was trying to be very cheerful,
too--"do you say that you are ashamed of the tartan?"

"Ashamed of the tartan!" he said, with a laugh. "Is there any one who
has been brought up at Dare who is likely to be ashamed of the tartan!
When I am ashamed of the tartan I will put a pigeon's feather in my cap,
as the new _suaicheantas_ of this branch of Clann Leoid. But then, my
good Janet, I would as soon think of taking my rifle and the dogs
through the streets of London as of wearing the kilts in the south."

The old lady paid no heed. Her hands were now clasped before her. There
was sad thinking in her eyes.

"You are the last of my six boys," said she, "and you are going away
from me too."

"Now, now, mother," said he, "you must not make so much of a holiday.
You would not have me always at Dare? You know that no good