madam, you forgot it was a Macleod you had to deal with,
and not a child, and you did not think you would have a visit from two
or three of the Mull lads!'"

"And what then?" Macleod said, with a smile, though this picture of his
sweetheart coming into the church as the bride of another man had paled
his cheek.

"And before she had brought that shame on the house of Dare," said
Hamish, excitedly, "do you not think that I would seize her--that I
would seize her with my own hands? And when the young lads and I had
thrust her down into the cabin of the yacht--oh yes, when we had thrust
her down and put the hatch over, do you think the proud madam would be
quite so proud?"

Macleod laughed a loud laugh.

"Why, Hamish, you want to become a famous person! You would carry off a
popular actress, and have all the country ringing with the exploit! And
would you have a piper, too, to drown her screams--just as Macdonald of
Armadale did when he came with his men to South Uist and carried off
Flora Macdonald's mother?"

"And was there ever a better marriage than that--as I have heard many a
man of Skye say?" Hamish exclaimed, eagerly. "Oh yes, it is good for a
woman to know that a man's will is stronger than a woman's will! And
when we have the fine English madam caged up in the cabin, and we are
coming away to the North again, she will not have so many fine airs, I
think. And if the will cannot be broken, it is the neck that can be
broken; and better that than that Sir Keith Macleod should have a shame
put on him."

"Hamish, Hamish, how will you dare to go into the church at Salen next
Sunday?" Macleod said; but he was now regarding the old man with a
strange curiosity.

"Men were made before churches were thought of," Hamish said, curtly;
and then Macleod laughed, and rode on.

The laugh soon died away from his face. Here was the stone bridge on
which she used to lean to drop pebbles into the whirling clear water.
Was there not some impression even yet of her soft warm arm on the
velvet moss? And what had the voice of the streamlet told him in the
days long ago--that the summer-time was made for happy lovers; that she
was coming; that he should take her hand and show her the beautiful
islands and the sunlit seas before the darkening skies of the winter
came over them. And here was the summer sea; and moist, warm odors were
in the larch-wood; and out there Ulva was shining green, and there was
sunlight on the islands and