on the rocks of Erisgeir. But she--where was
she? Perhaps standing before a mirror; with a dress all of white; and
trying how orange-blossoms would best lie in her soft brown hair. Her
arms are uplifted to her head; she smiles: could not one suddenly seize
her now by the waist and bear her off, with the smile changed to a
blanched look of fear? The wild pirates have got her; the Rose-leaf is
crushed in the cruel Northern hands; at last--at last--what is in the
scabbard has been drawn, and declared, and she screams in her terror!

Then he fell to brooding again over Hamish's mad scheme. The fine
English church of Hamish's imagination was no doubt a little stone
building that a handful of sailors could carry at a rush. And of course
the yacht must needs be close by; for there was no land in Hamish's mind
that was out of sight of the salt-water. And what consideration would
this old man have for delicate fancies and studies in moral science? The
fine madam had been chosen to be the bride of Macleod of Dare; that was
enough. If her will would not bend, it would have to be broken; that was
the good old way. Was there ever a happier wife than the Lady of
Armadale, who had been carried screaming downstairs in the night-time,
and placed in her lover's boat, with the pipes playing a wild pibroch
all the time?

Macleod was in the library that night when Hamish came to him with some
papers. And just as the old man was about to leave, Macleod said to
him,--

"Well, that was a pretty story you told me this morning, Hamish, about
the carrying off the young English lady. And have you thought any more
about it?"

"I have thought enough about it," Hamish said, in his native tongue.

"Then perhaps you could tell me, when you start on this fine expedition,
how you are going to have the yacht taken to London? The lads of Mull
are very clever, Hamish, I know; but do you think that any one of them
can steer the _Umpire_ all the way from Loch-na-Keal to the river
Thames?"

"Is it the river Thames?" said Hamish, with great contempt. "And is that
all--the river Thames? Do you know this, Sir Keith, that my cousin Colin
Laing, that has a whiskey-shop now in Greenock, has been all over the
world, and at China and other places; and he was the mate of many a big
vessel; and do you think he could not take the _Umpire_ from
Loch-na-Keal to London? And I would only have to send a line to him and
say, 'Colin, it is Sir Keith Macleod himself that