The two of them, leaving the gillie to moor the little vessel that had brought them from Callernish, went silently toward the shore, and up the narrow road leading to the house. It was a square, two-storied substantial building of stone, but the stone had been liberally oiled to keep out the wet, and the blackness thus produced had not a very cheerful look. Then, on this particular evening the scant bushes surrounding the house hung limp and dark in the rain, and amid the prevailing hues of purple, blue-green and blue, the bit of scarlet coping running around the black house was wholly ineffective in relieving the general impression of dreariness and desolation. The King of Borva walked into a large room, which was but partially lit by two candles on the table and by the blaze of a mass of peats in the stone fire-place, and threw himself into a big easy-chair. Then he suddenly seemed to recollect his companion, who was timidly standing near the door, with her shawl still around her head. “Mairi,” he said, “go and ask them to give you some dry clothes. Your box it will not be here for half an hour yet.” Then he turned to the fire. “But you yourself, Mr. Mackenzie, you will be ferry wet--” “Never mind me, my lass; go and get yourself dried.” “But it wass Miss Sheila,” began the girl diffidently--“it wass Miss Sheila asked me--she asked me to look after you, sir--” With that he rose abruptly, and advanced to her and caught her by the wrist. He spoke quite quietly to her, but the girl’s eyes, looking up at the stern face, were a trifle frightened. “You are a ferry good little girl, Mairi,” he said slowly, “and you will mind what I say to you. You will do what you like in the house, you will take Sheila’s place as much as you like, but you will mind this--not to mention her name, not once. Now go away, Mairi, and find Scarlett Macdonald, and she will give you some dry clothes; and you will tell her to send Duncan down to Borvapost, and bring up John the Piper and Alisternan-Each, and the lads of the _Nighean dubh_, if they are not gone home to Habost yet. But it iss John the Piper must come directly.” The girl went away to seek counsel of Scarlett Macdonald, Duncan’s wife, and Mr. Mackenzie proceeded to walk up and down the big and half-lit chamber. Then he went to the cupboard, and put out on the table a number of tumblers and glasses, with two or three odd-looking bottles of Norwegian make, consisting of four semicircular tubes of glass, meeting at top and bottom, leaving the center of the vessel thus formed open. He stirred up the blazing peats in the fire-place. He brought down from a shelf a box filled with coarse tobacco, and put it on the table. But he was evidently growing impatient, and at last he put on his cap again and went out into the night.