“There they go!” said the boy. “It’s fine and easy, running like that before the wind. They’ll get to the end o’ the loch before we’ve got over a mile. That makes an awfu’ difference,” said Colin, with subdued wrath; he was thinking of other things besides the long walk from church and the muddy road. “We’ll may be get home as soon, for all that,” said his father, who guessed the boy’s thoughts; for the elder Colin’s experienced eye had already seen that mists were rising among the hills, and that the fair breeze would soon be fair no longer. The scene changed as if by enchantment while the farmer spoke. Such changes come and go like breath over the Holy Loch. The sunshine which had been making the whole landscape into a visible paradise, vanished suddenly off the hills and waters like a frightened thing, and a visible darkness came brooding over the mountains, dropping lower every moment like a pall of gloom over the lower banks and the suddenly paled and shivering loch. The joyous little boat, which had been careering on as if by a natural impulse of delight, suddenly changed its character along with all the other details of the picture. The spectators saw its white sail, fluttering like an alarmed seabird, against the black background of cloud. Then it began to tack and waver and make awkward tremulous darts across the darkened water. The party of pedestrians stood still to watch it, as the position became dangerous. They knew the loch and the winds too well to look on with composure. As for young Colin of Ramore, his heart began to leap and swell in his boyish bosom. Was that his adversary, the favoured rival whom he had recognised by instinct, who was fighting for his life out there in midwater, with the storm gaining on him, and his little vessel staggering in the wind? Colin did not hear the remarks of the other spectators. He felt in his heart that he was looking on at a struggle which was for life or death, and his contempt for the skill of the amateur sailor, whose unused hands were so manifestly unable to manage the boat, was mingled with a kind of despair lest a stronger power should snatch this opponent of his own out of the future strife, in which Colin had vowed to himself to be victorious.