Arise, Hamish, and have the gig hauled up into shelter; for will you not want it when the gale abates, and the seas are smooth, and you have to go away, to Dare, you and your comrades, with silent tongues and sombre eyes? Why this wild lamentation in the darkness of the night? The stricken heart that you loved so well has found peace at last; the coal-black wine has been drunk: there is an end! And you, you poor, cowering fugitives, who only see each other's terrified faces when the wan gleam of the lightning blazes through the sky, perhaps it is well that you should weep and wail for the young master; but that is soon over, and the day will break. And this is what I am thinking of now: when the light comes and the seas are smooth, then which of you--oh, which of you all will tell this tale to the two women at Castle Dare? * * * * * So fair shines the morning sun on the white sands of Iona! The three-days' gale is over. Behold how Ulva--Ulva the green-shored--the _Ool-a-va_ that the sailors love--is laughing out again to the clear skies! And the great skarts on the shores of Erisgeir are spreading abroad their dusky wings to get them dried in the sun; and the seals are basking on the rocks in Loch-na-Keal; and in Loch Scridain the white gulls sit buoyant on the blue sea. There go the Gometra men in their brown-sailed boat to look after the lobster traps at Staffa, and very soon you will see the steamer come round the far Cailleach Point; over at Erraidh they are signaling to the men at Dubh-Artach, and they are glad to have a message from them after the heavy gale. The new, bright day has begun; the world has awakened again to the joyous sunlight; there is a chattering of the sea-birds all along the shores. It is a bright, eager, glad day for all the world. But there is silence in Castle Dare! SHEILA IN LONDON From 'A Princess of Thule' She asked if they were lords who owned those beautiful houses built up on the hill, and half-smothered among lilacs and ash-trees and rowan-trees and ivy. "My darling," Lavender had said to her, "if your papa were to come and live here, he could buy half a dozen of these cottages, gardens and all. They are mostly the property of well-to-do shopkeepers. If this little place takes your fancy, what will you say when you go South--when you see Wimbledon and Richmond and Kew, with their grand old commons and trees? Why, you could hide Oban in a corner of Richmond Park!" "And my papa has seen all these places?" "Yes. Don't you think it strange he should have seen them all, and known he could live in any of them, and then gone away back to Borva?" "But what would the poor people have done if he had never gone back?" "Oh, some one else would have taken his place."