"Duncan," said Mackenzie with an impatient stamp of his foot, "why will you talk like a foolish man? Get the luggage to the shore, instead of keeping us all the day in the boat." "Oh, ferry well, Mr. Mackenzie," said Duncan, departing with an injured air, and grumbling as he went, "it iss no new thing to you to see Miss Sheila, and you will have no thocht for any one but yourself. But I will get out the luggage--oh yes, I will get out the luggage." Sheila, in truth, had but little luggage with her, but she remained on board the boat until Duncan was quite ready to start, for she did not wish just then to meet any of her friends in Stornoway. Then she stepped ashore and crossed the quay, and got into the wagonette; and the two horses, whom she had caressed for a moment, seemed to know that they were carrying Sheila back to her own country, from the speed with which they rattled out of the town and away into the lonely moorland. Mackenzie let them have their way. Past the solitary lakes they went, past the long stretches of undulating morass, past the lonely sheilings perched far up on the hills; and the rough and blustering wind blew about them, and the gray clouds hurried by, and the old, strong-bearded man who shook the reins and gave the horses their heads could have laughed aloud in his joy that he was driving his daughter home. But Sheila--she sat there as one dead; and Mairi, timidly regarding her, wondered what the impassable face and the bewildered, sad eyes meant. Did she not smell the sweet strong smell of the heather? Had she no interest in the great birds that were circling in the air over by the Barbhas mountains? Where was the pleasure she used to exhibit in remembering the curious names of the small lakes they passed? And lo! the rough gray day broke asunder, and a great blaze of fire appeared in the west, shining across the moors and touching the blue slopes of the distant hills. Sheila was getting near to the region of beautiful sunsets and lambent twilights and the constant movement and mystery of the sea. Overhead the heavy clouds were still hurried on by the wind; and in the south the eastern slopes of the hills and the moors were getting to be of a soft purple; but all along the west, where her home was, lay a great flush of gold, and she knew that Loch Roag was shining there, and the gable of the house at Borvabost getting warm in the beautiful light. "It is a good afternoon you will be getting to see Borva again," her father said to her; but all the answer she made was to ask her father not to stop at Garrana-hina, but to drive straight on to Callernish. She would visit the people at Garra-na-hina some other day. The boat was waiting for them at Callernish, and the boat was the Maighdean-mhara. "How pretty she is! How have you kept her so well, Duncan?" said Sheila, her face lighting up for the first time as she went down the path to the bright-painted little vessel that scarcely rocked in the water below.