I asked him if he would provide us with a meal, and, assenting gruffly, he left us alone. The food was some time in coming, and we stood at the window, peering through our prison bars. Our high spirits were dashed by the unfriendly reception; my island should have been more gracious; it was so beautiful. ‘However it’s a better welcome than we should have got two hundred years ago,’ I said with a laugh, trying to make the best of the matter. Dinner, which the landlord himself brought in, cheered us again, and we lingered over it till dusk began to fall, discussing whether I ought to visit the lord, or whether, seeing that he had not come to receive me, my dignity did not demand that I should await his visit; and it was on this latter course that we finally decided. ‘But he’ll hardly come to-night,’ said Denny, jumping up. ‘I wonder if there are any decent beds here!’ Hogvardt and Watkins had, by my directions, sat down with us; the former was now smoking his pipe at the window, while Watkins was busy overhauling our luggage. We had brought light bags, the rods, guns, and other smaller articles. The rest was in the yacht. Hearing beds mentioned, Watkins shook his head in dismal presage, saying, ‘We had better sleep on board, my lord.’ ‘Not I! What, leave the island now we’ve got here? No, Watkins!’ ‘Very good, my lord,’ said Watkins impassively. A sudden call came from Hogvardt, and I joined him at the window. The scene outside was indeed remarkable. In the narrow paved street, gloomy now in the failing light, there must have been fifty or sixty men standing in a circle, surrounded by an outer fringe of women and children; and in the centre stood our landlord, his burly figure swaying to and fro as he poured out a low-voiced but vehement harangue. Sometimes he pointed towards us, oftener along the ascending road that led to the interior. I could not hear a word he said, but presently all his auditors raised their hands towards heaven. I saw that some of the hands held guns, some clubs, some knives; and all the men cried with furious energy, ‘_Nai, Nai._ Yes, yes!’ Then the whole body--and the greater part of the grown men on the island must have been present--started off in compact array up the road, the innkeeper at their head. By his side walked another man whom I had not noticed before; he wore an ordinary suit of tweeds, but carried himself with an assumption of much dignity; his face I could not see. ‘Well, what’s the meaning of that?’ I exclaimed, looking down on the street, empty again save for groups of white-clothed women, who talked eagerly to one another, gesticulating and pointing now towards our inn, now towards where the men had gone. ‘Perhaps it’s their Parliament,’ suggested Denny; ‘or perhaps they’ve repented of their rudeness and are going to erect a triumphal arch.’ These conjectures, being obviously ironical, did not assist the matter, although they amused their author.