who visited the sloop on business, one William Tolney, who had
connexions at Inverness, from having once been a merchant there, and who
was now a tenant of the Macleods, in a neighbouring island. This man
was evidently touched; and the Macdonalds held a consultation in
consequence, the result of which was that William Tolney was induced to
be silent on what he had seen and heard. But for many a weary year
after did Lady Carse turn with hope to the image of the stranger who had
listened to her on board the sloop, taken the address of her lawyer, and
said that in his opinion something must be done.
In the evening the wind rose, and the sloop moved down the loch. With a
heavy heart the lady next morning watched the vanishing of the last of
Glengarry's seats, on a green platform between the grey and bald
mountains; then the last fishing hamlet on the shores; and, finally, a
flock of herons come abroad to the remotest point of the shore from
their roosting places in the tall trees that sheltered Glengarry's
abode. After that all was wretchedness. For many days she was on the
tossing sea--the sloop now scudding before the wind, now heaving on the
troubled waters, now creeping along between desolate looking islands,
now apparently lost amidst the boundless ocean. At length, soon after
sunrise, one bright morning, the sail was taken in, and the vessel lay
before the entrance of an harbour which looked like the mouth of a small
river. At noon the sun beat hot on the deck of the sloop. In the
afternoon the lady impatiently asked what they were waiting for--if this
really was, as she was told, their place of destination. The wind was
not contrary; what where they waiting for?
"No, madam; the wind is fair. But it is a curious circumstance about
this harbour that it can be entered safely only at night. It is one of
the most dangerous harbours in all the isles."
"And you dare to enter it at night? What do you mean?"
"I will show you, madam, when night comes."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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