"No," says the Laird, with a certain calm grandeur; "you do not often find young men doing that for the sake of an old woman." But of course we don’t know what he means. "And I am so glad he is coming to us!" she says, with real delight in her face. "We shall take him away from his microscopes, and his societies, and all that. Oh, and he is such a delightful companion—so simple, and natural, and straightforward! Don’t you think so, Mary?" Mary Avon is understood to assent: she does not say much—she is so deeply interested in a couple of porpoises that appear from time to time on the smooth plain on the sea. "I am sure a long holiday would do him a world of good," says this eager hostess; "but that is too much to expect. He is always too busy. I think he has got to go over to Italy soon, about some exhibition of surgical instruments, or something of that sort." We had plenty of further talk about Dr. Sutherland, and of the wonderful future that lay before him, that evening before we finally put into Loch Buy. And there we dined; and after dinner we found the wan, clear twilight filling the northern heavens, over the black range of mountains, and throwing a silver glare on the smooth sea around us. We could have read on deck at eleven at night—-had that been necessary; but Mary Avon was humming snatches of songs to us, and the Laird was discoursing of the wonderful influence exerted on Scotch landscape-art by Tom Galbraith. Then in the south the yellow moon rose; and a golden lane of light lay on the sea, from the horizon across to the side of the yacht; and there was a strange glory on the decks and on the tall, smooth masts. The peace of that night!—the soft air, the silence, the dreamy lapping of the water! "And whatever lies before Angus Sutherland," says one of us—"whether a baronetcy, or a big fortune, or marriage with an Italian princess—he won’t find anything better than sailing in the _White Dove_ among the western islands." *CHAPTER IV.* *A MESSAGE.* What fierce commotion is this that awakes us in the morning—what pandemonium broken loose of wild storm-sounds—-with the stately _White Dove_, ordinarily the most sedate and gentle of her sex, apparently gone mad, and flinging herself about as if bent on somersaults? When one clambers up the companion-way, clinging hard, and puts one’s head out into the gale, behold! there is not a trace of land visible anywhere—nothing but whirling clouds of mist and rain; and mountain-masses of waves that toss the _White Dove_ about as if she were a plaything; and decks all running wet with the driven spray. John of Skye, clad from head to heel in black oilskins—and at one moment up in the clouds, the next moment descending into the great trough of the sea—-hangs on to the rope that is twisted round the tiller; and laughs a good-morning; and shakes the salt water from his shaggy eyebrows and beard.