"Oh, sir, that was our boat! Is the boy still alive?"
"Yes, and at sea. We expect him back in a month. He was brought up by the hermit of Kilmara out yonder."
"Do row me over there, will you?"
"With pleasure, madam."
And the minister's own boat was launched and soon reached the island.
The hermit was mystified at first, but soon recovering, told her all the reader already knows.
Then she told her sad story.
The Sea-Swallow—her husband's ship—was lying at Harris in a little bay. He, her husband, had been, alas! drinking hard some weeks before this, but seemed quite recovered, and one day she received an invitation from the minister of the parish to go on a picnic excursion with his children to see the beauties of the island. She would be back before ten. It was autumn, and the nights were long, with bright starlight and a little frost. Her husband would not go on shore, but appeared delighted to be left in charge of the child. The mother had not been gone over two hours, and night had fallen, when he told the first to call away the skiff, a light kind of dinghy. He told him he was going on shore to the manse, and would take the child with him. He was in no way excited, but quiet and calm, and singing low to the child as he went down the gangway ladder.
The mate watched him rowing himself towards the shore, then went below.
The captain was never seen again.