“Ronald sent him this very morning, when he was most wanted,” said Ella. “His father should have seen the landing. He brought me this barrel as a present, and he himself thought of bringing his tools and some staves in case Fergus’s boat wanted mending, which it did sadly. You will excuse our going on with our work, neighbours, for you know it will not do to lose time in this weather; but the little ones will get you all you want if you will step within. Go, my little maids, and set out the bannocks and the cheese, and I will bring the whisky.”
Duff could not stay, however, longer than to settle when to send his pony and panniers for the offal.
“Surely that cannot be little Kenneth!” exclaimed Murdoch, when, guided by the echo of hammering among the rocks, they came in sight of a fine tall lad repairing a boat. “Yes, it is Kenneth, so like his father, and just as handsome!”
Kenneth looked modestly happy when his uncle declared that he did not want to purchase Murdoch’s boat, as he believed his own would be the best of the two by the time Kenneth went back to Islay.
Murdoch wondered why his children gave nothing but trouble while they were young, and did little but damage now that they were grown up, while other people made a profit of theirs. He took a poor price, paid in produce, from a cottager for his crazy boat, and went home wishing that he had sent Rob to learn something at the station, as he could teach him nothing at home.
Chapter II.
NEIGHBOURLY CHAT
At a late hour of this night, the young widow Cuthbert was still busy, as she had been all day, at her employment of net-making. The song with which she lulled her infant to sleep had long ceased, and she pursued her work in perfect silence by the dim light of her solitary lamp; her thoughts were alternately with the children who lay sleeping around her, and with the husband whose place of long repose was beneath the waters. As often as a little hand stirred above the coverlid, or a rosy cheek was turned upon its pillow, the anxious mother gazed and watched, and as often as the gust swept past, or a larger billow broke upon the shingle, her heart throbbed as if she was still awaiting the return of him who should never more return. She started, at length, on hearing a tap at her door.
“It is only Ella,” said a voice from the outside; and the widow hastened to open the door.
“Your husband, your husband!” she exclaimed; “no ill to him I trust. You are not in fear for him, Ella?”