“That is not my affair. Kiss my Janet for me.”
“I will; and all your children— What? ‘Is it growing dark?’ Yes, it is, to us as well as to you. What is that she says?” he inquired of Helsa, who had a younger and quicker ear.
“She says the widow is about lighting her lamp. Yes, my lady; but we are too far off to see it.”
“Is she wandering?” asked the President.
“No, sir: quite sensible, I think. Did you speak, my lady?”
“My love!”
“To Annie, my lady? I will not forget.”
She spoke no more. Sir Alexander contrived to keep from the knowledge of the boatmen for some hours that there was a corpse on board. When they could conceal it no longer, they forgot their fatigue in their superstition, and rowed, as for their lives, to the nearest point of land. This happened, fortunately, to be within the territories of Sir Alexander Macdonald.
In the early dawn the boat touched at Vaternish Point, and there landed the body, which, with Helsa for its attendant, was committed by Sir Alexander to a clansman who was to summon a distant minister, and see the remains interred in the church at Trunban, where they now lie.
When the President returned to his estate at Culloden; in the ensuing spring, on the final overthrow of the Jacobite cause, his first use of the re-established post was to write to Lord Carse, in London, tidings of his wife’s death, promising all particulars if he found that his letter reached its destination in safety. The reply he received was this:—