encounter him. He threw the letters down upon the threshold of the door, and shouted out that his bringing them back was more than the writer deserved. If he had read them, and made mischief of their contents, nobody could, under the circumstances, have blamed him. Here they were, however, as a lesson to the family not to lose their time, and waste their precious ink and paper in writing letters that would never leave the island.
As he was turning to go away, the widow opened her door, and asked if he would excuse her for troubling him with one little commission which she had not thought of the day before, and she produced the ball of thread.
Lady Carse was watching through a chink in a shutter. She saw the steward’s countenance relax, and heard his voice soften as he spoke to the widow. She perceived that Annie had influence with him, if she would use it faithfully and zealously. Next she observed the care with which he wrote in his note book Annie’s directions about her commission, and how he deposited the precious ball in his securest pocket. She felt that this chance of escape, though somewhat precarious, was the best that had yet occurred.
Before the steward was out of sight she opened the shutter, though it creaked perilously, and kissed her hand to the surprised Annie, who was watching her agent down the hill. Annie smiled, but secured caution by immediately going in.
Chapter Thirteen.
True Solitude.
The season advanced, bringing the due tokens of the approach of summer. The gales came from the east instead of the west, and then subsided into mild airs. The mists which had brooded over sea and land melted away, and, as the days lengthened, permitted the purple heights of the rocky Saint Kilda to be seen clear and sharp, as the sun went down behind them. The weed which had blackened the shore of the island at the end of winter was now gone from the silver sands. Some of it was buried in the minister’s garden as manure. The minister began to have hopes of his garden. He had done his best to keep off the salt spray by building the wall ten feet high; and it was thought that just under the wall a few cabbages might grow; and in one corner there was an experiment going forward to raise onions. Kate and Adam told the widow, from day to day, the hopes and fears of the household about this garden; and it was then that she knew that her son Rollo was now gardener, as he had been head builder of the wall.