The steamer was moored at last: the crowd of fishermen and loungers drew near to meet their friends who had come up from Glasgow—for there are few strangers, as a rule, arriving at Stornoway to whet the curiosity of the islanders—and the tall gillie who had been standing by Mackenzie's horses came on board to get the luggage of the young men.
"Well, Duncan," said the elder of them, "and how are you, and how is Mr. Mackenzie, and how is Miss Sheila? You have not brought her with you, I see."
"But Miss Sheila is ferry well, whatever, Mr. Ingram, and it is a great day, this day, for her, tat you will be coming to the Lewis; and it wass tis morning she wass up at ta break o' day, and up ta hills to get some bits o' green things for ta rooms you will hef, Mr. Ingram. Ay, it iss a great day, tis day, for Miss Sheila."
"By Jove, they all rave about Sheila up in this quarter!" said Lavender, giving Duncan a fishing-rod and a bag he had brought from the cabin. "I suppose in a week's time I shall begin to rave about her too. Look sharp, Ingram, and let us have audience of His Majesty."
The King of Borva fixed his eye on young Lavender, and scanned him narrowly as he was being introduced. His welcome of Ingram had been most gracious and friendly, but he received his companion with something of a severe politeness. He requested him to take a seat beside him, so that he might see the country as they went across to Borva; and Lavender having done so, Ingram and Duncan got into the body of the wagonette, and the party drove off.
Passing through the clean and bright little town, Mackenzie suddenly pulled up his horses in front of a small shop, in the window of which some cheap bits of jewelry were visible. The man came out, and Mr. Mackenzie explained with some care and precision that he wanted a silver brooch of a particular sort. While the jeweler had returned to seek the article in question, Frank Lavender was gazing around him in some wonder at the appearance of so much civilization on this remote and rarely-visited island. There were no haggard savages, unkempt and scantily clad, coming forth from their dens in the rocks to stare wildly at the strangers. On the contrary, there was a prevailing air of comfort and "bienness" about the people and their houses. He saw handsome girls with coal-black hair and fresh complexions, who wore short and thick blue petticoats, with a scarlet tartan shawl wrapped round their bosom and fastened at the waist; stalwart, thick-set men, in loose blue jacket and trowsers and scarlet cap, many of them with bushy red beards; and women of extraordinary breadth of shoulder, who carried enormous loads in a creel strapped on their back, while they employed their hands in contentedly knitting stockings as they passed along. But what was the purpose of these mighty loads of fish-bones they carried—burdens that would have appalled a railway porter of the South?
"You will see, sir," observed the King of Borva in reply to Lavender's question, "there is not much of the phosphates in the grass of this island; and the cows they are mad to get the fish-bones to lick, and it iss many of them you cannot milk unless you put the bones before them."
"But why do the lazy fellows lounging about there let the women carry those enormous loads?"
Mr. Mackenzie stared: "Lazy fellows! They hef harder work than any you will know of in your country; and besides the fishing they will do the ploughing and much of the farm-work. And iss the women to do none at all? That iss the nonsense that my daughter talks; but she has got it out of books, and what do they know how the poor people hef to live?"
At this moment the jeweler returned with some half dozen brooches displayed on a plate, and shining with all the brilliancy of cairngorm stones, polished silver and variously-colored pebbles.