Would she? Perhaps, after all, he did not wait for her consent. He had her in his arms, and they closed round her, and Isabel's head fell on his shoulder with a little sob that was an epitome of all the five years' sorrow and heartache.
Catriona heard his story in silence.
"Muirnean (darling)," Rory whispered, "I love you; and when I leave Skye, you will come too, or I will be staying on here with you. You shall choose Ishbel—you shall choose; and to-morrow I will buy you something better than the claymore brooch that I was cruel enough to throw away!"
They walked down to the cottage, and Catriona, who was never surprised at anything, shook hands sourly with him; she heard his story in silence, and nodded consent when he told her that he and Ishbel were to be married, after all. He could look after the croft, she said, or buy Colin MacDougal's farm, just above, if he had money enough. Would he have money enough? For Duncan kept her very close now. Rory laid a packet smilingly in her lap, and said he thought he had money enough.
Next forenoon Catriona saw him coming up the road; Ishbel ran to meet him, and together they wandered off to the burn-side. They came back by-and-by, and Ishbel stood smiling in the cottage door, her arms full of rowan branches; Rory had a spray in his coat, and the red berries nestled under her chin.
"I have brought you back luck," the girl cried happily. "We found the rowans down by the pool. And Rory says that there are maybe good folk in the world, after all! Who knows, grandmother?"
Catriona's peat-brown old face was bent over her wheel. She allowed there might be one or two, with a half-grunt of satisfaction.