The standard on the braes o’ Mar
Is up and streaming rarely;
The gathering pipe on Lochnagar
Is sounding lang and clearly;
The Highlandmen from hill and glen,
In martial hue, with bonnets blue,
Wi’ belted plaids and burnished blades,
Are coming late and early.
“Now, that is a better kind of song—that is a teffle of a good song,” Mackenzie cried, keeping time to the music with his right foot, as if he were a piper playing in front of his regiment. “Wass there anything like that in your country, Mr. Mosenberg?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said the lad meekly, “but if you like, I will sing you one of our soldiers’ songs. They have plenty of fire in them, I think.”
Certainly, Mackenzie had plenty of brilliant and cheerful and stirring music that evening, but that which pleased him most, doubtless, was to see, as all the world could see, the happiness of his good lass. Sheila, proud and glad, with a light on her face that had not been there for many a day, wanted to do everything at once to please and amuse her guests, and most of all to wait upon her husband; and Lavender was so abashed by her sweet service and her simple ways that he could show his gratitude only by some furtive and kindly touch of the hand as Sheila passed.
It seemed to him she had never looked so beautiful, and never, indeed since they left Stornoway together had he heard her quiet, low laugh so full of enjoyment. What had he done, he asked himself, to deserve her confidence, for it was the hope in her proud and gentle eyes that gave that radiant brightness to her face. He did not know. He could not answer. Perhaps the foregiveness she had so freely and frankly tendered, and the confidence she now so clearly showed in him, sprang from no judgment or argument, but were only the natural fruit of an abounding and generous love. More than once that night he wished that Sheila could read the next half-dozen years as though in some prophetic scroll, that he might show her how he would endeavor to prove himself, if not unworthy—for he could scarcely hope that—at least conscious of her great and unselfish affection, and as grateful for it as a man could be.
They pushed their enjoyment to such a late hour of the night that when they discovered what time it was, Mackenzie would not allow one of them to venture out into the dark to find the path down to the yacht, and Duncan and Scarlett were forthwith called on to provide the belated guests with some more or less haphazard sleeping accommodation.
“Mr. Mackenzie,” said Johnny, “I don’t mind a bit if I sleep on the floor. I’ve just had the jolliest night I ever spent in my life. Mosenberg, you’ll have to take the Phœbe back to Greenock by yourself; I shall never leave Borva any more.”
“You will be sober in the morning, Mr. Eyre,” young Mosenberg said; but the remark was unjust, for Johnny’s enthusiasm had not been produced by the old king’s whisky, potent as that was.
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE PRINCESS SHEILA.
“I SHOULD like,” said Mrs. Edward Ingram, sitting down and contentedly folding her hands in her lap—I should so much like, Edward, to have my own way for once, it would be so novel and so nice.”