"Oh well," said Coinneach, looking away out to the horizon as if the suggestion might come from any quarter. "Maybe he would be riding home on a dark night; and maybe there might be a wire stretched across the road; and if he was to break his neck, who could help that? And it is I who would laugh to hear that he had broken his neck; indeed I would laugh!" said Coinneach, though there was little laughter in his sombre tones.
"And that is what you call an accident, Coinneach? It is an accident that might end in your finding yourself with a hempen collar round your neck. And what was it set the young men talking like that?"
"Oh well, indeed, they were talking about the draining of the loch and the pulling down of Castle Heimra; and they were saying that nowadays the law was being altered by the people themselves, and that right and justice could be done without waiting for the courts. They were saying that. And they were saying that we have come into a new time, which is the truth. They were speaking of the people over there in the Lews; and the last that was heard was that the people would not wait any longer for more pasture to be given them; they would not wait for the courts; they were going to take the deer-forest to themselves, and hamstring every one of the stags—them that they could not eat; and they had got their tents and baggage ready, to go into the forest and take possession. In former times they would not have dared to do so; but times are different now; and people have not to wait for justice; it is they themselves who must say what is right, whether about the Little Red Dwarf, or anything else. They were telling me that. And who was to put the crofters and cottars out of the deer-forest over there in the Lews? Not all the policemen in the island: there are not enough. And if they were to send soldiers, the Queen's soldiers dare not fire on the Queen's subjects, or the officer would be hanged. That was what they were telling me."
"Coinneach," said the young master, "if the Gillie Ciotach and his companions are talking like that, they will be getting themselves into trouble one of these days. They'd better let the Little Red Dwarf alone; for one thing, I dare say he is safe enough; the devil looks after his own brats. But do not forget what I am telling you now—about Mrs. Mac Vean. Old Martha will be wanting you to go over to the mainland to-morrow; and when you are there, you can seek out Mrs. Mac Vean, and bid her tell the factor how her cow was lost in the Meall-na-Fearn bog. She can do no harm by asking."
"It's very little she will get from the Troich Bheag Dhearg," said Coinneach, gloomily, "whether by asking or any other way."
At last the long pull was over; and the men, having landed the master at the slip, set out again for the yacht. Young Ross of Heimra went up to the house. But before going in, he paused at the porch, to have a final look at the wonderful glories of that vast firmament—the throbbing Sirius low down in the south, the gleaming belt and sword of Orion, the powdered diamond-dust of the Pleiades, the jewelled head of Medusa, Cassiopeia's silver throne. And perhaps he was not thinking so much of those distant and shining worlds as of her who had first taught him their various names—of the worse than widowed woman who had shut herself up here in proud isolation, himself her only care. Well, she was at peace now; her wrongs and sufferings and bitter memories all come to an end; surely there was nothing but quiet and sweet slumber around that white grave-stone, far up there on the top of the cliff, overlooking the wide and lonely western seas.
CHAPTER IV.
THE BAINTIGHEARNA.
Next morning Mary went eagerly and joyously to the window, for here indeed was a welcome change: no more louring heavens and streaming roads, but a vast expanse of wind-driven sea, blue as the very heart of a sapphire, and yet with innumerable sudden flashes of white from the crest of its swift-hurrying waves. The sky cloudless; the fresh breeze blowing straight in from the Atlantic; the world all shining around her; even those long spurs and headlands, sterile as they were, looked quite cheerful in the prevailing sunlight. And out yonder, too, was the island of Heimra, to which her eyes would go back again and again with a curious interest. She thought of the lone mother, and of the boy brought up like a wild goat among the rocks. And if he had turned out a reckless and unscrupulous ne'er-do-well, an Ishmael with his hand against every man, well, that was a deplorable thing, though perhaps not to be wondered at; moreover it could matter little to her what such an outcast might think of her or of her family; but, nevertheless, deep down in her heart, there was an odd and ever-recurring feeling of compunction. She wished to be able to say "I am sorry." Certainly it was not she who had destroyed the last relic and monument of the ancient name—who had drained the loch and levelled the old stronghold with the ground; and he must know that; but she wished him to know more; she wished him to know how indignant she had been when she first heard of that monstrous and iniquitous act of vandalism. And then again (as she still stood gazing at the island out there in the wide blue waters, with the white foam springing high in the sunlight along its southern coasts) it seemed to her that she rather feared meeting this man. Rude and lawless and mannerless, might he not laugh at her stumbling apologies? Or in his Highland pride he might scorn her southern birth, and vouchsafe no word in reply? Well, being sorry was all that remained for her; what was done could not be undone; it was not within her power to bring back Castle Heimra from that waste of ruin.
She had got up very early, but she did not care to waken Kate, who was no doubt tired with the long drive of yesterday; she thought instead she would quietly slip outside and have some little investigation of her surroundings. So she quickly finished dressing; went down and through the lofty oak hall; passed out upon the stone terrace, and from thence descended into the garden, where she found herself quite alone. The air was sweet and soft; there was a pleasant scent of newly-delved earth; and everywhere there was abundant evidence that the Spring had already come to this sheltered space—for there were masses of daffodils and primroses and wallflower all aglow in the warm sunlight, and there were bunches of blossom on the cherry-trees trained up the high stone wall. She went away down to the end of the garden, opened a door she found there, and, passing through, entered the wilder solitude of the woods. And ever as she wandered idly and carelessly along, the sense that she was the mistress and owner of all these beautiful things around her seemed to grow on her and produce a certain not unnatural joy and pride. For the moment she had forgotten all the problems in human nature and in economics that lay ahead of her; here she had all the world to herself—this picturesque world of silver-grey rock, and golden gorse, and taller larch and spruce, all dappled with sun and shadow, while the fresh odours of the Spring were everywhere around, and a stirring of the new life of the year. And then, when she had fought her way through the thick underwood to the summit of one of the westward-looking cliffs—behold! the dark blue sea, and the sunny headlands, and Eilean Heimra, with its thunder-shocks of foam. Heimra island again; it seemed to be always confronting her; but however long she might gaze in that direction, there was no sign of any white-winged yacht coming sailing out into the blue.