Maisrie turned to her grandfather.
"Oh, well," the old man made answer, with an air of magnificent unconcern, "that is difficult to say. The book is not of such great importance; it may have to stand aside for a time. For one thing, I should most likely have to return to the other side to collect materials; whereas, while we are here in the old country, there are so many opportunities for research in other and perhaps more valuable directions, that it would be a thousand pities to neglect them. For example, now," he continued, seeing that Mrs. Ellison listened meekly, "I have undertaken to write for my friend Carmichael of the Edinburgh Chronicle a series of papers on a branch of our own family that attained to great distinction in the Western Isles during the reign of the Scotch Jameses—the learned Beatons of Islay and Mull."
"Oh, indeed," said Mrs. Ellison, affecting much interest.
"Yes," resumed old George Bethune, with much dignified complacency, "it will be a singular history if ever I find time to trace it out. The whole of that family seem to have been regarded with a kind of superstitious reverence; all their sayings were preserved; and even now, when a proverb is quoted in the Western Isles, they add, 'as the sage of Mull said' or 'as the sage of Islay said.' For ullahm, I may inform you, Mrs.—Mrs.—"
"Ellison," she said, kindly.
"Mrs. Ellison—I beg your pardon—my hearing is not what it was. Ullahm, in the Gaelic tongue means at once a Doctor of Medicine and a wise man—"
"They distinguish between the terms in English," put in Vincent.
"—and doctors most of them appear to have been," continued the old man, quite oblivious of interruption: indeed he seemed to be reading something out of his memory, rather than addressing particularly any one of his audience. "A certain Hector Beaton, indeed, got a considerable grant in Islay for having cured one of the Jameses when all the Edinburgh Faculty had failed; and I myself have seen in the island of Iona the tombstone of the last of the Mull doctors of the name, who died so late as 1657. Hic jacet Johannes Betonus Maclenorum familiæ Medicus: no doubt there must be some mention of those Beatons in the archives of the various families of Maclean in Mull. Then I daresay I could get a drawing of the tombstone—though I can remember the inscription well enough. The coat of arms, too, has the three mascles of the Bethunes—"
"Of the Bethunes?—then you are of the same family?" said Mrs. Ellison, this time with a little genuine curiosity.
But the interruption had the effect of rousing him from his historical reverie.