“I have heard of those middlemen:  they were dreadful tyrants and thieves, weren’t they?” said Lavender.  Ingram kicked his foot under the table.  “I mean, that was the popular impression of them—­a vulgar error, I presume,” continued the young man in the coolest manner.  “And so you have got rid of them?  Well, I dare say many of them were honest men, and suffered very unjustly in common report.”

Mackenzie answered nothing, but his daughter said quickly, “But, you know, Mr. Lavender, they have not gone away merely because they cease to have the letting of the land to the crofters.  They have still their old holdings, and so have the crofters in most cases.  Every one now holds direct from the proprietor, that is all.”

“So that there is no difference between the former tacksman and his serf except the relative size of their farms?”

“Well, the crofters have no leases, but the tacksmen have,” said the girl somewhat timidly; and then she added, “But you have not decided yet, Mr. Ingram, what you will do to-day.  It is too clear for the salmon-fishing.  Will you go over to Meavig, and show Mr. Lavender the Bay of Uig and the Seven Hunters?”

“Surely we must show him Borvabost first, Sheila,” said Ingram.  “He saw nothing of it last night in the dark; and I think, if you offered to take Mr. Lavender round in your boat and show him what a clever sailor you are, he would prefer that to walking over the hill.”

“I can take you all round in the boat, certainly,” said the girl with a quick blush of pleasure; and forthwith a message was sent to Duncan that cushions should be taken down to the Maighdean-mhara, the little vessel of which Sheila was both skipper and pilot.

How beautiful was the fair sea-picture that lay around them as the Maighdean-mhara stood out to the mouth of Loch Roag on this bright summer morning!  Sheila sat in the stern of the small boat, her hand on the filler.  Lufrath lay at her feet, his nose between the long and shaggy paws.  Duncan, grave and watchful as to the wind and the points of the coast, sat amidships, with the sheets of the mainsail held fast, and superintended the seamanship of his young mistress with a respectful but most evident pride.  And as Ingram had gone off with Mackenzie to walk over to the White Water before going down to Borvabost, Frank Lavender was Sheila’s sole companion out in this wonderland of rock and sea and blue sky.

He did not talk much to her, and she was so well occupied with the boat that he could regard with impunity the shifting lights and graces of her face and all the wonder and winning depths of her eyes.  The sea was blue around them; the sky overhead had not a speck of cloud in it; the white sand-bays, the green stretches of pasture and the far and spectral mountains trembled in a haze of sunlight.  Then there was all the delight of the fresh and cool wind, the hissing of the water along the boat, and the joyous rapidity with which the small vessel, lying over a little, ran through the crisply curling waters, and brought into view the newer wonders of the opening sea.