Far away in these grimy towns, fighting with mean cares and petty jealousies, dissatisfied, despondent, careless as to the future, how could this message reach her to fill her heart with the singing of a bird?  He dared not send it, at all events.  But he wrote to her.  And the bitter travail of the writing of that letter he long remembered.  He was bound to give her his sympathy, and to make light as well as he could of those very evils which he had been the first to reveal to her.  He tried to write in as frank and friendly a spirit as she had done; the letter was quite cheerful.

“Did you know,” said he, “that once upon a time the chief of the Macleods married a fairy?  And whether Macleod did not treat her well, or whether the fairy-folk reclaimed her, or whether she grew tired of the place, I do not know quite; but, at all events, they were separated, and she went away to her own people.  But before she went away she gave to Macleod a fairy banner—­the Bratach sith it is known as—­and she told him that if ever he was in great peril, or had any great desire, he was to wave that flag, and whatever he desired would come to pass.  But the virtue of the Bratach sith would depart after it had been waved three times.  Now the small green banner has been waved only twice; and now I believe it is still preserved in the Castle of Dunvegan, with power to work one more miracle on behalf of the Macleods.  And if I had the fairy flag, do you know what I would do with it?  I would take it in my hand, and say:  ’I desire the fairy people to remove my friend Gertrude White from all the evil influences that disturb and distress her.  I desire them to heal her wounded spirit, and secure for her everything that may tend to her lifelong happiness.  And I desire that all the theatres in the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland—­with all their musical instruments, lime-light, and painted scenes—­may be taken and dropped into the ocean, midway between the islands of Ulva and Coll, so that the fairy folk may amuse them selves in them if they will so please.’  Would not that be a very nice form of incantation?  We are very strong believers here in the power of one person to damage another in absence; and when you can kill a man by sticking pins into a waxen image of him—­which everybody knows to be true—­surely you ought to be able to help a friend, especially with the aid of the Bratach sith.  Imagine Covent Garden Theatre a hundred fathoms down in the deep sea, with mermaidens playing the brass instruments in the orchestra, and the fairy-folk on the stage, and seals disporting themselves in the stalls, and guillemots shooting about the upper galleries in pursuit of fish.  But we should get no peace from Iona.  The fairies there are very pious people.  They used to carry St. Columba about when he got tired.  They would be sure to demand the shutting up of all the theatres, and the destruction of the brass instruments.  And I don’t see how we could reasonably object.”