“Yes, sir,” said the boy, whose face was now flushed red with the reaction after the cold.  “I beg your pardon, sir.”

“For tumbling into the water?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, look here, Master Wickes; you chose a good time.  If I had had trousers on, and waterproof leggings over them, do you know where you would be at the present moment?  You would be having an interesting conversation with a number of lobsters at the bottom of the sea off the Colonsay shores.  And so you thought because I had my kilt on, that I could fish you out of the water?”

“No, sir,” said Johnny Wickes.  “I beg your pardon, sir.”

“Well, you will remember that it was owing to the Highland kilt that you were picked out of the water, and that it was Highland whiskey put life into your blood again; you will remember that well.  And if any strange lady should come here from England and ask you how you like the Highlands, you will not forget?”

“No, sir.”

“And you can have Oscar up here in the room with you, if you like, until they let you out of bed again; or you can have Donald to play the pipes to you until dinner-time.”

Master Wickes chose the less heroic remedy; but, indeed, the companionship of Oscar was not needed; for Janet Macleod—­who might just as well have tried to keep her heart from beating as to keep herself away from any one who was ill or supposed to be ill—­herself came up to this little room, and was very attentive to Master Wickes, not because he was suffering very much from the effects of his ducking, but because he was a child, and alone, and a stranger.  And to her Johnny Wickes told the whole story, despite the warnings he had received that, if Hamish came to learn of the peril in which Macleod had been placed by the incaution of the English lad, the latter would have had a bad time of it at Castle Dare.  Then Janet hastened away again, and, finding her cousin’s bedroom empty, entered; and there discovered that he had, with customary recklessness, hung up his wet clothes in his wardrobe.  She had them at once conveyed away to the lower regions, and she went, with earnest remonstrances, to her cousin, and would have him drink some hot whiskey and water; and when Hamish arrived, went straight to him too, and told him the story in such a way that he said,—­

“Ay, ay, it wass the poor little lad!  And he will mek a good sailor yet.  And it was not much dancher for him when Sir Keith wass in the boat; for there is no one in the whole of the islands will sweem in the water as he can sweem; and it is like a fish in the water that he is.”