“Oh, Keith!” Janet Macleod cried, with sudden tears starting to her eyes, “do you know what Captain Macallum has done for you?  The steamer has got all her flags out!”

Macleod flushed red.

“Well, Janet,” said he, “I wrote to Captain Macullum, and I asked him to be so good as to pay them some little attention; but who was to know that he would do that?”

“And a very proper thing, too,” said Major Stuart, who was standing hard by.  “A very pretty compliment to strangers; and you know you have not many visitors coming to Castle Dare.”

The major spoke in a matter of fact way.  Why should not the steamer show her bunting in honor of Macleod’s guests!  But all the same the gallant soldier, as he stood and watched the steamer coming along, became a little bit excited too; and he whistled to himself, and tapped his toe on the ground.  It was a fine air he was whistling.  It was all about breast-knots!

“Into the boat with you now, lads!” Macleod called out; and first of all to go down to the steps was Donald; and the silver and cairngorms on his pipes were burnished so that they shone like diamonds in the sunlight; and he wore his cap so far on one side that nobody could understand how it did not fall off.  Macleod was alone in the stern.  Away the white boat went through the blue waves.

“Put your strength into it now,” said he, in the Gaelic, “and show them how the Mull lads can row!”

And then again—­

“Steady now!  Well rowed all!”

And here are all the people crowding to one side of the steamer to see the strangers off; and the captain is on the bridge; and Sandy is at the open gangway:  and, at the top of the iron steps, there is only one Macleod sees—­all in white and blue—­and he has caught her eyes—­at last! at last!

He seized the rope and sprang up the iron ladder.

“Welcome to you, sweetheart!” said he, in a low voice, and his trembling hand grasped hers.

“How do you, Keith?” said she.  “Must we go down these steps?”

He had no time to wonder over the coldness—­the petulance almost—­of her manner:  for he had to get both father and daughter safely conducted into the stern of the boat; and their luggage had to be got in; and he had to say a word or two to the steward; and finally he had to hand down some loaves of bread to the man next him, who placed them in the bottom of the boat.

“The commissariat arrangements are primitive,” said Mr. White, in an undertone, to his daughter; but she made no answer to his words or his smile.  But, indeed, even if Macleod had overheard, he would have taken no shame to himself that he had secured a supply of white bread for his guests.  Those who had gone yachting with Macleod—­Major Stuart, for example, or Norman Ogilvie—­had soon learned not to despise their host’s highly practical acquaintance with tinned meats, pickles, condensed milk, and suchlike things.  Who was it had proposed to erect a monument to him for his discovery of the effect of introducing a leaf of lettuce steeped in vinegar between the folds of a sandwich?