Then he jumped down into the boat again; and the great steamer steamed away; and the men struck their oars into the water.

“We will soon take you ashore now,” said he, with a glad light on his face; but so excited was he that he could scarcely get the tiller-ropes right; and certainly he knew not what he was saying.  And as for her—­why was she so silent after the long separation?  Had she no word at all for the lover who had so hungered for her coming?

And then Donald, perched high at the bow, broke away into his wild welcome of her; and there was a sound now louder than the calling of the sea birds and the rushing of the seas.  And if the English lady knew that this proud and shrill strain had been composed in honor of her, would it not bring some color of pleasure to the pale face?  So thought Donald at least; and he had his eyes fixed on her as he played as he had never played before that day.  And if she did not know the cunning modulations and the clever fingering, Macleod knew them, and the men knew them; and after they got ashore they would say to him,—­

“Donald, that was a good pibroch you played for the English lady.”

But what was the English lady’s thanks?  Donald had not played over sixty seconds when she turned to Macleod and said,—­

“Keith I wish you would stop him.  I have a headache.”

And so Macleod called out at once, in the lad’s native tongue.  But Donald could not believe this thing, though he had seen the strange lady turn to Sir Keith.  And he would have continued had not one of the men turned to him and said,—­

“Donald, do you not hear?  Put down the pipes.”

For an instant the lad looked dumbfounded; then he slowly took down the pipes from his shoulder and put them beside him, and then he turned his face to the bow, so that no one should see the tears of wounded pride that had sprung to his eyes.  And Donald said no word to any one till they got ashore; and he went away by himself to Castle Dare, with his head bent down and his pipes under his arm; and when he was met at the door by Hamish, who angrily demanded why he was not down at the quay with his pipes, he only said,—­

“There is no need of me or my pipes any more at Dare; and it is somewhere else that I will now go with my pipes.”

But meanwhile Macleod was greatly concerned to find his sweetheart so cold and distant; and it was all in vain that he pointed out to her the beauties of this summer day—­that he showed her the various islands he had often talked about, and called her attention to the skarts sitting on the Erisgeir rocks, and asked her—­seeing that she sometimes painted a little in water-color—­whether she noticed the peculiar, clear, intense, and luminous blue of the shadows in the great cliffs which they were approaching.  Surely no day could have been more auspicious for her coming to Dare?

“The sea did not make you ill?” he said.