“What is that?” she said, suddenly.

There was a sound far below them of the striking of oars in the water, and another sound of one or two men monotonously chanting a rude sort of chorus.

“They are taking the gig on to the yacht,” he said.

“But what are they singing?”

“Oh, that is Fhir a bhata” said he; “it is the common boat-song.  It means, Good-by to you, boatman, a hundred times, wherever you may be going.”

“It is very striking, very effective, to hear singing and not see the people,” she said.  “It is the very prettiest introduction to a scene; I wonder it is not oftener used.  Do you think they could write me down the words and music of that song?”

“Oh no, I think not,” said he, with a nervous laugh.  “But you will find something like it, no doubt, in your book.”

So they passed on through the plantation; and at last they came to an open glade; and here was a deep chasm spanned by a curious old bridge of stone almost hidden by ivy; and there was a brawling stream dashing down over the rocks and flinging spray all over the briers, and queen of the meadow, and foxgloves on either bank.

“That is very pretty,” said she; and then he was eager to tell her that this little glen was even more beautiful when the rowan-trees showed their rich clusters of scarlet berries.

“Those bushes there, you mean,” said she.  “The mountain-ash?”

“Yes.”

“Ah,” she said, “I never see those scarlet berries without wishing I was a dark woman.  If my hair were black, I would wear nothing else in it.”

By this time they had climbed well up the cliff; and presently they came on the open plateau on which stood Castle Dare, with its gaunt walls and its rambling courtyards, and its stretch of damp lawn with a few fuchsia-bushes and orange-lilies, that did not give a very ornamental look to the place.

“We have had heavy rains of late,” he said, hastily; he hoped the house and its surroundings did not look too dismal.

And when they went inside and passed through the sombre dining-hall, with its huge fireplace, and its dark weapons, and its few portraits dimly visible in the dusk, he said,—­

“It is very gloomy in the daytime; but it is more cheerful at night.”

And when they reached the small drawing-room he was anxious to draw her attention away from the antiquated furniture and the nondescript decoration by taking her to the window and showing her the great breadth of the summer sea, with the far islands, and the brown-sailed boat of the Gometra men coming back from Staffa.  But presently in came Janet, and would take the fair stranger away to her room; and was as attentive to her as if the one were a great princess, and the other a meek serving-woman.  And by and by Macleod, having seen his other guest provided for, went into the library and shut himself in, and sat down, in a sort of stupor.  He could almost have imagined that the whole business of the morning was a dream; so strange did it seem to him that Gertrude White should be living and breathing under the same roof with himself.