I would have given every one a sovereign, if I had had it to give.  But do you know what I was laughing at?—­I was laughing to think what Captain Macallum would do when you went on board as my wife.  For he put up the flags for you when you were only a visitor coming to Dare; but when I take you by the hand, Gerty, as you are going along the gangway, and when we get on to the paddle-box, and Captain Macallum comes forward, and when I tell him that you are now my wife, why, he will not know what to do to welcome you!  And Hamish, too—­I think Hamish will go mad that day.  And then, sweetheart, you will go along to Erraidh, and you will go up to the signal-house on the rocks, and we will fire a cannon to tell the men at Dubh-Artach to look out.  And what will be the message you will signal to them, Gerty, with the great white boards?  Will you send them your compliments, which is the English way?  Ah, but I know what they will answer to you.  They will answer in the Gaelic; and this will be the answer that will come to you from the lighthouse—­’A hundred thousand welcomes to the young bride!’ And you will soon learn the Gaelic, too; and you will get used to our rough ways:  and you will no longer have any fear of the sea.  Some day you will get so used to us that you will think the very sea-birds to be your friends, and that they know when you are going away and when you are coming back, and that they know you will not allow any one to shoot at them or steal their eggs in the springtime.  But if you would rather not have our rough ways, Gerty, I will go with you wherever you please—­did I not say that to you, sweetheart?  There are many fine houses in Essex—­I saw them when I went down to Woodford with Major Stuart.  And for your sake I would give up the sea altogether; and I would think no more about boats; and I would go to Essex with you if I was never to see one of the sea-birds again.  That is what I will do for your sake, Gerty, if you wish; though I thought you would be kind to the poor people around us at Dare, and be proud of their love for you, and get used to our homely ways.  But I will go into Essex, if you like, Gerty—­so that the sea shall not frighten you; and you will never be asked to go into one of our rough boats any more.  It shall be just as you wish, Gerty; whether you want to go away into Essex, or whether you will come away with me to the North, that I will say to Captain Macallum, ’Captain Macallum, what will you do, now that the English lady has been brave enough to leave her home and her friends to live with us? and what are we to do now to show that we are proud and glad of her coming?’”

Well, tears did gather in her eyes as she listened to this wild, despairing cry, and her hands were working nervously with a book she had taken from the table; but what answer could she make.  In self-defence against this vehemence she adopted an injured air.

“Really, Keith,” said she, in a low voice, “you do not seem to pay any attention to anything I say or write.  Surely I have prepared you to understand that my consent to what you propose is quite impossible—­for the present, at least?  I asked for time to consider.”