Then he fell to brooding again over Hamish’s mad scheme.  The fine English church of Hamish’s imagination was no doubt a little stone building that a handful of sailors could carry at a rush.  And of course the yacht must needs be close by; for there was no land in Hamish’s mind that was out of sight of the salt-water.  And what consideration would this old man have for delicate fancies and studies in moral science?  The fine madam had been chosen to be the bride of Macleod of Dare; that was enough.  If her will would not bend, it would have to be broken; that was the good old way.  Was there ever a happier wife than the Lady of Armadale, who had been carried screaming downstairs in the night-time, and placed in her lover’s boat, with the pipes playing a wild pibroch all the time?

Macleod was in the library that night when Hamish came to him with some papers.  And just as the old man was about to leave, Macleod said to him,—­

“Well, that was a pretty story you told me this morning, Hamish, about the carrying off the young English lady.  And have you thought any more about it?”

“I have thought enough about it,” Hamish said, in his native tongue.

“Then perhaps you could tell me, when you start on this fine expedition, how you are going to have the yacht taken to London?  The lads of Mull are very clever, Hamish, I know; but do you think that any one of them can steer the Umpire all the way from Loch-na-Keal to the river Thames?”

“Is it the river Thames?” said Hamish, with great contempt.  “And is that all—­the river Thames?  Do you know this, Sir Keith, that my cousin Colin Laing, that has a whiskey-shop now in Greenock, has been all over the world, and at China and other places; and he was the mate of many a big vessel; and do you think he could not take the Umpire from Loch-na-Keal to London?  And I would only have to send a line to him and say, ’Colin, it is Sir Keith Macleod himself that will want you to do this;’ and then he will leave twenty or thirty shops, ay, fifty and a hundred shops, and think no more of them at all.  Oh yes, it is very true what you say Sir Keith.  There is no one knows better than I the soundings in Loch Scridain and Loch Tua; and you have said yourself that there is not a bank or a rock about the islands that I do not know; but I have not been to London—­no, I have not been to London.  But is there any great trouble in getting to London?  No, none at all, when we have Colin Laing on board.”

Macleod was apparently making a gay joke of the matter; but there was an anxious, intense look in his eyes all the same—­even when he was staring absently at the table before him.

“Oh yes, Hamish,” he said, laughing in a constrained manner, “that would be a fine story to tell.  And you would become very famous—­just as if you were working for fame in a theatre; and all the people would be talking about you.  And when you got to London, how would you get through the London streets?”