large vessel. Then Oscar was hauled up too, and the rope flung loose,
and the boat drifted away into the darkness. But the last good-bye had
not been said, for over the black waters came the sound of pipes once
more, the melancholy wail of "Macintosh's Lament."

"Confound that obstinate brat!" Macleod said to himself. "Now he will go
back to Castle Dare and make the women miserable."

"The captain is below at his supper, Sir Keith," said the mate. "Will
you go down to him?"

"Yes, I will go down to him," said he; and he made his way along the
deck of the steamer.

He was arrested by the sound of some one crying, and he looked down, and
found a woman crouched under the bulwarks, with two small children
asleep on her knee.

"My good woman, what is the matter with you?" said he.

"The night is cold," she said in the Gaelic, "and my children are cold;
and it is a long way that we are going."

He answered her in her own tongue.

"You will be warmer if you go below; but here is a plaid for you,
anyway;" and with that he took the plaid from round his shoulders and
flung it across the children, and passed on.

That was the way of the Macleods of Dare. They had a royal manner with