acquaintance of the banquet, was the only surviving son. Having so recently met the Prince, having, indeed, entertained him, and having first-hand experience of the storm which had wrecked such high hopes, Ranald Maclean was, as he had already discovered, a prize to be exhibited in local Jacobite society; and thus he had found himself this afternoon being borne off by Malcolm Robertson to Inchrannoch House.
And certainly they had listened eagerly enough, old Mr. Walter Stewart and the girl from fairyland, to what he had to tell them. Miss Stewart had produced a little engraving of Prince Charles Edward as a boy which someone had brought her from Rome, and had asked if it were like him now. In the candid child’s eyes with which she had gazed at Mr. Maclean of Fasnapoll—eyes of the hue of sea-water, neither blue nor green, it seemed to him—there was a light which might have dizzied him could he have flattered himself that he had lit it. But he knew that he had not; it burnt for that young Desire of all true Scottish hearts, whom now, perhaps, they would never see. . . .
* * * * *
“You were going to tell me Miss Stewart’s history, I think,” said Ranald suddenly, a minute or two after they had got out of the ferry-boat on the further side of the river. “I am sorry to hear that it is a tragic one.”
“Fortunately,” replied young Robertson, “my cousin does not remember her parents nor the catastrophe which robbed her of them both. They were drowned coming over from the West Indies, where her father had established himself as a planter. Bride was a child of two—their only child, for they were young, and not long married—and she had a narrow escape of sharing the same fate. They were on their way from Jamaica to Liverpool; Mrs. Stewart was delicate and the West Indian climate did not agree with her constitution, so she was returning for a while to Perthshire with her little girl; her husband was merely escorting her thither. Their vessel was wrecked in a fog off the Calf of the Isle of Man, and went down so suddenly that no boats could be launched. Only those who were able to swim and to clamber up the surf-beaten rocks survived, and there were not many of these. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart both perished; their bodies were cast up later in Castletown Bay.”
“And the child?”
“A sailor from Lancashire who had played with her on the voyage snatched her from her mother’s arms and swore that he would save her. He did, although in protecting his charge he himself received injuries from the rocks which eventually resulted in the loss of a leg—as you may have observed when he admitted us this afternoon.”
“The lame English servant?”
“Yes, Jonas Worrall. He has been at Inchrannoch ever since; he has never been separated from Bride. I believe he feels that he has more claim to her than her uncle, Mr. Walter Stewart, has!”
So it was not from a fairy dun, but out of the waves that she had come to Perthshire! “I hope Miss Stewart does not have occasion often to think of this very sad story of hers,” observed Ranald Maclean. “Perhaps it is as well that she does not live by the sea.”
“Perhaps so; though our loch here is sometimes so agitated as to resemble it. Yet I speak from hearsay,” added Malcolm, smiling, “for I have never seen the sea.”
(3)
At Inchrannoch House meanwhile they talked of what they had just heard.
“And that young man,” said Mr. Stewart reflectively, passing his hand over his high, pale forehead, “that young man, only about two weeks since, saw and spoke in Dunkirk with our Prince, whom we thought to be in Rome! Does it not seem well-nigh miraculous, Bride?”
Bride nodded her little head gravely.
“A great pity that your aunt was not well enough to receive him. I must go to her presently and tell her this news.”
“I will go and see if she is awake now, Uncle Walter,” said Bride, and slipped from the room, noiselessly, as she did most things.
But upstairs, between the half-drawn curtains of the bed, she could see Mrs. Stewart’s nightcap motionless; stealing a little nearer she verified that she was asleep, and thought how old and frail she looked. She was not very old in reality, but she had never known good health, poor Aunt Rachel! And, having reported to her uncle, Bride went back to her room, to the silent wheel and the half-spun wool, and sat down to them.
Five minutes later she was still sitting there, her hands idle in her lap. She was thinking of all that she had been told—what more natural? But she was thinking not only of the substance of it, but also of the manner of its telling; for she heard still in her ears the voice of the narrator, a pleasant, deep, strong voice, and grave, as befitted the subject. A Highland gentleman who had so recently held intimate speech with the Prince passing this way, like a vessel with great tidings! Bride was aware of a faint but distinct regret that she was never likely to see him again.
With a sigh—no doubt for the hopes which the storm had wrecked—she began to press the treadle of the spinning-wheel—and then remembered that the thread was broken. The light was gone too; she would not spin any more to-day. So she rose, and going to the window, stood with her elbow on the high sill, looking out at Schiehallion, now only dimly visible, despite the snow upon its crest, and wondering whether Mr. Maclean, from the Isle of Askay, had admired her dear mountain.
CHAPTER IV
“Yes, this northern side of the loch is known as the Sliosmin, the smooth slope,” said Malcolm Robertson. “The other is the Sliosgarbh, the rough slope. As you see, it is steeper and much more thickly wooded; the famous Black Wood of Rannoch is over there. And on the far side of those heights runs Glen Lyon, the longest glen in Scotland.”
“And this side of the loch, I think you told me, is Menzies territory, and the other Robertson?” commented Ranald Maclean, as the two young men went briskly next morning up the easy sloping track through the birch and hazel.
“Yes, this is Menzies territory—though no Menzies live here. Rannoch, Mr. Maclean, is a district of strange anomalies, peopled by many clans. There are, for instance, many MacGregors on this side, but no MacGregor chief; and though if you were to count heads in Rannoch you would probably find the majority to be Camerons, yet no Cameron chief has ever owned land here. And though the southern side is Robertson territory, we of Clan Donnachaidh are not so numerous there as others. Moreover, there are the Stewarts, whose especial territory is Bunrannoch, the district at the eastern end of the loch, where we were yesterday.”
Young Robertson was going, upon business for his father, up to the clachan of Annat, on the northern slope, about a mile from the end of Loch Rannoch, and his guest was accompanying him. There was the slightest sprinkling of snow here and there upon the dead and brittle bracken, and little pockets of it stowed away in the crooks of the birch trees, but the sky was clear, the air exhilarating, and before they had started their ascent they had seen, away at the far end of the loch, the sugar-loaf shapes of the mountains at the entrance of Glencoe, the Watchers of Etive, showing blue and clear, as though ten miles of water and fifteen more of desolate waste did not lie between. As they mounted, Malcolm continued his remarks upon the history and landmarks of Rannoch; and fierce enough some of the former was, since for many years that inaccessible district had been a haunt of broken men. After a while the talk came round to the Stewarts again.
“Did I understand you to say, Mr. Robertson,” asked his listener, “that
