'Nothing yet, dear; the case is not finished. He has to go to Edinburgh to be tried; and we hope that something else may be found out before that time.'

'Shall we see him before he goes?'

'No, he will not come back before then.'

'Where is he?' demanded Allan.

'At present he is in the--in the County Jail,' faltered Mrs. MacGregor.

'Poor Neil,' burst from the children.

'He will be kindly treated,' interposed the doctor; 'and it is only until the case comes up in Edinburgh.'

The tears rolled over Tricksy's cheeks; and Marjorie turned away and looked out of the window.

'And now,' said the doctor cheerily, 'you must not take the matter tragically yet. We must hope for the best. Neil must stand his trial like a man, and it isn't often that a miscarriage of justice takes place. He will have the very best advice, your father and I will see to that; and you may depend upon it that some fresh evidence will turn up before then, which will show matters in an altogether different light. In the meanwhile you must not go about looking doleful, as though you had made up your minds already that Neil would not be able to show a good case for himself.'

It was hard to be cheerful; and the young folk cl.u.s.tered about in melancholy groups until the dog-cart arrived, when the Stewarts unwillingly took their leave, with many promises on both sides to communicate whatever might come to light in the meanwhile.

'Now, Duncan,' said Allan, after the dog-cart had started; 'tell us what has happened?'

'Indeed, Master Allan; it iss ahl ferry unlucky indeed; and it iss ferry sorry I will be for puir Neil and for Mrs. Macdonnell. You will be knowing the night before the robbery wa.s.s committed Neil will have been spending the evening with the MacAlisters. He wa.s.s expecting a letter; and it will be a stormy evening and the mail steamer will not be coming in till ferry late so that the letters wa.s.s not sent away that night, but Neil wa.s.s allowed to look among them for his own.

There wa.s.s a registered letter for the laird; and it come out in the evidence that Neil would see it, and that no one else but only Mr. and Mrs. MacAlister and Neil himself could have peen knowing that it wa.s.s there.'

'But what could make them think that Neil would break into the post-office and steal a letter? Neil, of all people!'

'Well then, the ferry next day Neil will pe sending away a letter, and in that letter wa.s.s one of the ferry orders that had been in the laird's letter.'

'But how do they know that it was the same order; and how can they be certain that it was Neil who sent it away. There must have been a great many orders presented in the Edinburgh Post Office that day.'

'They know that it wa.s.s the laird's order, Master Allan, because the gentleman who had sent away the orders had kept the number of them all; and they know that Neil had sent it away because the man he sent it to took it out of the envelope in ta post-office, and there wa.s.s a letter with it signed clearly in his own handwriting; "Neil Macdonnell."'

Allan sat up and pushed his cap to the back of his head.

'It's very strange,' he said; 'there must be some mistake!'

'How did poor old Neil take it, when he was arrested and all that?'

asked Reggie.

'Neil wa.s.s ferry much astonished, Master Reggie, and could not pelieve it at ahl. He said the order he had sent away wa.s.s not the laird's but another one ahltogether. Afterwards he wa.s.s ferry angry; and in court he stood up as prave as a lion and said he had neffer seen the order and that he had neffer sent it away whateffer, and that it wa.s.s all lies. They will be showing him his name written on the order; and he had to own that it wa.s.s his handwriting, but he will not be knowing how it had come on the order. Then when some of the people didn't seem to pelieve him, he wa.s.s ferry angry again, wa.s.s Neil; and when the Sheriff said he wa.s.s to go and pe tried at Edinburgh he went out of the court in a terrible rage and a fury; and he said to us ahl that he would not go to Edinburgh, because if ta people here who wa.s.s his friends didn't peliefe him, they would not pe peliefing him neither in Edinburgh where they wa.s.s ahl strangers to him, and that he would be finding some way of escaping pefore he wa.s.s sent there and not be pringing disgrace upon an honest family. He will be saying a lot of foolish things, will Neil, puir lad.'

Mr. and Mrs. Stewart were in the hall when their children arrived.

Tricksy flew into her mother's arms and burst into tears; Allan turned a grave, concerned face towards his parents; and Reggie looked inquiringly at his father without speaking.

'I see that you have been told about Neil,' said the laird in his kind voice. 'We had been hoping that the matter might have been cleared up without delay, and that it would be unnecessary that you should be informed of it. However, you need not despair; Neil is not the lad to have committed a dishonest action, and I am convinced that we shall find some evidence that will clear him.'

'And now,' said Mrs. Stewart, 'you must all go to bed, Allan as well as the others. It is late, and Tricksy is quite exhausted. Sleep well; you don't know what news may come in the morning! Something may be found out by that time.'

'I am sure,' said Tricksy still tearfully to Reggie as he said good-night to her in her little bed; 'I don't know what I should do if I hadn't a mother! It's great fun running about with you and the others, and staying out-of-doors for whole days at a time; but when we get hurt or sorry, it's Mummie that we want!'

Little sleep came to the boys that night. Each turned and tossed uneasily upon his bed, trying not to disturb the other; falling into broken dreams of being with Neil on the rocks in their own island, and awakening to a sense of the reality.

Early in the morning it became useless to keep up the pretence any longer. They rose and dressed and went out-of-doors.

By the garden gate two s.h.a.ggy ponies were standing; and the boys were not at all surprised to see Marjorie and Hamish, who turned anxious faces towards them.

'Well,' said Marjorie, 'anything new?'

'Nothing since we saw you.'

'There hasn't been time, of course,' said Marjorie. 'We couldn't rest, so we came along to see you.'

'Let's go down to the sh.o.r.e,' said Allan. 'Can't talk here.'

A window was thrown open on the upper story of the house, and a little voice cried, 'Wait a minute, people! don't go away! I'm coming too.'

'Tricksy awake already!' said Marjorie; 'that child will make herself ill.'

In a few minutes a little figure emerged from the front door, and Tricksy ran towards them.

'What are you going to do?' she said. 'Is there any news?'

'Nothing at all, Tricksy,' said Marjorie; 'we were only going down to the sh.o.r.e to talk.'

The little girl slipped her hand confidingly into Allan's and walked beside him, trying to accommodate her steps to his long stride.

'Hullo, there's Euan Macdonnell,' said Allan. 'He was at the trial yesterday; let's ask him about it.'

The fine frank-faced young coastguard touched his cap to the girls and waited to be spoken to.

'Euan,' said Allan abruptly; speaking in Gaelic, which was always most convenient for the islanders if a conversation was likely to be long; 'we know about Neil. You were there; tell us about the trial.'

'Well, Mr. Allan, it was a very bad business, and we none of us expected it to go as it did. Poor Neil was most frightfully cut up about it, and no wonder, poor fellow. What he felt most was that some of the people were against him when he thought they would be quite sure to believe in his honesty, no matter what might have happened.'

'So they ought,' declared Allan. 'Any one who knows Neil in the least would know that whether he sent away that order or not, he would never have stolen it, and that there must have been a mistake.'

'Of course there must have been,' said Euan, 'and I'm glad to hear you say so, Mr. Allan.'

'Suppose things were to go wrongly,' said Marjorie; 'I mean, supposing that nothing is found out that will help to clear Neil when he comes before the Edinburgh court, what will he have to expect?'

Tricksy's eyes were growing wider, and the pink in Marjorie's cheeks became deeper.

'I am afraid the penalty for the poor lad would be two or three years in prison, Miss Marjorie. It's a serious crime, you know; house-breaking, and robbing his Majesty's mails. We can only hope it won't come to that.'

The hearers all drew a long breath, like a gasp.

'Let's go down and sit on the rocks,' said Marjorie abruptly. 'Now, Euan, tell us how you think it happened.'