Mr Ruthven, who was prowling about in search of news, heard these last words, and they produced a great effect upon him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

TIMELY EVASION.

Mr Ruthven was walking up and down his garden that afternoon in a disturbed state of mind, when his wife came to him and asked him what he thought Lady Ca.r.s.e could be in want of. She was searching among his books and boxes as if she wanted something. He hastened in.

"Yes," Lady Ca.r.s.e replied, in answer to his question; "I want that pistol that used to be kept on the top of your bed. You need not look so frightened. I am not going to shoot you, nor anybody you ought to care for."

"I should like to understand, however," observed the pastor. "It is unusual for ladies to employ fire-arms, I believe, except in apprehension of the midnight thief: and I am not aware of any danger from burglars in these islands."

"Why no," replied the lady. "We have no great temptation to offer to burglars; and nothing to lose worth the waste of powder and bullet."

"Then, if I may ask--"

"O yes; you may ask what I want the pistol for. It strikes me that the boat from yonder vessel may possibly be sent back for me yet. They may think me a prize worth having, if the stupid people carried my story right. I would go with them--I would go joyfully--for the chance of shooting that young gentleman through the head."

"Young gentleman!" repeated Mr Ruthven, aghast.

"Yes, the young Pretender. My father lost his life for shooting a Lord President. His daughter is the one to go beyond him, by getting rid of a Prince Charlie. It would be a tale for history, that he was disposed of among these islands by the bravery of a woman. Why, you look so aghast," she continued, turning from the husband to the wife, "that-- Yes, yes. Oh, ho! I have found you out!--you are Jacobites! I see it in your faces. I see it. There now, don't deny it Jacobites you are-- and henceforth my enemies."

With stammering eagerness, both husband and wife denied the charge. The fact was, they were not Jacobites; neither had they any sustaining loyalty on the other side. They understood very little of the matter, either way; and dreaded, above everything, being pressed to take any part. They thought it very hard to have their lot cast in precisely that corner of the empire where it was first necessary to take some part before knowing what the nation, or the majority, meant to do. First, they prevented the lady's finding the pistol, as the safest proceeding on the whole; next, they wished themselves a thousand miles off, so earnestly and so often, that it occurred to them to consider whether they could not accomplish a part of this desire, and get a hundred miles away, or fifty, or twenty--somewhere, at least, out of sight of the Pretender's privateer.

In a few hours the privateer was out of sight--"Gone about north," the steward declared, "for supplies:" as n.o.body was willing to give them any help while under the shadow of Macdonald and Macleod. In the evening, little Kate rushed into Annie's cottage, silently threw her arms about the widow's neck, and almost strangled her with a tight hug. Adam followed, and struggled to do the same. When he wanted to speak, he began to cry; and grievously he cried, sobbing out, "What will you do without me? You can't see the boats at sea well now; and soon, perhaps, you will hardly be able to see them at all. And I was to have helped you: and now what will you do?"

"And papa would not let us come sooner," said the weeping Kate, "because we had to pack all our things in such a hurry. He said we need not come to you till he came to bid you good-bye. But I made haste, and then I came."

"But, my dears, when are you going? where are you going?"

"Oh, we are going directly: the steward is in such a hurry! And papa says we are not to cry; and we are not to come back any more. And we shall never get any of those beautiful sh.e.l.ls on the long sands, that you promised me; and--"

Here Mr Ruthven entered. He had no time to sit down. He told the children that they must not cry; but that they might kiss their friend, and thank her for her kindness to them, and tell her that they should never see her any more. There was so much difficulty with the sobbing children on this last point, that he gave it up for want of time, threatening to see about making them more obedient when he was settled on the mainland. While they clung to Annie, and hid their faces in her gown, he explained to her that his residence in this island had not answered to his expectation; that he did not find it a congenial sphere; that he was a man of peace, to whom neither domestic discord, nor the prospect of war and difficulty without, were agreeable; and that he was, therefore, taking advantage of the steward's vessel to remove himself to some quiet retreat, where the pastoral authority might be exercised without disturbance, and a man like himself might be placed in a more congenial sphere. He was then careful to explain that, in speaking of domestic discord, he was far from referring to Mrs Ruthven, who, he thought he might say, however liable to the failings of humanity, was not particularly open to blame on the ground of conjugal obedience. She was, in fact, an excellent wife; and he should be grieved to cause the most transient impression to the contrary. It was, in truth, another person--a casual inmate of his family--whom he had in his eye; a lady who--

"I understand, sir. If you will allow me to go home with you--"

"Permit me to conclude what I was saying, Mrs Fleming. That unhappy lady, in favour of whose temper it is impossible to say anything, has caused us equal uneasiness by another tendency of late--a tendency to indulge--"

But Annie did not, at such a moment, stand upon ceremony. She was by this time leading the children home, one in each hand.

"So you are really going away, and immediately?" said she to Mrs Ruthven.

"Immediately," replied the heated, anxious Mrs Ruthven.

"Where is Lady Ca.r.s.e?"

The question again brought tears into Mrs Ruthven's swollen eyes.

"I do not know. Mr Ruthven wishes to be gone before she returns from her walk."

"We leave her the entire house to herself," declared the pastor, now entering. "Will you bear our farewell message to her, and wish her joy from us of being possessor of the whole house; and of--"

"Here she comes," said Annie, quietly. "Lady Ca.r.s.e," she said, "this is a remarkable day. Here is another way opening for your deliverance--a way which appears to me so clear that you have only to be patient for a few weeks or months before your best wishes are fulfilled. Mrs Ruthven will now be able to do for you what she has so often longed to do. She is going to the main--perhaps to Edinburgh; she will see Mr Hope, and others of your friends; and tell your story. She will--"

"She will not have anything of the sort to do," interrupted Lady Ca.r.s.e.

"I shall go and do it myself. I told her, some time since, that whenever she quitted this island I would not be left behind. I shall do my own business myself, if you please."

"That is well," interposed the pastor; "because I promised the steward, pa.s.sed my solemn word to him, as a condition of my departure, that it should never become known through me or mine that Lady Ca.r.s.e had ever been seen by any of us. I entirely approve of Lady Ca.r.s.e managing her own affairs."

Annie found means to declare solemnly to Mrs Ruthven her conviction that no such promise could be binding on her, and that it was her bounden duty to spare no effort for the poor lady's release.

She was persuaded that Mrs Ruthven thought and felt with her; and that something effectual would at last be done.

The children now most needed her consolations.

"Do not be afraid," she said cheerfully to them. "I shall never forget you. I shall think of you every day. Whenever you see a sea-bird winging over this way, send me your love: and when I see our birds go south, I will send my love to you."

"And whenever," said Helsa, "you see a light over the sea, you will think of Widow Fleming's lamp, won't you?"

"And whenever," said Lady Ca.r.s.e, with a solemnity which froze up the children's tears, and made them look in her face, "whenever, in this world or the next, you see a quiet angel keeping watch over a sinful, unhappy mortal, you may think of Widow Fleming and me. Will you?"

The awe-struck children promised, with a sincerity and warmth which touched Lady Ca.r.s.e with a keen sense of humiliation; not the less keen because she had brought it upon herself by a good impulse.

The pastor and his family were presently gone; and without Lady Ca.r.s.e.

The steward guarded against that by bringing Macdonald to fasten her into her house, and guard it, till the boat should be out of reach.

Annie did not intrude upon her unhappy neighbour for the first few hours. She thought it better to wait till she was wished for.

"Our pastor gone!" thought she, as she sat alone. "No more children's voices in this dwelling! No more worship in the church on sabbaths!

Thus is our Father always giving and taking away, that we may fix our expectations on Him alone. But He always leaves us enough. He leaves us our duty and our sabbaths, whether the church be open or in ruins.

And He has left me also an afflicted neighbour to comfort and strengthen. Now that she thinks she depends on me alone, I may be the better able to lead her to depend on Him."

And she was presently absorbed in meditating how best to do this most needful work.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE LAMP BURNS.

Annie had supposed that her life would be almost as quiet an one as it used to be when the minister and his family were gone. Lady Ca.r.s.e was her neighbour, to be sure; but every day showed more and more that even to such restless beings as Lady Ca.r.s.e, a time of quiet must come. Her health and strength had been wasting for some months, and now a change came over her visibly from week to week. She rarely moved many yards from the house, spending hours of fine weather in lying on the gra.s.s looking over the sea; and when confined to the house by the cold, in dozing on the settle.

This happened just when her prison was, as it were, thrown open, or, at least, much less carefully guarded than ever before. Prince Charlie's successes were so great as to engross all minds in this region, and almost throughout the whole of the kingdom. Wherever the Macdonalds and the Macleods had influence, there was activity, day and night. Every man in either clan, every youth capable of bearing arms, was raised and drilled, and held in readiness to march, as soon as arms should be provided by the government.

Annie had many anxieties about Rollo,--many feelings of longing and dread to hear where he was, and what he was doing. The first good news she had was that of the whole population of Skye and the neighbouring islands, not one man had joined the Pretender. The news was carefully spread, in order that it might produce its effect on any waverers, that Sir Alexander Macdonald had written to Lord President Forbes that not one man under him or Macleod had joined the Pretender's army; and that he should soon be ready to march a force of several hundred men, if arms could be sent or provided for them against their arrival at Inverness.

Meantime, no day pa.s.sed without the men being collected in parties, and exercised with batons, in the absence of fire-arms. Rollo came to the very first drill which took place on the island; and great was his mother's relief; and great the satisfaction with which she made haste to equip him, according to her small means, for a march to Inverness.