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Duncan sent the horses on, and Ingram looked out Sheila's waterproof and the rugs. The southern sky certainly looked ominous. There was a strange intensity of color in the dark landscape, from the deep purple of the Barvas hills, coming forward to the deep green of the pasture-land around them, and the rich reds and browns of the heath and the peat-cuttings.
How the young fellow laughed and joked as the party drove away again from the Butt, down the long coast-road to Barvas! He was tenderly respectful and a little moderate in tone when he addressed Sheila, but with the others he gave way to a wild exuberance of spirits that delighted Mackenzie beyond measure.
But this race to escape the storm was needless, for they were just getting within sight of Barvas when a surprising change came over the dark and thunderous afternoon. The hurrying masses of cloud in the west parted for a little space, and there was a sudden and fitful glimmer of a stormy blue sky.
Shortly after breakfast the wagonette was at the door of the little Barvas inn, and Sheila came out of the house and took her place in it with an unusual quietness of manner and hopelessness of look.
The stream going by Barvas Inn was a streak of gold in its sandy bed. And then the sky above them broke into great billows of cloud tempestuous and rounded masses of golden vapor that burned with the wild glare of the sunset. The clear spaces in the sky widened, and from time to time the wind sent ragged bits of yellow cloud across the shining blue.
Then a strange soft yellow and vaporous light shot across to the Barvas hills, and touched up palely the great slopes, rendering them distant, ethereal and cloud-like. Then a shaft or two of wild light flashed down upon the landscape beside them. The cattle shone red in the brilliant green pastures. The gray rocks glowed in their setting of moss.
The Atlantic caught the yellow glow on its tumbling waves, and a deeper color stole across the slopes and peaks of the Barvas hills. Whither had gone the storm? There were still some banks of clouds away up in the north-east, and in the clear green of the evening sky they had their distant grays and purples faintly tinged with rose.
It was about ten o'clock when they went outside for their evening stroll, and all the world had grown enchanted since they had seen it in the colors of the sunset. There was no night, but a strange clearness over the sky and the earth, and down in the south the moon was rising over the Barvas hills. In the dark green meadows the cattle were still grazing.
Loch Barvas was ruffled into a dark blue by the westerly wind, and doubtless the sea out there was rushing in, green and cold, to the shore. The sunlight was warm about the house. The trout were leaping in the shallow brown streams, and here and there a white butterfly fluttered across the damp meadows. Was not that Duncan down by the river, accompanied by Ingram?
There were no birds to be heard. The crimson masses of heather on the gray rocks seemed to have grown richer and deeper in color, and the Barvas hills had become large and weird in the gloom. "Are you afraid of thunder?" said Lavender to Sheila. "No," said the girl, looking frankly toward him with her glad eyes, as though he had pleased her by asking that not very striking question.
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