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Updated: June 9, 2025
It had been arranged that Ingram should go up to Lewis to the marriage, and after the ceremony in Stornoway return to Borva with Mr. Mackenzie, to remain with him a few days. But at the last moment Ingram was summoned down to Devonshire on account of the serious illness of some near relative, and accordingly Frank Lavender started by himself to bring back with him his Highland bride.
"That teffle of a piper John!" he said with an involuntary stamp of his foot. "What for will he be playing Cha till mi tuilich?" "It is out of mischief, papa," said Sheila "that is all." "It will be more than mischief if I burn his pipes and drive him out of Borva. Then there will be no more of mischief."
It was like the cry of a drowning man who sees the last life-boat set out for shore, leaving him to his fate. And Ingram had not a word to say in reply to that piteous entreaty. "I do not ask him to stop in Borva: no, it iss a small place for one that hass lived in a town. But the Lewis, that is quite different; and there iss ferry good houses in Stornoway."
The travelers sat down on a low block of gneiss to rest themselves, and then and there did the King of Borva recite his grievances and rage against the English smacks. Was it not enough that they should in passing steal the sheep, but that they should also, in mere wantonness, stalk them as deer, wounding them with rifle-bullets, and leaving them to die among the rocks?
The girl rose suddenly and turned to a fuchsia tree, pretending to pick some of its flowers. Tears had sprung to her eyes unbidden, and it was in rather an uncertain voice that she said, still managing to conceal her face, "I like to hear you talk of those places, but but I will never leave Borva."
Mackenzie came into the room: he did not see his daughter was crying: "Well, Mr. Ingram, and are you coming with us to the Lewis? We cannot always be staying in London, for there will be many things wanting the looking after in Borva, as you will know ferry well.
He was thinking of bygone days in Borva, and of old Mackenzie living in his lonely house there. When Sheila had finished singing he looked at her, and it seemed to him that she was still that wonderful princess whom he had wooed on the shores of the Atlantic. And if those people did not see her as he saw her, ought he to be disappointed because of their blindness?
As he had shaken hands with Lavender, Lavender had said to him, "Well, we shall soon be back in Borva again to see you;" and the old man had merely tightened the grip of his hand as he left.
And so they set sail, one pleasant forenoon, from Borvabost, and the light wind that ruffled the blue of Loch Roag gently filled the mainsail of the Maigh-dean-mhara as she lightly ran down the tortuous channel. "I don't like to go away from Borva," said Lavender in a low voice to Sheila, "but I might have been leaving the island with greater regret, for, you know, I expect to be back soon."
"And I am sure you hef not done that, Miss Sheila," Duncan said, "for there wass no one knew Loch Roag better as you, not one, and you hef not been so long away; and when you tek the tiller in your hand it will all come back to you, just as if you wass going away from Borva the day before yesterday."
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