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And in truth his experiences had been of a kind to change the enthusiastic boy he once had been into the cynical, hard-headed man he was now. Nevertheless, as he looked at the girl in the tartan cloak, he heard within himself the war-cry of the clan MacDonald, "Fraoch Eilean!" and he smelt the heather of the purple isle of Dhrum.
But he had liked the novels of Aline West and Basil Norman before he met the two popular Canadian authors on shipboard; and learning that they planned to write a "Scotch book," it had occurred to him that they might all three go about sight-seeing together. His rest cure had ceased to bore him in prospect; he had thought with some pleasure of showing Aline Dunelin Castle and the island of Dhrum.
As he had come such a long way and had done so much for my sake, I thought that perhaps after all he did care, though it seemed too wonderful to be true. Now and then, while we were waiting to hear what Barbara would say about the invitation to Dhrum, there was a look in his eyes that made me feel the heather moon had been my true friend.
The thought came into Somerled's mind that it would be interesting to show her the world she had never seen, not only between Carlisle and Edinburgh, but over the hills and far away, as far as the purple island of Dhrum, set in its sunset frame of ocean gold or even farther. That could not be, of course, but the picture was pleasant.
"'Tis the pervarsity av the sect," sez I to mesilf, an' gave my cap another cock on my head an' straightened my back 'twas the back av a Dhrum Major in those days an' wint off as tho' I did not care, wid all the women in the Married Quarters laughin', I was pershuaded most bhoys are I'm thinkin' that no woman born av woman cud stand against me av I hild up my little finger.
Would you think me an interloper you and the other grand MacDonalds if I, the crofter's boy, should develop an ambition like Sir Walter's oh, not so worthy or splendid, because I'm neither worthy nor splendid if I should wish to have the great house of the MacDonalds of Dhrum, not let to me for a term of years as it is now, but bought and paid for as my own?" "Can the MacDonalds sell?"
Muir the housekeeper knew, there was Heaven be praised! no romance at all; for romance is an evil thing, still worse, a frivolous thing, which may be avoided for a well-brought-up girl though whopping-cough may not; and already this same evil had wrought vast damage among the MacDonalds of Dhrum.
There was one for Somerled and one against me; but it only got my blood up. Many a girl says a certain thing, and does another when her time comes. "If I were rich," she went on, "I'd live in a castle in the Highlands, and I'd have it full, simply swarming, with pipers, playing me awake in the morning and to sleep at night." "I should like you to see your own castle of Dunelin at Dhrum.
When the nephew died later, Duncan inherited, but never lived at Dhrum. He only came there once in a while to visit the tenants who'd hired the castle from him, if they happened to be people he knew, and would 'do' him well. He and his daughter were mostly in London, where they had a flat, and prided themselves on knowing no Gaelic.
Muir made us a wedding cake, which she insisted on our taking away, in a large tin box: and when we left Hillard House, Heppie's nose was pinker than I ever saw it, which is saying a good deal. Aline West was married to Mr. George Vanneck the very day we started from Carlisle for Dhrum. We saw an account of the wedding in the paper. It was at Glasgow; and she was going to a lovely place called St.
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