"That's just what I was thinking about my library," Sir S. answered, as if I had spoken to him.
"Only an embryo library in a flat in New York--a rather nice flat. But a flat isn't home. And you know--you ought to know--the house of my heart is on a faraway island."
"Yes. I've just begun to realize that I never have had and never can have a real home out of the Highlands. 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?"
"Yes, and will, if I'll pay his price. You see, he has no son, only a daughter; and she, having failed to bring off a match or two----"
(I didn't let my eyes twinkle, or my face do that weird thing, "break into a smile"; but Jack Morrison told me that Miss MacDonald had "set her cap at the great Somerled," and torn it off and stamped on it in rage because--this is Jack's slang--Sir S. "wasn't taking any.")
--"Having failed to bring off a match or two, has settled down into old-maidhood. She's an enthusiastic suffragette, and hates living out of London. The Mac of D. considers his club his castle, or a good deal better; and as he's the last of the line--not a male heir, no matter how distant--he can do as he likes with his ancestral stronghold. You know, I suppose, your father was born at Dunelin Castle?'
"Yes," I said. "I wish I'd been born there, instead of at Hillard House."
"So do I wish it. If you had been, I should have no hesitation in--er--in building the gallery round the library wall."
"You think you really will decide to buy the castle?" I asked breathlessly.
"Sometimes I think so. At other times I think, _Qui bono?_ I say to myself that I shall never have a home, or an incentive for settling down. But come along and look at Sir Walter's treasures before any one else appears."
"Where's Mrs. West?" I asked involuntarily.
"She's annexed your bodyguard for the moment--do you mind?--appealed to their innate love of horrors by showing them the picture of Queen Mary's head, painted an hour after her death by a brother of Margaret Cawood, her attendant. Suddenly I felt that, if Basil could spare you to me for ten minutes, I should like to be the one to show you a few things--the things I loved best when I came from Edinburgh to Abbotsford with a bit of the first money I ever earned by my brush."