As we wandered in that inner darkness, there was produced one effect of tragedy, purely theatrical. The cave is 260 feet long, 27 feet at its widest, and about 20 at its highest. After having picked my way over the stone debris—the bones were removed some years ago—of the uneven uprising floor, I turned to look back and saw the faces of the three women coming behind, the wondering troubled faces only, haloed in each case by the candle held aloft in a hand. Though in truth the effect was far beyond anything I had ever seen in a theatre, or imagined out of Shakespeare, or conceived in a cathedral.

We were glad to get back into the sunlight, for there was something in that dank dreadful interior that chilled the marrow.

Another cave, a little farther along, is called the Cathedral Cave, for here the Roman Catholics, in their persecution days, met to celebrate the ways of their religion. The deep stone ledge, which was used as an altar, is on the left as one enters; and around, there was certainly space for a considerable congregation. Through the high entrance arch the noise of the sea comes upon the ear, from the faint susurrus to the deep boom, as if the cave itself were a vast sea-shell; which in a geological sense it is.

To-day the population of the island is half Roman Catholic and half Protestant, but there is neither persecution in religion nor division in social life. They live happily together, and on occasions of great sorrow meet by deathbed or graveside in a common grief. The folk themselves prefer to live in this way and have always preferred it. It is man’s natural instinct to like a pleasant life, to enjoy himself in merry gatherings of his kind, or to ease the burden of fatality by sharing the emotions it engenders. Were not this the blessed truth, the power-perverts would have destroyed the world long ago.

The first time we set out to cross the island to Cleadale we were defeated by the rain, but the second time we were more fortunate, and strolled on beyond the green fields of Kildonan, past little streams and grey sallies, through the hollow way, with the Scuir high on our left and slow-rising ground on our right, past the post office, and so to the edge of the escarpment that overlooks Laig Bay and its wide flat crescent of fertile land behind.

Of the eighteen crofts left on the island, sixteen are confined to this spot. Apart from farm lands belonging to the proprietor, the rest is a sporting estate, and though pheasants are reared it must be at a cost which precludes economic considerations, while the few bright charming houses on the east side are estate property (the architect—an Englishman, I understand—might with great advantage be consulted by Scottish rural authorities generally).

How pleasant it was to come into this crofting land and see the fields of grain and roots, to get the smell of clover from the hay-fields, and to observe children and barking dogs and cattle! There need be no fear of trespass here. I looked for boats on the shore but saw none. Across the water, forbidden Rum rose up, impressive as ever in its high barren mountains.