{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_38199/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_38199","id":"gutenberg_38199","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38199","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Adventure","Category: British Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Novels","Fiction"],"text":"Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England\n\n\n\n\nKenneth McAlpine\nA Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea\nBy Gordon Stables\nPublished by S.W. Partridge & Co;.\nThis edition dated 1885.\n\nKenneth McAlpine, by Gordon Stables.\n\n________________________________________________________________________\n\n________________________________________________________________________\nKENNETH MCALPINE, BY GORDON STABLES.\n\nCHAPTER ONE.\n\nEARLY DAYS.\n\n  \"Away, ye gay landscapes, ye garden of roses,\n  And bring me the land where the dewdrop reposes.\"\n\n  Byron.\n\n  \"Poor woolly mother, be at peace!\n  Whither thou goest I will bear thy care.\"\n\n  M. Arnold.\n\nScene: A Highland mountain, clad almost to the summit in purple heather.\nOn the right a ravine, half hidden by drooping birch trees.  On the\nleft a pine forest.  Sheep grazing in the foreground.  Smoke upcurling\nfrom a humble cottage in the distance.  A shepherd-boy talking to his\ndog; between them a lamb is lying on the ground.\n\n\"It is dead, Kooran, dead, dead, dead.  It is as dead as ever a lamb\nwas, Kooran.  Ay, my doggie, I ken you're sorrowful and anxious, but you\nmay stand there and lick its little face and legs, till this time the\nmorn, Kooran, but you can never bring back life to it again.\n\n\"What do you say, Kooran?  Its eyes are still bright and shinin' and\nlife-like?  True; but wait a wee, Kooran.  Yes, wait a wee, dear frien'.\nIn less than an hour, Kooran, its poor eyes will be glassy enough, and\nits bits o' legs as cold and stiff as the crook I'm holding in my hand.\n\n\"Let us hide it awa' in under this bush o' whins,--out o' sight of the\npoor woeful mother of it.  I canna bear to bury it just yet, while the\nheart is still warm, but by-and-bye, Kooran; by-and-bye, doggie.\n\n\"Yonder comes the mother, Kooran.  She has left the flock again.\"\n\nThe sheep bleats.\n\n\"Listen, Kooran, listen.  What a mournfu' bleat!  It makes my blood\ncreep.  And look at her eyes, Kooran.  They seem starting out o' the\nsockets wi' excitement.  Drive her back, Kooran, but _walk_, doggie;\ndinna run.  Drive her ever so gently.  She'll never have her lammie to\ntrot at her heels again.  Gently, Kooran, gently.\n\n\"And now, Kooran, off you trot home for the barley scones and the flagon\no' milk.  I'll have the lammie buried before you come back, so the sight\nof that will trouble you no more.  Then we'll have dinner, doggie, and\nit is time, too.  Look at the sun where it is, right over the highest\npeak of Ben Varra.  Off you trot, Kooran, and dinna let the grass grow\nunder your feet till you're back again.\n\n\"Heigho! another lammie dead!\"  The boy was alone now; the faithful dog\nhad departed at once on his mission.  In a bee-line down the mountain's\nside went he, feathering along through the grass and the patches of\nblooming heather, jumping over boulders, and springing down from rocky\nledges with a daring that would assuredly have proved fatal to any other\nkind of dog, save a Highland collie or a Scottish deerhound.  Finally he\nwent splashing through a broad though shallow river, and immediately\nafter disappeared in a clump of those sweet-scented birch trees that\ngrow so plentifully in \"the land of the mountain and flood.\"\n\n\"Heigho! another lammie dead!\"\n\nThe boy had gone farther up the hill, and as he spoke he threw himself\ndown on top of a couch made of heather, dislodging as he did so several\nmossy bees that had come to suck the honey from the little purple bells.\n\nQuite a work of art was this couch.  It had taken the boy all the\nlivelong morning and forenoon to make it, Kooran meanwhile trotting\nabout after him or standing by his side, with one ear pricked up, the\nother down, very much interested indeed in the progress of the work, and\napparently sorry that he was only a dog and could not lend a hand.\n\nWouldst know how this couch was built?  First and foremost, then, the\nlad had sought out a proper site, flat and smooth, on which to make it.\nThis was chosen close to a steep-rising rock far up the mountain's side,\nand whence he could see not only all the country far and wide, but the\ngrazing ground of his flock of sheep some distance down beneath him.\n\nUnder the rock, but fully exposed to the rays of the summer sun, for\nKenneth was not a bit afraid of spoiling his complexion.  Indeed, such\nan accident would have been impossible, for neither his face nor his\nknees--he wore the Highland garb--could have been one whit browner than\nthey were.  And as for the sun giving him a headache, that was out of\nthe question--the sun's rays had not the power.  For when taking a\n_siesta_, as shepherd lads are wont to do sometimes, his favourite\nattitude was lying on his back with one arm under his head and his face\nupturned to the god of day, for he feared the sun no more than does\nyonder eagle that goes circling up and up towards it, even as moths, on\na summer's evening, go wheeling round and round the lamp flame.\n\nA black, bare, bleak-looking rock it was, but canopied over with the\ngreenest of green moss and trailing saxifrages, bearing tiny flowerets\nof pink and white and blue.\n\nQuite a work of art was this heather couch, and as perfect as any one\ncould wish to see it.  Not from any place near to the rock, however, had\nthe boy pulled the heather with which he formed it.  There was something\nof the poet and the artist about the lad, and he would never have dreamt\nof spoiling the gorgeous purple carpet that grew on the hill immediately\nin front of and beneath him.  He went farther afield and higher up for\nhis couch material.  And he _cut_ it close off by the roots, for if you\n_pull_ heather, then with the roots are sure to come up both moss and\nturf.\n\nWhen he had culled quite an armful, he proceeded to tie it up into\nlittle bundles or sheaves, and so on sheaf after sheaf he manufactured,\nsinging to himself or talking to Kooran, until he had quite enough to\nbuild his heather sofa withal.\n\nThen he took all his sheaves down to the rock and commenced operations,\nplacing them side by side close together with the bloom uppermost, and\nlo and behold, in less than half an hour, a couch soft and fragrant\nenough for the dainty limbs of some fairy queen to recline upon.\n\nIt was on this heather bed, then, that Kenneth threw himself at full\nlength as soon as Kooran had disappeared in the distant birch wood.\n\nFor fully a quarter of an hour Kenneth lay looking up at the white-grey\nclouds, that were scudding swiftly across the blue of the beautiful sky.\nHe was wishing he could be up there, up riding on yonder cloud, away\nfrom the earth entirely.  \"Just for a time, oh! only for a time,\" he\nmuttered; \"I would come back to my sheep and Kooran.  Yonder is a\nlaverock,\" (lark).  \"I can hardly see it, it has flown so high but I can\nhear it, and how bonnie it sings as it flutters its wings, and seems to\nfan the very clouds.  Let me see what the song says.  But no, I mustn't\nsing, and I mustn't read.  Kooran will soon be back wi' the dinner, and\nI haven't buried the poor lammie yet.\"\n\nSo saying, he jumped up.  He had a spade handy.  Alas! much to Kenneth's\nsorrow, that spade had been used many times too often this summer, for\nit had been a bad season among the sheep.  He got the spade, and carried\nthat and the dead lamb far up above the spot where he had cut the\nheather.  Here the mountain was split as it were in two, or rather there\nwere two hills, with a green strath or glen between, formed thousands of\nyears or ages agone, by the gradual descent of some mighty glacier.\n\nThe glade was green and in many places soft, though by no means boggy.\nNear a bush Kenneth quickly dug a grave, and with a sigh he laid the\nlamb therein, and covered it up, laying the sod down again, so that it\nwas scarcely discernible from the turf around it.\n\nThen he shouldered his spade and prepared to go back.  But remembering\nsomething else, he made a detour and came at last to a patch of whins.\n\nHidden in a cosy corner close to the ground was a nest well lined with\nfeathers, and the little bird popped stealthily out as he approached.\n\n\"Oh! the beauties,\" cried the boy, \"the bonnie wee `hoties,'\" (a kind of\nfinch).  \"There were four white and red eggs when I saw you last, and\nthere lie four naked gorbles, gaping up at me with wide yellow mouths.\nNow that nest is easily seen, and if other boys find it when I'm no'\nhere, they'll kill the young and break the mither's heart.  I'll try and\nhide it.  It's maybe the last nest I'll find this season.\"  As he spoke\nhe looked about, and soon found a branchlet of withered whins, which he\nplaced carefully in front of the nest, then took up his spade again and\nwas about to withdraw, when his eyes lighted on one of those curious\ngreen knolls, that are common enough in some bare mountain glens in the\nScottish Highlands.\n\n\"A fairy hill!\" he said half aloud.  \"I do wonder now if there are such\nthings as fairies, and if on moonlight nights they come oot, and dance\non this green hillock.  Oh! wouldn't I like to see them just!  I've a\ngood mind to come and watch here some bonnie night.  I could bring\nKooran; I wouldna be feared if Kooran was with me.\"\n\nHe climbed up to the top of the green knoll as he spoke.  It was\nperfectly round and smooth, and the grass grew softer and greener here\nthan anywhere else in all the glade.  \"Why,\" he said, \"here is a hole\nnear the top for all the world like a lum,\" (chimney).  \"Is it possible,\nI wonder, that fairies do live inside?\"\n\nDown he went now and commenced marching round and round the knoll,\nprodding it everywhere as he went with his long sharp spade.  The spade\nsank deep each time he thrust it in, until he came round to the upper\nside, and here it rang against a stone.\n\nThe boy went to work with a will, and soon laid that stone bare.  It was\nmerely a large flat slab and quite loose.  Kenneth leapt up above it,\nand using the spade as a lever, he prised it up, and over it fell,\nrevealing to the boy's astonished gaze the entrance to a dark cave.\nHere was indeed a discovery, and a discovery, too, that dovetailed most\ncompletely and perfectly with this lad's romantic nature.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"this _is_ something to think about at last.  But I\nmust go to dinner now.  Kooran must come with me to explore.\"\n\nHe left his spade and went away singing down the glade, and back to his\nheather couch.\n\nBut Kooran had not returned, so the lad, giving a look first to see that\nthe sheep were all right, lay down and took out a volume of songs and\ncommenced to read.  Poetry, however, had lost its charm to-day, for his\nmind would, in spite of all he could do, revert to that dark cave in the\nfairy knoll.  So he threw down the book and gave himself up to the\npleasant occupation of castle-building.\n\nThe day was warm and sultry, the bees were humming lazily from heather\nbloom to heather bloom, and high up against the fleecy cloudlets the\nlaverock still fluttered and sang; no wonder Kenneth's eyelids drooped,\nand that he soon lost himself in dreams of fairyland.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nKenneth's mother lived in the long low turf-thatched cottage beyond the\nbirch wood.  He had neither sister nor brother, and for many a long year\nhis father had been quietly sleeping in the humble little churchyard\nthat surrounded the ruins of the old parish kirk.\n\n\"Oh, Kooran, doggie, here you are,\" cried Kenneth's mother as the dog\ncame trotting in, open-mouthed and gasping with the race he had had.\n\"Here ye are, and I haven't milked the cow yet.  But I won't be long,\nladdie.\"\n\nKooran signified his intention of waiting, and threw himself down on the\nkitchen floor, but not before he had lapped up all the cat's milk.\nPussy jumped down from the three-legged stool, near the peat fire, and\nbegan purring and rubbing herself against Ivooran's chin.  The cat and\ndog were the best of friends; perhaps pussy thought it was good policy\nto keep in with Kooran.\n\nAs soon as Kenneth's mother had milked the cow, she filled a tin flagon\nwith the rich white fluid, made up a large parcel of buttered scones and\ncheese, tied the whole in a large red napkin, and put it on the floor.\n\nKooran was up and off before the cat could have winked, had she wanted\nto wink.\n\nHe took time to recross the stream and held the parcel high up as he did\nso, but he did not let the grass grow under his feet, ere he returned to\nthe spot where he had left his young master.  He was not there, but\nKooran soon found him asleep on the fragrant heather couch.  The dog\ndropped the bundle, sat down and looked at his master, and considered.\nThis did not wake him, so Kooran gave vent to an impatient whine or two.\nAs even that did not wake the sleeping boy, the dog licked his cheek,\nthen clawed at his arm with his paw, and finally Kenneth sat up, rubbed\nhis eyes, and then burst out laughing.\n\n\"What silly dreams I've had,\" he said, proceeding to undo the knot on\nthe napkin, \"such silly dreams!  But go and fetch your dish, doggie.\"\n\nKooran trotted off, and was back again in a moment with a tin saucer,\nand the scones and milk were shared.\n\n\"But oh!  Kooran,\" continued the boy presently, \"I've such news for\nyou.\"\n\nThe dog pricked his ears, and turning his head a little on one side,\nlooked wondrous wise.\n\n\"No,\" said Kenneth, \"it isn't rats, and it isn't rabbits.  There is\nnever anything else in your noddle, Kooran, but rats and rabbits.  It's\na cave, Kooran.  Of course you don't know what a cave is, but here,--\nthere is some more dinner for you.  Eat that, and then we'll go and\nexplore.\"\n\nThe boy and his dog started off up the glen immediately after, and\nKooran, knowing there was something on the _tapis_, commenced to frisk\nand bark around his young master.\n\n\"That won't do, Kooran,\" said the boy, shaking his finger at his\ncompanion.  \"Ye mustna do that.  Look down there at the sheep; every\nsingle one o' them has stopped eating to snuff the air.  Come to heel\nand keep quiet.\"\n\nThey soon reached the fairy knoll, and as soon as Kooran saw the hole,\nhis mind still running on rats and rabbits, he disappeared inside.\n\nNever a rat nor rabbit was there, but several unwholesome-looking bats\ncame whirring out, and dazzled by the sunlight, dropped into the first\nbush they came to.  Kenneth himself now entered the cave, spade in hand,\nand as soon as his eyes got used to the darkness, he began to examine it\nthoroughly.  It was large and roomy, the walls and floor of solid stone,\nwith marks of tools thereon, as if the place had either been wholly\nexcavated or enlarged by human hands.  The light glimmered down the\nchimney and fell on some large round brown article.  It was a huge\nkettle.  Then, young though he was, Kenneth knew that at some time or\nother this cave had been occupied not by fairies, but by a gang of\nsmugglers.\n\n\"It was wise of them,\" thought Kenneth, \"to use a place like this.\"\n\nWell might he think so, for even to this day, in remote districts of the\nHighlands, so much of superstition clings around these fairy knolls that\nno peasant would dare to go near them after nightfall.\n\nNow there is one thing in which Scotland and Germany have long resembled\neach other.  The very poorest people belonging to the two countries have\nfrom time immemorial been taught to read and write.  Kenneth had had the\nadvantages of an education far superior to most lads of his class and\nage.  He had spent many a long year at the parish school and evening\nschool, his mother had taught him, the clergyman's daughter had helped\nhim, but, better than all this, he had helped himself.\n\nWhen talking, as must have already been perceived, he sometimes made use\nof Scotch words and phrases.  He did so, not because he could not speak\npure English, but simply because they are often more expressive than the\nSaxon idiom.\n\n\"Well, Kooran,\" said Kenneth, \"this is the best find ever we made.\nDinna ye think so, doggie?\"\n\nBut Kooran's nose was turned up to the roof, and his eyes wide with\nexcitement, for he perceived, clinging by its claws up there, the\nstrangest-looking rat ever he had seen in his life before.  A rat, and\nstill not a rat, for it had wings; yes, and it could fly, too, for even\nas he gazed it let go its hold and made straight for the doorway.\nKooran was far too quick for it, though.  He sprang up, and next moment\nit lay half-dead apparently between his two forepaws.\n\n\"Strangest thing ever I came across,\" Kooran appeared to observe as he\nlooked wonderingly up into his young master's face.  \"Rats flying; this\n_must_ be a fairy knoll, and I feel half afraid.\"\n\n\"That's a bat, Kooran, a bat, boy, and you mustn't touch it.  Look at\nits two rows of white and glittering wee teeth.  Poor little thing!\nKooran, it is well-nigh dead.  And this cave really belongs by rights to\nthat bat and his brothers.  We'll tie it up in the napkin, and you shall\ncarry it home, and mother will cure it and let it fly off again.\"\n\nAs he spoke the boy suited the action to his words.\n\n\"Yes, Kooran, this is a grand discovery.  After reading `Robinson\nCrusoe' so often, I've always wished to have an island all to myself;\nbut a cave, Kooran, is nearly as good as an island.  I wonder what\nDugald McCrane will say about it.  I'm sure he will help me to make\nthings to furnish it, and we'll have our dinner here, Kooran, and a fire\nwhen the weather grows cold, and everything so jolly.  Come, we must go\nthis very evening and see Dugald McCrane.\"\n\nTrue to his word, when Kenneth had driven his sheep into their fold for\nthe night, and had eaten his supper at his mother's fireside, then,\ninstead of taking down his books and lying down on the great wooden dais\nto read by the light of the little black whale-oil lamp, with its wicks\nof peeled and dried rushes, he got up whistled to Kooran, and said to\nhis mother,--\n\n\"I'm going down the glen, mother.\"\n\n\"Dinna be lang, laddie, dinna be lang,\" was all his mother said.\n\nIt was a clear moonlight night, all the brighter stars were shining, and\nthere was hardly a cloud to be seen.\n\nKenneth had two long Scotch miles to walk, down into a thicket of fir\ntrees first, across a rustic bridge, under which the brown stream was\ndashing and swirling and ever and anon breaking itself into foam against\nthe boulders.  It was very dark down here, but Kenneth was soon away out\ninto the open country again, and the roar of the river was no more\nheard.  By-and-bye the road led through a wood of oak, ash, and elm\ntrees, with now and then the dark head of a pine tree shooting high up\ninto the sky.  The moonlight showed in patches here all along the road,\nthere was the sound of falling water not far off, mingling with the\nwhispering of the wind among the leaves, now crisp with the sunshine of\nthe long bright summer, and there was occasionally the mournful cry of\nthe brown owl, which made Kenneth feel lonesome and \"eerie,\" and he was\nnot sorry when he was clear of that dark gloomy wood, and saw up on a\nhillside the light shining yellow through the blind of Keeper McCrane's\ncottage.\n\nA black retriever came rushing down, growling and showing his teeth, but\nwhen he saw it was Kenneth he wagged his bell-rope of a tail, and bade\nhim and Kooran welcome.\n\nKenneth left his dog in the garden to dance and caper about with the\nretriever.  No doubt Kooran told this black dog all about the flying\nrats.  Kenneth just opened the door and walked straight in.\n\nBoth Dugald and his young wife jumped up from their seats beside the\nfire, and welcomed Kenneth, and their only boy, a wonderful little\nfellow of some nine or ten summers old, with hair not unlike in colour\nto a bundle of oaten straw, got out of bed and ran to pull Kenneth by\nthe jacket, without waiting to dress.\n\nDugald and his wife and boy all listened with wondering eyes to the\nstory of the fairy knoll.\n\n\"Bless me, dear laddie,\" said Mrs McCrane, \"were you no' afraid to\nventure in?\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what we'll do,\" said the keeper.  \"We'll go up the glen\nand see the old witch wife, Nancy Dobbell.  She can tell us all about\nit.  They tell me she knows everything that ever happened for a hundred\nyears back and more.\"\n\n\"Will she no' be in bed?\" said his wife.\n\n\"In bed?\" said Dugald.  \"Not she.  She never goes to bed till `the wee\nshort hour ayont the twal,' and there is no saying what she may be doing\ntill then.\"\n\n\"Well, let us go,\" cried Kenneth, starting up.\n\nOne glance at the walls of the room in Dugald's cottage, that did duty\nas both kitchen and dining-hall, would have given a stranger an insight\ninto both the character and calling of the chief inmate.  Never a\npicture adorned the room, but dried grasses and ferns did duty instead,\nand here were the skins of every kind of wild animal and bird to be\nfound in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands, the foumart or polecat,\nthe whitterit or weasel, the wild cat and fox, ptarmigan, plovers of\nevery kind, including the great whaup or curlew, hawks, owls, and even\nthe golden-headed eagle itself stood stuffed in a corner, with glaring\nfiery eyes and wings half outspread.\n\n\"Come,\" said Dugald.\n\nAnd away went the keeper and Kenneth, the two dogs following closely at\ntheir masters' heels, as if to protect them from all harm.\n\nCHAPTER TWO.\n\nKENNETH AND HIS FRIENDS.\n\n  \"Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes,\n  And fondly broods with miser care;\n  Time but the impression deeper makes,\n  As streams their channels deeper wear.\"\n\n  Burns.\n\nScene: A long, low-thatched cottage, in the midst of a wild, bleak\nmoorland.  No other hut nor house in sight.  Around the cottage is a\ngarden or kail-yard, with a fence of flat, slab-like stones.  In this is\na gate half open, and hanging by one hinge.  The cottage has its door in\nthe gable, and is windowless, save for some holes 'twixt thatch and\neaves, through which light is now glimmering.  A bright round moon is\nriding in the sky, among a few white clouds, that look like wings.\nComing towards the gateway, two figures may be seen, both in the\nHighland garb.  Behind them two dogs.\n\n\"Losh! man,\" said Dugald McCrane, \"I'm almost 'feared to gang farther.\nWho knows what company she may have in this lonesome dreary spot?  Hark!\nWhat was that?\"\n\nDugald started and stared about him in some trepidation as the prolonged\nand mournful shriek of an owl rose on the night air.\n\n\"It is only an owl,\" said Kenneth, laughing.\n\n\"Ach! man,\" said Dugald, \"it is not me that's afraid of an owlet, but\ngoodness be about us, Kenneth, there are owls _and_ owls.  Hush! there\nit goes again.  Losh! look how the dogs are shaking and trembling?\"\n\nIt was true what Dugald had said; both the retriever and collie had\nthrown themselves at their masters' feet, and gave every indication of\nmortal dread.  After all, it was merely owing to a kind of magnetic\ninfluence which fear always has.  This had been communicated from Dugald\nto his dog, and from the retriever to the collie.\n\n\"It's nothing,\" said Kenneth, \"nothing, Dugald.  I'm not afraid, if you\nare.\"\n\n\"Fear!\" replied the stalwart Highland keeper.  \"Dugald never feared the\nface o' clay.  But look how they're shakin' yet.  These dogs hear voices\nwe cannot listen to and live; they see things that human eyes, dare not\nscan.  Dinna deny it, Kenneth, lad; dinna seek to deny it.\n\n\"Do you remember, Kenneth, that dreary, dark December night two years\nago, when Walie's wife--goodness be about us--went and hanged herself in\nthe woods o' Alva, and how Shot there sat a' the livelong night on the\ntop of the old turf wall and howled so mournfully?  It made me tremble\nin my bed to hear him.  And did you no' tell me that your Kooran did the\nsame one night the year before last, and that next morning a hat and a\nstick were found on the brink o' Beattie's mill-dam, and poor Jock\nGrey's body stark and stiff--\"\n\n\"Stop! stop!\" cried Kenneth.  \"This is no time of night for such\nstories.  Kooran, come on.\"\n\nAnd the boy began to lead the way up through the garden to Nancy's door.\n\n\"Just a moment,\" said Dugald, laying a hand on Kenneth's shoulder.\n\"Have you got your flute?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Well, just give us a toot.  If Nancy has company that's no' canny, it\nwill give them time to bolt up the chimney.  Sirs!  Sirs!\"\n\nKenneth laughed, put his flute together, and started a merry air.\n\n\"The Campbells are coming; hurrah, hurrah?\" was the tune he played.\n\nDugald forgot his fear, and began to sing.  The \"twa dogs\" forgot\ntheirs, and began to dance and caper and bark, and in the very middle of\nthis \"rant\" the cottage door opened, and Nancy herself appeared.\n\n\"Come in, come in, you twa daft laddies,\" she cried, \"or 'deed you'll\nstart Nancy hersel' to dance, for as auld as she is.  Come in; you'll\nleave the dogs outside, winna ye, for fear o' my poor cat?\"\n\n\"Ay, Grannie,\" said Dugald, \"we'll leave the dogs outside, and I'm\nthinkin' neither o' them would show face inside your door if you asked\nthem e'er so kindly.  My Shot there hasn't forgotten the salute your cat\ngave him last time he came here.  If you mind, Grannie, she jumped on\nhis back and rode him a' round the kail-yard, and never missed him a\nwhack, till he flew out o' the gate and ran helter-skelter o'er the\nmoor.  I dinna think your cat's canny, Grannie.\"\n\n\"What a beautifu' nicht!\" said Grannie; \"but come in, laddies.\"\n\n\"You're sure you have no company?\" said Dugald, still hesitating to\nenter.\n\n\"Come, ye stoopid loon,\" she replied.  \"There's nobody here but me and\nthe cat.  Sit doon.  Tak' a stool, Kennie, my bonnie boy.\"\n\nA bonnie boy?  Yes, there was no denying it.  Kenneth, our hero, was a\nbonnie boy, and gave promise of growing up into a fine handsome man.\n\nHis broad blue bonnet was usually worn pretty far back, but even had he\nworn it forward, I do not think it would have been possible for it to\nsuppress the wealth of dark short curls that rose up over his broad\nbrown brow.  His cheeks had the tint that health, the winds, and the sun\nhad given them.  His lips were rosy, and when he laughed he showed a set\nof teeth even and white, and a merry twinkle went upwards and danced\nabout his dark, dark eyes.  But at all other times those eyes were\nsomewhat dreamy withal.  Such was Kenneth McAlpine, and it was probably\nthat same dreamy, thoughtful look in his eyes that made him appear older\nthan he really was, for he had not yet seen his thirteenth year.\n\nBut there was one other reason to account for Kenneth's looking somewhat\nolder than his years.  He had already come through a good deal of grief.\n\nHis father had once been a prosperous crofter or small farmer.  Not that\nthe crofts in Glen Alva were very large or very wealthy, but, when well\ncultivated, the land was grateful and yielded up its fruits abundantly.\n\nThen the sea was not very far away, only a few miles, and fish therein\nwere abundant and to be had only for the catching.\n\nIt was the broad Atlantic Ocean whose waves broke and thundered\nceaselessly on the rocky shore just beyond the hills yonder.  Only two\nyears ago--what long, long years they had seemed to Kenneth!--this lad\nhad used to spend many an hour by the seashore.  Indeed, every hour that\nhe could spare from school, or from home, he spent with the ocean.\n\nI am quite right in saying _with_ the ocean instead of _by_ the sea, for\nKenneth looked upon the sea as a friend and as a companion; he used to\nspeak with it and talk to it; it seemed to understand him, and he _it_.\nWhat baskets of glorious fish he used to get from the sea! and what\ndozens of splendid steel blue lobsters and lordly crabs!\n\nKenneth used to fish from the rocks on days when he could not borrow old\nDuncan Reed's cobble.  Old Duncan was frail and rheumatic, and could not\nalways go out to fish himself, but one way or another he had taught\nKenneth nearly all he knew about the sea and fishing.  He had taught him\nto row, and to scull, and to make and bait and busk a line, and to swim\nas well.\n\nThe making of a good strong line used to be a great pleasure to Kenneth.\nIt was manufactured from horsehair.  There was first and foremost the\ngetting of this horsehair, for quite a quantity was required.  It\nconsisted of combings from the manes and tails of horses, and many a\nmile Kenneth used to pad to procure it.  The main source of supply was\nthe stables of a noble lord who lived in a great old-fashioned castle\nmiles from Glen Alva.  For the horsehair so obtained Kenneth used to\ngive to the stablemen largess in fish.  Then, having obtained his supply\nand carried it home, it was quite a long and tedious process to plait\nthe line.  But Kenneth knew no such word as tire, so he worked and\nworked away at early morning and late at night, and as yard after yard\nof the line was made, it was rolled upon a reel roughly hewn from a\nbranch of the silvery birch, and probably at the end of a fortnight the\nline would be complete, and away Kenneth would rush like a young deer\nover the hills.\n\nNancy's house on the moor lay between him and the shore, and however\ngreat a hurry Kenneth was in, he did not fail to call and speak a few\nmoments with the \"old witch wife,\" as she was universally called, the\ntruth being that she was no more a witch than you or I, reader, only she\nwas an herbalist, and wise in many other ways.\n\nYes, Kenneth would always find time to call at old Nancy's hut, and he\nnever left the house without a drink of milk or whey--for Nancy kept a\ncow--or a cupful of heather ale.  Nancy was famed far and near for\nmaking heather ale, and on Sundays the lads and lasses from a good way\nround, used to make a pilgrimage to Nancy's and taste her wondrous brew.\n\nMany a word of good advice Nancy had for Kenneth, too, her bonnie boy,\nand many a blessing.\n\nHe would soon arrive at the old fisherman's hut, which was a boat turned\nupside down and let into a crevice of the rocks high enough up to\nprevent green seas from swamping it, although in stormy weather, with a\nwest wind blowing, the spray used to dash right over the roof.\n\n\"On days like these,\" old Duncan used to say, \"I don't need to put any\nsalt in my porridge, for the sea-bree that drops down the chimney makes\nit salt enough.\"\n\nWhen Duncan got Kenneth's horsehair line, he used to unroll it and try\nthe strength of it, foot by foot and yard by yard, and if it bore the\ntest, then Duncan would put his hand on the lad's head and say,--\n\n\"My dear Kennie, you'll be as good a fisherman as myself yet.\"\n\nAnd Kennie would smile, and say he hoped so, for he never meant to be\nanything else.  How little he knew then the truth of the poet's words,--\n\n  \"There is a Divinity that shapes our ends,\n  Rough-hew them as we will.\"\n\nThere isn't much fancy work about the flies one needs to catch fish\nwith, on the western shores of Scotland, nor about the rod you use.\nOnly a strongish hook, and tied over that a morsel of white feather or\neven a bit of wool from the back of a lamb.  The fish are not particular\nwhen hungry, and they nearly always are hungry, and there are times when\nyou really cannot draw them in fast enough.\n\nBut at certain seasons of the year they don't rise; they then prefer\nbait lowered down to them.  They take breakfast in bed.  The bait which\nthey love most dearly of all is the inside of a crab, but as this is\nrather expensive, Kenneth and Duncan Reed were in the habit of using\nlimpets, and they never failed to have good fortune with these.\n\nOf course the limpets had to be gathered first, and as Kenneth was young\nand Duncan was old, it was the work of the boy to collect these.  And\nwhen the tide was back you might have seen him at any time, far away out\namong the weed-covered boulders and rocks, with a chisel and hammer to\nknock the limpets off and a tiny basket on his back to pop them into.\n\nNor was there a deal of fancy work to be learned in rowing or sculling a\ncobble, but then, you know, the fisherman and little Kennie used to\nventure quite a long distance out to sea, for there was an island three\nmiles away where the fish were very numerous, and thither they often\nwent.  And sometimes the sea was both rough and wild before they got\nback, and skill was then needed to keep her right and straight.  For had\na sea struck her broadside on, it might have capsized or staved the\ncobble, and if a great wave had broken over the stern, it might have\nswamped her, and she would have sunk, and both Kennie and his friend\nwould then have been food for the creatures that dwell down in the dark\ncaves beneath the ocean.\n\nAs to swimming, Kenneth seemed to take to it quite naturally, and many a\nlittle adventure he had in the water.\n\nOnce when swimming he was bitten on the knee by a horrible fish called\non the shores of the Atlantic the miller's thumb.  It is a kind of skate\nor ray of immense size, with a fearfully large mouth filled with sharp\nteeth.\n\nOn this particular day the sun had been very bright and the water warm\nand clear, and Kenneth swam a long distance from the shore.  When he\nreturned he was very faint, and his knee was bleeding; he fell and lost\nconsciousness almost immediately after he reached the pebbly beach.\nDuncan ran to his assistance, and soon got him round; then he bound up\nhis knee.\n\n\"Was it a shark?\"  Kenneth had inquired.\n\n\"Oh! horrible! no, Kennie, no, for had a shark seized you, his teeth are\nso arranged and so hook-like that he couldn't have let you go again had\nhe wanted to ever so much.\"\n\nAnother day, when Duncan and he were hauling in a hand line with an\nimmensely great cod at the end of it, suddenly, for some unexplained\nreason or other, the line slipped, and almost at the same moment Kenneth\nfell overboard.\n\nA codfish of say twenty pounds pulls with fearful force.\n\nKenneth was dragged under the water.\n\nIt was a trying time then for old Duncan's nerves.  Would the poor boy\nbe dead before he got the great fish checked and in charge again?\n\nDuncan dragged in the line as speedily as he dared.\n\nOh! how his heart had throbbed to think that there was a possibility of\nthe line breaking, and his little friend being kept under the water till\ndead.\n\nAnd oh! how joyful he was when Kenneth reappeared.\n\nKenneth really came up smiling, though he was spluttering a great deal\nas well.  \"I'm sure,\" he said when he got into the boat again, and the\nfish was there as well, \"I'm sure I've swallowed fully a pint of salt\nwater, Duncan.\"\n\nYes, Kenneth laughed heartily about it, but poor old Duncan was weeping,\nand before he could be himself again he must take off his broad blue\nbonnet and kneel down upon it in the stern sheets of the cobble, and\nreturn thanks to Him who holds the sea in the hollow of His hand.\n\nThere were days in summer when the sea was so blue and bright and still,\nthat I think Kenneth used almost to go to sleep while floating on its\nsurface.\n\nGathering the eggs of the sea-birds from off the cliffs and rocks was\ndangerous sport, but Kenneth loved it all the more on that account.\n\nBut he loved the sea in storm as well, and used to play among the\nbillows and spray along the shore, or venture out a little distance for\nthe pleasure of being rolled up again like a log of wood upon the beach.\n\nKenneth really could have said with the immortal Byron--\n\n  \"And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy\n  Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be,\n  Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy\n  I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me\n  Were a delight; and if the freshening sea\n  Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear,\n  For I was, as it were, a child of thee,\n  And trusted to thy billows far and near,\n  And laid my hand upon thy mane, as I do here.\"\n\nOld Duncan Reed owned and worked a little lobster fishery of his own.\nAnd before the great grief came that deprived poor Kenneth of a father,\nhe used to take great delight in helping the fisherman with this part of\nhis work.  It was very simple.  They had wooden cages which they sank at\nthe bottom of a deep pool among the rocks.  There was a stone or two at\nthe bottom of each cage to make it sink, and it was lowered down at\nnight by a rope which was attached at the top of the water to a wooden\nfloat.\n\nThe cages were baited, and Duncan used to find it a capital plan to put\na live crab or lobster into the cage.  There was a hole at the top of\neach cage for the creatures to crawl in, but it was so arranged that\nonce in they did not get out again.\n\nAs soon as one was sunk, rejoiced to find himself once more in his\nnative element, the imprisoned shell-fish would begin to eat.  And\npresently round would come another crab or lobster and look in for a\nlittle at him with his eyes, which, you know, are upon stalks.\n\n\"You seem to be enjoying yourself in there,\" the newcomer would say.\n\nThe imprisoned animal would wave a claw at him, as much as to say,--\n\n\"Oh! very nicely indeed, but go away; don't stand there and stare at a\nfellow when he is having his dinner.  It is rude.\"\n\n\"Is it good, though?\" the other would ask.\n\n\"Delicious!\" the reply would be.\n\n\"How ever did you get inside?\"\n\n\"Look and see.\"\n\nThen the new-come lobster would find the hole in the top of the cage,\nand in he would pop.  And presently more and more lobsters would come\nround and pop in one by one.\n\nWell, but when they wanted to pop out again they would not find it so\neasy.  In fact, there would be no way out for them, until Duncan hauled\nup the creel and pulled them forth to be boiled.\n\n\"It is so easy to get into a trap, but so difficult to get out again,\"\nold Duncan would say to Kenneth, \"so, my dear laddie, always all your\nlife be sure to look before you leap.\"\n\nOld Duncan was a very merry old man; he used to tell Kenneth such funny\nstories, and tales of the deep blue sea, and all about sea-fairies, and\nwater babies, and mermaids that live deep down beneath the ocean in\ncoral caves.  I do not think that old Duncan believed in these things\nhimself, nor that he expected Kenneth to believe in them either, but\nthey helped to pass the time, and often of a winter's evening the boy\nwould stay in the fisherman's hut so late that night came on before he\nstarted for Glen Alva, and the stars would be all shining as he took his\nroad across the hills and over the dreary moorland where Nancy lived.\n\nOld Duncan Reed did not know the time except by the sun, and Kenneth had\nno watch, so he could never be sure on occasions like these what o'clock\nit really was.\n\nBut one thing Kenneth never did forget, and that was to bring a few fish\nor a lobster or a lovely crab for Nancy.\n\nIf her light was burning when he reached the little cottage, then he\nwould go in; if not, he knew she had gone to bed, so he would hang the\nstring of fish to the door latch--a very old-fashioned one with a\nthumb-piece--and go quietly away with Kooran.  Or if it was a lobster\nwith its claws tied, he used to tether it to the foot of a rose tree\nthat grew near the door, and poor old Nancy found it in the morning, and\nwas thankful accordingly.  I'm sure of this, that Nancy never said her\nprayers without asking guidance, and a blessing for her bonnie boy.\n\nAnd it was in this very cottage that Kenneth and Duncan the keeper now\nfound themselves, in front of a nice peat fire, for though it was yet\nearly in autumn, in this bleak Highland moorland the evenings struck\nchill and cold.\n\nNancy herself sat in the corner, with her grey grimalkin on her\nshoulder.  The cat seemed asleep, only she had one eye open, and that\neye was watching the door.\n\nCHAPTER THREE.\n\nTHE STORY OF THE FAIRY KNOLL.\n\n  \"I've heard my reverend Grannie say\n  In lanely glens ye like to stray,\n  Or where auld ruined castles grey\n              Nod to the moon.\n  Ye fright the nightly wanderer's way,\n              Wi' eldritch croon.\"\n\n  Burns.\n\n[Croon--low mournful moan.]\n\nScene: The interior of Nancy Dobbell's cottage.  Nancy and her visitors\nround the peat fire, the light from which ever and anon brings the\nfeatures of each out in bold relief, from the Rembrandtine darkness in\nthe background.  Nancy is talking, but knitting as well.  Click, click,\nclickety, click, go the wires, sometimes very fast indeed, at other\ntimes more slowly, as if keeping time with Nancy's thoughts and her\nspoken words.\n\n\"And what brings my bairns so late across the muir the nicht?\" she\nasked.\n\n\"We knew ye wadna be in bed, Grannie,\" said Dugald.  \"The moon is\nshinin' so brichtly, I had expected to meet ye on the muir, gatherin'\nherbs by its ghastly licht.  We heard the owlet cryin'; had we met you,\nGrannie, it would have scared our senses awa'.\"\n\n\"I wouldn't have been afraid, Grannie,\" said Kenneth.\n\nFor a moment there was silence, the old woman's head had drooped on her\nbreast, and the knitting wires clicked more slowly, like a clock before\nit stops.\n\nBut only for a moment; she raised her head again, and click, click,\nclick, went the wires as fast as before, but both Kenneth and his\ncompanion noticed that Nancy's cheeks were wet.\n\n\"Nancy's auld and silly,\" she said, \"but Nancy was not always so.\nHeigho!\"\n\n\"Oh, Grannie!\" cried honest Dugald, hastening to atone for the cruelty\nof his first speech, but, in his very hurry, making a poor job of it.\n\"Oh, Grannie, dinna say you're silly; really folk say you're wise and--\nand--\"\n\n\"A witch?\" said Nancy, smiling.\n\n\"Well, may be so.  Who can help what people say?  But 'deed there is no'\na poor woman or man either in a' the glen or parish that hasn't a good\nword to say for you.  Your simple medicines, Grannie, have brought\ncomfort and joy to mony a hoose, no matter where ye got them or who--\ngoodness be near us--helped you to gather them.  When puir Jock Kelpie\nwas drooned, did you no' bide and comfort the widow, and sing to her and\nsoothe her for weeks thegither?  When Menzies' bairns had the fever, and\nno' a soul would gang near the hoose, wha tended them and cured them?\nWha but Nancy Dobbell?  And there's no' a bairn in a' the clachan that\ndoesn't run to meet ye, Grannie, whenever ye come o'er the muir.\"\n\nThe wires clicked very fast.\n\n\"And,\" continued Dugald, \"though you're maybe no' very bonnie noo,\neverybody says, `What a pretty woman Nancy must have been in her time!'\"\n\nNancy's chin fell again, but the wires worked steadily on.  Her mind was\naway back now in the distant past.  She was thinking of one summer's\nevening by Saint Ronan's Well, 'neath the old monk's tree, of a plighted\ntroth and a broken ring, and a lad that went away to sea, and never,\nnever, never came back.  A broken ring, and a broken heart, a sorrow\nthat had shadowed her life.\n\nClick, click, click.  Ah, well, every life has its romance.\n\n\"But Kenneth here has something to tell ye, Grannie.\"\n\nClickety, clickety, clickety, go the wires.  Nancy is all interest now,\nfor dearly does she love her boy Kennie.\n\nThen Kenneth told her about the fairy knoll and the strange cave he had\nfound in its interior.\n\nHe told her all the story, just as we already know it; and for once only\nduring all that evening, the wires ceased to click, and the old woman's\nhands fell on her lap as she listened.\n\n\"It was long, long ago,\" said Nancy.  \"Your father, Kennie, was but a\nboy then, just like you are noo.  And his father was but a young man--\"\n\n\"Ahem!\" said the superstitious Highland keeper, giving a hasty\nhalf-frightened glance behind him into the darkness.  \"Ahem! you'll not\nmak' your story _very_ fearsome, will ye, Grannie?  Dinna forget the\nlateness o' the nicht.  Mind that we've o'er the lonesome muir to gang\nyet.\"\n\n\"It was long ago,\" said Nancy, addressing herself more particularly to\nKenneth.  \"I lived then down by the kirk in the clachan, and there I was\nborn, and the wee village was quieter far in those days than it is even\nnow.  Ye know, Kennie, where the burn joins the river, where the old\nruin is among the willow trees?\"\n\n\"Yes, Grannie.\"\n\n\"Well, that house was no ruin then.  It was deserted, though.  It had\ngotten a bad name.  Nobody would take it; and it seemed falling to\npieces.  The house stood, as you know, about a mile below your fairy\nknoll, and two miles beyond is the sea.\"\n\n\"You are right, Grannie.\"\n\n\"Everybody was surprised to find masons and carpenters working at Mill\nHouse one morning.  It was let.  It had been taken by a stranger.  Even\nthe laird knew nought about him.  Only he paid a year's rent in advance.\nThat was enough for Laird McGee, who was a grippy auld man, and just as\nrich as grippy.\n\n\"It was an ugly house when they made the best of it, two-storied, with\nred tiles, blintering, blinking windows, and long uncanny-looking\nattics.  It lay a good way back from the road.  You went along through a\nthicket o' willows by a little footpath, then across a stagnant ditch,\non a rickety bridge, and this took you to the wild weedy lawn in front\nof the house itself.  Even the road that led past the grounds was little\nfrequented, only a bridle path at best, and it ended at last in a turf\ndyke [low wall], a march between twa lairds' lands; if you followed\nthis, it took you over the mountains to the seaside village of T--, and\nthe footpath went pretty close to the knoll.  A man and woman came to\nlive at Mill House then; they kept a man-servant, and had one child, a\npale-faced, old-fashioned-looking hunchback.  The man drove a ramshackle\ntrap, so that, taking them altogether, they were no favourites, all the\nmore in that they never put nose beyond the doorstep on the Sabbath day.\n\n\"It was always thought, though, that Innkeeper McCaskill, of our\nclachan, knew more about this family than he cared to tell.  Anyhow, he\ntook them all their meat and groceries.  And it was noted, too, and\nremarked upon that he ay took the parcel himsel', a big one it used to\nbe, and the auld grey mare on which he rode was as sorely laden coming\nas going to Mill House.\n\n\"Sometimes, but no' very often, the hunchback laddie used to come on an\nerrand down to the clachan; the bairns o' the village were frightened at\nhim first, frightened even to call him names or throw a sod at him, as\nbairns will at things that look weird and unco'.\n\n\"Corbett was the laddie's name, but the bairns ay ca'd him Corbie.\n\n\"Corbie, though, improved on acquaintance.  There seemed no harm in him,\nthough, woe is me, he lookit auld, auld-fashioned.\n\n\"I suppose Corbie found it lonesome at the Mill House, for whenever he\ncame down to the clachan he tried to mak' acquaintance with the\nchildren.  It wasna easy to do this.  He brought them sweets and wild\nberries, and bit by bit he won their hearts till Corbie was the greatest\nfavourite in a' the clachan.  There was only one house, though, he ever\nentered, and that was McCaskill's.  But the bairns would meet him on his\nreturn, and he ay turned his steps to the auld kirk-yard, and there, on\na flat tombstone, he would sit doon and tell them story after story.\nAnd a more attentive audience no minister ever had even in the kirk on\nSunday.  What did Corbie tell them?  Oh! just queer auld-world stories\nhe'd heard tell of, or read in books.  Stories about witches and\nwarlocks, brownies, sprites, and spunkies.  Ay, and about the good\nfolks, the fairies themselves--\"\n\n\"Dinna, dinna,\" muttered Dugald.  \"Think o' the untimous hour, Grannie.\"\n\n\"But one day, as poor Corbie was speakin' and the bairns were listening\nwi' round eyes and gaping mouths, who should appear on the scene but\nCorbie's father?\n\n\"The laddie gave one low scream, like somebody in a nightmare.  Then his\nfather seized him, and oh! they say it was dismal to hear the howls of\nthe poor laddie and the sound o' the fearfu' blows.\n\n\"Corbie didn't appear again for many a day, but the human heart must\nhave society, and by degrees Corbie commenced story-telling again, but\nno' in the kirk-yard, only down in a thicket by the riverside, and\nalways when there, some one was put to watch.\n\n\"I often passed that house, even at night, though the name it had now\nwas worse and worse.\n\n\"I had used to have business at T--, across the hills.\n\n\"But so bad a name did that road get, that even by day the boldest would\nhardly venture to take the short cut to T--up along the laird's march\ndyke.  Belated travellers saw lights--dead candles they called them--\nflitting and flickering around the fairy knoll.  Brownies and spunkies,\nthey said, were met on the moor, and down by the riverside Kelpie\nhimsel' was often visible.\"\n\n[Kelpie, in Scotch folklore a kind of bogle, half man, half bat, often\nseen by midnight near the banks of ugly rivers.  He lives in deep, dark\npools.]\n\n\"A sturdy shepherd that had stayed too long at T--had met Kelpie, so\nthey said; he was found next day cut and bleeding at the water-side, and\nwas a raving maniac for weeks.\n\n\"One day I was setting out for the seaside village--I was young then,\nand strong--when near the clachan I met McCaskill.\n\n\"`Can I trust ye,' he said, `to deliver a letter at the Mill House?'\n\n\"I was feared to offend by refusing, so I took it.  But lo!  I forgot it\na'thegither till I was coming hame.  It was night, too, but deliver it I\nmust.\n\n\"I took the road alang the auld march dyke across the hills.  The moon\nwas shining, but no' very brightly, givin' a feeble yellow kind o' a\nlicht through a haze o' drivin' clouds.\n\n\"Well, I was just near the dreariest part o' the upper glen, and no' far\nfrom the fairy knoll.  I was wishing I were well past it, and away down\nto the clachan, where I could see the lights blinking cheerily from the\nhouses among the trees.\n\n\"I was hurrying on, when suddenly, with an eldritch scream, something in\nwhite sprang from behind an etnach,\" (juniper) \"bush.\n\n\"I was a bold lass.  Some would have fainted.  My heart was in my mouth,\nbut I felt impelled to throw myself at the thing, whatever it was.  I\nrushed forward with a frightened shriek and grasped it.  I wheeled its\nface towards the moon, and what think you saw I?\"\n\n\"A brownie!\" said Dugald.  \"Oh, Grannie, I'm all of a quiver.\"\n\n\"He was no brownie.  Only the auld, auld-fashioned face o' little\nCorbie.\"\n\n\"`Let me go, Nancy.  Let me go,' he pleaded.  `My father would kill me\nif he knew I was found out.'\n\n\"He wriggled out o' my hands and fled, and I hardly felt the ground\nbeneath my feet till I reached the low end o' the glen and found myself\nopposite the gate o' Mill House.\n\n\"Then I remembered the letter.\n\n\"Dare I deliver it?\n\n\"Dare I refuse?  That would be worse.  I took the road down through the\nwillow thicket, and crossed the rickety auld plank bridge, and in two\nminutes I was in front of the house.  There were sounds of singing and\nrevelry from the inside; I knocked, but wasn't heard.  Knocked louder,\nand in a moment everything was dark and silent.  The door opened.  I was\nseized and dragged in.  What I saw and heard at Mill House that night I\nwas put on oath not to tell till all were dead or gone.  I may tell you\nnow--they were smugglers.\"\n\n\"Thank goodness!\" said Dugald, greatly relieved it was no worse.  \"Oh!\nGrannie, but you have a fearsome way o' tellin' a story.\"\n\n\"For twa lang years they occupied that house, but during that time\nsomething happened that caused grief amang the village bairns.  Corbie\nwas missed.  Weeks flew by, and he never came back.  Then one day a\nthinly-attended funeral came winding towards the kirk-yard, carrying a\nwee bit coffin.\n\n\"The coffin was Corbie's, and there were many tears and mickle sorrow\namang the poor hunchback's acquaintances, I can tell ye.  His friends\nwent awa', and left poor Corbie in the mools, but the bairnies ne'er\nforgot the grave, and mony a bonnie wreath o' buttercups and gowans did\nthey string and put on it in the sweet summer-time.\n\n\"Well, laddies, the Mill House was found deserted one day.  The\nsmugglers had gone as quietly as they had come.  But the house kept its\nbad name, and so did the hills above it; and so my story ends.\"\n\n\"Not quite,\" said Dugald.  \"Did the brownie never come again, or the\nkelpie?  Were the dead candles seen nae mair?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Kenneth; \"don't you understand?  The brownie was the poor\nboy, Corbie; the kelpie was a smuggler; and the dead candles the lights\nseen at night near the cave in the fairy knoll.  That was the place\nwhere they carried on their sinfu' trade.\"\n\n\"I see things clearly enough noo,\" said Dugald; \"and I'll no' be feared\nto cross the muir.  Ah, well, Grannie, you have relieved my mind.\"\n\n\"I'm glad o' it, laddie.  Now will Grannie take down the good Book and\nread a bit?\"\n\nGrannie did.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe talk now took a cheerier turn.  Old Nancy, knowing how painfully\nsuperstitious Dugald was, refrained from introducing anything more in\nthe shape of either brownie or spunkie.  And so a pleasant hour was\nspent, till the old \"wag-at-the-wa'\" pointed to the hour of twelve, and\nwarned Kenneth and his friend it was high time to commence retracing\ntheir steps across the moor.\n\nCHAPTER FOUR.\n\nGLOAMING IN THE GLEN--KENNIE'S CAVE.\n\n  \"Gloaming o'er the glen is falling;\n      Little birds have ceased to sing,\n  Flowerets now their petals faulding\n      As night descends on dewy wing.\"\n\n  Anon.\n\nScene: Half-way down the glen, where heather and patches of tilled land\nend, and woodland commences.  Where the stream goes wimpling and\nswirling round the boulders, underneath the rustic bridge.\n\nAt the corner, where, after crossing the bridge, the road takes a bend,\nand is soon lost in the gloom of overhanging foliage, Kenneth is seated\non a stone.\n\nAt his feet lies Kooran, looking very knowing, because he has got his\nears pricked up, and his eyes very wide open, and his head thoughtfully\nturned a little on one side.\n\nKooran knows that his master has come there to meet his friend the\nHighland keeper, and that the retriever Shot will be with him, but the\nkeeper may come down from the brae-land on the right, or up the road\nfrom the wood, or he may suddenly appear on the cliff top, after fording\nthe stream and climbing the rocks.\n\nNo need for Kenneth to listen; he has only to watch Kooran.\n\nNo sound can deceive Kooran.  He will not move from that position till\nthe right moment.\n\nNot far from Kooran's extended tail, a field-mouse begins to sing a\nlittle song.  She is hidden in under the dry moss, through which she has\ndriven all sorts of smooth round tunnels, for quite an engineer is the\nfield-mouse, and the only wonder is she ever finds her way back again to\nher nest, through such a labyrinthic network of half-lighted lanes.\n\n\"Beet-ee-beet-ee-beet-ee-ee-beet-ee.\"  So goes her song.\n\nKooran never moves his head; all he does is to turn one ear back towards\nhis tail for a moment, but _only_ one ear.\n\n\"I hear you,\" he seems to say.  \"Sing away, my pretty one you know I'm\nbusy, but wait a wee till Shot comes.  Shot and I will soon have you out\nof there.  My eyes! won't we make the turf fly!\"\n\nA great bird flies right over a tree, but turns sharply in the air and\nflies back affrightedly.  It was a moor-cock, but he didn't know any one\nwas there.  He has to take another road home.\n\nA twig snaps; Kenneth looks in that direction.  The dog never moves.  He\nknows it is only the polecat trying to reach out to a branch where a\nthrush has gone to sleep.\n\nThe stream makes music in drowsy monotone, but hark! there is a plash.\nIt is an otter.  Kooran knows it, and does not move.  Then presently\nthere are close beside them apparently, two sharp dull thuds.  It is\nonly mother rabbit beating her heels on the ground to drive her\nover-bold little ones back into their holes, and to warn every rabbit\nwithin hearing that danger is near, and that there are a live dog and a\nlive boy not far off, who can't be after any good.\n\nSometimes the distant bleating of sheep or the pleasant lowing of kine\nfalls on Kenneth's ear, and anon, far up among the mountains, there is a\nstrange shout, half whoop, half whistle, prolonged and mournful.  At\nfirst it is repeated about every two seconds; then Quicker and quicker\nit comes, and wilder and wilder, till it ends in one long quavering\nscream.\n\n\"Whoo-oop, whoo-oop, whoo-oop, whoop, whoop-oop-oop-oop-oo-oo-oo!\"\n\nIt is the shriek of the curlew as he sails round and round in the air.\n\n\"Why, Kooran,\" says the boy at last, \"what can be keeping them?\"\n\nKooran beats his tail twice on the ground, but does not move his body.\n\n\"I hope they won't be long, dear doggie.\"\n\nKooran beats his tail once against the ground.\n\nThis means, \"Have patience, master.\"\n\nThe sun goes down behind the hills.\n\nThen comes still Evening on.\n\nIn the bonnie Scottish Highlands, reader, in sweet summer-time, or in\nriper autumn, we cannot say with truth that night falls; no, rather\n\"Evening steals down.\"\n\nOh! how gently she is stealing down now on the peaceful scene around\nKenneth and Kooran.  Far down the glen yonder, where the river broadens\nout in the valley, there lie long clouds of grey mist, with the tall\nspruce pines glimmering green and ghost-like through them.  They are the\ntrailing garments of Evening.  Gradually they change to crimson as the\nsun's parting rays fall on them.\n\nBut day lingers long on the hill-tops, among the steel-grey rocks, among\nboulders that stand boldly out from the dark background like blocks of\nsnow, and among patches of purple heather.  Evening sees that day must\ngo at last, so she hies away to put the flowers to sleep.\n\n\"Sleep, sleep, my gentle flowers,\" she says, \"for the day is dying fast,\nand the dews will fall and blight you.\"\n\nShe whispers to the gowans [mountain daisies] first, and the \"wee modest\ncrimson-tipped flowers\" fold their petals like sea-anemones, and go\nsoftly to sleep.  She lightly touches the pimpernels, the crimson and\nthe pink-eyed, and they curl their flower-leaves and sink to rest.  She\nbreathes upon the wild convolvulus that trails among the grass, and it\ntwists up its silken blossoms till they look like little wisps of\ncalico, pink and white.  Even the hardy heather bells creep closer\ntogether, and the star-like blossoms of the bramble that clothe the\nbanks shrink smaller as she brushes them with her wings.\n\nThen Evening speaks to the west wind.\n\n\"Blow softly, gentle west wind,\" she says; \"blow softly through the\nfeathery larches and the needled pines; make the leaves of the russet\noaks and the silvery drooping birches sing soft lullabies, that my\nchildren the flowers may sleep.\"\n\nAnd the west wind obeys her, and goes sighing through the trees, and all\nthe flowerets nod and sleep.\n\nThe linnet has long gone to bed, close hidden under the whin bush.  The\ntom-tit creeps closer against a patch of lichen that grows on the stem\nof an old ash tree.  The cushat in the thicket of spruce hears the west\nwind's lullaby, and ceases to croodle.  The blackbird and thrush hide\nthemselves in the hawthorn tree; only the robin still sings on the top\nrail of the old bridge.\n\n\"I will sing all night,\" the robin says.  \"I will sing with the trees\nand the west wind till the sun returns.\"\n\n\"Twhoo-hoo-hoo!\" shrieks the owl, and Robin flies away.\n\nThen Evening goes to the hedgehog, to the fox, to the foumart, the\nwhitterit, the bat, and the vole.\n\n\"Come out now, come out now,\" she cries to these, \"for the moon is\ncoming, and danger has fled with the daylight far over the hills.\"\n\nBut the lithe green snake, and the deadly adder, and the toad have heard\nthe invitation too, and lie closer under cover or creep into their\nholes, for enemies are abroad.\n\nThen slowly and solemnly over the distant hills uprises the moon.\n\nAnd so gloaming gives place to night.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nSomething black came feathering along at last, and next moment Shot,\nwith his jacket quite wet, and very much out of breath with running, was\nkissing his friend the collie.\n\nVery soon after Dugald and Kenneth were shaking hands.\n\n\"You thought I wasn't coming?\" said Dugald.\n\n\"Indeed, you're right, but I had almost fallen asleep.\"\n\n\"I've had such a chase after a couple of poachers.  Didn't you hear me\nfiring?  No?  But troth, I did have a rap at one of them.  Didn't kill\nhim?  Man, no, and more's the pity.  Troth, Kennie, lad, there are too\nmany about.  But come along, till we see the fairy's knoll.  Man, it's a\nwhole week since I've seen you.  How's the sheep?\"\n\n\"Doing well.  No more late lambs.  No more feeble dying ones.\"\n\nThe keeper shouldered his gun; the two dogs speedily tore up the grass\nwhere the field-mouse had been singing.  They destroyed all her tunnels\nand mossy lanes, but they hadn't time to unearth the mouse herself.\n\nAway up over the hills went the friends.  Up, and up, and up.  When on\nthe brow of the mountain they were to cross they must have been fifteen\nhundred feet above the sea level.  Down beneath them the rolling country\nwas slumbering in the misty moonlight, only the river meandered through\nit all and sparkled like a thread of silver.\n\nIt was a near cut they had taken; they had now only to descend a little\nway, and, behold, they were at the cave.\n\nAnd soon in it.\n\n\"I'll light the lamp,\" said Kenneth, and in a moment more the interior\nwas illuminated.\n\n\"Well, I do declare this is grand!  Never in this world before had\nshepherd such a shelter, surely!\"\n\nSo he well might say.  Kenneth had cleaned the cave out, bedded the\nfloor with a carpet of withered brackens, hung a huge oil lamp in it,\nwhich gave light and warmth both, built rude seats round it, made a rude\ntable, and conveyed hither his books, his fishing-gear, and even his\nflute.\n\n\"Isn't it delightful!\" cried Kenneth, laughing till his eyes danced and\nsparkled in the moonlight.\n\n\"Oh! it is grand!\" said Dugald, sitting down all the better to view the\nplace.\n\n\"I can eat my dinner here, you know,\" said Kenneth, \"and read my books,\nand study at night.\"\n\n\"At night!\" exclaimed honest Dugald.  \"Wad ye no' be feared, man?\" he\nadded solemnly.  \"Are there no bogles about?  Losh! there might be even\nghosts.  Or, man! just fancy a wee fairy body coming in through the door\nwhen you were a' by yoursel'!\"\n\n\"Oh!\" cried the boy, \"that is too good ever to be true.  I should\nrejoice to see a fairy.\"\n\n\"Well, man, rather you than me.  But tak' your flute and play a tune, to\nbanish eerie thoughts.\"\n\nKenneth put his instrument together and commenced.\n\nShot sat down on the brackens and commenced too.\n\nDugald turned Shot out of the cave, but Kooran had better manners and\nwas allowed to stay.  It was the \"Flowers o' the Forest\" that Kenneth\nplayed, and to this sweetly mournful air Dugald listened entranced.\n\n\"Silly Dugald!\" some would say, for his very eyes were moist.\n\n\"Ah!  Kennie, man,\" he said at last, \"I hope you may never live to play\nthat dear auld lilt in a foreign land with the tears rinnin' o'er your\nface.\"\n\n\"What mean ye, Dugald?\"  Kenneth said.\n\n\"Mean?\" cried Dugald almost fiercely.  \"Why, this, lad: that news came\nto-day to the clachan that our auld laird, that has ever been sae kind\nto us, is bankrupt, and has sold his fine estate to an American--to a\nforeigner, Kennie.\"\n\n\"Don't say so?\"\n\n\"But I do say so, and I fear it's an owertrue tale, lad.  The place that\nknows us noo may soon know us no more.  For they tell me he is going to\nevict the tenants, pull the clachan down, and turn our bonnie glen into\na forest for deer, knock doon the dear auld kirk, Kennie, that you and I\nwere christened in, and have sung psalms in Sunday after Sunday, knock\ndoon our kirk, give our roofs to the flames,--ay, Kennie, and level the\ngraves o' those we hold dear!\"\n\n\"I really cannot believe all this, Dugald.  Oh! it would kill my\nmother.\"\n\n\"Poor laddie!\" said Dugald, laying his hand kindly on Kenneth's\nshoulder.  \"Poor laddie!  Grief has been your share in the world of\nlate.  Two or three years ago, when your father lived, what a merry boy\nyou were!  But your father, once a thrifty crofter, had been reduced to\na humble shepherd, and when that broke his heart, and the Lord took him,\nhis brave boy Kennie left school and tended the sheep, and his industry\nsupports a widowed mother.  Ay, lad, Kennie, it will gang hard on you\nand hard on your mother to leave Glen Alva.\"\n\nKenneth looked the picture of despair.  His flute had fallen from his\nhand, and lay unheeded among the brackens.\n\n\"To leave my mother,\" he muttered, speaking apparently to himself, \"to\ngo into a foreign land, that were bad, but to know that the very glen\nitself was altered, the old kirk roofless, the houses heaps of ruins, to\nhave nothing to look back to, nothing at home to love--oh!  Duncan,\nDuncan, that wouldn't be absence from home; it would be banishment,\nDuncan, banishment and exile.\"\n\n\"Let us try no' to think about it, Kennie.  Dinna look so woe-begone,\nman, or you'll mak' me sorry that I've told you.\"\n\nThe boy turned quickly round.\n\n\"Oh! but say you've been but joking.  Say it is not true, Duncan.\"\n\n\"Oh hey!\" was Duncan's answer--a big sigh, that was all.\n\n\"But you know,\" said Duncan, after a pause, \"nobody is sure yet of\nanything.\"\n\nThe boy laughed now.\n\n\"Ha! ha! yes,\" he cried, tearing himself away from gloomy thoughts.\n\"We'll have hope.  We won't think about it, will we?  Ha! ha! no, we\nwon't think about it.  And I'll never say a single word to my mother\nabout the matter.  It _may_ pass, you know.\n\n\"And so,\" he continued, \"you really like my cave.  Well, little Archie,\nyour son, will often be here with me.  And you must come too, and we'll\nhave such fun.  I wonder if the ptarmigans will build next year in the\nsame place as they did last.  Mind when the snow falls you'll take me\nfor a day's white hare hunting, won't you?  It is such grand sport, and\nyou promised, you know.  What tune did you say I was to play?  Something\nmerry.  Oh! yes, I know--\"\n\nKenneth recovered his flute from among the brackens as he spoke, and\nrattled off into as merry a reel as ever witches danced to in \"Alloway's\nauld haunted kirk.\"\n\n\"First-rate!\" cried Duncan, clapping his hands, while even Kooran barked\nfor joy, and Shot's voice gave gladsome echo at the cave's mouth.\n\"First-rate! man; that's the kind o' music to banish the bogies.  Losh!\nKennie, music like that would have made Methuselah himsel' grow young\nagain.  That it would.\"\n\nIt was late that evening ere the two friends found themselves down the\nglen again, but when they bade each other good-night and walked briskly\nhomewards there was not a thought in their hearts of evil to come; they\nwere each as happy as the lark that carols o'er spring corn.\n\nCHAPTER FIVE.\n\nA DAY IN THE WILDS.\n\n  \"My heather land, my heather land,\n  Though fairer lands there be,\n  Thy gowany braes in early days\n  Were gowden ways to me.\"\n\n  Thom.\n\nScene: The fairy's glen high up among the mountains.  Kenneth seated,\nbook in hand, on the top of the fairy knoll, which stands out strangely\ngreen against the purples and browns which surround it.  Kenneth is\nalone.  Kooran is away down beneath, minding the sheep.  The\nshepherd-boy lays down the book at last, or rather he drops it down the\nchimney of his cave, and it falls on the carpet of brackens beneath.\nThen he takes his crook, and goes slowly down the strath.\n\nThis was a Saturday forenoon, and Kenneth and his little friend Archie\nMcCrane were going on a long round of pleasure.\n\nHa! yonder comes Archie.  Or rather, yonder suddenly doth he appear.  He\ncomes straight up out of the centre of a bush of furze, in quite a\nstartling kind of way.\n\nArchie is eleven years of age, though very tiny, but very strong, and as\nhard as an Arab.  No fat about Archie.  His face and bare neck and\nbreast and thorn-scratched knees are as red as if recently rubbed with\nbrick-dust.  There isn't a rent or hole in either his jacket or kilt,\nbut woe is me, it is pretty nearly all patches; it is mother's work\nevery night to mend the rents Archie makes in his clothes.  Archie is,\nof course, his mother's darling.  She even takes pains to make him\npretty.  She prides herself even in his beautiful hair.  His hair is one\nof Archie's strong points.  Mind, he wears no bonnet (cap), never did\nand never would.  He owns one, but always forgets to put it on.  So his\nsoft golden hair is cut across above the brows, and hangs in wavy\nluxuriance over his shoulders.  I said golden, but it is more straw\ncolour, and bleached on the top almost white.\n\nHe is a singular lad, Archie, has a half-wild, half-frightened look in\nhis face; in fact, take him all in all, he is quite in keeping with the\nromantic surroundings.\n\n\"I've got him,\" Archie said.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"A little black rabbit.\"\n\n\"Strange,\" said Kenneth; \"put him down.  He must be half tame, I should\nthink.\"\n\nArchie put it down, and the two boys knelt beside it among the heather.\nIt was a half-grown one, so mild, so gentle-looking.  Butter, you would\nhave said, wouldn't melt in that wee rabbit's mouth.  And it crouched\ndown low and held its ears flat against its back, and never moved an eye\nor winked, but allowed the lads to smooth it with their fore-fingers.\n\nBut all at once, pop! it was off like an eel.\n\n\"Oh?\" said Archie, with such a disappointed look, \"and I meant to take\nit hame wi' me.\"\n\nKenneth laughed, and off the two scampered, as wild as any rabbits.\n\n\"Shot is here,\" said Archie.\n\n\"Where?\"\n\n\"Down with Kooran.\"\n\n\"Then you must whistle him up; Kooran will look after the sheep by\nhimself, but Shot will lead him into temptation.  Besides, the sheep\ndon't know Shot.  Whistle, Archie, whistle, man.\"\n\nArchie put four fingers in his mouth and emitted a scream as shrill as\nthe scream of the great whaup.  [The curlew.]  In a moment more Shot was\ncoming tearing along through the heather.\n\nAnd with him was Kooran.\n\n\"What do you want, Kooran?\"\n\nKooran threw himself in a pleading attitude at his master's feet, looked\nup with brown, melting, pleading eyes, and wagged his tail.\n\n\"Oh!  I know, dear doggie,\" said Kenneth; \"you want your dinner, because\nyou know we'll be away all day.\"\n\nKooran jumped and capered and danced and barked, and Kenneth rolled a\npiece of cake and a bit of cheese in a morsel of paper and handed it to\nthe dog.\n\n\"Keep the koorichan,\" (sheep) \"well together, doggie,\" he said; \"and\ndon't take your dinner for an hour yet.\"\n\nKooran gave his tail a few farewell wags and galloped off, but as soon\nas he was in sight of the flock and out of sight of his master, he lay\ndown and ate his dinner right up at once.  He ate the cheese first,\nbecause it smelt so nice, and then he ate the cake.\n\nAway went Archie and Kenneth and Shot.  It didn't take them long to\ngallop through the heather and furze.  Of course the furze made their\nbare knees bleed, but they did not mind that.\n\nThey reached the road in twenty minutes, and went straight away to the\nclachan to report themselves at the manse, or minister's house.\n\nIt wasn't much of a manse, only an ordinary-looking, blue-slated house\nof two stories, but it had a nice lawn in front and gardens round it,\nwhere ash trees, limes, planes, and elms grew almost in too great\nabundance.  The windows were large, and one was a French one, and opened\nunder a verandah on to the lawn.  This was the Rev David Grant's\nstudy.\n\nBefore they came round the hedgerow, both boys stopped, dipped their\nhandkerchiefs in the running brook, and polished their faces; then they\nwarned Shot to be on his best behaviour, and looking as sedate and\nsolemn as they could, they opened the gate, and made their way to the\nhall door.  And Shot tried to look as old as he could, and followed\nbehind with his nose pretty near the ground, and his tail almost between\nhis heels.\n\nBut Mr Grant himself saw them, opened the casement window, and cried,--\n\n\"Come this way, boys.\"\n\nMr Grant was the clergyman of the village.  The living was a poor one,\nand as he had seven grown-up daughters, he was obliged to turn sheep\nfarmer.  It was his sheep that Kenneth herded, and that his father had\nherded before him, after \"the bad years\" had ruined the poor man.\n\n\"Miss Grant will soon be here,\" he said.  \"And how have you left the\nsheep, Kenneth?\"\n\n\"They are all nicely, thank you, sir,\" replied Kenneth.\n\n\"All healthy and thriving, I hope?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, sir, we won't have any more trouble, and Kooran is minding\nthem.  He will take capital care of them, sir.  And Duncan McCrane,\nArchie's father, is going up himself to see them.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said Mr Grant.\n\nThe Misses Grant were the mothers of the clachan.  I haven't space to\ntell you half of the good they did, so I shall not attempt it, but they\ntaught in school and Sunday-school, they knew all the deserving poor,\nand attended them when sick, and advised them, and prayed with them, and\nread to them, and never went empty-handed to see them.  Why, they even\nbegged for them.  And they knew the undeserving poor, and did good to\nthem also.  Even Gillespie, the most dreaded poacher and wildest man in\nthe clachan, was softened in tone and like a child when talking to the\n\"good Miss Grants,\" as they were always called.\n\nWell, every one loved these homely sisterly lassies of the parson's.\n\n\"By-the-bye, Kennie,\" said Mr Grant, \"I hear the glen is going to be\nevicted.\"\n\n\"Surely, sir, that isn't true?\" replied Kenneth.\n\nMiss Grant the elder was Kenneth's teacher, one of them, old Nancy\nDobbell was another, and Nature was a third.\n\n\"Did you come for a lesson to-day?\" said Miss Grant, entering.\n\n\"No, thank you.  Miss Grant.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm glad, because I was going out.  Little Miss Redmond is here\nwith her governess.  They have the pony trap, and I am going to their\nglen with them to lunch.  Come to the drawing-room; they are there.\"\n\nMiss Redmond was the only daughter of an Englishman of wealth, who had\nbought land in an adjoining glen.  Mr Redmond himself was seldom at\nhome--if, indeed, Scotland could be called his home--and his wife was an\ninvalid.\n\nBut there was nothing of the invalid about little Jessie, the daughter.\nQuite a child she was, hardly more than eight, but with all the quiet\ndignity and easy affability that is only to be found among children of\nthe _bon ton_.\n\nArchie was simply afraid of her.  Kenneth got on better, however.  He\nanswered all her innocent but pointed questions, as if he were talking\nto his grandmother.  But Jessie was really asking for information, and\nKenneth knew it, so the two had quite a serious old-fashioned\nconversation.\n\nWell, Kenneth seemed a gentleman born.  He sat easily in his chair, he\nheld his cap easily, and behaved himself with polite _sang froid_.  Miss\nGrant was proud of Kenneth.\n\nBut poor Archie looked ill at ease.\n\nKenneth told Jessie the story of the little black rabbit, and Jessie was\nmuch interested.\n\n\"What did it look like?\" she asked.\n\nKenneth glanced towards Archie.\n\n\"He just looked,\" he answered, \"as Archie is looking now, as if waiting\na chance to bolt.\"\n\nThis was a very mischievous speech, but Kenneth could not refrain from\nsaying what he thought.\n\n\"Poor boy?\" said Jessie, as if she had been Archie's mother; \"he appears\nto be very frightened.  What beautiful hair he has!  It is just like\nmine.\"\n\nThis was true, only Jesssie's was longer and not bleached.  Kenneth sat\nlooking half wonderingly at Jessie, longer than politeness would\ndictate.\n\n\"What are you thinking about?\" said Jessie.\n\n\"I was thinking,\" said Kenneth, candidly, \"I'd give all the world to be\nable to talk English in the pretty way you do.\"\n\n\"Some day,\" Jessie said to her governess, \"we will go and see the sheep,\nMiss Gale.  Remember that place.  Put it down in your notes.  We are to\nsee a fairy knoll and a smugglers' cave.  It will be so delightful.\"\n\n\"We go to London soon for the winter,\" said Miss Gale, \"but will come\nand see you, Kenneth, in spring or summer.\"\n\n\"Miss Gale,\" insisted the imperious Jessie, \"I haven't seen you use your\ntablets.\"\n\nSo Miss Gale smilingly took her tablets out and noted the engagement to\nvisit the sheep and see the fairy knoll.\n\n\"He has a flute,\" said Archie, with sudden determination not to sit mute\nall the time; \"make him play.\"\n\nAnd Kenneth had to play, just the same old melodies that the Scotch so\ndearly love; but as he played there came so sweet and sad an expression\ninto English Jessie's face, that Kenneth would have played for hours to\nplease her.\n\nWhen he had done, she went and looked at Miss Gale's tablets.\n\n\"Thank you,\" she said, \"dear Miss Gale, but just under there write,\n`Flute.'\"\n\nSo the word \"Flute\" was added.  It was something for the child to think\nabout while in London, a treat to look forward to, a long summer's day\nto be spent among the heather, among the sheep, a fairy glen, a real\nfairy knoll, and dreamy music from a flute.\n\nNo sooner was Archie round the corner of the hedge and out of sight of\nthe parson's window, than he gave a wild whoop, like an Apache Indian,\nand ran off.\n\nKenneth came up with him before long.  Not quite up with him, though,\nbecause Archie was high, high up in the sky, at an old magpie's nest.\nThe magpie was done with it, and Archie was tearing it down.\n\n\"The nasty old chick-chicking thing!\" he explained to Kenneth; \"for two\nyears running she has used the same old nest, and it wasna hers to begin\nwi', but a hoody-craw's.\"\n\nAway went the boys together.  They had a long day before them, and meant\nto make use of it.  They were as happy as boys could be who could do as\nthey pleased and go where they pleased, and had bread and cheese to eat\nwhen hungry.\n\nVery practical naturalists were Kenneth and Archie.  They knew nothing\nwhatever of nomenclature, they could not have told you the Latin name of\nany of the hundred and one strange wild creatures they met every day in\ntheir wanderings over mountain and moorland, but about the habits of\nthose creatures there was nothing they could not have told you.\n\nThey could have led you to the home of the red deer and moor-cock.  They\nknew the tricks and the manners of every bird that built in hedgerow or\nfurze bush, in thicket of spruce or pine-top or larch, in the hay or the\nheather or the growing corn, among sedges by the sides of lonely lochs\nor tarns, in banks or holes by the side of the stream, in hillock or\nstony cairn, or far up the mountain's side almost at the snow line\nitself.\n\nThey knew every bird by its name (in Scotch), by its eggs, by its nest,\neither in shape or in lining, and they knew where to look for every\nnest.\n\nRemember this, and I'm proud to mention it, these boys never destroyed a\nnest nor an egg.\n\nThey knew all about animals that couldn't fly also, and oh! their name\nis legion.  They knew or could pretty well guess, when they came across\nany of these, what the particular little animal, whether field-mouse,\nsquirrel, polecat, or vole, was about, and what it was after, whether\nfood for the young at home, or a warm bit of moss for extra comfort in\nthe nest, or twigs, rushes, dry weeds, or hay for building purposes.\n\nThere was no deceiving Kenneth or Archie, nor Kooran and Shot, for the\nmatter of that.  But the wild creatures knew the boys, and often\nobjected to have their nests examined, and even tried to deceive them.\n\nFor example, the hedgehog one evening in the gloaming was caught in the\nvery act of hauling away an immensely long earthworm.  The hoggie didn't\ncurl up, but sat down and made pretence to eat it.  But Archie knew the\nnest was not far away.\n\nThe fox had a home in the middle of the pine wood and had young there,\nand do what she would, the old mother fox could not get the puppies to\nkeep to the hole and lie in bed all day.  They would come out and play\nand tumble in the clearing, in such a funny ridiculous way.  Once Archie\nwas coming up towards this clearing, and the puppies were all out, for\nfather fox was from home looking after chickens, and as soon as mother\nfox carried one into the hole in her mouth and went back for another, it\ncame laughing and frolicking out again.  So half distracted the mother\nwent slily to meet Archie, and pretended she was nearly dead, and went\naway in a different direction from the clearing, and dragged one leg\nbehind her in a way that made Archie certain he could catch her.  Of\ncourse when mother fox had Archie far enough away she disappeared.  But\nArchie came back next night, and the same trick did not succeed again,\nso he found the puppy foxes and used to play with them for hours at a\ntime in the clearing.\n\nThe lapwings have a trick in spring-time of pretending they have a\nbroken wing when you go near the nest.  They fall down in front of you,\nand pretend they can't get away fast, and you run to catch them and\nforget all about the nest.  This is a very clever trick, and has\ndeceived many, but Archie used to shake his yellow hair and laugh at the\nlapwing.\n\n\"It is too thin,\" Archie would say.  \"I'm not a town's boy.\"\n\nAnd he would go straight away and find the nest, with the buff and black\nspeckled eggs, on the top of the bare sunny hillock where in a hole--not\nworth the name of nest--lappie had laid them.\n\nIt was too late in the season now to look for birds' nests, but they saw\nto-day a lot of old nests that they had not found the summer before, for\nthe trees were now getting bare and thin in foliage.\n\nWhen tired roaming about in the wilds, the two boys sat down and had\ndinner.\n\nThen they crossed the wide moorland to Nancy's lonely cottage.\n\nNancy was delighted to see them.  She said they must be hungry.  But the\nboys assured her that they were not, because they had had plenty of\nbread and cheese.  But Nancy put down her knitting and warmed some\nheather ale for them, and sweetened it, and switched two new-laid eggs,\nand mixed those in it, and made the boys drink the harmless and\ndelicious beverage.\n\nThen she took up her knitting again, and click, click, clickety-click,\nwent the wires the while she told them strange old-world stories and\ntales of fairies and kelpies.\n\nThe boys were entranced, and it was nearly dark when they left Nancy's\ncottage and betook themselves to the glen.  Kooran was very pleased to\nsee them back, and helped them to fold the sheep; then the whole four--\nthat is, Kenneth and Archie and Kooran and Shot--went up the fairy glen\nto the fairy knoll and the smugglers' cave.\n\nKenneth lit the lamp; then he lit a fire out of doors and hung over a\npot from a tripod, quite gipsy fashion.\n\nKenneth was a capital cook, and made a rabbit stew that a king might\nhave eaten.  So both boys supped royally, and the dogs had the bones.\n\nThen the things were cleared away, and down lay Archie on the dais, to\nlisten to Kenneth reading the \"Tales of the Borders.\"\n\nOn the whole, they had spent a most delightful day of it.  But it was\nonly one of many, for Saturday was Kenneth's own day, and Archie was his\nconstant companion.\n\nAnd so the autumn wore away among these, peaceful glens.  The days grew\nshorter and shorter, the frosts fell morning and night, and winds moaned\nthrough trees leafless and bare.  The sheep were folded now in fields on\nthe lower lands, and Kenneth had more time for his studies.  But every\nevening found Archie and him in their cave in the fairy knoll.\n\nCHAPTER SIX.\n\nKENNETH.\n\nScene: Glen Alva in a winter garb.  A morning in December.  A glorious\nmorning and yet how great a change from the day before.  For on the west\ncoast of Scotland changes do come soon and sudden.\n\nLast night, ere gloaming fell, Kenneth had stood at his mother's cottage\ndoor for hours watching the sunset and the weird but splendid\nafter-glow.\n\nThe sun had gone down rosy red and large behind a grey-blue bank of\nrock-and-tower clouds that bounded the horizon above the hills.  But so\nstrange and beautiful was the colour that soon spread over the\nfirmament, with its tints of lavender, yellow, pink, and pale sea-green,\nthat even Kenneth's mother must hold up her hands and cry,--\n\n\"Oh! dear laddie, a sky like that, I fear, bodes no good to the glen.\"\n\nFor uppermost in every one's mind in Glen Alva, at the present time, was\nthe threatened eviction.\n\nThen, just one hour afterwards, the pink colour had disappeared from the\nsky, and the yellow had changed to one of the reddest, fieriest orange\nhues ever eyes had looked upon; while away farther round towards the\nnorth the sky was an ocean of darkest green.  The trees, ashes and elms,\nthat bordered a field adjoining the kail-yard, stood strangely out\nagainst this glow; every branchlet and twig seemed traced in ink--the\nblackest of the black.\n\nAbove this orange, or rather through its upper edge, where it went\nmelting into the zenith's blue, the stars glimmered green.\n\nBut looking earthward, all around the hills and fields were dark and\nbare, for winter had not yet donned her mantle of snow.\n\nAnd now Kenneth has come out of doors almost before the sun is risen,\nfor there are fowls to be fed, and rabbits and guinea-pigs, and the cow\nherself to be seen to, before he takes his own breakfast and starts to\nmeet Dugald to enjoy a day among the hills.\n\nWhat a change!  The hoar frost has been falling gently all the livelong\nnight.  The good fairies seem to have been at work while others slept,\nchanging the world to what he now sees it, and so silently too.  And\nthis is what strikes Kenneth as so wonderful: while shrub, and tree, and\nweeds, and grass, and heather, are transformed, as it were, into\npowdered ice, there is neither loss of shape nor form; not a branch\nbends down; not a leaf or twig is out of place.  And the very commonest\nof objects, too, are turned to marvels of beauty.\n\nThe trees point heavenwards with fingers of coral.  But to look lower\ndown.  Surely there could be no romance or beauty about a cabbage leaf.\nGlance at these then fringed all round with needles and spiculae inches\nlong; the leaf itself is a shimmering green, dusted over with a frosty\ndown.  The wire-netting around the poultry run, and the cobwebs that\ndepend from outhouse eaves, are shiny silver lace-work all.  A glorious\nmorning, a wondrous scene; why, even the humble clothes line is changed\ninto a white and feathery cable, and the tufts of grass that grow on the\npathways are tufts of grass no longer, but radiant bunches of snow-white\nfeathers.\n\nAdown the glen, where Kenneth wanders at last, everything around him is\nof the same magical beauty, a beauty that is increased tenfold when he\nreaches the woods.  Here, too, all is silence, only the murmur of the\nrippling stream, or the peevish twitter of birds, or the complaining\nnotes of a throstle as she flies outwards from a thicket, scattering the\nsilvery powder all around her.\n\nBut down here in the wood, through the dazzling white of the pine trees,\nthe cypresses, and spruces and holly, comes a shade, a shimmer of green,\nbrighter among the pines themselves, darker among the ivy that clings to\ntheir stems.  And the seed balls on the ivy itself are globes of\nfeathery snow, and every spine on the holly leaves is a fairy plume.\n\nHark! the sound of ringing footsteps on frost-hard road, and a manly\nmerry voice singing,--\n\n  \"Cam' ye by Athol, lad wi' the philibeg,\n  Down by the Tummel and banks o' the Garry?\n  Saw ye the lad wi' his bonnet and white cockade,\n  Leaving his mountains to follow Prince Charlie?\"\n\n--And next moment, gun on shoulder, sturdy Dugald the keeper stalks\nround the corner.\n\n\"The top of the mornin' to ye, man,\" said Dugald.  \"Have you seen\nArchie?\"\n\n\"No, not yet.\"\n\nBut even as they spoke Archie, bare-headed as usual, is seen coming up\nfrom the side of the stream, with a string of beautiful mountain trout\nin his hand.\n\nHe climbed up through the icy ferns, leapt the fence, and stood before\nthem.\n\n\"I set twenty lines last night,\" he said, in joyful accents, \"and caught\nthirteen trout.\"\n\nBack the trio went to Mrs McAlpine's cottage, and those fish were fried\nfor breakfast, with nut-brown tea, cream, and butter and cakes; and if\nthere be anything in this world better for breakfast than mountain trout\nfresh from a stream, I trust some kind soul will send me a hamper of it.\n\nWhat a day of it they had among the hills, to be sure!\n\nYoung as he was, Kenneth had a gun, while Archie did duty as ghillie;\nthey went miles and miles away up among the mountains where the heather\ngrew high as their waists--Kenneth's waist and Dugald's, I mean; it was\noften over Archie's head.  But they came out of this darkness at last,\nand shook the snow off their jackets and kilts, and walked on over the\nmoorland.\n\nGorcocks stretched their red necks and stared at them in wonder.\nPtarmigans, too cold to fly, ran and hid in the heather, the black cock\nand the grey hen often flew past them with a wild whirr-r-r, while far\nabove, circling round and round in the blue sunny sky, was the bird of\nJove himself.\n\nBut it was not the gorcock, nor black cock, nor the ptarmigan, nor the\ngreat golden eagle itself they were after, but the white or mountain\nhare.\n\nAnd the sport was good.  They took time to dine, though, for the air was\nbracing and keen; then they shot again till nearly sunset, and Kenneth's\ncheek flushed redder than usual as Dugald praised him for his skill as a\nmarksman.  But at the same time Dugald praised himself indirectly, for\nhe added, \"But no thanks to you, lad; sure, haven't you had Dugald\nMcCrane himself to teach you this many a long day?\"\n\nArchie was wonderfully strong, but he couldn't carry half the hares, so\nDugald and Kenneth had to help him as well as carry their own and their\nguns, and even Shot carried a white hare all the way to the glen below.\n\n\"Of course,\" said Kenneth, \"you'll come up the glen, Dugald, to our\ncottage, and let us show my mother our game; she will be so pleased.\"\n\n\"'Deed, and I will, then,\" replied Dugald, \"and there will be a pair of\nhares for the old lady, too, and one for Nancy the witch--goodness be\nabout us--for the laird wrote me to say if I killed more than a dozen\nand a half to-day, I was to do what I liked with the rest.\"\n\n\"Dear old laird!\" said Kenneth; \"why doesn't he come down from London\nand stay among his people?  We all love him so much.\"\n\n\"Ah!  Kennie, he has ruined himself, like mony mair Highland lairds, by\nstoppin' in the big city, and it's myself that is sorry.  But see, wha\ncomes here?\"\n\nIt was a tall stranger, dressed in knickerbockers, a broad-brimmed soft\nfelt hat, and a surtout coat, a very ridiculous association of garments.\n\nHe carried a gun over his shoulder, and two beautiful Irish setters\nwalked behind him.  Both dogs were lame.\n\n\"Hullo, fellows!\" he said.  \"Glad I've met some one at last.  How far\nhave I to walk to the little inn at the klakkin?\"\n\nDugald threw down his game-bag, so did the others their burdens.  No one\nwas sorry to rest a bit, so they leant against the dyke and quietly\nsurveyed the stranger.  Meanwhile Shot was standing defiantly in front\nof the setters.\n\nShot wanted to know if either of these dogs would oblige him by\nfighting, singly or the two at once.  But they did not seem inclined to\naccept the challenge.\n\n\"My good fellow,\" said the stranger, \"when you have stared sufficiently\nto satisfy you, perhaps you will be good enough to answer my question.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said Dugald, \"I'm staring because it's astonished I am.\"\n\n\"You'd be more astonished if you knew who I am.  But never mind.  I've\nbeen travelling all day among these tiresome hills and only managed to\nkill one brown hare.  I was told at the inn that the white hares were in\nhundreds.\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" said Dugald, \"but it's no' in the glen you'll find them.\n\n\"You're two miles from the clachan,\" continued Dugald.  \"I'm McGregor's\nkeeper--his chief keeper.  I'll trouble you, sir, to show your permit.\"\n\n\"You're a saucy fellow.  I'm the future owner of these glens and all the\nestate, and lord of Castle Alva.\"\n\n\"I'll believe it when I see it.  You're neither lord nor laird yet.\nYour permit, please.  I believe nobody since two students poached all\nover the hills here and called themselves friends of the laird's.\"\n\n\"As to my permit, fellow, I did not trouble to bring it from C--.\"\n\n\"Then you'll consider yourself my prisoner till you can produce it.\"\n\nThe stranger was a man about forty-five, tall and wiry and haughty.  He\nlooked at Dugald up and down for a moment.\n\n\"Dare you, fellow?\" he shouted.\n\nDugald quietly laid down his gun and threw off his jacket.  He then took\noff his scarf, and stretched it out in front of the stranger.  It\nmeasured fully a yard and a half.\n\n\"I've tied the hands and feet of a poacher before,\" he said, \"a bigger\nman than you.  And I mean to do my duty by you.\"\n\n\"Dugald,\" said Kenneth, \"this gentleman may really be what he says.\"\n\n\"Let him come quietly, then,\" replied Dugald.  \"No stranger that ever\nwalked will lead Dugald McCrane into trouble again.  Is it going to\nsurrender you are, sir?  Consider while I count ten.  One--two--three--\"\n\n\"Enough, enough.  I'm your prisoner, fellow.  It is very ridiculous.\nPerhaps you'll live to rue this day.  Come on with me to the inn.\"\n\nDugald laughed.\n\n\"Not just yet,\" he answered; \"it's the other way; you come with me.\"\n\nThe stranger bit his lip and frowned.\n\nThen he put his hand in his pocket and produced a gold piece.\n\n\"This is yours,\" he said, \"if you come at once.\"\n\nFire seemed to flash from Dugald's eyes.  He clenched his fists\nconvulsively, and looked for a moment as if he meant to spring at the\nstranger's neck.\n\n\"Put up your bawbees,\" he said at length.  \"If Highlanders are poor,\nthey are also proud, and the gold isn't dug yet that would tempt Dugald\nMcCrane to neglect his duty.  And if the auld laird himsel' was standing\nthere, he'd tell you it's the truth I'm speaking.  Right about face, my\nman, and march with us to the glen-head, or it may be the worse for\nyou.\"\n\nThe stranger gave a sigh and a sickly kind of smile, but he shouldered\nhis gun and prepared to follow.\n\n\"One minute,\" said Dugald, for Kenneth had beckoned him aside.\n\nKenneth and he conversed for a moment; then Dugald returned.\n\n\"You look tired,\" he said, shortly; \"we'll go your road.  Archie,\" he\ncontinued, \"pick the ice-balls from the feet of those twa poor dogs.\nYour dogs, sir, are but little used to our Hielan' hills.\"\n\n\"And indeed, my fine fellow,\" replied the stranger, \"am but little used\nto your Highland manners, but grateful to you, young sir,\"--he was\naddressing Kenneth--\"for saving me a longer journey than needful.\"\n\nIn half an hour's time the future laird of Alva, for it was no other,\nfound himself a prisoner at the little inn of the clachan.  This for a\nnight; next day he produced a letter from McGregor himself--he had\ndespatched a messenger to C--for it--which quite satisfied Dugald\nMcCrane.\n\nDugald was satisfied of something else as well, namely, that he had done\nhis duty without exceeding it.\n\nKenneth and Dugald visited Nancy Dobbell's next day and told her the\nstory.\n\n\"Och! och!\" she said, \"it will be a sore day for the folks of the\nclachan, when a stranger steps into the shoes of poor auld Laird\nMcGregor.\n\n\"But a cloud is rising o'er the hills, my laddies; there will be little\nmore peace in Glen Alva.  A cloud is rising o'er the hills, and that\ncloud will burst, and wreck and ruin will fall on the poor people.  My\ndreams have told me this many and many a day since.  Heigho! but Nancy's\ntime is wearin' through.  She'll never live to see it.\"\n\nKenneth took the old thin hand that lay in her lap in both his, and\nlooked into her face, while the tears gathered in his eyes.\n\nHe was going to say something.  But he did not dare trust himself to\nspeak.  He simply petted the poor wrinkled hand.\n\nIs Campbell the poet right, I wonder?\n\n  \"_Does_ the sunset of life give us mystical lore?\n  _Do_ coming events cast their shadows before?\"\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN.\n\nTHE DEATH OF POOR NANCY.\n\n  \"I'm wearin' awa', Jean,\n  Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, Jean;\n  I'm wearin' awa'\n  To the Land o' the Leal.\"\n\n  Old Song.\n\nScene: Kenneth at home in his mother's humble cot.  A fire of peats and\nwood burning on the low hearth.  Kenneth's mother reading the good Book\nwith spectacles on her eyes.  Kenneth leading also at the other side of\nthe fire.  Above the mantelpiece a black iron oil lamp is burning, with\nold-fashioned wicks made from peeled and dried rushes.  Between the\npair, his head on his paws, Kooran is lying.  He is asleep, and probably\ndreaming of the sheep that he cannot get to enter the \"fauld,\" for he is\nemitting little sharp cheeping barks, as dogs often do when they dream.\n\nKenneth gets up at last and reaches down his plaid and crook.\n\n\"Dear laddie,\" says his mother, \"you're surely not going out to-night!\"\n\nKooran jumps up and shakes himself.\n\n\"Yes, mother; I must,\" is the quiet reply.  \"I had a strange dream about\npoor Nancy last night.  She has been ill, you know, and I haven't called\nfor three days.\"\n\n\"But in such a night, laddie!  Listen to the wind!  Hear how the snow\nand the hail are beating on the window!\"\n\nKenneth did listen.\n\nIt was indeed a fearful night.\n\nThe wind was sighing and crying through every cranny of the window, and\nshaking the sash; it was howling round the chimney, and wailing through\nthe keyhole of the door.\n\nSnow was sifting in underneath the door, too, and lying along the floor\nlike a stripe of light.\n\nKenneth drew his plaid closer round him.\n\n\"I must go, mother,\" he said; \"I could not sleep to-night if I didn't.\n\n\"Don't be uneasy about me even if I don't return till morning.  I may\nstay all night at Dugald's.\"\n\nWhen Kenneth opened the door he was almost driven back with the force of\nthe wind, and almost suffocated with the soft, powdery, drifting snow.\nBut he closed the door quickly after him and marched boldly on down the\nglen, rolling the end of his plaid about his neck, and at times having\neven to breathe through a single fold of it to prevent suffocation.\n\nIt was now well on in January.  There had been but little snow all the\nwinter, but this storm came on sharp and sudden.  All day gigantic\nmasses of cloud had been driving hurriedly over the sky on the wings of\nan easterly wind; the ground was as hard as adamant, and towards sunset\nthe snow had begun to fall.  But it took no time to settle on the bare\nground; it was blown on and heaped wherever there was a bit of shelter\nfrom the fierce east wind.  So it lay under the hedges and dykes, and on\nthe lee-side of trees, and deep down in the ravines, and under banks and\nrocks, and across the road here and there in rifts like frozen waves of\nthe ocean.\n\nThe wind howled terribly across the moorland.  There was a moon, but it\ngave little light.\n\nKooran knew, however, where his master was going, and went feathering on\nin front, stopping now and then to turn round and give a little sharp\nencouraging bark to his sturdy young master.\n\nKenneth was all aglow when he reached Nancy's hut, and his face wet and\nhot.  His hair and the fringes of the plaid and even his eyebrows were\ncovered with ice.\n\nHe shook the plaid and his bonnet, and folded the former under the porch\nfor Kooran to lie on.  Then he opened the latch and entered.\n\nAll was dark.  Not a blink of fire was on the hearth, and long white\nlines across the floor showed him where the snow had been sifting in\nthrough the holes that did duty as windows.  Kenneth's heart suddenly\nfelt as cold and heavy as lead.\n\n\"Nancy,\" he cried, \"Nancy, oh!  Nancy.\"\n\nThere was a feeble answer from the bed in the corner.\n\nHe advanced towards it.  There were two shining lights there, the cat's\neyes.  Poor pussy was on the bed watching by her dying mistress.\n\nHe felt on the coverlet and found Nancy's hand there.  It was cold,\nalmost hard.  \"Nancy,\" he said, \"it is Kennie, your own boy Kennie;\ndon't be afraid.\"\n\nIt did not take long for Kenneth to light a roaring fire on the hearth.\nAs soon as it burned up he held the iron lamp over it to melt the frozen\noil; then he hung it up.  The water in a bucket was frozen, and even\nsome milk that stood on a little table near Nancy's bed was solid.\n\nThe inside of that cot was dreary in the extreme, but Kenneth soon made\nit more cheerful.\n\nPoor old Nancy smiled her thanks and held out her hand to her boy, as\nshe always called Kennie.  He chafed it while he entreated her to tell\nhim how she felt.\n\n\"Happy! happy! happy!\" she replied, \"but, poor boy, you are shaking.\"\n\nKenneth was, and he felt his heart so full that tears would have been a\nrelief, but he wisely restrained himself.\n\nHe melted and warmed the milk, and made her drink some.  Then, at her\nown request, he raised her up in the bed.\n\n\"Dinna be sorry,\" she said, \"when poor auld Nancy's in the mools.  It is\nthe gate we have a' to gang.  But oh! dear boy, it's the gate to glory\nfor poor Nancy.  And so it will be for you, laddie, if you never forget\nto pray.  Prayer has been the mainstay and comfort o' my life; God has\nalways been near me, and He's near me now, and will see me safe through\nthe dark waters o' death.  Here's a little Bible,\" she said.  \"It was\nNancy's when young.  Keep it for her sake, and oh! never forget to read\nit.\n\n\"Now, laddie, can you find your way to Dugald's?  Send him here.  There\nis an aulder head on his shoulders than on yours, and I have that to say\na man should hear and remember.\"\n\n\"I'll go at once,\" said Kenneth, \"and come back soon, and bring the\ndoctor too, Nancy.  I won't say good-night, I'll be back so soon.\"\n\nKenneth gulped down his tears, patted her hand, and rushed away.\n\n\"Come on, Kooran,\" he cried.  \"Oh!  Kooran, let us run; my heart feels\nbreaking.\"\n\nHe took his way across the moor in a different direction from that in\nwhich he had come.  The storm had abated somewhat.  The wind had gone\ndown, and the moon shone out now and then from a rift in the clouds.\n\nHe determined to take the shortest cut to Dugald's house, though there\nwould be the stream to ford, and it must be big and swollen.  Never\nmind; he would try it.\n\nHe soon reached a scattered kind of wood of stunted trees; there was no\npathway through it, but he guided himself by the moon and kept going\ndownhill.  He would thus strike the river, and keeping on by its banks,\nford wherever he could.\n\nNothing could be easier.  So he said to himself, and on he went.  It was\nvery cold; and though the wind was not so fierce, it moaned and sighed\nmost mournfully through the trees in this wood.  Even Kooran started\nsometimes, as a spruce or Scottish fir tree would suddenly free itself\nfrom its burden of snow as if it were a living thing, free itself with a\nrushing, crackling sort of sound, and stand forth among its fellows dark\nand spectre-like.\n\nKenneth had gone quite a long way, but still no stream came in sight.\nHe listened for the sound of running water over and over again, and just\nas often he seemed to hear it, and went in that direction, but found it\nmust be only wind after all.\n\nHe grew tired all at once, tired, weak, and faint, and sat down on a\ntree stump, and Kooran came and licked his cheek with his soft warm\ntongue.  He placed one hand in the dog's mane, as if to steady himself,\nfor his head began to swim.\n\n\"I must go on, though,\" he muttered to himself.  \"Poor old Nancy.  The\ndoctor.  I'll soon be back--I--\"\n\nHe said no more for a time.  He had fainted.  When he recovered, he\nstarted at once to his feet.\n\n\"I've been asleep,\" he cried.  \"How could I!\"  He ate some snow; then he\nbegan to move on automatically, as it were, the dog running in front and\nbarking.  The dog would have led him home.  \"No, no, Kooran,\" he said;\n\"the river, doggie, the river.\"\n\nKenneth tried to run now.  His teeth were chattering with the cold, but\nhis face was hot and flushed.\n\nHis nerves had become strangely affected.  He started fifty times at\nimaginary spectres.  Some one was walking on in front of him--some\nshadowy being.  He ran a little; it eluded him.  Then he stopped; he was\nsure he saw a head peering at him over a piece of rock.  He called\naloud, \"Archie!  Archie!\"\n\nHis voice sounds strange to his own ears.  He runs towards the rock.\nThere is no one behind it.  No one.  Nothing.\n\nHe feels fear creeping over his heart.  He never felt fear before.\n\nBut still he wanders on, muttering to himself, \"I'll soon be back.  Poor\nold Nancy!  Poor old Nancy!\"\n\nAll at once--so it seems--he finds himself at the banks of a stream.  He\nis bewildered now, completely.  He presses his cold hand against that\nburning brow of his.\n\nWhat is this river or stream?  Where is he going?  Did he cross this\nstream before?  He must cross it now, but where is the ford?  How deep\nand dark and sullen it looks.\n\nHe seats himself on the icy bank to think or try to think.\n\nHe is burning, yet he shivers.\n\nStories of water-kelpies keep crowding through his mind, and the words\nand weird music of a song he has heard,--\n\n  \"Kelpie dwells in a wondrous hall\n      Beneath the shimmering stream;\n  His song is the song of the waterfall,\n      And his light its rainbow gleam.\n                  The rowans stoop,\n                  And the long ferns droop\n      Their feathery heads in the spray.\"\n\nAnd now he jumps to his feet.  He has recollected himself, he was going\nfor the doctor for poor Nancy, and this is the stream he was looking\nfor.  He must seek the ford.  He cannot have far to go now.  Once over\nthe river, and a run will take him to Dugald's cottage.\n\nBut stay; what cares he for the ford?  He will plunge into the deepest\npool, and swim across.  He is hot; he is burning; it will cool him.\n\nHe walks on a little way, and still the kelpie song runs in his brain.\nThe trees seem singing it; the wind keeps singing it; the driving clouds\nnod to its music.\n\n  \"Where the foam flakes are falling,\n  Falling, falling, falling,\n  Falling for ever and ay--\"\n\nHa! here is a deep dark pool at last.  Why, yonder is the kelpie himself\nbeckoning to him, and the maiden.\n\n  \"When forest depths were dim,\n  For love of her long golden hair--\"\n\nThe poor dog divines his intention.  He rushes betwixt him and the cold\nblack water, uttering a cry that is almost human in its plaintive\npathos.\n\nToo late.  He laughs wildly, and plunges in.  Then there is a strange\nsense of fulness in his head.  Sparks crackle across his eyes.\n\n  \"Falling, falling, falling,\n  Foam flakes are--\"\n\nHe remembers no more.\n\nBut the brave dog has pulled him to the brink, and sits by his side,\nlifting his chin up towards the sky, and howling most pitifully.\n\nAh! if we only knew how much our faithful dogs love us, and how much\nthey know in times of trouble and anguish, we would be kinder to them\neven than we are, even now, while sorrow smees far away from us.\n\nPresently it appeared to strike even Kooran that giving vent to his\ngrief would result in nothing very practical, so he suddenly ceased to\nwhine.  He bent down and licked his master's cold inanimate face.\n\nHe howled once again after this, as if his very heart were breaking.\n\nThen he looked all round him.\n\nNo help, I suppose, he thought, could come from these cold woods, and no\ndanger.\n\nSo he emitted one little impatient bark, as if his mind were quite made\nup as to what he should do, turned tail, and trotted off.\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT.\n\nKENNETH AND JESSIE.\n\n  \"Will cannot hinder nor keenness foresee\n  What Destiny holds in the darkness for me.\"\n\n  Tupper.\n\nScene: Dugald's garden on the cliff top.  You have to climb up to it\nfrom the road that goes winding through a wooded ravine, up a few steep\ngravel steps.  It is spring-time, and the soft west wind goes sighing\nthrough the trees.\n\nIt is gloomy enough in the ravine below, but here the sun is brightly\nshining, and primroses are blooming on the borders, and the blue\nmyosotis that rivals the noonday sky in the brightness of its colour.\n\nOn a wooden dais, near the keeper's door, Kenneth is lying rolled in his\nplaid and propped up with pillows.  On the arm of the dais old Nancy's\ncat is seated, blinking in the sunshine and singing.  On the pathway is\nKooran, and book in hand--'tis Burns's poems--Archie is seated on a\nstone.\n\nKenneth's mother comes out and stands beside her boy, smiling and\ntalking for a little, then goes in again.  Dugald himself comes up the\npath, gun on shoulder, singing low, but he finishes the line in a louder\nvoice when he sees Kenneth.\n\n\"Ah, lad! out once more,\" he cries joyfully.  \"Och, man! it's myself\nthat is glad to see you.\"\n\nThe moisture had gathered in the honest fellow's eye.  Kenneth smiled\nfaintly.\n\n\"You'll soon see me on foot again, the doctor says.\"\n\n\"But, man, if I live to be as auld as Methuselah, I'll never forget that\ndreary nicht your Kooran came howling to the door.  He would hardly give\nme time to put my plaid on, and then he led me away and away to\nBrownie's Howe, and I found your body--there seemed no life in it--and\ncarried you hame here on my shoulder.\n\n\"Ay, and Kooran has never left ye one hour since then, nor Nancy's cat\neither.  She came here the very day after Nancy's funeral.  Poor auld\nNancy!  How quietly she wore away.  And how sensible she was to the\nlast.  And she told me a story about the laird, our dear laird McGregor,\nthat you maunna hear noo, Kenneth.  Good-bye.  I'm off to the hills.\nMind to keep the wind from him, Archie.\"\n\n\"How I should like to go too, Archie,\" said Kenneth.\n\n\"Oh!\" said the boy, \"that will soon be now.  And oh! how bonnie the\nwoods are, and the birds have all begun to build.\"\n\n\"Are the woods very bonnie, Archie?\"\n\n\"Oh! delightful,\" cried the boy.  \"The moss is so soft and green under\nthe trees.  The wild flowers are creeping out and blowing on the banks.\nThe pine trees are all stuck over with long white-green fingers.\"\n\n\"I know,\" said Kenneth.\n\n\"The birch tree stems are whiter than ever I saw them, just like silver,\nKennie.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And their branches are trailing down with the weight of their bonnie\nwee glittering leaves.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes.\"\n\n\"Then the needles on the larch trees were never so soft and green\nbefore, I'm sure, and they are just covered with red tassels.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And the rowan trees [Rowan tree--the mountain ash] are covered with\nwhite flowers.  What lots of scarlet roddans they'll have in autumn!\nAnd the birds are all building, as I said.  I have a hoody-craw's nest\nin a Scotch fir in Alva, and a kestrel's in a terribly tall tree at\nAultmore.  That magpie is building a brand-new nest; I knew she'd have\nto.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Well, there are five eggs in a laverock's among the corn, and I know\nwhere there is a ptarmigan's and a whaup's, far away up among the\nmountains.\"\n\n\"Oh!  I do so long to be well, Archie.\"\n\n\"And the sheep, Archie?\" continued poor Kenneth.  \"I've dreamed about\nthem so often since I've been sick.  I always see them lookin' up,\nArchie, with their bonnie brown een\" (eyes), \"and wonderin' what has\ncome of me.  And I'm sure Kooran wants to see them.\"\n\n\"Kooran could see them any day, and they're doin' finely, but Kooran\nwon't leave you.\"\n\n\"Dear me, what shall I do?\" cried Archie's mother, running distractedly\nup the garden with a bucketful of greens in her hand.  To have seen her\nhalf-scared looks, one would have imagined something terrible was about\nto happen.  \"Gentry coming, and I'm no' dressed.\"\n\nThe gently arrived about five minutes afterwards, little Jessie, Miss\nGale, and Miss Grant.\n\nAs soon as she found herself on the garden path Jessie, who had a bunch\nof primroses in her hand, and some long drooping crimson-tipped twigs\nfrom the larch, started to run.  But she paused half-way, and an\nexpression of sadness stole over her face, as she noticed how wan and\nwhite Kenneth was looking.\n\nShe advanced more slowly and tendered the flowers.\n\n\"Poor boy!\" she said; \"are you very, very ill?\"\n\nKenneth took the flowers, and a flush of joy lit his pale cheeks as he\nreplied,--\n\n\"Not now, Miss Jessie.  The doctor says I have nothing to do but get\nwell.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm so glad,\" cried Jessie.\n\nHer governess now came up, and Miss Grant.  The latter had been often\nbefore to see the invalid, but Jessie and Miss Gale had only recently\narrived from Inverness-shire, and were loud in their praises of its\nmagnificent scenery.  Archie went and brought a chair for Jessie, so\nthat she could sit while she talked to the invalid boy.  Archie was\nimproving.  He even spoke to Jessie to-day, and promised to bring her\nsomething very nice if she would accept it.  The something very nice\nultimately proved to be a young hedgehog, so young that its spines had\nonly just turned hard.\n\nPresently the ladies went into the keeper's cottage.  Archie lay down on\nthe gravel-path with his head on Kooran's neck, and Jessie sat and\ntalked to Kenneth.\n\nWhat was she telling him?  He looked intensely interested.  His eyes\nwere dilated, his hands clasped, his face flushed.  It was but a simple\nstory she was telling him, told in simple child's language.  The story\nof her own London life, her life in society.  But it was all, all so new\nto Kenneth.\n\nAh! little did innocent Jessie know that her prattle had lighted the\nfires of ambition in that boy's soul.  But so it was.  She had\ninaugurated a new phase in his existence.  She had inadvertently led him\nto see that there were other--can I say better worlds than his?\n\nSo Jessie went away, with many a promise to come again when he was\nstronger, and could play soft melodies on the flute,--melodies, she\nsaid, that made her feel she wanted to cry, but that she loved all the\nsame.\n\nJessie went away.  She had found the boy on this bright lovely spring\nmorning but a boy; she left him a man at heart.\n\nArchie came and sat by him, and recommenced his tales of mountain and\nmoorland and forest.  He told him of the fairy knoll and the smugglers'\ncave, about the heather, now so green and promising, about early lambs,\nand all the little incidents of life in the hills.  Kenneth listened,\nbut his thoughts were far away.\n\nThese glens and wilds, dearly though he loved them, were not all the\nworld.  The poets and writers that had so charmed him hitherto, and\nserved to throw a glamour of romance over the beautiful land in which he\nlived--Burns, Ossian, Tannahill, Campbell, Scott, and the Ettrick\nShepherd,--they had made him love it, oh! so dearly love it, with that\nburning, passionate patriotism which only the heart can feel.\n\n\"That beats beneath a Scottish plaid.\"\n\nBut--had he not been living too much in the past? was there not a power\nsetting in that was threatening to tear Scotland from the hands of the\nScotch?  Ought he to stay among these mountains and dream dreams,\ninstead of going out into the world beyond to work or fight for the dear\nland that gave him birth?  Ought he not to try even to gather wealth for\nthe sake of those he would leave behind?\n\nClouds were gathering over the glen.  A foreigner was soon to take\npossession of it, with no more love for the soil than if the heather\nthat grew on every acre of it had not been dyed a hundred times over\nwith the blood of the hero and the patriot.  Could he stay at home and\nsee his father's grave, poor old Nancy's too, levelled?\n\nHis thin hands covered his face, the boy sobbed quietly, and the tears\ntrickled through his fingers.\n\nCHAPTER NINE.\n\nTHE STORM CLOUD BURSTS OVER THE GLEN.\n\n  \"When simmer comes smilin' o'er mountain and lea,\n  The green haughs and glens are pleasant to see,\n  And pleasant the hum o' the merry wild bee,\n  When the rose, when the rose and lily are blawin'.\n  An' blithely the mavis salutes the gay morn\n  As sweetly he sings on the snawy white thorn,\n  While the laverock soars high o'er the lang yellow corn,\n  And the moorcocks, the moorcocks are cheerily crawin'.\"\n\n  Old Song.\n\nScene: Summer once more on hill and glen.  On the mountain brow, the\nheather is bursting into bloom and bee-haunted.  Down in the lower lands\nthe corn is growing long and green, mingled with orange of marigold and\ncrimson blush of wild poppy, and the meadows snowed over with gowan and\nscented clover.  Fish leap gladly in stream and tarn, the lofty pines\nwave their dark plumes in the sunny air, and every wood and copse is\nfilled with melody.\n\nA right merry party are returning from the rocks by the seashore, where\nthey have spent hours in wandering and wondering, for they found\nsomething new to admire at every turn.\n\nJessie is here with her governess and Miss Grant, and Kenneth strong and\nwell again, to say nothing of Kooran and Shot, and last--probably\nleast--Archie McCrane.\n\nThey have gained the brow of a hill overlooking the wide Atlantic.  Far\nbeneath them the sea-birds are wheeling and shrieking among the rocks,\nwhile out on the sea's blue breast is many a little white sail, some so\nfar, far away that though they have three masts, and must therefore be\nmighty ships, they seem from here not a bit bigger than a sixpenny\npiece.\n\nLittle Jessie is looking radiant and lovely, Kenneth gallant and gay,\nand everybody else, always including the dogs, as healthy and happy as\nthe summer's day is long.\n\nWell, no wonder.  They have spent such a gloriously pleasant day.\n\nThey took lunch with them to eat at sea.  Yes, at sea, for old Duncan\nReed took them out to the island and far beyond it, and Kenneth was\nproud on the whole to exhibit his skill as an oarsman.  And Duncan had\nnot hesitated to tell the ladies that he--Duncan Reed--had taught the\nboy all he knew about boating and fishing too.\n\nThe ladies were delighted with Duncan, especially Miss Gale, to whom he\nwas something quite new.  She must even sketch the little old man\nleaning there on his oar in his shirt-sleeves and night-cap, and Duncan\nwas so delighted when he saw it, that his old eyes sparkled like the\ninside of an oyster-shell.\n\nHe shared the luncheon, and when they landed they went to his strange\nhouse, with the boat for a roof, and there he made them tea, although\nthere were not cups for all, and Duncan himself had to drink his out of\na mug.\n\nBut there really was more in this little old fisherman than might at\nfirst appear.  Anyhow he astonished Miss Gale by his recitations of\nOssian's poems, both in the ancient Gaelic, and in English.  Even\nJessie, child though she was, experienced a thrill of indefinable\npleasure as she listened to the rise and fall of the measured words, the\nmagic of the wondrous verse, rolling out from the lips of this little\nold man, who looked so wild and weird, and mingling with the dull roar\nof the breaking waves.\n\nThe child never forgot it.\n\nAnd now the little party stood on the hill overlooking the sea, and a\nwalk of two miles took them, after a rest, to the fairy glen.  But\nArchie, while they rested, had run on before, for everybody was coming\nto the cave, and Archie must see that it was neat and tidy.\n\nThere were freshly pulled ferns or brackens laid down as a carpet for\nthe cave, and seats constructed out of the blooming heather.  While\nmaking these Kenneth was thinking all the time about Jessie, and about\nhow her eyes would sparkle when she saw these.\n\nAs they walked on over the hills, Kenneth by golden-haired Jessie's\nside, the sky above them blue and clear, the clouds on the horizon\nlooking like snow-white feathers, and the bees making drowsy music among\nthe pinky heath, Kenneth got his child-companion to talk and tell him\nmore about the great world, that mighty ocean of life that lay in the\nfar beyond, the ceaseless throb of whose billows was hardly ever heard\namong those peaceful hills.\n\nThe boy stopped and looked backwards and away out towards the sea.\nProbably he never looked half so handsome as he did now, with his heart\nfilled with manly resolves, with the light of a half-kindled ambition\nmaking his face to shine.\n\n\"I'm very, very happy here, Miss Jessie,\" he said.  \"I may never, never\nbe so happy as I am now, as I have been to-day.  But before long I mean\nto leave this country, leave Scotland, and go away into the world, Miss\nJessie.\"\n\nThe child looked at him half afraid.\n\n\"Yes, I'm foolish, I suppose, but I cannot help it; go I must.  I\ndaresay I have read too many books, but--I long to go.\n\n\"I'm going to take Nancy's Bible with me,\" he said, smiling and looking\nhalf ashamed.  \"I'll never part with that.\"\n\n\"Let me see it,\" said Jessie.\n\nHe took from his bosom a little old-fashioned Bible, with the Psalms of\nDavid--those heavenly gems of poetry and song--in metre at the end of\nthe book, and placed it in the child's hand.\n\n\"You are a very good boy,\" she said, for the child felt she must say\nsomething.\n\n\"But oh!\" she added, \"here is a pressed primrose in the book.\"\n\n\"It is one of those you gathered for me; don't you remember?\"\n\n\"Oh! yes,\" she replied, smiling, \"but it looks so lonely; here, place\nthis little tiny bit of heather beside it.\"\n\nIt was an innocent child-like action to place the bit of heather bloom\nthere with the primrose, but one that Kenneth never forgot.\n\nArchie was indeed a proud boy when Jessie and Miss Gale fell into\nraptures over the cave.  Everything was admired, the heather seats, the\nrustic sofa, the rude bookcase containing the authors the boys read\nalmost every day, and even the carpet of brackens.\n\n\"Did you get them?\" said Kenneth in a stage whisper to Archie.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Archie, with eyes as big as two-shilling pieces, \"and\nsuch a fine lot they are.  And the cream.  Yes, and plates and spoons\nand all.\"\n\nTo the astonishment of his guests, Kenneth now placed a table in the\ncentre of the cave, and bade them all sit down.  Then from a dark recess\nhe excavated a huge dish of mountain strawberries [Rubus chamaemorus], a\njar of cream, and plates and spoons.  Neither Jessie nor Miss Gale had\never eaten anything so delicious before.\n\n\"But what are they, Kenneth?\" she said.\n\n\"They are called cloud-berries,\" replied Kenneth; \"they only grow far up\nin the mountain tops, and some call them fairy food.  People about here\nsay that these berries creep in under their leaves, and hide when any\none with a baneful eye looks at them, and that only good people can\ngather them.\"\n\n\"And who gathered these?\" said Miss Gale.\n\n\"Archie.\"\n\n\"Oh!  Archie, you are good.\"\n\nArchie felt prouder even than before.\n\nBut after the cloud-berries were discussed, wee Jessie, sitting there on\nher heather couch, said, with a half-arch smile,--\n\n\"There is something else.  Look at your tablets, Miss Gale.\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" said Miss Gale.  \"Here it is--Flute.\"\n\nKenneth had the flute in his pocket.  He was a marvellous player for a\nboy.  His whole soul seemed to breathe through the instrument.\n\nTo-day he played a battle-piece of his own putting together--not\ncomposing.\n\nFirst came the gathering of the clans, bold, energetic, soul-touching,\nthen the plaintive farewell to native glens, as the Highlanders marched\naway,--\n\n  \"Maybe to return to Lochaber no more.\"\n\nNext came the spirited march, then the wilder pibroch as the foe was\nsighted, then wilder rushing music still; the fight was going on now,\nyou could feel that.  You could hear the shrill slogan of the Highlander\nmingling with shout of victor and shriek of wounded.  Then a pause, and\nanon the coronach or wail for the dead.\n\nAnd so the music died away.\n\nDown the glen now the party went, for the sun was sinking low in the\nwest, and the fairy glen was miles from the clachan.\n\nBut Jessie must see the sheep.  Dugald was acting as shepherd to-day,\nand doffed his Highland bonnet as the ladies approached him.\n\nThere was not a sheep there that Kenneth did not know.  They bleated a\nkindly welcome as he approached.  They even played with Kooran, making\ngreat pretence to knock him down or to hit him with their hard feet, all\nof which Kooran took in good part, and kindly pretended to run from\nthem, then turning and barking in a funny remonstrative voice, as if he\nreally were laughing at heart, and enjoyed the fun immensely, and I have\nno doubt he did.\n\nDugald took Kenneth aside.\n\n\"There is bad news come,\" he said; \"all is lost.  The glen is to be\nevicted.\"\n\nKenneth's heart sank within him.\n\nThe cloud then that had been gathering so long was about to burst.\n\nIt was well-nigh a year since the tenantry had been asked to leave.\nThey heeded not the summons.  They could not believe that their own auld\nlaird McGregor would send his people away.  Little they knew.  McGregor\nwould never appear among them again.  The edict sent through him was\nsent by or at the instigation of the new American laird.  The glens were\nno good to him with people in them--so he said--he must have deer; he\nwas buying the land for the \"sport\" it would afford him, his family and\nfriends.  Yet he doubted his own power, being a foreigner, to evict.\n\nBut that very day the last summons was given previous to forcible\nexpulsion.\n\nAnd the young men of the clachan and glens were wild.  They would stand\nby their homesteads, they would grasp dirk and claymore, they would\nfight, they would die where they stood.\n\nBut at the great meeting that took place the wisdom of the grey-haired\nprevailed.  And with sorrow, ay, and tears, they all came at last to the\nconclusion that resistance would be worse than useless.\n\nThey would not go till they were forced, they would stay and see the\nlast of the dear old spot, but they would bend their necks to the yoke,\nthey would maintain a passive attitude.\n\nIn this they showed their wisdom.  The auld laird McGregor sent them a\nmost affecting letter.  \"Their sorrows,\" it ended, \"and his own\nmisfortune had broken his heart, and though he could see them no more in\nlife, his thoughts and mind were with them.\"\n\nTrue, for the auld laird lived scarcely a year after the eviction of\nGlen Alva.\n\nBut with a portion of the remains of his fortune he paid the passage\nmoney to America of as many of his tenants as were willing to accept his\noffer.\n\nI would not harrow the feelings of my readers by describing the last sad\nscene in Glen Alva, when in the darkness of night the people were turned\nout; when more than seventy houses--well, call them huts, they were\nhomesteads, at all events--were given to the flames; when the aged and\nthe sick were laid on the bare hillside to shiver and to die; and when\nneither the wail of the widow nor plaintive cry of the suffering infant\ncould move to pity or mercy the minions of the Yankee laird, who\npreferred deer to human beings.\n\nSelah!\n\nCHAPTER TEN.\n\nTHE LAST LINK IS BROKEN.\n\n  \"Farewell, farewell, my native land,\n  Thy lonely glens and heath-clad mountains.\"\n\nScene: The fairy glen once more, and in the background the fairy knoll.\nKenneth and Archie, both looking very sad, are in the foreground by a\nnew-made grave.  Kenneth has been planting a little tree there, only a\nyoung Scotch pine, dug from the moor, a treelet that had grown from a\ncone which the rooks had fetched from Alva's gloomy forest.  Kenneth has\nplanted the tree, and the spade has dropped from his fingers and fallen\namong the heather.\n\nArchie's dog Shot is standing near.  He has been watching all the\nproceedings.  Watching, and probably wondering.  For dogs _do_ think.\n\nBut where is Kooran?  Kooran is under the sod.  His bonnie brown eyes\nhave closed for ever; his faithful heart will never feel love or\nfriendship more--it has ceased to beat.  Nor cry of wild bird on the\nmountain, nor plaintive bleat of lamb, no, nor his master's voice, will\never move him again.\n\n\"I canna but believe,\" says Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, \"that dogs hae\nsowls.\"\n\nThere are many more believe with you, dear Hogg.\n\nBut about honest Kooran.  When dogs get old, you know--and Kooran had\ngot old before he died--a slight stiffness may be noticed in their gait.\nI am positive that they begin to wonder what ails them.  Wonder why\nthey cannot run so fast as they used to, in the good days of yore.\nWonder why they get tired and out of breath so soon.  Wonder, too, why\nmaster speaks so low, or why the sheep do not bleat so loudly or the\nbirds sing so much as they used to.  They do not know that this is only\nfailure in their own powers of hearing.  And they wonder also why the\ntrees and grass and hedgerows have ceased to be so bright and green,\neven in spring-time, as once they were; why master's face seems dimmer.\nThey cannot now stand the cold so well; they seem to want a thicker\ncoat, but alas! the coat grows thinner.  They would fain seek the\nshelter of indoors, even curl up on the hearthrug.  How seldom do they\nget the chance!  How often they receive the brutal kick when they most\nneed comfort!\n\nThen comes the day when they feel the cold no longer.\n\nIt had never occurred to Kenneth that some time or other Kooran and he\nmust part--that Kooran must die.  He was ever kind and attentive to this\nfaithful friend of his; he never forgot him.  He might have been excused\nif he had, for the scenes at the eviction and the burning of the glen\nwere awful enough, in all conscience, to have driven everything else out\nof the boy's head.\n\nOf all the houses in the glen, that alone of Kenneth's mother had been\nspared.  Not that she meant to accept the favour thus offered her and\nstay on.  Both she and Kenneth were far too proud for that.  But at the\ncottage they lived for a time.  And at the cottage Kooran died.\n\nHe came wet and weary one evening and threw himself down at his master's\nfeet.\n\nWhen Kenneth spoke to him he looked pleadingly up into his face and\nshivered.  Kenneth had never seen him shiver before.  The dog went and\nlay before the fire, and his master covered him up with his plaid.\nKooran licked his hands.\n\nSomething, he knew not what, awoke the boy long before dawn next day,\nand his first thought was of his old favourite.\n\nHe peeped out at the little gable window in the garret where he lay.  A\npale scimitar moon was declining behind the trees.  These looked black\nand spectre-like.\n\nKenneth went gently down the ladder, and lit the oil lamp.  The fire was\nvery low, and he replenished it.  Then he gently lifted a corner of the\nplaid.  The action aroused the dog, and he crawled forth.  He seemed to\nfeel for Kenneth's knee, and on this he laid his head.\n\nKenneth knew this was death.  He put his hand tenderly on the poor dog's\nmuzzle, for he could not hear him breathe.\n\nThe tongue came out to lick the hand.  It was a farewell.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nAnd the boys had rolled the body of poor Kooran in a piece of old tartan\nplaid, and, followed by Shot, carried him up to the fairy glen, and\nburied him near the fairy knoll.  Remember they were only boys.\n\nThen Kenneth sat down and cried.  Archie had never before seen such an\nexhibition of weakness on the part of his friend, so what could he do\nbut sit down and keep him company?  They were only boys.\n\nShot looked very sad.  He did not know what to make of it all.  He\nwhined impatiently.  Then he licked Archie's wet face and touched\nKenneth under the arm with his nose, as some dogs have a way of doing.\n\n\"Poor Shot!\" said Kenneth.  \"You too have lost a faithful friend.\"\n\nTogether, after this, they took their way down the hill.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nA short, crisp, and gentlemanly letter came to Kenneth two days after\nthis.  It was from Jessie's father.\n\n\"My daughter has spoken much about you,\" said this epistle, \"and quite\ninduced me to take an interest in your welfare.  The situation of\nunder-ghillie at my Highland shooting-box is vacant.  I have much\npleasure in placing it at your disposal.  You will be good enough\ntherefore to enter on your duties on Monday next, etc, etc.\"\n\nKenneth's cheek burned like a glowing peat.  He tore the letter in\nfragments, and threw them in the fire.\n\n\"Mother,\" he cried, \"dear mother, it needed but this!  I shall leave the\nglen.  I go to seek our fortune--your fortune, mother, and my own.  I\nshall return in a few years as wealthy mayhap as the proud Saxon who now\noffers me the position of under-ghillie.  Mother, it is best I should\ngo.\"\n\nI pass over the parting between the mother and her boy.\n\nWith his flute in his pocket, with no other wealth except a few\nshillings and his Bible, Kenneth McAlpine turned his back on the glen,\nand went away out into the wide, wide world to seek his fortune.\n\nFor years, if not for ever, he bade farewell to his Highland home and\nall he held so dear.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEnd of Book First.\n\nCHAPTER ELEVEN.\n\nFOR AULD LANG SYNE.\n\n  \"We twa have paddled in the burn\n  Frae mornin' sun till dine.\n  But seas between us broad hae rolled\n  Since the days o' auld lang syne.\"\n\n  Burns.\n\nScene: Landscape, seascape, and cloudscape.\n\nA more lovely view than that which met the eye of a stranger, who had\nseated himself on Cotago Cliff this evening, it was never surely the lot\nof mortal man to behold.  It was on the northern shores of South\nAmerica, and many miles to the eastward of Venezuela Gulf.\n\nFar down beneath him lay the white villas and flat-roofed houses of a\ntown embosomed in foliage, which looked unnaturally green against their\nsnowy walls.  To the right, and more immediately below the spot where\nthe stranger sat under the shade of trees, that towered far up into the\nsky, was a long, low, solitary-looking beach, with the waves breaking on\nit with a soft musical sighing sound; it was as if the great ocean were\nsinking to slumber, and this was the sound of his breathing.\n\nThe sun was low down in the west, in a purple haze, which his beams\ncould hardly pierce, but all above was a glory which is indescribable,\nthe larger clouds silver-edged, the smaller clouds encircled with\nradiant golden light, with higher up flakes and streaks of crimson.  And\nall this beauty of colouring was reflected from the sea itself, and gave\na tinge even to the wavelets that rippled on the silver sands.\n\nIt was very quiet and still up here where the stranger sat.  The birds\nhad already sought shelter for the night; well they knew that the sunset\nwould be followed by speedy darkness.  Sometimes there would be a rustle\namong the foliage, which the stranger heeded not.  He knew it was but\nsome gigantic and harmless lizard, looking for its prey.\n\n\"I must be going back to my hotel,\" he said to himself at last.  He\ntalked half aloud; there was no human ear to listen.\n\n\"I must be going home, but what a pity to leave so charming a place!  I\ndo not know which to admire the most, the grand towering tree-clad\nhills, the sea, or the forest around me.\n\n\"Hullo!\" he added, \"yonder round the point comes a little skiff.  How\nquickly and well he rows!  He must be a Britisher.  No arms of lazy\nSouth American ever impelled a boat as he does his.  Going to the hotel,\nI suppose.  No, he seems coming straight to the beach beneath me.  Hark!\na song.\"\n\nThe rower had drawn in his oars, leaving the little boat to continue its\ncourse with the \"way\" already on her, while he gazed about him.  Then,\nas if impelled to sing by the beauty around him, he trilled forth a\nverse of a grand old sea song.\n\n  \"The morn was fair, the sky was clear,\n      No breath came o'er the sea,\n  When Mary left her Highland cot\n      And wandered forth with me.\n  Though flowers bedecked the mountain side,\n      And fragrance filled the vale,\n  By far the sweetest flower there\n      Was the Rose of Allendale.\"\n\nThen there was silence once again.  The rower rowed more slowly now, but\nsoon he beached his boat, and drew it up, and hid it by drawing it in\namong the rocks.\n\nThe stranger soon afterwards rose to go.\n\nHe had not proceeded many yards along the hillside, when, on rounding a\ngigantic cactus bush, and close beside it, he stood face to face with\nthe oarsman.\n\nThe former lifted his hat to bow, but instead of replacing it on his\nhead he dashed it on the ground, and springing forward, seized the other\nby the hand.\n\n\"Archie!  Archie McCrane!\" he cried; \"is it possible you do not know me,\nthat you have forgotten Kenneth McAlpine?\"\n\nPoor Archie! for a moment or two he could not speak.\n\n\"Man!\" he said at last, in deep, musical Doric; \"is it possible it is\nyou, Kennie?\"\n\nThe tears were blinding him, both hearts were full, and they said no\nmore for many seconds, merely standing there under the cactus tree\nholding each other's hands.\n\n\"God has heard my prayer,\" said Kenneth at last.\n\n\"And mine.\n\n\"But how you have altered, Kenneth!  How you must have suffered to make\nyou look so old!\"\n\n\"You forget I _am_ old, twenty-one next birthday; and you are only a\nyear less.  But what wind blew _you_ here?  I thought, Archie, you had\nsettled down as an engineer on shore.\"\n\n\"Your letters roused a roving spirit in me, Kenneth.  I determined to\nsee the world.  I took the first appointment I could get.  On a\nFrenchman.  I haven't had much luck.  We have been wrecked at Domingo,\nand I came here last night in a boat.  But come, tell us your own\nadventures.  I have all your letters by heart, but I must hear more; I\nmust hear everything from your own mouth, my dear brown old man.\"\n\nKenneth _was_ brown; there was no mistake about that, very brown, and\nvery tall and manly-looking, and the moustache he wore set off his\nbeauty very much.  No, he had not cultivated his moustache.  It had\ncultivated itself.\n\n\"Come down to the hotel,\" said Archie.  \"I am not poor.  We saved\neverything.  It was a most unromantic shipwreck.\"\n\n\"No,\" replied Kenneth, \"not to the hotel to-night.  Come up the mountain\nwith me to my cottage.\"\n\n\"Up the mountain?\"\n\n\"Yes, my lad,\" said Kenneth, smiling.  \"Up the mountain.  Haven't\nforgotten how to climb a hill, have you, I say, Archie, boy? for, as\nbrown as I look, I am an invalid.\"\n\n\"What!\" cried Archie, in some alarm.  \"Nothing serious, I sincerely\nhope.\"\n\n\"Nothing, old man, nothing.  But when they left me here six weeks ago, I\nthought that no power could have saved me.  I had yellow-Jack.  That's\nall.  I could not have lived in the hotel.  Good as it is, it is too\nlow.  But come; old Senor Gasco waits supper for me.\"\n\nUp and up they struggled, arm in arm.  Kenneth knew every foot of the\npathway through the forest; it was well he did, for night had quite\nfallen over sea and land, and the stars were glinting above them ere\nthey reached a kind of tableland, and presently stood in front of the\nrose-covered verandah of a beautiful cottage.\n\nThe French windows were open, and they entered _sans ceremonie_.  It was\na lofty, large room, furnished with almost Oriental splendour, with\nbrackets, ottomans, and suspended lamps, that shed a soft light over\neverything around.\n\nAnd here were books, and even musical instruments _galore_, among the\nlatter a flute.  It was not the flute Kenneth used to play in Glen Alva,\nand up among the mountains, while herding his sheep; it was a far better\none, but the sight of it brought back old times to Archie's memory.\n\nKenneth had left him for a few minutes.\n\nArchie sank down upon an ottoman with the flute in his hand, and when\nKenneth returned he found his friend in dreamland apparently.\n\nBut with a sigh Archie arose and followed Kenneth to an inner room.\n\n\"Senor Gasco,\" said the latter, \"this is Archie McCrane, the friend of\nmy boyhood, of whom you have so often heard me speak.\n\n\"Archie, this gentleman has saved my life.  He is a kind of a hermit.\nAren't you, _mon ami_?\"\n\n\"No, no, no,\" cried Senor Gasco, laughing.  \"Only I love pure, fresh,\ncool air and quiet; I cannot get these in the town beneath, so I live\nhere among my books.\"\n\nHe was a tall, gentlemanly-looking Spaniard, of some forty years or\nover, and spoke beautiful English, though with a slightly foreign\nintonation.\n\nA supper was spread here that a king might have sat down and enjoyed.\n\nTwo tall black servants, dressed in snow-white linen, waited at the\ntable.  They were exceedingly polite, but they had rather larger mouths\nand considerably thicker lips than suited Archie's notions of beauty.\n\nOut into the verandah again after supper, seated in rocking-chairs; the\ncool mountain air, so delicious and refreshing, was laden with the\nperfume wafted from a thousand flowers.  There were the stars up in\nheaven's blue, and myriad stars, the fire-flies, that danced everywhere\namong the trees and bushes.  Archie said they put him in mind of dead\ncandles.\n\n\"And now for your story, Kenneth.\"\n\n\"It is a long one, but I must make it very brief.  You know most of it,\ndear Archie, so why should I repeat it?\"\n\n\"Because,\" said Archie, \"I do _so_ love to hear you speak.  Your voice\nis not changed if your face is, and when I sit here in this\nsemi-darkness, and listen to you, man, I think we are both bits of boys\nagain, wandering through the bonnie blooming heather that clothes the\nhills above Glen Alva.\"\n\n\"Now you have done it,\" cried Kenneth, laughing.\n\n\"Done what?\" said Archie.\n\n\"Why, _you_ have to tell the first story.  If you hadn't mentioned home,\nif you hadn't spoken about the hills and the heather, I would have told\nmy tale first.\"\n\n\"But--\" said Archie.\n\n\"Not a single excuse, my boy.  I am home-sick now.  Answer a few\nquestions, and I'll let you off.\"\n\n\"Well, go on,\" said Archie; \"ask away.\"\n\n\"My dear, dear mother!  Have you seen her grave lately?\"\n\n\"It was the last spot I visited when I went to the clachan,\" replied\nArchie sadly.\n\n\"Heigho!\" sighed Kenneth.  \"And I was all ready to go home.  We were\nlying at the Cape, if you remember, when your letter arrived.  Yes, and\nI left my ship, I threw up a good appointment on receipt of the sad\nintelligence; and Archie, dear lad, I shall go back to Scotland when I\nmake my fortune--not before, and that may be never.\"\n\n\"Do not speak like that.\"\n\n\"But I must and will.  How changed everything must be from the time I\nkept the sheep among the hills.  And how do the clachan, the glen, and\nthe hills look now?\"\n\n\"The clachan is but little changed.  Mr Steve did not tear down the\nvillage and church, as he first threatened.  No, the clachan is the\nsame, but poor Mr Grant has gone.\"\n\n\"Dead!  You did not tell me this in your letter.\"\n\n\"No, no, not dead.  He has got a better living in the city.\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Yes, and I went to see them.  The Misses Grant keep every letter ever\nyou wrote them, and they do long, I can tell you, for the return of the\nwanderer.\"\n\n\"Bless their dear hearts!\"\n\n\"I went over to the wee village by the sea and saw Duncan Reed.\"\n\n\"Is he changed?\"\n\n\"Not in the very least.  Looks hardier than ever.\"\n\n\"And your father and mother you have already said are well?\"\n\n\"Yes, but father doesn't like town life.  How he would love the old days\nto come back again; how he would love to rove once again over the hills\ngun on shoulder and dog at his heel!\"\n\n\"He is not very old; he may yet have his wish.\"\n\n\"I fear not.\"\n\n\"Well?\"\n\n\"Well, the glens and hills all around are planted with trees.  This was\ndone as soon as Mr Steve took possession of the estate, and before poor\nold Chief McGregor died.\"\n\n\"He is dead, then?\"\n\n\"Yes.  I would have told you, but I wanted to make my letters to you as\nbright as possible.\"\n\n\"So the dear old man is dead.  Heigho!  And the estate planted.  You did\nnot even tell me that.\"\n\n\"No, and for the same reason.  But the trees are getting quite tall\nalready.  Most of the higher parts of the glens are covered with Scotch\nfirs and spruces and larches, the lower lands with elm and plane and\nscrubby oaks.  At the risk of being taken as a trespasser, I went all\nover the estate.  I penetrated up to the fairy knoll and saw poor\nKooran's grave.  There are young trees all round there now.\"\n\n\"Archie,\" said Kenneth, leaning forward and peering into his companion's\nface, \"I hope they didn't interfere with poor Kooran's grave.\"\n\n\"No, nor with anything around it.\"\n\n\"Go on, lad; I'm so pleased.\"\n\n\"Well, I've little more to say.  I was not taken prisoner, though I\nstartled the wild deer in all directions.\"\n\n\"But the grand old hills themselves?\"\n\n\"Nay, they are not planted.  Green in summer and purple and crimson in\nautumn, there they are the same, and ever will remain.\"\n\nThere was a pause.  Then Kenneth spoke once again.\n\n\"Did you ever see Miss Gale since?\"\n\n\"Only once,\" replied Archie, \"and Miss Redmond--Jessie--she has grown\ntall, and oh!  Kenneth, so beautiful, but still so child-like and\ngraceful.\"\n\n\"I can easily believe that, boy.  And did she--\"\n\n\"Yes, dear lad,\" said Archie.  \"She did ask all about you, so kindly.\nAnd I gave her your last letter to read.  And--\"\n\n\"And she read it, Archie?  Tell me, did she read it?\"\n\n\"Yes, she read it over and over again.\"\n\n\"Now, I'll tell you my own adventures.\"\n\n\"Begin at the beginning, won't you?  The very beginning, from the day\nyou and I parted.\"\n\n\"I will.\"\n\nBut what Kenneth said deserves a chapter to its own account.\n\nCHAPTER TWELVE.\n\nKENNETH AND ARCHIE.\n\n  \"Adieu, adieu; my native land\n  Fades o'er the waters blue;\n  The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar,\n  And shrieks the wild sea-mew.\n  Yon sun that sets upon the sea\n  We follow in his flight;\n  Farewell awhile to him and thee,\n  My native land, good-night.\"\n\n  Byron.\n\nScene: Kenneth and Archie still seated in the verandah of the Spaniard's\ncottage.  The light from the casement window is streaming outwards\nthrough the creepers and climbing plants all around them; the beautiful\nbell-like flowers, down-drooping, touch their very faces.  But all the\ncolour up there in the verandah's roof does not belong to these flowers.\nNo, for birds are sheltering their bright wings from the night dews;\nthat rich orange spot in the corner is a bird, so is that patch of\ncrimson and steel, and yonder one of snow-white and blue.  If you looked\nsteadily for a moment at them, you could see round heads turned\ndownwards and wondering beads of eyes.  The birds are considering\nwhether or not all is safe, or whether they had better fly away out into\nthe night and the darkness.\n\nKenneth is waiting for the Senor to come.  There is hardly a sound\nexcept a gentle sighing of wind among the trees, now and then the shriek\nof a night bird, the constant chirp of cicada, or rap, rap, rap, of\ngreen lizard as he beats to death some unhappy moth he has captured.\n\n\"Now, Senor, come and sit you down.  Light your great pipe.  That is\nright.  Thanks, yes, both Archie and I will have a little palm-leaf\ncigarette.  Coffee?  Oh! delightful!  Archie: old man, there isn't any\none in all the wide world ever made coffee half so well as the Senor\nGasco.  Flattery, Senor?  No, not a bit of it.  The truth cannot be\nflattery.\"\n\n\"The coffee,\" said Archie, \"is delicious.\"\n\n\"Heigho!\" sighed Kenneth.  \"I am so happy to-night, dear Archie.  I\nbelieve it will really do me good to tell you of some of the troubles I\nhave come through; it will dilute my joy.\n\n\"I don't know, Archie, old man, how ever I became a sailor.  I'm not\nquite sure, mind you, that I am altogether a sailor yet at heart, though\nI dearly love the sea, and a roving life is _the_ life for a man of my\ntemperament.  Senor is smiling; he will never admit I am a man.  But I\nhave come through _so_ much, and the years I have spent since I left the\ndear old glen have been indeed eventful, and seem a long, long time.\n\n\"But, Archie, lad, when I began my wanderings through the world, I can\ntell you my ambition was very great indeed.  I determined, you know, to\nmake my fortune, and I determined to make it in a very short time.  The\ndetails of the process of fortune-manufacture, however, didn't present\nthemselves to me, all at once anyhow.  I turned my back on Glen Alva,\nand so full was my heart that I put at least ten miles behind me before\nI sat down to rest.  I got inside a wood at last, and seated myself\nbeneath a tree, and counted my money, three shillings and\nfivepence-halfpenny!  Well, many a man has begun the world on less.\n\n\"But this money couldn't last long.  What then should I do?  I'll tell\nyou what I did do.  I fell sound asleep, and the sun was setting when I\nawoke, and flooding all the wood with mellow light.\n\n\"There was a blackbird came and perched half-way up a neighbouring\nspruce tree and began fluting.\n\n\"`Oh!'  I said half aloud, `two of us can flute.'\n\n\"So the blackbird and I piped away there till it got nearly dark.  But I\nfelt hungry now, and music is not very filling, Archie.  So I put up my\nflute and started to my feet; I felt stiff now, but it soon wore off.\n\n\"I went on and on and on, getting hungrier every minute, but there was\nno sign of village or house.  I drank some water from a rill that came\ntumbling down through a bank of ferns, and felt better.\n\n\"I was beginning to wonder where I should sleep, when the sound of merry\nlaughing voices fell upon my ear.  The party, whoever it was, came\nrapidly on towards me from among the trees.\n\n\"`Hullo, lad!' said one; `are ye comin' to the dance?'\n\n\"`Dance!'  I cried; `why, my feet are all one bag of blisters, and I'm\nfaint with hunger.  Dance, indeed!'\n\n\"`It's a puir beggar laddie,' said a girl, whose face I could hardly see\nin the uncertain light.\n\n\"`Beggar!'  I exclaimed.  `Who d'ye call a beggar?  I've a whole\npocketful of money, only I've lost the road.'\n\n\"`Come along, then,' they all cried.  `Come along with us.'\n\n\"And off we all went singing.  We struck off the road down across the\nfields, and soon I heard the music of a fiddle and saw bright lights.  A\nyoung man came out of a farmhouse to welcome us.  He told us dolefully\nthat only one fiddler had come, and plaintively asked what could be\ndone.\n\n\"`I've a flute,' I cried.\n\n\"`Hurrah!' they answered.  `Come in, my boy.'\n\n\"`The laddie maun eat first,' said the girl who had called me a beggar.\n\n\"I blessed her with all my heart, though not in words.\n\n\"What a supper they gave me!  And didn't I eat just!  I could play now,\nand we spent such a joyful night, and dawn was breaking and the\nblackbirds up and fluting again long before the merry party broke up.\n\n\"I got a bed and slept far into the day; then, after a good dinner from\nthese kind-hearted farm folks, I began my journey in search of fortune\nonce more.\n\n\"By evening I saw great grey clouds lying in the hollows before me.  It\nwas smoke.  I was nearing Glasgow, and in two hours more I was walking\nalong the Broomielaw.\n\n\"I had never seen so many people before in my life, but hardly anybody\nlooked at the shepherd lad in Highland garb.  I determined they should,\nthough.  I put my flute together, and standing near the bridge,\ncommenced to play `The Flowers of the Forest.'\n\n\"Was it the singular plaintiveness of this beautiful air, I wonder, or\nwas it that my thoughts were away back again in the glen I had left, and\nwith those I loved so dearly?  I do not know, but I seemed to become\noblivious to everything.  My very soul was breathed into the music; I\nwas speaking and appealing to the crowd through the instrument.\n\n\"The crowd!  Yes, there was a crowd.  I became aware of that as soon as\nI had finished, and money, piece after piece, was forced into my hand.\nI took the money.  I felt ashamed of it next moment, but to have gone\noff then would have seemed ungrateful.  I played still another air.\nAgain I paused.\n\n\"`No more money,' I cried aloud as I fled away.\n\n\"They must have thought the Highland boy was mad.\n\n\"Some time afterwards I found myself standing at a book-seller's window\nlooking at a picture, a ship, a gallant ship in a gale of wind.\n\n\"How I longed to be at sea then!  How I hated the bustle and stir and\ntalking and noise all round me!  That splendid ship--the sea was wild\nand rough all around her, the spray dashing over her bows; there would\nbe the roar of the wind through rigging and shroud, and the wild scream\nof sea bird rising high over the dash of the waves.  She bore it well;\nthe sheets were taut; the sails were rounded out and full.  How I longed\nto be at sea!\n\n\"A hand was laid on my shoulder.  I started and looked up.  No need to\nstart.\n\n\"A kindly face looked down into mine.\n\n\"`You are in grief of some kind, my boy,' he said, this white-haired old\ngentleman.  `Nay, don't be too proud to admit it.  Pride has been the\ndownfall of the Highland race.'\n\n\"`If you please, sir,' I replied, boldly enough now, `the Highlanders\nare not a downfallen race.'\n\n\"`I did not mean it in that way,' he said, smiling at my vehemence.\n`But come with me, boy; I know we will be friendly.'\n\n\"Where he took me, or what he said to me, I need not tell you.\n\n\"Suffice it to say that next day we left Scotland and journeyed south by\nrail, and I wept--yes, I do not now think it shame to say so, though I\nstruggled then to hide my tears--I wept to cross the border.\n\n\"`It will be such a pleasant change for you, my dear boy,' said good old\nMajor Walton--for that was the gentleman's name, and he had quite taken\nto me after hearing all my story--`a delightful change indeed after your\nown bleak, cold, wild hills.  We have a very pretty home in Hampshire.\nYou'll soon forget you were ever anywhere else.'\n\n\"The Major's home was indeed a very nice one; close to the borders of\nthe New Forest it was, and not a great way from the sea.\n\n\"But ah!  Archie, lad, everything was very foreign to me; the very trees\nlooked strange and uncouth, especially the docked pollards, that stood\nby the banks of the sluggish streams.  The style of the houses was\nstrange to me, and the lingo and talk of the people, who, in my opinion,\nwere terribly ignorant.\n\n\"The Major was kindness itself, and so were his wife, her sister, and\ntwo children.  The major had but one hobby--music.  He played the violin\nhimself, and he told me honestly that his chief reason for `taking me'--\nthese are his very words--was because I played with such feeling.\n\n\"My evenings were happy enough in this English home of mine; my days I\nspent in the garden, where I was allowed to work, or in the great\nforest.  You must not imagine, Archie, the New Forest is anything like a\ndeer forest in our own land.  There are in it no wild mountains, no deep\ndark dells, no beetling crags and cliffs, no cataracts, no foaming\ntorrents; the red deer does not toss his wide antlers here and fly\nproudly away at your approach, nor far above you in the sky do you see\nthe bird of Jove circling upwards round the sun.\n\n\"Wilson would never have said about the New Forest,--\n\n  \"`What lovely magnificence stretches around!\n  Each sight how sublime, how awful each sound;\n  All hushed and serene, like a region of dreams,\n  The mountains repose 'mid the roar of the streams.'\n\n\"But many a long day I spent roaming about in this forest, nevertheless.\n\n\"I was charmed with the solitary grandeur of the place.  I had no idea\nit was so extensive either, or so varied in its beauties.  Why, here one\nmight wander about for weeks and never weary, for he would always be\ncoming to something new.  Is this the reason, I wonder, that it is\ncalled the _New_ Forest?  New in point of time it certainly cannot be\ntermed, for everything in it and about it is old, extremely old.  The\noaks are gnarled and wrinkled, and grey with age; its elms and its ash\ntrees, its limes and its alders, are bent and distorted by the touch of\ntime, and the lichens that cling to their stems only add to their\ngeneral appearance a look of hoariness that is far from unpleasing to\nthe eye.\n\n\"Then the heather which covers the large sweeps of moorland that you see\nhere and there is very sturdy and strong, while from the furze or whins\nboats' masts could be made.\n\n\"The creatures, too, that one sees while walking through this forest,\nseem birds and beasts of some bygone time, and look as if they hardly,\nif ever, saw a human being from one year's end to the other.\n\n\"The hares or rabbits, instead of scurrying away at your approach, sit\nleisurely on one end while they wash their faces and study you.  The\nblackbirds and the mavises hardly trouble themselves to cease their song\neven when you walk close by the trees on which they are perched.  The\ngreat beetles and other members of the coleoptera tribe are far too busy\nto take the slightest notice of your presence, and the great velvety\nbees go on working and humming just as if there were no such creature as\nyou within a thousand miles of them.\n\n\"Then the voles or water rats that live in the depths of this truly\nEnglish forest are not the least curious specimens of animal life to be\nfound therein.  If you happen to be reclining anywhere near a pool that\nby long-established custom belongs to them alone, before many minutes\none, if not two of them, will come out to stare and wonder at you; they,\nlike the hares, sit up on one end to conduct their scrutiny; and they\ngaze and gaze and gaze again, digging their finger joints or knuckles\ninto their eyes, in a half-human kind of a way, to squeeze out the\nwater, and clear their sight for one more wondering look.\"\n\n[My country readers, who love nature, must have noticed the voles at\nthis queer performance.]\n\n\"What is he at all?  Where did he come from?  What is he going to do?\nThese are the questions those voles seem trying in vain to solve.\n\n\"Here in this New Forest is a silence seldom broken save by the song of\nbird or cry of some wild creature in pain, while all around you is a\nwealth of floral beauty and verdure that is charming in the extreme.\n\n\"Yes, Archie, I came ere autumn was over to love that forest well.  I\nwas not selfish enough, though, to keep all the pleasures of it quite to\nmyself, and the Major's children often accompanied me in my rambles.  I\nused to read Burns and Ossian to them.  They liked that, but they liked\nthe flute far better.  It appealed straight to their senses.\n\n\"But when autumn passed away, when the leaves fell, and the fields were\nbleak and bare, at night, when the wind moaned around the house which I\nnow called home, then, Archie, I used to dream I heard the surf beating\nin on the rugged shores of my native land.  I would start and listen,\nand long to be once more in Scotland.\n\n\"I went, one day, to the forest all alone; I went to think.\n\n\"`What are you staying here for?' perhaps said one little thought.\n`Major Walton may leave you money when he dies.'\n\n\"I smothered that thought at its birth, and crushed many more like it.\n\n\"Kind good old Major Walton!  I must tear myself away; I must be\nindependent; I must push my own way in the world.\n\n\"`Heaven help me to do so,' I prayed.  Then I took out the little old\nBible Nancy had given me, Archie, and I found some comfort there.\n\n\"I was putting it back again in my bosom when a little card dropped out;\nI picked it up.  On it were pressed these, Archie.\"\n\nKenneth took the Book from his breast as he spoke, and opening it,\nhanded the card to Archie.\n\n\"I know,\" said the latter: \"the primrose and the bit of heather.\"\n\n\"Yes, dear boy, foolish of me, I know; but I have never parted with\nthem, and if I go to Davy Jones's locker--as we sailors say--if I am\ndrowned, Archie, these flowers will sink with me.\n\n\"But on that winter's day in the forest, Archie, these flowers seemed to\nspeak to me, or rather the golden-haired child spoke to me through these\nflowers.  I was back again on the hills above Glen Alva walking by her\nside; the sky above us was blue and clear, the clouds on the horizon\nlooking like snow-white feathers, and the bees making drowsy music among\nthe pinky heath.\n\n\"I started up, and the vision fled, and around me were only the bare\nbleak forest trees and the fading heather.  The vision fled, but it left\nin my breast the desire stronger now than ever to make my own way in the\nworld, by the blessing of Providence; and Providence has never deserted\nme yet, Archie, lad.\n\n\"I went straight home.  I saw Major Walton, and talked to him, and told\nhim all.\n\n\"He seemed sorry.  The last words he said to me when I went away--and\nthere was moisture in the old man's eyes as he spoke--were these:--\n\n\"`Mind, I'm not tired of you, and I hope to live to meet you once\nagain.'\n\n\"I went to Southampton next day.  I thought I had nothing to do but\nmarch on board some outward-bound ship, that they would be glad to have\nme.\n\n\"Alas!  I was disappointed.\"\n\n[The author hopes some boy who meditates running away to sea may read\nthese lines.]\n\n\"I was rudely jostled and laughed at, I was called a Scot, a Sawnie, a\nJohnny-raw, but work was never once offered me.\n\n\"I wandered about the streets, not knowing what to do.  The few coins I\nhad in my possession did not last many days.\n\n\"I felt sad and unhappy.  I felt almost sorry I had left the good people\nwho had done so much for me.  The `bairnies' had been in tears when I\nwent away; even the black-and-tan terrier had followed me a long way\ndown the road, and looked very `wae and wistfu'' at me with his brown\nbeseeching eyes when I said he must go back.\n\n\"For two whole days I had hardly anything to eat.  My flute, that I was\nfain to fall back upon, failed to support me, for the English, Archie,\nhave not so much music and romance in their souls as the Scotch have.\nBut one thing the English have is this, Archie, sound common-sense and a\nlove of derring-do.\n\n\"I was standing one day on the pier at Plymouth.  I had played my way\nwith my flute all this distance in the hopes of getting a ship.  I was\nno more successful than before.\n\n\"On this particular day, Archie, the drum was up [the storm signal], the\nwind blew cold and high, and the seas tossed their white manes as they\nrushed each other up the bay.  I was feeling very sad and disconsolate,\nwhen all at once I heard a voice say to a man beside me,--\n\n\"`I'll give a guinea to be taken out to yonder ship.'\n\n\"`I don't care to win no guinea,' said the fellow addressed, a hulking\nboatman in a rough blue jersey.  `I don't care to win no guinea on a day\nlike this.  'Sides, sir, I hain't got no mate.'\n\n\"`I'll go,' I cried.\n\n\"`You!' said the gentleman; `why, you're but a child.'\n\n\"`I'm a Scotch boy,' I replied, `and I know boating well.'\n\n\"`All right, my lad; jump in.'\n\n\"It took us nearly an hour, but we did it.\n\n\"I was very wet, and the gentleman kindly took me below, and gave me\nwarm coffee.\n\n\"`Now,' he said, `I'm going to give you half a guinea, and the man half,\nfor if he has to change the gold, he will cheat you.'\n\n\"`Are you captain of this ship, sir?'  I asked.\n\n\"`I am, lad; I'm all that is for the captain.'\n\n\"`Well, sir,' I said, `give the man all the guinea, and take me with you\nas a boy.'\n\n\"I then told him all my story.\n\n\"`We don't sail for a week,' he said, `and if in that time you get your\nmother's consent, I'll be glad to have so plucky a youngster on board my\ncraft.'\n\n\"My dear mother gave her consent, as you know, Archie; and so I became a\nsailor and a wanderer.\"\n\nI have but epitomised Kenneth's story.  He took much longer time to tell\nit than I, the author of this little book, am doing, and besides, there\nwas much conversation interspersed with it betwixt him and his old\nfriend Archie.\n\nThe moon was high up above the forest trees before he finished, shedding\na flood of golden light over mountain and sea, so, promising to resume\nhis narrative next evening, Kenneth arose, and soon after all was silent\nand dark inside this peaceful cottage.\n\nCHAPTER THIRTEEN.\n\nKENNETH'S STORY (CONTINUED)--AT THE CAVE.\n\n  \"On, on the vessel flies; the land is gone,\n  And winds are rude in Biscay's sleepless bay;\n  Four days are sped, but with the fifth anon,\n  New shores descried make every bosom gay.\"\n\n  Byron.\n\nScene: The Spanish Senor and his two guests, Kenneth and Archie, once\nmore together, not in the mountain cottage to-night, but in a cave,\nclose down by the edge of the sea.  It was the sea that was lisping on\nthe sands not far from where they sat on the rocks, but the view beyond\nwas one of moonlight, trees, rocks, and water combined, altogether very\nbeautiful, and in some respects almost English-like.\n\nYes, now by moonlight it looked thoroughly English, but if by day you\nhad rowed round these rocks, you would soon have been undeceived, for\nsharks in dozens visited the deep water, and in the cracks beyond were\nalligators, active and strong, and very hideous-looking crabs often\ncrawled up the wet black cliffs; and among the trees themselves were\ngreat snakes, deadly and venomous; but it all looked very quiet and\nlovely now.\n\nKenneth was fond of caves, and there were plenty of them about here.  He\nkept his boat in one.  That very day, together the two friends had\nlaunched it, and spent all the long hours of sunlight in sailing or\nrowing about among the lovely islands of this sparkling sea, that look\non a calm day as if they were actually afloat not in the water, but in\nthe sky itself.\n\n\"My life,\" said Kenneth, resuming his narrative of the day before, \"my\nlife, I thought, was going to be all rose-tinted now.\n\n\"Alas!  Archie, lad, I soon found it quite the reverse, and it does\nreally seem to me that those writers of books who paint a sailor's\nexistence as one long picnic do grievous wrong to the young folks who\nread them.\n\n\"A sailor's life is like the billowy ocean on which he resides, all ups\nand downs, Archie.\"\n\n\"I can easily believe that,\" said his friend.\n\n\"But Captain Pendrey was very good to me, and there was an old boatswain\non board who became my friend from the very first.  He taught me to\nreef, to splice, and to steer, ay, and a deal more; in fact, during the\ntwo years I sailed in the old _Miranda_, he made a man of me.\n\n\"You see, Archie, I was already so far a seaman that I was not afraid of\nthe ocean; and I was good at an oar.\n\n\"I was downright seasick when I first went out of Plymouth Sound.  We\nhad a head wind, and being only a sailing craft, had to beat and beat\nfor days.  I didn't care much then what became of me.  But the rough old\nbo'sun came and shook me up--I was lying nearly dead on a\nsea-chest--`Pull yourself together, youngster.  Go on deck,' he said,\n`and look at the waves.  Ain't they mountains, just!  It won't do to\ngive in.'\n\n\"I did go on deck and look at the waves, just for a moment.  A green sea\ncame thundering over the bows, took me off my legs, and washed me away\ndown into the lee-scuppers, where I would have been drowned if the\nbo'sun hadn't caught me up.\n\n\"`I'm not going below again, though,' I said to myself.\n\n\"Nor did I.\n\n\"The boats were all on board; I got into one of these as night fell,\nlashed myself to a thwart, and wet though I was, I slept with my head on\na coil of ropes all through that stormy night.  Stiff in the morning?\nYes, a little, but I was better.  I got my clothes off, and a man dashed\nbuckets of sea water over me, and this revived me so much that I went\nbelow.\n\n\"The men in my mess were at breakfast; they were sitting on deck, jammed\ninto corners anyhow, with their sou'wester hats between their legs to\nsteady their coffee mugs.\n\n\"`Salt pork, my lad,' said the bo'sun.  `You're just at that stage that\nsalt pork will turn the scale.'\n\n\"I took the hunk of pork he gave me and devoured it.\n\n\"Well, the bo'sun was right.  It did turn the scale with a vengeance: I\nwent on deck and hove the lead apparently.  The steward passed me and\nsaid,--\n\n\"`You're not sick, are you, Sandie?'\n\n\"`No,' I said, `I'm only shamming.  Ugh!'\n\n\"But by the time we were over the bay I was as sea-fast as any one on\nboard.  I got my sea legs, too.\n\n\"How blue the sea was now!  How white the birds that skimmed over its\nsurface!  And the sails of ships that appeared in the distance were like\nsnow when the sun shone over them.\n\n\"It wasn't all sunshine even then, for a smart breeze was blowing, and\ncloud shadows chasing each other over the sea, just as I had often seen\nthem do over fields of ripening grain in Glen Alva.\n\n\"I settled down to sea-life very easily now and very naturally.  I soon\nknew every rope and spar and bolt in her, and was as happy as the\nsea-gulls.  I cannot say more.\n\n\"We touched at Madeira, and here the captain took me on shore, and all\nover the place.  What an isle of romance and beauty it is!\n\n\"We called in both at Saint Helena and Ascension, the former not the\nlonely sea-girt rock that old books describe, but a charming island of\nmountain, strath, and glen.  Nor did I find Ascension to be a cinder\nwith a few turtles on its beach.  It has been cultivated to a wonderful\nextent, and I never did see a bluer, brighter ocean than that which\nlaves its shores.  The Cape of Good Hope hove in sight at last.  I\nwatched its bold and rugged coast as we came nearer and still more near\nto it.\n\n\"It was but like a long irregular cloud lying along the horizon at\nfirst.  Then this cloud grew higher and darker and more defined.  Then\nit grew bluer in parts, and lines stood boldly out towards us, then it\nturned blue and purple, oh! so lovely, and last of all it was a cloud no\nlonger, but mountains stern and wild, and braelands covered half-way up\nwith purple heath and wild flowers--geraniums I found afterwards these\nwere--with rocks on the shore and a long white line of surf and sand.\n\n\"We did our business at the Cape and bore up for Australia.\n\n\"What a stretch of sea we had to cross, and what a length of time it was\nere we reached Sydney!\n\n\"But I was not idle all these months.  It was so good of Captain\nPendrey, but he seemed to take a delight in teaching me navigation.  He\nflattered me, too, I fear.\n\n\"`You're far too good and bright a boy,' he said, `to stick before the\nmast.'\n\n\"So I worked and worked not only to please him, but because there was a\nprospect of my one day walking on the snowy quarter-deck of some\nbeautiful barque, her proud commander.\n\n\"Every one on board loved our captain, although they called him the old\nman behind his back.  From Australia we went to Hong Kong, then to\nCeylon, from there to Calcutta, and then back again to Ceylon, and\nreturned to India, lying up for repairs at the city of Bombay.  And my\nkind captain never once went on shore without taking me with him, so\nthat I saw so much that was strange in life, lad, that I could sit and\ntalk in this cave for a month if my good friend here would bring us\nprog, and then I wouldn't have half told you all my strange experiences.\n\n\"I had been now nearly two years at sea, and had passed one examination,\nso things were looking up.\n\n\"I dearly loved the sea and sea-life now.  I would not have changed\nplaces with a land-lubber for all the world.\n\n\"We had many narrow escapes, of course, for our ship was a clipper, and\nthe captain `cracked on.'  He did not mind risk so long as he made good\nvoyages.  But somehow I never dreamt of danger, not even while in the\ncentre of a tornado in the Indian Ocean at night, and if there be a more\nfearful experience than that in the life of a mariner, I have yet to\nencounter it.\n\n\"Nor did I dream of danger even when seated of a night under the bright\nstars at the fo'c'stle head, while the men spun yarn after yarn of the\nawful dangers they had come through.\n\n\"`I've been wrecked often and often,' said our old `bo'sun' one night.\n`I was in the _Bombay_ when she was burned; I was a man-o'-war's man\nthen.  Ah!  Kennie, lad, it is a fearful thing, a fire at sea.  I hope\nyou'll never see a burning ship.  Over seventy of my shipmates were\ndoomed that night, and some of them met worse deaths than drowning.\n\n\"`Another time,' he went on, `I was the only one saved out of a gunboat.\nI was taken off a bit of wreckage and rigging by the lifeboat after\ndrifting about for twelve wet, cold, weary hours.  Strange thing was\nthis.  I had been made captain of the foretop only a week before we were\nwrecked.  'Tis funny, mate, but it was on that same foretop I floated\nabout so long.  He! he!  I was captain of the foretop then, and no\nmistake, and monarch of all I surveyed.'\n\n\"Just three weeks after this particular evening, Archie, I was away\naloft one beautiful day.  We were well down over the line, and bearing\nabout South-South-East.\n\n\"There was a kind of haze over the ocean that day which made seeing\ndistinctly difficult at any great distance, but I noticed what at first\nsight I thought was a bird or a shark's fin.  I hailed the deck as soon\nas I made out it was something afloat with men on it.\n\n\"`Where away?' came the reply.\n\n\"On pointing in the direction, the yards were trimmed, and we soon got\nnearer.\n\n\"The sight that met my eyes I will not forget till my dying day.  The\nsurvivors of a ship that had foundered they were, half-naked, half-dead,\nsun-blistered, sinking wretches, five in all.\n\n\"They had been afloat on a raft for nine days without food to eat, and\nwith hardly a drop of water to quench their awful thirst.\n\n\"From that day, Archie, I began to think that a sailor's life had its\ndark as well as its rosy side.\n\n\"A year after this grief came.  We were homeward bound.  We got nearly\nto the Cape, and there our ship was dashed on a lee-shore, and I lost\ntwo of the best friends ever I had at sea, our poor captain and the dear\nold bo'sun.\n\n\"I was landed at Symon's Town at last, and there, Archie, I got your\nletter, and found I was an orphan.  And all this great grief came to me\nwithin a fortnight.\n\n\"I had been bound for English shores; my hopes beat high; in a few\nmonths longer, at most, I would once again clasp my dear mother in my\narms, once more visit my home.  Changed I knew the glen would be, but\nold friends would give me a warm greeting.\n\n\"Heigho! the blow fell; I determined not to return, and, Archie, from\nthat day to this I have been a wanderer.\n\n\"But bless Providence for all His mercies!  Archie, lad, I'm not badly\noff, and I have you.\n\n\"Shake hands, old boy.  Now I've been doing all the talking, I shall\ntake it out of you next, for I dearly love to hear your voice.\n\n\"Senor Gasco, _mon ami_, suppose we launch our little boat, and be off.\nI'm longing for supper and longing to sit down and rest in our mountain\ncottage.  I don't think I've been so happy for many and many a long\nyear.\n\n\"Come along, Archie.  How lovely the moonlight is playing over the\nwater!\"\n\nCHAPTER FOURTEEN.\n\nFRIDAY NIGHT AT SEA.\n\n  \"Now round the galley fire the merry crew,\n  With song and yarn and best of cheer,\n  Have gathered.  And storms may rage, and seas may rise,\n  And thunders roll; they know not fear.\"\n\n  Anon.\n\nScene: A ship at sea, south of the Cape of Good Hope.  A steamer\nevidently from her build, though the funnel has been lowered, and a gale\nof wind is roaring through her rigging, bellying out the few sails she\nis able to carry till it looks as though the cloth would bust.  She is\nmaking heavy weather, dipping the ends of her long yards right into the\nwater, and plunging so much, that at times neither her jib-boom nor bows\nare visible in the foam and spray.  She must be shipping tons of water.\nLooking at her as we are now doing with the eye of imagination, it would\nseem there could be little else save discomfort on board of her.  And\nthe night, too, is closing around her dark and thick.  The sea is very\ntroubled, the waves are racing, brawling, foam-crested billows,\nlightning plays around the ship every now and then, and thunders hurtle\nin the air, the awful noise appearing to run along over the sea.  But\nlet us go on board of her.\n\nHere are Kenneth and Archie.  Neither is on duty.  Kenneth's watch will\ncome on deck at midnight.  Archie, who is engineer of this craft, may be\ncalled upon at any moment to stir up the banked fires and get up steam.\n\nThis is the ship in which Kenneth has been second mate for eighteen\nmonths, including the time he lay sick or roamed convalescent on the\nSouth American shore, where Archie found him.  They have bidden farewell\nto that beautiful coast, which in some parts is so enchanting, with its\nwealth of vegetation, its grand old woods, its fruit trees, its\nflower-trees, its flowers themselves, the life and loveliness that teems\neverywhere on the earth, in the air, in the sea, on the little islands,\ngreen and feathery, that peep up here and there out of the blue, on\nmountain top, and even in its caves, that I feel sad as well as\nsorrowful.  I cannot pause to describe it all.\n\nBut why should I?  My descriptions, after all, would fall flat on the\nsenses of the reader, even with the aid of the best of illustrations,\nfor no artist can give colour and movement combined.  Go, reader, and\nsee the world for yourself if you feel so inclined, and if ever you have\nthe chance, I can tell you from long experience it is a very beautiful\none.\n\n\"Well,\" said Kenneth, \"we came up here, Archie, lad, to have a walk, but\nI don't see much chance.  What a night it is going to be!  How black the\nsky!  How vivid the lightning!  How close the horizon is--\"\n\nThe last part of Kenneth's sentence was lost in a peal of thunder.\n\n\"Stand by!  Jump, Archie.  There is a comber.\"\n\nThey both leapt on the top of the capstan as an immense green sea swept\nover the bows and came tearing aft, carrying everything movable before\nit.\n\nWhen it passed away, and the water found partial exit by the scuppers,--\n\n\"I don't think there will be much pleasure in a walk to-night, Kennie,\"\nsaid Archie.  \"Wouldn't I like to be back again on that flower mountain\nof yours!\"\n\n\"Poor dear old Gasco!\" said Kennie with a sigh.  \"You find good among\npeople of all nations.\"\n\n\"He was very sad when you bade him good-bye.\"\n\n\"Yes, and I won't forget his last words.  They are so true `Farewell,'\nhe sighed rather than said, `farewell, if farewell it must be.  This\nmeeting to part, and meeting _but_ to part with those one gets to love,\nis one of the most soul-sobering feelings attached to our lot here\nbelow.  Ah!' he continued, lifting up a finger--you know his style,\nArchie--`Ah! my young friend, what a joyful place heaven must be, if\nonly for this one reason, we shall meet all our dear, dear friends\nagain, and parting will be unknown!  Farewell; we'll meet Yonder, if not\non earth again.'\"\n\nThere was a pause in the conversation, filled in by the whistling wind\nand the ceaseless rush of the dashing waves.\n\n\"Well,\" said Archie at last, \"I cannot say that a night like this,\nKennie, makes one feel enamoured of a sailor's life.\"\n\n\"You must take the shadow as well as the sunshine, though,\" returned\nKenneth.  \"You would rather be back at my boathouse cave, I daresay, at\nCotago, launching the tub for a pleasant day among the islands, wouldn't\nyou?\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed.  Stand by; there is another wave.\"\n\n\"Hark?\" said Kennie during a lull.  \"They are singing forward, round the\ngalley fire.  I've a good mind to go and join them; will you come? a\nsecond officer can do what a first can't.\"\n\n\"Yes, take your flute; that will be an excuse.\"\n\nGiven a trim ship and plenty of sea room, and it isn't all the wind that\ncan blow that will succeed in lowering the spirits of the British\nsailor.\n\nThe jolliest of the crew of the _Brilliant_ were seated to-night near\nthe galley fire, or they clung to lockers or lay on the deck; it is all\nthe same.  It was cold enough to make a fire pleasant and agreeable, and\nthey were all within speaking distance; they had pipes and tobacco and\nplates of sea-pie, for it was Friday night, the old custom of making\nFriday a kind of Banian day being still kept up in some vessels of the\nmerchant service.\n\n\"Hullo!  Mr McAlpine,\" cried the carpenter.  \"Right welcome, sir.  And\nyou too, Mr McCrane.  Glad to see the smiling faces of the pair of you.\nAin't we, mates?\"\n\n\"That we are,\" and \"that we be,\" came the ready chorus.\n\n\"Some sea-pie, gentlemen,\" said the cook, handing each a steaming basin\nof that most savoury dish.\n\n\"I made it,\" cried the bo'sun.\n\n\"Not all,\" cried another.  \"I rolled the paste.\"\n\n\"And I cut the beef.\"\n\n\"And I sliced the bacon.\"\n\n\"And I chopped the onions.\"\n\n\"And I pared the 'taters.\"  This last from the cabin-boy.\n\n\"Ha! ha! ha!\" roared the jolly carpenter.  \"I say, maties, blowed if we\nhaven't all had a hand in the pie.\"\n\n\"Well, it is jolly eating anyhow,\" said Kenneth.\n\n\"The smell of it's enough to raise a dying man,\" quoth Archie.\n\n\"Bravo, sir,\" cried the bo'sun, \"and I hopes it makes ye both 'appy.\"\n\n\"Happy, yes,\" said Kenneth.  \"I'm so happy now, I can sing and play.\"\n\n\"Oh I give us a toot on the old flute first.\"\n\nKenneth gave them \"a toot.\"\n\n\"Now give us a song.\"\n\n\"Let the gentleman take his breath,\" the carpenter remonstrated.\n\n\"Never a breath,\" persisted the bo'sun.  \"He must pay his footin', I\nsays.  And I warrant you, too, he has as much pleasure in singing as we\nhas in listenin' to 'im.\"\n\n\"Oh! shut up, old Barkshire,\" said somebody.\n\n\"Barkshire be bothered,\" cried the bo'sun.  \"I'm not ashamed to own my\nshire.  You comes from the land o' _Tres_ and _Pens_; you're\nwest-country, you be.  Have to fish for your breakfast every mornin',\nelse ye doesn't get none: He! he!\"\n\n\"Well, never mind,\" said the good-natured carpenter, smiling.  \"We're\nall nationalities here.  Bill here is York; Tim is Irish; I'm just what\nPipes calls me, Barkshire.\"\n\n\"And I and my friend are Scotch,\" said Kenneth.\n\n\"Hurrah! for a Scotch song, then.\"\n\nIt wasn't one, but several songs Kennie and Archie had to sing, but all\nScotch, and what can beat them, reader mine?\n\n  \"Sing ony o' the auld Scotch sangs,\n      The blithesome or the sad;\n  They mak' me laugh when I am wae,\n      And weep when I am glad.\n  Though eyes grow dim and hair grow grey,\n      Until the day I dee,\n  I'll bless the Scottish tongue that sings\n      The auld Scotch sangs to me.\"\n\nThere was no satisfying his audience, so once more Kennie had to fall\nback upon the flute.  While playing, a heavy sea struck the vessel on\nthe weather bow, and the water came tumbling down the hatchway; although\nit rushed forward among the men and hissed against the hot iron fending\nof the copper, they hardly shifted their positions.\n\nBut Kenneth played a selection of the best English, Irish, Scotch, and\nWelsh airs now, now merry, now plaintive and sad, now almost wailing,\nand anon merry again, once more.\n\nThere was a perfect chorus of applause when he had finished.  The old\nbo'sun must crawl over to the corner where the musician was--although,\nowing to the motion of the ship, it was no easy task--and shake Kenneth\nby the hand.\n\n\"God bless you, young sir,\" he said, and the tears were in his eyes.  \"I\nwas back in bonnie Berkshire all the time you was a-playin', sir.  I saw\nmy children, sir, runnin' among the daisies, the crimson poppies growin'\namong the corn's green, the waving lime trees all in flower and covered\nwith bees--ah! sir, you took the old man home, you took him home.\"\n\n\"Don't talk twaddle,\" cried his tormentor; \"he took us all home, for the\nmatter o' that.\"\n\n\"Sit down, ye ould fool!\" cried Tim O'Flaherty.\n\nKenneth put up his flute, and the bo'sun sat down beside him.\n\n\"Hark to the thunder!\" he said; \"listen to the thud o' the seas.  My\neye! it is a night and a half.  Just like the night we went over in the\nold _Salanella_.\"\n\n\"Went over!\" cried the carpenter.  \"What d'ye mean?\"\n\n\"Why, I means what I says, to be sure.  We turned turtle.  Every soul\nbelow was called to his account, and only myself and five more managed\nto cling to the keel.\"\n\n\"She must have been a barnacley old tub,\" said the cook, \"else you\nwouldn't ha' got over the copper.\"\n\n\"You just mind your ladle, old man,\" said the carpenter.  \"You're only a\ncook, arter all, and Pipes knows what he's a-talking about.\"\n\n\"O' course I does,\" said Pipes.  \"Thank ye, Chips; it ain't very often\nyou takes my part.  O' course I knows what I'se a-talkin' about.  The\nkeel rolled over to us, and we easily got on top.\"\n\n\"Suffer much?\"\n\nPipes did not look at the speaker, but away into vacancy as if he were\nrecalling the past.\n\n\"Suffer!\" he said.  \"I hope it may never be the lot o' anybody in this\ngalley to know what we suffered.  For three days and nights o' storm I\nand one other clung to that ship's bottom; the rest dropped off one by\none or slipped willingly into the sea, glad to end their terrible\nmisery.\n\n\"I never did think the ocean was so vast and empty-like till then,\nmates.  All the weary days we did nothing but gaze and gaze around us,\nand hope and hope, and pray and pray.  Well, blessed be His name, mates,\nGod heard our prayers at last.  A ship--'twas the second we'd seen, for\nthe first took no notice of us--bore down and took us off, and that was\nno easy task in the condition our misery had reduced us to.\"\n\n\"Listen,\" cried one of the men.\n\nThere were three distinct knocks on the deck with a heavy boot; [A plan\nadopted in some merchant ships for calling the attention of those below\nto an order about to be given] then a stentorian voice sang down the\nhatchway,--\n\n\"All hands, shorten sail!  Look alive there, lads.  Tumble up.  Tumble\nup.\"\n\nA fiercer squall than any the vessel had yet encountered struck her\nbefore the men had time to reach the yards, and the sails they would\nhave furled were rent into ribbons, and the noise they made as they\nfluttered out in the breeze was like the volley-firing of a company of\nsoldiers.  It was two hours before those whose watch was not on deck got\nback to the galley fire.  It had just gone eight bells in the last dog\nwatch, so the evening was still young.\n\nCHAPTER FIFTEEN.\n\nCHRISTMAS DAY IN THE DOLDRUMS.\n\n  \"See the pudding, hear the fun;\n  The laugh and joke and glee;\n  The ship may in the Doldrums lie,\n  But--'tis Christmas Day at sea.\"\n\n  Anon.\n\nScene: A ship in the Doldrums.  It is the saucy _Brilliant_.  She has\nbeen to Calcutta, and is now on her way back to the Cape.  And it is\nChristmas Day, and she ship is in the Doldrums.  Longitude 90 degrees\nEast; latitude nothing at all, for she is as nearly \"on top o' the\n'quator,\" as Jack calls it, as possible.  She encountered a tornado\nfarther north, which gives the reason for her being now somewhat out of\nher course.  But she stood it well, and to see her now, with her long\nblack lines, her tapering spars, and snow-white decks, you could not\nbelieve that but a fortnight before she had hardly a morsel of bulwark\nleft, that, in fact, the bulwarks were more like sheep hurdles than\nanything shipshape.\n\nThe Doldrums!  There isn't a breath of wind; the surface of the great\nrolling waves is as smooth as polished steel, and much about the same\ncolour.  The sun is beating straight down from a blue but cruelly hot\nsky.  The pitch is soft in the deck seams; the men in the stoke-hole are\nto be pitied.\n\nYes, steam is up, there is a frothy wake behind her, and her bows cut\nthrough the water like a knife.\n\nBut the awning is spread all over the quarter-deck, and her tables are\nlaid, for the captain is a right good fellow, and the men are all coming\nto dine with him.\n\nThey are dropping aft even now, one by one or twos and twos, somewhat\nshy-looking, but with beaming faces, and dressed in their best,\nbare-footed, in blue serge pants and clean spruce white jerseys.\n\n\"How different Christmas in the Doldrums is,\" said Captain Smith, \"from\nwhat we are used to have it at home in old England.  Sit in, men; no\nceremony to-day.  Mr McAlpine, you'll carve the beef.  Mr McCrane, I'm\nsure you will show the men a good example at your end of the table.\nNow, doctor, will you ask a blessing?\"\n\nFiddles were placed across the table--long sticks shipped together by\npieces of line--and the cloth was laid over that, so that, in spite of\nthe incessant and most uneasy motion of the vessel, the dishes\nthemselves were kept fairly steady.\n\nAs soon as eating was well commenced, tongues were loosed, and the\nconversation flowed freely enough, and why should it not?  The captain\nwas jolly, frank, and open, and his officers gentlemen in manners, so\nthe men were not afraid to speak before them.\n\nYarn followed yarn, and tale tale, but all short and crisp; the captain\njoked himself, and encouraged his men to joke, so that, despite the\nheat, it really was a very pleasant Christmas dinner-party.\n\nBut the coming of the pudding was the great event.  For, you see, it was\nan immensely large one, and as the ship rolled so much, the danger of\nits being sent flying into the scuppers before reaching the table, and\nbeing all smashed, was very great indeed.\n\nEven the night before, the captain had commissioned the doctor to\nsuperintend its safe delivery.  And that worthy had positively got Chips\nto make a kind of ambulance stretcher, partly canvas and partly bamboo\ncane, to put the trencher on, and this was borne by two men.\n\n\"Now,\" said the captain, when the roast beef had been taken away, \"are\nyou all ready, doctor?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said the man of physic, wiping the sweat off his brow.  \"I'm all\nready if the pudding is.\"\n\n\"The cook's waiting, sir,\" said the steward, who was trying to steady\nhimself by keeping firm hold of the mizen rigging.\n\n\"Well, here's for off,\" said the surgeon, getting up.\n\n\"Do your duty like a man,\" cried the captain, laughing, as the doctor\nwent staggering forward.  \"And keep to your legs, doctor, keep to your\nlegs.\"\n\nThere was silence now around the table for many long anxious minutes.\n\nIt was a solemn time.  There was nothing to be heard but the throb-throb\nof the engines--the beating of the ship's great heart.\n\nWould the doctor and his party succeed in landing the pudding aft?  That\nwas the great question for the time being, which every one was asking\nhimself.  Would the pudding arrive in safety?\n\nEvery eye was turned forward.\n\nBehold, they come.  Their heads are already above the fore hatch.\nSlowly they emerge, and stand for a moment swaying hither and thither.\nThe doctor heads the procession.  The cook himself brings up the rear.\nNow the doctor's voice is heard.\n\n\"Are you all ready again, men?\"\n\n\"All ready, sir.\"\n\n\"Steady, then; steady as you go.  March!\"\n\nHow steady they move!  How quietly!  A soldier's funeral is nothing to\nit!  How they rock, and how they sway, taking advantage of every seeming\nbreak in the ship's motion, cautioning each other with uplifted fingers,\nthe doctor with his left hand over the prize, the cook with his right,\nready to clutch it if it moves, ready to fall with it if it falls.\n\nNearer and nearer they come.  Nearer and nearer the great IT--the\npudding--comes.  And now it is almost alongside the captain and the\nexpectant crew, when--oh moment of grief and horror!--the ship gives a\nfearful lurch, and the whole procession, pudding and all, is sent flying\nacross the deck and brought up all of a heap close under the port\nbulwarks.\n\nA groan of disappointment rises up from the table.  The pudding is\nsmashed to pieces, of course.  No, for see--bravo! the doctor--he has\nclutched the trencher at a critical moment.  Phoenix-like, he uprises\nwith it from that chaos of arms and legs.  He watches the chance.  He\ngives one quick glance around him, at sea, at sky, at moving ship.  He\nstakes his honour, his fame, and the very existence of that glorious\nglobe of fragrant dough on one bold manoeuvre.  Bearing it high over his\nhead, he glides, he slides, he skates, one might say, towards the table;\nand in shorter time by far than it takes me to describe the gallant\ndeed, he plumps the \"great champion of the pudding race\" down in front\nof the captain's pile of plates.\n\n\"Hurrah! hurrah!\"\n\nWhy, the very sharks deep down in the ocean's blackest depths heard the\nshout; they took it for a battle-cry, and came surface-wards in all\nhaste, making sure of a glorious feast.  And an answering shout came up\nfrom the engine-room, where the stokers were at work.  For they knew\nthat the pudding was safely landed, and that their share would shortly\ncome.\n\nAnd the captain must needs shake the doctor by the hand, while tears of\njoy and admiration stood in his eyes.\n\n\"Doctor,\" he said, \"you're a brick, sir, a brick and a half, sir.  I\nnever saw a bolder move.  I never saw anything so pluckily done in my\nlife before.  I'm proud of my surgeon, proud of you.\"\n\nThen he sat down.\n\nThe doctor made some reply, which was hardly heard amid the exclamations\nof accord in the captain's speech, which uprose from all round the\ntable.\n\nA rough old sea-dog of a doctor he was, too, a thorough sailor.  Any one\ncould have seen that at a glance.  Rough he was, yet kindly-hearted, and\nthere was not a man on board, from the captain to the Kroo boy who\nhelped the cook, who wouldn't have risked his life for their surgeon.\n\nI leave you to guess whether or not justice was done to that Christmas\nplum-pudding.  Indeed, I only wish you could have seen the happy smiling\nfaces that now surrounded the table, and really--though it was not\npolite of them--several of the crew had no less than _three_ helps, for\n\"Cut and come again\" was the captain's motto on this Christmas Day in\nthe Doldrums.\n\nWell, of course songs and yarns followed dinner.  The captain told a\nstory, Archie told a story, Kenneth sang and played, the old bo'sun\ncalled Pipes had something queer to say, and so had the carpenter called\nChips.\n\n\"Now then, doctor,\" cried the captain.  \"It's your turn.  Tell us\nsomething good.\"\n\nThe doctor cleared his throat.\n\n\"I'll do my best, sir,\" said the doctor with a modest smile.\n\nCHAPTER SIXTEEN.\n\nFROZEN UP IN THE NORTH.\n\n  \"Now hie' we to the Norlan seas\n  And far-off fields of ice.\"\n\n  Anon.\n\n\"It is twenty years ago!  Twenty years ago!  Twenty years!\" began the\ndoctor.\n\n\"Yes, I own to it; no need for this matter-of-fact memory of mine to\nnudge me so, and keep on reminding me of the flight of sly old Father\nTime.  'Tis twenty years ago this very summer since I sailed away to\nPolar seas, in a small but sturdy brig of barely three hundred tons.  A\nmedical student I was, in charge of fifty men, all told, and with all a\nmedical student's audacity and ignorance of the noble profession to\nwhich I have now the honour to belong.  What cared I then if half the\ncrew fell ill?  There was plenty of medicine in the chest.  I would do\nmy best, and dose them.  Well, if, after being dosed, they should die,\nwhy, the sea was deep enough--they should not want for decent burial!\nAnd what cared I that a fearful accident might take place, and heads be\ngashed, and limbs be crushed?  There were surgical instruments _galore_\non board, practice makes perfect, and if my patients succumbed after an\noperation, well, every dog has his day, and the _post hoc propter hoc_\nargument has been proved to be unsound.\n\n\"Gentlemen, have ever you roughed it in the Arctic Ocean, in a bit of a\nship so small that a schoolboy, with average length of legs, could clear\nits decks from binnacle to bowsprit with a hop, step, and jump, the\nsaloon not larger than two railway compartments, your state-room not\nhalf so big as one?  Have you been in a gale of wind in such a craft?\nWas she on her beam-ends, with the cold, green seas, curling higher and\nhigher as they advanced, forming awful arches of water, into which the\nvessel seemed to be sucked, and which broke, not _on_, but over and\nbeyond her?  Have you been ice-logged in a sea-way in such a vessel, no\nland, nor even a berg, in sight--only the restless waves, that twanged\nand hummed, and sang in the frosty air as they passed you, with bows and\nbulwarks, decks and spars, and rigging and blocks, mere shapes of ice,\nand ice alone to all appearance, the men's caps and coats, and hair and\nbeards, so white with the freezing spray, that they looked, as they\nmoved to and fro on the slippery decks, like the ghostly crew of a ghost\nship?  Have you been in such a craft when she was being squeezed in this\npack, the one dark spot in the midst of a limitless plain of dazzling\nsnow-clad ice, all lifting and rolling and moving with the pressure of\nthe invisible waves that are passing swiftly underneath?  Have you ever\nheard the terrible sounds an ice-pack emits, when the swell from a\ndistant storm comes sweeping under it, the groaning, the wailing,\ngrinding, griding noise, as if the ocean on which you stood were filled\nwith old-world monsters in their dying agonies?  Have you ever listened\nto the roaring thunder of a lofty iceberg rent in pieces, and falling\nheadlong into the sea?  Have you stood on the pack and seen two bergs\ncrush an acre of bay ice between them, piling the pieces one over the\nother, like leaves of a book or cards in a pack, till they stood high as\nthe tallest tree in a forest of pines?  Have you been out alone on the\nice-field at night, far away from your ship, amid a silence that, like\nEgyptian darkness, could be felt, watching the glorious tints of the--\n\n  \"`Aurora Borealis race,\n  That flit ere you can point their place?'\n\n\"And, even while gazing and admiring, have you seen dark clouds roll\nrapidly up from the horizon and blot this aurora out, so that ere you\ncould reach your brig you were surrounded by swirling drift and blinding\nsnow, more dangerous far than the sand-storms that sweep over the Soudan\ndeserts, with the thunder rattling close o'erhead, and the bewildering\nlightning in swift diffusive gleams intensifying the cave-like darkness\nthat followed?\n\n\"If such experiences have not been yours, you may have been tossed about\non the giant waves of the broad Atlantic, you may have weathered the\nCape in a gale, and the Horn in a snow-storm, you may have sweltered for\nweeks in a rolling calm under a tropical sun, and been the sport of a\ntornado in the Indian Ocean, yet there are wonders in the mighty deep\nseen by some who go down to the sea in ships to which you are a total\nstranger.  From beginning to end, our voyage in that little brig, twenty\nyears ago, was a non-propitious one.  We ran before a gale all the way\nto Lerwick, where the Greenland fleet lay anchored.  We had hardly left\nthe rock-bound shores of Shetland--that `sea-begirdled peat moss'--ere\nthe blackness of darkness settled down on the ocean around us; and storm\nand tempest became our constant companions for three long weeks, till\nsheltered at last under the lee of the pack, with bowsprit and topmasts\ngone, and the bulwarks more like the palings one sometimes sees around a\ncattle-field than anything else in the world.  But even worse was to\nfollow: with several other ships we took the ice, which was loose, and\nin three weeks' time we found ourselves all alone in the midst of a hard\nfrozen ice-field, and fully one hundred miles from the open water, a\nbright blue frosty sky above us, and in silence--a silence never broken\neven by the cry of a bird or guttural roar of Arctic bear.\n\n\"After many months of `solitary confinement,' we escaped and reached\nhome at last.  Many of the men's relations met us on the pier, dressed\nin deepest mourning; the `blacks,' as such dress is called, had been\ndonned for us, for our ship had been reported as lost with all hands!\n\n\"Life in that lonesome ice-pack was a weary `bide,'--\n\n  \"`Day after day, day after day,\n  And neither breath nor motion.'\n\n\"No, not as much wind as would have sufficed to lift a snowflake, never\na cloud in the sky, and the sun going round and round and round, but far\nabove the horizon even at midnight.  We tired of reading books; we tired\nof card-playing and games on the ice; we even tired of music itself.\nMonotony generated _ennui_; _ennui_ bred melancholy; plenty of exercise\non the ice alone could save us from succumbing to actual illness.  We\nknew that well, but we were thoroughly apathetic, and did not care to\ntake it.  The captain, a young and energetic man, at last hit upon a\nhappy expedient which succeeded most completely in restoring something\nof life and animation to the crew, who were rapidly merging into a state\nof Rip Van Winkleism, painful to behold.  He determined to form a camp\nthree miles away from the ship.  Simply walking to and from it would be\nsome little excitement, it would be exercise with a purpose, and\nexercise, as medical men will tell you, without pleasure or purpose, is\nentirely useless in a hygienic point of view.\n\n\"Our captain, the first and second mates, and myself were seated at\nbreakfast one morning when he made his proposal.\n\n\"`Doctor,' he said--NB, he called me `Doctor' always, but at that time I\nhad no more business with the title than the tailor had--\n\n\"`Doctor, how are the men getting on forward?'\n\n\"`They haven't much life in them,' I replied; `they are all making\nsilver rings now out of sixpenny bits and shillings.  That is the latest\nfad, but the coins will soon be all used up; then I suppose all hands\nwill go to sleep for a month or two.'\n\n\"`I think, doctor,' said Captain Peters, `that their livers want\nstirring up.  Eh?  Don't you, doctor?'\n\n\"`Well,' I replied, `anything for a quiet life.  There is plenty of blue\npill and black draught on board.  I'll stir their livers up.  Pass the\nham.'\n\n\"`All right, then,' said the captain; `you stir their livers up, and\nI'll propose something to-morrow to prevent them getting sluggish\nagain.'\n\n\"True to my promise, I gave all hands a blue pill that night, and next\nforenoon, at a little before twelve, the captain called the men aft, and\nordered the steward to bring up a gallon of rum and five pounds of\ntobacco.  Then he doled out the latter and ordered the mainbrace to be\nspliced.  The men after this looked more lively than they had done for a\nmonth.\n\n\"`Now that I've got you awake with the help of the doctor and black\nJack' (black Jack was the rum measure), said the captain, `let me tell\nyou what we are going to do.  We are going to convey wood and canvas by\nsleigh across the pack, to a patch of bay ice about three miles from\nhere, and by the side of it, on the top of the heavy berg, we will build\na tent, with a fire-place in it, big enough to roast a bear.  This tent\nor marquee will be a regular Hall of Delights by the sad sea wave; we\nwill cook in it, and eat in it, and dance and sing and tell stories in\nit.  What say you, men?'\n\n\"The men broke out into a wild cheer.\n\n\"`Wait a wee,' continued the captain; `I'm going to do more for you than\nthat, for goodness only knows how long we may have to remain in this\ngloomy ice-field, and if I don't keep you alive, you'll all go to sleep\nand not waken any more in this world.  We shall set to work, then, and\nmake an immense great hole in that patch of bay ice, and it will be your\nduty to keep it from freezing; then seals will come up, and maybe\nwalruses too, and catching these and the sharks will be glorious fun and\nkeep us all alive and awake.  That is my plan complete.'\n\n\"This idea of the captain's was a splendid one, and we all entered into\nit heart and soul.  We built rude sledges and tooled wood and all other\nnecessaries over the pack, and before a week was over we had erected a\nlarge and handsome marquee with a floor of timber, doors and windows,\ntable and fire-place all comfortable and jolly.\n\n\"We had hammocks slung round it also, so that when tired we could lounge\nand read, or lounge and sleep, and on the whole we felt like new beings,\nand each of us was as happy as a schoolboy with a tin whistle.\n\n\"The opening in the bay ice proved a wondrous success, for the rays of\nsunlight penetrated far down into the black-blue water, and seals,\nseeing the light from afar, swam wondering towards it, then finding a\nhole, came out to breathe and look about them, and so fell victims to\ntheir curiosity.  We had seal's liver and bacon for breakfast then, and\nfound it a great treat.  We skinned the phocas for sake of their\nblubber, with the following results: sharks in dozens came to eat the\ncrangs we threw back into the sea, and birds reappeared, malleys, gulls,\nskuas, and terns, to pick up the stray bits of grease, so we had sport\nenough, and regained our spirits and strength in consequence.  But when\na great fire was built on a berg, and the carcase of a seal roasted\nthereon, bears sniffed the perfume, though they must have been miles and\nmiles away, and came prowling down to the feast, which I ought to add\nhad been prepared for their especial delectation.\n\n\"They were somewhat shy at first, they preferred squatting at a\ndistance, and contenting themselves with the delicious odour of the\ntit-bits placed temptingly on the hummock near, but as their numbers\nincreased, so did their courage, and before very long we had the\nsatisfaction of seeing them in twos and even threes, wrangling together\nover juicy joints.  Then was our chance, and we did not hesitate to\navail ourselves thereof.  Hungry bears are by no means easily scared,\nand so our sport was good.\n\n\"There was no more laziness among our crew now, no more danger of our\nfellows falling into Rip Van Winkleism, for every day brought us sport\nand excitement and fun and adventure.  We all began to sing again, and\nthat is always a good sign on board a ship.  There was singing fore and\nsinging aft, and tales told in the saloon and yarns spun around the\ngalley fire.\n\n\"The Hall of Delights by the sad sea wave proved a very great success\nindeed.  Somehow or other we came to like it better than the ship\nitself, and although we always came home to sleep, it was often very\nlate indeed before we scrambled on board our slippery-decked brig, and\nwent below to the dingy darkness of state-room, hammock, or bunk.\n\n\"In this Hall of Delights we had music, for Peter Kelty played the\nviolin, and Sandy Watson the clarionet; then there was big Magnus Rugg\ncould put in a bass with his voice alone that you couldn't have told\nfrom a violoncello.  We had plenty of fire in the hall, but when the\nfiddles started of an evening, it wasn't much heat we needed, for\nthose--\n\n  \"`Hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,\n  Put life and mettle in our heels.'\n\n\"When tired of dancing, or rather, I should say, in the intervals\nbetween the dances, we had singing and recitations.  The simplest of the\nsimple both were, for in the latter I don't think we ever got beyond\n`Douglas's Tragedy' or `Tam o' Shanter,' and in the former `Annie\nLaurie' or `The Braes o' Balquidder' were far more appreciated than\nanything from the best of operas could have been.\n\n\"But the _summus mons_, in a musical way, was attained by our\nspectioneer, or third officer, for he not only sang most charmingly, but\nhe accompanied himself on the zither.\n\n\"He was somewhat of a character, was this individual.  He was far from\nold-looking in the face, but his hair and beard were like the very snow\nitself.  He seldom even smiled, or if he did, it was a languid, sad kind\nof smile that kept well down about the lips, and never curved round the\neyes or made them sparkle.  He was tender and kind in heart, though, and\na favourite with all hands.\n\n\"By-the-bye, his name was Summers, but he was always called Winter, and\ndidn't mind it a bit, he was so good-natured.\n\n\"We were all enjoying ourselves one evening in the Hall of Delights, we\nhad danced till the fiddlers were tired, and everybody that could sing\nhad sung, so there was a kind of lull--a momentary silence, in fact.\nNow, as it was nearly ten o'clock, if this silence had continued for\neven fifteen seconds, the captain would certainly have jumped up and\nsaid:\n\n\"`Well, lads, we'd better be moving.'\n\n\"We didn't feel like moving yet, so the silence was not allowed to\nextend itself.\n\n\"`Hi!' cried Kelty, `I call upon you for a _comic_ song, Mr Winter.'\n\n\"`Or a _funny_ story,' cried somebody else.\n\n\"There was loud laughing at the bare idea of Winter treating us to\neither.\n\n\"Winter looked round among us, in an amused kind of way, as if he quite\nenjoyed the joke, and when the laugh subsided, we all glanced towards\nhim for his reply.  I think I see him now; one hand rested on the zither\nbringing out stray chords, the other rested on the table, the great oil\nlamp that stood at one side threw his features into semi-shadow, and\nthere was a thoughtful far-away look in his eyes.\n\n\"`Yes,' he said, at last, `I'll tell you a story.'\n\n\"`A funny one?  Eh?' said the mate.\n\n\"`Well--no, not _very_ funny.  But anything to pass the time, I suppose.\nI'll tell you a story of my own grey hairs.'\n\n\"`Capital,' we cried, and hammered with our feet on the wooden floor, by\nway of giving him encouragement.  Then we lit our pipes and prepared to\nlisten.\"\n\nCHAPTER SEVENTEEN.\n\nA TALE TOLD ON THE SEA OF ICE.\n\n  \"The mariner whose eye is bright,\n  Whose beard with age is hoar.\"\n\n  Coleridge.\n\nScene: The good ship _Brilliant_ in the Doldrums.  Crew at their\nChristmas dinner.  The doctor continues his story.\n\n\"`In the year 18--, I sailed from Hull in the good barque _Constance_,\nbound for Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen, in pursuit of seals and walruses.\nI was a very young man then, and, indeed, white though my hair be and\nsnowy my beard, I am not old yet.  It is not age that has made me grey,\nbut grief, and one of the most terrible experiences it has probably ever\nbeen the lot of man to undergo.\n\n\"`Our voyage to the Arctic seas was a pleasant enough one.  We did not\nencounter a single gale, and we made the country in less than a\nfortnight.  We met the seals a little north of Mount Beerenberg, coming\nsouthward to the low pack ice in thousands; nay, but in millions; for\nthe sea was black with their beautiful heads for miles on each side of\nour ship, and as far north as we could see from the masthead.  Oh,\ndidn't our hearts beat high then!  We saw fortune within our reach, and\nhad bright visions of a splendid voyage, a ship full to the hatches,\nwith bings of skins on deck, and an early return to sunny England, our\nsweethearts and wives.  We put about and followed the seals, and ere\nmany days were past had the satisfaction of seeing them take the ice.\nThere would soon be enough to fill all the ships in the Greenland fleet.\nWe had but to wait a week or two until the young were big enough to\ncapture.  What a happy crew we were now!  It was singing forward and\nlaughing aft, all day long.  But alas! and alas! for the fickleness of\nfortune, a wretched, greedy old Dutch ship came in, and no sooner saw\nthe seals on the ice than she lowered her boats, and in spite of our\nremonstrances, proceeded to the ice.  Twenty-four hours afterwards there\nwas not one single seal, of all the myriads that had taken the ice,\nvisible anywhere, above or below--the Dutch boats had scared them all\naway.  It was all our captain and myself--I had only that spring got my\ncertificate as mate--could do to prevent our men from boarding the\nDutchman, and taking summary vengeance on that idiot skipper and his\nidiot crew.\n\n\"`We got up sail as soon as possible, and began forging through the\nloose pack ice, in the hope of again falling in with fortune in the\nshape of seals.  We did sight them far in towards the west, and on\nheavier ice than we generally cared to venture among; but we did not\nthink twice about the matter then.  We worked our vessel in, and in, and\nin, towards our game, when the wind failed us all at once, and every\nseal disappeared as if by magic, or as if they had been but phantoms of\nthe brain.  To add to our grief, hard frost set in, and lasted for many\nweeks.  We hoped against hope we would get clear before long, and still\nbe in time to follow the old seals northwards toward Spitzbergen.  So we\ndreamt.  Well, clouds banked up on the southern horizon at last, and\nsnow fell, such snow as I had never seen before, and have seen but once\nor twice since.  Every flake was as big as a hand.  In less than twelve\nhours the whole of that vast ice-pack was one level surface, one\nunbroken field of dazzling snow.  But then came the wind--a fierce and\nfearful gale--and the bergs rose and fell around us and tossed and\ntumbled, as if we had been in the middle of a troubled sea, the waves of\nwhich were walls of snow.  Our barque was heaved up, now forward, now\naft, and ground and torn, till we could hear the very timbers cracking\nand rending beneath us, and we knew then she was doomed--knew that when\nthe ice that nipped her receded, and the pressure abated, she would\nsink.  This happened sooner far than we could have believed possible.\nWhile the wind still roared through the rigging, and all between decks\nwas as dark as a winter midnight with the clouds of drifting, driving\nsnow, suddenly the sides of the saloon, in which the captain, myself,\nand the other mate were sitting, came crashing and splintering in upon\nus, and we had barely time to spring to the companion ladder before the\nfreer ice was grinding amid a chaos of broken boards and timbers in the\nvery place where we had been sitting barely three seconds before.\nAlmost at the same moment the after-part of the ship took fire.\n\n\"`How this happened I cannot tell.  Friction itself would fire the rum,\nor the blazing coals from the broken stove might have been thrown among\nthe staved casks.  Explosion after explosion occurred; then the water\nrushed forward, and the vessel began at once to be sucked under.  We had\nbarely a quarter of an hour to clear out, but even in that short time we\nmanaged to land three boats with blankets and provisions on the ice, and\nthis, too, in spite of the storm, in spite of the numbing wind, and the\ndrifting, choking, powdery snow.\n\n\"`We huddled together beneath the boats for hours and hours, and when\nthe wind went down at last, we crawled out--those who could crawl--the\nliving from among the dead, the maimed and sick.  Out of a crew of\nthirty-nine only twenty-four answered to their names the morning after\nthe wreck of the good barque _Constance_.  We sunk the dead between the\nbergs, and waited for others to die--waited days and days; then the\nremainder of us started southwards with two of the whalers to seek for\nthe open water.  The frost had set in again harder than ever, and the\nsun was very bright, but it was a terrible journey, nevertheless, and\nfive more of us, including our captain, succumbed to cold and hardship\nbefore we stood at last on the edge of the solid pack with the open\nwater all before us.\n\n\"`Ay, there it was--the open water, the Southern Sea--black as ink in\nthe foreground, blue beyond, and dotted here and there with little\nfloating bergs, just as the sky above was flecked with little fleecy,\nfloating clouds.  And we knew well that hundreds of miles beneath the\nhorizon lay Iceland, the country we must try to reach, even if we\nperished in the attempt.\n\n\"`We launched our boats and grasped our oars, and so began our long and\ndangerous voyage.  Provisions we had, and compasses; water we had none,\nbut we took on board huge pieces of fresh-water ice that we were lucky\nenough to find on top of the salt sea bergs.\n\n\"`All went well for days and days, and, much to our joy, a breeze sprang\nup.  The sail was set.  We were so far south now that, summer though it\nwas, the sun set; then we steered by the stars, for as yet clouds had\nnot obscured the sky.  I had command of our boat; the steward had charge\nof the other.\n\n\"`One morning I was saddened to see a body launched overboard from our\ncompanion boat, which was a little way ahead at the time.  As we sailed\nup I had just time to notice it was the steward himself ere a terrible\nspecimen of the hammer-headed shark sprang, monster-like, out of the\nsea, and next moment the body had disappeared.\n\n\"`The rugged mountain peaks of Iceland at last!  With what joy we hailed\nthem, only those who have been so situated can understand or appreciate.\nYes, the mountains were very rugged, very much peaked and jagged, but\nwe knew that in the freer glens betwixt them, and at the head waters of\nmany a lonely fiord, dwelt a rude but kindly-hearted people, who would\ngladly welcome and shelter the shipwrecked mariners.\n\n\"`And in two days at the furthest our trials would be over; so we fondly\nimagined.  Alas! they were but beginning.  In a few hours after we had\nsighted the distant hills the wind completely failed us, while up from\nthe south came, rolling and tumbling along the surface of the ocean, a\nbank of dark fog, and we were soon completely enveloped.  We called to\nthe other boat to keep near us, and trusting now entirely to our\ncompasses, we took to our oars once more.\n\n\"`For half a day our boats kept together, but as soon as night and\ndarkness fell, the wind got up, and the sea became rough, dashing\ncontinually on board of us, and necessitating constant work in baling.\nTowards morning the wind had increased to a gale, and we were running\nbefore it under our small, closely reefed mainsail and a trifle of jib.\nWhere we were running we knew not, and, I think, hardly cared.  We were\ncompletely exhausted with the wet and the cold.  Our ice and the\nprovisions were gone, and even the compass lost.\n\n\"`The sun broke through the fog at last, and to some extent the wind\nabated, but the sea still ran houses high.  I looked up from the place\nwhere I sat, mechanically grasping the tiller.  Heavens! what a sight I\nwitnessed!  When night had come on, we had been seven in our boat; now\nwe were but three, that is two more than myself.  Of the others two had\nleapt overboard mad, or been washed away; two sat alive but pale and\nghastly, grasping in white-blue hands, that I could see were sadly\nfrost-bitten, the icy sheets of the sails.  One poor fellow was curled\nup dead under the bows; the other had fallen backwards over a thwart as\nif he had caught a crab, and there he lay with his long yellow hair\nfloating in the water with which the boat was half full, and his\nsightless eyes turned sunwards.\n\n  \"The life still there upon his hair,\n  The death within his eyes.\"\n\n\"Bale, men, bale the boat,\" I cried, \"bale her, or we shall sink.\"\n\n\"`They turned their awful cadaverous faces towards me, they opened their\nmouths as if to speak, but a sound 'twixt a moan and a gurgle was all\nthat came from their throats; then they lifted their hands and tapped\nthe backs of their fingers against the gunwale of the boat, and they\nrattled as if they had been made of wood, so sorely were they frozen.\n\n\"`Many, many times during that long and dreadful day did those two poor\nfellows turn towards me, and they kept signing, signing to me for the\nhelp they were pleading for in vain, and ever from their throats came\nthat awful gurgling moan.  Oh! men, I think I see and hear them now.\n\n\"`Night fell at last, night and pitchy darkness, and next morning I was\nalone on the sea.  Alone with the dead!\n\n\"`And all that day I sat there, as if in the power of some strange\nnightmare.  The use of every limb I retained as well as that of head and\nbody, but still I did not or could not move, but I kept praying, praying\nnot for the cold and icy wind to fall, not for the clouds and fog to\nroll away, or the sea to go down, but praying for death, a share of the\ndeath I saw around me.\n\n\"`Towards the afternoon I think I must have slept or fallen into a kind\nof a trance.  The wind had quite gone down when I again recovered a sort\nof consciousness.  There was no more broken water, but a heavy tumbling\nswell on the eastward when I looked.  These huge heaving smooth waves\nseemed to take on the appearance of monsters of the deep, raising their\nawful heads and backs, grim and grey and cold, above the sea; but\nwestward they were moving masses crimson and black.  The sky was a\nwonderful sight.  From the sun's upper limit to the zenith it was hung\nwith curtains of blue-grey clouds, one behind the other, as it were, the\nedges all zig-zagged and fringed with red.  All round the sun itself was\na coppery haze.  To the north the sky was clear and of a bright lemon\nyellow; to the east it was clear also, and _green_.\n\n\"`I sat gazing at clouds, and sky till they faded into the gloom of\nnight; they got thinner and thinner then, and stars shone through them,\nand soon they vanished entirely, and the stars had it all their own way.\n\n\"`I felt no hunger, no thirst, no pain, no pleasure; my condition was\none of pure apathy; my very soul appeared dead within me.\n\n\"`Soon a bright light shone out of the north with tints of carmine, pale\nyellow, and green; it was the aurora, and long fringes of pale\nphosphorescent light descended from the sky overhead.  I could have\ntouched them with my hand had they been tangible.  They were independent\nof the far-off aurora.  They assumed the forms of gigantic fern leaves\nand danced dazzlingly before my eyes, and I could almost imagine they\nemitted a hissing, crackling sound.\n\n\"`Then my brain began to reel, and I fell forward in the boat among my\ndead companions.\n\n\"`A shock awoke me at last.  Cold and shivering now, I sat up and rubbed\nmy eyes.  Morning was breaking gloomy and grey over the sea, and some\ngulls were wheeling and screaming about in the air.\n\n\"`Once again the shock, and the boat trembled from stem to stern, and\nsome birds rose up out of the bows and floated slowly away.  They had\nbeen gorging on the dead.\n\n\"`The shocks to the boat were easily accounted for: the sea was alive\nwith monster sharks.\n\n\"`O God! men, it was a fearful sight.  There was something appalling and\nhorrible in the very way they _gambolled_ around the boat.  Their eyes\ntold me one thing: they had come for the dead--and the living.\n\n\"`I cannot tell you whether I really did lift the bodies of my late\ncompanions and throw them overboard.  I would even now fain believe this\nwas but a dream.  If so, it was terribly real, the fighting, wrangling\nsharks in the sea, the birds wheeling and screaming above.\n\n\"`My boat was picked up that day by some Icelandic fisherman; there was\nno one in it but myself, men, white in hair, white in beard, as you now\nbehold me.'\"\n\nSo ended the spectioneer's story, and so ended that Christmas dinner in\nthe Doldrums, but both Kenneth and Archie long, long after this used to\nspeak about it amid other scenes and in other climes, and both agreed it\nwas one of the pleasantest afternoons ever they had spent in life.\n\nThe two friends made many a voyage together in the _Brilliant_, and\ntogether came through no little adventure, and saw many a strange sight\nin many a strange sea.  They came to love the vessel at last, for real\nsailors do love their ships.  They loved her and called her the saucy\n_Brilliant_, and the dear old ship, and quite a host of other pet names.\n\n\"But alas! and alas?\" said Kenneth to Archie one day, while they stood\ntogether on the quarter-deck, \"we are not making our fortunes.  We will\nnever get rich at sea.  And by-and-bye, you know, we'll be getting\nfearfully old.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Archie, \"I'm feeling old already.  We are both of us over\ntwenty.\"\n\n\"Sad thought! yes?\" added Kenneth.  \"So I propose we leave the dear old\nstupid craft at the end of this voyage, Archie.\"\n\nAnd so they did, reader.  And thus our tale runs on, but the scenes must\nchange.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEnd of Book Two.\n\nCHAPTER EIGHTEEN.\n\nON THE UNKNOWN RIVER.\n\n  \"Most glorious night,\n  Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be\n  A sharer in thy fierce and fair delight.\"\n\n  Byron.\n\nScene: Night on an unknown river, which, dark and deep and sluggish, is\nrolling onwards to the distant ocean through a wild and beautiful\ndistrict in the interior, nay, but ill the very centre of Africa.  The\ncentre it may well be called, for it is near the equator, and hundreds\nof miles from the Indian Ocean.  Night on the river, but not darkness.\nA round moon has risen, the clouds, dazzled by its splendour, have\nparted to let it pass; its light is flooding hill and dell and forest,\nand changing the river itself to--apparently--a moving flood of molten\ngold.\n\nLight, but not darkness.  Night, but not silence either.  Were it\npossible for any one to pass swiftly and unseen along the banks of the\nunknown river at such an hour and on such a night as this, what sights\nhe would see, what sounds would fall upon his listening ear!  Come with\nme in imagination!  Take heed of those rocks; they are slippery at the\nedge, for the rainy season is not yet past.  To fall into the stream\nwould mean an ugly death, were you even as good a swimmer as the gallant\nWebb.  There are no signs of life in the water, it is true, but the\nplash of your fall would raise a score of awful heads above it; the\ncrocodiles would be upon you with lightning speed, and rend you from\nlimb to limb.\n\nPeer over the cliff just there.  What is that lying on the mud close by\nthe river?  Is it the trunk of some dead tree?  Drop a pebble on it.\nSee; it moves off into the river and slowly disappears--a crocodile.\n\nHark to that horrible sound! it makes the very \"welkin\" ring,--a loud,\ndiscordant, coughing, bellowing roar.  It is the lion-king of the\nforest.  He loves not the moonlight.  It baulks him of his prey; so\nthere is anger in that growl.  But you hardly can tell whence it comes;\nat one moment, it sounds over yonder among the rocks, next, down in that\nlonesome ravine, and next, in the forest behind you.\n\nLook at those great birds.  They fly so closely over our heads that\ntheir mighty wings overshadow us for a moment, and we can hear the\nrustling, creaking sound made by their feathers.  There is something\nlying dead in the valley beyond the hill, and these are vultures going\nto gorge by the moonlight.\n\nTwo great necks are raised like poles behind a rock as the birds fly in\nthat direction.  Giraffes, who have been sleeping--there in the open,\ntheir heads leaning on the rocks, their ears doing duty even in slumber,\nbut ready if danger draws near to--\n\n  \"Burst like whirlwind o'er the waste,\n  To thunder o'er the plain.\"\n\nIn yonder, beneath that flowery, ferny bank, is the leopard's cave--the\ntiger cat.  If you went near enough you would see her fiery eyes, and\nhear a low, ominous growl that would chill you to the spine.\n\nYes, wild beasts and wild birds keep close to-night; for a little while\nonly; when the deer and the antelope steal down to the river, they will\ncome forth, and there will be yells and shrieks of anger, pain, and\nterror, and an awful feast to follow.\n\nBehold those lordly elephants; how they trumpet and roar!  They are\nexcited about something.\n\nSomething unusual has happened, or they would not be there at this hour.\nHa!  There is a boat on the river, creeping up under the shadow of the\nrocks.  What mystery is this?  There are white men in it, too, and right\nmerrily they are paddling along.  But never before have the waters of\nthis unknown river been stirred by oar of European.\n\nFor not only is the country all around here a wild one, but it has the\nname, at all events, of being inhabited by a race of savages that are\nnever at peace, who are born, live, and die on the war-path--the Logobo\nmen.\n\n\"Couldn't we go a little nearer?\" said Harvey, who sat in the stern\nsheets near the tall Arab Zona, who was steering, Kenneth and Archie\nhaving an oar each.\n\n\"Couldn't we go a little nearer and have a shot at that elephant?\"\n\n\"No, no, no,\" cried Zona, hastily; \"we must keep in the shade,\ngentlemen.  Even the moon is not our friend, pleasant though her light\nbe.  But the sound of your rifle would raise the Logobo men, and a\nthousand poisoned arrows would soon be whistling round our heads.  We\ncould not escape.\"\n\n\"Before morning,\" said Kenneth, \"according to your reckoning, my good\nZona, we should be well through the Logobo country, and among friends?\"\n\n\"True,\" replied Zona; \"we will be among friends all the way to the land\nof gold, I trust.\"\n\n\"The land of gold!\" exclaimed Kenneth; \"what a fascinating phrase!\nZona, when we met you in Zanzibar our lucky stars must have been in the\nascendant.\"\n\nZona gave a little laugh.\n\n\"It is the land of gold,\" he said, \"that we are going to, it is true;\nbut no man that ever yet tried brought that gold down to the coast.\"\n\n\"And why, my friend?\"\n\n\"Why?  I cannot tell you all the reasons why.  They say the gold is\nguarded by evil spirits, that the hills where it is to be found are\nencircled by giant forests, by terrible swamps, the breath of which is\nmore feared by the Arab than spear of savage foeman.\"\n\n\"We can but try,\" said Kenneth.\n\n\"Zona,\" said Archie, \"did ever you hear the line of that old song, `The\nMarch of the Cameron Men,' which says, `Whatever a man dares he can\ndo'?\"\n\n\"Gentlemen all,\" replied Zona, \"the Arab is the most daring of all men\nwho live; the Arab has sought this gold that we are going in quest of;\nthe Arab has failed!  I have spoken.\"\n\n\"Worthy Zona,\" said Harvey, laughing, \"you have an excellent opinion of\nyour people, and an excellent opinion of yourself.  Nay, never start,\nman.  I love you for it.  But let me tell you this.  There is one thing\nin which even an Arab gold-seeker, with all his pluck and daring, may\nfail in--\"\n\n\"And that is?\" said Zona.\n\n\"Knowledge of prospecting.\"\n\n\"I am in the dark as to your meaning,\" said Zona.\n\n\"I know you are, and so are all your people.  In other words, then, they\ndon't know where to look for the gold.  Now listen, friend.  I have\nspent years and years in the gold regions of California--\"\n\n\"I say, Harvey, old man,\" said Kenneth, \"you weren't much the better of\nit.  Eh?\"\n\n\"True,\" replied Harvey, with a sigh; \"else you wouldn't have found me\nworking as an ordinary seaman before the mast in a craft like the\n_Brilliant_.\"\n\n\"Forgive me,\" said Kenneth, stretching out his hand, which Harvey\nreadily grasped.  \"Forgive me; I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.  I\nfound you before the mast, it is true; but I took to you from the first\nhour we met.  You have got the grit of a good man in you.  Else Archie\nand I wouldn't have asked you to come with us on this gold-hunt, which\nafter all may turn out to be a wild-goose chase.\"\n\n\"But it will _not_ be a wild-goose chase.  Man, I tell you this, the\nvery mud of the river we are now floating over contains gold dust.  We\nare going to trace that gold to its source, and find it in nuggets.\"\n\n\"I have found gold before,\" he continued.  \"I have made two fortunes and\nlost them, worse luck; but I can tell you whether or not gold lies in\nany country, if I get but one glance at the land, or but walk over it\nonce.  Fear not then, I won't deceive you, nor myself.\"\n\n\"Well, we shall trust to your skill,\" said Archie.\n\n\"And to Zona's,\" added Kenneth.\n\n\"To Zona's, certainly.\"\n\nLet us hark back, reader, in our tale for a moment, and explain the\nappearance of our adventurers on this wild dark river of Africa at such\na time of night.\n\nThe _Brilliant_ then was in the habit of touching occasionally at\nZanzibar in her passage from the East Indies to the Cape.  Being much on\nshore, Kenneth could not help becoming acquainted with some of the\nnumerous Portuguese merchants, who had settled in that strange city,--if\na Portuguese merchant can be said to settle anywhere, for they are, like\nourselves, a nation of wanderers.  They are hospitable at their houses,\nhowever, and Kenneth and Archie too were made welcome, enough, and many\na quiet cup of coffee they drank in the cool of the evening on great\nsquare housetops overlooking the blue sea.\n\nThey would sit far into the night, listening to stories of the interior\nof Africa, of wild adventures with wild beasts and wilder men, of great\nforest land and terrible swamps, of the country of the dwarfs and the\ndreaded gorilla, and of diamond caves, and caves in which nuggets of the\nrichest gold were to be had for the gathering.\n\nNo wonder that such stories as these fired the young blood of our heroes\nKenneth and Archie.  They both longed to be rich; it was no mean\nambition, for riches would be valued by neither as a mere hoard of\nwealth, but for the good they could accomplish therewith in the dear\nwild land of their nativity.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Kenneth one evening as he sat on a roof-top under the quiet\nstars, listening to the conversation of his friend Morosco.  \"Oh! if I\ncould but get up and command an expedition into the interior!\"\n\n\"Ha! ha!\" laughed the Portuguese, \"an idle dream.  Ten thousand men\ncould not penetrate into the land of gold and diamonds.\"\n\n\"But,\" said Archie, \"two or three might.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Morosco, \"there you have it, young sir; one man may do more\nin Africa than an army.  It has ever been thus; look at your Livingstone\nfor example.\"\n\nThen Kenneth took to thinking, and for days said no more on the subject\neven to Archie.  But one evening, he asked him to come for a row among\nthe coral islands.  It was nearly sundown.  There was not a ripple on\nthe water, only a yellow haze all along the horizon, with the broad sun\nsinking red through it.\n\nKenneth lay on his oars, and let the boat float wherever the tide cared\nto take her.\n\n\"What a lovely night, Archie!\" said Kenneth at last.  \"What a lovely\ncolour is in the sky!  The clouds are gold, the sea is gold, the\nconsuls' houses and the sultan's palace are roofed in gold, the lofty\npalm-trees are tipped with gold, and the waves are rippling and lisping\non sands of gold.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" replied Archie, \"my dear brother, your thoughts are steeped in\ngold.  Morosco's stories have given you gold fever--but there, I won't\nlaugh at you, for I tell you I know all your longings, and I, too, have\nthe same.\"\n\nKenneth stretched across the thwarts and pressed his friend's hand.\n\n\"You'll go,\" he said, \"you'll come with me into the interior.  You'll\nbrave danger?  Everything?\"\n\n\"Everything,\" replied Archie.  \"We are young, strong, healthy, hearty;\nwhy should we not?  But,\" he continued, \"while you have been dreaming I\nhave been scheming.  Zona, an Arab friend of mine, and a soldier, has\nbeen on expeditions into and beyond the Logobo country already; I have\nspoken to him, he is willing to venture with us.  And so will Harvey.\"\n\n\"Harvey?\" said Kenneth.\n\n\"Yes, he is like ourselves, a Scot.  He will, he says, do or dare\nanything for a change.\"\n\n\"Hurrah!\" cried Kenneth.\n\nHe was so excited now that he must needs bend to his oars again, and the\nlight skiff in which he rowed seemed actually to skim the water like a\nskipjack.  For his actions were keeping pace with his thoughts.  And all\nthe way down to the Cape, in what was to be their last voyage in the\n_Brilliant_, there was little else talked about by the three friends but\ntheir coming adventures in the land of gold.\n\nWhen paid off, they took passage, for cheapness' sake, in an Arab dhow\nto Zanzibar.  It was a long voyage in such a craft, and a rough one in\nmany ways, for they got little to eat except dates and rice.  But what\ncared they?  The rice, in their eyes, seemed like little nuggets of\ngold.  They reached Zanzibar safe and sound, and made haste to see Zona,\nthe Arab chief, and arrange everything.\n\nZona brought with him a bold but honest-looking black boy.  He was to be\ntheir guide through the country beyond Logobo.  This boy, called\nEssequibo, came from there.  Nay, let me rather say had been dragged\nfrom there by cruel and heartless slave-dealers.\n\nThough an Arab, Zona had a good heart.  He had first seen little\nEssequibo asleep on the rude steps of the slave auction mart at Lamoo,\nand his soul warmed to the poor lad.  Dreaming the boy was of his\nfar-off home in the interior, of the little village among the cocoa\npalms, where his mother and father lived ere that terrible night when\nthe Arabs fell on them with chains and fire,--fire for the town, chains\nfor the captives.  Dreaming of home, dreaming that he was back once\nmore, roaming with his brothers and sisters in the free forest, through\nthe jungle, over hills purple with glorious heaths, through woods dark\neven at midday, or by the lakes where the hippopotami bathe and wallow,\nand where under the pale rays of the moon the deer and hart steal down\nto drink, their every movement watched by the wary leopard.\n\nThough but a child when stolen from his home, and at the time of our\ntale in his fifteenth year, Essequibo had not forgotten a single hill or\ndale or creek or even tree of his native country.  He was bold, bright,\nand faithful, as will be seen.\n\nThe preparations for the great journey had been very simple, perhaps too\nmuch so, for they consisted mainly in arms and ammunition.  Kenneth,\nwith all the simple faith of his countrymen, had put Nannie's old Bible\nin his wallet.  In his wallet, too, Archie had slyly deposited the\nflute.\n\n\"An old Scotch air,\" he had said, \"may help to 'liven us up when things\nlook black and drear.\"\n\nThey had travelled thus far almost without adventure.  They were now in\nthe very heart of the warlike Logobos, but as yet had seen nothing more\nterrible than the denizens of forests and river I have already\ndescribed.\n\nCHAPTER NINETEEN.\n\nTHE SEARCH FOR THE LAND OF GOLD.\n\nScene:--Daybreak on the unknown river.  The stream is a good mile wide\nhere; its banks are lined with a cloudland of green, the great trees\ntrailing their branches in the water.  A sand bar at one side, jutting\nfar out into the river, tall crimson ibises standing thereon like a\nregiment of British soldiers.  The mist of morning uprising everywhere\noff the woods and off the water.  One long red cloud in the east\nheralding the approach of the god of day.  Silence over all, except for\nthe dip of the oars--they are muffled--as our adventurers' boat rapidly\nnears the shore to seek the friendly shelter of the tree-fringe.\n\n\"So far on our way, thank heaven,\" said Kenneth, as soon as the boat was\nhidden and the party had landed on a little bank deeply bedded with\nbrown leaves.\n\n\"So far, and now for breakfast.\"\n\nYes, now for breakfast, reader, and a very frugal one it was; some\nhandfuls of boiled rice and a morsel of biscuit steeped in the water to\nmake it go down.\n\nThis had been their fare for days and days, but added thereto was the\nfruit that Essequibo never failed to find.\n\nFish there were in this great river in abundance, fish that they had\nplenty of means of catching too, but none of cooking without danger; for\nsmoke might betray their presence to an enemy more implacable and\nmerciless than the wildest beast in the jungle.\n\nThe long hot day passed drearily away.  They sat or reclined mostly in a\ncircle, carrying on a conversation in voices but little over a whisper.\n\nWhen the day was at its very hottest, when there was not a leaf stirring\nin the branches above, when the monkeys that more than once had visited\nthem, creeping nearer and nearer with curious half-frightened gaze, had\nsought the darkest, coolest nooks of the forest, and the--\n\n  \"Strange bright birds on starry wing--\"\n\nhad ceased their low plaintive songs, and sat open-mouthed and all\na-gasp on the boughs, then sleep stole over every one, and it was far\ninto the afternoon ere they awoke.\n\nThe sun went down at last, and darkness--a tropical darkness--very soon\nfollowed.  Lights might now be seen flitting about among the trees; the\nfire-flies and curious creeping things went gliding hither and thither\non the ground, all ablaze with phosphorescent light.  Yonder knobs of\nfire that jump about so mysteriously are beetles; that long line of fire\nwriggling snake-like at the tree foot is the dreaded brown centipede,\nwhose bite is death.\n\nThey must not leave their hiding-place yet though, for Logobo canoes are\nstill on the river.  They must wait and listen for hours to come.  But\nthey keep closer together now and grasp their arms sturdily, for lions\nhave awakened and begun to yawn; there are terrible yells and shrieks,\nand coughing and groaning to be heard on every side, and many a plash\nalongside in the dark water.  Sometimes a huge bat drives right against\nthem, poisoning the air with pestiferous odour.  Sometimes they see\nstarry eyeballs glaring at them from under the plantain bushes, and hear\nthe branches creak and crack, and the sound of stealthy footsteps near\nthem.  It is an eeriesome place this to spend even half-an-hour in after\nnightfall, but their only chance of safety lies in remaining perfectly\nstill, perfectly mute.  At long last light shimmers in through the leafy\ncanopy above them, they know the moon has arisen, and it is time to be\ngoing.\n\nOnce more they are embarked, and once more stealing silently up the\nunknown river.\n\nAs the night advances, they are less cautious and talk more freely.\nEarlier in the evening they had heard the beating of the warlike tom-tom\nand the shouts of savage sentries, but now these are hushed and the\nbeasts and birds of the night alone are left to rend the ear with their\nwild cries.\n\nHiding by day, and journeying silently onward and upward by night, our\nheroes are in less than a week far past the country of the dreaded\nLogobo men.  Not that their dangers are over by any means, nor their\ntrials.  There are dangers from beasts, from lion or leopard, and from\nhideous reptiles, far more ugly than a nightmare, and these they must\noften face, for the rapids in the river have now become numerous, and\nthey have to land and carry their light boat past them.  But, on the\nwhole, they were so happy now and light-hearted that they often laughed\nand joked and sang; and why not?  Were they not marching on to fortune?\nThey believed so, at all events.\n\nIn the long dark evenings, round the camp fire, they would lie on their\nblankets with their feet to the fire, and their guns not far off, you\nmay be well sure, and sing songs and tell stories of their far-away\nnative land.  The flute, too, was put on duty, much to the delight of\nlittle Essequibo, the nigger boy.  Essequibo, or Keebo as he was called\nfor short, was at first inclined to be afraid of the flute; in fact,\nwhen first he heard it, he turned three somersaults backwards and\ndisappeared in the jungle.  He did not appear again for half-an-hour;\nthen he came out, and gradually and slowly and wonderingly advanced to\nwhere Kenneth sat playing.\n\nKeebo's eyes were as big as half-crown pieces, now, and he walked on\ntip-toe, ready to bolt again at a moment's notice.\n\n\"Massa Kennie,\" he said plaintively, \"Massa Kennie, what you raise\ninside dis poor chile wid dat tube you blows into?  You raisee de good\nspirit or de ebil one?  Tell me dat.\"\n\n\"The good spirit, Keebo,\" replied Kenneth; \"listen.\"\n\nThen Kenneth played \"The Land of the Leal.\"\n\n\"I'se all of a shake, Massa Kennie,\" said the poor boy; \"de spirits, dey\nam all about here now, I knows.  Dey not can touch poor Keebo?  Tell me\ndat for true?\"\n\nEssequibo got more used to the flute before long, and at last he quite\nloved it.\n\nHere is the story of Essequibo's conversion.  I give it briefly.  It was\none day when Kenneth and he were alone, all the rest being away in the\nbush in search of food and dry fuel.\n\nKeebo squatted near Kenneth's knees, leaning his hands thereon with\nchild-like confidence, and gazing up into the young Scot's face as he\nplayed low sweet Scottish airs.  These plaintive airs took Kenneth away\nback in fancy to grand Glen Alva, and the tears rose to his eyes as he\nthought of his childhood's days, of his simple happiness while herding\nsheep, of his dear mother, of Kooran and the fairy knoll.\n\nAnd last but not least of the sweet child Jessie, and of that day among\nthe Highland heather, when she gave him the flowers.  He took the Bible\nfrom his bosom and opened it.\n\nAnd there they were side by side.  And they were near a chapter his\nmother used often to read to him.  His mother?  Heigho! he would never\nsee her again in this world, but faith pointed upwards.\n\nHe took his flute more cheerfully now, and began to play that sweet\nmelody \"New London.\"  His whole soul was breathed into the instrument.\n\nWhen he looked again at Keebo, why, there were tears rolling down the\nboy's cheeks.\n\n\"You remember _your_ mother, Keebo?\"\n\n\"Ess, Massa Kennie, I 'member she.  De cruel Arab men kill she wid one\nspear.  Sometimes Keebo tink she speak to her boy yet in his dreams.\"\n\n\"So she does, Keebo.  So she does, dear child.  She lives, Keebo.\"\n\n\"She lib, sah!  My moder lib?\"\n\nThen Kenneth told Essequibo the Bible tale and all the sweet story of\nJesu's love; and every word sank deep into Keebo's heart, and was never,\nnever forgotten.\n\nWhen returning that day from the bush in Indian file, Archie, who was\nfirst, checked the others with uplifted hands, and pointed through the\nplantain bushes to the clearing where Kenneth knelt in prayer beside the\nboy Keebo.\n\nBoth Archie and Harvey doffed their caps, and stood reverently there,\nnot daring to reveal their presence till Kenneth had arisen.  The very\nsky above them seemed at that moment a holy sky.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nEssequibo was a strange name to give this nigger boy.  [The name of a\nriver in South America.]  It came by chance, and suited him well.  He\nwas clever, this lad; and proved a treasure to the little expedition in\nmany a trial.  His English was not of the purest, he had learnt it in\nZanzibar; but he could talk the languages of the interior tribes and\nArabic as well.  It is truly wonderful how soon boys of this caste learn\nlanguages.\n\nZona was guide and chief of the party; he knew the land well, and he\nknew the river.  He knew which way to go to avoid unfriendly Indians,\nand he knew also the shortest tracks.  So you may fancy them going on\nand on day after day in their search for the land of gold, sometimes\ngliding along the silent and unknown river, sometimes plunging into\ndeep, dark forests; at other times toiling over arid plains, round the\nspurs of lofty mountains, or wading deep through miry marsh lands, the\nhome, _par excellence_, of the most loathsome of Saurian monsters; but\njourneying ever with light hearts, for hope still pointed onwards.\n\nAt night, by the camp fire, Archie and Kenneth used to build aerial\ncastles, and plan out the kind of future that they should spend in\nScotland when they had wealth.  But never a night passed without a\nchapter being read, a psalm sung, and a prayer said.  Zona used to\nretire to the bush, and it is but fair to say that, according to his\nlights, he was as good at heart as any of the others.\n\nThey had hired over a dozen sturdy Indians to carry boats and\nammunition, but these men needed watching, both by night and by day.\nThey were necessary evils, that is all.  Not that negroes of this kind\nare not often faithful enough, but they need a master eye to guide them,\nelse they soon lose heart and faint and fail--then fly.\n\nMore than once Keebo prevented these men from stampeding, for Keebo was\never watchful.\n\nFor many weeks our heroes kept on in the same slow course, defying every\nobstacle.  They were now little more than fifty miles from the goal of\ntheir desires.\n\n\"If gold or diamonds,\" said Kenneth to Archie, \"be but half as plentiful\nas represented, we have only to collect and retire.  We have overcome\nevery danger, and avoided the greatest danger of all--the Logobo\ncountry.  We will go more swiftly down stream than we came up.\"\n\nArchie was quite as hopeful as Kenneth.\n\nHarvey hardly so much so.\n\n\"`There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,'\" the latter would\nsay.\n\nPerhaps this was one of the happiest periods of the lives of either of\nour heroes.  Indeed, their existence at present resembled nothing so\nmuch as one long picnic.  They were like the wild creatures around them;\nthey lived on the good things they found, and were contented and happy.\n\nKenneth, true lover of nature, could never have dreamt of scenery like\nthat which he now gazed on daily.  Oh the luxuriance of an African\ntropical woodland! what pen could describe, what pencil or brush portray\nit!\n\nYes, there were deadly things to be avoided, but one gets careless of\neven them, or, at least, used to them, so that in time not even a great\nsnake dangling from a branch in front of him makes him shudder; nor is\nhe greatly alarmed if he comes suddenly on the African \"tiger,\" as the\nleopard is called, enjoying a siesta at noon-tide under a tree.\n\nThe tribes they had hitherto encountered were non-warlike and quiet.\nOne day, however, Essequibo, who had been scouting on ahead, came\nrushing back in a state of great alarm.\n\n\"Dey come, dey come!\" he shouted; \"plenty bad men.  Plenty spear and\nshield.  Dey kill and eat us all for true!\"\n\nThe carrier negroes threw down their boat and packages and would have\nbolted _en masse_, had not our heroes stood by them with pistol and\nwhip.  The whip was, I believe, more dreaded than even the revolver.\n\nIn less time than it takes me to tell it, the little expedition, which\nwas quickly formed into a solid square, was surrounded by a cloud of\narmed blacks.\n\nTo fight such a mob was out of the question; they used better tactics:\nthey pretended to be overjoyed at meeting them.  They were friends,\nKenneth told the chief of these negroes, not foes, and wanted to see the\nking, and brought him presents from the far-off white man's land.\n\nShouts of joy from those simple natives now rent the air, and rattling\ntheir spears against their shields they led the way towards the camp of\nthe king, a village of adobe and grass huts, built round cocoa-nut\npalms, in the midst of a great and fertile plain.  In the centre of the\ntown, inside a compound, was the square bungalow of King 'Ntango.\n\n'Ntango was in, but did not appear for hours.  It would not be royal\netiquette to show much curiosity.  Meanwhile the native women brought\nmilk and honey and baked plantains, and everything went as merry as a\nmarriage bell.\n\nThe king, into whose presence they were ushered at last, was round and\nsquat, very yellow and very fat.\n\nHe showered his questions on Kenneth through Essequibo as interpreter.\n\nWhere did they come from?  What did they want?  Were they Arab or\nforeign?  Did they come to steal his wives and little ones?  How long\ndid they want to stop?  For ever, of course.  Where were the gifts?\nGuns?  Yes.  Beads?  Good.  Pistols?  Good again.  But was this all?\nWhere was the rum?  Arab men had been here before, they brought much\ngood rum.  What, _no_ rum?  Never a skin of _rum_?  Ugh!\n\nWith this last ejaculation, which was almost a shriek, the king sprang\nfrom the mat on which he had squatted.\n\n\"They must die?\" he shouted; \"die every one of them.  The Arab must\nfirst die, then the black men.  Then the white men.  Essequibo he would\nfatten and kill and eat.  Bring chains; away with them! _away_! away!\nAWAY!\"\n\nThe king's eyes shot fire as he waved his arms aloft, and shouted,\n\"_Away_, away!\" and his lips were flecked with blood and foam.\n\nHe was a fearful being to behold, this irate African savage.\n\nAlmost at the same moment our heroes were seized rudely from behind,\ndisarmed, and dragged off.  They soon found themselves huddled together\nin one room, with stone walls, slimy, damp, and over-run with creeping\nthings that made them shudder, albeit they were under the very shadow of\ndeath.\n\nTowards evening the king sent to \"comfort\" them; it was very\ncondescending of him.  The \"comfort\" lay in the information that at\nsunrise next day they would be led out to die, by spear or by knife, as\nthey might choose.\n\nMeanwhile, poor Essequibo's chains were knocked off, and he was led away\nto his fattening pen.\n\nSuch is life in Central Africa.  But stranger things still befell our\nheroes.\n\nCHAPTER TWENTY.\n\nLAND OF DARKNESS.\n\nScene: The interior of King 'Ntango's palace.  The king seated on a mat\nin the middle of the floor of the principal apartment--a large square\nroom with walls of mud and grass.  The only furniture, a tall tom-tom, a\nmat-covered dais, and a heap of empty stone bottles in a corner.  Those\nbottles once contained gin.\n\nIt is near sunset, the king is alone.  There is no sound to break the\nsilence, except the tap, tap, tap the gecko lizards that crawl on the\nwalls make, as they beat to death the moths they catch.\n\nYes, the king is alone in his glory, though his spear-armed attendants\nwait outside.  He is quite a study, this savage potentate, to any one\nfond of an anthropology.  Look at him now! he is leaning his fat face on\nhis podgy fingers, his elbows are resting on his knees--he is thinking.\n\nThere are but two things in this world that this king dearly loves; one\nis to see human blood spilled, the other is to drink gin or rum.  These\nlast two words are the only English ones he can pronounce or understand.\nHe learnt them from itinerant Arabs, unscrupulous scoundrels, who\nbought the youth and flower of his people for a bottle each.\n\nThe king is thinking; the question that exercises his mind at present is\nthis, \"Shall I kill these white men, and laugh to see the red blood\nflow; or keep two, and send the others back for rum?\"\n\n\"Room,\" this is how he pronounces the word \"rum,\" and \"gin\" he calls\n\"geen.\"\n\n\"Room, room, room,\" he mutters to himself, \"geen, geen, geen.\"\n\nHe rises; a thought strikes him.  May it not be possible that one, just\none full bottle remains still among that heap of empty ones?  He goes\nstraight to the heap, and turns them over.  No, not one.  Still, he has\na glimmering notion that in a dazed moment he hid one.  Ha! he remembers\nall of a sudden.  He seizes the stick with which he is wont to beat the\ntom-tom, and hies him to a corner, and speedily unearths, not one\nbottle, but two.\n\nHe is a joyful king now.  He whacks the tom-tom, and summons two of his\nwives to squat beside him; not to help him to drink, but to _see_ him\ndrink.\n\nThen he summons Essequibo, and launches questions at him.  \"How long\nwill he take to fatten?  How long before he be ready to kill?  Do the\nwhite men tremble to die?\"\n\n\"No,\" Keebo tells him; \"they rejoice to die because their spirits will\ngo to a glorious land of flowers and sunshine.\"\n\nThe king gets blue with rage.  He whacks Keebo with the tom-tom stick,\nand he whacks his wives; then he declares that the white men shall _not_\ndie, that their spirits shall _not_ go to the glorious land of flowers\nand sunshine.\n\nThen he drinks \"geen,\" and cools down.\n\nBut Keebo sees his advantage.  He expatiates on the mechanical ability\nand cleverness of white men in general, and of Massa Kennie, Archie, and\nHarvey in particular, and so inflames the king's cupidity, that he sends\nfor the white men, and has their chains knocked off in his presence, and\ntells his sentries they are free, and any one who touches the hem of\ntheir garments shall be made food for the blue-bottle flies, and the\nlong-legged \"krachaw.\"  [A kind of carrion-eating heron.]\n\n\"Ha! ha! ha!\" he yells, \"the king will live for ever.\"\n\nThen he drinks again, yells again, whacks his wives with the tom-tom\nstick, and laughs to see them wince; and drinks, and drinks, and drinks,\ntill he falls back asleep, and is borne away by the wives he whacked,\nand laid tenderly on the dais.\n\n\"Well,\" cried Harvey, \"this is a queer ending to a day's march.\"\n\nZona shrugs his square thin shoulders, and Kenneth and Archie laugh.\n\n\"Ask those scoundrels,\" says Kenneth to Essequibo, \"what they have done\nwith our arms and our boat.\"\n\nVery submissive are those spear-armed warriors now.  They lead them to a\nwood, and there in the thicket they find everything intact.\n\n\"Now, lads, do as I tell you,\" said Kenneth.\n\nAnd here is what our heroes did at Kenneth's advice.  They rolled all\ntheir spare arms and ammunition in blankets, dug a hole, buried them,\nand turned the boat upside down on them.  Next they tore up a lot of\nwhite and red rags, tied them to strings, and arranged these along,\nover, and around the boat, in precisely the way you would over a row of\npeas in the country to keep the sparrows away.\n\nFunny though it may seem, this was quite enough to keep these savage\nnegroes at bay.  There was magic in it, they thought, and they gave that\nwood a wide berth.\n\nWell, our heroes had, after a manner of speaking, to buy their lives.\n\nThe king had them before him at daybreak, not to order them to\nexecution, but to give them his royal commands.  They were to teach his\npeople to do all the clever things that white men could do; if they\nfailed, the king told them death would be the fate of their teachers.\n\n\"We do not fear to die, King 'Ntango,\" said Kenneth.\n\nThe king looked at him with a merry twinkle in his eye; then he took a\nsip of \"geen\" and said, through the interpreter Keebo,--\n\n\"You do not fear death?  No, you think you go straight to your glorious\nland of sunshine; but listen, you will _not_.  I will arrange it\ndifferently.  I will cut from you a leg, an arm, and an ear,--ha! ha!\nwhat think you? will the leg, and arm, and ear go first to the land of\nsunshine, and wait you?  Take care, I am a great king, and I have twenty\nthousand ways to torture without killing.\"\n\nPoor Kenneth confessed to himself that the king had the best of the\nargument, but he replied,--\n\n\"If you cut from me an arm or leg, how then shall I teach your people?\"\n\nThe king smiled grimly, and said, \"Go.\"\n\nThey must propitiate this king, that was evident, in order to gain his\nfavour and their eventual liberty, for slaves they now undoubtedly were\nto all intents and purposes.\n\nSo they set themselves to teach his people to build boats, and sail on\nthe great lake that occupied the centre of the plain; to make articles\nof furniture and household utility generally; to till the ground and to\nsow; and lastly, to cook the latter department belonged to Zona, and it\ngreatly pleased the king.  It pleased him also to see his men drilled,\nand to witness their deftness in rowing and sailing, but he saw not the\nsense of sowing.\n\n\"Has not the Great Spirit,\" he said to Kenneth, \"given us the fruits\nthat grow aloft on the trees, the fish in the water, and the beasts of\nthe field? what need we of more?\"\n\nBut days rolled into weeks, and weeks into months.  The prospect of\ngetting out of this king's country, either onward to the gold country,\nor back towards the coast, seemed to get less and less bright.\n'Ntango's men became good soldiers, adept spearsmen; formerly they could\nsend an arrow with terrible precision through a kind of blow-pipe into\nthe breast of a leopard or lion; now they were not afraid to attack\nthese creatures with the spear alone.\n\nBut these better soldiers of the king's were all the better able to\nwatch their prisoners; there was no end to the king's cunning.  Many and\nmany a plan did Kenneth and his brothers in affliction fall upon to try\nto effect their escape, but every one was frustrated.\n\n\"No,\" said the king to Kenneth,--\"I love you so much now I cannot part\nwith you.  You must live with me for ever and ever and ever.\"\n\nThis was, indeed, a dark prospect.\n\nA whole year passed away; _the_ one comfort of their lives now rested in\nthe fact that they were permitted to enjoy each other's company.  They\nhad built quite a splendid bungalow for themselves, and surrounded it\nwith a beautiful compound and gardens, in which the most delightful\nflowers bloomed, and where grew the most delicious fruit.  Under other\ncircumstances their lives would really have been enjoyable.  Wild sports\nthey had also in abundance, and fishing and boating both by lake and on\nthe river, but on these excursions one hundred of the king's trustiest\nspearmen always accompanied them, and their bungalow was surrounded by a\npalisade that _they_ did not build, and for ever guarded by sentries\nthey could not elude.\n\nOne good for these poor people Kenneth did effect; he had a\nmeeting-house built, and therein, Sabbath after Sabbath, he taught them\nto read and to pray, just as he had taught good Essequibo.\n\nIt was not long before the king found out Kenneth's powers as a\nmusician, and at first it was hard on Kenneth, for he was kept playing\nfrom morning till night for weeks.\n\nMusic lost its power to some extent over the king at length, and\nlatterly it was but rarely he sent for his musician to play.  Nor had\n'Ntango much of an ear for melody, for Kenneth manufactured a score of\n\"chanters\" out of pieces of cane, and taught a score of savages to make\nan unearthly kind of noise in all kinds of keys; and this pleased the\nking quite as much as the flute.\n\nArchie thought of a plan at last to get a brief holiday.  The first\nintimation of it was given the king by Essequibo.  All the white men, he\ntold him one morning, were ill and dying, and nothing would cure them\nbut permission to explore the country to the nor'-west, the land where\ngold lay.\n\nThe king graciously gave his permission, and the expedition, well\nguarded, started to prospect for gold.  After days and days of toil and\ntravel they reached the El Dorado.\n\nDisappointment and nothing else.  Gold there was, but not for the\ngathering; it was deeply imbedded in veins of quartz, and the strongest\nmachinery would be needed to work it.\n\nDiamonds there were none.\n\nTheir gloom increased now.  Their hopes of finding fortune had been but\na youthful dream, and had ended in making them prisoners to a wild and\ndespotic savage.\n\nIf there was any one ray now to illuminate their darkness and despair,\nit lay in the fact that their visit to the land of darkness had not been\nquite in vain; they had sowed the seeds of righteousness, and who could\nsay what fruit these might not bear in after-times?\n\nThey tried now to make the best of their position, and take things as\nthey came, determined, however, if a chance should arise, to seek safety\nin flight at all hazards.  The river was not far away, and their boat\nand spare ammunition still lay intact and handy.\n\nNearly two years passed away.\n\nOne night they had retired to their bungalow early.  It was Archie's\nbirthday, and they were going to have a big talk about home.\n\nIt was long past twelve o'clock before they thought of lying down.  Ere\nthey undressed they went for a walk as usual in their garden, to breathe\nthe odour of the flowers, which the dews of evening never failed to draw\nout.\n\nThe moon was high in the heavens, looking like a little burnished shield\nin the blue sky, and dimming the light of the thousand twinkling stars.\nSuddenly from every direction there arose a muttering startled cry,\nwhich presently increased to a yell.  Smoke, too, began to roll across\nthe sky, increasing every moment, while tongues of flame leaped higher\nand higher.\n\nThey listened thunderstruck.\n\n\"Logobo--Logobo--Logobo!\"  That was the terrible cry.\n\n\"Heaven be praised!\" cried Kenneth.  \"Now, boys, now, _men_, our time\nhas come for freedom or for death.  Follow me!\"\n\nHe grasped his rifle as he spoke, and rushed out.  The sentries had\nfled.\n\nThe whole village was in flames, and in the lurid glare, hand to hand in\ndeathly combat, struggled two tribes of savages.\n\nIt was no business of our heroes, however.  They rushed onwards through\nthe _melee_, and in a very short time had reached and shouldered their\nboat.\n\nOne hour after, the din of the conflict was muffled in the distance,\nmiles away, and Kenneth and his companions were safe on the river.\n\nThey were not free yet, however.  Swiftly down the river they sped,\nracing onwards at all hazards.  Daylight found them far away, but not\nsafe.  All the country they passed through gave token of the march into\nthe interior of the Logobo men.  The villages by the banks were\nfire-blackened ruins, swollen corpses floated here and there, and\nhalf-charred spars.\n\nA week of fearful toil and anxiety, during which they had more\nadventures and hair-breadth escapes than I could describe in a goodly\nvolume, brought them to the edge of the Logobo land.  And here redoubled\ncaution was needed.  They could not rush it, as they had done the other\npart of the river.  They must resort to their old tactics of hiding by\nday and pursuing their way adown the unknown river in the silence of\nnight.\n\nBut three days of this work had almost set them free.  It was the very\nlast day of their hiding, and near sunset.  They had determined to start\nearly, and were longing for six o'clock and speedy darkness.  Lower and\nlower went the sun.  Already the gloom of the short twilight was\nsettling down on the still forest, and beasts of prey were beginning to\nwake up, and yawn--and a fearful sound it is to listen to--when suddenly\ninto the clearing where they stood strutted a Logobo savage in war\narray.\n\nThe yell he gave awakened a thousand others on every side.  The whole\nforest was alive with savages apparently.\n\n\"Ping, ping,\" from Archie's revolver, and down dropped the Logobo\nwarrior.\n\n\"Quick, men, quick,\" cried Kenneth, \"to boat, to boat!\"\n\nAh! none too soon; hardly had they launched their frail craft and\nembarked, ere a flight of spears came from the bush, and poor Essequibo\nfell.\n\nThe gathering darkness favoured them, and they were soon beyond the\nreach of danger.\n\nTwo hours after, the moon had risen; its rays brightened the woods and\nrocks and sparkled on the river.\n\nPoor Keebo lay in the bottom of the boat across Zona's knee, his face\nupturned to the sky.\n\nHis life was ebbing fast away.\n\nNear him knelt Kenneth, holding his cold hand.\n\n\"I'se goin', good-bye,\" murmured the dying lad.  \"I'se goin' to de\nland--ob sunshine.  I see poor mudder soon.\"\n\n\"Keebo,\" said Kenneth, \"you know me?\"\n\n\"Ess, dear Massa Kennie.\"\n\n\"Now, say after me.  O Lord!\"\n\n\"`O Lor'!'\"\n\n\"Receive poor Keebo's soul.\"\n\n\"`Poor Keebo's soul.'\"\n\n\"For the blessed Jesu's sake.\"\n\n\"`De bressed Jesu's sake.'\"\n\nThere was just one little painful quiver of the limbs, then a gentle\nsoughing sigh, and--Keebo was gone.\n\nCHAPTER TWENTY ONE.\n\nCAMP-LIFE IN THE FAR WEST.\n\nScene: In the backwoods of British America.  Kenneth, Archie, and Harvey\nare seen sitting around the camp fire.  It is a whole hour after sunset,\nand yet there is plenty of light in the sky.  There are rocks and pine\ntrees around, a brawling stream not far off.  There is a tall rugged\nmountain in the distance; its highest peaks are snow-clad.  Southwards\naway, grey clouds are heaped up on the horizon, a slight scimitar-shaped\nmoon is shining in the north-west, and ominous little dark clouds are\ndrifting over it.  It is not from this moon that the light comes, but\nfrom a strange yellowish after-glow, which tinges all the western\nhorizon, and, mingling with the blue above, evolves a peculiar shade of\ngreen.\n\n\"Heap more wood on the fire, Archie,\" said Kenneth.  \"I'm growing quite\nan old man, I think.  It is only a year since we left Africa and rounded\nthe Horn, hardly nine months since we bade adieu to civilisation, and\nbecame wanderers and vagabonds in this wild dreary land, gold-hunting as\nusual, and yet it seems to me an age.\"\n\nKenneth pulled his blanket closer round his shoulders as he spoke, and\nArchie rose to replenish the fire, laughing as he did so.\n\n\"When _you_ die of old age,\" he said, \"I shall make my will, Kennie\nboy.\"\n\n\"Oh! but we are sure to find gold,\" put in Harvey.\n\n\"Well, I don't know, but it seems to me that this searching for gold is\nlike chasing a wild goose or a will-o'-the-wisp.  Don't you think,\nArchie, we had better settle down to something more certain if more\nslow?\"\n\n\"_I do_ think so,\" replied Archie; \"and after what Harvey here has told\nus, that he is the son of poor old Laird McGregor, and rightful heir to\nthe McGregor estates, _he_ ought to go straight away home, turn that old\nYankee tyrant out, and regain possession of his own.  You cannot break\nan entail, you know.\"\n\n\"Heigho!\" sighed Harvey, \"I have repented my quarrel with my dear old\nfather all my life.  It was my proud Highland blood that caused it in\nthe first instance.  I rushed away to sea, I changed my name, I made\nmyself out as dead.  I thought not of the kind heart I was breaking, of\nthe grey hairs I was bringing down in sorrow to the grave.  And how has\nfate rewarded me?  I have been a rover ever since, a wanderer and a\nvagabond; thrice have riches been within my grasp, thrice has Fortune\ndashed the cup aside.  And am I to go now that my father is in his long\nhome and claim my patrimony?  My pride forbids; I'd rather be a ghillie\non the old estate, or a keeper, than proud laird of it all.\"\n\n\"Stay,\" said Kenneth, laying his hand kindly on Harvey's shoulder.  \"Not\nfor your own sake should you do this thing, but remember you have a\nmother and sister, still alive it is to be hoped.  Do you never think of\nthem?\"\n\nHarvey's hands now covered his face, his form was bent forward, but the\nheaving of his chest told of the grief that was rending him.\n\n\"Think, too, of the Clachan restored, of the old church bell once more\ncalling the people of the glen to worship on the Sabbath mornings.\nSteve the Yankee, from all accounts, is a tyrant, an oppressor, and a\nvillain.  Harvey McGregor, think of seeing your old mother once more in\nthe dear old-fashioned pew.\"\n\n\"Kenneth McAlpine!\" cried Harvey, starting up, \"no more of this now, you\nirritate, you madden me!\n\n\"But,\" he added, in a more softened tone of voice, \"I may promise you\njust one thing.  If we fail this time, if _I_ fail to find fortune, I\nwill return to my mother like the prodigal son I have been.  Though\nfain, oh! how fain I would be to return full-handed, _rich_!\"\n\n\"Thank you, Harvey, thank you for this promise.  And now for your sake\nand for all our sakes I trust that fortune will at length favour us.\"\n\nThe conversation then wandered back to the old, old theme; home at Glen\nAlva.  A strange life these three adventurers had led for the last nine\nmonths and over.  Wandering from place to place, sleeping by night in\nthe open air when the weather was fine, in caves or huts of pine-wood\nbranches when wet, and sojourning with trappers or even in the wigwams\nof the Indian when snow covered the ground and the storm winds were\nhowling.\n\nWandering from place to place prospecting, wandering on and on in search\nof gold.  A strange wild life was theirs, but it suited their tastes;\nthen there was an ever-present hope that had not yet deserted them, a\nhope and an ambition to become suddenly wealthy as many a man had done\nbefore them.  Yes, it is true, many a one had found gold and silver, but\ntens of thousands had found an early grave in searching for it.\n\nHarvey, or let us call him now Harvey McGregor, was in a manner of\nspeaking a genius.  He possessed originality of thought, and he never\nhesitated to put his ideas to the test.  He felt sure of one thing,\nnamely, that gold and silver mines were not entirely confined to the\nsouthern states of North America.  He had found treasure among the\nmountains of British Columbia, and he meant, so he said, to find it\nagain in such quantities that both he and his friends would be\n\"millionaires in a month.\"  But luck seemed long of coming.  They had\nwandered all the way from California, and encountered every imaginable\ndanger, in moor and mountain, forest, flood, and fall; and here they\nwere to-night, with no other worldly wealth than the blankets they would\npresently roll themselves up in, and their guns with a modicum of\nammunition.\n\nOnly they had youth and health on their side, though even these seemed\npassing away from poor McGregor.  Grief had done its turn; it had\nhollowed his cheek, and though barely twenty-five, silver threads were\nalready appearing in his brown beard.\n\n\"Now pile more wood on the fire, Archie dear lad, and we will go to\nsleep like good boys, and dream we are back in our dear old glen.\"\n\nArchie did as told, and before long all three were sound asleep.  They\ndid not care even to do sentry duty.  They trusted all to fate.\n\nSilence now, except for the wind soughing through the tall\nmysterious-looking pine trees, or the occasional bark of fox or scream\nof night bird.  A great cinnamon bear about midnight came snuffing\naround; he could have rent our sleeping heroes in pieces, but there was\nnothing cooking to lure him towards the fire.  A stray wolf came next,\nand actually leapt over Kenneth's legs.  He was picking up some scraps\nof food when McGregor moaned and tossed, and away went the wolf.\n\n\"I had such a dream,\" cried McGregor next morning.  \"I say, boys, I told\nyou there was a bank of gold up here, and I for one start digging\nto-day.\"\n\nSo he did, and so did all.\n\nThe only possible place to commence operations lay close to the banks of\na turbulent river that came winding down through a pine-clad mountain\nland.\n\nSilently, almost solemnly the trio worked, speaking but little, hanging\non to their pipes (if I may use so strange a phrase), and hanging on to\nspade, and pick, and shovel.\n\nAll that day, and next, and next.  About the coming of the fourth day,\nthere was a shout from McGregor's claim.\n\n\"Hurrah, boys!  Hurrah, boys!  Run here, lads, run here!\"\n\nThey did run.\n\nMcGregor held up before their astonished gaze a nugget of almost pure\ngold as big as a baby's shoe.\n\nMore gold was found every day for a week, and in gradually increasing\nquantities.  They were already in possession of about three hundred\npounds' worth.  No wonder they rejoiced.  No wonder they were merry.\n\nNow, around the camp fire, what stories are told, what songs are sung,\nwhat castles in the air are built!\n\nThey will all be millionaires.  Archie says he is going to have a nice\nmansion down in the Clachan, and close by the riverside, and will fish\nthere and in the sea just as when he was a boy.  Nothing will satisfy\nKenneth but a house near the fairy knoll.  He pulls out the old Bible,\nNannie's gift, and opens it.  There lie the withered flowers, and\nlooking at them sets him a-thinking and a-wondering and a-dreaming.\n\n\"Little Jessie,\" he says to himself, \"can she still be alive?  Is it\npossible she might one day be mine?\"\n\nHe restores the flowers, restores the Book of books, and lies back to\ngaze at the starry sky and think.\n\nBut he is not allowed to.\n\n\"Out with the flute, Kennie,\" cries Archie.  \"Oh, play me some dear auld\nScottish lilt, that will make tears of joy well up in our eyes?\"\n\nKenneth plays tune after tune, air after air; and then the trio join\nvoices and sing \"My native Highland home\" till the woods ring and pine\ntrees nod, and distant rocks send back the chorus.\n\nThere is hardly any need of a blanket to-night, for the day has been\nhot, and look, even now clouds are rolling slowly up and hiding the\nhalf-moon.  Great round clouds they are, and little dark water-dog\nclouds lie nearer the earth, and seem to perch and leap from top to top\nof the pine trees, like birds of evil omen.\n\nA storm is brewing.\n\nBy-and-bye, from far over the hills comes the muttering growl of distant\nthunder.  Presently clouds go scurrying overhead, and a bright flash is\nfollowed by a rattling peal.\n\nRain, and terrible rain, followed, and the wind began to rise.  The camp\nfire is drowned out, and our trio are fain to seek the shelter of a cave\non the wooded hillside.  None too soon; with a crashing roar, louder and\nmore continued than any thunder ever heard, the storm bursts upon them\nwith hurricane force.  And all that night it continues.  The pine trees\nhave fallen in all directions.  The river has risen in spate.  Through\nthe darkness they can see the ghostly glimmer of its foam, and they can\nhear the hurtling sound of the mighty boulders as they roll along.\n\nMorning came at last, grim and grey.\n\n\"Saint Mary! what a scene is here!\"\n\nThe whole face of the country is altered in appearance.  Where is their\nclaim, their gold mine, their hope of fortune, their joy of the previous\nevening?  All swept away or buried in chaos.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nJust three weeks after this fearful storm Kenneth and Archie bade\ngood-bye to their friend and comrade Harvey McGregor.  He had given up\nall hopes of finding fortune, and was returning to Scotland to claim his\nproperty.\n\nThey bade him good-bye at New Westminster.  Then, hand in hand as if\nthey were boys once more, they turned their backs to the coast, and went\naway towards the mountains.\n\n\"Archie,\" said Kenneth, \"there is gold to be got among these hills, but\n_not_ by digging.\"\n\n\"You are right.\"\n\n\"Let us work for our fortune like steady, brave men.  It may come, or it\nmay not.  At all events, we will be better working.  And we will try to\nforget the past and build no more castles in the air.\"\n\n\"Agreed,\" said Archie; \"let us work.\"\n\nAt Victoria these two brave young men changed the few nuggets they had\nfound for coin.  Then they pushed their way many miles inland in\nColumbia, and, having hired servants and bought a little land with\nplenty more to purchase lying right behind it, they set to work with a\nwill.  They built their house, a solid log-mansion.  They planned and\nlaid out their gardens.  They hewed timber, and sawed it, and sent it\ndown stream.  They tore the roots from the ground and cleared it for\ngrain, and, in a word, settled down in every way as farmers, determined\nto make the best of every chance.\n\nAnd here, in their far-away western home, let us leave them for a while,\nand journey over the broad Atlantic with Harvey McGregor.  There are\nthose in Scotland whose lives and actions may not be quite devoid of\ninterest to many who have read this history from the commencement.\n\nCHAPTER TWENTY TWO.\n\nGLEN ALVA UNDER NEW GOVERNMENT.\n\n  \"The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all,\n  Knight and page and household squire\n  Loitered through the lofty hall,\n  Or crowded round the ample fire.\n  The stag-hounds, weary of the chase,\n  Lay stretched upon the rushy floor,\n  And urged in dreams the forest race,\n  From Teviot Stone to Eskdale moor.\"\n\n  Walter Scott.\n\nScene: The tartan parlour of an old Highland mansion in the west of\nScotland.  Wine and walnuts on the table.  About a dozen gentlemen\nseated round in attitudes of ease and enjoyment.  A great fire of coal\nand oak logs in the low and spacious grate.  From their accent these\ngentlemen are mostly English and American.\n\n\"Robinson!\" cried Mr Steve, who was seated at the head of the table,\nand whose sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks told a tale that was far\nfrom difficult to read, \"Robinson, the bottle is with you.  What think\nyou of the stuff?  I paid thirty dollars a dozen for it at old\nClintock's sale, and I guess you'll hardly match it in this country, if\nanywheres.  Donald,\" he continued, addressing a white-haired old\nHighland servant, who stood near, \"heap more wood on the fire, and look\nactive.  Don't stand and stare like the log figure on a tobacconist's\nsign.  Move your joints, I say.\"\n\nDonald hastened to do as he was told; but as he obeyed he muttered\nsomething in the Gaelic language, of which the following is a pretty\nfair translation.\n\n\"It is Donald's own self that would like to put _you_ on the fire.\nTruth told, and it is then.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Robinson, a wealthy draper from London, \"the wine is\ntruly excellent, and if I were to speak the truth now, I'd say earnestly\nthat I don't think we _could_ match it in our old country.\"\n\n\"And after all, you know,\" said a white-faced, meek young man, who sat\nnear Mr Steve, \"this country is vewy nearly worn out.\"\n\n\"Oh! for the matter of that now,\" said Steve, \"America, above all\ncountries for institooshuns, great armies, great navies--if we chose to\nbuild them--for tall mountains, broad lakes, big steamboats, and mighty\nrivers.\"\n\n\"Heah! heah!\" from several voices.\n\n\"England,\" continued Steve, \"is all very well to spend money in, 'cause\nyou're near the Continent, and can run 'most anywhere without the\ntrouble of crossing much water.  But I say America's the country to make\nthe money in.\"\n\n\"Heah! heah!\"\n\n\"And, after all, what, I ask, would England be without America?\"\n\n\"What, indeed?\"\n\n\"Yet, _I_ wouldn't boast.  Your true American never does.  You\nEnglishmen, pardon me, talk about the sun never setting on British\nterritory, of your drum rolling and your reveille beating in a cordon\nright round the globe, and of your owning the sixth part of the land of\nthis boundless universe, and _all_ the water.  Now, if that ain't\nboasting--and mebbe it ain't--it is what I'd call pretty tall talk.\"\n\nThe laugh became general at this speech of Mr Steve of Glen Alva, and\nevery face beamed.\n\n\"You must all come out next spring, gentlemen, and stay a few weeks in\nmy New York mansion.  Nay, I won't take a refusal from one of you.  So\nthere!  And I guess, too, I can give you a good time of it.\"\n\nA beautiful deerhound rose slowly up from the mat and leaned his great\nhead on the table.  He did not wish to join the conversation.  He was\nonly craving a biscuit.\n\nSteve flicked a walnut at the head, which struck the poor animal on the\neye, and evidently caused him great pain.  He did not howl, however--\nScotch deerhounds are far too game for that; but he shut his eye, which\nwatered a deal, and went and lay down again on the rug with a big sigh,\nand all the rest of the evening was engaged licking his pastern, and\napplying it tenderly to the eye.  This is a dog's way of administering a\nwarm fomentation.\n\n\"Capital shot, eh?\" laughed Steve.\n\n\"Yes,\" from some of his guests.\n\n\"But I say, you know, Mr Steve,\" said one, with probably something of\nkindness to God's lower creation in his heart, \"I say, it wouldn't do to\ngo to the hill with blind dogs.  Would it?\"\n\n\"Oh! he won't hurt.  It takes a deal to hurt these hounds.  They are\nlike the Scots themselves, very hardy and active, but precious lazy.\nJust look at all those dogs snoring round the fire.\n\n\"I've cleared the glen, though, of some of the lazy Scots.  Why, it is\ndoing them good to drum them off to America.  In my opinion, more'n one\nhalf of Scotland should be cleared and planted out in forest.\"\n\n\"Well,\" said one Englishman, \"maybe you're right; and now, as myself and\nmost of us are going south early to-morrow morning, might I suggest that\nwe join the ladies?  But before I go, I must just take the liberty of\nthanking Mr Steve, our kindly-hearted host, for his hospitality to us\nsince we've been down here, and roamed in, and shot over, his\nmagnificent forest.  I consider Mr Steve's hospitality to be far more\nthan princely, both out-doors and in.  Just think, gentlemen, we have\nhad to our guns about one hundred and thirty-six stags, and as we all\nknow every stag costs its owner 300 pounds [so it is said in Scotland]\nyou can compute what Mr Steve's hospitality costs him.  I say no more.\"\n\n\"A mere flea-bite,\" returned Mr Steve pompously; \"I'll have you all\nagain next year; and now supposing we _do_ join the ladies.\"\n\nMr Steve's household was certainly kept up in a right lordly style.\nThere was no stint in it of anything that was good.  He had any number\nof beef-eating servants.  He was a good customer to his tradesmen--\nincluding his wine merchant,--who all, however, lived in Glasgow or\nLondon.  It must, therefore, be confessed that he brought money into the\ncountry, and in this way did good; yet he was not liked in the glens nor\nvillages, nor much relished by the proud old Highland families.  He was\nno friend to the poor man, and his minions had been known ere now to\nshoot stray pet dogs, and even cudgel to death the cats of poor old lone\nwomen,--cats that probably were the only friends and companions they had\nin this world.  So, to put it plain, Mr Steve was _not_ liked in the\nneighbourhood, and reference was often made of, and fond memories went\nback to, the dear old days, when good Laird McGregor owned the glen--now\na wilderness,--when it was dotted over with peaceful if rustic cottages,\nfrom which, as sure as sunrise, every morning rose, with the smoke from\nthe chimneys the song of praise to Him Who loves the poor man as well as\nthe rich.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe guests were preparing to retire, when a liveried servant entered\nwith a card on a gold salver.\n\n\"Beg pardon, sir, but the gentleman would insist upon my presenting that\n'ere card.\"\n\n\"Take it away,\" said Mr Steve, reading the card, without even deigning\nto finger it.  \"Take it away.  I can see no one to-night.\"\n\n\"I'll tell him, sir; but on'y, sir, he said his business was of immense\nimportance to yourself, and that he were a-going south by first train\nto-morrow morning.\"\n\n\"Heigho!\" sighed Steve, moving towards the door.  \"What a bore!  You'll\nexcuse me half a moment, gentlemen?\"\n\nThe stranger had been shown into the low-ceilinged but snug\nold-fashioned parlour, and rose and bowed as Steve entered.\n\n\"I presume,\" he said, \"I have the honour of addressing Mr Steve?\"\n\n\"You have,\" said Mr Steve; \"and pray be brief, for my guests wait.\"\n\n\"My business is of a private nature,\" replied the stranger, with a\nglance at the servant.\n\nAt a nod from his master the latter retired.\n\nThe stranger took the liberty of shutting the door, then confronted Mr\nSteve.\n\nHe was a youngish man, of bold and gentlemanly appearance, and\nunmistakably Scotch, though with slightly foreign action while\nconversing.\n\n\"Mr Steve,\" he said, \"I will be very brief.  I might have communicated\nwith you through my solicitor, but thought it more fair to you, and more\nhonourable in me, to come personally, for, after all, when you hear what\nI have to say, litigation will be unnecessary.\"\n\n\"Litigation, sir?  Pray go on,\" said Steve, smiling somewhat\nsarcastically.  \"You're not out of your mind, are you?\"\n\n\"You shall judge for yourself.  You purchased this estate of Alva, sir,\nfrom the late Laird McGregor?\"\n\n\"I did, and paid for it handsomely.\"\n\n\"But by the laws of this country entailed estates cannot be sold and the\nentail thus broken, unless it can be proved that no other male heir\nlives.  Thus in point of fact, at all events, were the lands and estates\nof Alva left by will to the McGregors and their lineal descendants.\"\n\n\"See, stranger,\" said Steve, \"I'm not going to debate here all night on\nmatters of law.  Law is a dry subject at best.  I bought Alva, there was\n_no_ other male heir to McGregor, and his only son was drowned at sea.\"\n\n\"His only son now stands before you!\"\n\n\"Then the father--\"\n\n\"Stay,\" cried young McGregor, \"tempt me not to do that I should be sorry\nfor.  I came but to inform you I would make every attempt to win back my\nown.  I have now to say good-night.\"\n\n\"I thank you,\" sneered Steve, \"for your courtesy; but do--_not_--fear--\nyou.  Good-night.\"\n\nCHAPTER TWENTY THREE.\n\nTHE WANDERER'S RETURN.\n\n  \"Dear land of my birth, far from thee have I been,\n  By streamlets so flowery and valleys so green,\n  In vain seeking fortune; but still as of yore\n  The home of my heart is the Vale of Strathmore.\"\n\n  Old Scottish Song.\n\nScene: Sunset on the sea.  So close to the ocean is the old castle built\nthat, looking from the window which almost overhangs it, nothing else\ncan be seen but the golden-tipped waves, golden-tipped even to the\nfar-off horizon, and breaking with pleasing murmur on the beach beneath.\nThe mountains that rise inland from the castle are either wholly green,\nor patched with purple heather.  In a room overlooking the sea, in\nhigh-backed cushioned chair, sits a lady,--but little past the prime of\nlife, perhaps, though her hair is like the snow.  Her face is very\npleasant to behold, so calm and resigned is it.  Near her on a stool a\nmaid is reading to her.\n\n\"I think now, Mary,\" said the lady at last, \"it is time to order tea.\"\n\nMary, a modest, wee Highland maiden, rose, and quietly retired.\n\nAs she opened the door a great black-as-jet Newfoundland came bounding\nin, all white teeth and eager eyes.  He went straight away, and placed\nhis head on his mistress's lap, and was gently caressed.\n\n\"Where have you been, Bran?\" she said.  \"Not in the sea at this time of\nnight?  But you do go in sometimes later, you know, and then hie away to\nthe kitchen, sly dog, to get your coat dried before you come to see me.\"\n\nMary tapped at the door and entered.  Her face was bright with pleasure.\n\n\"Oh!  Mrs McGregor,\" she said, \"Mr Smith has come by steamer from\nOban!\"\n\nMrs McGregor's face assumed an expression of great seriousness.\n\n\"Oh!\" she cried, \"I trust it is no bad news he brings about my brother.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" the girl hastened to say; \"he bade me tell you it was all a\nvisit of pleasure.  I showed him to the old room, and he will be here in\na few minutes.\"\n\nMr Smith, I may tell the reader, was family solicitor to Mrs\nMcGregor's brother, in whose house she had resided since her husband's\ndeath.  The solicitor lived in London, but not unfrequently ran down to\nenjoy the sea or the land sport, so easily obtained in this lone but\nlovely isle of the Hebrides.\n\n\"Surprised to see me, Mrs McGregor?\" said the gentleman, as he shook\nhands and sat down.  \"Hope I didn't frighten you much?  Just ran down\nfrom town to get a mouthful of sea-air.  Been rather overworked of late.\nTea, did you say?  Yes, with pleasure, but Mary must really bring me\nsomething substantial to go along with it.  My journey has made me\nhungry.\"\n\n\"And you have seen my brother?\"\n\n\"Only two days ago, and he is looking hale and hearty, and hopes to\nreturn in a week.\"\n\n\"Well, Mr Smith, you must stay here till he returns.\"\n\n\"It is doubtful if I can; business, you know, business.  What a lovely\nsunset, to be sure!  Bodes a fine day to-morrow I should think.\"\n\n\"You seem happy, Mr Smith?\"\n\n\"I feel as fresh as a daisy.\"\n\n\"And yet, but a minute ago, you hinted at being fagged by over-work.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" replied the solicitor, shaking his head, \"that was _before_ I left\ntown.  Bless you, madam, two gulps of Highland air set me on my legs\nagain at any time.\"\n\nThe two chatted very pleasantly together over the evening meal; but\ntowards the end of it Mr Smith managed adroitly to turn the\nconversation to bygone times.\n\n\"I seem to sadden you though,\" he said.\n\n\"Oh! no: I'm resigned to everything now.  My time will not be very long,\nand I know the good God in whom I trust has done all for the best.  But\nthe loss of my son was a great blow; then my husband's death.\"\n\n\"Why, Mrs McGregor, do you make that distinction?  You talk of your\nhusband's death, but always speak of poor Harvey's _loss_.\"\n\n\"Because, Mr Smith, I saw my husband die; my son went away, and ah!\nfoolish though it may be, I cherish half a hope he may yet return to\nclose his mother's eyes.\"\n\n\"Well, well, I daresay stranger things may have happened,\" said the\nsolicitor, thoughtfully looking and pretending to read a fortune in the\ngrounds of his tea-cup.\n\nNow, the fact is, that no sooner had Harvey McGregor left Mr Steve's\nthan he had hurried up to town, and called on Mr Smith, the only\nman-at-law he knew.  He speedily convinced that gentleman of his\nidentity, and got his mother's address.  Heedless Harvey would have\nhurried away home--as he called it--at once, but wise Mr Smith would\nnot hear of it.\n\n\"Come a day after me,\" he had advised.  \"I'll go down and break the\nnews, for, don't you know, my boy, that joy can kill?\"\n\nHence Mr Smith's present visit to the old castle.\n\n\"Whose fortune are you trying to read in that tea-cup?\" said Mrs\nMcGregor, with a strange ring in her voice, a strange sparkle in her\neye.  \"Give me the cup,\" she added.\n\nShe turned it round and round.\n\n\"I see,\" she said; \"my boy's barques sailing everywhere over the world.\nSometimes they are wrecked, but _he_ is never drowned.  I see the prows\nof these ships pointing everywhere, but never homeward.  My boy is\nproud.  Ah I at last here comes one, and my boy, my boy is in it!\"\n\nShe almost dashed down the cup as she spoke, and sprang to her feet.\n\"Smith,\" she cried, \"you cannot deceive me; there is something in my\nbreast, born of a mother's love, that tells me Harvey has come.\"\n\nMr Smith hummed and haa'ed, as the saying is, and muttered something\nabout a letter.\n\n\"No, no, no,\" she cried; \"you only thought you ought to break the news\ngently to me, but I saw strange joy in your eye as soon as you entered.\nNow, dear Mr Smith, I appreciate all your kindness, but you see I can\nbear joy as well as grief.  Tell me all about it.\"\n\nAnd the solicitor did so.  At the conclusion she took out her\nhandkerchief, and sobbed just a little.\n\nThen she abruptly rose and left the room.\n\nMr Smith said never a word.  He knew she had gone to pray.\n\nNext evening they were seated together--mother and son--mother and\n\"prodigal son,\" as Harvey would persist in calling himself.\n\nMr Smith respected their feelings.  He went away to fish, and did not\nreturn till dinner-time.\n\nBut that evening the trio had much to talk about, many business matters\nto discuss.\n\n\"Alva shall return to its rightful owner,\" exclaimed Mr Smith.  \"I'm\ndetermined on that, if Steve were nineteen times an American\nmillionaire.  It was sold for half, nay, but fourth its value.  It was\nsold to pay London debts of honour forsooth.  Turf and otherwise.  Bah!\nThe money shall be raised to repay Mr Steve, and out he shall go, as\nsure as I belong to the great family of Smith.  I'll employ London\ncounsel that will astonish him.  You'll see I'll do it.  _Can_ and\n_shall_.  And I won't let the grass grow under my feet either.\"\n\nNor did the worthy solicitor.\n\nHe started for London the very next day, leaving Harvey and his mother\nalone.\n\nHarvey felt, and almost looked, a boy again.  He had so much to speak\nabout, so much to tell of his hard adventurous life in search of\nfortune; and it is so pleasant to be listened to by one who loves you!\nNo wonder Harvey McGregor felt happy.  All the past blotted out and\nforgiven, all the future as hopeful as the past had been dark and\noftentimes dismal.\n\nWith many, if not most, of his adventures, the reader is already\nfamiliar, but of his voyage home from New York I have said nothing.\n\nHarvey then was possessed of some little money, and this he determined\nto convey home on his person.  He might have had bills of exchange, but\nhe was but little conversant with such aids to the transaction of\nbusiness.  Would he take it in gold and wear it in a waist-belt round\nhis body?  He was too old a sailor to do any such thing.  For in event\nof being cast into the water he knew well that nothing sinks a man\nsooner than gold.  It is the greed of gold, by the way, that sinks men\non shore.\n\nBut Harvey knew the sight and feel of a crisp Bank of England note.  He\ngot these and sewed them into a waterproof bag, and this he put into a\nwaist-belt, which he wore by night and by day.\n\nHe worked his passage home.  He was no idler, and preferred work to\nplay.\n\nThe vessel was a sailing ship, not a steamer, and bound for Glasgow.\nWith fair winds she would fly across the wide Atlantic.  And oh! how\nwide the Atlantic does seem to those who are homeward bound, I for one\ncan tell from experience!\n\nThe winds _were_ fair for a time; then they became baffling.\n\nOften the _Marianne_, as she was called, had to lie to for days in a\ngale of wind; then fair weather would come again and all would be life\nand joy, fore and aft.  Then round the wind would chop once more, and\nthe sea wax fretful, angry, vicious, hitting the poor ship such vengeful\nblows, that she bent her head, and reeled and creaked in every timber.\n\nWell, such is a seaman's life in a sailing ship at almost any time, and\nHarvey would not have minded it a bit, only he was going home, and every\nday was precious.\n\nNear the coast at long last.  They would (d.v.) round the Mull of\nCantyre in another day, then hurrah! and hurrah! for the beautiful\nClyde.\n\nBut all at once the weather waxed dark and stormy, and the wind headed\nround.  The glass came tumbling down, and at sunset things looked black\nand serious.\n\nHow the waves did dash and beat to be sure, and how the wind did rave\nand roar through the rigging and shrouds!\n\nThere was just a morsel of a moon, but it was seldom seen for the black\ndrifting clouds.  It must be nigh midnight, thought those storm-tossed\nsailors.  All hands were on deck.  No bells were struck, nor could a\nwatch be looked at.  Suddenly, during a temporary gleam of moonlight, a\nblacker cloud than any yet seen appeared on the horizon.  Every _old_\nsailor knew what that cloud was--a wall of beetling cliffs.\n\n\"Ready about?\"\n\nYes, but it was too late.  Next moment she had struck with fearful\nviolence, and reeling back tottered and began to sink.\n\nBoat after boat was lowered, only to be smashed to pieces.\n\nOne was safely got away from the sinking ship, and steered for lights\nthey could see to the left.  A signal was fired.  A blue light burned.\nLights were seen waving on shore as if to encourage them.\n\nThey are close in shore, among the awful surf.  Can they do it?  The\nnight got clearer far now.  There was a good show of moonlight on the\nwater and the light from the foam itself.  When it seemed as almost\nimpossible the boat could reach the shore, a dozen hardy fishermen\nrushed into the sea, the painter was thrown to them and grasped, and\nnext moment they were safe, though wholly exhausted.\n\nMorning broke immediately after, showing how much they had been mistaken\nin thinking it but midnight when the vessel struck.  But time flies\nquickly, even in danger, when one is busy.\n\nThe shipwrecked men--the few saved--were kindly cared for.  Harvey found\nhimself inside a curious and humble dwelling, tended by the funniest\nlittle old man he had ever seen.  The house was made out of a boat.  The\nfunny little old man was our old friend Duncan Reed.\n\nDuncan, next day, told him a wondrous deal about the glen and about\nKenneth's old friends, all of which were duly chronicled in Harvey's\nmind, and in due time found their way in writing to his comrades beyond\nthe sea.\n\nThey say that possession is nine points of the law; this does not hold\ngood, however, in the case, say, of a thief being caught with a dozen\nsilver spoons in his pocket.\n\n\"Might is right\" is another common saying, but neither the might of\nwealth nor the fact of his being in possession of the Alva estate\nprevented Mr Steve, the millionaire, having finally to leave it.\n\nWhen the news of McGregor's success came, the rejoicing in the clachan\nand the glens was such as had never been remembered before.  Bonfires\nblazed on every hill.  Lads and lasses danced, old men wrung each other\nby the hands, and old wives wept for joy.\n\nOld Duncan is even reported to have danced a hornpipe.\n\nPoor Duncan! he was offered a kindly home at the mansion of Alva.\n\n\"It is mindful of you, sir,\" old Duncan replied, \"but out o' sight of\nthe sea, out o' hearin' o' the waves, Duncan wouldna live a week.  I'll\nlay my bones beside her soon.\"\n\nCHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.\n\nIN THE \"FA' O' THE YEAR.\"\n\n  \"'Mid pleasures and palaces where'er we may roam,\n  Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.\"\n\n  Old Song.\n\n  \"Fareweel, fareweel, my native hame,\n  Thy lonely glens and heath-clad mountains;\n  Fareweel thy fields o' storied fame,\n  Thy leafy shaws and sparklin' fountains.\"\n\n  A. Hume.\n\nScene: Glen Alva.  Down in the clachan and lowlands, and around the\nmansion house, the autumnal tints are on the trees; the chestnuts, the\nlime and the maples have turned a rich yellow, and soon the leaves will\nfall; but the elm and oak retain their sturdy green.  So do the waving\npines.  High on the hillsides the heather still blooms.  There is\nsilence almost everywhere to-day.  Silence on mountain and silence in\nforest.  Only the sweet plaintive twitter of the robin is heard in\ngarden and copse.  He sings the dirge of the departed summer.  It is\nindeed the \"fa' o' the year.\"\n\nTime: Five years have elapsed since the date of the events described in\nlast chapter.\n\nIn my humble opinion--and I daresay many coincide with me--the great\npoet never spoke truer words than these:--\n\n\"There's a Divinity that shapes our lives, Rough-hew them as we will.\"\n\nWho could have thought that Harvey McGregor, with his fearless nature,\nhis tameless spirit, and roaming disposition, would ever have settled\ndown in quiet Glen Alva, or that Kenneth McAlpine would have developed\ninto a farmer in the Far West.\n\nBut so, indeed, it was.\n\nAmbition--well guided--is a noble thing.  All my three heroes were\nambitious.  Harvey's ambition, perhaps, was tinctured with some degree\nof pride.  He fought long and manfully for fortune, and when he fell, he\nhad the grace to own it.  Kenneth's and Archie's ambition was more to be\nadmired, and I love the man or boy who has a feeling of independence in\nhis breast, and who, if he should fail in one line of life, turns\ncheerfully to another, with a determination to do his duty, and never\ngive up.  Dost remember the lines of the good poet Tupper?  They are\nbetter than many a hymn, and may help to cheer you in hours when life\nseems dark and hopeless.\n\n  \"Never give up!  It is wiser and better\n      Always to hope, than once to despair;\n  Fling off the load of Doubt's heavy fetter,\n      And break the dark spell of tyrannical Care.\n  Never give up! or the burden may sink you,\n      Providence kindly has mingled the cup;\n  And in all trials and troubles, bethink you,\n      The watchword of life must be, Never give up!\n  Never give up, there are chances and changes,\n      Helping the hopeful, a hundred to one,\n  And through the chaos High Wisdom arranges\n      Ever success,--if you'll only hope on.\n  Never give up! for the wisest is boldest,\n      Knowing that Providence mingles the cup,\n  And of all maxims the best, as the oldest,\n      Is the true watchword of Never give up.\"\n\nYes, ambition is a noble thing; yet it should not be a selfish ambition.\nBlessed is he who works and toils and struggles for the happiness of\nthe masses, as well as for his own.  Has not He Who spoke as never man\nspake left us a glorious example to follow--follow, if only afar off?\n\nBut now let us take a peep into the tartan parlour of Alva House, a peep\nat the fireside life of young Laird McGregor, on this quiet autumnal\nafternoon.\n\nWhen we were introduced into this same parlour, we found it the scene of\na revel, over which it is as well to draw the curtain of oblivion.\n\nBut now, here are seated Harvey McGregor and his young wife.  Yes, he is\nmarried, and a babe has come to bless him, too.\n\nNear the fire, in a high-backed chair, is Harvey's mother.  She looks\nvery contented, and there are smiles chasing each other all round her\nlips and eyes.\n\nBut where, think you, is baby?  On his mother's lap, you say?  Nay, but\npositively on his father's knee--his father, the quondam rover of the\nsea and the prairies.\n\nIt is somewhat absurd, I grant you, but there is no getting over facts.\nSometimes brave soldiers or sailors make the best of fireside folks,\nwhen they _do_ settle down.\n\nAnd Harvey McGregor is not only nursing his young heir, but he is\nactually nodding at him and talking sweet nonsense to him, while baby\ncrows, and Harvey's wife looks on delightedly.\n\nSo busily are all engaged that they do not hear the hall door bell ring,\nnor know anything at all about its being rung either, until suddenly a\nHighland servant enters with two cards on a tray.\n\nHarvey hands baby to his mother in some confusion--I'm not at all sure\nhe did not blush a little; but no sooner has he taken the cards and read\nthem, than he jumps up from his chair as if a hornet had stung him.\n\n\"Hurrah!\" he cries.\n\n\"Dear me, Harvey! what is it?\" his wife exclaims.\n\n\"Nothing, my dear,\" says Harvey; \"that is--it is everything, I mean.  It\nis joy in the house of McGregor.  Hurrah!\"\n\nAnd away he rushes, leaving his wife and mother to wonder.\n\nThey were in the library, the pair of them.  They had not even sat down,\nbecause they knew Harvey would soon come.\n\nAnd they were not mistaken.\n\n\"Why, Kenneth!  Archie!\" he cried, extending a hand to each, \"my dear\nold shipmates, `pals,' and partners, how are you?\"\n\n\"Took you by surprise, eh?\" replied Kenneth, laughing.\n\n\"Why, the biggest and the best surprise I've had for many a day.  But\nhow are you? and where have you come from last? and how goes the farm\nout in the West?\"\n\nHarvey put a dozen other questions, but he gave his friends no time to\nanswer one.\n\nI leave my readers to guess whether or not they spent a pleasant, happy\nevening together.  Ay, and not one, but many.  For Harvey was not going\nto let them go for a long time, you may be sure.  So they stayed on and\non for weeks.  There was plenty of sport and fun to be got all day, but,\nnevertheless, the evenings were always most pleasant.  There was so much\nto talk about, and so much to tell each other, that time fled on\nswallows' wings, and it was always pretty near the--\n\n  \"Wee short 'oor ayout the twal,\"\n\nbefore they parted for the night.\n\nNeed I say that one of the first places visited by Kenneth and Archie--\nand they stole away all alone--was Kooran's grave, and the fairy knoll?\nThey were delighted to find the former carefully kept, and quite\nsurprised to find the latter completely furnished.  The inside was a\ncave no longer, except in shape.  It was a library, a boudoir, call it\nwhat you may.\n\n\"How mindful of dear Harvey!\" said Kenneth.\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" replied Archie; \"and think, too, of his goodness to my\ndear father, of the comfortable house he dwells in, and the smiling\nlittle croft around it.\"\n\n\"Harvey,\" said Kenneth with enthusiasm, \"is one of Nature's noblemen.\n\n  \"`Away with false fashion, so calm and so chill,\n  Where pleasure itself cannot please;\n  Away with cold breeding, that faithlessly still\n  Affects to be quite at its ease.\n  For the deepest in feeling is highest in rank,\n  The freest is first of the band:\n  And Nature's own nobleman, friendly and frank,\n  Is the man with his heart in his hand.'\"\n\n\"Come, I say, Kennie, my learned old man, when you are talking poetry,\nand such ringing verses, too, as these, I dare say you imagine I must\nsing small; but bide a wee, lad, there is two of us can play at the same\ngame.  What say you if I match Burns against your Tupper?  Hear then.\"\n\nAnd, with figure and head erect, with arms extended and open palm,\nArchie spoke,--\n\n  \"Is there for honest poverty,\n  That hangs his head and a' that?\n  The coward-slave, we pass him by,\n  And dare be poor for a' that.\n  What though on homely fare we dine,\n  Wear hodden-grey [coarse, woollen, undyed cloth] and a' that,\n  Give fools their silks, and knaves their wine,\n  A man's a man for a' that.\n\n  \"A prince can make a belted knight,\n  A marquis, duke and a' that;\n  But an honest man's above his might,\n  Guid faith he mauna fa' that.  [Try.]\n  Then let us pray that come it may,\n  As come it will for a' that,\n  That sense and worth o'er a' the earth,\n  May bear the gree for a' that.\"\n\n[Bear the gree, _i.e._, be triumphant.]\n\n\"Bravo!  Archie, lad.  Glad to see that you haven't forgotten your\nScotch, though we've talked little but English for many a long day.\n\n\"Ah! well,\" he continued, after a pause, \"I was just thinking, Archie,\nhow kind Providence has been to us.\"\n\n\"But mind you, Kenneth, we've worked hard.\"\n\n\"I'm not saying we haven't, Archie, I'm not saying we haven't.  We\n_have_ worked; and I say shame on the sheep who huddles down in a corner\nand nurses himself, and thinks that Heaven will give him every blessing\nfor the asking.  We must work as well as pray.\"\n\n\"Do you know, Archie, that one terrible night at sea, while we were\nrounding the Horn with a whole gale of wind blowing and a smothering sea\non, when it was so dark you couldn't have seen a sheet of white paper\nheld at arm's length, and when we all of a sudden knew from the\nfrightful cold we were surrounded by ice, when at last the ship was\nstruck and began to leak, and no one had a hope of seeing the morn\nbreak--that down below I stole just one half minute to open my Book?\nAnd my eyes fell upon the ninety-first Psalm, and I took comfort and\nheart at once; I knew we would be saved, and next day the captain\ncomplimented me on having been so daring, so fearless, and cheerful.\nAh! lad, little did he know that the bravery in my breast was no bravery\nof mine; it _had been put there by Him_.  Call this faith of mine folly\nif you like, I don't care; it suits _me_, and it has saved me more than\nonce, and comforted me a thousand times.\n\n\"Do you mind the time,\" Kenneth went on, changing the subject, \"when you\nand I used to herd the sheep here with dear old Kooran and Shot?\"\n\n\"Can I e'er forget it, Kenneth?\"\n\nSitting on the top of the fairy knoll there, the two young men had quite\na long talk about bygone times.  I have said \"young men;\" and they were\nso, though they might not have appeared to be in the eyes of boys and\ngirls, but as they talked they seemed to grow younger still.  Kenneth\ncould almost imagine he saw the smoke curling up from his mother's cot\nin the glen, and Kooran feathering away through the heather to fetch his\ndinner.  [See Book One, chapter one.]\n\nA day or two after this the three friends went together over the hills\nto pay a visit to the fisherman's cot by the beach.\n\nDuncan Reed was so glad to see them.  He was not so very much altered in\nappearance.  They found him seated in the sunlight, with a very large\nBible on his lap, and an immense pair of hornrimmed spectacles on his\nnose.\n\nDuncan drops out of the story here.  He is gone years ago.  Suffice it\nto say he had his wish--he sleeps beside the sea.\n\nOn their return journey they visited the ruins of old Nancy Dobbell's\ncottage.  Harvey McGregor made one remark which explains much.\n\n\"That old woman,\" he said, \"alone knew my secret.\"\n\nPassing onwards towards the forest, Kenneth ventured to ask for the\nfirst time about Jessie Grant.\n\n\"Heigho!\" replied Harvey; \"I cared not to mention it in my letter, but\nthat family were in reduced circumstances even before the father and\nmother died; now poor Jessie lives at Helensburgh in a humble cottage\nwith her aunt.\"\n\n\"And she is not--\"\n\n\"No, not married.\"\n\nA thrill of joy went through Kenneth's heart.  It was not unaccompanied\nby a kind of satisfied feeling of pride.  He could not quite forget the\ntime when proud Mr Redmond offered him the position of ghillie on his\npremises.\n\nNeed I say that Kenneth soon found Jessie out?  She was more beautiful\nthan ever in his eyes.\n\nArchie and Kenneth took rooms at Helensburgh--for sake of the fishing.\nAt least Kenneth said it was for sake of the fishing; but he did not\nlook Archie quite straight in the face when he made the remark.\n\nWhen, after a few weeks, Kenneth proposed marriage to Jessie, his offer\nwas--refused.\n\nWhy?  Truth to tell, Jessie loved him, but she said to herself, \"Now he\nis rich and I am poor, it cannot be.\"\n\nI do not know whether this was a pardonable pride in Jessie or not.\nPerhaps it was.\n\nThen came an evening when Kenneth, Archie, and Jessie were strolling\ntogether on the banks of the loch.  It was to be the last night in\nScotland of the two American farmers, as they called themselves, and she\ncould not refuse to go with them to see the sun set behind the\nmountains.\n\nKenneth felt very sad, and spoke but little, Jessie hardly at all; in\nfact, she felt that it would not take much to make her cry.\n\nArchie was still a student of natural history, and a new species of fern\ncaught his eye.  He must climb the fence, must commit a trespass even to\nfind it, and his companions strolled on.\n\nIt was hardly an evening calculated to inspire hope or joy.  A breeze\nroughened the lake, and went moaning through the almost leafless trees;\nthe fields were bare or ploughed, the hedgerows looked sickly, and the\nbrackens--so lovely in summer--were brown or broken down or bent.\nStill, the robin sang in the woods.  That was something.\n\nKenneth and Jessie leant against a stile to wait for Archie; but that\nfern required a deal of examination.\n\n\"Archie seems in no hurry,\" said Jessie, looking back.\n\n\"He has found a flower of some kind, I suppose,\" replied Kenneth.\n\n\"There are few flowers in November,\" she said, quickly.\n\n\"Here are two.  Do you remember them, Miss Redmond?\"  As he spoke he\nproduced old Nancy's Bible, and opened it.\n\nThe flowers were there, but sadly withered.\n\nThis is precisely the remark that Jessie made.\n\n\"I do,\" she said, with a blush and a sigh; \"but they are sadly\nwithered.\"\n\n\"Like my hopes,\" replied Kenneth.  \"I leave my country a broken-hearted\nman--\"\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nHow handy for an author is a line of those little stars called\n\"asterisks!\"  How neatly I dropped the curtain by means of it on that\nconversation between Kenneth and Jessie!\n\nBut _did_ Kenneth leave his country a broken-hearted man?  No; how could\nhe with Jessie by his side?\n\nThey were married at Alva House by old Mr Grant.  It was a quiet\nwedding indoors, but out of doors--well, Harvey McGregor determined his\ntenantry should all go mad together if they chose.  There were balls and\nbonfires, breakfasts, dinners, and suppers _galore_, and such rejoicing\nand such general jollity as will never be forgotten while the heather\nblooms on Alva hills, and the dark pines wave in its valleys.\n\nThe honeymoon was spent in the New Forest; and Kenneth did not forget to\nvisit his old friend Major Walton, whom he found happy and hearty.\n\nBeautiful are the farms that Kenneth and Archie occupy in far-off\nBritish Columbia.  There is a thriving village near them now, and\nchurches and schools; but their farms lie well in the outskirts.  What\nthough in winter wild winds wail around the dwellings, and shake the\npine trees on the mountain sides? there are warmth and light and\nbrightness indoors; and some laughing and fun, too, for there are\nchildren, one, two, three; and Uncle Archie, as the latter call him,\ndrops in nearly every evening to spend an hour or two, so no one thinks\nthe time long.\n\nThen in summer, oh! to roam in those beautiful woods, and cull the fruit\nand the wild flowers.  And at this sweet time of the year, the gardens\nand lawns and terraces, and the verandahs of Kenneth's many-gabled\ndwelling, are bathed in floral beauty.  It is quite a sight to see, and\nto dream about ever afterwards.\n\nAnd no one, I think, would begrudge Kenneth his happiness.  He worked\nfor it.\n\nGood-bye, reader.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe End.","title":"Kenneth McAlpine: A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":56647}