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diff --git a/38199.txt b/38199.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f3afac8 --- /dev/null +++ b/38199.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7328 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kenneth McAlpine, by Gordon Stables + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Kenneth McAlpine + A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea + +Author: Gordon Stables + +Release Date: December 3, 2011 [EBook #38199] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENNETH MCALPINE *** + + + + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + + + + +Kenneth McAlpine +A Tale of Mountain, Moorland and Sea +By Gordon Stables +Published by S.W. Partridge & Co;. +This edition dated 1885. + +Kenneth McAlpine, by Gordon Stables. + +________________________________________________________________________ + +________________________________________________________________________ +KENNETH MCALPINE, BY GORDON STABLES. + +CHAPTER ONE. + +EARLY DAYS. + + "Away, ye gay landscapes, ye garden of roses, + And bring me the land where the dewdrop reposes." + + Byron. + + "Poor woolly mother, be at peace! + Whither thou goest I will bear thy care." + + M. Arnold. + +Scene: A Highland mountain, clad almost to the summit in purple heather. +On the right a ravine, half hidden by drooping birch trees. On the +left a pine forest. Sheep grazing in the foreground. Smoke upcurling +from a humble cottage in the distance. A shepherd-boy talking to his +dog; between them a lamb is lying on the ground. + +"It is dead, Kooran, dead, dead, dead. It is as dead as ever a lamb +was, Kooran. Ay, my doggie, I ken you're sorrowful and anxious, but you +may stand there and lick its little face and legs, till this time the +morn, Kooran, but you can never bring back life to it again. + +"What do you say, Kooran? Its eyes are still bright and shinin' and +life-like? True; but wait a wee, Kooran. Yes, wait a wee, dear frien'. +In less than an hour, Kooran, its poor eyes will be glassy enough, and +its bits o' legs as cold and stiff as the crook I'm holding in my hand. + +"Let us hide it awa' in under this bush o' whins,--out o' sight of the +poor woeful mother of it. I canna bear to bury it just yet, while the +heart is still warm, but by-and-bye, Kooran; by-and-bye, doggie. + +"Yonder comes the mother, Kooran. She has left the flock again." + +The sheep bleats. + +"Listen, Kooran, listen. What a mournfu' bleat! It makes my blood +creep. And look at her eyes, Kooran. They seem starting out o' the +sockets wi' excitement. Drive her back, Kooran, but _walk_, doggie; +dinna run. Drive her ever so gently. She'll never have her lammie to +trot at her heels again. Gently, Kooran, gently. + +"And now, Kooran, off you trot home for the barley scones and the flagon +o' milk. I'll have the lammie buried before you come back, so the sight +of that will trouble you no more. Then we'll have dinner, doggie, and +it is time, too. Look at the sun where it is, right over the highest +peak of Ben Varra. Off you trot, Kooran, and dinna let the grass grow +under your feet till you're back again. + +"Heigho! another lammie dead!" The boy was alone now; the faithful dog +had departed at once on his mission. In a bee-line down the mountain's +side went he, feathering along through the grass and the patches of +blooming heather, jumping over boulders, and springing down from rocky +ledges with a daring that would assuredly have proved fatal to any other +kind of dog, save a Highland collie or a Scottish deerhound. Finally he +went splashing through a broad though shallow river, and immediately +after disappeared in a clump of those sweet-scented birch trees that +grow so plentifully in "the land of the mountain and flood." + +"Heigho! another lammie dead!" + +The boy had gone farther up the hill, and as he spoke he threw himself +down on top of a couch made of heather, dislodging as he did so several +mossy bees that had come to suck the honey from the little purple bells. + +Quite a work of art was this couch. It had taken the boy all the +livelong morning and forenoon to make it, Kooran meanwhile trotting +about after him or standing by his side, with one ear pricked up, the +other down, very much interested indeed in the progress of the work, and +apparently sorry that he was only a dog and could not lend a hand. + +Wouldst know how this couch was built? First and foremost, then, the +lad had sought out a proper site, flat and smooth, on which to make it. +This was chosen close to a steep-rising rock far up the mountain's side, +and whence he could see not only all the country far and wide, but the +grazing ground of his flock of sheep some distance down beneath him. + +Under the rock, but fully exposed to the rays of the summer sun, for +Kenneth was not a bit afraid of spoiling his complexion. Indeed, such +an accident would have been impossible, for neither his face nor his +knees--he wore the Highland garb--could have been one whit browner than +they were. And as for the sun giving him a headache, that was out of +the question--the sun's rays had not the power. For when taking a +_siesta_, as shepherd lads are wont to do sometimes, his favourite +attitude was lying on his back with one arm under his head and his face +upturned to the god of day, for he feared the sun no more than does +yonder eagle that goes circling up and up towards it, even as moths, on +a summer's evening, go wheeling round and round the lamp flame. + +A black, bare, bleak-looking rock it was, but canopied over with the +greenest of green moss and trailing saxifrages, bearing tiny flowerets +of pink and white and blue. + +Quite a work of art was this heather couch, and as perfect as any one +could wish to see it. Not from any place near to the rock, however, had +the boy pulled the heather with which he formed it. There was something +of the poet and the artist about the lad, and he would never have dreamt +of spoiling the gorgeous purple carpet that grew on the hill immediately +in front of and beneath him. He went farther afield and higher up for +his couch material. And he _cut_ it close off by the roots, for if you +_pull_ heather, then with the roots are sure to come up both moss and +turf. + +When he had culled quite an armful, he proceeded to tie it up into +little bundles or sheaves, and so on sheaf after sheaf he manufactured, +singing to himself or talking to Kooran, until he had quite enough to +build his heather sofa withal. + +Then he took all his sheaves down to the rock and commenced operations, +placing them side by side close together with the bloom uppermost, and +lo and behold, in less than half an hour, a couch soft and fragrant +enough for the dainty limbs of some fairy queen to recline upon. + +It was on this heather bed, then, that Kenneth threw himself at full +length as soon as Kooran had disappeared in the distant birch wood. + +For fully a quarter of an hour Kenneth lay looking up at the white-grey +clouds, that were scudding swiftly across the blue of the beautiful sky. +He was wishing he could be up there, up riding on yonder cloud, away +from the earth entirely. "Just for a time, oh! only for a time," he +muttered; "I would come back to my sheep and Kooran. Yonder is a +laverock," (lark). "I can hardly see it, it has flown so high but I can +hear it, and how bonnie it sings as it flutters its wings, and seems to +fan the very clouds. Let me see what the song says. But no, I mustn't +sing, and I mustn't read. Kooran will soon be back wi' the dinner, and +I haven't buried the poor lammie yet." + +So saying, he jumped up. He had a spade handy. Alas! much to Kenneth's +sorrow, that spade had been used many times too often this summer, for +it had been a bad season among the sheep. He got the spade, and carried +that and the dead lamb far up above the spot where he had cut the +heather. Here the mountain was split as it were in two, or rather there +were two hills, with a green strath or glen between, formed thousands of +years or ages agone, by the gradual descent of some mighty glacier. + +The glade was green and in many places soft, though by no means boggy. +Near a bush Kenneth quickly dug a grave, and with a sigh he laid the +lamb therein, and covered it up, laying the sod down again, so that it +was scarcely discernible from the turf around it. + +Then he shouldered his spade and prepared to go back. But remembering +something else, he made a detour and came at last to a patch of whins. + +Hidden in a cosy corner close to the ground was a nest well lined with +feathers, and the little bird popped stealthily out as he approached. + +"Oh! the beauties," cried the boy, "the bonnie wee `hoties,'" (a kind of +finch). "There were four white and red eggs when I saw you last, and +there lie four naked gorbles, gaping up at me with wide yellow mouths. +Now that nest is easily seen, and if other boys find it when I'm no' +here, they'll kill the young and break the mither's heart. I'll try and +hide it. It's maybe the last nest I'll find this season." As he spoke +he looked about, and soon found a branchlet of withered whins, which he +placed carefully in front of the nest, then took up his spade again and +was about to withdraw, when his eyes lighted on one of those curious +green knolls, that are common enough in some bare mountain glens in the +Scottish Highlands. + +"A fairy hill!" he said half aloud. "I do wonder now if there are such +things as fairies, and if on moonlight nights they come oot, and dance +on this green hillock. Oh! wouldn't I like to see them just! I've a +good mind to come and watch here some bonnie night. I could bring +Kooran; I wouldna be feared if Kooran was with me." + +He climbed up to the top of the green knoll as he spoke. It was +perfectly round and smooth, and the grass grew softer and greener here +than anywhere else in all the glade. "Why," he said, "here is a hole +near the top for all the world like a lum," (chimney). "Is it possible, +I wonder, that fairies do live inside?" + +Down he went now and commenced marching round and round the knoll, +prodding it everywhere as he went with his long sharp spade. The spade +sank deep each time he thrust it in, until he came round to the upper +side, and here it rang against a stone. + +The boy went to work with a will, and soon laid that stone bare. It was +merely a large flat slab and quite loose. Kenneth leapt up above it, +and using the spade as a lever, he prised it up, and over it fell, +revealing to the boy's astonished gaze the entrance to a dark cave. +Here was indeed a discovery, and a discovery, too, that dovetailed most +completely and perfectly with this lad's romantic nature. + +"Well," he said, "this _is_ something to think about at last. But I +must go to dinner now. Kooran must come with me to explore." + +He left his spade and went away singing down the glade, and back to his +heather couch. + +But Kooran had not returned, so the lad, giving a look first to see that +the sheep were all right, lay down and took out a volume of songs and +commenced to read. Poetry, however, had lost its charm to-day, for his +mind would, in spite of all he could do, revert to that dark cave in the +fairy knoll. So he threw down the book and gave himself up to the +pleasant occupation of castle-building. + +The day was warm and sultry, the bees were humming lazily from heather +bloom to heather bloom, and high up against the fleecy cloudlets the +laverock still fluttered and sang; no wonder Kenneth's eyelids drooped, +and that he soon lost himself in dreams of fairyland. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Kenneth's mother lived in the long low turf-thatched cottage beyond the +birch wood. He had neither sister nor brother, and for many a long year +his father had been quietly sleeping in the humble little churchyard +that surrounded the ruins of the old parish kirk. + +"Oh, Kooran, doggie, here you are," cried Kenneth's mother as the dog +came trotting in, open-mouthed and gasping with the race he had had. +"Here ye are, and I haven't milked the cow yet. But I won't be long, +laddie." + +Kooran signified his intention of waiting, and threw himself down on the +kitchen floor, but not before he had lapped up all the cat's milk. +Pussy jumped down from the three-legged stool, near the peat fire, and +began purring and rubbing herself against Ivooran's chin. The cat and +dog were the best of friends; perhaps pussy thought it was good policy +to keep in with Kooran. + +As soon as Kenneth's mother had milked the cow, she filled a tin flagon +with the rich white fluid, made up a large parcel of buttered scones and +cheese, tied the whole in a large red napkin, and put it on the floor. + +Kooran was up and off before the cat could have winked, had she wanted +to wink. + +He took time to recross the stream and held the parcel high up as he did +so, but he did not let the grass grow under his feet, ere he returned to +the spot where he had left his young master. He was not there, but +Kooran soon found him asleep on the fragrant heather couch. The dog +dropped the bundle, sat down and looked at his master, and considered. +This did not wake him, so Kooran gave vent to an impatient whine or two. +As even that did not wake the sleeping boy, the dog licked his cheek, +then clawed at his arm with his paw, and finally Kenneth sat up, rubbed +his eyes, and then burst out laughing. + +"What silly dreams I've had," he said, proceeding to undo the knot on +the napkin, "such silly dreams! But go and fetch your dish, doggie." + +Kooran trotted off, and was back again in a moment with a tin saucer, +and the scones and milk were shared. + +"But oh! Kooran," continued the boy presently, "I've such news for +you." + +The dog pricked his ears, and turning his head a little on one side, +looked wondrous wise. + +"No," said Kenneth, "it isn't rats, and it isn't rabbits. There is +never anything else in your noddle, Kooran, but rats and rabbits. It's +a cave, Kooran. Of course you don't know what a cave is, but here,-- +there is some more dinner for you. Eat that, and then we'll go and +explore." + +The boy and his dog started off up the glen immediately after, and +Kooran, knowing there was something on the _tapis_, commenced to frisk +and bark around his young master. + +"That won't do, Kooran," said the boy, shaking his finger at his +companion. "Ye mustna do that. Look down there at the sheep; every +single one o' them has stopped eating to snuff the air. Come to heel +and keep quiet." + +They soon reached the fairy knoll, and as soon as Kooran saw the hole, +his mind still running on rats and rabbits, he disappeared inside. + +Never a rat nor rabbit was there, but several unwholesome-looking bats +came whirring out, and dazzled by the sunlight, dropped into the first +bush they came to. Kenneth himself now entered the cave, spade in hand, +and as soon as his eyes got used to the darkness, he began to examine it +thoroughly. It was large and roomy, the walls and floor of solid stone, +with marks of tools thereon, as if the place had either been wholly +excavated or enlarged by human hands. The light glimmered down the +chimney and fell on some large round brown article. It was a huge +kettle. Then, young though he was, Kenneth knew that at some time or +other this cave had been occupied not by fairies, but by a gang of +smugglers. + +"It was wise of them," thought Kenneth, "to use a place like this." + +Well might he think so, for even to this day, in remote districts of the +Highlands, so much of superstition clings around these fairy knolls that +no peasant would dare to go near them after nightfall. + +Now there is one thing in which Scotland and Germany have long resembled +each other. The very poorest people belonging to the two countries have +from time immemorial been taught to read and write. Kenneth had had the +advantages of an education far superior to most lads of his class and +age. He had spent many a long year at the parish school and evening +school, his mother had taught him, the clergyman's daughter had helped +him, but, better than all this, he had helped himself. + +When talking, as must have already been perceived, he sometimes made use +of Scotch words and phrases. He did so, not because he could not speak +pure English, but simply because they are often more expressive than the +Saxon idiom. + +"Well, Kooran," said Kenneth, "this is the best find ever we made. +Dinna ye think so, doggie?" + +But Kooran's nose was turned up to the roof, and his eyes wide with +excitement, for he perceived, clinging by its claws up there, the +strangest-looking rat ever he had seen in his life before. A rat, and +still not a rat, for it had wings; yes, and it could fly, too, for even +as he gazed it let go its hold and made straight for the doorway. +Kooran was far too quick for it, though. He sprang up, and next moment +it lay half-dead apparently between his two forepaws. + +"Strangest thing ever I came across," Kooran appeared to observe as he +looked wonderingly up into his young master's face. "Rats flying; this +_must_ be a fairy knoll, and I feel half afraid." + +"That's a bat, Kooran, a bat, boy, and you mustn't touch it. Look at +its two rows of white and glittering wee teeth. Poor little thing! +Kooran, it is well-nigh dead. And this cave really belongs by rights to +that bat and his brothers. We'll tie it up in the napkin, and you shall +carry it home, and mother will cure it and let it fly off again." + +As he spoke the boy suited the action to his words. + +"Yes, Kooran, this is a grand discovery. After reading `Robinson +Crusoe' so often, I've always wished to have an island all to myself; +but a cave, Kooran, is nearly as good as an island. I wonder what +Dugald McCrane will say about it. I'm sure he will help me to make +things to furnish it, and we'll have our dinner here, Kooran, and a fire +when the weather grows cold, and everything so jolly. Come, we must go +this very evening and see Dugald McCrane." + +True to his word, when Kenneth had driven his sheep into their fold for +the night, and had eaten his supper at his mother's fireside, then, +instead of taking down his books and lying down on the great wooden dais +to read by the light of the little black whale-oil lamp, with its wicks +of peeled and dried rushes, he got up whistled to Kooran, and said to +his mother,-- + +"I'm going down the glen, mother." + +"Dinna be lang, laddie, dinna be lang," was all his mother said. + +It was a clear moonlight night, all the brighter stars were shining, and +there was hardly a cloud to be seen. + +Kenneth had two long Scotch miles to walk, down into a thicket of fir +trees first, across a rustic bridge, under which the brown stream was +dashing and swirling and ever and anon breaking itself into foam against +the boulders. It was very dark down here, but Kenneth was soon away out +into the open country again, and the roar of the river was no more +heard. By-and-bye the road led through a wood of oak, ash, and elm +trees, with now and then the dark head of a pine tree shooting high up +into the sky. The moonlight showed in patches here all along the road, +there was the sound of falling water not far off, mingling with the +whispering of the wind among the leaves, now crisp with the sunshine of +the long bright summer, and there was occasionally the mournful cry of +the brown owl, which made Kenneth feel lonesome and "eerie," and he was +not sorry when he was clear of that dark gloomy wood, and saw up on a +hillside the light shining yellow through the blind of Keeper McCrane's +cottage. + +A black retriever came rushing down, growling and showing his teeth, but +when he saw it was Kenneth he wagged his bell-rope of a tail, and bade +him and Kooran welcome. + +Kenneth left his dog in the garden to dance and caper about with the +retriever. No doubt Kooran told this black dog all about the flying +rats. Kenneth just opened the door and walked straight in. + +Both Dugald and his young wife jumped up from their seats beside the +fire, and welcomed Kenneth, and their only boy, a wonderful little +fellow of some nine or ten summers old, with hair not unlike in colour +to a bundle of oaten straw, got out of bed and ran to pull Kenneth by +the jacket, without waiting to dress. + +Dugald and his wife and boy all listened with wondering eyes to the +story of the fairy knoll. + +"Bless me, dear laddie," said Mrs McCrane, "were you no' afraid to +venture in?" + +"I'll tell you what we'll do," said the keeper. "We'll go up the glen +and see the old witch wife, Nancy Dobbell. She can tell us all about +it. They tell me she knows everything that ever happened for a hundred +years back and more." + +"Will she no' be in bed?" said his wife. + +"In bed?" said Dugald. "Not she. She never goes to bed till `the wee +short hour ayont the twal,' and there is no saying what she may be doing +till then." + +"Well, let us go," cried Kenneth, starting up. + +One glance at the walls of the room in Dugald's cottage, that did duty +as both kitchen and dining-hall, would have given a stranger an insight +into both the character and calling of the chief inmate. Never a +picture adorned the room, but dried grasses and ferns did duty instead, +and here were the skins of every kind of wild animal and bird to be +found in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands, the foumart or polecat, +the whitterit or weasel, the wild cat and fox, ptarmigan, plovers of +every kind, including the great whaup or curlew, hawks, owls, and even +the golden-headed eagle itself stood stuffed in a corner, with glaring +fiery eyes and wings half outspread. + +"Come," said Dugald. + +And away went the keeper and Kenneth, the two dogs following closely at +their masters' heels, as if to protect them from all harm. + +CHAPTER TWO. + +KENNETH AND HIS FRIENDS. + + "Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, + And fondly broods with miser care; + Time but the impression deeper makes, + As streams their channels deeper wear." + + Burns. + +Scene: A long, low-thatched cottage, in the midst of a wild, bleak +moorland. No other hut nor house in sight. Around the cottage is a +garden or kail-yard, with a fence of flat, slab-like stones. In this is +a gate half open, and hanging by one hinge. The cottage has its door in +the gable, and is windowless, save for some holes 'twixt thatch and +eaves, through which light is now glimmering. A bright round moon is +riding in the sky, among a few white clouds, that look like wings. +Coming towards the gateway, two figures may be seen, both in the +Highland garb. Behind them two dogs. + +"Losh! man," said Dugald McCrane, "I'm almost 'feared to gang farther. +Who knows what company she may have in this lonesome dreary spot? Hark! +What was that?" + +Dugald started and stared about him in some trepidation as the prolonged +and mournful shriek of an owl rose on the night air. + +"It is only an owl," said Kenneth, laughing. + +"Ach! man," said Dugald, "it is not me that's afraid of an owlet, but +goodness be about us, Kenneth, there are owls _and_ owls. Hush! there +it goes again. Losh! look how the dogs are shaking and trembling?" + +It was true what Dugald had said; both the retriever and collie had +thrown themselves at their masters' feet, and gave every indication of +mortal dread. After all, it was merely owing to a kind of magnetic +influence which fear always has. This had been communicated from Dugald +to his dog, and from the retriever to the collie. + +"It's nothing," said Kenneth, "nothing, Dugald. I'm not afraid, if you +are." + +"Fear!" replied the stalwart Highland keeper. "Dugald never feared the +face o' clay. But look how they're shakin' yet. These dogs hear voices +we cannot listen to and live; they see things that human eyes, dare not +scan. Dinna deny it, Kenneth, lad; dinna seek to deny it. + +"Do you remember, Kenneth, that dreary, dark December night two years +ago, when Walie's wife--goodness be about us--went and hanged herself in +the woods o' Alva, and how Shot there sat a' the livelong night on the +top of the old turf wall and howled so mournfully? It made me tremble +in my bed to hear him. And did you no' tell me that your Kooran did the +same one night the year before last, and that next morning a hat and a +stick were found on the brink o' Beattie's mill-dam, and poor Jock +Grey's body stark and stiff--" + +"Stop! stop!" cried Kenneth. "This is no time of night for such +stories. Kooran, come on." + +And the boy began to lead the way up through the garden to Nancy's door. + +"Just a moment," said Dugald, laying a hand on Kenneth's shoulder. +"Have you got your flute?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, just give us a toot. If Nancy has company that's no' canny, it +will give them time to bolt up the chimney. Sirs! Sirs!" + +Kenneth laughed, put his flute together, and started a merry air. + +"The Campbells are coming; hurrah, hurrah?" was the tune he played. + +Dugald forgot his fear, and began to sing. The "twa dogs" forgot +theirs, and began to dance and caper and bark, and in the very middle of +this "rant" the cottage door opened, and Nancy herself appeared. + +"Come in, come in, you twa daft laddies," she cried, "or 'deed you'll +start Nancy hersel' to dance, for as auld as she is. Come in; you'll +leave the dogs outside, winna ye, for fear o' my poor cat?" + +"Ay, Grannie," said Dugald, "we'll leave the dogs outside, and I'm +thinkin' neither o' them would show face inside your door if you asked +them e'er so kindly. My Shot there hasn't forgotten the salute your cat +gave him last time he came here. If you mind, Grannie, she jumped on +his back and rode him a' round the kail-yard, and never missed him a +whack, till he flew out o' the gate and ran helter-skelter o'er the +moor. I dinna think your cat's canny, Grannie." + +"What a beautifu' nicht!" said Grannie; "but come in, laddies." + +"You're sure you have no company?" said Dugald, still hesitating to +enter. + +"Come, ye stoopid loon," she replied. "There's nobody here but me and +the cat. Sit doon. Tak' a stool, Kennie, my bonnie boy." + +A bonnie boy? Yes, there was no denying it. Kenneth, our hero, was a +bonnie boy, and gave promise of growing up into a fine handsome man. + +His broad blue bonnet was usually worn pretty far back, but even had he +worn it forward, I do not think it would have been possible for it to +suppress the wealth of dark short curls that rose up over his broad +brown brow. His cheeks had the tint that health, the winds, and the sun +had given them. His lips were rosy, and when he laughed he showed a set +of teeth even and white, and a merry twinkle went upwards and danced +about his dark, dark eyes. But at all other times those eyes were +somewhat dreamy withal. Such was Kenneth McAlpine, and it was probably +that same dreamy, thoughtful look in his eyes that made him appear older +than he really was, for he had not yet seen his thirteenth year. + +But there was one other reason to account for Kenneth's looking somewhat +older than his years. He had already come through a good deal of grief. + +His father had once been a prosperous crofter or small farmer. Not that +the crofts in Glen Alva were very large or very wealthy, but, when well +cultivated, the land was grateful and yielded up its fruits abundantly. + +Then the sea was not very far away, only a few miles, and fish therein +were abundant and to be had only for the catching. + +It was the broad Atlantic Ocean whose waves broke and thundered +ceaselessly on the rocky shore just beyond the hills yonder. Only two +years ago--what long, long years they had seemed to Kenneth!--this lad +had used to spend many an hour by the seashore. Indeed, every hour that +he could spare from school, or from home, he spent with the ocean. + +I am quite right in saying _with_ the ocean instead of _by_ the sea, for +Kenneth looked upon the sea as a friend and as a companion; he used to +speak with it and talk to it; it seemed to understand him, and he _it_. +What baskets of glorious fish he used to get from the sea! and what +dozens of splendid steel blue lobsters and lordly crabs! + +Kenneth used to fish from the rocks on days when he could not borrow old +Duncan Reed's cobble. Old Duncan was frail and rheumatic, and could not +always go out to fish himself, but one way or another he had taught +Kenneth nearly all he knew about the sea and fishing. He had taught him +to row, and to scull, and to make and bait and busk a line, and to swim +as well. + +The making of a good strong line used to be a great pleasure to Kenneth. +It was manufactured from horsehair. There was first and foremost the +getting of this horsehair, for quite a quantity was required. It +consisted of combings from the manes and tails of horses, and many a +mile Kenneth used to pad to procure it. The main source of supply was +the stables of a noble lord who lived in a great old-fashioned castle +miles from Glen Alva. For the horsehair so obtained Kenneth used to +give to the stablemen largess in fish. Then, having obtained his supply +and carried it home, it was quite a long and tedious process to plait +the line. But Kenneth knew no such word as tire, so he worked and +worked away at early morning and late at night, and as yard after yard +of the line was made, it was rolled upon a reel roughly hewn from a +branch of the silvery birch, and probably at the end of a fortnight the +line would be complete, and away Kenneth would rush like a young deer +over the hills. + +Nancy's house on the moor lay between him and the shore, and however +great a hurry Kenneth was in, he did not fail to call and speak a few +moments with the "old witch wife," as she was universally called, the +truth being that she was no more a witch than you or I, reader, only she +was an herbalist, and wise in many other ways. + +Yes, Kenneth would always find time to call at old Nancy's hut, and he +never left the house without a drink of milk or whey--for Nancy kept a +cow--or a cupful of heather ale. Nancy was famed far and near for +making heather ale, and on Sundays the lads and lasses from a good way +round, used to make a pilgrimage to Nancy's and taste her wondrous brew. + +Many a word of good advice Nancy had for Kenneth, too, her bonnie boy, +and many a blessing. + +He would soon arrive at the old fisherman's hut, which was a boat turned +upside down and let into a crevice of the rocks high enough up to +prevent green seas from swamping it, although in stormy weather, with a +west wind blowing, the spray used to dash right over the roof. + +"On days like these," old Duncan used to say, "I don't need to put any +salt in my porridge, for the sea-bree that drops down the chimney makes +it salt enough." + +When Duncan got Kenneth's horsehair line, he used to unroll it and try +the strength of it, foot by foot and yard by yard, and if it bore the +test, then Duncan would put his hand on the lad's head and say,-- + +"My dear Kennie, you'll be as good a fisherman as myself yet." + +And Kennie would smile, and say he hoped so, for he never meant to be +anything else. How little he knew then the truth of the poet's words,-- + + "There is a Divinity that shapes our ends, + Rough-hew them as we will." + +There isn't much fancy work about the flies one needs to catch fish +with, on the western shores of Scotland, nor about the rod you use. +Only a strongish hook, and tied over that a morsel of white feather or +even a bit of wool from the back of a lamb. The fish are not particular +when hungry, and they nearly always are hungry, and there are times when +you really cannot draw them in fast enough. + +But at certain seasons of the year they don't rise; they then prefer +bait lowered down to them. They take breakfast in bed. The bait which +they love most dearly of all is the inside of a crab, but as this is +rather expensive, Kenneth and Duncan Reed were in the habit of using +limpets, and they never failed to have good fortune with these. + +Of course the limpets had to be gathered first, and as Kenneth was young +and Duncan was old, it was the work of the boy to collect these. And +when the tide was back you might have seen him at any time, far away out +among the weed-covered boulders and rocks, with a chisel and hammer to +knock the limpets off and a tiny basket on his back to pop them into. + +Nor was there a deal of fancy work to be learned in rowing or sculling a +cobble, but then, you know, the fisherman and little Kennie used to +venture quite a long distance out to sea, for there was an island three +miles away where the fish were very numerous, and thither they often +went. And sometimes the sea was both rough and wild before they got +back, and skill was then needed to keep her right and straight. For had +a sea struck her broadside on, it might have capsized or staved the +cobble, and if a great wave had broken over the stern, it might have +swamped her, and she would have sunk, and both Kennie and his friend +would then have been food for the creatures that dwell down in the dark +caves beneath the ocean. + +As to swimming, Kenneth seemed to take to it quite naturally, and many a +little adventure he had in the water. + +Once when swimming he was bitten on the knee by a horrible fish called +on the shores of the Atlantic the miller's thumb. It is a kind of skate +or ray of immense size, with a fearfully large mouth filled with sharp +teeth. + +On this particular day the sun had been very bright and the water warm +and clear, and Kenneth swam a long distance from the shore. When he +returned he was very faint, and his knee was bleeding; he fell and lost +consciousness almost immediately after he reached the pebbly beach. +Duncan ran to his assistance, and soon got him round; then he bound up +his knee. + +"Was it a shark?" Kenneth had inquired. + +"Oh! horrible! no, Kennie, no, for had a shark seized you, his teeth are +so arranged and so hook-like that he couldn't have let you go again had +he wanted to ever so much." + +Another day, when Duncan and he were hauling in a hand line with an +immensely great cod at the end of it, suddenly, for some unexplained +reason or other, the line slipped, and almost at the same moment Kenneth +fell overboard. + +A codfish of say twenty pounds pulls with fearful force. + +Kenneth was dragged under the water. + +It was a trying time then for old Duncan's nerves. Would the poor boy +be dead before he got the great fish checked and in charge again? + +Duncan dragged in the line as speedily as he dared. + +Oh! how his heart had throbbed to think that there was a possibility of +the line breaking, and his little friend being kept under the water till +dead. + +And oh! how joyful he was when Kenneth reappeared. + +Kenneth really came up smiling, though he was spluttering a great deal +as well. "I'm sure," he said when he got into the boat again, and the +fish was there as well, "I'm sure I've swallowed fully a pint of salt +water, Duncan." + +Yes, Kenneth laughed heartily about it, but poor old Duncan was weeping, +and before he could be himself again he must take off his broad blue +bonnet and kneel down upon it in the stern sheets of the cobble, and +return thanks to Him who holds the sea in the hollow of His hand. + +There were days in summer when the sea was so blue and bright and still, +that I think Kenneth used almost to go to sleep while floating on its +surface. + +Gathering the eggs of the sea-birds from off the cliffs and rocks was +dangerous sport, but Kenneth loved it all the more on that account. + +But he loved the sea in storm as well, and used to play among the +billows and spray along the shore, or venture out a little distance for +the pleasure of being rolled up again like a log of wood upon the beach. + +Kenneth really could have said with the immortal Byron-- + + "And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy + Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be, + Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy + I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me + Were a delight; and if the freshening sea + Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear, + For I was, as it were, a child of thee, + And trusted to thy billows far and near, + And laid my hand upon thy mane, as I do here." + +Old Duncan Reed owned and worked a little lobster fishery of his own. +And before the great grief came that deprived poor Kenneth of a father, +he used to take great delight in helping the fisherman with this part of +his work. It was very simple. They had wooden cages which they sank at +the bottom of a deep pool among the rocks. There was a stone or two at +the bottom of each cage to make it sink, and it was lowered down at +night by a rope which was attached at the top of the water to a wooden +float. + +The cages were baited, and Duncan used to find it a capital plan to put +a live crab or lobster into the cage. There was a hole at the top of +each cage for the creatures to crawl in, but it was so arranged that +once in they did not get out again. + +As soon as one was sunk, rejoiced to find himself once more in his +native element, the imprisoned shell-fish would begin to eat. And +presently round would come another crab or lobster and look in for a +little at him with his eyes, which, you know, are upon stalks. + +"You seem to be enjoying yourself in there," the newcomer would say. + +The imprisoned animal would wave a claw at him, as much as to say,-- + +"Oh! very nicely indeed, but go away; don't stand there and stare at a +fellow when he is having his dinner. It is rude." + +"Is it good, though?" the other would ask. + +"Delicious!" the reply would be. + +"How ever did you get inside?" + +"Look and see." + +Then the new-come lobster would find the hole in the top of the cage, +and in he would pop. And presently more and more lobsters would come +round and pop in one by one. + +Well, but when they wanted to pop out again they would not find it so +easy. In fact, there would be no way out for them, until Duncan hauled +up the creel and pulled them forth to be boiled. + +"It is so easy to get into a trap, but so difficult to get out again," +old Duncan would say to Kenneth, "so, my dear laddie, always all your +life be sure to look before you leap." + +Old Duncan was a very merry old man; he used to tell Kenneth such funny +stories, and tales of the deep blue sea, and all about sea-fairies, and +water babies, and mermaids that live deep down beneath the ocean in +coral caves. I do not think that old Duncan believed in these things +himself, nor that he expected Kenneth to believe in them either, but +they helped to pass the time, and often of a winter's evening the boy +would stay in the fisherman's hut so late that night came on before he +started for Glen Alva, and the stars would be all shining as he took his +road across the hills and over the dreary moorland where Nancy lived. + +Old Duncan Reed did not know the time except by the sun, and Kenneth had +no watch, so he could never be sure on occasions like these what o'clock +it really was. + +But one thing Kenneth never did forget, and that was to bring a few fish +or a lobster or a lovely crab for Nancy. + +If her light was burning when he reached the little cottage, then he +would go in; if not, he knew she had gone to bed, so he would hang the +string of fish to the door latch--a very old-fashioned one with a +thumb-piece--and go quietly away with Kooran. Or if it was a lobster +with its claws tied, he used to tether it to the foot of a rose tree +that grew near the door, and poor old Nancy found it in the morning, and +was thankful accordingly. I'm sure of this, that Nancy never said her +prayers without asking guidance, and a blessing for her bonnie boy. + +And it was in this very cottage that Kenneth and Duncan the keeper now +found themselves, in front of a nice peat fire, for though it was yet +early in autumn, in this bleak Highland moorland the evenings struck +chill and cold. + +Nancy herself sat in the corner, with her grey grimalkin on her +shoulder. The cat seemed asleep, only she had one eye open, and that +eye was watching the door. + +CHAPTER THREE. + +THE STORY OF THE FAIRY KNOLL. + + "I've heard my reverend Grannie say + In lanely glens ye like to stray, + Or where auld ruined castles grey + Nod to the moon. + Ye fright the nightly wanderer's way, + Wi' eldritch croon." + + Burns. + +[Croon--low mournful moan.] + +Scene: The interior of Nancy Dobbell's cottage. Nancy and her visitors +round the peat fire, the light from which ever and anon brings the +features of each out in bold relief, from the Rembrandtine darkness in +the background. Nancy is talking, but knitting as well. Click, click, +clickety, click, go the wires, sometimes very fast indeed, at other +times more slowly, as if keeping time with Nancy's thoughts and her +spoken words. + +"And what brings my bairns so late across the muir the nicht?" she +asked. + +"We knew ye wadna be in bed, Grannie," said Dugald. "The moon is +shinin' so brichtly, I had expected to meet ye on the muir, gatherin' +herbs by its ghastly licht. We heard the owlet cryin'; had we met you, +Grannie, it would have scared our senses awa'." + +"I wouldn't have been afraid, Grannie," said Kenneth. + +For a moment there was silence, the old woman's head had drooped on her +breast, and the knitting wires clicked more slowly, like a clock before +it stops. + +But only for a moment; she raised her head again, and click, click, +click, went the wires as fast as before, but both Kenneth and his +companion noticed that Nancy's cheeks were wet. + +"Nancy's auld and silly," she said, "but Nancy was not always so. +Heigho!" + +"Oh, Grannie!" cried honest Dugald, hastening to atone for the cruelty +of his first speech, but, in his very hurry, making a poor job of it. +"Oh, Grannie, dinna say you're silly; really folk say you're wise and-- +and--" + +"A witch?" said Nancy, smiling. + +"Well, may be so. Who can help what people say? But 'deed there is no' +a poor woman or man either in a' the glen or parish that hasn't a good +word to say for you. Your simple medicines, Grannie, have brought +comfort and joy to mony a hoose, no matter where ye got them or who-- +goodness be near us--helped you to gather them. When puir Jock Kelpie +was drooned, did you no' bide and comfort the widow, and sing to her and +soothe her for weeks thegither? When Menzies' bairns had the fever, and +no' a soul would gang near the hoose, wha tended them and cured them? +Wha but Nancy Dobbell? And there's no' a bairn in a' the clachan that +doesn't run to meet ye, Grannie, whenever ye come o'er the muir." + +The wires clicked very fast. + +"And," continued Dugald, "though you're maybe no' very bonnie noo, +everybody says, `What a pretty woman Nancy must have been in her time!'" + +Nancy's chin fell again, but the wires worked steadily on. Her mind was +away back now in the distant past. She was thinking of one summer's +evening by Saint Ronan's Well, 'neath the old monk's tree, of a plighted +troth and a broken ring, and a lad that went away to sea, and never, +never, never came back. A broken ring, and a broken heart, a sorrow +that had shadowed her life. + +Click, click, click. Ah, well, every life has its romance. + +"But Kenneth here has something to tell ye, Grannie." + +Clickety, clickety, clickety, go the wires. Nancy is all interest now, +for dearly does she love her boy Kennie. + +Then Kenneth told her about the fairy knoll and the strange cave he had +found in its interior. + +He told her all the story, just as we already know it; and for once only +during all that evening, the wires ceased to click, and the old woman's +hands fell on her lap as she listened. + +"It was long, long ago," said Nancy. "Your father, Kennie, was but a +boy then, just like you are noo. And his father was but a young man--" + +"Ahem!" said the superstitious Highland keeper, giving a hasty +half-frightened glance behind him into the darkness. "Ahem! you'll not +mak' your story _very_ fearsome, will ye, Grannie? Dinna forget the +lateness o' the nicht. Mind that we've o'er the lonesome muir to gang +yet." + +"It was long ago," said Nancy, addressing herself more particularly to +Kenneth. "I lived then down by the kirk in the clachan, and there I was +born, and the wee village was quieter far in those days than it is even +now. Ye know, Kennie, where the burn joins the river, where the old +ruin is among the willow trees?" + +"Yes, Grannie." + +"Well, that house was no ruin then. It was deserted, though. It had +gotten a bad name. Nobody would take it; and it seemed falling to +pieces. The house stood, as you know, about a mile below your fairy +knoll, and two miles beyond is the sea." + +"You are right, Grannie." + +"Everybody was surprised to find masons and carpenters working at Mill +House one morning. It was let. It had been taken by a stranger. Even +the laird knew nought about him. Only he paid a year's rent in advance. +That was enough for Laird McGee, who was a grippy auld man, and just as +rich as grippy. + +"It was an ugly house when they made the best of it, two-storied, with +red tiles, blintering, blinking windows, and long uncanny-looking +attics. It lay a good way back from the road. You went along through a +thicket o' willows by a little footpath, then across a stagnant ditch, +on a rickety bridge, and this took you to the wild weedy lawn in front +of the house itself. Even the road that led past the grounds was little +frequented, only a bridle path at best, and it ended at last in a turf +dyke [low wall], a march between twa lairds' lands; if you followed +this, it took you over the mountains to the seaside village of T--, and +the footpath went pretty close to the knoll. A man and woman came to +live at Mill House then; they kept a man-servant, and had one child, a +pale-faced, old-fashioned-looking hunchback. The man drove a ramshackle +trap, so that, taking them altogether, they were no favourites, all the +more in that they never put nose beyond the doorstep on the Sabbath day. + +"It was always thought, though, that Innkeeper McCaskill, of our +clachan, knew more about this family than he cared to tell. Anyhow, he +took them all their meat and groceries. And it was noted, too, and +remarked upon that he ay took the parcel himsel', a big one it used to +be, and the auld grey mare on which he rode was as sorely laden coming +as going to Mill House. + +"Sometimes, but no' very often, the hunchback laddie used to come on an +errand down to the clachan; the bairns o' the village were frightened at +him first, frightened even to call him names or throw a sod at him, as +bairns will at things that look weird and unco'. + +"Corbett was the laddie's name, but the bairns ay ca'd him Corbie. + +"Corbie, though, improved on acquaintance. There seemed no harm in him, +though, woe is me, he lookit auld, auld-fashioned. + +"I suppose Corbie found it lonesome at the Mill House, for whenever he +came down to the clachan he tried to mak' acquaintance with the +children. It wasna easy to do this. He brought them sweets and wild +berries, and bit by bit he won their hearts till Corbie was the greatest +favourite in a' the clachan. There was only one house, though, he ever +entered, and that was McCaskill's. But the bairns would meet him on his +return, and he ay turned his steps to the auld kirk-yard, and there, on +a flat tombstone, he would sit doon and tell them story after story. +And a more attentive audience no minister ever had even in the kirk on +Sunday. What did Corbie tell them? Oh! just queer auld-world stories +he'd heard tell of, or read in books. Stories about witches and +warlocks, brownies, sprites, and spunkies. Ay, and about the good +folks, the fairies themselves--" + +"Dinna, dinna," muttered Dugald. "Think o' the untimous hour, Grannie." + +"But one day, as poor Corbie was speakin' and the bairns were listening +wi' round eyes and gaping mouths, who should appear on the scene but +Corbie's father? + +"The laddie gave one low scream, like somebody in a nightmare. Then his +father seized him, and oh! they say it was dismal to hear the howls of +the poor laddie and the sound o' the fearfu' blows. + +"Corbie didn't appear again for many a day, but the human heart must +have society, and by degrees Corbie commenced story-telling again, but +no' in the kirk-yard, only down in a thicket by the riverside, and +always when there, some one was put to watch. + +"I often passed that house, even at night, though the name it had now +was worse and worse. + +"I had used to have business at T--, across the hills. + +"But so bad a name did that road get, that even by day the boldest would +hardly venture to take the short cut to T--up along the laird's march +dyke. Belated travellers saw lights--dead candles they called them-- +flitting and flickering around the fairy knoll. Brownies and spunkies, +they said, were met on the moor, and down by the riverside Kelpie +himsel' was often visible." + +[Kelpie, in Scotch folklore a kind of bogle, half man, half bat, often +seen by midnight near the banks of ugly rivers. He lives in deep, dark +pools.] + +"A sturdy shepherd that had stayed too long at T--had met Kelpie, so +they said; he was found next day cut and bleeding at the water-side, and +was a raving maniac for weeks. + +"One day I was setting out for the seaside village--I was young then, +and strong--when near the clachan I met McCaskill. + +"`Can I trust ye,' he said, `to deliver a letter at the Mill House?' + +"I was feared to offend by refusing, so I took it. But lo! I forgot it +a'thegither till I was coming hame. It was night, too, but deliver it I +must. + +"I took the road alang the auld march dyke across the hills. The moon +was shining, but no' very brightly, givin' a feeble yellow kind o' a +licht through a haze o' drivin' clouds. + +"Well, I was just near the dreariest part o' the upper glen, and no' far +from the fairy knoll. I was wishing I were well past it, and away down +to the clachan, where I could see the lights blinking cheerily from the +houses among the trees. + +"I was hurrying on, when suddenly, with an eldritch scream, something in +white sprang from behind an etnach," (juniper) "bush. + +"I was a bold lass. Some would have fainted. My heart was in my mouth, +but I felt impelled to throw myself at the thing, whatever it was. I +rushed forward with a frightened shriek and grasped it. I wheeled its +face towards the moon, and what think you saw I?" + +"A brownie!" said Dugald. "Oh, Grannie, I'm all of a quiver." + +"He was no brownie. Only the auld, auld-fashioned face o' little +Corbie." + +"`Let me go, Nancy. Let me go,' he pleaded. `My father would kill me +if he knew I was found out.' + +"He wriggled out o' my hands and fled, and I hardly felt the ground +beneath my feet till I reached the low end o' the glen and found myself +opposite the gate o' Mill House. + +"Then I remembered the letter. + +"Dare I deliver it? + +"Dare I refuse? That would be worse. I took the road down through the +willow thicket, and crossed the rickety auld plank bridge, and in two +minutes I was in front of the house. There were sounds of singing and +revelry from the inside; I knocked, but wasn't heard. Knocked louder, +and in a moment everything was dark and silent. The door opened. I was +seized and dragged in. What I saw and heard at Mill House that night I +was put on oath not to tell till all were dead or gone. I may tell you +now--they were smugglers." + +"Thank goodness!" said Dugald, greatly relieved it was no worse. "Oh! +Grannie, but you have a fearsome way o' tellin' a story." + +"For twa lang years they occupied that house, but during that time +something happened that caused grief amang the village bairns. Corbie +was missed. Weeks flew by, and he never came back. Then one day a +thinly-attended funeral came winding towards the kirk-yard, carrying a +wee bit coffin. + +"The coffin was Corbie's, and there were many tears and mickle sorrow +amang the poor hunchback's acquaintances, I can tell ye. His friends +went awa', and left poor Corbie in the mools, but the bairnies ne'er +forgot the grave, and mony a bonnie wreath o' buttercups and gowans did +they string and put on it in the sweet summer-time. + +"Well, laddies, the Mill House was found deserted one day. The +smugglers had gone as quietly as they had come. But the house kept its +bad name, and so did the hills above it; and so my story ends." + +"Not quite," said Dugald. "Did the brownie never come again, or the +kelpie? Were the dead candles seen nae mair?" + +"No," said Kenneth; "don't you understand? The brownie was the poor +boy, Corbie; the kelpie was a smuggler; and the dead candles the lights +seen at night near the cave in the fairy knoll. That was the place +where they carried on their sinfu' trade." + +"I see things clearly enough noo," said Dugald; "and I'll no' be feared +to cross the muir. Ah, well, Grannie, you have relieved my mind." + +"I'm glad o' it, laddie. Now will Grannie take down the good Book and +read a bit?" + +Grannie did. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +The talk now took a cheerier turn. Old Nancy, knowing how painfully +superstitious Dugald was, refrained from introducing anything more in +the shape of either brownie or spunkie. And so a pleasant hour was +spent, till the old "wag-at-the-wa'" pointed to the hour of twelve, and +warned Kenneth and his friend it was high time to commence retracing +their steps across the moor. + +CHAPTER FOUR. + +GLOAMING IN THE GLEN--KENNIE'S CAVE. + + "Gloaming o'er the glen is falling; + Little birds have ceased to sing, + Flowerets now their petals faulding + As night descends on dewy wing." + + Anon. + +Scene: Half-way down the glen, where heather and patches of tilled land +end, and woodland commences. Where the stream goes wimpling and +swirling round the boulders, underneath the rustic bridge. + +At the corner, where, after crossing the bridge, the road takes a bend, +and is soon lost in the gloom of overhanging foliage, Kenneth is seated +on a stone. + +At his feet lies Kooran, looking very knowing, because he has got his +ears pricked up, and his eyes very wide open, and his head thoughtfully +turned a little on one side. + +Kooran knows that his master has come there to meet his friend the +Highland keeper, and that the retriever Shot will be with him, but the +keeper may come down from the brae-land on the right, or up the road +from the wood, or he may suddenly appear on the cliff top, after fording +the stream and climbing the rocks. + +No need for Kenneth to listen; he has only to watch Kooran. + +No sound can deceive Kooran. He will not move from that position till +the right moment. + +Not far from Kooran's extended tail, a field-mouse begins to sing a +little song. She is hidden in under the dry moss, through which she has +driven all sorts of smooth round tunnels, for quite an engineer is the +field-mouse, and the only wonder is she ever finds her way back again to +her nest, through such a labyrinthic network of half-lighted lanes. + +"Beet-ee-beet-ee-beet-ee-ee-beet-ee." So goes her song. + +Kooran never moves his head; all he does is to turn one ear back towards +his tail for a moment, but _only_ one ear. + +"I hear you," he seems to say. "Sing away, my pretty one you know I'm +busy, but wait a wee till Shot comes. Shot and I will soon have you out +of there. My eyes! won't we make the turf fly!" + +A great bird flies right over a tree, but turns sharply in the air and +flies back affrightedly. It was a moor-cock, but he didn't know any one +was there. He has to take another road home. + +A twig snaps; Kenneth looks in that direction. The dog never moves. He +knows it is only the polecat trying to reach out to a branch where a +thrush has gone to sleep. + +The stream makes music in drowsy monotone, but hark! there is a plash. +It is an otter. Kooran knows it, and does not move. Then presently +there are close beside them apparently, two sharp dull thuds. It is +only mother rabbit beating her heels on the ground to drive her +over-bold little ones back into their holes, and to warn every rabbit +within hearing that danger is near, and that there are a live dog and a +live boy not far off, who can't be after any good. + +Sometimes the distant bleating of sheep or the pleasant lowing of kine +falls on Kenneth's ear, and anon, far up among the mountains, there is a +strange shout, half whoop, half whistle, prolonged and mournful. At +first it is repeated about every two seconds; then Quicker and quicker +it comes, and wilder and wilder, till it ends in one long quavering +scream. + +"Whoo-oop, whoo-oop, whoo-oop, whoop, whoop-oop-oop-oop-oo-oo-oo!" + +It is the shriek of the curlew as he sails round and round in the air. + +"Why, Kooran," says the boy at last, "what can be keeping them?" + +Kooran beats his tail twice on the ground, but does not move his body. + +"I hope they won't be long, dear doggie." + +Kooran beats his tail once against the ground. + +This means, "Have patience, master." + +The sun goes down behind the hills. + +Then comes still Evening on. + +In the bonnie Scottish Highlands, reader, in sweet summer-time, or in +riper autumn, we cannot say with truth that night falls; no, rather +"Evening steals down." + +Oh! how gently she is stealing down now on the peaceful scene around +Kenneth and Kooran. Far down the glen yonder, where the river broadens +out in the valley, there lie long clouds of grey mist, with the tall +spruce pines glimmering green and ghost-like through them. They are the +trailing garments of Evening. Gradually they change to crimson as the +sun's parting rays fall on them. + +But day lingers long on the hill-tops, among the steel-grey rocks, among +boulders that stand boldly out from the dark background like blocks of +snow, and among patches of purple heather. Evening sees that day must +go at last, so she hies away to put the flowers to sleep. + +"Sleep, sleep, my gentle flowers," she says, "for the day is dying fast, +and the dews will fall and blight you." + +She whispers to the gowans [mountain daisies] first, and the "wee modest +crimson-tipped flowers" fold their petals like sea-anemones, and go +softly to sleep. She lightly touches the pimpernels, the crimson and +the pink-eyed, and they curl their flower-leaves and sink to rest. She +breathes upon the wild convolvulus that trails among the grass, and it +twists up its silken blossoms till they look like little wisps of +calico, pink and white. Even the hardy heather bells creep closer +together, and the star-like blossoms of the bramble that clothe the +banks shrink smaller as she brushes them with her wings. + +Then Evening speaks to the west wind. + +"Blow softly, gentle west wind," she says; "blow softly through the +feathery larches and the needled pines; make the leaves of the russet +oaks and the silvery drooping birches sing soft lullabies, that my +children the flowers may sleep." + +And the west wind obeys her, and goes sighing through the trees, and all +the flowerets nod and sleep. + +The linnet has long gone to bed, close hidden under the whin bush. The +tom-tit creeps closer against a patch of lichen that grows on the stem +of an old ash tree. The cushat in the thicket of spruce hears the west +wind's lullaby, and ceases to croodle. The blackbird and thrush hide +themselves in the hawthorn tree; only the robin still sings on the top +rail of the old bridge. + +"I will sing all night," the robin says. "I will sing with the trees +and the west wind till the sun returns." + +"Twhoo-hoo-hoo!" shrieks the owl, and Robin flies away. + +Then Evening goes to the hedgehog, to the fox, to the foumart, the +whitterit, the bat, and the vole. + +"Come out now, come out now," she cries to these, "for the moon is +coming, and danger has fled with the daylight far over the hills." + +But the lithe green snake, and the deadly adder, and the toad have heard +the invitation too, and lie closer under cover or creep into their +holes, for enemies are abroad. + +Then slowly and solemnly over the distant hills uprises the moon. + +And so gloaming gives place to night. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Something black came feathering along at last, and next moment Shot, +with his jacket quite wet, and very much out of breath with running, was +kissing his friend the collie. + +Very soon after Dugald and Kenneth were shaking hands. + +"You thought I wasn't coming?" said Dugald. + +"Indeed, you're right, but I had almost fallen asleep." + +"I've had such a chase after a couple of poachers. Didn't you hear me +firing? No? But troth, I did have a rap at one of them. Didn't kill +him? Man, no, and more's the pity. Troth, Kennie, lad, there are too +many about. But come along, till we see the fairy's knoll. Man, it's a +whole week since I've seen you. How's the sheep?" + +"Doing well. No more late lambs. No more feeble dying ones." + +The keeper shouldered his gun; the two dogs speedily tore up the grass +where the field-mouse had been singing. They destroyed all her tunnels +and mossy lanes, but they hadn't time to unearth the mouse herself. + +Away up over the hills went the friends. Up, and up, and up. When on +the brow of the mountain they were to cross they must have been fifteen +hundred feet above the sea level. Down beneath them the rolling country +was slumbering in the misty moonlight, only the river meandered through +it all and sparkled like a thread of silver. + +It was a near cut they had taken; they had now only to descend a little +way, and, behold, they were at the cave. + +And soon in it. + +"I'll light the lamp," said Kenneth, and in a moment more the interior +was illuminated. + +"Well, I do declare this is grand! Never in this world before had +shepherd such a shelter, surely!" + +So he well might say. Kenneth had cleaned the cave out, bedded the +floor with a carpet of withered brackens, hung a huge oil lamp in it, +which gave light and warmth both, built rude seats round it, made a rude +table, and conveyed hither his books, his fishing-gear, and even his +flute. + +"Isn't it delightful!" cried Kenneth, laughing till his eyes danced and +sparkled in the moonlight. + +"Oh! it is grand!" said Dugald, sitting down all the better to view the +place. + +"I can eat my dinner here, you know," said Kenneth, "and read my books, +and study at night." + +"At night!" exclaimed honest Dugald. "Wad ye no' be feared, man?" he +added solemnly. "Are there no bogles about? Losh! there might be even +ghosts. Or, man! just fancy a wee fairy body coming in through the door +when you were a' by yoursel'!" + +"Oh!" cried the boy, "that is too good ever to be true. I should +rejoice to see a fairy." + +"Well, man, rather you than me. But tak' your flute and play a tune, to +banish eerie thoughts." + +Kenneth put his instrument together and commenced. + +Shot sat down on the brackens and commenced too. + +Dugald turned Shot out of the cave, but Kooran had better manners and +was allowed to stay. It was the "Flowers o' the Forest" that Kenneth +played, and to this sweetly mournful air Dugald listened entranced. + +"Silly Dugald!" some would say, for his very eyes were moist. + +"Ah! Kennie, man," he said at last, "I hope you may never live to play +that dear auld lilt in a foreign land with the tears rinnin' o'er your +face." + +"What mean ye, Dugald?" Kenneth said. + +"Mean?" cried Dugald almost fiercely. "Why, this, lad: that news came +to-day to the clachan that our auld laird, that has ever been sae kind +to us, is bankrupt, and has sold his fine estate to an American--to a +foreigner, Kennie." + +"Don't say so?" + +"But I do say so, and I fear it's an owertrue tale, lad. The place that +knows us noo may soon know us no more. For they tell me he is going to +evict the tenants, pull the clachan down, and turn our bonnie glen into +a forest for deer, knock doon the dear auld kirk, Kennie, that you and I +were christened in, and have sung psalms in Sunday after Sunday, knock +doon our kirk, give our roofs to the flames,--ay, Kennie, and level the +graves o' those we hold dear!" + +"I really cannot believe all this, Dugald. Oh! it would kill my +mother." + +"Poor laddie!" said Dugald, laying his hand kindly on Kenneth's +shoulder. "Poor laddie! Grief has been your share in the world of +late. Two or three years ago, when your father lived, what a merry boy +you were! But your father, once a thrifty crofter, had been reduced to +a humble shepherd, and when that broke his heart, and the Lord took him, +his brave boy Kennie left school and tended the sheep, and his industry +supports a widowed mother. Ay, lad, Kennie, it will gang hard on you +and hard on your mother to leave Glen Alva." + +Kenneth looked the picture of despair. His flute had fallen from his +hand, and lay unheeded among the brackens. + +"To leave my mother," he muttered, speaking apparently to himself, "to +go into a foreign land, that were bad, but to know that the very glen +itself was altered, the old kirk roofless, the houses heaps of ruins, to +have nothing to look back to, nothing at home to love--oh! Duncan, +Duncan, that wouldn't be absence from home; it would be banishment, +Duncan, banishment and exile." + +"Let us try no' to think about it, Kennie. Dinna look so woe-begone, +man, or you'll mak' me sorry that I've told you." + +The boy turned quickly round. + +"Oh! but say you've been but joking. Say it is not true, Duncan." + +"Oh hey!" was Duncan's answer--a big sigh, that was all. + +"But you know," said Duncan, after a pause, "nobody is sure yet of +anything." + +The boy laughed now. + +"Ha! ha! yes," he cried, tearing himself away from gloomy thoughts. +"We'll have hope. We won't think about it, will we? Ha! ha! no, we +won't think about it. And I'll never say a single word to my mother +about the matter. It _may_ pass, you know. + +"And so," he continued, "you really like my cave. Well, little Archie, +your son, will often be here with me. And you must come too, and we'll +have such fun. I wonder if the ptarmigans will build next year in the +same place as they did last. Mind when the snow falls you'll take me +for a day's white hare hunting, won't you? It is such grand sport, and +you promised, you know. What tune did you say I was to play? Something +merry. Oh! yes, I know--" + +Kenneth recovered his flute from among the brackens as he spoke, and +rattled off into as merry a reel as ever witches danced to in "Alloway's +auld haunted kirk." + +"First-rate!" cried Duncan, clapping his hands, while even Kooran barked +for joy, and Shot's voice gave gladsome echo at the cave's mouth. +"First-rate! man; that's the kind o' music to banish the bogies. Losh! +Kennie, music like that would have made Methuselah himsel' grow young +again. That it would." + +It was late that evening ere the two friends found themselves down the +glen again, but when they bade each other good-night and walked briskly +homewards there was not a thought in their hearts of evil to come; they +were each as happy as the lark that carols o'er spring corn. + +CHAPTER FIVE. + +A DAY IN THE WILDS. + + "My heather land, my heather land, + Though fairer lands there be, + Thy gowany braes in early days + Were gowden ways to me." + + Thom. + +Scene: The fairy's glen high up among the mountains. Kenneth seated, +book in hand, on the top of the fairy knoll, which stands out strangely +green against the purples and browns which surround it. Kenneth is +alone. Kooran is away down beneath, minding the sheep. The +shepherd-boy lays down the book at last, or rather he drops it down the +chimney of his cave, and it falls on the carpet of brackens beneath. +Then he takes his crook, and goes slowly down the strath. + +This was a Saturday forenoon, and Kenneth and his little friend Archie +McCrane were going on a long round of pleasure. + +Ha! yonder comes Archie. Or rather, yonder suddenly doth he appear. He +comes straight up out of the centre of a bush of furze, in quite a +startling kind of way. + +Archie is eleven years of age, though very tiny, but very strong, and as +hard as an Arab. No fat about Archie. His face and bare neck and +breast and thorn-scratched knees are as red as if recently rubbed with +brick-dust. There isn't a rent or hole in either his jacket or kilt, +but woe is me, it is pretty nearly all patches; it is mother's work +every night to mend the rents Archie makes in his clothes. Archie is, +of course, his mother's darling. She even takes pains to make him +pretty. She prides herself even in his beautiful hair. His hair is one +of Archie's strong points. Mind, he wears no bonnet (cap), never did +and never would. He owns one, but always forgets to put it on. So his +soft golden hair is cut across above the brows, and hangs in wavy +luxuriance over his shoulders. I said golden, but it is more straw +colour, and bleached on the top almost white. + +He is a singular lad, Archie, has a half-wild, half-frightened look in +his face; in fact, take him all in all, he is quite in keeping with the +romantic surroundings. + +"I've got him," Archie said. + +"What is it?" + +"A little black rabbit." + +"Strange," said Kenneth; "put him down. He must be half tame, I should +think." + +Archie put it down, and the two boys knelt beside it among the heather. +It was a half-grown one, so mild, so gentle-looking. Butter, you would +have said, wouldn't melt in that wee rabbit's mouth. And it crouched +down low and held its ears flat against its back, and never moved an eye +or winked, but allowed the lads to smooth it with their fore-fingers. + +But all at once, pop! it was off like an eel. + +"Oh?" said Archie, with such a disappointed look, "and I meant to take +it hame wi' me." + +Kenneth laughed, and off the two scampered, as wild as any rabbits. + +"Shot is here," said Archie. + +"Where?" + +"Down with Kooran." + +"Then you must whistle him up; Kooran will look after the sheep by +himself, but Shot will lead him into temptation. Besides, the sheep +don't know Shot. Whistle, Archie, whistle, man." + +Archie put four fingers in his mouth and emitted a scream as shrill as +the scream of the great whaup. [The curlew.] In a moment more Shot was +coming tearing along through the heather. + +And with him was Kooran. + +"What do you want, Kooran?" + +Kooran threw himself in a pleading attitude at his master's feet, looked +up with brown, melting, pleading eyes, and wagged his tail. + +"Oh! I know, dear doggie," said Kenneth; "you want your dinner, because +you know we'll be away all day." + +Kooran jumped and capered and danced and barked, and Kenneth rolled a +piece of cake and a bit of cheese in a morsel of paper and handed it to +the dog. + +"Keep the koorichan," (sheep) "well together, doggie," he said; "and +don't take your dinner for an hour yet." + +Kooran gave his tail a few farewell wags and galloped off, but as soon +as he was in sight of the flock and out of sight of his master, he lay +down and ate his dinner right up at once. He ate the cheese first, +because it smelt so nice, and then he ate the cake. + +Away went Archie and Kenneth and Shot. It didn't take them long to +gallop through the heather and furze. Of course the furze made their +bare knees bleed, but they did not mind that. + +They reached the road in twenty minutes, and went straight away to the +clachan to report themselves at the manse, or minister's house. + +It wasn't much of a manse, only an ordinary-looking, blue-slated house +of two stories, but it had a nice lawn in front and gardens round it, +where ash trees, limes, planes, and elms grew almost in too great +abundance. The windows were large, and one was a French one, and opened +under a verandah on to the lawn. This was the Rev David Grant's +study. + +Before they came round the hedgerow, both boys stopped, dipped their +handkerchiefs in the running brook, and polished their faces; then they +warned Shot to be on his best behaviour, and looking as sedate and +solemn as they could, they opened the gate, and made their way to the +hall door. And Shot tried to look as old as he could, and followed +behind with his nose pretty near the ground, and his tail almost between +his heels. + +But Mr Grant himself saw them, opened the casement window, and cried,-- + +"Come this way, boys." + +Mr Grant was the clergyman of the village. The living was a poor one, +and as he had seven grown-up daughters, he was obliged to turn sheep +farmer. It was his sheep that Kenneth herded, and that his father had +herded before him, after "the bad years" had ruined the poor man. + +"Miss Grant will soon be here," he said. "And how have you left the +sheep, Kenneth?" + +"They are all nicely, thank you, sir," replied Kenneth. + +"All healthy and thriving, I hope?" + +"Oh, yes, sir, we won't have any more trouble, and Kooran is minding +them. He will take capital care of them, sir. And Duncan McCrane, +Archie's father, is going up himself to see them." + +"That's right," said Mr Grant. + +The Misses Grant were the mothers of the clachan. I haven't space to +tell you half of the good they did, so I shall not attempt it, but they +taught in school and Sunday-school, they knew all the deserving poor, +and attended them when sick, and advised them, and prayed with them, and +read to them, and never went empty-handed to see them. Why, they even +begged for them. And they knew the undeserving poor, and did good to +them also. Even Gillespie, the most dreaded poacher and wildest man in +the clachan, was softened in tone and like a child when talking to the +"good Miss Grants," as they were always called. + +Well, every one loved these homely sisterly lassies of the parson's. + +"By-the-bye, Kennie," said Mr Grant, "I hear the glen is going to be +evicted." + +"Surely, sir, that isn't true?" replied Kenneth. + +Miss Grant the elder was Kenneth's teacher, one of them, old Nancy +Dobbell was another, and Nature was a third. + +"Did you come for a lesson to-day?" said Miss Grant, entering. + +"No, thank you. Miss Grant." + +"Well, I'm glad, because I was going out. Little Miss Redmond is here +with her governess. They have the pony trap, and I am going to their +glen with them to lunch. Come to the drawing-room; they are there." + +Miss Redmond was the only daughter of an Englishman of wealth, who had +bought land in an adjoining glen. Mr Redmond himself was seldom at +home--if, indeed, Scotland could be called his home--and his wife was an +invalid. + +But there was nothing of the invalid about little Jessie, the daughter. +Quite a child she was, hardly more than eight, but with all the quiet +dignity and easy affability that is only to be found among children of +the _bon ton_. + +Archie was simply afraid of her. Kenneth got on better, however. He +answered all her innocent but pointed questions, as if he were talking +to his grandmother. But Jessie was really asking for information, and +Kenneth knew it, so the two had quite a serious old-fashioned +conversation. + +Well, Kenneth seemed a gentleman born. He sat easily in his chair, he +held his cap easily, and behaved himself with polite _sang froid_. Miss +Grant was proud of Kenneth. + +But poor Archie looked ill at ease. + +Kenneth told Jessie the story of the little black rabbit, and Jessie was +much interested. + +"What did it look like?" she asked. + +Kenneth glanced towards Archie. + +"He just looked," he answered, "as Archie is looking now, as if waiting +a chance to bolt." + +This was a very mischievous speech, but Kenneth could not refrain from +saying what he thought. + +"Poor boy?" said Jessie, as if she had been Archie's mother; "he appears +to be very frightened. What beautiful hair he has! It is just like +mine." + +This was true, only Jesssie's was longer and not bleached. Kenneth sat +looking half wonderingly at Jessie, longer than politeness would +dictate. + +"What are you thinking about?" said Jessie. + +"I was thinking," said Kenneth, candidly, "I'd give all the world to be +able to talk English in the pretty way you do." + +"Some day," Jessie said to her governess, "we will go and see the sheep, +Miss Gale. Remember that place. Put it down in your notes. We are to +see a fairy knoll and a smugglers' cave. It will be so delightful." + +"We go to London soon for the winter," said Miss Gale, "but will come +and see you, Kenneth, in spring or summer." + +"Miss Gale," insisted the imperious Jessie, "I haven't seen you use your +tablets." + +So Miss Gale smilingly took her tablets out and noted the engagement to +visit the sheep and see the fairy knoll. + +"He has a flute," said Archie, with sudden determination not to sit mute +all the time; "make him play." + +And Kenneth had to play, just the same old melodies that the Scotch so +dearly love; but as he played there came so sweet and sad an expression +into English Jessie's face, that Kenneth would have played for hours to +please her. + +When he had done, she went and looked at Miss Gale's tablets. + +"Thank you," she said, "dear Miss Gale, but just under there write, +`Flute.'" + +So the word "Flute" was added. It was something for the child to think +about while in London, a treat to look forward to, a long summer's day +to be spent among the heather, among the sheep, a fairy glen, a real +fairy knoll, and dreamy music from a flute. + +No sooner was Archie round the corner of the hedge and out of sight of +the parson's window, than he gave a wild whoop, like an Apache Indian, +and ran off. + +Kenneth came up with him before long. Not quite up with him, though, +because Archie was high, high up in the sky, at an old magpie's nest. +The magpie was done with it, and Archie was tearing it down. + +"The nasty old chick-chicking thing!" he explained to Kenneth; "for two +years running she has used the same old nest, and it wasna hers to begin +wi', but a hoody-craw's." + +Away went the boys together. They had a long day before them, and meant +to make use of it. They were as happy as boys could be who could do as +they pleased and go where they pleased, and had bread and cheese to eat +when hungry. + +Very practical naturalists were Kenneth and Archie. They knew nothing +whatever of nomenclature, they could not have told you the Latin name of +any of the hundred and one strange wild creatures they met every day in +their wanderings over mountain and moorland, but about the habits of +those creatures there was nothing they could not have told you. + +They could have led you to the home of the red deer and moor-cock. They +knew the tricks and the manners of every bird that built in hedgerow or +furze bush, in thicket of spruce or pine-top or larch, in the hay or the +heather or the growing corn, among sedges by the sides of lonely lochs +or tarns, in banks or holes by the side of the stream, in hillock or +stony cairn, or far up the mountain's side almost at the snow line +itself. + +They knew every bird by its name (in Scotch), by its eggs, by its nest, +either in shape or in lining, and they knew where to look for every +nest. + +Remember this, and I'm proud to mention it, these boys never destroyed a +nest nor an egg. + +They knew all about animals that couldn't fly also, and oh! their name +is legion. They knew or could pretty well guess, when they came across +any of these, what the particular little animal, whether field-mouse, +squirrel, polecat, or vole, was about, and what it was after, whether +food for the young at home, or a warm bit of moss for extra comfort in +the nest, or twigs, rushes, dry weeds, or hay for building purposes. + +There was no deceiving Kenneth or Archie, nor Kooran and Shot, for the +matter of that. But the wild creatures knew the boys, and often +objected to have their nests examined, and even tried to deceive them. + +For example, the hedgehog one evening in the gloaming was caught in the +very act of hauling away an immensely long earthworm. The hoggie didn't +curl up, but sat down and made pretence to eat it. But Archie knew the +nest was not far away. + +The fox had a home in the middle of the pine wood and had young there, +and do what she would, the old mother fox could not get the puppies to +keep to the hole and lie in bed all day. They would come out and play +and tumble in the clearing, in such a funny ridiculous way. Once Archie +was coming up towards this clearing, and the puppies were all out, for +father fox was from home looking after chickens, and as soon as mother +fox carried one into the hole in her mouth and went back for another, it +came laughing and frolicking out again. So half distracted the mother +went slily to meet Archie, and pretended she was nearly dead, and went +away in a different direction from the clearing, and dragged one leg +behind her in a way that made Archie certain he could catch her. Of +course when mother fox had Archie far enough away she disappeared. But +Archie came back next night, and the same trick did not succeed again, +so he found the puppy foxes and used to play with them for hours at a +time in the clearing. + +The lapwings have a trick in spring-time of pretending they have a +broken wing when you go near the nest. They fall down in front of you, +and pretend they can't get away fast, and you run to catch them and +forget all about the nest. This is a very clever trick, and has +deceived many, but Archie used to shake his yellow hair and laugh at the +lapwing. + +"It is too thin," Archie would say. "I'm not a town's boy." + +And he would go straight away and find the nest, with the buff and black +speckled eggs, on the top of the bare sunny hillock where in a hole--not +worth the name of nest--lappie had laid them. + +It was too late in the season now to look for birds' nests, but they saw +to-day a lot of old nests that they had not found the summer before, for +the trees were now getting bare and thin in foliage. + +When tired roaming about in the wilds, the two boys sat down and had +dinner. + +Then they crossed the wide moorland to Nancy's lonely cottage. + +Nancy was delighted to see them. She said they must be hungry. But the +boys assured her that they were not, because they had had plenty of +bread and cheese. But Nancy put down her knitting and warmed some +heather ale for them, and sweetened it, and switched two new-laid eggs, +and mixed those in it, and made the boys drink the harmless and +delicious beverage. + +Then she took up her knitting again, and click, click, clickety-click, +went the wires the while she told them strange old-world stories and +tales of fairies and kelpies. + +The boys were entranced, and it was nearly dark when they left Nancy's +cottage and betook themselves to the glen. Kooran was very pleased to +see them back, and helped them to fold the sheep; then the whole four-- +that is, Kenneth and Archie and Kooran and Shot--went up the fairy glen +to the fairy knoll and the smugglers' cave. + +Kenneth lit the lamp; then he lit a fire out of doors and hung over a +pot from a tripod, quite gipsy fashion. + +Kenneth was a capital cook, and made a rabbit stew that a king might +have eaten. So both boys supped royally, and the dogs had the bones. + +Then the things were cleared away, and down lay Archie on the dais, to +listen to Kenneth reading the "Tales of the Borders." + +On the whole, they had spent a most delightful day of it. But it was +only one of many, for Saturday was Kenneth's own day, and Archie was his +constant companion. + +And so the autumn wore away among these, peaceful glens. The days grew +shorter and shorter, the frosts fell morning and night, and winds moaned +through trees leafless and bare. The sheep were folded now in fields on +the lower lands, and Kenneth had more time for his studies. But every +evening found Archie and him in their cave in the fairy knoll. + +CHAPTER SIX. + +KENNETH. + +Scene: Glen Alva in a winter garb. A morning in December. A glorious +morning and yet how great a change from the day before. For on the west +coast of Scotland changes do come soon and sudden. + +Last night, ere gloaming fell, Kenneth had stood at his mother's cottage +door for hours watching the sunset and the weird but splendid +after-glow. + +The sun had gone down rosy red and large behind a grey-blue bank of +rock-and-tower clouds that bounded the horizon above the hills. But so +strange and beautiful was the colour that soon spread over the +firmament, with its tints of lavender, yellow, pink, and pale sea-green, +that even Kenneth's mother must hold up her hands and cry,-- + +"Oh! dear laddie, a sky like that, I fear, bodes no good to the glen." + +For uppermost in every one's mind in Glen Alva, at the present time, was +the threatened eviction. + +Then, just one hour afterwards, the pink colour had disappeared from the +sky, and the yellow had changed to one of the reddest, fieriest orange +hues ever eyes had looked upon; while away farther round towards the +north the sky was an ocean of darkest green. The trees, ashes and elms, +that bordered a field adjoining the kail-yard, stood strangely out +against this glow; every branchlet and twig seemed traced in ink--the +blackest of the black. + +Above this orange, or rather through its upper edge, where it went +melting into the zenith's blue, the stars glimmered green. + +But looking earthward, all around the hills and fields were dark and +bare, for winter had not yet donned her mantle of snow. + +And now Kenneth has come out of doors almost before the sun is risen, +for there are fowls to be fed, and rabbits and guinea-pigs, and the cow +herself to be seen to, before he takes his own breakfast and starts to +meet Dugald to enjoy a day among the hills. + +What a change! The hoar frost has been falling gently all the livelong +night. The good fairies seem to have been at work while others slept, +changing the world to what he now sees it, and so silently too. And +this is what strikes Kenneth as so wonderful: while shrub, and tree, and +weeds, and grass, and heather, are transformed, as it were, into +powdered ice, there is neither loss of shape nor form; not a branch +bends down; not a leaf or twig is out of place. And the very commonest +of objects, too, are turned to marvels of beauty. + +The trees point heavenwards with fingers of coral. But to look lower +down. Surely there could be no romance or beauty about a cabbage leaf. +Glance at these then fringed all round with needles and spiculae inches +long; the leaf itself is a shimmering green, dusted over with a frosty +down. The wire-netting around the poultry run, and the cobwebs that +depend from outhouse eaves, are shiny silver lace-work all. A glorious +morning, a wondrous scene; why, even the humble clothes line is changed +into a white and feathery cable, and the tufts of grass that grow on the +pathways are tufts of grass no longer, but radiant bunches of snow-white +feathers. + +Adown the glen, where Kenneth wanders at last, everything around him is +of the same magical beauty, a beauty that is increased tenfold when he +reaches the woods. Here, too, all is silence, only the murmur of the +rippling stream, or the peevish twitter of birds, or the complaining +notes of a throstle as she flies outwards from a thicket, scattering the +silvery powder all around her. + +But down here in the wood, through the dazzling white of the pine trees, +the cypresses, and spruces and holly, comes a shade, a shimmer of green, +brighter among the pines themselves, darker among the ivy that clings to +their stems. And the seed balls on the ivy itself are globes of +feathery snow, and every spine on the holly leaves is a fairy plume. + +Hark! the sound of ringing footsteps on frost-hard road, and a manly +merry voice singing,-- + + "Cam' ye by Athol, lad wi' the philibeg, + Down by the Tummel and banks o' the Garry? + Saw ye the lad wi' his bonnet and white cockade, + Leaving his mountains to follow Prince Charlie?" + +--And next moment, gun on shoulder, sturdy Dugald the keeper stalks +round the corner. + +"The top of the mornin' to ye, man," said Dugald. "Have you seen +Archie?" + +"No, not yet." + +But even as they spoke Archie, bare-headed as usual, is seen coming up +from the side of the stream, with a string of beautiful mountain trout +in his hand. + +He climbed up through the icy ferns, leapt the fence, and stood before +them. + +"I set twenty lines last night," he said, in joyful accents, "and caught +thirteen trout." + +Back the trio went to Mrs McAlpine's cottage, and those fish were fried +for breakfast, with nut-brown tea, cream, and butter and cakes; and if +there be anything in this world better for breakfast than mountain trout +fresh from a stream, I trust some kind soul will send me a hamper of it. + +What a day of it they had among the hills, to be sure! + +Young as he was, Kenneth had a gun, while Archie did duty as ghillie; +they went miles and miles away up among the mountains where the heather +grew high as their waists--Kenneth's waist and Dugald's, I mean; it was +often over Archie's head. But they came out of this darkness at last, +and shook the snow off their jackets and kilts, and walked on over the +moorland. + +Gorcocks stretched their red necks and stared at them in wonder. +Ptarmigans, too cold to fly, ran and hid in the heather, the black cock +and the grey hen often flew past them with a wild whirr-r-r, while far +above, circling round and round in the blue sunny sky, was the bird of +Jove himself. + +But it was not the gorcock, nor black cock, nor the ptarmigan, nor the +great golden eagle itself they were after, but the white or mountain +hare. + +And the sport was good. They took time to dine, though, for the air was +bracing and keen; then they shot again till nearly sunset, and Kenneth's +cheek flushed redder than usual as Dugald praised him for his skill as a +marksman. But at the same time Dugald praised himself indirectly, for +he added, "But no thanks to you, lad; sure, haven't you had Dugald +McCrane himself to teach you this many a long day?" + +Archie was wonderfully strong, but he couldn't carry half the hares, so +Dugald and Kenneth had to help him as well as carry their own and their +guns, and even Shot carried a white hare all the way to the glen below. + +"Of course," said Kenneth, "you'll come up the glen, Dugald, to our +cottage, and let us show my mother our game; she will be so pleased." + +"'Deed, and I will, then," replied Dugald, "and there will be a pair of +hares for the old lady, too, and one for Nancy the witch--goodness be +about us--for the laird wrote me to say if I killed more than a dozen +and a half to-day, I was to do what I liked with the rest." + +"Dear old laird!" said Kenneth; "why doesn't he come down from London +and stay among his people? We all love him so much." + +"Ah! Kennie, he has ruined himself, like mony mair Highland lairds, by +stoppin' in the big city, and it's myself that is sorry. But see, wha +comes here?" + +It was a tall stranger, dressed in knickerbockers, a broad-brimmed soft +felt hat, and a surtout coat, a very ridiculous association of garments. + +He carried a gun over his shoulder, and two beautiful Irish setters +walked behind him. Both dogs were lame. + +"Hullo, fellows!" he said. "Glad I've met some one at last. How far +have I to walk to the little inn at the klakkin?" + +Dugald threw down his game-bag, so did the others their burdens. No one +was sorry to rest a bit, so they leant against the dyke and quietly +surveyed the stranger. Meanwhile Shot was standing defiantly in front +of the setters. + +Shot wanted to know if either of these dogs would oblige him by +fighting, singly or the two at once. But they did not seem inclined to +accept the challenge. + +"My good fellow," said the stranger, "when you have stared sufficiently +to satisfy you, perhaps you will be good enough to answer my question." + +"Well," said Dugald, "I'm staring because it's astonished I am." + +"You'd be more astonished if you knew who I am. But never mind. I've +been travelling all day among these tiresome hills and only managed to +kill one brown hare. I was told at the inn that the white hares were in +hundreds." + +"Very likely," said Dugald, "but it's no' in the glen you'll find them. + +"You're two miles from the clachan," continued Dugald. "I'm McGregor's +keeper--his chief keeper. I'll trouble you, sir, to show your permit." + +"You're a saucy fellow. I'm the future owner of these glens and all the +estate, and lord of Castle Alva." + +"I'll believe it when I see it. You're neither lord nor laird yet. +Your permit, please. I believe nobody since two students poached all +over the hills here and called themselves friends of the laird's." + +"As to my permit, fellow, I did not trouble to bring it from C--." + +"Then you'll consider yourself my prisoner till you can produce it." + +The stranger was a man about forty-five, tall and wiry and haughty. He +looked at Dugald up and down for a moment. + +"Dare you, fellow?" he shouted. + +Dugald quietly laid down his gun and threw off his jacket. He then took +off his scarf, and stretched it out in front of the stranger. It +measured fully a yard and a half. + +"I've tied the hands and feet of a poacher before," he said, "a bigger +man than you. And I mean to do my duty by you." + +"Dugald," said Kenneth, "this gentleman may really be what he says." + +"Let him come quietly, then," replied Dugald. "No stranger that ever +walked will lead Dugald McCrane into trouble again. Is it going to +surrender you are, sir? Consider while I count ten. One--two--three--" + +"Enough, enough. I'm your prisoner, fellow. It is very ridiculous. +Perhaps you'll live to rue this day. Come on with me to the inn." + +Dugald laughed. + +"Not just yet," he answered; "it's the other way; you come with me." + +The stranger bit his lip and frowned. + +Then he put his hand in his pocket and produced a gold piece. + +"This is yours," he said, "if you come at once." + +Fire seemed to flash from Dugald's eyes. He clenched his fists +convulsively, and looked for a moment as if he meant to spring at the +stranger's neck. + +"Put up your bawbees," he said at length. "If Highlanders are poor, +they are also proud, and the gold isn't dug yet that would tempt Dugald +McCrane to neglect his duty. And if the auld laird himsel' was standing +there, he'd tell you it's the truth I'm speaking. Right about face, my +man, and march with us to the glen-head, or it may be the worse for +you." + +The stranger gave a sigh and a sickly kind of smile, but he shouldered +his gun and prepared to follow. + +"One minute," said Dugald, for Kenneth had beckoned him aside. + +Kenneth and he conversed for a moment; then Dugald returned. + +"You look tired," he said, shortly; "we'll go your road. Archie," he +continued, "pick the ice-balls from the feet of those twa poor dogs. +Your dogs, sir, are but little used to our Hielan' hills." + +"And indeed, my fine fellow," replied the stranger, "am but little used +to your Highland manners, but grateful to you, young sir,"--he was +addressing Kenneth--"for saving me a longer journey than needful." + +In half an hour's time the future laird of Alva, for it was no other, +found himself a prisoner at the little inn of the clachan. This for a +night; next day he produced a letter from McGregor himself--he had +despatched a messenger to C--for it--which quite satisfied Dugald +McCrane. + +Dugald was satisfied of something else as well, namely, that he had done +his duty without exceeding it. + +Kenneth and Dugald visited Nancy Dobbell's next day and told her the +story. + +"Och! och!" she said, "it will be a sore day for the folks of the +clachan, when a stranger steps into the shoes of poor auld Laird +McGregor. + +"But a cloud is rising o'er the hills, my laddies; there will be little +more peace in Glen Alva. A cloud is rising o'er the hills, and that +cloud will burst, and wreck and ruin will fall on the poor people. My +dreams have told me this many and many a day since. Heigho! but Nancy's +time is wearin' through. She'll never live to see it." + +Kenneth took the old thin hand that lay in her lap in both his, and +looked into her face, while the tears gathered in his eyes. + +He was going to say something. But he did not dare trust himself to +speak. He simply petted the poor wrinkled hand. + +Is Campbell the poet right, I wonder? + + "_Does_ the sunset of life give us mystical lore? + _Do_ coming events cast their shadows before?" + +CHAPTER SEVEN. + +THE DEATH OF POOR NANCY. + + "I'm wearin' awa', Jean, + Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, Jean; + I'm wearin' awa' + To the Land o' the Leal." + + Old Song. + +Scene: Kenneth at home in his mother's humble cot. A fire of peats and +wood burning on the low hearth. Kenneth's mother reading the good Book +with spectacles on her eyes. Kenneth leading also at the other side of +the fire. Above the mantelpiece a black iron oil lamp is burning, with +old-fashioned wicks made from peeled and dried rushes. Between the +pair, his head on his paws, Kooran is lying. He is asleep, and probably +dreaming of the sheep that he cannot get to enter the "fauld," for he is +emitting little sharp cheeping barks, as dogs often do when they dream. + +Kenneth gets up at last and reaches down his plaid and crook. + +"Dear laddie," says his mother, "you're surely not going out to-night!" + +Kooran jumps up and shakes himself. + +"Yes, mother; I must," is the quiet reply. "I had a strange dream about +poor Nancy last night. She has been ill, you know, and I haven't called +for three days." + +"But in such a night, laddie! Listen to the wind! Hear how the snow +and the hail are beating on the window!" + +Kenneth did listen. + +It was indeed a fearful night. + +The wind was sighing and crying through every cranny of the window, and +shaking the sash; it was howling round the chimney, and wailing through +the keyhole of the door. + +Snow was sifting in underneath the door, too, and lying along the floor +like a stripe of light. + +Kenneth drew his plaid closer round him. + +"I must go, mother," he said; "I could not sleep to-night if I didn't. + +"Don't be uneasy about me even if I don't return till morning. I may +stay all night at Dugald's." + +When Kenneth opened the door he was almost driven back with the force of +the wind, and almost suffocated with the soft, powdery, drifting snow. +But he closed the door quickly after him and marched boldly on down the +glen, rolling the end of his plaid about his neck, and at times having +even to breathe through a single fold of it to prevent suffocation. + +It was now well on in January. There had been but little snow all the +winter, but this storm came on sharp and sudden. All day gigantic +masses of cloud had been driving hurriedly over the sky on the wings of +an easterly wind; the ground was as hard as adamant, and towards sunset +the snow had begun to fall. But it took no time to settle on the bare +ground; it was blown on and heaped wherever there was a bit of shelter +from the fierce east wind. So it lay under the hedges and dykes, and on +the lee-side of trees, and deep down in the ravines, and under banks and +rocks, and across the road here and there in rifts like frozen waves of +the ocean. + +The wind howled terribly across the moorland. There was a moon, but it +gave little light. + +Kooran knew, however, where his master was going, and went feathering on +in front, stopping now and then to turn round and give a little sharp +encouraging bark to his sturdy young master. + +Kenneth was all aglow when he reached Nancy's hut, and his face wet and +hot. His hair and the fringes of the plaid and even his eyebrows were +covered with ice. + +He shook the plaid and his bonnet, and folded the former under the porch +for Kooran to lie on. Then he opened the latch and entered. + +All was dark. Not a blink of fire was on the hearth, and long white +lines across the floor showed him where the snow had been sifting in +through the holes that did duty as windows. Kenneth's heart suddenly +felt as cold and heavy as lead. + +"Nancy," he cried, "Nancy, oh! Nancy." + +There was a feeble answer from the bed in the corner. + +He advanced towards it. There were two shining lights there, the cat's +eyes. Poor pussy was on the bed watching by her dying mistress. + +He felt on the coverlet and found Nancy's hand there. It was cold, +almost hard. "Nancy," he said, "it is Kennie, your own boy Kennie; +don't be afraid." + +It did not take long for Kenneth to light a roaring fire on the hearth. +As soon as it burned up he held the iron lamp over it to melt the frozen +oil; then he hung it up. The water in a bucket was frozen, and even +some milk that stood on a little table near Nancy's bed was solid. + +The inside of that cot was dreary in the extreme, but Kenneth soon made +it more cheerful. + +Poor old Nancy smiled her thanks and held out her hand to her boy, as +she always called Kennie. He chafed it while he entreated her to tell +him how she felt. + +"Happy! happy! happy!" she replied, "but, poor boy, you are shaking." + +Kenneth was, and he felt his heart so full that tears would have been a +relief, but he wisely restrained himself. + +He melted and warmed the milk, and made her drink some. Then, at her +own request, he raised her up in the bed. + +"Dinna be sorry," she said, "when poor auld Nancy's in the mools. It is +the gate we have a' to gang. But oh! dear boy, it's the gate to glory +for poor Nancy. And so it will be for you, laddie, if you never forget +to pray. Prayer has been the mainstay and comfort o' my life; God has +always been near me, and He's near me now, and will see me safe through +the dark waters o' death. Here's a little Bible," she said. "It was +Nancy's when young. Keep it for her sake, and oh! never forget to read +it. + +"Now, laddie, can you find your way to Dugald's? Send him here. There +is an aulder head on his shoulders than on yours, and I have that to say +a man should hear and remember." + +"I'll go at once," said Kenneth, "and come back soon, and bring the +doctor too, Nancy. I won't say good-night, I'll be back so soon." + +Kenneth gulped down his tears, patted her hand, and rushed away. + +"Come on, Kooran," he cried. "Oh! Kooran, let us run; my heart feels +breaking." + +He took his way across the moor in a different direction from that in +which he had come. The storm had abated somewhat. The wind had gone +down, and the moon shone out now and then from a rift in the clouds. + +He determined to take the shortest cut to Dugald's house, though there +would be the stream to ford, and it must be big and swollen. Never +mind; he would try it. + +He soon reached a scattered kind of wood of stunted trees; there was no +pathway through it, but he guided himself by the moon and kept going +downhill. He would thus strike the river, and keeping on by its banks, +ford wherever he could. + +Nothing could be easier. So he said to himself, and on he went. It was +very cold; and though the wind was not so fierce, it moaned and sighed +most mournfully through the trees in this wood. Even Kooran started +sometimes, as a spruce or Scottish fir tree would suddenly free itself +from its burden of snow as if it were a living thing, free itself with a +rushing, crackling sort of sound, and stand forth among its fellows dark +and spectre-like. + +Kenneth had gone quite a long way, but still no stream came in sight. +He listened for the sound of running water over and over again, and just +as often he seemed to hear it, and went in that direction, but found it +must be only wind after all. + +He grew tired all at once, tired, weak, and faint, and sat down on a +tree stump, and Kooran came and licked his cheek with his soft warm +tongue. He placed one hand in the dog's mane, as if to steady himself, +for his head began to swim. + +"I must go on, though," he muttered to himself. "Poor old Nancy. The +doctor. I'll soon be back--I--" + +He said no more for a time. He had fainted. When he recovered, he +started at once to his feet. + +"I've been asleep," he cried. "How could I!" He ate some snow; then he +began to move on automatically, as it were, the dog running in front and +barking. The dog would have led him home. "No, no, Kooran," he said; +"the river, doggie, the river." + +Kenneth tried to run now. His teeth were chattering with the cold, but +his face was hot and flushed. + +His nerves had become strangely affected. He started fifty times at +imaginary spectres. Some one was walking on in front of him--some +shadowy being. He ran a little; it eluded him. Then he stopped; he was +sure he saw a head peering at him over a piece of rock. He called +aloud, "Archie! Archie!" + +His voice sounds strange to his own ears. He runs towards the rock. +There is no one behind it. No one. Nothing. + +He feels fear creeping over his heart. He never felt fear before. + +But still he wanders on, muttering to himself, "I'll soon be back. Poor +old Nancy! Poor old Nancy!" + +All at once--so it seems--he finds himself at the banks of a stream. He +is bewildered now, completely. He presses his cold hand against that +burning brow of his. + +What is this river or stream? Where is he going? Did he cross this +stream before? He must cross it now, but where is the ford? How deep +and dark and sullen it looks. + +He seats himself on the icy bank to think or try to think. + +He is burning, yet he shivers. + +Stories of water-kelpies keep crowding through his mind, and the words +and weird music of a song he has heard,-- + + "Kelpie dwells in a wondrous hall + Beneath the shimmering stream; + His song is the song of the waterfall, + And his light its rainbow gleam. + The rowans stoop, + And the long ferns droop + Their feathery heads in the spray." + +And now he jumps to his feet. He has recollected himself, he was going +for the doctor for poor Nancy, and this is the stream he was looking +for. He must seek the ford. He cannot have far to go now. Once over +the river, and a run will take him to Dugald's cottage. + +But stay; what cares he for the ford? He will plunge into the deepest +pool, and swim across. He is hot; he is burning; it will cool him. + +He walks on a little way, and still the kelpie song runs in his brain. +The trees seem singing it; the wind keeps singing it; the driving clouds +nod to its music. + + "Where the foam flakes are falling, + Falling, falling, falling, + Falling for ever and ay--" + +Ha! here is a deep dark pool at last. Why, yonder is the kelpie himself +beckoning to him, and the maiden. + + "When forest depths were dim, + For love of her long golden hair--" + +The poor dog divines his intention. He rushes betwixt him and the cold +black water, uttering a cry that is almost human in its plaintive +pathos. + +Too late. He laughs wildly, and plunges in. Then there is a strange +sense of fulness in his head. Sparks crackle across his eyes. + + "Falling, falling, falling, + Foam flakes are--" + +He remembers no more. + +But the brave dog has pulled him to the brink, and sits by his side, +lifting his chin up towards the sky, and howling most pitifully. + +Ah! if we only knew how much our faithful dogs love us, and how much +they know in times of trouble and anguish, we would be kinder to them +even than we are, even now, while sorrow smees far away from us. + +Presently it appeared to strike even Kooran that giving vent to his +grief would result in nothing very practical, so he suddenly ceased to +whine. He bent down and licked his master's cold inanimate face. + +He howled once again after this, as if his very heart were breaking. + +Then he looked all round him. + +No help, I suppose, he thought, could come from these cold woods, and no +danger. + +So he emitted one little impatient bark, as if his mind were quite made +up as to what he should do, turned tail, and trotted off. + +CHAPTER EIGHT. + +KENNETH AND JESSIE. + + "Will cannot hinder nor keenness foresee + What Destiny holds in the darkness for me." + + Tupper. + +Scene: Dugald's garden on the cliff top. You have to climb up to it +from the road that goes winding through a wooded ravine, up a few steep +gravel steps. It is spring-time, and the soft west wind goes sighing +through the trees. + +It is gloomy enough in the ravine below, but here the sun is brightly +shining, and primroses are blooming on the borders, and the blue +myosotis that rivals the noonday sky in the brightness of its colour. + +On a wooden dais, near the keeper's door, Kenneth is lying rolled in his +plaid and propped up with pillows. On the arm of the dais old Nancy's +cat is seated, blinking in the sunshine and singing. On the pathway is +Kooran, and book in hand--'tis Burns's poems--Archie is seated on a +stone. + +Kenneth's mother comes out and stands beside her boy, smiling and +talking for a little, then goes in again. Dugald himself comes up the +path, gun on shoulder, singing low, but he finishes the line in a louder +voice when he sees Kenneth. + +"Ah, lad! out once more," he cries joyfully. "Och, man! it's myself +that is glad to see you." + +The moisture had gathered in the honest fellow's eye. Kenneth smiled +faintly. + +"You'll soon see me on foot again, the doctor says." + +"But, man, if I live to be as auld as Methuselah, I'll never forget that +dreary nicht your Kooran came howling to the door. He would hardly give +me time to put my plaid on, and then he led me away and away to +Brownie's Howe, and I found your body--there seemed no life in it--and +carried you hame here on my shoulder. + +"Ay, and Kooran has never left ye one hour since then, nor Nancy's cat +either. She came here the very day after Nancy's funeral. Poor auld +Nancy! How quietly she wore away. And how sensible she was to the +last. And she told me a story about the laird, our dear laird McGregor, +that you maunna hear noo, Kenneth. Good-bye. I'm off to the hills. +Mind to keep the wind from him, Archie." + +"How I should like to go too, Archie," said Kenneth. + +"Oh!" said the boy, "that will soon be now. And oh! how bonnie the +woods are, and the birds have all begun to build." + +"Are the woods very bonnie, Archie?" + +"Oh! delightful," cried the boy. "The moss is so soft and green under +the trees. The wild flowers are creeping out and blowing on the banks. +The pine trees are all stuck over with long white-green fingers." + +"I know," said Kenneth. + +"The birch tree stems are whiter than ever I saw them, just like silver, +Kennie." + +"Yes." + +"And their branches are trailing down with the weight of their bonnie +wee glittering leaves." + +"Yes, yes." + +"Then the needles on the larch trees were never so soft and green +before, I'm sure, and they are just covered with red tassels." + +"Yes." + +"And the rowan trees [Rowan tree--the mountain ash] are covered with +white flowers. What lots of scarlet roddans they'll have in autumn! +And the birds are all building, as I said. I have a hoody-craw's nest +in a Scotch fir in Alva, and a kestrel's in a terribly tall tree at +Aultmore. That magpie is building a brand-new nest; I knew she'd have +to." + +"Well?" + +"Well, there are five eggs in a laverock's among the corn, and I know +where there is a ptarmigan's and a whaup's, far away up among the +mountains." + +"Oh! I do so long to be well, Archie." + +"And the sheep, Archie?" continued poor Kenneth. "I've dreamed about +them so often since I've been sick. I always see them lookin' up, +Archie, with their bonnie brown een" (eyes), "and wonderin' what has +come of me. And I'm sure Kooran wants to see them." + +"Kooran could see them any day, and they're doin' finely, but Kooran +won't leave you." + +"Dear me, what shall I do?" cried Archie's mother, running distractedly +up the garden with a bucketful of greens in her hand. To have seen her +half-scared looks, one would have imagined something terrible was about +to happen. "Gentry coming, and I'm no' dressed." + +The gently arrived about five minutes afterwards, little Jessie, Miss +Gale, and Miss Grant. + +As soon as she found herself on the garden path Jessie, who had a bunch +of primroses in her hand, and some long drooping crimson-tipped twigs +from the larch, started to run. But she paused half-way, and an +expression of sadness stole over her face, as she noticed how wan and +white Kenneth was looking. + +She advanced more slowly and tendered the flowers. + +"Poor boy!" she said; "are you very, very ill?" + +Kenneth took the flowers, and a flush of joy lit his pale cheeks as he +replied,-- + +"Not now, Miss Jessie. The doctor says I have nothing to do but get +well." + +"Oh, I'm so glad," cried Jessie. + +Her governess now came up, and Miss Grant. The latter had been often +before to see the invalid, but Jessie and Miss Gale had only recently +arrived from Inverness-shire, and were loud in their praises of its +magnificent scenery. Archie went and brought a chair for Jessie, so +that she could sit while she talked to the invalid boy. Archie was +improving. He even spoke to Jessie to-day, and promised to bring her +something very nice if she would accept it. The something very nice +ultimately proved to be a young hedgehog, so young that its spines had +only just turned hard. + +Presently the ladies went into the keeper's cottage. Archie lay down on +the gravel-path with his head on Kooran's neck, and Jessie sat and +talked to Kenneth. + +What was she telling him? He looked intensely interested. His eyes +were dilated, his hands clasped, his face flushed. It was but a simple +story she was telling him, told in simple child's language. The story +of her own London life, her life in society. But it was all, all so new +to Kenneth. + +Ah! little did innocent Jessie know that her prattle had lighted the +fires of ambition in that boy's soul. But so it was. She had +inaugurated a new phase in his existence. She had inadvertently led him +to see that there were other--can I say better worlds than his? + +So Jessie went away, with many a promise to come again when he was +stronger, and could play soft melodies on the flute,--melodies, she +said, that made her feel she wanted to cry, but that she loved all the +same. + +Jessie went away. She had found the boy on this bright lovely spring +morning but a boy; she left him a man at heart. + +Archie came and sat by him, and recommenced his tales of mountain and +moorland and forest. He told him of the fairy knoll and the smugglers' +cave, about the heather, now so green and promising, about early lambs, +and all the little incidents of life in the hills. Kenneth listened, +but his thoughts were far away. + +These glens and wilds, dearly though he loved them, were not all the +world. The poets and writers that had so charmed him hitherto, and +served to throw a glamour of romance over the beautiful land in which he +lived--Burns, Ossian, Tannahill, Campbell, Scott, and the Ettrick +Shepherd,--they had made him love it, oh! so dearly love it, with that +burning, passionate patriotism which only the heart can feel. + +"That beats beneath a Scottish plaid." + +But--had he not been living too much in the past? was there not a power +setting in that was threatening to tear Scotland from the hands of the +Scotch? Ought he to stay among these mountains and dream dreams, +instead of going out into the world beyond to work or fight for the dear +land that gave him birth? Ought he not to try even to gather wealth for +the sake of those he would leave behind? + +Clouds were gathering over the glen. A foreigner was soon to take +possession of it, with no more love for the soil than if the heather +that grew on every acre of it had not been dyed a hundred times over +with the blood of the hero and the patriot. Could he stay at home and +see his father's grave, poor old Nancy's too, levelled? + +His thin hands covered his face, the boy sobbed quietly, and the tears +trickled through his fingers. + +CHAPTER NINE. + +THE STORM CLOUD BURSTS OVER THE GLEN. + + "When simmer comes smilin' o'er mountain and lea, + The green haughs and glens are pleasant to see, + And pleasant the hum o' the merry wild bee, + When the rose, when the rose and lily are blawin'. + An' blithely the mavis salutes the gay morn + As sweetly he sings on the snawy white thorn, + While the laverock soars high o'er the lang yellow corn, + And the moorcocks, the moorcocks are cheerily crawin'." + + Old Song. + +Scene: Summer once more on hill and glen. On the mountain brow, the +heather is bursting into bloom and bee-haunted. Down in the lower lands +the corn is growing long and green, mingled with orange of marigold and +crimson blush of wild poppy, and the meadows snowed over with gowan and +scented clover. Fish leap gladly in stream and tarn, the lofty pines +wave their dark plumes in the sunny air, and every wood and copse is +filled with melody. + +A right merry party are returning from the rocks by the seashore, where +they have spent hours in wandering and wondering, for they found +something new to admire at every turn. + +Jessie is here with her governess and Miss Grant, and Kenneth strong and +well again, to say nothing of Kooran and Shot, and last--probably +least--Archie McCrane. + +They have gained the brow of a hill overlooking the wide Atlantic. Far +beneath them the sea-birds are wheeling and shrieking among the rocks, +while out on the sea's blue breast is many a little white sail, some so +far, far away that though they have three masts, and must therefore be +mighty ships, they seem from here not a bit bigger than a sixpenny +piece. + +Little Jessie is looking radiant and lovely, Kenneth gallant and gay, +and everybody else, always including the dogs, as healthy and happy as +the summer's day is long. + +Well, no wonder. They have spent such a gloriously pleasant day. + +They took lunch with them to eat at sea. Yes, at sea, for old Duncan +Reed took them out to the island and far beyond it, and Kenneth was +proud on the whole to exhibit his skill as an oarsman. And Duncan had +not hesitated to tell the ladies that he--Duncan Reed--had taught the +boy all he knew about boating and fishing too. + +The ladies were delighted with Duncan, especially Miss Gale, to whom he +was something quite new. She must even sketch the little old man +leaning there on his oar in his shirt-sleeves and night-cap, and Duncan +was so delighted when he saw it, that his old eyes sparkled like the +inside of an oyster-shell. + +He shared the luncheon, and when they landed they went to his strange +house, with the boat for a roof, and there he made them tea, although +there were not cups for all, and Duncan himself had to drink his out of +a mug. + +But there really was more in this little old fisherman than might at +first appear. Anyhow he astonished Miss Gale by his recitations of +Ossian's poems, both in the ancient Gaelic, and in English. Even +Jessie, child though she was, experienced a thrill of indefinable +pleasure as she listened to the rise and fall of the measured words, the +magic of the wondrous verse, rolling out from the lips of this little +old man, who looked so wild and weird, and mingling with the dull roar +of the breaking waves. + +The child never forgot it. + +And now the little party stood on the hill overlooking the sea, and a +walk of two miles took them, after a rest, to the fairy glen. But +Archie, while they rested, had run on before, for everybody was coming +to the cave, and Archie must see that it was neat and tidy. + +There were freshly pulled ferns or brackens laid down as a carpet for +the cave, and seats constructed out of the blooming heather. While +making these Kenneth was thinking all the time about Jessie, and about +how her eyes would sparkle when she saw these. + +As they walked on over the hills, Kenneth by golden-haired Jessie's +side, the sky above them blue and clear, the clouds on the horizon +looking like snow-white feathers, and the bees making drowsy music among +the pinky heath, Kenneth got his child-companion to talk and tell him +more about the great world, that mighty ocean of life that lay in the +far beyond, the ceaseless throb of whose billows was hardly ever heard +among those peaceful hills. + +The boy stopped and looked backwards and away out towards the sea. +Probably he never looked half so handsome as he did now, with his heart +filled with manly resolves, with the light of a half-kindled ambition +making his face to shine. + +"I'm very, very happy here, Miss Jessie," he said. "I may never, never +be so happy as I am now, as I have been to-day. But before long I mean +to leave this country, leave Scotland, and go away into the world, Miss +Jessie." + +The child looked at him half afraid. + +"Yes, I'm foolish, I suppose, but I cannot help it; go I must. I +daresay I have read too many books, but--I long to go. + +"I'm going to take Nancy's Bible with me," he said, smiling and looking +half ashamed. "I'll never part with that." + +"Let me see it," said Jessie. + +He took from his bosom a little old-fashioned Bible, with the Psalms of +David--those heavenly gems of poetry and song--in metre at the end of +the book, and placed it in the child's hand. + +"You are a very good boy," she said, for the child felt she must say +something. + +"But oh!" she added, "here is a pressed primrose in the book." + +"It is one of those you gathered for me; don't you remember?" + +"Oh! yes," she replied, smiling, "but it looks so lonely; here, place +this little tiny bit of heather beside it." + +It was an innocent child-like action to place the bit of heather bloom +there with the primrose, but one that Kenneth never forgot. + +Archie was indeed a proud boy when Jessie and Miss Gale fell into +raptures over the cave. Everything was admired, the heather seats, the +rustic sofa, the rude bookcase containing the authors the boys read +almost every day, and even the carpet of brackens. + +"Did you get them?" said Kenneth in a stage whisper to Archie. + +"Yes," replied Archie, with eyes as big as two-shilling pieces, "and +such a fine lot they are. And the cream. Yes, and plates and spoons +and all." + +To the astonishment of his guests, Kenneth now placed a table in the +centre of the cave, and bade them all sit down. Then from a dark recess +he excavated a huge dish of mountain strawberries [Rubus chamaemorus], a +jar of cream, and plates and spoons. Neither Jessie nor Miss Gale had +ever eaten anything so delicious before. + +"But what are they, Kenneth?" she said. + +"They are called cloud-berries," replied Kenneth; "they only grow far up +in the mountain tops, and some call them fairy food. People about here +say that these berries creep in under their leaves, and hide when any +one with a baneful eye looks at them, and that only good people can +gather them." + +"And who gathered these?" said Miss Gale. + +"Archie." + +"Oh! Archie, you are good." + +Archie felt prouder even than before. + +But after the cloud-berries were discussed, wee Jessie, sitting there on +her heather couch, said, with a half-arch smile,-- + +"There is something else. Look at your tablets, Miss Gale." + +"Oh yes," said Miss Gale. "Here it is--Flute." + +Kenneth had the flute in his pocket. He was a marvellous player for a +boy. His whole soul seemed to breathe through the instrument. + +To-day he played a battle-piece of his own putting together--not +composing. + +First came the gathering of the clans, bold, energetic, soul-touching, +then the plaintive farewell to native glens, as the Highlanders marched +away,-- + + "Maybe to return to Lochaber no more." + +Next came the spirited march, then the wilder pibroch as the foe was +sighted, then wilder rushing music still; the fight was going on now, +you could feel that. You could hear the shrill slogan of the Highlander +mingling with shout of victor and shriek of wounded. Then a pause, and +anon the coronach or wail for the dead. + +And so the music died away. + +Down the glen now the party went, for the sun was sinking low in the +west, and the fairy glen was miles from the clachan. + +But Jessie must see the sheep. Dugald was acting as shepherd to-day, +and doffed his Highland bonnet as the ladies approached him. + +There was not a sheep there that Kenneth did not know. They bleated a +kindly welcome as he approached. They even played with Kooran, making +great pretence to knock him down or to hit him with their hard feet, all +of which Kooran took in good part, and kindly pretended to run from +them, then turning and barking in a funny remonstrative voice, as if he +really were laughing at heart, and enjoyed the fun immensely, and I have +no doubt he did. + +Dugald took Kenneth aside. + +"There is bad news come," he said; "all is lost. The glen is to be +evicted." + +Kenneth's heart sank within him. + +The cloud then that had been gathering so long was about to burst. + +It was well-nigh a year since the tenantry had been asked to leave. +They heeded not the summons. They could not believe that their own auld +laird McGregor would send his people away. Little they knew. McGregor +would never appear among them again. The edict sent through him was +sent by or at the instigation of the new American laird. The glens were +no good to him with people in them--so he said--he must have deer; he +was buying the land for the "sport" it would afford him, his family and +friends. Yet he doubted his own power, being a foreigner, to evict. + +But that very day the last summons was given previous to forcible +expulsion. + +And the young men of the clachan and glens were wild. They would stand +by their homesteads, they would grasp dirk and claymore, they would +fight, they would die where they stood. + +But at the great meeting that took place the wisdom of the grey-haired +prevailed. And with sorrow, ay, and tears, they all came at last to the +conclusion that resistance would be worse than useless. + +They would not go till they were forced, they would stay and see the +last of the dear old spot, but they would bend their necks to the yoke, +they would maintain a passive attitude. + +In this they showed their wisdom. The auld laird McGregor sent them a +most affecting letter. "Their sorrows," it ended, "and his own +misfortune had broken his heart, and though he could see them no more in +life, his thoughts and mind were with them." + +True, for the auld laird lived scarcely a year after the eviction of +Glen Alva. + +But with a portion of the remains of his fortune he paid the passage +money to America of as many of his tenants as were willing to accept his +offer. + +I would not harrow the feelings of my readers by describing the last sad +scene in Glen Alva, when in the darkness of night the people were turned +out; when more than seventy houses--well, call them huts, they were +homesteads, at all events--were given to the flames; when the aged and +the sick were laid on the bare hillside to shiver and to die; and when +neither the wail of the widow nor plaintive cry of the suffering infant +could move to pity or mercy the minions of the Yankee laird, who +preferred deer to human beings. + +Selah! + +CHAPTER TEN. + +THE LAST LINK IS BROKEN. + + "Farewell, farewell, my native land, + Thy lonely glens and heath-clad mountains." + +Scene: The fairy glen once more, and in the background the fairy knoll. +Kenneth and Archie, both looking very sad, are in the foreground by a +new-made grave. Kenneth has been planting a little tree there, only a +young Scotch pine, dug from the moor, a treelet that had grown from a +cone which the rooks had fetched from Alva's gloomy forest. Kenneth has +planted the tree, and the spade has dropped from his fingers and fallen +among the heather. + +Archie's dog Shot is standing near. He has been watching all the +proceedings. Watching, and probably wondering. For dogs _do_ think. + +But where is Kooran? Kooran is under the sod. His bonnie brown eyes +have closed for ever; his faithful heart will never feel love or +friendship more--it has ceased to beat. Nor cry of wild bird on the +mountain, nor plaintive bleat of lamb, no, nor his master's voice, will +ever move him again. + +"I canna but believe," says Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, "that dogs hae +sowls." + +There are many more believe with you, dear Hogg. + +But about honest Kooran. When dogs get old, you know--and Kooran had +got old before he died--a slight stiffness may be noticed in their gait. +I am positive that they begin to wonder what ails them. Wonder why +they cannot run so fast as they used to, in the good days of yore. +Wonder why they get tired and out of breath so soon. Wonder, too, why +master speaks so low, or why the sheep do not bleat so loudly or the +birds sing so much as they used to. They do not know that this is only +failure in their own powers of hearing. And they wonder also why the +trees and grass and hedgerows have ceased to be so bright and green, +even in spring-time, as once they were; why master's face seems dimmer. +They cannot now stand the cold so well; they seem to want a thicker +coat, but alas! the coat grows thinner. They would fain seek the +shelter of indoors, even curl up on the hearthrug. How seldom do they +get the chance! How often they receive the brutal kick when they most +need comfort! + +Then comes the day when they feel the cold no longer. + +It had never occurred to Kenneth that some time or other Kooran and he +must part--that Kooran must die. He was ever kind and attentive to this +faithful friend of his; he never forgot him. He might have been excused +if he had, for the scenes at the eviction and the burning of the glen +were awful enough, in all conscience, to have driven everything else out +of the boy's head. + +Of all the houses in the glen, that alone of Kenneth's mother had been +spared. Not that she meant to accept the favour thus offered her and +stay on. Both she and Kenneth were far too proud for that. But at the +cottage they lived for a time. And at the cottage Kooran died. + +He came wet and weary one evening and threw himself down at his master's +feet. + +When Kenneth spoke to him he looked pleadingly up into his face and +shivered. Kenneth had never seen him shiver before. The dog went and +lay before the fire, and his master covered him up with his plaid. +Kooran licked his hands. + +Something, he knew not what, awoke the boy long before dawn next day, +and his first thought was of his old favourite. + +He peeped out at the little gable window in the garret where he lay. A +pale scimitar moon was declining behind the trees. These looked black +and spectre-like. + +Kenneth went gently down the ladder, and lit the oil lamp. The fire was +very low, and he replenished it. Then he gently lifted a corner of the +plaid. The action aroused the dog, and he crawled forth. He seemed to +feel for Kenneth's knee, and on this he laid his head. + +Kenneth knew this was death. He put his hand tenderly on the poor dog's +muzzle, for he could not hear him breathe. + +The tongue came out to lick the hand. It was a farewell. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +And the boys had rolled the body of poor Kooran in a piece of old tartan +plaid, and, followed by Shot, carried him up to the fairy glen, and +buried him near the fairy knoll. Remember they were only boys. + +Then Kenneth sat down and cried. Archie had never before seen such an +exhibition of weakness on the part of his friend, so what could he do +but sit down and keep him company? They were only boys. + +Shot looked very sad. He did not know what to make of it all. He +whined impatiently. Then he licked Archie's wet face and touched +Kenneth under the arm with his nose, as some dogs have a way of doing. + +"Poor Shot!" said Kenneth. "You too have lost a faithful friend." + +Together, after this, they took their way down the hill. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +A short, crisp, and gentlemanly letter came to Kenneth two days after +this. It was from Jessie's father. + +"My daughter has spoken much about you," said this epistle, "and quite +induced me to take an interest in your welfare. The situation of +under-ghillie at my Highland shooting-box is vacant. I have much +pleasure in placing it at your disposal. You will be good enough +therefore to enter on your duties on Monday next, etc, etc." + +Kenneth's cheek burned like a glowing peat. He tore the letter in +fragments, and threw them in the fire. + +"Mother," he cried, "dear mother, it needed but this! I shall leave the +glen. I go to seek our fortune--your fortune, mother, and my own. I +shall return in a few years as wealthy mayhap as the proud Saxon who now +offers me the position of under-ghillie. Mother, it is best I should +go." + +I pass over the parting between the mother and her boy. + +With his flute in his pocket, with no other wealth except a few +shillings and his Bible, Kenneth McAlpine turned his back on the glen, +and went away out into the wide, wide world to seek his fortune. + +For years, if not for ever, he bade farewell to his Highland home and +all he held so dear. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +End of Book First. + +CHAPTER ELEVEN. + +FOR AULD LANG SYNE. + + "We twa have paddled in the burn + Frae mornin' sun till dine. + But seas between us broad hae rolled + Since the days o' auld lang syne." + + Burns. + +Scene: Landscape, seascape, and cloudscape. + +A more lovely view than that which met the eye of a stranger, who had +seated himself on Cotago Cliff this evening, it was never surely the lot +of mortal man to behold. It was on the northern shores of South +America, and many miles to the eastward of Venezuela Gulf. + +Far down beneath him lay the white villas and flat-roofed houses of a +town embosomed in foliage, which looked unnaturally green against their +snowy walls. To the right, and more immediately below the spot where +the stranger sat under the shade of trees, that towered far up into the +sky, was a long, low, solitary-looking beach, with the waves breaking on +it with a soft musical sighing sound; it was as if the great ocean were +sinking to slumber, and this was the sound of his breathing. + +The sun was low down in the west, in a purple haze, which his beams +could hardly pierce, but all above was a glory which is indescribable, +the larger clouds silver-edged, the smaller clouds encircled with +radiant golden light, with higher up flakes and streaks of crimson. And +all this beauty of colouring was reflected from the sea itself, and gave +a tinge even to the wavelets that rippled on the silver sands. + +It was very quiet and still up here where the stranger sat. The birds +had already sought shelter for the night; well they knew that the sunset +would be followed by speedy darkness. Sometimes there would be a rustle +among the foliage, which the stranger heeded not. He knew it was but +some gigantic and harmless lizard, looking for its prey. + +"I must be going back to my hotel," he said to himself at last. He +talked half aloud; there was no human ear to listen. + +"I must be going home, but what a pity to leave so charming a place! I +do not know which to admire the most, the grand towering tree-clad +hills, the sea, or the forest around me. + +"Hullo!" he added, "yonder round the point comes a little skiff. How +quickly and well he rows! He must be a Britisher. No arms of lazy +South American ever impelled a boat as he does his. Going to the hotel, +I suppose. No, he seems coming straight to the beach beneath me. Hark! +a song." + +The rower had drawn in his oars, leaving the little boat to continue its +course with the "way" already on her, while he gazed about him. Then, +as if impelled to sing by the beauty around him, he trilled forth a +verse of a grand old sea song. + + "The morn was fair, the sky was clear, + No breath came o'er the sea, + When Mary left her Highland cot + And wandered forth with me. + Though flowers bedecked the mountain side, + And fragrance filled the vale, + By far the sweetest flower there + Was the Rose of Allendale." + +Then there was silence once again. The rower rowed more slowly now, but +soon he beached his boat, and drew it up, and hid it by drawing it in +among the rocks. + +The stranger soon afterwards rose to go. + +He had not proceeded many yards along the hillside, when, on rounding a +gigantic cactus bush, and close beside it, he stood face to face with +the oarsman. + +The former lifted his hat to bow, but instead of replacing it on his +head he dashed it on the ground, and springing forward, seized the other +by the hand. + +"Archie! Archie McCrane!" he cried; "is it possible you do not know me, +that you have forgotten Kenneth McAlpine?" + +Poor Archie! for a moment or two he could not speak. + +"Man!" he said at last, in deep, musical Doric; "is it possible it is +you, Kennie?" + +The tears were blinding him, both hearts were full, and they said no +more for many seconds, merely standing there under the cactus tree +holding each other's hands. + +"God has heard my prayer," said Kenneth at last. + +"And mine. + +"But how you have altered, Kenneth! How you must have suffered to make +you look so old!" + +"You forget I _am_ old, twenty-one next birthday; and you are only a +year less. But what wind blew _you_ here? I thought, Archie, you had +settled down as an engineer on shore." + +"Your letters roused a roving spirit in me, Kenneth. I determined to +see the world. I took the first appointment I could get. On a +Frenchman. I haven't had much luck. We have been wrecked at Domingo, +and I came here last night in a boat. But come, tell us your own +adventures. I have all your letters by heart, but I must hear more; I +must hear everything from your own mouth, my dear brown old man." + +Kenneth _was_ brown; there was no mistake about that, very brown, and +very tall and manly-looking, and the moustache he wore set off his +beauty very much. No, he had not cultivated his moustache. It had +cultivated itself. + +"Come down to the hotel," said Archie. "I am not poor. We saved +everything. It was a most unromantic shipwreck." + +"No," replied Kenneth, "not to the hotel to-night. Come up the mountain +with me to my cottage." + +"Up the mountain?" + +"Yes, my lad," said Kenneth, smiling. "Up the mountain. Haven't +forgotten how to climb a hill, have you, I say, Archie, boy? for, as +brown as I look, I am an invalid." + +"What!" cried Archie, in some alarm. "Nothing serious, I sincerely +hope." + +"Nothing, old man, nothing. But when they left me here six weeks ago, I +thought that no power could have saved me. I had yellow-Jack. That's +all. I could not have lived in the hotel. Good as it is, it is too +low. But come; old Senor Gasco waits supper for me." + +Up and up they struggled, arm in arm. Kenneth knew every foot of the +pathway through the forest; it was well he did, for night had quite +fallen over sea and land, and the stars were glinting above them ere +they reached a kind of tableland, and presently stood in front of the +rose-covered verandah of a beautiful cottage. + +The French windows were open, and they entered _sans ceremonie_. It was +a lofty, large room, furnished with almost Oriental splendour, with +brackets, ottomans, and suspended lamps, that shed a soft light over +everything around. + +And here were books, and even musical instruments _galore_, among the +latter a flute. It was not the flute Kenneth used to play in Glen Alva, +and up among the mountains, while herding his sheep; it was a far better +one, but the sight of it brought back old times to Archie's memory. + +Kenneth had left him for a few minutes. + +Archie sank down upon an ottoman with the flute in his hand, and when +Kenneth returned he found his friend in dreamland apparently. + +But with a sigh Archie arose and followed Kenneth to an inner room. + +"Senor Gasco," said the latter, "this is Archie McCrane, the friend of +my boyhood, of whom you have so often heard me speak. + +"Archie, this gentleman has saved my life. He is a kind of a hermit. +Aren't you, _mon ami_?" + +"No, no, no," cried Senor Gasco, laughing. "Only I love pure, fresh, +cool air and quiet; I cannot get these in the town beneath, so I live +here among my books." + +He was a tall, gentlemanly-looking Spaniard, of some forty years or +over, and spoke beautiful English, though with a slightly foreign +intonation. + +A supper was spread here that a king might have sat down and enjoyed. + +Two tall black servants, dressed in snow-white linen, waited at the +table. They were exceedingly polite, but they had rather larger mouths +and considerably thicker lips than suited Archie's notions of beauty. + +Out into the verandah again after supper, seated in rocking-chairs; the +cool mountain air, so delicious and refreshing, was laden with the +perfume wafted from a thousand flowers. There were the stars up in +heaven's blue, and myriad stars, the fire-flies, that danced everywhere +among the trees and bushes. Archie said they put him in mind of dead +candles. + +"And now for your story, Kenneth." + +"It is a long one, but I must make it very brief. You know most of it, +dear Archie, so why should I repeat it?" + +"Because," said Archie, "I do _so_ love to hear you speak. Your voice +is not changed if your face is, and when I sit here in this +semi-darkness, and listen to you, man, I think we are both bits of boys +again, wandering through the bonnie blooming heather that clothes the +hills above Glen Alva." + +"Now you have done it," cried Kenneth, laughing. + +"Done what?" said Archie. + +"Why, _you_ have to tell the first story. If you hadn't mentioned home, +if you hadn't spoken about the hills and the heather, I would have told +my tale first." + +"But--" said Archie. + +"Not a single excuse, my boy. I am home-sick now. Answer a few +questions, and I'll let you off." + +"Well, go on," said Archie; "ask away." + +"My dear, dear mother! Have you seen her grave lately?" + +"It was the last spot I visited when I went to the clachan," replied +Archie sadly. + +"Heigho!" sighed Kenneth. "And I was all ready to go home. We were +lying at the Cape, if you remember, when your letter arrived. Yes, and +I left my ship, I threw up a good appointment on receipt of the sad +intelligence; and Archie, dear lad, I shall go back to Scotland when I +make my fortune--not before, and that may be never." + +"Do not speak like that." + +"But I must and will. How changed everything must be from the time I +kept the sheep among the hills. And how do the clachan, the glen, and +the hills look now?" + +"The clachan is but little changed. Mr Steve did not tear down the +village and church, as he first threatened. No, the clachan is the +same, but poor Mr Grant has gone." + +"Dead! You did not tell me this in your letter." + +"No, no, not dead. He has got a better living in the city." + +"Yes?" + +"Yes, and I went to see them. The Misses Grant keep every letter ever +you wrote them, and they do long, I can tell you, for the return of the +wanderer." + +"Bless their dear hearts!" + +"I went over to the wee village by the sea and saw Duncan Reed." + +"Is he changed?" + +"Not in the very least. Looks hardier than ever." + +"And your father and mother you have already said are well?" + +"Yes, but father doesn't like town life. How he would love the old days +to come back again; how he would love to rove once again over the hills +gun on shoulder and dog at his heel!" + +"He is not very old; he may yet have his wish." + +"I fear not." + +"Well?" + +"Well, the glens and hills all around are planted with trees. This was +done as soon as Mr Steve took possession of the estate, and before poor +old Chief McGregor died." + +"He is dead, then?" + +"Yes. I would have told you, but I wanted to make my letters to you as +bright as possible." + +"So the dear old man is dead. Heigho! And the estate planted. You did +not even tell me that." + +"No, and for the same reason. But the trees are getting quite tall +already. Most of the higher parts of the glens are covered with Scotch +firs and spruces and larches, the lower lands with elm and plane and +scrubby oaks. At the risk of being taken as a trespasser, I went all +over the estate. I penetrated up to the fairy knoll and saw poor +Kooran's grave. There are young trees all round there now." + +"Archie," said Kenneth, leaning forward and peering into his companion's +face, "I hope they didn't interfere with poor Kooran's grave." + +"No, nor with anything around it." + +"Go on, lad; I'm so pleased." + +"Well, I've little more to say. I was not taken prisoner, though I +startled the wild deer in all directions." + +"But the grand old hills themselves?" + +"Nay, they are not planted. Green in summer and purple and crimson in +autumn, there they are the same, and ever will remain." + +There was a pause. Then Kenneth spoke once again. + +"Did you ever see Miss Gale since?" + +"Only once," replied Archie, "and Miss Redmond--Jessie--she has grown +tall, and oh! Kenneth, so beautiful, but still so child-like and +graceful." + +"I can easily believe that, boy. And did she--" + +"Yes, dear lad," said Archie. "She did ask all about you, so kindly. +And I gave her your last letter to read. And--" + +"And she read it, Archie? Tell me, did she read it?" + +"Yes, she read it over and over again." + +"Now, I'll tell you my own adventures." + +"Begin at the beginning, won't you? The very beginning, from the day +you and I parted." + +"I will." + +But what Kenneth said deserves a chapter to its own account. + +CHAPTER TWELVE. + +KENNETH AND ARCHIE. + + "Adieu, adieu; my native land + Fades o'er the waters blue; + The night-winds sigh, the breakers roar, + And shrieks the wild sea-mew. + Yon sun that sets upon the sea + We follow in his flight; + Farewell awhile to him and thee, + My native land, good-night." + + Byron. + +Scene: Kenneth and Archie still seated in the verandah of the Spaniard's +cottage. The light from the casement window is streaming outwards +through the creepers and climbing plants all around them; the beautiful +bell-like flowers, down-drooping, touch their very faces. But all the +colour up there in the verandah's roof does not belong to these flowers. +No, for birds are sheltering their bright wings from the night dews; +that rich orange spot in the corner is a bird, so is that patch of +crimson and steel, and yonder one of snow-white and blue. If you looked +steadily for a moment at them, you could see round heads turned +downwards and wondering beads of eyes. The birds are considering +whether or not all is safe, or whether they had better fly away out into +the night and the darkness. + +Kenneth is waiting for the Senor to come. There is hardly a sound +except a gentle sighing of wind among the trees, now and then the shriek +of a night bird, the constant chirp of cicada, or rap, rap, rap, of +green lizard as he beats to death some unhappy moth he has captured. + +"Now, Senor, come and sit you down. Light your great pipe. That is +right. Thanks, yes, both Archie and I will have a little palm-leaf +cigarette. Coffee? Oh! delightful! Archie: old man, there isn't any +one in all the wide world ever made coffee half so well as the Senor +Gasco. Flattery, Senor? No, not a bit of it. The truth cannot be +flattery." + +"The coffee," said Archie, "is delicious." + +"Heigho!" sighed Kenneth. "I am so happy to-night, dear Archie. I +believe it will really do me good to tell you of some of the troubles I +have come through; it will dilute my joy. + +"I don't know, Archie, old man, how ever I became a sailor. I'm not +quite sure, mind you, that I am altogether a sailor yet at heart, though +I dearly love the sea, and a roving life is _the_ life for a man of my +temperament. Senor is smiling; he will never admit I am a man. But I +have come through _so_ much, and the years I have spent since I left the +dear old glen have been indeed eventful, and seem a long, long time. + +"But, Archie, lad, when I began my wanderings through the world, I can +tell you my ambition was very great indeed. I determined, you know, to +make my fortune, and I determined to make it in a very short time. The +details of the process of fortune-manufacture, however, didn't present +themselves to me, all at once anyhow. I turned my back on Glen Alva, +and so full was my heart that I put at least ten miles behind me before +I sat down to rest. I got inside a wood at last, and seated myself +beneath a tree, and counted my money, three shillings and +fivepence-halfpenny! Well, many a man has begun the world on less. + +"But this money couldn't last long. What then should I do? I'll tell +you what I did do. I fell sound asleep, and the sun was setting when I +awoke, and flooding all the wood with mellow light. + +"There was a blackbird came and perched half-way up a neighbouring +spruce tree and began fluting. + +"`Oh!' I said half aloud, `two of us can flute.' + +"So the blackbird and I piped away there till it got nearly dark. But I +felt hungry now, and music is not very filling, Archie. So I put up my +flute and started to my feet; I felt stiff now, but it soon wore off. + +"I went on and on and on, getting hungrier every minute, but there was +no sign of village or house. I drank some water from a rill that came +tumbling down through a bank of ferns, and felt better. + +"I was beginning to wonder where I should sleep, when the sound of merry +laughing voices fell upon my ear. The party, whoever it was, came +rapidly on towards me from among the trees. + +"`Hullo, lad!' said one; `are ye comin' to the dance?' + +"`Dance!' I cried; `why, my feet are all one bag of blisters, and I'm +faint with hunger. Dance, indeed!' + +"`It's a puir beggar laddie,' said a girl, whose face I could hardly see +in the uncertain light. + +"`Beggar!' I exclaimed. `Who d'ye call a beggar? I've a whole +pocketful of money, only I've lost the road.' + +"`Come along, then,' they all cried. `Come along with us.' + +"And off we all went singing. We struck off the road down across the +fields, and soon I heard the music of a fiddle and saw bright lights. A +young man came out of a farmhouse to welcome us. He told us dolefully +that only one fiddler had come, and plaintively asked what could be +done. + +"`I've a flute,' I cried. + +"`Hurrah!' they answered. `Come in, my boy.' + +"`The laddie maun eat first,' said the girl who had called me a beggar. + +"I blessed her with all my heart, though not in words. + +"What a supper they gave me! And didn't I eat just! I could play now, +and we spent such a joyful night, and dawn was breaking and the +blackbirds up and fluting again long before the merry party broke up. + +"I got a bed and slept far into the day; then, after a good dinner from +these kind-hearted farm folks, I began my journey in search of fortune +once more. + +"By evening I saw great grey clouds lying in the hollows before me. It +was smoke. I was nearing Glasgow, and in two hours more I was walking +along the Broomielaw. + +"I had never seen so many people before in my life, but hardly anybody +looked at the shepherd lad in Highland garb. I determined they should, +though. I put my flute together, and standing near the bridge, +commenced to play `The Flowers of the Forest.' + +"Was it the singular plaintiveness of this beautiful air, I wonder, or +was it that my thoughts were away back again in the glen I had left, and +with those I loved so dearly? I do not know, but I seemed to become +oblivious to everything. My very soul was breathed into the music; I +was speaking and appealing to the crowd through the instrument. + +"The crowd! Yes, there was a crowd. I became aware of that as soon as +I had finished, and money, piece after piece, was forced into my hand. +I took the money. I felt ashamed of it next moment, but to have gone +off then would have seemed ungrateful. I played still another air. +Again I paused. + +"`No more money,' I cried aloud as I fled away. + +"They must have thought the Highland boy was mad. + +"Some time afterwards I found myself standing at a book-seller's window +looking at a picture, a ship, a gallant ship in a gale of wind. + +"How I longed to be at sea then! How I hated the bustle and stir and +talking and noise all round me! That splendid ship--the sea was wild +and rough all around her, the spray dashing over her bows; there would +be the roar of the wind through rigging and shroud, and the wild scream +of sea bird rising high over the dash of the waves. She bore it well; +the sheets were taut; the sails were rounded out and full. How I longed +to be at sea! + +"A hand was laid on my shoulder. I started and looked up. No need to +start. + +"A kindly face looked down into mine. + +"`You are in grief of some kind, my boy,' he said, this white-haired old +gentleman. `Nay, don't be too proud to admit it. Pride has been the +downfall of the Highland race.' + +"`If you please, sir,' I replied, boldly enough now, `the Highlanders +are not a downfallen race.' + +"`I did not mean it in that way,' he said, smiling at my vehemence. +`But come with me, boy; I know we will be friendly.' + +"Where he took me, or what he said to me, I need not tell you. + +"Suffice it to say that next day we left Scotland and journeyed south by +rail, and I wept--yes, I do not now think it shame to say so, though I +struggled then to hide my tears--I wept to cross the border. + +"`It will be such a pleasant change for you, my dear boy,' said good old +Major Walton--for that was the gentleman's name, and he had quite taken +to me after hearing all my story--`a delightful change indeed after your +own bleak, cold, wild hills. We have a very pretty home in Hampshire. +You'll soon forget you were ever anywhere else.' + +"The Major's home was indeed a very nice one; close to the borders of +the New Forest it was, and not a great way from the sea. + +"But ah! Archie, lad, everything was very foreign to me; the very trees +looked strange and uncouth, especially the docked pollards, that stood +by the banks of the sluggish streams. The style of the houses was +strange to me, and the lingo and talk of the people, who, in my opinion, +were terribly ignorant. + +"The Major was kindness itself, and so were his wife, her sister, and +two children. The major had but one hobby--music. He played the violin +himself, and he told me honestly that his chief reason for `taking me'-- +these are his very words--was because I played with such feeling. + +"My evenings were happy enough in this English home of mine; my days I +spent in the garden, where I was allowed to work, or in the great +forest. You must not imagine, Archie, the New Forest is anything like a +deer forest in our own land. There are in it no wild mountains, no deep +dark dells, no beetling crags and cliffs, no cataracts, no foaming +torrents; the red deer does not toss his wide antlers here and fly +proudly away at your approach, nor far above you in the sky do you see +the bird of Jove circling upwards round the sun. + +"Wilson would never have said about the New Forest,-- + + "`What lovely magnificence stretches around! + Each sight how sublime, how awful each sound; + All hushed and serene, like a region of dreams, + The mountains repose 'mid the roar of the streams.' + +"But many a long day I spent roaming about in this forest, nevertheless. + +"I was charmed with the solitary grandeur of the place. I had no idea +it was so extensive either, or so varied in its beauties. Why, here one +might wander about for weeks and never weary, for he would always be +coming to something new. Is this the reason, I wonder, that it is +called the _New_ Forest? New in point of time it certainly cannot be +termed, for everything in it and about it is old, extremely old. The +oaks are gnarled and wrinkled, and grey with age; its elms and its ash +trees, its limes and its alders, are bent and distorted by the touch of +time, and the lichens that cling to their stems only add to their +general appearance a look of hoariness that is far from unpleasing to +the eye. + +"Then the heather which covers the large sweeps of moorland that you see +here and there is very sturdy and strong, while from the furze or whins +boats' masts could be made. + +"The creatures, too, that one sees while walking through this forest, +seem birds and beasts of some bygone time, and look as if they hardly, +if ever, saw a human being from one year's end to the other. + +"The hares or rabbits, instead of scurrying away at your approach, sit +leisurely on one end while they wash their faces and study you. The +blackbirds and the mavises hardly trouble themselves to cease their song +even when you walk close by the trees on which they are perched. The +great beetles and other members of the coleoptera tribe are far too busy +to take the slightest notice of your presence, and the great velvety +bees go on working and humming just as if there were no such creature as +you within a thousand miles of them. + +"Then the voles or water rats that live in the depths of this truly +English forest are not the least curious specimens of animal life to be +found therein. If you happen to be reclining anywhere near a pool that +by long-established custom belongs to them alone, before many minutes +one, if not two of them, will come out to stare and wonder at you; they, +like the hares, sit up on one end to conduct their scrutiny; and they +gaze and gaze and gaze again, digging their finger joints or knuckles +into their eyes, in a half-human kind of a way, to squeeze out the +water, and clear their sight for one more wondering look." + +[My country readers, who love nature, must have noticed the voles at +this queer performance.] + +"What is he at all? Where did he come from? What is he going to do? +These are the questions those voles seem trying in vain to solve. + +"Here in this New Forest is a silence seldom broken save by the song of +bird or cry of some wild creature in pain, while all around you is a +wealth of floral beauty and verdure that is charming in the extreme. + +"Yes, Archie, I came ere autumn was over to love that forest well. I +was not selfish enough, though, to keep all the pleasures of it quite to +myself, and the Major's children often accompanied me in my rambles. I +used to read Burns and Ossian to them. They liked that, but they liked +the flute far better. It appealed straight to their senses. + +"But when autumn passed away, when the leaves fell, and the fields were +bleak and bare, at night, when the wind moaned around the house which I +now called home, then, Archie, I used to dream I heard the surf beating +in on the rugged shores of my native land. I would start and listen, +and long to be once more in Scotland. + +"I went, one day, to the forest all alone; I went to think. + +"`What are you staying here for?' perhaps said one little thought. +`Major Walton may leave you money when he dies.' + +"I smothered that thought at its birth, and crushed many more like it. + +"Kind good old Major Walton! I must tear myself away; I must be +independent; I must push my own way in the world. + +"`Heaven help me to do so,' I prayed. Then I took out the little old +Bible Nancy had given me, Archie, and I found some comfort there. + +"I was putting it back again in my bosom when a little card dropped out; +I picked it up. On it were pressed these, Archie." + +Kenneth took the Book from his breast as he spoke, and opening it, +handed the card to Archie. + +"I know," said the latter: "the primrose and the bit of heather." + +"Yes, dear boy, foolish of me, I know; but I have never parted with +them, and if I go to Davy Jones's locker--as we sailors say--if I am +drowned, Archie, these flowers will sink with me. + +"But on that winter's day in the forest, Archie, these flowers seemed to +speak to me, or rather the golden-haired child spoke to me through these +flowers. I was back again on the hills above Glen Alva walking by her +side; the sky above us was blue and clear, the clouds on the horizon +looking like snow-white feathers, and the bees making drowsy music among +the pinky heath. + +"I started up, and the vision fled, and around me were only the bare +bleak forest trees and the fading heather. The vision fled, but it left +in my breast the desire stronger now than ever to make my own way in the +world, by the blessing of Providence; and Providence has never deserted +me yet, Archie, lad. + +"I went straight home. I saw Major Walton, and talked to him, and told +him all. + +"He seemed sorry. The last words he said to me when I went away--and +there was moisture in the old man's eyes as he spoke--were these:-- + +"`Mind, I'm not tired of you, and I hope to live to meet you once +again.' + +"I went to Southampton next day. I thought I had nothing to do but +march on board some outward-bound ship, that they would be glad to have +me. + +"Alas! I was disappointed." + +[The author hopes some boy who meditates running away to sea may read +these lines.] + +"I was rudely jostled and laughed at, I was called a Scot, a Sawnie, a +Johnny-raw, but work was never once offered me. + +"I wandered about the streets, not knowing what to do. The few coins I +had in my possession did not last many days. + +"I felt sad and unhappy. I felt almost sorry I had left the good people +who had done so much for me. The `bairnies' had been in tears when I +went away; even the black-and-tan terrier had followed me a long way +down the road, and looked very `wae and wistfu'' at me with his brown +beseeching eyes when I said he must go back. + +"For two whole days I had hardly anything to eat. My flute, that I was +fain to fall back upon, failed to support me, for the English, Archie, +have not so much music and romance in their souls as the Scotch have. +But one thing the English have is this, Archie, sound common-sense and a +love of derring-do. + +"I was standing one day on the pier at Plymouth. I had played my way +with my flute all this distance in the hopes of getting a ship. I was +no more successful than before. + +"On this particular day, Archie, the drum was up [the storm signal], the +wind blew cold and high, and the seas tossed their white manes as they +rushed each other up the bay. I was feeling very sad and disconsolate, +when all at once I heard a voice say to a man beside me,-- + +"`I'll give a guinea to be taken out to yonder ship.' + +"`I don't care to win no guinea,' said the fellow addressed, a hulking +boatman in a rough blue jersey. `I don't care to win no guinea on a day +like this. 'Sides, sir, I hain't got no mate.' + +"`I'll go,' I cried. + +"`You!' said the gentleman; `why, you're but a child.' + +"`I'm a Scotch boy,' I replied, `and I know boating well.' + +"`All right, my lad; jump in.' + +"It took us nearly an hour, but we did it. + +"I was very wet, and the gentleman kindly took me below, and gave me +warm coffee. + +"`Now,' he said, `I'm going to give you half a guinea, and the man half, +for if he has to change the gold, he will cheat you.' + +"`Are you captain of this ship, sir?' I asked. + +"`I am, lad; I'm all that is for the captain.' + +"`Well, sir,' I said, `give the man all the guinea, and take me with you +as a boy.' + +"I then told him all my story. + +"`We don't sail for a week,' he said, `and if in that time you get your +mother's consent, I'll be glad to have so plucky a youngster on board my +craft.' + +"My dear mother gave her consent, as you know, Archie; and so I became a +sailor and a wanderer." + +I have but epitomised Kenneth's story. He took much longer time to tell +it than I, the author of this little book, am doing, and besides, there +was much conversation interspersed with it betwixt him and his old +friend Archie. + +The moon was high up above the forest trees before he finished, shedding +a flood of golden light over mountain and sea, so, promising to resume +his narrative next evening, Kenneth arose, and soon after all was silent +and dark inside this peaceful cottage. + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN. + +KENNETH'S STORY (CONTINUED)--AT THE CAVE. + + "On, on the vessel flies; the land is gone, + And winds are rude in Biscay's sleepless bay; + Four days are sped, but with the fifth anon, + New shores descried make every bosom gay." + + Byron. + +Scene: The Spanish Senor and his two guests, Kenneth and Archie, once +more together, not in the mountain cottage to-night, but in a cave, +close down by the edge of the sea. It was the sea that was lisping on +the sands not far from where they sat on the rocks, but the view beyond +was one of moonlight, trees, rocks, and water combined, altogether very +beautiful, and in some respects almost English-like. + +Yes, now by moonlight it looked thoroughly English, but if by day you +had rowed round these rocks, you would soon have been undeceived, for +sharks in dozens visited the deep water, and in the cracks beyond were +alligators, active and strong, and very hideous-looking crabs often +crawled up the wet black cliffs; and among the trees themselves were +great snakes, deadly and venomous; but it all looked very quiet and +lovely now. + +Kenneth was fond of caves, and there were plenty of them about here. He +kept his boat in one. That very day, together the two friends had +launched it, and spent all the long hours of sunlight in sailing or +rowing about among the lovely islands of this sparkling sea, that look +on a calm day as if they were actually afloat not in the water, but in +the sky itself. + +"My life," said Kenneth, resuming his narrative of the day before, "my +life, I thought, was going to be all rose-tinted now. + +"Alas! Archie, lad, I soon found it quite the reverse, and it does +really seem to me that those writers of books who paint a sailor's +existence as one long picnic do grievous wrong to the young folks who +read them. + +"A sailor's life is like the billowy ocean on which he resides, all ups +and downs, Archie." + +"I can easily believe that," said his friend. + +"But Captain Pendrey was very good to me, and there was an old boatswain +on board who became my friend from the very first. He taught me to +reef, to splice, and to steer, ay, and a deal more; in fact, during the +two years I sailed in the old _Miranda_, he made a man of me. + +"You see, Archie, I was already so far a seaman that I was not afraid of +the ocean; and I was good at an oar. + +"I was downright seasick when I first went out of Plymouth Sound. We +had a head wind, and being only a sailing craft, had to beat and beat +for days. I didn't care much then what became of me. But the rough old +bo'sun came and shook me up--I was lying nearly dead on a +sea-chest--`Pull yourself together, youngster. Go on deck,' he said, +`and look at the waves. Ain't they mountains, just! It won't do to +give in.' + +"I did go on deck and look at the waves, just for a moment. A green sea +came thundering over the bows, took me off my legs, and washed me away +down into the lee-scuppers, where I would have been drowned if the +bo'sun hadn't caught me up. + +"`I'm not going below again, though,' I said to myself. + +"Nor did I. + +"The boats were all on board; I got into one of these as night fell, +lashed myself to a thwart, and wet though I was, I slept with my head on +a coil of ropes all through that stormy night. Stiff in the morning? +Yes, a little, but I was better. I got my clothes off, and a man dashed +buckets of sea water over me, and this revived me so much that I went +below. + +"The men in my mess were at breakfast; they were sitting on deck, jammed +into corners anyhow, with their sou'wester hats between their legs to +steady their coffee mugs. + +"`Salt pork, my lad,' said the bo'sun. `You're just at that stage that +salt pork will turn the scale.' + +"I took the hunk of pork he gave me and devoured it. + +"Well, the bo'sun was right. It did turn the scale with a vengeance: I +went on deck and hove the lead apparently. The steward passed me and +said,-- + +"`You're not sick, are you, Sandie?' + +"`No,' I said, `I'm only shamming. Ugh!' + +"But by the time we were over the bay I was as sea-fast as any one on +board. I got my sea legs, too. + +"How blue the sea was now! How white the birds that skimmed over its +surface! And the sails of ships that appeared in the distance were like +snow when the sun shone over them. + +"It wasn't all sunshine even then, for a smart breeze was blowing, and +cloud shadows chasing each other over the sea, just as I had often seen +them do over fields of ripening grain in Glen Alva. + +"I settled down to sea-life very easily now and very naturally. I soon +knew every rope and spar and bolt in her, and was as happy as the +sea-gulls. I cannot say more. + +"We touched at Madeira, and here the captain took me on shore, and all +over the place. What an isle of romance and beauty it is! + +"We called in both at Saint Helena and Ascension, the former not the +lonely sea-girt rock that old books describe, but a charming island of +mountain, strath, and glen. Nor did I find Ascension to be a cinder +with a few turtles on its beach. It has been cultivated to a wonderful +extent, and I never did see a bluer, brighter ocean than that which +laves its shores. The Cape of Good Hope hove in sight at last. I +watched its bold and rugged coast as we came nearer and still more near +to it. + +"It was but like a long irregular cloud lying along the horizon at +first. Then this cloud grew higher and darker and more defined. Then +it grew bluer in parts, and lines stood boldly out towards us, then it +turned blue and purple, oh! so lovely, and last of all it was a cloud no +longer, but mountains stern and wild, and braelands covered half-way up +with purple heath and wild flowers--geraniums I found afterwards these +were--with rocks on the shore and a long white line of surf and sand. + +"We did our business at the Cape and bore up for Australia. + +"What a stretch of sea we had to cross, and what a length of time it was +ere we reached Sydney! + +"But I was not idle all these months. It was so good of Captain +Pendrey, but he seemed to take a delight in teaching me navigation. He +flattered me, too, I fear. + +"`You're far too good and bright a boy,' he said, `to stick before the +mast.' + +"So I worked and worked not only to please him, but because there was a +prospect of my one day walking on the snowy quarter-deck of some +beautiful barque, her proud commander. + +"Every one on board loved our captain, although they called him the old +man behind his back. From Australia we went to Hong Kong, then to +Ceylon, from there to Calcutta, and then back again to Ceylon, and +returned to India, lying up for repairs at the city of Bombay. And my +kind captain never once went on shore without taking me with him, so +that I saw so much that was strange in life, lad, that I could sit and +talk in this cave for a month if my good friend here would bring us +prog, and then I wouldn't have half told you all my strange experiences. + +"I had been now nearly two years at sea, and had passed one examination, +so things were looking up. + +"I dearly loved the sea and sea-life now. I would not have changed +places with a land-lubber for all the world. + +"We had many narrow escapes, of course, for our ship was a clipper, and +the captain `cracked on.' He did not mind risk so long as he made good +voyages. But somehow I never dreamt of danger, not even while in the +centre of a tornado in the Indian Ocean at night, and if there be a more +fearful experience than that in the life of a mariner, I have yet to +encounter it. + +"Nor did I dream of danger even when seated of a night under the bright +stars at the fo'c'stle head, while the men spun yarn after yarn of the +awful dangers they had come through. + +"`I've been wrecked often and often,' said our old `bo'sun' one night. +`I was in the _Bombay_ when she was burned; I was a man-o'-war's man +then. Ah! Kennie, lad, it is a fearful thing, a fire at sea. I hope +you'll never see a burning ship. Over seventy of my shipmates were +doomed that night, and some of them met worse deaths than drowning. + +"`Another time,' he went on, `I was the only one saved out of a gunboat. +I was taken off a bit of wreckage and rigging by the lifeboat after +drifting about for twelve wet, cold, weary hours. Strange thing was +this. I had been made captain of the foretop only a week before we were +wrecked. 'Tis funny, mate, but it was on that same foretop I floated +about so long. He! he! I was captain of the foretop then, and no +mistake, and monarch of all I surveyed.' + +"Just three weeks after this particular evening, Archie, I was away +aloft one beautiful day. We were well down over the line, and bearing +about South-South-East. + +"There was a kind of haze over the ocean that day which made seeing +distinctly difficult at any great distance, but I noticed what at first +sight I thought was a bird or a shark's fin. I hailed the deck as soon +as I made out it was something afloat with men on it. + +"`Where away?' came the reply. + +"On pointing in the direction, the yards were trimmed, and we soon got +nearer. + +"The sight that met my eyes I will not forget till my dying day. The +survivors of a ship that had foundered they were, half-naked, half-dead, +sun-blistered, sinking wretches, five in all. + +"They had been afloat on a raft for nine days without food to eat, and +with hardly a drop of water to quench their awful thirst. + +"From that day, Archie, I began to think that a sailor's life had its +dark as well as its rosy side. + +"A year after this grief came. We were homeward bound. We got nearly +to the Cape, and there our ship was dashed on a lee-shore, and I lost +two of the best friends ever I had at sea, our poor captain and the dear +old bo'sun. + +"I was landed at Symon's Town at last, and there, Archie, I got your +letter, and found I was an orphan. And all this great grief came to me +within a fortnight. + +"I had been bound for English shores; my hopes beat high; in a few +months longer, at most, I would once again clasp my dear mother in my +arms, once more visit my home. Changed I knew the glen would be, but +old friends would give me a warm greeting. + +"Heigho! the blow fell; I determined not to return, and, Archie, from +that day to this I have been a wanderer. + +"But bless Providence for all His mercies! Archie, lad, I'm not badly +off, and I have you. + +"Shake hands, old boy. Now I've been doing all the talking, I shall +take it out of you next, for I dearly love to hear your voice. + +"Senor Gasco, _mon ami_, suppose we launch our little boat, and be off. +I'm longing for supper and longing to sit down and rest in our mountain +cottage. I don't think I've been so happy for many and many a long +year. + +"Come along, Archie. How lovely the moonlight is playing over the +water!" + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN. + +FRIDAY NIGHT AT SEA. + + "Now round the galley fire the merry crew, + With song and yarn and best of cheer, + Have gathered. And storms may rage, and seas may rise, + And thunders roll; they know not fear." + + Anon. + +Scene: A ship at sea, south of the Cape of Good Hope. A steamer +evidently from her build, though the funnel has been lowered, and a gale +of wind is roaring through her rigging, bellying out the few sails she +is able to carry till it looks as though the cloth would bust. She is +making heavy weather, dipping the ends of her long yards right into the +water, and plunging so much, that at times neither her jib-boom nor bows +are visible in the foam and spray. She must be shipping tons of water. +Looking at her as we are now doing with the eye of imagination, it would +seem there could be little else save discomfort on board of her. And +the night, too, is closing around her dark and thick. The sea is very +troubled, the waves are racing, brawling, foam-crested billows, +lightning plays around the ship every now and then, and thunders hurtle +in the air, the awful noise appearing to run along over the sea. But +let us go on board of her. + +Here are Kenneth and Archie. Neither is on duty. Kenneth's watch will +come on deck at midnight. Archie, who is engineer of this craft, may be +called upon at any moment to stir up the banked fires and get up steam. + +This is the ship in which Kenneth has been second mate for eighteen +months, including the time he lay sick or roamed convalescent on the +South American shore, where Archie found him. They have bidden farewell +to that beautiful coast, which in some parts is so enchanting, with its +wealth of vegetation, its grand old woods, its fruit trees, its +flower-trees, its flowers themselves, the life and loveliness that teems +everywhere on the earth, in the air, in the sea, on the little islands, +green and feathery, that peep up here and there out of the blue, on +mountain top, and even in its caves, that I feel sad as well as +sorrowful. I cannot pause to describe it all. + +But why should I? My descriptions, after all, would fall flat on the +senses of the reader, even with the aid of the best of illustrations, +for no artist can give colour and movement combined. Go, reader, and +see the world for yourself if you feel so inclined, and if ever you have +the chance, I can tell you from long experience it is a very beautiful +one. + +"Well," said Kenneth, "we came up here, Archie, lad, to have a walk, but +I don't see much chance. What a night it is going to be! How black the +sky! How vivid the lightning! How close the horizon is--" + +The last part of Kenneth's sentence was lost in a peal of thunder. + +"Stand by! Jump, Archie. There is a comber." + +They both leapt on the top of the capstan as an immense green sea swept +over the bows and came tearing aft, carrying everything movable before +it. + +When it passed away, and the water found partial exit by the scuppers,-- + +"I don't think there will be much pleasure in a walk to-night, Kennie," +said Archie. "Wouldn't I like to be back again on that flower mountain +of yours!" + +"Poor dear old Gasco!" said Kennie with a sigh. "You find good among +people of all nations." + +"He was very sad when you bade him good-bye." + +"Yes, and I won't forget his last words. They are so true `Farewell,' +he sighed rather than said, `farewell, if farewell it must be. This +meeting to part, and meeting _but_ to part with those one gets to love, +is one of the most soul-sobering feelings attached to our lot here +below. Ah!' he continued, lifting up a finger--you know his style, +Archie--`Ah! my young friend, what a joyful place heaven must be, if +only for this one reason, we shall meet all our dear, dear friends +again, and parting will be unknown! Farewell; we'll meet Yonder, if not +on earth again.'" + +There was a pause in the conversation, filled in by the whistling wind +and the ceaseless rush of the dashing waves. + +"Well," said Archie at last, "I cannot say that a night like this, +Kennie, makes one feel enamoured of a sailor's life." + +"You must take the shadow as well as the sunshine, though," returned +Kenneth. "You would rather be back at my boathouse cave, I daresay, at +Cotago, launching the tub for a pleasant day among the islands, wouldn't +you?" + +"Yes, indeed. Stand by; there is another wave." + +"Hark?" said Kennie during a lull. "They are singing forward, round the +galley fire. I've a good mind to go and join them; will you come? a +second officer can do what a first can't." + +"Yes, take your flute; that will be an excuse." + +Given a trim ship and plenty of sea room, and it isn't all the wind that +can blow that will succeed in lowering the spirits of the British +sailor. + +The jolliest of the crew of the _Brilliant_ were seated to-night near +the galley fire, or they clung to lockers or lay on the deck; it is all +the same. It was cold enough to make a fire pleasant and agreeable, and +they were all within speaking distance; they had pipes and tobacco and +plates of sea-pie, for it was Friday night, the old custom of making +Friday a kind of Banian day being still kept up in some vessels of the +merchant service. + +"Hullo! Mr McAlpine," cried the carpenter. "Right welcome, sir. And +you too, Mr McCrane. Glad to see the smiling faces of the pair of you. +Ain't we, mates?" + +"That we are," and "that we be," came the ready chorus. + +"Some sea-pie, gentlemen," said the cook, handing each a steaming basin +of that most savoury dish. + +"I made it," cried the bo'sun. + +"Not all," cried another. "I rolled the paste." + +"And I cut the beef." + +"And I sliced the bacon." + +"And I chopped the onions." + +"And I pared the 'taters." This last from the cabin-boy. + +"Ha! ha! ha!" roared the jolly carpenter. "I say, maties, blowed if we +haven't all had a hand in the pie." + +"Well, it is jolly eating anyhow," said Kenneth. + +"The smell of it's enough to raise a dying man," quoth Archie. + +"Bravo, sir," cried the bo'sun, "and I hopes it makes ye both 'appy." + +"Happy, yes," said Kenneth. "I'm so happy now, I can sing and play." + +"Oh I give us a toot on the old flute first." + +Kenneth gave them "a toot." + +"Now give us a song." + +"Let the gentleman take his breath," the carpenter remonstrated. + +"Never a breath," persisted the bo'sun. "He must pay his footin', I +says. And I warrant you, too, he has as much pleasure in singing as we +has in listenin' to 'im." + +"Oh! shut up, old Barkshire," said somebody. + +"Barkshire be bothered," cried the bo'sun. "I'm not ashamed to own my +shire. You comes from the land o' _Tres_ and _Pens_; you're +west-country, you be. Have to fish for your breakfast every mornin', +else ye doesn't get none: He! he!" + +"Well, never mind," said the good-natured carpenter, smiling. "We're +all nationalities here. Bill here is York; Tim is Irish; I'm just what +Pipes calls me, Barkshire." + +"And I and my friend are Scotch," said Kenneth. + +"Hurrah! for a Scotch song, then." + +It wasn't one, but several songs Kennie and Archie had to sing, but all +Scotch, and what can beat them, reader mine? + + "Sing ony o' the auld Scotch sangs, + The blithesome or the sad; + They mak' me laugh when I am wae, + And weep when I am glad. + Though eyes grow dim and hair grow grey, + Until the day I dee, + I'll bless the Scottish tongue that sings + The auld Scotch sangs to me." + +There was no satisfying his audience, so once more Kennie had to fall +back upon the flute. While playing, a heavy sea struck the vessel on +the weather bow, and the water came tumbling down the hatchway; although +it rushed forward among the men and hissed against the hot iron fending +of the copper, they hardly shifted their positions. + +But Kenneth played a selection of the best English, Irish, Scotch, and +Welsh airs now, now merry, now plaintive and sad, now almost wailing, +and anon merry again, once more. + +There was a perfect chorus of applause when he had finished. The old +bo'sun must crawl over to the corner where the musician was--although, +owing to the motion of the ship, it was no easy task--and shake Kenneth +by the hand. + +"God bless you, young sir," he said, and the tears were in his eyes. "I +was back in bonnie Berkshire all the time you was a-playin', sir. I saw +my children, sir, runnin' among the daisies, the crimson poppies growin' +among the corn's green, the waving lime trees all in flower and covered +with bees--ah! sir, you took the old man home, you took him home." + +"Don't talk twaddle," cried his tormentor; "he took us all home, for the +matter o' that." + +"Sit down, ye ould fool!" cried Tim O'Flaherty. + +Kenneth put up his flute, and the bo'sun sat down beside him. + +"Hark to the thunder!" he said; "listen to the thud o' the seas. My +eye! it is a night and a half. Just like the night we went over in the +old _Salanella_." + +"Went over!" cried the carpenter. "What d'ye mean?" + +"Why, I means what I says, to be sure. We turned turtle. Every soul +below was called to his account, and only myself and five more managed +to cling to the keel." + +"She must have been a barnacley old tub," said the cook, "else you +wouldn't ha' got over the copper." + +"You just mind your ladle, old man," said the carpenter. "You're only a +cook, arter all, and Pipes knows what he's a-talking about." + +"O' course I does," said Pipes. "Thank ye, Chips; it ain't very often +you takes my part. O' course I knows what I'se a-talkin' about. The +keel rolled over to us, and we easily got on top." + +"Suffer much?" + +Pipes did not look at the speaker, but away into vacancy as if he were +recalling the past. + +"Suffer!" he said. "I hope it may never be the lot o' anybody in this +galley to know what we suffered. For three days and nights o' storm I +and one other clung to that ship's bottom; the rest dropped off one by +one or slipped willingly into the sea, glad to end their terrible +misery. + +"I never did think the ocean was so vast and empty-like till then, +mates. All the weary days we did nothing but gaze and gaze around us, +and hope and hope, and pray and pray. Well, blessed be His name, mates, +God heard our prayers at last. A ship--'twas the second we'd seen, for +the first took no notice of us--bore down and took us off, and that was +no easy task in the condition our misery had reduced us to." + +"Listen," cried one of the men. + +There were three distinct knocks on the deck with a heavy boot; [A plan +adopted in some merchant ships for calling the attention of those below +to an order about to be given] then a stentorian voice sang down the +hatchway,-- + +"All hands, shorten sail! Look alive there, lads. Tumble up. Tumble +up." + +A fiercer squall than any the vessel had yet encountered struck her +before the men had time to reach the yards, and the sails they would +have furled were rent into ribbons, and the noise they made as they +fluttered out in the breeze was like the volley-firing of a company of +soldiers. It was two hours before those whose watch was not on deck got +back to the galley fire. It had just gone eight bells in the last dog +watch, so the evening was still young. + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN. + +CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE DOLDRUMS. + + "See the pudding, hear the fun; + The laugh and joke and glee; + The ship may in the Doldrums lie, + But--'tis Christmas Day at sea." + + Anon. + +Scene: A ship in the Doldrums. It is the saucy _Brilliant_. She has +been to Calcutta, and is now on her way back to the Cape. And it is +Christmas Day, and she ship is in the Doldrums. Longitude 90 degrees +East; latitude nothing at all, for she is as nearly "on top o' the +'quator," as Jack calls it, as possible. She encountered a tornado +farther north, which gives the reason for her being now somewhat out of +her course. But she stood it well, and to see her now, with her long +black lines, her tapering spars, and snow-white decks, you could not +believe that but a fortnight before she had hardly a morsel of bulwark +left, that, in fact, the bulwarks were more like sheep hurdles than +anything shipshape. + +The Doldrums! There isn't a breath of wind; the surface of the great +rolling waves is as smooth as polished steel, and much about the same +colour. The sun is beating straight down from a blue but cruelly hot +sky. The pitch is soft in the deck seams; the men in the stoke-hole are +to be pitied. + +Yes, steam is up, there is a frothy wake behind her, and her bows cut +through the water like a knife. + +But the awning is spread all over the quarter-deck, and her tables are +laid, for the captain is a right good fellow, and the men are all coming +to dine with him. + +They are dropping aft even now, one by one or twos and twos, somewhat +shy-looking, but with beaming faces, and dressed in their best, +bare-footed, in blue serge pants and clean spruce white jerseys. + +"How different Christmas in the Doldrums is," said Captain Smith, "from +what we are used to have it at home in old England. Sit in, men; no +ceremony to-day. Mr McAlpine, you'll carve the beef. Mr McCrane, I'm +sure you will show the men a good example at your end of the table. +Now, doctor, will you ask a blessing?" + +Fiddles were placed across the table--long sticks shipped together by +pieces of line--and the cloth was laid over that, so that, in spite of +the incessant and most uneasy motion of the vessel, the dishes +themselves were kept fairly steady. + +As soon as eating was well commenced, tongues were loosed, and the +conversation flowed freely enough, and why should it not? The captain +was jolly, frank, and open, and his officers gentlemen in manners, so +the men were not afraid to speak before them. + +Yarn followed yarn, and tale tale, but all short and crisp; the captain +joked himself, and encouraged his men to joke, so that, despite the +heat, it really was a very pleasant Christmas dinner-party. + +But the coming of the pudding was the great event. For, you see, it was +an immensely large one, and as the ship rolled so much, the danger of +its being sent flying into the scuppers before reaching the table, and +being all smashed, was very great indeed. + +Even the night before, the captain had commissioned the doctor to +superintend its safe delivery. And that worthy had positively got Chips +to make a kind of ambulance stretcher, partly canvas and partly bamboo +cane, to put the trencher on, and this was borne by two men. + +"Now," said the captain, when the roast beef had been taken away, "are +you all ready, doctor?" + +"Yes," said the man of physic, wiping the sweat off his brow. "I'm all +ready if the pudding is." + +"The cook's waiting, sir," said the steward, who was trying to steady +himself by keeping firm hold of the mizen rigging. + +"Well, here's for off," said the surgeon, getting up. + +"Do your duty like a man," cried the captain, laughing, as the doctor +went staggering forward. "And keep to your legs, doctor, keep to your +legs." + +There was silence now around the table for many long anxious minutes. + +It was a solemn time. There was nothing to be heard but the throb-throb +of the engines--the beating of the ship's great heart. + +Would the doctor and his party succeed in landing the pudding aft? That +was the great question for the time being, which every one was asking +himself. Would the pudding arrive in safety? + +Every eye was turned forward. + +Behold, they come. Their heads are already above the fore hatch. +Slowly they emerge, and stand for a moment swaying hither and thither. +The doctor heads the procession. The cook himself brings up the rear. +Now the doctor's voice is heard. + +"Are you all ready again, men?" + +"All ready, sir." + +"Steady, then; steady as you go. March!" + +How steady they move! How quietly! A soldier's funeral is nothing to +it! How they rock, and how they sway, taking advantage of every seeming +break in the ship's motion, cautioning each other with uplifted fingers, +the doctor with his left hand over the prize, the cook with his right, +ready to clutch it if it moves, ready to fall with it if it falls. + +Nearer and nearer they come. Nearer and nearer the great IT--the +pudding--comes. And now it is almost alongside the captain and the +expectant crew, when--oh moment of grief and horror!--the ship gives a +fearful lurch, and the whole procession, pudding and all, is sent flying +across the deck and brought up all of a heap close under the port +bulwarks. + +A groan of disappointment rises up from the table. The pudding is +smashed to pieces, of course. No, for see--bravo! the doctor--he has +clutched the trencher at a critical moment. Phoenix-like, he uprises +with it from that chaos of arms and legs. He watches the chance. He +gives one quick glance around him, at sea, at sky, at moving ship. He +stakes his honour, his fame, and the very existence of that glorious +globe of fragrant dough on one bold manoeuvre. Bearing it high over his +head, he glides, he slides, he skates, one might say, towards the table; +and in shorter time by far than it takes me to describe the gallant +deed, he plumps the "great champion of the pudding race" down in front +of the captain's pile of plates. + +"Hurrah! hurrah!" + +Why, the very sharks deep down in the ocean's blackest depths heard the +shout; they took it for a battle-cry, and came surface-wards in all +haste, making sure of a glorious feast. And an answering shout came up +from the engine-room, where the stokers were at work. For they knew +that the pudding was safely landed, and that their share would shortly +come. + +And the captain must needs shake the doctor by the hand, while tears of +joy and admiration stood in his eyes. + +"Doctor," he said, "you're a brick, sir, a brick and a half, sir. I +never saw a bolder move. I never saw anything so pluckily done in my +life before. I'm proud of my surgeon, proud of you." + +Then he sat down. + +The doctor made some reply, which was hardly heard amid the exclamations +of accord in the captain's speech, which uprose from all round the +table. + +A rough old sea-dog of a doctor he was, too, a thorough sailor. Any one +could have seen that at a glance. Rough he was, yet kindly-hearted, and +there was not a man on board, from the captain to the Kroo boy who +helped the cook, who wouldn't have risked his life for their surgeon. + +I leave you to guess whether or not justice was done to that Christmas +plum-pudding. Indeed, I only wish you could have seen the happy smiling +faces that now surrounded the table, and really--though it was not +polite of them--several of the crew had no less than _three_ helps, for +"Cut and come again" was the captain's motto on this Christmas Day in +the Doldrums. + +Well, of course songs and yarns followed dinner. The captain told a +story, Archie told a story, Kenneth sang and played, the old bo'sun +called Pipes had something queer to say, and so had the carpenter called +Chips. + +"Now then, doctor," cried the captain. "It's your turn. Tell us +something good." + +The doctor cleared his throat. + +"I'll do my best, sir," said the doctor with a modest smile. + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN. + +FROZEN UP IN THE NORTH. + + "Now hie' we to the Norlan seas + And far-off fields of ice." + + Anon. + +"It is twenty years ago! Twenty years ago! Twenty years!" began the +doctor. + +"Yes, I own to it; no need for this matter-of-fact memory of mine to +nudge me so, and keep on reminding me of the flight of sly old Father +Time. 'Tis twenty years ago this very summer since I sailed away to +Polar seas, in a small but sturdy brig of barely three hundred tons. A +medical student I was, in charge of fifty men, all told, and with all a +medical student's audacity and ignorance of the noble profession to +which I have now the honour to belong. What cared I then if half the +crew fell ill? There was plenty of medicine in the chest. I would do +my best, and dose them. Well, if, after being dosed, they should die, +why, the sea was deep enough--they should not want for decent burial! +And what cared I that a fearful accident might take place, and heads be +gashed, and limbs be crushed? There were surgical instruments _galore_ +on board, practice makes perfect, and if my patients succumbed after an +operation, well, every dog has his day, and the _post hoc propter hoc_ +argument has been proved to be unsound. + +"Gentlemen, have ever you roughed it in the Arctic Ocean, in a bit of a +ship so small that a schoolboy, with average length of legs, could clear +its decks from binnacle to bowsprit with a hop, step, and jump, the +saloon not larger than two railway compartments, your state-room not +half so big as one? Have you been in a gale of wind in such a craft? +Was she on her beam-ends, with the cold, green seas, curling higher and +higher as they advanced, forming awful arches of water, into which the +vessel seemed to be sucked, and which broke, not _on_, but over and +beyond her? Have you been ice-logged in a sea-way in such a vessel, no +land, nor even a berg, in sight--only the restless waves, that twanged +and hummed, and sang in the frosty air as they passed you, with bows and +bulwarks, decks and spars, and rigging and blocks, mere shapes of ice, +and ice alone to all appearance, the men's caps and coats, and hair and +beards, so white with the freezing spray, that they looked, as they +moved to and fro on the slippery decks, like the ghostly crew of a ghost +ship? Have you been in such a craft when she was being squeezed in this +pack, the one dark spot in the midst of a limitless plain of dazzling +snow-clad ice, all lifting and rolling and moving with the pressure of +the invisible waves that are passing swiftly underneath? Have you ever +heard the terrible sounds an ice-pack emits, when the swell from a +distant storm comes sweeping under it, the groaning, the wailing, +grinding, griding noise, as if the ocean on which you stood were filled +with old-world monsters in their dying agonies? Have you ever listened +to the roaring thunder of a lofty iceberg rent in pieces, and falling +headlong into the sea? Have you stood on the pack and seen two bergs +crush an acre of bay ice between them, piling the pieces one over the +other, like leaves of a book or cards in a pack, till they stood high as +the tallest tree in a forest of pines? Have you been out alone on the +ice-field at night, far away from your ship, amid a silence that, like +Egyptian darkness, could be felt, watching the glorious tints of the-- + + "`Aurora Borealis race, + That flit ere you can point their place?' + +"And, even while gazing and admiring, have you seen dark clouds roll +rapidly up from the horizon and blot this aurora out, so that ere you +could reach your brig you were surrounded by swirling drift and blinding +snow, more dangerous far than the sand-storms that sweep over the Soudan +deserts, with the thunder rattling close o'erhead, and the bewildering +lightning in swift diffusive gleams intensifying the cave-like darkness +that followed? + +"If such experiences have not been yours, you may have been tossed about +on the giant waves of the broad Atlantic, you may have weathered the +Cape in a gale, and the Horn in a snow-storm, you may have sweltered for +weeks in a rolling calm under a tropical sun, and been the sport of a +tornado in the Indian Ocean, yet there are wonders in the mighty deep +seen by some who go down to the sea in ships to which you are a total +stranger. From beginning to end, our voyage in that little brig, twenty +years ago, was a non-propitious one. We ran before a gale all the way +to Lerwick, where the Greenland fleet lay anchored. We had hardly left +the rock-bound shores of Shetland--that `sea-begirdled peat moss'--ere +the blackness of darkness settled down on the ocean around us; and storm +and tempest became our constant companions for three long weeks, till +sheltered at last under the lee of the pack, with bowsprit and topmasts +gone, and the bulwarks more like the palings one sometimes sees around a +cattle-field than anything else in the world. But even worse was to +follow: with several other ships we took the ice, which was loose, and +in three weeks' time we found ourselves all alone in the midst of a hard +frozen ice-field, and fully one hundred miles from the open water, a +bright blue frosty sky above us, and in silence--a silence never broken +even by the cry of a bird or guttural roar of Arctic bear. + +"After many months of `solitary confinement,' we escaped and reached +home at last. Many of the men's relations met us on the pier, dressed +in deepest mourning; the `blacks,' as such dress is called, had been +donned for us, for our ship had been reported as lost with all hands! + +"Life in that lonesome ice-pack was a weary `bide,'-- + + "`Day after day, day after day, + And neither breath nor motion.' + +"No, not as much wind as would have sufficed to lift a snowflake, never +a cloud in the sky, and the sun going round and round and round, but far +above the horizon even at midnight. We tired of reading books; we tired +of card-playing and games on the ice; we even tired of music itself. +Monotony generated _ennui_; _ennui_ bred melancholy; plenty of exercise +on the ice alone could save us from succumbing to actual illness. We +knew that well, but we were thoroughly apathetic, and did not care to +take it. The captain, a young and energetic man, at last hit upon a +happy expedient which succeeded most completely in restoring something +of life and animation to the crew, who were rapidly merging into a state +of Rip Van Winkleism, painful to behold. He determined to form a camp +three miles away from the ship. Simply walking to and from it would be +some little excitement, it would be exercise with a purpose, and +exercise, as medical men will tell you, without pleasure or purpose, is +entirely useless in a hygienic point of view. + +"Our captain, the first and second mates, and myself were seated at +breakfast one morning when he made his proposal. + +"`Doctor,' he said--NB, he called me `Doctor' always, but at that time I +had no more business with the title than the tailor had-- + +"`Doctor, how are the men getting on forward?' + +"`They haven't much life in them,' I replied; `they are all making +silver rings now out of sixpenny bits and shillings. That is the latest +fad, but the coins will soon be all used up; then I suppose all hands +will go to sleep for a month or two.' + +"`I think, doctor,' said Captain Peters, `that their livers want +stirring up. Eh? Don't you, doctor?' + +"`Well,' I replied, `anything for a quiet life. There is plenty of blue +pill and black draught on board. I'll stir their livers up. Pass the +ham.' + +"`All right, then,' said the captain; `you stir their livers up, and +I'll propose something to-morrow to prevent them getting sluggish +again.' + +"True to my promise, I gave all hands a blue pill that night, and next +forenoon, at a little before twelve, the captain called the men aft, and +ordered the steward to bring up a gallon of rum and five pounds of +tobacco. Then he doled out the latter and ordered the mainbrace to be +spliced. The men after this looked more lively than they had done for a +month. + +"`Now that I've got you awake with the help of the doctor and black +Jack' (black Jack was the rum measure), said the captain, `let me tell +you what we are going to do. We are going to convey wood and canvas by +sleigh across the pack, to a patch of bay ice about three miles from +here, and by the side of it, on the top of the heavy berg, we will build +a tent, with a fire-place in it, big enough to roast a bear. This tent +or marquee will be a regular Hall of Delights by the sad sea wave; we +will cook in it, and eat in it, and dance and sing and tell stories in +it. What say you, men?' + +"The men broke out into a wild cheer. + +"`Wait a wee,' continued the captain; `I'm going to do more for you than +that, for goodness only knows how long we may have to remain in this +gloomy ice-field, and if I don't keep you alive, you'll all go to sleep +and not waken any more in this world. We shall set to work, then, and +make an immense great hole in that patch of bay ice, and it will be your +duty to keep it from freezing; then seals will come up, and maybe +walruses too, and catching these and the sharks will be glorious fun and +keep us all alive and awake. That is my plan complete.' + +"This idea of the captain's was a splendid one, and we all entered into +it heart and soul. We built rude sledges and tooled wood and all other +necessaries over the pack, and before a week was over we had erected a +large and handsome marquee with a floor of timber, doors and windows, +table and fire-place all comfortable and jolly. + +"We had hammocks slung round it also, so that when tired we could lounge +and read, or lounge and sleep, and on the whole we felt like new beings, +and each of us was as happy as a schoolboy with a tin whistle. + +"The opening in the bay ice proved a wondrous success, for the rays of +sunlight penetrated far down into the black-blue water, and seals, +seeing the light from afar, swam wondering towards it, then finding a +hole, came out to breathe and look about them, and so fell victims to +their curiosity. We had seal's liver and bacon for breakfast then, and +found it a great treat. We skinned the phocas for sake of their +blubber, with the following results: sharks in dozens came to eat the +crangs we threw back into the sea, and birds reappeared, malleys, gulls, +skuas, and terns, to pick up the stray bits of grease, so we had sport +enough, and regained our spirits and strength in consequence. But when +a great fire was built on a berg, and the carcase of a seal roasted +thereon, bears sniffed the perfume, though they must have been miles and +miles away, and came prowling down to the feast, which I ought to add +had been prepared for their especial delectation. + +"They were somewhat shy at first, they preferred squatting at a +distance, and contenting themselves with the delicious odour of the +tit-bits placed temptingly on the hummock near, but as their numbers +increased, so did their courage, and before very long we had the +satisfaction of seeing them in twos and even threes, wrangling together +over juicy joints. Then was our chance, and we did not hesitate to +avail ourselves thereof. Hungry bears are by no means easily scared, +and so our sport was good. + +"There was no more laziness among our crew now, no more danger of our +fellows falling into Rip Van Winkleism, for every day brought us sport +and excitement and fun and adventure. We all began to sing again, and +that is always a good sign on board a ship. There was singing fore and +singing aft, and tales told in the saloon and yarns spun around the +galley fire. + +"The Hall of Delights by the sad sea wave proved a very great success +indeed. Somehow or other we came to like it better than the ship +itself, and although we always came home to sleep, it was often very +late indeed before we scrambled on board our slippery-decked brig, and +went below to the dingy darkness of state-room, hammock, or bunk. + +"In this Hall of Delights we had music, for Peter Kelty played the +violin, and Sandy Watson the clarionet; then there was big Magnus Rugg +could put in a bass with his voice alone that you couldn't have told +from a violoncello. We had plenty of fire in the hall, but when the +fiddles started of an evening, it wasn't much heat we needed, for +those-- + + "`Hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, + Put life and mettle in our heels.' + +"When tired of dancing, or rather, I should say, in the intervals +between the dances, we had singing and recitations. The simplest of the +simple both were, for in the latter I don't think we ever got beyond +`Douglas's Tragedy' or `Tam o' Shanter,' and in the former `Annie +Laurie' or `The Braes o' Balquidder' were far more appreciated than +anything from the best of operas could have been. + +"But the _summus mons_, in a musical way, was attained by our +spectioneer, or third officer, for he not only sang most charmingly, but +he accompanied himself on the zither. + +"He was somewhat of a character, was this individual. He was far from +old-looking in the face, but his hair and beard were like the very snow +itself. He seldom even smiled, or if he did, it was a languid, sad kind +of smile that kept well down about the lips, and never curved round the +eyes or made them sparkle. He was tender and kind in heart, though, and +a favourite with all hands. + +"By-the-bye, his name was Summers, but he was always called Winter, and +didn't mind it a bit, he was so good-natured. + +"We were all enjoying ourselves one evening in the Hall of Delights, we +had danced till the fiddlers were tired, and everybody that could sing +had sung, so there was a kind of lull--a momentary silence, in fact. +Now, as it was nearly ten o'clock, if this silence had continued for +even fifteen seconds, the captain would certainly have jumped up and +said: + +"`Well, lads, we'd better be moving.' + +"We didn't feel like moving yet, so the silence was not allowed to +extend itself. + +"`Hi!' cried Kelty, `I call upon you for a _comic_ song, Mr Winter.' + +"`Or a _funny_ story,' cried somebody else. + +"There was loud laughing at the bare idea of Winter treating us to +either. + +"Winter looked round among us, in an amused kind of way, as if he quite +enjoyed the joke, and when the laugh subsided, we all glanced towards +him for his reply. I think I see him now; one hand rested on the zither +bringing out stray chords, the other rested on the table, the great oil +lamp that stood at one side threw his features into semi-shadow, and +there was a thoughtful far-away look in his eyes. + +"`Yes,' he said, at last, `I'll tell you a story.' + +"`A funny one? Eh?' said the mate. + +"`Well--no, not _very_ funny. But anything to pass the time, I suppose. +I'll tell you a story of my own grey hairs.' + +"`Capital,' we cried, and hammered with our feet on the wooden floor, by +way of giving him encouragement. Then we lit our pipes and prepared to +listen." + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. + +A TALE TOLD ON THE SEA OF ICE. + + "The mariner whose eye is bright, + Whose beard with age is hoar." + + Coleridge. + +Scene: The good ship _Brilliant_ in the Doldrums. Crew at their +Christmas dinner. The doctor continues his story. + +"`In the year 18--, I sailed from Hull in the good barque _Constance_, +bound for Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen, in pursuit of seals and walruses. +I was a very young man then, and, indeed, white though my hair be and +snowy my beard, I am not old yet. It is not age that has made me grey, +but grief, and one of the most terrible experiences it has probably ever +been the lot of man to undergo. + +"`Our voyage to the Arctic seas was a pleasant enough one. We did not +encounter a single gale, and we made the country in less than a +fortnight. We met the seals a little north of Mount Beerenberg, coming +southward to the low pack ice in thousands; nay, but in millions; for +the sea was black with their beautiful heads for miles on each side of +our ship, and as far north as we could see from the masthead. Oh, +didn't our hearts beat high then! We saw fortune within our reach, and +had bright visions of a splendid voyage, a ship full to the hatches, +with bings of skins on deck, and an early return to sunny England, our +sweethearts and wives. We put about and followed the seals, and ere +many days were past had the satisfaction of seeing them take the ice. +There would soon be enough to fill all the ships in the Greenland fleet. +We had but to wait a week or two until the young were big enough to +capture. What a happy crew we were now! It was singing forward and +laughing aft, all day long. But alas! and alas! for the fickleness of +fortune, a wretched, greedy old Dutch ship came in, and no sooner saw +the seals on the ice than she lowered her boats, and in spite of our +remonstrances, proceeded to the ice. Twenty-four hours afterwards there +was not one single seal, of all the myriads that had taken the ice, +visible anywhere, above or below--the Dutch boats had scared them all +away. It was all our captain and myself--I had only that spring got my +certificate as mate--could do to prevent our men from boarding the +Dutchman, and taking summary vengeance on that idiot skipper and his +idiot crew. + +"`We got up sail as soon as possible, and began forging through the +loose pack ice, in the hope of again falling in with fortune in the +shape of seals. We did sight them far in towards the west, and on +heavier ice than we generally cared to venture among; but we did not +think twice about the matter then. We worked our vessel in, and in, and +in, towards our game, when the wind failed us all at once, and every +seal disappeared as if by magic, or as if they had been but phantoms of +the brain. To add to our grief, hard frost set in, and lasted for many +weeks. We hoped against hope we would get clear before long, and still +be in time to follow the old seals northwards toward Spitzbergen. So we +dreamt. Well, clouds banked up on the southern horizon at last, and +snow fell, such snow as I had never seen before, and have seen but once +or twice since. Every flake was as big as a hand. In less than twelve +hours the whole of that vast ice-pack was one level surface, one +unbroken field of dazzling snow. But then came the wind--a fierce and +fearful gale--and the bergs rose and fell around us and tossed and +tumbled, as if we had been in the middle of a troubled sea, the waves of +which were walls of snow. Our barque was heaved up, now forward, now +aft, and ground and torn, till we could hear the very timbers cracking +and rending beneath us, and we knew then she was doomed--knew that when +the ice that nipped her receded, and the pressure abated, she would +sink. This happened sooner far than we could have believed possible. +While the wind still roared through the rigging, and all between decks +was as dark as a winter midnight with the clouds of drifting, driving +snow, suddenly the sides of the saloon, in which the captain, myself, +and the other mate were sitting, came crashing and splintering in upon +us, and we had barely time to spring to the companion ladder before the +freer ice was grinding amid a chaos of broken boards and timbers in the +very place where we had been sitting barely three seconds before. +Almost at the same moment the after-part of the ship took fire. + +"`How this happened I cannot tell. Friction itself would fire the rum, +or the blazing coals from the broken stove might have been thrown among +the staved casks. Explosion after explosion occurred; then the water +rushed forward, and the vessel began at once to be sucked under. We had +barely a quarter of an hour to clear out, but even in that short time we +managed to land three boats with blankets and provisions on the ice, and +this, too, in spite of the storm, in spite of the numbing wind, and the +drifting, choking, powdery snow. + +"`We huddled together beneath the boats for hours and hours, and when +the wind went down at last, we crawled out--those who could crawl--the +living from among the dead, the maimed and sick. Out of a crew of +thirty-nine only twenty-four answered to their names the morning after +the wreck of the good barque _Constance_. We sunk the dead between the +bergs, and waited for others to die--waited days and days; then the +remainder of us started southwards with two of the whalers to seek for +the open water. The frost had set in again harder than ever, and the +sun was very bright, but it was a terrible journey, nevertheless, and +five more of us, including our captain, succumbed to cold and hardship +before we stood at last on the edge of the solid pack with the open +water all before us. + +"`Ay, there it was--the open water, the Southern Sea--black as ink in +the foreground, blue beyond, and dotted here and there with little +floating bergs, just as the sky above was flecked with little fleecy, +floating clouds. And we knew well that hundreds of miles beneath the +horizon lay Iceland, the country we must try to reach, even if we +perished in the attempt. + +"`We launched our boats and grasped our oars, and so began our long and +dangerous voyage. Provisions we had, and compasses; water we had none, +but we took on board huge pieces of fresh-water ice that we were lucky +enough to find on top of the salt sea bergs. + +"`All went well for days and days, and, much to our joy, a breeze sprang +up. The sail was set. We were so far south now that, summer though it +was, the sun set; then we steered by the stars, for as yet clouds had +not obscured the sky. I had command of our boat; the steward had charge +of the other. + +"`One morning I was saddened to see a body launched overboard from our +companion boat, which was a little way ahead at the time. As we sailed +up I had just time to notice it was the steward himself ere a terrible +specimen of the hammer-headed shark sprang, monster-like, out of the +sea, and next moment the body had disappeared. + +"`The rugged mountain peaks of Iceland at last! With what joy we hailed +them, only those who have been so situated can understand or appreciate. +Yes, the mountains were very rugged, very much peaked and jagged, but +we knew that in the freer glens betwixt them, and at the head waters of +many a lonely fiord, dwelt a rude but kindly-hearted people, who would +gladly welcome and shelter the shipwrecked mariners. + +"`And in two days at the furthest our trials would be over; so we fondly +imagined. Alas! they were but beginning. In a few hours after we had +sighted the distant hills the wind completely failed us, while up from +the south came, rolling and tumbling along the surface of the ocean, a +bank of dark fog, and we were soon completely enveloped. We called to +the other boat to keep near us, and trusting now entirely to our +compasses, we took to our oars once more. + +"`For half a day our boats kept together, but as soon as night and +darkness fell, the wind got up, and the sea became rough, dashing +continually on board of us, and necessitating constant work in baling. +Towards morning the wind had increased to a gale, and we were running +before it under our small, closely reefed mainsail and a trifle of jib. +Where we were running we knew not, and, I think, hardly cared. We were +completely exhausted with the wet and the cold. Our ice and the +provisions were gone, and even the compass lost. + +"`The sun broke through the fog at last, and to some extent the wind +abated, but the sea still ran houses high. I looked up from the place +where I sat, mechanically grasping the tiller. Heavens! what a sight I +witnessed! When night had come on, we had been seven in our boat; now +we were but three, that is two more than myself. Of the others two had +leapt overboard mad, or been washed away; two sat alive but pale and +ghastly, grasping in white-blue hands, that I could see were sadly +frost-bitten, the icy sheets of the sails. One poor fellow was curled +up dead under the bows; the other had fallen backwards over a thwart as +if he had caught a crab, and there he lay with his long yellow hair +floating in the water with which the boat was half full, and his +sightless eyes turned sunwards. + + "The life still there upon his hair, + The death within his eyes." + +"Bale, men, bale the boat," I cried, "bale her, or we shall sink." + +"`They turned their awful cadaverous faces towards me, they opened their +mouths as if to speak, but a sound 'twixt a moan and a gurgle was all +that came from their throats; then they lifted their hands and tapped +the backs of their fingers against the gunwale of the boat, and they +rattled as if they had been made of wood, so sorely were they frozen. + +"`Many, many times during that long and dreadful day did those two poor +fellows turn towards me, and they kept signing, signing to me for the +help they were pleading for in vain, and ever from their throats came +that awful gurgling moan. Oh! men, I think I see and hear them now. + +"`Night fell at last, night and pitchy darkness, and next morning I was +alone on the sea. Alone with the dead! + +"`And all that day I sat there, as if in the power of some strange +nightmare. The use of every limb I retained as well as that of head and +body, but still I did not or could not move, but I kept praying, praying +not for the cold and icy wind to fall, not for the clouds and fog to +roll away, or the sea to go down, but praying for death, a share of the +death I saw around me. + +"`Towards the afternoon I think I must have slept or fallen into a kind +of a trance. The wind had quite gone down when I again recovered a sort +of consciousness. There was no more broken water, but a heavy tumbling +swell on the eastward when I looked. These huge heaving smooth waves +seemed to take on the appearance of monsters of the deep, raising their +awful heads and backs, grim and grey and cold, above the sea; but +westward they were moving masses crimson and black. The sky was a +wonderful sight. From the sun's upper limit to the zenith it was hung +with curtains of blue-grey clouds, one behind the other, as it were, the +edges all zig-zagged and fringed with red. All round the sun itself was +a coppery haze. To the north the sky was clear and of a bright lemon +yellow; to the east it was clear also, and _green_. + +"`I sat gazing at clouds, and sky till they faded into the gloom of +night; they got thinner and thinner then, and stars shone through them, +and soon they vanished entirely, and the stars had it all their own way. + +"`I felt no hunger, no thirst, no pain, no pleasure; my condition was +one of pure apathy; my very soul appeared dead within me. + +"`Soon a bright light shone out of the north with tints of carmine, pale +yellow, and green; it was the aurora, and long fringes of pale +phosphorescent light descended from the sky overhead. I could have +touched them with my hand had they been tangible. They were independent +of the far-off aurora. They assumed the forms of gigantic fern leaves +and danced dazzlingly before my eyes, and I could almost imagine they +emitted a hissing, crackling sound. + +"`Then my brain began to reel, and I fell forward in the boat among my +dead companions. + +"`A shock awoke me at last. Cold and shivering now, I sat up and rubbed +my eyes. Morning was breaking gloomy and grey over the sea, and some +gulls were wheeling and screaming about in the air. + +"`Once again the shock, and the boat trembled from stem to stern, and +some birds rose up out of the bows and floated slowly away. They had +been gorging on the dead. + +"`The shocks to the boat were easily accounted for: the sea was alive +with monster sharks. + +"`O God! men, it was a fearful sight. There was something appalling and +horrible in the very way they _gambolled_ around the boat. Their eyes +told me one thing: they had come for the dead--and the living. + +"`I cannot tell you whether I really did lift the bodies of my late +companions and throw them overboard. I would even now fain believe this +was but a dream. If so, it was terribly real, the fighting, wrangling +sharks in the sea, the birds wheeling and screaming above. + +"`My boat was picked up that day by some Icelandic fisherman; there was +no one in it but myself, men, white in hair, white in beard, as you now +behold me.'" + +So ended the spectioneer's story, and so ended that Christmas dinner in +the Doldrums, but both Kenneth and Archie long, long after this used to +speak about it amid other scenes and in other climes, and both agreed it +was one of the pleasantest afternoons ever they had spent in life. + +The two friends made many a voyage together in the _Brilliant_, and +together came through no little adventure, and saw many a strange sight +in many a strange sea. They came to love the vessel at last, for real +sailors do love their ships. They loved her and called her the saucy +_Brilliant_, and the dear old ship, and quite a host of other pet names. + +"But alas! and alas?" said Kenneth to Archie one day, while they stood +together on the quarter-deck, "we are not making our fortunes. We will +never get rich at sea. And by-and-bye, you know, we'll be getting +fearfully old." + +"Yes," said Archie, "I'm feeling old already. We are both of us over +twenty." + +"Sad thought! yes?" added Kenneth. "So I propose we leave the dear old +stupid craft at the end of this voyage, Archie." + +And so they did, reader. And thus our tale runs on, but the scenes must +change. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +End of Book Two. + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. + +ON THE UNKNOWN RIVER. + + "Most glorious night, + Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be + A sharer in thy fierce and fair delight." + + Byron. + +Scene: Night on an unknown river, which, dark and deep and sluggish, is +rolling onwards to the distant ocean through a wild and beautiful +district in the interior, nay, but ill the very centre of Africa. The +centre it may well be called, for it is near the equator, and hundreds +of miles from the Indian Ocean. Night on the river, but not darkness. +A round moon has risen, the clouds, dazzled by its splendour, have +parted to let it pass; its light is flooding hill and dell and forest, +and changing the river itself to--apparently--a moving flood of molten +gold. + +Light, but not darkness. Night, but not silence either. Were it +possible for any one to pass swiftly and unseen along the banks of the +unknown river at such an hour and on such a night as this, what sights +he would see, what sounds would fall upon his listening ear! Come with +me in imagination! Take heed of those rocks; they are slippery at the +edge, for the rainy season is not yet past. To fall into the stream +would mean an ugly death, were you even as good a swimmer as the gallant +Webb. There are no signs of life in the water, it is true, but the +plash of your fall would raise a score of awful heads above it; the +crocodiles would be upon you with lightning speed, and rend you from +limb to limb. + +Peer over the cliff just there. What is that lying on the mud close by +the river? Is it the trunk of some dead tree? Drop a pebble on it. +See; it moves off into the river and slowly disappears--a crocodile. + +Hark to that horrible sound! it makes the very "welkin" ring,--a loud, +discordant, coughing, bellowing roar. It is the lion-king of the +forest. He loves not the moonlight. It baulks him of his prey; so +there is anger in that growl. But you hardly can tell whence it comes; +at one moment, it sounds over yonder among the rocks, next, down in that +lonesome ravine, and next, in the forest behind you. + +Look at those great birds. They fly so closely over our heads that +their mighty wings overshadow us for a moment, and we can hear the +rustling, creaking sound made by their feathers. There is something +lying dead in the valley beyond the hill, and these are vultures going +to gorge by the moonlight. + +Two great necks are raised like poles behind a rock as the birds fly in +that direction. Giraffes, who have been sleeping--there in the open, +their heads leaning on the rocks, their ears doing duty even in slumber, +but ready if danger draws near to-- + + "Burst like whirlwind o'er the waste, + To thunder o'er the plain." + +In yonder, beneath that flowery, ferny bank, is the leopard's cave--the +tiger cat. If you went near enough you would see her fiery eyes, and +hear a low, ominous growl that would chill you to the spine. + +Yes, wild beasts and wild birds keep close to-night; for a little while +only; when the deer and the antelope steal down to the river, they will +come forth, and there will be yells and shrieks of anger, pain, and +terror, and an awful feast to follow. + +Behold those lordly elephants; how they trumpet and roar! They are +excited about something. + +Something unusual has happened, or they would not be there at this hour. +Ha! There is a boat on the river, creeping up under the shadow of the +rocks. What mystery is this? There are white men in it, too, and right +merrily they are paddling along. But never before have the waters of +this unknown river been stirred by oar of European. + +For not only is the country all around here a wild one, but it has the +name, at all events, of being inhabited by a race of savages that are +never at peace, who are born, live, and die on the war-path--the Logobo +men. + +"Couldn't we go a little nearer?" said Harvey, who sat in the stern +sheets near the tall Arab Zona, who was steering, Kenneth and Archie +having an oar each. + +"Couldn't we go a little nearer and have a shot at that elephant?" + +"No, no, no," cried Zona, hastily; "we must keep in the shade, +gentlemen. Even the moon is not our friend, pleasant though her light +be. But the sound of your rifle would raise the Logobo men, and a +thousand poisoned arrows would soon be whistling round our heads. We +could not escape." + +"Before morning," said Kenneth, "according to your reckoning, my good +Zona, we should be well through the Logobo country, and among friends?" + +"True," replied Zona; "we will be among friends all the way to the land +of gold, I trust." + +"The land of gold!" exclaimed Kenneth; "what a fascinating phrase! +Zona, when we met you in Zanzibar our lucky stars must have been in the +ascendant." + +Zona gave a little laugh. + +"It is the land of gold," he said, "that we are going to, it is true; +but no man that ever yet tried brought that gold down to the coast." + +"And why, my friend?" + +"Why? I cannot tell you all the reasons why. They say the gold is +guarded by evil spirits, that the hills where it is to be found are +encircled by giant forests, by terrible swamps, the breath of which is +more feared by the Arab than spear of savage foeman." + +"We can but try," said Kenneth. + +"Zona," said Archie, "did ever you hear the line of that old song, `The +March of the Cameron Men,' which says, `Whatever a man dares he can +do'?" + +"Gentlemen all," replied Zona, "the Arab is the most daring of all men +who live; the Arab has sought this gold that we are going in quest of; +the Arab has failed! I have spoken." + +"Worthy Zona," said Harvey, laughing, "you have an excellent opinion of +your people, and an excellent opinion of yourself. Nay, never start, +man. I love you for it. But let me tell you this. There is one thing +in which even an Arab gold-seeker, with all his pluck and daring, may +fail in--" + +"And that is?" said Zona. + +"Knowledge of prospecting." + +"I am in the dark as to your meaning," said Zona. + +"I know you are, and so are all your people. In other words, then, they +don't know where to look for the gold. Now listen, friend. I have +spent years and years in the gold regions of California--" + +"I say, Harvey, old man," said Kenneth, "you weren't much the better of +it. Eh?" + +"True," replied Harvey, with a sigh; "else you wouldn't have found me +working as an ordinary seaman before the mast in a craft like the +_Brilliant_." + +"Forgive me," said Kenneth, stretching out his hand, which Harvey +readily grasped. "Forgive me; I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I +found you before the mast, it is true; but I took to you from the first +hour we met. You have got the grit of a good man in you. Else Archie +and I wouldn't have asked you to come with us on this gold-hunt, which +after all may turn out to be a wild-goose chase." + +"But it will _not_ be a wild-goose chase. Man, I tell you this, the +very mud of the river we are now floating over contains gold dust. We +are going to trace that gold to its source, and find it in nuggets." + +"I have found gold before," he continued. "I have made two fortunes and +lost them, worse luck; but I can tell you whether or not gold lies in +any country, if I get but one glance at the land, or but walk over it +once. Fear not then, I won't deceive you, nor myself." + +"Well, we shall trust to your skill," said Archie. + +"And to Zona's," added Kenneth. + +"To Zona's, certainly." + +Let us hark back, reader, in our tale for a moment, and explain the +appearance of our adventurers on this wild dark river of Africa at such +a time of night. + +The _Brilliant_ then was in the habit of touching occasionally at +Zanzibar in her passage from the East Indies to the Cape. Being much on +shore, Kenneth could not help becoming acquainted with some of the +numerous Portuguese merchants, who had settled in that strange city,--if +a Portuguese merchant can be said to settle anywhere, for they are, like +ourselves, a nation of wanderers. They are hospitable at their houses, +however, and Kenneth and Archie too were made welcome, enough, and many +a quiet cup of coffee they drank in the cool of the evening on great +square housetops overlooking the blue sea. + +They would sit far into the night, listening to stories of the interior +of Africa, of wild adventures with wild beasts and wilder men, of great +forest land and terrible swamps, of the country of the dwarfs and the +dreaded gorilla, and of diamond caves, and caves in which nuggets of the +richest gold were to be had for the gathering. + +No wonder that such stories as these fired the young blood of our heroes +Kenneth and Archie. They both longed to be rich; it was no mean +ambition, for riches would be valued by neither as a mere hoard of +wealth, but for the good they could accomplish therewith in the dear +wild land of their nativity. + +"Oh!" said Kenneth one evening as he sat on a roof-top under the quiet +stars, listening to the conversation of his friend Morosco. "Oh! if I +could but get up and command an expedition into the interior!" + +"Ha! ha!" laughed the Portuguese, "an idle dream. Ten thousand men +could not penetrate into the land of gold and diamonds." + +"But," said Archie, "two or three might." + +"Ah!" cried Morosco, "there you have it, young sir; one man may do more +in Africa than an army. It has ever been thus; look at your Livingstone +for example." + +Then Kenneth took to thinking, and for days said no more on the subject +even to Archie. But one evening, he asked him to come for a row among +the coral islands. It was nearly sundown. There was not a ripple on +the water, only a yellow haze all along the horizon, with the broad sun +sinking red through it. + +Kenneth lay on his oars, and let the boat float wherever the tide cared +to take her. + +"What a lovely night, Archie!" said Kenneth at last. "What a lovely +colour is in the sky! The clouds are gold, the sea is gold, the +consuls' houses and the sultan's palace are roofed in gold, the lofty +palm-trees are tipped with gold, and the waves are rippling and lisping +on sands of gold." + +"Ah!" replied Archie, "my dear brother, your thoughts are steeped in +gold. Morosco's stories have given you gold fever--but there, I won't +laugh at you, for I tell you I know all your longings, and I, too, have +the same." + +Kenneth stretched across the thwarts and pressed his friend's hand. + +"You'll go," he said, "you'll come with me into the interior. You'll +brave danger? Everything?" + +"Everything," replied Archie. "We are young, strong, healthy, hearty; +why should we not? But," he continued, "while you have been dreaming I +have been scheming. Zona, an Arab friend of mine, and a soldier, has +been on expeditions into and beyond the Logobo country already; I have +spoken to him, he is willing to venture with us. And so will Harvey." + +"Harvey?" said Kenneth. + +"Yes, he is like ourselves, a Scot. He will, he says, do or dare +anything for a change." + +"Hurrah!" cried Kenneth. + +He was so excited now that he must needs bend to his oars again, and the +light skiff in which he rowed seemed actually to skim the water like a +skipjack. For his actions were keeping pace with his thoughts. And all +the way down to the Cape, in what was to be their last voyage in the +_Brilliant_, there was little else talked about by the three friends but +their coming adventures in the land of gold. + +When paid off, they took passage, for cheapness' sake, in an Arab dhow +to Zanzibar. It was a long voyage in such a craft, and a rough one in +many ways, for they got little to eat except dates and rice. But what +cared they? The rice, in their eyes, seemed like little nuggets of +gold. They reached Zanzibar safe and sound, and made haste to see Zona, +the Arab chief, and arrange everything. + +Zona brought with him a bold but honest-looking black boy. He was to be +their guide through the country beyond Logobo. This boy, called +Essequibo, came from there. Nay, let me rather say had been dragged +from there by cruel and heartless slave-dealers. + +Though an Arab, Zona had a good heart. He had first seen little +Essequibo asleep on the rude steps of the slave auction mart at Lamoo, +and his soul warmed to the poor lad. Dreaming the boy was of his +far-off home in the interior, of the little village among the cocoa +palms, where his mother and father lived ere that terrible night when +the Arabs fell on them with chains and fire,--fire for the town, chains +for the captives. Dreaming of home, dreaming that he was back once +more, roaming with his brothers and sisters in the free forest, through +the jungle, over hills purple with glorious heaths, through woods dark +even at midday, or by the lakes where the hippopotami bathe and wallow, +and where under the pale rays of the moon the deer and hart steal down +to drink, their every movement watched by the wary leopard. + +Though but a child when stolen from his home, and at the time of our +tale in his fifteenth year, Essequibo had not forgotten a single hill or +dale or creek or even tree of his native country. He was bold, bright, +and faithful, as will be seen. + +The preparations for the great journey had been very simple, perhaps too +much so, for they consisted mainly in arms and ammunition. Kenneth, +with all the simple faith of his countrymen, had put Nannie's old Bible +in his wallet. In his wallet, too, Archie had slyly deposited the +flute. + +"An old Scotch air," he had said, "may help to 'liven us up when things +look black and drear." + +They had travelled thus far almost without adventure. They were now in +the very heart of the warlike Logobos, but as yet had seen nothing more +terrible than the denizens of forests and river I have already +described. + +CHAPTER NINETEEN. + +THE SEARCH FOR THE LAND OF GOLD. + +Scene:--Daybreak on the unknown river. The stream is a good mile wide +here; its banks are lined with a cloudland of green, the great trees +trailing their branches in the water. A sand bar at one side, jutting +far out into the river, tall crimson ibises standing thereon like a +regiment of British soldiers. The mist of morning uprising everywhere +off the woods and off the water. One long red cloud in the east +heralding the approach of the god of day. Silence over all, except for +the dip of the oars--they are muffled--as our adventurers' boat rapidly +nears the shore to seek the friendly shelter of the tree-fringe. + +"So far on our way, thank heaven," said Kenneth, as soon as the boat was +hidden and the party had landed on a little bank deeply bedded with +brown leaves. + +"So far, and now for breakfast." + +Yes, now for breakfast, reader, and a very frugal one it was; some +handfuls of boiled rice and a morsel of biscuit steeped in the water to +make it go down. + +This had been their fare for days and days, but added thereto was the +fruit that Essequibo never failed to find. + +Fish there were in this great river in abundance, fish that they had +plenty of means of catching too, but none of cooking without danger; for +smoke might betray their presence to an enemy more implacable and +merciless than the wildest beast in the jungle. + +The long hot day passed drearily away. They sat or reclined mostly in a +circle, carrying on a conversation in voices but little over a whisper. + +When the day was at its very hottest, when there was not a leaf stirring +in the branches above, when the monkeys that more than once had visited +them, creeping nearer and nearer with curious half-frightened gaze, had +sought the darkest, coolest nooks of the forest, and the-- + + "Strange bright birds on starry wing--" + +had ceased their low plaintive songs, and sat open-mouthed and all +a-gasp on the boughs, then sleep stole over every one, and it was far +into the afternoon ere they awoke. + +The sun went down at last, and darkness--a tropical darkness--very soon +followed. Lights might now be seen flitting about among the trees; the +fire-flies and curious creeping things went gliding hither and thither +on the ground, all ablaze with phosphorescent light. Yonder knobs of +fire that jump about so mysteriously are beetles; that long line of fire +wriggling snake-like at the tree foot is the dreaded brown centipede, +whose bite is death. + +They must not leave their hiding-place yet though, for Logobo canoes are +still on the river. They must wait and listen for hours to come. But +they keep closer together now and grasp their arms sturdily, for lions +have awakened and begun to yawn; there are terrible yells and shrieks, +and coughing and groaning to be heard on every side, and many a plash +alongside in the dark water. Sometimes a huge bat drives right against +them, poisoning the air with pestiferous odour. Sometimes they see +starry eyeballs glaring at them from under the plantain bushes, and hear +the branches creak and crack, and the sound of stealthy footsteps near +them. It is an eeriesome place this to spend even half-an-hour in after +nightfall, but their only chance of safety lies in remaining perfectly +still, perfectly mute. At long last light shimmers in through the leafy +canopy above them, they know the moon has arisen, and it is time to be +going. + +Once more they are embarked, and once more stealing silently up the +unknown river. + +As the night advances, they are less cautious and talk more freely. +Earlier in the evening they had heard the beating of the warlike tom-tom +and the shouts of savage sentries, but now these are hushed and the +beasts and birds of the night alone are left to rend the ear with their +wild cries. + +Hiding by day, and journeying silently onward and upward by night, our +heroes are in less than a week far past the country of the dreaded +Logobo men. Not that their dangers are over by any means, nor their +trials. There are dangers from beasts, from lion or leopard, and from +hideous reptiles, far more ugly than a nightmare, and these they must +often face, for the rapids in the river have now become numerous, and +they have to land and carry their light boat past them. But, on the +whole, they were so happy now and light-hearted that they often laughed +and joked and sang; and why not? Were they not marching on to fortune? +They believed so, at all events. + +In the long dark evenings, round the camp fire, they would lie on their +blankets with their feet to the fire, and their guns not far off, you +may be well sure, and sing songs and tell stories of their far-away +native land. The flute, too, was put on duty, much to the delight of +little Essequibo, the nigger boy. Essequibo, or Keebo as he was called +for short, was at first inclined to be afraid of the flute; in fact, +when first he heard it, he turned three somersaults backwards and +disappeared in the jungle. He did not appear again for half-an-hour; +then he came out, and gradually and slowly and wonderingly advanced to +where Kenneth sat playing. + +Keebo's eyes were as big as half-crown pieces, now, and he walked on +tip-toe, ready to bolt again at a moment's notice. + +"Massa Kennie," he said plaintively, "Massa Kennie, what you raise +inside dis poor chile wid dat tube you blows into? You raisee de good +spirit or de ebil one? Tell me dat." + +"The good spirit, Keebo," replied Kenneth; "listen." + +Then Kenneth played "The Land of the Leal." + +"I'se all of a shake, Massa Kennie," said the poor boy; "de spirits, dey +am all about here now, I knows. Dey not can touch poor Keebo? Tell me +dat for true?" + +Essequibo got more used to the flute before long, and at last he quite +loved it. + +Here is the story of Essequibo's conversion. I give it briefly. It was +one day when Kenneth and he were alone, all the rest being away in the +bush in search of food and dry fuel. + +Keebo squatted near Kenneth's knees, leaning his hands thereon with +child-like confidence, and gazing up into the young Scot's face as he +played low sweet Scottish airs. These plaintive airs took Kenneth away +back in fancy to grand Glen Alva, and the tears rose to his eyes as he +thought of his childhood's days, of his simple happiness while herding +sheep, of his dear mother, of Kooran and the fairy knoll. + +And last but not least of the sweet child Jessie, and of that day among +the Highland heather, when she gave him the flowers. He took the Bible +from his bosom and opened it. + +And there they were side by side. And they were near a chapter his +mother used often to read to him. His mother? Heigho! he would never +see her again in this world, but faith pointed upwards. + +He took his flute more cheerfully now, and began to play that sweet +melody "New London." His whole soul was breathed into the instrument. + +When he looked again at Keebo, why, there were tears rolling down the +boy's cheeks. + +"You remember _your_ mother, Keebo?" + +"Ess, Massa Kennie, I 'member she. De cruel Arab men kill she wid one +spear. Sometimes Keebo tink she speak to her boy yet in his dreams." + +"So she does, Keebo. So she does, dear child. She lives, Keebo." + +"She lib, sah! My moder lib?" + +Then Kenneth told Essequibo the Bible tale and all the sweet story of +Jesu's love; and every word sank deep into Keebo's heart, and was never, +never forgotten. + +When returning that day from the bush in Indian file, Archie, who was +first, checked the others with uplifted hands, and pointed through the +plantain bushes to the clearing where Kenneth knelt in prayer beside the +boy Keebo. + +Both Archie and Harvey doffed their caps, and stood reverently there, +not daring to reveal their presence till Kenneth had arisen. The very +sky above them seemed at that moment a holy sky. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Essequibo was a strange name to give this nigger boy. [The name of a +river in South America.] It came by chance, and suited him well. He +was clever, this lad; and proved a treasure to the little expedition in +many a trial. His English was not of the purest, he had learnt it in +Zanzibar; but he could talk the languages of the interior tribes and +Arabic as well. It is truly wonderful how soon boys of this caste learn +languages. + +Zona was guide and chief of the party; he knew the land well, and he +knew the river. He knew which way to go to avoid unfriendly Indians, +and he knew also the shortest tracks. So you may fancy them going on +and on day after day in their search for the land of gold, sometimes +gliding along the silent and unknown river, sometimes plunging into +deep, dark forests; at other times toiling over arid plains, round the +spurs of lofty mountains, or wading deep through miry marsh lands, the +home, _par excellence_, of the most loathsome of Saurian monsters; but +journeying ever with light hearts, for hope still pointed onwards. + +At night, by the camp fire, Archie and Kenneth used to build aerial +castles, and plan out the kind of future that they should spend in +Scotland when they had wealth. But never a night passed without a +chapter being read, a psalm sung, and a prayer said. Zona used to +retire to the bush, and it is but fair to say that, according to his +lights, he was as good at heart as any of the others. + +They had hired over a dozen sturdy Indians to carry boats and +ammunition, but these men needed watching, both by night and by day. +They were necessary evils, that is all. Not that negroes of this kind +are not often faithful enough, but they need a master eye to guide them, +else they soon lose heart and faint and fail--then fly. + +More than once Keebo prevented these men from stampeding, for Keebo was +ever watchful. + +For many weeks our heroes kept on in the same slow course, defying every +obstacle. They were now little more than fifty miles from the goal of +their desires. + +"If gold or diamonds," said Kenneth to Archie, "be but half as plentiful +as represented, we have only to collect and retire. We have overcome +every danger, and avoided the greatest danger of all--the Logobo +country. We will go more swiftly down stream than we came up." + +Archie was quite as hopeful as Kenneth. + +Harvey hardly so much so. + +"`There is many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip,'" the latter would +say. + +Perhaps this was one of the happiest periods of the lives of either of +our heroes. Indeed, their existence at present resembled nothing so +much as one long picnic. They were like the wild creatures around them; +they lived on the good things they found, and were contented and happy. + +Kenneth, true lover of nature, could never have dreamt of scenery like +that which he now gazed on daily. Oh the luxuriance of an African +tropical woodland! what pen could describe, what pencil or brush portray +it! + +Yes, there were deadly things to be avoided, but one gets careless of +even them, or, at least, used to them, so that in time not even a great +snake dangling from a branch in front of him makes him shudder; nor is +he greatly alarmed if he comes suddenly on the African "tiger," as the +leopard is called, enjoying a siesta at noon-tide under a tree. + +The tribes they had hitherto encountered were non-warlike and quiet. +One day, however, Essequibo, who had been scouting on ahead, came +rushing back in a state of great alarm. + +"Dey come, dey come!" he shouted; "plenty bad men. Plenty spear and +shield. Dey kill and eat us all for true!" + +The carrier negroes threw down their boat and packages and would have +bolted _en masse_, had not our heroes stood by them with pistol and +whip. The whip was, I believe, more dreaded than even the revolver. + +In less time than it takes me to tell it, the little expedition, which +was quickly formed into a solid square, was surrounded by a cloud of +armed blacks. + +To fight such a mob was out of the question; they used better tactics: +they pretended to be overjoyed at meeting them. They were friends, +Kenneth told the chief of these negroes, not foes, and wanted to see the +king, and brought him presents from the far-off white man's land. + +Shouts of joy from those simple natives now rent the air, and rattling +their spears against their shields they led the way towards the camp of +the king, a village of adobe and grass huts, built round cocoa-nut +palms, in the midst of a great and fertile plain. In the centre of the +town, inside a compound, was the square bungalow of King 'Ntango. + +'Ntango was in, but did not appear for hours. It would not be royal +etiquette to show much curiosity. Meanwhile the native women brought +milk and honey and baked plantains, and everything went as merry as a +marriage bell. + +The king, into whose presence they were ushered at last, was round and +squat, very yellow and very fat. + +He showered his questions on Kenneth through Essequibo as interpreter. + +Where did they come from? What did they want? Were they Arab or +foreign? Did they come to steal his wives and little ones? How long +did they want to stop? For ever, of course. Where were the gifts? +Guns? Yes. Beads? Good. Pistols? Good again. But was this all? +Where was the rum? Arab men had been here before, they brought much +good rum. What, _no_ rum? Never a skin of _rum_? Ugh! + +With this last ejaculation, which was almost a shriek, the king sprang +from the mat on which he had squatted. + +"They must die?" he shouted; "die every one of them. The Arab must +first die, then the black men. Then the white men. Essequibo he would +fatten and kill and eat. Bring chains; away with them! _away_! away! +AWAY!" + +The king's eyes shot fire as he waved his arms aloft, and shouted, +"_Away_, away!" and his lips were flecked with blood and foam. + +He was a fearful being to behold, this irate African savage. + +Almost at the same moment our heroes were seized rudely from behind, +disarmed, and dragged off. They soon found themselves huddled together +in one room, with stone walls, slimy, damp, and over-run with creeping +things that made them shudder, albeit they were under the very shadow of +death. + +Towards evening the king sent to "comfort" them; it was very +condescending of him. The "comfort" lay in the information that at +sunrise next day they would be led out to die, by spear or by knife, as +they might choose. + +Meanwhile, poor Essequibo's chains were knocked off, and he was led away +to his fattening pen. + +Such is life in Central Africa. But stranger things still befell our +heroes. + +CHAPTER TWENTY. + +LAND OF DARKNESS. + +Scene: The interior of King 'Ntango's palace. The king seated on a mat +in the middle of the floor of the principal apartment--a large square +room with walls of mud and grass. The only furniture, a tall tom-tom, a +mat-covered dais, and a heap of empty stone bottles in a corner. Those +bottles once contained gin. + +It is near sunset, the king is alone. There is no sound to break the +silence, except the tap, tap, tap the gecko lizards that crawl on the +walls make, as they beat to death the moths they catch. + +Yes, the king is alone in his glory, though his spear-armed attendants +wait outside. He is quite a study, this savage potentate, to any one +fond of an anthropology. Look at him now! he is leaning his fat face on +his podgy fingers, his elbows are resting on his knees--he is thinking. + +There are but two things in this world that this king dearly loves; one +is to see human blood spilled, the other is to drink gin or rum. These +last two words are the only English ones he can pronounce or understand. +He learnt them from itinerant Arabs, unscrupulous scoundrels, who +bought the youth and flower of his people for a bottle each. + +The king is thinking; the question that exercises his mind at present is +this, "Shall I kill these white men, and laugh to see the red blood +flow; or keep two, and send the others back for rum?" + +"Room," this is how he pronounces the word "rum," and "gin" he calls +"geen." + +"Room, room, room," he mutters to himself, "geen, geen, geen." + +He rises; a thought strikes him. May it not be possible that one, just +one full bottle remains still among that heap of empty ones? He goes +straight to the heap, and turns them over. No, not one. Still, he has +a glimmering notion that in a dazed moment he hid one. Ha! he remembers +all of a sudden. He seizes the stick with which he is wont to beat the +tom-tom, and hies him to a corner, and speedily unearths, not one +bottle, but two. + +He is a joyful king now. He whacks the tom-tom, and summons two of his +wives to squat beside him; not to help him to drink, but to _see_ him +drink. + +Then he summons Essequibo, and launches questions at him. "How long +will he take to fatten? How long before he be ready to kill? Do the +white men tremble to die?" + +"No," Keebo tells him; "they rejoice to die because their spirits will +go to a glorious land of flowers and sunshine." + +The king gets blue with rage. He whacks Keebo with the tom-tom stick, +and he whacks his wives; then he declares that the white men shall _not_ +die, that their spirits shall _not_ go to the glorious land of flowers +and sunshine. + +Then he drinks "geen," and cools down. + +But Keebo sees his advantage. He expatiates on the mechanical ability +and cleverness of white men in general, and of Massa Kennie, Archie, and +Harvey in particular, and so inflames the king's cupidity, that he sends +for the white men, and has their chains knocked off in his presence, and +tells his sentries they are free, and any one who touches the hem of +their garments shall be made food for the blue-bottle flies, and the +long-legged "krachaw." [A kind of carrion-eating heron.] + +"Ha! ha! ha!" he yells, "the king will live for ever." + +Then he drinks again, yells again, whacks his wives with the tom-tom +stick, and laughs to see them wince; and drinks, and drinks, and drinks, +till he falls back asleep, and is borne away by the wives he whacked, +and laid tenderly on the dais. + +"Well," cried Harvey, "this is a queer ending to a day's march." + +Zona shrugs his square thin shoulders, and Kenneth and Archie laugh. + +"Ask those scoundrels," says Kenneth to Essequibo, "what they have done +with our arms and our boat." + +Very submissive are those spear-armed warriors now. They lead them to a +wood, and there in the thicket they find everything intact. + +"Now, lads, do as I tell you," said Kenneth. + +And here is what our heroes did at Kenneth's advice. They rolled all +their spare arms and ammunition in blankets, dug a hole, buried them, +and turned the boat upside down on them. Next they tore up a lot of +white and red rags, tied them to strings, and arranged these along, +over, and around the boat, in precisely the way you would over a row of +peas in the country to keep the sparrows away. + +Funny though it may seem, this was quite enough to keep these savage +negroes at bay. There was magic in it, they thought, and they gave that +wood a wide berth. + +Well, our heroes had, after a manner of speaking, to buy their lives. + +The king had them before him at daybreak, not to order them to +execution, but to give them his royal commands. They were to teach his +people to do all the clever things that white men could do; if they +failed, the king told them death would be the fate of their teachers. + +"We do not fear to die, King 'Ntango," said Kenneth. + +The king looked at him with a merry twinkle in his eye; then he took a +sip of "geen" and said, through the interpreter Keebo,-- + +"You do not fear death? No, you think you go straight to your glorious +land of sunshine; but listen, you will _not_. I will arrange it +differently. I will cut from you a leg, an arm, and an ear,--ha! ha! +what think you? will the leg, and arm, and ear go first to the land of +sunshine, and wait you? Take care, I am a great king, and I have twenty +thousand ways to torture without killing." + +Poor Kenneth confessed to himself that the king had the best of the +argument, but he replied,-- + +"If you cut from me an arm or leg, how then shall I teach your people?" + +The king smiled grimly, and said, "Go." + +They must propitiate this king, that was evident, in order to gain his +favour and their eventual liberty, for slaves they now undoubtedly were +to all intents and purposes. + +So they set themselves to teach his people to build boats, and sail on +the great lake that occupied the centre of the plain; to make articles +of furniture and household utility generally; to till the ground and to +sow; and lastly, to cook the latter department belonged to Zona, and it +greatly pleased the king. It pleased him also to see his men drilled, +and to witness their deftness in rowing and sailing, but he saw not the +sense of sowing. + +"Has not the Great Spirit," he said to Kenneth, "given us the fruits +that grow aloft on the trees, the fish in the water, and the beasts of +the field? what need we of more?" + +But days rolled into weeks, and weeks into months. The prospect of +getting out of this king's country, either onward to the gold country, +or back towards the coast, seemed to get less and less bright. +'Ntango's men became good soldiers, adept spearsmen; formerly they could +send an arrow with terrible precision through a kind of blow-pipe into +the breast of a leopard or lion; now they were not afraid to attack +these creatures with the spear alone. + +But these better soldiers of the king's were all the better able to +watch their prisoners; there was no end to the king's cunning. Many and +many a plan did Kenneth and his brothers in affliction fall upon to try +to effect their escape, but every one was frustrated. + +"No," said the king to Kenneth,--"I love you so much now I cannot part +with you. You must live with me for ever and ever and ever." + +This was, indeed, a dark prospect. + +A whole year passed away; _the_ one comfort of their lives now rested in +the fact that they were permitted to enjoy each other's company. They +had built quite a splendid bungalow for themselves, and surrounded it +with a beautiful compound and gardens, in which the most delightful +flowers bloomed, and where grew the most delicious fruit. Under other +circumstances their lives would really have been enjoyable. Wild sports +they had also in abundance, and fishing and boating both by lake and on +the river, but on these excursions one hundred of the king's trustiest +spearmen always accompanied them, and their bungalow was surrounded by a +palisade that _they_ did not build, and for ever guarded by sentries +they could not elude. + +One good for these poor people Kenneth did effect; he had a +meeting-house built, and therein, Sabbath after Sabbath, he taught them +to read and to pray, just as he had taught good Essequibo. + +It was not long before the king found out Kenneth's powers as a +musician, and at first it was hard on Kenneth, for he was kept playing +from morning till night for weeks. + +Music lost its power to some extent over the king at length, and +latterly it was but rarely he sent for his musician to play. Nor had +'Ntango much of an ear for melody, for Kenneth manufactured a score of +"chanters" out of pieces of cane, and taught a score of savages to make +an unearthly kind of noise in all kinds of keys; and this pleased the +king quite as much as the flute. + +Archie thought of a plan at last to get a brief holiday. The first +intimation of it was given the king by Essequibo. All the white men, he +told him one morning, were ill and dying, and nothing would cure them +but permission to explore the country to the nor'-west, the land where +gold lay. + +The king graciously gave his permission, and the expedition, well +guarded, started to prospect for gold. After days and days of toil and +travel they reached the El Dorado. + +Disappointment and nothing else. Gold there was, but not for the +gathering; it was deeply imbedded in veins of quartz, and the strongest +machinery would be needed to work it. + +Diamonds there were none. + +Their gloom increased now. Their hopes of finding fortune had been but +a youthful dream, and had ended in making them prisoners to a wild and +despotic savage. + +If there was any one ray now to illuminate their darkness and despair, +it lay in the fact that their visit to the land of darkness had not been +quite in vain; they had sowed the seeds of righteousness, and who could +say what fruit these might not bear in after-times? + +They tried now to make the best of their position, and take things as +they came, determined, however, if a chance should arise, to seek safety +in flight at all hazards. The river was not far away, and their boat +and spare ammunition still lay intact and handy. + +Nearly two years passed away. + +One night they had retired to their bungalow early. It was Archie's +birthday, and they were going to have a big talk about home. + +It was long past twelve o'clock before they thought of lying down. Ere +they undressed they went for a walk as usual in their garden, to breathe +the odour of the flowers, which the dews of evening never failed to draw +out. + +The moon was high in the heavens, looking like a little burnished shield +in the blue sky, and dimming the light of the thousand twinkling stars. +Suddenly from every direction there arose a muttering startled cry, +which presently increased to a yell. Smoke, too, began to roll across +the sky, increasing every moment, while tongues of flame leaped higher +and higher. + +They listened thunderstruck. + +"Logobo--Logobo--Logobo!" That was the terrible cry. + +"Heaven be praised!" cried Kenneth. "Now, boys, now, _men_, our time +has come for freedom or for death. Follow me!" + +He grasped his rifle as he spoke, and rushed out. The sentries had +fled. + +The whole village was in flames, and in the lurid glare, hand to hand in +deathly combat, struggled two tribes of savages. + +It was no business of our heroes, however. They rushed onwards through +the _melee_, and in a very short time had reached and shouldered their +boat. + +One hour after, the din of the conflict was muffled in the distance, +miles away, and Kenneth and his companions were safe on the river. + +They were not free yet, however. Swiftly down the river they sped, +racing onwards at all hazards. Daylight found them far away, but not +safe. All the country they passed through gave token of the march into +the interior of the Logobo men. The villages by the banks were +fire-blackened ruins, swollen corpses floated here and there, and +half-charred spars. + +A week of fearful toil and anxiety, during which they had more +adventures and hair-breadth escapes than I could describe in a goodly +volume, brought them to the edge of the Logobo land. And here redoubled +caution was needed. They could not rush it, as they had done the other +part of the river. They must resort to their old tactics of hiding by +day and pursuing their way adown the unknown river in the silence of +night. + +But three days of this work had almost set them free. It was the very +last day of their hiding, and near sunset. They had determined to start +early, and were longing for six o'clock and speedy darkness. Lower and +lower went the sun. Already the gloom of the short twilight was +settling down on the still forest, and beasts of prey were beginning to +wake up, and yawn--and a fearful sound it is to listen to--when suddenly +into the clearing where they stood strutted a Logobo savage in war +array. + +The yell he gave awakened a thousand others on every side. The whole +forest was alive with savages apparently. + +"Ping, ping," from Archie's revolver, and down dropped the Logobo +warrior. + +"Quick, men, quick," cried Kenneth, "to boat, to boat!" + +Ah! none too soon; hardly had they launched their frail craft and +embarked, ere a flight of spears came from the bush, and poor Essequibo +fell. + +The gathering darkness favoured them, and they were soon beyond the +reach of danger. + +Two hours after, the moon had risen; its rays brightened the woods and +rocks and sparkled on the river. + +Poor Keebo lay in the bottom of the boat across Zona's knee, his face +upturned to the sky. + +His life was ebbing fast away. + +Near him knelt Kenneth, holding his cold hand. + +"I'se goin', good-bye," murmured the dying lad. "I'se goin' to de +land--ob sunshine. I see poor mudder soon." + +"Keebo," said Kenneth, "you know me?" + +"Ess, dear Massa Kennie." + +"Now, say after me. O Lord!" + +"`O Lor'!'" + +"Receive poor Keebo's soul." + +"`Poor Keebo's soul.'" + +"For the blessed Jesu's sake." + +"`De bressed Jesu's sake.'" + +There was just one little painful quiver of the limbs, then a gentle +soughing sigh, and--Keebo was gone. + +CHAPTER TWENTY ONE. + +CAMP-LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. + +Scene: In the backwoods of British America. Kenneth, Archie, and Harvey +are seen sitting around the camp fire. It is a whole hour after sunset, +and yet there is plenty of light in the sky. There are rocks and pine +trees around, a brawling stream not far off. There is a tall rugged +mountain in the distance; its highest peaks are snow-clad. Southwards +away, grey clouds are heaped up on the horizon, a slight scimitar-shaped +moon is shining in the north-west, and ominous little dark clouds are +drifting over it. It is not from this moon that the light comes, but +from a strange yellowish after-glow, which tinges all the western +horizon, and, mingling with the blue above, evolves a peculiar shade of +green. + +"Heap more wood on the fire, Archie," said Kenneth. "I'm growing quite +an old man, I think. It is only a year since we left Africa and rounded +the Horn, hardly nine months since we bade adieu to civilisation, and +became wanderers and vagabonds in this wild dreary land, gold-hunting as +usual, and yet it seems to me an age." + +Kenneth pulled his blanket closer round his shoulders as he spoke, and +Archie rose to replenish the fire, laughing as he did so. + +"When _you_ die of old age," he said, "I shall make my will, Kennie +boy." + +"Oh! but we are sure to find gold," put in Harvey. + +"Well, I don't know, but it seems to me that this searching for gold is +like chasing a wild goose or a will-o'-the-wisp. Don't you think, +Archie, we had better settle down to something more certain if more +slow?" + +"_I do_ think so," replied Archie; "and after what Harvey here has told +us, that he is the son of poor old Laird McGregor, and rightful heir to +the McGregor estates, _he_ ought to go straight away home, turn that old +Yankee tyrant out, and regain possession of his own. You cannot break +an entail, you know." + +"Heigho!" sighed Harvey, "I have repented my quarrel with my dear old +father all my life. It was my proud Highland blood that caused it in +the first instance. I rushed away to sea, I changed my name, I made +myself out as dead. I thought not of the kind heart I was breaking, of +the grey hairs I was bringing down in sorrow to the grave. And how has +fate rewarded me? I have been a rover ever since, a wanderer and a +vagabond; thrice have riches been within my grasp, thrice has Fortune +dashed the cup aside. And am I to go now that my father is in his long +home and claim my patrimony? My pride forbids; I'd rather be a ghillie +on the old estate, or a keeper, than proud laird of it all." + +"Stay," said Kenneth, laying his hand kindly on Harvey's shoulder. "Not +for your own sake should you do this thing, but remember you have a +mother and sister, still alive it is to be hoped. Do you never think of +them?" + +Harvey's hands now covered his face, his form was bent forward, but the +heaving of his chest told of the grief that was rending him. + +"Think, too, of the Clachan restored, of the old church bell once more +calling the people of the glen to worship on the Sabbath mornings. +Steve the Yankee, from all accounts, is a tyrant, an oppressor, and a +villain. Harvey McGregor, think of seeing your old mother once more in +the dear old-fashioned pew." + +"Kenneth McAlpine!" cried Harvey, starting up, "no more of this now, you +irritate, you madden me! + +"But," he added, in a more softened tone of voice, "I may promise you +just one thing. If we fail this time, if _I_ fail to find fortune, I +will return to my mother like the prodigal son I have been. Though +fain, oh! how fain I would be to return full-handed, _rich_!" + +"Thank you, Harvey, thank you for this promise. And now for your sake +and for all our sakes I trust that fortune will at length favour us." + +The conversation then wandered back to the old, old theme; home at Glen +Alva. A strange life these three adventurers had led for the last nine +months and over. Wandering from place to place, sleeping by night in +the open air when the weather was fine, in caves or huts of pine-wood +branches when wet, and sojourning with trappers or even in the wigwams +of the Indian when snow covered the ground and the storm winds were +howling. + +Wandering from place to place prospecting, wandering on and on in search +of gold. A strange wild life was theirs, but it suited their tastes; +then there was an ever-present hope that had not yet deserted them, a +hope and an ambition to become suddenly wealthy as many a man had done +before them. Yes, it is true, many a one had found gold and silver, but +tens of thousands had found an early grave in searching for it. + +Harvey, or let us call him now Harvey McGregor, was in a manner of +speaking a genius. He possessed originality of thought, and he never +hesitated to put his ideas to the test. He felt sure of one thing, +namely, that gold and silver mines were not entirely confined to the +southern states of North America. He had found treasure among the +mountains of British Columbia, and he meant, so he said, to find it +again in such quantities that both he and his friends would be +"millionaires in a month." But luck seemed long of coming. They had +wandered all the way from California, and encountered every imaginable +danger, in moor and mountain, forest, flood, and fall; and here they +were to-night, with no other worldly wealth than the blankets they would +presently roll themselves up in, and their guns with a modicum of +ammunition. + +Only they had youth and health on their side, though even these seemed +passing away from poor McGregor. Grief had done its turn; it had +hollowed his cheek, and though barely twenty-five, silver threads were +already appearing in his brown beard. + +"Now pile more wood on the fire, Archie dear lad, and we will go to +sleep like good boys, and dream we are back in our dear old glen." + +Archie did as told, and before long all three were sound asleep. They +did not care even to do sentry duty. They trusted all to fate. + +Silence now, except for the wind soughing through the tall +mysterious-looking pine trees, or the occasional bark of fox or scream +of night bird. A great cinnamon bear about midnight came snuffing +around; he could have rent our sleeping heroes in pieces, but there was +nothing cooking to lure him towards the fire. A stray wolf came next, +and actually leapt over Kenneth's legs. He was picking up some scraps +of food when McGregor moaned and tossed, and away went the wolf. + +"I had such a dream," cried McGregor next morning. "I say, boys, I told +you there was a bank of gold up here, and I for one start digging +to-day." + +So he did, and so did all. + +The only possible place to commence operations lay close to the banks of +a turbulent river that came winding down through a pine-clad mountain +land. + +Silently, almost solemnly the trio worked, speaking but little, hanging +on to their pipes (if I may use so strange a phrase), and hanging on to +spade, and pick, and shovel. + +All that day, and next, and next. About the coming of the fourth day, +there was a shout from McGregor's claim. + +"Hurrah, boys! Hurrah, boys! Run here, lads, run here!" + +They did run. + +McGregor held up before their astonished gaze a nugget of almost pure +gold as big as a baby's shoe. + +More gold was found every day for a week, and in gradually increasing +quantities. They were already in possession of about three hundred +pounds' worth. No wonder they rejoiced. No wonder they were merry. + +Now, around the camp fire, what stories are told, what songs are sung, +what castles in the air are built! + +They will all be millionaires. Archie says he is going to have a nice +mansion down in the Clachan, and close by the riverside, and will fish +there and in the sea just as when he was a boy. Nothing will satisfy +Kenneth but a house near the fairy knoll. He pulls out the old Bible, +Nannie's gift, and opens it. There lie the withered flowers, and +looking at them sets him a-thinking and a-wondering and a-dreaming. + +"Little Jessie," he says to himself, "can she still be alive? Is it +possible she might one day be mine?" + +He restores the flowers, restores the Book of books, and lies back to +gaze at the starry sky and think. + +But he is not allowed to. + +"Out with the flute, Kennie," cries Archie. "Oh, play me some dear auld +Scottish lilt, that will make tears of joy well up in our eyes?" + +Kenneth plays tune after tune, air after air; and then the trio join +voices and sing "My native Highland home" till the woods ring and pine +trees nod, and distant rocks send back the chorus. + +There is hardly any need of a blanket to-night, for the day has been +hot, and look, even now clouds are rolling slowly up and hiding the +half-moon. Great round clouds they are, and little dark water-dog +clouds lie nearer the earth, and seem to perch and leap from top to top +of the pine trees, like birds of evil omen. + +A storm is brewing. + +By-and-bye, from far over the hills comes the muttering growl of distant +thunder. Presently clouds go scurrying overhead, and a bright flash is +followed by a rattling peal. + +Rain, and terrible rain, followed, and the wind began to rise. The camp +fire is drowned out, and our trio are fain to seek the shelter of a cave +on the wooded hillside. None too soon; with a crashing roar, louder and +more continued than any thunder ever heard, the storm bursts upon them +with hurricane force. And all that night it continues. The pine trees +have fallen in all directions. The river has risen in spate. Through +the darkness they can see the ghostly glimmer of its foam, and they can +hear the hurtling sound of the mighty boulders as they roll along. + +Morning came at last, grim and grey. + +"Saint Mary! what a scene is here!" + +The whole face of the country is altered in appearance. Where is their +claim, their gold mine, their hope of fortune, their joy of the previous +evening? All swept away or buried in chaos. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +Just three weeks after this fearful storm Kenneth and Archie bade +good-bye to their friend and comrade Harvey McGregor. He had given up +all hopes of finding fortune, and was returning to Scotland to claim his +property. + +They bade him good-bye at New Westminster. Then, hand in hand as if +they were boys once more, they turned their backs to the coast, and went +away towards the mountains. + +"Archie," said Kenneth, "there is gold to be got among these hills, but +_not_ by digging." + +"You are right." + +"Let us work for our fortune like steady, brave men. It may come, or it +may not. At all events, we will be better working. And we will try to +forget the past and build no more castles in the air." + +"Agreed," said Archie; "let us work." + +At Victoria these two brave young men changed the few nuggets they had +found for coin. Then they pushed their way many miles inland in +Columbia, and, having hired servants and bought a little land with +plenty more to purchase lying right behind it, they set to work with a +will. They built their house, a solid log-mansion. They planned and +laid out their gardens. They hewed timber, and sawed it, and sent it +down stream. They tore the roots from the ground and cleared it for +grain, and, in a word, settled down in every way as farmers, determined +to make the best of every chance. + +And here, in their far-away western home, let us leave them for a while, +and journey over the broad Atlantic with Harvey McGregor. There are +those in Scotland whose lives and actions may not be quite devoid of +interest to many who have read this history from the commencement. + +CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. + +GLEN ALVA UNDER NEW GOVERNMENT. + + "The tables were drawn, it was idlesse all, + Knight and page and household squire + Loitered through the lofty hall, + Or crowded round the ample fire. + The stag-hounds, weary of the chase, + Lay stretched upon the rushy floor, + And urged in dreams the forest race, + From Teviot Stone to Eskdale moor." + + Walter Scott. + +Scene: The tartan parlour of an old Highland mansion in the west of +Scotland. Wine and walnuts on the table. About a dozen gentlemen +seated round in attitudes of ease and enjoyment. A great fire of coal +and oak logs in the low and spacious grate. From their accent these +gentlemen are mostly English and American. + +"Robinson!" cried Mr Steve, who was seated at the head of the table, +and whose sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks told a tale that was far +from difficult to read, "Robinson, the bottle is with you. What think +you of the stuff? I paid thirty dollars a dozen for it at old +Clintock's sale, and I guess you'll hardly match it in this country, if +anywheres. Donald," he continued, addressing a white-haired old +Highland servant, who stood near, "heap more wood on the fire, and look +active. Don't stand and stare like the log figure on a tobacconist's +sign. Move your joints, I say." + +Donald hastened to do as he was told; but as he obeyed he muttered +something in the Gaelic language, of which the following is a pretty +fair translation. + +"It is Donald's own self that would like to put _you_ on the fire. +Truth told, and it is then." + +"Yes," replied Robinson, a wealthy draper from London, "the wine is +truly excellent, and if I were to speak the truth now, I'd say earnestly +that I don't think we _could_ match it in our old country." + +"And after all, you know," said a white-faced, meek young man, who sat +near Mr Steve, "this country is vewy nearly worn out." + +"Oh! for the matter of that now," said Steve, "America, above all +countries for institooshuns, great armies, great navies--if we chose to +build them--for tall mountains, broad lakes, big steamboats, and mighty +rivers." + +"Heah! heah!" from several voices. + +"England," continued Steve, "is all very well to spend money in, 'cause +you're near the Continent, and can run 'most anywhere without the +trouble of crossing much water. But I say America's the country to make +the money in." + +"Heah! heah!" + +"And, after all, what, I ask, would England be without America?" + +"What, indeed?" + +"Yet, _I_ wouldn't boast. Your true American never does. You +Englishmen, pardon me, talk about the sun never setting on British +territory, of your drum rolling and your reveille beating in a cordon +right round the globe, and of your owning the sixth part of the land of +this boundless universe, and _all_ the water. Now, if that ain't +boasting--and mebbe it ain't--it is what I'd call pretty tall talk." + +The laugh became general at this speech of Mr Steve of Glen Alva, and +every face beamed. + +"You must all come out next spring, gentlemen, and stay a few weeks in +my New York mansion. Nay, I won't take a refusal from one of you. So +there! And I guess, too, I can give you a good time of it." + +A beautiful deerhound rose slowly up from the mat and leaned his great +head on the table. He did not wish to join the conversation. He was +only craving a biscuit. + +Steve flicked a walnut at the head, which struck the poor animal on the +eye, and evidently caused him great pain. He did not howl, however-- +Scotch deerhounds are far too game for that; but he shut his eye, which +watered a deal, and went and lay down again on the rug with a big sigh, +and all the rest of the evening was engaged licking his pastern, and +applying it tenderly to the eye. This is a dog's way of administering a +warm fomentation. + +"Capital shot, eh?" laughed Steve. + +"Yes," from some of his guests. + +"But I say, you know, Mr Steve," said one, with probably something of +kindness to God's lower creation in his heart, "I say, it wouldn't do to +go to the hill with blind dogs. Would it?" + +"Oh! he won't hurt. It takes a deal to hurt these hounds. They are +like the Scots themselves, very hardy and active, but precious lazy. +Just look at all those dogs snoring round the fire. + +"I've cleared the glen, though, of some of the lazy Scots. Why, it is +doing them good to drum them off to America. In my opinion, more'n one +half of Scotland should be cleared and planted out in forest." + +"Well," said one Englishman, "maybe you're right; and now, as myself and +most of us are going south early to-morrow morning, might I suggest that +we join the ladies? But before I go, I must just take the liberty of +thanking Mr Steve, our kindly-hearted host, for his hospitality to us +since we've been down here, and roamed in, and shot over, his +magnificent forest. I consider Mr Steve's hospitality to be far more +than princely, both out-doors and in. Just think, gentlemen, we have +had to our guns about one hundred and thirty-six stags, and as we all +know every stag costs its owner 300 pounds [so it is said in Scotland] +you can compute what Mr Steve's hospitality costs him. I say no more." + +"A mere flea-bite," returned Mr Steve pompously; "I'll have you all +again next year; and now supposing we _do_ join the ladies." + +Mr Steve's household was certainly kept up in a right lordly style. +There was no stint in it of anything that was good. He had any number +of beef-eating servants. He was a good customer to his tradesmen-- +including his wine merchant,--who all, however, lived in Glasgow or +London. It must, therefore, be confessed that he brought money into the +country, and in this way did good; yet he was not liked in the glens nor +villages, nor much relished by the proud old Highland families. He was +no friend to the poor man, and his minions had been known ere now to +shoot stray pet dogs, and even cudgel to death the cats of poor old lone +women,--cats that probably were the only friends and companions they had +in this world. So, to put it plain, Mr Steve was _not_ liked in the +neighbourhood, and reference was often made of, and fond memories went +back to, the dear old days, when good Laird McGregor owned the glen--now +a wilderness,--when it was dotted over with peaceful if rustic cottages, +from which, as sure as sunrise, every morning rose, with the smoke from +the chimneys the song of praise to Him Who loves the poor man as well as +the rich. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +The guests were preparing to retire, when a liveried servant entered +with a card on a gold salver. + +"Beg pardon, sir, but the gentleman would insist upon my presenting that +'ere card." + +"Take it away," said Mr Steve, reading the card, without even deigning +to finger it. "Take it away. I can see no one to-night." + +"I'll tell him, sir; but on'y, sir, he said his business was of immense +importance to yourself, and that he were a-going south by first train +to-morrow morning." + +"Heigho!" sighed Steve, moving towards the door. "What a bore! You'll +excuse me half a moment, gentlemen?" + +The stranger had been shown into the low-ceilinged but snug +old-fashioned parlour, and rose and bowed as Steve entered. + +"I presume," he said, "I have the honour of addressing Mr Steve?" + +"You have," said Mr Steve; "and pray be brief, for my guests wait." + +"My business is of a private nature," replied the stranger, with a +glance at the servant. + +At a nod from his master the latter retired. + +The stranger took the liberty of shutting the door, then confronted Mr +Steve. + +He was a youngish man, of bold and gentlemanly appearance, and +unmistakably Scotch, though with slightly foreign action while +conversing. + +"Mr Steve," he said, "I will be very brief. I might have communicated +with you through my solicitor, but thought it more fair to you, and more +honourable in me, to come personally, for, after all, when you hear what +I have to say, litigation will be unnecessary." + +"Litigation, sir? Pray go on," said Steve, smiling somewhat +sarcastically. "You're not out of your mind, are you?" + +"You shall judge for yourself. You purchased this estate of Alva, sir, +from the late Laird McGregor?" + +"I did, and paid for it handsomely." + +"But by the laws of this country entailed estates cannot be sold and the +entail thus broken, unless it can be proved that no other male heir +lives. Thus in point of fact, at all events, were the lands and estates +of Alva left by will to the McGregors and their lineal descendants." + +"See, stranger," said Steve, "I'm not going to debate here all night on +matters of law. Law is a dry subject at best. I bought Alva, there was +_no_ other male heir to McGregor, and his only son was drowned at sea." + +"His only son now stands before you!" + +"Then the father--" + +"Stay," cried young McGregor, "tempt me not to do that I should be sorry +for. I came but to inform you I would make every attempt to win back my +own. I have now to say good-night." + +"I thank you," sneered Steve, "for your courtesy; but do--_not_--fear-- +you. Good-night." + +CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. + +THE WANDERER'S RETURN. + + "Dear land of my birth, far from thee have I been, + By streamlets so flowery and valleys so green, + In vain seeking fortune; but still as of yore + The home of my heart is the Vale of Strathmore." + + Old Scottish Song. + +Scene: Sunset on the sea. So close to the ocean is the old castle built +that, looking from the window which almost overhangs it, nothing else +can be seen but the golden-tipped waves, golden-tipped even to the +far-off horizon, and breaking with pleasing murmur on the beach beneath. +The mountains that rise inland from the castle are either wholly green, +or patched with purple heather. In a room overlooking the sea, in +high-backed cushioned chair, sits a lady,--but little past the prime of +life, perhaps, though her hair is like the snow. Her face is very +pleasant to behold, so calm and resigned is it. Near her on a stool a +maid is reading to her. + +"I think now, Mary," said the lady at last, "it is time to order tea." + +Mary, a modest, wee Highland maiden, rose, and quietly retired. + +As she opened the door a great black-as-jet Newfoundland came bounding +in, all white teeth and eager eyes. He went straight away, and placed +his head on his mistress's lap, and was gently caressed. + +"Where have you been, Bran?" she said. "Not in the sea at this time of +night? But you do go in sometimes later, you know, and then hie away to +the kitchen, sly dog, to get your coat dried before you come to see me." + +Mary tapped at the door and entered. Her face was bright with pleasure. + +"Oh! Mrs McGregor," she said, "Mr Smith has come by steamer from +Oban!" + +Mrs McGregor's face assumed an expression of great seriousness. + +"Oh!" she cried, "I trust it is no bad news he brings about my brother." + +"No, no," the girl hastened to say; "he bade me tell you it was all a +visit of pleasure. I showed him to the old room, and he will be here in +a few minutes." + +Mr Smith, I may tell the reader, was family solicitor to Mrs +McGregor's brother, in whose house she had resided since her husband's +death. The solicitor lived in London, but not unfrequently ran down to +enjoy the sea or the land sport, so easily obtained in this lone but +lovely isle of the Hebrides. + +"Surprised to see me, Mrs McGregor?" said the gentleman, as he shook +hands and sat down. "Hope I didn't frighten you much? Just ran down +from town to get a mouthful of sea-air. Been rather overworked of late. +Tea, did you say? Yes, with pleasure, but Mary must really bring me +something substantial to go along with it. My journey has made me +hungry." + +"And you have seen my brother?" + +"Only two days ago, and he is looking hale and hearty, and hopes to +return in a week." + +"Well, Mr Smith, you must stay here till he returns." + +"It is doubtful if I can; business, you know, business. What a lovely +sunset, to be sure! Bodes a fine day to-morrow I should think." + +"You seem happy, Mr Smith?" + +"I feel as fresh as a daisy." + +"And yet, but a minute ago, you hinted at being fagged by over-work." + +"Oh!" replied the solicitor, shaking his head, "that was _before_ I left +town. Bless you, madam, two gulps of Highland air set me on my legs +again at any time." + +The two chatted very pleasantly together over the evening meal; but +towards the end of it Mr Smith managed adroitly to turn the +conversation to bygone times. + +"I seem to sadden you though," he said. + +"Oh! no: I'm resigned to everything now. My time will not be very long, +and I know the good God in whom I trust has done all for the best. But +the loss of my son was a great blow; then my husband's death." + +"Why, Mrs McGregor, do you make that distinction? You talk of your +husband's death, but always speak of poor Harvey's _loss_." + +"Because, Mr Smith, I saw my husband die; my son went away, and ah! +foolish though it may be, I cherish half a hope he may yet return to +close his mother's eyes." + +"Well, well, I daresay stranger things may have happened," said the +solicitor, thoughtfully looking and pretending to read a fortune in the +grounds of his tea-cup. + +Now, the fact is, that no sooner had Harvey McGregor left Mr Steve's +than he had hurried up to town, and called on Mr Smith, the only +man-at-law he knew. He speedily convinced that gentleman of his +identity, and got his mother's address. Heedless Harvey would have +hurried away home--as he called it--at once, but wise Mr Smith would +not hear of it. + +"Come a day after me," he had advised. "I'll go down and break the +news, for, don't you know, my boy, that joy can kill?" + +Hence Mr Smith's present visit to the old castle. + +"Whose fortune are you trying to read in that tea-cup?" said Mrs +McGregor, with a strange ring in her voice, a strange sparkle in her +eye. "Give me the cup," she added. + +She turned it round and round. + +"I see," she said; "my boy's barques sailing everywhere over the world. +Sometimes they are wrecked, but _he_ is never drowned. I see the prows +of these ships pointing everywhere, but never homeward. My boy is +proud. Ah I at last here comes one, and my boy, my boy is in it!" + +She almost dashed down the cup as she spoke, and sprang to her feet. +"Smith," she cried, "you cannot deceive me; there is something in my +breast, born of a mother's love, that tells me Harvey has come." + +Mr Smith hummed and haa'ed, as the saying is, and muttered something +about a letter. + +"No, no, no," she cried; "you only thought you ought to break the news +gently to me, but I saw strange joy in your eye as soon as you entered. +Now, dear Mr Smith, I appreciate all your kindness, but you see I can +bear joy as well as grief. Tell me all about it." + +And the solicitor did so. At the conclusion she took out her +handkerchief, and sobbed just a little. + +Then she abruptly rose and left the room. + +Mr Smith said never a word. He knew she had gone to pray. + +Next evening they were seated together--mother and son--mother and +"prodigal son," as Harvey would persist in calling himself. + +Mr Smith respected their feelings. He went away to fish, and did not +return till dinner-time. + +But that evening the trio had much to talk about, many business matters +to discuss. + +"Alva shall return to its rightful owner," exclaimed Mr Smith. "I'm +determined on that, if Steve were nineteen times an American +millionaire. It was sold for half, nay, but fourth its value. It was +sold to pay London debts of honour forsooth. Turf and otherwise. Bah! +The money shall be raised to repay Mr Steve, and out he shall go, as +sure as I belong to the great family of Smith. I'll employ London +counsel that will astonish him. You'll see I'll do it. _Can_ and +_shall_. And I won't let the grass grow under my feet either." + +Nor did the worthy solicitor. + +He started for London the very next day, leaving Harvey and his mother +alone. + +Harvey felt, and almost looked, a boy again. He had so much to speak +about, so much to tell of his hard adventurous life in search of +fortune; and it is so pleasant to be listened to by one who loves you! +No wonder Harvey McGregor felt happy. All the past blotted out and +forgiven, all the future as hopeful as the past had been dark and +oftentimes dismal. + +With many, if not most, of his adventures, the reader is already +familiar, but of his voyage home from New York I have said nothing. + +Harvey then was possessed of some little money, and this he determined +to convey home on his person. He might have had bills of exchange, but +he was but little conversant with such aids to the transaction of +business. Would he take it in gold and wear it in a waist-belt round +his body? He was too old a sailor to do any such thing. For in event +of being cast into the water he knew well that nothing sinks a man +sooner than gold. It is the greed of gold, by the way, that sinks men +on shore. + +But Harvey knew the sight and feel of a crisp Bank of England note. He +got these and sewed them into a waterproof bag, and this he put into a +waist-belt, which he wore by night and by day. + +He worked his passage home. He was no idler, and preferred work to +play. + +The vessel was a sailing ship, not a steamer, and bound for Glasgow. +With fair winds she would fly across the wide Atlantic. And oh! how +wide the Atlantic does seem to those who are homeward bound, I for one +can tell from experience! + +The winds _were_ fair for a time; then they became baffling. + +Often the _Marianne_, as she was called, had to lie to for days in a +gale of wind; then fair weather would come again and all would be life +and joy, fore and aft. Then round the wind would chop once more, and +the sea wax fretful, angry, vicious, hitting the poor ship such vengeful +blows, that she bent her head, and reeled and creaked in every timber. + +Well, such is a seaman's life in a sailing ship at almost any time, and +Harvey would not have minded it a bit, only he was going home, and every +day was precious. + +Near the coast at long last. They would (d.v.) round the Mull of +Cantyre in another day, then hurrah! and hurrah! for the beautiful +Clyde. + +But all at once the weather waxed dark and stormy, and the wind headed +round. The glass came tumbling down, and at sunset things looked black +and serious. + +How the waves did dash and beat to be sure, and how the wind did rave +and roar through the rigging and shrouds! + +There was just a morsel of a moon, but it was seldom seen for the black +drifting clouds. It must be nigh midnight, thought those storm-tossed +sailors. All hands were on deck. No bells were struck, nor could a +watch be looked at. Suddenly, during a temporary gleam of moonlight, a +blacker cloud than any yet seen appeared on the horizon. Every _old_ +sailor knew what that cloud was--a wall of beetling cliffs. + +"Ready about?" + +Yes, but it was too late. Next moment she had struck with fearful +violence, and reeling back tottered and began to sink. + +Boat after boat was lowered, only to be smashed to pieces. + +One was safely got away from the sinking ship, and steered for lights +they could see to the left. A signal was fired. A blue light burned. +Lights were seen waving on shore as if to encourage them. + +They are close in shore, among the awful surf. Can they do it? The +night got clearer far now. There was a good show of moonlight on the +water and the light from the foam itself. When it seemed as almost +impossible the boat could reach the shore, a dozen hardy fishermen +rushed into the sea, the painter was thrown to them and grasped, and +next moment they were safe, though wholly exhausted. + +Morning broke immediately after, showing how much they had been mistaken +in thinking it but midnight when the vessel struck. But time flies +quickly, even in danger, when one is busy. + +The shipwrecked men--the few saved--were kindly cared for. Harvey found +himself inside a curious and humble dwelling, tended by the funniest +little old man he had ever seen. The house was made out of a boat. The +funny little old man was our old friend Duncan Reed. + +Duncan, next day, told him a wondrous deal about the glen and about +Kenneth's old friends, all of which were duly chronicled in Harvey's +mind, and in due time found their way in writing to his comrades beyond +the sea. + +They say that possession is nine points of the law; this does not hold +good, however, in the case, say, of a thief being caught with a dozen +silver spoons in his pocket. + +"Might is right" is another common saying, but neither the might of +wealth nor the fact of his being in possession of the Alva estate +prevented Mr Steve, the millionaire, having finally to leave it. + +When the news of McGregor's success came, the rejoicing in the clachan +and the glens was such as had never been remembered before. Bonfires +blazed on every hill. Lads and lasses danced, old men wrung each other +by the hands, and old wives wept for joy. + +Old Duncan is even reported to have danced a hornpipe. + +Poor Duncan! he was offered a kindly home at the mansion of Alva. + +"It is mindful of you, sir," old Duncan replied, "but out o' sight of +the sea, out o' hearin' o' the waves, Duncan wouldna live a week. I'll +lay my bones beside her soon." + +CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR. + +IN THE "FA' O' THE YEAR." + + "'Mid pleasures and palaces where'er we may roam, + Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." + + Old Song. + + "Fareweel, fareweel, my native hame, + Thy lonely glens and heath-clad mountains; + Fareweel thy fields o' storied fame, + Thy leafy shaws and sparklin' fountains." + + A. Hume. + +Scene: Glen Alva. Down in the clachan and lowlands, and around the +mansion house, the autumnal tints are on the trees; the chestnuts, the +lime and the maples have turned a rich yellow, and soon the leaves will +fall; but the elm and oak retain their sturdy green. So do the waving +pines. High on the hillsides the heather still blooms. There is +silence almost everywhere to-day. Silence on mountain and silence in +forest. Only the sweet plaintive twitter of the robin is heard in +garden and copse. He sings the dirge of the departed summer. It is +indeed the "fa' o' the year." + +Time: Five years have elapsed since the date of the events described in +last chapter. + +In my humble opinion--and I daresay many coincide with me--the great +poet never spoke truer words than these:-- + +"There's a Divinity that shapes our lives, Rough-hew them as we will." + +Who could have thought that Harvey McGregor, with his fearless nature, +his tameless spirit, and roaming disposition, would ever have settled +down in quiet Glen Alva, or that Kenneth McAlpine would have developed +into a farmer in the Far West. + +But so, indeed, it was. + +Ambition--well guided--is a noble thing. All my three heroes were +ambitious. Harvey's ambition, perhaps, was tinctured with some degree +of pride. He fought long and manfully for fortune, and when he fell, he +had the grace to own it. Kenneth's and Archie's ambition was more to be +admired, and I love the man or boy who has a feeling of independence in +his breast, and who, if he should fail in one line of life, turns +cheerfully to another, with a determination to do his duty, and never +give up. Dost remember the lines of the good poet Tupper? They are +better than many a hymn, and may help to cheer you in hours when life +seems dark and hopeless. + + "Never give up! It is wiser and better + Always to hope, than once to despair; + Fling off the load of Doubt's heavy fetter, + And break the dark spell of tyrannical Care. + Never give up! or the burden may sink you, + Providence kindly has mingled the cup; + And in all trials and troubles, bethink you, + The watchword of life must be, Never give up! + Never give up, there are chances and changes, + Helping the hopeful, a hundred to one, + And through the chaos High Wisdom arranges + Ever success,--if you'll only hope on. + Never give up! for the wisest is boldest, + Knowing that Providence mingles the cup, + And of all maxims the best, as the oldest, + Is the true watchword of Never give up." + +Yes, ambition is a noble thing; yet it should not be a selfish ambition. +Blessed is he who works and toils and struggles for the happiness of +the masses, as well as for his own. Has not He Who spoke as never man +spake left us a glorious example to follow--follow, if only afar off? + +But now let us take a peep into the tartan parlour of Alva House, a peep +at the fireside life of young Laird McGregor, on this quiet autumnal +afternoon. + +When we were introduced into this same parlour, we found it the scene of +a revel, over which it is as well to draw the curtain of oblivion. + +But now, here are seated Harvey McGregor and his young wife. Yes, he is +married, and a babe has come to bless him, too. + +Near the fire, in a high-backed chair, is Harvey's mother. She looks +very contented, and there are smiles chasing each other all round her +lips and eyes. + +But where, think you, is baby? On his mother's lap, you say? Nay, but +positively on his father's knee--his father, the quondam rover of the +sea and the prairies. + +It is somewhat absurd, I grant you, but there is no getting over facts. +Sometimes brave soldiers or sailors make the best of fireside folks, +when they _do_ settle down. + +And Harvey McGregor is not only nursing his young heir, but he is +actually nodding at him and talking sweet nonsense to him, while baby +crows, and Harvey's wife looks on delightedly. + +So busily are all engaged that they do not hear the hall door bell ring, +nor know anything at all about its being rung either, until suddenly a +Highland servant enters with two cards on a tray. + +Harvey hands baby to his mother in some confusion--I'm not at all sure +he did not blush a little; but no sooner has he taken the cards and read +them, than he jumps up from his chair as if a hornet had stung him. + +"Hurrah!" he cries. + +"Dear me, Harvey! what is it?" his wife exclaims. + +"Nothing, my dear," says Harvey; "that is--it is everything, I mean. It +is joy in the house of McGregor. Hurrah!" + +And away he rushes, leaving his wife and mother to wonder. + +They were in the library, the pair of them. They had not even sat down, +because they knew Harvey would soon come. + +And they were not mistaken. + +"Why, Kenneth! Archie!" he cried, extending a hand to each, "my dear +old shipmates, `pals,' and partners, how are you?" + +"Took you by surprise, eh?" replied Kenneth, laughing. + +"Why, the biggest and the best surprise I've had for many a day. But +how are you? and where have you come from last? and how goes the farm +out in the West?" + +Harvey put a dozen other questions, but he gave his friends no time to +answer one. + +I leave my readers to guess whether or not they spent a pleasant, happy +evening together. Ay, and not one, but many. For Harvey was not going +to let them go for a long time, you may be sure. So they stayed on and +on for weeks. There was plenty of sport and fun to be got all day, but, +nevertheless, the evenings were always most pleasant. There was so much +to talk about, and so much to tell each other, that time fled on +swallows' wings, and it was always pretty near the-- + + "Wee short 'oor ayout the twal," + +before they parted for the night. + +Need I say that one of the first places visited by Kenneth and Archie-- +and they stole away all alone--was Kooran's grave, and the fairy knoll? +They were delighted to find the former carefully kept, and quite +surprised to find the latter completely furnished. The inside was a +cave no longer, except in shape. It was a library, a boudoir, call it +what you may. + +"How mindful of dear Harvey!" said Kenneth. + +"Yes, indeed," replied Archie; "and think, too, of his goodness to my +dear father, of the comfortable house he dwells in, and the smiling +little croft around it." + +"Harvey," said Kenneth with enthusiasm, "is one of Nature's noblemen. + + "`Away with false fashion, so calm and so chill, + Where pleasure itself cannot please; + Away with cold breeding, that faithlessly still + Affects to be quite at its ease. + For the deepest in feeling is highest in rank, + The freest is first of the band: + And Nature's own nobleman, friendly and frank, + Is the man with his heart in his hand.'" + +"Come, I say, Kennie, my learned old man, when you are talking poetry, +and such ringing verses, too, as these, I dare say you imagine I must +sing small; but bide a wee, lad, there is two of us can play at the same +game. What say you if I match Burns against your Tupper? Hear then." + +And, with figure and head erect, with arms extended and open palm, +Archie spoke,-- + + "Is there for honest poverty, + That hangs his head and a' that? + The coward-slave, we pass him by, + And dare be poor for a' that. + What though on homely fare we dine, + Wear hodden-grey [coarse, woollen, undyed cloth] and a' that, + Give fools their silks, and knaves their wine, + A man's a man for a' that. + + "A prince can make a belted knight, + A marquis, duke and a' that; + But an honest man's above his might, + Guid faith he mauna fa' that. [Try.] + Then let us pray that come it may, + As come it will for a' that, + That sense and worth o'er a' the earth, + May bear the gree for a' that." + +[Bear the gree, _i.e._, be triumphant.] + +"Bravo! Archie, lad. Glad to see that you haven't forgotten your +Scotch, though we've talked little but English for many a long day. + +"Ah! well," he continued, after a pause, "I was just thinking, Archie, +how kind Providence has been to us." + +"But mind you, Kenneth, we've worked hard." + +"I'm not saying we haven't, Archie, I'm not saying we haven't. We +_have_ worked; and I say shame on the sheep who huddles down in a corner +and nurses himself, and thinks that Heaven will give him every blessing +for the asking. We must work as well as pray." + +"Do you know, Archie, that one terrible night at sea, while we were +rounding the Horn with a whole gale of wind blowing and a smothering sea +on, when it was so dark you couldn't have seen a sheet of white paper +held at arm's length, and when we all of a sudden knew from the +frightful cold we were surrounded by ice, when at last the ship was +struck and began to leak, and no one had a hope of seeing the morn +break--that down below I stole just one half minute to open my Book? +And my eyes fell upon the ninety-first Psalm, and I took comfort and +heart at once; I knew we would be saved, and next day the captain +complimented me on having been so daring, so fearless, and cheerful. +Ah! lad, little did he know that the bravery in my breast was no bravery +of mine; it _had been put there by Him_. Call this faith of mine folly +if you like, I don't care; it suits _me_, and it has saved me more than +once, and comforted me a thousand times. + +"Do you mind the time," Kenneth went on, changing the subject, "when you +and I used to herd the sheep here with dear old Kooran and Shot?" + +"Can I e'er forget it, Kenneth?" + +Sitting on the top of the fairy knoll there, the two young men had quite +a long talk about bygone times. I have said "young men;" and they were +so, though they might not have appeared to be in the eyes of boys and +girls, but as they talked they seemed to grow younger still. Kenneth +could almost imagine he saw the smoke curling up from his mother's cot +in the glen, and Kooran feathering away through the heather to fetch his +dinner. [See Book One, chapter one.] + +A day or two after this the three friends went together over the hills +to pay a visit to the fisherman's cot by the beach. + +Duncan Reed was so glad to see them. He was not so very much altered in +appearance. They found him seated in the sunlight, with a very large +Bible on his lap, and an immense pair of hornrimmed spectacles on his +nose. + +Duncan drops out of the story here. He is gone years ago. Suffice it +to say he had his wish--he sleeps beside the sea. + +On their return journey they visited the ruins of old Nancy Dobbell's +cottage. Harvey McGregor made one remark which explains much. + +"That old woman," he said, "alone knew my secret." + +Passing onwards towards the forest, Kenneth ventured to ask for the +first time about Jessie Grant. + +"Heigho!" replied Harvey; "I cared not to mention it in my letter, but +that family were in reduced circumstances even before the father and +mother died; now poor Jessie lives at Helensburgh in a humble cottage +with her aunt." + +"And she is not--" + +"No, not married." + +A thrill of joy went through Kenneth's heart. It was not unaccompanied +by a kind of satisfied feeling of pride. He could not quite forget the +time when proud Mr Redmond offered him the position of ghillie on his +premises. + +Need I say that Kenneth soon found Jessie out? She was more beautiful +than ever in his eyes. + +Archie and Kenneth took rooms at Helensburgh--for sake of the fishing. +At least Kenneth said it was for sake of the fishing; but he did not +look Archie quite straight in the face when he made the remark. + +When, after a few weeks, Kenneth proposed marriage to Jessie, his offer +was--refused. + +Why? Truth to tell, Jessie loved him, but she said to herself, "Now he +is rich and I am poor, it cannot be." + +I do not know whether this was a pardonable pride in Jessie or not. +Perhaps it was. + +Then came an evening when Kenneth, Archie, and Jessie were strolling +together on the banks of the loch. It was to be the last night in +Scotland of the two American farmers, as they called themselves, and she +could not refuse to go with them to see the sun set behind the +mountains. + +Kenneth felt very sad, and spoke but little, Jessie hardly at all; in +fact, she felt that it would not take much to make her cry. + +Archie was still a student of natural history, and a new species of fern +caught his eye. He must climb the fence, must commit a trespass even to +find it, and his companions strolled on. + +It was hardly an evening calculated to inspire hope or joy. A breeze +roughened the lake, and went moaning through the almost leafless trees; +the fields were bare or ploughed, the hedgerows looked sickly, and the +brackens--so lovely in summer--were brown or broken down or bent. +Still, the robin sang in the woods. That was something. + +Kenneth and Jessie leant against a stile to wait for Archie; but that +fern required a deal of examination. + +"Archie seems in no hurry," said Jessie, looking back. + +"He has found a flower of some kind, I suppose," replied Kenneth. + +"There are few flowers in November," she said, quickly. + +"Here are two. Do you remember them, Miss Redmond?" As he spoke he +produced old Nancy's Bible, and opened it. + +The flowers were there, but sadly withered. + +This is precisely the remark that Jessie made. + +"I do," she said, with a blush and a sigh; "but they are sadly +withered." + +"Like my hopes," replied Kenneth. "I leave my country a broken-hearted +man--" + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +How handy for an author is a line of those little stars called +"asterisks!" How neatly I dropped the curtain by means of it on that +conversation between Kenneth and Jessie! + +But _did_ Kenneth leave his country a broken-hearted man? No; how could +he with Jessie by his side? + +They were married at Alva House by old Mr Grant. It was a quiet +wedding indoors, but out of doors--well, Harvey McGregor determined his +tenantry should all go mad together if they chose. There were balls and +bonfires, breakfasts, dinners, and suppers _galore_, and such rejoicing +and such general jollity as will never be forgotten while the heather +blooms on Alva hills, and the dark pines wave in its valleys. + +The honeymoon was spent in the New Forest; and Kenneth did not forget to +visit his old friend Major Walton, whom he found happy and hearty. + +Beautiful are the farms that Kenneth and Archie occupy in far-off +British Columbia. There is a thriving village near them now, and +churches and schools; but their farms lie well in the outskirts. What +though in winter wild winds wail around the dwellings, and shake the +pine trees on the mountain sides? there are warmth and light and +brightness indoors; and some laughing and fun, too, for there are +children, one, two, three; and Uncle Archie, as the latter call him, +drops in nearly every evening to spend an hour or two, so no one thinks +the time long. + +Then in summer, oh! to roam in those beautiful woods, and cull the fruit +and the wild flowers. And at this sweet time of the year, the gardens +and lawns and terraces, and the verandahs of Kenneth's many-gabled +dwelling, are bathed in floral beauty. It is quite a sight to see, and +to dream about ever afterwards. + +And no one, I think, would begrudge Kenneth his happiness. He worked +for it. + +Good-bye, reader. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +The End. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Kenneth McAlpine, by Gordon Stables + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KENNETH MCALPINE *** + +***** This file should be named 38199.txt or 38199.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/1/9/38199/ + +Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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