“I have a better plan than that, Laura! you shall sit upon the highest point of Arthur’s Seat as well as anybody, before either of us is an hour older! Let me go first, because I get on famously, and you must never look behind, but keep tight hold of my jacket, so then every step I advance will pull you up also.”

Laura was delighted with this plan, which succeeded perfectly well, but they ascended rather slowly, as it was exceedingly fatiguing to Harry, who looked

quite happy all the time to be of use, for he always felt glad when he could do any thing for anybody, more particularly for either Laura or Frank. Now, the whole party was at last safely assembled on the very highest point of Arthur’s Seat, so the boys threw their caps up in the air, and gave three tremendous cheers, which frightened the very crows over their heads, and sent a flock of sheep scampering down the mountain side. After that, they planted Mr. Harwood’s walking-stick in the ground, for a staff, while Harry tore off the blue silk handkerchief which Mrs. Crabtree had tied about his neck, and without caring whether he caught cold or not, he fastened it [60] ]on the pole for a flag, being quite delighted to see how it waved in the wind most triumphantly, looking very like what sailors put up when they take possession of a desert island.

“Now, for business!” said Mr. Harwood, sitting down on the rock, and uncovering a prodigious cake, nearly as large as a cheese, which he had taken the trouble to carry, with great difficulty, up the hill. “I suppose nobody is hungry after our long walk! Let us see what all the baskets contain!”

Not a moment was lost in seating themselves on the grass, while the stores were displayed, amidst shouts of laughter and applause which generally followed whatever came forth. Sandwiches, or, as Peter Grey called them, “savages;” gingerbread, cakes, and fruit, all appeared in turn. Robert Fordyce brought a dozen of hard-boiled eggs, all dyed different colours, blue, green, pink, and yellow, but not one was white. Edmund Ashford produced a collection of very sour-looking apples, and Charles Forrester showed a number of little gooseberry tarts, but when it became time for Peter’s basket to be opened, it contained nothing except a knife and fork to cut up whatever his companions would give him!

“Peter! Peter! you shabby fellow!” said Charles Forrester, reaching him one of his tarts, “you should be put in the tread-mill as a sturdy beggar!”

“Or thrown down from the top of this precipice,” added Harry, giving him a cake. “I wonder you can look any of us in the face, Peter!”

“I have heard,” said Mr. Harwood, “that a stone is shown in Ireland, called ‘the stone of Blarney,’ and whoever kisses it, is never afterwards ashamed of any thing he does. Our friend Peter has probably passed that way lately!”

“At any rate, I am not likely to be starved to death amongst you all!” answered the impudent boy, demolishing [61] ]every thing he could get; and it is believed that Peter ate, on this memorable occasion, three times more than any other person, as each of the party offered him something, and he never was heard to say, “No!”

“I could swallow Arthur’s Seat if it were turned into a plum-pudding,” said he, pocketing buns, apples, eggs, walnuts, biscuits, and almonds, till his coat stuck out all round like a balloon. “Has any one any thing more to spare?”