Ah, well, Reginald Grahame was only a man.
I fear that Ilda was only a woman, and that she really loved the handsome, brown-faced and manly doctor.
They had now been one year and two months away from Scotland, and at this very moment the Laird Fletcher was paying all the attention in his power to Annie o’ the Banks o’ Dee. He was really a modern “Auld Robin Grey.”
“My mither she fell sick,
An’ my Jamie at the sea;
Then Aold Robin Grey came a-courting me.”
Chapter Eighteen.
A Cannibal Brewer and Cannibal Beer.
Queen Bertha of the Isle of Flowers had industriously laboured among her people. It gave her pleasure to do so. She even taught them English, which all could now speak after a fashion.
Well, while Dickson and Hall were drilling a small company of blacks as soldiers, and trying to make them experts in the use of the rifle—for they had over a score of these to spare—Reginald spent much of his time on the hills with his gun, shooting small wild pigs, rock-rabbits, tuen-tuens, etc. He was always accompanied by Ilda, merry Matty, and Oscar the Newfoundland. No matter where a wild bird fell, in river or lake, or in the bush, Oscar found it, and laid it at his master’s feet.