Book One—Chapter Three.
Castle Beautiful.
“The poet may tread earth sadly,
Yet is he dreamland’s king;
And the fays, at his bidding, gladly
Visions of beauty bring.”
Mortimer Collins.
Scene: A green hill or knoll rising with a gentle sweep from the woods near Grayling House, on one side gigantic elm trees, with rooks busy nest-making. On the other, at the rock foot, the dark deep loch. Behind the hill, as far as the eye can see, a forest dotted with spring-green larches and dark waving pines; blue mountains beyond, and a bright sun shining down on all from a sky of cloudless blue.
It is early morning, but those rooks have been at it long before the beams of the rising sun capped the hills with crimson. There are many other voices in the woods; indeed, every tree is alive with song, but you would have to walk a long distance into the forest before you could listen with pleasure to either the merle or the mavis, so loud-voiced are those rooks with their everlasting but senseless song of “Caw—caw—caw.”
But listen!—if indeed it be possible to listen to anything—there is evidently a merry party coming towards the mound here, from the direction of Grayling House.
There is a manly voice singing, and there is the merry laughter of children, with every now and then the sharp ringing bark of a collie, or the deeper bay of a hound in the woods.
And now they burst into view. At the head of the procession, hatchet in hand, marches Captain Lyle himself, flanked on the right by Leonard, on the left by Effie. Behind them come men carrying baskets of tools and spades and shovels, and bringing up the rear, and limping somewhat, is old Peter himself.