—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.