There it is, a pretty, many-gabled cottage, with a comfortable-looking kitchen garden and orchard behind it, and a long, wide lawn in front. Now this lawn has one peculiarity. From the gate on each side up to the terrace in front of the house sweeps a broad carriage drive, bounded on both its sides, first by a belt of green grass, carefully trimmed and dotted here and there with patches of flowers, and secondly by two rows of rowan trees (the mountain ash), trained on wires, and forming the prettiest bit of hedge-work you could easily imagine.
If you were Scotch, and looked at that hedge even for a moment, the words, and maybe the air as well, of the Baroness Nairne’s beautiful song would rise in your mind—
“Thy leaves were aye the first in spring,
Thy flowers the summer’s pride;
There was nae sic a bonnie tree
In a’ the country side.
And fair wert thou in summer time,
Wi’ a’ thy clusters white,
And rich and gay thy autumn dress
Of berries red and bright.
Oh, rowan tree!”
Well, it is June to-day—an afternoon in June; a day to make one feel life in every limb—a day when but to exist is a luxury. The roses are bending their heads in the sweet sunshine, for there is not a cloud in Heaven’s blue. The butterflies are chasing each other among the flowers on the lawn, where we recline among the daisies, and the big velvety bees go droning and humming from clover blossom to clover blossom.
“Strange, is it not, my dear Ben,” I said, “that on such a day as this, and in the midst of sunshine, I should bethink me of some night-scenes at sea and on land?
“I remember well my first experience of a storm by night in the Northern Ocean. We were going to the Arctic regions, cruising in a sturdy and, on the whole, not badly fitted, nor badly found ship.
“The anchor was weighed, the sails were set, and spread their wings to the breeze; the crew had given their farewell cheer, and the rough old pilot, having seen us safely out of Brassy Sound, had shaken the captain roughly by the hand, and wishing us ‘God-speed and safely home,’ had disappeared in his boat round a point.
“We were once more on the deep and dark blue ocean. Then the night began to fall, and soon the only sound heard was the tramp, tramp on deck, or the steady wash of the water, as our vessel ever and anon dipped her bows or waist in the waves.
“The captain had given his last orders on deck, and came below to our little saloon, the only occupants of which were myself and the ship’s cat.
