'You're lookin' scared, laddie. What's the matter?'
I told him as much as I could.
'It's a queer question, laddie—a queer question. Heaven give me help to answer you! I think, as the oath was to keep a secret, you had best keep the oath, and trust to Heaven to set things right in the end, if it be for the best.'
'Thanks, Moncrieff,' I said; 'thanks. I will take your advice.'
That very day Moncrieff set a party of men to strengthen the embankment; and it was probably well he did so, for soon after the work was finished another of those fearful storms, accompanied as usual by shocks of earthquake, swept over our valley, and the canal was filled to overflowing, but gave no signs of bursting. Moncrieff had assuredly taken time by the forelock.
One day a letter arrived, addressed to me, which bore the London post-mark.
It was from Archie, and a most spirited epistle it was. He wanted us to rejoice with him, and, better still, to expect him out by the very first packet. His parents had yielded to his request. It had been the voyage to Newcastle that had turned the scale. There was nothing like pluck, he said; 'But,' he added, 'between you and me, Murdoch, I would not take another voyage in a Newcastle collier, not to win all the honour and glory of Livingstone, Stanley, Gordon-Cumming, and Colonel Frederick Burnaby put in a bushel basket.'
I went tearing away over the estancia on my mule, to find my brothers and tell them the joyful tidings. And we rejoiced together. Then I went off to look for Moncrieff, and he rejoiced, to keep me company. 182
'And mind you,' he said, 'the very day after he arrives we'll have a dinner and a kick-up.'
'Of course we will,' I said. 'We'll have the dinner and fun at Coila Villa, which, remember, can now boast of two wings besides the tower.'