Tommy was exceedingly fond of Uncle Robert, to begin with, and never tired listening of an evening to his wonderful stories of travel and adventure.
Uncle lived in a little cottage not very far from the farm; and if he was not at the laird’s fireside of a winter evening he would generally be found at his own, and Tommy would not be far away. They used to sit without any light except that reflected from the fire. Stories told thus, Tommy thought, were ever so much nicer, especially if they were tales of mystery and adventure. For there were the long shadows flickering and dancing on the wall, the darkness of the room behind them, and the fitful gleams in the fire itself, in which the lad sometimes thought he could actually see the scenery and figures his uncle was describing; and all combined to produce effects that were really and truly dramatic.
Well, if by day Dugald was his father’s constant companion, Tommy was his uncle’s; and the one hardly ever went anywhere without the other.
School hours were from nine till one o’clock; and uncle was a strict teacher, though by no means a hard task-master. Then the two of them had all the rest of the long day to read books, to wander about and study the great book of nature itself, to fish, or do whatsoever they pleased. It must be said here that Uncle Robert was almost quite as much a boy at heart as his little nephew. He was a good old-fashioned sailor, this uncle of Tommy, and a man who never could grow old; because he loved nature so, and nature never grows old: it is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
Uncle Robert was quite as good-natured as the big horse Glancer. But Glancer drew the line at pebbles under his saddle. The best-tempered horse in the world will draw the line at something or other. And uncle was the same. If anyone wanted to annoy him they had only to mention Tommy in a disparaging sort of way; then, like Glancer, Uncle Robert buck-jumped at once.
So, on that particular evening—a wild and stormy one it was in the latter end of April—when Tommy’s father talked about the improbability of pigs flying, and Tommy’s brothers had all laughed, Uncle Robert had felt a little nettled.
“Ah, you may laugh, lads,” he said, putting his paper down on his knee and thrusting his spectacles up over his bald brow—“you may laugh, lads, and you may talk, brother, but I tell you that there is more in that boy than any of you are aware of; and mark my words, he is not going to remain a child all his life. Boys will be men, and Tommy will be Tom some day.”
Mrs. Talisker looked fondly over at her brother, and she really felt grateful to him for taking her boy’s part.
Whoo—oo—oo! howled the wind round the chimney, and doors and windows rattled as if rough hands were trying their fastenings. Every now and then the snow and the fine hail were driven against the panes, with a sound like that produced by the spray of an angry sea against frozen canvas.
At this very time, away down in the midlands of England, spring winds were softly blowing and the buds appearing on the trees; but on the west coast of Scotland, where the farm of Craigielea was situated, winter still held all the land, the moors, the lakes, and woods, firm in his icy grasp.