"Come in, Creggan! Come in, come in!"
It was the voice of no human being, however, but that of a beautiful gray parrot, who had been the hermit's companion since ever he had taken up his residence on this little isle of the ocean.
The afternoon wore away quickly enough, as afternoons always do when one is busy. And Creggan had hooks to busk, and his foster-father was busy mending nets.
But the sun set at last, in lurid fiery clouds, over the hills of Harris, and soon after those very clouds, dark and threatening now, began to bank up and roll forward over the sea, on the wings of a moaning wind, shortening the twilight and obscuring the rising stars that had already begun to twinkle in the east.
The beacon had not been lit for many weeks, but to-night the hermit seemed to take extra pains with it, and as soon as the shadows of night fell over the sea its red glimmer shone far over the darkling waves, on which already white horses had begun to appear.
Bleak and cold blew the wind, too, for in these northern climes summer is not always the synonym for warmth of weather.
But supper and prayers over, the two Crusoes, as we well might term them, drew closer round the fire. Even Polly asserted her right to join the circle.
"Poor Polly!" she cried; "poor dear old, old Polly! Polly wants to come!"
Then Creggan carried her cage forward and placed it in a corner, where the firelight might dance and flicker on it. Collie curled up in front of the fire, and close beside him Gibbie the cat sat down. And before seating himself near to his foster-father's big easy-chair, the boy handed him his pipe, and not that alone, but a fine old fiddle that he took from a green baize bag which hung upon the wall.
"And now," said Creggan; "now, dear Daddy, I feel just very happy, but I'm not quite sure yet what I shall make you do. You shall sing, anyhow, over the fiddle, some fine old sea-song, father, that will bring right up before me all the romance of your early days, just as this little book of Ossian's poems makes me think I am living in the olden times, and can hear the clang and crash of battle, or the sweet notes of harps sounding low and sweet in halls by the stormy sea."