Alas, it contained only sea-water!
So poor M'Leod perished miserably of thirst and delirium.
This is a strange story, reader, but I have every reason to believe it is a true one. It quite entranced little Matty, and when Creggan had finished she sighed, looked wistfully into his face with her bonnie blue eyes, and said:
"Do tell us some more!"
CHAPTER VI.
IN SEARCH OF ADVENTURE.
Willie Nugent was as far from being what we call a "snob" as anyone could well wish. Looks are nothing, so long as one is pleasant and affable, so long as the ready smile—not the artificial one—beginning at the lips spreads upwards over the face like morning sunrise, and so long as heart and soul speak through a pair of kindly sympathetic eyes.
Well, Willie Nugent was not extremely good-looking. For my own part I do not like to see what we called "pretty boys", because they are usually goody-goody, namby-pamby, and affected, sometimes even effeminate. But Willie was manly in appearance, and so kind-hearted that I am certain he would not have trampled on a beetle crossing his path.
Creggan Ogg[[1]] M'Vayne was at best, for the present at all events, only a peasant boy, and had not Willie been a bold, frank Colonial young gentleman he might have treated Creggan with some approach to hauteur. In his face at times, had he been a snob, there might have been a look that said plainly enough, "Not too near, please".
[[1]] Ogg is really a Gaelic word, and the "o" is pronounced long: thus "Oag". It signifies "young".